Christian Universalism. What's not to like?

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Hmm

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That feed why school was so counterproductive. Brilliant!

It takes years to discover how stupid you are, and decades to pay of the loan. (ouch) Talk about injury to insult... wow.

I'm trying to be fair but it seems all we ever see from Team Hell is amateur grammatics (if that's a word) without citation and a blanket dismissal of any oppossing academic opinion. They seem to think that we should be impressed by their arguments so I'd be interested to hear if they themselves came to believe in ECT because of pseudo-linguistic arguments like the ones they post here. Or what were the reasons?
 
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Der Alte

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I'm trying to be fair but it seems all we ever see from Team Hell is amateur grammatics (if that's a word) without citation and a blanket dismissal of any oppossing academic opinion. They seem to think that we should be impressed by their arguments so I'd be interested to hear if they themselves came to believe in ECT because of pseudo-linguistic arguments like the ones they post here. Or what were the reasons?
Yeah, right! Do you have any graduate education in Hebrew or Greek? If you don't, which is my guess, you don't know what you are talking about. If you think you can, review any of my posts and show me "amateur grammatics," '[missing] citation,""a blanket dismissal of any opposing academic opinion,""pseudo-linguistic argument." etc.
 
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Saint Steven

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I'm trying to be fair but it seems all we ever see from Team Hell is amateur grammatics (if that's a word) without citation and a blanket dismissal of any oppossing academic opinion. They seem to think that we should be impressed by their arguments so I'd be interested to hear if they themselves came to believe in ECT because of pseudo-linguistic arguments like the ones they post here. Or what were the reasons?
I have to remind myself that I was among their number not too many years back. So, from that perspective I cut them a little bit of slack, while I challenge their thinking on the subject.

What I recall is that there was no competing argument among Christians. If you were a Christian, you believed in hell. No question. And we never needed to convince either ourselves, or unbelievers, about what that meant. It was simple: good people go to heaven; bad people go to hell. (at least that was, and still is, the common perception)

What we are seeing here on the forum is an attempt to give hell some apologetic legs to stand on. But as we know, that's where it falls flat. In the final analysis it makes no sense. You can't give God a dark side and then claim you haven't created a monster. Seems blasphemous to me.
 
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Der Alte

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Saint Steven said:
I have to remind myself that I was among their number not too many years back. So, from that perspective I cut them a little bit of slack, while I challenge their thinking on the subject.What I recall is that there was no competing argument among Christians. If you were a Christian, you believed in hell. No question. And we never needed to convince either ourselves, or unbelievers, about what that meant. It was simple: good people go to heaven; bad people go to hell. (at least that was, and still is, the common perception)What we are seeing here on the forum is an attempt to give hell some apologetic legs to stand on. But as we know, that's where it falls flat. In the final analysis it makes no sense. You can't give God a dark side and then claim you haven't created a monster. Seems blasphemous to me.
Bring it. Any of my posts.
 
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Saint Steven

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And I think we even misunderstand what the Bible means when God tells us not to take revenge. (Romans 12:19) We assume that we will be personally satisfied with the level of punishment our enemies receive, when in reality God is likely planning to show them the same mercy he showed us.

Lots more to say about this. But I'll stop here for now.
I'm ready to continue unpacking this thought.

We tend to forget that God forgave us of transgressions for which we will receive no punishment, since the price, as it were, has already been paid.

And it may seem unthinkable to us that God will not rain down his wrath (revenge) on those that we feel deserve such. Forgetting that we should be in that same boat.

Ultimately it is in God's hands. Can we trust him to be as merciful to others as he is toward us? Why would we want to eliminate grace when it applies to those we want to punish? Jesus said it best. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” - Luke 23:34 NIV
 
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Saint Steven

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... What I recall is that there was no competing argument among Christians. If you were a Christian, you believed in hell. No question. ...
The fact that there WERE competing arguments in the Early Church was never mentioned. I didn't discover this until I began to investigate UR.

The citation below shows that UR was the leading view in the theological schools of the time. (4 out of 6) In recent times, this information has been suppressed, at least in the Protestant Evangelical environment I was raised in.

