Four Enlightening Works of J.W. Hanson, D.D The Bible Hell • Aion and Aionios • Bible Threatenings Explained • Bible Proofs of Universal Salvation Four Enlightening Works of J.W. Hanson, D.D edited by Gary Amirault and published by Tentmaker Ministries and Publications. Tentmaker Ministries and Publications 118 Walnut Hermann, MO 65041 http://www.tentmaker.org [email protected] Put into electronic format by Lieber Graphics. Copyright 2002 ISBN Number: 0-9708124-1-8 Printed in the USA T A Reflection On The Time Period In Which These Writings Were Written. The latter half of the nineteenth century saw a great number of sci- ences and new concepts come into their own — archaeology, geology, psychology, philology, linguistic science, etc. The theory of evolution was wreaking havoc in the theological communities. Man, according to this new “science” came from apes. According to Darwin’s camp, we were not created by God in His own image. These other new sciences seems to support Darwin’s theory, NOT the “traditions” of the churches. Archaeology was not finding the artifacts which should be present in certain strata if the locations and dating of the Bible was correct. Geol- ogy was not finding the evidence of a world-wide flood. Textual critics were coming to the conclusion that much of what had been taught re- garding the textual transmission of the Hebrew and Greek texts of the scriptures was false. For example, the church commonly taught that Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch. Carefully scruti- nizing the texts, many scholars concluded that more than one person was involved in writing the Pentateuch in the form we have it today. They said, for example, that Moses could not have been written about his own death in Deuteronomy 34:6-8. A “redactor” must have added that to the text. Thousands of Greek manuscripts were discovered revealing that none of them were exactly alike. There were differences in Greek Texts. As knowledge of the ancient languages of the Bible and the peoples in biblical lands grew, it became obvious to intellectually honest scholars that the early translators of the Bible made great mistakes in their transla- tions. The “Bible” and the traditions of men, which were incorporated into the Christian tradition were scrutinized like never before. Every- thing was questioned. New theories on who actually wrote the books of the Bible came forth. New dates as to when they were written were set. These new scholars were sharp. They left few rocks unturned. Their work produced scores of questions to which the church-at-large had few schol- arly and intelligent answers. This caused many intelligent people to flee from the church and the reading of the Bible. After this explosion of new information, hundreds of colleges, which were founded as Christian institutions went liberal, VERY liberal. These seminaries and their religious departments would become filled with athe- ists and agnostics, while still holding theological chairs and professor- ships. Many of them would actually use their offices to denigrate the Christian faith and promote secular humanism, while at the same time maintaining their religious positions. I believe most students today, who must pass through the gates of these institutions, go out of them with much less belief in God and the Scriptures than when they went in. Some find themselves leaving Christianity entirely. There came far too much material which appeared contrary to what was contained in current Bible translations and the traditions of the church found in creeds, articles of faith, canons, confessions, catechisms, etc. This put the conservative and so-called “Bible-based” denominations and sects on the defensive. But since they had no real evidence to sup- port their traditional positions, they took fear-based and dogmatic posi- tions. This made the gospel sound even worse than it already appeared in these corrupt older Bible translations, which contained ancient traditions which actually came from paganism and other religions, not from the original Hebrew and Greek texts of the Scriptures. For example, the King James Bible speaks of “unicorns” and “satyrs.” These are mythological characters which we know today do not exist. But they did exist in the minds of the scholars from Elizabethan England. Therefore, we have mythological characters in the King James Bible. Because of the tradi- tional teaching of Biblical Inerrancy (which is a false teaching), the tra- ditionalists cornered themselves into a position they could not get out of unless they dropped the doctrine of Biblical Inerrancy. Rather than change their tradition, they went into deeper ignorance. “God said it, I believe it and that settles it” basically became the apologetics of fundamentalism. While Evangelicalism didn’t become quite as dogmatic and blind as Fundamentalism, it nevertheless maintained a position which was not open to the truth. The secular humanists, atheists and theologians who basically abandoned the Bible as a book of any real value wrote scores of books and articles tearing the Scriptures apart. The fundamentalists and conservatives wrote some apologetic material to substantiate their positions and defend the Bible translations in their present form, but they were really very weak. They were weak because they tried to defend the idea of an “inerrant” Bible, which simply does not exist. They were weak because they tried to defend age-old traditions that could not be found in the Scriptures. The fundamentalist and more conservative branches of Christendom became more fear filled, more intolerant, and more unwilling to have their beliefs examined. Those who questioned the beliefs of the church were written off as dogs not worthy of their pearls (as they still often do today). Those who questioned church teachings were considered “carnal” and therefore could not understand the Word of God. Because of the openness of the scientific community and the closed-mindedness and intolerance to questions by the conservative leadership of the church, many people walked away from Christianity simply because the church seemed to be unable to give reasonable answers to the many new and good questions which arose. The main reason the church had no good answers was because they were not willing to examine their traditions, many of which were NOT based upon the Hebrew and Greek Scriptures, but upon ancient traditions and MIStranslations of their Bibles. Rather than honestly looking at the evidence and theories from these new sciences and revise what needed to be revised and throw out what was scripturally untrue, the conservative branches of Christianity, who felt they were the “defenders of the truth,” locked themselves even deeper into their traditions. The end result of this posturing of these religious institutions into ultra-liberal and ultra-con- servative camps is that the truth wasn’t found in either camp. The Bible became practically useless in the liberal camps while in the conservative camps, it basically become God Himself. The fact of the matter is, the Scriptures were never meant to be God’s final word on anything, it was meant to be a tool – a tool which has been greatly misused in Christian circles — a tool to find and relate to the Living God of all humanity. There was another group, a small group to be sure, that was willing to look at some of the new knowledge which came from disciplines like archaeology, philology and textual criticism. They were not afraid. The truth was more important to them than to defend traditions if they could not be found in the New Testament Greek Scriptures. Dr. John Wesley Hanson was one of those individuals. He discovered that most of the problems associated with the Bible were not with the original writings, but in the English translations of them and with church traditions which really had no New Testament foundation. He discovered there were many critically important Greek and Hebrew words that were grossly mistranslated to conform to Dark Age traditions of the old church. This produced many contradictions in many leading selling Bible translations. One of the leading doctrines of darkness which crept into the church and into Bible translations was the teaching of a place called Hell in which billions of human beings would be endlessly tortured. Dr. Hanson wrote several books examining this teaching. His books revealed that this teaching, while prevalent in most denominations of Christianity, is absent from the original Hebrew and Greek Scriptures. Four of his books were rather small. We felt that combining them would produce an excellent reference tool on the subjects of Hell and Universal Salvation. The first three books dispel the myth of Hell, while the fourth one provides some scriptural support for the teaching of the restoration of all things through Jesus Christ’s work on the Tree of Crucifixion. We decided last minute to include another small work, “100 Scrip- tural Proofs That Jesus Christ Is The Savior Of All Mankind,” by Thomas Whittemore first published in 1840. We hope that the reader is greatly blessed from this work. We long for the day when God’s people stop perishing for lack of knowledge. May the knowledge contained herein bring the reader one more step out of darkness into His glorious and marvelous light. Gary Amirault, editor 7 Contents A REFLECTION ON THE TIME HADEES IS TEMPORARY .......... 46 PERIOD IN WHICH THESE THE BOOK OF ENOCH .............. 48 WRITINGS WERE WRITTEN. ........ 3 WHAT DID PETER MEAN? ......... 49 The Bible Hell GEHENNA ........................... 50 OPINION OF SCHOLARS ........... 51 PREFACE ............................ 15 GEHENNA LOCATED IN THE BIBLE HELL .................... 16 THIS WORLD........................ 52 THE ENGLISH WORD HELL ........ 16 JEWISH VIEWS OF GEHENNA ..... 57 FOUR WORDS IMPORTANT FACTS ................ 58 TRANSLATED HELL ................ 17 CAST INTO HELL-FIRE ............