Hell...or lack thereof

[gharfish]

..........Lets be clear here. When speaking of religion, i.e. the practice, other gods were worshiped along with Yahweh for a great majority of Israel's history.

Forbidden very early on by God from the time of the third book of Moses'. They had no excuse.
Doing it was supposed to get you killed.

This is a polytheistic theology which included Yahweh as the national god with other gods participating.

There was idol worship of false pagan gods; Yes.
How did the "other gods participate," as you put it ? Tempt to sin ? They had no life in the scriptures of the Jews.
Idol worship was known to be something the true God, YHWH, detested and would even punish all the people for.

Those individuals who took it upon themselves to worship and kill at Molech's idol or worship any other god, using the idol; they knew they were breaking the Law as set forth for all the people, for it was their's to be known in Leviticus of the Pentateuch.

The theology of monotheism which we are familiar in attributing to Judaism is, as the bible suggests, simply not followed by pre-exilic Israelites.

How many sinners were there in the tribe ? They are lost in history - too old. At least we know this: none had any excuse, post-exile, and that did not change with the passage of time, future.

The final form of the Hebrew Bible is a different theology than what was expressed by Israel's ancestors and indeed this practice is condemned and its practitioners are to suffer capital punishment. My sources include the Bible, along with a whole slough of books on Semitic language, religion, archaeology etc.

The Bible does not record what the pre-Israelites had as their theology. What does it matter, before there was Judaism..as laid out in the scriptures that define and guide it ? [But] when the people came to know what God expected of them, then, Yes, that does matter.

I would expect that many cultures would think it just to put child killers to death - religious motivations or not. The ancestors of what would become the Jewish people were not unique in this. Right ?

Now that we have differentiated between religion and theology and how Israel's religion, or practice, indicates a very different, and polytheistic, theology we can both agree that the Hebrew Bible as we know it (which the pre-exilic Jews did not) on the whole condemns this practice. With that said, you and I can agree to disagree here.

It is not knowable whether or not (Y or N) these people who would become the Jewish trible/nation had a polytheistic religious mindest...that later changed to montheism. Isn't there a split among worthy scholars on this ?

I would like to focus on the concept of Hell and how this practice is the foundation for the New Testament concept of Gehenna and a burning torment as punishment for those who do not believe in the sacrifice of God's first born son Jesus.

The practice you are talking about is molk killings to Molech and Baal, as recorded in the Hebrew canon.

If it's tied to the same kind of punishment for refusing to place one's trust in the incarnation of the Creator God being, who is the man Jesus, then that would point to death being the penalty for committing this unforgivable sin.

Ge-Hinnom is a key earthly illustration Jesus uses for the otherwordly eternal hell place, and it's permanent punishment.

God can destroy the entire man, body and soul, in the actual hell.

The last metaphorical illustration the N.T. gives (the disciple John's in the Rev.), is that of a volcanic lake, filled with the expected molten rock [and] sulphur. It is synonymous with the suffering of the punishment God renders, permanently, called [always] the "second death."

The two correlate pretty closely. No confusion.


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[Tassman]

Forbidden very early on by God from the time of the third book of Moses'. They had no excuse.
Doing it was supposed to get you killed.There was idol worship of false pagan gods; Yes.
How did the "other gods participate," as you put it ? Tempt to sin ? They had no life in the scriptures of the Jews.
Idol worship was known to be something the true God, YHWH, detested and would even punish all the people for.

I’m pretty sure that SMP is arguing, based on considerable research, that there remain strands of evidence in the OT showing that YHWH was but one member of a pantheon of gods under the auspices of EL the chief god.

The jealousy of YHWH and his demands for exclusive worship came later as Judaism evolved and YHWH’s fellow gods began to be demonized as “false pagan gods”.

Those individuals who took it upon themselves to worship and kill at Molech's idol or worship any other god, using the idol; they knew they were breaking the Law as set forth for all the people, for it was their's to be known in Leviticus of the Pentateuch.

Indeed, as Judaism later developed but not initially.

[gharfish]

Ok. When did this Judaism you speak of begin, with what scriptural writings to define the religion ? Judaism I will argue is the one worshipping YHWH. I don't care about any other "Judaism."

There are not strands of evidence in the OT that show that for the Israelites YHWH was but one of many Gods "under the auspices of the chief God, El." Baloney. ...Tell me more about EL.

You are pushing an agenda that I don't quite get. Well, that's not true. I do get that you want to undermine/up end Jesus' Judaism here in this thread in order to try to discredit Him. You don't like His teachings about hell.


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[yo lunch]

Evidence ? No.

I only said that I do buy in to this not being the stuff of myth (showmeproof's question).

I trust that Jesus knew that this was so; that human beings are essentially souls and who at first do survive the death of their physical body and are in the place-state, S/sheol.


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Where did Jesus go when he died? Don't the Catholics believe that he went to hell? If so, did he really go there, when, in fact, he promised the thief that "this day you will be with me in paradise?"

[Thersites]

Where did Jesus go when he died? Don't the Catholics believe that he went to hell? If so, did he really go there, when, in fact, he promised the thief that "this day you will be with me in paradise?"

That all depends on how you define Heaven and Hell; if, as the Catholics claim, Heaven consists of the Beatific vision- that is, being in the presence of God- it is entirely possible to see how that exact same situation could be hellish, depending on your point of view. That is, in terms of "location," we have no philosophical reason to think that people in Heaven and people in Hell are not having the exact same experience, only the difference in their understanding of what is happening makes it Heavenly or Hellish. In short, Heaven is an acquired taste.

If one accepts this proposition, then Jesus' descent to hell (or, to use a more nuanced term, sheol), is little more than teaching those who were there how to enjoy that state in which they found themselves-- turning Hell into Heaven, for those who were ready to accept it.

Of course, one could advance any number of theological arguments as to why this mode of argumentation may be wrong, but let's see where it takes us anyway.

[gharfish]

Where did Jesus go when he died?

To Sheol.

Don't the Catholics believe that he went to hell?

I don't know. There is an official Roman Catholic translation, AFAIK. I could be wrong about that. I don't know too much about Catholicism.

But a look at the one-size-fits-all [old] King James Version mistranslates the words, sheol and Hades as Hell. They did it always, throughout the OT and NT.

And the Greek word Hades (the Greek's underworld of the dead, ruled by the God, Hades) in the N.T. is sometimes incorrectly translated in other Bible translations as Hell. The same is done in some to the OT word sheol. Is Sheol the same as Hell? Nope.

Jesus held to the concept that was the Jews', and not that of the Greek's. He obviously would have taught Sheol!

The word Hades appears in the NT because the books are written in Greek.
The Hebrew word, Sheol cannot be rendered; the closest thing the writers had was the word Hades.
Peter once uses the Greek word Tartarus, and that word is mistranslated as Hell in some translations. Peter pulls the term, and that from the Greeks, to refer to the deepest depths of the underworld of the disembodied souls of all dead people. It is truly a dismal place-state. The worst. .....It is still Sheol to Peter. He takes some creative license to make a point.

The Bible gives up very little information about the living conditions in Sheol - how people there experience it. ...How it feels.

Jesus' parable about the rich man and Lazarus has elements within it that He (Jesus) meant to be metaphor.

If so, did he really go there, when, in fact, he promised the thief that "this day you will be with me in paradise?"

Paradise can be understood as the same as the term at Abraham's bosom or side. The two, Jesus and the penitent and trusting thief, would be with him (father Abraham). Abraham was declared righteous on the basis of (according to) his trust in God and His promises.

Paradise means the Garden of God, like Eden, and is in and of the place-state, S/sheol. However, not all of Sheol is this way. In the OT, Sheol is where all the dead went, the good and the evil, as human souls once their bodies died.

Not all are comforted in Sheol by God (see Jesus' parable on the rich man and Lazarus). For example, the unnamed rich man is alienated from God and already anguishing over the future last judgement, that he might be found unrighteous in God's sight - condemned and punished.


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[Pilgrim]

I hear there wouldn't be any reason to act morally or listen to God unless the alternative is being tormented forever.

That's just silly.

[showmeproof]

Ok. When did this Judaism you speak of begin, with what scriptural writings to define the religion ? Judaism I will argue is the one worshipping YHWH. I don't care about any other "Judaism."

There are not strands of evidence in the OT that show that for the Israelites YHWH was but one of many Gods "under the auspices of the chief God, El." Baloney. ...Tell me more about EL.

You are pushing an agenda that I don't quite get. Well, that's not true. I do get that you want to undermine/up end Jesus' Judaism here in this thread in order to try to discredit Him. You don't like His teachings about hell.


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The exclusive worship of YHWH is late in the stage of this religion. The earliest evidence of YHWH that we have are from Mari in the 16th century B.C.E. in anthroponyms equating YHWH with other gods; Yahwi-ki-An, Yawi-ki-Addu, Yawi-Dagan. The god EL is the Canaanite hypostatic of the Mesopotamian An, Baal=Addu, Dagan=Dagan. The first part of this name Yahwi or Yawi is the same root as used for YHWH. After this glimpse we have to wait until the Shasu of Yaw show up in Egyptian texts in the 13th century B.C.E. where they are in connection to a place Sr. This last bit is reminiscent of the Biblical descriptions of Yahweh marching forth from Sier, Teman, and Mount Paran (i.e. the South). In the 14th century there is a intriguing use of this root, hyh in the form of yaw, that shows up in a Ugaritic text sm . bny .yw . ilt "the name of my son is yaw O Goddess"...however this last one is a contested connection because the text is talking about favoring Yam for the throne in the divine council. After this, the first connection to YHWH that we have in Canaan is on the Tanaach Cult stand where he is aniconically represented along with Asherah. The earliest texts of the bible include certain songs such as Exodus 15, Judges 5 etc which are all dated 11th to 10th century by textual critics. The bulk of the OT was written from the 8th century onward and bears the monotheistic hallmarks of its final redactors. So I am mainly referring to the Mid to Late Bronze Age and into the beginning parts of the Iron Age.

I'll be brief on El here because I have a thread which deals specifically about all that. Both the Septuagint and the Qumran Scrolls present Deuteronomy 32:7-8 "Remember the days of old, consider the years long past; ask your father, and he will inform you; your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High (El Elyon) apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of god (bn 'l). The Lord's (YHWH's) portion was his people, Jacob his alloted share." This is recalling an earlier theological framework where YHWH is one of El's sons. El gives YHWH an inheritance which is Israel. Further in Exodus 6:2, we find that the patriarchs did not know god by the name YHWH, but rather EL Shaddai, "God also spoke to Moses and said to him: "I am the Lord (YHWH). I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty (El Shaddai), but by my name 'The Lord' (YHWH) I did not make myself known to them." YHWH was first viewed separately from El, but became equated with him. That is the short and quick of it.

I have two main agendas here. The first is to talk about a fascinating (to me) thing that I learned; the concept of a fiery hell is an allusion of the type of sacrifice that occurred in a specific valley which had long been associated with Sheol and the underworld in both Canaanite and Israelite culture. The part I find most fascinating is the Ugaritic texts which attest to the Rephaim and the god mlk being associated with the cities of Ashtaroth and Edrei. Secondly, by understanding this connection with this specific valley on the outskirts of Jerusalem we dispose of a bad theological teaching of Gehenna or Hell.

[showmeproof]

Forbidden very early on by God from the time of the third book of Moses'. They had no excuse.
Doing it was supposed to get you killed.There was idol worship of false pagan gods; Yes.
How did the "other gods participate," as you put it ? Tempt to sin ? They had no life in the scriptures of the Jews.
Idol worship was known to be something the true God, YHWH, detested and would even punish all the people for

.

They were forbidden early on only if you view that the Pentateuch was written from front to back in sequential order page by page and by Moses himself. Some accept this through faith, but it has very little to support it in modern scholarship. The final theology is as you state. The gods participated in the divine council in one sense, and on another is that they were just part of the accepted Yahwistic cult...the bible even attests to them being worshiped along with him side by side from early on. The concept that I try to dispel is that these gods were late foreign intrusions into a purely monotheistic cult of Yahweh...that just isn't the case.

Those individuals who took it upon themselves to worship and kill at Molech's idol or worship any other god, using the idol; they knew they were breaking the Law as set forth for all the people, for it was their's to be known in Leviticus of the Pentateuch. How many sinners were there in the tribe ? They are lost in history - too old. At least we know this: none had any excuse, post-exile, and that did not change with the passage of time, future. The Bible does not record what the pre-Israelites had as their theology. What does it matter, before there was Judaism..as laid out in the scriptures that define and guide it ? [But] when the people came to know what God expected of them, then, Yes, that does matter.

The OT does contain theological foundations of an earlier Canaanite theology. What is great about this is that we have the Ugaritic texts which illuminate the religion of the Canaanites written in cuneiform baked in hard clay tablets that date to the 14th century B.C.E. It matters because Judaism didn't come out of a vacuum it was influenced by Canaanite and Mesopotamian mythology. Here let me quote Ziony Zevit on the matter "It is clear, in any event, from Jeremiah's denial, that those who constructed bamot at the tophet and who burnt their children believed that YHWH had commanded such rites." (pg 542). Jeremiah himself clearly disagrees with the practitioners of this rite and denies that YHWH sanctioned...why deny it, when no accusation could be made? It is one thing to just condemn it, which he does do, and then another to present denials, which he also does.

I would expect that many cultures would think it just to put child killers to death - religious motivations or not. The ancestors of what would become the Jewish people were not unique in this. Right ?It is not knowable whether or not (Y or N) these people who would become the Jewish trible/nation had a polytheistic religious mindest...that later changed to montheism. Isn't there a split among worthy scholars on this ?The practice you are talking about is molk killings to Molech and Baal, as recorded in the Hebrew canon.

Child sacrifice is attested in Canaan and Israel and other places. It is a sad tale in history, but no not all condemned this..even the Israelites (did they or did they not practice it?). It is absolutely understood amongst the scholarly community that Judaism has influence from polytheistic theologies and that these influences are at its very roots, not only latter additions (although there are some of these as well...such should be expected for a living religion). The most conservative scholar I have read on this is an evangelical seminary professor Richard Hess and he understands all this data but embraces the end product, the final theology, and recognizes the difference between religion (actual practice) and theology (should/ought beliefs). I will quote an email he sent me, "It is simply true that relatively few Evangelical scholars work in the field of Israelite religion; and yet this field has largely replaced Old Testament theology on the academic horizon"

Ge-Hinnom is a key earthly illustration Jesus uses for the otherwordly eternal hell place, and it's permanent punishment.

I agree in its illustrative purpose. The illustration means nothing unless one understands the roots of this place and the practices performed there. However, in tying this illustration to real events we can trace the mythicization of events which occurred ~400 years prior to Jesus' teachings. For what reason should we think that an otherworldly place such as this exists? Should I or anyone currently living be held to the illustrative torment that this particular god's own people practiced at a specific valley outside of his favored city? The harshness of Jesus' teachings on hell have lost their original meaning as most are unaware of the concept he attempted to illustrate. The theology that allowed these practices is bad, the theology that continues the teaching that this will be done to those who disagree with another human sacrifice is also bad.

[Tassman]

Ok. When did this Judaism you speak of begin, with what scriptural writings to define the religion ? Judaism I will argue is the one worshipping YHWH. I don't care about any other "Judaism."