"The Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge"
by Schaff-Herzog, 1908, volume 12, page 96
German theologian- Philip Schaff, Editor:

"In the first five or six centuries of Christianity there were six theological schools, of which four (Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, and Edessa, or Nisibis) were Universalist, one (Ephesus) accepted conditional immortality; one (Carthage or Rome) taught endless punishment of the wicked. Other theological schools are mentioned as founded by Universalists, but their actual doctrine on this subject is not known."
 
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There is a hell. Who will go there is the question
Did Jesus die to save us from God? What would be the point of that? Seems more like a problem with God than a problem with humankind. A need for anger management therapy perhaps?
 
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The fact that there WERE competing arguments in the Early Church was never mentioned. I didn't discover this until I began to investigate UR.

That was key for me too. While UR has probably been a minority position for most of church history, all you need to do is turn to Augustine, a very influential non-Universalist, to see that it was a popular doctrine in the early church. He, in the fifth century, writes this:

"It is quite in vain, then, that some–indeed very many–yield to merely human feelings and deplore the notion of the eternal punishment of the damned and their interminable and perpetual misery. They do not believe that such things will be. Not that they would go counter to divine Scripture—but, yielding to their own human feelings, they soften what seems harsh and give a milder emphasis to statements they believe are meant more to terrify than to express literal truth.
— Augustine, Enchiridion, sec. 112.

So he's acknowledging both that universalists were "indeed very many" in the early church and also that this was a perfectly acceptable view to hold as it did not go "counter to divine Scripture".

I've mentioned the point before but when Augustine described the universalists as “indeed very many” (immo quam plurimi), what he meant is that they were a “vast majority” (Ramelli, Christian Doctrine, 11). That is what the Latin word plurimi, from the adjective plurimus, implies.

So, although Augustine himself didn’t affirm universalism, he at least recognised that it, or "apokatastasis" as it was called at the time, was an influential doctrine in the early church.
 
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I have to remind myself that I was among their number not too many years back. So, from that perspective I cut them a little bit of slack, while I challenge their thinking on the subject.

What I recall is that there was no competing argument among Christians. If you were a Christian, you believed in hell. No question. And we never needed to convince either ourselves, or unbelievers, about what that meant. It was simple: good people go to heaven; bad people go to hell. (at least that was, and still is, the common perception)

What we are seeing here on the forum is an attempt to give hell some apologetic legs to stand on. But as we know, that's where it falls flat. In the final analysis it makes no sense. You can't give God a dark side and then claim you haven't created a monster. Seems blasphemous to me.
Clearly whoever taught you these things had no clue what they were talking about. Heaven/hell aren't about whether or not you're a good or bad person, it's purely those who embrace Christ as their salvation go to heaven and those who live in unbelief go to hell. There's not much of an argument because the Biblical case for eternal judgment is overwhelming, which is clear from the desperate attempts to cling to a single proof text.
 
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Lazarus Short

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There is a hell. Who will go there is the question

"Hell" - uncreated and mostly unmentioned. When mentioned, badly translated from words not applicable to the fiction of Dante, Milton and Baxter. Yes, most of the support for "hell" is fiction, whether epic poetry, prose descriptions, movies, songs or whatever. Team "Hell" will try to keep the discussion on theo-illogical grounds, but truly, if you strip away all the popular culture tropes of "hell," there is little left. An honestly-translated Bible does away with the rest.
 
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Lazarus Short

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There's not much of an argument because the Biblical case for eternal judgment is overwhelming, which is clear from the desperate attempts to cling to a single proof text.

In my critical read-through of the KJV, I found the case for ECT to be rather weak, especially since I dug just a bit into the Greek and Hebrew. I found the case for Annihilation to be even weaker, and I was actively trying to NOT be biased. Our "attempts" are neither desperate nor do they depend on a single proof text. Actually, UR has much more text in its favor than ECT. I found that UR was a reasonable and rational conclusion.
 
