Are there further chances after death?

Der Alte said:

Have you ever done any thorough study on your own about hell? Or does your understanding derive from what you read on anonymous websites?

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The above is about as far as I read in your canned response. You must have a short memory, or too much on this forum to deal with, but to answer the above question, I did my own "thorough study" for over two years in an ordinary KJ Bible. I examined every book, chapter and verse, with helps from the OED, Biblehub, as well as Strong's and Young's commentaries. During that study, I deliberately avoided the opinions of others on "hell," including "anonymous websites." Even in that KJ version, I was able to see that "hell" was an insertion from paganism. I did find "hell" in Norse mythology, but I'm sure you will say "rubbish" without checking it out yourself.

Hmm said:

Christian universalists like every other Christian tradition believes that hell is a reality...

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Pardon me, but this Universalist denies the existence of "hell." There may be a place of corrective punishment, but "hell" is too-loaded a word to be useful in a Universalist universe.

Lazarus Short said:

The above is about as far as I read in your canned response. You must have a short memory, or too much on this forum to deal with, but to answer the above question, I did my own "thorough study" for over two years in an ordinary KJ Bible. I examined every book, chapter and verse, with helps from the OED, Biblehub, as well as Strong's and Young's commentaries. During that study, I deliberately avoided the opinions of others on "hell," including "anonymous websites." Even in that KJ version, I was able to see that "hell" was an insertion from paganism. I did find "hell" in Norse mythology, but I'm sure you will say "rubbish" without checking it out yourself.

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What about Hades and Tartarus?

What's interesting is Jesus uses the word Hades only four times, such as in Matthew 16:18:

"And I also say to thee, that thou art a rock, and upon this rock I will build my assembly, and gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (YLT)

So if Jesus was talking about Hell when he said Gehenna, why didn't he say Hades instead? Hades being the Greek equivalent of Sheol, just as Jesus is the Greek equivalent of Joshua (Yeshua).

The other three times Jesus says Hades is in Matthew 11:23, Luke 10:15 and Luke 16:23

Lazarus Short said:

Pardon me, but this Universalist denies the existence of "hell." There may be a place of corrective punishment, but "hell" is too-loaded a word to be useful in a Universalist universe.

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I agree. But it's a dichotomy because what other word can be used that everyone would understand? I even heard David Bentley Hart say "universalists believe in hell".

MMXX said:

What about Hades and Tartarus?

What's interesting is Jesus uses the word Hades only four times, such as in Matthew 16:18:

"And I also say to thee, that thou art a rock, and upon this rock I will build my assembly, and gates of Hades shall not prevail against it" (YLT)

So if Jesus was talking about Hell when he said Gehenna, why didn't he say Hades instead? Hades being the Greek equivalent of Sheol, just as Jesus is the Greek equivalent of Joshua (Yeshua).

The other three times Jesus says Hades is in Matthew 11:23, Luke 10:15 and Luke 16:23

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"Hades" may be the best Greek equivalent to the Hebrew "sheol," and is used so in the LXX. However, it is a word from pagan Greek mythology, and thus carries a load of bad theology.

"Tartarus" is again from pagan Greek mythology, and only used once in the entire Bible. I don't care to hang any theology on a word used once, and pagan at that.

Lazarus Short said:

"Hades" may be the best Greek equivalent to the Hebrew "sheol," and is used so in the LXX. However, it is a word from pagan Greek mythology, and thus carries a load of bad theology.

"Tartarus" is again from pagan Greek mythology, and only used once in the entire Bible. I don't care to hang any theology on a word used once, and pagan at that.

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What about “lake of fire”, which defines “second death”? Together those terms are used 9 times in Revelation.

Lazarus Short said:

"Hades" may be the best Greek equivalent to the Hebrew "sheol," and is used so in the LXX. However, it is a word from pagan Greek mythology, and thus carries a load of bad theology.

"Tartarus" is again from pagan Greek mythology, and only used once in the entire Bible. I don't care to hang any theology on a word used once, and pagan at that.

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It does seem a bit ironic that the names of the place are all mythological.

Derf said:

What about “lake of fire”, which defines “second death”? Together those terms are used 9 times in Revelation.

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Well there's:

"For our God is a consuming fire" Hebrews 12:29.

