Hello People.

This kind of looks like a strange topic, but i just want to hear different views about the hell concept as passed across by the bible.

The most popular and well known conception about hell is : a place of eternal/everlasting punishment for those who do not make it in Christ or those who never believed in Christ.

Is this really the case; as in the eternal or everlasting part?

I would like to hear/read what people feel about this.

Please note: The original manuscripts(hebrew and greek)interpretations of the bible on this issue are an important aspect for this discussion(if any would join in - ).
Also, I think history too should play an important part in this.

Why don't you share your own opinion, first?

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Whatever it is, try to save yourself from it by having faith in the lord.

The concept of hell is something that was created in the hearts and minds of the authors of your Bible and Koran. Before you were informed of what and where hell was, it never crossed your mind to even think about it. So, within the pages of your scriptures hell was born. Just as a God could not exist without the devil, heaven could not exist if there wasn’t a hell. It is something that was fabricated so that they could capitalize off of your fear.

Nimshi:

Why don't you share your own opinion, first?

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Normally, I hold the general and most popular conception about it.
That is: The everlasting/eternal stuff.

But i also know that hell in the bible wasn't always this place of punishment; it also depicted the grave(Sheol - Hebrew, Hades - Greek).

I'm not really concerned about the ones that refer to the grave, but rather, the one that refers to the place of "eternal punishment"; Gehenna.

i've been doing some reading and from what i've been seeing, it looks like the whole concept on gehenna might not actually be as it is popularly percieved.

it is generally referred to as a place of everlasting punishment, but unpopularly, it is know as a place of chastisement for a period of time or an age for the purpose of correcting and setting aright.

That position(the unpopular one) is quite strange;based on what the popular english translations of the bible pass across.

But judging from what the original manuscripts say, it probably is worth looking into.

that's why i need contributions from people.

Horus:

The concept of hell is something that was created in the hearts and minds of the authors of your Bible and Koran. Before you were informed of what and where hell was, it never crossed your mind to even think about it. So, within the pages of your scriptures hell was born. Just as a God could not exist without the devil, heaven could not exist if there wasn’t a hell. It is something that was fabricated so that they could capitalize off of your fear.

I know some people don't believe in the bible and what it has in it.
But this thread is based on the belief that the bible and its contents are true, so replies should be made in that regard.

@ttalks
I agree with you that the concept of hell in the bible is misunderstood, this i believe to be as a result of poor translation of biblical texts. The hebrew word made to depict hell actually means "land of the dead" whilst the greek word translated to hell is actually a physical place outside of Jerusalem were a fire was burning perpetually and denoted as an evil place. However an incursion into Strong's bible concordance also indicates a figurative use of the word hell to mean a place of damnation

This should make intersting reading on the subject.

Hell
A Tool of Oppression

The Church View: It is represented by the church to mean a place of eternal, fiery torture for those who don't believe in the Christ as Saviour, and in extreme cases, those who question the authority of the church. This obviously means that the majority of humanity is destined for eternal, fiery torture. Not very fair for a loving and forgiving God, but then the church does not seem to deeply embrace fairness or forgiveness. A vengeful and unforgiving God more suits a pulpit that spews eternal, fiery condemnations for everything from style of dress to political affiliation as a matter of standard practice. Hell also fulfills the strongest motivational force for the church in its arsenal of flock control, fear. There are no statistics on how many people attend church, not out of belief in God, but more out of conditioned fear of a fiery torture. It would be a good bet that if fear of hell were eliminated, church revenues would drastically shrink.

The Bible View:
In most instances "hell" is translated from words which mean a hole in the ground into which bodies are placed after death. Other instances leave it highly unlikely that hell is a place exclusively created for the eternal torture of unbelievers.

Of all biblical concepts, hell is one of the most mysterious and feared. The word "hell" appears 54 times in the Bible, 30 times in the Old Testament, 24 in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, hell is taken from the word, Sh'owl, pronounced sheh-ole' or Sh'ol; Hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean retreat), Sheol, including its accessories and inmates: KJV--grave, hell, pit. It is interchangeable with the word grave or a pit. Basically, hell is a hole in the ground where bodies are buried. A thorough study of its appearance in Old Testament scripture will show it is not referred to as place of eternal fiery damnation.