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"Hell" - uncreated and mostly unmentioned. When mentioned, badly translated from words not applicable to the fiction of Dante, Milton and Baxter. Yes, most of the support for "hell" is fiction, whether epic poetry, prose descriptions, movies, songs or whatever. Team "Hell" will try to keep the discussion on theo-illogical grounds, but truly, if you strip away all the popular culture tropes of "hell," there is little left. An honestly-translated Bible does away with the rest.
We keep hearing this, but when the discussion turns to what the Bible says y'all just seem full of diversionary tactics. Rather than boasting about how strong a case is and yadda yadda yadda how about we just stick to discussing the place you supposedly agree is the ultimate authority and talk about what the Bible says.
 
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In my critical read-through of the KJV, I found the case for ECT to be rather weak, especially since I dug just a bit into the Greek and Hebrew. I found the case for Annihilation to be even weaker, and I was actively trying to NOT be biased. Our "attempts" are neither desperate nor do they depend on a single proof text. Actually, UR has much more text in its favor than ECT. I found that UR was a reasonable and rational conclusion.
I'm curious what you mean by "dug into the Greek and Hebrew." And the single proof text comment is about the desperate arguments that have been put forth to try to salvage 1 Cor 15 with saving hypotheses.
 
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Lazarus Short

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I'm curious what you mean by "dug into the Greek and Hebrew." And the single proof text comment is about the desperate arguments that have been put forth to try to salvage 1 Cor 15 with saving hypotheses.

I would need to post my entire 240+ page manuscript here to fully explain it, and I have no doubt about it being either refused a read or dismissed with a wave of the hand. I stand by the UR interpretation of First Corinthians 15. In the meantime, here's something to chew on:

1. There is no mention of Hell in God’s Creation of the Cosmos - therefore, Hell is apparently uncreated by God or anyone else. See Genesis 1:1, Isaiah 65:17, Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5. John 1:3 explicitly states that God made all, and that no other person or agency made anything. The Bible contains many instances of “heaven and earth” paired together as a term…without “hell.” You will look in vain for “heaven and hell” or “earth and hell.”

2. In the first chapter of Genesis, it is stated six times that God saw that what He had made was good, excluding Hell as being possible, as the Creation could not have been wholly good had Hell been in existence. See Genesis 1:10,12,18,21,25,31.

3. The Creation as described in Genesis is properly understood as a hierarchy, not a dualistic Heaven versus Hell – with the Earth and humans as a contested prize, fought over by God and Satan. See Genesis 1:1, Job 1 & 2, John 1:3, Philippians 2:10, Revelation 5:13.

4. God made both good and evil, for the same Hand that planted the Tree of Life surely also planted the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, Satan did not make or create evil. See Genesis 2:9, Isaiah 45:7, Lamentations 3:38, Amos 3:6.

5. The Bible makes no connection between Satan and Hell, so Satan is NOT the Prince of Hell. See Job 1:6-7, 2:1-2, Zechariah 3:1-2, Revelation 2:13, 12:9.

6. The prince of Tyre in Ezekiel 28 is not Satan, as it specifically refers to him as a man. See Ezekiel 26 - 28.

7. The Law God gave to Moses warned of death, but did not specify punishment in Hell, or warn of it. Punishments were delivered in the real world, and the most severe was simple, ordinary death. See Genesis 2:17, Exodus through Deuteronomy, Romans 6:23.

8. Nearly all the consequences of human disobedience to God are worked out in the real, here-and-now world – not in Hell. This includes death, destruction, perishing, God’s wrath and His cursings. See Deuteronomy 28:15-68, 30:19, Ezekiel 32:32, Romans 13:4. The only exception is the banishment of the unrighteous to the Lake of Fire – but that is for their ultimate salvation, otherwise Death cannot be defeated and God cannot become All in all...as we see in I Corinthians 15.

9. All people die, but none of them go to Eternal Conscious Torment – only to the grave or pit. See every instance of personal death in the Bible, with “hell” (if present) properly replaced with “sheol” or “hades,” as so often noted in the marginal or center-column reference. Keep in mind that “Hades” is a concept from pagan Greek mythology, just like the name of its ruling “god.”

