Hell, Tartarus, Hades... Let's think about this.

[Samstwitch]

I however did not find the answers provided to really have enough evidence to draw a concrete conclusion and satisfy my personal curosity.

That's why in my first response to you I suggested reading the Scriptures. I knew I could not give you answers to satisfy your questions. I don't get into debates or discussions about different beliefs or religions, but I'm happy to answer questions about my beliefs if I can. Feel free to email me if you have questions.

 

[kcwildman]

I find it almost funny that the word ( hell ) did not even appear in history till around 700-750 AD and then it was a refreance to the underworld or land of the dead... and not a place of punishment at all just a place for dead folks to hang out
quote from wikipedia
Hell - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The modern English word Hell is derived from Old English hel, helle (about 725 AD to refer to a nether world of the dead) reaching into the Anglo-Saxon pagan period, and ultimately from Proto-Germanic *halja, meaning "one who covers up or hides something".[1] The word has cognates in related Germanic languages such as Old Frisian helle, hille, Old Saxon hellja, Middle Dutch helle (modern Dutch hel), Old High German helle (Modern German Hölle), Danish, Norwegian and Swedish "helvede"/helvete (hel + Old Norse vitti, "punishment" whence the Icelandic víti "hell"), and Gothic halja.[1] Subsequently, the word was used to transfer a pagan concept to Christian theology and its vocabulary[1] (however, for the Judeo-Christian origin of the concept see Gehenna).

so it then is linked to the word Gehenna which is a refrence to a valley near Jerusalem where they use to sacrafice children to moloch
quote from wikipedia
Gehenna - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gehenna (Greek γέεννα), Gehinnom (Rabbinical Hebrew: גהנום/גהנם) and Yiddish Gehinnam, are terms derived from a place outside ancient Jerusalem known in the Hebrew Bible as the Valley of the Son of Hinnom (Hebrew: גֵיא בֶן־הִנֹּם or גיא בן-הינום); one of the two principal valleys surrounding the Old City.
Originally, it was believed that this was a location where children were sacrificed to Moloch, hence from the perspective of the authors of the Hebrew Bible, it was deemed to be cursed.[1]
In Jewish, Christian and Islamic scripture, Gehenna is a destination of the wicked.[2] This is different from the more neutral Sheol/Hades, the abode of the dead, though the King James version of the Bible translates both with the Anglo-Saxon word Hell.


so to think it can be locked down to a mysterious lake of fire located in some distant place used by GOD to torment bad folks for ever, is a pill just a little hard for me to swallow

 

[Samstwitch]

Contrary to what kcwildman has posted, there are very early references to Hell in the Scriptures, beginning in the Old Testament. Hell is also referred to in other passages using different terms, such as Hades, the bottomless pit, the Lake of Fire, etc. There are many more references than I am listing here.


Numbers 26:10: “And the earth opened her mouth, and swallowed them up together with Korah, when that company died, what time the fire devoured two hundred and fifty men: and they became a sign.”

Psalm 9:17: “The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.”

Psalm 139:8: “If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there."

Isaiah 5:14: “Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.”

Ezekiel 31:16: “I made the nations to shake at the sound of his fall, when I cast him down to hell with them that descend into the pit…”

Matthew 5:28,29: “But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.”

Matthew 16:18: “And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.”

Matthew 23:15: “Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte, and when he is made, ye make him twofold more the child of hell than yourselves.”

Matthew 23:33,34: “Ye serpents, ye generation of vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell? Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city."

Mark 9:45,46: “And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched: Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.”

Luke 10:15: “And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell.”

Luke 12:5: “But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him.”

Luke 16:23: “And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments…”

James 3:6: “And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defileth the whole body, and setteth on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.”

2 Peter 2:4: “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment…”

Revelation 1:18: “I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.”

Satan is called "the angel of the bottomless pit" (Revelation 9:11).

Revelation 20:13-15: “And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire.”


Jude 1:17-19: But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold. They said to you, “In the last times [last days] there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit.

 

[kcwildman]

ok I don't want to argure here so I will use the very words from the text in the ( king james version of the Bible) translated in 1611 there are 4 diffrent words used that the learned scholars of the court of the illustrious king james commessioned to translate into the coman languge of his relm that which we call english the first word used in the passage's

for the perpose of translation and defining I will call on the most widely accepted Bible concordance of today it is called
Strongs exhaustive concordance of the Bible and you can look up every word printed in the king james Bible to see just what it realy is and from what text it was taken weather greek or hebrew... which by the way the folks of king james commission took some libertys with the wording of many things..which I was totaly un awear of untill the day an old man told me to do what is called a word study of the Bible which means you look up every word of the text to see what it means....

contrary to what is believed the Bible was not written in inglish but translated from greek and hebrew

psalm 19-17 is according to the strngs concordance refrence # 7585 (shehole) translated from the greek ,, defind as the hades /or the world of the dead

from hence forth all of the passages useing this word will be simply noted by the numberfor the strongs refrence

psalm 139-8 again- #7585

Isaiah-5-4 -#7585

Ezekiel 31-16 -#7585

Matthew 5-28-29 translated from the hebrew strongs refrence #1067( Geenna) definded as the valley near jerusalem as I mentioned befor

