So did Christ ever discuss Hell as a punishment for sinners?

[EstimatedProphet]

I have heard that he didn't, and that the idea of Hell as a punishment for people instead of fallen angels came from the middle ages. But if that's the case, what about Luke 16?
http://www.usccb.org/nab/bible/luke/luke16.htm

[madeline_con]

1. "... what about Luke 16? "

I guess those who say Jesus didn't say it didn't read Luke. ;)

[mrcheerful]

3. Or at least this version of the bible.

Considering that every sect has its own version and interpretations of the bible its very easy to understand why some wouldn't have seen it in their sects version.

[EstimatedProphet]

5. Good point

although I saw this in 2 separate versions of Luke...still, that's not all of them.

[madeline_con]

10. I checked the KJV, which is the tome of the Evangelicals.

It seems to indicate a guy went to hell for being rich.

[EstimatedProphet]

4. Well...guess not

I've heard for years now that hell wasn't mentioned as a place people are sentenced to, and that fundamentalists have it all wrong. After all, this is in conflict with John 3:16 which talks about eternal life rather than perishing.

[madeline_con]

11. It says "whosoever believeth..."

... shall not perish, but have everlasting life."

This implies that whososever doth NOT, shall. :evilgrin:

[EstimatedProphet]

16. Perish, yes. Go to hell though?

John 3:16 implies that the alternative to accepting Christ and everlasting life in heaven is eternal death, not eternity in hell. That's what I'm getting at.

[sam sarrha]

13. you have to quote.. i dont allow Bibles or Ouija boards in the house

but hell is a Judaic thing.. Jesus only taught Buddhism..compassion, positive thinking and forgiveness.. unconditional love..

ya know.. all the warm and fuzzy stuff..

he wasn't into gleefully stoning your friends and family for minor misdemeanors

[rockymountaindem]

18. Hell is not a Judaic thing

Jews do not believe in hell as evangelical Christians do. Those Jews who believe in hell in any sense see it as more of a cleansing period to last for a fixed amount of time before we can purify our souls and achieve either heaven or everlasting life in the Messainic days. So, there is kind of a fourfold interpretation there, but Jews do not believe that the wicked burn in hell for all eternity.

[Hissyspit]

24. Rockymountaindem, see my Post #23. nt

[MemphisTiger]

25. Not exactly...

Matthew 10

34"Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. 35For I have come to turn
" 'a man against his father,
a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her motherinlaw—
36a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'

Luke 22
36He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. 37It is written: 'And he was numbered with the transgressors'; and I tell you that this must be fulfilled in me. Yes, what is written about me is reaching its fulfillment."

38The disciples said, "See, Lord, here are two swords."
"That is enough," he replied.

[chalky]

2. More importantly, look at WHO was condemned to hell.

n/t

[EstimatedProphet]

6. True

[Hissyspit]

7. Who the "hell" knows what Jesus talked said?

Sorry for the play on words. :evilgrin:

It was 2000 years ago reported second, third, fourth and fifth hand, and stuff was added and expurgated and misattributed and mis-translated and...

Scholars have their work cut out for them.

Damn, I used an evil devil smiley in my post. I'm going to Hell.

[EstimatedProphet]

17. Here's what I am trying to get at

I've heard for some time now that, although hell was imagined by the Jews in the Old Testament, it was never considered a final destination until Catholic dogma made it so in the middle ages. Thus, the dwelling on liberals going to hell in the fundamentalist churches is a line of crap. (I know it is anyway, but I'd like to have biblical passages to throw back at them, since the Bible is the only thing they recognize.) So, after hearing that hell is really an inbvention of church politics from a great many sources, I was surprised to come across that passage.

