When Jesus was speaking of "age-lasting punishment/purification" (wrongly translated "everlasting punishment") in Gehenna, He was addressing a topic very well known by his Jewish community, and the fake teaching of Eternal Conscious Torment is a perversion of that teaching...
One of the major Mistakes that Christians do, is try to understand the words of Jesus outside the cultural and linguistic context of the community in which Jesus lived. One of these words is the word Gehenna (wrongly translated to English as Hell in many translations).
In Jewish traditions, Gehenna was a place where sinners go for 12 months. there they are either punished or purified, and after that, though their bodies vanish, their souls are then reunited with God in Ganna, the paradise of the book of Genesis.
In the Targum (The ancient Aramaic paraphrased translation of the Old Testament), the term Gehenna is added to several old testament passages which describe the judgement and the resurrection. and when mark quoted the Isaiah term "where their worm does not die" he was actually paralleling the Targum in its interpretation of the Gehenna.
Gehenna in the Jewish view is " a Purgatory-like place" where sinners are purified of their sins. Probably this is due to the historical fact that southwest shoulder of the Valley of Hinnom (Ge-Hennom) was used as a burial place from the seventh till the 5th century BC and it continued to be used as a burial place, and at a later stage a cremation place by the year 70 AD, the date of the destruction of Jerusalem.
After passing through Gehennam, people move to the "Olam ha ba" (the world to come).
This is the context in which Jesus spoke about Gehennam... This fact combined with the truth that the word translated in most translations as Eternal or Everlasting actually means "Age-Lasting", as Young's Literal translation puts it, gives a clearer understanding of what Jesus was actually speaking about when he spoke about Gehenna.
It is sad that the pagan influence on the Church by the Romans, the fake theology of Original Sin later developed by Augustine, and the harshness of the medieval ages and Dante's Furnace all played a major role in establishing the horrible doctrine of Hell punishment into the daily life and liturgy of the Church to replace the Blesses Hope of Universal Reconciliation, initally adopted and taught by the Christian Church.
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| The Valley of Hinnom (Ge-Hinnom)in 1900 (Wikipedia) |
One of the major Mistakes that Christians do, is try to understand the words of Jesus outside the cultural and linguistic context of the community in which Jesus lived. One of these words is the word Gehenna (wrongly translated to English as Hell in many translations).
In Jewish traditions, Gehenna was a place where sinners go for 12 months. there they are either punished or purified, and after that, though their bodies vanish, their souls are then reunited with God in Ganna, the paradise of the book of Genesis.
In the Targum (The ancient Aramaic paraphrased translation of the Old Testament), the term Gehenna is added to several old testament passages which describe the judgement and the resurrection. and when mark quoted the Isaiah term "where their worm does not die" he was actually paralleling the Targum in its interpretation of the Gehenna.
Gehenna in the Jewish view is " a Purgatory-like place" where sinners are purified of their sins. Probably this is due to the historical fact that southwest shoulder of the Valley of Hinnom (Ge-Hennom) was used as a burial place from the seventh till the 5th century BC and it continued to be used as a burial place, and at a later stage a cremation place by the year 70 AD, the date of the destruction of Jerusalem.
After passing through Gehennam, people move to the "Olam ha ba" (the world to come).
This is the context in which Jesus spoke about Gehennam... This fact combined with the truth that the word translated in most translations as Eternal or Everlasting actually means "Age-Lasting", as Young's Literal translation puts it, gives a clearer understanding of what Jesus was actually speaking about when he spoke about Gehenna.
It is sad that the pagan influence on the Church by the Romans, the fake theology of Original Sin later developed by Augustine, and the harshness of the medieval ages and Dante's Furnace all played a major role in establishing the horrible doctrine of Hell punishment into the daily life and liturgy of the Church to replace the Blesses Hope of Universal Reconciliation, initally adopted and taught by the Christian Church.
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