. . . I have always been bothered by the idea of punishment instead of death. Death sounds like the capital punishment given to the worst, but punishment, and no death in sight, sounds lesser, even temporary. I could actually see Jesus saying everlasting punishment, as to the childlike human mind compared to God's thinking, to suggest that His eon is our forever. He would have spoken like that correctly, since we are just like children; arguing, arrogant and silly proud twerps. I haven't been a parent long and have already said the forever word correctly to the juvenile mind to enforce punishment without end. Get the connection. We aren't able to comprehend one of God's eons, so we correctly think of them as forever, right?
http://www.christianforums.com/editpost.php?do=editpost&p=66635486
All of this argumentation ignores the nine (9) Greek languages sources which I quoted earlier in this thread in my [post=66572085]
post #29-30[/post]. All of which document that the Greek words translated eternal, for ever, for ever and ever, in the NT do in fact mean eternal, unending, everlasting, without end. etc. It has nothing to so with
individual comprehension. I know that you reject eternal punishment, I have read your arguments, and you seem to promote universal salvation. Would you care to addrfess the evidence I posted earlier in this thread in my post #39, which I repeat here for you.
This is a result of my own studies, not a complete argument copy/pasted from a random website. The Jews, in Israel before and during the time of Jesus believed in a place of eternal, unending, fiery torment and they called it both Gehinnom/Gehenna and Sheol. When Jesus taught about,
"Eternal punishment, Mt 25:46"
"the fire of hell where the fire is not quenched and the worm does not die, Mk 9:43-48" and
"cast into a fiery furnace where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth, Mt 13:42, 50
better for him [a person who offends a little one] that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. Mt 18:6
it had been good for him [the one who betrays Jesus] if he had not been born. Mat 26:24
These teachings reaffirmed and sanctioned the existing Jewish view of eternal hell. In Matt. 18:6, 26:24, see above, Jesus teaches that there is a fate worse than death or nonexistence. A fate worse than death is also mentioned in Heb 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.
If Jesus had wanted to say eternal death in Matt 25:46, He knew the word for death and that is what He would have said but He said
eternal punishment. The Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection, they knew that everybody died, young, old, good, bad, and knew that it was permanent. When Jesus taught
eternal punishment they would not have understood it as death, it would have meant something worse to them.
Jesus was born, and grew to maturity, in 1st century Israel. He knew what the Jews, believed about hell. If the Jews were wrong when Jesus taught about mans eternal fate, such as eternal punishment, He would have corrected them. Jesus did not correct them, thus their teaching on hell was correct. Here is historical evidence to support this.
Jewish Encyclopedia, Gehenna
The place where children were sacrificed to the god Moloch was originally 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). For this reason 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); [Note, this is according to the ancient Jews, long before the Christian era, NOT the bias of Christian translators.]
It is assumed in general that
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]
As mentioned above, 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, [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 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 to Isa. xxxiii. 11 (Sanh. 108b).
Jewish Encyclopedia Online
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Talmud -Tractate Rosh Hashanah Chapter 1.
The school of Hillel says: . . .
but as for Minim, [follower 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."
Tract Rosh Hashana: Chapter I.
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 / JulySeptember 1992
Scharen: Gehenna in the Synoptics Pt. 1
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 (in any case, a thorough investigation would be appreciated). 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 citys 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)
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The Burning Garbage Dump of Gehenna is a myth - Archaeology, Biblical History & Textual Criticism - Bible Truth Discussion Forum
