Hell the way society explains it, is it real according to the bible?

I was just curious as I don't have time to read the Bible's but do any of them actually mention Hell as in a an eternity of suffering and pain the way my catholic school tried explaining it to fragile little minds ?

So could anyone elaborate on this for me I am confused someone told me according to the bible hell doesn't exist?

According to the Bible, Hell is an endtime punnishing pit where the unforgiven are tossed into a lake of fire and brimstone.

The idea that hell is something contemporary is extrabiblical and to some extent straight out diabolic. The Church needed something to scare their audience with som they would pay taxes and tithe, come to church every Sunday and be controlled. Hell was excellent for this. The church made up Hell so that they could control people in other words. The church' idea of Hell seams very gnostic to me, being it is the punnishment of the soul. A priest had authority to judge people to hell, and made fortunes on people paying them to have a quicker turn in purgatory a state of judgement after death that would last according to the deeds of the person suffering it. The church made tons of gold on this, received great donations of land and goods from terrified people who feared the afterlife.

These ideas are captured in Dante's Divine Comedy and Paradise Lost by John Milton, fictious books based partly on biblical and related stories mixed together with church doctrine and dogma.

According to the bible the after life is boring and dark. When we die we enter the Land of Death, a dark place where noone says or does anything. Dead people don't usually do that. The soul is kept here until the ressurection when the dead is brought back to life to be judged according to their lives. And this is where hell comes into the picture. In the NT Hell is allegorically discribed Gehenna. Gehenna was a place outside Jerusalem where garbage was burnt and dead criminals were cremated. The Book of Revelation tells us of a great lake of fire that will come into existance in the judgement, where the Beast and the False Prophet is condemned together with all of the people who are not listed in the Book of Life.

Hell as a concept in any shape or form is completely and utterly flawed.

A supreme being makes a whole bunch of lesser beings. They [mess] up through their own so-called 'freewill' and end up in this pit of suffering for all eternity.

Now, Christians and other religious types will come along say 'oh, but God is so wonderful, he's given you freewill!'. Yes, but obviously not everyone can exercise restraint with these sort of things - if they really had freewill, they would've chosen not to be born in the first place, because they would know they would be thrown into a pit of fire at the end of it.

[edit on 29-4-2008 by mattguy404]



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[edit on 29/4/08 by masqua]

The idea is that since we chose the path of knowledge of good and evil, we will be judged according to our sins. Without forgiveness, noone will survive, since we are all mere sinners to God, we come with sin into this world and we leave it with nothing.

The basics are that death is a temporary state, that God has the power to bring people back to life thousands of years after they died. If such a person was sworn into a covenant under God, like a circumcised Jew bound by the Law of God, or a Christian bound by the same covenant, he will uppon ressurection be judged after the letter of the Law. But simultaneously no sin is so great it cannot be forgiven, but it's is all up to God whether he wants to give us this salvation. Most Christian views Jesus as sinless, eventhough the Gospel discribes several sins he committed, like not honoring one's parents, working on the Sabbath and so on. Direct violations to the ten commandments some of the more rigid rabbis would say. However, these are minor transgressions, and I see no reason why God would somehow send his son to Hell for such. If any name is listed in the Book of Life, it would be that of Jesus of Nazareth. I trust God to be a rightious God, and he has given the power of Judgement to his son Jesus. Hell is the ultimate punnishment for evil.

Originally posted by Neo Christian Mystic
According to the Bible, Hell is an endtime punnishing pit where the unforgiven are tossed into a lake of fire and brimstone.

you make comments like this all the time, but you never cite scripture to back it up.

from a previous exhaustive thread mentioning hell

you make concrete comments like this all the time but i have yet to see you cite a scripture to support this.

eccl 9:[5] For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.

the bible says that the dead do not think.

rom 5:[12] Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

this implies that if adam had not sinned, then no one would die. if noone would die, then why would god make us with an immortal soul that goes to heaven or hell?

rom 6:[23] For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

so death itself is punishment for sin, not hell. also, if eternal life is the reward, and people in hell are conscience of the pain and torment, then how would this scripture make sense?

gen 2:7, gen 6:17, gen 7:22 all point to the spirit of man being a ¨breath¨of life. so is that spirit immortal? what is the spirit?

james 2:[26] For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.

what happens to the spirit?

psalm 146:[4] His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth; in that very day his thoughts perish.

eccl 12:[7] Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

so again. we dies, our thoughts stop. our ¨live force¨ returns to god. (extra note, the words here translate ruach, which mean breath, or spirit, not soul)

so what is our soul?

gen 2:7] And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

so adam wasn´t given a soul, he IS a soul. and he died. so what happened to him?

ezekial 18:[4] Behold, all souls are mine; as the soul of the father, so also the soul of the son is mine: the soul that sinneth, it shall die.

so the soul is not immortal

is hell a place of torment?

acts 2:[31] He seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither his flesh did see corruption.

so jesus even went to hell. if jesus was perfect and hell was eternal damnation, how can this scripture make sense?

