I don't believe in hell or the trinity (Atheist...would be kinda stupid if I did lol). However, I've mentioned it before, but I do believe not so much in the immortality of the soul but that some sort of energy survives death. I've been looking into Noetics, and it's interesting, but I'm not ready to jump on board 100% at this point.
How many ex-jws poster here now believe in Hellfire, immortality of soul, trinity, etc;
by booker-t 70 Replies latest jw friends
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James Brown
I was born in the tower in 52. I have been out since 83.
Today I choose to believe we have immortal souls. I believe we are parts of God, pilgrams on a journey home.
I believe Hellfire is being cut off from the light. Hell to me would be believing there is no God there is no afterlife and dying
with that belief.
I dont think about the trinity often but when I do The book of John says that Jesus is God.
The JW's have the midas touch in reverse, they are wrong about everything they pontificate about, they are
proven false prophets on steroids, my money is they are wrong about the trinity also.
About the trinity my advise is to keep it simple read various translations of the book of John on the net.
They tell you Jesus is God.
Jesus died to save mankind, keep it simple, that simple belief and putting faith in Jesus is what keeps mankind out of hell.
Denying it is the key to hell.
The bible is not about the trinity, the bible is about having faith in Jesus, and your soul is saved by your faith.
Being a Christian and having faith in Jesus is very simple compared to the pharasycial religion of the Watchtower Society.
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Leolaia
I do not believe in any religious concept as necessarily having ontological reality; I do not hold any religious beliefs per se. I do hold beliefs however on what is taught in the Bible, or rather, what range of early Jewish and Christian ideas find expression in the books that were collated into the volume we call the Bible.
Hellfire. There were two beliefs of post-mortem punishment in the Second Temple period: (1) eternal punishment (usually via fire) of the wicked dead soon after death, (2) eternal punishment (usually via fire) of the wicked dead after Judgment Day and after the resurrection. The second idea assumes an intermediate state between death and resurrection, and this punishment is experienced bodily. Some Jews however reserved the resurrection only for the righteous (rather than extending it to all the dead), and some believed in the immortality of the soul instead of resurrection; for these (1) was the more typical belief. Some however held both ideas .... a wicked person waiting for resurrection is still punished in the intermediate state. The NT draws on a range of these ideas. The references to Gehenna pertain to (2). The parable of the rich man and Lazarus has ideas more typical of (1). The Society's arguments against the biblical status of Hell are imo rather weak. When you place the biblical references into the broader literary context of the Second Temple period, they fit very well with other similar beliefs expressed in Jewish sources. The Christians did not "later" borrow the idea of Hell from pagan influence; it was already part of the Judaism that Christianity developed from. This idea may well have pagan origins (specifically Zoroastrian), but one could similarly argue that other biblical eschatological ideas like paradise, the resurrection, Judgment Day, the millennium, and an end-times Savior also have similar origins.
Immortality of the Soul. Second Temple Judaism was subject to Hellenistic influences and the idea that the soul is inherently immortal was a common concept in the first century. It was not opposed to the belief in resurrection and often both ideas were accommodated to each other, e.g. resurrection involves the reuniting of the soul with a body. The NT does not have the strictly Platonic concept but it does show influence from Platonic and Pythagorean ideas, particularly the anthropology that considers the body as the "tent" or "clothing" for the soul, that one could be "out of the body", and that the person in the post-mortem intermediate state is "naked". In one place, the NT even uses the term psukhè "soul" to refer to a person in the post-mortem intermediate state (usually it avoids the use of this term). All of this conforms well with Jewish ideas of the period. Also, the Society confuses the more narrow belief in immortality of the soul with the idea of any conscious post-mortem experience of a dead person, or even continued existence in a post-mortem state (an afterlife). Even the pre-exilic Israelites believed in the latter, as the OT shows. The favorite proof-text the Society cites to deny that the Bible teaches a post-mortem existence also denies a future resurrection; it is rather close to the views of the Sadducees who denied both post-mortem existence and the resurrection. The NT has a whole has a very different eschatological perspective; the Bible is heterogenous and presents different perspectives and views. And the pagan influence of the Greek concept of immortality is not strictly posterior to the composition of the books of the NT but was part of the Judaism that Christianty developed from.
The Trinity. This is a constructed doctrine, or rather a range of doctrines, that developed particularly from the mid-second century onward in interaction with other (hetereodox) developing theologies. It is harmonistic in attempting to combine different biblical statements about God and the relationship with God and Christ (specifically maintaining the distinction between the Father and Son while having both be God while affirming monotheism), and as a hemeneutical product it is not found in the Bible. This applies equally to Arianism (which also reflects Greek philosophical influence just as much as trinitarianism), or the modern JW doctrine (which regards Jesus as Michael the Archangel), which was equally constructed through biblical interpretation. Many of the ideas that contributed to trinitarian thought go back to early Christianity and can be found in the NT, including high christology (the Deity of Christ), personhood or personification of the Holy Spirit, and triadic formulae. Trinitarian theology was not something foreign imposed on Christianity at a later date but represents a smooth trajectory of intellectual development of ideas going back to the first century AD. And so the Society has misrepresented the views of the early church fathers to exaggerate the gulf between early Christianity and later trinitarian Christianity, when in reality there is no gulf.
Anyway, those are my beliefs about what is "taught" in the Bible.
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Londo111
This past year, I've revised my belief system and continue to revise.
These are a few of my current beliefs:
Hell: I don't believe in a literal hellfire. I believe in a Gehenna, where the unrighteous are purified in age-during correction. People are not tormented there, but reformed--nor are they there for eternity. In the end, I believe everyone will be saved. See the book: Hope Beyond Hell.
Immortality: I believe our spirit is immortal and God is the Father of that spirit. The Society's concept always bothered me because it does not teach resurrection, but cloning. The spirit is what keeps us us.
Trinity: I am agnostic on the doctrine. Currently, I believe that God as the Divine Parent reproduced, that is, from out of his own substance, begot a being like Himself. Just as my parents are human, so am I. I share their same substance and come from them. In the same way, Jesus is God. The Holy Spirit is more than some impersonal force. But just as I have a spirit which defines the core of who I am, so does God, and so does Christ.
The year Jesus became king, Satan "cast down", Last Days began: 33 CE.
Great Tribulation/Armageddon: I believe this occurred by 70 AD.
The Flood: I believe the Flood was a regional event in Mesopotamia.
Evolution: I do believe God used natural processes to create the world and the life in it.
House-to-house preaching: the first century Christians never went door-to-door. The Great Commission was mainly given to the apostles.
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John Kesler
Londo111 wrote: The Flood: I believe the Flood was a regional event in Mesopotamia.
Genesis 7:1-4, 21-23 reads as follows in the NRSV:7:1 Then Yahweh said to Noah, ‘Go into the ark, you and all your household, for I have seen that you alone are righteous before me in this generation. 2 Take with you seven pairs of all clean animals, the male and its mate; and a pair of the animals that are not clean, the male and its mate; 3 and seven pairs of the birds of the air also, male and female, to keep their kind alive on the face of all the earth. 4 For in seven days I will send rain on the earth for forty days and forty nights; and every living thing that I have made I will blot out from the face of the ground.’ 21 And all flesh died that moved on the earth, birds, domestic animals, wild animals, all swarming creatures that swarm on the earth, and all human beings; 22 everything on dry land in whose nostrils was the breath of life died. 23 He blotted out every living thing that was on the face of the ground, human beings and animals and creeping things and birds of the air; they were blotted out from the earth. Only Noah was left, and those that were with him in the ark. These passages seem pretty clear-cut: Yahweh flooded the whole world, so representatives of each animal, including birds, had to be preserved. This is born out in Genesis 8, where the animals disembarked: 15 Then God said to Noah, 16 ‘Go out of the ark, you and your wife, and your sons and your sons’ wives with you. 17 Bring out with you every living thing that is with you of all flesh—birds and animals and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth—so that they may abound on the earth, and be fruitful and multiply on the earth.’ 18 So Noah went out with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. 19 And every animal, every creeping thing, and every bird, everything that moves on the earth, went out of the ark by families.
If the local-flood theory is correct, and only an area of Mesopotamia was flooded, then why take any birds aboard the ark? Wouldn't birds be able to fly to nonflooded areas? We know specifically of two birds that were taken aboard the ark: the raven and the dove (Genesis 8:6-12). Since all birds were taken aboard "to keep their kind alive," then local-flood theorists must believe that in the over 1,000 years from creation to the Flood (keep in mind that Noah himself was 600 when the Flood came! Genesis 7:6, and see the Genesis-5 genealogy), neither ravens nor doves had populated areas beyond Mesopotamia, and thus had to be preserved.
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binadub
It has never ceased to amaze me, both when I was a JW and after leaving, how the JWs (and exJWs) did not understand the Watchtower's expose' of the orthodox/fundamentalist, Dante's Inferno doctrine of Hellfire. Booker-t is right, that and the soul and Trinity doctrines are not scriptural.
I think that's one of the benefits of having been a convert rather than a born-in. I came out of Hell-fire, Elmer Gantry, revival church doctrine before I became a JW. I was fortunate that the two ladies who studied with me were also newbie JWs out of fundamentalism. We studied these doctrines to thoroughly understand them. After three months studying with the JWs, I could prove Hell was not a Bible teaching of everlasting torture from my King James Bible (which had a cross-reference and good concordance that defined the word "hell" quite nicely). I wanted to be really sure about that one before I renounced the belief. (That was back before there was a NWT.) I used Benjamin Wilson's Emphatic Diaglott too (which the WTS owned the printing rights to). A cursory study of the actual word "Hell" leaves no doubt that it is not a Biblical place of everlasting torture for conscious damned souls.
Take Jesus' words where the word is "hell" is erroneously used to translate the word "Gehenna" (or "Hades"--place/condition of the dead).
Gehenna was a literal burning garbage dump (Valley of Hinnom) outside of the walls of Jerusalem where they used to throw trash and also the dead bodies of criminals and sinners thought to be unworthy of resurrection, and therefore were not buried in tombs. In its history, Gehenna had been a place where Ba'al worshipers had sacrificed babies to Moloch. The place had a stench and it was kept burning with sulfur and brimstone day and night. The place depicted total destruction.
I just looked the word up in my old Smith's Bible Dictionary (copywrite 1884). Yep--it's right on under the word "Hell."BOTTOM LINE:
You're right, Booker-t--the Bible does not teach perpetual torture of the dead, nor does it teach immortal soul nor (imo) a triune God. The Watchtower is right about those teachings not being Biblical doctrines.~Binadub
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NewYork44M
I would love to believe in the magical oversight of a wonderful god. But, no I believe in nothing other than my survival skills.
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Dogpatch
Leolaia said,
This idea may well have pagan origins (specifically Zoroastrian), but one could similarly argue that other biblical eschatological ideas like paradise, the resurrection, Judgment Day, the millennium, and an end-times Savior also have similar origins.
You are one of the few that really understand history here- especially hell - and that is what it's all about. I love your posts!
I have paid attention to all your posts on the pre-church doctrines, the Hellenistic influences, and the linguistic issues as well as the various views given in the Pharisaical camp (including the Talmud).
Thank you so much for being here, you are a breath of fresh air. Please someday write me an article for freeminds on the issue of hell - even this post would do. JWs just have no concept of history and what was really taught and why - they simply go by what they think it should be.... not what archeology, history, the Talmud, and other sources tell us.
As you said, so it is with me. I wrote these things years ago not as MY beliefs (like anyone gives a damn) but as more of a historian. The purpose was to show a JW how off men's minds go in areas that have little relevancy to the real world. I never believed in hell, and yes, the Trinity is an amalgamation of concepts that drove the early church (at least the main branch). And yes, WT interpretations are pretty close to the Saducees. I'm sad, you see? :-))
Seriously, you are a treat to read. Please don't stop.
Randy
Here are some quotes from the Jewish Talmudic compendium in short form called " Everyman's Talmud ."
excerpts from EVERYMAN'S TALMUD
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The Rabbis also had occasion to defend the monotheistic view of God against attack from the early Christians who sought a foundation for their trinitarian doctrine in the text of the Hebrew Bible.
p. 5 ET
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To assist the comprehension of the place of the incorporeal God in the Universe, an analogy is drawn from the incorporeal part of the human being--the soul. 'As the Holy One, blessed by He, fills the whole world, so also the soul fills the whole body. As the Holy One, blessed be He, sees but cannot be seen, so also the soul sees but cannot be seen. As the Holy One, blessed be He, nourishes the whole world, so also the soul nourishes the whole body. As the Holy One, blessed be He, is pure, so also the soul is pure. As the Holy One, blessed be He, dwells in the inmost part of the Universe, so also the soul dwells in the inmost part of the body' (Ber. 10a).
