JWs are also in the dark regarding the true meaning of Sheol/Hades.

by Schizm 49 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  Star Moore

  Okay, I read it...and I agree in the sense that Hades is not the grave..but the place where the dead go or the condition only to be released from God.... But do you think they are alive, and thinking? What about the scripture about the dead not be conscience of anything? Are you thinking purgatory? or Limbo? I don't think the bad are there.. but rather in Ghenna.

  I agree with you that armaggedon is started by the battle of the lamb and Satan, not like they say about the UN attacking religion. Could we hurry it along? Maybe so..But in Dan. 12..it says at the end of the chapter, that it all comes to a finish in a specific amount of days...
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  Nathan Natas

  Thanks, Schizm.

  Your ad hominem attack convinced me of the accuracy of your statements.
• 

  Sunspot

  To my dismay it resulted in absolutely nothing. "Did they merely throw the written document I sent them in the trash," I wondered. "Perhaps I failed to present the information clearly enough," I wondered. If the problem was the latter, although I doubt it, then maybe I'll get around to re-writing it and send it to them again. I do want to make sure that the fault doesn't lie with me. I truly don't think it's a case of them being stubborn, or being unwilling to consider what I had to say on the subject.

  Since when does the arrogant WTS reply to anyone who dares to point out where they "may be" or "are possibly in error" in anything they have taught?

  Frankly, I think you are being far too generous in your evaluation of them...or how they would respond to what you had written.

  I don't think they give a flying fig about anyone's thoughts or opinions but their own, or would even consider giving a moment's attention to anything you or anyone else had submitted.

  Just my 2 cents
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  Schizm

  Your ad hominem attack convinced me of the accuracy of your statements. -- Nathan.

  All you need to do in order to check the accuracy of what I've said regarding the WTS's understanding of sheol/hades is to simply go to the WTS library. Do you need me to hold your hand while you do that, so as to make sure you look up the right word ("hades")? Frankly, it looks to me as if you paid little attention during all those 20 years you claim to have spent in association with the WTS. I mean, how in hades does a person go to the meetings at the Kingdom Hall for 20 years without being aware that the WTS says hades is a place in the ground?

  Schizm

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• 

  seesthesky

  does not like criticism:
  
  "Do you need me to hold your hand while you do that, so as to make sure you look up the right word ("hades")? Frankly, it looks to me as if you paid little attention during all those 20 years you claim to have spent in association with the WTS. I mean, how in hades does a person go to the meetings at the Kingdom Hall for 20 years without being aware that the WTS says hades is a place in the ground?"
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  Nathan Natas

  I know what I was taught and what I believed in the late 50s, 60s and early 70s. I am rather surprised that it has apparently changed...

  ...the Hebrew she´ohl´, which refers, not to an individual grave or graves, but to the common grave of mankind, gravedom. - Insight, Vol.1, page 379

  Those who are in Sheol, or Hades, the common grave of mankind, are regarded as being under the earth.—Re 5:3. -- Insight, Vol 1, page 669

  Since Hades refers to the common grave of mankind, a place rather than a condition, Jesus entered within "the gates of Hades" when buried by Joseph of Arimathea. -- Insight, Vol. 1, page 1016

  SHEOL (She´ol).

  The common grave of mankind, gravedom; not an individual burial place or grave (Heb., qe´ver, Jg 16:31; qevu·rah´, Ge 35:20), nor an individual tomb (Heb., ga·dhish´, Job 21:32).

  While several derivations for the Hebrew word she´ohl´ have been offered, apparently it is derived from the Hebrew verb sha·´al´, meaning "ask; request." Regarding Sheol, in A Compendious Hebrew Lexicon, Samuel Pike stated that it is "the common receptacle or region of the dead; so called from the insatiability of the grave, which is as it were always asking or craving more." (Cambridge, 1811, p. 148) This would indicate that Sheol is the place (not a condition) that asks for or demands all without distinction, as it receives the dead of mankind within it.—Ge 37:35, ftn; Pr 30:15, 16.

  The Hebrew word she´ohl´ occurs 65 times in the Masoretic text. In the King James Version, it is translated 31 times as "hell," 31 times as "grave," and 3 times as "pit." The Catholic Douay Version rendered the word 63 times as "hell," once as "pit," and once as "death." In addition, at Isaiah 7:11 the Hebrew text originally read she´ohl´, and it was rendered as "Hades" in the ancient Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion, and as "hell" in the Douay Version.—See NW ftn.

  There is no English word that conveys the precise sense of the Hebrew word she´ohl´. Commenting on the use of the word "hell" in Bible translation, Collier’s Encyclopedia (1986, Vol. 12, p. 28) says: "Since Sheol in Old Testament times referred simply to the abode of the dead and suggested no moral distinctions, the word ‘hell,’ as understood today, is not a happy translation." More recent versions transliterate the word into English as "Sheol."—RS, AT, NW.

  Regarding Sheol, the Encyclopaedia Britannica (1971, Vol. 11, p. 276) noted: "Sheol was located somewhere ‘under’ the earth. . . . The state of the dead was one of neither pain nor pleasure. Neither reward for the righteous nor punishment for the wicked was associated with Sheol. The good and the bad alike, tyrants and saints, kings and orphans, Israelites and gentiles—all slept together without awareness of one another."

