The Everlasting Hell Challenge June 1, 2009
Posted by Damian in Biblical Exegesis and Interpretation.Tags: christ, hell, torment
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A few years ago, Drew issued a challenge:
Demonstrate convincingly that the idea that “those who die without putting their faith in Jesus Christ alone to save them (apart from any works) will end up in a place of torment called hell forever with no chance of escape” is a much clearer teaching in Scripture than the idea that “hell is not a place of everlasting torment.” You must not contradict any other parts of Scripture or any other of your own theological positions in order to demonstrate this.
In the past few years, nobody has completed the challenge. Drew decided the time was up for would be answerers. However, I’m still interested, and I think I have a few very sharp readers who would be willing to meet Drew’s challenge. Is anyone interested in giving it a try? I’ll post it, if you comment here, or I’ll link to your post if you want to answer the challenge on your own blog. If you’re having trouble, put a note up on your blog pointing people here or to Drew’s site – I’d like to hear as many takes on the issue as I can. See if we can generate a theo-meme!
So, here are the rules:
- Post a comment here, or post on your own blog. If you post on your own blog, make sure I know about it by commenting here!
- If you know anyone who’d be willing to put the effort into answering the challenge, link to them, email them, tag them – just let them know!
- Answer the challenge!
Any takers?
Go to http://www.concordant.org
You can find many articles that answer many questions there.
Unless you pray to have the answer John 3:27 will keep you from knowing what the Bible really teaches about the false idea of eternal punishment.
Bob Todd
San Jacinto, CA
Tuesday, June 1, 2009
Let me know what you think…
k7vhq@earthlink.net
Bob,
I’d love for you to give me your own answer to the question! Thanks for the link.
My own answer is within the link (s) I mentioned. The question is not one that can be answered satisfactorily in a couple of sentences.
If you want a simple answer to the question…
Demonstrate convincingly that the idea that “those who die without putting their faith in Jesus Christ alone to save them (apart from any works) will end up in a place of torment called hell forever with no chance of escape” is a much clearer teaching in Scripture than the idea that “hell is not a place of everlasting torment.” You must not contradict any other parts of Scripture or any other of your own theological positions in order to demonstrate this
BRIEF ANSWER:
1. The word HELL is a mistranslation.
2. Jesus is the Saviour of (all) the world 1 Ti 4:9-11
3. “Everlasting torment” is a myth taught from popular Bibles which are mistranslated.
4. God’s punishment (judgment) is correctional Psa 94:15 But judgment shall return unto righteousness:
Let me know if you get this please,
Bob Todd
San Jacinto, CA
I read the links, Bob, but I’m as interested in conversation as in answers. It sounds like you’re saying (just like Drew who issued it) that it’s impossible to answer the challenge. Is that correct?
I don’t think you people understand that no matter what, there are contradictions within the Bible. I for one would not like to believe that, but unfortunately, there are–because much of it was written by MEN. Not only that, but these letters and books are written towards different Christians who are having different problems! The Apostles are going to tell them different things in order to make them see where they err. If one group bases primarily on works, then the apostle(s) would have taught them to look at also grace and faith–if only faith–then to look at also works. So of course, if you’re looking for a no contradiction, perfectly perfect and clear, i’m gonna get it all in the first read, book, then you’d better not look in the Bible.
Pash… you are correct because there are so many translations, versions, interpretations… all have the Title Bible.
Go to http://www.concordant.org and see what these people say about translations.
Pash,
I really think you’re missing the point of this post. Drew (and my own) challenge is to argue convincingly without contradiction that hell is a place of everlasting torment. Inherent here, is the fact that neither of us are convinced that there is such an argument.
I’d appreciate it if you spent a bit more time reading around my blog before making statements that seem to be veiled insults; you’ll see that I’m better informed than you seem to think I am, and in fact agree with you on some points.
Bob,
I don’t think that the issue of hell is one of mistranslation at all; it’s one of misunderstanding.
If you don’t think that the issue of hell is one of mistranslation you need to go to http://www.concordant.org and read about the false teaching of HELL. Google this and read so you will be informed “what-the-hell-is-hell” And tell me you are seeing the light. If you don’t see the light now, God will wake you up later (perhaps in your next life where you will meet me in person) and we will all smile.
BobTodd
Bob, as you’re for some reason reluctant to enter into discussion here, I’d like to say that I’ve visited your site and I haven’t found the information you speak of. Where on concordant.org is the information you want me to read?
You can use the search engine on that site to select any topic you wish to learn about.
What do you mean by entering the discussion?
Bob
Bob,
You tend to simply point me to your website, rather than engage in conversation here, which is my preference. I’ve said as much a month ago in comment #3 and #5. I was curious to hear peoples personal attempts at defending the doctrine of hell, not in being pointed to other locations where other people have defended it.
The site you sent me to seems to me to suggest that the issue of hell is one of mistranslation indeed (here for example), and in fact seems to agree with things I’ve written of here in the past (here or here for example) but you haven’t attempted to find. Instead, you seem to assume my point of view rather than asking or searching for it.
