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Bible Talk => Apologetics => Topic started by: Reddogs on July 27, 2026, 03:13:03 PM
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The Greek word Tartarus appears only once in the entire New Testament.
2 Peter 2:4
Young's Literal Translation
4 For if God messengers who sinned did not spare, but with chains of thick gloom, having cast [them] down to Tartarus, did deliver [them] to judgment, having been reserved,
Well, this explains a lot....
"There is one word in the New Testament that comes straight from Greek mythology. Not a metaphor. Not a translation choice. The actual name of the abyss where the Titans were imprisoned.
It was written by a Jewish fisherman from Galilee.
The letter is 2 Peter, composed in Koine Greek for diaspora communities spread across the Roman world in the first century CE. Verse 2:4 is about angels who sinned and what God did with them.
Most translations render the passage simply as "cast them into hell." But the Greek word Peter chose was not Hades. Not Gehenna. Not "the pit." The word came directly from "Tartaros," the deepest region of the underworld in Greek mythology, a place so far below Hades that, in Hesiod's Theogony, a bronze anvil dropped from the surface of the earth would fall for nine days before reaching it.
The verb Peter used, "tartarosas," appears nowhere else in the entire New Testament. Every other writer who needed a word for the realm of the dead reached for Hades or Gehenna. Only this one verse goes to Tartarus.
In Hesiod's account, written roughly seven centuries before this letter, Tartarus is where Zeus imprisoned the Titans after the war for Olympus. Sealed away from the rest of creation. Absolute confinement.
Peter placed fallen angels there.
He was writing for people who had grown up inside Greek cultural memory. He did not need to explain what Tartarus meant to them. He needed only to use the word, and they would already understand the weight of it.
He did not argue against the mythology. He absorbed its cosmological grammar and refilled it. The prison stayed. The inhabitants changed.
Scholars call this kind of move a recontextualization: taking the structural logic of a pre-existing concept and fitting it to new theological meaning. It is one of the more quietly stunning word choices in the entire text.
A fisherman. A word borrowed from Hesiod. One verse that most readers have never noticed, because every translation made it vanish back into "hell."....
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I get that. Simply saying having cast them down holds the meaning alone. Lifting up is one and casting down is the other. Moving to the side is another. But your point about the weight of the word is sometimes what it takes to get the point across is valid. I have a hard time hearing and remembering, especially with many years. If God holds us up, we won't fail. But the second we are on our own it's up to us to make it happen. That is why it's always a blessing to have the Holy Spirit, or to have the presence of God. So that we might be caught from falling down so far.
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Don't you get bored with all the copy-pasta? (Not you, Zachary)
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I get bored though. Mostly completely bored of you-tube, news and social media at this point. I still look though. Video games barely hold my attention either.
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Don't you get bored with all the copy-pasta? (Not you, Zachary)
Hey, it popped up and that verse has always been a question in.my mind. Now its clear why Peter put it in..
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Don't you get bored with all the copy-pasta? (Not you, Zachary)
Hey, it popped up and that verse has always been a question in.my mind. Now its clear why Peter put it in..
Same reason that Paul quotes Greek poets in his address to the Aeropagus. Or when Jesus quoted the Caesar's inscription on the Roman coin for Roman taxes.
As an added bonus, Peter's metaphor emphasizes the fact that the place of eternal separation from God was not intended for humans, but for Satan and the angels that followed him in rebellion. Subtle, but important.
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It was written by a Jewish fisherman from Galilee.
I mean this opens a whole can of worms because Jewish fishermen in the Galilee probably were not fluent in Greek. Paul, being more urbane and worldly, and having lived in Tarsus in what is modern day Turkey, obviously was.
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It was written by a Jewish fisherman from Galilee.
I mean this opens a whole can of worms because Jewish fishermen in the Galilee probably were not fluent in Greek. Paul, being more urbane and worldly, and having lived in Tarsus in what is modern day Turkey, obviously was.
Perhaps. Peter was an old man, 30+ years removed from Jesus' days, when he wrote that epistle. Maybe he learned a thing or two hanging around John...
:)
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Perhaps.
The penning of the NT in Greek suggests to me at least who the authors and the intended audience was.
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Don't you get bored with all the copy-pasta? (Not you, Zachary)
Hey, it popped up and that verse has always been a question in.my mind. Now its clear why Peter put it in..