Matthew 16-18 also translated from the hebrew strongs refrence # 86 (hades) defind as the place of departed souls/the grave

Matthew 23-15-#1067

Matthew23-33,34-#1067

Mark 9-45 -#1067

Luke-10-15-#86

Luke-12-5- #1067

Luke 16-23-#86

James 3-6-#1067

2nd Peter 2-4- also from the hebrew strongs refrence #5020 definded as the deepest abiss of hades to incarcerate in eternal torment

so there you have it in total there are 54 times one of these 4 words were translated to the modern english word of hell by the boys king james hired to put the Bible in comon words for the common man.... because at that time the catholic church controlled the printed Bible and all of the copys were in latin,greek,or hebrew there are a few modern tranlations which are said to be a true word for word crossover but that is still doubtful ,,as some words in the greek don't have an exact word in inglish. the same is true for hebrew some times the words just don't match up accurately
I don't just spout bullshit when I tell you some thing rest assured I have done a little research and do know exactly what I am saying and it is fact which is rather easy to check

 

[Samstwitch]

3rd and 4th DEFINITION OF "Hades" in the Dictionary...

3: sheol
4: hell

The Hebrew and Greek translation of Sheol (shehole) and Hades mean the same thing...HELL.
Therefore, Hell was mentioned ages ago in the Bible.

So I don't know what the argument is here.

 

[kcwildman]

so is that the underworld?? no fire or torment just a place of waiting
or the grave?? no fire or torment just nothing
or the outer darkness?? where there is wailing and knashing of teeth and the worm dieth not
or the bottomless pit?? falling for ever no fire or torment
or the never ending lake of fire?? burning for ever but not consumed
or the fires of Geehanna?? the valley where they burned there children in sacrafice to molech??

see the point yet??

there is no one definition for the modern term of hell, and the ancient terms do not agree as to just what or where it is..
as I came to understand it over time, the best explain of the concept is to be totaly seperated from the presence of GOD.. but that still is not realy a true definition of what or where it is

good luck in your quest for the truth in this matter

 

[TnWatchdog]

Hell's bells, the temperature's high! A lot of interesting information here to ponder...thanks KC and Sam for your input on this subject. My thoughts are whatever hell is, I don't want to visit or take up a permanent residence there, where ever it may be. Keep the deep thoughts a coming as it is very interesting to study.

 

[Opmmur]

It's Really Big Government

submitted by Brian Bauch

 

[Opmmur]

Problem: Too Big Government

submitted by Brian Bauch

 

[Justinian]

See.. This is all the dilemma I think most of us who are not believers have pondered. Regardless of what people think, Atheists and non-believers do read about religions. But for myself I like to figure out why. Most religions come down to some sort of faith. But, to figure out who, what, when, where, why, and how WITHOUT just saying you have to believe and have faith.. that's what I like. I know that discussions like this usually get heated, and MOST of the time it's not out of arrogance on either side, it's just frustration. On one side you have the religious believers. They have their religion and there's absolutely 100% nothing wrong with that.. TO A POINT(I include that in caps to emphasize that killings, stonings, ancient beliefs in older beliefs like this need to be reviewed by the establishments). On the other side you have people like me that just want to learn about how things came about and what their purpose is. Granted there are those that just like to argue for the sake of argument.. But, For the first two sides that I mentioned it does get really frustrating trying to make the other side understand. Not meaning make them believe your ways, just understanding why you do what you do.

When I was in my military training school, we'd always discuss a lot of weird subjects like those posed here in these forums. I'd usually bring them up, but whatever it takes to get people's minds off of being away from family right? .. So we get into a discussion on religion one day. It had the entire class embroiled in it. Now keep in mind that there were probably 20 of us and all but 2 were Atheist or at least on the fence about their beliefs. So it's 18 vs 2. The one guy was a really funny guy. He was "special" let's say. Now we're all electronics specialists which mean we understand how electricity is made, how that is converted into frequencies and on and on.. basically we all like to understand how things work down to the last detail. So this discussion has carried on for most of our lunch break and finally.. the smarter out of the two believers says.. to us all to listen up. Then he asks me, how do I know the Civil War was real.. So I say well there are books and pictures. So he says, ok. Then how do you know that the Revolutionary War was real? So I say well we have books and letters from people that were there. He says.. Exactly! None of us were there so we can't know for sure. BUT, we basically have faith and rely on those letters and books to be true to their word. He said.. That's what faith is. It's relying on the Bible and the words within to be true to their word. This is how I've always understood where Xians were coming from.

Now, back on target. I think we've asked a lot of Sam and we do thank you for your answers. You seem to be the only one here that was willing to step up and answer the questions of everyone here. It would have been really interesting to get some believers in other faiths to come explain answer from their point of view though. (I was going to put the little devil emote here, but there isn't one) Hope everyone is having a good New Year. I'm sure this is going to be one of those topics that goes on forever as I'm always reading and always need some place to put down questions.. Forums are lovely places for that.