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*KAttributes/soul*E
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'A heretic said to R. Gamaliel: "You Rabbis declare that wherever ten people assemble for worship the Shechinah abides amongst them; how many Shechinahs are there then?... the Rabbi retorted: "If the sun, which is only one out of a million myriads of God's servants, can be in every part of the world, how much more so can the Shechinah radiate throughout the entire Universe!"'
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XI. THE INEFFABLE NAME
To the Oriental, a name is not merely a label as with us. It was thought of as indicating the nature of the person or object by whom it was borne. For that reason special reverence attached to 'the distinctive Name' (Shem Hamephorash) of the Deity which He had revealed to the people of Israel, viz. the tetragrammaton, JHVH.
In the Biblical period there seems to have been no scruple against its use in daily speech. The addition of Jah or Jahu to personal names, which persisted among the Jews even after the Babylonian exile, is an indication that there was no prohibition against the employment of the four-lettered Name. But in the early Rabbinic period the pronunciation of the Name was restricted to the Temple service. The rule was laid down: 'In the Sanctuary the Name was pronounced as written; but beyond its confines a substituted Name was employed' (Sot. VII. 6).
The tetragrammaton was included in the priestly benediction which was daily pronounced in the Temple (Sifre Num. Section 39; 12a). It was also used by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement, when he made the threefold confession of sins on behalf of himself, the priests, and the community....And when the priests and the people that stood in the Court heard the glorious and revered Name pronounced freely out of the mouth of the High Priest, in holiness and purity, they knelt and prostrated themselves, falling on their faces, and exclaiming: Blessed be His glorious, sovereign Name for ever and ever' (Joma VI. 2).
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In the last stage of the Temple's existence, there was reluctance to give a clear enunciation of the tetragrammaton...Behind the care not to give explicit utterance to the Name may be detected a lowering in the moral standard of the priests. The Talmud declares: 'At first the High Priest used to proclaim the Name in a loud voice; but when dissolute men multiplied, he proclaimed it in a low tone' (p. Joma 40d).
On the other hand, there was a time when the free and open use of the Name even by the layman was advocated. The Mishnah teaches: 'It was ordained that a man should greet his friends by mentioning the Name' (Ber. IX.5). It has been
suggested that the recommendation was based on the desire to distinguish the Israelite from the Samaritan, who referred to God as 'the Name' and not as JHVH, or the Rabbinite Jew from the Jewish-Christian.
This custom, however, was soon discontinued, and among those who are excluded from a share in the World to Come is 'he who pronounces the Name according to its letters' (Sanh. X. I). A third-century Rabbi taught: 'Whoever explicitly pronounces the Name is guilty of a capital offence' (Pesikta 148a).
Instead of JHVH the Name was pronounced Adonai (my Lord) in the Synagogue service; but there is a tradition that the original pronunciation was transmitted by the Sages to their disciples periodically--once or twice every seven years (kid. 71a). Even that practice ceased after a while, and the method of pronouncing the Name is no longer known with certainty.
p. 25, 26 ET
*KYHWH/Christians*E
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Certain doctrines in connection with the Deity were forced into general prominence and received special emphasis at the hands of the Rabbis because of contemporaneous circumstances. The attribute of Unity had to be underlined when a trinitarian dogma began to be preached by the new sect of Christians.
p. 26 ET
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Much more prominent, however, in the Talmudic literature is the conception of God's immanence in the world and His nearness to man. It follows as a corollary from the doctrine of His omnipresence...'the Holy One, blessed be He, appears to be afar off, but in reality there is nothing closer than He.' There follows a reference to the immeasurable distance of His dwelling-place from the earth, as cited above, and then the moral is drawn: 'However high He be above His world, let a man but enter a Synagogue, stand behind a pillar and pray in a whisper, and the Holy One, blessed be He, hearkens to his prayer. Can there be a God nearer than this, Who is close to His creatures as the mouth is to the ear?' (p. Ber. 13a).
p. 41 ET
*Kattributes/shadows*E
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With the object of utilizing the doctrine of the immanence of God in the world, while avoiding the suggestion that He could be located in any spot, the Rabbis invented certain terms to express the Divine Presence without giving support to a belief in His corporeality. The most frequent of these terms is Shechinah, which literally means 'dwelling.' It denotes the manifestation of God upon the stage of the world, although He abides in the far-away heaven. In the same way that the sun in the sky illumines with its rays every corner of the earth, so the Shechinah, the effulgence of God, may make its presence felt everywhere (Sanh. 39a).
Accordingly, the Shechinah is often depicted under the figure of light. The Scriptural phrase, 'The earth did shine with His glory' (Ezek. xliii. 2), receives the comment, 'This is the face of the Shechinah' (ARN II); and the priestly benediction, 'The Lord make His face to shine upon thee' (Num. vi. 25), is interpreted, 'May He give thee the light of the Shechinah' (Num. R. XI. 5).
p. 42 ET
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Another Rabbinic concept to indicate the nearness of God and His direct influence on man is that of Ruach Hakodesh (the Holy Spirit). Sometimes it seems to be identical with the Shechinah as expressing the divine immanence in the world as affected by what transpires there. For instance, it is related that after the destruction of the Temple, the
Emperor Vespasian dispatched three shiploads of young Jews and Jewesses to brothels in Rome, but during the voyage they all threw themselves into the sea and were drowned, rather than accept so degraded a fate. The story ends with the statement that on beholding the harrowing sight: 'The Holy Spirit wept and said, "For these do I weep" (Lament. i. 16)' (Lament. R. I. 45).
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Great care was then exercised in the examination of would-be converts and their motives closely scrutinized...He is told, "You must know that before taking this step you partook of forbidden fat and profaned the Sabbath without incurring punishment; but henceforward if you do these things dire penalties will befall you." In the same way that he is informed of the punishments attached to the precepts, he is likewise informed of the rewards...If he accepts, he is circumcised forthwith. After he is healed, he undergoes immersion without delay, and two disciples of the Sages stand by him and instruct him in some of the minor and more important precepts. When he has immersed himself and ascended from the water he is an Israelite in every respect' (Jeb. 47a, b).
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It is related of Monobazus, King of Adiabene, who lived in the first century of the present era and became a convert to Judaism, that during a period of famine he gave away all his wealth to the poor. When his relatives upbraided him for squandering his riches in this manner, he replied to them, 'My ancestors stored up treasures for below, but I have stored up treasures for above; they stored treasures in a place over which force can prevail, but I in a place where force is powerless. They stored up treasures which yield no fruit, but mine will be productive. They stored up treasures of money, but I of souls. They stored up treasures for others, I for my own good. They stored up treasures in this world, but I for the World to Come' (Tosifta Peah IV. 18).
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'The soul,' we are informed, 'is called by five names: Nephesh, Ruach, Neshamah, Jechidah, and Chayyah. Nephesh is the blood; as it is said, "For the blood is the life (nephesh)" (Deut. xii. 23). Ruach is that which ascends and descends; as it is said, "Who knoweth the spirit (ruach) of man whether it goeth upward?" (Eccles. iii. 21). Neshamah is the disposition. Chayyah is so called because all the limbs die but it survives. Jechidah, "the only one," indicates that all the limbs are in pairs, while the soul alone is unique in the body' (Gen. R. XIV. 9).
Of these terms the first three are in common use in Rabbinic literature, but it is difficult exactly to define their difference. Since the Nephesh is identified with the blood, it denotes vitality and is applicable to animals as well as human beings. There is, for example, a saying: 'Every nephesh restores the nephesh, and everything near to the nephesh restores the nephesh' (Ber. 44b). This means that any creature, animal or fish, which itself possessed vitality adds to the vitality of a person who eats it, and this is specially true of the part of the creature which is close to the vital organ. Accordingly the Nephesh ceases at death.
Ruach and Neshamah appear to be used interchangeably, to denote the psyche of the human being, which is his exclusively. It is the immortal part of his composition, the 'breath' infused into him by God.
p. 77 ET
*Ksoul/spirit*E
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Josephus has recorded that the doctrine of free will distinguished the Pharisees. 'When they say that all things happen by fate, they do not take away from men the freedom of acting as they think fit; since their notion is that it has pleased God to mix up the decrees of fate and man's will, so that man can act virtuously or viciously' (Antiq. XVIII. i. 3).
p. 93 ET
*Kfate*E
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The philosophical problem connected with free will was appreciated by the Rabbis, but they would not allow it to restrict in any way the belief in man's power to control his actions. They made no attempt to solve the relationship between God's foreknowledge and freedom of will, but offered as a practical rule of life, 'Everything is foreseen (by God), yet freedom of choice is given' (Aboth III. 19.)
p. 94 ET
*Kfate*E
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Is it possible to repent after death? Divergent answers are given to the question. One teaching is that a sinner, who has descended to Gehinnom is, as the effect of repentance, 'shot out of it like an arrow from a bow' (Tanchuma to Deut. xxxii. I). On the other side is the passage in the Midrash to Eccles. i. 15, 'That which is crooked cannot be made straight, and that which is wanting cannot be numbered': 'In this world he who is crooked (morally) can be made straight and he who is wanting (in virtuous deeds) can be numbered; but in the Hereafter he who is crooked cannot be made straight, and he who is wanting cannot be numbered. Imagine two wicked men who were associates in this world. One of them did penance early in his lifetime, before he died, and the other failed to do so. The former, by merit of his act of repentance, takes his place in the company of the righteous. The latter, standing in the company of the wicked, beholds his companion and cries, "Woe is me, there is partiality shown here! The two of us lived alike, we stole and robbed alike, and committed all sorts of villianies alike. Why, then, is he among the righteous and I among the wicked?" They (the angels) reply to him, "You fool! you were despicable two or three days after your death, when people did not give you honourable burial in a coffin, but dragged your corpse to the grave with ropes. Your associate saw your vileness and swore to turn from his evil way. He repented like a righteous man, and the effect of his penitence is that he here receives life and honour, and a portion with the righteous. You similarly had the opportunity of repenting; and if you had done so, it would have been well with you." Then says he to them, "Permit me to go and repent"; and they answer, "You fool! do you not know that this world is like a Sabbath-eve? If a man does not prepare his meal on the Sabbath-eve, what has he to eat on the Sabbath? Do you not know that the world from which you have come is like dry land and this world like a sea? If a man does not prepare his food on dry land, what has he to eat on the sea? Do you not know that this world is like a desert, and the world from which you have come like cultivated land? If a man does not prepare his food on cultivated land, what has he to eat in the desert?" He gnashes his teeth and gnaws his flesh; then he says, "Allow me to look upon the glory of my companion." To this they reply, "You fool! we have been commanded by the Almighty that the righteous must not stand with the wicked or the wicked with the righteous, the pure with the unclean or the unclean with the pure." He thereupon rends his garments in despair and plucks his hair.'
However true it be that repentance is possible up to the moment of death, it is considered unwise to postpone it. 'R. Eliezer said, "Repent one day before your death." His disciples asked him, "Does, then, anybody know on which day he will die?" He replied to them, "How much more reason is there for him to repent to-day, lest he be dead to-morrow; and as a consequence all his days will be spent in repentance"' (Shab. 153a).
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Justice being an attribute of God, it follows that He deals justly with His creatures. That the righteous should be rewarded for their faithfulness to the divine will and the wicked punished for their rebelliousness is what one naturally expects in a Universe governed by a just Judge. If the facts of life seem to be in conflict with this conclusion, there must be an explanation which reconciles the apparent absence of the reign of justice with the certainty that God is upright in all His decrees.
p. 110 ET
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A fundamental issue with the Rabbis was the acceptance of a traditional Torah, transmitted from one generation to another by word of mouth, side by side with the written text. It was claimed that the Oral Torah, equally with the Written Torah, goes back to the Revelation on Sinai, if not in detail at least in principle. Forty-two enactments, which find no record in the Pentateuch, are described by the Talmud as 'laws given to Moses on Sinai.' The rest of the Oral Torah was implied in the Scriptural text and was deducible from it by certain rules of exegesis...'At the time when the Holy One, blessed be He, revealed Himself on Sinai to give the Torah to Israel, He delivered it to Moses in order--Scripture, Mishnah, Talmud, and Haggadah' (Exod.R. XLVII. I).
p. 146 ET
*KTalmud*E
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In the first century of the present era the Schools of Shammai and Hillel took opposite views of the Biblical text, Deut. xxiv. I, which allows a man to send his wife away 'if she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some unseemly thing in her.' The phrase, 'unseemly thing' is literally 'nakedness of a thing,' which the School of Shammai explained to mean, 'A man may not divorce his wife unless he discovered her to be unfaithful to him.' The School of Hillel, on the other hand, understood the phrase in the sense of 'anything unseemly' and declared: 'He may divorce her even if she spoil his cooking.' From the words, 'if she find no favour in his eyes,' R. Akiba argued, 'He may divorce her even if he found another woman more beautiful than she' (Git. IX. 10). The more lenient opinion of the Hillelites prevailed and was adopted as law.
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Not only has the honour to be shown in fact, but there must be the right spirit motivating the deed. The Talmud declares: 'There was a person who fed his father on fat poultry and yet inherited Gehinnom, whereas another person made his father grind at the mill and inherited Paradise. How could this be? With regard to the former, his father said to him, "My son, where did you get this poultry?" And he answered, "Old man, eat and be quiet, because dogs eat and are quiet!" With regard to the latter, he was grinding at the mill when an order came from the king to conscript grinders. He said to his father, "You take my place here and I will grind for the king, so that if there is to be any insult it will be better for it to fall upon me, and if there is to be any beating, it will be better that I should suffer it"' (p. Peah. 15c).
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The belief was general that the sending of the Messiah was part of the Creator's plan at the inception of the Universe. 'Seven things were created before the world was created: Torah, repentance, the Garden of Eden (i.e. Paradise), Gehinnom, the Throne of Glory, the Temple, and the name of the Messiah' (Pes. 54a). In a later work there is the observation: 'From the beginning of the creation of the world king Messiah was born, for he entered the mind (of God) before even the world was created.' (Pesikta Rab. 152b).
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II. RESURRECTION OF THE DEAD
No aspect of the subject of the Hereafter has so important a place in the religious teaching of the Rabbis as the doctrine of the Resurrection. It became with them an article of faith the denial of which was condemned as sinful; and they declared: 'Since a person repudiated belief in the Resurrection of the dead, he will have no share in the Resurrection' (Sanh. 90a).
The prominence which this dogma assumed was the effect of religious controversy. It was one of the differences
between the Pharisees and Sadducees. The latter, as we know from other sources, taught that the soul became extinct when the body died and death was the final end of the human being. This denial of a Hereafter involved the doctrine of reward and punishment to which the Pharisees attached great importance, and for that reason they fought it strenuously.
p. 357 ET
*Kresurrection/soul*E
*C
One of the points of dispute between the Schools of Hillel and Shammai related to the order in which the human body will be re-formed. 'The School of Shammai said, Not like the formation of the human being in this world will be his formation in the World to Come. In this world, it begins with skin and flesh and ends with sinews and bones; but in the Hereafter it will begin with sinews and bones and end with skin and flesh. For it is so stated with regard to the dead in the vision of Ezekiel, "And I beheld, and lo, there were sinews upon them, and flesh came up, and skin covered them above" (Ezek. xxxvii. 8).
p. 362 ET
*Kresurrection*E
*C
Will the bodies arise clothed or naked? The answer is: 'As man goes (into the grave) clothed, so he will return clothed. This may be learnt from the example of Samuel whom Saul beheld. He asked the witch of Endor, "What form is he of? And she said, An old man cometh up and he is covered with a robe" (I Sam. xxviii. 14)' (Gen. R. XCV. I).
p. 363 ET
*Kresurrection/Samuel*E
*C
The divinely appointed agent for the accomplishment of the Resurrection is Elijah. 'The Resurrection of the dead will come through Elijah' (Sot. IX. 15), who will likewise act as the herald to announce the advent of the Messiah (see Mal. iv. 5). The reawakened life will be of endless duration. 'The righteous whom the Holy One, blessed be He, will restore to life will never return to their dust.' (Sanh. 92a).
p. 364 ET
*Kresurrection/Elijah*E
*C
On the question whether Gentiles will share in the Hereafter there was not an agreed opinion. 'R. Eliezer declared, "No Gentiles will have a share in the World to Come; as it is said, 'The wicked shall return to the nether world, even all the nations that forget God' (Ps. ix. 17)--'the wicked' refers to the evil among Israel." R. Joshua said to him, "If the verse had stated, 'The wicked shall return to the nether world and all the nations,' and had stopped there, I should have agreed with you. Since, however, the text adds, 'that forget God,' behold, there must be righteous men among the nations who will have a share in the World to Come"'(Tosifta Sanh. XIII. 2).
p. 369 ET
*Kresurrection/sheol/soul*E
*C
...in the Hereafter the wicked will be sentenced to Gehinnom and will murmur against the Holy One, blessed be He, saying, "Lo, we looked for His salvation, and such a fate should befall us!" He answers them, "When you were on earth did you not quarrel and slander and do all kinds of evil? Were you not responsible for strife and violence? That is what is written, 'Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that gird yourselves about with firebrands' (Is. l. II). That being so, Walk ye in the flame of your fire and among the brands that ye have kindled' (ibid). Should you say, 'This have ye of Mine hand,' it is not so; you have done it for yourselves, and hence 'ye shall lie down in sorrow' (ibid)"' (Eccles. R. to iii. 9).
p. 373-374 ET
*KGehinnom/shadows*E
*C
In preparation for the Day of Judgment a record is kept of all that the human being does while on earth. At the time of a man's departure from the world, all his actions are detailed before him, and he is told, "So and so have you done in such a place on such a day."...'The Holy One, blessed be He, will sit in judgment with the righteous and wicked. He will judge the righteous and conduct them to Gan Eden. He will judge the wicked and condemn them to Gehinnom. The wicked say, "He has not judged us fairly; He acquits whomever He likes and convicts whomever He likes." The Holy One, blessed be He, replies, "I did not desire to expose you." So what does He do? He reads out their record and they descend to Gehinnom' (Midrash to Ps. i; 12b).
p. 375 ET
*KGehinnom*E
*C
The question whether punishment is exacted of both body and soul was the theme of a parable which has already been quoted. The moral was that as body and soul are equally concerned in the commission of sin, they are alike penalized. Another parable reaches the opposite conclusion...The opinion generally adopted was that the soul is rejoined to the body for the purpose of judgment, and is expressed in this statement: 'Throughout twelve months (after death in Gehinnom) the body exists and the soul ascends and descends; after twelve months the body ceases to exist and the soul ascends without descending' (Shab. 152b et seq.).
p. 376 ET
*Ksoul/Gehinnom*E
*C
The School of Shammai declared, There are three classes with respect to the Day of Judgment: the perfectly righteous, the completely wicked, and the average people. Those in the first class are forthwith inscribed and sealed for eternal life. Those in the second class are forthwith inscribed and sealed for Gehinnom; as it is said, "Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt" (Dan. xii. 2). The third class will descend to Gehinnom and cry out (from the pains endured there) and then ascend; as it is said, "I will bring the third part through fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried; they shall call on My name and I will hear them" (Zech. xiii. 9). Concerning them Hannah said, "The Lord killeth and maketh alive, He bringeth down to Sheol and bringeth up" (I Sam. ii. 6).
