Why is scripture so fuzzy about heaven and hell?

[iwbswiaihl]

Just that while we don't know what all is there, we know some things that are not there, and some of those things are things I find beautiful.
and they're gone forever.
that means all the life in the oceans?
Extinct
gone forever.
God has no place for them in eternity I guess.
Our sin killed them forever and ever.
had sin never happened? Eden would exist, and God declared the seas and all that was in them good.

But on the new Earth, I guess God changed His mind about the seas and all in them to be good.
Because during the wrath of God, everything in the seas dies.. and on the new earth, there are no seas.

Maybe it just your view that the wrath of God has done all of this! God doesn't make mistakes! So that would or should tell you something.

 

[Jamdoc]

On the contrary. Did Jesus succeed or fail his mission?

1 John 4:14 NIV
And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.

Yes, Salvation is available to all but it requires one thing, belief.
That's the one thing all scripture regarding salvation requires, the lowest common denominator if you will and some verses about salvation and eternal life ONLY require belief on the Son of God, so.. that's it, that's sufficient. Nothing else you can add to that.

Jesus Himself said the following:

Matthew 7

13 Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat:
14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.

Matthew 22

2 The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son,
3 And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come.
4 Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage.
5 But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise:
6 And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them.
7 But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.
8 Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.
9 Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.
10 So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests.
11 And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:
12 And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.
13 Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
14 For many are called, but few are chosen.

The offer of salvation IS to the entire world, but only a minority of people actually take the gift.

Jesus would not use such language if it was universal.
He didn't fail at His mission, you just don't understand the scope of His mission.
Here, Here is where Jesus states His mission:

John 6

37 All that the Father giveth me shall come to me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.
38 For I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.
39 And this is the Father's will which hath sent me, that of all which he hath given me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up again at the last day.
40 And this is the will of him that sent me, that every one which seeth the Son, and believeth on him, may have everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.

This is not everyone, this is an elected group of people.

 

[Jamdoc]

Maybe it just your view that the wrath of God has done all of this! God doesn't make mistakes! So that would or should tell you something.

Well, I mean... it's scripture

Revelation 16

1 And I heard a great voice out of the temple saying to the seven angels, Go your ways, and pour out the vials of the wrath of God upon the earth.
2 And the first went, and poured out his vial upon the earth; and there fell a noisome and grievous sore upon the men which had the mark of the beast, and upon them which worshipped his image.
3 And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.

During the wrath of God, all sea life is killed.
Now.. I mean, a lot of things die during the wrath of God. and His judgements are right.
But, for most things, there is a restoration.

Revelation 21

5 And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

Except, the sea is not restored

again Revelation 21

1 And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea.

So it is our fault, from our sin that brought the wrath of God on Earth that killed all sea life. I am just saddened that God will not restore the seas and the sea life when all things are made new except apparently the seas.

I look at Genesis 1 and 2 as what God intended the Earth to be like.
Because God does not restore Earth to be like Genesis 1 and 2, it seems that He has changed His mind.
Were oceans a mistake then?
Were sea otters and dolphins and whales and coral, and sea turtles mistakes? I wouldn't think so, because Genesis 1

9 And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
10 And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good.

...

20 And God said, Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
21 And God created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

God created seas and they were good, God created life in the seas, and it was good..
why then, in the new earth, is there no place for these things? Are they not good? They did not sin, and yet they are extinct because of our sin... and they are not restored.
That makes me sad.

 

[iwbswiaihl]

Well, I mean... it's scripture

Revelation 16


During the wrath of God, all sea life is killed.
Now.. I mean, a lot of things die during the wrath of God. and His judgements are right.
But, for most things, there is a restoration.

Revelation 21


Except, the sea is not restored

again Revelation 21


So it is our fault, from our sin that brought the wrath of God on Earth that killed all sea life. I am just saddened that God will not restore the seas and the sea life when all things are made new except apparently the seas.

