How do you explain Sheol?

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Tartarus is not Gehenna. Imo, Tartarus is the bottomless pit (Abyss) where the angels who left their first estates are chained for Gehenna/Lake of fire.

I'm referring to the Greek idea of Tartarus, not it's biblical usage.

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

In the beginning, there was the belly/the hollow of the earth, where the soul of Abel cried out loudly and frantically to YHWH from, for the avenging of His blood. Genesis 4.

The "voice of Abel's blood" is "the voice of Abel's soul". The soul that departs the dead flesh body is the person, and the life, and the blood. Abel went to "the belly of the earth =Sheol ="the hollows" and cried out to YHWH from there for the avenging of his blood.

Corruption entered the creation at the fall, and corruption is the dust the satan/serpent "eats", since the curse.

I meant in the beginning of the development of Israelite conceptions of the afterlife, not in the beginning of the world. Genesis 4 tells the story of Abel from the perspective of later Israelite concepts.

The Greeks got their doctrines from captured nations, having formerly been just a small tribe of shepherds with no wisdom collections or doctrines of their own. When they conquered the Holy Land, they got the doctrine of Hades from the Israelites true story of the nuking of Sodom and Gomorrah. The "well spring of judgment" which is Hades, in Genesis 14 is the example of everlasting fire and brimstone.

The Greeks had their concepts of Hades, Tartarus, and the Elysian Fields centuries before Alexander conquered the Persian provide of Yehud! Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are from the ninth century BCE! And, even if the Minoan and Mycenaean "Greeks" of the thirteenth century BCE got their concepts of the afterlife from elsewhere, they almost certainly got it from Mesopotamia and Egypt, not a confederation of hill tribes off the main roads of the Levant. Gee-oh-peez.

The word Hades is transliterated from the Hebrew "qadesh" which was the name given to the well spring of God's judgment. It means "holy" in an evil sense, like "dedicated male temple prostitutes". The gutteral "q" becomes the gutteral "K", becomes the gutteral "H", and the Kadesh becomes Hades.

Oh my, no, dear me, no. This simply isn't true at all. Hades is the name of the Greek god of the underworld and came to mean "the realm of [the god] Hades" by synecdoche. The name of the god Hades certainly didn't mean qodesh. Most of the time when there is crossover from Semitic languages to Greek the Semitic CH (variously het, heth, chet, cheth) goes from being a consonant to being the vowel η (eta), which was at one time a consonant in proto-Archaic Greek. Moreover, there's no reason why a Qoph would become a Kaph, nor a Kaph a Het. Moreover, there is no actual letter at the beginning of 'Αιδης, just a rough breathing mark. And 'Αιδης was originally spelt with the archaic letter digamma (looks like an F but pronounced like a W), as Awides, which means probably means "the unseen" and has no connection to qodesh whatsoever.

 

[MoreCoffee]

Is this thread sneakily transforming into a soul-sleep or annihilationism debate?

 

[Clare73]

Paradise was never the holding place for the dead, ever! Adam was cast out of Paradise and never could go back! -and certainly not "by death"! Paradise is where the Tree of Life is.
The Ramson price paid by the Son of Man come in flesh is the only way back! And the first soul promised entry back at his death was the thief on the cross, who died after the Ranson was paid ["It is finished"].

If by "cast out of Paradise," you mean Adam was created in and then expelled from the Paradise that Jesus promised

to the thief on the cross, you are more than confused.

 

[Clare73]

In the beginning, there was just Sheol: the ground, where dead bodies went. Once Jewish prophets began to envision a final resurrection, they started considering the possibility of an intermediate state, and Sheol extended from the place where dead bodies go to the place where a people's shade/spirit/breath/soul goes. The person's shade, however, was in merely a dreamlike state, and not really conscious.

So:

Sheol 1.0 = the dirt, where the dead literally go

Sheol 2.0 = general realm of the dead, where people's shades exist in a dreamlike semi-conscious state

After this development came the Jewish encounter with Hellenism in the wake of Alexander's conquests in the 320s BCE. The Greeks believed in Hades, which was pretty much exactly like Sheol 2.0 (a realm of the dead with a semi-conscious dreamlike existence).

