The worm and fire that never dies

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Paidion
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Re: The worm and fire that never dies

Post by Paidion » Sun Dec 22, 2013 12:39 am

Here is an article from the Jewish Encylopedia concerning Gehenna. It includes references to the book of Enoch (although chapter and verse is different from chapter and verse in my book of Enoch):

http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6558-gehenna
Paidion

Man judges a person by his past deeds, and administers penalties for his wrongdoing. God judges a person by his present character, and disciplines him that he may become righteous.

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TheEditor
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Re: The worm and fire that never dies

Post by TheEditor » Sun Dec 22, 2013 1:21 am

Singalphile wrote:



Also, while I'm here, one of the other interesting ideas from that podcast is that Jesus Himself may have been the first to use Gehenna as a metonymy or verbal shorthand for the idea of punishment or destruction.


And Steve replied:



The first use of Gehinnom (Gehenna) as a place of postmortem judgment was in the book of 1 Enoch, which dates from the centuries just prior to Christ's birth. After Enoch's usage, the rabbis picked it up and used it the same way. There has been debate among participants here at the forum as to whether Jesus used the words in the rabbinic way or in the scriptural way (as Jeremiah and Isaiah had used it). Some think Jesus borrowed His ideas from the rabbis and intertestamental literature. I am on the side of the prophets in that dispute.


I do not believe it was His borrowing ideas so much as it was Jesus' use of an idiom common among the Jews. Johannes Buxtorf, renowned professor of Hebrew at Basil for 39 years, is said to have proven that the ancient Hebraic writers never used Gehenna in any other sense than to designate the place of the punishment of the damned.

The question must be asked whether Jesus wished to make His hearers understand His many threats and warnings. Wouldn't He speak in terms they understood? How could He convey the meaning of future things than by speaking as the people spoke? Why would He use Gehenna in an unfamiliar sense? I do not understand why someone who heard Jesus' sermon on the mount would think his personal sin would result in the destruction of Jerusalem. Makes no sense to me. And it is argued that the apostles never used the threat of Gehenna when addressing the gentiles, but how would gentiles have been able to understand a Hebrew idiom?

Whether or not Jesus used words in the sense the Rabbis used them, consider that Jesus, speaking of the fate of the wicked, almost quoted Sirach:

Sirach 7:17, circa 200BC
7:17 Humble thyself greatly: for the vengeance of the ungodly is fire and worms.

Jesus, Mark 9:45-46
45. And if your foot causes you to sin, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life lame, rather than having two feet, to be cast into hell, into the fire that shall never be quenched— 46. where
‘Their worm does not die,
And the fire is not quenched.’
Hi Homer,

I adressed this concept some time ago on this forum, although it didn't generate much discussion, you and Paidion were the only ones to comment. :) The idea that Jesus may have used notions that the Jews had, to make a point, though he may not have actually been stamping the notion with his seal of authenticity. Here is the post if you are interested in reconsidering it:

http://theos.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=73&t=3410

Regards, Brenden.
[color=#0000FF][b]"It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery."[/b][/color]

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Homer
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Re: The worm and fire that never dies

Post by Homer » Sun Dec 22, 2013 10:30 am

Paidion,

Interesting article - seems to me it provides strong support for the idea that Gehenna was an idiom for hell for a very long time.

Singalphile
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Re: The worm and fire that never dies

Post by Singalphile » Sun Dec 22, 2013 11:02 am

Hi, all.

Paidion and Homer -
I had read that Jewish Encyclopedia article and looked up the Enoch references here, but the actual word Gehenna (or any variation, "Hinnom", etc.) does not appear to be used in Enoch. As for the other references in other writings, I don't know when they were written or redacted (BC or AD?) or if they too do not contain the actual word(s) Gehenna.

The point of the aforementioned podcast is that Jesus Himself may have coined that usage. It seems unlikely since I've never heard that suggestion, and yet I can't find any usage earlier than the gospels.

