Of course you’re right about the Hades/Sheol connection. I was trying to point out that this was different view of the underworld than the Christian vison of a fiery pit. (A more or less neutral site for everone as opposed to a special place of punishment for sinners)
The Bible contains three different terms which are often translated as “hell” and none of them are what we NOW think of as hell. The first two terms are “Hades” and “Sheol” (discussed above) and the third is “Gehennon,” a reference not to a supernatural place, but a real valley south of Jerusalem.
Revelation, of course, DOES contain the “lake of fire,” but this is such a metaphorical book that it is hard to tell if the author intended this to be taken literally.
Was the current concept of jewish hell (non-eternal except for the truly wicked and non-repentant such as the Pharoah from the OT and Hitler) the prevailing concept in Jesus’ time as well? If so, wouldn’t Jesus talk of eternal hell be more of a back-handed insult or a sly commentary on his opinion of the Pharisees than a proclamation of theology? IIRC, the wailing and gnashing of teeth comment was along those lines.
Jesus never seemed to have a high opinion of the religious people of his day and did like to talk in riddles and parables. So much so that he criticized his own apostles on a regular basis for not “getting it”. And it’s the work of these apostles that the whole Christian concept of hell (and other things) is born out.
The Hebrew bible doesn’t really say anything about the afterlife. There were two main sects in ancient Israel who had differing views on the matter. The Pharisees believed there would be a bodily resurrection someday. (Note, they did not necessarily believe in “heaven” but only that people would all be brought back to life again)
The Sadducees did not believe there would be a resurrection. Once you were dead, you were dead. (That’s why they were SAD, you see. :D)
I think that the Talmud says that the period while you’re dead would be a time of purgatory, and maybe in some cases permanent, but I’m not real up on the Talmud.
The Sadducees were pretty much wiped out after the destruction of Jerusalem so what we now know as Rabbinic judaism grew from the Pharisee sect. The Jewish view of the afterlife then became refined into it’s modern form.
I read the results of an opinion poll a few years ago on “Do you believe in life after death.” While a very high percentage of Christians (93%) did. Only about 35% of Jews believed in life after death. I found this hard to believe. Why believe in a supreme being at all if there is no after life?
I have a somewhat different take on this story. I think that the true test that God was giving to Abraham was one of questioning authority, not following it blindly. I think that God knew that what he was telling Abraham to was evil and wanted him to recognize it as so and say something like “God, a moment of your time please. I recognize you are all powerful but there is no way I’m going to commit this evil deed that you are commanding of me. And if you insist, you can come down and do it yourself, I’m not doing it” instead of doing exactly as he was told. In this sense I think Abraham failed the test (and probably traumatized poor Isaac).
And what, pray tell, would you base this idiotic interpretation on?
If Abraham failed the test, then why did God reward Abraham after the whole episode?
Genesis 22:15-18 "Again the Lord’s mesenger called to Abraham from heaven and said: “I swear by myself, declares the Lord, that because you acted as you did in not withholding from me your beloved son, I will bless you abundantly and make your descendants as countless as the stars of the sky and the sands of seashore; your descendants shall take possession of the gates of their enemies, and in your descendants all the nations of the earth shall find blessing - all this because you obeyed my command.”
Please tell me how you get that the real test was questioning authority? And how do you get that he failed that test? There’s nothing - NOTHING - there to indicate that.
Abraham didn’t fail the test. He knew Isaac was the son of promise and also that if he killed him that God was able to bring him to life again. Abraham showed his total trust and obedience to the Lord by proceeding to obey Him. The Lord saw this and stopped him from completing the deed.
Believe nothing, O monks, merely because you have been told it… or because it is traditional, or because you yourselves have imagined it.
Do not believe what your teacher tells you merely out of respect for the teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and analysis, you find to be conducive to the good, the benefit, the welfare of all beings – that doctrine believe and cling to, and take it as your guide.
Gautama Buddha, The Dhammapada
No blind faith for me, it leads to corruption.
