h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

>>The Word refers to Jesus, so we see that Jesus and God are the same.<<
but they aren't the same. christians teach their children (and those they convert) that god is the creator of everything, and jesus is just another creation (in the form of man) for the purpose of enticing people to do 'god's will'. they cannot be the 'same'. besides, >>John 1:1 says "In the beginning was the Word..."<<. jesus was not 'in the beginning', he came much much later.

how can christians feel so comfortable with their beliefs knowing that so many of the things they believe in have been 'borrowed' from other religions and originated to honor other gods and spiritual leaders?

"jesus was not 'in the beginning', he came much much later."

John 1:1 seems to indicate differently. Also, in Genesis, God repeatedly says, "Let us create..."

Note the US. God did not create Jesus; Jesus is the manifestation of God in flesh.

"how can christians feel so comfortable with their beliefs knowing that so many of the things they believe in have been 'borrowed' from other religions and originated to honor other gods and spiritual leaders?"

You seem awfully confident that we've 'borrowed' stuff. To date, I have not found a single Christian truth that is not found in the Bible.

well, for starters, i've never found any proof that jesus was born on december 25th. and were there a wealth of pine trees under which the wise men placed the gold, myrrh and frankencence?

just an example... others are mentioned elsewhere in the thread.

I gave you a comprehensive list. Were you listening?

Whether Jesus was there 'in the beginning' just depends on how you define 'the beginning'. In John 1:1, does it mean the beginning of time, or the beginning of the universe, or the beginning of human history, or even just the beginning of Johns 'story'?

If you have a copy of the Gospel in it's original language(usually known as a Diaglott), you can see that the Bible does not say 'the Word was God', but that 'the word was a god / was godlike'. Sometimes it is translated, 'the Word was god' so that it can be technically accurate but still misleading.
As for the word hell, of course it occurs in the Bible as it is a greek word. A greek dictionary (or at least one concerned with biblical greek rather than modern greek) will tell you that the word simply means grave. When a man dies, he goes to 'a grave'. That it is not a place of fiery torment is evident from the fact that suffering Job prayed to go there. He wasn't asking to be given even worse suffering. He was simply asking to die, so that the suffering would end, as 'the dead are conscious of nothing at all' - Ecclesiastes 9:5

The word Hell occurs 13 times in the Bible, all in the New Testament and 7 of the 13 in Mattthew.
Matthew 5:22
"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.

Let the Christians beware!

Alji

What the original text actually says is 'liable to the fiery gehenna'. Gehenna was a literal place - it was kind of a massive incinerator for Jerusalems rubbish. Dead criminals who were thought unworthy of a proper burial would be thrown there, so if you were 'liable to the fiery genhenna' then you were a criminal unworthy of burial.

Hi, Insight. I certainly can't argue with your facts. I'm a little behind on my Greek

However, I am still inclined to think you are wrong about hell. Hell is more than mentioned in the Bible; it is described. Jesus tells a story of a poor beggar named Lazarus who sat outside the house of a rich miser, and the rich man neglected him. They both die and Jesus describes the torment of the rich man very vividly. Hell is also described in the book of Revelation as a "fiery pit." Furthermore, hell is again and again referred to an a place of "weeping and gnashing of teeth." Does that sound like a peaceful eternal sleep to you? You can't read hell out of the Bible. It's there.

By the way, Ephesians 2:22 says, "And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his spirit." That indicates to me that God and His Spirit are the same. What do you think?

Hell is not Greek and comes from the 'Old English' hel. Because of the Roman Church , the Mediterranean belief that hell was hot took hold here too, so the 'Old English' hel was a black and fiery place of eternal torment for the damned. On the other hand, the 'Old Norse' hel retained its earlier pagan senses as both a place and a person. As a place, hel is the abode of oathbreakers, other evil persons, and those unlucky enough not to have died in battle. (Valhalla was the hall of slain heroes.) The 'Old Norse' hel was a very cold place. Hel is also the name of the goddess or giantess who presides in hel, the half blue-black, half white daughter of Loki and the giantess Angrbotha. The Greek hell was Hades, the abode of the shades, ruled over by Hades or Pluto. In Hades there were vines whose sap was the blood of the dead, There was no fire in this hell and when the Bible was writen, it was this version of hell that the Greeks believed Jesus decended into not the Hebrew 'Gehenna' (The valley of Hinnom, near Jerusalem, where some of the Israelites sacrificed their children to Moloch, which, on this account, was afterward regarded as a place of abomination, and made a receptacle for all the refuse of the city, perpetual fires being kept up in order to prevent pestilential effluvia).
The Indo-European root of these words is *kel-, “to cover, conceal” (so hell is the “concealed place”); it also gives us hall, hole, hollow, and helmet.

Alji

'weeping and gnashing of teeth' occurs seven times, six in Matthew and one in Luke (NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE) with no mention of Hell. Once 'a place with the hypocrites', twice (two times) 'the furnace of fire' and three times 'the outer darkness'. Luke says 'In that place'

Alji

Hi guys, On the John 1:1 bit, umm I haven't studied Greek, but as I understand it the bit (don't know technical term for the grammer ) that joins the Word & God means the terms are interchangable, effectivley 'what the Word was God was, and what God was the Word was', hence the translation into English "the Word was with God, and the Word was God." -hope that helps.
Re: what does John mean by "In the beginning", it seems to mirror Genesis 1:1, "In the beginning..."
Umm, from memory, as far as I know the Bible uses different words (at least in the Hebrew) for the 'grave', and what we tend to refer to as 'Hell', the latter being a place of eternal punishment originally intended for Satan & the angels who rebelled with him against God.

Me neither, but it seemed worth mentioning that the Roman (I think) festival of Saturnalia was on the 25th December, and that it involved trees, giving presents and kissing under mistletoe. Thats why I don't celebrate Christmas, it seems more of a Roman festival than a Christian one.

The story of the rich man and Lazarus is just an illustration. The rich man asked for Lazarus to dip his finger in water and come and cool his tongue. If this were literal it would mean that a drop of water would not evaporate in the fire and that a single drop of water would bring relief to someone suffering there.
In the parable, the rich man pictured the pharisees and Lazarus represented the common Jews, who were despised by the pharisees but some of whom repented and became followers of Jesus. Therefore, the formerly despised ones came into a position of divine favour, while the old seemingly-favoured ones were rejected by God, while being tormented by the judgment messages delivered by the ones whom they had despised.


In my Bible (and in your quote), the word spirit doesn't have a capital letter. Strongs dictionary gives several defintions of spirit (pneuma), two of which are:
3. a spirit, i.e. a simple essence, devoid of all or at least all grosser matter, and possessed of the power of knowing, desiring, deciding, and acting
4. the disposition or influence which fills and governs the soul of any one
It seems to me as if Gods spirit in this scripture refers not to the holy spirit but to Gods essence or personality.

Cadi

Just a small point. Greek does have a word for "a". It uses the same word for "one" - i.e enas (masculine), mia (feminine), or ena (neuter). These are used at all times for indefinite articles, unlike in Welsh where there truly is no word for "a".

Karl

Is this true of biblical Greek, or just of modern Greek?

Sorry, that's modern Greek. Duh!!
Ancient Greek is heis (masc), mia (fem), and hen (neut).

Karl

I've just researched this point further. Although ancient Greek does have a word for "a", in the context of this discussion, the ancient Greek scripture did not use this indefinite article. Therefore, the ancient Greek would be correctly translated as God is Spirit.

Karl