1 cor 15:[3] For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures;

so hell is the grave, ill show you some scriptures that support that.

job 14:[13] O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!

intersting to note, the original lexicon has ¨grave¨as ¨sheol¨ or hell. so job was praying to go to hell to end his suffering. this would make sense if hell was the grave or a state of inactivity.

and the most damning scripture of all for the hellfire doctrine is found in revelation.

20:[14] And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

if hell is the lake of fire, how can it then be thrown into the lake of fire? the beginning of 20 goes on about blessing for mankind, the scripture is saying death will be no more.

so to review.

we are souls. when we die, ours souls die too (not immortal). when we die, he don´t think (can´t be tormented). when we die, our ¨breath¨or lifeforce returns to god. hell is the grave.

is this in harmony with the rest of the bible?

john 5:[28] Marvel not at this: for the hour is coming, in the which all that are in the graves shall hear his voice,
[29] And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.

a cornerstone of christian faith is the resurrection (hebrews 6:1,2). why would we need the ressurection if we are immortal spirits and have already got whats coming to us? the second death mentioned a rev 20 doesn´t make sense if you go by the teaching of the church.

those who are good are resurrected and recieve life eternal. those who are bad are resurrected and are judged (the lexicon, damnation can also be translated as judgement)(given a second chanceto prove themselves). if they turn out to be good, then they recieve eternal life. if not, then they are thrown in to the ¨lake of fire¨or eternal destruction, non-existence.

as for when, my guess (only a guess) is that the resurrection is sometime after armegeddon

[edit on 29-4-2008 by miriam0566]

Most Christian views Jesus as sinless, eventhough the Gospel discribes several sins he committed, like not honoring one's parents, working on the Sabbath and so on. Direct violations to the ten commandments some of the more rigid rabbis would say. However, these are minor transgressions, and I see no reason why God would somehow send his son to Hell for such. If any name is listed in the Book of Life, it would be that of Jesus of Nazareth. I trust God to be a rightious God, and he has given the power of Judgement to his son Jesus. Hell is the ultimate punnishment for evil.

or...

jesus didn't sin because he was acting within the spirit of the law.

Well Im catholic, or at least was/still is sorta, just give the church on sundays a bit of a miss. I remember pope john the second said not long before he died that we should all look at hell as a "place away from the light" rather then burning,agonizing damnation. Which makes sense to me! The bible says quite clearly as a final warning to all, not to change so much as a single solitary letter in the bible (because it is gods word after all) or else lotsa bad things will happen to you. Knowing humanity, lots and lots of bits have been (to me) undoubtably changed. Look at wikipedia for example, it is a kind of bible, and look how many people change fact to fiction there? The use of "hell" as a "teaching tool" would be hard to pass up for the ones who wish to control.

Hell is not She'ol. She'ol is the Land of Death, called Hades in Greek NT and the LXX. Hell is Gehenna and is always refered to as the place where the unforgiven sinners will end in the great Judgement after the ressurection. The fact is that the English language lacks a word for She'ol or Hades.

In the Book of Revelation which describes the endtime, Hell is known as the Lake of Fire or the Second Death. However, KJV has a mistranslation which goes throughout it's interpreted translation, that translates She'ol and Hades into Hell. But Hell is strictly a Christian concept, Jews don't believe in Hell. The Church more or less based their conception of Hell from extrabiblical sources and incorporated concepts such as purgatory and a contemporary Hell where sinners could be condemned in their afterlife. However, the Bible doesn't discribe an afterlife or life after death, other than if you see life after ressurection as the afterlife. When we die we enter She'ol or Hades and there we are lying silent in darkness until God raises us up in the Judgement.

NB: Why would I cite referances to concepts and words. You can easilly find an online interlinear bible and do a search for hell and look up the meaning of the words written in the Hebrew and Greek. You find an excellent bible at bible.crosswalk.com...

[edit on 29/4/2008 by Neo Christian Mystic]

"Hell" is Death.

The "Lake of Fire" is the "place of eternal torment"..."prepared for the devil and his angels" - as it's written.

two different things.

By the way, churches are generally full of disinformation concerning most issues of Biblical doctrine.

Hell or Gehenna is a place of fire and brimstone. It is the second death, the death of the soul, there is no way out of Hell. Death or Hades/She'ol is darkness and void.

Like I explained before, the English language, usually very abundant with words and synonyms, actually lacks a word for She'ol or Hades -- the Abode or Land of Death. In Norwegian Hades or She'ol is translated "Dødsriket" contrary to "Helvete" which is Hell or Gehenna. Hades simply means "Unseen" and is the abode of the dead. The modern Hell is based uppon pagan sources, Norse Hel, the Norse Gehenna, became Hell and with help of the church changed Hades from being the empty state of death to becoming a fiery pit with a purgatory and cells for the wicked. Romani Devel meaning God became Devil and with help from the church the gypsies were outed as the children of the Devil. KJV translated Hades into Hell. This is a mistranslation.

