The HyperTexts
Jesus Christ, Child Abuser?
by Michael R. Burch
We have all heard accounts of men who claim to "love" other people
only to abuse them physically and emotionally. We call such men "wife
abusers" and "child abusers" and consider them to be the worst
sort of hypocrites and brutes. But
according to orthodox Christian theology, the ultimate abuser is none other than
Jesus Christ himself. Jesus "loves" us, but if we don’t
"believe" in him, he will turn on us and either cause or allow us to suffer
in an "eternal hell," despite the fact that he was
either unwilling or unable to speak to us personally.
Christian theology makes Jesus
seem like a monster. How can he profess to love us, if he is willing to cause us so much pain
if we fail to stroke his ego by praising and worshiping him, while he fails to
even acknowledge our existence by speaking to us directly?
A good father puts his wife and children first. A horrible father thinks only
of himself, demanding that his wife and children bow and scrape to him, or
suffer the consequences.
How did a compassionate man who went around doing good deeds become such an
Ogre? How did a man who railed against hypocrisy become the ultimate Hypocrite?
Blame the results on Christian "theologians" who demanded that every human
believe what they believed, however cruel, unjust and illogical. In thousands of
years of Biblical chronologies recorded in the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament), there never was any mention of a place called
"hell." A place called "hell" was never mentioned as even a possible punishment
to Adam, Eve, Cain, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob/Israel, Moses, King David,
Solomon, or a long line of Hebrew prophets.
When the Hebrew prophets spoke of the afterlife, they spoke of all creation
being saved together, of the lion lying down with the lamb, of the end of war,
and of even Sodom being restored. They never mentioned a place called "hell."
The Hebrew word "Sheol" clearly means the grave, not "hell," because Job
asked to escape suffering in Sheol; David said that if he made his bed in Sheol,
God would still be with him; the sons of Korah said that God would redeem their
souls from Sheol, and Israel himself said that he and his son Joseph would be
reunited in Sheol. The prophet Ezekiel said that all Israel would be saved, so
how can Sheol be "hell" if Israel himself went to hell? In each case, the word
"Sheol" clearly means "the grave," not "hell." The
first great Christian evangelist, the apostle Paul, agreed with the Hebrew
prophets that all Israel would be saved, and yet most Jews have never believed
in Jesus as the Savior or Messiah.
If the Hebrew prophets never even mentioned a place called "hell,"
meaning that hell did not preexist, and if there is no verse in the Bible that ever mentions the creation of a place called
"hell," how can there be a hell, if the Bible is the word of God?
The answer to the dilemma is quite simple. Just click here to solve the
mystery: There is no "hell" in the Bible.
The HyperTexts