Quote:
Originally Posted by Derek41
One of the things that many people cannot get their head around, is a punishment that lasts FOREVER.
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Life imprisonment and executions are punishments that last forever.
Aside from that, what people cannot get their head around is that Hell is a concept imagined by the Greeks.
Earlier civilizations knew the Earth was a sphere that orbited the Sun. They had an equator. Not only did they have an equator, they also created the Tropic of Cancer (30°N Latitude) and the Tropic of Capricorn (30°S Latitude).
For those not mathematically inclined, that's 60° or 1/3rd of 180° because 3 * 6 = 18, right?
That 60° band was called the Way of An and it had the 12 Constellations you know and love.
But, it wasn't the only band. From 30°N Latitude to 0°N Latitude (a total of 60°) was the Way of Enlil and that had 12 constellations, too, but you probably aren't familiar with those.
From 30°S to 0°S (a total of 60°) was the Way of Enki and there were 12 constellations there, too, and you're probably not familiar with those, either, except perhaps for the Constellation Hydra (the serpent monster since Enki was a serpent god).
Unfortunately, Sumer was destroyed, and then Akkad, and the Hittites were wiped out by Gomer -- that would be you, so, yes, Jesus is going to wipe the United States, Canada and Britain off the face of the Earth when he comes back -- and then the Amorites (the people scholars erroneously call Babylonians) and then the Assyrians and then a different group recreates the Babylonian Empire and Egypt is turmoil and so is Canaan.
So, knowledge got lost and distorted and the knowledge that the Earth is a sphere that orbits the Sun gets lost, too.
Around 600 BCE the later Greeks about. Over the centuries they develop this philosophy that you can learn everything you need to know from the 5 empirical senses.
Using their 5 empirical senses, the later Greeks came to believe Earth was a circular disk floating in space with the Sun orbiting it.
That's all wrong, of course, but what'd you expect?
There's a Greek in the Babylonian Court named Berossus. He wasn't the only Greek living there. There were others before him, but we know Berossus, because he wrote a history. His history did not survive, but Greek and Roman historians quote it, so we know it existed at least through the 2nd Century CE and that it had at least four books, because Book IV is quoted by Greek and Roman historians.
There was an Aramaic word the Greeks didn't know how to translate, because it didn't make sense them.
That word was "
abzu" in Aramaic and Akkadian, also "
zuab" in Akkadian and rendered as "
ab.zu" or "
zu.ab" in Sumerian.
It means "down under" as in down under the equator.
Don't you call Australia "the land down under?" Well, same thing here, except the land down under wasn't Australia, it was the modern countries of South Africa, Namibia and Zaire.
Except the Greeks don't know anything about an equator or about a spherical Earth and they come up with the mistaken belief that "down under" means under the Earth.
Hence: "
underworld"
Then Greeks imagine up a whole bunch of demons and devils that live there in the "underworld" and that's how Hell was invented.
Then christians ran with it using all kinds of propaganda, disinformation and misinformation.
There's no such thing as "Satan" and it never appears anywhere in the Old Testament.
If you don't believe, just read:
Job 1:6 And he was the day and they are coming sons of the gods to station themselves on Yahweh and he is coming moreover the adversary in the midst of them (7) and he is saying Yahweh to the adversary from where you are coming and he is answering the adversary Yahweh and he is saying from to go to and fro of/in the earth and from to walk of/in her (8) and he is saying Yahweh to the adversary you placed heart of you on servant of me Job that there is no like him in the earth man flawless and upright fearing of the gods and withdrawing from evil (9) and he is answering the adversary Yahweh and he is saying gratuitously he fears Job the gods.
Do you see "Satan" anywhere? Nope.
If you're reading a bible and you see "Satan" you're reading propaganda and disinformation.
Unfortunately, too, many scholars employ anachronisms.
For centuries, German, French, British and American scholars have incorrectly applied the term "
abzu."
When they're reading a Mesopotamian text and see "
Nergal's domain is the abzu" they write "
Nergal is the god of the underworld."
That's wrong. The correct translation is "
Nergal's domain is South Africa, Namibia and Zaire."
Around 1996, armed with an avalanche of evidence, some scholars tried to correct the grotesque error made by the Greeks, but got fierce resistance by phihellenes (Greek-Firsters) and christians who are dumb enough to believe Hell is real, and the best they could do is reach a compromise.
The "correct" translation of
abzu is now "
netherworld" instead of "
underworld" but some Mustache Pete scholars refuse to budge and insist on incorrectly translating it as "
underworld."
While "
netherworld" is a helluva lot better than "
underworld" (no pun intended) it's still wrong.
I can only hope for the day when scholars get their act together and translate it correctly.
Anyway, anyone who actually believes there is a Hell is misguided, because it doesn't exist and never existed.
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