Immortality or Resurrection (Updated) by William West (reading strategies book .TXT) 📖

the valley of Hinnom outside of Jerusalem
with equal propriety could be spoken of as 'Hell' three or four hundred years ago. That is no
longer so...in our time 'Hell' has a fairly settled meaning...its use conjures up visions of the
awesome lake of fire judgment reserved for sinners" Russell Boatman, Dean at Saint Louis
Christian College, Christian Church, "What The Bible Says, The End Time," College Press, Page
305.
"Hell has entirely changed its old harmless sense of dim under-world: and that meaning, as it
now does, to myriads of readers...it conveys meanings which are not to be found in any of the
New or Old Testament words for which it is presented as an equivalent" Canon Farrar, Excursus
II, "Eternal Hope."
A doctrine as terrible as Hell must not be assumed, but demonstrated by
unquestionable proof. Such proof is not in the Bible. Heaven is in the Bible over 600
times, but Hell not one time. Why? The Bible is full of warnings. Paul warned that many
"shall not inherit the kingdom of God" [1 Corinthians 5:9], but he never said anyone
would "go to Hell." Paul said he declared the whole counsel of God [Acts 20:27]; yet
not one time [even in the King James Version] did he use the word Hell. Why? T. L.
Andrews says our English word Hell has come to mean the eternal abode of the sinner
where this tormenting punishment takes place? Florida College Lectures, 1997, Page 168.
When? The English word Hell did not exist in Paul's time. It therefore come to mean the
eternal abode of sinners long after the New Testament; and came from man, not God.
Therefore Paul could not, and did not use it.
IF HELL WERE A REAL PLACE, WHICH WAS KNOWN ABOUT IN THE TIME
OF CHRIST, OTHERS OF THAT TIME WOULD HAVE KNOWN ABOUT IT AND
USED ITS NAME; BUT NONE DID. Gehenna was the name of a real place near
Jerusalem [the city dump], which the people near Jerusalem would know about it, and
would understand what Christ was saying when He used its name as a place of
destruction. The rest of the world would not know about Jerusalem's trash dump or know
what its name was, and would not have understood. If Paul had used the name Gehenna
in Rome or in writing to Gentiles, it is unlikely that any would have known what or
where Gehenna was. When the Greek philosophy about the underworld was brought into
the church by the "church fathers," what Christ had said about Gehenna was made to
order for them to misuse. "Gehenna" was soon mistranslated into Hell, probably it came
from "Hel" [see above]. Whatever is not taught in the Bible cannot be a Bible doctrine. If
it is the doctrine of man, is it not sinful to teach it as God's word?
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Hell is not a Bible word. It is a word chosen by Bible Translators to translate four
Bible words, sheol, hades, Gehenna, and Tartarus. Not one of the four has the meaning of
Hell as it is used today. Not only is there no Hebrew or Greek word for Hell, but also at
first even the English word Hell did not mean a place of torment after death as it does
today; like many English words it has had a radical change of meaning. In Old English it
was a covered place. A farmer would say "I helled my potatoes" meaning he put them in
a hole and covered them to keep them from the cold. Helling a house meant to cover it
with a roof. Helmet, a covering for the head is derived from the same word. Hell was
never the best translations of hades, but formerly it would have been acceptable in Old
English. It is not an acceptable translation of hades in modern English and has been
abandoned by many of the newer translations. When the King James Version was made,
the doctrine of Hell was completely developed and the translation of sheol and hades into
Hell were a mistranslation. Most likely a deliberate mistranslation for in 1611 it had
taken on the modern meaning of a place of torment after death.
Those who believe in Hell use the word as if both the place and the name are used
repeatedly in the Bible. Their proof texts are metaphors, parables, and symbolical
language as is found in the book of Revelation. If there is a place as terrible as Hell, why
is it never spoken of in clear words that the common person could not misunderstand? If
Hell were real, it would be strange if a doctrine as important as Hell would be would have
to depend on an interpretation of a parable or symbolical language.
[3]. NOT IN EARLY CREEDS The two earliest creeds, The Apostles Creed,
traditionally ascribed to the 12 Apostles, and the Nicean Creed, 325 A. D., were both
doctrinal statements saying what those that used them believed, but neither one contained
the concept of Hell.
[4]. TODAY'S PREACHING - versus - FIRST CENTURY PREACHING. Heaven is
taught throughout the Bible [used about 635 times in the New American Standard Bible],
but there is nothing about today's Hell. Adam was warned that he would die if he ate, but
not that he would go to Hell. Moses warned about death to those who did not keep the
law, but he said nothing about Hell. The Bible is as silent as a tomb on it. It is beyond
belief that there would not be many clear and unmistakable warning about Hell if
there were such a place. There are many clear and unmistakable warning that the
wages of sin is death, but not a one about Hell or an eternal life of torment.
