Hades in Jewish Greek

The New Testament writers assumed that their readers were familiar with the Jewish Scriptures (i.e., the “Old Testament”). This is evident not only in their extensive quotes from the Jewish Scriptures, but also in their use of language.

For example, in the Gospel of Luke, which was supposedly written for a non-Jewish audience, Jesus told a story in which a man died and went to “Hades” (Luke 16:23). The Greek word for “Hades”, hadēs (ᾁδης), originated from Greek mythology as the name of the god of the underworld, where the ancient Greeks believed the souls people went when they died. That is what a non-Jewish Greek reader would have thought about if he saw the word “Hades” in the New Testament. “Wow, these Christians believe in Hades too!”

However, by the time of Jesus, Jews were using the Greek word “Hades” as an equivalent for the Hebrew word for “Sheol”, šəōwl (שְׁאוֹל). In the Jewish Scriptures, Sheol was the place of the dead; to be in Sheol meant to be dead. That was what they had in mind when using the word “Hades”; nothing at all to do with Greek mythology.

Thus, Jews were using some Greek words in a totally different manner from how non-Jewish Greek speakers would normally understand those words. Likewise, the New Testament writers tended to use these Greek words in their Jewish sense rather than with their normal “non-Jewish” meanings—and the New Testament writers expected their audience to know that.

Clearly, the writings of the New Testament were not intended to be read and understood on one’s own without guidance. Rather, it was expected that the New Testament writings would be read and heard in a Christian community, in which everyone would be helping one another to learn and live the Gospel.