Popular myth:
Hell is a Biblical doctrine that is in the Bible from the beginning to the end.
"This is not true! Two thirds of the Bible (the Old Testament) does not mention Hell at all. (“Sheol,” the Old Testament word that is sometimes translated as Hell, only means “grave” by definition, and it is where everyone in the Old Testament went when they died--good or evil, Jew or Gentile). The other translation is a "pit". Thus the Old Testament does not contain the modern Christian concept of Hell!
"If Hell is real, why did God tell the Jews that burning their children alive in the fire to the false god Molech, (in the valley of Gehenna) was so detestable to Him? God said that such a thing “never even entered His mind” (Jer. 32:35).
"How could God say such a thing to Israel, if He has plans to burn alive a good majority of His own creation in a spiritual and eternal Gehenna of His own making?
"FACT: The King James Bible erroneously translates the word “Sheol” as Hell a total of 31 times in the Old Testament, thus setting a foundation for that doctrine in the New Testament as well as the majority of Bible translations to follow the KJV.
"Even so, most new translations have completely eliminated Hell from the Old Testament, as honest and better scholarship has demanded. The Jewish version of the Old Testament (the Tanakh) has no concept of Hell in it.
"The importance of this fact cannot be over-emphasized. If a doctrine does not appear as seed form in the books of the Law, the Prophets and the Psalms, it cannot fairly be taught as a major biblical doctrine, if indeed it can be taught as biblical at all!" (http://www.tentmaker.org/ifhellisreal.htm)