I’d prefer you engage in conversation with me, so that we can learn actively what each other believe and why, and challenge each other, than engage in a fruitless conversation based on your assumptions of what I believe.
Damian,
Do you believe in a HELL? If you do please describe it to me and maybe we can get further in the conversation. Ok/
Bob
Bob,
I’m unconvinced by evidence; I certainly don’t feel that there is enough clarity in the translation choices in most current bibles. I also think that there should be continuity between Old and New Testaments – that is, Jews at Jesus’ time believe believed in a single, empty place (sheol), where all went after death – not just the unrighteous. The New Testament texts speak of ‘hell fire’ only in parables (making it unlikely to be literal), and use words (such as Gehenna) which do not in their original senses refer to metaphysical locations, but rather solid real-world locations. These are all things you could have found out months ago if you’d delved a little deeper, or asked questions, or engaged in conversation other than posting links. Hence why I asked you to on multiple occasions.
However, I’m interested in the truth. That’s why, when Drew withdrew his challenge, I re-issued it. Because, if there is a hell, I want to know about it. I know the evidence against. I want to know the evidence for. Because if it has been the standard understanding of the church for the past two thousand years, there must be grounds for it – in the writings of the Church Fathers, in apocryphal texts, in primary sources – somewhere. That is what I want to know about.
Damian
Do you believe in HELL and if so describe what that belief is all about please.
Sheol (in the OT) and Hades (in the NT) are the same noun for THE GRAVE. Gehenna is the place near Jerusalem where the trash and bodies of offenders were placed to burn up. The other one is Tartarus, a place not for humans. Most of these four words in the original languages are translated, incorrectly, to the English word HELL. The HELL that most people conceive in their minds is nothing more than a fake place to scare people into heaven that evil men in the church about the fourth century dreamed up. It is a heathen belief and has nothing to do with what the early Bible taught. I think you know all of these things but are just wanting to drag things out. You make comments that make me believe you don’t want the answer and you have not read anything I suggested either.
What is Hell?
It is obvious that the view that most of humanity are destined to spend eternity in misery in hell cannot be reconciled with those scriptures which predict restoration for all; yet the word ‘hell’ occurs thirty one times in the Old Testament and twenty two times in the New Testament in the Authorized Version (King James). This one English term has been made to represent the Hebrew ’sheol’ and the three Greek words ‘hades’, ‘gehenna’ and ‘tartarus’.
We must now enquire whether these four terms mean the same, and whether ‘hell’ in its modern meaning fits any of them.
‘Hell’ is the noun form of the old Anglo-Saxon verb ‘hele’ which meant to hide, conceal, or bury something. In one of his poems Chaucer wrote: ‘To hide and hele thing’, meaning to conceal them. In its old English significance ‘hell’ was an appropriate rendering of the Greek ‘hades’ which means the unseen or imperceptible and since the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament books produced by seventy two Hellenists (Greek speaking Jews) about two centuries B. C., consistently translates ’sheol’ with the word ‘hades’, we must conclude that these terms are synonymous. Since both invariably refer to the grave or the condition of humans between death and resurrection, or to a state akin to death (Jonah 2:2-5), we can find no more appropriate English term than ‘hell’ provided we keep to its ORIGINAL MEANING.
The following are a few of the many passages of scripture which prove that ’sheol’ or ‘hades’ is the grave or the state of the dead, not of living humans in suffering.
Gen. 37:35 tells us that Jacob believed Joseph to be there and expected to go there himself. ‘I will go down to the grave (sheol) unto my son mourning’. Compare Gen. 42:38, 44:29 and 31, 1Sam. 2:6, ‘The Lord bringeth down to the grave (sheol) and bringeth up’. Job longed to go to sheol to rest or sleep till the resurrection, Job 14:12, 13. ‘So man lieth down and riseth not till the heavens be no more (cf. Rev. 20:11); they shall not awake nor be raised out of their sleep. Oh that Thow wouldest hide me in sheol, that Thow wouldest keep me secret until Thy wrath be past’. In chapter three verses eleven to twenty two Job bewailed his birth claiming that life’s troubles made him and others wish for the rest that death would bring. Ecclesiasties 9:10 confirms Job’s view. ‘There is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in sheol’. Neither is God remembered there. Isaiah 38:18: ‘For sheol cannot praise Thee, death cannot celebrate Thee.
The anger of God follows wickedness to the grave. Deut. 32:22: ‘It burneth unto the lowest sheol (R. V. pit), devoureth the earth… and setteth on fire the foundations of the mountains’.
The following references indicate that both the wicked and righteous go into the grave and the death state from which only God’s power can bring release: Psa. 9:17 (The wicked); Psa. 16:10 and Acts 2:27 and 31 (Our Lord); Psa. 55:15, Psa. 139:8, Prov. 15:11, Amos 9:2, Rev. 1:18 (God is in charge there), Jonah 2:2 (Probably figurative, the fish’s interior being like the grave), Rev. 20:13 (Recovery from hades), Rev. 20:14. When death ceases to operate hell (hades) too is to pass away, 1Cor. 15:54.
