To redeem us, Jesus Christ did not need to do what condemned sinners are said to do:  suffer forever.  In Hell.  No way.  Jesus suffered temporarily.  If it wasn’t necessary for the Paschal Lamb to suffer forever, why is it necessary for the unsaved?

From Psalm 22:  “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him” (NIV).

The New Jerusalem Bible translates the words for “all the ends of the earth” as “the whole wide world.”  The whole wide world will remember and turn to the Lord.  All humanity?  Seems that way.  From Psalm 65:  “O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.”

To redeem us, Jesus Christ did not need to do what condemned sinners are said to do:  suffer forever.  In Hell.  No way.  Jesus suffered temporarily.  If it wasn’t necessary for the Paschal Lamb to suffer forever, why is it necessary for the unsaved?

From Psalm 22:  “All the ends of the earth will remember and turn to the Lord, and all the families of the nations will bow down before him” (NIV).

The New Jerusalem Bible translates the words for “all the ends of the earth” as “the whole wide world.”  The whole wide world will remember and turn to the Lord.  All humanity?  Seems that way.  From Psalm 65:  “O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.”

English: Folio 18 recto, beginning of the Epistle to Thessalonians, decorated headpiece (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So:  the anti-Christian persecutors of Second Thessalonians 1 will receive “everlasting destruction.”  The teaching has long existed that a more proper translation is “destruction of the age,” or maybe “age-during destruction.”  That is, a destruction belonging to an age.  The Koine Greek word for everlasting, aionious, does not mean everlasting.  It refers to a period of time.  “Everlasting punishment” in Matthew 25 is punishment of the age.

Where does this leave Hell?

1. 

   Movie poster of The Ten Commandments. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

   The acting in Cecil DeMille‘s The Ten Commandments is not always good, so it’s a wonder the thespians manage to exude as much true spirituality as they do.  Not that it is never artificial—of course it is—but the artificiality of the entire picture fails to upend the spiritual feeling DeMille was after.

2. Since the ancient Egyptians worshipped many gods, cats included, surely it is unsurprising to find an Egyptian woman, Anne Baxter‘s Nefretiri, worshipping a handsome non-god, Moses (Charleton Heston).  Baxter is beautiful, her acting nicely precise in its dreaminess.  Debra Paget and Yvonne De Carlo are beautiful too, but do not have much impact here.
3. It was inspired of the screenwriters to have Joshua (John Derek) paint lamb’s blood on the doorposts and lintel of the house where Lilia (Paget) is being kept by middle-aged Dathan (that pig!)  It means firstborn Lilia doesn’t have to die.  Ah, Moses, however, tells the stricken Nefretiri—nothing really goes right for her—that he is unable to save the life of her small son, and yet this is not true.  He simply needs to urge her to arrange the painting of lamb’s blood on her doorposts and lintel.
   

   Cropped screenshot of Anne Baxter with Yul Brynner from the trailer for the film The Ten Commandments. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

    

Pickup on South Street (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The Sam Fuller  film, Pickup on South Street (1953), is probably the only movie ever made in which a prostitute, or former prostitute, is accused of being a subversive Communist.  But the woman in question, Candy (Jean Peters), simply doesn’t know the company she keeps, and is, it turns out, badly roughed up by a Communist.  Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark), a cynical thief, gets rough with her too—welcome to New York City—but later the two become, er, committed lovers.

Fashioned under the studio system, Pickup is better directed, more polished, than Fuller’s White Dog, and just as absorbing.  This despite a couple of defects in Fuller’s screenplay:  e.g. Thelma Ritter‘s character never would have stayed alive as long as she does.  I like most of the acting, except that Murvyn Vye, as a police captain, never changes his scowling expression.