Jagella

Well, I’ll give it another try. My “reputable scholar� is the honorable Professor Robert A. Peterson of Covenant Theological Seminary in St. Louis, who states:

(See Hell on Trial.)

You utilize some interesting logic to conclude that Mark was a not a Jew. If I made errors regarding my hometown’s streets and roads as well as errors regarding the local courts, would you then conclude that I never lived here?

Jagella

Diogenes the Cynic

I have to be away from my computer for awhile but I would like to ask Jag once again if he can provide an argument for why the Gehenna references in the synoptics should be interepreted in a manner inconsisetent with 1st century Jewish eschatological conceptions of the Valley of Hinnon.

I'll be back later tonight.

Seacrest, out.

Toto

Peterson

Might I suggest that Peterson is more of a theologian than a disiniterested historian? That he probably has a point of view that he feels the need to support?

Amaleq13

I'm a little confused. If you think Jesus preached it, doesn't that mean it started with him at the latest?

I wasn't asking whether you thought Jesus was depicted preaching it.

Amaleq13

I checked The Birth of Christianity and I could find no reference to "hell" or "Gehenna". In fact, I didn't see any of the passages we've discussed in the index.

Jagella

Peterson has a point of view he feels he needs to support? Don’t we all? It’s simply exasperating for me to continually have all the evidence I’m presenting here brushed aside. I hope you realize that when it comes to theology and Bible study, it’s almost impossible to find much objectivity. You can accuse anybody of bias—from Jews to Christians to atheists—and you’ll probably be right. Do you want to find a person educated in the New Testament who will tell you that hell’s in there? You’ll find him. If you want somebody to tell you it isn’t, then you’ll find that person too.

Jagella

Jagella

Actually I’m not sure what Jesus may have preached. I’m assuming that the writer of Mark may be quoting Jesus accurately.

Jagella

Chris Weimer

Jagella - citing people who support your notion is not evidence. If you have evidence, let it be shown. Name passages and explain them. Then we argue. Welcome, my friend, to the real world.

Diogenes the Cynic

As Toto said, this is more a statement of theology than scholarship. From what I can see, his credentials are in Divinity, not anything relating to Biblical criticism. He's also a minister and a teacher at a seminary which trains Presbyterian clergy.

He at least does explain his reasoning that the Gehenna rederences in the NT must be talking about eternal Hell because annihilated bodies don't "weep and grind their teeth."

I guess he's referring to the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats where Jesus makes analogy about how sinners will be burned like weeds:

As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. 41The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. 42They will throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 43Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear.
(Matt.13:40-43)

Well, sinners being heaved into Gehenna is exactly what we would expect HJ to have believed in and the "weeping and gnashing of teeth" is only to be expected as well for those who are about to meet such a fate. The passage does not say the weeping and gnashing will go on forever, just that there will be weeping and gnashing.

I will leave it up to others to decide whether the weeping and gnashing described in this passage cinches it that the author of Matthew intended to describe eternal hell or whether it was the ordinary conception of Gehenna as a place of annihilation.
There's more to it than that. For one thing, the author makes no personal claim to be Jewish or to have ever been to Palestine. In addition to that he is addressing a Gentile audience in a Gentile language and makes anti-Jewish statements within the text.

Mark doesn't get just little things wrong, by the way. He does things like put sea shores where they aren't supposed to be. And the mistakes about the Sanhedrin show a marked lack of knowledge of Jewish law.

So the question is, what reason is there to think that the author of GMark was Jewish? He doesn't make that claim for himself, so why would you?

Jagella

It’s been a long time since I read that book, so I don’t necessarily remember everything I read in it. My point is that if Crossan wishes to explain the inception of Christianity, then I would expect him to clear up any errors such as a wrongheaded belief that hell appears in the New Testament.

By the way, I’ve been researching this subject on the internet, and I’m finding some interesting results. Hell seems to be a doctrine in decline among many Christians. They are evidently uncomfortable with the idea for obvious reasons, and there’s a lot of attempts to mitigate this belief. As a result, “annihilation� rather than eternal torment seems to be gaming popularity. What surprised me, is that one can find passages in the New Testament to support either view. Paul, in his epistles, seemed to be preaching “death� for unbelievers, while the author of Mark favored eternal torment. This kind of disagreement has led to confusion that has lasted to this day among both believer and skeptic alike. This thread is evidence of that. Have two people read a Bible passage, and the result is three opinions.

Jagella