There are not strands of evidence in the OT that show that for the Israelites YHWH was but one of many Gods "under the auspices of the chief God, El." Baloney. ...Tell me more about EL.

You are pushing an agenda that I don't quite get. Well, that's not true. I do get that you want to undermine/up end Jesus' Judaism here in this thread in order to try to discredit Him. You don't like His teachings about hell.
>

My only interest in the “teachings on hell” is in how such a notion evolved in the first place.

As for the rest, most of my information on El and the divine council of gods in the Canaanite and early Israelite period (including YHWH the son of El), comes from SMP in the first place – so I will defer to him.

If your are truly interested in following it up, rather than just defending your religious presuppositions, go to SMP’s ‘Canaanite Pantheon and Israel’s Polytheistic Roots’ thread. It’s fascinating stuff.

[gharfish]

What a rabbit trail departing into the deep woods to a secure, sure, resting hole for the rabbit to live in..and for it to peer back out at us this thread has become!

What about the OP question: Is Hell an actual place or just something of myth (?) It has been steered away from. And it's not good enough that children were sacrificed in the valley of Ben-Hinnom anymore. No, I'm getting the redirect from you here, Tassman, and have already seen the personal recommendation of showmeproof's on his thread about pre-Israel's polytheistic roots, worshipping many Canaanite gods. Off topic!

And will someone explain how the burning up your kids before AND ON the idol of Molech (the very instrument of death) would be sacrifices meant not to get Molech's favor, but Yahweh's instead, makes a lick of sense ?! That question is being ignored or dodged. I've posed it now here for the third time.

So you are just a history buff, Tassman, on the obscure goings on of the early Jewish people ? No more than that - a satisfying rewarding pursuit ? IMO, how boring that is.

You say that Hell is really not an offensive teaching of Jesus'? It does not serve as a motive for you to study in detail all this mostly lost to time ancient tribal people's doings ?
I have heard that we can't even put the Hebrews of old in Egypt! We can't find archealogical evidence of them moving upward through the Sinai desert. [But] that was a long long time ago, so...

I don't think we can be so sure of what were pre-Hebrews and what was up with them.

You are passionate about a laundry list of arcane historical material that has nothing to do with your personal life today. Can't you concern yourself with the best record we can have of the beliefs of Israel, as recorded first in the written Torah ? That was started about 1400 BC.

El is Elohim. In the ancient Hebrew canon it means "G/god." The God of the Israelites was Yahweh. Yahweh is the "elohim" of Israel. He is the God, and there is no One else.. But He had other names - the same Being, however.

Yahweh, the one creator God being, was famously [called] "El Shaddai" too.


........................................................................................................................................................................................................ .........

showmeproof,
Why is the "the theology" that the otherwordly hell is a place where they condemned there perish "bad" ? It either is true or not. The warnings cannot hurt you.

I think you are thinking! that Jesus, only for comparing in some ways Gehenna to the real otherwordly hell, that He was saying that the wicked (and inpenitent and faithless) are going to be savagely burned alive, Molech style. And that they will be innocents, like those children were (?) If so, No.

It's just that the valley had an awful reputation for human depravities realized there and so became fit for nothing more than a garbage dump that Jesus uses it to talk about the last judement. The dump was as gross and gruesome 'as is' to send the powerful warning Jesus was communicating. His hearers got it. They understood too well. Today, too many do not.

I am confused: Did the practice of molk sacrifice become "mythicized" because Jesus tied Gehenna as an earthly *illustration* of the actual otherwordly hell ?


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[showmeproof]

I'll respond in detail later. The polytheism of Israel is not off topic because the concept of Hell is forged out of the polytheistic Israelites. That polytheism is essential to understanding what the 'illustrative purpose' of hell is.

[gharfish]

A large part of your OP question of "Hell.....or lack thereof ?" is a question if Jesus' "vision" of Hell is what Hell's really like; right ? (If not Jesus, then who else ? Muhammad ?) I realize that you believe there is not a Hell. You gone to trying to show that the pre-Israelite ancestors worshipped many gods. You are bringing another thread of your's topic into the topic of Hell. These lived before God (YHWH) revealed Himself to Abraham and the Jewish religion was "born." Then we have Judaism, not before!

Jesus defines Hell as it has been known by most people in most of the world for 2,000 years. Ge-Hinnom is just part of how He does it. Gehenna is a fiery smoking and filthy maggot-infested garbage dump in His day.

When Jesus used the Ben Hinnom Valley as an illustration of what the condemned would suffer and happen to them in some ways after the last judgement, He expected His audience to know and appreciate what was recorded in the OT.

It does not matter for Jesus' purposes what polytheistic pre-Israelites ancestors did there if beyond that which was recorded for them to know. They had the passages of child sacrifice to Molech. They had knowledge of Baal worship, sometimes with human sacrifice as well. But many of His hearers for not knowing the scriptures were ignorant of the specifics of why the valley was declared defiled, I'll bet. That is certainly the case today, but it doesn't matter too much. The valley speaks for itself, as is, in Jesus' day.

The otherwordly Hell is described metaphorically over and over again. We aren't told the means by which God punishes; No, but we come away from Jesus' and His disciples John and Peter and Paul's teachings with a conclusion that Hell is a period of great suffering and then being everlastingly destroyed - perishing.....the second death.




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[showmeproof]

A large part of your OP question of "Hell.....or lack thereof ?" is a question if Jesus' "vision" of Hell is what Hell's really like; right ? (If not Jesus, then who else ? Muhammad ?) I realize that you believe there is not a Hell. You gone to trying to show that the pre-Israelite ancestors worshipped many gods. You are bringing another thread of your's topic into the topic of Hell. These lived before God (YHWH) revealed Himself to Abraham and the Jewish religion was "born." Then we have Judaism, not before!

Jesus defines Hell as it has been known by most people in most of the world for 2,000 years. Ge-Hinnom is just part of how He does it. Gehenna is a fiery smoking and filthy maggot-infested garbage dump in His day.

When Jesus used the Ben Hinnom Valley as an illustration of what the condemned would suffer and happen to them in some ways after the last judgement, He expected His audience to know and appreciate what was recorded in the OT.

It does not matter for Jesus' purposes what polytheistic pre-Israelites ancestors did there if beyond that which was recorded for them to know. They had the passages of child sacrifice to Molech. They had knowledge of Baal worship, sometimes with human sacrifice as well. But many of His hearers for not knowing the scriptures were ignorant of the specifics of why the valley was declared defiled, I'll bet. That is certainly the case today, but it doesn't matter too much. The valley speaks for itself, as is, in Jesus' day.

The otherwordly Hell is described metaphorically over and over again. We aren't told the means by which God punishes; No, but we come away from Jesus' and His disciples John and Peter and Paul's teachings with a conclusion that Hell is a period of great suffering and then being everlastingly destroyed - perishing.....the second death.


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I am targeting any view of hell that considers it one of eternal torment in fire. I agree that Jesus was using metaphor for illustrative purpose. However, to this day many Christians believe that hell is an eternal fiery torment. So I am challenging the theology of this specific type of hell.

Read the bible, YHWH did not reveal himself to Abraham. If he did, he did so by the name of EL. El is not a generic for 'god' in this sense but a name, a proper noun. This did branch out from my study that is included in the other thread, but this is specifically targeting the concept of hell. I've tried to redirect you towards the point of the OP, but there is a bit of background that is needed so I have been acquiescent to your questions to fill you in.

Jesus and his contemporaries, through the scriptures, would have been well aware of what the Valley of Hinnom was used for. A garbage dump has no theological importance, whereas the previous practices of the Israelites on this very valley does. Remember this Valley is not only tied to these practices, but to Sheol itself. There are indeed many teachings on hell, but the prominent one is of the fire and brimstone sort. If you adhere to a different understanding, I applaud you for abandoning this Bronze Age concept.

[gharfish]

I am targeting any view of hell that considers it one of eternal torment in fire. I agree that Jesus was using metaphor for illustrative purpose. However, to this day many Christians believe that hell is an eternal fiery torment. So I am challenging the theology of this specific type of hell.

Hell is eternal. It will always exist. It was made for the satan angel and all the angels who have also rebelled gainst God, their Maker. However, From the book of Daniel - 'on,' the Bible warns readers that God will condemn some and the punishment will be a permanent irreversible one: eternal death.

Read the bible, YHWH did not reveal himself to Abraham.

Give me the verses, huh.

If he did, he did so by the name of EL. El is not a generic for 'god' in this sense but a name, a proper noun. This did branch out from my study that is included in the other thread, but this is specifically targeting the concept of hell. I've tried to redirect you towards the point of the OP, but there is a bit of background that is needed so I have been acquiescent to your questions to fill you in.

The fact that El was the supreme God in pagan Caananite religion is one thing. Saying that that same God was the one who over 4,000 years ago revealed Himself to Abraham, the very genesis man of the Jewish nation, and Judaism itself, is another. And what does this claim of your's have to do with Hell anyway ?

El is a common word found in Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic, that expresses majesty and strength/power. El is the generic name for "God" in ancient semitic languages. In the OT, El is synonym for the more frequent noun for YHWH, the personal name for God in Judaism. That synonym is Elohim. Also, El was frequently combined with nouns or adjectives to express names of this same God of Israel *with reference to particular attributes/characteristics of His being.* I'd already given one of them in a previous post (El-Shaddai). El Olam is another, for ex.

By the time Israel was established in Palestine, it was Baal who had replaced El as the primary god of the Canaanites. For the Hebrew scripture writers El is capitalized in the same way one capitalizes God to distinguish the true God from other false gods.

Jesus and his contemporaries, through the scriptures, would have been well aware of what the Valley of Hinnom was used for.

Yes, Jesus' hearers would have known that the valley was the site of human sacrifices to Molech and to Baal, if they had read the scriptures. What else might you be talking about ? The only other thing I can find in the OT scriptures is that on a Topheth which is called the mount of offense, also there was worship of Baal's female consort, Ashtoreth. There might have been an idol of Chemosh too; who knows (?) These four false gods are the only ones that the Hebrew scriptures give us as the ones some Jews worshipped over the centuries, certainly as recently as their captivity in Babylon.

A garbage dump has no theological importance, whereas the previous practices of the Israelites on this very valley does. Remember this Valley is not only tied to these practices, but to Sheol itself.

How is the Valley of Hinnom tied to Sheol ?

Yes, there is no doubt that child sacrifice by fire to Molech and idolotry of other false gods colored the valley red and helped put the fire in Gehenna. How does it give a theology that the use of the Valley in Jesus' day does not ? The valley/ravine was used to burn all the solid waste of the city. Fires burned throughout it continuously, with powdered sulphur as an accellerant. If the winds were wrong the smoke was carried over the city wall on the S-E side. The stench sent it's message. It was filthy, with rotting animals and executed criminals, unburied there. The waters of the Kidron River were diverted to make Gehenna the common cesspool of Jerusalem's raw sewage.

There are indeed many teachings on hell, but the prominent one is of the fire and brimstone sort. If you adhere to a different understanding, I applaud you for abandoning this Bronze Age concept.

I am someone who believes that immortality is conditional and that those sent to the otherwordly Hell do not have eternal life as their's to stay alive in Hell. They are alive there temporarily for some unknown and varying from person to person an amount of time, but that eventually they will perish - die. I get this from the Bible; it is not deliberately my wish and invention. God is a killer. The means by which God destroys them is not given in the NT (or OT), but I'm sure it is not by them burning in fire. But fire and molten brimstone/sulphurous rock are effective enough metaphors.


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