Ecclesiastes wrap up

It seems clear to me that Ecclesiastes is not the cohesive writing of one person. It appears to be much like proverbs, with a variety of adages, saws, and sayings, some in poetic form, cobbled together with a poor attempt to create a unifying theme. Perhaps, at one time its core was simpler and made more topical sense. Then, some person, or persons, stuck in what they considered to be relevant at the time.

Is life meaningless or hopeful? Who lives longer, the wise man or the wicked? Does it even matter if you are wise or wicked? Who is better off, the living or the dead? Is our labor for nothing, or should we find satisfaction in it? It seems to depend on what verse you are reading.

As for doctrine, we find no heaven or hell, no reference to angels or demons or Satan, no miracles, and no prophecy of a messiah. The book does not claim to be inspired or the words of a god. It also does not mention any Old Testament people, places, or events. There was one reference to the Genesis creation of man, at the end of the book. The god spoken of in Ecclesiastes is not called Yahweh, but Elohim, the collective singular "the gods." This leads me to wonder if it is older tan the yahweh texts. At the end we do get a reference to judgment, but it was obviously added on and the form judgment takes is unclear.

There seem to be a battle in the text between the ideas that 1) There is nothing new under the sun,every single thing is meaningless, all effort is for nothing in the end, even trying to be wise, and 2) you can be happy in this life if you are god-fearing and get joy in  eating, drinking, and finding satisfaction in your work. Are they mutually exclusive? The god-fearing appears unnecessary to me, but number two gives us a more pleasant approach to life, even though I think happiness is a bit more complicated than that.

The "grave" mentioned in verse 9:10 is actually Sheol, which we have covered before. If you are new to the blog, click on the word sheol in the labels of this post to see more on that.

I found the book mostly boring and redundant, with a few interesting bits, especially the poetic description of old age.

What shall we do next?

As a reminder: I use the NIV for most scripture references, except when noted. The readings are generally taken at face value as much as possible, which is called a "plain reading." This is in the protestant tradition which teaches that each believer can study for themselves and understand what god wants them to know, without the necessity of an intermediary interpreting it for them. The church is supposed to be a priesthood of believers. Each person is supposedly given discernment by the holy spirit. This does not keep any or all from giving their own interpretation of what they read to others, and insisting that theirs is the correct one. I'm not doing anything different, I just don't believe any of it.

I also occasionally look at how a plain reading in modern language compares with original meanings found in Strong's concordance and interlinear scripture translations, found in the biblehub website. In addition,    I use Wikipedia as a general reference. It is good enough for general purposes. If I need to go in more depth, I try to find reliable sources by experts in their field. All opinions are my own and the words are original to me unless I reference someone else. However, I may have been influenced by those whose works I have read or listened to.

More Abaddon and Abyss, plus Tartarus

Here are some more passages that link abaddon with sheol:

Psalm 88:10-12 says to god: "Do you show your wonders to the dead? Do those who are dead rise up and praise you? (Hmm. The writer of the Psalm doesn't know about the judgement day?) Is your love declared in the grave (sheol) your faithfulness in destruction (abaddon)? Are your wonders known in the places of darkness, or your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion?" The land of oblivion...That doesn't sound like the christian hell, does it?  If you read the whole of Psalm 88, you see that the author is afraid and feels like he is dead, " in the lowest pit, in the darkest depths." Those who lie in the grave are cut off from god's care and he forgets about them. Where is the concept of eternal life in this passage?  We've covered verses about pits in this series of posts about hell and punishment after death.  Those pits could be referring to abaddon.

Proverbs 15:11 says "Death (sheol) and destruction (abaddon) lie open before the lord, how much more the hearts of men." Proverbs 27:20 says "Death (sheol) and destruction (abaddon) are never satisfied and neither are the eyes of a man."

Going back to the word abyss, I find that, beside the book of Revelation, there are only two other appearances of the word abyss in the New Testament. One is found in Luke 8:31. This is the story of the demon possessed man who has many demons. "The demons begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the abyss." Jesus complies with the demons' request to be sent into some pigs. Then the pigs rush down a steep bank into the lake and are drowned. What happened to the demons then? Did they end up in the abyss anyway? Wasn't that kind of a dirty trick?

