3 things that everyone thought were in the Bible but are not

Everyone knows the Bible - after all, it's the most famous book in history, as well as the most sold and stolen book in the world, and there are translations of it in over 2, 400 languages. However, few really know the Bible and its contents deeply.

So much so that there is no lack of misunderstanding regarding the texts and their interpretations, and, as you will see below, countless things that many people think are in the Holy Scriptures are not!

1 - The Purgatory

Basically, the idea is that the good ones go to heaven, the bad guys to hell, and the so-so will spend a season in Purgatory to purify their souls - or not - before being dispatched to the “upstairs”. ”Or to the“ bottom ”. However, while this dark little place is far from popular with followers of Catholicism, there is no literal description of it in the Bible.

In fact, the existence of purgatory was introduced in the 15th century by the Council of Florence and was suggested as a way of explaining to the faithful what happens to those who die and do not immediately qualify for paradise - or hell - because, Although they were good people, they must undergo a period of punishment to rid themselves of all the sins they committed in life.

Moreover, the Bible does not address where the souls of kind people who lost their lives before Christ went, nor what happens to babies who die before baptism. In this case, there is still the concept of Limbo, which would be the place that houses these “lost” souls - and it also emerged after the Bible was written.

2 - Mary Magdalene as a prostitute

Who has never heard the story of Mary Magdalene, the prostitute who met Jesus and, after repenting her sins, asked for forgiveness and became one of her most faithful followers? She is one of the most famous biblical characters and, according to many believe (especially those who read Dan Brown's "The Da Vinci Code"), Mary Magdalene was Christ's only female apostle and favorite - and there are even rumors that they would have married and even had children together.

However, although Mary Magdalene appears in the Bible as a disciple - no doubt about that, her name is there! Nowhere is it written that she was the only one, much less a prostitute. Apparently this story came about after the poor woman began to be confused with other biblical characters who were also called Mary. And as you may know, there is no shortage of Marys in the Holy Scriptures!

One of the theories is that because of so many characters with the same name - not to mention the many unidentified women in the Bible - Mary eventually became a tangle of them all. And to complicate matters further, Pope Gregory I declared that Mary Magdalene was the same woman as all the other so-called Mary appearing in the holy scriptures, except for the mother of Jesus.

Reviewing the evidence from the Bible, it is clear that Mary Magdalene is identified as a sinner - but the texts do not specify that, with "sinner, " they refer to her as a prostitute. It was the faithful who made this deduction. And why would the Church have let her become known in this way? Some scholars believe this was because the institution wanted to use the few confusing "suggestions" about Mary Magdalene to keep women out of the clergy.

3 - The Seven Deadly Sins

Gluttony, greed, lust, anger, envy, laziness and pride. Everyone has heard of the seven deadly sins, the worst transgressions we can commit. However, although they are super famous - and as well known as the Ten Commandments - in their present form, they are not found in the Bible. You can search if you want!

If you stop to think, the seven sins consist of very common - and hard to avoid - human conditions, and this classification of "vices" (as it were) arose before Christianity. The list was borrowed by the Catholic Church during the Middle Ages and slightly reworked so that it could be used for the purpose of protecting, educating, and controlling the faithful.

Thus, first, in the 4th century, the Greek theologian and monk Evagius of the Point presented a list containing eight sins (greed, greed, lust, anger, melancholy, laziness, pride, and boasting), and later, in the 6th century, the Pope Gregory I defined a new classification, which consisted of seven crimes - pride, envy, anger, laziness, greed, gluttony, and lust.

Then in the 13th century Thomas Aquinas proposed that the transgression of melancholy be replaced with laziness, and it was then that the list took on the form we know today. But the seven sins only became famous for real after the publication of Dante's “Divine Comedy, ” which divides hell into seven circles that correspond to capital crimes.

It is also worth mentioning that Pope Benedict XVI suggested the inclusion of seven modern sins, namely: haste, genetic manipulation, being very rich, using drugs, causing social injustice, interfering with the environment and causing poverty.

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