"For every one shall be salted with fire" Mark 9:49.

"For He is like a refiner’s fire And like launderers’ soap" Malachi 3:2

MMXX said:

Well there's:

"For our God is a consuming fire" Hebrews 12:29.

"For every one shall be salted with fire" Mark 9:49.

"For He is like a refiner’s fire And like launderers’ soap" Malachi 3:2

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Meaning that those who enter are refined and allowed into the kingdom at some point? I don’t necessarily disagree, but it’s strange that it’s not very specific in Revelation, where the lake of fire references are.

Derf said:

Meaning that those who enter are refined and allowed into the kingdom at some point?

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That's the universalist (or apocatastasis) view as I understand it.

Derf said:

I don’t necessarily disagree, but it’s strange that it’s not very specific in Revelation, where the lake of fire references are.

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I agree that it's strange and head scratching. But a lot of Revelation is like that to me.

I remember when I read Ezekiel for the first time a long time ago, this really stood out to me:

"The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 18 “Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me; they are all bronze, tin, iron, and lead, in the midst of a furnace; they have become dross from silver. 19 Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have all become dross, therefore behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. 20 As men gather silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin into the midst of a furnace, to blow fire on it, to melt it; so I will gather you in My anger and in My fury, and I will leave you there and melt you. 21 Yes, I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of My wrath, and you shall be melted in its midst. 22 As silver is melted in the midst of a furnace, so shall you be melted in its midst; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have poured out My fury on you." Ezekiel 22:17-22

Hmm said:

* * * So it is not hell that universalists deny so much as certain views about hell.
Well he didn't. He only spoke of ”aionios kolasis” which means corrective punishment for a limited time duration whereas the Pharisees spoke of "adialeiptos timoria" which means everlasting vengeful punishment. Most scholars believe that ”aionios kolasis” has been mistranslated in most English Bibles as "eternal punishment" but we've already had this argument. * * *

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No we have NOT had this argument. If we have you ignored everything I posted. Which you will probably do here. I am afraid that you have been grossly misinformed. Did you read what I wrote about Kolasis? It would appear you didn't.
The word Kolasis occurs only twice in the NT. Once in Matt 25:46 and the other in 1 Jn 4:18 where it is translated "torment," NOT correction.
Note, the one who has "kolasis" is not made perfect, i.e. not corrected.
I could paste the definition from Bauer, Danker, Arndt, Gingrich one of, if not, the most highly accredited Greek lexicons currently available but you would probably would reject it out of hand as biased.
But here it is anyway. If you choose to try to refute this please provide a thorough review of all the historical sources the authors reviewed in determining the correct definition of kolasis which I have highlighted in blue.

Der Alte said:

* * *

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Previously posted this thread. Never refuted.
Anyone can make the Bible say almost anything they want it to by quoting selective verses out-of-context as you have done. JW, LDS, OP, UPCI, INC, etc.
Does Jesus, Himself, ever say that everyone will be saved, no matter what, righteous and unrighteous alike, even after death or does He say,
…..These teachings tacitly reaffirmed and sanctioned a then existing significant Jewish view of eternal hell, outlined above.
In Matt. 18:6, 26:24 and Luk 10:12, Jesus teaches that there is a punishment worse than death or nonexistence.
…..A punishment worse than death without mercy is also mentioned in Hebrews 10:28-31.
…..“how much sorer punishment,””Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord,””It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” certainly does not sound like everyone will be saved, no matter what.
…..Jesus is quoted as using the word death 17 times in the gospels, if He intended to say eternal death, in Matt 25:46, that is what He would have said but He didn’t, He said “eternal punishment.”
….The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, they knew that everybody died; rich, poor, young, old, good, bad, men, women, children, infants and knew that it was permanent and often it did not involve punishment. When Jesus taught “eternal punishment” the Sadducees would not have understood it as simply death, it would have meant something worse to them.
…..Concerning “punishment” one early church father wrote,
…..Jesus undoubtedly knew what the Jews, believed about hell. If that Jewish teaching was wrong, why didn’t Jesus tell them there was no hell, no eternal punishment etc? Why would Jesus teach “eternal punishment,” etc. to Jews who believed, "The Lord, the Almighty, will punish them on the Day of Judgment by putting fire and worms into their flesh, so that they cry out with pain unto all eternity," which would only encourage and reinforce their beliefs in “hell”?
What does Jesus mean when He says "aionios/?" Does Jesus mean "age" a specific, finite period which ends?
In these two verses Jesus parallels “aionion” with “should not perish.” Believers could eventually perish in a finite period, thus by definition “aionion life” here means eternal or everlasting life.
.....There are eight additional verses where Jesus defines "aionios" as eternal in a similar way, Luke 1:33, John 5:24, John 5:24, John 3:36, John 4:14, John 6:27, John 8:51.
See my post [#60] above, this thread.

