Jewish concepts... what the hell???!

[Paul Hazelwood]

CLV Ps 86:13 For Your benignity over me is great, And You have rescued my soul from the unseen beneath.

Sound very different.

Yep, and it would also read very different if the book of moses in question here was translated to say the 7 regions of the unseen.

[WhiteWings]

CLV Ps 86:13 For Your benignity over me is great, And You have rescued my soul from the unseen beneath.

Sound very different.

Yep, and it would also read very different if the book of moses in question here was translated to say the 7 regions of the unseen.

But it still doesn't explain where "seven" comes from.
Seven is a divine number. The number of God.
Surely God created everything including 'hell' but somehow 7 doesn't fit in with hell for me. Just a feeling that I can't explain.

the 7 regions of the unseen

Any idea what "the seven regions of the grave" are?

[Paul Hazelwood]

CLV Ps 86:13 For Your benignity over me is great, And You have rescued my soul from the unseen beneath.

Sound very different.

Yep, and it would also read very different if the book of moses in question here was translated to say the 7 regions of the unseen.

But it still doesn't explain where "seven" comes from.
Seven is a divine number. The number of God.
Surely God created everything including 'hell' but somehow 7 doesn't fit in with hell for me. Just a feeling that I can't explain.

the 7 regions of the unseen

Any idea what "the seven regions of the grave" are?

I certainly haven't spent enough time reading the book of moses to try to correlate much more with the rest of the bible.  But was pointing out that the OT we are most familiar with depicts the unseen as being more than just one singular place.

My first thought is that they are levels of purification.   

[WhiteWings]

I just Googled "seven regions of hell"
Almost all religions seem to have it.
Some old book (on Google books) that explains the quaran speaks of seven hell too. All muslims must pass through it to get purified. Makes me think of what you wrote and "all are salted with fire"
I'm not promoting the quaran here. Or any other pagan book. But I think they might have stolen many Christian concepts. Some of their writings may be original Christan concepts that got lost in translations/traditions.

[willieH]

willieH: Hi Paul...  :cloud9:

In reference to the bolded text: sounds like a bunch of garbage! It doesn't sound like the OT, and I've never heard of the "seven regions" of Hell in any part of the OT or NT. Honestly it sounds like some forgery might have gone on since the original document was created in ancient times. That's my two cents. xD

It's hard to make a comparison without the hebrew text to study with, but in the OT of the bible you do have a distant comparison. 

Ps 86:13 For great [is] thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.

My  :2c:

Hmmm... King David (of whom JESUS descended), went to the LOWEST "HELL"?  The WORST and bottomMOST part?  :dontknow:

I think this is NOT what is said in this passage...  DAVID is expressing his extreme HUMILITY here, not His postional spot on the "roster"...

It is the HUMILITY that EVERY believer should consider himself as occupying, is it not?

PAUL noted this as he proclaimed himself CHIEF of sinners...  God INSPIRED this in Paul's writings to display, that NO MAN, should boast of himself... and FAITHFULLY, such as David and PAUL, wrote accordingly...

After witnessing 63 years of life on earth, and seeing and knowing what I have seen and know...

I cannot percieve PAUL as actually the "CHIEF of SINNERS"... nor that DAVID was placed on the "BOTTOM of the sorrowful pile of SINNERS" ("lowest hell")...

Rather, I percieve that both truly KNEW YHVH in their hearts, taken to the point of the great and MAJESTIC HUMILITY that YHVH had chosen them each to WRITE His WORDS to men, in this realm...

And the only place that one can envision within such HUMILITY that is so proposed in such close and INTIMATE proximity to the WORD of  YHVH is the "bottom of the barrel"...

Each time I read PAUL's self-notation as "chief of sinners", I think to myself,  :pitiful: ..."as Paul wrote this, obviously GOD did not giving Paul a vision of "willieH's life"...  :blush:

peace... :Peace:

...willieH  :thumbsup:

[MacPherson]

I was looking to see just what God did tell Moses about "hell", and ran across an apochryphal book called the Revelation of Moses...it has some pretty wild descriptions of "eternal torment" and people being punished. 

WARNING!   Unless your faith is strong, you may not want to look at this;  IMO, except for the authentic scripture mixed in, it's probably pretty much baloney.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/journals/jras/1893-15.htm

I'd want to investigate the authenticity/origin of "Revelation of Moses" before I even began to read it. This is one of the things I came up with while Googling "Revelation of Moses"http://www.centerplace.org/hs/iv/revela.htm. A Mormon document. That makes it pure fiction, not apocrypha.

[jabcat]

Good point.  Brian, bail me out here.  What did you have in mind with the question of what did God tell Moses about hell?  (You see what I came up with while looking for that   :mblush:)

[MacPherson]

Isaiah 66:24  KJV  And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh. 

Young's 24And they have gone forth, And looked on the carcases of the men Who are transgressing against me, For their worm dieth not, And their fire is not quenched, And they have been an abhorrence to all flesh! 

I'm going to need to study this more, in a larger context, because honestly right now it sounds different to me than "there is no hell in the OT other than the grave"  :dontknow:   Explanations anyone?  Is this talking about Gehenna, for instance?

If this esoteric verse is the main/only thing the OT has to say about hell, then it's not saying much. Which would indicate to me that YHWH doesn't have much to say about it.

