Talk:Hell in Christian beliefs

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This page needs a lot of cleanup, and it needs for people to keep their opinions off of it.--Grant the Wise 15:27, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] This article directly contradicts the entry on [Purgatory] [1]

..with the latter clearly stating that "authorities of the Eastern Orthodox church identified purgatory as one of four principal points of difference between their teaching and Roman Catholic teaching" and that "Orthodox [Christians] today are likely to mention purgatory as marking the difference between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism". This article, in the other hand, claims that the Christian Orthodox communion accepts purgatory along with the Roman Catholics and Anglicans. Never ceases to amaze me how the simplest of facts can escape the minds of ignorant editors. Porfyrios 21:34, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Cheers, Porfyrios. I'm not sure that the Eastern churches not in communion with Rome don't have an analagous concept. After all, Eastern christians do pray for the dead. But I'll look into it and see if we need to rewrite the passage. Keep up the good work!--Gazzster 11:57, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

Here we go. We'll have a look at what the entry on purgatory says about the Eastern tradition:

'In the 15th century, authorities of the Eastern Orthodox church identified purgatory as one of four principal points of difference between their teaching and Roman Catholic teaching.[36] Today, Orthodox are likely to mention purgatory as marking the difference between Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism [37].

Orthodoxy does posit a middle state between heaven and hell, but this place is hades, the abode of the dead, for the saved and damned alike [38]. Here, the saved are mostly at peace while the damned suffer. The suffering is pictured as associated with darkness, isolation, and constraint, not with fire (as is traditional for purgatory).

Orthodox believe that some sins can be forgiven after death,[39] and that prayers are needed for the dead undergoing temporary punishment in hades.[40] Concerning those souls, "God, being moved by our fervent and continued prayers, especially by masses, which are the sacrifice of His Son, may shorten the time of their disagreeable condition."[41] The exact nature of this "temporary punishment" is generally not elaborated upon, and many Orthodox are uncomfortable with the notion of suffering other than the punishment of enduring separation from God, i.e. the "waiting" itself.[42] Nonetheless, after death, the soul of those not immediately accepted into Heaven "is conscious and, consequently, feels, understands, and in general exercises all the energies of the soul. The word "sleep", by which death is characterized, does not refer to the soul, but to the body.[43] Likewise, those elected into heaven, the saints, can actively intercede for the faithful.[44]

Other Orthodox believe in the "toll gate" theory by which the dead go to successive "toll gates" where they meet up with demons who test them to determine whether they've been guilty of various sins and/or tempt them to sin. If they have not repented and been absolved of those sins, or if they give in to sin after death, they will be taken to Hell.[45]

Some Eastern Orthodox sources, including the Ecumenical Patriarchate, consider Purgatory to be among "inter-correlated theories, unwitnessed in the Bible or in the Ancient Church" that are not acceptable within Orthodox doctrine,[46] and consider describing the dead as "waiting" to be more apt for those not borne directly to heaven.[47]'

OK. So yes, you are right. Purgatory is identified as point of difference between East and West. But, as the text goes on to explain, both traditions share, in general, a belief in an intermediate state of the soul between death and a fixed eternity. Some Orthodox share the belief that after death some souls suffer temporarily suffer in hell. Others believe the dead are 'waiting' for fixation in heaven. So both the Eastern and Western apostolic churches agree in general on a state between death and a fixed eternity. But they do not agree on its nature. The Western, Latin tradition certainly tends to be more dogmatic while the East tends to regard such things as mysteries beyond the reach of mortals.

Our article here should certainly not have used the word purgatory to describe Orthodix thought. I'll whip it out. Thanks, Porfyrios. This article needs a LOT of work. Cheers.--Gazzster 12:18, 17 January 2007 (UTC)

So is the "contradict" tag still needed? Jonathan Tweet 14:45, 22 January 2007 (UTC)

On a related note, I just made a change that may warrant some explaining. I deleted the following form the paragraph on Purgatory: "Belief in the existence of purgatory has never been a doctrine of faith which all Catholics are required to believe, as it is a doctrine not found in Apostolic Tradition.[citation needed]". I have instead placed it at the end of the paragraph about Limbo (substituting 'Limbo' for 'purgatory'). Purgatory is discussed extensively in the Catechism while Limbo is not mentioned at all since the latter is not part of the deposit of faith. It looked to me like someone confused the two, so I made what I believe to be a very defensible edit. If anyone takes umbrage at this let's discuss it here first rather than starting an edit war where this sentence bounces back and forth between paragraphs. PeterMottola (talk) 09:40, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Keep our opinions off it?