p. 377 ET
*KGehinnom/Sheol*E
*C
The sinners of Israel with their bodies and the sinners of the Gentiles with their bodies descend to Gehinnom and are judged there for twelve months. After twelve months their bodies are destroyed, and their souls burnt and scattered by a wind under the soles of the feet of the righteous; as it is said, "Ye shall tread down the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet" (Mal. iv. 3). But the sectaries, informers, epicureans who denied the Torah and denied the Resurrection, they who separated themselves from the ways of the community, they who set their dread in the land of the living, and they who, like Jeroboam the son of Nebat and his associates, sinned and caused the multitude to sin (cf. I Kings xiv. 16), will descend to Gehinnom and be judged there generations on generations; as it is said, "They shall go forth and look upon the carcasses of the men that have transgressed against Me; for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched" (Is. lxvi. 24). Gehinnom will cease but they will not cease (to suffer); as it is said, "Their form shall be for Sheol to consume that there be no habitation for it."
p. 378 ET
*KGehinnom*E
*C
We gather from this extract that in the first century one of the principal Schools, influenced by a verse from Daniel, assigned the utterly wicked to eternal punishment; but the other School found such a doctrine incompatible with Divine mercy. Sinners must be penalized. They undergo twelve months of pain and then suffer annihilation because they are unworthy of entrance into Gan Eden. They who have been exceptionally wicked stay in Gehinnom for 'generations on generations.' That this expression does not signify eternity is clear from the statement that 'Gehinnom will cease.' They will not, after their sufferings there, undergo extinction, but will continue in existence as conscious entities--how and where is not explained--in a perpetual state of remorse.
p. 378 ET
*KGehinnom*E
*C
The fate of the wicked, as the reader has already learnt, is to descend into a place of punishment called Gehinnom. 'A Roman lady asked R. Jose b. Chalaphta, "What is the meaning of the text, 'Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward' (Eccles. iii. 21)?" He answered, "It refers to the souls of the righteous which are deposited in the Divine treasury; as Abigail told David through the medium of the Holy Spirit, 'The soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God' (I Sam. xxv. 29). It is possible to think that the same destiny awaits the wicked; therefore the verse continues, 'And the souls of thine enemies, them shall He sling out as from the hollow of a sling.'" 'And the spirit of the beast that it goeth downward to the earth'?" He answered, "It refers to the souls of the wicked which descend below to Gehinnom"' (Eccles. R. to iii. 21).
p. 379 ET
*KGehinnom/souls*E
*C
The place of happiness allocated to the righteous is called Gan Eden, 'the Garden of Eden'. It was usually regarded as distinct from the abode of that name which had been prepared for Adam. 'What is the meaning of "No eye hath seen what God, and nobody but Thee, will work for him that waiteth for Him" (sic Is. lxiv. 4)? It refers to Eden, upon which the eye of no creature has gazed. Perhaps you will ask, Where, then, was Adam? In the Garden. But perhaps you will say that the Garden is the same as Eden! Therefore a text teaches, "A river went out of Eden to water the garden" (Gen. ii. 10). Hence the Garden and Eden are distinct (Ber. 34b). Its exact site was a matter of doubt. 'If Gan Eden is located in the land of Israel its entrance is Beth-Shean; if in Arabia its entrance is Beth-Gerem; if between the rivers (Mesopotamia) its entrance is Damascus' (Erub. 19a). This evidently refers to the terrestrial Garden, the Paradise of the righteous being thought of as located in heaven.
p. 383-384 ET
*KParadise*E
*C
The main characteristic of this heavenly abode is that the pious, who suffered privation while on earth, will now come into their own. 'In this world the wicked are rich and enjoy comfort and rest, while the righteous are poor. But in the Hereafter, when the Holy One, blessed be He, will open for the righteous the treasures of Gan Eden, the wicked, who extorted usury, will bite their flesh with their teeth; as it is said, "The fool foldeth his hands together and eateth his own flesh" (Eccles. iv. 5); and they will exclaim, "Would that we were labourers or carriers or slaves, and our fate were like theirs!" As it is said, "Better is a handful with quietness than two handfuls with labour and stri our fate were like theirs!" As it is said, "Better is a handful with quietness than two handfuls with labour and striving after wind" (ibid. 6)' (Exod. R. XXXI. 5).
p. 385 ET
*Kparadise/shadows*E
*C
Still bolder in expression are these extracts: 'In the Hereafter the Holy One, blessed be He, will arrange a dance for the righteous in Gan Eden, He sitting in their midst; and each one will point to Him with his finger, exclaiming,
"Lo, this is our God, we have waited for Him and He will save us; this is the Lord, we have waited for Him, we will be glad and rejoice in His salvation" (Isa. xxv. 9)' (Taan. 31a). '"I will walk among you" (Lev. xxvi. 12). To what is this like? To a king who went out to walk with his tenant in his orchard; but the tenant hid himself from him. The king called to him, "Why do you hide from me? See, I am just the same as you!" Similarly the Holy One, blessed be He, will walk with the righteous in Gan Eden in the Hereafter; and the righteous, on beholding Him, will retreat in terror before Him. But He will call to them, "See, I am the same as you!" Since, however, it is possible to imagine that My fear should no longer be upon you, the text declares, "I will be your God, and ye shall be My people" (ibid)' (Sifra ad loc.).
p. 386 ET
*Kparadise/shadows*E
Randy
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Leolaia
Aww, thank you Randy! :) Meanwhile, here is something I just wrote....
The Gehenna mentioned in the gospels is an eschatological place of punishment; it is not necessarily identical to the actual geographical place with the same name (in a similar way, eschatological Jerusalem in Jewish and Christian tradition is otherworldly and not exactly identical with the present city). It is closely connected with concepts of eschatological judgment of the dead and eternal torture. Also, the claim that the valley of Hinnom was used as a garbage dump with an everburning fire lacks any archaeological and historical evidence, and is generally rejected by scholars (see, for instance, this post on the "myth of the burning garbage dump of Gehenna"). Jesus did not invent the concept of Gehenna; it was already part of the Judaism of his day. So to gain an understanding of what he meant in context, it is important to trace out the history of the idea. The earliest clear instance of this concept can be found in the third century BC in the Book of Watchers:
1 Enoch 27:1-3: "This cursed valley [near the holy mountain of God at the middle of the earth] is for those who are cursed forever. Here will be gathered all the cursed, who utter with their mouth proud words against the Lord and speak hard things against his glory. Here they will be gathered, and here will be their habitation at the last times, there will be upon them the spectacle of righteous judgment in the presence of the righteous for all time".
