cryofthecelt wrote:Aineo wrote:Hell may be an abstract subject but the Lake of Fire is not.
Actually, in Dante's Divine Comedy, the innermost circle of hell is not a lake of fire, but a lake of ice.
I did not know Dante's Divine Comedy was in the Bible.
And your interpretation of the Bible is far too literal. Hell is a place you go where you die and burn for all eternity in a giant lake of fire. Sure. And the world was created in 7 days. Good one.
*Tiffany*
Is Genesis 1 meant to be taken literally? As far as I am concerned the jury is out on that one. The Hebrew word for created from nothing is "bara" and is used only three times in Genesis 1. The first time in verse 1, the second time in verse 21 when God created living creatures on the fifth day and the third time in verse 27 when God created man. The Hebrew word translated day is "yowm".
OT:3117
yowm (yome); from an unused root meaning to be hot; a day (as the warm hours), whether literal (from sunrise to sunset, or from one sunset to the next), or figurative (a space of time defined by an associated term), [often used adverb]:
KJV - age, + always, + chronicals, continually (-ance), daily, ([birth-], each, to) day, (now a, two) days (agone), + elder, X end, + evening, + (for) ever (-lasting, -more), X full, life, as (so) long as (... live), (even) now, + old, + outlived, + perpetually, presently, + remaineth, X required, season, X since, space, then, (process of) time, + as at other times, + in trouble, weather, (as) when, (a, the, within a) while (that), X whole (+age), (full) year (-ly), + younger.
(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright (c) 1994, Biblesoft and International Bible Translators, Inc.)
The creation account could be six creative epics or periods of undefined time. Many creationists stand on the word day to mean a 24-hour period since the Bible uses the terms evening and morning but these could be allegorical references to the first and last periods of a creative process broken into six distinct divisions. The interesting fact about Genesis 1 is science agrees with the order of creation (Biblically speaking).
There is some internal evidence in the Bible that Genesis 1:2 following could be a recreation and not the original creation. KJV only advocates who stand on a literal six 24-hour day creation ignore vs. 28.
Gen 1:28
28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. KJV
If Adam and Eve were the first humans God created how can they "replenish" the earth? Job tells us the angels rejoiced as God created so they had to exist prior to Genesis 1:2. Isaiah tells us God did not create the world a wasteland; and the Bible tells us about a war in heaven led by Lucifer that had to occur prior to Eve and the forbidden fruit, which could have destroyed God’s original creation.
However, regardless if Genesis 1 is 6 24-hour days or 6 periods of billions of years the important fact is "In the beginning God created".
As to the lake of fire, yes I take this a literal:
Revelation 20:14-15
14 And death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. NAS
Revelation 21:7-8
7 "He who overcomes shall inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son. 8 "But for the cowardly and unbelieving and abominable and murderers and immoral persons and sorcerers and idolaters and all liars, their part will be in the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death." NAS