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Home , Fire and brimstone

we make the road by walking Ch 24. Jesus and

Readings: Luke 16:19-31, Matthew 25:31-40

Quote: The idea of hell entered Jewish thought rather late. In Jesus’ day more traditional Jews—especially those of a political and and religious group known as the Sadducees—had little to say about the and about miracles, angels and the like. Their focus was on this life and on how to be good and faithful human beings within it. Other Jews—especially the Pharisees, the Sadducees’ great rivals—had welcomed ideas on the afterlife from neighboring cultures and religions. —Brian McLaren

A large number of Jews had been exiles in the Persian empire in the sixth century BC, and the Persians ruled over the Jews for about 150 years after they returned to rebuild Jerusalem. After that, the Greeks ruled and tried to impose their culture and religion. So it’s not surprising that many Jews adopted a mix of Persian and Greek ideas of the afterlife. For many of them, the heaven-bound could be easily identified: They were religiously knowledgeable and observant, socially respected, economically prosperous. and healthy in body…all signs of an upright life today that would be rewarded after death. The hell-bound were just as easily identified: They were uninformed about religious law, careless about religious rules, socially suspect, economically poor, and physically sick or disabled…signs of a sinful, undisciplined life now that would be further punished later. —Brian McLaren

Persians - Many Persians were followers of where it was believed that recently departed souls would be judged by two angels, Rashnu and Mithra. The worthy would be welcomed into the Zoroastrianism version of heaven. The unworthy would be banished to the realm of the Satanic figure Ahriman—their version of hell.

Greeks - In general Greeks believed that souls were sorted into four groups at death: the holy and heroic, the indeterminate, the curably evil, and the incurably evil. The incurably evil went to where they would experience eternal conscious torment. The holy and heroic were admitted to the Elysian Fields, a place of joy and peace. The in-between might be sent back to earth for multiple reincarnations until they could e properly sorted for shipment to Tartarus or the Elysian Fields.

Question: What is your view of heaven and hell? How are modern views of heaven and hell derived from the historical sources cited above?

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______Question: In Luke 16:19-31, Jesus turned Jewish understandings of hell and the afterlife upside-down. How was his view in this passage different from the Sadducees and Pharisees?

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Question: In Matthew 25:31-40 he does the same thing again. How was his view in this passage different from the Sadducees and Pharisees?

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Quote: Again and again, Jesus took conventional language and imagery for hell and reversed it. We might say he wasn’t so much teaching about hell as he was un- teaching about hell. In doing so, he wasn’t simply arguing for a different understanding of the afterlife. He was doing something far more important and radical: proclaiming a transformative vision of . God is not the one who punishes some with poverty and sickness, nor is God the one who favors the rich and the righteous. God is the one who loves everyone, including the people the rest of us think don’t count. Those fire-and- brimstone passages that countless preachers have used to scare people about hell, it turns out, weren’t intended to teach us about hell. Jesus used the language of hell to teach us a radical new vision of God! —Brian McLaren

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Quote: Jesus used fire-and-brimstone language in another way, as well. He used it to warn his countrymen about the catastrophe of of following their current road—a wide and smooth highway leading to another violent uprising against the Romans. Violence won’t produce peace, he warned; it will only produce more violence. If his countrymen persisted in their current path, Jesus warned, the Romans would get revenge on them by taking their greatest pride—the Temple—and reducing it to ashes and stubble. The Babylonians had done it once, and the Romans could do it again. That was why he advocated a different path—a ”rough and narrow path” of nonviolent social change instead of the familiar broad highway of hate and violence. —Brian McLaren ______

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A LANGUAGE AND GEOGRAPHY LESSON

and Yiddish (גהנום/גהנם : (Ancient Greek: γέεννα), Gehinnom (Rabbinical Hebrew Gehinnam, are terms derived from a place outside ancient Jerusalem known in the Hebrew one of the two ;(גיא בן-הינום or גֵיא בֶן־הִנֹם :Bible as the Valley of the Son of Hinnom (Hebrew principal valleys surrounding the Old City.

In the , the site was initially where apostate Israelites and followers of various Ba'als and other Canaanite , including Molech, sacrificed their children by fire (2 Chr. 28:3, 33:6). Thereafter it was deemed to be cursed (Jer. 7:31, 19:2-6).

An over simplified description of Gehenna would be that it was the garbage dump outside of Jerusalem; this was the place where both garbage and dead bodies would be discarded and consumed by a fire that was likely always burning.

In Jewish, Christian, and Islamic scripture, Gehenna is a destination of the wicked. This is different from the more neutral /Hades, the abode of the dead, although the of the Bible usually translates both with the Anglo-Saxon word Hell.

In the synoptic gospels Jesus uses the word Gehenna 11 times to describe the opposite to life in the Kingdom (Mark 9:43-48). It is a place where both soul and body could be destroyed (Matthew 10:28) in "unquenchable fire" (Mark 9:43).

Gehenna is also mentioned in the Epistle of James 3:6, where it is said to set the tongue on fire, and the tongue in turn sets on fire the entire "course" or "wheel" of life.

The also refers to Hades as a place distinct from Gehenna. Unlike Gehenna, Hades typically conveys neither fire nor punishment but forgetfulness. John's vision in the describes Hades being cast into the (Revelation 20:14). The King James Version is the only English translation in modern use to translate Sheol, Hades, Tartarus, and Gehenna as “Hell.” The New International Version, New Living Translation, New American Standard Bible (among others) all reserve the term hell for the translation of Gehenna, transliterating Hades as a term directly from the equivalent Greek term. Hinnom Valley or Gehenna is at the bottom of the map, outside the city walls of Jerusalem.