Popular View of Hell Unknown in the OT

[crakjak]

The Popular Concept of Hell Unknown to the Old Testament

Before we move to the gospel's teaching on hell, we want to think further concerning that the word gehenna (popularly mistranslated hell, as we'll see) didn't occur in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint. Let's take a few paragraphs to let the significance of that fact soak in. In previous editions of this material, I merely remarked that prominent Old Testament characters like David and Abraham never heard the term or its equivalent. They were never threatened with eternal torment in hell or heard anything like our popular concept now. However, Gehenna's absence in the Old Testament is a much more serious omission than that. (The concepts in this section are suggested by Thomas B. Thayer in his 1855 Edition of Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment.)
Before the Mosaic Law

Adam and Eve in the Garden

When God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he never mentioned the concept of eternal torment to them. Read for yourself-it's just not there. Don't you think it strange that as human history began on this planet, while God explained which tree they could not eat of, that he didn't give the parents of all mankind some kind of warning about eternal punishment, if there was potential for it to be in their future, and the future of all their posterity?

Most of us think eternal torment will engulf the vast majority of mankind, nearly all of Adam and Eve's descendents, yet here's a father, God, who didn't warn his children of the potential of what might befall them. What would you think of a father who told his young child not to ride his bike in the street, and if he did, he would get a spanking. Suppose he also planned to roast him over a roaring fire for fifty years? After he spanked him, would you think him a just father for not warning his child? Can you think of an apology or a defense for him? Yet to Adam and Eve, the father of all mankind failed to mention a much greater punishment than the death they would die the day they ate of the forbidden tree. Was this just a slip of the mind on God's part, to not mention at all the interminable terrible woes that lay ahead for the vast majority of their descendants? No, God announced to them a tangible present punishment the very day they committed the sin: “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” They found that the wages of sin was death.

Cain and Abel

The same is true with Cain and Abel, a case of murder of a brother. Surely, we would think that God might roll out the threat of eternal torment that Cain was to receive as a warning to all future generations. In the whole account, there's not a hint, not a single word on the subject. Instead, Cain is told, “And now art thou cursed from the earth...When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.” Again, Cain received an immediate, tangible physical punishment administered, with absolutely no warning of future eternal torment. Like Adam, Cain heard none of the dire warnings preached from pulpits of the fiery wrath of God, tormenting his soul throughout eternity.

Now, if Cain were to receive such punishment from God without warning, would God be a just lawgiver and judge to impose additional, infinitely greater punishment with no word of caution whatsoever? In Gen. 4.15, God said, “Therefore, whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold.” If, with no warning, Cain was going to receive eternal fiery torment, would those who killed him receive seven times endless fiery torment?

I'm not making light of endless torment, I'm just pointing out that it's remarkable that God hadn't said a word about it thus far in the Bible story.

Noah and the Flood

When we come to Noah and the flood, God noted that “every thought of man's heart was only evil continually,” and that “the earth was filled with violence, and all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.” If not before, wouldn't this be the ideal time to reveal eternal torment ahead for nearly all inhabitants of the earth? If any circumstances warranted such punishment, this would be the time, would it not? However, Noah, “a preacher of righteousness,” didn't threaten endless punishment to evildoers. If warnings of such punishment serve to turn man aside from his evil way, surely this would have been the time to have revealed it, but there's nary a whisper of it. Instead, they were destroyed by the flood, a physical, tangible punishment for their sin, with absolutely no warning of endless torment. Nor was there such a warning when mankind inhabited the earth again after the flood. One word from God might have set the world on an entirely different course. Surprisingly no such word was given.

Sodom and Gomorrah

We could go on with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the physical destruction of the cities and their inhabitants, with not even a rumor of endless future torment that we probably think they unknowingly faced. What would we think if our government passed a new law with a huge fine as the punishment, but when a guilty party was found, he paid the fine, but also had to serve endless torment that the citizens had no warning of? What kind of judge explains the law and known penalty, while carefully concealing a much more awful penalty? What would the penalty of a few thousand dollars matter in a case where he was also going to be tormented horribly and endlessly? Yet the popular concept is that the Sodomites were sent into such a judgment.