10. For the Hebrews, “sheol,” hidden, covered and unknown, was the state, condition or place of the dead. It was where the body returned to the dust and the spirit returned to God (Who gave it). See Genesis 3:19, Ecclesiastes 12:7.

11. Eternal Conscious Torment depends on the concept of the Immortality of the Soul, and that comes, not from the Bible, but from Greek philosophy, from Socrates and Plato. It is clearly pagan.



12. Hell, by definition, opposes the Gospel (the Good News) because Hell can only be Bad News for those sent there – and thus, for most of living (and dead) humanity.

13. Hell violates God’s Law, specifically the Law of the Jubilee, which sets all those in servitude free. Those who die are freed from sin, as prophesied by the Law of the Jubilee. See Leviticus 25:8-13, Isaiah 1:18, Romans 6:7,16.

14. The idea of damnation of people to Hell is at least absurd, and possibly blasphemous, due to the presence of God’s Spirit of Life in each of us. See Genesis 1:26-27, 2:7,3:19, Ecclesiastes 12:7.

15. Hell, like Babylon, is confusion. Hell is hot, but it’s also cold as…Hell. Hell is bright with fire, but it is dark. Hell is separation from God, but Mary K Baxter depicts Jesus touring Hell, chiding the damned. To go to Hell, you must be dead, but to be in Eternal Conscious Torment, you must be alive, but you’re dead, and on and on… Fictional descriptions of Hell, especially as seen in the works of Dante, Milton and Baxter, are clearly fictional and un-Biblical.

16. God’s plan for the wicked is to destroy their wickedness, not to destroy them or send them to Hell. See Psalm 1:6, 7:9, Isaiah 1:18, Jeremiah 3:12, Habakkuk 1:12, Philippians 3:21, Hebrews 10:26-27.

17. God speaks of ransoming/redeeming ALL from death and the grave – without exception. See Psalm 49:15, Ezekiel 16:55, Romans 6:23, Ephesians 1:10.

18. God is both willing AND able to save all. Given that He is omnipotent, we can ALL look forward with confidence to our eventual salvation. See Psalm 49:15, 86:13, 103:8-14, 136, Isaiah 1:18, 6:7, 25:7-8, 26:19, 33:24, 43:25, 44:22, 45:8, 55:8-9, 57:16, 64:6-9, Jeremiah 3:12. Lamentations 3:26-32, Ezekiel 11:19, 16:55, Hosea 13:14, Micah 4:5, 7:18-19, Ephesians 1:10, Philipians 3:21, Colossians 1:19-20, I Thessalonians 1:10, I Timothy 1:15, 2:4-6, 4:10, 6:13, II Peter 3:9.

19. God compares Himself to a cleansing or refining agent – usually as Fire, but sometimes as Soap. Therefore, all instances of supernatural fire should be interpreted as being for refining and/or purification, not damnation. Fire in the Bible is never “Hellfire,” but natural fire or God’s Fire. See Malachi 3:2-3, Matthew 3:10-12, I Corinthians 3:15.

20. If God’s Fire is for baptism and refining, then that which is burned must be our carnal, sinful nature. It is symbolized by unfruitful trees, tares, chaff, wood, hay and stubble – by anything unable to endure the Fire. See Matthew 3:10-12, I Corinthians 3:11-15.

21. “Hell” is used in the King James Version (and others) to replace four other words: “Sheol,” “Hades,” “Gehenna” and “Tartarus.” None of these refer to a place of damnation or Eternal Conscious Torment. See any decent dictionary, especially the Oxford English Dictionary.

22. When we dig out mistranslations and peel away misinterpretations, we find that Hell is an imposition, an insertion into the text. With Hell so deconstructed, the Bible and God are both silent on Hell. See Numbers 23:19, John 14:2. With that out of the way, we can see clear to the salvation of all.

23. Christians should not follow the Hell of the ancient, pagan religions, such as the “Hel” we find in Norse mythology, but follow the truth of God’s Word, which does not contain either the concept of Hell or even the word “hell,” except in imperfect translations.
 