Der Alte said:

No we have NOT had this argument. If we have you ignored everything I posted. Which you will probably do here. I am afraid that you have been grossly misinformed. Did you read what I wrote about Kolasis? It would appear you didn't.
The word Kolasis occurs only twice in the NT. Once in Matt 25:46 and the other in 1 Jn 4:18 where it is translated "torment," NOT correction.

1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment.[κολασις] He that feareth is not made perfect in love. ​

Note, the one who has "kolasis" is not made perfect, i.e. not corrected.
I could paste the definition from Bauer, Danker, Arndt, Gingrich one of, if not, the most highly accredited Greek lexicons currently available but you would probably would reject it out of hand as biased.
But here it is anyway. If you choose to try to refute this please provide a thorough review of all the historical sources the authors reviewed in determining the correct definition of kolasis which I have highlighted in blue.

κολάζω fut. κολάσω; 1 aor. mid. ἐκολασάμην. Pass.: 1 fut. κολασθήσομαι; aor. 3 pl. ἐκολάσθησαν LXX; pf. inf. κεκολάσθαι (s. three next entries) penalize, punish (so Trag., Pla.+; also OGI 90, 28; PSI 446, 14; PRyl 62, 9) act. τινά someone lit., of the punishment of slaves Hs 9, 28, 8. In imagery do someone an injury, of polytheists who penalize their cult images by locking them up Dg 2:8. In an apocalyptic place of punishment are οἱ κολάζοντες ἄγγελοι ApcPt 6:21b (Chariton 4, 2, 7 οἱ κολάζοντες=‘constables, police’; Sallust. 19 p. 34, 15 δαίμονες κολάζοντες).—Mid. (Aristoph., Vesp. 405; Pla., Protag. 324c; 3 Macc 7:3; ApcEsdr 1:11 p. 25, 4 Tdf.; Just., A II, 2, 9; 11; 16) Ac 4:21.—Mostly pass. of the punishment of Christians 1 Pt 2:20 v.l.; Dg 5:16; 6:9; 7:8; 10:7; MPol 2:4. Of the Last Judgment 2 Pt 2:9. βασάνοις 2 Cl 17:7 (on the dat., cp. Appian, Bell. Civ. 2, 90 §377 κ. θανάτῳ; Polyaenus 3, 9, 56; Lucian, Dial. Mort. 17, 2; Jos., Ant. 18, 314 κ. πληγαῖς.—Just., A II, 1, 2 ἐν πυρί). δισσῶς be punished doubly Hs 9, 18, 2. Of hell οἱ κολαζόμενοι ἐκεῖ ApcPt 6:21a. (Of punishment by God: TestAsh 6:2; ApcEsdr 1:11; Just., D. 88, 5; Diod S 16, 32, 1; Epict. 3, 11, 3; Dio Chrys. 59 [76], 5; Aesop, Fab. 77 P.=127 H. ὑπὸ θεῶν κολάζονται; oft. in ins in FSteinleitner, D. Beicht 1913, p. 10ff; LRobert, Nouvelles Inscriptions de Sardes ’64, 24ff; LXX; Jos., Bell. 2, 163; cp. Theoph. Ant., 2, 36 [p. 196, 24]). Aristotle’s limitation of the term κόλασις to disciplinary action Rhet. 1, 10, 17 is not reflected in gener. usage.—DELG s.v. κόλος 3. M-M. TW.
Arndt, W., Danker, F. W., Bauer, W., & Gingrich, F. W. (2000). A Greek-English lexicon of the New Testament and other early Christian literature (3rd ed., pp. 554–555). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.​

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Could you reformat these templates so that they're not such a jumble of different fonts and so mashed together please? I guess maybe you're trying to make your posts look like pages from an old textbook or something. But it doesn't play out well on this format.