In the New Testament it is taken from three words. First, we will examine the one from which the fiery place of eternal torture, so often associated with this word, is taken, Ghenna. It may surprise many to realize that we actually know where this place is, not an ethereal place where Satan dwells, but actually the Jerusalem city dump.
The word is Geena, pronounced gheh'-en-nah of Hebrew origin; valley of the son of Hinnom; ge-henna, or Ge-Hinnom, a valley of Jerusalem, used figuratively as a name for the place or state of everlasting punishment:
The actual place referred to is Hinnom, a deep, narrow ravine separating Mount Zion from the so-called "Hill of Evil Counsel" to the southwest of Jerusalem.

source: http://www.bibleufo.com/hell.htm

KunleOshob:

This should make intersting reading on the subject.



source: http://www.bibleufo.com/hell.htm

Yeah, the stuff u quoted is quite similar to the stuff I've been reading.

Anybody else with similar ideas or theories?

^^^ Will you shut up hell candidate?

Lol

hell don't exist

how many times will u write dat?

Hell is the cementary you know.

I don't feel obliged to believe that a God said to be ever - loving, benevolent and all that, would send his creation to suffer eternal damnation in a lake of fire just because the person used his God-given sense, intellect and reasoning to decide against believing in an invisible being somewhere in the sky.

And I know that if God loves me only half as much as my mother does, he will not send me to Hell. That is a final fact of my inner consciousness, and for no religion could I deny its truth.

Hell is the grave. Even king David sang about making his bed in hell.

See this mugu, babaearly. Read thus

'say (O Muhammad) 'i am only a man like you, it has been revealed to me that ur God is one God, so whoever hopes for the meeting with his lord, let him work righteousness and associate none partner in worship of his Lord' Quran 18:110

Abuzola:

See this mugu, babaearly. Read thus

'say (O Muhammad) 'i am only a man like you, it has been revealed to me that your God is one God, so whoever hopes for the meeting with his lord, let him work righteousness and associate none partner in worship of his Lord' Quran 18:110

Sorry Abuzola, but you come across as the mugu here for believeing that terrorist manual called quoran. Let me ask, if you can believe that book, or any other book in the same category like the bible, why can't you also believe stories like Snow-white, and them other faity tales??

Here is a letter to John Hagee; critiquing his teaching on hell:

“THE SEVEN WONDERS OF HELL”

A Sermon by: John Hagee

A Critique by: L. Ray Smith

Dear Mr. Hagee

While browsing the channels, I happened onto your Jerusalem broadcast on TBN. Shortly thereafter I heard your sermon on "Hell." In Jerusalem you said God inspired His Word in the Greek language because, "Greek is the most exact language on the face of the earth!" Therein lies the difficulty with your sermons.

God's Word does not contradict. It makes sense in the words God chose. Christ warns against "adding to" or "taking away from" this Word (Rev. 22:18-19). When teaching God's Word we are to rightly divide (or cut) His Word (II Tim. 2:15-18). We are to " ,  distinguish the things that differ" (Phil. 1:10). We are to have a pattern of sound words (II Tim. 1:13-14). In addition to these we are to shun the traditions of men (Col. 2:8 ) and the wisdom of this world (I Cor. 1:20 & 3:19). It is a rare teacher who actually does these things.

What prompted this letter was your statement that: "Greek is the most exact language on the face of the earth," followed by the statement that Christ is going to reign "for ever and for ever and for ever ,  " In the English, this statement is contradictory and redundant, and in the Greek it has no equivalent. If "for ever" means "always" or "eternity," what pray does "and for ever" mean? Is that something like whiter than white? It is not I who find fault with that statement, but God.

Your statement is both untrue and unscriptural. If your statement that Christ will reign "for ever and for ever and for ever ,  " were confined to Christ's reigning only, it would not be as harmful as when applied to other false doctrines that are taught to last "for ever and for ever and for ever." Specifically, I make reference to your teaching on "hell" (Gk. hades-the unseen or imperceptible), which you teach is a place of eternal torment.

