Re: Suggestions for translating GEENNA

From: Steven Cox (scox@ns1.chinaonline.com.cn.net)
Date: Tue Dec 30 1997 - 18:59:41 EST


        Hello again David
        I have wondered whether the use of the verb TARTAROW
        was part of the (I perceive) generally negative way
        Peter refers to Enoch 1. TARTAROW doesn't appear to
        be a normal vocabulary item.

        Unfortunately I do not have access to the Greek text,
        (though I note it is scheduled for TLG E) but looking
        at Enoch 20:3 "Uriel who is over Tartarus" it looks
        unlikely that TARTAROW is being used. Though of course
        an Aramaic version or verbal tradition may have been
        what Peter was referencing.

        This makes me wonder how many of the other dozen or
        so references in 1/2Peter/Jude to Enoch-ism are slanted
        in their quoting.

        i.e "seventh from Adam" looks like a verbatim quote
        of the Book of Noah section, but is it?

        Steven

At 11:36 97/12/30 -0500, David L. Moore wrote:
>At 07:56 AM 12/30/97 +0800, Steven Cox wrote:
>> Hi
>> The Russian Synodal Version just leaves it
>> as Geenna (Gehenna) or Ad (Hades). But even
>> the Synodal balks at 2 Peter 2:4 being
>> Tartarus... might just be a little too
>> confusing to have 3 hells :-)
>
>
> I wonder if the use of the verb TARTAROW in 2P. 2:4 doesn't have
>something to do with punishment in reference to the special rank of angels
>here. In the Greek spiritual cosmology, Tartarus was a place of prison and
>torment for gods and demi-gods who had offended the more powerful of the
>gods. It was not a place for the departed souls of mere men (cf. hADHS).
>So TARTAROW is used here, and not in reference to the place of torment for
>men who have offended God.
>
> Peter's (or his interpreter's) use of the verb is apparently in
>reference to the *action* rather than the *place* of Tartarus; since the
>angels (mighty in their own right) who sinned have been imprisoned in
>darkness by the Almighty in an action similar to that of the mythical gods
>in consigning those who offended them to Tartarus. Peter gives the
>expression a specifically Christian twist in saying that these angels' are
>kept for (the day of) judgement.
>
>Regards,
>
>David L. Moore
>Miami, Florida, USA
>Southeastern Spanish District of the A/G Dept. of Education
>E-mail: dvdmoore@ix.netcom.com
>Home Page: http://members.aol.com/dvdmoore
>
>
>
>



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