[Hissyspit]

23. I don't know that I can give you specific passages for that use, Proph'

Jesus is talking to the Pharisees, the Farsi, who were of Persian origin, and were Zoroastrians. For them the worst place to be sent/condemned would be the desert, which is really HOT. Luke was Greek, I believe, but even if he was not, the stuff in Luke is being filtered through Greek culture. Hellenistic culture, which served as a filter for much of "Judeo-Christian" doctrine was big on the idea of a nether region. You can see how the ideas come together in Aramaic Judea, heavily influenced by Hellenistic culture. Furthermore, these texts traveled through the Rome empire, picking up Roman cultural conventional interpretation. Early Christian teachings were syncretic, a mix of religious mystery cult traditions: Greco-Roman cults, Zorastrianism, Orthodox Judaism and apocalytic Judaism (and Jesus, apparently was an apocalyptic Jew, involved with the Qumran?).

The TRUTH is that you cannot remove the issues of translation, origin and interpretation. If they are going to argue ONLY from a literal reading of (particular) Biblical information, THAT in itself is the problem. You would be casting pearls before swine .
:7

[drb]

8. Does anybody know where the "great chasm" that's mentioned in verse 26...

...came from?

Answer to follow. Hint: Clarence Jordan said it.

[drb]

9. OK, here's where it came from:

The rich guy dug it while he was alive - to keep the "sore people" away from his house.

[Trajan]

12. Luke ...

Luke 10:15 And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell.

[sam sarrha]

14. yadayada.. that is Luke talking..heresay, Jesus only taught Buddhism,

[Trajan]

15. Its all hearsay

... Jesus's supposed divinity is a myth of which I do not indulge ....

Furthermore, the assertion that Jesus was buddhist, or preached a form of buddhism, or spent any time in India .... ALL is hearsay ....

I am extremely skeptical of these assertions, even when they do not include claims of supernaturalism ....

[sam sarrha]

21. not saying he went to india. If you Knew anything about Buddhism you would

see the connection..

Jesus lived on the old Silk Road.. travelers from india were sure to have brought many different ideas during the 500 years between Buddha and Jesus...

I am not saying he believed in the 4 Noble Truths.. but what he taught is the essence of Buddhism.. in a time where people stoned their friends and family to death for breaking religious laws

[mrcheerful]

19. Actually the catholic church's version of hell, which btw became the main

stay of all christens concepts of hell, was started by Dante and his book the Infernal. Until Dante hell and the devil played a small part in the christen religion. Dante got his idea from St. Paul who took a group of people up on the city walls, pointed down to the city dump and said that was what hell looked like. Remember back in Paul's day, the cities had used brimstone to keep the cities garbage burning, That's also where the christens got the ideal that hell was fire and brimstone. Funny how religious leaders can hide and fool people into anything, can you say Jim Jones?

[LaurenG]

20. Luke wasn't even around when Christ was

Personally I just think Christianity was hijacked from the beginning. I have always believed that all people are "sons of god". I think that everyone is to be "Christed" that our fates are to eventually become perfected and we are meant to be more than we are. I also think that Christ spoke in metaphysical terms and most of what he said has been mis-interpreted.

What if "Christ" is a state of mind and a place you get to in your own evolution of consciousness. What if what was meant is nothing like the teaching of today? I don't have anything but opinions but I feel strongly that we all came from somewhere together and we are trying to work out the truth to the best of our abilities. I feel hell is also a place that you must choose to go to on your own (like a state of consciousness too). I can't say any loving God (even mythologically) would send his own creation there to roast for an eternity.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

22. Yes, but he doesn't condemn those whom today's fundies and

legalistic Catholics would condemn.

Note that he condemns a rich man who ignores the beggar dying at his gate. He doesn't condemn the beggar ("Why doesn't that lazy-ass beggar get a job?") nor does he condemn the rich man for having sex outside of heterosexual marriage nor does he condemn him for not supporting the government (in fact, he says nothing about either of these things).

There's also the passage in which he talks about separating the sheep from the goats. (I'm told by people who have traveled in the Middle East that sheep and goats there look more alike than they do in the Western world.) He invites those who fed the hungry, gave water to the thirsty, clothed the naked, and visited the sick and imprisoned to enter heaven. He tells those who did not do these things that they are condemned to "the outer darkness."