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Hmm

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An honestly-translated Bible does away with the rest.

I think this is an interesting, though a little long, comparison of Jonah 2:2 from various translations, complied by Gary Amirault. It shows how even the KJV has evolved from using "hell" to using "Sheol", or grave, instead.

"Original King James Version: 1611
And said, I cried by reason of mine affliction vnto the LORD, and hee heard mee; out of the belly of hell cried I, and thou heardest my voyce.

The spelling is exactly as in the original. English has changed much since 1611. The original has a note in the margins about the word "hell." It says "or, the grave." Later editions took the marginal readings out to conform to the mythical standard of an "inerrant Bible." Marginal alternative renderings showed that translators were uncertain of the meaning. This did not conform to the "inerrant" idea so the marginal readings, which sometimes were more correct than the text, were taken out in later editions. Please note if Jonah was in "hell," as the KJV has it, then Jonah escaped from a place where, according to modern theologians, there is no escape.

The New American Standard Bible: 1977
and he said, "I called out of my distress to the LORD, And He answered me. I cried for help from the depth of Sheol; Thou didst hear my voice."

The New International Version: 1973
He said: "In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depthes of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry.

The Living Bible: 1971
"In my great trouble I cried to the Lord and he answerd me; from the depths of death I called, and Lord, you heard me!"

The Holy Bible from Ancient Eastern Manuscripts (Lamsa): 1957
I cried to the Lord in my distress and he answered me; out of the depths of Sheol cried I, and thou heardest my voice.

Good News Bible: 1976
"In my distress, O Lord, I called to you, and you answered me. From deep in the world of the dead I cried for help, and you heard me."
The Holy Bible an American Translation: 1976
...and said: "In my distress I called to the Lord, and He answered me. From the belly of the underworld I cried, and You heard my voice."

New Catholic Liturgical Bible: 1963
Jona 2:3 Out of my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me; from the midst of the nether world I cried for help, and you heard my voice.

New Revised Standard Version: 1989
...saying, "I called to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice."

The Amplified Bible: 1965
And said, I cried out of my distress to the Lord, and He heard me; out of the belly of Sheol cried I, and You heard my voice.

The New King James Version: 1985
And he said: "I cried out to the Lord because of my affliction, And He answered me. Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and You heard my voice.

As we can see, after 350 years of saying Jonah was in "hell," the New King James finally admitted he wasn't there after all. He was in Sheol, like everyone else who has died. Many people have come out of the grave. The Bible is full of examples."
 
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"Hell" - uncreated and mostly unmentioned. When mentioned, badly translated from words not applicable to the fiction of Dante, Milton and Baxter. Yes, most of the support for "hell" is fiction, whether epic poetry, prose descriptions, movies, songs or whatever. Team "Hell" will try to keep the discussion on theo-illogical grounds, but truly, if you strip away all the popular culture tropes of "hell," there is little left. An honestly-translated Bible does away with the rest.
We appreciate this waste of band width with your biased, unsupported cogitations. As I have repeatedly shown from Jewish writings there was a significant belief, among the Jews in Israel, before and during the time of Jesus, of a place of fiery eternal punishment of the unrighteous. The Jews called this place both "sheol" and "Ge Hinnom" which is written as "hades" and "Gehenna" in the 225 BC LXX and the NT.
That belief is at least 16 centuries before Dante. The Jews did not copy from Dante, Dante copied from the Jews.
.....Since I am certain you don't know a hithpael from a hatpin or an aorist from an apple you totally lack the requisite knowledge of Hebrew and Greek to determine if anything is not translated correctly.
 
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I would need to post my entire 240+ page manuscript here to fully explain it, and I have no doubt about it being either refused a read or dismissed with a wave of the hand. I stand by the UR interpretation of First Corinthians 15. In the meantime, here's something to chew on:

1. There is no mention of Hell in God’s Creation of the Cosmos - therefore, Hell is apparently uncreated by God or anyone else. See Genesis 1:1, Isaiah 65:17, Jeremiah 7:31, 19:5. John 1:3 explicitly states that God made all, and that no other person or agency made anything. The Bible contains many instances of “heaven and earth” paired together as a term…without “hell.” You will look in vain for “heaven and hell” or “earth and hell.”