This passage pictures the wicked as gathered together into Gehenna for eschatological judgment where they will be a spectacle to the rightous viewing them from the holy mountain in Jerusalem. It is exegetical of Isaiah 66:23-24 which describes the righteous as worshipping Yahweh at the holy mountain in Jerusalem where they will look at "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"; this probably also has the Valley of Hinnom in view, inasmuch as the punishment of the wicked would be visible to those atop Mount Zion. The Enochic passage builds on this by referring not to corpses but to the wicked having their habitation in the valley. It is also quoted in the NT in Jude 14-16 ("...all the hard words the ungodly have spoken against him....Their mouths utter proud things") which also quotes from 1 Enoch 1:9 (v. 6 and v. 12-13 also utilize material from 1 Enoch, and v. 7 refers to the "punishment of eternal fire", a notion consistent with such passages as 100:4-9, 103:7-8). Another early version of the idea appears in the Animal Apocalypse (early second century BC):
1 Enoch 90:20, 24-27: "And I saw until a throne was constructed in the pleasant land and the Lord of the sheep sat upon it, and he took all the sealed books and opened those books before the Lord of the sheep....And judgment was exacted first on the stars, and they were judged and found to be sinners. And they went to the place of judgment, and they threw them into an abyss, and it was full of fire, and it was burning and was full of pillars of fire. And those seventy shepherds were judged and found to be sinners, and they were thrown into that fiery abyss. And I saw at that time that an abyss like it was opened in the middle of the earth, which was full of fire. And they brought those blinded sheep, and they were all judged and found to be sinners. And they were thrown into that fiery abyss, and they burned. And that abyss was to the south of that house (i.e. the Temple). And I saw those sheep burning and their bones burning".
This makes explicit what was implicit in the older passage: that the wicked are punished with fire in the valley. That the reference is to Gehenna is clear from the abyss' location to the south of the Temple. It was also stated clearly in pre-Christian sources that punishment by fire is both eternal and experienced consciously by the wicked. Here are some references from the middle to the end of the second century BC (note that these do not necessarily localize the punishment in Gehenna per se):
1 Enoch 100:9, 103:7-8: "Woe to you sinners who afflict the righteous, on the day of strong anguish (en hèmera anagkès stereas) he will burn them in fire (phlexète autous en puri)....Know that down to Sheol ("Hades" in the Greek translation) they will lead your souls and there they will be wretched in great distress (ekei esountai en anagkè megalè), and in darkness (skotei) and in a snare and in a flaming fire (en phlogi kaiomenè). Into great judgment your souls will enter, and the great judgment will be for all the generations of eternity (tais geneais tou aiònos)" (written in the mid-second century BC).
1QS 4:11-14: "The judgment of all who walk in such [wicked] ways will bring an abundance of afflictions (lrwb ngw`ym) at the hands of the angels of perdition, for eternal damnation (lshcht 'wlmym) in the wrath of God's furious vengeance, with terror and shame without end (lz`wtntsch wchrpt), with a humiliating destruction by fire in the darkness (`m klmt klh b-'sh mchshkym). For all eternity (qtsyhm), generation by generation (ldwrwtm), they will spend in bitter weeping (b-'bl) and harsh evils (ygwn wr`t) in dark abysses (b-hwywt chwshd) without any remnant nor rescue from destruction" (the Dead Sea Scrolls Community Rule was written in the late second century BC).
Judith 16:17: "Woe to the nations that rise against my people, the Lord Almighty will requite them; in the day of judgment (hèmerai kriseòs) he will punish (ekdikèsei) them, he will send fire (dounai pur) and worms into their flesh, and they shall burn and suffer forever (klausontai en aisthèsei heòs aiònos)" (written in the late second century BC).
That the punishment involved conscious torment is apparent from such sources as 4 Maccabees (written in the first century AD), which compares the temporary torture Antiochus Epiphanes would give to the faithful martyrs with eternal torment: "Put us to the test then, tyrant, and if you take our lives for the sake of our religion, do not think you can harm us with your torments (basanizòn). By our suffering and endurance (kakopatheias kai hupomonès) we shall obtain the prize of virtue and shall be with God, on whose account we suffer. But you, because of our foul murder, will suffer (karterèseis) at the hand of divine justice the everlasting (aiònion) torment (basanon) by fire (dia puros)....Justice will hold you in store for an intense and everlasting fire (puknoterò kai aioniò puri) and for torments (basanois) which will never let you go for all time (eis holon ton aiòna)" (9:7-9, 12:11-12).
All of this is background to the references to Gehenna in the gospels and eternal punishment elsewhere in the NT. Not that such sources are supposed to have the status of scripture (a common objection to the citation of extrabiblical sources), but they show that the ideas and terms used in the NT have a pedigree in earlier Judaism and they thus shed light on what the same motifs signify in the books selected for inclusion in the Bible (many of the new ideas appearing in the NT which did not exist in the OT were first expressed in intertestamental literature). Jesus' reference to Gehenna as a place of eschatological punishment by fire builds on similar apocalyptic beliefs about the "accursed valley" south of the Temple where at the end of the age the wicked would be punished. These references contain the same themes and motifs found in these earlier references to eschatological judgment: (1) punishment by fire, (2) darkness, (3) torment and distress, including weeping and gnashing of teeth, and (4) the eternal duration of such punishment.
Matthew 8:11-12,13:41-43, 18:8-9, 25:31-32, 41, 46: "Many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the outer darkness (eis to skotos to exòteron), where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (ho klauthmos kai ho brugmos tòn odontòn).... The Son of Man will send out his angels, and they will weed out of his kingdom everything that causes sin and all who do evil. They will throw them into the fiery furnace (kaminon tou puros), where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth (ho klauthmos kai ho brugmos tòn odontòn). Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father... It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into eternal fire (to pur to aiònion)... It is better for you to enter life with one eye than to have two eyes and be thrown into the fire of Gehenna (eis tèn geennan tou puros).... When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his throne in heavenly glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats ... Then he will say to those on his left, 'Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire (eis to pur to aiònion) prepared for the devil and his angels' ... Then they will go away to eternal punishment (eis kolasin aiònion), but the righteous to eternal life" (written in the late first century AD).
