I haven't got to the bottom of this topic by a long shot. I know that one of the legacies of the enlightenment of German 20th Century theology was a certain shiftiness when it came to the historical nature of the resurrection as a basis of belief (e.g. Bultmann).
Here's a quote I came across today. It's from Kant, "What does it mean to orient oneself in thinking", read the starred footnote here.
What would Kant make of 1 Corinthians 15?
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Saturday, January 21, 2006
Hell. Discuss.
Does it exist? What is it? Who gets in? What role does it play in theology?
Perhaps we should first set out the rough outlines of a biblical view.
If we start with a three tiered universe we have shamayim (heaven), earth and sheol (the abode of the dead). We might say this is an early conception, or at least a non-eschatological conception. Everyone, apart from rare-exceptions which I will presume are part of this tradition such as Enoch and Elijah, exists in a faded manner after death in Sheol as "Shades". In this schema the righteous are delivered from Sheol by not dying, not by going some place else - heaven!
Sheol is translated in the LXX as hades.
Gehenna. In the OT this refers to the "Valley of (the Son of) Hinnom" where sacrifices were burned, including sons, to Molech during the reign of Ahaz and Manasseh (2 Kings 16:3). Consequently the term became associated with the divine destruction promised for its evil.
At some point in the intertestamental period it becomes associated with the destiny of the wicked upon God's final judgment. Eschatology has entered the frame.
In Rabbinic material gehenna was created before the world. It is equated in at least one place with Sheol. One gets there for being bad.
In the Gospels hades and gehenna are probably used interchangeably. Eschatological judgment is present (Matthew 25 Sheep and Goats) but so also seems an immediate post death judgment (Luke 16:19- The Rich Man and Lazarus).
It would appear that Jesus himself is depicted with a "fluid" understanding of these judgments ... but I'm prepared to be contradicted by someone having done closer reading.
What is the nature of this "hell"? Well, it is described in some places using "undying" language. Many have seen this as descriptive of eternal conscious punishment. Other language bends more to the destructive. Well, Maybe. I think it is at least safe to say it is extreme language for a rhetorical purpose. But that leaves open the question of the nature of the referent.
Most of this came from a skim of an article by J. Lunde on Heaven and Hell in The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, IVP.
Things get even more complicated when we look at Paul. The counterpart of the above dictionary for Paul has no entry (or index entry) but the discussion on "heaven" is relevant.
So, Heaven is used:
a) as part of holistic view of creation - the heavens and the earth. (1 Cor. 8:5)
b) the abode of angels (Gal. 1:8) ... AND evil spiritual forces (Eph. 6:1 - The Sons of God, in the OT?)
c) the place from which Christ came and to which he returned. (Eph. 4:9; Rom. 10:6)
d) the eternal home of the believer, where his salvation is kept.
What then do we make of this language?
Perhaps we should first set out the rough outlines of a biblical view.
If we start with a three tiered universe we have shamayim (heaven), earth and sheol (the abode of the dead). We might say this is an early conception, or at least a non-eschatological conception. Everyone, apart from rare-exceptions which I will presume are part of this tradition such as Enoch and Elijah, exists in a faded manner after death in Sheol as "Shades". In this schema the righteous are delivered from Sheol by not dying, not by going some place else - heaven!
Sheol is translated in the LXX as hades.
Gehenna. In the OT this refers to the "Valley of (the Son of) Hinnom" where sacrifices were burned, including sons, to Molech during the reign of Ahaz and Manasseh (2 Kings 16:3). Consequently the term became associated with the divine destruction promised for its evil.
At some point in the intertestamental period it becomes associated with the destiny of the wicked upon God's final judgment. Eschatology has entered the frame.
In Rabbinic material gehenna was created before the world. It is equated in at least one place with Sheol. One gets there for being bad.
In the Gospels hades and gehenna are probably used interchangeably. Eschatological judgment is present (Matthew 25 Sheep and Goats) but so also seems an immediate post death judgment (Luke 16:19- The Rich Man and Lazarus).
It would appear that Jesus himself is depicted with a "fluid" understanding of these judgments ... but I'm prepared to be contradicted by someone having done closer reading.
What is the nature of this "hell"? Well, it is described in some places using "undying" language. Many have seen this as descriptive of eternal conscious punishment. Other language bends more to the destructive. Well, Maybe. I think it is at least safe to say it is extreme language for a rhetorical purpose. But that leaves open the question of the nature of the referent.
Most of this came from a skim of an article by J. Lunde on Heaven and Hell in The Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, IVP.
Things get even more complicated when we look at Paul. The counterpart of the above dictionary for Paul has no entry (or index entry) but the discussion on "heaven" is relevant.
So, Heaven is used:
a) as part of holistic view of creation - the heavens and the earth. (1 Cor. 8:5)
b) the abode of angels (Gal. 1:8) ... AND evil spiritual forces (Eph. 6:1 - The Sons of God, in the OT?)
c) the place from which Christ came and to which he returned. (Eph. 4:9; Rom. 10:6)
d) the eternal home of the believer, where his salvation is kept.
What then do we make of this language?
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