“vermy die onheilige, onsinnige praatjies en teëwerpinge
van die valslik sogenaamde kennis” (1 Tim 6:20, OAV)
Ons mag nooit “silly stories that get dressed up as religion” (1 Tim 4:7, Msg) gebruik om ons konsepte oor die hemel en die hel te vorm nie, het ons die vorige Manna mee afgesluit, nét die Bybel. Ongelukkig is ‘n enorme deel van ons verstaan van die onsienlike realm (wat ook die “onsienlike God” – Kol 1:15; 1 Tim 1:17 insluit) gebaseer op oorleweringe.
Alvorens ons gaan kyk wat die Bybel oor die saak van die hel sê, is dit belangrik om die ontwikkeling van die teoretisering oor die hel met die loop van die eeue oorsigtelik aan te stip.
Polibius (200–118 v.C.), die geskiedkundige, het eeue terug die volgende voorgestel: “Since the multitude is ever fickle, full of lawless desires, irrational passions and violence, there is no other way to keep them in order but by the fear and terror of the invisible world; on which account our ancestors seem to me to have acted judiciously, when they contrived to bring into the popular belief these notions of the gods, and of the infernal regions.”
Titus Livius (59 v.C. – 17 n.C.), in dieselfde gees, prys die wysheid van Numa, want hý het dit reggekry om mense God/gode te laat vrees as “a most efficacious means of governing an ignorant and barbarous populace”.
In dieselfde tydsgewrig het Strabo (63/64 v.C. – 24 n.C.) die volgende kwytgeraak: “The multitude are restrained from vice by the punishments the gods are said to inflict upon offenders, and by those terrors and threatenings which certain dreadful words and monstrous forms imprint upon their minds … For it is impossible to govern the crowd of women, and all the common rabble, by philosophical reasoning, and lead them to piety, holiness and virtue – but this must be done by superstition, or the fear of the gods, by means of fables and wonders; for the thunder, the aegis, the trident, the torches (of the Furies), the dragons, &c., are all fables, as is also all the ancient theology.”
Timaeus van Locrus (5de eeu n.C.), ná hy dogmaties geteoretiseer het oor die belangrikheid vir die heil van die gemeenskap om belonings en straf ná die dood te hê, gaan dan voort: “For as we sometimes cure the body with unwholesome remedies, when such as are most wholesome produce have no effect, so we restrain those minds with false relations, which will not be persuaded by the truth. There is a necessity, therefore, of instilling the dread of those foreign torments: as that the soul changes its habitation; that the coward is ignominiously thrust into the body of a woman; the murderer imprisoned within the form of a savage beast; the vain and inconstant changed into birds, and the slothful and ignorant into fishes.”
Seneca (1 v.C. – 65 n.C.), die Romeinse filosoof, wat Jesus se tydgenoot was, het uitgewys hoe die hel deur veral digters versin is: “Those things which make the infernal regions terrible, the darkness, the prison, the river of flaming fire, the judgment seat, &c., are all a fable, with which the poets amuse themselves, and by them agitate us with vain terrors.” Sextus Empiricus (160-210 n.C.) noem hulle “poetic fables of hell”. Die grootste hiervan was die Italiaanse digter Dante Alighieri se Die heilige Komedie. Sy mitologisering van die hel is dié versinsel wat die Christengeloof se denkbeeld en oorlewering van die hel die sterkste beslag aan gegee het.
- Sela: In die lig hiervan, wat glo jy sê die Ou Testament oor die hel?
- Lees: Mat 16-18
- Ondersoek die OT-tipologie: Mat 16:4 (Wenk: Die boek Jona)
- Delf dieper: Lees die Afrikaanse vertaling van Die Hel deur Dante (vertaal deur Delamaine du Toit).