This page needs a lot of cleanup, and it needs for people to keep their opinions off of it.--Grant the Wise So what do you suppose the reason for the discussion page is? Let us help you.--Gazzster 23:13, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Roman Catholic

An anonymous, new editor deleted most of this section:

The unchangeable traditional Catholic teaching on hell is found in the Baltimore Catechism, at question 185, as follows: "Those are punished in hell who die in mortal sin; they are deprived of the vision of God and suffer dreadful torments, especially that of fire, for all eternity...The souls in hell are beyond all help...The souls in hell do not have supernatural faith. They believe, however, the truths revealed by Almighty God, not with divine faith, but because they cannot escape the evidence of God's authority...The punishment of hell is eternal."[1] Hell is described in the Catechism of the Catholic Church as, "To die in mortal sin without repenting and accepting God's merciful love means remaining separated from Him for ever by [one's] own free choice. This state of definitive self-exclusion from communion with God and the blessed is called 'Hell'."(1033) Pope John Paul II is known to have said, "The images of hell that Sacred Scripture presents to us must be correctly interpreted. They show the complete frustration and emptiness of life without God. Rather than a place, Hell indicates the state of those who freely and definitively separate themselves from God, the source of all life and joy". [2] However, the Catholic version of Hell as a place was confirmed at Fátima in 1917 during the church-approved apparition of Our Lady of Fatima to three young shepherd children. Lucia Santos, the eldest of three children, reported in 1941 that Mary revealed Hell to them as follows, "Our Lady showed us a great sea of fire which seemed to be under the earth. Plunged in this fire were demons and souls in human form, like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, floating about in the conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames that issued from within themselves together with great clouds of smoke, now falling back on every side like sparks in a huge fire, without weight or equilibrium, and amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fear. The demons could be distinguished by their terrifying and repulsive likeness to frightful and unknown animals, all black and transparent."[3]

I detect a hostile bent, but I don't want actual quotes to get deleted and forgotten. Jonathan Tweet 04:27, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I edited this section to keep the information but to make it less anti-Catholic. Jonathan Tweet 02:32, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it is important to note that the purported visions of those children at Fatima are not an authorative source of Catholic doctrine. Firstly, the author of this article ought not to present this event as if it actually happened. The Catholic Church itself does not require anyone to believe the visions of Fatima. The farthest it goes is to permit belief in them. The Catholic Church only requires the faithful to give credence to what it teaches as revealed by Jesus Christ through the Scriptures or the traditions of the Apostles.The doctrine of everlasting punishment is certainly contained therein. But the image of hell as portrayed by the visions of Fatima are not contained in Scripture or tradition. Rather, they are reminiscent of medieval artwork. Whether there is or is not actual fire in hell is, in Catholic circles, a legitimate subject of debate. I notice the author has changed the reference to Fatima to make it more objective, but I thought I'd get my 2 cents in because I hink Johnathan acted wisely and well..--Gazzster 05:48, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

I added a bit at the end of this section about private revelation, an important concept in understanding Fatima and other such revelations that the Church does not require belief in. Also, I clarified the teaching about Limbo. 68.229.130.236 (talk) 07:30, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] JWs

I dumped a the Jehovah's Witnesses section from "Hell" onto this page. It didn't belong on the general Hell page. It needs more work to get rid of the pro-JW POV. Jonathan Tweet 14:05, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

'kay, I tried to take away the pro-JW POV. I may have stripped away a bit much, but I find it to be decent. --Grant the Wise 03:14, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

Does anyone mind a NPOV tag until we get this article a little more stable? Feel free to put the right tag or to remove it. I just feel that we need a lot of editing on this to reach the NPOV standard Hopquick 13:27, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

I think it's a good idea. I think this article has a Catholic bias. I'm Catholic myself, but I don't like bias of any kind. Besides, I think the article misrepresents Catholic theology.--Gazzster 04:34, 14 November 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Introduction

