Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife

I did. BTW, Heracles mother was mortal and his father was a God. Lot of that going around.
Do you have definitive proof that Zeus was a real being, let alone an actual god?
Or am I just supposed to take the claim on faith?
I.e., has he done anything to corroborate his existence and godhood?
That’s not the exercise. The exercise is simply to show that Christianity is not a revelatory religion from God.
you can do that simply by ignoring it.
here's what you appear to not grasp.
the amount of energy you expend in trying to persuade strangers that it is irrelevant demonstrates that it's entirely relevant.
furthermore, it proves that what Jesus taught is true.
the worst you'll achieve is sending yourself to hell, along with whomever believes you.

It was a conglomeration of the thoughts and philosophies of Hellenized Judaism.
Yet you can't actually demonstrate that.
So, if this is the best that Norman has, I'm not even remotely impressed. I thought you'd actually found something.

Plato describes it in the Symposium 500 years before Christianity. He got it from Homer. It is the universal love, consisting of love for strangers, nature, or God.
Hmm.... let's see....
The first exile of Israel took place in the early years of the 6th century BCE.
there's evidence in judges, along with the smaller texts that biblical Judaism in its early years had major impact on the larger region.
furthermore, Abraham was said to be a traveling trader.
he traveled from the area known today as modern Basra, up the Euphrates River, down across to Damascus in through to Egypt. Apparently he had quite well developed interactions with the government in the regions.
He appears to have also been engaged in regional warfare.
As he dates back to the early part of the second millennium BCE, I'd say that predates Homer by a thousand years.




It’s not Normans ideas. It’s history. He’s not proposing theories. He’s tracing cultural ideological influences that culminated in Christian thought through historical documents.
You made it sound as though Norman Bentwich had found something that nobody else had. There's nothing new here.... as you say..... it's history.

I’ve participated in many seders. First one when I was 12.
OK. I've participated in 2, maybe 3.
It's curious how much you've missed.
Sorry you missed it.
The only question here is when will you ever become educated in your own religion and the origin of its beliefs.
You mean the Adamic, Noahic, Abrahamic, Mosaic, and Davidic origins? The origins contained in the Jewish biblical prophets?

What do you think I'm missing here Nickel?

You are way behind on that.
I think that your belief about how behind I am is that I'm lacking a bunch of theological books written by men who don't actually know YHVH.
Since the only title you've given me is Norman Bentwich, and nothing you have posted shows anything I wasn't aware of 35 years ago, I'm not particularly concerned with this statement of yours.
Comically ignorant to believe as strongly as you do.
And yet you're the one who is perishing.
 
Do you have definitive proof that Zeus was a real being, let alone an actual god?
Or am I just supposed to take the claim on faith?
I.e., has he done anything to corroborate his existence and godhood?
Again, not relevant to the exercise of whether Christianity was a direct revelation from God and not just a conglomeration of Judaic and Hellenistic philosophy.
Yet you can't actually demonstrate that.
So, if this is the best that Norman has, I'm not even remotely impressed. I thought you'd actually found something.
I feared that your unfamiliarity with the material and the rather dull way that you dissect reality would confine me to mere doodles like agape love, Hades, and supernatural heroes that mimicked Jesus in outline. O.K. Try this. When you can summarize this we’ll talk. Until then, don’t waste my time thinking you know ANYTHING about your religion and how it came to be:

IMG_3157.jpgIMG_3158.jpg
 
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@SteveB
Here’s some stuff ripe with eating the flesh and drinking the blood of their god, purification of the soul for “future” life, the image of the gods in men, the savior god made manifest, trinities of power, immaculate conceptions and divine incarnations:

IMG_3159-1.jpgIMG_3160-1.jpgIMG_3161-2.jpgIMG_3162-2.jpg
 
I disagree, but OK.
Of course you disagree. Never mind what an atheist tells you he believes, the almighty SteveB knows better.

You would rather not exist beyond death,and don't believe that eternal life or death exists, so you believe that it's acceptable to ignore the warnings.
It is not a question of what I want, but what I believe to be true. I believe there is no existence beyond death, and that is independent of whether I want there to be or not.

I get the impression for you it is the opposite way around. You want there to be a life after death, so you believe there is.