The other instance is in Romans 10:6-8, where the author says that righteousness based on faith does not ask who will bring christ down from heaven. Nor does it ask who will bring christ up from the abyss. Faith says that "the word" (christ) is near you, in your mouth and in your heart. In other words, people of faith don't focus on the physical location of jesus's body. They focus on faith and the statement of belief that god raised jesus from the dead. That will save them. From what? Not death. Everybody dies. Also, why would Jesus need to be raised from the abyss? Is that where Jesus went when he died? He wasn't raised directly from the tomb?

Finally, let's look at an interesting passage in 2 Peter 2:24 that says "God did not spare the angels when they sinned but cast them into hell, delivering them in chains to be held in gloomy darkness until their judgement." What makes this so interesting is the word translated into hell, in both the KJV and the NIV,  is actually the greek word Tartarus. This is the only occurrance of the word in the whole bible. At the time 2 Peter was written, Tartarus had been part of Greek mythology for at least seven hundred years. There was a Greek tradition that Tartarus was a "deep abyss that is used as a dungeon of torment and suffering for the wicked and as the prison for the titans" (Wikipedia) Isn't it interesting that the beast of Revelation emerges from the abyss and satan gets chained up in it? Is that the same abyss as Tartarus? Isn't it also interesting that 2 Peter calls this abyss  a holding place, like a prison,  of gloomy darkness? No fire. Judgement comes later.

Apparently some christians have tried to get around this obviously Greek synchretism and have said that the Greeks got  the idea of Tartarus from the Jews and stories of fallen angels being imprisoned. Which more likely came first, the Iliad or the Bible?

The Abyss or "bottomless pit"

Now let us look at the abyss in which Revelation 20 told us Satan was emprisoned for a thousand years. Upon further examination, I find the word abyss does not occur in the KJV. It uses the phrase "bottomless pit" in all the relevant Revelation passages. The greek word is abussos. Is a bottomless pit a real thing? Is that anything like a black hole?

In Revelation, the abyss is first found in chapter nine. There it is described in graphic detail. Let us bypass talk of angels, trumpets, and falling stars with keys. In this passage, the abyss is a locked shaft. When it is opened, so much smoke rises out of it that the sun and sky are darkened. (Sounds like a volcanic explosion) Out of the smoke comes stinging locusts. (Burning ash?) These locust's job is to torture those who do not have the name of god written on their foreheads, for five months. The torture will be so intense that people will wish they were dead.

These locusts are described as having human faces, women's hair, and teeth like lions. (I'm assuming women's hair means long hair, because hair is hair.) They have armor and sound like the thundering of horses and chariots in battle. Their tails have stings like scorpions. They have a king who is the angel of the abyss. His Hebrew name is Abaddon and his Greek name is Apollyon. As far as I can tell, the name Apollyon is not mentioned in Greeek literature and may be made up by the author of Revelation. He is definitely not the equivalent of Satan. Remember, Satan was imprisoned in the abyss in chapter 20. Now, who do you suppose created the abyss, Abaddon, and the torturing locusts? Ding, ding. Our friendly neighborhood deity, of course! If not him, who else? Which day of creation was that? Or did god need a torture chamber even before he produced human beings?

Revelation 11:7 talks about a beast (not Satan) coming up out of the abyss to wage war with some prophets and kill them. Rev. 17:8 also mentions this beast coming out of the abyss and going to his destruction. The word destruction  in that verse is from the greek root apoleia.  This word is found often in the New Testament and is translated in various versions as the words destruction, perdition, and damnation. These are all words that are used by Christians as synonymous with hell. Destruction (root apoleia) is where the wide path leads in Matthew 7:13.

Notice that the root word for destruction has a similar structure to the word Apollyon who is the king of the abyss. The author of Revelation tells us Apollyon is the Greek word for the Hebrew name Abaddon.  If you have been reading the bible along with me, you might remember that we have encountered abaddon before,  in the book of Job. The KJV and NIV translate abaddon in these passages as "destruction." You can find it in Job 26:6, 28:22, and 31:12. In Job, abaddon is also associated with sheol (translated as death). They are both underground. However, Sheol and Abaddon are not the same thing. Therefore, Hades and Abaddon are not the same thing either. Abaddon is never  translated as hell. Clear as mud?

