The causes of the unbiblical and wrong notions which Christianity has accepted

As we have seen in the previous chapter most people think that the Bible teaches us that people have a soul which, after their death, lives on to be punished in hell or rewarded in heaven. Though the Christian Churches know that these ideas are unbiblical and wrong they do nothing to combat them and remove them from Christian religious life. At the same time they admit that the main theme of the Bible is the establishing of God’s Kingdom at the end of human history and that this Kingdom will be inhabited by people who have received a resurrection from the dead. Though the teaching of the immortal soul and the teaching of the resurrection of the dead can in no way be reconciled, practically all the big Christian Churches allow both views to exist side by side and ignore the fact that they are mutually exclusive.

As we have said on this website earlier: also the doctrine of the Trinity lacks any form of Biblical foundation. The doctrine is the result of human and therefore very fallible philosophizing. Neither the word Trinity nor the notion behind the word can be found in the Bible or in the creeds of the first centuries. Nor is the word ever used in Christian prayers or Christian songs which can be heard in churches.

The doctrine of the Trinity is more dangerous and more confusing than people are inclined to think. It affects the completely unique name and sovereignty of our creator JHWH. And it suggests that JHWH shares His power and limitless abilities with others.

Within this context it is good to realize that in most modern Bible translations JHWH is referred to with the word God. Imagine that our modern Bible translations would also refer to Jesus Christ with the word God. If you assume that Jesus Christ is as much God as JHWH this would be completely admissible.

But imagine how totally incomprehensible the Bible would get if the word God could refer to both JHWH and to Jesus. In the Bible passages in which JHWH helps the people that lived in Jesus’ lifetime to identify Him as the Messiah, JHWH would have called His Son God. Think of the voice of JHWH which could be heard after Jesus had been baptized by John and imagine that there would be Bible translations which have JHWH say: This is my God, whom I have approved of. In stead of: This is my son, whom I have approved of.

The main question is of course: how could it happen that during the first millennium of its existence Christianity began to accept such unbiblical and wrong teachings and mix them with Biblical, God-given ones. There are a number of causes:

---The Bible teaches us that as early as 100 years after the Flood of 2370 B.C. the inhabitants of Babel (about 80 kilometers south of present-day Baghdad) started to build their famous tower and began to set up a religion which was directed against JHWH. Later on in history Babylonian religious ideas have spread all over the world and have become dominant in all world religions, with the exception of Judaism and Christianity. Thus Babylonian religious notions dominated the religions of all the worldly superpowers which are mentioned in Biblical history: ancient Egypt, Assyria, Persia, Greece and Rome. In all these world powers religion in the sense of religious notions and practices devised by people occupied a central place. Gods, temples in which the gods could be worshipped, priests as mediators between gods and people and kings who were either gods themselves or had a direct connection with gods dominated the lives of all the nations mentioned.

In the centre of all the religions of the peoples just mentioned and in all non-Jewish and non-Christian world religions of all times are the words which Satan spoke to Eve in paradise when he advised her to eat of the forbidden apple: you will certainly not die.

The central doctrine of all false religion is the notion that the essence of every human being is his soul which, after the death of the body, lives on in a heaven or in a hell. Whereas throughout His Bible JHWH teaches us that people die in the sense of completely cease to exist, all false religions tell us that JHWH is lying and that people are immortal.

Throughout their history the Israelites were a small, unimportant nation. They were always surrounded by much bigger and more powerful nations. All these neighboring dominant nations practiced the false religions which were directed against JHWH and which we mentioned above. These facts explain why in the course of their history they so often gave way under the pressure of their powerful neighbors and adopted the gods, the religious ideas and the religious practices of these neighboring superpowers. And as regards the Christians of the first centuries: for a long time they were a small minority in countries in which the Greek and Roman gods and religious notions completely dominated public life. It stands to reason that they felt a continuous, almost irresistible, pressure to adopt a number of central ideas of the Greek and Roman religion. With among them the central doctrine of the Greek and Roman religion: the immortal soul. In addition:

---the Christians of the first three centuries lived in a cultural and intellectual environment which was dominated by Greek philosophy, particularly the philosophy of Plato. Between about 350 B.C. and 350 A.D. the intellectual foundation which Plato had given to the Greek religious ideas was so generally accepted that these ideas were in fact unassailable. Within these unassailable religious notions the ideas of an immortal soul and a life after death occupied a central position.

During the second and third centuries A.D. more and more people in the Roman Empire who belonged to the higher circles and were well educated became Christians. At the time of their conversion these people were well acquainted with Greek philosophy and had learned to accept Greek philosophy as the best that human reasoning had produced. They had also learned to think in the way that Greek philosophy prescribed. And they reasoned and talked with the formulations and the terminology of people like Plato and Aristotle.

It looks obvious that this kind of well educated and highly regarded Christians have mixed ideas which originated from God and the Bible with ideas which originated from Greek philosophy. Partly because their upbringing and their education practically forced them to do this. But partly also to be able to convert other well educated citizens of the Roman Empire to Christianity.

As we have said in the text about the history of Christianity during the second century: about the year 150 A.D. Christians who were well-educated and well acquainted with the Greek language, culture and philosophy began to publish texts in which they demonstrated that Christianity in no way clashed with what intelligent people thought reasonable and sensible. These people are now called apologists (defenders) of the Christian faith. They were particularly keen on proving that the great Christian doctrines were completely in agreement with the doctrines of great Greek philosophers like Plato and Aristotle. The apologists were very convincing and successful. By the end of the fourth century the Roman Empire and Christianity, which were enemies at first, had not only become friends but had practically merged. There can be no doubt about it that for this fusion the Greek/Roman religion had to sacrifice practically all its teachings and practices, but it goes too far to say that it had to give up 100% of its ideas and practices. On the way to the fusion Christianity adopted quite a number of things from the Greek/Roman religion (often in an adapted and Christianized form) and mixed them with its own teachings and practices. Among these things we find the doctrine of the immortal soul which got a place beside the Biblical notion of a resurrection. In addition:

---The Christians of the first centuries rightly and on good Biblical grounds believed that the only hope for mankind lies in a resurrection to life in God’s Kingdom, but they wrongly believed that the return of Christ and the establishing of God’s Kingdom would come very soon. The Hebrew Scriptures clearly demonstrate that the Christians of the first decades after Christ’s death were convinced that Jesus would return to earth within their generation and that right after this event God’s Kingdom would be established and the dead would be resurrected. But this expectation did not come true. Not in the days of Jesus’ own generation. Nor in the generation of their children. Nor in the days of their grandchildren. Nor in the days of their great-grandchildren. Christians waited and waited and hoped and hoped, century in and century out. But Jesus did not come.

The great apocalypse which Christians expected and which the Bible promised them….just did not come. No apocalypse in the first century, nor in the second century, nor in the third century. It must have been very hard for the Christians of the first centuries to explain this and to accept this. It is understandable that the fact that the crucial events which Christ had promised them simply failed to happen pushed the teachings regarding these events into the background. And it is equally understandable that centuries of futile waiting strongly affected the hope of a speedy return of Christ, a speedy establishing of God’s Kingdom and a speedy resurrection of the dead.

No wonder that as the Christian expectations described above began to fade away, the hope that the followers of the Greek/Roman religion propagated could get stronger and could become dominant. The Greek/Roman religion promised a paradise that the souls of the deceased could enter right after their death, whereas Christianity promised a paradise for which people obviously had to wait very very long. Perhaps for centuries. We, in the twenty-first century, realize that in the meantime the centuries have become millenniums.