Did people from deep Africa go to hell before the Bible was brought there?
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Bishup Desmond TUTU said once that -\n\nWhen the missionaries came to Africa they had the Bible and we had the land. They said, 'Let us pray.' We closed our eyes. When we opened them we had the Bible and they had the land.”
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Nope. he had the concept of damnation all wrong. God never wills for anyone to go to Hell. In fact, it pains him to see so many people go there. He want's everyone to be saved, but it is only by faith.
399713
The only people who will go to hell are those that are not God's children.\n Because God said His children know His voice and will not follow anyone else.\nEveryone else is in unbelief...which is what will send them to hell.\n\nJOHN 3:18\n He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.\n \nIf you want the Truth go here...\nhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/bibletruths_forbelievers/
758292
In the bible it says Jesus went to hell for 3 days preaching to the lost souls so they had a chance to get to heaven too
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It's interesting, The Bible doesn't talk about 'hell'. The Hebrew she’ohl´ and its Greek equivalent hai´des, which refer, not to an individual burial place, but to the common grave of dead mankind; also the Greek ge´en·na, which is used as a symbol of eternal destruction.\nThe Bible is plain....the wages sin pays is death...it says nothing about 'eternal suffering' in some hell.  God told Adam and Eve they would die should they disobey, that's all.  Die.\n\nEccl. 9:5, 10: “The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all . . . All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol,* the place to which you are going.” (If they are conscious of nothing, they obviously feel no pain.) (*“Sheol,” AS, RS, NE, JB; “the grave,” KJ, Kx; “hell,” Dy; “the world of the dead,” TEV\n\n“Much confusion and misunderstanding has been caused through the early translators of the Bible persistently rendering the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades and Gehenna by the word hell. The simple transliteration of these words by the translators of the revised editions of the Bible has not sufficed to appreciably clear up this confusion and misconception.”—The Encyclopedia Americana (1942), Vol. XIV, p. 81.\n\nHere is where it came from...\n\nIn ancient Babylonian and Assyrian beliefs the “nether world . . . is pictured as a place full of horrors, and is presided over by gods and demons of great strength and fierceness.” (The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, Boston, 1898, Morris Jastrow, Jr., p. 581) Early evidence of the fiery aspect of Christendom’s hell is found in the religion of ancient Egypt. (The Book of the Dead, New Hyde Park, N.Y., 1960, with introduction by E. A. Wallis Budge, pp. 144, 149, 151, 153, 161) Buddhism, which dates back to the 6th century B.C.E., in time came to feature both hot and cold hells. (The Encyclopedia Americana, 1977, Vol. 14, p. 68) Depictions of hell portrayed in Catholic churches in Italy have been traced to Etruscan roots.—La civiltà etrusca (Milan, 1979), Werner Keller, p. 389.\n\nBut the real roots of this God-dishonoring doctrine go much deeper. The fiendish concepts associated with a hell of torment slander God and originate with the chief slanderer of God (the Devil, which name means “Slanderer”), the one whom Jesus Christ called “the father of the lie.”—John 8:44.\n\nI hope that's not too much information.  But, I also hope it helps someone who takes the time to read, and investigate on their own....
867995
Or what about the tribes in South America who haven't had contact with any outsider. They've never even heard of Jesus. What about them? Are they going to hell? Probably not. That's not really fair is it? Plus, isn't God is all-forgiving and all-loving and all that jazz? Why would he punish the innocent?