The introduction seems to be about fundamentalist doctrine, which seems more appropriate to the main body of the text. Anyone object to me substituting this?:

The term hell, in a Christian context, refers to a place or state of punishment for individuals who have violated God's law and are unrepentant. Most Christian communities view hell as eternal and final. The nature of hell and its punishment is a subject of debate between various denominations.--Gazzster 00:05, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for improving the introduction. That was on my to-do list. The article still does need a general description of hell at the front. Currently the reader has to slog through a bunch of historical material before getting to any description of the article's topic: hell in Christian beliefs. The reader should be able to learn something substantial about hell in Christian beliefs without scrolling down. Jonathan Tweet 15:47, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for inviting me to help. I'm enjoying it. How's the intro now? Too big, perhaps?--Gazzster 22:42, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, the intro's too big. I moved the purgatory information to the end. But it's still long. You've got a lot of information about differing beliefs. Could you summarize the main beliefs? Take a crack at describing hell as it is commonly understood? The article will cover the variations, but the lead section would do well to have a summary. Jonathan Tweet 05:31, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Good call on shifting and expanding the purgatory bit.--Gazzster 11:28, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] at the end of section: Words in the Bible translated as "hell"

ARTICLE START "...They will be tormented day and night for aeons of aeons." (Revelation 20:10) Many people mistakenly assume "Ages of Ages" to mean forever, but Aeon is definitely a fixed length. END

This is really opinionated, plus there is no cite for the version of the Bible used. The NIV and even the King James version translates as "for ever and ever" instead of "for aeons of aeons." That alone debunks that opinion.

Either cite the version, or get rid of it.

It is stated in the article that in the Book of Revelations, Hell is refered to as the Abyss and the Earth; I think that point is debatable, since 'Haties' is used in Revelation a number of times (and happens to be cast into the Lake of Fire). Actually, there are those who believe that those references do not refer to Hell, and whether or not they are, it can't be varified in the way portrayed in the article.

I agree about the last part. We should definitely go through this article and amend the statements like "in the Bible, Hell is described..." Every one of them is POV, since many Christians contest that Bible ever describes the place of eternal punishment of immortal souls. We should qualify by saying "most contemporary Christians believe that Hell is described in the Bible," because it is rather obviously true. See my section below for specific proposals. melikamp 19:28, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Introduction II

a) I feel the following statement is extraordinary 'A three-tenths of the Christian population believe hell is a place with a physical location.'How can that be possibly quantified? The citation referred me to the site of a Christian fundamentalist organisation, who in turn referred me simply to 'the Barna Group', without providing any further reference! And there is no statistical information from any supposed survey provided. However, I did find the Barna Group website, and found this statement:

'Through its five divisions, The Barna Group provides primary research (The Barna Research Group); communications tools (BarnaFilms); printed resources (BarnaBooks); leadership development for young people (The Josiah Corps); and church facilitation and enhancement (Transformation Church Network). The ultimate aim of the firm is to partner with Christian ministries and individuals to be a catalyst in moral and spiritual transformation in the United States. It accomplishes these outcomes by providing vision, information, evaluation and resources through a network of intimate partnerships. Among its strategic partners are Church Communication Network, EMI Christian Music Group, Filmdisc, HollywoodJesus.com, Kingdom Inc., and Tyndale House Publishers.'

www.barna.org

So it appears that the source for the extraordinary 'three-tenths' statement is biased, or at the least, questionable. And it seems that the research of the Barna Group is confined to the United States, not to the rest of the world. We do not know what the Barna Group actually said or how they came about their conclusion. And we can hardly publish in an encyclopedia as fact something which has been 'researched' by a single Christian organisation. So one cannot state that three tenths of the Christian population believes hell is a physical location without some sort of statistical references interpreted by a more objective and wide-ranging authority or authorities. And in any case, such a statement is not proper to an introduction. The purpose of the introduction is to give a general summary of the topic matter. The reference to the number who believe in a physical hell is a narrowing of the subject matter which is better suited to the main body.

