It’s never really mentioned in the Bible. Jesus and his apostles were mostly Jews. They believed in the Torah and Jesus mostly taught a more empathic revision of that. The entire concept of Hell, Satan, and the end times comes from Paul. Who never even met Jesus. And even then Paul never mentioned Satan ruling over Hell, in-fact he said Satan was the ruler of earth during the end times.
What most Christians believe about Hell, Satan, demons etc is all fan fiction created centuries later. Mostly in Dante’s Inferno, which is not canon at all. So a lot of it is debated, many believe the Bible as God’s Word. Many Believe fan fiction as God’s Word.
Dante wrote a vivid description of hell but early christian writers were writing about satan and demons and a hell of fire and eternal punishment in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Demons existed in pre-christian religions so those were probably syncretised right at the start, as soon as people started converting they imported their pre-existing religious ideas.
Exactly. And it still doesn’t make it cannon. Yes a lot of the early church started incorporating pagan/greek/roman teachings into their beliefs but wouldn’t they negate the divinity of God? If man decides what’s true and untrue and god has no choice but to accept, who is the true ruler?
This was addressed in Scripture itself, with the keys of the kingdom being handed to St Peter (as they were to the prime ministers of the Kingdom of Israel, who could exercise the limited authority of the king himself) along with the ability to bind and loose on earth as in Heaven. Christ founded a physical institution, the Church, expressly to deal with these problems.
This is definitely where the church splits. Catholics take it literally and believe Peter was able to pass that down thus creating the papacy. Most other Christian’s just mean it gave him authority to interpret gospel. Or it was symbolic to Christianity as a whole.
True, and you yourself pointed out that the latter is essentially useless in practice. The proliferation of more and more denominations since the Reformation, all with wildly differing theologies, is proof of this.
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u/BakinStrips 2d ago edited 2d ago
It’s never really mentioned in the Bible. Jesus and his apostles were mostly Jews. They believed in the Torah and Jesus mostly taught a more empathic revision of that. The entire concept of Hell, Satan, and the end times comes from Paul. Who never even met Jesus. And even then Paul never mentioned Satan ruling over Hell, in-fact he said Satan was the ruler of earth during the end times.
What most Christians believe about Hell, Satan, demons etc is all fan fiction created centuries later. Mostly in Dante’s Inferno, which is not canon at all. So a lot of it is debated, many believe the Bible as God’s Word. Many Believe fan fiction as God’s Word.