My position is based on common sense and the bible.
My position is based on common sense without the Bible. Common sense tells me that when we die, we die. Common sense tells me that a perfectly good God who tortures billions for eternity is an impossible contradiction. Common sense tells me that the most likely reason people believe in the afterlife is wishful thinking.

Do yourself a favor and stop blaming others for your own sin. It gives you the appearance of being a coward.
What has sin got to do with it? Why do you persist in that deceit when every post you tell me that it is following Jesus or not that determines where we go in the afterlife?
 
@SteveB
Here’s some stuff ripe with eating the flesh and drinking the blood of their god, purification of the soul for “future” life, the image of the gods in men, the savior god made manifest, trinities of power, immaculate conceptions and divine incarnations:
Are you a vegetarian?
Because I am not.
And not just on weekends. During the warmer months, we bbq throughout the week.
And we like our meat juicy. Dripping...

So, i find myself wondering what you're afraid of.

i like my peaches, nectarines, plums, and other summer fruits dripping juicy too.
so, that Jesus died and rose again from the dead to save me from my sin.... that he invited us to remember him in this way....



 
Are you a vegetarian?
Because I am not.
And not just on weekends. During the warmer months, we bbq throughout the week.
And we like our meat juicy. Dripping...

So, i find myself wondering what you're afraid of.

i like my peaches, nectarines, plums, and other summer fruits dripping juicy too.
so, that Jesus died and rose again from the dead to save me from my sin.... that he invited us to remember him in this way....

Judaism kept the true meaning of passover. It steeled itself culturally from the hellenistic heresy of drinking the blood and eating the flesh of gods that Christianity accepted for itself as its traditions and philosophies grew out of the pagan hellenized world that Paul and the early church navigated. What the Last supper narrative did was to Hellenize what was never intended to be a Pagan ritual of the ingestion of a god. The last supper took a simple Hebrew religious tradition and made it very, very Pagan, very over-the-top cultish. The cannibalistic practice of pagans that would ingest the spirit of their enemies and their gods to become like them by cannibalizing their very flesh.

Read in historical context you can follow the evolution of Christianity into a hellenized populist cult.... a heresy Judaism just couldn’t stomach. As hellenized as Jewish thinking had become, that’s where it drew a line - the cult of Jesus.
 
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Again, not relevant to the exercise of whether Christianity was a direct revelation from God and not just a conglomeration of Judaic and Hellenistic philosophy.
I never would have considered it, but now, after you brought it into the discussion, I'd assume for the purpose of muddying the waters, I call BS! It's now entirely relevant.
Your bringing it into consideration means that you had a specific purpose for doing so. As such, you made it relevant. Now that you want to disregard it, demonstrates that you have nothing to corroborate the validity of your claim. Thus, you have proven to me that you're not actually interested in knowing the veracity of biblical Christianity. Only in making fallacious claims to find ways to make it appear to be fraudulent.

Jesus made it quite clear that you simply need to engage him, on his terms, and both He, and His Father will come to make their home with you. In this, consists of definitive proof that it's Truth, and that they are exactly who they claim to be.

If you're not actually interested in knowing the truth, then you really are wasting your life.


I feared that your unfamiliarity with the material and the rather dull way that you dissect reality would confine me to mere doodles like agape love, Hades, and supernatural heroes that mimicked Jesus in outline.
you feared. YOU feared...
you FEARED.....
sounds like you're having a confirmation bias and preconception problem.
stop living in fear of what you think is the problem and just do it.

O.K. Try this.
I've been doing what Jesus said for nearly 46 years now.
why don't you?

When you can summarize this we’ll talk.
So, now you're still afraid, and expect others to do your thinking for you.

Until then, don’t waste my time
sounds like you're the one wasting your own time.

So, unless i agree with what others think, I'm not actually allowed to think for myself?

you know ANYTHING about your religion and how it came to be:
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Seig hiel mein furhrer!
das ist verboten!
So, the problem as I see it is that you need other people to think for you and tell you what you're allowed to think, instead of simply reading for yourself and then engaging YHVH on his terms, so he can engage you, and demonstrate himself as real and knowable to you.

It's a good thing that I didn't listen to Ben Sira. I prefer to engage YHVH on the terms he defined.

