Understandably, I’m often bombarded with a barrage of questions each week, during my live sessions, in video comments, and through emails on rickquestionsthings.com, about why I left the ministry and Christianity. While I’ve written about this topic before, it seems fitting to share yet another post explaining the core reasons for why I am no longer a Christian.
It seems to be quite a shock when people encounter someone like me who has discovered that Christianity isn’t true; “someone like me” meaning someone who has a Master’s degree from a prominent seminary like Westminster Theological Seminary, someone who spent several years as a pastor/minister, someone who has read the Bible more times than he can count, someone who has learned Hebrew and Greek and has translated more of the scriptures than most Christians seem to have even read in many cases. How is this possible?
I understand the shock, the fear, and the feelings of threat and offense my claims might evoke. Yet, occasionally, someone comes along who is genuinely interested or becomes interested in these things, or who is going through a process of “deconstruction” themselves, or who finds solace or a sense of community in connecting with someone who has traversed a similar journey. For me, those moments make posts like this one worthwhile.
My Particular Path Out
Everyone’s deconstruction story will of course vary. There isn’t one path to discovering the untruth of Christianity. However, if I could package up the deconstruction process and hand it to people who may be ready for it, the packaged process would begin with a study of Hell.
The first major doctrinal domino to fall for me was the traditional doctrine of Hell. When I discovered that an afterlife place or existence of eternal conscious torment doesn’t actually exist, I experienced a freedom from fear that allowed me to get very honest with myself and with Christianity. This freedom allowed me to ask hard questions and to go wherever the truth was found, even if it was outside of Christianity.
So my path for the most part began with the deconstruction of Hell. Without Hell I became what would be considered a Christian Universalist. I believed that all that exists, that all of “creation”, would ultimately be reconciled to God by the accomplishments of God through Jesus Christ. Even the devil himself would ultimately be saved and reconciled to his God.
As a closeted Christian Universalist I continued to study. I focused now on understanding the historical context of the New Testament. It was in understanding the historical context that lead me to the revelation that Hell didn’t exist, so I continued studying the historical context to find out what more could be revealed to me in this deepening knowledge. It was ultimately understanding the historical context that lead me out of the religion altogether.
Unveiling Hell: A Closer Look
First of all, what is Hell? Simply put, Gehenna, or Hell, is not about eternal conscious torment. It symbolized the physical judgment of God upon his people through the hands of other nations, notably the Romans in the case of Jerusalem’s destruction in 70 CE.
In the New Testament the word translated “hell” is the Greek word “gehenna”. Gehenna is a transliteration of the Hebrew words meaning “Valley of Hinnom”. The Valley of Hinnom, or Gehenna, was an actual place outside the walls of Jerusalem. It was a cursed valley associated with punishment, destruction, and child sacrifice in Jewish tradition. This curse wasn’t something viewed as having to do with the afterlife, there was “Sheol” for that, which was the place that all dead souls found themselves. No, this cursed valley was physical. The knowledge that your corpse might not receive a proper Jewish burial, but would be cursed and thrown in the valley of Hinnom or some place outside the holy city was enough for the Jewish believers. It was a symbol of the ultimate curse, mentioned throughout the Bible.
This was the valley cursed by the prophet Jeremiah in Jeremiah 19:2-6 as the consequence of the child sacrifices performed in the valley by some of the kings of Judah. This was the valley that Jeremiah says dead bodies and ashes will be thrown when Jerusalem is destroyed by the Babylonians, “The whole valley where dead bodies and ashes are thrown, and all the terraces out to the Kidron Valley on the east as far as the corner of the Horse Gate…” In Jeremiah 7:30-34, he says, “[The people of Judah] have built the high places of Topheth in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to burn their sons and daughters in the fire—something I did not command, nor did it enter my mind. So beware, the days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer call it Topheth or the Valley of Ben Hinnom, but the Valley of Slaughter, for they will bury the dead in Topheth until there is no more room. Then the carcasses of this people will become food for the birds and the wild animals, and there will be no one to frighten them away. I will bring an end to the sounds of joy and gladness and to the voices of bride and bridegroom in the towns of Judah and the streets of Jerusalem, for the land will become desolate.” (See also Matthew 24:28.)