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Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10\n\nI guess the whole hell fire torture thing is a big lie. Not that God would ever do such a thing anway.\n\nOther scriptures such as John 11:11-14 show that death is like a deep sleep. Church leaders teach that a person who dies immediately goes to heaven or hell. This however is not true. In order to live again, a person has to be resurrected (brought back to life). The Bible teaches "ashes to ashes, dust to dust", not "ashes to hell fire, dust to hell fire". - Genesis 3:19\n\nThe Bible states that "the wages sin pays is death" not "the wages sin pays is eternal torment" (Romans 6:23). Death is the absence of life. If a person where to be tortured in hell fire, wouldn't they have to be alive to know what was going on?\n\nSo as Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10 correctly states, those who have died are unconscious entirely. They are in a deep sleep, awaiting a resurrection back to life. If the soul was immortal would they need a resurrection? Instead, we rely on God for eternal life.\n\nWhen the Bible speaks of hell, it is actually referring to the place where a person is layed to rest (see Jonah 2:2 where Jonah refers to the belly of the fish as 'hell'). Many Bible translations translate the word hell as 'grave' and 'pit' also.\n\nI hope all this was helpful to you. Here are other scriptures that you may find useful:\nPsalm 146:4\nJob 14:10\nEcclesiastes 3:20
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Nope, Nigeria.  Sorry.  I can probably find the website though and see if South Africa is there also.\n\nhttp://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/zatoc.html\n\nThis is it!!!!  When you get to this page go to edit -> find, and then search for Christianity.  It will come up with Christianity within the phrase "The Arrival of Christianity".  It is a reliable source with the U.S. Library of Congress too. (That should make the teacher happy.)  I've been through this already because I had to write a paper on Early Christian Education in Nigeria for an English class.\n\nP.S. - Can I have 10 points, please?  And would you tell me, is this due tomorrow?\n\nAnother edit:  If you go to other links within the colonial era. (The chapters on history are at the top) you will probably find more information.
472707
Hell - Definition: The word “hell” is found in many Bible translations. In the same verses other translations read “the grave,” “the world of the dead,” and so forth. Other Bibles simply transliterate the original-language words that are sometimes rendered “hell”; that is, they express them with the letters of our alphabet but leave the words untranslated. What are those words? The Hebrew she’ohl´ and its Greek equivalent hai´des, which refer, not to an individual burial place, but to the common grave of dead mankind; also the Greek ge´en·na, which is used as a symbol of eternal destruction. However, both in Christendom and in many non-Christian religions it is taught that hell is a place inhabited by demons and where the wicked, after death, are punished (and some believe that this is with torment).\n\nDoes the Bible indicate whether the dead experience pain?\n\nEccl. 9:5, 10: “The living are conscious that they will die; but as for the dead, they are conscious of nothing at all . . . All that your hand finds to do, do with your very power, for there is no work nor devising nor knowledge nor wisdom in Sheol,* the place to which you are going.” (If they are conscious of nothing, they obviously feel no pain.) (*“Sheol,” AS, RS, NE, JB; “the grave,” KJ, Kx; “hell,” Dy; “the world of the dead,” TEV.)\n\nPs. 146:4: “His spirit goes out, he goes back to his ground; in that day his thoughts* do perish.” (*“Thoughts,” KJ, 145:4 in Dy; “schemes,” JB; “plans,” RS, TEV.)\n\nDoes the Bible indicate that the soul survives the death of the body?\n\nEzek. 18:4: “The soul* that is sinning—it itself will die.” (*“Soul,” KJ, Dy, RS, NE, Kx; “the man,” JB; “the person,” TEV.)\n\n“The concept of ‘soul,’ meaning a purely spiritual, immaterial reality, separate from the ‘body,’ . . . does not exist in the Bible.”—La Parole de Dieu (Paris, 1960), Georges Auzou, professor of Sacred Scripture, Rouen Seminary, France, p. 128.\n\n“Although the Hebrew word nefesh [in the Hebrew Scriptures] is frequently translated as ‘soul,’ it would be inaccurate to read into it a Greek meaning. Nefesh . . . is never conceived of as operating separately from the body. In the New Testament the Greek word psyche is often translated as ‘soul’ but again should not be readily understood to have the meaning the word had for the Greek philosophers. It usually means ‘life,’ or ‘vitality,’ or, at times, ‘the self.’”—The Encyclopedia Americana (1977), Vol. 25, p. 236.\n\nWhat sort of people go to the Bible hell?\n\nDoes the Bible say that the wicked go to hell?\n\nPs. 9:17, KJ: “The wicked shall be turned into hell,* and all the nations that forget God.” (*“Hell,” 9:18 in Dy; “death,” TEV; “the place of death,” Kx; “Sheol,” AS, RS, NE, JB, NW.)\n\nDoes the Bible also say that upright people go to hell?\n\nJob 14:13, Dy: “[Job prayed:] Who will grant me this, that thou mayst protect me in hell,* and hide me till thy wrath pass, and appoint me a time when thou wilt remember me?” (God himself said that Job was “a man blameless and upright, fearing God and turning aside from bad.”—Job 1:8.) (*“The grave,” KJ; “the world of the dead,” TEV; “Sheol,” AS, RS, NE, JB, NW.)\n\nActs 2:25-27, KJ: “David speaketh concerning him [Jesus Christ], . . . Because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell,* neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.” (The fact that God did not “leave” Jesus in hell implies that Jesus was in hell, or Hades, at least for a time, does it not?) (*“Hell,” Dy; “death,” NE; “the place of death,” Kx; “the world of the dead,” TEV; “Hades,” AS, RS, JB, NW.)\n\nDoes anyone ever get out of the Bible hell?\n\nRev. 20:13, 14, KJ: “The sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell* delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their w
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The word hell is found in different Bible translations as "the grave", or "world of the dead". It is known in the Hebrew language as sheohl and the Greek equivalent is haides, which refer, not to an individual burial place, but to the common grave of mankind. Geenna is also used as a reference to "the pit", or "the grave", and "fiery Gehenna" is speaking of The Valley of Hinnom (Gehenna) which was outside the walls of Jerusalem. It was used as an incinerator for the filth of the city, including the bodies of dead animals, and of executed criminals who were considered unfit for burial. It was kept burning with the addition of sulpher...hence the fire and brimstone and sulpher you hear about.  \n As for the earth hanging upon nothing at all, that is at Job 26:7 "He is stretching out the north over the empty place., hanging the earth upon nothing"  and that the earth is a circle or sphere, that's at Isaiah 40:22 " There is One who is dwelling above the circle of the earth, the dwellers in which are as grasshoppers..."  The Bible was scientifically correct long before it's time!!
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So you think maybe the Sanhedrin had a few black guys in there? Maybe Pontius Pilate was a brudda? Palestinians are not black. Romans were not black. The Bible mentions black people. The first convert from outside the world of mainstream Jewry, mentioned in Acts, was a black man "an Ethiopian eunuch, a high officr at the court of Candace, Queen of Sheba" but he was regarded as sufficiently unusual to be mentioned specifically.As for not portraying anything good, well there are very few comedy sequences during a crucifixion. It's generally a messy and unpleasant business. Kinda depends on whether you think the Salvation of mankind qualifies as "good."
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The thought of a land with not one Christian and not one missionary haunted Rowland. \n\nThe thought of a land with not one Christian and not one missionary haunted Rowland.  Images of cannibals and slaves pushed away sleep, and the stranger's words "Are you prepared to go if God calls you?" echoed over and over as he turned over in his bed.  Was he, Rowland Bingham, willing to go to the Sudan, where white men nearly always died?\n\n...serving not only in Africa, known as the white man's grave, but in Africa's Sudan interior...\n\nAt age twenty Rowland Bingham committed himself to serving not only in Africa, known as the white man's grave, but in Africa's Sudan interior, where few missionaries had ventured and those who did soon died of disease or retreated in defeat.\n\n...when he found himself the sole surviving member of the fledgling Sudan Interior Mission, he didn't give up--and neither did God.
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The Biblical View of 'Hell'\nIs eternity in an ever-burning inferno the fate of the wicked? Many assume that it is, but is that what the Bible says? To answer that question, we need to understand the four Hebrew and Greek words translated "hell" in most versions of the Bible.\nSheol is the Hebrew word translated "hell" throughout the Old Testament. It refers to "the state and abode of the dead; hence the grave in which the body rests . . ." (William Wilson, Wilson's Old Testament Word Studies, Hendrickson Publishers, Peabody, Massachusetts, "Hell," p. 215). The Expository Dictionary of Bible Words explains, "Thus there are no references to eternal destiny but simply to the grave as the resting place of the bodies of all people . . ." (Lawrence O. Richards, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, 1985, p. 336).\nReflecting its true meaning, many more-recent Bible versions translate this word as simply "the grave" or leave it untranslated as Sheol.\nAmong those who knew that they were going to sheol-the grave, not an ever-burning inferno-were such men of faith as Jacob (Genesis 37:35), Job (Job 14:13), David (Psalm 88:3) and Hezekiah (Isaiah 38:10). Clearly, sheol does not refer to a place of eternal torment.\nGreek words translated 'hell'\nThe counterpart of sheol in the Greek language is hades, which also refers to the grave. In the four New Testament verses that quote Old Testament passages containing sheol, hades is used for sheol (Matthew 11:23; Luke 10:15; Acts 2:27, 31). As with sheol, hades is rendered as "the grave" or "death" or left untranslated as Hades in recent Bible versions.\nHades likewise does not refer to a place of fiery torment. Indeed, the apostle Peter refers to Christ Himself as having been in "Hades" (Acts 2:27, 31) or "hell" (King James Version), referring to the time He was entombed before His resurrection. Both words simply refer to the grave.\nA second Greek word, tartaroo, is also translated "hell" in the New Testament. This word is used only once in the Bible (2 Peter 2:4), where it refers to the place where the fallen angels, or demons, are restrained awaiting their judgment. The Expository Dictionary of Bible Words explains that tartaroo means "to confine in Tartaros" and that "Tartaros was the Greek name for the mythological abyss in which rebellious gods were confined" (p. 337). Peter used this reference to contemporary mythology to show that the sinning angels were "delivered . . . into chains of darkness, to be reserved for judgment." These fallen angels are in a condition or place of restraint awaiting their ultimate judgment for their rebellion against God and destructive influence on humanity.\nTartaros applies only to demons. Nowhere does tartaroo refer to a fiery hell in which people are punished after death.\nIt is only with the remaining word translated "hell"-the Greek word gehenna-that we see some elements people commonly associate with the traditional view of hell. However, this word also has significant differences from the popular concept of hell.\nGehenna "is derived from the Hebr[ew] _expression, ga-Hinnom, Valley of Hinnom . . . Religiously it was a place of idolatrous and human sacrifices . . . In order to put an end to these abominations, Josiah polluted it with human bones and other corruptions (2 Kgs. 23:10, 13, 14)" (Spiros Zodhiates, The Complete Word Study Dictionary New Testament, AMG Publishers, Chattanooga, 1992, p. 360).\nThanks in large part to its evil reputation, this valley bordering Jerusalem came to be used as the city garbage dump. Trash was burned there, along with the bodies of dead animals and criminals. Fires day and night consumed the refuse.\nInferno to destroy the wicked\nGehenna is used 12 times in the Bible, with 11 of those recording Christ's words. When Jesus spoke of gehenna, His li
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Difficult to answer this question because "Hell" is either (a) a very specific mythic system from Christian religion, or (b) a general type of negative afterlife experience from many religions.\n\nThe Christian idea of Hell, to be brief, evolved out of the older Jewish idea of Gehenna, which in turn evolved out of Zoroastrian beliefs of the afterlife.  The first religions to develop the idea of a place of terrible punishment for actions committed in life into which we are transported after physical death were the Zoroastrians of Persia (present day Iran) and the Jains of India.  The Jewish Gehenna was more of a temporary holding place with punishment, closer in spirit in fact to the contemporary Catholic idea of Purgatory.\n\nThe ancient Egyptians have the first recorded idea of after-death punishment, but not so much for crimes committed in life as for other questions.  This was the terrible afterlife to which your soul (technically, since we are talking ancient Egyptian religion, one of your seven souls, but the immortal and personal one, that corresponds to the contemporary Christian idea of the soul) would be consigned by Anubis after weighing your heart against a feather.  If you were found lacking, into the abyss with you, to be devoured by the Crocodile Goddess Maat (this wasn't eternal punishment, though, for once you were devoured extinction followed, whereas the keystone of the Christian hell is permanence).  If you were judged worthy, the Egyptian afterlife guardians sent you to the Western Lands to await immortality.\n\nMost early religious history does not emphasize punishment after death.  That was partly a historical development, believe it or not, of the idea of civil law.  Once the earthly idea of judgment and punishment based on a code of conduct appeared (that would be starting with Hammurabi, of course, but it was under the Greco-Roman legal system that it became so much more central), a spiritual equivalent emerged also.
