Jesus actually never talked about eternal torment. The three parables you mention also do not say how long the consequences for failure last or whether there is anything else to take place afterward. Gehenna A sewer channel commonly ran under the streets of ancient cities. Though a duration of time is the most common use of the word, just as with most any word, there can be different meanings depending on the context. Isaiah 30:33 (HCSB) Indeed! After the Jews returned from the Babylonian exile, the valley became a garbage dump where anything considered unclean was placed. Even though the word "Gehenna" comes from the Valley of Hinnom, simply rendering it as "garbage dump" or "valley of waste disposal" or "burning garbage" could not be an accurate translations, because that's not what Jesus and the apostles meant when they used the word. It is translated "hell" every time. It says it is "not quenched". The rest of the chapter goes on to reassure Israel that they will not all be killed in this judgment. His idea of apokatastasis was actually the main theological idea that was criticized, his teaching that in the end even Satan would be saved. It is the birthplace of the yugoloths, which dwell here in great numbers. There is no mention in the tons upon tons of writings we have from Church Fathers, Christian and Jewish writers, or even secular writers for that matter. The gulf represents the uncrossable separation it is not meant to keep the saved from going over there because they have no reason to do so, as they are with God and His people. The "captivity". Romans 5:18-21 So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. It is part and parcel with the place that we normally call Hell. Out of six major "seminaries" ". 1. garbage dump - a piece of land where waste materials are dumped. I thought the Passover lambs were all sacrificed on the Temple Mount. Regarding individuals, councils excommunicated those that refused to accept a definition reached (or for crimes i.e. This view is frequently debated, as there exists little evidence to confirm the existence of. It is possible to use a word, like aionian, to make a statement of fact, without being forced to use it as a statement of limitation.". The fire never went out. For example, eternal salvation doesn't mean God is saving us daily (rather an eternal result of a one time event) just as eternal judgment not mean God is tormenting the lost daily, rather the one time event (the second death) had eternal result as well. The parables all imply that the judgement is final, because "the door was locked" it is an unfounded assumption on your part that it would be opened again. Which brings us back to our starting point: it is eternal for good and bad or age-enduring for both, not this for one and that for another. Where is the record of an uproar over them? The Greek word GeHenna is often translated as Hell Fire in other Bibles. "The three parables you mention also do not say how long the consequences for failure last or whether there is anything else to take place afterward.". Though only for a while, but of course his being rejected is not related to any universalist teaching (if he held such, which is not undisputed), which were not the issue in 381. The restoration of these cities is tied to the PEOPLE that lived there in 16:55. Ezekiel doesn't utter any either and he doesn't even touch on anything linked to "eternal fire". "I doubt I will convince you of anything and I don't have time to continue a running debate, but every time I go through this process, I learn something so it has been worth it.". I don't believe that and I don't believe the last commenter does either. ["Who is it that is going to go out of the city and look at the worm-eaten, burning bodies? You see, there is a difference between "material" heresy and "formal" heresy the former is error in contents, which might as well be unwitting, the latter is the obstinate insistance on such an error. 66:24) and later with a place of judgment by fire without any special connection to Jerusalem (see, for example, 1 Enoch 27:1ff., 54:1ff., 63:3-4, and 90:26ff) (Jesus and the Kingdom of God, 376-77). The gate leading to it was called the dung gate, which meant trash as well as animal excrement. The Valley of Hinnom ( Hebrew: , romanized : G en-Hnnm, lit. I am disturbed by the anger and name-calling of the resident I am sure he will give the usual excuses. On three occasions, gehenna is paired with (G4442, pyr, "fire") to read "hell fire" (Matthew 5:22; Matthew 18:9; Mark 9:47). The case may have been overstated, but may not be completely wrong. Rate: Ohio Serpent Mound in the News 'Gehenna is a repugnant place, into which filth and cadavers are thrown, and in which fires perpetually burn in order to consume the filth and bones; on which account, by analogy, the judgement of the wicked is called 'Gehenna.'' The references to fire in Is 31.9 and Is 33.14 envisioned Yahweh's power as bringing vengeance on Israel's oppressors (Is 33.10 - 12) rather than a fire . The thing is, that as the "aion" during which the punishment takes place is coming to an end,DEATH WILL BE SWALLOWED UP BY LIFE! Mk. McBride has more details and the sources in his post. The "kingdom" of the Son will one day be turned over to the Father, and one of the epistles describes Jesus ruling it UNTIL all His enemies are put under His feet, so the parables about the kingdom and the wedding feast do not have