This “prophecy” (which really wasn’t a prophecy at all, being “prophetic hindsight”) was about the Babylonian destruction and exile that Israel was to experience. The valley of Hinnom, Gehenna, here in Jeremiah is clearly referring to the physical judgment of God upon his people by the hands of other nations. In other words, when God curses and destroys his people using other nations, this is the judgment of God, this is Hell.
The writers of the Synoptic Gospels use a verse in Isaiah to equate Gehenna to the valley mentioned in Isaiah. In Isaiah 66:24, Isaiah says of the bodies of those who rebel against God, “And they shall go forth, and look upon the carcases of the men that have transgressed against me: for their worm shall not die, neither shall their fire be quenched; and they shall be an abhorring unto all flesh.” Likewise the writer of Mark says, “…if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out. It is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into Gehenna…where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”
Gehenna was a real valley outside of the Jerusalem walls that was seen as a place for the bodies of the cursed Israelites, the rebels against God.
The Gospels and Hell
What are the Gospels all about? The Gospels are all about why God had allowed the Romans to destroy Jerusalem and its temple. The reason given by the Gospels is that the Jewish leaders had rebelled against their God, and these rebels had not listened to the prophet/messiah named Jesus. The Gospels have Jesus continuously crying out against the leaders of Israel for their hypocrisy. He laments over Jerusalem over and over again, and proclaims its immanent destruction. And destroyed it was! (Notice the parallel with the Old Testament prophets crying out against the Israelites for their rebellion against God and facing destruction by other nations.)
In 70CE the Romans sacked Jerusalem with an incredible force. The city was utterly destroyed along with its temple, which for the Jews was the very dwelling place of God. The Gospels are the attempts of post-temple believers to explain why God would allow this atrocity to take place. In short, just as God used other nations outside of Israel to punish Israel for their rebellion or disobedience (see the Jeremiah references above), so God now used the Romans to destroy Israel for their rebellion and disobedience leading up to 70CE. The Gospels’ message is very simply and clearly this: Israel had forsaken and forgotten their God (again), the leaders were corrupt, there was a prophet named Jesus (just as Jeremiah and the others before him) who warned Israel to repent before they were judged, and the judgment took place as God used the Roman army as a tool in his hand in covenantal cursing, destroying the disobedient Israelites.
New Testament scholar and theologian N. T. Wright says this in his book Surprised By Hope, “The point is that when Jesus was warning his hearers about Gehenna he was not, as a general rule, telling them that unless they repented in this life they would burn in the next one… His message to his contemporaries was stark, and (as we would say today) political. Unless they turned back from their hopeless and rebellious dreams of establishing God’s kingdom in their own terms, not least through armed revolt against Rome, then the Roman juggernaut would do what large, greedy and ruthless empires have always done to smaller countries (not least in the Middle East) whose resources they covet or whose strategic location they are anxious to guard. Rome would turn Jerusalem into a hideous, stinking extension of its own smoldering rubbish heap.”
In other words, they would have hell to pay, aka, find themselves thrown in Gehenna, literally.
Gehenna is not a place for the continuous existence of the soul. Gehenna was a place for the piling up of carcasses of the Israelites slaughtered by the Romans, which was interpreted by the believing survivors as the covenantal judgment of God against the rebellion.
Gehenna for Jews and No One Else
Interestingly, Paul never mentions Gehenna. Not once. The “apostle to the Gentiles” never tells the Gentiles about the Jewish concept of Gehenna. Why not? Gehenna had no relevance to Gentiles. (At this point I’m not going into the dating debates of the writings traditionally credited to Paul. That’s for another time.) Gehenna was a warning directed solely to Jews. Gehenna was the place the prophets and (supposedly) Jesus foretold as the physical destiny of Israelites were they to continue in their rebellion and fail to repent and return to godliness. Gehenna was always directed toward the hypocrites of the Israelites, the Pharisees, Sadducees, and those who were turning from God and only merely surface level Jews. Emphasis was placed on their hearts rather than their superficial showings.