Hades = Sheol 2.0

And, importantly, the New Testament uses Hades to translate the Hebrew term Sheol. Hades, in turn, typically gets translated "hell" in the New Testament.

However, the Greeks also believed that within Hades there were more conscious states, especially at the end of the spectrum: the Elysian Fields, where the very just and pious dead, and very heroic dead, are conscious in order to receive their reward, and Tartarus, where the very unjust and impious dead, as well as the very cowardly and notorious traitors, are conscious in order to be punished. Strands of Judaism picked up on this and it's to that model that Jesus is referring in the parable of Lazarus and Dives.

So:

Elysian Fields/Abraham's bosom = that part of Hades/Sheol where the very righteous are awake in order to enjoy their reward

Tartarus/Gehenna = the part of Hades/Sheol where the very wicked are awake in order to receive punishment

Then, early Christianity (beginning with Paul?) developed the idea that there isn't one realm of the dead with spheres or modes (conscious in Tartarus, generalized dreaming dead, and conscious in Elysium), but two: just heaven and hell, with everyone awake to enjoy or suffer in the intermediate period between death and resurrection.

---------------------------------------------------------

Now, in order to make sense of this historical development of apocalyptic eschatology, early Christian theologians essentially affirmed that the threefold model of a common afterlife, with soul sleep for most, was the case before crucifixion, resurrection and ascension of Christ. Then, after the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, Christ took up his role as judge and priest in the heavens and so raised the moderately righteous from soul sleep and had them join the consciously righteous in Abraham's Bosom in heaven to participate in the heavenly worship in God's throne room; meanwhile, the moderately wicked were also awakened and sent to join their fellow evildoers in Tartarus. In essence, all of Sheol/Hades then became "hell," hence our translations.

Hope that helps.

I was merely reporting what was believed in the OT, not what was the truth of the matter.

 

[Ryukil]

Oh wow, I wasn't expecting this many replies...guess I'll have to read through them all...

 

[Gnarwhal]

Is this thread sneakily transforming into a soul-sleep or annihilationism debate?

I think it's inevitably going to devolve into an "is Enoch a valid book" thread.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

If by "cast out of Paradise," you mean Adam was created in and then expelled from the Paradise that Jesus promised

to the thief on the cross, you are more than confused.

I did not say Anything like that.
I said what the Word says: Adam was taken from the earth below to Paradise above, and set there in God's Garden of Rest.

Genesis 2: 15 And YHWH Elohym h3947 /laqach Adam h3947/yanach
h1588/gan Eden h5647 /abad h8104/ shamar...

The Hebrew word transliterated "laqach" means: to take, get, fetch, lay hold of, seize, receive, acquire, buy, bring, marry, take a wife, snatch, take away.


Most interesting that "laqach" is the OT word which would mean the same as "the rapture" and is used for that in several places [like Psalm 75:2,3, in Hebrew]

Also most interesting is the word "marry" is also translated form that word, and the same word for "divorce" is used for Adam's casting down, away, at the fall.
We are to be born again of the spirit and taken to Mount Zion of the Spirit above, and there, we are in the relationship of being "married spiritually" to the Second Creation human being Son of God, and are His "Bride/ishyah" and He is the "Ish/husband", but those are not the male and female words for sexual propagation.

So Adam is dead in spirit and the same as divorced from Zion above, in Eden, and cannot build up Zion for the Glory to indwell.

Redemption is about going back into the congregation of YHWH in heaven, as perfected in spirit sons of God.




When Adam became defiled and dead in spirit as a son of God, he was cast down to the earth below, from where he was taken from, and he could not go back.

We go there since the cross by being born again in Spirit of adoption because our believing souls are cleansed of the defilement in Adam, and we go there to await the resurrection body of flesh made in the New Man image.