b) Again, so is the reference to fundamentalist and liberal thought. It is misleading at best to state 'Liberal Christians consider Hell a metaphor for the separative state of mind from God.' Define 'Liberal Christian'. Can you categorically state that all liberal Christians believe this? Where is the reference?

c) What happened to the reference to the belief in hell as real, but a state, rather than a place, of separation from God. Why was it removed?

d) Also, I object to the definition of hell as a place for the punishment of those 'unfaithful to Jesus'. It smacks of a specific interpretation, ie., a fundamentalist interpretation. Some Christians would argue that souls who have never known Jesus, and so would have no opportunity to be unfaithful to him, are punished in hell nevertheless. And many Christians believe that all good persons who strive to live according to their lights are rewarded by heaven. Others would say that the criterion for eternal punishment is disobedience to the law of God. My original edit said that hell was a punishment for the violation of God's law, because it seemed doctrinally all-encompassing. Johnathan Tweet and myself spent a good deal of time and thought editing the introduction so that it would not be too specific. And as it stood it seemed too friendly to a fundamentalist viewpoint. It seems as if the latest edit was mde by someone with a religious agenda. Does anyone agree with me? Please comment or I will revert the edits in two days.--Gazzster 01:47, 16 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] New Intro

Right. I've written the new intro. I tried to make it as objective as I could. I realise that it's not referenced: that's something that I will do within the next couple of days. In any case, some of the matter is dealt with and referenced later on in the article. I've ommitted the original reference to 'violation of God's law' in favour of a phrase which I believe is not specific to any particular denominational interpretation. What do we think of it, folks? Comments invited. But remember, do be aware that your opinions may be coloured by your belief system. We do need to make this IMPORTANT article neutral, neutral, neutral.And could I ask that we NOT edit the introduction without first discussing it on this page? Oh, and I realised that there was no section on hell in popular culture. Would anyone like to have a go at that? As I say, this is an important article. Let's not fudge it.Cheers.--Gazzster 23:25, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] rationale?

Edited-out the 8 sub-points under Adventist, which seem tendentious and a proof-texting exercise against other beliefs rather than neutral “statement of belief.”

Also, JW, SDA, LDS, CS, UU views seem to make up an inordinate bulk of the article, whereas they would usually merit a footnote or a passing reference in most scholarly summaries, being relatively modern and sectarian innovations. I think separate articles on their distinctive sectarian theologies would be appropriate, but not under an article about “Hell in Christian beliefs” since most of them would not concede to its basic tenets [e.g. the ecumenical councils, “Apostles’ creed” etc]. It would be akin to putting detailed accounts of the beliefs of the Druze and Bahai in an article about Islamic theology.

Any thoughts?Mcguffin 14:49, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

I tend to agree with you on the bias. I find it odd that there is only the briefest treatment of the Roman Catholic view, considering that this denomination, more than any other, has shaped the concept of hell in Western culture. And a good part of that is a reference to some supposed appearance of the Virgin Mary.

And I am concerned about the treatment of the Protestant section. For a start, 'Protestant' is not a doctrinally specific term. It is a historical term. Rather than treat with Protestant, the article should sub-divide into Lutheran, Anglican, Baptist, Presbyterian, etc. Further, a great deal of what is stated in the Protestant section can also apply to the Roman Catholic and Orthodox. So there is left an impression that certain beliefs about hell are exclusively Protestant.

The Orthodox paragraph is too short.

I would suggest though, that to limit what is considered 'Christian' is contentious. I'd say that, as editors, we have to accept any group which professes to follow the teachings of Jesus, however they interpret them, as Christian. Certainly, if we make adherence to the ecumenical councils a criterion, we exclude most mainstream Protestant bodies. I think however, that we could ommit treatments of Christian denominations that do not have a concept of hell as outlined in the introduction. But your idea about separate articles is a bloody good idea (can I say that on the Net?) Let's throw the idea open.--Gazzster 22:39, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Please do not remove the material on sects that don't believe in hell. The wiki policy is abundance, when in doubt, adding material, not subtracting it. There is no other page where these beliefs belong. Furthermore, these beleivers do not consider the doctrine of hell irrelevant. It's not as though the disposition of the souls of the wicked is of no concern to these sects. Jonathan Tweet 00:10, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

