Before the bible,(which is historically a relatively new thing),did people get a free trip to heaven?

Question

Considering that most would'nt have a clue as to what god expects, or for that matter would not have heard of him at all.

Answer 1

you are only held accountable for what you know. which being here (reading this forum) is a danger to an unbeliever, because they see Christians telling them what the Bible says and they still reject Christ. they will be held very accountable one day.

Answer 2

That's a great question. The Bible is actually not a new thing. King James translated it in the1600's from Greek and Hebrew, but the Bible is made up of 66 books from 40 different authors, spanning over 1600 years. This is something very easy to check and I encourage you to do so. But it is not the Bible that got people into Heaven, it's faith. Before Jesus, it was faith of God's promise of a saviour. After Jesus, its faith that Jesus died on the cross and was raised three days later. Christians realize that we've sinned and that we need a saviour to save us from our sins.

I ask you a question now, do you think you are a good person? How do you decide who is good and bad? By what standard do you use? The terrorists that blew up the World Trade Center thought what they did was good. It would be a problem if everybody did what was good in there own eyes. This is why we have laws. To protect people and keep social order. You would have to agree that whether somebody agrees, believes or even knows about the laws is really irrelevant. If you break them, then you have a debt that has to be paid and it doesn't matter how many good things you've done you'll be on trial for the laws your broke. And we want our court sytem to be righteous in there decisions so justice is served.

God is no different. He is righteous, and has given us 10 moral laws to live by called the 10 Commandments. Let's see if you've broken any. Have you ever told a lie, even one. Then that makes you a liar. Have you ever stolen anything, even something off of the internet, or even time from an employer, than your a thief. Jesus said if you look with lust you've committed adultery already in your heart. Have you ever done that.

If you've ever broken those laws (and that's only three of them), then your admitting that your a lying, thieving adulterous at heart and you've broken God's moral laws and just like in a court room you will be found guilty on judgement day when God judges you by that standard.

But getting back to your question, here is the faith that people had. They new they had broken theses laws and so they turned to God and His promise of sending them a saviour.

And so enters John 3:16 (if you don't know it I encourage you to read it). God loved you so much that He stepped out of Heaven to a fallen world to be beaten beyond recognition, spit on and then nailed to a cross. So that his righteousness could be passed on to you and your sins passed on to Him. And if you except that Jesus did this for you and turn from your sins, then you can know for certainty that you'll go to Heaven someday.

I challenge you to read and study the Bible, its got the answers your looking for. It's never been disproven from a scientific level, a historic level (even archeological finds confirm its accuracy) and prophetic level.

This might not be the answer your looking for, but I felt the need to explain this. Remember people don't go to Hell for not knowing Jesus, they go to Hell for breaking God's Laws. It's only through Jesus that our debt is paid and we can leave the court room a free person.

Answer 3

The Bible is not relatively new - one of the significances of the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is they contain many Books from the Bible - and they date from between 500 and 1500 BC.
Before that we were already in heaven - because we are spirits with souls inside physical bodies - and as Yeshua Messiah proved - your soul lives on - going back to where it came from.
This earth age of written information from humans like us is about 6000 years old, with the first writing and emergence of a 'super-civilization' being the Sumerians, around 3500 BC. They had a lot of writings about religion and the afterlife in the Cuneiform, as did the Egyptians in the Book of the Dead. So the information has been floating out there since the beginning of the current earth age.

Answer 4

You ask two different questions. Before the Bible means before Adam and Eve. The Bible says they were the very two first people on Earth, made in the image of God, and He instructed them on how to please Him and taught them to make sacrifice to God, to keep God happy, obey God, and thus go to heaven. (You shall not die...spiritually) Remember that Cain was jealous that God accepted the sacrifice of Able and not of Cain, so Cain killed Able. So the Bible says there were no PEOPLE before this bunch.
But science says there were a lot of people precoursers and you wonder how they related to God? They were not made by God in the image (spirit) of God so I would guess they had no souls and were not PEOPLE. If God had compassion upon them anyway then that was before and it would not be in the Bible how He related to them. The first verse in the Bible says in the beginning , God made the heaven and the Earth. If He made it it HAD to be perfect. Yet in verse two it says the Earth was without form and void. So what happened? There is a gap between verse one and verse two, This the the Gap Theory." The Earth is already messed up! God had to fix up the whole place again. "Let there be light." Many people think Satan and the fall of 1/3 of the angels is what happened. Maybe there was some sort of war as they were cast out of heaven and the battle involved the Earth territory. We know that was Satan was here soon after Adam and Eve arrived because he was talking to them. "Did God really say not to eat of this Tree?" Studying the Bible is very interesting especially since it includes the paranormal..people walking through walls and such which support string theory of parallel universes and God who exisits outside of the time He created...God is everywhen..and everywhere..so He can be with you every minute of your life and still have all the time He needs to do the same for every soul on the planet. He does know how many hairs are on your head..opps, you dropped one.!!!! He is so big we cannot understand His power and His love for us.
If the cave men were able to go to heaven and enjoy God forever then I am sure that God helped them accomplish that. He made them too since He made all life. You will have to trust Him on that one. They were not under the covenant (contract) that God had with Adam and Eve. (Do not eat of this tree and be fruitful and multiply.) They could have had it better, who knows? Keep thinking and you will wind up a theologan.!!

Answer 5

Forgetting the fact that many of pre-Biblical (and post-Biblical, for that matter) cultures have a completely different concept of what 'heaven' and 'god' were and are; generally speaking, most had a concept of an afterlife or illumination to a higher plain with different oral traditions and texts on how to get there.

Open up your eyes. Your religious point of view is not the only one out there. What makes you think that your own self-confessed 'relatively new thing' is the only valid path?

Answer 6

Plan 9,
Interesting story. Apparently Jesus went to Hell! Where else did He get the keys of Hell, Death, and the grave?

The dead that were in faith believed Him, and rose. The idea is that Hell is now only for those who were not in faith, who decided to rid themselves of the sight of God until the Judgement. The Apocrypha, last time I read about it, talked about that.

Matthew gives a vivid picture of the dead raising out of their graves and visiting those that lived in Jerusalem.
Matthew 27:52 And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose,
53 And came out of the graves after his resurrection, and went into the holy city, and appeared unto many.
54 Now when the centurion, and they that were with him, watching Jesus, saw the earthquake, and those things that were done, they feared greatly, saying, Truly this was the Son of God.

This would mean that Jesus did it almost instantaneously from the perspective of those that were there at his crucifixion.

Answer 7

ROFLMAO
Historically new? So 1600 BC is kinda like yesterday to you!
G you must know what gods were around oh say 7000 years ago as if it was only last year right!

Answer 8

In the garden God himself talked to Adam and Eve face to face. I'm sure he told them everything they needed to know for life and Godliness! Abraham spoke with God face to face. Those who didn't get the news first hand had His whole creation to see and know that he existed.

Answer 9

You should read the Bible and find out how people got to heaven before it was written.

Answer 10

Answered several times before:

Romans 1:18-23

Every human has an innate knowledge of their Creator.