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The Gods of the Bible
Every named divine being in Scripture, what the text calls it, and what the ancient world thought it was.
Death and Hades
Death and the grave, treated in Revelation as figures who ride and get thrown into fire.
1 Corinthians 15:26, in every translation this tool compares.
Death and the grave get handed a horse to ride, and later get thrown into the lake of fire. Is that a person being punished, or a picture of death coming to an end? Paul calls death the last enemy to be destroyed, which can be read either way.
Given a horse to ride and then thrown into the lake of fire. Paul calls death the last enemy to be destroyed. DDD (J. N. Bremmer) is frank about how little of the Greek god survives in the Bible's usage. Hades in Greek myth is a specific and nearly cultless deity (only Elis worshipped him in a temple), best known for abducting Persephone, and none of that mythology carries over. In the Septuagint Hades occurs 111 times, almost always as the standard translation of Sheol, and DDD explains the personified Death that rides a horse or is thrown into the lake of fire (1 Corinthians 15:55 in some manuscripts; Revelation 6:8; 20:13-14) as a continuation of the Old Testament's own personification of Death, Mot, more than any trace of the Greek god.
Figure or figure of speech. DDD's Bremmer explains the riding and burning Death of Revelation as the Old Testament's own personification of Death continued, with almost nothing of the Greek god Hades carried over. Reading Death and Hades as beings takes the same scenes more literally. Paul's last enemy is open to both.
- 1 Corinthians 15:26,55
- Revelation 1:18
- Revelation 6:8
- Revelation 20:13-14
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/divine-council-index\/matthew-16-13-20\/","n":"Matthew 16:13-20","s":"Caesarea Philippi, the gates of Hades, and the confession.","r":"Matthew 16:13-20"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/mavet\/","n":"mavet","s":"Death. Also personified, and paired with Sheol in the poetry.","r":"Deuteronomy 30:19"}
- {"u":"https:\/\/jayms.com\/bible-study-tools-2\/bible-translation-differences\/sheol\/","n":"sheol","s":"The realm of the dead. Not hell, and not nothing.","r":"Genesis 37:35"}
- J. N. Bremmer, DDD s.v. "Hades," 382