TheEditor- This was a good and interesting post of yours, and I agree with you. Thanks.

mattrose - Also a good and interesting and agreeable paper. Thanks.

jaydam - Sorry for drifting a bit from the original topic ... but we're not too far off.

It all has to do with better understanding Jesus' teaching when He used certain OT words/language which were also mixed up in popular notions (rightly or wrongly) of that time.

Thanks.
... that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. John 5:23

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steve
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Re: The worm and fire that never dies

Post by steve » Sun Dec 22, 2013 9:25 pm

I have not looked for the word in Enoch itself. My statement that this identification first arose in Enoch was based on the following:
"Under the influence of Persian and Hellenistic ideas concerning retribution after death the belief arose that the righteous and the godless would have very different fates, and we thus have the development of the idea of spatial separation in the underworld, the first instance being found in Enoch."

[Gerhard Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1964), 147.]
"Enoch . . . includes the description of a tour supposedly taken by Enoch into the center of the earth. ... In another passage in Enoch, he sees at the center of the earth two places—Paradise, the place of bliss, and the valley of Gehinnom, the place of punishment. The above illustrates that there was a general notion of compartments in Hades that developed in the intertestamental period.

[Harry Buis, "Hades," in Merrill C. Tenney, ed., The Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, vol. 3 (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975), 7 ]

Homer wrote:
I do not believe it was His borrowing ideas so much as it was Jesus' use of an idiom common among the Jews. Johannes Buxtorf, renowned professor of Hebrew at Basil for 39 years, is said to have proven that the ancient Hebraic writers never used Gehenna in any other sense than to designate the place of the punishment of the damned.
I don't care how many renowned professors say otherwise. Anyone can see for himself from scripture that Jeremiah and Isaiah spoke of the Valley of Hinnom as the place where war dead would be accumulated. There is no hint that this means post-mortem. The description is not of souls, but of corpses.
The question must be asked whether Jesus wished to make His hearers understand His many threats and warnings. Wouldn't He speak in terms they understood? How [else] could He convey the meaning of future things than by speaking as the people spoke? Why would He use Gehenna in an unfamiliar sense?
Jesus did not use the term "kingdom of God" in the familiar sense. Nor, most likely, did most of His hearers have a grasp of the meaning of His term "Son of Man." The rabbis used both terms, but they did not have the same things in mind that Jesus had. To speak of the Valley of Hinnom as an actual valley outside Jerusalem would not be using it in an unfamiliar sense. Everyone knew where that valley was, and they knew its name. That the rabbis had taken to using the term metaphorically does not mean that Jesus would follow their usage. Are you suggesting that Jeremiah and Isaiah were unfamiliar to Jesus' hearers?
I do not understand why someone who heard Jesus' sermon on the mount would think his personal sin would result in the destruction of Jerusalem. Makes no sense to me.
Nor to me. Did someone make this suggestion? I don't think Jesus was telling anyone that their personal sins would have any effect, one way or another, on whether Jerusalem would be destroyed. However, their personal choices would have everything to do with whether they (as individuals) would be in the city when it fell, or not. The righteousness of Jesus' disciples could not prevent the Roman invasion, or the fall of the city, but it did cause them to escape it.
And it is argued that the apostles never used the threat of Gehenna when addressing the gentiles, but how would gentiles have been able to understand a Hebrew idiom?
Revelation was written to Gentile churches, and it uses Hebrew idioms, like Alleluia, Abaddon and Armageddon (the latter being, a metaphorical reference to Palestinian geography, as you think Gehenna was). The Corinthians were as Gentile as anyone Paul ever wrote to, yet he expected them to understand the Aramaic term "maranatha" (1 Cor.16:22).

It would seem that Gentile churches in the first century (like Gentile churches today) were capable of picking up some Judaic terminology. If Paul thought that "Gehenna" meant "the post-mortem place of final judgment," it would not have been difficult for him to have taught his audience that word as well (you are a Gentile, and you have learned it. My guess is that they could have learned it as easily as you and I did).

