Enfield

http://www.religioustolerance.org/gosp_q1.htm

It seems that Gospels that predate the NT originally had no heaven/hell. Nor alot of the dogma of the modern Christian church.

Doesnt this sink alot of Christian thought?

TySixtus

I, for one, think it does. However, fundies are quick to ride the fence on this one. If you pull reference from a non-Canonical source (Gospel of Peter, Thomas, etc) they scream "That is NOT in Bible, so we don't believe it to be part of the word of God!". But when they need evidence of something they are trying to prove, they can't use them often enough. See the thread on Hell in this group, the same thing came up.

Ty

Roland

The fact that heaven and hell are virtually nonexistant in the canonical OT sinks Christianity as far as I'm concerned.

These are more Zoroastrianism in origin than Hebrew.

Enfield

I tend to agree.

capnkirk

Correct! They were absorbed into popular Judaism (but never incorporated by the 2nd Temple Priesthood into canon) during the period after the Babylonian Exile because the Persian King (Cyrus) who conquered Babylon from the east and released the Hebrews to go home to worship YHWH was Zoroastrian. The concept of an afterlife in any form was thus introduced at this time via Zoroastrianism. Heaven and Hell were just the structural components of that afterlife. The Hebrews, who had just been completely disabused of the concept of "justice in this life" by YHWH's apparent failure to "honor" his covenant to protect Israel from first the Assyrians then the Babylonians were particularly vulnerable to the new Zoroastrian concept of "divine judgement at death leading to justice in the next" as a viable explanation for the seeming failure of covenental justice in this life.

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Enfield

So does this mean early Christians did not think Jesus was god nor did they believe in heaven/hell?

http://www.messiahtruth.com
- look in the sidebar of "origins of the gospels" and you will find things about the Q gospels and how they did not mention heaven/hell/virgin birth and alot of other things.

I found it interesting.

capnkirk

It seems clear that the earliest Jesus groups were NOT Xtians in any currently recognizable sense of the word. In fact, it is not easy to describe them as a religious group at all. As for their belief in heaven/hell, in view of their not being essentially a religious group, belief in heaven/hell would have to be considered as an individual choice. For a much fuller understanding of Q and the early Jesus groups, I would recommend The Lost Gospel : The Book of Q and Christian Origins by Burton Mack.

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Sarpedon

Also, the romans believed in Heaven and Hell, and christianity spread more in the Roman Empire, than in Zoroastrian Persia.

TySixtus

I was not aware the Romans believed in Heaven and Hell. You have a source for that? I'm curious.

Ty

capnkirk

I'm not saying that Xtianity features Heaven and Hell because it spread in Persia. I said that the concept of an afterlife (which included Heaven and Hell) is one of the theological concepts that the Jews brought back from their Babylonian Exile after being released by the Zoroastrian Persian King Cyrus. This preceded the Roman Empire by a few hundred years. I'm saying it was spread through the whole eastern Mediterranean and Asia Minor by the Persians, then was picked up by the Greeks following Alexander's conquest of Persia. From the Greeks it spread to the Romans.

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