Sources and Discussions on Hell

RSM · **Posted:** Aug 30, 2007 1:02 pm

One tool we need in our fight against fundamentalist Abrahamic religions is knowledge on how to refute the hell doctrine. Discussion with these religions always includes hell implicitly if not explicitly. Why? Because the central tenets of faith in Christianity and Islam especially is how to escape the eternal tortures of hell. Anyone who holds to these religions does so at least in part because of a fear of hell.

Again, nothing we say will make a dent in fundamentalist religion but we gotta start somewhere. Knowing something about the history of the doctrine and how others have handled and argued the topic can't hurt. So I am starting this thread with the purpose to collect sources and discussions that might be helpful in our personal lives and otherwise.

RSM · **Posted:** Aug 30, 2007 1:26 pm

Fear of Hell

This is an excellent thread on exChristian about dealing with the indoctrinated fear of hell. It includes a few sources, too.

RSM · **Posted:** Aug 30, 2007 2:07 pm

History of Hell, book by Alice K. Turner. It is on Amazon and can be searched inside by clicking on the image of the book.

Practically all I know about the history of the hell doctrine comes from stray comments made by my Christian professors who do not believe in an afterlife. (In my opinion, anyone who identifies as Christian is a Christian, regardless of what they believe or don't believe.) These professors said that hell as it is preached in fundamentalism today did not exist until the Middle Ages in Europe. This is based on art and on translation of certain words in the New Testament.

If you don't want to buy the book but want to read up a bit on the history of hell, I would recommend some of the Customer Reviews on Amazon. Here are the ones I consider educational and of good quality:

RSM · **Posted:** Sep 14, 2007 10:35 am

This article, written in 1855, shows that Jesus' story about Lazarus and the rich man was not original.

Quote:

[T]he Jews had borrowed their ideas of torment in a future state from the heathen....Hades, or the place of departed spirits, is represented as receiving all, as Sheol did, good and bad; but we have also the additional idea of separate...districts, divided by a great gulf...on one side of which the blessed are located, and on the other side the damned...as in the case of Abraham and the rich man.

It must also be remembered that this is only a parable, and not a real history; ...as Dr. Whitby affirms, "we find this very parable in the Gemara Babylonicum." The story was not new,...not original with Christ, but known among the Jews before He repeated it. He borrowed the parable from them.

In my opinion, the author successfully refutes the doctrine of hell as a literal place. In other words, hell is not real and we have nothing to fear in the afterlife. It's a man-made idea, probably concocted and propagated by kings and religious leaders to control their people with fear.

RSM · **Posted:** May 30, 2009 9:59 pm

RSM wrote:

This article, written in 1855, shows that Jesus' story about Lazarus and the rich man was not original.

And in my opinion, if it was not original with Jesus, then it was not a message directly from God. It was an idea stolen by the NT writers from the world around them, and adapted to their purposes for whatever reason. People who are reduced to stealing ideas can hardly be trusted to be of pure heart and motive in any other area of life and leadership. That's what I get out of this on May 30, 2009.

RSM · **Posted:** Jun 07, 2009 11:25 am

The article Honest Questions and Answers about Hell by Mercy Aiken and Gary Amirault was linked on exChristian in a thread (Post 9) responding to a person's plea for help in over-coming an irrational fear of hell.

I haven't read the whole article yet but the first paragraph looks very good:

Quote:

The case against Hell: Did you know that there is a solid scriptural case to be made against the idea of Hell? Many non-Christians have rejected the concept of Hell, but it may come as a surprise to learn that there is a growing number of Bible-believing Christians who also reject the notion-not in spite of Scripture but because of it! This short study is meant only to raise some questions and provide brief answers. For further study, please refer to the links at the end of the article.

Here are some of the titles on the first page:

"Hell" Is Not an Old Testament doctrine
Hell Is Not a New Testament Doctrine
Hell Contradicts The Work of the Messiah
"Hell" Was Not a Doctrine of the Early Church
Hell does not reflect the heart of God

Some "If Hell Is Real..." Quotes

If Hell is real and God only loves those who love Him, what better is He than the sinner? (Luke 6:32-33)
If Hell is real, does that mean that motherly love is more powerful and enduring than God's love?
If Hell is real, why does the human spirit writhe under the horror of wars and prison camps, torture chambers and dictators? How can we judge these things as wrong, if Hell is real?

A Christian Applies Epicurus to the Biblical View of God's Omnipotence

Quote from the article:

Hell and the Early Church

According to the article, which is based on documented sources that are listed, the early Church Fathers who could read Greek believed all people would be saved. This is called universalism. Augustine (died 604 CE) (wikipedia), who did not like Greek, used Latin and promoted the idea of hell. I know from my own study of church history that the Western Church (from which descend most Protestants and Catholics of Europe, North and South America, and colonies) is based on Latin Augustinian theology. That hell is preached is vast portions of the Western World is therefore not at all surprising.

Quote:

If Hell was real then why did four out of six theological schools from 170 AD to 430 AD teach universal salvation while the only one that taught Hell was in Carthage, Africa, again w[h]ere Latin was the teaching language, not Greek?

If Hell was real and a serious heresy, why was it not until the sixth century when Justinian, a half-pagan emperor, tried to make universalism a heresy? Interestingly, most historians will acknowledge that Justinian's reign was among the most cruel and ruthless.

Note that, according to the claims of this article, hell seems to be rooted in the Latin language. The Western Church developed most of its theology from the Vulgate. The Vulgate is a Latin translation of the Bible, developed from various revisions and sources, including Greek and Hebrew originals, the Septuagint (Greek translation of Hebrew Scriptures), and earlier Latin translations. See the wikipedia article.

The Vulgate

The form of the Vulgate that was used for about a thousand years was translated by Saint Jerome who lived from 347-420 CE.

Quote:

In terms of its importance to the culture, art, and life of the Middle Ages, the Vulgate stands supreme. Through the Middle Ages and onto the Renaissance and Reformation, St. Jerome’s monumental work stood as a last pillar of Roman glory and the bedrock of the Latin church as it strove to unite a fractured Europe through the Catholic faith. As the version of the Bible familiar to and read by the faithful for over a thousand years (c. AD 400–1530), the Vulgate exerted a powerful influence, especially in art and music, as it served as inspiration for countless paintings, hymns and popular religious plays.

Influence on Western culture

The link between the Latin Vulgate of 1530 and English-speakers today are such Reformers as John Calvin, and Reformation Era Bibles as the King James Bible. (The Reformation is normally said to have taken place approximately from 1500 to 1650. During that time the Western Church was reformed from one massive church centrally based in Rome into various factions that included Martin Luther's followers (Lutherans), the Anabaptists, and other Protestants or protesters.) Many words and terms from the Vulgate remain in the English language to the present day.

To Summarize

I am not sure how, or why, the authors of the article on "Honest Questions and Answers about Hell" make the connection that the concept of hell is rooted in the Latin language. It seems I should look into that matter before I blindly accept it as fact. Since I don't read Latin, I'm not sure how to do that. Also, the other arguments they make agree with other information across which I have come in my readings and studies. In addition, they make sense.

Sources and Discussions on Hell

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