I look at Genesis 1 and 2 as what God intended the Earth to be like.
Because God does not restore Earth to be like Genesis 1 and 2, it seems that He has changed His mind.
Were oceans a mistake then?
Were sea otters and dolphins and whales and coral, and sea turtles mistakes? I wouldn't think so, because Genesis 1



God created seas and they were good, God created life in the seas, and it was good..
why then, in the new earth, is there no place for these things? Are they not good? They did not sin, and yet they are extinct because of our sin... and they are not restored.
That makes me sad.

Just because we do not know all the why's and what for's is no reason to question the word of God. Of course that is only my view, every tub sets on its own bottom.

 

[Saint Steven]

Yes, Salvation is available to all but it requires one thing, belief.
That's the one thing all scripture regarding salvation requires, the lowest common denominator if you will and some verses about salvation and eternal life ONLY require belief on the Son of God, so.. that's it, that's sufficient. Nothing else you can add to that.

We are mostly in agreement here.
As you probably know, no one can come to God unless the Spirit draws them. What about those whom the Spirit does not draw? Eternal conscious torment?

And if the Elect are those drawn and predestined for eternal life, everyone else was predestined for "hell". Will they never have the opportunity to be drawn?

 

[Hmm]

every tub sets on its own bottom.

lol! True.

 

[RickReads]

lol! True.

God can make pigs fly.

 

[iwbswiaihl]

We are mostly in agreement here.
As you probably know, no one can come to God unless the Spirit draws them. What about those whom the Spirit does not draw? Eternal conscious torment?

You are neglecting the scriptures that will show this point of view is your misunderstanding of scripture. Such as when you say, no one can come to God unless the Spirit draws them. And in John 6:43 “Stop grumbling among yourselves,” Jesus replied. 44“No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him, and I will raise him up at the last day. 45It is written in the Prophets: ‘And they will all be taught by God.’ Everyone who has heard the Father and learned from Him comes to Me— 46not that anyone has seen the Father except the One who is from God; only He has seen the Father.47Truly, truly, I tell you, he who believes has eternal life. We see in v44, God does the drawing through the word of God as will be shown in following verses of same chapter, 59Jesus said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum. 60On hearing it, many of His disciples said, “This is a difficult teaching. Who can accept it?”61Aware that His disciples were grumbling about this teaching, Jesus asked them, “Does this offend you? 62Then what will happen if you see the Son of Man ascend to where He was before?63The Spirit gives life; the flesh profits nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. 64However, there are some of you who do not believe.” (For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who would betray Him.)65Then Jesus said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to Me unless the Father has granted it to him.”66From that time on many of His disciples turned back and no longer walked with Him. Those that do not come do not believe what scripture teaches and therefore have no faith. As v63 says the words I speak to you they are spirit and they are life, the word of God convicts the hearts of men and those whose believe come to the Lord, those who don't are still lost, but may come later, each person makes their own decisions to believe or not. Plus the scriptures also state in Romans 1:18
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, 19because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. 20For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse, 21because, although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Professing to be wise, they became fools, 23and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man—and birds and four-footed animals and creeping things. 24Therefore God also gave them up to uncleanness, in the lusts of their hearts, to dishonor their bodies among themselves, 25who exchanged the truth of God for the lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. It's not that they have not known, but they have refused to believe as in V19, 20, 21 and then v24-25 because of their willful unbelief.

 

[Saint Steven]

You are neglecting the scriptures that will show this point of view is your misunderstanding of scripture. Such as when you say, no one can come to God unless the Spirit draws them.

John 6:44 NIV
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.

 

[Der Alte]

Dante's version along with the Talmud's version of hell both come from paganism rather than scripture. Just because Jesus used symbiology the Pharisees had invented when addressing them, doesn't mean he was teaching it as something true. If a preacher tells a story about George Bailey meeting St. Peter at the Pearly Gates to illustrate a point, that doesn't mean he's telling a true story.

