gehenna and mind/body dualism

[steve]

Hi Homer,

I am not attempting to find ways to preserve the applicability of the punishments in the Sermon of the Mount to today, nor am I interested in rendering them inapplicable. My interest is in understanding what Jesus was saying—and to whom. When Jesus predicted the destruction of Jerusalem in Luke 19:41-44 and in Matthew 24:1-2, what is the applicability to us? One may use his own imagination. But the applicability to His original readers was undeniable.

As for the threatened "shame" of dying under God's judgment, it seems that the dishonor would refer to the attitude of the survivors toward those thus punished. To know that you would be remembered only with disgust by the world that remembers you after your death would be a troubling thing even in our kind of society—much more so in one where one's honorable death meant a great deal (e.g., Judges 9:34).