 More to come.

Hell part 5

Next we will look at the Greek word Hades as translated into hell in the New Testament, in KJV English Bibles. It occurs twice in Matthew, twice in Luke, three times in Acts, and four times in Revelation. Even though Hades and Gehenna are both translated into hell, they are not the same place. In fact, Hades started out as the Greek god of the underworld, the place all people go when they die. When the ancients translated the Hebrew bible (What is now called the Old Testament) into The Greek bible called the Septuagint, they translated the Hebrew word Sheol into the Greek word Hades. Interestingly, the NIV retains the Greek word Hades and also uses "realm of the dead." It does not change the word to hell like it does Gehenna.  Other versions change the word to death or the grave instead. Read about the Christian views of Hades here. (Link)

As you can see from the above link, the different versions of christianity hold many differing beliefs about hell or hades. I can tell you that the church of christ denomination which I have attended for over forty years, teaches very little about hell. It has no sophisticated theology or doctrine of hell or hades. Basically, people are taught that if you do not believe the gospel and get baptized (essential) you go to hell, what they view as eternal damnation/separation from god, when you die. No ifs ands or buts. The beliefs about hell of most people in the pews is very simplistic.

Lets look at the verses with the Greek hades translated into the English hell in the KJV:
*Matt 11:23- here the city of Capernaum is being told it will go to hell (hades in the NIV)because it didn't repent after Jesus performed miracles there.
*Matt 16:18- this is the famous passage where Jesus tells Peter "Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it." (NIV-gates of hades will not overcome it.)
*Luke 10:15-This passage repeats the sentiment in Matthew 11:23 that Capernaum will go to hell.
*Luke 16:19-29 contains the parable of the rich man and Lazarus the beggar. In it a poor man dies and finds comfort "in the bosom of Abraham." A rich man, who apparently never helped the poor man, dies and finds himself in hell being tormented and burnt by flames. The rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to give him water to cool his tongue, Abraham says the gulf between the two places is too great. The rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus to his brothers to warn them of hell. Abraham says they already have the law and the prophets. If they don't believe them, they won't believe someone back from the dead. Hell here is hades in the NIV. Also, let us remember this is a parable not a story about a supposed actual event.
*Acts 2:25-36 contains part of Peter's sermon to a crowd, on the day of Pentecost, after Jesus was taken up into heaven. In it Peter quotes Psalm 16:10- "For thou will not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt though suffer thine holy one to see corruption." Peter claims that since David died and was buried he can't have been talking about himself, so he must have been prophesying about Jesus. Jesus supposedly did not remain in the land of the dead and his body did not rot. The NIV calls this hell Hades in Acts and Sheol in Psalms. I think it is also important to note that the word "holy" in both Acts and Psalms does not mean divine. It means righteous or pious.

In the next post, we will look at hell/hades in the book of Revelation.

Hell part 3

As we have seen, the Old Testament hell is actually sheol, which is not the same as the hell taught in christianity. It is the realm of the dead, the grave. It is underground or some nebulous place in the depths, "down below." It is often associated with a pit. The word pit associated with the grave or death in the Old Testament often comes from the Hebrew word "bowr." This word appears to have meanings associated with a hole in the ground that is a well or cistern, or a dungeon. The word pit  associated with death and the grave in the KJV  is also sometimes translated from the Hebrew word "shachath." This word has connotations of a ditch or a trap. Notice that these are all words associated with under the ground or holes in the earth.

Sometimes the word destruction is associated with sheol. Then, it is often from the word abaddon. They are often seen together as in "death and destruction." (Sheol and Abaddon) Abaddon appears to be a distinct part of hell, perhaps a bottomless pit. There is that word pit again.

Besides Sheol, the Old Testament does have a few descriptions of a punishment after death at some "end time," but it is not named as a particular place. Some christians claim these are descrptions of hell. Let's look at some of them.

