What is the origin of the he'll fire teaching?

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There are many religions claiming to be Christian that teach about a burning hell. But in the Bible this teaching does not exist. Where did it come from?

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Type: Question • Score: 6 • Views: 13,790 • Replies: 149

[+3] - InfraBlue - 07/27/2015How, exactly, do your bloviations negate what I wrote?
[+3] - InfraBlue - 07/28/2015In the King James Version "hell" is used to translate the Greek [i]á¼�Î¹Î´Î·Ï�[/i] or...
[+3] - anthony1312002 - 07/31/2015You are very correct instating that the teaching of he'll predates ProtestantÂ Reformation. Many historians trace it back into the distant past. For example, the ancient Babylonians...
[+3] - anthony1312002 - 07/31/2015Linguists and others skilled in Bible archeology all agree that the word Hell is not found in the original Bible text. And it is also widely know that Sheol Hebrew, Gehenna - Greek and Hades -...
[+3] - InfraBlue - 08/02/2015Where did I edit what I said previously? Your contention about "Hell" being a piss-poor translation for "Hades," "Sheol" and "Gehenna" does not negate the...
[+3] - InfraBlue - 08/03/2015Just can't help perpetuating your asininity, can you, Blovo? It was amusing seeing you chase your tail around, but, like on the Japan thread, you've become tiresome. This is my last response to...
[+3] - Joe Sixpack - 08/03/2015I'm gonna stay outta this

@anthony1312002,

anthony1312002 wrote:

There are many religions claiming to be Christian that teach about a burning hell. But in the Bible this teaching does not exist. Where did it come from?

Well I have read about several sources. One was mistranslated that got misinterpreted where the concept actually meant the burning pit outside the city where garbage was burned. Also Jesus references several times about being cast down and burned. This repeated reference is easy to be misled especially when the passages are so vague and cryptic. Seems odd to take a parable and then have a literal statement within it. Doesn't make sense.

However; within the Greek society there was a concept of hell that persisted. A lot of christian theology has borrowed from the greeks.

But I think the biggest influence was that modern christians wanted a way to justify all the injustice within the world. The only way they could do this was by holding damnation over the heads of people to get them to submit. Then once you repeat nonsense enough times people will begin to believe it's true even when there is no evidence or support for the statement.

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@Krumple,

That makes allot of sense. You know, there is something else that I discovered. The Greek word Hades literally has only one original meaning. It means the grave, the ground in which a person is buried when they die. It's the word that scholars say appears in the oldest manuscripts of the Bible. And that the word hell didn't start showing up in the Bible until well after the writing of the Bible had been completed. Interesting.

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@anthony1312002,

anthony1312002 wrote:

That makes allot of sense. You know, there is something else that I discovered. The Greek word Hades literally has only one original meaning. It means the grave, the ground in which a person is buried when they die. It's the word that scholars say appears in the oldest manuscripts of the Bible. And that the word hell didn't start showing up in the Bible until well after the writing of the Bible had been completed. Interesting.

Well there is definitely a difference between southern baptists and the hippy newager christians ideas of hell. The later only think there is a separation from god where you aren't punished but instead you don't get invited to the after party.

Then there is a double death idea, which I never really understood. You die once as a mortal and then god will kill you again as a soul simply for not believing. But I guess this second death, or the death of the soul is suppose to be so terrible. I don't see how it could be so terrible. But many christians have bought into it.

It all seems silly to me. I don't even see how it would work. A soul is suppose to have a central nervous system? So you can be tortured for eternity? Just seems absurd. How does the soul get energy to function let alone be punished for eternity? It's all just magic and over active imaginations.

It was funny one time, I told a christian that I could break hell. He was a little surprised by that statement. I told him it would be mind over matter. If I realized I was dead and being tortured for eternity what difference would it make to torture me with hell fire? I would just willingly go into the fire that I would break the system.

You can't torture a being who does not feel tortured. Mind over matter. I don't have a body to worry about and whats the worse that can happen to me? I am already dead, so what do I have to worry about? Nothing to lose. So I could walk through the flames and not feel anything. My mind would over power anything it could deliver.

1 Reply

@Krumple,

You are allot closer to what the Bible really teaches on this than those who believe in a burning hell. Look at what the Bible says about the soul dying

Ezekiel 18:4 "Look! All the souls—to me they belong. As the soul of the father so also the soul of the son—to me they belong. The soul who sins is the one who will die."

1 Reply

@anthony1312002,

anthony1312002 wrote:

You are allot closer to what the Bible really teaches on this than those who believe in a burning hell. Look at what the Bible says about the soul dying

Ezekiel 18:4 "Look! All the souls—to me they belong. As the soul of the father so also the soul of the son—to me they belong. The soul who sins is the one who will die."

There are a lot of problems with it.

Why assume that the death of the soul is so bad? It's like we are assuming that it is. But why? We have nothing to compare it with? So it's just an empty threat.

It's nothing different than thinking that eternal heaven would always be pleasant and good. Nothing ever bad or no bad situations would ever arise. Well I can think of quite a few bad situations.