Sounds like the author smoked too much whiskey, but failed to learn YHVH's Law, and the Grace found in and through Jesus Christ. And as a result, stood aloof, thinking he could understand in temporal terms that which is eternal.

There is nothing in what you copied here that is remotely relevant to the gospel of Jesus.
 
I never would have considered it, but now, after you brought it into the discussion, I'd assume for the purpose of muddying the waters, I call BS! It's now entirely relevant. Only in making fallacious claims to find ways to make it appear to be fraudulent.
It’s history.
So, now you're still afraid, and expect others to do your thinking for you.
So, unless i agree with what others think, I'm not actually allowed to think for myself?
So, the problem as I see it is that you need other people to think for you and tell you what you're allowed to think, instead of simply reading for yourself
Thinking properly requires a feeding of good information from trusted others was well as your own properly framed experiences. You refuse proper information and your internal experiences are very narrow self induced delusions. Your thinking is that of an information starved, isolated cult member.
Sounds like the author smoked too much whiskey
He is a respected scholar and there are no negative critiques of his understanding of Jewish history.
There is nothing in what you copied here that is remotely relevant to the gospel of Jesus.
It’s all relevant. It outlines where virgin born savior gods, divine incarnations, resurrections, divine ascensions, and many other traits the Jesus narrative took on for its populist survival in a culture that was obviously hungry for such extreme thinking.
 
Judaism kept the true meaning of passover.
apparently not.
considering that Jesus himself is the passover lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and the fact that there is no temple in Jerusalem to carry on the annual activity, they've lost true meaning of pesach.
oh, don't think for a moment that I don't believe they have a picture of it. Moses, and the fathers were the original practitioners. But by the time Jesus was crucified on passover day, and the curtain separating the holy of holies from the outer court, signifying that access to YHVH for all is restored, and no longer limited to the high priest, once a year, their understanding was overwritten by YHVH himself, with the objective truth.
Jesus is the Messiah.

It steeled itself culturally from the hellenistic heresy of drinking the blood and eating the flesh of gods
Ironically, I read that they continued to isolate themselves from YHVH himself, and were finally exiled in 135 CE, as a result of the Bar Kochba revolt.
Hadrian got fed up, kicked them out of the land, renaming the land, Syria Palestina, thus separating them from their ancestral lands, for another 1835 years.
So, their cultural steeling.... it's because they were exiled, and needed to retain their roots, so they could identify themselves as the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Israel.

that Christianity accepted for itself as its traditions and philosophies grew out of the pagan hellenized world that Paul and the early church navigated.
i get that you need others to tell you what you're allowed to think, and believe, but we who follow Jesus have a far different experience.
and since you repeatedly refuse to actually give any corroboration to your claims, you really do make it extremely easy to disregard your beliefs about this.

1Pe 4:16-19 WEB 16 But if one of you suffers for being a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this matter. 17 For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God. If it begins first with us, what will happen to those who don’t obey the Good News of God? 18 “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will happen to the ungodly and the sinner?” 19 Therefore let them also who suffer according to the will of God in doing good entrust their souls to him, as to a faithful Creator.
What the Last supper narrative did was to Hellenize what was never intended to be a Pagan ritual of the ingestion of a god.
actually, the last supper narrative is a passover seder. Jesus was Jewish, and the disciples were Israeli people from all 12 tribes.
so, if hellenization took place, it occurred much later. Granted, had you actually read the gospels, you would have seen that for yourself. So, this is telling me that you're reading everything but the bible, and believing the unbelievable opinions of unbelievers.

The last supper took a simple Hebrew religious tradition and made it very, very Pagan, very over-the-top cultish.
Looks entirely Jewish to me.
but, clearly you need the ill-informed opinions of unbelievers to tell you what you're allowed to think. So have fun with that. Watch that last step. It's a real doozy!
The cannibalistic practice of pagans that would ingest the spirit of their enemies and their gods to become like them by cannibalizing their very flesh.
then I'd say that it's a good thing we eat matzo crackers, and drink grape juice.
having a full on bbq, and breaking the order of the seder remembrance would be problematic.



Read in historical context you can follow the evolution of Christianity into a hellenized populist cult.... a heresy Judaism just couldn’t stomach.
It's a good thing that we focus on the gospels and letters that detail our engagement in remembrance of Jesus.
Tell me something, if your sources told you that we eat the bodies of dead children, would you believe that too?
I recall rather clearly that was one of the many accusations leveled against Roman Jesus followers of the late first and second centuries. Probably later too.

