Dating Papias

[davidmartin]

Hakeem I agree with you by the 1st century some parts of Judaism believed in an eternal hell that's right
But it was a later idea. For example Psalm 16:10 talks about Sheol and never is this described as a place of punishment in Hebrew scripture
The Sadducee sect is one that didn't believe even in a resurrection - because they were traditionalists and said that man would serve God out of selfish wish to attain heaven or avoid hell - not out of love for God. There's logic to that i guess

But I do not know if the Pharisee sect held universally to the hell idea or not. Possibly. But whether they did or not Paul never mentions hell in his writings
So hell is found in Islam (tied to an absolute God idea, so it makes more sense there), in Christianity inconsistently and not in Judaism originally and the Jewish scriptures do not describe Sheol as a place of punishment it's just the shadowy underworld of the dead nothing more in Judaism
Later Jewish groups did believe in it, but this was through their own special interpretation of scripture that does not mention that concept

[hakeem]

Hakeem I agree with you by the 1st century some parts of Judaism believed in an eternal hell that's right
But it was a later idea. For example Psalm 16:10 talks about Sheol and never is this described as a place of punishment in Hebrew scripture.

Eternal punishment was not a later idea at all even the Greeks, documented in Greek mythology, believed that souls of bad people would be punished forever hundreds of years before the NT was written.

Josephus' Wars of Jews 2

And this is like the opinions of the Greeks, that good souls have their habitations beyond the ocean, in a region that is neither oppressed with storms of rain or snow, or with intense heat, but that this place is such as is refreshed by the gentle breathing of a west wind, that is perpetually blowing from the ocean; while they allot to bad souls a dark and tempestuous den, full of never-ceasing punishments. And indeed the Greeks seem to me to have followed the same notion, when they allot the islands of the blessed to their brave men, whom they call heroes and demi-gods; and to the souls of the wicked, the region of the ungodly, in Hades, where their fables relate that certain persons, such as Sisyphus, and Tantalus, and Ixion, and Tityus, are punished...

The Sadducee sect is one that didn't believe even in a resurrection - because they were traditionalists and said that man would serve God out of selfish wish to attain heaven or avoid hell - not out of love for God. There's logic to that i guess

The Pharisees, Sadducees, and the Essenes did not believe in a bodily resurrection at all. The bodily resurrection of Jesus, the son of God and dead Christians was a very late concept found in the NT.

But I do not know if the Pharisee sect held universally to the hell idea or not. Possibly. But whether they did or not Paul never mentions hell in his writings.

Whether or not you know the beliefs of the Pharisees , it is in fact claimed in writings attributed by Josephus that the Pharisees, Essenes and Greeks had a concept of everlasting punishment. No mention of hell in the NT Epistles do not alter the facts in the works of Josephus.

By the way, the Epistle writer could not have mentioned anything about hell if it was not revealed to him by his dead Lord Jesus.

[davidmartin]

I don't really care what Josephus believed I care what Jews believed from day one, a thousand years before Josephus

[hakeem]

I don't really care what Josephus believed I care what Jews believed from day one, a thousand years before Josephus

What you say doesn't make sense.

Josephus himself was a Jew and Pharisee who wrote about the history of the Jews from "day" one [from Creation to the end of the 1st century] See "Antiquities of the Jews" and "The Life of Flavius Josephus"

Antiquities of the Jews 1.1

1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

The Life of Falvius Josephus]

So when I had accomplished my desires, I returned back to the city, being now nineteen years old, and began to conduct myself according to the rules of the sect of the Pharisees, which is of kin to the sect of the Stoics, as the Greeks call them.

The writings and belief of Josephus, the Jew and Pharisee who lived in the 1st century is extremely significant in order to understand the ancient history and belief of the Jews.

[davidmartin]

I don't really care what Josephus believed I care what Jews believed from day one, a thousand years before Josephus

What you say doesn't make sense.

Josephus himself was a Jew and Pharisee who wrote about the history of the Jews from "day" one [from Creation to the end of the 1st century] See "Antiquities of the Jews" and "The Life of Flavius Josephus"

Antiquities of the Jews 1.1

1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

The Life of Falvius Josephus]

So when I had accomplished my desires, I returned back to the city, being now nineteen years old, and began to conduct myself according to the rules of the sect of the Pharisees, which is of kin to the sect of the Stoics, as the Greeks call them.

The writings and belief of Josephus, the Jew and Pharisee who lived in the 1st century is extremely significant in order to understand the ancient history and belief of the Jews.

So Josephus as if by magic represents 100% of the Jewish beliefs of his time and not only that 100% of what Jews always believed?
That's a massive leap of faith

The evidence of the first century is that the question of the afterlife was a big subject of debate and differences of opinion among various Jewish sects. So - who was right?

Because Hebrew scripture is not clear on the afterlife
It does not have the concept of hell described in them, it has the concept of Sheol
So why should I or anyone think that they believed in hell when it is not described in their scriptures?

[hakeem]

The writings and belief of Josephus, the Jew and Pharisee who lived in the 1st century is extremely significant in order to understand the ancient history and belief of the Jews.

[So Josephus as if by magic represents 100% of the Jewish beliefs of his time and not only that 100% of what Jews always believed?
That's a massive leap of faith..

What you say does not make sense. Josephus was a Jew and Pharisee who wrote about the "Antiquities of the Jews" in the 1st century. His claims are 100% significant.

The evidence of the first century is that the question of the afterlife was a big subject of debate and differences of opinion among various Jewish sects. So - who was right?

What source are you using for your claims? Where is the evidence that you talk about? You seem to be relying on faith.

Because Hebrew scripture is not clear on the afterlife
It does not have the concept of hell described in them, it has the concept of Sheol
So why should I or anyone think that they believed in hell when it is not described in their scriptures?

Christian writers used the Septuagint not Hebrew Scripture where there is a concept of eternal punishment.

[davidmartin]

I get it from all sorts of places
It would appear hell as such was becoming quite mainstream by 1st century

But Josephus says "But the doctrine of the Sadducees is this; that souls die with the bodies. Nor do they regard the observation of any thing besides what the law enjoins them"

So that is one sect that disagreed and shows a major difference in thought
So it's this - in Jewish scripture hell isn't described
But it is in Christian scripture
My whole point is that Christian scripture reflects the uncertain Jewish belief in hell of the 2nd temple period

From The Jewish Doctrine of Hell
"Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver writes that 'eternal punishment for the wicked finds no official acceptance in Judaism'.
Again, Rabbi David de Sola Pool asserts that 'not infrequently the Jew has thought and spoken of a physical heaven or hell
awaiting one after death, but Classical Judaism more generally conceives of them not as places but as abstract states of existence'. In a similar vein, H. Wouk in This is My God writes that the idea of Hell in Judaism is 'a parable. We do not know where it is, or what it is like, or what precisely the parable implies'.
The purpose of this chapter is to dispose of this incorrect view of the Jewish attitude to the afterlife. Throughout the formative
period of rabbinic Judaism, which laid the groundwork for main stream Judaism, speculation about life after death engaged Jewish
thinkers with the same force as questions concerning the minutiae of the Law, and their opinions are recorded in the Talmud
and various Midrashim. It is there that an elaborate doctrine of eternal punishment is explicitly formulated.

Until long after the exile, the Jewish people shared the view of the entire ancient world that the dead continue to exist in a shadowy
realm of the nether world where they live a dull, ghostly existence. According to K. Kohler, 'throughout the Biblical period no
ethical idea yet permeated this conception, and no attempt was made to transform the nether world into a place of divine judgement, of recompense for the good and evil deeds accomplished on earth"