Youzer. I just wrote for 20 minutes only to hit an incorrect key on the keyboard and lost the entire text I was writing. Hmm, after I set down this cup of hemlock tea, I will attempt to recreate a truncated version of what I just wrote.
The gist of what I was writing is that I feel we are more likely to get an idea of the original writer's original meaning on any given concept by going directly to the source, and working our way out from there. As an example, we all probably remember the little kids' gossip game, where a story is told by the first child to the second, and we all laughed at how much different the story was by the time it got all the way around the room.
When dealing with scriptures I think this problem is compounded by the thousands of years of time which transpires, and further compounded by translation from one language to another to another and so forth. I can imagine a given text referencing Hell or sheol in Hebrew, to have been originally written in Hebrew, then translated to Greek, then later to Latin, then later to Old English, then to the New International Version by the time I get around to reading it. Now, which version out of those 5 is most likely to convey the original author's original meaning? My money is on the Hebrew version.
Sheol has always been translated, to my knowledge as "common grave" or something very similar. I am currently reading the old testament, in the King James version of the bible, and I don't, thus far in my reading notice any references to Hell. When God gets mad at someone, and he does a lot, in the OT, he either kills them outright, or has some of his followers kill them. No mention of any torment of their soul, at least thus far.
I think the Christian version of Hell is influenced heavily by Paul's writings (Revelation in particular) and just as much by Dante's Inferno. I can imagine, tho I do not know this, that Hell was a useful concept by the early Church. It is a nice hammer to hold over the heads of your paritioners. Fork over 10% of your income to the Church, and do what we tell you. If you do this, you get a great reward in Heaven, but if you fail to do as we say, then you will be tormented in Hellfire for all of eternity.
Now the poor mideavel peasants hearing this were not sophisticated enough to realize that if this was a physical fire burning a physical body, then there would be a finite amount of burning until said body was totally consumed by the fire. Nor were they sophisticated enough to realize that if this were a literal fire burning their everlasting soul, then a spiritual body (soul) was not likely to be harmed by any literal fire. So in the end I think that the Christian concept of Hell is used in the same way that my Dad used a belt. . . it is used to keep people in line.
I am curious, to those who do beleive in Heaven and Hell, who goes to each? I follow about 7 or 8 of the 10 commandments, personally, but do not regularly attend Church and do not believe that there is any reason to believe that there is a Biblical God, but am a fan of Jesus' teachings of love for your fellow man, and beleive that emulating Jesus is a fine goal. Am I to be cast into Hellfire along with Hitler, Saddam, and Edi Amin? I hear from lots of people in my real life that I am, but frankly I find this to be a more well educated crowd than I tend to deal with in my every day life, and am curious to hear what this learned crowd thinks.
What are the minimal requirements to get into Heaven?
More importantly, what are the minimal requirements to stay out of Hell?
B.