Well, I'm not catholic, never have been. Never wanted to be. So, I suppose that if you ever grow up and join the 21st century, you'll find that your sources are mind-effing you with their BS.


As hellenized as Jewish thinking had become, that’s where it drew a line - the cult of Jesus.
It's a good thing that I was never actually a hellenized Jewish person.
Based entirely on your beliefs, it sounds quite hellenistic.
 
apparently not.
considering that Jesus himself is the passover lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, and the fact that there is no temple in Jerusalem to carry on the annual activity, they've lost true meaning of pesach.
oh, don't think for a moment that I don't believe they have a picture of it. Moses, and the fathers were the original practitioners. But by the time Jesus was crucified on passover day, and the curtain separating the holy of holies from the outer court, signifying that access to YHVH for all is restored, and no longer limited to the high priest, once a year, their understanding was overwritten by YHVH himself, with the objective truth.
Jesus is the Messiah.


Ironically, I read that they continued to isolate themselves from YHVH himself, and were finally exiled in 135 CE, as a result of the Bar Kochba revolt.
Hadrian got fed up, kicked them out of the land, renaming the land, Syria Palestina, thus separating them from their ancestral lands, for another 1835 years.
So, their cultural steeling.... it's because they were exiled, and needed to retain their roots, so they could identify themselves as the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Israel.


i get that you need others to tell you what you're allowed to think, and believe, but we who follow Jesus have a far different experience.
and since you repeatedly refuse to actually give any corroboration to your claims, you really do make it extremely easy to disregard your beliefs about this.

1Pe 4:16-19 WEB 16 But if one of you suffers for being a Christian, let him not be ashamed; but let him glorify God in this matter. 17 For the time has come for judgment to begin with the household of God. If it begins first with us, what will happen to those who don’t obey the Good News of God? 18 “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will happen to the ungodly and the sinner?” 19 Therefore let them also who suffer according to the will of God in doing good entrust their souls to him, as to a faithful Creator.

actually, the last supper narrative is a passover seder. Jesus was Jewish, and the disciples were Israeli people from all 12 tribes.
so, if hellenization took place, it occurred much later. Granted, had you actually read the gospels, you would have seen that for yourself. So, this is telling me that you're reading everything but the bible, and believing the unbelievable opinions of unbelievers.


Looks entirely Jewish to me.
but, clearly you need the ill-informed opinions of unbelievers to tell you what you're allowed to think. So have fun with that. Watch that last step. It's a real doozy!

then I'd say that it's a good thing we eat matzo crackers, and drink grape juice.
having a full on bbq, and breaking the order of the seder remembrance would be problematic.




It's a good thing that we focus on the gospels and letters that detail our engagement in remembrance of Jesus.
Tell me something, if your sources told you that we eat the bodies of dead children, would you believe that too?
I recall rather clearly that was one of the many accusations leveled against Roman Jesus followers of the late first and second centuries. Probably later too.

Well, I'm not catholic, never have been. Never wanted to be. So, I suppose that if you ever grow up and join the 21st century, you'll find that your sources are mind-effing you with their BS.



It's a good thing that I was never actually a hellenized Jewish person.
Based entirely on your beliefs, it sounds quite hellenistic.
You really need to quit embarrassing yourself concerning the Passover seder. It was a meal, hastily prepared, so much so that the bread is unleavened and the herbs are bitter, for a quick exodus. It has nothing to do with what the Christian narrative made of it... the eating of a man's flesh and a drinking of his blood via transubstantiation. That is as Pagan and as cultish as it gets absent human sacrifice and cannibalism itself.

And no, the Jewish culture was not isolated as a result of the exile in 135. They were isolated by their culture, the people of the “book", while in Palestine itself. You really need to keep your ignorance of this critical time in the development of your religion closer to your chest. For anyone else, it would be embarrassing... you?, no shame in it:

IMG_3164.jpg
 
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Of course you disagree. Never mind what an atheist tells you he believes, the almighty SteveB knows better.
🤣
This just tells me that it's you who knows better, and I better believe you or I'm among the Christian damned by the atheist beliefs.
Sounds like you're drinking too much pot, and smoking far too much whiskey. Try dialing it back some.
It is not a question of what I want, but what I believe to be true.
What YOU BELIEVE to be true.
do you have definitive proof that it actually is true? Do you actually have a methodology that allows any other people to run their own tests on it so they can see whether it actually is true or not? Or am i just supposed to take your word on it?

