starling

Hell was invented the first time someone disagreed with a clergyman.

khalimirov

I think the case for psychedelics is better for something like Coleridge's poem Kubla Kahn:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground
With walls and towers were girdled round :
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.
But oh ! that deep romantic chasm which slanted
Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover !
A savage place ! as holy and enchanted
As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover !
And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,
As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,
A mighty fountain momently was forced :
Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst
Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,
Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail :
And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever
It flung up momently the sacred river.
Five miles meandering with a mazy motion
Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,
Then reached the caverns measureless to man,
And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean :
And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far
Ancestral voices prophesying war !


The shadow of the dome of pleasure
Floated midway on the waves ;
Where was heard the mingled measure
From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !
A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw :
It was an Abyssinian maid,
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight 'twould win me,

That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome ! those caves of ice !
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware ! Beware !
His flashing eyes, his floating hair !
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

drewjmore

The Little scroll.

mountainman

Mainstream "dating to about 90 CE" is an hypothesis
without much evidence. I'd call it "a best guess".

In summary to substantiate it, it has:

1) the chronology embodied in Eusebius' works.
2) whatever concordance is to be drawn between 1 and the NT.
3) hand-writing analysis "corroborating 1"
4) a handful of scattered "greek inscriptions" on the open market.
5) not much else.

My best guess is that the belief in hell started in
the fourth century, which is quite unambiguously
the century in which the Constantinian spawned
"christian regime" is known to have perpetrated
great persecutions, and intolerances against
the indigenous "non-christians" (ie: pagans).

I have been looking for any reference whatsoever
to a work by Arnaldo Momigliano, concerning
"Devils and Historiology" (title approximate only)
in which he again emphasises the conflict between
pagans and christians in the fourth century.

All this is consistent with the possibility that the
phenomenom of "christianity" was an imperially
inspired design, implemented by fiction, fraud,
interpolation of extant books, and by supreme
and total absolute (despotic) power 325 CE.

Chris Weimer

Matthew's eschatology clearly included hell. Make your case for Luke or John or Mark, but not Matthew.

Godless Dave

There is no true meaning of the Bible, and more than there is one true meaning of an anthology of short stories, or the collected works of Tacitus.

Clouseau

Much earlier. Perhaps to 1300 BCE, perhaps even earlier.

'The Lord is known by his justice;
the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands.

The wicked return to Sheol,
all the nations that forget God.'

Ps 9:16-17


'Be happy, young man, while you are young,
and let your heart give you joy in the days of your youth.
Follow the ways of your heart
and whatever your eyes see,
but know that for all these things
God will bring you to judgment.'

Eccl 11:9 NIV


'The sinners in Zion are terrified;
trembling grips the godless:
"Who of us can dwell with the consuming fire?
Who of us can dwell with everlasting burning?"'

Isaiah 33:14 NIV


'After he drove the man out, he placed at the front of the Garden of Eden cherubim, and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.'

Gen 3:24

Sauron

Ah.

Do you plan to show that these citations date from that time?
Or will this be another drive-by assertion that you never support?

No. I suppose that would be too much to ask.

The Evil One

All right. I get that Clouseau believes in the Bible. But I don't get why Gen 3:24 counts as a reference to Hell. The magical floating sword is on fire, OK. Not everything that is on fire is Hell.

Clouseau

You don't. You get that there was, on the evidence, belief in a hell in Christianity before 1300 CE.

The way to the 'Tree of Life' is barred. That does not of itself imply a hell, but there is certainly a punitive element, due to disobedience, and a removal from the divine presence. In the contexts of immortality, which imv is fundamental to the Bible, and of punishment, a cutting off from the source of all goodness could be interpreted as a hell. That is indeed what many modern teachers have thought hell to be (though I think there may be additional factors).