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Does Hell exist?

disciple Clint

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I make two thermoses fresh every morning for my day of driving. Aldi's coffee is a awesome value.
may God protect you and all those around you
 
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SkyWriting

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I'm not keen on using the word "hell", but personally I must acknowledge God's just character and accept that eternal punishment is real.

It's considered punishment, but it's more a case of being banned from Heaven. If you don't Trust God to forgive all your imperfections, then you exist forever without forgives. That's Hell. Your eternal "punishment" is living with all your intentional sins for eternity. Especially the things you have said.

Matthew 12:36
I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak,
 
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SkyWriting

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may God protect you and all those around you
I closed my car door one day and a vehicle passed within inches at about 65 mph with two police chasing him. (Or her. Sexist me)

Bat-Out-Of-Hell_web-2000x1000.jpg
 
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Saint Steven

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Burning bottomless lake of fire?
I'm sure that's just a myth.


View attachment 312144
Agree. What a terrible thing to accuse God of. Seems blasphemous to me.
Eternal conscious torment with no hope of escape? What sort of monster would devise and maintain such a thing? (The Church)
 
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Saint Steven

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3 Resurrections

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If you don't Trust God to forgive all your imperfections, then you exist forever without forgives. That's Hell. Your eternal "punishment" is living with all your intentional sins for eternity. Especially the things you have said

The polar opposite of a believer having eternal life is NOT having eternal life of "existing forever without forgiveness". The polar opposite of the believer having eternal life is being eternally dead, or perishing.
 
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Maria Billingsley

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This is a VERY crazy and stupid question but… does Hell exist yet?
Revelation 20:14-15
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Does Hell not exist until the end of the world? These verses seem to imply that people do not go to Hell until the time in Revelation.

Even CRAZIER question:
Could ghosts be damned souls that will one day go to Hell?
The absence of God is hell. We know those who are in the Body of Christ go to Paradise. Judgment day is the day all will be resurrected some to everlasting life and some to everlasting condemnation.
Blessings
 
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Lazarus Short

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I found, once I bothered to take a real look, that the props of "hell" are paganism, bad translation and fiction.

Paganism - I tracked "hell" to the 1611 KJV, which had both "hell" and "hel." Then, on to "Beowulf," which had "hell," "hel" and "helle." Since "Beowulf" was set mostly in nordic Denmark, I then checked Norse mythology. There, I found the goddess/ogress "Hel," who ruled over her afterlife realm of "Helheim" or "House of Hel." It was thought to be where you spent eternity if you did not rate Valhalla.

Bad translation - "Hell" is translated from "sheol," "hades," "gehenna" and "tartarus," none of which refer to a place of eternal, conscious torment. Two of the terms come from pagan Greek mythology, and one is used exactly once in the Bible, so it's not something to hang theology on, IMHO.

Fiction - Back to Norse mythology on this one, and we can add Dante, Milton, Mary K Baxter and a host of others whose accounts cannot be confirmed, and which often contradict each other...as well as the Bible. What a mess! There are popular culture references too numerous to mention, but they don't count for theology...just like Dante and Milton.
 
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Rapture Bound

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disciple Clint replied [post #9], "Good presentation, I agree with the conclusions."

Well thank you my friend, chances are you did not hear those truth claims proclaimed at your local church. There are 3 basic perspectives on the topic of the nature of Hell :

(1) Traditionalism or Eternal [Conscious] Torment ...."ECT" ...{by far the most widely embraced position held by modern "mainstream Christianity"].

(2) Conditionalism or Conditional Immortality/ Annihilationism/Extinctionism/Terminalism ... [the view that Edward Fudge presented in my prior post, and the position I hold to].

(3) Restorationism or Universal Reconciliation ... "Universalism"

In the below video, Chris Date expounds upon some of the critical points of contention between Traditionalism and Conditionalism.