I believe there is no existence beyond death, and that is independent of whether I want there to be or not.
i understood that a very long time ago.
do you have any means by which your belief can be tested? Aside from dying that is.



I get the impression for you it is the opposite way around. You want there to be a life after death, so you believe there is.
actually, I'd be content with no afterlife. Annihilation works just fine for me.
This is actually a boon to get eternal life, and live in a paradise forever.
So.... no.
My position is based on common sense without the Bible.
So, ignorance and what you think you're able to make sense of.
wow.... that actually fits exactly with what the Bible says.

Pro 14:12 WEB There is a way which seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.

And

Pro 16:25 WEB There is a way which seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.
Common sense tells me that when we die, we die.
yep. I thought like that when I was younger.
it helped delude me into believing that I could escape culpability for my actions and life.
how much are you willing to pay in order for your beliefs to be true?

your common sense is killing you. And it'll guarantee you spend your eternity in a place you really don't want to be.
Which is exactly why Jesus came... to save you from there.


Common sense tells me that a perfectly good God who tortures billions for eternity is an impossible contradiction.
then I'd say that the contradiction is in your missing adjectives for God, and those missing adjectives have created the false idea of what a perfectly good God is.

You've already seen Jeremiah's video.
he actually does a good, but simple job of describing what happens and why. It's not a complete and total description however.
Due to how detailed his nature and character are, I'm going to give you a few articles to read so you can get a clearer and more accurate perspective on him. Some of these are going to be quite long. I wouldn't expect you to read them in a single sitting. But they really do need to be read carefully and completely.






My search parameter is

God's character and nature

Based entirely on your repeatedly made statements, you have an erroneous perspective on God. And as you've repeatedly stated, that view is stopping you from considering him, and your eternal state described in the Bible.
You can indeed keep arguing. It's not an argument you'll win in the end. And the consequences are far too serious to ignore.


Common sense tells me that the most likely reason people believe in the afterlife is wishful thinking.
So, you're hoping for the most likely reason...
I hope you're an exceedingly wealthy individual. You'll find that even $500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000

Won't be remotely enough to settle the debt owed by your sin.

What has sin got to do with it?
E...
V....
E....
R....
Y....
T.....
H.....
I.....
N......
G....

absolutely everything!

Sin kills. It kills the part of us that we interact with God.
God created us in his own likeness and image. He made us a living soul.
when Adam ate the fruit, he died. His living soul died. And once that died, his body began to die.
eventually, he died.
every single human being ever since dies. Jesus however was without sin. It's why the virgin birth is so important.

In dying, we experience that which we were not created to experience. Our soul is separated from our bodies. Because our once living soul is now dead, is cannot be rejoined with God.

so, God prepared two places for us in death. Holding chambers as it were.
One for those who disobey God, and the other for those whom he accounted righteous.
At the time of Abraham’s life, we see a description of what God considered righteousness. Abe believed God, and God accredited it to him as righteousness. Genesis 15:6.
400+ years prior to the law.



Sin passes through the lineage of the biological father. Thus, YHVH the Father impregnated Mary, and his nature is passed through the woman, and Jesus was in the same state as Adam was in the garden. It's why the Bible says he is the last Adam.

Jesus stepped in and took our place in judgment. He became our atonement with God.
By placing our trust in Jesus, our sin is applied to his account, and his righteousness is applied to our account.


Why do you persist in that deceit when every post you tell me that it is following Jesus or not that determines where we go in the afterlife?
I'm not the one choosing to believe lies.
 
It’s history.
It's part of an unverifiable narrative in history. And since you're not actually able or willing to provide a methodology to verify it, you have made it clear that you only put it out there to snare people who are not familiar with it, and think there's some validity to it.
Thus, your failure is the problem.

Thinking properly requires a feeding of good information from trusted others was well as your own properly framed experiences.
which you have now repeatedly failed to do.