HOW HELL WAS PUT INTO THE BIBLE
AND IS BEING KEPT IN THE BIBLE
"Jesus said it [Hell] was a place where 'the fire...never shall be quenched...Hell is further
described as a place where" Whitlock, Seibles Road Church of Christ bulletin, August 9, 1998.
Christ did not say anything about Hell, but was using Gehenna as a metaphor of
destruction; but Whitlock uses Hell and in the same sentence he quotes only a part of a
sentence used by Christ, adds to it, and makes it all one sentence. In doing so he has put
the word Hell into the mouth of Christ, but he must deny that this is a metaphor. [1] He
changes one proper noun into another proper noun, but does not tell us from where he got
the proper noun "Hell." [2] He makes Christ say something He did not say. [3] He says,
"Hell is further described as a place where," but he did not say where it is described as a
place. Hell is not described as a place or is not described in any other way in the Bible.
This is the very way the words of Christ were first misused by some of the so called
church fathers in about the third century and after, long before it was mistranslated into
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any Bible translation. Unto after the end of the second century only a few of the "church
fathers" taught that men have an immaterial, invisible part of a person that is immortal
and it was not unto later that Hell came into being. The half converted "church fathers,"
looking for a way to put their philosophy into Christianity, used the words of Christ in the
same way Whitlock did. The church fathers had to have a place to put their immortal
soul, which came from their Greek philosophy. Very often statements like the one John
Benton made, that the same word aionios, (eternal) is used to describe both Heaven and
Hell. "How Can a God of Love Send People to Hell?" Page 44, 1985. Dr. Bert Thompson
said both Heaven and Hell are described with the exact same terminology in the Bible.
Reason and Revelation, July 2000. The sad thing is that many will believe such a
statements without question. The truth is that aionios, (eternal) is not used in any passage
with sheol, hades or Gehenna, not in any passage that any of the three words that are
translated Hell in the King James Version. Dr. Thompson did not give one passage where
Hell is described with the same terminology as Heaven. There is not one.
Summary: In Pagan and Greek philosophy [Plato, Socrates and others], souls went to a
place underground to "a cold and shadowy subterranean realm" unto they could be
reincarnated. They believed in the soul being immortal and would be reincarnated, but
they did not believe in Hell, a place of everlasting torment before or after the judgment
was unknown to them; and they had no word for it. The doctrine of Hell, as is believed
today, became fully developed in the medieval Dark Age. Tyndale and many others in the
Protestant reformation fought the Catholic Church teaching that most go to Purgatory to
be purified on their way to Heaven, but "Hell" was accepted without Purgatory by most
Protestant churches. It was preached in all its terror by the Jonathan Edwards type of Hell
fire preacher and many Gospel preachers a few years back, with Satan tormenting the lost
from the time of their death. Today it is almost never preached or written about by
Gospel preachers; but when it is, it is almost always toned down from the Jonathan
Edwards type of Hell fire preaching; and it is now God, not Satan, who will be doing the
tormenting.
ANOTHER CHANGE: In the same way the King James Version changed Gehenna
into Hell, it also changed the proper noun "Passover (Pasha in Greek)" into "Easter."
"Pasha" is in the New Testament twenty-nine times. Twenty-eight times the King James
Version translates it Passover. Only one time [Acts 12:4] is it translated Easter, which
according to Webster’s New World Dictionary came from “Eastre” which is the Anglos
Saxon goddess of the dawn. There is no way the King James translators could not have
known Pasha is not Easter; this is another deliberate change where a Proper Noun was
changed into another Proper Noun, which they know had a completely different meaning.
Most other translations have corrected this change.
IF GEHENNA IS A METAPHOR, WHAT IS IT A METAPHOR OF? Present day
preachers make it be a metaphor of a place unknown unto long after the last page of the
Bible was written. BUT (after they change it's name) THEY CONTINUOUSLY USE IT
AS IF IT IS A REAL PLACE, NOT AS A METAPHOR.
CAN ONE METAPHOR HAVE SEVERAL OTHER METAPHORS THAT ARE
METAPHORS OF IT? After saying Gehenna was a valley that was used as a place of
refuse where fires were always needed to consume, Hamilton says, Jesus took the term
and applied it to the place of eternal torment. C. Hamilton in Truth Commentaries, 1
Peter, Page 385. This is a typical example of how even well-educated men who know
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how Christ used Gehenna, but they are compelled to use the mistranslation of the King
James Version to prove their belief. Then he says Hell is represented by several
metaphors. He says Gehenna is a metaphor, and then he says this metaphor (Gehenna) is
represented by several metaphors. He has one metaphor that has several other metaphors
that are metaphors of it. Then on the same page he says, Gehenna, Hell, means the place
of punishment in the next life. First, he says Gehenna, a valley used for the destruction of
the unwanted city garbage, is a metaphor of Hell, and then on the same page says
Gehenna is Hell! Which one does he think Gehenna is, a metaphor or a real place? It
comes down to what is the real thing, and what is the metaphor. He says all three, that
Gehenna, the lake of fire, and the second death, are all metaphors.