The question that is often asked to the Traditionalist runs something like this :

"How could God be considered just if He will punish all obstinate rebels eternally for temporal sins committed in a finite lifetime?"

The usual response of the Traditionalist runs upon theses lines ... "The magnitude of a crime, and the punishment it warrants, are wholly unrelated to the time it actually takes to commit the crime. The most heinous crimes can be committed in an instant, yet may deserve prolonged punishment."

"But how could any finite act carry with it an infinite measure of guilt?"

Response of the Traditionalist : "Every sin of man is committed against an infinite God, and is therefore infinite in magnitude".

Now of course it is not our place to criticize God, but are we not permitted to think about and call into question what most believe to be the Biblical perspective on any topic? The most important point here involves nothing less than searching out the most correct understanding of the character of God. Whatever hell may prove to be, we can rest assured it will serve the purpose(s) in which a just and benevolent God created it for.

God's character is revealed in all of His acts. As Steve Gregg asserts, "if God finds it tragically necessary to eliminate unrepentant and irredeemable rebels from existence by annihilating them (analogous to putting down a beloved, but rabid, dog), this cannot be regarded as contrary to either compassion or justice. nothing in God's character is impugned...

However, if God has created a hell of torment that serves no constructive end but merely to take endless vengeance on utterly pitiable (though technically "deserving") creatures, then He will tend to be viewed through an entirely different lens...the idea that the Creator loves all His creatures becomes a definitely harder "sell".

The Traditional view of the nature of the nature of hell simply does not cohere well with the character of God disclosed in the gospel."

Bottom line :

If the Traditional doctrine is true, then we must, of course, accept this "God of vengeance" as He is, since there is no other [which is one of, or perhaps the leading reason, put forth by atheists for rejecting the God of Christianity].

However, if God is not like this, and we misrepresent his character to the world, we may be guilty of grievous slander. It is very possible that we could further alienate sinners from the One to whom they might more readily have been drawn, had He been presented to them more accurately.
 
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Neogaia777

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"Hell", specifically Gehenna, or the Lake of Fire, and not the others, is more of here only eternally and forever, etc... and eternally over and over again forever, etc... and it is eternal conscious torment, but only when those people are conscious again, but sleep in-between, etc, and/or but do not remember at all each time at all ever, etc... and this already has been already, and will always continue to be in the future already, "forever", etc... and they still serve the same purpose that they always have and/or did here, etc... and that is, to cause ones like us to grow and/or change and/or become who we were meant to become, etc, or become qualified, or else purified, for heaven, etc... and that is/was/has been/will always continue to be, "forever", etc... just as it already is or has been from forever, etc...

And that is what the Lake of Fire really is, etc...

Where the worm does not die, and the torture and/or torment, or "weeping and gnashing of teeth", and/or "ups and downs of sorrow and/or anguish and/or wrath or anger and pain", never ends, etc...

For "some" anyway, etc...

Both must grow together until the harvest, etc... Only that some never really ever grow really... Because they were never ever meant to grow and/or change really, etc... Because that is just not what they were ever meant for ever, etc... And that goes all the way to from before forever, etc... And will continue to be that way after, etc, etc, etc...

God Bless!
 