2. In the first chapter of Genesis, it is stated six times that God saw that what He had made was good, excluding Hell as being possible, as the Creation could not have been wholly good had Hell been in existence. See Genesis 1:10,12,18,21,25,31.

3. The Creation as described in Genesis is properly understood as a hierarchy, not a dualistic Heaven versus Hell – with the Earth and humans as a contested prize, fought over by God and Satan. See Genesis 1:1, Job 1 & 2, John 1:3, Philippians 2:10, Revelation 5:13.

4. God made both good and evil, for the same Hand that planted the Tree of Life surely also planted the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, Satan did not make or create evil. See Genesis 2:9, Isaiah 45:7, Lamentations 3:38, Amos 3:6.

5. The Bible makes no connection between Satan and Hell, so Satan is NOT the Prince of Hell. See Job 1:6-7, 2:1-2, Zechariah 3:1-2, Revelation 2:13, 12:9.

6. The prince of Tyre in Ezekiel 28 is not Satan, as it specifically refers to him as a man. See Ezekiel 26 - 28.

7. The Law God gave to Moses warned of death, but did not specify punishment in Hell, or warn of it. Punishments were delivered in the real world, and the most severe was simple, ordinary death. See Genesis 2:17, Exodus through Deuteronomy, Romans 6:23.

8. Nearly all the consequences of human disobedience to God are worked out in the real, here-and-now world – not in Hell. This includes death, destruction, perishing, God’s wrath and His cursings. See Deuteronomy 28:15-68, 30:19, Ezekiel 32:32, Romans 13:4. The only exception is the banishment of the unrighteous to the Lake of Fire – but that is for their ultimate salvation, otherwise Death cannot be defeated and God cannot become All in all...as we see in I Corinthians 15.

9. All people die, but none of them go to Eternal Conscious Torment – only to the grave or pit. See every instance of personal death in the Bible, with “hell” (if present) properly replaced with “sheol” or “hades,” as so often noted in the marginal or center-column reference. Keep in mind that “Hades” is a concept from pagan Greek mythology, just like the name of its ruling “god.”

10. For the Hebrews, “sheol,” hidden, covered and unknown, was the state, condition or place of the dead. It was where the body returned to the dust and the spirit returned to God (Who gave it). See Genesis 3:19, Ecclesiastes 12:7.

11. Eternal Conscious Torment depends on the concept of the Immortality of the Soul, and that comes, not from the Bible, but from Greek philosophy, from Socrates and Plato. It is clearly pagan.



12. Hell, by definition, opposes the Gospel (the Good News) because Hell can only be Bad News for those sent there – and thus, for most of living (and dead) humanity.

13. Hell violates God’s Law, specifically the Law of the Jubilee, which sets all those in servitude free. Those who die are freed from sin, as prophesied by the Law of the Jubilee. See Leviticus 25:8-13, Isaiah 1:18, Romans 6:7,16.

14. The idea of damnation of people to Hell is at least absurd, and possibly blasphemous, due to the presence of God’s Spirit of Life in each of us. See Genesis 1:26-27, 2:7,3:19, Ecclesiastes 12:7.

15. Hell, like Babylon, is confusion. Hell is hot, but it’s also cold as…Hell. Hell is bright with fire, but it is dark. Hell is separation from God, but Mary K Baxter depicts Jesus touring Hell, chiding the damned. To go to Hell, you must be dead, but to be in Eternal Conscious Torment, you must be alive, but you’re dead, and on and on… Fictional descriptions of Hell, especially as seen in the works of Dante, Milton and Baxter, are clearly fictional and un-Biblical.

16. God’s plan for the wicked is to destroy their wickedness, not to destroy them or send them to Hell. See Psalm 1:6, 7:9, Isaiah 1:18, Jeremiah 3:12, Habakkuk 1:12, Philippians 3:21, Hebrews 10:26-27.

