Taphophilia Posted February 26, 2006 Share Posted February 26, 2006 The Greek word for hell is Hades. I know that most of the translations for hell in the NT are the word Hades. Hades is very Pagan concept. Hades is the Greek god of the underworld and Hades, the place, was thought to exist litterally underground with the dead going to various parts of Hades domain with the bad dead being punished for A YEAR, purified, then are allowed to a better place. Why does Jesus use a very Pagan concept? As we know, there is no mention of Hell/Hades in the OT. The OT says the wicked die, nothing about eternal punishment. Adam and Eve were never warned of eternal punishment. Cain killed his own brother but god never told him about eternal punishment. No one before the Flood was warned of eternal punishment Genesis 6:5 & 17 "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And, behold, I, even I, do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy all flesh, wherein is the breath of life, from under heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall DIE" They were so wicked that god had to kill all them all. So why doesn't god say they will suffer eternal torment instead of just die? Sodom and Gomorrah were never warned by god of eternal punishment. Did god say they would die, but secretly mean eternal punishment? Ecc 9:5 says "For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not anything" Good dead, bad dead, it makes no difference. They don't know anything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mnemosyne Posted February 26, 2006 Share Posted February 26, 2006 The idea of punishment for wrongdoing is a pretty common trope in all religions - it's necessary to keep people in line. The carrot and the stick. In Hinduism you've got reincarnation as a lower or higher entity as incentive, in classical and Egyptian mythology you've got the underworld to worry about, in Judaeo-Christian belief, Islam, and even Buddhism, you've got hell. But yeah, the Christian version of hell has quite a lot in common with the underworld... in Paradise Lost, Milton based his description of hell on descriptions of the underworld in The Aeneid and The Odyssey. I think one big difference, however, is that the worst part of the Christian hell is supposed to be separation from God... whereas in the underworld, there's less fire and more perpetual starvation/thirst while being taunted by the nearness of food and water, never-ending tasks like Sisyphus' rolling a rock up a hill only to have it roll down again, and it generally being an unpleasant and hopeless place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lycorth Posted February 26, 2006 Share Posted February 26, 2006 Jesus is said to have used these pagan-like descriptions because he was just a regular human being who knew somewhat of Greco-Roman and Eastern concepts of "hell". He merely spoke of his own interpretation of "hell", not give us any direct information straight from Gawd. It just proves the Babble is a human invention, since the writers of the OT may not have had the exposure to Greco-Roman and Eastern influences like the writers of the NT did. If the Xian Hell were genuine, there'd have been consistent mention of it from the OT on. Xianity is simply not nearly as unique as it claims to be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jrmarlin Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 Why does Jesus use a very Pagan concept? That's a very good question. Plagerism always sucks -- especially when the supposed son of God is doing it. If he were truly the son of a being that knows and sees all, wouldn't he be a bit more original? This should be posted on my "Christianity is very UN-original" tread. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ziggy Posted March 4, 2006 Share Posted March 4, 2006 Taph This is a good point about hell NOT being in the OT Eternal hell seemed to be introduced at the same time as Christ came to save us from it .. very convenient ! I am agnostic and can accept that there may be a God But there is no way I can entertain any possibility of a Hell in any form Even for the Hitlers of this world Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mythra Posted March 5, 2006 Share Posted March 5, 2006 Hades is very Pagan concept. Hades is the Greek god of the underworld and Hades, the place, was thought to exist litterally underground with the dead going to various parts of Hades domain with the bad dead being punished for A YEAR, purified, then are allowed to a better place. Why does Jesus use a very Pagan concept? Good question, Taph. If the Bible is such a revelation (no pun intended) of God to humankind, why in the world did God need to borrow from previous myths and ideas? Lake of Fire: Egyptian. Inhabited by demons: Egyptian. Seven-headed serpent: Mesopotamian. (Mushmahhhu) and Canaanite (Lotan) A serpent who was to be bound in chains, abused, and then cast into the fire? Apep. Egyptian. A dark, bottomless abyss? Tartarus. Greek. A wait of 1,000 years? Plato (and Virgil) Punishment being eternal? Plato. (In the Phaedo) From this article: Some of the concepts as found in the book of Revelation, suggest mythic themes were being borrowed by the early Christians from the myths of Canaan, Mesopotamia, Egypt, as well as Hellenistic Greece, creatively transforming and re-interpreting them with "new twists," to paraphrase Lambert's observation. The Old Testament or Hebrew Bible knows NOTHING of an eternal damnation of sinners in a lake of fire. This notion does however appear in the so-called "inter-testamental era," circa 330 BCE to 100 CE in various Jewish writings called the Pseudepigraphia and Apocrypha. I suspect that Hellenistic Greek notions of an underworld filled with fiery rivers and lakes came to be accepted by some Hellenized Jewish individuals, or sects, from which a Hellenized Christianity emerged. The Greeks who settled settled in Sicily and southern Italy by the 6th century BCE would have seen the "firey rivers" or lava flows at night erupting from the Mount Etna volcano or Mount Vesuivius. These fiery rivers of lava coming from the under the earth, probably caused them to imagine a fiery underworld for the damned. A "Hellenized Religion" is by definition a blend of Hellenized Greek metaphysical concepts with other Ancient Near Eastern faiths. The "Books of Apocrypha" found in some Christian Bibles mention how some Jews, including Priests, accepted Hellenized Greek concepts and tried to change the Jewish faith by accepting Greek beliefs into the Temple at Jerusalem. This movement was resisted by the Maccabees, who sought to restore Judaism to its pre-Hellenistic Greek teachings (cf. the Book of 1st Maccabees for the story). Ptolemy II who ruled Egypt (285-246 BCE) was successful in conquering Judah in the 3rd century BCE and he carried off into capitivity to Egypt, thousands of Jews, many of whom came to settle in his capital at Alexandria. Most probably via these Hellenistic Greeks and their myths of fiery underworld rivers, as well as the local Egyptians and their myths of lakes of fire for the damned of Osiris, a "Hellenized and somewhat Egyptianized" Judaism emerged with a concept of a fiery torment for sinners which would later emerge in Christianity's teachings of hell-fire for the unrighteous. Jews in Egypt were frequent pilgrim visitors to Jerusalem and its Temple and via these pilgrims the local Palestinian Jewry would come into contact with notions of a fiery fate for the unfaithful. end quote. So, was the Revelation written by a 120 year old man who was taken up into heaven and who recorded the incredible, fantastic scenes of heaven and hell that God personally revealed to him? Or was it the result of evolving ideas that came about through the mixing of cultures and blending of ideologies? Once again we revert to the most logical explanation. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
godlessgrrl Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 Could also have been a PR move. I.e., sell your new religion to people by morphing it to include familiar elements of the old religion. Kind of like the early church did with all the various pagan holidays. *cough*Saturnalia!*cough* Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
theGreatMe Posted March 7, 2006 Share Posted March 7, 2006 Well, when i was a christian, I explained any similarities away by thinking that since this was the true religion, other religions had hints of the true religion that was there from the beginning. And that the truth of the original was lost by there fathers and/or changed. Blah..blah...blah Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mad Ethel Rakem Posted March 20, 2006 Share Posted March 20, 2006 They even hijacked the name "hell" from the Norse deity "Hel" (Loki's daughter (by Angrboda) who was sort of bunted into the neatherworld to reign). And Hel's domain, I believe, is said to be sort of quite, possibly dark, and possibly quite boring (althought others say it is unpleasant... but I never got that vibe). It's sort of like purgatory. And who knows, maybe the Catholics even hijacked that for their purgatory. (shrugs) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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