Hell

Carl W. Conrad cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Fri Oct 25 08:19:39 EDT 2002


At 4:33 AM +1000 10/25/02, Lew Osborne wrote:
>Greetings
>
>In the Greek we have TATARTAROW TARTAROS, and GEENNA and hADHS
>all translated 'hell'. Can some one please give the exact meaning for each.
>
>It appears that the first one means in an abyss, gehenna - the fires
>outside of Jerusalem and hades, the grave. Is this correct?

Daniel Walin has already given good glosses for GEENNA. Let me say just a
bit about the Greek cultural background of TARTAROS and hADHS.

In the oldest Greek theogonic traditions (Hesiod's Theogony) TARTAROS was
the abyss beneath the surface of the earth; if you want to follow up the
references I'd suggest checking the text of Hesiod or using the English
word-look up at Perseus for "Tartaros." Hesiod says that "the roots' of all
things are there; more significant, it is the abyss into which Zeus placed
the rebellious Titans, who attempted to overthrow his regime, after he
defeated them, and it is the place of confinement for "the great sinners"
such as Tantalus, Sisyphus, the Danaid maidens, and Iphion. Tartaros later
came to be thought of as a more general term for the whole of the
underworld, while "the house of Hades" referred more specifically to an
area within the larger Tartaros as an abode of the dead.

hADHS is one of the names of Zeus' brothers (the other being POSEIDWN); as
Zeus (according to the ancient DASMOS or allotment) held sway over the sky
(OURANOS), Poseidon over earth and sea, so Hades held sway over the
underworld, particularly as an abode of the dead, which in traditional
Greek was referred to as hADOU in the genitive with OIKOS or OIKIA or some
noun for "house" implicit: hADOU is the "house of Hades" or "place of
Hades." In the course of centuries the conception of Hades' house as the
place of the dead underwent considerable change and variation and came to
include notions of separate allotted places for the punishment of sinners
and for the blessed place of the good; it would be a mistake to suppose
that there is a single generally-accepted conception of the geography or
nature of Hades, although the most influential mythic narrative accounts
are those of Homer in the 11th book of the Odyssey and of the Roman poet
Vergil in the 6th book of the Aeneid. Sometimes "Hades" simply means
"death"; sometimes it is equated with the Hebraic "Sheol" for "abode of the
dead" or more simply "the grave."


-- 

Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu OR cwconrad at ioa.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/



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