[MacPherson]

willieH: Hey brother D! And brother B! :hithere:

BRIAN:

Hey -- in answer to you, brother Brian... it is always interesting to find out what the Jews "think" about such a subject, but that Scripture notes them as BLIND for the most part, is a good reason to take their "thoughts" on a given subject, ESPECIALLY one such as "hell", with a HUGE grain or 2 (or 1000) of salt!  And NOT, ...conclude that "thought" as true, by taking their "hand" and following them BLINDLY into their ditch!  :laughing7:

I'm seeking what Judaism has said about it from the get-go. If they're all blind from the get-go then we can toss all the major and minor prophets in the trash. The question is, is the current mainstream Christian concept of hell a purely Holy Roman Empire Catholic invention? Most if not all of what's contained in the NT, is backed up by the OT. Also, Jesus was speaking to Jews (this includes the Apostles), so we must have a clear understanding of Judaic concepts in order for Jesus' statements to be relevant. In other words, we can't introduce Chinese concepts into Jesus' dialog and call them relevant. So, are these modern Christian concepts of hell relevant to Judaism, or from some other source? That takes me back to what's the original Judaic concept based on cannon OT scripture? To me, this is as they say, where the rubber meets the road.

[jabcat]

"**FACT: The King James Bible erroneously translates the word "Sheol" as Hell a total of 31 times in the Old Testament, thus setting a foundation for that doctrine in the New Testament as well as the majority of Bible translations to follow the KJV. Even so, most new translations have completely eliminated Hell from the Old Testament, as honest and better scholarship has demanded. The Jewish version of the Old Testament (the Tanakh) has no concept of Hell in it. The importance of this fact cannot be over-emphasized. If a doctrine does not appear as seed form in the books of the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms, it cannot fairly be taught as a major biblical doctrine, if indeed it can be taught as biblical at all!"   Gary Amirault

[MacPherson]

Good point.  Brian, bail me out here.  What did you have in mind with the question of what did God tell Moses about hell?  (You see what I came up with while looking for that   :mblush:)

The question was rhetorical. Because the answer is; not one single thing, that I know of. Not an inkling of a warning about eternal punishment/torment. Nothing from the major and minor prophets as well, except one fuzzy after the fact verse in Isaiah and one in Daniel. If it's not in the OT, then that means Jesus and John "invented" it. They were talking about something no Jew had ever heard of before, from cannon OT scripture, but apparently had a perfect traditional post 4th century Christian understanding of.

[Paul Hazelwood]

willieH: Hi Paul...  :cloud9:

In reference to the bolded text: sounds like a bunch of garbage! It doesn't sound like the OT, and I've never heard of the "seven regions" of Hell in any part of the OT or NT. Honestly it sounds like some forgery might have gone on since the original document was created in ancient times. That's my two cents. xD

It's hard to make a comparison without the hebrew text to study with, but in the OT of the bible you do have a distant comparison. 

Ps 86:13 For great [is] thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.

My  :2c:

Hmmm... King David (of whom JESUS descended), went to the LOWEST "HELL"?  The WORST and bottomMOST part?  :dontknow:

I think this is NOT what is said in this passage...  DAVID is expressing his extreme HUMILITY here, not His postional spot on the "roster"...

It is the HUMILITY that EVERY believer should consider himself as occupying, is it not?

PAUL noted this as he proclaimed himself CHIEF of sinners...  God INSPIRED this in Paul's writings to display, that NO MAN, should boast of himself... and FAITHFULLY, such as David and PAUL, wrote accordingly...

After witnessing 63 years of life on earth, and seeing and knowing what I have seen and know...

I cannot percieve PAUL as actually the "CHIEF of SINNERS"... nor that DAVID was placed on the "BOTTOM of the sorrowful pile of SINNERS" ("lowest hell")...

Rather, I percieve that both truly KNEW YHVH in their hearts, taken to the point of the great and MAJESTIC HUMILITY that YHVH had chosen them each to WRITE His WORDS to men, in this realm...

And the only place that one can envision within such HUMILITY that is so proposed in such close and INTIMATE proximity to the WORD of  YHVH is the "bottom of the barrel"...

Each time I read PAUL's self-notation as "chief of sinners", I think to myself,  :pitiful: ..."as Paul wrote this, obviously GOD did not giving Paul a vision of "willieH's life"...  :blush:

peace... :Peace:

...willieH  :thumbsup:

Hi Willie,

I appreciate your thoughts and was not making a statement concerning what hell is or isn't.

I was only pointing out that the modern OT in some translations appears to imply that the word translated to hell is not necessaily one singular place or state, which could give credibility to a similar concept to the book of moses rather than it being contradictory.  I personally am not helped or threatened by the existance of any other book.

Gods love will pursue us and claim us in righteousness with or without a written word on anything.


No matter what  "HELL" is  what it is not is a place of eternal suffering because we are promised deliverance from it's grasp.

[Tim B]

I was looking to see just what God did tell Moses about "hell", and ran across an apochryphal book called the Revelation of Moses...it has some pretty wild descriptions of "eternal torment" and people being punished. 

WARNING!   Unless your faith is strong, you may not want to look at this;  IMO, except for the authentic scripture mixed in, it's probably pretty much baloney.

http://www.sacred-texts.com/journals/jras/1893-15.htm

I'd want to investigate the authenticity/origin of "Revelation of Moses" before I even began to read it. This is one of the things I came up with while Googling "Revelation of Moses"http://www.centerplace.org/hs/iv/revela.htm. A Mormon document. That makes it pure fiction, not apocrypha.

Well, that answers the question for me. *drop kicks the document*  :laughing7: