I believe research indicates sometimes during the festivals the priests in the Temple waded in blood up to their ankles, and underground passages carried the blood of all kinds of sacrificed animals down into the Kidron Valley on the east side of the city where farmers there purchased it to use as fertilizer. I don't believe that and I don't believe the last commenter does either. New garbage was piled on top of the old decaying garbage: rotting fish, slimy vegetation, decaying human refuse of every imaginable sort. Therefore, this valley, this Gehenna, was a detestable place to God's people. He is not being literal here", "He is speaking about cutting off or getting rid of something of the carnal man.". Which brings us back to our starting point: it is eternal for good and bad or age-enduring for both, not this for one and that for another. For example, eternal salvation doesn't mean God is saving us daily (rather an eternal result of a one time event) just as eternal judgment not mean God is tormenting the lost daily, rather the one time event (the second death) had eternal result as well. It was like the time of the reproach of the daughters of Syria and all those around her, and of jthe daughters of the Philistines, who despise you everywhere. The soul that sinneth it shall DIE, not be given eternal life to burn forever and ever and ever. . There are a dozen parables by Christ talking about salvation and punishment I can't think of one which has one first being shut out and then being admitted after all not the foolish virgins with their lamps, not the Rich Man begging poor Lazarus, not the one being thrown out because of his not wearing a wedding garment etc. Gey Ben Hinnom Stream. "the worm never dies" how do you turn never into "sometime in the future"? "Six seminaries" did not exist. Spare us your pseudo-physics which can teach us nothing about the afterlife in the New Jerusalem. Everlasting is only aionios in Greek, so that everlasting hell becomes only age-during garbage dump, the age being not 2011 but just AD 70. "The three parables you mention also do not say how long the consequences for failure last or whether there is anything else to take place afterward.". Though the channels were probably used to drain rainwater from the towns, people also used them to dump human waste, garbage, and debris. THE LAST ENEMY TO BE DESTROYED IS DEATH! What has that got to do with it. For now, just notice the term as . The three offenses are being angry without a cause, calling someone 'raca', and calling someone 'fool'. But if they happened to return next week, would that mean that sinners from Sodom would not be punished for their sins? You are right about Origen's apocatastasis getting him in trouble. They might as well say nothing on this issue. Who is ignoring the context? It is also the location where bodies of executed criminals, or individuals denied a proper burial, and animals would be dumped. Students may use the material on this site for school projects without permission. Worms and fire normally die and go out (no need for nitpicking about how going out is not being quenched) this is why Jesus raises the point that these worms and this fire (which is obviously figurative language) do NOT DIE and do NOT GO OUT. It traveled through the city gate and emptied into a nearby valley. The restoration of these cities is tied to the PEOPLE that lived there in 16:55. And speaking of context, you are ignoring the context that Jesus is alluding to in this passage, and that is Isaiah 66:23-24. Yes, wonderful promise. The "ravine of hinnom" (Gehenna) was the city garbage dump in Jerusalem where the garbage was burned. A shorter one, posted at Grace to You: Is Hell Really Endless? After the Jews returned from the Babylonian exile, the valley became a garbage dump where anything considered unclean was placed. If it is Isaiah, then you cannot take this prophet to invalidate what Christ himself taught. As for the lost, per words of Jesus and apostles, they will die (wages of sin)/be destroyed/perish. Same with "aionian life". And nowhere did either Christ or any Apostle ever teach that. On three occasions, gehenna is paired with (G4442, pyr, "fire") to read "hell fire" (Matthew 5:22; Matthew 18:9; Mark 9:47). The common view today is that Gehenna was the garbage dump of Jerusalem. How does this work? So just imagine the hundreds of thousands of squirmy, wormy maggots living there, eating the rotting refuse. This is then used as an example of a future judgment. He quotes: Edward Robinson, preeminent explorer of the Holy Land beginning in 1838. Are there going to be new moons and sabbaths in eternity? So at that point there will be no more "aionian" life, it will be the same life as was lived in the "aion", but now it will continue outside of time. Hell fire, Gehenna the garbage dump with its constantly burning fire. It is a widespread misconception by twisting around this or that word in the bible, you suddenly can change the content of the Christian faith. If it was consistently translated as 'eternal' people would see how ridiculous that idea is. Add to that the teaching of the church since the earliest days. Because the Hinnom and Kidron Valleys are located on the southeast side of Jerusalem, the prevailing winds carry the winds away from the city. Consider this myth to be thoroughly debunked. Even if they are used to describe God as "the aionian God" they do not have to mean eternal. 