oldfella1962
Senior Member
Here we go - put your thinking caps on, consider my argument, and add your thoughts!
1) Jesus was born a Jew and died as a Jew. Christianity was a new religion based on the life teachings, death, and resurrection
of Jesus decades after his death.
2) The Jewish religion from which Jesus emerged has a much different take on heaven & hot place (and the afterlife) than does Christianity as we know it. In a nutshell, The Jewish idea is that the "soul" is part of the breath of life that exists in a LIVING body. When you die, your breath of life/soul dies too. There is no heaven or hot place. EVENTUALLY at the end of time as we know it, we will be judged. The obedient Jews (living or dead) will live forever here on a new Earth forever and the disobedient Jews/unbelievers (living or dead) will be DESTROYED - CEASE TO EXIST in the eternal fire that burns eternally but the bad people do not burn eternally. They burn up and are destroyed, but the fire keeps burning (to keep burning up more bad people maybe?) forever.
3) Since Jesus was a Jew, why would be not believe in the Jewish laws, traditions, procedures, and general worldview? Indeed, Jesus even states in
Matthew 5:17, Jesus emphatically declares that he did not come to abolish the Torah or Prophets but to fulfill them. He begins with the command, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or Prophets”. Also he says
“For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matt. 5:18, ESV). Here, Jesus uses popular traditions within contemporary Jewish teaching of his time to underline his point about the Torah’s validity.[17] According to David Turner, “It would be hard to make a stronger statement of the ongoing authority of the Torah than that made in 5:18.”
I'm no religious expert, but Jesus seems to be saying that he is a Jew and is not trying to reinvent the wheel and go off the plantation.
4) The concept of the soul going to heaven or the hot place (an eternal soul going to these locations when our physical bodies die) was mainly from the Greek influences influencing the Jews (and believers in the new Jesus cult/religion) who were writing what would be the new testament and the final versions of the old testament.
5) the new testament as we know it wasn't finalized until about THREE OR FOUR CENTURIES (The Council of Nicea maybe?) after the death of Jesus!
Jesus had NO INPUT into the book pr any writings about him! Many books and writings were rejected in the final editing. Basically, whatever "didn't fit the narrative" of the head honchos. If the council wanted to put the fear of the hot place into the final new testament version to ensure compliance and obedience not just to god, but to "the church" wouldn't it make sense to steer the narrative in that direction? Stories (and whole religious canons) are made through purposeful editing and I think almost everybody would agree with that. DISCUSS!
1) Jesus was born a Jew and died as a Jew. Christianity was a new religion based on the life teachings, death, and resurrection
of Jesus decades after his death.
2) The Jewish religion from which Jesus emerged has a much different take on heaven & hot place (and the afterlife) than does Christianity as we know it. In a nutshell, The Jewish idea is that the "soul" is part of the breath of life that exists in a LIVING body. When you die, your breath of life/soul dies too. There is no heaven or hot place. EVENTUALLY at the end of time as we know it, we will be judged. The obedient Jews (living or dead) will live forever here on a new Earth forever and the disobedient Jews/unbelievers (living or dead) will be DESTROYED - CEASE TO EXIST in the eternal fire that burns eternally but the bad people do not burn eternally. They burn up and are destroyed, but the fire keeps burning (to keep burning up more bad people maybe?) forever.
3) Since Jesus was a Jew, why would be not believe in the Jewish laws, traditions, procedures, and general worldview? Indeed, Jesus even states in
Matthew 5:17, Jesus emphatically declares that he did not come to abolish the Torah or Prophets but to fulfill them. He begins with the command, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or Prophets”. Also he says
“For truly, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished” (Matt. 5:18, ESV). Here, Jesus uses popular traditions within contemporary Jewish teaching of his time to underline his point about the Torah’s validity.[17] According to David Turner, “It would be hard to make a stronger statement of the ongoing authority of the Torah than that made in 5:18.”
I'm no religious expert, but Jesus seems to be saying that he is a Jew and is not trying to reinvent the wheel and go off the plantation.
4) The concept of the soul going to heaven or the hot place (an eternal soul going to these locations when our physical bodies die) was mainly from the Greek influences influencing the Jews (and believers in the new Jesus cult/religion) who were writing what would be the new testament and the final versions of the old testament.
5) the new testament as we know it wasn't finalized until about THREE OR FOUR CENTURIES (The Council of Nicea maybe?) after the death of Jesus!
Jesus had NO INPUT into the book pr any writings about him! Many books and writings were rejected in the final editing. Basically, whatever "didn't fit the narrative" of the head honchos. If the council wanted to put the fear of the hot place into the final new testament version to ensure compliance and obedience not just to god, but to "the church" wouldn't it make sense to steer the narrative in that direction? Stories (and whole religious canons) are made through purposeful editing and I think almost everybody would agree with that. DISCUSS!