We get back, in Christ, what we lost in Adam, which is access to Paradise and close fellowship with the angels who dwell in heaven
-and with the most High God of Glory.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

I meant in the beginning of the development of Israelite conceptions of the afterlife, not in the beginning of the world. Genesis 4 tells the story of Abel from the perspective of later Israelite concepts.

No, it does not....
The Word of God is true from the beginning and God did not wait to 'splain things until there was some kind of "evolving" of the Adam.
God created Adam fully mature and with the aleph-bet fully installed with the software for understanding the meaning of each letter installed, so that he could name all the animals with understanding and wisdom immediately, and so that he could fellowship with God the Creator in daily conversation.

The belly of the earth is the "hollows of earth in the belly" which the word "sheol comes from.

Sheol means "hollow".

 

[Lollerskates]

In the Old Testament, there is no Hell, only Sheol, which is where EVERYONE who dies goes, not just righteous people. In the New Testament you have Hell. Apparently the ancient Jews were influenced by the Greek view of the afterlife during the Hellenistic Age. The Greeks had a realm for the good (the Elysian fields) and a realm for the bad (Tartarus) unlike the ancient Jews.

So...for a while this has been a big problem for me. It seems like a flaw in the internal consistency of the Bible. How do you explain it?

Because no one was sinless, and because Christ had not made his sacrifice yet, everyone went to the spiritual holding cell known as Sheol. That is all it is: a spiritual holding cell. They stay there to await "sentencing"/Judgment [day]. Some of the "righteous" may go to a nicer holding cell like "Abraham's Bosom," others not so much. In Enoch, he describes four seemingly bottomless columns where the souls went: three were filled with darkness, one was filled with light.

 

[Second Phoenix]

Hell was certainly an Idea created by the Catholic Church to the meaning of Sheol.

They created this unseen meaning i.e. Hell confusing the real meaning which was common man's grave, is the real truth of the matter.

The Hebrew word she’ohl′ occurs 65 times in the Masoretic text. In the King James Version, it is translated 31 times as “hell,” 31 times as “grave,” and 3 times as “pit.” The Catholic Douay Version rendered the word 63 times as “hell,” once as “pit,” and once as “death.”

In other words it mean grave which, we go to when we die.

(Romans 6:7) 7 For he who has died has been acquitted from [his] sin.

No such place of fiery torment it's a lie.

The concept of hell was introduced by Christ... Gehenna, anyone?

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

No, it does not....
The Word of God is true from the beginning and God did not wait to 'splain things until there was some kind of "evolving" of the Adam.
God created Adam fully mature and with the aleph-bet fully installed with the software for understanding the meaning of each letter installed, so that he could name all the animals with understanding and wisdom immediately, and so that he could fellowship with God the Creator in daily conversation.

The belly of the earth is the "hollows of earth in the belly" which the word "sheol comes from.

Sheol means "hollow".

Your response has nothing to do with what I said, and even if it did, it's gibberish.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

The Greeks had their concepts of Hades, Tartarus, and the Elysian Fields centuries before Alexander conquered the Persian provide of Yehud!

The Greeks, descended from Japheth, son of Noah, were nothing but a tribe of sheep-herders when Moses led Israel out of Egypt.
Their gods are adopted from nations they conquered.

And as to Hades: it is a Hebrew word, "qadesh" and the nuking of Sodom and Gomorrah gave that area that name because of the "judgment of the example of the everlasting fire". -all words are Hebrew/Edenic, which is the mother tongue, and the root of the meaning of every word is found in the Hebrew origin.

Hades/kades/kadesh is from the Hebrew for "holy" but came to mean, in the judgment of Sodom and etc, "a sodomite".

The flood was only 292 years before the birth of Abram, and the tower of Bab -el rebellion and the fall of the Tower was in the 49th year of the life of Abram, and Noah lived another 9 years after the tower fell.
[I do not do math well, and I may have a mistake here, but anyone can check it out]
All the tribes began spreading out over the earth from that time, and Sodom and Gomorrah were settled shortly after the tower, and was destroyed by a good nuking from heaven, in judgment, when Abram was 99 years old; so 391 years after the flood, and 41 years after Noah died, Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain were judged by "suffering the vengeance of [the example of] everlasting fire" -as Jude says.