Lazarus Short said:

The above is about as far as I read in your canned response.

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Only canned in the sense that more than 2 decades ago when I saw the the same old, same old "hell no" arguments are posted over and over and over. So I started saving my responses. Same argument, same response!

You must have a short memory, or too much on this forum to deal with, but to answer the above question, I did my own "thorough study" for over two years in an ordinary KJ Bible. I examined every book, chapter and verse, with helps from the OED, Biblehub, as well as Strong's and Young's commentaries.

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What is OED? Both Strong's and Young's are 19th century and don't have the benefit of all the scholarship since then e.g. Qumran and Dead seas scrolls.
One of the major modern resources is only about 2 decades old, The Thesaurus Linguae Graecae [TLG] database in Irvine CA which has virtually every historical Greek manuscript now existing. Research which has never been possible before is being done today. Every Greek word can be examined almost immediately.
TLG - Home

During that study, I deliberately avoided the opinions of others on "hell," including "anonymous websites." Even in that KJ version, I was able to see that "hell" was an insertion from paganism. I did find "hell" in Norse mythology, but I'm sure you will say "rubbish" without checking it out yourself.

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Rubbish! Norse mythology is totally irrelevant. You did NOT do any legitimate study. All you did was cherry pick information and fall back your assumptions/presuppositions.
It is irrelevant what "hell" might have meant in another language, centuries ago in some other country.
See for example, what does "truck" mean?
In modern English it means a large boxy vehicle for hauling large heavy loads. In the 13th century it meant "vegetables."
If that much difference occurs in English, the 100s of years old meaning of a word in a Baltic or Scandinavian country is totally irrelevant.
FYI "hell" means "bright" in German. You must have skipped over that because it didn't fit your narrative.
If your were honestly doing research you would have learned everything I said.
I have posted irrefutable evidence that before and during the time of Jesus the Jews believed in a place of fiery, eternal punishment which they called "sheol" and "Ge Hinnom" Which are translated "hades" and "Gehenna" in the 225 BC LXX. The same terms are also used in the NT, which OBTW was written by Jews who would have known about Gehenna and Hades..

Der Alte said:

If your were honestly doing research you would have learned everything I said.
I have posted irrefutable evidence that before and during the time of Jesus the Jews believed in a place of fiery, eternal punishment which they called "sheol" and "Ge Hinnom" Which are translated "hades" and "Gehenna" in the 225 BC LXX. The same terms are also used in the NT, which OBTW was written by Jews who would have known about Gehenna and Hades..

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Rubbish! That canned jumble has been refuted. But you seem to ignore that and just keep posting reruns.

MMXX said:

That's the universalist (or apocatastasis) view as I understand it.

I agree that it's strange and head scratching. But a lot of Revelation is like that to me.

I remember when I read Ezekiel for the first time a long time ago, this really stood out to me:

"The word of the Lord came to me, saying, 18 “Son of man, the house of Israel has become dross to Me; they are all bronze, tin, iron, and lead, in the midst of a furnace; they have become dross from silver. 19 Therefore thus says the Lord God: ‘Because you have all become dross, therefore behold, I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. 20 As men gather silver, bronze, iron, lead, and tin into the midst of a furnace, to blow fire on it, to melt it; so I will gather you in My anger and in My fury, and I will leave you there and melt you. 21 Yes, I will gather you and blow on you with the fire of My wrath, and you shall be melted in its midst. 22 As silver is melted in the midst of a furnace, so shall you be melted in its midst; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have poured out My fury on you." Ezekiel 22:17-22

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Which words were targeted toward those already tied to Him by covenant, as opposed to everybody not so or similarly tied.

Derf said:

Which words were targeted toward those already tied to Him by covenant, as opposed to everybody not so or similarly tied.

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As far as I can tell it was directed at Israel and had to do with the destruction they were about to face from Babylon.

Der Alte said:

Rubbish!

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Just as I predicted.

Oh, btw, "OED" is the Oxford English Dictionary, which has dates of first usage - very useful.