Revelation 20:14 (King James Version)

And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death.

15 And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.

Hell

[edit on 6-5-2008 by Shar]

Originally posted by seridium

So could anyone elaborate on this for me I am confused someone told me according to the bible hell doesn't exist?

The traditional concept of 'Hell' has sinners tortured with fire for eternity doesn't belong to the Old testament but were added as the end of times concept on the new testament by the Church, like somebody already posted.

The traditional concept of Hell does NOT come from the inspired Hebrew or Greek manuscripts. It is a pagan myth adopted as Christian doctrine in the third century by church fathers. Yet, then as now, innocent people are taught the traditional concept of Hell by trusted authority figures. That trust deters questions, so for hundreds of years the myth has perpetuated. The KJV and other translations have also perpetuated the myth by less than the most accurate translation of the word Hell.

For more information of how the meaning of hell and how it came to be part of the New testament end of times, this link seems to be very interesting.

www.equipministry.com...

If you look at my link Hell you will see Hell is in the Old Testament 31 times as well.


Deuteronomy 32:22

For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

This is the first verse it shows up in. The Old Testament.

Same link as above.

[edit on 6-5-2008 by Shar]

As usual it all has to do with translations as we know that the original text of the old testament has been lost to humanity but as copies were kept so translations were redefined.

From the link.

The word Hell occurs in a total of fifty-three verses in the KJV; Thirty-one times in the Old Testament, and twenty-two times in the New. This article will show that:

FOUR separate words from Hebrew and Greek were translated into the ONE English word Hell. In English Hell refers to a conceal place, a hole in the ground as for storing potatoes, etc., covered with soil during winter.

TWO words, one Hebrew and one Greek, mean the SAME THING. Fire is NOT associated with FORTY-TWO occurrences of these words.

One Greek word for Hell occurs just once. Fire is NOT associated with the occurrence, neither are HUMANS.

One Greek word is used ELEVEN times; FIRE is associated with EVERY occurrence.

Anyone can find the definition of the four Hebrew and Greek words translated, and the context in which they are used. Only two common study aids are required. Most people already have them. Other publications referenced herein can be easily obtained through a public library

Originally posted by Shar
If you look at my link Hell you will see Hell is in the Old Testament 31 times as well.

And this relies on a mistranslation of the word She'ol which in the LXX is correctly translated into Hades. Hell is not Death, hell is a word English has borrowed from Norse, Hel was the goddess of a fiery pit with the same name, sometimes also called Helheim or Abode of Hel. A more correct translation of Hades using Norse would be Valhalla, but the bible teach us that the afterlife is darkness and void, it is first after the resurrection that Hell will become a reality like Enoch and Jesus says.

reply to post by Neo Christian Mystic


Very good, that was my next topic, but thanks for bringing it in.

Another book that I love is the Divine Comedy of Dante a most read when I was in college many years ago.

This references of hell by Dante were the ones most used in medieval time by the Church to promote the agenda of damnation and to use as examples for the sins of the flesh.

You guys can call it want you want. However, it's cast into the lake of fire in the end.

You either believe the Word of God or you don't. You can't pick and choose which part you are going to believe in and which part you don't. Hell, whatever you want to call it and all whose name is not in the book of life will go to the lake of fire.

[edit on 6-5-2008 by Shar]

Shar, this no about refuting bible faith or believes, this about researching into other angles and interpretations.

No everybody believes the bible as the irrefutable truth of anything, yes beside its historical value everything else can be considerate for speculation.

Originally posted by marg6043
Another book that I love is the Divine Comedy of Dante a most read when I was in college many years ago.

Milton's Paradise Lost is another candidate. These books and authors attempted to paint a picture of an afterlife the way the church had discribed it, with purgatory and dark angels burning souls in a fiery cauldrun. The church didn't base their teachings of Hell on biblical sources, but relied on dogma and doctrines layed down by the early church fathers. As the time moved by, Hell became hotter and hotter and with the Spanish Inquisision it reached the surface. Purgatory was a state after death where the souls of the sinners were tried in fire and all kinds of torture and pain. This was invented as a source of income for the church, for the church sold pardons for great ammounts of gold, land, goods and all kinds of fortunes. The idea of Hell and purgatory are pagan and have nothing to do with what the Bible teaches us about the afterlife.

Yes you are right, if you follow the time line of the power of the church to the culmination of the inquisition as you said Hell became hotter and hotter and damnation and condemnation was the topic on every church of the time.

Perhaps because the Church was afraid of losing its hold and power over their subjects.

Or perhaps because as everything, with power comes corruption and historically the original Church became corrupted through the centuries since its formation.