The nuking of Sodom and Gomorrah was a big event, and when the Greeks conquered the middle east, they took away with them the name for "the fires of judgment" from "The well Springs of Judgment" ="Kadesh" =Hades -from the example of Sodom and Gomorrah.

The K-H-Q are one gutteral sound, and the "sh" is often shortened to just the "s", as it is in the Greek to English Septuagint; So the Greeks got the story of Hades from there, at that time, and their myths were developed over time.

 

[christianmomof3]

In the Old Testament, there is no Hell, only Sheol, which is where EVERYONE who dies goes, not just righteous people. In the New Testament you have Hell. Apparently the ancient Jews were influenced by the Greek view of the afterlife during the Hellenistic Age. The Greeks had a realm for the good (the Elysian fields) and a realm for the bad (Tartarus) unlike the ancient Jews.

So...for a while this has been a big problem for me. It seems like a flaw in the internal consistency of the Bible. How do you explain it?

The Bible is not internally consistent. It is a group of ancient manuscripts written by different authors in different time periods to different groups of people. Sheol was a Jewish concept. Heaven and Hell were Greek concepts.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

...


Homer's Iliad and Odyssey are from the ninth century BCE! And, even if the Minoan and Mycenaean "Greeks" of the thirteenth century BCE got their concepts of the afterlife from elsewhere, they almost certainly got it from Mesopotamia and Egypt, not a confederation of hill tribes off the main roads of the Levant. Gee-oh-peez.
...

I showed in a prior post that Hades is nothing more than an adopted name which was coined by the Hebrews to describe "The well Spring Of Judgment" -"Kades" ="Hades" which was inflicted from heaven upon Sodom and Gomorrah and the cities of the plain centuries before the descendents of Japheth, through Javan/Yavan rose to any prominence in what later came to be called "Greece".

I once owned and read the so called "Anti Nicene Fathers" [I only sold them to get cash to aid a family member who was in dire need, so I sold my valuable things], and you might learn a bit of history from a couple that deal with the subject in a more truthful manner than what you have been led to believe was true history, but is not.

Start with "Tatian": Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol II: TATIAN: TATIAN

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol II: TATIAN: Chapter XXXI. The Philosophy of the Christians More Ancient Than that of the Greeks.

Chapter XXXI.—The Philosophy of the Christians More Ancient Than that of the Greeks.

 

[yeshuasavedme]

The Bible is not internally consistent. It is a group of ancient manuscripts written by different authors in different time periods to different groups of people. Sheol was a Jewish concept. Heaven and Hell were Greek concepts.

The Book of Enoch is totally corroborated by the Torah and the prophets and by the LORD Jesus and the Apostles -esp John, who wrote the Revelation of Christ given to him- and it proves that you are in error on this matter.

The Book of Enoch, Translated by Robert H. Charles, 1912

 

[GratiaCorpusChristi]

Hey, look, you chased everyone away from an interesting thread with your weird nonsense.

 

[PaladinValer]

The Book of Enoch is not Scripture, and its theology is aberrant when compared to historic documentation from the 1st century ce onwards...not to mention secular discovery and knowledge.

GratiaCorpusChristi is correct.

 

[Lollerskates]

Revelation wasn't considered ztripture canon for a long time. Now, it is one of the cornerstones of prophecy and end-times.

The book of Enoch was canon for a long time until political offensiveness got it out of the Torah, and the. Most Christian canons. It is still in the Ethiopian canon. Enoch explains many, many questions that the bible canon are terse about. From the fall, to the prediction/prophecy of Christ. I. Most certainly treat Enoch as something needed. In fact, most prophets in the old and new testament gleaned a lot of information from Noah, who got it from Enoch and Lamech.

 

[God's Fighter]

I guess this means Cogent is a prophet?