We could go through the accounts of the builders of the tower of Babel, the destruction of Pharaoh and his armies, and Lot's wife, yet we would notice the same thing. All these received a temporal physical punishment, with no mention of an infinitely greater torturous punishment awaiting them in the future.

Was this teaching deliberately excluded from the record, or did it never belong? We know that it isn't there. Neither the word gehenna nor the concept of endless torment was given in the millennia before the giving of the Law of Moses. From the creation to Mt. Sinai, there was simply no insinuation of it in the entirety of human history up to that time. By the conclusion of this study, we'll see that God never had a plan of inflicting such dreadful torment on the people of his own creation.

Excerpts from Samuel Dawson's: "Jesus Teaching on Hell"

[mfblume]

Bro, even if UR was correct, everything does not surround it, you know.

[crakjak]

Originally Posted by mfblume

Bro, even if UR was correct, everything does not surround it, you know.

You are correct. But we have to make up time for all the hell fire and brimestone preaching over the years. Some folks need to get over the fear so that they can see God as He really is, our loving Heavenly Father that will take away all the sin of the whole world.

[mfblume]

He is so loving that he takes away the sin of the world, but one has to come to Him for that. Otherwise, it is unrighteous to demand it of anyone, and, really, a waste of His and our time in mentioning it.

[crakjak]

Originally Posted by mfblume

He is so loving that he takes away the sin of the world, but one has to come to Him for that. Otherwise, it is unrighteous to demand it of anyone, and, really, a waste of His and our time in mentioning it.

We already gone down this path before, any comments on the original post?
Don't you think Dawson's point is worthy of consideration?

[Raven]

crakjack
Greetings my friend. It takes a long time to turn a ship or an ideaology. Only those who were not afraid to launch out into the deep discovered that the Earth was not flat. Those who were fearful remained safely on the shore with their ancient maps that declared: "Here be monsters!"
Raven

[mfblume]

Originally Posted by crakjak

We already gone down this path before, any comments on the original post?
Don't you think Dawson's point is worthy of consideration?

Since UR underlies the entire reason you posted this issue, that association is integral to any response. And Dawson's point is really quite "old hat". That idea has been trodden before as well.

[crakjak]

Originally Posted by mfblume

Since UR underlies the entire reason you posted this issue, that association is integral to any response. And Dawson's point is really quite "old hat". That idea has been trodden before as well.

Of course, UR underlies my post. None the less, why don't we discuss the lack of presentation of eternal damnation or annihilation in the OT.

I will try all kinds of approaches to draw discussion, because this is a very important subject.

[crakjak]

Originally Posted by Raven

crakjack
Greetings my friend. It takes a long time to turn a ship or an ideaology. Only those who were not afraid to launch out into the deep discovered that the Earth was not flat. Those who were fearful remained safely on the shore with their ancient maps that declared: "Here be monsters!"
Raven

That is a great analogy. My fear disappeared when I caught a glimpse of my God's ultimate intentions. Some think UR is a license to lawlessness, to the contrary it is empowerment to full stature of sonship.
Blessings to you, friend.

[crakjak]

Originally Posted by crakjak

The Popular Concept of Hell Unknown to the Old Testament
Before we move to the gospel's teaching on hell, we want to think further concerning that the word gehenna (popularly mistranslated hell, as we'll see) didn't occur in the Greek Old Testament, the Septuagint. Let's take a few paragraphs to let the significance of that fact soak in. In previous editions of this material, I merely remarked that prominent Old Testament characters like David and Abraham never heard the term or its equivalent. They were never threatened with eternal torment in hell or heard anything like our popular concept now. However, Gehenna's absence in the Old Testament is a much more serious omission than that. (The concepts in this section are suggested by Thomas B. Thayer in his 1855 Edition of Origin and History of the Doctrine of Endless Punishment.)
Before the Mosaic Law

Adam and Eve in the Garden
When God placed Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, he never mentioned the concept of eternal torment to them. Read for yourself-it's just not there. Don't you think it strange that as human history began on this planet, while God explained which tree they could not eat of, that he didn't give the parents of all mankind some kind of warning about eternal punishment, if there was potential for it to be in their future, and the future of all their posterity?