Paul's failure to mention this word (like Peter's, John's and Jude's) is especially remarkable, since Paul did not seem to have any alternative word to describe that place (he never mentions hades, sheol, tartarus, or any other word known to connote "post-mortem hell" among the Gentiles). If rabbi Saul had grown up believing that Gehenna means "hell," and had retained this notion into his Christian life—and if no other existing Greek word for hell seemed suitable for him to use—nothing would have been more natural than for him to use the term with his audiences as freely as did Jesus with His.
Whether or not Jesus used words in the sense the Rabbis used them, consider that Jesus, speaking of the fate of the wicked, almost quoted Sirach...
Jesus' words in Mark 9 are not a very close match to those of Sirach. They are as close to those of Judith. However, Jesus does not show any dependence upon (nor, for that matter, familiarity with) those books. His words are a direct quotation from Isaiah 66:24—to whom Judith and Sirach both merely allude.

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Homer
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Re: The worm and fire that never dies

Post by Homer » Mon Dec 23, 2013 12:19 am

However, their personal choices would have everything to do with whether they (as individuals) would be in the city when it fell, or not.
Well let's take a look at the situation of the Sermon on the Mount:

Matthew 4:23-5:1, New American Standard Bible (NASB)

23. Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people.
24. The news about Him spread throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and He healed them. 25. Large crowds followed Him from Galilee and the Decapolis and Jerusalem and Judea and from beyond the Jordan.

5. When Jesus saw the crowds, He went up on the mountain; and after He sat down, His disciples came to Him.

So we find Jesus, most likely some one hundred miles north of Jerusalem, delivering a sermon to people who have come from as far as Syria to the northeast and Jerusalem to the south, plus no doubt many from the local area.

Then Jesus warns them:

Matthew 5:22, New American Standard Bible (NASB)

22. But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother shall be guilty before the court; and whoever says to his brother, ‘You good-for-nothing,’ shall be guilty before the supreme court; and whoever says, ‘You fool,’ shall be guilty enough to go into the fiery hell (Gehenna of fire).

Matthew 5:29-30

29. If your right eye makes you stumble, tear it out and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to be thrown into hell (Gehenna). 30. If your right hand makes you stumble, cut it off and throw it from you; for it is better for you to lose one of the parts of your body, than for your whole body to go into hell (Gehenna).


So you think their personal choices regarding the sins Jesus warned them about would "have everything to do" with these people, from a wide geographical area, gathering themselves all together some 100 miles to the south, 70 years later, to be destroyed at Jerusalem! And most of them probably died in the interim.

I think you need to give this idea up about all references (any?) to Gehenna being literal. You are trying too hard to make it fit. I know you have a lot invested in your theory, but it just doesn't add up.

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steve
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Re: The worm and fire that never dies

Post by steve » Mon Dec 23, 2013 11:47 am

So you think their personal choices regarding the sins Jesus warned them about would "have everything to do" with these people, from a wide geographical area, gathering themselves all together some 100 miles to the south, 70 years later, to be destroyed at Jerusalem! And most of them probably died in the interim.
The Jews of Galilee (and the rest of the world) were in Jerusalem for the Passover when the siege began. The Romans didn't say to those with a different zip code, "Oh, you're not a local? Then you may leave."

The fact that many of Jesus' audience might die before AD 70 did not prevent Jesus from saying, "All these things will come on this generation" (Matt.23:36). Apparently, Jesus felt the danger was real to His listeners' generation, regardless how many of them might die in the interim.

Those who chose to follow Jesus were not in Jerusalem when the siege began, because they fled before the lockdown. This is why I said their personal choices (about following Christ or not) had everything to do with their escaping that holocaust.
I think you need to give this idea up about all references (any?) to Gehenna being literal. You are trying too hard to make it fit. I know you have a lot invested in your theory, but it just doesn't add up.
Actually, I have invested nothing in the theory, and it would change nothing in my life if Gehenna was a reference to hell. I am simply persuaded on the basis of the evidence available that Jesus is not talking about hell in these references.

My impression is that you are the one with an investment.

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