First let's look at Daniel chapter 12: 1-2. "....at that time your people-everyone whose name is found written in the book-will be delivered. Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth  will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt." Daniel is an apocalyptic/prophetic book, written anonymously, about 200 years before Jesus, according to many scholars. My NIV study bible says its writers think Daniel was written around the time period of its events, about 560 BC, at least partly by Daniel. I  have not studied the book of Daniel in depth, but this passage does appear to refer to an afterlife. The phrase "your people"  obviously refers to jews. Why do christians think it speaks to them? The book of Daniel was written by Jews for Jews. Also, in practical terms, what does it mean to awaken to everlasting shame and contempt?

The study bible references lead me from Daniel to another supposedly prophetic book, Isaiah. Again, this book was written by Jews, for Jews. In chapter 26, a future day of judgement is being sung about. In verse 11, Isaiah begs Yahweh to let the fire reserved for his enemies consume them. In verse fourteen we see Isaiah say that God's enemies are dead "they live no more." Yahweh "punished them and brought them to ruin." He wiped out all memory of them. This doesn't sound like a literal hell. In fact, from there the study bible leads me to Psalm 9:5 where the worse thing that can happen to the wicked is that they are utterly destroyed, their names blotted out, and the memory of them perishes. Really? Okay, being destroyed is totally the pits. We have only one life.  But once you are gone, so what if noone remembers you. You won't know.

Let us remember that Daniel, Isaiah, and Psalms are written in poetic and metaphoric language. They are trash talking about the enemies of the Israelites. I don't think these passages were meant to be doctrinal statements about what happens to nonbelievers in christianity.

Hell part 2

We are going to look at the Old Testament passages where Sheol is translated into "hell" in the King James version. We are doing that because Strong's concordance was created based on the King James. We will compare that to how the NIV scholars translated those passages. My NIV study bible has no references for hell in the Old Testament in its concordance. The words "death" or "grave" in the NIV  replace the word hell from the KJV. The Hebrew is sheol for each of these.

1- Deut. 32:22, sheol is translated to "realm of death below" in the NIV. There is a fire from god's wrath.
2- 2 Sam. 22:6 talks of the cords of the grave.
3- Job 11:8 says the mysteries of god are deeper than the depths of the grave
4- Job 26:6 "death is naked before god"
5- Psalm 9:17 "the wicked return to the grave"
6- Psalm 16:10 "you will not abandon me to the grave"
7- Psalm 18:5 "the cords of the grave entangled me" This is very similar to the verse in 2 Samuel.
8- Psalm 55:15 "let them go down alive to the grave"
9- Psalm 86:13 "you have delivered me from the depths of the grave"
10- Psalm 116:3 "anguish of the grave came upon me"
11-Psalm139:8 "if I make my bed in the depths (sheol) you are there" this is talking about god.
12- Prov. 5:5 "her feet go down to death" talking about the "adulterous woman."
13- Prov. 7:27 "her house is a highway to the grave"
14- Prov 9:18 "her guests are in the depths of the grave"
15- Prov. 15:11 "death and destruction lie open before the lord"
16- Prov. 15:24 "The path of life leads upward.....to keep him from going down to the grave."
17- Prov. 23:14 "punish him with the rod and save his soul from death"
18- Prov. 27:20 "death and destruction are never satisfied."
19- Is. 14:15 "you are brought down to the realm of the dead to the depths of the pit"
20- Is. 28:15 "with the realm of the dead we have made an agreement"
21- Is. 28:18 "your agreement with the realm of the dead will not stand"
22- Is. 57:9 "you descended to the very realm of the dead"
23- Eze. 31:16 "I brought it down to the realm of the dead"
24- Eze. 31:17 "they too had gone down to the realm of the dead"
25- Eze. 32:21 "from within the realm of the dead, the mighty leaders will say"
26- Eze. 32:27 "who went down to the realm of the dead"
27- Amos 9:2 "though they dig down to the depths below"
28-Jonah 2:2 "from deep in the realm of the dead"
29- Hab. 2:5 "he is as greedy as the grave"

Again, these are all the NIV versions of the passages where sheol is translated into "hell" in the KJV Old Testament. We see from these that NIV scholars determined they should be translated as death, the grave, the depths, and the realm of the dead.
I also looked up "death" in the Strong's concordance and found no instances where the KJV translators used death for sheol.The Hebrew word translated as death was an entirely different word. However, when I looked up "grave" in the Strong's concordance, I found 30 instances where sheol had been translated as "the grave" instead of hell. So, even the KJV scholars were not consistly translating sheol into hell. I also found 3 instances where sheol had been translated into "the pit" in the KJV. As far as I could tell grave, hell, and pit are the only English words that the KJV uses for sheol.

