On Apr 6, 7:27 pm, rtdav...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
> On Apr 2, 5:55=A0pm, DKleinecke <dkleine...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>
> > On Apr 1, 6:09 pm, rtdav...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
>
> > > This is why Jesus talked more about hell than heaven....
>
> is that enough?
You didn't do any research on Jesus' references to heaven so we still
have no evidence that Jesus talked more about hell than heaven.
The indirect "references" to hell are, of course, irrelevant. That
they refer to Hell is mere exegesis.
Let's be crude about this. In Strong's concordance there are 14 gospel
references to "hell" and over 150 references to "heaven". That sounds
like more talk about heaven than about hell.
Most of the material about both hell and heaven is not directly
descriptive of either (apart, of course, from Dives and Lazarus).
Mostly it describes actions that will send you to one or another.
Mark has one pericope (9.42-48) which involves hell (he calls it
GEENNA) and describes it (9.48) as "where the worm does not die and
the fire is not extinguished." Matthew (5.29-30 and 18.6-9) and Luke
(17.1-2) have copied this from Mark. Luke has removed all the
references to hell which he, one assumes, felt were not part of Jesus'
authentic message.
Luke (again apart from Dives and Lazarus) has two mentions of hell. In
10.15 it is mentioned, but nor described, in the ritual curse on
Capernaum. In 12.5 it seems to say that God has the power to throw one
there. Both of these last two are in Matthew (11.21 and 10.28) and are
therefore from Q.
Matthew, in whom one easily detects less of a spirit of loving
kindness, hell gets more play. In 5.22 GEENNA is described as being of
fire. 16.18 is a reference to the gates of hell and is part of the
blessing on Peter which is controversial for a number of reasons.
23.15 is part of the ritual curse on the Pharisees and refers to the
sons of hell - not hell itself. 23.33 is another part of the same
curse and is a reference to the judgment of hell.
Hence there are only two explicit descriptions of Hell in the gospels
- the story (which I insulted earlier - and I withdraw my insult)
about Dives and Lazarus and Mark 9.48. This is not very substantial.
I acknowledge that Matthew clearly intended some, or all, of his
references to "fire" to be read as hell. He was obviously an angry
man. But I am not going to try to calm him down here.
Mark 9.48 is obviously based on Isaiah 66.24 and we might therefore
read it as a quotation by Jesus from scripture rather than one of his
teachings.
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