Source: Letter to John Hagee

How can i be a mugu when it was already Prophesized, see
'and even if We had sent down to you (O muhammad) a message written on paper so that they could touch it with their hands, the disbelievers would have said,' this is nothing but pure magic' Quran 6:7

Hell is Poverty,

a place that doesn't exist

They don’t know where hell is, or if such a place really exists. They can’t even decide what hell is. Which one is it? Is it the lake of fire (Revelation 20:10) or the pit (Revelation 11:7) or is it a place where you will be given oozing pus to drink like the Koran describes (Koran 14:16), or a place where you will be roasted (Koran 17:18), or a prison (Koran 17:? Also, how did the pit get there? How did a big place of fire get beneath us? Did God create it down there? Why is it that scientists haven’t discovered it yet being they have dug holes straight down to the center of the Earth? Why is it that you can’t find hell if it really is a place that exists? Scientists have listened to the ground, they have all kinds of advanced technical equipment with computers. Have they heard crackling fires? No!!! Why? Because hell is a state of mind. It is what you make it. It exists within you, for each one will pattern his or her hell according to what he believes hell is. They don’t hear anybody down there screaming and hollering or any torturing. So what makes you believe that there is some place “down there” that you will go if you are a sinner where there is fire and demons? The Bible? Let’s be for real! There is nothing in the Bible that has been proven to be facts yet. You can’t even prove that the characters in your Bible really exists, let alone a place called hell! The hell that your Preachers, Teachers, Pastors, Rabbis, Imaams, and Sheiks preach to you about is another trick to keep you trapped under religion.

whether we like it or not,hell i mean hell is real.

Would you ever send someone you love deeply like your children or you mother to hell to be tortured, suffer and burn for all eternity?
If you would that is not love.
If hell exists you wouldn't send your children there, so how can god send his children there if he loves them?

It makes no sense at all, which is why i think hell is a fictitional barbaric medievel place created by christians to control using fear and superstition.

I understand how people who are superstitious by nature can be taken in by it all. It takes a long time for a believer to realise they have been duped since childhood.

MIKKYIJEGE:

whether we like it or not,hell i mean hell is real.

Do you have any proof? And please, don't go quoting your religious manual/bible to me.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters."
It's an oral history. It was passed down, word-of-mouth, father to son, from Adam to Seth, from Seth to Enos, from Enos to Cainan, for 40 generations, a growing, changing, story, it was handed down, word-of-mouth, father to son. Until Moses finally gets it down on lambskin. But lambskins wear out, and need to be recopied. Copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of an oral history passed down through 40 generations.
From Hebrew it's translated into Arabic, from Arabic to Latin, from Latin to Greek, from Greek to Russian, from Russian to German, from German to an old form of English that you could not read. Through 400 years of evolution of the English language to the book we have today, which is: a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of an oral history passed down through 40 generations.
You can't put a grocery list through that many translations, copies, and re-telling, and not expect to have some big changes in the dinner menu when the kids make it back from Kroger.

The word "hell" is used 54 times in the Bible, and in only 12 cases does it refer to "a place of burning." The word "hell" is translated from several different words with various meanings, as indicated below:

IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
31 times from "Sheol," which means "the grave."

IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
10 times from "Hades," which means "the grave."
12 times from "Gehenna," which means "the place of burning."
1 time from "Tartarus," which means "a place of darkness."
54 TIMES TOTAL

The Greek word "Gehenna" mentioned above is a transliteration of the Hebrew "Ge-Hinnom," which means the "Valley of Hinnom." This valley, which lies immediately south and west of Jerusalem, was a place where dead animals, garbage, and other refuse were dumped. Fire burned constantly, as it does at modern sanitation dump sites. The Bible uses "Gehenna" or the "Valley of Hinnom" as a symbol of the fire that will destroy the lost at the end of time. The fire of Gehenna was not unending. Otherwise it would be still burning southwest of Jerusalem today. Neither will the fire of hell be unending. It will end after everything would have been burnt, and there is nothing left to be burnt.

