Friday, June 24, 2022

Bart D. Ehrman on Matthew 25:46

  

That Jesus was not speaking of eternal torment is clear from his many references to “destruction.” The “eternal punishment” in Matt 25:46 is not everlasting “torment.” It is placed in antithetical parallelism with “eternal life.” The opposite of life is not torture but death. This punishment is “eternal” not because it is consciously experienced but because it will never end. So too all the Gospel references to being burned with fire: when, in the parable, “weeds” are tossed into the furnace (Matt 13:36-41), they don’t live in the fire forever burning; they are destroyed. So to the sinners gathered up by the angels of the Son of Man; they weep and gnash their teeth, but like everyone burned at the stake, that lasts only until they expire. (Bart D. Ehrman, Journeys to Heaven and Hell: Tours of the Afterlife in the Early Christian Tradition [New Haven: Yale University Press, 2022], 266 n. 66)