Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article

To: ChicagoHebrew
You are right that "sheol" was the place of the dead. But it doesn't seem like a "nice" place to me, since God provided for alternatives to sheol for righteous people. See Enoch and Elijah.

Hell was not borrowed from pagan mythology. Jesus Himself taught about it, in parables (e.g. the rich man) and directly (e.g. "It is better for you to enter into life maimed, rather than having two hands, to go to hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched" Mark 9:43). What was borrowed from pagan mythology was the word "hell", not the concept of it.

If I was a Jewish person, I might or might not believe in a place of punishment in the after-life. But I am a Christian, I believe that the whole Bible is the Revelation of God, and if at a certain point He let us know that hell is a place of punishment I automatically assume that's what He meant in the Old Testament, whether or not humans understood it.

151 posted on 05/17/2011 7:04:32 AM PDT by Former Fetus
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 143 | View Replies ]


To: Former Fetus
You are right that "sheol" was the place of the dead. But it doesn't seem like a "nice" place to me, since God provided for alternatives to sheol for righteous people. See Enoch and Elijah.

The Patriarch Jacob wasn't righteous? That's pretty absurd. There's a reason why he has the honor of having God's chosen people named after him.

There's no concept of a permanent place of punishment in the Hebrew Bible, or elsewhere in Jewish thought. Not only that, but the entire idea flatly contradicts the core Jewish belief of a loving, merciful, and forgiving God.

Hell may "exist" in Christian sources. But shows only their corruption from pagan influence.

173 posted on 05/17/2011 10:43:58 PM PDT by ChicagoHebrew (.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 151 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
General/Chat
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson