Creation of Hell

[stlekee]

Where does the belief in hell come from? In the Genesis account of creation, there is no mention of God creating hell. There is also no mention of God creating a devil, satan or evil one.

The adam and eve story tells of sin or evil being human's free will decision to not do God's will, not do what he wants. The 'serpant' is mentioned here, but it is clearly a reference to a snake, 'crawling on its belly...'. The serpant in the story represent human consciousness, self awareness, and the ability to act beyond instinct to make a choice. Adam And Eve is th story of he dawn of human consciousness, the ability to think, make choices, and consequences. The first Human Beings.

So where does hell come from?

[Coldfire]

Where does the belief in hell come from? In the Genesis account of creation, there is no mention of God creating hell. There is also no mention of God creating a devil, satan or evil one.

The adam and eve story tells of sin or evil being human's free will decision to not do God's will, not do what he wants. The 'serpant' is mentioned here, but it is clearly a reference to a snake, 'crawling on its belly...'.

I don’t believe there to be one, there is no mention of it in the Biblical creation as you mentioned, nor mention of the creation of “Satan.� Yet a lot of Christians swear by this doctrines appearance in scripture. Yes, they appear in certain translations, but they are misinterpretations and misconceptions of what is originally in the Bible. The first mention of “Satan� might have some credibility in the religion had it appeared during the creation, but as far as I know (I will accept any corrections) the first mention of Satan in the Bible was in Chronicles which I believe takes place when Jews were being deported from Judah to Babylon, around 597 BC.

As for the origin of Hell, I would assume the best way to find this would be to look at the origin of Christian and Muslim beliefs: As far as I’m aware, Judaism has no doctrine of Hell, nor a place of eternal torture. The clear reason to me of why Christians and Muslims teach it and Jews do not would be that something was lost in translation over the years.

I often hear the old “the serpent is the devil!� bit. I would assume that it’s just another misconception taught over generations as fact. I agree that it is “clearly in reference to a snake� and will add that IMO people have used the real human fear of the snake to describe this “devil� so much so that the snake that appears in Genesis (a very symbolic story) is thought to actually BE the devil.

The serpant in the story represent human consciousness, self awareness, and the ability to act beyond instinct to make a choice. Adam And Eve is th story of he dawn of human consciousness, the ability to think, make choices, and consequences. The first Human Beings.

I personally choose not to go into the annotation of the symbolic books in the bible (Genesis and Revelations stick out to me the most as being symbolic). To me, they are just stories. I believe there is a theme to some of it, but I don’t want to try and pick it apart because IMO there is too much to it that means a lot more to those who wrote it, our primitive thinking ancestors… ehrm… I mean prophets.

Nice interpretation though.

[Slopeshoulder]

It's all a metaphor, states of being, frames of mind, outcomes, and psychological situations. It's very valuable unless you think the devil is a being and hell is a place.

Hell is the willful separation of ourselves from all that if good, true, beautiful, sublime, healthy, engaged, and divine. Sin is what we do and are to get there. The devil is our own broken ego, our fear, and our vice. Most religions teach some version of this.

Hell is real. We make it. We put ourselves in it. This is what the bible and tradition teach us. We reappropriate it for our circumstances.

It's 2010. Just sayin.'

[InTheFlesh]

I often hear the old “the serpent is the devil!� bit. I would assume that it’s just another misconception taught over generations as fact. I agree that it is “clearly in reference to a snake� and will add that IMO people have used the real human fear of the snake to describe this “devil� so much so that the snake that appears in Genesis (a very symbolic story) is thought to actually BE the devil.

You're entitled to your opinion,
but can you support it?


Gen.3
[15] And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.

If you understood the above verse,
you would know who the serpent is.

Rev.20
[2] And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years,

[ChristShepherd]

It's all a metaphor, states of being, frames of mind, outcomes, and psychological situations. It's very valuable unless you think the devil is a being and hell is a place.

Hell is the willful separation of ourselves from all that if good, true, beautiful, sublime, healthy, engaged, and divine. Sin is what we do and are to get there. The devil is our own broken ego, our fear, and our vice. Most religions teach some version of this.

Hell is real. We make it. We put ourselves in it. This is what the bible and tradition teach us. We reappropriate it for our circumstances.

It's 2010. Just sayin.'

Jesus believed in Satan.
Matthew 4:10
Then Jesus said to him, "Go, Satan! For it is written, ' YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.'"

Luke 10:18
And He said to them, "I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.

Luke 13:16
"And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?"

Jesus believed Satan was real. Jesus talked to Satan. Jesus saw Satan. Jesus held Satan responsible for a woman's illness.

Christ Shepherd

[Slopeshoulder]

It's all a metaphor, states of being, frames of mind, outcomes, and psychological situations. It's very valuable unless you think the devil is a being and hell is a place.

Hell is the willful separation of ourselves from all that if good, true, beautiful, sublime, healthy, engaged, and divine. Sin is what we do and are to get there. The devil is our own broken ego, our fear, and our vice. Most religions teach some version of this.

Hell is real. We make it. We put ourselves in it. This is what the bible and tradition teach us. We reappropriate it for our circumstances.

It's 2010. Just sayin.'

Jesus believed in Satan.
Matthew 4:10
Then Jesus said to him, "Go, Satan! For it is written, ' YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.'"

Luke 10:18
And He said to them, "I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.

Luke 13:16
"And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?"

Jesus believed Satan was real. Jesus talked to Satan. Jesus saw Satan. Jesus held Satan responsible for a woman's illness.

Christ Shepherd

Not exactly. The stories feature that; but they are not history, so your claims are unsupported and unsupportable. All you can say is that the character Jesus in the gospels (loosely based on the man Jesus in history) used the words Satan and hell in certain ways, indeed in the same way that everyone around him did. Satan was an established character in biblical literature, so it's no surprise Jesus the man or character would speak consistently with the tradition of which he was a part, or that the authors would impute this to Jesus. But did Jesus really believe it? I doubt it. He was known for dummying things down, no? or using metaphors? Actually, I think he thought of satan and hell in the same way I do, and you can easily read the text in this light. Unless he wasn't divine and got it wrong by reflecting silly ancient beliefs. That's also a possibility.
I look at the bible as a non-self-validating ancient text. Proof texts are sort of a joke in my book if decontextualized and taken at face value, as you clearly did. So your argument establishes nothing , other than a willingness to misuse and misread the text.

BTW, it would help me if I knew whether you debate as a Christian or an anti-Christian. I've never been able to ascertain a consistent and coherent train of thought that could answer that question. Would you solve the mystery for me? After all, snarky contrarianism, even if a consistent practice, isn't a position.

[stlekee]

HMMM....Slopeshoulder, who are you asking if they're christian or anti-christian? Myself, well I consider myself a liberal christian, not prone to literalism or inerancy. I simply believe Jesus was a highly evolved spiritual human who no one seemed to understand during his time. Heavens not about the dying, its all about the living. And I mean this life - here and now.

[ChristShepherd]

It's all a metaphor, states of being, frames of mind, outcomes, and psychological situations. It's very valuable unless you think the devil is a being and hell is a place.

Hell is the willful separation of ourselves from all that if good, true, beautiful, sublime, healthy, engaged, and divine. Sin is what we do and are to get there. The devil is our own broken ego, our fear, and our vice. Most religions teach some version of this.

Hell is real. We make it. We put ourselves in it. This is what the bible and tradition teach us. We reappropriate it for our circumstances.

It's 2010. Just sayin.'

Jesus believed in Satan.
Matthew 4:10
Then Jesus said to him, "Go, Satan! For it is written, ' YOU SHALL WORSHIP THE LORD YOUR GOD, AND SERVE HIM ONLY.'"

Luke 10:18
And He said to them, "I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.

Luke 13:16
"And this woman, a daughter of Abraham as she is, whom Satan has bound for eighteen long years, should she not have been released from this bond on the Sabbath day?"

Jesus believed Satan was real. Jesus talked to Satan. Jesus saw Satan. Jesus held Satan responsible for a woman's illness.

Christ Shepherd

Not exactly. The stories feature that; but they are not history, so your claims are unsupported and unsupportable. All you can say is that the character Jesus in the gospels (loosely based on the man Jesus in history) used the words Satan and hell in certain ways, indeed in the same way that everyone around him did. Satan was an established character in biblical literature, so it's no surprise Jesus the man or character would speak consistently with the tradition of which he was a part, or that the authors would impute this to Jesus. But did Jesus really believe it? I doubt it. He was known for dummying things down, no? or using metaphors? Actually, I think he thought of satan and hell in the same way I do, and you can easily read the text in this light. Unless he wasn't divine and got it wrong by reflecting silly ancient beliefs. That's also a possibility.
I look at the bible as a non-self-validating ancient text. Proof texts are sort of a joke in my book if decontextualized and taken at face value, as you clearly did. So your argument establishes nothing , other than a willingness to misuse and misread the text.

BTW, it would help me if I knew whether you debate as a Christian or an anti-Christian. I've never been able to ascertain a consistent and coherent train of thought that could answer that question. Would you solve the mystery for me? After all, snarky contrarianism, even if a consistent practice, isn't a position.

I try to use the Bible as a source. I don't believe that Satan exists, but I was reporting what Jesus said about Satan. Jesus believed in Satan.
You had written that Satan was a metaphor. I was pointing out that Jesus disagreed with you.
If you have proof of that "metaphor concept" you can make Jesus look silly and the same for those that believe in a real Satan.

I'm sorry if I have confused you. I don't believe in Christianity.
Christ Shepherd

[stlekee]

But do you believe Jesus was ..... something special?

[myth-one.com]

Where does the belief in hell come from? In the Genesis account of creation, there is no mention of God creating hell. There is also no mention of God creating a devil, satan or evil one.

The only description of the original creation are the ten words:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. (Genesis 1:1)

Nothing created in this original creation is described in any detail.

The adam and eve story tells of sin or evil being human's free will decision to not do God's will, not do what he wants. The 'serpant' is mentioned here, but it is clearly a reference to a snake, 'crawling on its belly...'. The serpant in the story represent human consciousness, self awareness, and the ability to act beyond instinct to make a choice. Adam And Eve is th story of he dawn of human consciousness, the ability to think, make choices, and consequences. The first Human Beings.

The "Adam and Eve" story was not part of the original creation. Adam and Eve were part of the recreation process begun in Genesis 1:3 which restored the earth:

Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they (mankind) are created: and thou renewest the face of the earth. (Psalm 104:30)

To believe otherwise, one must accept that God created the earth without form, void, and dark originally:

And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. (Genesis 1:2)

So where does hell come from?

Hell was probably created after Satan and a third of the angels revolted against God. That is when it became necessary as a prison for these rebels. This would have been sometime in the billions of years between verses one and two of Genesis; and before the recreation of the decimated earth which resulted from their revolt begins in verse three:

And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. (Jude 1:6)

Hell will be the eternal prison of Satan:

And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. (Revelation 20:7-10)

Humans cast into hell quickly perish in what is described as their second death.