I don't know about this one, to be honest. There is already an article called annihilationism. The danger is that these sections might be expanded to detract from the overall aim of the article, which is to give an exposition of the Christian concept of hell as a place or state of punishment after death. Perhaps it could make references to those other churches and sects, directing them to the main article about them.--Gazzster 02:55, 23 December 2006 (UTC)

How about this, we categorize this information by doctrine, not by sect. All the annihilationist sects get treated under Annihilationism. We'd need Annihilationism, Universalism, Temporary-punishmentism, I don't know what else. Jonathan Tweet 01:19, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] The nature of Hell

I would like to see the following paragraph rewritten:

The nature of Hell is described in the New Testament on several occasions. For example, in [verse list]; in the Book of Revelation Hell is also mentioned as the "abyss" and "the Earth". Jesus himself describes Hell as a place of "weeping and gnashing of teeth"; this quotation has overwhelmingly frequent appearance in the New Testament.

My problem with it is that it is a POV. As this very article says, not all Christians believe in hell. The arguments against its existence usually start with asserting that these passages do not describe Hell (i.e. the place of eternal torment, as the article asserts). It very likely to be true, though, that a majority of Christians consider this interpretation to be correct. My proposal:

The New Testament is the primary source of ideas concerning Hell. Most contemporary Christians assert that the nature of Hell is described, for example, in [verse list]; in the Book of Revelation, the "abyss" and "the Earth" are interpreted as references to Hell. Also, Jesus himself describes a place of "weeping and gnashing of teeth"; this quotation has overwhelmingly frequent appearance in the New Testament.

Update: I went ahead and made the changes. melikamp 21:34, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

I have problems with the phrase 'Jesus himself describes Hell as a place of "weeping and gnashing of teeth"; this quotation has overwhelmingly frequent appearance in the New Testament.' Jesus did use this phrase, but I would challenge anyone to demonstrate that its occurrence is 'overwhelmingly frequent'. People, it is SO important to make this article factually correct and NPOV--Gazzster 05:27, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

"Hell" I already removed; and you were right: 7 times is not 'overwhelmingly frequent' no matter how you slice it. melikamp 06:19, 17 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] POV

Ok, these constant references to "the pit of the dammed" or "where the wicked who doubt the true nature of God" etc. etc. really need to go. If they are not direct quotations from the bible used purely to illustrate that sources description of the concept of hell, then in my opinion they are merely fire and brimstone rhetoric from editors who are firm believers in the concept, and that makes the article heavily POV. Wikipedia strives to neither agree not disagree with the beliefs of religions, merely to provide unbiased information on them. All the "lecture from the pulpit" language in the article gives off a terribly strong bias. SGGH speak! 00:52, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this article is frequently edited by people who, if they do not have a religious agenda, do not how to translate religious language into encyclopedic language.--Gazzster 08:54, 8 July 2007 (UTC)

Spot on. I'll leave a hidden comment to try to curb this issue as a first step. SGGH speak! 00:32, 9 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dispute about "gehenna" being the term for hell most often used by christians

This is a response to user 69.215.132.2 who reverted my recent edits, claiming that they were unsourced and untrue. I assume good faith, but he/she obviously didn't read the material carefully, because it was clearly sourced from articles in New Bible Dictionary, New Dictionary of Biblical Theology, as well as The Nature of Hell (by ACUTE).

By contrast, simply quoting Bible verses (as 69.215.132.2 did) does not count as verification because Bible verses are interpreted in different ways. Wikipedia's policy on sourcing states that "Articles should be based on reliable, third-party, published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy." The Bible does not conform to this criterion because it is not a third-party source. Quoting a list of Bible verses to support an assertion, without third-party support, counts as Original Research.