Gehenna had nothing to do with popular Christian belief in eternal conscious torment. It has nothing to do with what most Christians believe is Hell.
So What’s It All About?
Not only is Gehenna, or Hell, all about the destruction of Jerusalem in 70CE, but the entire New Testament narrative revolves around explaining the events surrounding 70 CE. Jesus’ warnings, the judgment, and the end times are reflections of the historical context of Jerusalem’s devastation.
It turns out that the New Testament is the explanation given by the post-temple destruction believers of why Jerusalem was destroyed. It’s an attempt to carry on a spirit of the religion apart from the physical home of the religion, the Land, the City of God, the temple, the dwelling place of God.
The New Testament is a product of human beings in their own historical context, post-Jerusalem destruction, desperately trying to understand and to offer their interpretation of why the events occurred. (Not only that, but how not to repeat another event like it! Hence, the peaceful tone of the New Testament towards the Roman Empire. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s,” “turn the other cheek,” and carry the Roman soldiers gear!)
What About Prophecy in the NT?
So if the New Testament is all about the destruction of Jerusalem, wouldn’t this mean that the New Testament writers prophesied the destruction? Wouldn’t this be a sign of the divine inspiration of God in the writings?
There is not a single prophecy in the New Testament that has come to pass or that is coming to pass. What we find in the New Testament isn’t prophecy; what we find in the New Testament is “prophetic hindsight”. Every so called prophecy of the destruction of Jerusalem/the temple, the coming of Jesus, the judgment, the end times, etc. is all written after the actual events they are meant to be prophecies of.
There is not a shred of New Testament manuscript evidence that suggests that any of the writings were written prior to 70CE (every case to the contrary is a case founded upon belief, not actual evidence). In fact, the earliest manuscript fragment evidence that we have is dated no earlier than between 150CE and 250CE (the MOST conservative dating is 100CE at the earliest, though not likely)! The earliest date being over a hundred years after the supposed life and death of Jesus! Over 70 years after the destruction of Jerusalem! There isn’t one single eye witness account of anything written in the New Testament. They are stories of stories eventually and finally written down decades or more after the supposed events occurred.
Examples of Prophetic Hindsight
As an example let’s examine one of the clearest passages in Matthew that displays the importance of the events of 70CE, the same passage many Christians believe is speaking of some end that is still to come.
In Matthew 23 Jesus is crying out against the scribes and Pharisees. “Woe to you…hypocrites!…You brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to Gehenna?!” (By now it should be clear what is meant here by Gehenna!) “On you may come all the righteous blood (of the past Hebrew Prophets and holy men) shed on earth…Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.”
THIS GENERATION. What things will come upon that generation? He’s clearly speaking out against the current leaders of Israel. He’s condemning them, calling them to repentance, and proclaiming a soon to come judgment upon them. He continues, “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you desolate! For I tell you, you will not see me again, until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” (We will see below what that “coming in the name of the Lord” is.)
And then, chapter 24. Chapter 24 clears it all up for us. If there was any doubt that Jesus in this story is warning about the coming destruction by the Romans, it continues, “Jesus left the temple and was going away, when his disciples came to point out to him the buildings of the temple. But he answered them, ‘You see all these, do you not? Truly, I say to you, there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.'”
The buildings of the temple. The temple will be thrown down.
When Is the End?
So, in response to what Jesus had just said, the disciples come to Jesus privately to ask him when these things will happen. But, pay attention to how they ask the question. They ask him in private, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?”
When will these things be, what will be the sign of your coming and, in other words, the end?