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Der Alte

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This is a VERY crazy and stupid question but… does Hell exist yet?
Revelation 20:14-15
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.
Does Hell not exist until the end of the world? These verses seem to imply that people do not go to Hell until the time in Revelation.
Even CRAZIER question:
Could ghosts be damned souls that will one day go to Hell?
Did Jesus ever say anything which would indicate that an eternal, fiery place, by whatever name one wishes to call it, exists and that unrighteous people will be consigned there?
¢¢…..Concerning only the existence of a Jewish belief in hell not the validity/invalidity of the historical faith, beliefs, practices etc. 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 and I am convinced cannot be 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 disprove anything in this post.
[1]1917 Jewish Encyclopedia, Gehenna
The place where children were sacrificed to the god Moloch … in the "valley of the sons 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 paragraph 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
.....This refutes the false narrative that when Jesus mentioned “Gehenna” He was supposedly referring to nonexistent continually burning fires in the valley of GeHinnom where trash and bodies were supposedly disposed of.
”(I)n general …sinners go to hell immediately after their death. The famous teacher Johanan b. Zakkai [30 BC-90 AD] 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 [Talmud]. 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).[Talmud] “When Nebuchadnezzar descended into hell, [שאול/Sheol] all its inhabitants were afraid that he was coming to rule over them (Shab. 149a; [Talmud] 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)[Talmud].
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.
Link:
Gehinnom
http://www.jevzajcg.me/enciklopedia/Encyclopaedia Judaica, v. 07 (Fey-Gor).pdf
= = = = = = = = = =
[3]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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Neogaia777

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And it's not a punishment according to God the Father's perspective or point of view either, but is just the differences in which and/or between, in which, etc, certain things (us) are or were made, etc... and what true goals and/or aims or purposes they were both truly only always meant for really, etc...

And also like I said also, they sleep in-between, and are not aware of it each time really, so...?

God Bless!
 
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Der Alte

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See my previous post immediately above.
When Jesus taught e.g.,
• “Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:” Matthew 25:41
• "these shall go away into eternal punishment, Matthew 25:46"
• "the fire of hell [Γέεννα/gehenna] where the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die, 3 times Mark 9:43-48"
• "cast into a fiery furnace where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth,” Matthew 13:42, Matthew 13:50
• “But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” Matthew 18:6 [A fate worse than death. DA]
• “Not everyone who says to me Lord, Lord will enter the kingdom of heaven. …And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” Matthew 7:23
• “woe unto that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! it had been good for that man if he had not been born. ” Matthew 26:24 [A fate worse than death]
• “But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom, than for that city.” Luke 10:12​
[A fate worse than death. DA]
…..These teachings tacitly reaffirmed and sanctioned a then existing significant Jewish view of eternal hell.
In Matt. 18:6, 26:24 and Luk 10:12, see above, 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.
Heb 10:28 He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses:
29 Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?
30 For we know him that hath said, Vengeance belongeth unto me, I will recompense, saith the Lord. And again, The Lord shall judge his people.
31 It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God. [A fate worse than death. DA]​
…..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” these certainly do 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, see Acts of the Apostles 23:8. 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, e.g., “eternal punishment,” see e.g. John 3:15-16, the Sadducees would not have understood it as simply death, it very likely would have meant something worse to them.
…..Re: Matt 25:46 concerning “punishment” one early church father wrote,
“Then these reap no advantage from their punishment, as it seems: moreover, I would say that they are not punished unless they are conscious of the punishment.” Justin Martyr [A.D. 110-165.] Dialogue with Trypho Chapter 4​
…..Jesus attended Temple and synagogues for about 25 years +/-. He undoubtedly knew what the Jews believed about the fate of the unrighteous. He opposed the Jewish leaders many times if the Jewish teaching on hell was wrong, why wouldn’t Jesus tell them there was no hell, no eternal punishment etc? Why would Jesus teach “eternal punishment,” etc. to Jews who believed, e.g.
"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"[/i] ([Judith xvi:17]Judith xvi. 17).
Link: Judith, CHAPTER 16 | USCCB
 
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Neogaia777

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Twice dead and never truly alive to begin with, etc...

Because they never got ahold of the real life... because they were never ever meant to ever really get ahold of it at all ever, etc... just not how they were made, etc...

God Bless!
 
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Cis.jd

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This is a VERY crazy and stupid question but… does Hell exist yet?
Revelation 20:14-15
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Does Hell not exist until the end of the world? These verses seem to imply that people do not go to Hell until the time in Revelation.

Even CRAZIER question:
Could ghosts be damned souls that will one day go to Hell?