17. God speaks of ransoming/redeeming ALL from death and the grave – without exception. See Psalm 49:15, Ezekiel 16:55, Romans 6:23, Ephesians 1:10.

18. God is both willing AND able to save all. Given that He is omnipotent, we can ALL look forward with confidence to our eventual salvation. See Psalm 49:15, 86:13, 103:8-14, 136, Isaiah 1:18, 6:7, 25:7-8, 26:19, 33:24, 43:25, 44:22, 45:8, 55:8-9, 57:16, 64:6-9, Jeremiah 3:12. Lamentations 3:26-32, Ezekiel 11:19, 16:55, Hosea 13:14, Micah 4:5, 7:18-19, Ephesians 1:10, Philipians 3:21, Colossians 1:19-20, I Thessalonians 1:10, I Timothy 1:15, 2:4-6, 4:10, 6:13, II Peter 3:9.

19. God compares Himself to a cleansing or refining agent – usually as Fire, but sometimes as Soap. Therefore, all instances of supernatural fire should be interpreted as being for refining and/or purification, not damnation. Fire in the Bible is never “Hellfire,” but natural fire or God’s Fire. See Malachi 3:2-3, Matthew 3:10-12, I Corinthians 3:15.

20. If God’s Fire is for baptism and refining, then that which is burned must be our carnal, sinful nature. It is symbolized by unfruitful trees, tares, chaff, wood, hay and stubble – by anything unable to endure the Fire. See Matthew 3:10-12, I Corinthians 3:11-15.

21. “Hell” is used in the King James Version (and others) to replace four other words: “Sheol,” “Hades,” “Gehenna” and “Tartarus.” None of these refer to a place of damnation or Eternal Conscious Torment. See any decent dictionary, especially the Oxford English Dictionary.

22. When we dig out mistranslations and peel away misinterpretations, we find that Hell is an imposition, an insertion into the text. With Hell so deconstructed, the Bible and God are both silent on Hell. See Numbers 23:19, John 14:2. With that out of the way, we can see clear to the salvation of all.

23. Christians should not follow the Hell of the ancient, pagan religions, such as the “Hel” we find in Norse mythology, but follow the truth of God’s Word, which does not contain either the concept of Hell or even the word “hell,” except in imperfect translations.

Wow, that's food for thought. I've only read some of it but I look forward to reading the rest tomorrow. Your study sounds great but no doubt you're right, it would be dismissed as "Rubbish!" by Team Hell.
 