The disciples interpret all that Jesus said about the leaders of Israel, their condemnation, their desolation, and the temple being destroyed as the coming of Jesus and the end (of the age)! In other words, the disciples are asking about the end of Jerusalem, nothing more; and most certainly not some future coming of Jesus thousands of years in the future. It doesn’t get much clearer than that folks.
Jesus answers them, in private remember! His answer is to the disciples standing there in front of him at that very moment. His answer isn’t directed to anyone else, especially anyone a couple of thousand years later! His answer is for the disciples and what they could expect to see coming soon.
Yes, you read that right; the focus is on the disciples’ generation witnessing the events, not a generation thousands of years later experiencing some supernatural end of time and coming of Jesus out of the clouds in the sky.
(Now, let me be clear here. I do not believe that Jesus said any of this. There is no reason whatsoever to think that any of this was written prior to the destruction of Jerusalem, as I pointed out earlier. These stories are fabrications built upon stories told about stories and so on. These stories are just that, stories. Jesus never said any of these things. The words were very clearly put into the character Jesus’ mouth to make the point the post-Jerusalem writers were trying to make: “This is why God destroyed the city, the temple, and people.”)
He tells those disciples in private in standard prophet-like apocalyptic language what to expect. All of it is addressed to “you”, not you or me in 2024, but “you” the disciples there with Jesus in private (according to the story). He tells them that the gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed in all the earth, world, land (Greek: oikoumene). It’s important to understand that “oikoumene” is used to refer to the land that is being inhabited by Israelites. (Whereas Strong’s says that it refers to “the inhabited world, that is, the Roman world, for all outside it was regarded as of no account,” “land” has a specific theological understanding in Israel’s religion.) This is made clear when earlier in Matthew 10:23 Jesus says, “When they persecute you in one town, flee to the next, for truly, I say to you, you will not have gone through all the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.” Again, Jesus says in Matthew 24 to the disciples standing there with him in private, “Truly, I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.”
In these stories, the disciples standing there with Jesus were to see “these things”, the coming of Jesus, the judgment, the end, even before they go through all the towns of Israel! This was none other than the destruction of Jerusalem which occurred 40 years after the setting of the New Testament stories.
Enough For Me
I could continue to work through much of the New Testament showing passage after passage equating hell, the coming of Jesus, the judgment, and the end with the destruction of Jerusalem, god’s covenantal judgment against his disobedient people. I’ll leave the task for you or for another time.
For me, this was enough to see that Christianity has nothing to do with anyone or anytime outside of its own historical context and happenings. Christianity is the product of human beings simply trying to perpetuate their religion after the devastating events surrounding 70CE and the war between the Romans and Jews. There is no prophecy being fulfilled. There is no end coming soon. The writers of the New Testament themselves never believed in a future second coming of Jesus. The writers told the story of Jerusalem’s destruction as the coming of Jesus, as the judgment of their god.
All religions are merely the results of human beings trying to explain and interpret their experience in light of their own culture, context, and concepts. While there are truths to be found in all kinds of religions, no religion is true. They are the works of human beings no different than you and me. But, for some reason (against all reason) millions of people continue to hold on in belief to the imaginative works of ancient human beings as though they are real metaphysical, supernatural truths.
(Note: I haven’t mentioned it here, but the works of Josephus were an invaluable asset in understanding the war between the Jews and the Romans. I cannot recommend Josephus enough! It’s normal for me to reference Josephus when making my case, yet I didn’t want to distract anyone here with those references.)
Free From the Bondage of Religion
My goodness, there’s so much to be said! I could go on and on with example after example and explain so much more and in so much more detail, but I’m not here writing a book. When all is said and done, you can be free from the bondage of religion. Yet, that is a topic for another post.
If you’ve made it this far in this post, I invite you to reach out. I’d love to hear your thoughts about all that I’ve shared here. Feel free to comment below, or reach out via email at the bottom of my homepage.
I also offer one on one sessions in private via Zoom which you can sign up for here.
I’m looking forward to hearing from you!