Rubbish. If the Jew's understanding of Gehenna, and Hades was from paganism and was wrong Jesus would not have used the same words but unfortunately for your false narrative Jesus used the same words and never said that their understanding was wrong. When Jesus used gehenna and hades when talking to Jews they would have understood it as supporting their belief. Would Jesus teach lies?

 

[Der Alte]

About four hundred years before Jesus started his ministry there had been no more prophets and no more holy scripture written. So the scribes and Pharisees started making stuff up. And they incorporated Egyptian, Greek and probably Babylonian (hence the Babylonian Talmud) paganism into it. The model Jesus gives for Hades in the story of The Rich man and Lazarus, comes from Greek mythology. That should be pretty obvious since he called it "Hades" in his story. Gehenna was were sacrifices to Molech took place. And Gehenna maybe might have been a burning garbage dump. But I think Jesus was using whatever the scribes and Pharisees made up about Gehenna, the same as he used what the Greeks made up about Hades, because the people he was talking to were familiar with that imagery. It seems reasonable to conclude Jesus was using familiar fictitious imagery when speaking figuratively and telling stories filled with symbolism.
Yeah yeah I know, WRONG! RUBBISH!

Nonsense. Rubbish. No, zero, none credible, verifiable, etc evidence for any of this fairy tale. Jesus would NOT use lies or anything pagan to spread HIs gospel. As for Gehenna there was never a burning garbage dump in the Gehenna. People searching for the truth would know that. You don't, ergo, you don't look for the truth you look for anything from anywhere, anybody the only requirement is it must support you assumption/presuppositions.

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, zero, none 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

The Myth of the Burning Garbage Dump of Gehenna – BiblePlaces.com

 

[Hmm]

Rubbish

Do you never get tired of being offensive?

I couldn't care less what your answer is and I doubt I'll even read it but, as some friendly advice, you'd do well to consider why you always feel the need to preface your constantly copy and pasted text wall comments with "Rubbish!" and "Wrong!" and think about what that says about you and your life.

 

[ozso]

Rubbish. If the Jew's understanding of Gehenna, and Hades was from paganism and was wrong Jesus would not have used the same words but unfortunately for your false narrative Jesus used the same words and never said that their understanding was wrong. When Jesus used gehenna and hades when talking to Jews they would have understood it as supporting their belief. Would Jesus teach lies?

Rubbish. It's not my narrative. It's been around even since before FDR. There's more than one interpretation of Luke 16:19-31. And I'm certainly not insisting the one I presented is the only correct way to interpret it. I agree that when Jesus used gehenna and hades when talking to Jews they would have understood it. But he obviously didn't support their beliefs. It's a fact that Hades and the conditions of it Jesus described, first came from the Greeks. It's a fact that after the Babylonian captivity the scribes and Pharisees made up all kinds of things, which is probably why the ones in Jesus' time didn't recognize him as the Messiah. They were totally out of touch.

The crux of the story is: “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

If they [the scribes and Pharisees] do not listen to Moses and the Prophets [but rather make up their own stuff] they will not be convinced even if someone [Jesus] rises from the dead.’”

Which they weren't. They stuck to their Babylonian Talmud.

Would Jesus teach lies?

No, but he would use symbolism they were familiar with when telling a parable.

 

[Der Alte]

Do you never get tired of being offensive?
I couldn't care less what your answer is and I doubt I'll read it but I think, as some friendly advice, you'd do well to think about why you always feel the need to preface your continually copy and pasted text wall comments with "Rubbish!" and "Wrong!" and think about what that says about you and your life.

"Copy pasted" implies dishonestly copy someone else's work and using it without proper citation.
I post my own work. When I started on this forum 3+ decades ago I quickly realized that the same arguments and the same out-of-context proof texts are posted over and over ad infinitum. So I started saving my responses and updated them when I found additional information.
Some such information includes purchasing the digital editions of Bauer, Danker, Arndt, Gingrich Greek lexicon and Brown, Driver, Briggs Hebrew lexicon about $60 per.
I also purchased Origen's commentary on John books 13-32. also about $60.
The reason for Origen's commentary was because some UR-ite claimed that in that commentary Origen supposedly mentioned "'after aionios life' many times."
All this so I don't have to reinvent the wheel every time some UR-ite posts the same specious arguments and out-of-context proof texts.
Don't want the same responses don't post the same specious arguments over and over.