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Der Alte

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Hmm said:
As we can see, after 350 years of saying Jonah was in "hell," the New King James finally admitted he wasn't there after all. He was in Sheol, like everyone else who has died. Many people have come out of the grave. The Bible is full of examples."
¢¢…..Concerning only the existence of a Jewish belief in hell not the validity of the historical faith, beliefs and practices of the ancient Jews,
Below are quotes from three credible Jewish sources; the Jewish Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Judaica and the Talmud. Which to date have not been refuted.
…..According to these three sources, among the יהודים/Yehudim/ιουδαιων/Youdaion/Jews in Israel, before and during the time of Jesus, there was a significant belief in a place of everlasting torment of the wicked and they called it both sheol and gehinnom, which are translated Hades and Gehenna, respectively, in both the 225 BC LXX and the NT.
…..There were different factions within Judaism; Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes etc. and different beliefs about resurrection, hell etc. These differing beliefs do not refute anything in the following post.
[1]1917 Jewish Encyclopedia, Gehenna
The place where children were sacrificed to the god Moloch … in the "valley of the son of Hinnom," to the south of Jerusalem (Josh. xv. 8, passim; II Kings xxiii. 10; Jer. ii. 23; vii. 31-32; xix. 6, 13-14). … the valley was deemed to be accursed, and "Gehenna" therefore soon became a figurative equivalent for "hell." Hell, like paradise, was created by God (Sotah 22a);[“Soon” in this verse would be about 700 BC +/-, DA]​
[Note: this is according to the ancient Jews, long before the Christian era, NOT any assumed/alleged bias of “modern” Christian translators. DA]
”(I)n general …sinners go to hell immediately after their death. The famous teacher Johanan b. Zakkai wept before his death because he did not know whether he would go to paradise or to hell (Ber. 28b). The pious go to paradise, and sinners to hell(B.M. 83b).
But as regards the heretics, etc., and Jeroboam, Nebat's son, hell shall pass away, but they shall not pass away" (R. H. 17a; comp. Shab. 33b). All that descend into Gehenna shall come up again, with the exception of three classes of men: those who have committed adultery, or shamed their neighbors, or vilified them (B. M. 58b).[/i]
… heretics and the Roman oppressors go to Gehenna, and the same fate awaits the Persians, the oppressors of the Babylonian Jews (Ber. 8b). When Nebuchadnezzar descended into hell, [שאול/Sheol] all its inhabitants were afraid that he was coming to rule over them (Shab. 149a; comp. Isa. xiv. 9-10). The Book of Enoch [x. 6, xci. 9, etal] also says that it is chiefly the heathen who are to be cast into the fiery pool on the Day of Judgment (x. 6, xci. 9, et al). "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" (Judith xvi. 17). The sinners in Gehenna will be filled with pain when God puts back the souls into the dead bodies on the Day of Judgment, according toIsa. xxxiii. 11 (Sanh. 108b).
Link: Jewish Encyclopedia Online
Note, scripture references are highlighted in blue.
= = = = = = = = = =
[2]1972 Encyclopedia Judaica:
Gehinnom (Heb. גֵּי בֶן־הִנֹּם, גֵּי בְנֵי הִנֹּם, גֵּיא בֶן־הִנֹּם, גֵּיא הִנֹּם; Gr. Γέεννα; "Valley of Ben-Hinnom, Valley of [the Son (s) of] Hinnom," Gehenna), a valley south of Jerusalem on one of the borders between the territories of Judah and Benjamin, between the Valley of *Rephaim and *En-Rogel (Josh. 15:8; 18:16). It is identified with Wadi er-Rababi.
…..During the time of the Monarchy, Gehinnom, at a place called Topheth, was the site of a cult which involved the burning of children (II Kings 23:10; Jer. 7:31; 32:35 et al.; ). Jeremiah repeatedly condemned this cult and predicted that on its account Topheth and the Valley of the Son of Hinnom would be called the Valley of the "Slaughter" (Jer. 19:5–6).
In Judaism the name Gehinnom is generally used as an appellation of the place of torment reserved for the wicked after death. The New Testament used the Greek form Gehenna in the same sense.
Gehinnom
http://www.jevzajcg.me/enciklopedia/Encyclopaedia Judaica, v. 07 (Fey-Gor).pdf
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[3]pre-Christianity Talmud -Tractate Rosh Hashanah Chapter 1.
The school of Hillel says: . . . but as for Minim, [i.e. followers of Jesus] informers and disbelievers, who deny the Torah, or Resurrection, or separate themselves from the congregation, or who inspire their fellowmen with dread of them, or who sin and cause others to sin, as did Jeroboam the son of Nebat and his followers, they all descend to Gehenna, and are judged there from generation to generation, as it is said [Isa. lxvi. 24]:
"And they shall go forth and look upon the carcases of the men who have transgressed against Me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched." Even when Gehenna will be destroyed, they will not be consumed, as it is written[Psalms, xlix. 15]: "And their forms wasteth away in the nether world," which the sages comment upon to mean that their forms shall endure even when the grave is no more.
Concerning them Hannah says [I Sam. ii. 10]: "The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces."
Link: Tract Rosh Hashana: Chapter I.
 
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Der Alte

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Lazarus Short said:
I would need to post my entire 240+ page manuscript here to fully explain it, and I have no doubt about it being either refused a read or dismissed with a wave of the hand. I stand by the UR interpretation of First Corinthians 15. In the meantime, here's something to chew on
Lazarus Short said:
Read my post #3339 immediately above for the unbiased truth about hell.
 
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