Is the King James Bible all wrong about death and hell?
After all I have said about the new Bibles removing the word "hell"
and some of the words about hell, I was amazed to find out
a new accusation (at least, to me):
Some people are teaching the King James is dangerous,
because of the times it doesn't translate
the Hebrew Sheol or the Greek Hades as hell!
And that the cultists just love to use the King James
because of this supposed "mistake."
Is it true? Is the King James Bible
a goldmine for groups that don't believe in hell?
What's the real story? Do you want to know?
Hi, I'm David Daniels from Chick Publications
First, I actually heard a scholarly guy claim:
"Hades is not the grave." "No Greek or Hebrew scholar
would say that it is."
Okay, the accusation that the King James
translates Hades as "grave" all over the place
is just wrong. Hades only appears
in the New Testament 11 times. And 10 times of the 11
it is translated "hell." Just one time
it is translated "grave." Do you know when that is?
1 Corinthians 15:55 "O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory?"
This is not talking about rescuing people from
punishment in hell, is it? Of course not!
Hebrews 9:27 says "And as it is appointed
unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:"
So everyone will be judged after they die.
They don't get rescued out of the torments of hell.
For the unforgiven, it's hell, then judgment, then lake of fire.
"Out of the frying pan and into the lake of fire."
So it's talking about the afterlife, but it's not talking about
torments of hell. So how do we translate it?
It's the same Greek word Hades.
But it's not about hell as we English-speakers
understand it --which is always negative.
They could have used a lot of words,
but they chose to use the word "grave,"
to encompass when they're put in the ground,
and they descend into the afterlife, whether paradise,
"Abraham's bosom," or torments,
what we call "hell."
Believe it or not, it wasn't new with
the King James translators. The Bishops Bible
translates Sheol and Hades the same way,
with the same words. That was something
the King James translators didn't have to fix.
The Bishops Bible translators already got that right!
1 Corinthians 15:55 is a direct reference to Hosea 13:14.
14 "I will ransom them from the power of the grave;
I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues;
O grave, I will be thy destruction..."
Grave, of course, is Sheol. And now we come
to the Hebrew side.
God never promised to ransom people
from torments in hell. But from death itself?
From the afterlife, still apart from God?
Absolutely! That was their hope!
Without the Cross and forgiveness of sins
and being granted Christ's righteousness,
they could not go to heaven. So literally, without the gospel,
they could not be made perfect. That's why it says
in Hebrews 11:39-40,
39 "And these all, having obtained a good report
through faith, received not the promise:
40 God having provided some better thing for us,
that they without us should not be made perfect."
So they stayed in "the grave" --the afterlife,
but not in torment of hell-- until Jesus set the captives free
and "led captivity captive," Psalm 68:18 and Ephesians 4:8.
"Okay," you say. "You proved how some people
translated Hades as 'the grave' in that one New Testament verse.
But what about the 31 verses in the Old Testament
that Sheol was translated 'the grave'?"
Great question. Totally fair.
So let's look at the very first time the King James translators ever
translated Sheol as "the grave." Turn to Genesis 37:35.
35 "And all his sons and all his daughters
rose up to comfort him; but he refused to be comforted;
and he said, For I will go down
into the grave unto my son mourning.
Thus his father wept for him."
The word for "grave" here is Sheol.
But are there any other English translations that are willing
to translate Sheol as "the grave" in this verse?
Yes!
Sheol was translated "the grave" in over 15 translations, including:
The NIV (1984 and 2011),
The New Living Translation (1996, 2004, 2007),
The New King James (1982);
And 5 Jewish Bibles, including
The Complete Jewish Bible (1998), by David H. Stern
and the JPS, Jewish Publication Society 1917,
the Rabbi Isaac Leeser Bible (1853),
Over 15 translations, 5 of them Jewish,
that had no problems, based on context,
of defining Sheol as "the grave." And I doubt that anyone would argue
that they weren't scholars.
So you see, translating Sheol and Hades
by two words, "hell" and "the grave," depending on the context,
is nothing new.
We have lots of words in English that have more than one meaning,
depending upon how they're used.
There are 31 verses where Sheol is translated "grave."
But there are also 31 verses where Sheol is translated "hell."
Other Bible versions minimize hell, by leaving Sheol and Hades untranslated,
with "hell" in the Bible only a few times, or leaving it out altogether!
Which would you rather have:
A bible that removes "hell" altogether, and refuses to translate
the Hebrew Sheol and the Greek Hades?
Or one that has a lot of "hell" in it?
I want everyone to avoid hell at all costs. So I've made my choice.
How about you?
God bless you, and have a wonderful day.