January 4, 2009, 10:32 am by dc-agape.

Oddly enough, the Old Testament does not have a reference to hell.  YHWH only punishes people, cities, tribes, and nations here on earth.  Nowhere does the Word of God describe sending people to hell until the New Testament. In the New Testament two people describe hell: Jesus and Peter. 

I will start with Peter, since he only describes hell once:

2^nd Peter 2:4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but sent them to hell, putting them into gloomy dungeons to be held for judgment;

Well for the angels at least, hell seems pretty boring.  I would think that being locked up in gloom for all eternity until YHWH gets around to judging them can’t be that bad.  It certainly does not sound like fire and brimstone. I wonder why Satan does not release them and use them for himself?  Or are these the “good” angels that know that they have sinned and deserve to be punished?  I’m assuming the punishment for “good” angels is less severe than for the evil angels that side with Satan.

Jesus, on the other hand, does describe hell, but only in a few places.  A few more times Jesus warns people of being sent to Hell for certain behaviors.  I want to focus on what hell is really like, so I will not be using the verses that warn about being sent to hell.

Twice Jesus refers to the “fire of hell”.  The first case:

Matt 5:22 But I tell you that anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgment.  Again, anyone who says to his brother, ‘Raca’, is answerable to the Sanhedrin.  But anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.

First off, notice that neither Peter nor Jesus capitalize the word “hell”.  Directly from Jesus we know that hell is fiery.  He repeats much the same thing here:

Matt 18:9 And if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away.  It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of hell.

Bodily mutilation is a common theme for Jesus, but I won’t dwell on that here.  I will cover that when I start reading the Book of Matthew in a few weeks.  Notice again, no capitalization and the fiery part of hell.

In the Book of Mark Jesus gives a little more information about hell:

Mark 9:43 If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off.  It is better for you to enter life with maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.

Here we have the bodily mutilation again, but what is important is that the fire of hell “never goes out”.  Now that sounds really bad.  I guess the angels get off light for their sins!  So it certainly sounds like torment.  Jesus actually gives us a glimpse into hell itself here, in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus:

Luke 16:23 In hell, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side.

This might have been one of the first verses that caused me to start to wonder about the truth of heaven and hell.  Do good people in heaven always get to watch the torment of people in hell?  Can that possibly be pleasurable to them?  Answering that second question does that make them good, if they watch and don’t do anything about another human’s suffering?  Why would they want to watch, and even knowing that people are suffering seems like torture to me.  But this verse does describe the suffering that people in hell will receive.  In the next verse in the parable, the rich man asks for a drop of water from Lazarus’ finger.  So we do have some idea of what hell is like.  But is it permanent?

Jesus does have something to say about that as well:

Matt 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.

The study notes make it quite clear that YHWH is the one who controls hell.  YHWH is the one who destroys both the soul and the body in hell.  Did you know that your body went to hell, not just your soul?  But hell is not permanent!  YHWH does destroy the soul in hell.  Jesus does not say that it is immediate, but he also does not say that we stay in hell until judgment day.

I will make one more post on the topic of hell.  I can only make one more post, unless someone points out verses that describe hell without using the words “hell” or “gnashing”.  The next post on hell will be how Jesus refers to being separated from YHWH. The verses of interest will include “gnashing of teeth”.  This does not exactly describing hell, and it certainly is not the fiery hell of described in this post, but it is what Jesus spoke about that seems to be related to hell.

Updated (February 1, 2009)

The story of Lazarus and the rich man has bothered me since starting this Biblical Topic of Hell.  As I am finishing this topic today, I realized that nowhere else in Gospels or Letter does this story get repeated.  In fact, nowhere else in the Bible is hell described as such a place.  Most of the controversy with this story of Lazarus is over whether it is a true story or a parable.  Here is an excellent example of this controversy at this website.  On the other hand, I have found this site that explains the story of Lazarus and the rich man much better.  At the second site the full Bible is used in its full context, instead of the way this one story is used out of context to describe hell.  There is no doubt that the TrueChristians™ of today need a better understanding of their own Bible. From my gay Atheist interpretation of what the Word of God says all Christian need to focus particularly on the concept of hell.  It would seem that this topic has been ripped out of context from the original teachings of Jesus, Peter, James, Paul, and all the other major figures of the 1^st century Church.

Posted in Hell, Biblical topics, Becoming an atheist | Print | 1 Comment »

January 4, 2009, 9:13 am by dc-agape.

Genesis 35:16 – 36:43

I am combining these sections of the Bible because most of chapter 36 is only names.  Both sections have some very interesting “mistakes”.  But before I get to the mistakes, the story of Rachel’ birth to Ben-Oni and her death are told in the Word of God. Israel is on the move again, he is getting closer to his father’s house. But due to Rachel’s pregnancy, the move, and her barren nature, she begins to have trouble when it is time to deliver.  The Book never tells if she gave up her belief in her father’s household gods, Jacob did get rid of them back in Bethel.  But that does not mean that she ever repented of the sins of worshipping false idols, theft, or dishonoring her father and husband.  It is not written that she, or Jacob Israel, ever gave sacrifice to YHWH for her sins. We can only assume that YHWH forgave her!  Before she dies in childbirth, she names her son Ben-Oni (“son of my trouble”).  Jacob Israel does not honor her last wish and changes the name of the son to Benjamin (“son of my right hand”, or possibly “son of the south”).  Rachel is buried near Bethlehem.  The Word then claims:

^{Gen 35:20} Over her tomb Jacob set up a pillar, and to this day that pillar marks Rachel’s tomb.

The study notes indicate that the pillar that exists in the area now is not authentic, but only traditional.  Here is a “case closed” where the Word of God is wrong!  Everything in the Book must now be questioned, it cannot be taken literally.  YHWH did not preserve the writings inerrantly.

How many other times did this happen?  We know that some of the words used in the Garden of Eden have lost their meaning.  How many other times does the Word of God claim that “to this day” something still exists?  In Gen 22:14 a phrase exists that does not return any modern day uses of that phrase.  We also know that the Edomites do not still inhabit Seir (Deut 2:22).  We don’t even know where Seir is!  We know of a mountain range call the Seir Mountains, but we do not know where the Edomites lived.  So without doubt the Word of God is not inerrant.  You might have also notice the strikethrough on Jacob’s name.  I’m just correcting YHWH and the author of Genesis; they both keep forgetting that YHWH changed Jacob’s name to Israel.

The author of the Genesis slips in a story about Reuben, Jacob Israel’s first born.  Rueben it seems had sex with Jacob Israel’s second slave wife.  Israel hears about it, but we don’t know if any immediate punishment is carried out.  In the study notes we do see that the descendants of Reuben are punished for their ancestor’s arrogance.  We do know that Jacob Israel holds a grudge against his firstborn.  Many years later, on Israel’s death bed he curses his firstborn son instead of blesses him (Gen 49:3-4).  What a loving father!  He holds his anger back the entire time that his favorite son, Joseph, is in Egypt as a slave. 

One of the mistakes in this chapter is about the birth records of the sons of Jacob Israel.  In the 26^th verse it claims that all 12 sons were born in Paddan Aram.  Yet earlier in the chapter, we know that Ben-Oni was born in Bethlehem.  I can understand errors from book to book, or even chapter to chapter, but within a few verses?  I am very disappointed in YHWH; he is not being the consistently perfect god of the TrueChristianTM, not at all!

The death of Isaac is also recorded in this section.  Little is said about it except where he was buried and how long he lived.  We know that he died somewhere near Kiriath Arba, but it is not until chapter 49 that we find out that he is buried with Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, and Leah in Machpelah.  We also know that he lived for 180 years.  Even over 600 years since YHWH proclaimed that man’s life would be only 120 years; men are still living for much longer than that.  The infallible YHWH is not carrying out his own decree!

The only “error” I want to point out in Genesis chapter 26 is that about Esau moving away from Jacob.  The rest of the chapter is just names of the descendants of Esau and for some reason the descendants of Seir the Horite.  The Word of God gives us nothing about the man Seir or the Horite tribe.  Here is another case of YHWH not preserving the Word.  How can anyone believe this can be taken literally?

We know from Genesis chapter 32 that Esau was already living in Seir (Gen 32:3).  In chapter 36, the Word of God claims that moved to a distant land from Jacob, due to the size of both their flocks.  Nowhere in the Word does it say that Esau moved back, from Seir, to live with his brother.  The Word of God infallible, I think not!

Lookup a word or passage in the Bible
Include this form on your page

——————————————————————————–

Posted in Genesis, State of Mind, Becoming an atheist, Readings | Print | No Comments »