to be describing the final state of "the Kingdom". The three offenses are being angry without a cause, calling someone 'raca', and calling someone 'fool'. It was because Gehenna outside the city of Jerusalem was the place where the bodies of criminals were burned and when the . Your idea about "universal salvation" among church fathers is wrongheaded. Why should it end? Its a blank slate until this commentary pops up. I had no idea that the Old Testament provides ample evidence for why the New Testament associates Gehenna with the abode of the damned. But, I agree, that Universalists play the "eternal is not always time" hand way too much! You would think this would have been addressed early on if the case was clear cut and universal salvation was heresy. Why should anyone want to go out when God and all his people and everything good is inside.]. Not unlike the fire of 2 Thes. Originally it referred to a garbage dump in a deep narrow valley right outside the walls of Jerusalem where fires were kept burning to consume the refuse and keep down the stench. As a rubbish dump, Gehenna was a place where fire burned constantly and where worms feasted on the garbage, and these images were transferred to the never-ending punishment of the rebellious. Paul turned a Christian over to satan for the DESTRUCTION OF THE FLESH. The objection that "eternal punishment" and "eternal life" are used in parallel in Matthew 25:46, and therefore aionian must means eternal is based on a false presumption that the "aionian life" which is spoken of would have to come to an end at the same time that the "aionian" punishment does. We seem to just read right past those verses. http://www.afterlife.co.nz/2012/featured-article/tracing-the-road-to-gehenna/, Universalism and The Reality of Eternal Punishment: The Biblical Basis of the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment, https://www.google.com/maps/@31.7686626,35.2333475,3a,56.6y,328.92h,103.63t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1szm6A_bN1OCNC7ikOFCcVTw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656. And that's probably what Jerome is after, distinguishing between this end-less but not time-less eternity and the God's eternity without such constraints, wihtout beginning or end. "The God of the Eons" is a statement of fact, not of limitation. It was like the time of the reproach of the daughters of Syria and all those around her, and of jthe daughters of the Philistines, who despise you everywhere. New garbage was piled on top of the old decaying garbage: rotting fish, slimy vegetation, decaying human refuse of every imaginable sort. (v.23). Maybe you guys think you are as smart as our all knowing all seeing creator. But just as soon as Josiah died, the Jews returned to Tophet. Not necessarily. Why should anyone want to go out when God and all his people and everything good is inside. Gehenna is the Jewish version of the "punishing afterlife" and the word refers to a valley just to the west side of the city of Jerusalem. The origin of the "garbage dump" theory appears to be Kimchi. It is never used by Jesus, and is only found in three places in the new testament, Acts 22:5 and 26:11 where Paul is talking about his 'punishment' of Christians before his conversion, and in Hebrews 10:29 where the context again is between those who adhere to the old covenant in opposition to the new, only this time the tables are turned. People tend to believe what they want to believe unless or until they come to repentance and life in Jesus Christ.. 24 And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh. Gehenna became a place where corpses of criminals, dead animals, and all manners of refuse were thrown to be destroyed. Residents sometimes called it the "valley of the sewer" or "the valley of the pagans." By Jesus' time, the Greek translation of Hinnom Valley, gehenna, became a synonym for hell. 'Valley of the son of Hinnom' [1]) is a historic valley surrounding Ancient Jerusalem from the west and southwest. Of course, since it was a garbage dump, it was necessary to keep the garbage burning in order to reduce the stench and to limit the number of flies and rats. It can't. Though I vehemently disagree with you, I do not think your view stems from bad motives. Named in the New Testament in Greek form (from the Hebrew Ge Hinnom, meaning "valley of Hinnom"), Gehenna originally was a valley west and south of Jerusalem where children were burned as sacrifices to the Ammonite god Moloch. You are simply ignoring these. In Isaiah 30:33, it is referred to as Topheth, a horrible, fearsome place: "Its fire pit has been made deep and wide, with an abundance of fire and wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream . In order to do that, the person must be either present or at least given the opportunity. One is kolasin, the other timoria. 9:28 or was that Is. The Valley of Hinnom, named Gehenna in Greek, lies just outside the city of Jerusalem. The earliest explicit reference to the valley as a garbage dump is from the twelfth century AD, but circumstantial evidence in Jeremiah suggests this probably was true even in his time. It is not "people" who ingore context but you who are grasping at straws of literal nitpicking to justify your beliefs in the light of what Christ or others as recorded in Scripture clearly taught. This is getting silly! the creed), negative condemnations ("Whosover says . We should rather shun them than let them damage our salvation. A Christian in error is still a Christian.]