 

[iwbswiaihl]

John 6:44 NIV
“No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them, and I will raise them up at the last day.

The invitation is to those whoever will call on the name of the Lord: Romans 10:8 But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): 9that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. 10For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. 11For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” 12For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. 13For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”

John 6:39-40 And this is the will of him who sent me, that I should lose nothing of all that he has given me, but raise it up on the last day. For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.”

 

[ozso]

Nonsense. Rubbish. No, zero, none credible, verifiable, etc evidence for any of this fairy tale. Jesus would NOT use lies or anything pagan to spread HIs gospel. As for Gehenna there was never a burning garbage dump in the Gehenna. People searching for the truth would know that. You don't, ergo, you don't look for the truth you look for anything from anywhere, anybody the only requirement is it must support you assumption/presuppositions.

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, zero, none 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

The Myth of the Burning Garbage Dump of Gehenna – BiblePlaces.com

If you look for the origin of Hades and the way Jesus described it, you'll find it in Greek myology. I already said I think Jesus was using Gehenna symbolically based on whatever the scribes and Pharisees made up about Gehenna and put in their Babylonian Talmud. The Talmud is not sacred scripture in any way. If you're going to claim it is in any way, then the whole thing is sacred scripture like the Bible, including what it says about Jesus and Christians, which means you and I are in big trouble.

 

[Der Alte]

Rubbish. It's not my narrative. It's been around even since before FDR. There's more than one interpretation of Luke 16:19-31. And I'm certainly not insisting the one I presented is the only correct way to interpret it. I agree that when Jesus used gehenna and hades when talking to Jews they would have understood it. But he obviously didn't support their beliefs. It's a fact that Hades and the conditions of it Jesus described, first came from the Greeks. It's a fact that after the Babylonian captivity the scribes and Pharisees made up all kinds of things, which is probably why the ones in Jesus' time didn't recognize him as the Messiah. They were totally out of touch.
The crux of the story is: “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
If they [the scribes and Pharisees] do not listen to Moses and the Prophets [but rather make up their own stuff] they will not be convinced even if someone [Jesus] rises from the dead.’”
Which they weren't. They stuck to their Babylonian Talmud.
No, but he would use symbolism they were familiar with when telling a parable.

"But he [Jesus] obviously didn't support their beliefs" Show me some scriptural evidence that Jesus did not support the Jewish belief in Gehenna/Sheol as a place of eternal punishment?
Would Jesus tell lies , i.e. something pagan, without informing His Jewish audience that they were false? You flunk. I do not need your UR biased commentary. I have the Eastern Greek Orthodox NT. Which you will not accept because they translated "aionios" as "eternal."

 

[ozso]

Do you never get tired of being offensive?

I couldn't care less what your answer is and I doubt I'll even read it but, as some friendly advice, you'd do well to consider why you always feel the need to preface your constantly copy and pasted text wall comments with "Rubbish!" and "Wrong!" and think about what that says about you and your life.

Old bad habits are hard to break.

 

[Saint Steven]

They stuck to their Babylonian Talmud.

That's curious.
How was the Talmud, Babylonian?

 

[ozso]

"But he [Jesus] obviously didn't support their beliefs" Show me some scriptural evidence that Jesus did not support the Jewish belief in Gehenna/Sheol as a place of eternal punishment?
Would Jesus tell lies , i.e. something pagan, without informing His Jewish audience that they were false? You flunk. I do not need your UR biased commentary. I have the Eastern Greek Orthodox NT. Which you will not accept because they translated "aionios" as "eternal."

Jesus didn't support their non-scriptural beliefs and teachings period. Either that or Jesus supports the Talmud, even though it condemns Him and us.