Thursday, April 18, 2024

The Traditional View of Hell vs. the Perspicuity of Scripture

  

If Jesus, the evangelists, or the other New Testament writers had wanted to teach eternal punishment, Greek words were available to them, including aïdios (eternal), aperantos (unlimited, endless), adialeiptos (unceasing), and ateleutos (endless), in lieu of the ambiguous and unsuitable aiónios. Yet they did not avail themselves of them. But another century Jew did, Josephus Flavius. He tells us that the Pharisees teach that the wicked suffer “eternal retribution” (αιδιω τιμωρια), (Josephus, The Wars of the Jews 2.155) “eternal imprisonment” (ειργμον αιδιον), (Josephus, Antiquities 1814), while the Essenes teach that the wicked are condemned to “unending retributions” (τιμωριων αδιαλειπτων) (Josephus, Wars 2.155) and “deathless retribution” (αθανατον τιμωριαν) (Ibid., 2.157) (Alvin F. Kimel, Jr., “Sometimes Eternity Ain’t Forever,” in Destined for Joy: The Gospel of Universal Salvation [2022], 138-39)