7:32-33). With the common sense which often characterizes Jewish commentators, Kimhi says that the place was the dump of the city, where fires were always kept burning to destroy the refuse; therefore the judgment of the wicked is parabolically called Gehenna.But from the Biblical references the place appears to have nothing physically objectionable about it; in contrast to its contemporary condition Jeremiah prophesied that it would one day be called Valley of Slaughter (The Holy City and Gehenna, JBL 27/1 [1908], 34). The Pharisees commonly used the phrase 'endless timoria', which has nothing to do with bettering the victim, but the punishment only has the satisfaction and honor of the offended party in mind. Marcos you're welcome to reject the doctrine of eternal torment, but don't pretend that this blogpost or the Bible gives any support to your view. The 'flesh' is also the context of what Isaiah 66:24 is dealing with. But that doesn't meant that only the "devil gets saved in the end" was condemned. And as far as Rabbi Kimhi goes, note that even he stated the alleged dump of Gehenna became an analogy for the judgment of the wicked, which demonstrates that even the first writer to make this connection saw it to be an analogy for the place that the wicked will be judged. "if there is part of your body that causes you to stumble, cut it off. There is no mention in the tons upon tons of writings we have from Church Fathers, Christian and Jewish writers, or even secular writers for that matter. 1 Corinthians 15 you overreading again. Why should anyone want to go out when God and all his people and everything good is inside.]. Can you confirm whether this was traditional practice? For their worm shall not die, their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be an abhorrence to all flesh.. Rubbish, bones, decaying. 66:24?. It can't. You first have to make the text fit your interpretation. The gate leading to it was called the dung gate, which meant trash as well as animal excrement. The fire never went out. This is talking about a place where the worms do not die, (?the flesh is never fully consumed) and the fire is not quenched. You can also spare us quasi-racist ideas like >>legalistic "glasses" that came into the church from the Latin converts<<, Jude 1:7 "In a similar way, Sodom and Gomorrah and the surrounding towns gave themselves up to sexual immorality and perversion. Maybe you guys think you are as smart as our all knowing all seeing creator. New garbage was piled on top of the old decaying garbage: rotting fish, slimy vegetation, decaying human refuse of every imaginable sort. The breath of the Lord, like a torrent of brimstone, kindles it. ", Ezekiel 16:55 "When thy sisters, SODOM AND HER DAUGHTERS SHALL RETURN TO THEIR FORMER ESTATE, and Samaria and her daughters shall return to their former estate, then thou and thy daughters shall return to your former estate.". Isaiah 66:15-16 makes it pretty clear when the context of the rest of the chapter takes place. Gehenna, garbage dump or a place of eternal punishment?/ Gordon Franz., Gordon Franz. And that's probably what Jerome is after, distinguishing between this end-less but not time-less eternity and the God's eternity without such constraints, wihtout beginning or end. The "kingdom" of the Son will one day be turned over to the Father, and one of the epistles describes Jesus ruling it UNTIL all His enemies are put under His feet, so the parables about the kingdom and the wedding feast do not have to be describing the final state of "the Kingdom". Eternal life doesn't mean that there is no time just as it doesn't mean there is no space. As for giving the 'damned' (an English word that has changed in meaning since being put in English bibles) their 'just desserts', in Jesus' day there were two common words for what we think of as "punishment". This practice was carried out . It might have been just as well to not press it. No one. You simply over-reading certain passages. Romans 11:32 For God has shut up all in disobedience so that He may show mercy to all. Because talking about God is nothing more than information for the unknowing? It is the birthplace of the yugoloths, which dwell here in great numbers. The quotation begins in verse 22. Gehenna as a Garbage Dump? Its fires were kept continually burning (an everlasting lake of fire!) Rob Bell takes the view in Love Wins that in Jesus' day Gehenna was the "city dump": "There was a fire there, burning constantly to consume the trash." It is a metaphor for the terrible consequences of rejecting "the good and true and beautiful life that God has for us". (the only other times 'dogs' 'tables' and 'crumbs of bread' are mentioned is in the context of a gentile asking Jesus for help. For more details, see copyright information. activies, not statements of faith). Though a duration of time is the most common use of the word, just as with most any word, there can be different meanings depending on the context. 