Okay, that means before the coming of Christ, no one knows that sinners would go to hell or even that it exists. Since there isn't any mentioned of hell in the Old Testament, is it safe to assume God created Hell when Jesus was born?
Genesis 1:1 (NIV)
[ The Beginning ] In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
Comment: Fair enough, God created heaven and earth. But no mention of hell.
Thanks for the feedback. I have been primarily using NIV all along. Shocking the word hell doesn't even appear once in the NIV. Thanks for informing that the word hell is used several times in the KJV. Thank you so much.
In the early days, the Jews (like most other religions) had no concept of heaven or hell. When you died, you went to Sheol. Sheol is like Hades in Greek mythology-basically, it's the place that dead people go. Judgment was doled out on the living, not the dead.
Eventually, the concept of an eternal reward/punishment was developed among the various religions. Thus, Hades received the Elysian Fields (paradise) and Tarturus (punishment). Christians, of course, had "heaven" and "hell."
A couple of interesting tidbits from the Christian bible, however.
1) Judgment of the dead in Christianity is not immediate upon death-it happens at the end times, when Jesus returns.
2) Heaven is not the place where the good go, it is merely the place that God is from. The good are resurrected and live forever in the New Jerusalem on the new earth that is created after this one is destroyed.
3) You are not sent to hell immediately upon death if you are evil. After the Judgment, those who opposed Christ will be cast into a lake of fire-which is created at *that* point, not earlier.
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