[QUOTE=littlemanpoet]
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Originally Posted by Nogrod
Hell is a medieval invention[/b] That would mean that Matthew 25 was written sometime after 450 A.D.? Not to mention the lake of fire in Revelation? I could have sworn those documents had been around before 450 A.D.  |
Thanks. I think I deserved this one, for being quite hasty in this discussion (well you all write so much and I only seem to be able to pop-in/pop-out occasionally). But then again, I'm not sure, whether you have just pinpointed the only two mentionings in the Bible that could be in any way interpreted as something like a Hell anyway (and of these the Revelation-stuff is just so sick - and most of the exegetics seem to be at wonder with it: why a writing of clearly a lunatic, full of hate against anyone not being a) a male b) thinking the same way he did, was incorporated into the holy text preaching love and solidarity?).
The Jews were quite low-toned about any afterlife to begin with. It was the charismatic movements all around the Mediterranean & Middle-Eastern world during the centuries surrounding the beginning of our year 1, that really brought this idea of an eternal afterlife to the fore. And these movenets were mainly from Persia (could be lendings from Indian thought-world, as they had this notion of eternall bliss in Nirvana?) - lending all those early agricultural myths of a God sacrifying himself for the new life to be born on springtime.
But back to the bussiness. What I meant, was that the doctrine of Hell was not anything particularily popular - if even outspoken - in the early Christianity. It became a subject of discussion (and an idea to frighten people with) only on medieval times. And thence should be seen as an invention of the medieval clergy, more than an original Christian stance, or a teaching of Jesus!