Let's talk about Hell. Hell, why not? Seems like everyone else is. So, let's go there.
There's one thing I'd like to get out of the way right off the top. The Bible does not talk about Hell. Ever. Period. So, don't say, "Well, Jesus says that Hell...". I know that your Bible has the word Hell in it, but Jesus didn't have the word Hell in him and neither did the ancient writings that now make up our Bible. As a matter of fact the word itself didn't even come into being until some 700 plus years after Jesus.
Jesus talks about gehenna and hades (as in the Greek god of the underworld). The New Testament also mentions tartaros, but only once in II Timothy. The Old Testament talks only of sheol, the place of the dead. While they all do have similarities to Hell as we have come to think of it (thank you Dante), they are not the same as Hell.
Just for fun, here is a really quick background on those words. Hades and sheol are places of the dead - all the dead, good and bad. Gehenna is the burning trash dump outside of Jerusalem. And tartaros is the place that fallen angels go (now, I like you and all...but you're no angel and neither am I).
Again, not the same as our modern concept of Hell (damn you Dante, look what you've done... for that matter Plato didn't help either. Damn you too).
That leaves me with the question, "is there Hell and if so, what is it?" Jesus did speak of something after this life, of eternal life, and he also seemed to indicate that some form or concept of suffering might happen there. The theological kink in this chain of thinking is having an all loving God allowing a child of God to remain in everlasting torment in response to less than 80 years of bad behavior. Does that mean that in some cases Hell wins or is it more likely, as Rob Bell's recent book puts is, that "Love Wins"?
There's one thing I'd like to get out of the way right off the top. The Bible does not talk about Hell. Ever. Period. So, don't say, "Well, Jesus says that Hell...". I know that your Bible has the word Hell in it, but Jesus didn't have the word Hell in him and neither did the ancient writings that now make up our Bible. As a matter of fact the word itself didn't even come into being until some 700 plus years after Jesus.
Jesus talks about gehenna and hades (as in the Greek god of the underworld). The New Testament also mentions tartaros, but only once in II Timothy. The Old Testament talks only of sheol, the place of the dead. While they all do have similarities to Hell as we have come to think of it (thank you Dante), they are not the same as Hell.
Just for fun, here is a really quick background on those words. Hades and sheol are places of the dead - all the dead, good and bad. Gehenna is the burning trash dump outside of Jerusalem. And tartaros is the place that fallen angels go (now, I like you and all...but you're no angel and neither am I).
Again, not the same as our modern concept of Hell (damn you Dante, look what you've done... for that matter Plato didn't help either. Damn you too).
That leaves me with the question, "is there Hell and if so, what is it?" Jesus did speak of something after this life, of eternal life, and he also seemed to indicate that some form or concept of suffering might happen there. The theological kink in this chain of thinking is having an all loving God allowing a child of God to remain in everlasting torment in response to less than 80 years of bad behavior. Does that mean that in some cases Hell wins or is it more likely, as Rob Bell's recent book puts is, that "Love Wins"?
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