The above passages present convincing evidence that scripture and our own observations agree that with death come the cessation of consciousness (Biblical sleep of death) and the dissolution of the personality in the unseen till resurrection.
The reference to hades in the parable of Luke 16, accords with the scriptures throughout. These teach that no dead person can ‘lift up his eyes’ apart from resurrection which for the wicked leads on to chastening (basanos verse 23) producing beneficial results — Dives’ concern for his brothers (vs 27, 28).
It should particularly be noted that there is nothing whatever in the scriptures quoted above to suggest that sheol, hades, or hell is a place or condition of endless pain or torture.
‘Tartarus’ is mentioned once only, 2Pet. 2:4, and then in the verbal form — to cast down to the abode of rebellious spirits. Certainly the Authorized Version calls this ‘hell’, but as no humans are ever said to be there and Jude verse 6 indicates that the spirits are there restrained by invisible (aidios) bonds UNTIL the judgement day, to include this term ‘tartarus’ under the word ‘hell’ is clearly a mistranslation of the Greek which should be rendered ‘cast down to Tartarus’.
Gehenna must now claim our attention. The thirteen references to it in the Hebrew scriptures show it to be a valley on the west and south-west sides of Jerusalem where idolatrous and abominable human sacrifices were offered to Molech the fire god. (2Kings 23:10, 2Chron. 28:306, Jer. 7:31 and 32: 35). In fulfillment of centuries past prophecy (1Kings 13:2) good King Josiah made a sweeping reformation clearing away the alters, groves, images and high places (2Chron. 34:3-5). In Jer. 7:32 and 33 we find the prediction of a future defilement of this valley. Secular historians record that the site became the cesspool and a repository of the filth of Jerusalem where fires were kept burning incessantly and where worms perpetually bred in the decaying corpses of criminals.
Isaiah 66:20, 23, 24 predicted a future day of restoration for Israel, when the bodies of transgressors would be deposited in this valley to become a warning of the summary judgement to be meted out to evil doers (cf. Matt. 5:29 and 30).
Of the seven New Testament references to gehenna, all contained in the teaching concerning the predicted kingdom to be restored to Israel, not one makes any reference to endless punishment, nor can one see how fire or worms could affect the soul, or spirit, or anything other than the carcasses of evil doers as Isaiah said it would. Also since our Lord confined His preaching to the land and people of Israel (Matt. 10:5) and forbade His apostles to go to others, it is evident that His references to this local spot and its associations do not apply to humanity at large. We therefor urge that ‘gehenna’ should be transliterated to English versions and thus linked up with the Hebrew passages from which the name arose. It certainly is not synonymous with hades or sheol, so should not be included under the term ‘hell’.
Some expositors and preachers increase confusion by adding ‘the bottomless pit’ and ‘the lake of fire’ though these are not in English versions rendered ‘hell’. The result is that while many believers find the theories about endless damnation in hell fire contradictory to the scripture revelation of our God’s character, purpose and activity, they lack the means to check His word in the original languages, so feel obliged to believe what others have taught them about a hell of endless, and therefore purposeless and futile suffering, not realizing that such an idea has no place in the revelation of God’s gracious attitude and purpose for mankind.
G. T. Stevenson, 1977, Victoria, Australia
Like I said, Bob, I’m unconvinced by the evidence that Hell is a place of fire, torment, etc. This is why I issued the challenge in the first place. I’m interested in the truth, and hence I’d like to know if anyone can convince me.
It is clear from what I have said that I know the issues of translation. But, as I say, this is doctrine with a long tradition, and so it’s likely there is support that I have overlooked. I’d like to hear it, so I can make an informed decision. I find it very difficult to reconcile hell with, as your extensive quote says ‘the revelation of God’s gracious attitude and purpose for mankind’.
I have read the sites and quotes you offered (to the extent that I could find specific pages on the subject), and you seem to think that my not being entirely convinced by your website means I haven’t read it. It’s not that. It’s that I have heard the evidence against hell. I found that myself. I don’t need your convincing. There’s no conspiracy hiding it from the public. I want to hear the evidence for hell. I want to hear both sides of the story, so I can come to my own final decision fairly. I want to hear those that believe in hell try their hardest to convince me. That is why I issued the challenge.
As it is, I’m getting the feeling that our conversation is becoming fruitless – you seem to be trying to convince me of something I don’t need convincing of, and that thing is not the purpose of my challenge. So, I suggest we end it here, and leave on good terms. Thankyou for commenting, Bob. Peace be with you.
Damian:
I don’t know what you are asking.
If you are asking for someone to convince you that HELL is a place of eternal torment, you will never get an argument that it is because there is no such place.
Have a good day and good luck on your question…
Bob