You refuse proper information and your internal experiences are very narrow self induced delusions.
Ironically, i spent upwards of 7 years inviting people to come visit me and come with me to several doctors appointments to talk with those doctors themselves, about my medical experiences. They not only refused, they then became malicious and vitriolic, mocking both me, and my doctors, making it clear that it was themselves who were the cowards, and refusing to receive proper information, so they could learn the truth. Thus demonstrating that their internal beliefs were narrow and self-induced delusions.
so, congratulations! You're condemning your fellow atheists and now mocking them for their cowardice.



Your thinking is that of an information starved, isolated cult member.
Like yourself?
you're clearly information starved, with regards to YHVH's Word.
Ironically, i hadn't considered it a deliberately self-induced self-starvation.
Amo 8:11 WEB Behold, the days come,” says the Lord Yahweh, “that I will send a famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing Yahweh’s words.

As well as

Hos 4:6 WEB My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge, I will also reject you, that you may be no priest to me. Because you have forgotten your God’s law, I will also forget your children.

You my dear fellow human being have chosen to starve yourself to death in the middle of the largest banquet of truth in human history.

Psa 1:1-6 WEB 1 Blessed is the man who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the wicked, nor stand on the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of scoffers; 2 but his delight is in Yahweh’s law. On his law he meditates day and night. 3 He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that produces its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper. 4 The wicked are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the wicked shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. 6 For Yahweh knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked shall perish.

Jer 17:5-10 WEB 5 Yahweh says: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man, relies on strength of flesh, and whose heart departs from Yahweh. 6 For he will be like a bush in the desert, and will not see when good comes, but will inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, an uninhabited salt land. 7 “Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, and whose confidence is in Yahweh. 8 For he will be as a tree planted by the waters, who spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green, and will not be concerned in the year of drought. It won’t cease from yielding fruit. 9 The heart is deceitful above all things and it is exceedingly corrupt. Who can know it? 10 “I, Yahweh, search the mind. I try the heart, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.”

He is a respected scholar
I'm sure he is.
but being a respected scholar and rejecting Jesus still doesn't make him a reliable source of knowledge as the final authority.
and there are no negative critiques of his understanding of Jewish history.
i never said there was.
his unbelief simply means that he's not a reliable authority to determine the reliability of the bible.

It’s all relevant. It outlines where virgin born savior gods, divine incarnations, resurrections, divine ascensions, and many other traits the Jesus narrative took on for its populist survival in a culture that was obviously hungry for such extreme thinking.
Yeah, hell and the lake of fire are pretty extreme thinking.
That YHVH would actually think you're worth saving from those, and your sin nature, and the consequences for your sin are pretty extreme thinking too.
Apparently Jesus agreeing with YHVH and subjecting himself to the sheer level of brutality and cruelties his own creation inflicted on him were even extreme thinking.
So, if you actually want to spend your eternity in that place prepared for the devil and his angels, I suppose you are indeed entitled to such extreme refusal.
 
You really need to quit embarrassing yourself concerning the Passover seder.
Why, does it frighten you to live in a world where everyone is different from what you want them to be?
It was a meal, hastily prepared, so much so that the bread is unleavened and the herbs are bitter, for a quick exodus.
Yep. That's documented in Exodus.
It has nothing to do with what the Christian narrative made of it... the eating of a man's flesh and a drinking of his blood via transubstantiation.
Transubstantiation......
well, there we have it!
I'm not catholic.
Never had been.

I've never believed that is what happened, or happens.
You clearly need to stop imposing ideas by reputed Jewish scholars on people whose beliefs you never actually bothered wanting to know and learn.
I.e., it's time to grow up and join the human race Nickel.

That is as Pagan and as cultish as it gets absent human sacrifice and cannibalism itself.
Then it's a good thing I've never actually viewed it like that before. And the utterly non-Catholic churches I've attended as a follower of Jesus never claimed taught that's what happened or happens.

Tell me something here Nickel...
Do you think that if you're told lies long enough, that'll make them true?
Do you think if you believe lies long enough that too, that would make them true?
Because I don't. Never did. Well, I take that back... before I met Jesus I did. I thought if I could remain stoned enough, for long enough, that all the misery, heartache and pain of my youth would vanish, and I could be happy, and untroubled by life.
Astonishing how a 25 caliber bullet point blank in the throat can change all that.
A tiny, 1/4" piece of lead, driven through my wrist and into my throat was my proverbial 2 x 4 upside the head, knocking the stupid out of me.

