Hades and Tartarus in the NT. Pagan influences?

Piercingtheveil81

Last night I was watching a program about greek mythology when the subject of Hades and Tartarus came up, Hades referring to the Greek god of death and Tartarus referring to the place of the dead or what could be called hell.

I began to wonder why would the bible writers use such words if they were trying to avoid paganism and convey different ideas. If hell were not a real place as witnesses say why would peter use tartarus, a word clearly known to be a place and not a condition of the dead. It seems that it would have been misleading.

Anyway what are your thoughts? I wonder what witnesses would say about it.

Piercingtheveil81

PSacramento

The terms were the terms of the paeriod, they used it because people of that period would understand what they meant.

Paganisim is irrelevant.

Piercingtheveil81

Exactly my point. If they understood tartarus to be a place of darkness and torment in the afterlife this was the idea that peter was conveying which contradicts the witness idea. Hades is not the greek word for death, rather it is thanatos.

My point is that if they were not trying to convey the idea the greeks had about death and the afterlife different words should have been used.

Cadellin

Piercing: The amazing Leolaia posted about this very subject in great detail. You will find it fascinating http://www.jehovahs-witness.net/watchtower/bible/68556/1/Tartarus-in-2-Peter-2-4

Cadellin

Okay, why isn't my link clickable? What did I do wrong????

PSacramento

Piercingtheveil81,

Common sense? How dare you !!!

LOL !

The use of hades and tarturus and even Ghenna, all had profound impact on the people of that period, it made the message clearer for that audience of the time, regardless of what something may have meant in the OT, one needs to understand that the writers of the NT used specific images and words to convey a specific message to a people that, many times, were NOT Hebrew.

Narkissos

In classical Greek Ha(i)dès is the name of a deity (= Pluto) but it is also a noun for (1) the underworld and (2) death itself; it was the standard Greek translation for the Hebrew she'ol in Greek-speaking Judaism (both in the LXX and extra-canonical literature) and the NT use simply follows this general practice. Btw the Hebrew word for "death," mwt (late Masoretic vocalisation mawet), was also the name of a deity (Mot) in the old Canaanite pantheon, and this mythological use is still apparent in a number of Bible texts. Tartaros (which is also hypostasised as a deity in Hesiod's Theogony, 821) is originally a cold and foggy place, the deepest part of the underworld, as far beneath Hades as heaven is above the earth (Iliad, 8,13ff; Theogony, 720ff), although it is later identified with Hades and associated with fiery torment (in Plutarch for instance). Again, Second-Temple Judaism had developed similar notions (e.g. 1 Enoch 20:2) and used the Greek word itself (e.g. Sibylline Oracles 4:186) before Christianity did (actually 2 Peter 2:4 uses a related verb, tartaroô, to describe the "casting down" of the fallen angels -- a theme directly dependent on Enochian literature).

If you don't think the NT was inspired by God, what do you think about it?

Hades and Tartarus in the NT. Pagan influences?

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