20:10. If they contradict e.o., they contradict e.o. Lambs? They will long to die, but death will flee from them. Not necessarily TO those in the fire, possibly TO OTHERS ABOUT THOSE in the fire if they are already in it, they don't need examples. Neovia group's Profile, Revenue and Employees. I've always thought that this was an established fact. "The God of the Eons" is a statement of fact, not of limitation. Even when the term "aionian" is applied to God Himself, this does not mean it is describing Him as eternal. The doors were certainly locked as long as the wedding feast endures. Regarding individuals, councils excommunicated those that refused to accept a definition reached (or for crimes i.e. Are there going to be new moons and sabbaths in eternity? By Jesus' time, the Valley of Hinnom was a full fledged garbage dump with its wretched rotting aromas, howls of scavenging wild animals, and smoldering and perpetual fires. A Christian in error is still a Christian.]. Councils made positive definition of faith (e.g. From the reign of Josiah onward, it was used as a garbage dump where the fires burned the refuse continuously. I thought the Passover lambs were all sacrificed on the Temple Mount. Also, to pin this on one word is a common folly. And Christ spoke (e.g. Why consider them 'saints'? "WHEN your sisters, Sodom and her daughters, return to their former state, and Samaria and her daughters return to their former state, then you and your daughters will return to your former state. There are quite a few verses in the gospel expressing the same idea in different words, e.g. Which brings us back to our starting point: it is eternal for good and bad or age-enduring for both, not this for one and that for another.]. He remarked, Gehenna is a repugnant place, into which filth and cadavers are thrown, and in which fires perpetually burn in order to consume the filth and bones; on which account, by analogy, the judgement of the wicked is called Gehenna.. ELeeMacFall 6 yr. ago "After the ages, there will be no need to describe Him to anyone because all will know Him fully, just as they also are known by Him now.". Most did not. If you look at the political and religious power struggles going on at Constantinople it is apparent that the doctrine of eternal hell was used to scare people and get them to submit to those who had control of the church, so they could hold their kingdom together. 129-30), Theres only one problem. Diana Group Profile and History . There is a emergent/universalist writer named Sharon Baker who has a book called Razing Hell. This is getting silly! 66:24 says "The THEY SHALL GO FORTH". I doubt I will convince you of anything and I don't have time to continue a running debate, but every time I go through this process, I learn something so it has been worth it. I also find it hard to be confident in any council since they often allow someone to have a leading role who would be declared a heretic a short time later, like the case of Marcellus you brought up.There seemed to be a lot of see-sawing going on. My last post was too long so here's the rest . The Gray Waste (more fully, the Gray Wastes of Hades; also, Hades, The Three Glooms, Hope's Loss or The Nadir) is a strongly neutral evil aligned plane of existence. There is BTW no clear verse saying that the kingdom would have an end, many things that speak against it. En contraire. And can we actualle be cartain about the identity of Sodom and her daughters? One of the strange things about all of the talk about whether punishment is eternal or not is the fact that if the Lord had wanted to communicate the idea that punishment would be eternal, there are several ways to do this in Greek and make it crystal clear. It is retributive and vindictive. dumpsite, rubbish dump, trash dump, wasteyard, waste-yard, dump. You claim that Jude talks about Sodom suffering eternal fire but that's not the clear reading of the text. The verses are clearly parallel, so that eternal MUST mean the same for the blessed and the cursed. If it were "eternal pruning" and this doesn't make sense to you, your problem is with Christ. "For thus says the Lord God: I will deal with you as you have done, who despised the oath by breaking the covenant.". The first post-apostolic council at Nicea was chaired by Gregory Nazianzen who was a universalist. Marcellus was important at Nicea (325) and still condemned a heretic later, with even one line in the Creed directed against him. There are plenty of parallel verses that teach the salvation of all that must be explained away if you want to cling to a doctrine of eternal torture. I brought up a similar situation in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. That did not happen. I would look at a phrase like this and wonder how anyone who didn't want to be deceived could think that it was talking about anything less than the rest of eternity: . We can trace the develope a transition of the place of the dead from a pit to a water filled pit and then to similar with fire. A longer one, written by Sinclair Ferguson: Universalism and The Reality of Eternal Punishment: The Biblical Basis of the Doctrine of Eternal Punishment. "In any case, Gregory Naziznen was allowed to preside over that