Why is Hell disappearing from the Bible ?

The following research shows that Hell is NOT in the bible nor is it the condition where humans, regardless of their past, would be sent to by a Loving God.

http://what-the-hell-is-hell.com/topics/bible-translations/

The following quotes have been summarized from the above web pages.

Why is "hell" disappearing from the Bible?

Primarily for the following reasons:

(1) The Hebrew word Sheol clearly means "the grave" or "the abode of all the dead, good and bad," not "hell." The Hebrew language doesn't have a word that means "hell" (a startling omission if there really is a "hell" and an all-knowing God spoke to Moses and the other prophets who gave us the Bible).

Why is "hell" disappearing from the Bible? Primarily for the following reasons:

(2) Like Sheol, the Greek word Hades means "the grave" or "the abode of all the dead, good and bad," not "hell." (The words are equivalents; the Septuagint, quoted by Jesus Christ and the apostles, uses the Greek word Hades to translate the Hebrew word Sheol.) Everyone went to Sheol/Hades, not just the "wicked." To condemn a person or nation to Sheol/Hades was to say that they would die, be destroyed or vanish from this earth, not suffer eternal punishment. Therefore most of the occurrences of "hell" in the King James Version (KJV) are blatant mistranslations.

After all, King David said that if he made his bed in Sheol, God would be there. Job asked to be hidden from suffering in Sheol. Ezekiel and Saint Paul both said that all Israel would be saved, but Israel himself said that he and his son Joseph would be reunited in Sheol when they died. The sons of Korah claimed in a Psalm that God would redeem them from Sheol. In each case, the men speaking were clearly talking about dying and going to the grave, not "hell." If "hell" is substituted for Sheol, then according to the Bible, God will be in "hell" with human beings when they die, "hell" is a place to go to escape suffering, Israel himself will be in "hell" (refuting the prophecies of Ezekiel and Paul), and human beings can be redeemed from "hell."

Paul never mentioned a place called "hell," so it seems obvious that this place named as "hell" was introduced at a very late date in the development of the Bible. But Gehenna is a physical location in Israel, not an "eternal hell."

At the time of Jesus, Gehenna was a fiery landfill and a good metaphor for a place to avoid at all costs. But today Gehenna is a lovely park. You can find pictures of it on the Internet. There have been some wonderful archeological discoveries in Gehenna, such as the healing pool of Siloam and the oldest extant verses from the Bible, recorded on silver amulets. The Bible verses discovered in "hell" are the priestly benediction: "The Lord bless thee and keep thee; the Lord make his countenance to shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee ..." So there is no reason to believe that Gehenna is "hell."

When the Pharisees claimed that they would inherit heaven simply by being descendants of Abraham, Jesus ridiculed their absurd belief by putting the Gentile beggar Lazarus in the bosom of Abraham, and a rich Pharisee in the fiery Tartarus. But this does not mean that Jesus believed in "hell." What he did is like me telling a flat-earther, "Be sure not to fall over the edge!"

(7) If a loving, just, all-wise God had wanted human beings to believe in "hell," he could have mentioned its name, its purpose, and how it might be avoided, as soon as it was created. Indeed, in order to be considered just, it would have been incumbent upon God to do so. But there are no such verses anywhere in the Bible.

If God sends everyone to "hell" who doesn't "believe" in Jesus, we are immediately confronted by the problem of a Jewish girl who was raped by German Christians during the Holocaust, and who saw her loved ones tortured and killed by Christians. If she chose not to believe in Jesus because of the horrendous way she saw Christians acting, who could blame her? If she was murdered by German Christians, should she wake up in an "eternal hell," which would make God and Jesus infinitely more unjust and cruel than Hitler and Mengele?

How can anyone possibly believe that Jesus would treat Jewish girls infinitely more despicably and cruelly than Hitler and Mengele? If this is what Christians believe, they obviously have no knowledge of good and evil. But if they have no knowledge of good and evil, then according to Genesis they should be immortal, since death was the punishment incurred when human beings acquired the knowledge of good and evil.

The Roman Catholic Church (RCC) has recently admitted (after 1,800 years of waffling) that there is no "Limbo."

• This means the RCC, which claims to be able to speak "infallibly" on matters of theology and salvation, has no idea what happens to unbaptized babies when they die. But the pope and church routinely condemn children to suffer and die by calling it a "sin" to use condoms, in a world where unprotected sex is highly dangerous and often deadly. This makes the pope and RCC liars, frauds, blasphemers, child abusers and murderers.

• The pope is aptly named Ratzinger/Benedict, a plague-carrying rodent and a traitor, if there are no accidents with God.

• As Mark Twain and other wise men have pointed out, "hell" is used by charlatans to fleece the gullible. The Greek philosopher Celsus pointed out to Origen and other early Christians that the Greeks had invented "hell" to control the masses. Celsus also pointed out that no wise man believed in "hell." Should Christians be as gullible and undiscerning as the dupes of Celsus's day?

http://www.thehypertexts.com/No%20Hell%20in%20the%20Bible.htm

References

https://www.biblestudytools.com/deuteronomy/32.html

http://what-the-hell-is-hell.com/2011/bible-translations-that-do-not-teach-eternal-torment/

http://www.thehypertexts.com/No%20Hell%20in%20the%20Bible.htm

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse