The Problem with Hell (Again)
This is a re-post I thought might be appropriate in light of recent events in the "evangelical" and "emergent/emerging" world (and I just don't have the time at the moment for a new post). Hell. The word "hell" is mentioned only 13 times in the Bible (that is the New Revised Standard Version of the Old and New Testaments, excluding the Deuterocanonical books, for those of you keeping tabs). Eleven of those times it is in fact Jesus who speaks the word, which is the Greek word Gehenna (if you'd like to learn more about Gehenna and the history behind the word, you can click here). To give you a sense of perspective, while the word "hell" is translated some 13 times in the entire Bible, the word translated "poor" is used some 25 times just in the four gospels of the New Testament (of course in both cases this excludes allusions to the ideas of hell, poverty, etc.). Hell has been the topic of some of my more "theological"