Hell, Hades, Gehenna, and the Realm of the Dead – Acts 2:27 <\/p>\n
Monday with Mounce<\/p>\n
Hell is a slippery concept; and no, I\u2019m not talking about recent debates. I am talking about what the word \u00e1\u00be\u2026\u00ce\u00b4\u00ce\u00b7\u00cf\u201a means.<\/p>\n
I was reminded of this in reading the NIV of Acts 2:27. Peter cites Ps 16:10 as fulfilled in Christ. \u201cYou will not abandon me to the realm of the dead, you will not let your holy one see decay.\u201d Why did the NIV switch from \u201cgrave\u201d (1984) to \u201crealm of the dead\u201d? (I was not on the CBT when this change was made, so I was not part of the discussion.)<\/p>\n
\u00e1\u00be\u2026\u00ce\u00b4\u00ce\u00b7\u00cf\u201a occurs ten times in the New Testament. In eight the NIV translates \u00e1\u00be\u2026\u00ce\u00b4\u00ce\u00b7\u00cf\u201a as \u201cHades.\u201d In Acts 2:27 and in Peter\u2019s following comment (v 31), it translates \u00e1\u00be\u2026\u00ce\u00b4\u00ce\u00b7\u00cf\u201a as the \u201crealm of the dead.\u201d In our passage, most translations simply write \u201dHades\u201d (NASB, NRSV, HCSB, NET) or \u201cHell\u201d (ESV, KJV).<\/p>\n
Sheol, the Old Testament word, is the place where all dead go, whether righteous or unrighteous. It is a place of shadowy existence. (Can we use this phrase, \u201cshadowy,\u201d any more without hearing the voice of Gandalf?) This is why the rich man could see Lazarus in the parable (Luke 16:23). This is the context of Ps 16:10, and reflects David\u2019s conviction that God will not abandon him to the realm of the dead, the place of decay, and prophetically sees that God will likewise not abandon the Davidic Messiah.<\/p>\n
Hades, on the other hand, is a transliteration of a Greek concept (obviously), referring first to the god of the underworld, and then eventually his domain, the realm of the dead, the grave, and death. \u00e1\u00be\u2026\u00ce\u00b4\u00ce\u00b7\u00cf\u201a was chosen as the primary translation of the Hebrew Sheol.<\/p>\n
Verbrugge explains \u00e1\u00be\u2026\u00ce\u00b4\u00ce\u00b7\u00cf\u201a in the LXX as \u201ca land of darkness, in which God is not remembered (Job 26:5\u20146; cf. 10:21\u201422; Ps. 6:5; 30:3, 9; 115:17; Prov. 1:12; 27:20; Isa. 5:14) \u2026 [where] there is no proclamation or praise (Isa. 38:18; cf. Ps. 88:11).\u201d (NIDNTT-A, 16). In the New Testament we see it has become an underground prison (Matt 16:18; Rev 1:18), a place of torment that will eventually be thrown into the lake of fire and destroyed (Rev 20:14).<\/p>\n
The other word connected with the topic of hell is Gehenna. The word is the Greek form of the Aramaic name of the valley to the south of Jerusalem, \u201cthe valley of the son[s] of Hinnom.\u201d It is a place of child sacrifices (2 Kings 16:3; 21:6), a desecration that easily lent itself as the name and picture of God\u2019s judgment (Jer 7:32), a fiery abyss (Matt 25:41; 13:42, 50). It is a temporary place (or state) that will give up its dead in final punishment and judgment. In 1 Pet 3:19 it clearly is a place for only the ungodly.<\/p>\n
When you hear the word \u201chell,\u201d what do you see? My guess is that most see pictures of Dante\u2019s inferno, and biblically you see Gehenna, the valley used for child sacrifice and a garbage dump, whose fires and stench were a constant reminder of the punishment for sin.<\/p>\n
This is not what David sees. He sees Sheol as a place of shadowy existence, a place of \u201cdecay\u201d (Ps 16:10b). By changing from \u201cHades\u201d to \u201crealm of the dead,\u201d the NIV is helping us not be anachronistic in our images. The NLT is agreeing with the NIV when it translates, \u201cFor you will not leave my soul among the dead.\u201d That is certainly the point of the Psalmist and of Peter.<\/p>\n
MouncewWilliam D. [Bill] Mounce posts about the Greek language, exegesis, and related topics at Koinonia. He is the author of numerous books, including the bestselling Basics of Biblical Greek, and is the general editor for Mounce’s Complete Expository Dictionary of the Old and New Testament Words. He served as the New Testament chair of the English Standard Version Bible translation, and is currently on the Committee for Bible Translation for the NIV. Learn more and visit Bill’s other blog on spiritual growth, Life is a Journey, at www.billmounce.com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hell, Hades, Gehenna, and the Realm of the Dead – Acts 2:27 Monday with Mounce Hell is a slippery concept; and no, I\u2019m not talking about recent debates. I am talking about what the word \u00e1\u00be\u2026\u00ce\u00b4\u00ce\u00b7\u00cf\u201a means. I was reminded of this in reading the NIV of Acts 2:27. Peter cites Ps 16:10 as fulfilled…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"twitterCardType":"","cardImageID":0,"cardImage":"","cardTitle":"","cardDesc":"","cardImageAlt":"","cardPlayer":"","cardPlayerWidth":0,"cardPlayerHeight":0,"cardPlayerStream":"","cardPlayerCodec":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10510","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10510","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10510"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10510\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10510"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10510"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/purposedriven.ca\/wiki\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10510"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}