Also, it is inaccurate to say (as 69.215.132.2 did) that "Some versions of the New Testament also use the Greek word hades". The fact is that the NT was originally written in Greek, and therefore all versions of the NT use the word hades. It is only with the English versions that the word may or may not be transliterated. thanks Tonicthebrown (talk) 15:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Please note: the NBD article on hell explicitly says that the Greek word gehenna is rendered "Hell". The Nature of Hell (pages 42-47) discusses the terminology. Gehenna is used 12 times, always with reference to the place of punishment. Hades is used 11 times, but only twice as a reference to hell. Tartarus is used only once. I would appreciate it if you didn't revert my work before first checking the facts. Thanks Tonicthebrown (talk) 15:38, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Voice of reason, with all due respect I think you are being quite unreasonable. You seem to have a real problem with the sentence: "The most common term used for "hell" is gehenna, found almost exclusively in the synoptic gospels." I have backed that up with 3 different sources. It is a plain and simple fact that gehenna is the most common NT word for hell. In the NIV, out of 14 occurrences of the word "hell", 12 are gehenna, 1 is hades and 1 is tartarus. Of the 12 occurences of gehenna, 11 are in the synoptic gospels. So the sentence is patently accurate.

You assert that "Your cite refers to a term used by evangelicals, not establishing that it is used by "most christians", therefore your source does not prove your sentence." The term gehenna is in theoriginal Greek New Testament -- this is not an evangelical version, this is the version that everyone uses, and which every translation derives from! Can you please use this talk page to raise objections rather than reverting my work repeatedly? Tonicthebrown (talk) 16:13, 20 December 2007 (UTC)

Your sentence in the article states: "The most common term used for 'hell' is 'gehenna', [and is] found almost exclusively in the synoptic gospel". Now, if you want to say "The most common term used for 'hell' in greek is 'gehenna', found almost exclusively in the synoptic gospel", or that "The most common term used for 'hell' in english bible translations accepted by evangelical christians is 'gehenna', I won't dispute your source; but you HAVEN'T provided a source for asserting that "The most common term used [by most who claim to be christians] for 'hell' is 'gehenna'". Furthermore, I'm thinking that even you know that the most commonly used term by christians who are talking about hell, is "hell", so why are you pretending that you don't know that? Do you want to make the correction to the article, or should I? Voice of reason993 (talk) 16:25, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
Since I posted the above comment, Tonicthebrown changed the disputed sentence to read, "The most common Greek term used for "hell" is gehenna, found almost exclusively in the synoptic gospels." That removes the problem. Thank you. Voice of reason993 (talk) 19:16, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
I assumed that the context (i.e. "Hell in the New Testament", not "Hell according to Christians who are talking about hell") made it very clear we were dealing with Greek terms rather than English, since the NT is written in Greek. I'm glad you are happy with the clarification. Tonicthebrown (talk) 01:12, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] The Lake of Fire

Hell in the New Testament talks about how Revelation describes hell as a "Lake of Fire", however, Revelation 20:14 says hell will be CAST INTO the Lake of Fire. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lumarine (talk • contribs) 22:45, 23 February 2008 (UTC)

Thank you for the comment. I have looked this up, and in fact the Greek original says that hades will be cast into the lake of fire, not gehenna. So I think it is probably still fair to say that the lake of fire = hell, as has traditionally been believed. Tonicthebrown (talk) 07:20, 24 February 2008 (UTC)

Doesn't it depend on what version of the Greek manuscript you use? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lumarine (talk • contribs) 09:29, 25 February 2008 (UTC)

Not sure -- is there a difference? Tonicthebrown (talk) 00:38, 26 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Hades Is Biased

Seeing as how the KJV doesn't contain the word Hades; and people can't agree on which translation is accurate (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Only#Advocacy and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_James_Only#Criticism) I think in order to be unbiased this article needs to be re-written in such a way that respects the dispute. The KJV makes it clear that hell is different from the lake of fire, saying that hell will be cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14). I think it's safe to assume that when it says it will be cast into the lake of fire it means it will be destroyed, because it also says death will be cast into the lake of fire, and 1 Corinthians 15:26 says "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." Lumarine (talk) 22:03, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm sorry to have jumped into the middle of a running debate. Didn't realize it. Revert if you like.--Brotherlawrence (talk) 00:00, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
I have checked this out, and both Greek manuscript versions use the word Hades in Revelation 20 -- i.e. the TR (which the KJV is based on) as well as the NA text (which other versions such as NIV are based on). So the translation "hell" is inaccurate here; hell (gehenna) is not cast into the lake of fire. Tonicthebrown (talk) 01:28, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

If the KJV has this glaring inaccuracy, why is it considered to be the most accurate Bible? Why is it the only Bible that has a movement behind it?