. For all those who think that the 2 times eternal in Mat.25:46 must be the same is talking nonsense,in 5 other verses it also happens and in those it cannot be the same at all.Romans 16:25-26 and Titus 1:2 and Galatians 1:4-5 and Ephesians 3:9-11 and 1 Timothes 6:17-19 So how you explain that hell is pagan nonsense God is love!!! There simply is no evidence to support the idea, but because it seems a reasonable explanation for the origin of the Hinnom Valley as hell, writers and preachers accept and propagate the story. If you don't like it, go and take something else but don't put your thoughts into Christ's mouth. Most did not. He must be alive. The Gehenna Valley was thus a place of burning sewage, burning flesh, and garbage. Perhaps waste products from the lambs were thrown there or pethaps some lambs were slain outside the city walls, but I had never heard this. Jesus will draw all of mankind to himself, and as in Adam all died, in Christ all will be made alive. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, rather than having two eyes, to be cast into hell fire. I don't and hence I will make this a short one. Even in Rome, many did not believe that punishment was eternal, and this is according to the champion of that doctrine, Augustine. TATS THE TRUE TRANSLATION THEIR WORM WILL NOT DIE THAT IS WHY THE FIRE WONT BE QUENCHED THEY ARE IN ETERNAL TORMENT.THE NIV IS NOT LITERAL THEY CHANGE WORDS TO THE WORMS THAT EAT THEM WON'T DIE WERE DOES IT SAY THAT IT DOESNT, Hinnom Walley was a dump in Jesus days and even today, in modern times, we have waste treatment technology and everything in Jerusalem has changed to a tourist attraction and no one already wants the landfill there, but some people are still used to throwing their waste there.https://www.google.com/maps/@31.7686626,35.2333475,3a,56.6y,328.92h,103.63t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1szm6A_bN1OCNC7ikOFCcVTw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656, Your email address will not be published. Gehenna Gehenna is the plane of suspicion and greed. Still, that's no basis for any claims about how eternal does not mean eternal or how undying fire/worms suddenly mean dying-only-later fire/worms. As a conditionalist, it's so nice to be able to just let the Bible speak plainly on these topics and be true to sound exegesis vs. imposing a strained interpretation to produce a desired doctrinal end (universalism or eternal torment in my opinion). So just imagine the hundreds of thousands of squirmy, wormy maggots living there, eating the rotting refuse. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. So, sulfur and sulfurous rocks know as 'brimstone' were . But that was the exception and in violation of the principles. We can trace the develope a transition of the place of the dead from a pit to a water filled pit and then to similar with fire. What is supposed to come after salvation? ), "And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.". Are you serious? Diana Group Profile and History . Students may use the material on this site for school projects without permission. The pictures on this website are copyrighted and may be used only with permission. Jeremiah is explicit that such occurred here: Jeremiah 7:3132 (ESV) And they have built the high places of Topheth, which is in the Valley of the Son of Hinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire, which I did not command, nor did it come into my mind. If not there, where? It is also very instructive to study the writings of the early church fathers and church history to see how prevalent a belief universal salvation was, and then compare the conditions that surrounded the second council at Constantinople where they decided that a confession of belief in an eternal hell was one of the conditions for being accepted into "the church". Blot them out of existence? Gehenna was a burning trash dump outside Jerusalem. Specifically, Bailey states: [Kimchi] maintained that in this loathsome valley fires were kept burning perpetually to consume the filth and cadavers thrown into it. Click the card to flip And as you know from experience, a dump without flies is a dump without garbage. Seems a little disproportionate to me. The name Sha'ar Ha'ashpot appears in the Book of Nehemiah 3:13-14. It is a deep and narrow ravine on the South West side of Jerusalem - first mentioned in Joshua 15:8 and in 18:16 where it says that the boundary line between the tribes of Judah . There is BTW no clear verse saying that the kingdom would have an end, many things that speak against it. Why is there this belief that there is no redemption? Jude is not using Sodom and Gommorah as examples of those who WILL be punished, the "suffering of eternal fire" in that verse is in the PRESENT TENSE. From the reign of Josiah onward, it was used as a garbage dump where the fires burned the refuse continuously. Some scholars claim Gehenna later became a " garbage dump ," where refuse was subsequently burned. Specifically, Bailey states: Unless otherwise noted, the posts are written by Todd Bolen, PhD, Professor of Biblical Studies at The Masters University. Almost every major commentary on Matthew that mentions Gehenna also spoke of the garbage dump. to fully consume all things dumped there. Though the channels were probably used to drain rainwater from the towns, people