And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. Matthew 5:30
Good thing the translators knew more than Jesus did when they corrected him. Jesus used the word gehenna, but they used the word hell.
Some people love the word hell. They love the doctrine too. Paul Lawrence Dunbar, the poet, said, "Of course there is a hell. Where else would my neighbors go?"
And it is often said that hell, a place of fire deep in the earth, is needed to control people. I mean, what could frighten people more than eternal agony? So what if it came from the Greeks and not the Bible? It serves a great purpose, scaring people into being good.
I'm one of the lucky ones. Eternal death scares me, and it's in the Bible.
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