  While the Greek teaching of the immortality of the human soul infiltrated Jewish religious thinking in later centuries, the Bible record shows that Sheol refers to mankind’s common grave as a place where there is no consciousness. (Ec 9:4-6, 10) Those in Sheol neither praise God nor mention him. (Ps 6:4, 5; Isa 38:17-19) Yet it cannot be said that it simply represents ‘a condition of being separated from God,’ since the Scriptures render such a teaching untenable by showing that Sheol is "in front of" him, and that God is in effect "there." (Pr 15:11; Ps 139:7, 8; Am 9:1, 2) For this reason Job, longing to be relieved of his suffering, prayed that he might go to Sheol and later be remembered by Jehovah and be called out from Sheol.—Job 14:12-15. -- Insight, Vol.2 page 922

  Hope for the Dead

  Closely following horseman "Death" is something that spells hope. It is "Hades." Apparently, then, many victims of premature death are in Hades. What is meant by the word "Hades"? It is a transliteration of the Greek word hai´des used in the Bible, and it corresponds to the Hebrew transliteration "Sheol." (Compare Psalm 16:10 with Acts 2:31.) These terms refer to a place of unconscious rest, the common grave of mankind from which there is hope of a resurrection.—Ecclesiastes 9:5, 10; John 11:11-14. -- AWAKE! 1987

  ================================================

  But hell,

  sheol or ha'des means mankind's common grave, the condition where humans, good and bad, go and rest in hope of a resurrection under God's kingdom.

  - Let God Be True [1952] page 99
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  Schizm

  But hell, sheol or ha'des means mankind's common grave, the condition where humans, good and bad, go and rest in hope of a resurrection under God's kingdom.

  - Let God Be True [1952] page 99

  So "mankind's common grave" was a "condition" back there in 1952, eh? Just about as clear as mud, right?! But to now say that it's a "place"--while still adhering to the idea of it being a so-called "common grave of mankind"--doesn't make sense either. There is no such thing as a common grave of mankind! If there were, it would require everybody be buried in the same grave.

  No doubt about it, the WTS is in for an awakening. I look forward to that happening.

  Schizm

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  Schizm

  Here's a few more references that can be added to the ones you posted, Nathan.

  Abel apparently was the first one to go to Sheol, and since then countless millions of human dead have joined him in the dust of the ground. -- Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. 2, pp. 922-23.

  ... the common underground place of the dead. -- Footnote to Job 14:13, 1971 edition of NWT.

  It is in the earth and ... plainly means the common grave of mankind, gravedom, or the earthly (not sea) region of the dead.--Appendix 4B, 1984 edition of NWT.

  Also, there are many "unrighteous" persons buried in Sheol (Hades), mankind's common grave, or in "the sea," watery graves [Re 20:13].--Insight on the Scriptures, Vol. 2, p. 788.

  Schizm

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• 

  Leolaia

  Yeah, they definitely switched positions on this. Good find!

  1. SHEOL/HADES IS A CONDITION

  ***ZWT November 1883, p. 4 ***

  We find that it [hell] is the translation of the Hebrew word sheol, which simply means the state or condition of death. There is not in it the remotest idea of either life or torment...But still they go on preaching this false idea of hell, which is nothing short of a slander against the character of God.

  ***What Say the Scriptures About Hell 1915, p. 13, 36-37***

  The meaning of sheol is, the hidden state, as applied to man’s condition in death, in and beyond which all is hidden, except the eye of faith...Yet we have found a ‘hell,’ sheol, hades, to which all our race were condemned on account of Adam’s sin, and from which all are redeemed by our Lord’s death; and that 'hell' is the tomb--the death condition.

  ***Let God Be True 1946, p. 75, 77***

  And in the 14th verse it is stated "And death and hell [hades] were cast into the lake of fire . This is the second death ." This is highly symbolic language. Death and hell are conditions and reasonably they cannot be cast into a literal "lake of fire".... Hades, however, represents the condition from which a resurrection is possible.

  *** w51 3/1 p. 143 Torments of the Rich Man ***

  If one is in the condition like Sheol, hell, or the grave, he is not active in God’s service nor learning any of the truth. There the "rich man" class find themselves and can see the Lazarus class’ change of condition and can talk and complain.

  *** Let God Be True 1952, p. 99 ***

  But hell, sheol or ha'des means mankind's common grave, the condition where humans, good and bad, go and rest in hope of a resurrection under God's kingdom.

  *** w55 2/1 p. 70 Is Hell Hot? ***

  Centuries later the apostle Peter showed, at Acts 2:31, that Psalm 16:10 had its fulfillment in Jesus, that he did indeed go to hell but that God raised him up out of that condition.

  2. SHEOL/HADES IS A PLACE, NOT A CONDITION

  ***Aid to Bible Understanding 1971 p. 701, 1488***

  Since Hades refers to the common grave of all mankind, a place rather than a condition, Jesus entered within the "gates of Hades" when buried by Joseph of Arimathea ....Yet it [Sheol] cannot be said that it simply represents a condition of being separated from God,' since the Scriptures render such a teaching untenable by showing that Sheol is "in front of" him, and that God is in effect "there" (Prov. 15:11; Ps. 139:7, 8 ; Amos 9:1, 2).

  *** it-2 1988 p. 922 Sheol ***

  This would indicate that Sheol is the place (not a condition) that asks for or demands all without distinction, as it receives the dead of mankind within it.—Ge 37:35, ftn; Pr 30:15, 16.

  *** w02 7/15 p. 3 What Has Happened to Hellfire? ***

  Do you see hell as a literal place of fire and brimstone, of unending torment and anguish? Or is hell perhaps a symbolic description of a condition, a state? [Implied answer: no]
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  Schizm

  Leolaia,

  1) When did you first become an atheist? 2) Also, what years of your life were you a JW?

  Just curious.

  Schizm

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