Lake of fire is probably symbolic for eradication or being completely taken out. You know you can't literally burn death.. because death isn't an object.

Revelation is all symbolic, the whole "what this mean" is something many christians need to stop doing when reading it. I'm one of the minority of catholics who does have doubts if the book should have been canonized or not because the writer probably thought the events of Nero where signals of the end of the world.
 
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Clare73

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This is a VERY crazy and stupid question but… does Hell exist yet?
Revelation 20:14-15
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Does Hell not exist until the end of the world? These verses seem to imply that people do not go to Hell until the time in Revelation.

Even CRAZIER question:
Could ghosts be damned souls that will one day go to Hell?
Jesus presented hell as existing, and as a place of everlasting punishment.
 
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Clare73

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Agree. What a terrible thing to accuse God of. Seems blasphemous to me.
Eternal conscious torment with no hope of escape? What sort of monster would devise and maintain such a thing? (The Church)
Is it God doing the "torturing"?
What if the "tortuous" pain is simply the result of rejecting Jesus Christ, thereby being forever separated from God and in the presence of pure terrifying evil?

Who's doing the torturing?

Does the mother whose son is mutilated by violence not suffer torture in her own comfortable home?
Torture does not necessarily mean pain physically applied by another.
 
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Der Alte

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@Der Alte
I don't know if you are trying to talk to me, or argue with me, but if you are, I would just like to say that we'll just see who's fruit remains, OK...
God Bless!
Actually what I was doing was addressing the OP but my post was too long so I had to split it. You posted thus my second post was separated from the first part.
You seem to have taken offense to my post. I can't see why I only quoted scripture and historical sources. Here is more toward the OP.
.....There is an internet net rumor which many people accept without question. This "rumor" states that all the references to "Gehenna," in the NT, refer to a supposedly continuously burning dump in the valley of Ge Hinnom where trash, bodies etc. were burned.
The traditional explanation that a burning rubbish heap in the Valley of Hinnom south of Jerusalem gave rise to the idea of a fiery Gehenna of judgment is attributed to Rabbi David Kimhi's commentary on Psalm 27:13 (ca. A.D. 1200). He maintained that in this loathsome valley fires were kept burning perpetually to consume the filth and cadavers thrown into it. However, Strack and Billerbeck state that there is neither archaeological nor literary evidence in support of this claim, in either the earlier intertestamental or the later rabbinic sources (Hermann L. Strack and Paul Billerbeck, Kommentar zum Neuen Testament aus Talmud and Midrasch, 5 vols. [Munich: Beck, 1922-56], 4:2:1030). Also a more recent author holds a similar view (Lloyd R. Bailey, "Gehenna: The Topography of Hell," Biblical Archeologist 49 [1986]: 189.
Source, Bibliotheca Sacra / July–September 1992
http://faculty.gordon.edu/hu/bi/ted...Articles/BSac-NT/Scharen-GenenaSyn-Pt1-BS.htm
…..Note there is no “archaeological nor literary evidence in support of this claim, [that Gehenna was ever used as a garbage dump] in either the earlier intertestamental or the later rabbinic sources” If Gehenna was ever used as a garbage dump there should be broken pottery, tools, utensils, bones, etc. but there is no such evidence.
“Gehenna is presented as diametrically opposed to ‘life’: it is better to enter life than to go to Gehenna. . .It is common practice, both in scholarly and less technical works, to associate the description of Gehenna with the supposedly contemporary garbage dump in the valley of Hinnom. This association often leads scholars to emphasize the destructive aspects of the judgment here depicted: fire burns until the object is completely consumed. Two particular problems may be noted in connection with this approach. First, there is no convincing evidence in the primary sources for the existence of a fiery rubbish dump in this location … Secondly, the significant background to this passage more probably lies in Jesus’ allusion to Isaiah 66:24.”
(“The Duration of Divine Judgment in the New Testament” in The Reader Must Understand edited by K. Brower and M. W. Ellion, p. 223, emphasis mine)
G. R. Beasley-Murray in Jesus and the Kingdom of God:
“Ge-Hinnom (Aramaic Ge-hinnam, hence the Greek Geenna), ‘The Valley of Hinnom,’ lay south of Jerusalem, immediately outside its walls. The notion, still referred to by some commentators, that the city’s rubbish was burned in this valley, has no further basis than a statement by the Jewish scholar Kimchi (sic) made about A.D. 1200; it is not attested in any ancient source.” (p. 376n.92)
http://www.btdf.org/forums/topic/20113-the-burning-garbage-dump-of-gehenna-is-a-myth/
= = = = =
Miqweh of Second Temple Period. ......Jerusalem City-Dump in the Late Second Temple Period, ZDPV, 119/1 (2003),
The chance discovery of an Early Roman city dump (1st century CE) in Jerusalem has yielded for the first time ever quantitative data on garbage components that introduce us to the mundane daily life Jerusalemites led and the kind of animals that were featured in their diet. Most of the garbage consists of pottery shards, all common tableware, while prestige objects are entirely absent. Other significant garbage components include numerous fragments of cooking ovens, wall plaster, animal bones and plant remains. Of the pottery vessels, cooking pots are the most abundant type.
…..Most of the refuse turns out to be “household garbage” originating in the domestic areas of the city, while large numbers of cooking pots may point to the presence of pilgrims. Significantly, the faunal assemblage, which is dominated by kosher species and the clear absence of pigs, set Jerusalem during its peak historical period apart from all other contemporaneous Roman urban centers.
...
Recently, the contemporaneous city-dump was identified on the eastern slope of the south-eastern hill of Jerusalem in the form of a thick mantle (up to 10 m, 200,000 m3 ) (Reich and Shukron 2003). The dump is located roughly 100 m outside and south-east of the Temple Mount on the eastern slope of the Kidron Valley (fig. 1), and extends at least 400 m and is 50–70 m wide. Large amounts of pottery and coins date the dump to the Early Roman period (the 1st century BCE and the 1st century CE up to the destruction of the city by the Romans in 70 CE). A preliminary study of the garbage (Bouchnik, Bar-Oz and Reich 2004; Bouchnik et al. 2005) showed the presence of animal bones.
https://www.researchgate.net/public...udy_of_the_City-Dump_of_Early_Roman_Jerusalem
Jerusalem’s Garbage
 
