judge

The gospels have jesus warning about "ghenna" or the "ghenna" of fire. Ghenna is the Aramaic word for the valley of beth hinnom just outside Jerusalem.

Perhaps the first instance of "g'henna" in a fiery sense is the Aramaic targum of Jonathon.
This targum takes the hebrew of Isaiah 66:24 but changes it to include g'henna.

By the time of the gospels (and the targum likely) "g'henna" has taken on an eschatological meaning.
This eschatological meaning later gets transformed again by christians who are forced to do so as the parousia seems to have not occurred.

So we have
1. Ghenna as a valley where gods enemies lay dead.

2. The emphasis of this in the targum and gospels into a more eschatological meaning.

3. Later christians perplexed by the failure of the parousia end up turning gehenna into an eternal hell where god tortures people.

judge

The word ghenna is not found in the hebrew bible of Isaiah 66, which is alluded to in the gospels.

And if your eye causes you to stumble, pluck it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into hell (gehenna) , 48 where
“‘the worms that eat them do not die,
and the fire is not quenched.’

But its not the gospels which first associate gehenna with Isaiah 66, it is the targum of Jonathan (a jewish work).

The problem is not the word hell/gehenna but the meaning ascribed to it.

In the gospels and in the targum of isaiah is has an eschatological meaning, not an eternal torment meaning.

Its only later christians who change this meaning (as they must in view of the apparent failure of the parousia) into one of an eternal fiery punishment.

Davka

It seems that the writer of Revelation at least introduces this meaning, with the passage about the worshipers of the beast. Since the Beast is so transparently Rome, this might well be an extra-special punishment for those who ratted out the early church members to the state? Pure speculation, but what the Hell.

judge

I'm not so sure but i could be wrong). Revelation seems to draw entirely on hebrew imagery, and Im not sure the hebrews believed in an eternal place of punishment.

Interestingly I just learnt that at least two targums introduce gehenna (hell as opposed to sheol) as early as genesis 3:24.

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=...targum&f=false

I think this is an indication that gehenna is different to sheol in later hebrew thought but not that it means a place of eternal punishment

Steve Weiss

The Book of Revelation refers to the saved being 144,000 which in turn refers to the tribes of Israel. Calvinism claims that the "elect" are the same 144,000 and that good works are worthless, so that leaves the rest out in the cold or the opposite. Whether the vast majority freezes or burns is of little consequence. The masses aren't going to sit on the right hand of god, so they are f--ked royally.

Sarai

Moving this thread to BC&H, as the subject matter fits better there.

Chili

That many be true but for that to be possible its counterpart must be possible as well since a pair of opposites cannot be conceived to exist without the other. Note that to be born-again is not a physical dimension but is metaphysical in nature and that is where is't counterpart is found as well.

Chili

a) the world belojngs to the temporal wherein we are and so is specific to us as individual.
b)the beast is the 'ideal' to be identified as Christian by any standard of the definition. It is either you (impersonal) say you are a Christian or you deny it, and to the extent that you believe you are will you be a worshiper of that idol.
c) 'you might be singing the [popular] song 'he touched me' to say he did and want it known, or carry a bible in you right hand, or left brain to make that known . . . or even vote in a so called Christian nation that is founded under the idol of that image.

To this end, all Christians without exception worship the beast and demand the right to tell the whole world about this idol that they they defend and will go to war to defend the same, and demand a Constitutional Right to do the same not just in their own land but as a Universal Right as mandated in the very book they carry about and read each day.Eternal makes reference to time-as-such but without the conscious dating of the same. So eternal life ends with the second death and only 'conscious dating' ends with 'the first death.'

The so called 'lake of fire' has nothing to do with the second death and in fact that is where the lake of fire ends. The lake of fire is only real if one proclaims to be a Christain and it is to the measure that he or she is convicted by this inner determination that the lake of fire is real to this individual persuaded by that same idol. So here then the 'worm that never dies' is the gnawing within the conscious mind of man.

Pyrrho

Emphasis added:

Revelation 20:

10 And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever.

If they simply died (in the sense of "cease to exist or cease to exist as a being"), they could not possibly be tormented day and night for ever and ever. Tossing into this lake of fire is obviously not like any fire on earth, as it does not necessarily consume the things burning in it. If it did, then those beings would not be "tormented day and night for ever and ever."

I don't know why you have trouble with this concept.

Pyrrho

No it doesn't:

John 3:

16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

It only says what happens to those who believe. It says absolutely nothing about what happens to those who do not believe in him.