The Lost Books Of The Bible comments

• Hell is only mankinds grave. The bible even says that Jesus went to Hell. Bet you didn't know that.

• Quote the verse, please.

Now I realize what his post to me with a verse from acts without any context was about. He couldn't even come up with a verse to suport his assertation with as his acts 2:31 or whatever only says Jesus didn't just die.

• I do not recall any Bible verse stating Jesus went to Hell, but it is part of the Christian mythology of Jesus. It is said that he went to Hell for three days (just like most of the sons of god before him) to "plead for the lost souls." I think Jesus's trip through Hell is in one of the Apocrypha.

• Oh, it's in the bible all right, but it's a typo! See below from a previous post of mine.

I just finished reading The Lost Years of Jesus Revealed and Did Jesus Write This Book, both by Charles Francis Potter. He proposes that the Books of Enoch and similar writings were "lost" on purpose because they document the evolutionary development of theology later grafted onto Jesus. In particular he points to Enoch as the source for the beatitudes and "but I say" and ethical teachings of Jesus. As evidence he cites the exclusion of the books of the Psalms of Solomon, Epistle of Barnabas, and Shepherd of Hermas. These are found in various of the oldest existing manuscripts and attested to by early church fathers.

Barnabas, for example, is included in the Codex Sinaiticus, Clement of Alexandria quotes it as scripture and Origen terms it a "Catholic Episle." Barnabas 16:5 quotes Enoch 89:55, 66, 67 and Barnabas chapter 4 reads "as Enoch says". Enoch was recogonized as scripture in the first century by the current new testament book of Jude, in the second century by Barnabas and Athenagoras, and in the third century by Clement of Alexandria, by Irenaeus, and Tertullian. After Hilary, Jerome and Augustine it was "lost".

On page 95 of The Lost Years of J Revealed, Potter shows that the phrase "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God." was added to Acts 8:37 because it isn't in fourth century Codexes Vaticanus and Sinaiticus nor the fifth century Codexes Alexandrinus and Ephraemi. It's still in the King James Version but has been removed from the Revised, American Standard Revised, and the new Revised Standard Version. In a strange twist of fate, he notes that the ethiopian eunuch falsely attributed as saying this, may in fact have been the source of the book of Enoch transported to europe where it escaped destruction and a copy was discovered late in the 19th century.

On the next several pages, Potter shows that the "he" refered to in 1 Peter 3:18-20 that "went and preached to the spirits in prison", the source of the credial phrase about descending into hell, is not Jesus but in fact originally refered to Enoch! He lists several Greek specialists that support this translation: Bowyer, Spitta, Cramer, Rendel Harris, M.R. James, Moffattt and Goodspeed. In Enoch chapters 6 to sixteen, Enoch not only preached to these spirits but the circumstances of their imprisonment are explained.

This story became a point of contention between Augustine and Tertullian. Guess who became the heretic and who the saint and which believed what? Fundi scholars attribute this little change to a scribal error known as "haplography", or writing only one of two identical groups of letters occuring near together. Another accident like "losing" all the copies of Enoch, no doubt. BTW, these "spirits" were the fallen angels of Genesis 6:1-4, Isaiah 14:12 and 24:21-23. Paul was apparently aware of this and still afraid of them when he gives the reason why women should cover their heads in church in 1 Cor 11:10, "because of the angels."

Further evidence of the evolution of biblical theology can be found in Luke 3:22 which in the "Gospel of the Ebionites", several ancient manuscripts, quotations by Justin, Clement, Origen, and even Augustine describes the descent of the Holy Spirit as Jesus baptism thus, "Thou are my Son, today I have begotten thee." This clear text is the basis for Adoptianism, or the belief that Jesus was only a human till god endowed (or adopted) him with divine nature. This belief can be traced back through Arius, Lucian, Paul of Samosata, to Theodotus of Byzantium and Artemon in Rome about 185 and before that to the Ebionites of the first and second centuries, the survivors of Qumran and Jerusalem in 70.

The Ebionites are also the ones that first call Paul a liar! What does the present day bible say at Luke 3:22? The "today" has been removed to match the eternal divinity dogma and all the Adoptionists are declaired heretics even by Augustine who knew what the bible originally said!

[From Larry Sites to David Rice: JESUS IN HELL]