also used them to dump human waste, garbage, and debris. And of course, the worm did not die there, meaning that there were always new maggots going through their life-cycles, feeding on the trash. God is much more forgiving than that. In Israel's past, it was used as a place of child sacrifice. There is no biblical support for this, neither is there any literary sources or archaeological data from the intertestamental or rabbinic periods to suggest this. Kolasin has as it's root meaning "to prune" something away or remove it in order to IMPROVE it. Revelation 9:6 says, And in those days people will seek death and will not find it. You first have to make the text fit your interpretation. Who said it was a statement of limitation when did your "statement of fact" become a "statement of limitation"? Jesus gives a simple vivid example, they will be like chaff thrown in a flame. Add to that the teaching of the church since the earliest days. [I have no clue what v.15 you are talking about so you can spare us that.]. A Christian in error is still a Christian. The quotation begins in verse 22. There were people in Rome long after universalism was known in the church, whom Augustine called Christians, who believed in universal salvation, and still no decree from any council stating that a belief in an "eternal hell" was necessary to sound faith. It was an interesting article and I am glad that you were not trying to disprove eternal punishment though at least one person wanted to think otherwise. If it was not condemned, it was because it wasn't widespread and there were more pressing issues. Gehenna - The Prophetic Garbage Dump. If it was consistently translated as 'eternal' people would see how ridiculous that idea is. Isaiah had already envisioned Topheth as the fiery destiny of an enemy of God. 66:24?. They might as well say nothing on this issue. "What concerns me is that virtually no one raised in the church even notices there is any need for one.". Rome? And nowhere did either Christ or any Apostle ever teach that. [however,] there is no evidence for this claim; it can be traced to a commentary on the book of Psalms written by Rabbi David Kimhi in the early thirteenth century CE. Neovia group's Profile, Revenue and Employees. From "The Fires of Gehenna: View of Scholars" by Todd Bolen, "The first is Edward Robinson, preeminent explorer of the Holy Land beginning in 1838. Thats the earliest reference we have to it- a Rabbi writing in the middle ages from Europe, not Israel, some 1100 years after Jesus was born. Even if I couldn't convince you, I am glad that you got something out of it. And it is obviously contradicting the parable to consider what could happen after the feast for if the kingdom is like that feast and there would be an afterwards, it would no longer be eternal. He does not say say that Sodom underwent "punishment of eternal fire" but that Sodom is an example for those that will. He just told his audience that if there is part of your body that causes you to stumble, cut it off. Gender and justice in the worshipping communities of the Christian Churches, Tay JoAnne Schield Odor. Topheth has been ready for the king for a long time now. The chastisement is in reference to the Second Death, which can't be eternal if we are to take any of the passages about death itself being destroyed literally. 20The Law came in so that the transgression would increase; but where sin increased,grace abounded all the more, 21 so that, as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. Are there going to be new moons and sabbaths in eternity? They ignore the nature of both worms and fire to protect their doctrine of an eternal hell. Passover lambs were all sacrificed on the Temple Mount what concerns me is that virtually no one raised in worshipping. Will not find it translated as hell fire in other Bibles idea about `` universal salvation was heresy sulfurous know... By the anger and name-calling of the yugoloths, which dwell here in great numbers there... What concerns me is that virtually no one raised in the church since the earliest days that they not! 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Sewer channel commonly ran under the streets of ancient cities an Amazon Associate we from. And justice in the Book of Nehemiah 3:13-14 why should anyone want to go of. The Book of Nehemiah 3:13-14 any need for one. `` chapter goes on to reassure Israel they. Can spare us that. ] the church since the earliest days of suspicion and.! Of burning sewage, burning FLESH, and as you know from experience, a dump without flies is statement... Ready for the king for a long time now when did your `` statement of,... Blank slate until this commentary pops up for one. `` land where waste materials are dumped is! Jesus gives a simple vivid example, they will be made alive as Josiah died, in Christ all be. Almost every major commentary on Matthew that mentions Gehenna also spoke of the quot... On Matthew that mentions Gehenna also spoke of the yugoloths, which dwell here in great numbers nature... Something else but do n't believe the last commenter does either fit your interpretation v.15 are. 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'S no basis for any claims about how eternal does not mean eternal or how undying fire/worms suddenly mean fire/worms... Convince you, I agree, that 's no basis for any claims about how does!
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