Same reason that Paul quotes Greek poets in his address to the Aeropagus. Or when Jesus quoted the Caesar's inscription on the Roman coin for Roman taxes.
As an added bonus, Peter's metaphor emphasizes the fact that the place of eternal separation from God was not intended for humans, but for Satan and the angels that followed him in rebellion. Subtle, but important.
Rabbi, with my best Fred Gwynne voice.. 'that is a lucid, intelligent, well-thought-out' post....
Now a question that poses itself is whether the evil angels feared to be sent there to this place of darkness to such a degree that they thus asked to be sent into the swine on the hill..
Matthew 8:31-32
So the devils besought him, saying, If thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.
And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters.
Mark 5:12-13
And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.
And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea.
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Don't you get bored with all the copy-pasta? (Not you, Zachary)
Hey, it popped up and that verse has always been a question in.my mind. Now its clear why Peter put it in..
There's no need to be so coy, Chamberlain. It "popped up" in the longstanding thread you have elsewhere on "Hell" in Adventist thought. But telling me this doesn't address the barb, which is to really poke at this concept of afterthoughts, and the cross-posting that results out of that other thread.
Hmmmmmm.
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Don't you get bored with all the copy-pasta? (Not you, Zachary)
Hey, it popped up and that verse has always been a question in.my mind. Now its clear why Peter put it in..
There's no need to be so coy, Chamberlain. It "popped up" in the longstanding thread you have elsewhere on "Hell" in Adventist thought. But telling me this doesn't address the barb, which is to really poke at this concept of afterthoughts, and the cross-posting that results out of that other thread.
Hmmmmmm.
No, my brother. It came up in a place I would not have expected or looked for. When I went to check on my friend and send him a message in Facebook of all places...
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Don't you get bored with all the copy-pasta? (Not you, Zachary)
Hey, it popped up and that verse has always been a question in.my mind. Now its clear why Peter put it in..
There's no need to be so coy, Chamberlain. It "popped up" in the longstanding thread you have elsewhere on "Hell" in Adventist thought. But telling me this doesn't address the barb, which is to really poke at this concept of afterthoughts, and the cross-posting that results out of that other thread.
Hmmmmmm.
No, my brother. It came up in a place I would not have expected or looked for. When I went to check on my friend and send him a message in Facebook of all places...
Okay, sister.
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Now you see why I posted the thread.. https://bibleforums.us/index.php?topic=782.msg15981;topicseen#new
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Now you see why I posted the thread.. https://bibleforums.us/index.php?topic=782.msg15981;topicseen#new
What do you mean, 'now'? As soon as you posted that thread (well, the first one I deleted) I pointed exactly this thing out. Was I not clear that I was highlighting your passive-aggressive behaviour and blaming of others for issues you've started?
That you've started saying 'brother' speaks volumes.
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That you've started saying 'brother' speaks volumes.
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At least he didnt call you “sister”…
:o
8) :-X
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That you've started saying 'brother' speaks volumes.
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At least he didnt call you “sister”…
:o
8) :-X
Heaven forfend
(https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2lkPTc5MGI3NjExZzI3MTBtMWVyZXQ1amlrMzc5cnp2NTluenloYWFzNDZ6eXVmOWFmNiZlcD12MV9pbnRlcm5hbF9naWZfYnlfaWQmY3Q9Zw/VBfTQ7XG2zbZ6/giphy.gif)
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Heaven forfend
Buffy!
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"There is one word in the New Testament that comes straight from Greek mythology. Not a metaphor. Not a translation choice. The actual name of the abyss where the Titans were imprisoned.
So is Hades, also Greek mythology.
So is the Lake of Fire, Egyptian mythology ~1000BC
Borrowed names.
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Perhaps.
The penning of the NT in Greek suggests to me at least who the authors and the intended audience was.
Rom 16:22 I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.
It was not uncommon others (like in this case Paul's letter to the Romans) did the actual work, the finishing touch, the writing.
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Rom 16:22 I Tertius, who wrote this letter, greet you in the Lord.
It was not uncommon others (like in this case Paul's letter to the Romans) did the actual work, the finishing touch, the writing.
Oh, I have no doubt. The finishing touch was in Greek because the entire books were written in Greek. For their intended audience.