There are many passages which says the earth and heaven will pass away and then says that a new earth and heaven will come. For every beginning there is an ending. This is the nature of change and transformation. Jesus preached the coming of the kingdom of God on earth and in heaven. But the kingdom of God can only come when the “god of this world” (the devil) is thrown down and his reign upon Earth comes to an end. And this happens both on the earth and in heaven (the hereafter) because they are connected. It is ultimately not the scenery which make a place good, heavenly, and nice but the inhabitants. There really is nothing wrong with the Earth and the universe. The only problem is mankind and our behavior.
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Maybe im too naive but if you dont mind can you explain how heaven and earth are connected? I always imagine heaven in another dimension of our world. Like in another universe for example
I explained this right in my very next words. It is connected by the people in it. You cannot expect a place to be better when it is inhabited by the very same people.
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Aaahhh thats what you mean by " connected" . Yeah i see now i though you were saying that heaven and earth where “one”(i mean they are in a sense) but anyway. Thanks for the clarification
I didn’t say that it wasn’t real, only that It was not part of Jewish thinking before Christ. It would make sense for Christ to have a different perspective being the only one to have actually been in Heaven. The problem we have is that we cannot possibly be certain before our time comes, unless you believe those who claim to have had a death experience.
I think problems start when you dwell on the prospects and start obsessing about Heaven or Hell, or even imposing your desires (or fears) about them. Furthermore we can only think in terms of linear time. Hell becomes inhuman in real time but might not be so if the “suffering” was not within a time frame but a sort of instant and singular “ouch”. Like a disappointment or missed opportunity rather than a prolonged discomfort or torture…
Richard.
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Thanks Richard. Appreciate your answer. Take care!!!
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That is basically what those claiming NDE’s really mean, that they actually died to the extent of experiencing what happens postmortem. But then something happens to pull them back into their bodies. Instead of near death experiences maybe they should be called experiences of resurrection?
They are not real. Theres a chemical imbalance happening during thag time on their brain. So i think its all staged to get attention and as a “testimony”
Well I don’t what people’s motivations may be who claim such things. Perhaps they are convinced of it and therefore inclined to interpret events accordingly given any opportunity? But I don’t take 'NDE’s seriously.
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Yeah i dont do either. My point was they shouldnt even be called “experiences” or something because they just are frauds in my opinion.
Ehrman’s tried-and-true method, which he employs over and over, is to point out an area of question and complexity, worthy of discussion and perhaps calling for some qualified language on the part of believers, and amplify it into a monumental issue that should shake us to our very core. This is true in his material about the text of the New Testament, which is not as stable as some believers claim but is nevertheless stable enough to ground strong statements about NT doctrine.
It’s no different this time. Life-after-death is an undeveloped concept in the OT, consisting of hints and adumbrations until you get to the end of Daniel. Get a good concordance and do a study on the Hebrew word sheol to confirm this.
Likewise, anyone can see that the New Testament does not routinely talk about “going to heaven” the way modern Christians do; passages that say something like that are rare. The “kingdom of heaven” or “heavenly kingdom” is a future regeneration of creation that unites heaven and earth in a way that is difficult for us to comprehend (Matt 19:28; Rom 8:21; Pet 3:13). For that reason, Jesus refers to “entering the kingdom” or “entering into life” instead of “going to heaven” (Mt 19:17; Mark 9:43, 47; et al.). Another way to put this is to say that the New Testament has a developed horizontal eschatology (future oriented, resurrection-oriented view) and an undeveloped vertical eschatology (present-oriented flight of souls to heaven at death).
To acknowledge this distinction in emphasis between NT and modern conceptions of a future eternal state is hardly the same as denying that Jesus taught hope in an afterlife. That hope is on practically every page of the gospels.
Ehrman is well aware of this complexity and nuance but chooses to oversimplify to be more provocative.
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Thanks Darek. I appreciate your answer. Thanks again!!! Take care!!!
Isn’t it intriguing how the Widow of Nain’s son, Jairus’ daughter, Lazarus, Eutychus, Dorcas and Jesus Himself reported no recollection of any experience in death?
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Just over eager to give a helpful answer I suppose.
'oo? They weren’t. Did you mean ‘not’? Funny that they all kept schtum.
Nah, I meant all of those since that lot.
I beg your pardon MarkD. So all those since came back from being rotting corpses and they had post-mortem experiences and can tell us all about Heaven, but nobody Biblical did? Why is that I wonder?
Eager to please would be my guess.
Ahhh. So desperate for it to be true, so desperate to be significant, so human; that the symptoms of anoxia become mystical, become proof, truth, revelation. Not just cognitive bias in expiring meat.
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