Posted on 01/29/2007 6:45:51 AM PST by stfassisi
I forgot nothing. Indeed, I read the whole passage, and have read it many times.
Have you called your local parish yet and asked if they would sell you an indulgence?
either already in heaven (IE 'they made it') or in hell (which they could potentially make it out of in the final judgement).
They are too kind. 8~)
Parables are stories used to highlight a specific point. It is not a good idea to draw your doctrine from a story.
Oops, some churches are going to have to close their doors.
Why don't I?
Because I don't need to!
Jesus used the word "Gehenna", over and over and over.
Gehenna means something.
It means Hell, to Jews.
SPECIFICALLY, it means the place where souls who have done bad things go, some to be purified and some to remain.
Always did.
We don't need a Church Council to explain, JESUS explained it, by using the Jewish term and not explaining it or modifying it for his Jewish audience. He knew what they thought Gehenna was - Christian Hell AND Purgatory, all at once - and he used that word, and just that word, as an image.
Now, when Jesus wanted to modify something in the Jewish law, like divorce or the giving of gifts to the Temple, he mentioned the Scripture or the Jewish tradition (e.g. "korban"), and then he modified it. But with Gehenna, he did no such thing. He knew what Jews thought Gehenna was: Purgatory/Hell. He used the term straight, without explanation, without modification.
It means what Jesus used it as.
Why would anyone think it didn't?
Truth is, Christians many years later didn't have access to Jews, didn't LIKE Jews, and didn't (and most today don't) know what Jews meant or believed. That Jesus's "Greatest Commandment" is actually The Shema - "Hear, O Israel! The Lord is our God! The Lord is One! And you shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, and with all your soul..." etc. is virtually unknown by people of EITHER religion. And yet, Jesus was a Jew talking to Jews. He used Jewish forms and Jewish norms and Jewish words and concepts.
Sometimes he modified them, and there we should sit up and take note.
But sometimes, he DIDN'T, and there too we should sit up and take note, because it tells us that the Jews got it right.
Jesus used Gehenna, he used it to make a severe point. He used it knowing what his audience thought, and he didn't attempt to alter their understanding. That is significant.
It tells ME, the simple reader, that Jesus meant what he said, and what he said meant what it meant. Gehenna means Hell AND Purgatory.
It seems to me that, once one knows this (and one learns this by reading the Jewish literature, to see what THEY mean by it, the Midrash, notably, and commentators all the way back to Josephus). Do that, and one discovers something important: the meaning of the word Gehenna to JEWS. Why would anyone assume that Jesus, a Jew, didn't mean what Jews meant when he used a term like "Sabbath", or "Scriptures", or "korban", or "Sanhedrin", or "Gehenna"?
There is no reason.
If we have piled tradition atop tradition in order to try and explain something which is more simply explained and understood, well, that is our right as creative people. As for me, the simplest explanation that fits the facts is the best explanation, and we should not multiply entities when we need not. Jewish "Gehenna" expresses perfectly the concept that Jesus seems to have been driving at.
Permanent "Hell" does not. Remember the harsh lender, who throttled the poor man who didn't pay him back after he himself was let off the hook by his own overlord, to whom he owed money? He thrown into the deepest dungeon "until every last penny was paid". Which is not at all the same thing as forever. It is, indeed, purgatorial. That's Gehenna.
I am not interested in opposing an Ecumenical Council or the Cathechism of the Catholic Church. I am merely pointed out what Jesus actually SAID, and suggesting that this ought to be the basis for cutting through the fog of misunderstanding on the issue. Purgatory is correct doctrine: it's Gehenna. Hell is correct doctrine: it's Gehenna. Why complicate this?
I was looking through there a few weeks ago, and on the section on Faith, at the end of a chapter, I tried to answer the questions assigned. Did better than I thought I would do, but here's a point of interest for you guys.
The test consisted of two columns. One lists an activity and the other lists a description of the activity, so in the first column was listed participation in a Protestant service, and in the second column, the answer I chose was mortal sin, and I was right.
If you sent a link, it doesn't work.
ROFL!!! How am I supposed to "find out for [my]self" what your local Priest told you? Don't be absurd!
As for "finding out for [my]self" what the Church teaches ... what do you think I've been doing for most of my adult life. Again, don't be absurd.
It's called "The Unabridged Book of Sarcasm"
"You TOTALLY ignored what the Church taught about those men and substituted your own eisegesis"
Really now, let's look at the text. It says they were idol worshipers and died for their sin and it was against the Law. Idol worshipers were cut off from the community of Israel. So where is the eisogesis? They had no hope so what is the use of praying for their forgiveness except as a futile grandstand play by the commander? God cannot be bribed so of what value is the collection of the indulgence money?
39: On the next day, as by that time it had become necessary, Judas and his men went to take up the bodies of the fallen and to bring them back to lie with their kinsmen in the sepulchres of their fathers.
40: Then under the tunic of every one of the dead they found sacred tokens of the idols of Jamnia, which the law forbids the Jews to wear. And it became clear to all that this was why these men had fallen.
41: So they all blessed the ways of the Lord, the righteous Judge, who reveals the things that are hidden;
LOL. We are known by the company we keep.
Re: the 1952 version, what does it say about reading Scripture on your own?
Oh, yes ... long before this thread began. The answer is not only "No", but "trying to do so is to commit the sin known as "simony".
ROFL!!! How am I supposed to "find out for [my]self" what your local Priest told you? Don't be absurd!
No, I am suggesting you find out for yourself what YOUR parish has to say about indulgences and whether or not they will sell you one.
Afraid of the answer?
Interesting new information to me about you Orthodox folks.
If you guys just lost the hats and dresses, you'd be hard to recognize from many non-catholics!
By the way... we took a vote: Your hats are MUCH cooler, but they've got the better flag.
:)
.http://www.hismercy.ca/content/ebooks/The.Enchiridion.of.Indulgences.pdf
Dunno what happened last time. It worked in preview. I think.
"Long before this thread began" you called your parish to see if they would sell you an indulgence???
Why did you do that?
Can you read? I already KNOW the answer. It's not only "No" but "HECK no, and the confessional is right over there!".
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