This material is not radically different from the preceding. It posits eternal punishment as following resurrection and eschatological judgment (even having the same motifs from the Animal Apocalypse of the judge sitting down on his throne with everyone gathered before him), with the same features of darkness and weeping and fire, with also a localization of punishment at Gehenna, and the duration of the punishment being eternal as well. This is essentially the same picture found in earlier Judaism (particularly in Essene sources), and it is found in Revelation as well:
Revelation 14:9-11: "If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God's fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented (basanisthèsetai) with fire and sulphur (en puri kai theiò) in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment (ho kapnos tou basanismou autòn) rises forever and ever (eis aiònas aiònòn). There is no rest day or night (ouk ekhousin anapausin hèmeras kai nuktos) for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.
And in ch. 20 we have a judgment scene very much like that in the Animal Apocalypse and Matthew 25, where the resurrected dead stand before the throne, books are opened, and the wicked are sent to the lake of fire (limnèn tou puros). Around the same time Revelation was written, the Jewish apocalypse of 4 Ezra (c. AD 100) depicted a similar scenario:
4 Ezra 7:32-38: "And the earth shall give up those who are asleep in it, and the chambers shall give up the souls which have been committed to them. And the Most High shall be revealed upon the seat of judgment, and compassion shall pass away, and patience shall be withdrawn, but judgment alone shall remain, truth shall stand, and faithfulness shall grow strong. And recompense shall follow, and the reward shall be manifested; righteous deeds shall awake, and unrighteous deeds shall not sleep. Then the pit of torment (lacus tormenti) shall appear, and opposite it shall be the place of rest; and the furnace of Gehenna (clibanus Gehennae) shall appear, and opposite it the Paradise of delight. Then the Most High will say to the nations that have been raised from the dead, 'Look now, and understand whom you have denied ... Look on this side and on that; here are delight and rest, and there are fire and torments (ignis et tormenta)".
And Christian references to eternal punishment in the second century AD do not represent a new notion that was only adopted then, but rather continue views similar to what was expressed earlier in the NT and in pre-Christian Jewish sources:
Apocalypse of Peter 21-23: "And I saw also another place over against that one, very squalid; and it was a place of punishment (topos kolaseòs), and they were punished (kolazomenoi) and the angels that punished them(hoi kolazontes aggeloi) had their raiment dark, according to the air of the place. And some there were there hanging by their tongues; and these were they that blasphemed the way of righteousness, and under them was laid fire flaming (pur phlegomenon) and tormenting them (kolazon autous). And there was a great lake full of flaming mire (limnè hèn megalè peplèròmenè), wherein were certain men that turned away from righteousness; and angels set over to torment them (basanistai)". (written in the early second century AD and accepted as canonical by the Muratorian Fragment, cf. the references to the "angels of perdition" in 1QS and the "lake of fire" in Revelation).
Justin Martyr, Apologia 1.19, 45, 2.2: "Gehenna is a place (he Geenna esti topos) where those are to be punished (kolazesthai) who have lived wickedly, and who do not believe that those things which God has taught us by Christ will come to pass....If you also read these words in a hostile spirit, you can do no more, as I said before, than kill us; which indeed does no harm to us, but to you and all who unjustly hate us, and do not repent, brings eternal punishment by fire (kolasin dia puros aiònian)....A certain woman lived with an intemperate husband; she herself, too, having formerly been intemperate. But when she came to the knowledge of the teachings of Christ she became sober-minded, and endeavoured to persuade her husband likewise to be temperate, citing the teaching of Christ, and assuring him that there shall be punishment in eternal fire (en aiòniò puri kolasin) inflicted upon those who do not live temperately and conformably to right reason" (written in c. AD 155).
Justin Martyr, Dialogue 117.3: "He shall raise all men from the dead, and appoint some to be incorruptible, immortal, and free from sorrow in the everlasting and imperishable kingdom; but shall send away others to the eternal punishment of fire (eis kolasin aiònion puros)" (written in c. AD 155).
Martyrdom of Polycarp 2:2-3, 11:2: "Even when the martyrs were so torn by whips that the internal structure of their flesh was visible as far as the inner veins and arteries, they endured so patiently that even the bystanders had pity and wept. But they themselves reached such a level of bravery that not one of them uttered a cry or a groan, thus showing to us all that at the very hour when they were being tortured (basanizomenoi) the martyrs of Christ were absent from the flesh, or that the Lord was conversing with them. And turning their thoughts to the grace of Christ they despised the tortures (basanòn) of this world, purchasing at the cost of one hour an exemption from eternal punishment (tèn aiònion kolasin)....But Polycarp said: 'You threaten with a fire that burns only briefly and after just a little while is extinguished, for you are ignorant of the fire of the coming judgment and eternal punishment (to tès mellouses kriseòs kai aiòniou kolaseòs pur), which is reserved for the ungodly' " (written c. AD 155-160).
Epistle From the Church of Lyons and Vienna, 1.25: "Among those who had denied [Christ] was a woman of the name of Biblias. The devil, thinking that he had already swallowed her, and wishing to damn her still more by making her accuse falsely, brought her forth to punishment (kolasin), and employed force to constrain her, already feeble and spiritless, to utter accusations of atheism against us. But she, in the midst of the tortures, came again to a sound state of mind, and awoke as it were out of a deep sleep; for the temporary suffering (tès proskairou timorias) reminded her of the eternal punishment in Gehenna (tèn aiònion en Geennèi kolasin), and she contradicted the accusers of Christians, saying, 'How can children be eaten by those who do not think it lawful to partake of the blood of even brute beasts?' And after this she confessed herself a Christian" (written in c. AD 177-178).
These sources also show that kolasin did not mean "lopping off" in its eschatological usage (and indeed in its usual usage) but had a meaning of "punishment" with connotations of torture. This is the same sense in Matthew; the parallels to the narrative in ch. 25 (where the wicked depart into "eternal punishment"|"the eternal fire") elsewhere in the gospel posit the wicked as being thrown into "the outer darkness"|"the fire of Gehenna"|"the fiery furance" where they weep and gnash their teeth (i.e. the experience is painful and humiliating).
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Vanderhoven7
I accept Jesus as Lord and God...but I believe that the Bible does not teach eternal existence of the wicked.
The WTS can take no credit for their non-trinitarian position or their teachings on hell and the soul...regardless whether their beliefs are correct or not...because they did not originate them.
It's the teachings and practices that they did originate that sink them.