ApostateAbe

Luke 16 is very explicit about what Hades is. "In Hades he lifted up his eyes, being in torment..." Similar descriptions are attached to Gehenna and whenever Jesus talks about the afterlife for the wicked. Jesus' views are very different from the Judaic tradition of Sheol, which is a common grave for both the good and the wicked.

WishboneDawn

Apologies, I meant more generally, as in the the creed or the NT in general, not simply in reference to Jesus (which I know is what you were reffering to).

Fortuna

"The Greeks had no familiarity with Gehenna" - Strictly that is not correct. They DID have a familiarity with both Hades and Tartarus. And it is apparent that they did interpret these as places of punishment. Read the quotes below from Plato's Republic 10, a section called the myth of Er.

Need I remind you that Plato predates Jesus by several centuries ? Thus it is pretty clear that these ideas were borrowed from the Greco-Roman culture around them.

Further, the gospels are written in Greek, and those words they used ("Hades","Tartarus") had well established meanings. I don;t know how you cna claim that "Jesus invented it" when the gospels used greel words with contemporary meanings.

Do you have any independent evidence of that ? Or are you suggesting it because it does not fit your theory ?

Agreed, there is nothing like this in the Tanakh. Up until the second temple period, this idea of hell seems foreign to Judaism. But the second temple period and the exposure of Judaism to Greek and roman culture introduced many new ideas.

Agreed, and that's an excellent point. And these texts (1 Enoch for sure, and probably the Community Rule) predate Jesus.


The evidence does not support that Jesus and the Christians invented this idea of an afterlife of punishment for the wicked. Plato already writes about that very idea centuries before Christianity.

Someone mentioned the apostles Creed. I'm wondering if they've ever seen the apostles Creed translated into latin (even early translations).

If they did, they would notice that "Hades" is translated into latin as "Infernum".


Conclusion - The storytellers of Jesus did not invent the idea of hell as a place of punishment, this idea was already well known to the Greco-Roman culture long before Jesus. Further, it does not originate from traditional Judaism either, though by the time of Jesus these ideas were already being syncreted into the Judaism of Jesus's time.

aa5874

It's the authors who make Jesus teach. I am not aware that Jesus could have taught anyone, when the authors appear to have fabricated him after the death of Tiberius.

ApostateAbe

I mean "Gehenna" the phrase. Gehenna (or "Ge Hinnom") was the fiery dump outside of Jerusalem, and Greeks and Romans living outside of Israel had no familiarity with it. Maybe some of them who traveled through Jerusalem would have no known about it, but there would be no good reason to attach importance to it, to equate it with the afterlife. Gehenna has special significance in Hebrew myth--a place where children were sacrificed in times of sin (2nd Chronicles 28:3). If Christianity was an invention of the Greeks, I would expect only the words "Hades" and "Tartarus."



Yeah, I knew that the myths of Hades and Tartarus were familiar to Jesus. Tartarus was the part of Hades that contained the punishment. It wasn't purely a place of fire. There was fire in it, but it was more like a very nasty dungeon, with freakish monsters who deal out punishment. In the New Testament's hell, the infliction of punishment was done only by fire (no monsters, no whips, etc.). This is, I think, due to the influence of Gehenna, and it served to make the severity of the punishment seem more extreme and pure.
I don't have any independent evidence that Matthew 12:40 is an interpolation, but it wouldn't contradict my theory if it were not. I suspect it is an interpolation because that seems to be the word of scholars who comment on it, and it seems meant to reflect the doctrine that Jesus was in the grave for three days before resurrecting.

ApostateAbe

That is an explanation that seems simple on the surface, but it becomes very elaborate when you try to explain how the authors got so many details of Jewish culture correct. A simpler explanation is that Jesus was a cult leader in Israel whose cult lived on and migrated after Jesus' execution.

aa5874

Josephus in Antiquities of the Jews have two passages concerning the afterlife of the soul with respect to the doctrines of the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

Antiquities of the Jews 18.1.3. AJ 18.1.4. So the Pharisees belief in some form of everlasting punishment under the earth did predate Christianity, however there is no mention of any fire or brimstone.

WishboneDawn

Just a note, I found a BBC radio, "In our Times" show on the subject of Hell here. Might be interesting listening.

aa5874

Perhaps you have not heard or read the works of Flavius Josephus, such as, "Antiquities of the Jews", "Wars of the Jews", or "The Life of Flavius Josephus".

Josephus, without making any reference to the Gospels, wrote about all the main characters of the NT, except of course Jesus, his disciples and Paul.

This is a partial list from the writings of Josephus:
John the Baptist, Pontius Pilate, Herod the Great, the sons of Herod, Cyrenius, Galilee, the Phaisees, the Sadducees, a crucifixion of three persons where one survived, the resurrection of souls after death, Claudius, Felix, Agrippa, chief priests, Jerusalem, Tiberius, Drusilla, Festus and being shipwrecked on his way to Rome.

It would appear to me that the Gospel writers simply got their information from the writings of Josephus.

And there is no independent historical record to support Jesus of Nazareth being a cult leader, although that may be your "gut feeling", I need some historical reference from you to take that position seriously.

ApostateAbe

OK. If you want to show that the New Testament authors sourced the works of Flavius Josephus, then perhaps the first step would be to partially identify them. It couldn't be just anyone living in Rome or Greece. It would be someone who had access to the writings of Josephus after the death of Tiberius. It wasn't like you could go to the local library and check them out. It was not in the public domain.
The evidence is the parts of the New Testament that contradict the interests and are neutral to the interests of those who copied them. I think the best evidence is the failed prophecy of Jesus, which fits the contention that Jesus was a doomsday cult leader, but it does not easily fit the contention that Jesus began as a mere myth. I wrote about my case in this thread here:

http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=157236