Texts in Conversation
2 Peter refers to Tartarus from Greek mythology for the place where fallen angels are kept, based on 1 Enoch. The Greek Septuagint translation of Proverbs also uses Tartarus, showing that the idea was already part of Hellenistic Jewish tradition.
Share:
2500 BCE
1000+ CE
LXX Proverbs 30:16
Septuagint
14 A wicked generation have swords for teeth and jaw-teeth as knives, so as to destroy and devour the lowly from the earth, and the poor of them from among men. 15 The horse-leech had three dearly-beloved daughters: and these three did not satisfy her; and the fourth was not contented so as to say, Enough. 16 Hades, and the love of a woman, and Tartarus, and the earth not filled with water; water also and fire will not say, It is enough. 17 The eye that laughs to scorn a father, and dishonors the old age of a mother, let the ravens of the valleys pick it out, and let the young eagles devour it. 18 Moreover there are three things impossible for me to comprehend, and the fourth I do not know:
Date: 100–1 BCE (based on scholarly estimates)
2 Peter 2:4
New Testament
3 And in their greed they will exploit you with deceptive words. Their condemnation pronounced long ago is not sitting idly by; their destruction is not asleep. 4 For if God did not spare the angels who sinned, but threw them into Tartarus16 and locked them up in chains in utter darkness, to be kept until the judgment, 5 and if he did not spare the ancient world, but did protect Noah, a herald of righteousness, along with seven others, when God brought a flood on an ungodly world,
Date: 120–130 CE (based on scholarly estimates)
Search:
Notes and References
"... The verbs “to cast into Tartarus,” and were almost always used with reference to the early Greek theogonic myths, in which the ancient giants, the Cyclopes and Titans, were imprisoned in Tartarus, the lowest part of the underworld, by Uranos, Kronos and Zeus. They are not used in the Greek version of 1 Enoch; though τάρταρος (“Tartarus”) is used of the place of divine punishment in 1 Enoch 20:2, as elsewhere in Jewish Greek literature (LXX Job 40:20; 41:24; Proverbs 30:16; Sibylline Oracles 4:186; Philo, Life of Moses 2.433). But Hellenistic Jews were aware that the Greek myth of the Titans had some similarity to the fall of the Watchers (though Philo, Gig. 58, rejects any comparison). Sometimes the Watchers’ sons, the giants (the Nephilim), were compared with the Titans (Josephus, Antiquities 1.73; compare LXX Ezekiel 32:27; Sirach 16:7) but in Judith 16:6 (and also the Christian passage Sibylline Oracles 2:231) the Watchers themselves seem to be called τιτᾶνες (“Titans”). Thus in using a term reminiscent of the Greek myth of the Titans the author of 2 Peter follows Hellenistic Jewish practice ..."
Richard Bauckham, Word Biblical Commentary: Jude-2 Peter (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1983), 249–250.
* The use of references are not endorsements of their contents. Please read the entirety of the provided reference(s) to understand the author's full intentions regarding the use of these texts.
Your Feedback:
Leave a Comment
Anonymous comments are welcome. All comments are subject to moderation.
User Comments
,