I searched the text of the NIV for the word hell here: (link). As far as I can see, there is no hell in the Old Testament of the NIV, at all. Very interesting. In fact, the Old Testament scriptures  of these translations also do not contain the word hell: ASV, RSV, ISV, NET, WEB, YLT, ISV, EST, NASB, The Easy To Read Version, and the Good News Bible. The ones that do contain hell in the Old Testament are the various versions of the KJV, and surprisingly enough, The Living Bible and The Message. That last one shocked me, considering it is often used by non-fundamentalist, progressive christians. I wonder if the word hell occurring in the KJV is one of the reasons that version is preferred by fundamentalists.

Hell, part 1

Over the next few weeks, I thought we could take a look at Heaven and Hell. My personal, in depth study of hell some years ago was one of the main factors in my deconversion. I looked through my old posts and could not find a comprehensive examination of those subjects, so that's what I want to do now. We will start with Hell, since that is a fear introduced to believers as the only alternative to Heaven, where everyone woul prefer to end up, of course.

The general, cultural idea of Hell, in Christian North America, is either a place of eternal torment with fire, pain, and anguish, or a dark void of eternal separation from god and all that is good. Does the Bible support either of these ideas? Is there reason to believe either version of Hell exists? Let's find out.

Today, we will start with the old testament. I looked up the word Hell in my Strong's concordance. For the old testament there appeared to be only one Hebrew word translated into the English word Hell: Sheol. Sheol is also translated into the English words "death" and "grave" in multiple scriptures. Read about  Sheol here: (link)

Sheol of the old testament was not the hell of eternal punishment found christianity. It was an underground world where ALL the dead resided. It has its equivalent in the Greek Hades. Obviously, no such world actually exists. It is pure mythology.

However, it is important to recognize that Jews do not follow the doctrine of "sola scriptura" that many protestant christian groups do, including the church of christ, of which I was a member.  Jews also have a long tradition of rabbinical writings which include laws, commentary and additional stories. These are found in the Talmud and other books. They are often given as much weight, or more, as what christians would call the old testament, which Jews call the bible.

We are not going to cover what Jewish extrabiblical writings say about hell, because I'm not all that concerned with them. Jews are not going around trying to convince anyone they will go to hell if they do not believe what is taught by Judaism. Many christians, however, are doing just that.

I will give you a few links with Jewish discussions of what they believe about hell and or an afterlife.

Here
Here
Here
Here
and
Here

As you can see there is great variation in the Jewish faith and tradition. Each of the above links shows a unique perspective, with some pertinent history. However, they all seem similar in that they do not take a stance of condemnation or eternal punishment/torture. They don't see a need to evangelize to save souls. Most do not think what you believe matters as much as what you do. If christianity had not happened, would the world have been a kinder gentler place? Who knows.

Job 26

After reading chapter 26:

*Job replies to Bildad. The first few verses are very sarcastic. Job declares Bildad to be so helpful and wise (not). The dead are still dead.

*Starting in verse 6, things get interesting. First we see "death is naked before God." Death here is the hebrew sheol. Then we see "destruction lies uncovered." Destruction here is abaddon. This is the first time we have encountered Abaddon. Sheol and Abaddon are somehow connected. According  to references, Abaddon is a deep pit in or near sheol, or the name of the angel in charge of the pit of destruction. What is Abaddon's purpose? Who knows. What is worse than being dead, being really, really dead? Is this passage figurative or literal? Does Abaddon actually exist?

*The passage goes on to tell how God is responsible for the sky, the suspension of the earth over nothing, the clouds, the horizon, earthquakes, tsunamis, and fair weather. It is the epitome of the "look at the trees" argument, but more poetic. I've heard these verses used as proof that religion and science are compatible because these things are true: the earth does appear to be suspended over nothing, water is stored in clouds. It's science!

*There is a huge difference between what a scientist would say about these natural phenomena and what Job says. He says,"God does it." He says God "spreads" the sky. God "suspends" the earth. He "wraps up" water in clouds. He "covers" the face of the moon by "spreading" clouds over it. He "marks out" the horizon. He "churns up" the sea. His rebuke shakes the earth. (How many times have we heard that earthquakes are punishment from God?) His breath makes the skies fair. This is not science. It is poetry. Science never takes invisible, unquantifiable beings into account when making statements about how nature works.

*Lets look at verse 12:
NIV- he churned up the sea
KJV- he divideth the sea
NAS-he quieted the sea
JPS- he stilled the sea
Those are all quite different, aren't they? Not to mention that the sea in this verse is yam, which happens to be the name of the canaanite sea God. In this same verse god also cuts Rahab to pieces. Apparently this word Rahab is a Jewish mythological sea monster that also symbolically represents Egypt. So it would make sense if the author was referring to the exodus, parting the sea and killing Egyptians. Verse 13 says god's hand pierced the gliding serpent. Is this serpent referring to Rahab the sea monster?

*Last, Bildad is told these things are just whispers and fringes of god's works. Who can understand the full extent of his power?

Job chapter 17

After reading chapter 17:

*Job is still talking. We get more "woe is me" stuff. He is surrounded by mockers, people spit in his face, and he is overcome by grief. Where is his hope? Will they (him and his hope) die together?

*One interesting thing: Verse 13 says, " If the only home I hope for is the grave..." Grave here is translated from the hebrew word sheol. Verse 16 says, "will it go down to the gates of death?" Death here is also translated from the word sheol. The KJV calls sheol " the pit" in verse 16. This same Sheol will be translated into "hell" in later books of the KJV.

Deuteronomy 32

After reading chapter 32:

*This chapter is the song that Moses supposedly taught the Israelites. It is written in poetic form and speaks as though said in the future. The main themes: Yahweh is great. Yahweh is good. He gave each Israelite tribe its inheritance and divided up the promised land for them. He took very good care of them but they abandoned him and made him jealous because of their worship of foreign gods. As a consequence, Yahweh rejected them. He was so angry that he sent calamities on them.

*In verse 22 we have a first hint of the doctrine of hell. "A fire has been kindled by my wrath, one that burns to the realm of death below." (NIV) The King James says "unto the lowest hell." Other versions say the depths of Sheol, which is the original Hebrew word in this passage. Still others translate it as the lowest pit or the netherworld.

*Verse 27 seems odd because Yahweh is speaking yet he says, "I would scatter them and blot out their memory, but I dreaded the taunt of the enemy, lest the adversary misunderstand and say, 'Our hand has triumphed; Yahweh has not done all this.'" In other words God would have completely annihilated the Israelites, but he didn't want others to get the credit for what was actually his punishment of the Israelites and say that he had no power. He goes on to say the enemies are obviously without discernment. They should have known it wouldn't have been so easy to conquer so many people if their God hadn't given them up. Yahweh is worried about his reputation.

*Verses 35 and 41 declare Yahweh's right to bloodthirsty vengeance against his enemies. Who are his enemies? Those nations that conquered his servants, the Israelites. (Wait a minute, I thought he was through with them because of their unfaithfulness and disobedience. Apparently not.) They are still his land and his people after all. Verse 39 declares,"See now that I myself am He! There is no God besides me. I put to death and I bring life, I have wounded and I will heal." This reminds me of what others have said about the human relationship to God: You are sinful, wicked, and horrible. You make God so angry that you deserve to die. But God loves you.

*On that very same day that Moses taught the Israelites his song, Yahweh told him to go up on Mount  Nebo, across the Jordan from the promised land. There he was to die looking at the the land and knowing he would never enter it because he did not uphold Yahweh's holiness among the Israelites back in Numbers 20. God held a grudge for forty years.

Edited.