- Jesus was clearly using it as a metaphor for something eternal and spiritual (check out Matthew 10:28 or Mark 9:43-48). The early Church Fathers who could actually read Greek all agreed hell was real. Like, John Chrysostom was a native Greek speaker and he wrote tons about hell being an actual thing. - In Job, "the satan" shows up as an actual being in God's court, not just some abstract concept. Jesus himself talks about watching Satan fall (Luke 10:18) and calls him "a murderer from the beginning" (John 8:44). Sure, "satan" means "adversary," but the Orthodox Church has always understood there's a big difference between human enemies and THE spiritual enemy. Even super early Christians like Ignatius of Antioch were warning people about the devil. - That's mostly true, but the Bible does say the soul goes straight to be with Christ after death (2 Corinthians 5:8 makes this pretty clear). - God set up extremely detailed religious practices in the Old Testament (just read Leviticus or Deuteronomy), Jesus founded the Church (Matthew 16:18), gave it real authority (Matthew 18:18), and specifically told people to worship together and do sacraments (Luke 22:19, Matthew 28:19). The apostles immediately started organizing communities with bishops, priests, and deacons (see 1 Timothy 3 and Titus 1:5-7). - 2 Peter 3:8-9 - i agree about the pope