Quote:
Originally Posted by manna-man
1. Sheol. All 31 occurrences of the word “hell” used by the KJV in the Old Testament represent the underlying Hebrew word Sheol. That’s a word that doesn’t really have a good English equivalent, since the understanding of death and the afterlife that it represents is an ancient and not a modern idea in Jewish and Christian thought.
All of that probably raises more questions than it answers, but it’s helpful to know that the concept of hell in the Bible evolved over time as the Israelites came into contact with (and were conquered by) other empires—especially Greece and Rome.
Author: Anne Robertson
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Anne's stats about the KJV are somewhat accurate, but her interpretations are questionable, esp the bits I quoted. And she neglected to point out that not ALL uses of the word 'Sheol' were translated as "hell". Only the ones for which it was describing a bad guy's fate.
The concept of Sheol did not evolve, at least with the Pharisees. They understood that a resurrection would occur in which one was released from Sheol/Hades. This concept goes all the way back to Job, and is held up in Revelation. Jesus sided with the Pharisees on this point, and so did Paul in his epistles. And so did John.
The Sadducees, on the other hand, were Hellenized to the point where they denied the resurrection, preferring the Greek version of the afterlife, in which there was no resurrection. Only a "good place" and a "bad place".
Jumping ahead to the translation of the KJV, it seems that the Sadducees won most of the war. The English had adopted the heaven/hell model of the afterlife, and thus they conflated the terms 'Sheol/Hades' with 'Gehenna' in their translation, calling them all "hell".
So much for "2000 years of tradition". I am glad we have original texts by which the KJV model is debunked.