i was watching the cleavend show and they said jewish people dont believe in hell. I figured jewish faith and christian was pretty much exact same minus jesus part.


so AT go?

Well all I know about the jews are that they have their own pickles... I eat them... They are delicious. Maybe they pickled Jesus? I dunno.

*goes to grab a pickle*

I believe it was on a History channel about it, not about heaven or hell, but something about Remembrance.

Although Christianity originally came from Judaism, as a religion it adopted a number of Greek/pegan elements into itself later along with a bit of a different organizational structure thanks to the Roman Empire.
That's not to say that Judaism didn't adopt ideas/traditions from elsewhere along the way as well but the infleunces Roman/post Roman era were somewhat different so there are quite a number of differences between the two (Judaism was heavily influenced by Persian ideas, namely Zoroastrianism which taught that humans had the freedom to chose between right and wrong and that people gained "redemption" from each other and not a superior being.
Christianity and the version of "hell" probably comes from the Greeks (and Romans) and the ideas regarding heaven/hell developped from that (including the idea that some form of redemption comes from a higher being).

Note that both Judaism and Christianity evolved post-roman empire into something different than they were around 100-200 AD
when they were probably a *lot* more similar to each other. Chances are that islam more heavily influenced Judaism than Christianity.

Sadly both Religions were rather intolerant relative to many of their early contemporaries

In short: Jews do not believe in heaven/hell in the way that Christians do. The word "satan" in Hebrew doesn't really take on the same meaning as what we take it to mean.

That's my crude understanding of it anyway. I don't pretend to be an expert.

mhm ok then =] im just confused what happens after you die if your jewish and you did not live a life you should have do you get reincarnated or something

Martian is partially correct.

Christianity is definitely more greek than Jewish than in its philosophical basis.

However, the word "Satan" did evolve initially, in persia, and became a part of Jewish culture during the exile in to babylon Empire.

From there, as the Hebrew people encountered the Greek culture, the Greek word "diabolical" became interchangeable with the word Satan, giving a Satan, more chararacteristcs....This happened in the Septuagint which was written in Alexandria Egypt.

Three minority groups really picked up on this language, and turned a Satan from a literary character, into something that began to morph.

The 3 dissident groups, were Kabollah (a jewish mysticism group),
The Qumaran community (which produced the dead sea scrolls, and had a profound incidence on John the Baptist, and Jesus in their formation of their world views and teachings....

And thus Christianity.

As Christanity evolved, we have this more developed sense of Satan, entering into a Greek world through Christiainity.

Greek Philisophy often operates an antithetical dualism
Dark/light
Good/Evil

etc.

Well, as The Christian idea of God evolved into a perfect God, that is only love, limitless, boundless, immutable, perfect etc...

Satan evolved into the antithesis of this. Evil, hate, limited, bound, etc.

As a result by the time we get to Dante's inferno, we have in a fully evolved Personification of Evil, that the Christian world now understands as Satan.

Notice, in the Jewish culture, Satan was only a literary character....(in book of Job Satan acts as God's prosecuting attorney...) much as Matlock is a defense lawyer on TV.....a character that appears in stories and acts on God's behalf.

By Dante's inferno, Satan is in full opposistion to God. trying to destroy God's creation...humanity.

While a christian, I choose a more Jewish understanding of Satan....a literary archetype, that has no real existence.
As a result, I don't believe in a hell either:)

I can't tell you because I'm not really Jewish im Jew....ish

Nice

So, the cleavend show is where we now learn religion. Great. Who said TV was not educational.

@servant:
interesting read:
http://www.viewzone.com/matlock.html

although really the origin of Indian/Latin European/Middle Eastern Civilizations comes from the same place (Sumerians.. and no I don't mean Conan :P)

There's definitely connections Martian.

Many of the stories in Genesis 1-11 have similar/related stories in other near east cultures.

These are mythic stories, that cross many cultures....

Creation Story- Story of Gilgamesh, for example. (Babylonian creation story.)

Take into account, the story/legend of the Tower of Bable...

There seems to be a large culture, with a common language, that get scattered, and develop new languages......This fits....maybe the tower of babel isn't literal...but its saying these ancient cultures are connected.

Also, the story of Abram's dad, traveling from the far east....and stopping in Persia...only for Abram to continue the journey to the new promised lands.
THe "Father" of the Hebrew race, would have been born in modern day Afghanistan...according to the mythic stories in Genesis.....

Now, archeological records indicate a much different story than the biblical version of things like the exodus....the exodus didn't happen. Or if it did, it was a small band of people that escaped..

Still,
There is no mention of "Satana" (the Jewish literally transcribed the Aramaic word for Satan.) in Hebew writing till the exile....

What I want to do someday, is trace the Persian history of the word...and see where it comes from and originates.

I think that'd be a fun, pet project.

And you'd be surprised how many people get much of their understanding of what CHristianity is, from Southpark, Simpson, The daily show, Jon Stewart etc....

if you've never been to a church, and you watch these shows lampoon it...well
while there's much to be lampooned, and I laugh....
It also makes it very difficult to explain a different way/approach to things:)

such as not believing in a literal Hell/Personified Evil called Satan.

mhm Servant im not knocking anything you believe but from my understanding of the chruch i go to if you beleive in heaven you have to believe in hell,


also my belief is that all relgion is the same for the most part and as long as you live a good life and do the right thing and believe in something as long as it aint evil. You will end up in heaven. =p like i said im not knocking you i bleieve there is a hell just because of the chruch i was brought up in.

Red X,

says who?

Why does there have to be one and not the other...

Oh yeah! Greek Philosophy, which understands the world through dualisms.

Good/Evil
Day/Night
Heaven/Hell

What happens as we move into a post greek western world....our faith/theology won't make sense anymore...oh yeah that's happening already:)


Now if the church you go to want to teach, you got believe God murdered his son to go to heaven...and you have to believe in that good God that loves us so much he's willing to murder for us...well Go ahead:)

There's ways to follow the teachings of Jesus, and not walk down those roads:)

your born,you live,you die.

http://bible.org/...hat-bible-says-about-hell

The bible actually speaks several times about a heaven and hell. Rather you want to believe what the Bible says would all depend on if you are Christian or not. If you are than you believe that the Bible was inspired by God above all meaning Greek culture wouldn't really effect important details.

Daniel 12:2,3; Matthew 25:46; John 5:28; Revelation 20:14,15

On another note if you believe in Jesus as your savior and believe in his teachings from the Bible it doesn't make much since to not believe he was sacrificed for your sins. The whole point of the message of love is to bring people in and show them the love of Jesus (his teachings) and how great that is so that someone will believe that he was sacrificed for your sins and to be forgiven all you must do is believe in him and that sacrifice.

If you do not believe in that sacrifice the only real options are to either not believe at all (another religion), or believe in the old covenant and thus sacrifice animals for forgiveness of your sins.

Hell is our current world and our lives , heavon is when we die! discuss =p