‘Martin Zender Goes to Hell’

Under this title a new booklet by Martin Zender has recently (2004) appeared in America (Dutch PDF). The author has the gift of presenting very fundamental matters in a small, thin booklet (78 pages) in a simple way. We had already become accustomed to the fact that his style can be quite provocative, and that is again the case in this publication. He does not hesitate to call the doctrine concerning hell a teaching of demons, against which Paul already warned in his days (1 Timothy 4:1). There is no doctrine that has made such a horrible caricature of our God as precisely this dogma. It is many times worse than any idol of wood or stone. The idea that God would endlessly punish and torture can come from only one source… that of “the liar from the beginning.”

Zender shows that the truth concerning “hell” has been suppressed in nearly all Bible translations. The word that lies behind “hell” is an ordinary place name (Gehenna = valley of Hinnom, garbage incineration site of Jerusalem), and names are not to be translated. Every translator knows that. All names in the Bible are simply transferred untranslated from Hebrew or Greek, except for the name Gehenna. This is unheard of! Any dictionary or lexicon can tell you which geographical location Gehenna refers to, but almost all Bible translations have nevertheless made a mythical hell out of it. That is theological manipulation of the first order!

Anyone who is interested can easily verify the truth of this fact. In this small booklet Zender excellently highlights all the themes connected with the subject of “hell.” For those to whom English is no obstacle, I warmly recommend Zender’s latest piece of writing.

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