Comments

• nobody

  2009-04-14 09:34:00

  oiaohm, I agree with most of your technical arguments, however in the case of the Bible you're wrong. This is the rough translation of John 6, 16-21 from the ancient greek original: In the evening, his students went to the sea, and, after boarding a ship, they were crossing the sea towards Kapernaum. Darkness already befell them and Jesus hadn't joined them, and the wind was strong at sea. They had moved about 25 to 30 stadiums, when they saw Jesus walking on the water, approaching the ship, and they were frightened. He says to them: it is me, don't be afraid. They wanted him to board the ship, shortly (εὐθέως) after that the ship reached the destination. Εὐθέως may mean immediately, shortly, without noteworthy events intervening. Your interpretation doesn't make any sense (Jesus was with the students and walked on his own towards the destination and reached it before the ship, that was crossing the lake?).
  
  Regarding hell, it's the translation of these greek words and phrases: γέεννα τοῦ πυρός, κόλαση, πῦρ καταναλίσκον, πῦρ ἄσβεστον, ὅπου ὁ σκώληξ αὐτῶν οὐ τελευτᾷ καὶ τὸ πῦρ οὐ σβέννυται, in the New Testament. Γέεννα (Gehenna, valey of Hinnom) is the place cursed by Josiah (Topheth), and place of punishment for people that have sinned, according to Jeremiah. It's the place were death penalties were executed, and a garbage dump. Κόλαση means punishment, πῦρ καταναλίσκον means consuming flame, πῦρ ἄσβεστον, ὅπου ὁ σκώληξ αὐτῶν οὐ τελευτᾷ καὶ τὸ πῦρ οὐ σβέννυται is eternal flame, where their worm doesn't die and the fire is never extinguished. From the last description it's obvious that hell is a place like... hell, and the ones that live there have specific causes of suffering of their own. The description of hell as a place on fire is obviously a metaphor, as spirits aren't physical objects (spirits have no flesh and bones, which you can see I have, says Christ after resurrection).

• nobody

  2009-04-14 15:56:31

  I agree with you then, my understanding of hell is also an "ever burning garbage dump, where you cannot die and cannot leave"; speaking of spirits, this is the interpretation of the first Christians. The one-word translation to greek is κόλαση (kolasi), which means literally "punishment". In my understanding, it's like being in a state of constant agony, without any hope of ever being relieved of it.
  
  Regarding walking on water, one account by John is the one I mentioned earlier; the other one by Matthew includes an incident that John doesn't describe: Peter asked Jesus to walk with him on the surface of the water. Matthew also includes more details about this miracle, and the weather conditions (John is considered the more spiritual of the Gospel writers).
  
  The excerpt concerning the miracle is this: θεωροῦσι τόν Ἰησοῦν περιπατοῦντα ἐπί τῆς θαλάσσης (word-for-word: [the students] watch Jesus walking on the sea). ἐπί means on, next to the sea is παρά τήν θάλασσαν, which appears in the text several times on different occasions. Maybe the translation to english lead to loss of context or clarity, however the original is perfectly clear in every description of the miracle.

• oiaohm

  2009-04-14 11:12:09

  Look at the historic garbage dumps they did basically burn day and night. Never extinguished. Only different in description is you don't die from the fire instead stuck in it living. Modern day Hell description has other items added in. More correct wording would have been a ever burning garbage dump where you cannot die and you cannot leave.
  
  Of course executions were carried out at garbage dump. Perfect logic back then. The dead were also from time to time placed in the dumps from history. So why carry corpse when you can have person to be corpse walk there. Yes the modern day equal of executing someone to at there grave site.
  
  Hell should be historic garbage dump. Lot of extra meanings are lost due to the conversion.
  
  The other one "walking on the water" I really dig those sections out and went different translations of the words. There is also a problem its three accounts virtually the same. That normally never happens. Normally different words are used by different people views of events.
  
  I had dug into that section in ancient greek and cross referenced it words from the time of writing. Its like the word world. Different words change meanings over time. World in old text only equals as far as you can see if that. Everything has to be read in the timezone it owns to.
  
  If Jesus was beside water as one possible translation would make the following possible the boat had been driven by the storm back to the shore. Still a great event. Entering a boat and commanding a storm to stop. It is the true problem with savage storms means to steer a course can be lost. Basically punished for leaving without Jesus.
  
  This is the hard bit translation correct from very old texts has lot of issues. Complete meaning of the item can be flipped. Some sections like the walking on water should only be accepted as a possible translation other translations show a different problem and explain why the followers got treated like they did.
  
  It would have taken one hell of a storm to drive a boat back 25 to 30 stadiums.
  
  The problem with historic miss translations in documents they have the bad habit of nuking the means of reading other documents. Due to miss translation becoming believed.
  
  Now could I and the person I worked on this section with have made a translation error processing yes I am human so was he.