RE: If you were ever a theist...
January 12, 2016 at 11:32 am
(This post was last modified: January 12, 2016 at 11:36 am by God of Mr. Hanky.)
(January 12, 2016 at 12:53 am)Jörmungandr Wrote:(January 11, 2016 at 10:11 pm)*Deidre* Wrote: I know what the Bible says about it, but...Idk. I just never really concerned myself with it. There is a yin and yang in this lifetime, could there be a yin and yang in an afterlife? I do believe in an afterlife, and think that the Bible's rendition of it, might just be stories. People's ideas of what it might be. Jesus spoke of hell, but He wasn't as specific as other passages of the Bible, or even the OT's depiction of it.
From what I understand, hell is primarily a New Testament doctrine. There isn't really much about it in the Old Testament. A lot of the theology of hell is extra-biblical, being sourced from documents and traditions that aren't canon.
The New Testament wasn't written until after Paul and others had been immersed in Greek culture for years, with their own ideas to sell. Hell was invented after study of the Greek Hades and other nasty pagan myths, twisted up extra nasty with a "lake of fire" to make it a competitive terror.
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