An eternal hell of torment would perpetuate sin and make its eradication impossible. An eternal hell of torment is not part of God's great plan at all. Such a horrible theory is slander against the holy name of a loving God. The devil delights to see our loving Creator pictured as such a monstrous tyrant, and he alone can benefit from such teachings.

Think about it for awhile. As long as that fire continues to burn the New heaven and new earth that God has promised to recreate will not happen. God could not make a new heaven and a new earth while the earth is burning. So from a logical point of view the theory doesn't make sense.

@ Mantrea

Would you ever send someone you love deeply like your children or you mother to hell to be tortured, suffer and burn for all eternity?
If you would that is not love.
If hell exists you wouldn't send your children there, so how can god send his children there if he loves them?

It makes no sense at all, which is why i think hell is a fictitional barbaric medievel place created by christians to control using fear and superstition.

I understand how people who are superstitious by nature can be taken in by it all. It takes a long time for a believer to realise they have been duped since childhood.

Hell isn't everlasting but sending the wicked to hell is justified. Originally hell fire was meant for the devil and his angels, but if people choose to follow the devil then they too will feel the heat.

It makes no sense to you because you do not believe God's words, and secondly you choose not to understand spiritual things. You're not fooling anyone but yourself, and you're certainly not fooling God.

@bobbyaf
If you child says to you one day that she does not share your religious beliefs, do you think it would be justified for her to be tortured in hell?

Do you have any proof? And please, don't go quoting your religious manual/bible to me.

"In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters."
It's an oral history. It was passed down, word-of-mouth, father to son, from Adam to Seth, from Seth to Enos, from Enos to Cainan, for 40 generations, a growing, changing, story, it was handed down, word-of-mouth, father to son. Until Moses finally gets it down on lambskin. But lambskins wear out, and need to be recopied. Copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of copies of an oral history passed down through 40 generations.
From Hebrew it's translated into Arabic, from Arabic to Latin, from Latin to Greek, from Greek to Russian, from Russian to German, from German to an old form of English that you could not read. Through 400 years of evolution of the English language to the book we have today, which is: a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation of a translation of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of a copy of an oral history passed down through 40 generations.
You can't put a grocery list through that many translations, copies, and re-telling, and not expect to have some big changes in the dinner menu when the kids make it back from Kroger.

Of course you're assuming that major errors were made. As humans we will make error including translational errors, but are the errors enough to totally obliterate the truth that was there from the beginning? Besides, if man is capable of inventing the incredible, then it becomes a simple matter for him to work around those errors, which we have been doing.

Do you think God can be taken by surprise? He anticipated human errors in preserving His original writings, and that is why He sent His greatest revelation since, being in the form of His Son. No one can deny He came and started a movement that has spread to every nation, tribe and tongue. History confirms it, and so we believe it.

@bobbyaf
If you child says to you one day that she does not share your religious beliefs, do you think it would be justified for her to be tortured in hell?

Its not about having religious disagreements my friend. Hell fire is for those who have rejected God and His cause on earth. God is fair in that He gives everyone a chance to hear the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. For those who haven't heard it He will judge them according to their conscience.

That is why the judgment will precede the punishment. Everyone will be judged fairly. So when Jesus returns the second time He will be coming with a reward to give everyone based on his or her works. In heaven before Jesus' second return God would have decided based on that fair judgment who is fit for heaven, and who is fit for hell.

Revelation 22:11,12 say, "11 He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still: and he that is holy, let him be holy still. 12 And, behold, I come quickly; and my reward is with me, to give every man according as his work shall be."

This reward is like a verdict which can only come after the cases have been tried based on evidence. Our lives become the evidence. Our choices become the evidence. Everything we think, say or do is recorded in the books of heaven.

And guess what the very wicked after they see how fair God is, will confess with their mouths that what they are about to experience is just. The wicked will now see that whatever God metes out to them is indeed fair, because they will remember every opportunity that was wasted to do good, and was not utilised.

see here

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/28897