The spiritual world is logical and practical, everything is done for a good reason and the good of all. It is ruled by God’s love.
I don’t believe the Bible literally and apply the above rule to everything I read in it.
Would like to share today’s devotional from My Utmost For His Highest by Oswald Chambers.
Ephesians 1:7
*"In whom we have...the forgiveness of sin."*
Beware of the pleasant view of the Fatherhood of God…God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive. That sentiment has no place whatever in the New Testament. The only ground on which God can forgive us is the Cross of Christ; to put forgiveness on any other terms is unconscious blasphemy.
The only ground on whch God can fogive sin and reinsate us in His favor is through the Cross of Christ and no other way. Forgiveness, whch is so easy for us to accept, cost the agony of Calvary. It is possible to take the forgiveness of sin, the gift of the Holy Spirit, and our sanctification with the simplicity of faith, and to forget at what enormous cost to God it was all made ours.
Forgiveness is divine miracle of Grace, it cost God the Cross of Christ before He could forgive and remain a Holy God. Never accept a view of the Fatherhood of God it it blots out the atonement.
Compared with the miracle of the forgiveness of sin, the experience of sanctification is slight. Sanctification is simply the marvelous expression of the forgiveness of sin in the human life, but the thing that awakens the deepest well of gratitude in a human being is that God has forgiven sin.
When once we realize all that it cost God to forgive us, we will be held as in a vice, constrained by the love of God.
Right. The point is, if there wasn’t a prior tradition of child sacrifice, there wouldn’t have been any need for a biblical passage specifically rejecting the practice. The presence of bans on given practices implies, necessarilly, that those practices were prevalent enough to require bans against them.
There’s also hints of child sacrifice elsewhere in the old testament; the plague on the firstborn, for example. Unfortunately I don’t have my copy of the golden bough with me, or I’d type up the relevant sections ( they’re only in the first, unedited edition.)
There is really little scriptually to support my claim, because obviously God did bless Abraham after this way done. Its more of an interpretation of how I see God’s and Abraham’s relationship. For example, look at the way they interacted previously. Abraham was able to negotiate a reduction in God’s conditions prior to the destruction of Sodom (and thus saving Lot). Though the bible never specificially says that God was pleased that Abraham did this, it is my belief that it did. Likewise, when it came to the sacrifice of Isaac, I think that God would had been more pleased with Abraham if at the very least he had tried to negotiate for a more appropriate sacrifice, perhaps wrestling with God as Daniel later did.
In Gen 22: 1
1 And it came to pass after these things, that God did tempt Abraham, and said unto him, Abraham: and he said, Behold, here I am.
Keyword there being “tempt”
In Gen 22:10-13
10 And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.
11 And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I.
12 And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.
To me, this sounds as though God never wanted Isaac as a sacrifice and when Abraham went forth to actually slay Isaac, God’s tone is very angry and to me seems dissapointed in Abraham.
But because God did swear a vow that he would bless Abraham if he did this, God did not go back on his word and did bless him. But who knows how much more blessed he would had been if he did not try to sacrifice Isaac. Also, I can not find anymore references that God speaks with Abraham again after this incident.
Unorthodox interpretation, but it is my interpretation none-the-less.
But isn’t God Omnipotent? How could he “not know” what being human was like? If he doesn’t know something then he is, by definition, not omnipotent. Furthermore, how could he become “fed up” with humans when he had to have known exactly what they were going to do before he ever created them?
Don’t know where this guy has been all his life to say that God is not pleasant. Never read anything so far off base that it’s not even in the ballpark. The whole teachings of Jesus are about God’s love and forgiveness.
Give me a break. I am surprised you would even read such an obvious false prophet.
Everyone wants to judge God by what they would do or feel.
God doesn’t get fed-up or angry with us. What good parent would. We can not judge God. He is unconditional love.
Always the same, always there for us, loving us and keeping us safe. Honor Him, don’t try to fit Him into the limitations us humans have.
