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You're conservative bias is showing.
I've studied eschatology for about six years now, and he's spot on. Your approval/disapproval of the article, however, is of no consequence to me.
SarahsKnight, I applaud you for beginning this quest into the Apocalypse; you have now discovered another eschatology than Futurism exists.
If I may make a recommendation, I think Revelation: Four Views may be quite helpful to you. It is a commentary which goes through each verse and gives each of the four views' interpretations, those four views being Futurist, Preterist, Historicist, and Idealist. The link I gave is for the revised second edition in paperback, but the older edition is in hardcover and is cheaper if you're buying on the used market.
Kudos to Matt's post. I contend that apocalyptic literature is one of the among least understood genres of literature in the Bible. It's not a genre that was ever meant to be taken very literally.
Originally Posted by dmpeace
Originally Posted by dmpeace
(and I find eternity pertaining to both the saved and unsaved nowhere spelled out in the Bible myself, but that's another story),
The op mentions the traditional view of hell which isn't weak its as plain as day and as common as sense.
Thanks for the encouragement and the link to get me started on understanding all this, Forest Lord. It wasn't easy for me to suddenly begin walking down a path away from orthodox Christianity, to realize that many of the things I'd been taught as Biblical and Godly all me my life and is mainstream doctrine just may not be the truth. Anyone who claims to know it all about God and rejects all opposing interpretations to a certain theological subject as heretics or false or whatever is just fooling themselves, but I eventually got over my fear of opposition and decided to start looking and studying for myself. There are reasons I've found so far to think the whole Armageddon idea might be true, and also reasons why it might in fact be false and the point of Revelation and God's Kingdom has been entirely missed. I don't know for certain (who can truly know for 100% certain? We are human mortals beneath God, after all), and I want to know, or at least get a good foundation in believing one way or another. I don't want to just be led by carrots and sticks anymore. Because when the stuff I believed to be Biblically true just because everyone else I knew did came back to ruin my life with religious OCD for nearly a year a short time ago, I realized that Jesus Himself wasn't a mindless follower; He was both a servant and a leader, and He dared to question. (And of course, being Christ, He not only questioned, He told it how it really was to people, and it often shocked them.) And I need to try to be a servant and a leader, too.
I will tell you all one thing, though. One thing that's not making it look so good for the Left-Behind-esque rapture and anti-christ-battling viewpoint is some of the fruit I've seen as a result. Take the Left Behind game that was based off of the books, for example. Have you heard of it? LB: Eternal Forces? The concepts presented by its developers, all the criticism toward it for its inclusion of violence carried out by the Christian side against those who do not convert.
Left Behind
Critics: 'Left Behind' game glorifies violence - USATODAY.com
Something is wrong here. And very fishy to me. I don't care WHAT is really going to happen Biblically in the future, we believers should NEVER promote violence in the name of our God in any way, form, or fashion, not even through interactive media in the form of pure fiction. God takes care of judgment if it need be done, and He alone. It's a subject that I really don't think we have any business coming up with our own pictures of. Christian parents would commonly object to violence in video games (and indeed I myself agree that it can reach disturbing levels sometimes in video games), but what, sticking a Christian label over it and advertising it as a method of teaching kids and preparing "their souls" for Christ's return suddenly makes the violence okay? It doesn't matter whether you cut out graphical blood and gore, at the end of the day the player is still shooting people in the face in the name of God. And no amount of preaching is going to get me to accept that that sort of thing is good and righteous.
OP:
dmpeace:
Okay, look, dmpeace, sorry if that part of my OP got you thinking I was trying to start slamming on the traditional hell or those who hold it. I did not mean it that way. I only meant it as a passing statement to exemplify how I have changed lately in wanting to begin investigating all sides of a theological subject.
They don't make it vague, the Greek language makes it vague.dmpeace said:Some don't like the idea of hell so they try and make all scripture vague or mythical or this and that.
1) Just because God didn't rapture any early Christians doesn't mean He won't later.
2) Why is it that only traditions can be right? If it's not thousands of years old, it must not be true? God cannot reveal new knowledge to people? It must always be traditions of old?
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