950216
Guilt.  They were the biggest slaveholders and the rationalizations that allowed them to deny their basic humanity came from what they read in the Bible.  Everything regarding the rules of slave ownership was laid right out for them in the Bible.  Unlike other Christians, they cherry picked from the Old Testament to justify their evil.  Generations later they can't let go of the beliefs that are so destructive.  In order to hide from the realization that their ancestors were awful people they need to cling to their rationalizations.\n\nEdit - Hey, why the thumbs down, it's a historical fact that slaveholders perverted the Bible to justify their "right" to keep slaves.  Read Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy for examples.
1086123
Ummm...no. This information is entirely incorrect. God created the Garden of Eden in what was to become Mesopotamia, for He listed the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in Genesis, thus indicating the location. Therefore, the first peoples were most likely Middle-Eastern--not African, Caucasian, or Asian.\n\nSecondly, Cain only killed his brother, Abel, because God favored Abel. Genesis 4:8 reads, "Now Cain said to his brother Abel, 'Let's go out to the field.' And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him."\n--New International Version (NIV) of the Bible\n\nCain was then punished by God who proclaimed, "When you work the ground, it will no longer yield its crops for you. You will be a restless wanderer on the earth."\n-Genesis 4:12\n\nHowever, he protected Cain from someone murdering him by swearing that he (the murderer) would "suffer vengeance seven times over."\n\nFinally, Cain did not move to Africa, nor was he banished to Africa. Genesis 4:16-17 clearly states, "(16) So Cain went out from the Lord's presence and lived in the land of Nod, east of Eden. (17) Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city and he named it after his son Enoch."\n\nAlso, Pontius Pilate was the Roman official who was hesistant to sentence Jesus to death, but ultimately decided to give the maddening crown an ultimatum: free the murderer Barabus, or crucify the man claiming to be the son of man. Obviously, they chose to crucify Jesus.\n\nAll in all, I seem to find a majority of African Americans actually believe the Gospel and worship Jesus. There seems to be a stronger correlation between African-Americans believing in Jesus Christ than there is of Caucasians believing in Him. However, that could just be where I live.
1057619
Yes they are and I can prove it, The whole bible prophecies the history of blacks, blacks have always seen the similarities but never made the connection. Didn't you know blacks during the slave trade was know by Muslims as "Yahoodee" meaning tribe of Israel? Did you know at of all the people on the face of the Earth who claim to be Hebrews would envy the Ashanti's. The name mean people for the land of Ashan in Judah? Did you it was a place during the slave trade call the "Land of Judah" by the french? Did you ever hear of the Falasha's or beta Israel, Ibo's, Lemba, Yoruba, Fanti, etc. Were call Israelites by Muslims over 1000 years ago? Look it up the Hebrew/Jewish customs in Africa, you will find lots of info. Especially in on the west coast of Africa.