And no, the Jewish culture was not isolated as a result of the exile in 135.
You really should read more carefully.
i never said they isolated themselves from human civilization. I said they isolated themselves from YHVH.

They were isolated by their culture, the people of the “book", while in Palestine itself.
there is no Palestine. That's a lie perpetrated by Hadrian and the Roman empire.
it's been further propagated by those who believe the lie.
going back to my previous statement about if you're told and believe the lies long enough, does that actually make them true?

You really need to keep your ignorance of this critical time in the development of your religion closer to your chest.
Why? Do you need the lies perpetrated in history to be true?
For anyone else, it would be embarrassing... you?, no shame in it:
It's only a shame and embarrassing if you believe that lies perpetrated in history and propagated throughout history are actually true.

 
Chapter 2 The fear of death; Ehrman used the story of Gilgamesh to show the earliest recorded writings on the fear of death. Gilgamesh feared death and went on a quest for a plant that would give him immortality. There were some similarities to Ecclesiastes wisdom in this as well as a flood account. Ehrman used Socrates' musings about death before he took hemlock as a punishment for a crime. Socrates didn't fear death. He believed he did right in his life and would either experience a dreamless sleep or his soul would live on in a good place. meh
@5wize @The Pixie
 
Chapter 2 The fear of death; Ehrman used the story of Gilgamesh to show the earliest recorded writings on the fear of death. Gilgamesh feared death and went on a quest for a plant that would give him immortality. There were some similarities to Ecclesiastes wisdom in this as well as a flood account. Ehrman used Socrates' musings about death before he took hemlock as a punishment for a crime. Socrates didn't fear death. He believed he did right in his life and would either experience a dreamless sleep or his soul would live on in a good place. meh
@5wize @The Pixie
The chapter seems to set up the dichotomy of the fear of a conscious death, and why traditions would surface to alleviate that fear against a philosophy that the guiltless conscious need not fear it at all.

It is pulling away from the common Jewish tradition that death is death and regardless of what you did in this life all would end up on the same heap - the same bland experience of Sheol. It instigated a fear in this life of the possibility of an eternal conscious death and what one must do to feel safe that they had done enough to have no fear of it at all - a clear conscious - a righteous mind.

This is the juxtaposition of the damned and the righteous we later see in Jewish apocalyptic eschatology and then Christianity.

@The Pixie
 
The chapter seems to set up the dichotomy of the fear of a conscious death, and why traditions would surface to alleviate that fear against a philosophy that the guiltless conscious need not fear it at all.

It is pulling away from the common Jewish tradition that death is death and regardless of what you did in this life all would end up on the same heap - the same bland experience of Sheol. It instigated a fear in this life of the possibility of an eternal conscious death and what one must do to feel safe that they had done enough to have no fear of it at all - a clear conscious - a righteous mind.

This is the juxtaposition of the damned and the righteous we later see in Jewish apocalyptic eschatology and then Christianity.

@The Pixie
Just off the top of my head:
I'm don't believe that is the common Jewish tradition. The Pharisees believed in a resurrection. The Saducees did not.
Jesus pointed out that the Jewish patriarchs were alive just not alive in this world.
Enoch was taken to heaven alive as was Elijah the prophet.
Job had a hope in the afterlife...“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!”
Read Hebrews chapter 11 for others that looked for city whose builder and maker is God.
Have you read the psalms 16:8-11?

8 I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope.
10 For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
11 Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
 
Just off the top of my head:
I'm don't believe that is the common Jewish tradition. The Pharisees believed in a resurrection. The Saducees did not.
Jesus pointed out that the Jewish patriarchs were alive just not alive in this world.
Enoch was taken to heaven alive as was Elijah the prophet.
Job had a hope in the afterlife...“For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself, and my eyes shall behold, and not another. My heart faints within me!”
Read Hebrews chapter 11 for others that looked for city whose builder and maker is God.
Have you read the psalms 16:8-11?

8 I have set the Lord always before me: because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
9 Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope.
10 For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.
11 Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.
I did answer the other post you bumped for me. It had some of the answers to this in that.
 
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