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eleos1954

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This is a VERY crazy and stupid question but… does Hell exist yet?
Revelation 20:14-15
And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Does Hell not exist until the end of the world? These verses seem to imply that people do not go to Hell until the time in Revelation.

Even CRAZIER question:
Could ghosts be damned souls that will one day go to Hell?

Hell is the grave .... all who die earthly death wait there in a dormant sleep until Jesus returns ... then ... the 1st resurrection from the grave (of the saved) happens (raised and given eternal life/immortality) ..... they experienced only the 1st death (earthly death - dormant sleep in the grave) .... later the 2nd resurrection (of the lost happens) and are raised up mortal and do not receive eternal life .... the New Jerusalem (in heaven that the redeemed are in) descends to earth... the risen wicked along with satan and the fallen angels attack the city ..... but can not harm it because it is protected .... God then destroys the earth and everything in it (all the wicked, satan and the fallen angels) ... by fire (second death) ... that is the lake of fire. He then makes everything new ;o)

"ghosts" (if seen) are demonic activity (satan/fallen angels).

Important to know there is NO communication with the dead ... as demons can appear/disguise themselves as "familiar spirits" ..... deceiving ... if possible the elect.

2 Corinthians 11:14

And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.

Do not be deceived ... God gave us this truth about the dead to protect us from being deceived.

"For the living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing, and they have no more reward, for the memory of them is forgotten" (Ecclesiastes 9:5).
 
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