Raising Hell | Ep 4: Questioning 2,000 Years Orthodoxy on Hell? @RaisingHell | Uploaded April 2020 | Updated October 2024, 1 hour ago.
Who am I to question 2,000 years of consensus? Find out why hell orthodoxy is a myth!
Find this info helpful? Want to make this knowledge available for countless others? Buy me “a cup of coffee” (or help change the world for just $3/month!): patreon.com/RaisingHell
When you start questioning hell, you are treated as if you are single-handedly going against nearly 2 millennia of peaceful consensus on a matter by every single Christian who lived since the days of Jesus. But is this true?
No! The current doctrine of hell came to be the orthodox position of the Roman Catholic Church over the course of 5 centuries. It was not the consensus or even teaching of Western Church for the first 200 years after Christ (and has never been the position of the Eastern Church, which is more closely aligned with the early apostles of Christ), and as with many other doctrines, came about through violence and bloodshed. In fact, the doctrine of hell did not even become a major doctrinal position until the 5th century!
I would go so far as to say that the modern day churchgoers would do well to realize the myth of orthodoxy! The teaching of hell came about in the early Roman Church as a means to control the populace with fear, and had political influence. Later pop culture contributed to the legends, through works like Dante’s Inferno.
The first person to write about “eternal hell” was the Latin North African Tertullian who lived in 160-220 AD and was considered the father of the Latin Church. For Tertullian, hell was a place you sent the wicked and everyone you didn’t like, in his case anyone who disagreed with him or argued with him about his theology! He envisioned a time when he would look down from heaven at those people in hell and laugh with glee.
Out of 6 theological schools in the first few centuries after Christ, only one taught this newly emerging doctrine of hell to its students, the Latin one at Carthage Africa. Four of the other schools taught that all people would be saved and reconciled through Christ through a restorative plan of ages.
Picking up where Tertullian left of, Augustine (354-430 CE) was a poor student of the Koine Greek (New Testament language) and so he reinforced the teachings of an eternal hell, and included anyone who wasn’t a Christian, including un-baptized babies. St. Augustine was also the inventor of hell-lite, or Purgatory, which he devised to accommodate the verses in the Bible that indicate God would reconcile with all. Unfortunately, Augustine championed the doctrine of hell and influenced hate campaigns and bigotry in the centuries to follow.
This influence by Tertullian and Augustine led to much bloodshed in the following centuries, known as the dark ages from 500-1500 CE such as the Albigensian crusades, Spanish armadas, Netherland’s butcheries, St. Barhtolomew massacres, the Inquisition, and many subterranean torture chambers used by church-aligned torturers!
In any case, hell did not become “orthodox” in the Western Church until the 5th century after Christ, which means that it was not orthodoxy back to the days of Jesus at all!
Hell is still not some peaceful consensus, even in our modern Bibles! Just take a look at the discrepancies of how many times the word “hell” appears in different Bible versions. If it is really there, and all the Bibles are being translated honestly and accurately, shouldn’t all versions have the same number of references to hell? The KJV mentions hell over 50 times, while the NASB only has 13 references. The literal Bibles and the Jewish Bible do not even contain the word hell! What’s up with that?
So now you know that 2,000 years of orthodox teaching on hell is a farce, which means that you are more than justified in questioning it! Let’s keep going!
More info on the history of universal reconciliation and apocatastasis in Church history (restoration of all things Acts 3:19-21 ): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_reconciliation
Share:
Youtube Channel: youtube.com/raisinghell
The book: Raising Hell: Christianity's Most Controversial Doctrine Put Under Fire
Free PDFs of all versions at: raisinghellbook.com
Purchase or Review:
Full length version Amazon: amzn.to/2y4jCsc
Abridged version Amazon: amzn.to/2x58bBp
Spanish version (Controversia infernal) Amazon: amzn.to/2JlNwA4
Who am I to question 2,000 years of consensus? Find out why hell orthodoxy is a myth!
Find this info helpful? Want to make this knowledge available for countless others? Buy me “a cup of coffee” (or help change the world for just $3/month!): patreon.com/RaisingHell
When you start questioning hell, you are treated as if you are single-handedly going against nearly 2 millennia of peaceful consensus on a matter by every single Christian who lived since the days of Jesus. But is this true?
No! The current doctrine of hell came to be the orthodox position of the Roman Catholic Church over the course of 5 centuries. It was not the consensus or even teaching of Western Church for the first 200 years after Christ (and has never been the position of the Eastern Church, which is more closely aligned with the early apostles of Christ), and as with many other doctrines, came about through violence and bloodshed. In fact, the doctrine of hell did not even become a major doctrinal position until the 5th century!
I would go so far as to say that the modern day churchgoers would do well to realize the myth of orthodoxy! The teaching of hell came about in the early Roman Church as a means to control the populace with fear, and had political influence. Later pop culture contributed to the legends, through works like Dante’s Inferno.
The first person to write about “eternal hell” was the Latin North African Tertullian who lived in 160-220 AD and was considered the father of the Latin Church. For Tertullian, hell was a place you sent the wicked and everyone you didn’t like, in his case anyone who disagreed with him or argued with him about his theology! He envisioned a time when he would look down from heaven at those people in hell and laugh with glee.
Out of 6 theological schools in the first few centuries after Christ, only one taught this newly emerging doctrine of hell to its students, the Latin one at Carthage Africa. Four of the other schools taught that all people would be saved and reconciled through Christ through a restorative plan of ages.
Picking up where Tertullian left of, Augustine (354-430 CE) was a poor student of the Koine Greek (New Testament language) and so he reinforced the teachings of an eternal hell, and included anyone who wasn’t a Christian, including un-baptized babies. St. Augustine was also the inventor of hell-lite, or Purgatory, which he devised to accommodate the verses in the Bible that indicate God would reconcile with all. Unfortunately, Augustine championed the doctrine of hell and influenced hate campaigns and bigotry in the centuries to follow.
This influence by Tertullian and Augustine led to much bloodshed in the following centuries, known as the dark ages from 500-1500 CE such as the Albigensian crusades, Spanish armadas, Netherland’s butcheries, St. Barhtolomew massacres, the Inquisition, and many subterranean torture chambers used by church-aligned torturers!
In any case, hell did not become “orthodox” in the Western Church until the 5th century after Christ, which means that it was not orthodoxy back to the days of Jesus at all!
Hell is still not some peaceful consensus, even in our modern Bibles! Just take a look at the discrepancies of how many times the word “hell” appears in different Bible versions. If it is really there, and all the Bibles are being translated honestly and accurately, shouldn’t all versions have the same number of references to hell? The KJV mentions hell over 50 times, while the NASB only has 13 references. The literal Bibles and the Jewish Bible do not even contain the word hell! What’s up with that?
So now you know that 2,000 years of orthodox teaching on hell is a farce, which means that you are more than justified in questioning it! Let’s keep going!
More info on the history of universal reconciliation and apocatastasis in Church history (restoration of all things Acts 3:19-21 ): en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_reconciliation
Share:
Youtube Channel: youtube.com/raisinghell
The book: Raising Hell: Christianity's Most Controversial Doctrine Put Under Fire
Free PDFs of all versions at: raisinghellbook.com
Purchase or Review:
Full length version Amazon: amzn.to/2y4jCsc
Abridged version Amazon: amzn.to/2x58bBp
Spanish version (Controversia infernal) Amazon: amzn.to/2JlNwA4
