@Erimitus Said
When we read the Books we are reading someone else interpretation of someone else’s interpretation and we, in turn interpret. Going back we are interpreting interpretations of interpretations of interpretations.
Pick an interpretation you like and that is your religion.
As you say we have to read the whole in order to understand the parts.
Ultimately those who say do not know and those who know do not say.
The approach that works for me is reading several different interpretations and then formulating my own and not foisting my interpretation on others. The Best for me (maybe not for you) is to listen to what others think and not interfere. You never know, we might learn something
We are not reading an interpretation of an interpretation, when we read the Bible. If we were, the Bible would not be coherent, it would just be a bunch of opinions. Every sound translation, comes out the same way, and they start by saying, "In the beginning" with Moses as the author of Genesis.
What interpretation denies that?
@mrmhead Said
I have heard that "the bible" does not actually say "hell".
Only some the varied translations of the bible made by the flawed and sinful Man define a Hell.
... so I spent a little more time and Port 80 research:
Interesting, short read
//medium.com /
@BrazenChurch/ hell-a-biblical-staple-the-bible-never-actually-mentions-c28b18b1aaaa
Well, that's the URL, the "@" kind of mucks up the link.
The argument is that "Gehenna" is one of the words often translated to the word "Hell"
In fact, when Jesus spoke of “Gehenna”, it was literally a place of continuous fire as Jerusalem’s defacto trash dump, in which fires would constantly burn away whatever was not wanted inside of the city. Any type of filth, including human cadavers were thrown into this dump to burn away.
Isaiah 66 speaks of this saying “And they will go out and look on the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; the worms that eat them will not die, the fire that burns them will not be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.”
When we look at history, we see that the Gehenna was quite literally a place of perpetual fire. We see a dump filled with so many bodies that the worms would never die from lack of sustenance. The valley contained so much trash that the bodies would burn perpetually without end.
What are you arguing FOR? I see an argument against, but what are you for? Calling it Gehenna, does not soften the blow, it does not make damnation more palatable.
Are you arguing that there is no damnation? If you are, then all you are doing is falling inot a rhetorical trap. IMHO.