council.". Neither says anything about eternal punishment being only temporary. . Gregory of Nyssa, another prominent teacher of universalism, drafted the part of the Nicean creed dealing with the trinity. Jesus used this term. Residents sometimes called it the "valley of the sewer" or "the valley of the pagans." By Jesus' time, the Greek translation of Hinnom Valley, gehenna, became a synonym for hell. No matter how many times people say this and it has become street truth there is no evidence that there was a town dump outside Jerusalem in the first century. I have no clue what v.15 you are talking about so you can spare us that. Ezekiel indeed prophesies that Sodom, Samaria and Juda would return to their former state. Topheth has been ready for the king for a long time now. Ezekiel doesn't utter any either and he doesn't even touch on anything linked to "eternal fire". I confused the council of Nicea with the Nicene Creed that came out of the council at Constantinople later on. In Luke 16:26 Abraham explains why he can't send Lazarus to the rich man with a few drops of water. I just got done reading Rob Bell's new book, and he relies heavily on this garbage myth as evidence that Jesus' teachings on hell are metaphorical. The purpose is to build your discernment when people say bibley things, and not let evangelical historical sound bites lead you to repeat them. One is that the age-during is modified by what it refers to. "Why the need for a gulf to keep those in Abraham's bosom from going to the other side where there was torment?". 19 For as through the one mans disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. The people in the surrounding areas dumped their trash in Gehenna, where it burned day and night. You are also disrespectful towards the damned it is one thing, as God does, to give them their just deserts, but quite another to simply blot them out from existence and pretend everything's fine. That little valley is a likely spot. I am disturbed by the anger and name-calling of the resident I am sure he will give the usual excuses. Almost every major commentary on Matthew that mentions Gehenna also spoke of the garbage dump. Specifically, Bailey states: [Kimchi] maintained that in this loathsome valley fires were kept burning perpetually to consume the filth and cadavers thrown into it. In v.15-16 it seems pretty clear the context of this passage is a universal judgment on all flesh. Why would anyone, especially people who are redeemed and survive the coming of the Lord to judge all flesh (v.16) want to go out to look at corpses full of worms and burning? [I have no clue what v.15 you are talking about so you can spare us that.]. The origin of the "garbage dump" theory appears to be Kimchi. The Valley of Hinnom ( Hebrew: , romanized : G en-Hnnm, lit. At least until a council comes along decades later and says that anyone not confessing a belief in an "eternal hell" is not a Christian? Second, the whole passage is disproportionate that is the point: that Christ rejects a minimal, just-barely-pass morality but rather sets a very high standard to his followers. They serve as an example of those who suffer the punishment of eternal fire. Well before the time of Jesus, the valley was also used as a refuse heap. If it was not condemned, it was because it wasn't widespread and there were more pressing issues. In any case, Gregory Naziznen was allowed to preside over that council. You talk of the teaching of the "church" from the earliest days. The Gray Waste of Hades, also known as the Gray Waste, was an Outer Plane in the Great Wheel cosmology model, home of the daemons. The rest of the chapter goes on to reassure Israel that they will not all be killed in this judgment. Of hhe three valleys below Jerusalem, Hinnom lies dead center below the Old City and temple. Now I know why I never found any. Then he quotes Peter Head, G. R. Beasley-Murray, and Lloyd Bailey in tracing the origin of this notion to Rabbi David Kimchi in AD 1200. Where are you getting this? During Jesus' time, it was the city's garbage burner. http://www.afterlife.co.nz/2012/featured-article/tracing-the-road-to-gehenna/ An article looking at Gehenna in the OT and why Jesus may have chosen to use this word. For some reason this comment got swallowed up yesterday: "You are right about Origen's apocatastasis getting him in trouble. He does not say say that Sodom underwent "punishment of eternal fire" but that Sodom is an example for those that will.]. And if your eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Your quiet deliberations and considerations are refreshing and leave me with hope and joy, is this not the work of the Ekklesia? [Are you serious? Not only that, if there were any doubt, Jesus is further clarifying what was already mentioned in Daniel 12:2 eternal is an appropriate word for the English translation. There simply is no evidence to support the idea, but because it seems a reasonable explanation for the origin of the Hinnom Valley as hell, writers and preachers accept and propagate the story. Scholars have long claimed that Gehenna was a garbage dump where fires were burned. About the other direction he didn't ask.
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