January 25, 2009, 8:04 am by dc-agape.

Hades is a mythical place for the Greek underworld.  Only 5 times is the term used in the Word of God.  Jesus uses it once and John of Patmos uses it the other 4 times in the Book of Revelation.  In all five cases the word does not refer to the Greek God Hades but to the place of the Greek dead.

Matt 16:18 And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.

This verse comes from the story of when Simon Peter first recognizes Jesus as the Christ.  Jesus promises Simon Peter that the church that Peter is going to created will never enter the Greek mythical place of Hades. 

John of Patmos makes it quite clear that Hades and Death are two different things (see below).  So the heathens from Greece know more about the afterlife than most “christians” believe.  Jesus knew that Hades exists, and the Greeks knew that it existed since about the 9^th century BC.  If the Greeks were right about Hades then what about the other Greek Gods, are they also real?  Both the ancient Greeks and Jesus agreed on Hades, did they also agree on the rest of Greek mythology?

In the Book of Revelation, John of Patmos tells of how “like a son of man (Rev 1:13)” holds the keys to both death and Hades.

Rev 1:18 I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!  And I hold the keys to death and Hades.

First notice the capitalization of words!  The “son of man” and death are not capitalized, yet Hades is.  A true follower of Jesus does not recognize him as the Son of Man, only as someone who looks “like a son of man”.  Since John uses the indefinite article “a” does this mean that there is more than one “son of man”?  The concept of death is also not as important as Hades to John in his dream.  Hades is a place, no doubt the Greek Underworld.  Second, notice that the “Living One” “holds the keys to death and Hades”.  These are two difference concepts.  Let’s see if John will flush these two different concepts out in the remaining verses.

When John sees the “Four Horseman” the first one is Death, who is followed by Hades:

Rev 6:8 I look, and there before me was a pale horse!  Its rider was named Death, and Hades was following close behind him.  They were given power over a fourth of the earth to kill by sword, famine, and plague, and by the wild beasts of the earth.”

Here John names the rider as Death, with a capitalization.  I will, in later posts, cover this apocalyptic dream because it is so mistranslated that most Christians do not know the “Truth”.  But notice in the verse that Hades is a minion of Death.  Hades follows as Death destroys ¼ of the world. 

This is not the same as how John describes Hades later:

Rev 20:13-14 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 he had done.  Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.  The lake of fire is the second death.

Notice here that the sea, death, and Hades contain all the dead!  Death is not the only place where the dead are kept.  The sea and Hades also contain the dead.  This Greek mythological place actually holds the dead.  But also notice that heaven does not contain the dead.

In the Christian religion when people die they may be kept in the sea, in death, or in the Greek mythical Underworld.  Where will I wait out the “Day of Judgment”?  Where will the TrueChristianTM stay until the “Day of Judgment”?  Hell does not contain the dead.  Heaven does not hold the dead until the “Day of Judgment”.  Only then will all the TrueChristianTM be let into heaven!  The rest of us will be thrown directly into the lake of fire for the second death. 

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January 25, 2009, 7:38 am by dc-agape.

We know that the Book of Mark was written by John Mark.  This is the same Mark that that worked with Paul.  This is also the same John Mark that spent time with Simon Peter in Rome.  Because we know this, we know that the book had to be written after 55AD but most likely before 64AD (but possibly 67AD).  We are more certain about the later date because of the well know fact that Simon Peter was martyred in one of those two years.  Placing the date of when Simon Peter reached Rome is difficult, but required for the understanding of when the Book of Mark was written.  We know that Simon Peter was in Galatia prior to the writing of the letters of Galatians (49 – 55AD).  We also know that Simon Peter was in Corinth near the year 55AD (or as late as 58AD), when Paul wrote the letters of 1^st Corinthians.  At best we can say that Peter did not reach Rome until after 55AD and was martyred there in 67AD.  As a result, John Mark must have written the Book of Mark between the dates of 55AD – 67AD.  It is a good guess that since John Mark was not with Simon Peter until at least 55AD and that it took a number of years for him to piece the story of Jesus together from Simon Peter’s sermons that the date of the writing of the Book of Mark was closer to the mid-60’s AD or later.  All this historical dating does have a point:  to determine date the first Gospel was written about Jesus.  So the Book of Mark, from the Synoptic Problem, is known to be the first of the Gospels and it was written 30+ years after the death of Jesus.

Another issue that must be addressed is the date of the most ancient copy of the Book of Mark.  The Codex Vaticanus contains the most ancient copy of this book in modern time.  Unfortunately, this Codex Vaticanus is dated to ~175-200AD. 

Here we come to the crux of the problem.  John Mark is writing from second hand information, the preaching of Simon Peter.  These lessons occurred 30 years after Jesus’ death. The most ancient copies preserved are over an additional ~150 after the death of Jesus.  Remember there were no printing presses in that era, nor were there thermo stated rooms to save the papyrus that the books were written on.  Even the Codex Vaticanus is copies of copies of second hand stories!  Would the evidence presented in this book hold up in any country’s court of law?  Of course not!  Yet not only do the TrueChristianTM demand that we hold it as the “God’s Truth” but they want to use it to control not just their life, but the lives of everyone on the planet. 

From a de-converted gay Atheist interpretation this is the silliest thing I have ever heard.  If the Holy Spirit of YHWH expects all of mankind to bow down to Jesus with this flimsy evidence, YHWH has more faith in his creation that at any time in the past.  And YHWH certainly has no reason to have faith in his creation: see Adam, the Tower of Babel, Noah, and any of the OT stories about the Israelites falling away from YHWH.  So today we are supposed to be better at following YHWH’s will than the people who actually saw the “miracles of YHWH”?  I would call that just plain crazy talk.  In fact, I would not be surprised if YHWH had not gone insane from just the OT alone.  Adding the experience of the NT to it must have pushed the all-perfect, all-loving, all-knowing creator over the edge!

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