[B-Greek] Matthew 16:18 - two questions
Eric S. Weiss
papaweiss1 at yahoo.com
Sun Jul 20 23:16:31 EDT 2008
> It seems natural that such a basic concept about Hades would
> be known in Israel, which used the Greek language and knew
> Greek culture. Jesus could easily allude to this common
> concept in Matt 16:18, regardless of OT teaching about a
> resurrection. For Hades would be inescapable until then, it
> seemed, and Jesus is the resurrection (John 11:25).
Since Jesus doesn't say, "The gates of Hades will not prevail
against Me," but says they will not prevail against "it" - i.e.,
either the church or Peter's confession - I'm not sure that one
can assert that He's talking about His resurrection as busting
open the gates of Hades. Rather, either His church or those who
confess that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the Living God
(which in a sense is His church), are the "it" against which
the gates of Hades will not be able to prevail.Eric S. Weiss
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