Most of us think eternal torment will engulf the vast majority of mankind, nearly all of Adam and Eve's descendents, yet here's a father, God, who didn't warn his children of the potential of what might befall them. What would you think of a father who told his young child not to ride his bike in the street, and if he did, he would get a spanking. Suppose he also planned to roast him over a roaring fire for fifty years? After he spanked him, would you think him a just father for not warning his child? Can you think of an apology or a defense for him? Yet to Adam and Eve, the father of all mankind failed to mention a much greater punishment than the death they would die the day they ate of the forbidden tree. Was this just a slip of the mind on God's part, to not mention at all the interminable terrible woes that lay ahead for the vast majority of their descendants? No, God announced to them a tangible present punishment the very day they committed the sin: “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” They found that the wages of sin was death.

Cain and Abel
The same is true with Cain and Abel, a case of murder of a brother. Surely, we would think that God might roll out the threat of eternal torment that Cain was to receive as a warning to all future generations. In the whole account, there's not a hint, not a single word on the subject. Instead, Cain is told, “And now art thou cursed from the earth...When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.” Again, Cain received an immediate, tangible physical punishment administered, with absolutely no warning of future eternal torment. Like Adam, Cain heard none of the dire warnings preached from pulpits of the fiery wrath of God, tormenting his soul throughout eternity.

Now, if Cain were to receive such punishment from God without warning, would God be a just lawgiver and judge to impose additional, infinitely greater punishment with no word of caution whatsoever? In Gen. 4.15, God said, “Therefore, whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him seven-fold.” If, with no warning, Cain was going to receive eternal fiery torment, would those who killed him receive seven times endless fiery torment?

I'm not making light of endless torment, I'm just pointing out that it's remarkable that God hadn't said a word about it thus far in the Bible story.

Noah and the Flood
When we come to Noah and the flood, God noted that “every thought of man's heart was only evil continually,” and that “the earth was filled with violence, and all flesh had corrupted his way upon the earth.” If not before, wouldn't this be the ideal time to reveal eternal torment ahead for nearly all inhabitants of the earth? If any circumstances warranted such punishment, this would be the time, would it not? However, Noah, “a preacher of righteousness,” didn't threaten endless punishment to evildoers. If warnings of such punishment serve to turn man aside from his evil way, surely this would have been the time to have revealed it, but there's nary a whisper of it. Instead, they were destroyed by the flood, a physical, tangible punishment for their sin, with absolutely no warning of endless torment. Nor was there such a warning when mankind inhabited the earth again after the flood. One word from God might have set the world on an entirely different course. Surprisingly no such word was given.

Sodom and Gomorrah
We could go on with the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the physical destruction of the cities and their inhabitants, with not even a rumor of endless future torment that we probably think they unknowingly faced. What would we think if our government passed a new law with a huge fine as the punishment, but when a guilty party was found, he paid the fine, but also had to serve endless torment that the citizens had no warning of? What kind of judge explains the law and known penalty, while carefully concealing a much more awful penalty? What would the penalty of a few thousand dollars matter in a case where he was also going to be tormented horribly and endlessly? Yet the popular concept is that the Sodomites were sent into such a judgment.

We could go through the accounts of the builders of the tower of Babel, the destruction of Pharaoh and his armies, and Lot's wife, yet we would notice the same thing. All these received a temporal physical punishment, with no mention of an infinitely greater torturous punishment awaiting them in the future.

Was this teaching deliberately excluded from the record, or did it never belong? We know that it isn't there. Neither the word gehenna nor the concept of endless torment was given in the millennia before the giving of the Law of Moses. From the creation to Mt. Sinai, there was simply no insinuation of it in the entirety of human history up to that time. By the conclusion of this study, we'll see that God never had a plan of inflicting such dreadful torment on the people of his own creation.

Excerpts from Samuel Dawson's: "Jesus Teaching on Hell"

Any one up to this discussion, can you rectify the lack of scripture for the traditional teaching of a burning eternal hell in the OT, seems if this doctrine were true it would truly be glaringly clear throughout ALL the scriptures?