I think it really just comes down to a basic tenant. We like life. Death seems strange and too much to grasp. Therefore; we will assume life is preferable to death. If everyone believes that, we can use it as leverage to get people to behave. If you disobey, you will have death. If you obey you will have life.

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@anthony1312002,

The word hades has been around a lot longer than the Bible passages in which it appears. It original meanings are both the abode of the dead, the underworld, and the deity that reigns over it. There's a rich Helenic mythology that involves both.

The word "hell" is a word used to translate the word hades and other words that refer to the underworld in various English translations Bible. It derives from the word Hel, both a female being and her relm in the underworld in Germanic mythology.

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@InfraBlue,

You make some interesting points. I have heard of some transliterating the word Haides as hell. You might find this to be interesting as well.

http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/1102005157?q=haides&p=par

1 Reply

@anthony1312002,

Hell is a translation of the word hades and others in the Bible. It's not a "transliteration" which is more a spelling of a word in one language into the letters of another language, e.g. hades is a transliteration of the Greek ᾍδης. Yeah, I'm familiar with the JWs' take on the issue.

1 Reply

@Krumple,

Krumple wrote:

But I think the biggest influence was that modern christians wanted a way to justify all the injustice within the world. The only way they could do this was by holding damnation over the heads of people to get them to submit. Then once you repeat nonsense enough times people will begin to believe it's true even when there is no evidence or support for the statement.

A justifiable indictment of nominal christianity.

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

The word hades has been around a lot longer than the Bible passages in which it appears. It original meanings are both the abode of the dead, the underworld, and the deity that reigns over it. There's a rich Helenic mythology that involves both.

The word "hell" is a word used to translate the word hades and other words that refer to the underworld in various English translations Bible. It derives from the word Hel, both a female being and her relm in the underworld in Germanic mythology.

I would have included its derivation from the Hebrew word 'sheol', the grave. The similarity between the words 'hell' and 'hole' is no coincidence. If you told a 17th century man to go to hell, he might have been just as likely to go into his root cellar.

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@neologist,

IF that is so, Neo...and the Bible actually teaches there is no Hell...and when we die, we just die...

...what do you suppose was meant by these passages:

Matthew 26:24
"The Son of Man is to go, just as it is written of Him; but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been good for that man if he had not been born."

Mark 9:42
“Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him if a great millstone were hung around his neck and he were thrown into the sea.

1 Reply

@anthony1312002,

Hell is definitely in the Christian Bible. There are at least a dozen references to a place of eternal torment, in a lake of fire, for people who don't follow God.

Just a few examples

Revelation 20 wrote:

. The dead were judged according to what they had done as recorded in the books. The sea gave up the dead that were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead that were in them, and each person was judged according to what they had done. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death. Anyone whose name was not found written in the book of life was thrown into the lake of fire.

Matthew 13 wrote:

As the weeds are pulled up and burned in the fire, so it will be at the end of the age. The 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. They will throw them into the blazing furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father.

Matthew 5 wrote:

f your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

1 Reply

@InfraBlue,

Horseshit. Try getting a reliable source before you spuot your BS. According to the Online Etymological Dictionary, Hell derives from Proto-Germanic, and is a reference either to an underworld, or to Hel, the daughter of Loki, who presided over Nilfheim, the lowest of the worlds, and the destination of the evil dead.

I find it interesting that in the middle east, the Hellenic culture saw hell as a place of burning fire--just like the worst weather in their world. Nilfheim in the Norse mythology, is a frozen place, just like the worst weather in their world. Marion Zimmer Bradley drew from the Norse tradition in her Darkover novels, in which one of the four gods of her fantasy world, deep in the grip of permanent ice age, was Zandru, who presided over nine frozen hells. In the Proto-Germanic myths, Nilfheim contained nine frozen rivers.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

How, exactly, do your bloviations negate what I wrote?

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Well, I guess the gloves come off now.

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@Frank Apisa,

I think, and this is my opinion, that Jesus is referring to the feeling of dread one might feel when, upon realizing how much he had to live for, sees the certainty of his death.

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@neologist,

So what does being thrown into a lake of fire refer to?

1 Reply

@neologist,

neologist wrote:

I would have included its derivation from the Hebrew word 'sheol', the grave. The similarity between the words 'hell' and 'hole' is no coincidence. If you told a 17th century man to go to hell, he might have been just as likely to go into his root cellar.

I wouldn't have because that's not true. Hel is not derived from the Hebrew word sheol, the former belonging to an Indo-European language, the latter to an Afro-Asiatic one.

If one were to tell a seventeenth century individual to go to hell he'd take it like anyone alive today would take it.

1 Reply

@maxdancona,

maxdancona wrote:

So what does being thrown into a lake of fire refer to?

Hmm.
What would happen if Frank, after cursing his golf clubs, threw them in a lake of fire?
Same thing.
Destroyed.
Gone.
No more.

I'm not suggesting Frank should do that, BTW.

3 Replies

What is the origin of the he'll fire teaching?

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