Use of the word Hell in the Bible

[po18guy]

Much more meaning, true, but not near the accuracy in what Jesus is saying there. Perhaps the word should be changed to “pile of burning trash” or something, because there is a specific image Jesus is trying to invoke that is lost by calling it Hell and lumping it in with the references to Sheol and Hades. Gehenna is a more accurate translation, in line with Liturgiam Authenticam, plain and simple. If people don’t understand the reference, that is what footnotes are for and the teachings of the Church, to educate us.

But, its intros and notes are weak in this regard.

All this talk about bias and agenda sounds a lot like things I hear from KJV-onlyist. Satan is not behind this Bible translation, just people that disagree with you regarding some matters of translation. Just because you don’t like how they translated something doesn’t mean they are trying to undermine the Catechism in service of the Devil.

Don’t paint the NAB dis-likers with a broad brush just yet. It has numerous, well documented areas of concern. If the NAB was the only bible, I would rely on it. But, there are many alternatives which do not have those multiple areas of concern. I do a fair share of defending the Church from scripture, and it is difficult to do from the NAB. I am far from alone in this opinion.

I have a lot of disagreement with the NABRE, but not this.

Fair enough. But, combine the bland NAB with an era of weak catechesis and we see the problems that the Church is experiencing today.

The Catechism is there to explain our understanding of the teachings of the Church and the Bible, not the other way around.

I buy unused catechisms in thrift stores regularly. And, this is the problem. Catholics aren’t reading them and we are not being taught its content either. Now, multiply that times 50 years and what do you get?

If we start altering the language of the Bible to perpetuate inaccuracies so it is in better line with how we think our statement of faith should read, then that makes us no better than Martin Luther changing an important passage from “faith” to “faith alone”, or Baptist who want to replace the word “baptized” with “immersed”.

Whoa! “Hell” is doctrine! “Gehenna” is not. Gehenna is allegory, analogy. It is exactly what our Lord said, and what His ancient Palestinian audience understood, but what about today?

Are you certain that you are not an NAB-onlyist? OK, just kidding, but I had to ask. The fact that the USCCB holds the copyright to, and profits from the sale of each and every NAB should cause raised eyebrows, I would think. Consider that the 1953 “Catholic Action Bible”, which was produced by Belmont Abbey, stated that it was unusual for a bible not to emerge from an Abbey. I find zero evidence that the NAB emerged from any Abbey. In fact, a Presbyterian minister was consulted during the translation.

Love or hate Wiki, here’s what it says about the NAB:

"It was specifically translated into English by the Confraternity of Christian Doctrine under the liturgical principles and reforms of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).

Has the “spirit of Vatican II” ever caused any problems? It lead to “gay masses” in the Seattle Archdiocese.

Excerpts taken from a modified version based on the NAB[1][2] are used in the only Lectionary for Mass approved by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops for use in the United States. [3] Specifically, a modified form of 1970 Old Testament and 1986 New Testament. Until 2008, a 1991 Psalter heavily modified by the Vatican to lessen the extensive use of gender-neutral language was approved.

I don’t know, but “extensive use of gender-neutral language” not only alters the meaning and intent of the original language, but to a reclusive, black helicopter fearing paranoiac bunker-dewller like myself, carries the hint of agenda.

On the other hand, modernists love the NAB , as they use it to customize the faith.

 

[bjh13]

But, its intros and notes are weak in this regard.

They are, which is one of the problems I have with the NABRE.

Don’t paint the NAB dis-likers with a broad brush just yet.

I’m not, that comment was specifically addressed to you and your comment “In looking at the overall picture of the American Church since 1970, one can see that the NAB has had a seemingly profound impact.”

It has numerous, well documented areas of concern. If the NAB was the only bible, I would rely on it. But, there are many alternatives which do not have those multiple areas of concern. I do a fair share of defending the Church from scripture, and it is difficult to do from the NAB. I am far from alone in this opinion.

I agree it has it’s faults, but using the term Gehenna isn’t one of them.

Fair enough. But, combine the bland NAB with an era of weak catechesis and we see the problems that the Church is experiencing today.

Again, this is the kind of argument the KJV-onlyist use. Correlation does not equal causation.

I buy unused catechisms in thrift stores regularly. And, this is the problem. Catholics aren’t reading them and we are not being taught its content either. Now, multiply that times 50 years and what do you get?

This problem is completely at the hands of the clergy, not the Bible translation being used. My church has a growing membership, and the priests give a strong emphasis on reading the the Bible, and most people there use the NAB or NABRE. If my church can get by without whatever problems you are inferring (well, mostly, most of us don’t bother putting on a suit and tie but dress business casual for Mass) that tells me it isn’t the Bible translation that is the root of these problems.

Whoa! “Hell” is doctrine! “Gehenna” is not. Gehenna is allegory, analogy. It is exactly what our Lord said, and what His ancient Palestinian audience understood, but what about today?

You either need to double check your Catechism or get a new one. Check 1034, which specifically explains what Gehenna is and what Jesus meant when he said it.

Are you certain that you are not an NAB-onlyist?

Very certain. I’m only now reading through it for the first time, it certainly isn’t my primary Bible.

OK, just kidding, but I had to ask. The fact that the USCCB holds the copyright to, and profits from the sale of each and every NAB should cause raised eyebrows, I would think.

This is no different than the Douay-Rheims, Cofraternity Bible, or even the King James (which is still under copyright in England to the Anglican church). While I’m disappointed with how this may have affected things like approval of the NLT-CE for personal study, this is hardly out of the ordinary and is the case for many Bibles in many languages, including the Nova Vulgata.

Consider that the 1953 “Catholic Action Bible”, which was produced by Belmont Abbey, stated that it was unusual for a bible not to emerge from an Abbey. I find zero evidence that the NAB emerged from any Abbey. In fact, a Presbyterian minister was consulted during the translation.

I don’t see a problem with a non Catholic expert or scholar being consulted regarding the translation.

Has the “spirit of Vatican II” ever caused any problems? It lead to “gay masses” in the Seattle Archdiocese.

Once again, correlation does not equal causation. Any “gay masses” that occured in Seattle have a lot more to do with the changing culture in the United States and problems in that particular diocese than anything with Vatican II. No where does Vatican II change anything about how the church feels regarding homosexuality.

Either way, this has nothing to do with the discussion of the topic at hand.

I don’t know, but “extensive use of gender-neutral language” not only alters the meaning and intent of the original language, but to a reclusive, black helicopter fearing paranoiac bunker-dewller like myself, carries the hint of agenda.

I haven’t read those versions of the Psalms, so I can’t comment on them specifically, but I don’t have a problem with gender-neutral language being used where the Bible clearly is referring to a mixed gender group. Modern English is a different language than Koine Greek, while in Greek the statement of “brothers” may be taken to mean both genders, modern English does not and requires a mixed case statement. Referring to a large crowd obviously full of both sexes as “brothers and sisters” instead of just “brothers” is quite different than changing any references to the gender of God or Jesus as most people upset about gender-neutral language seem to imply is the case (and may be the case in this example, as I said I haven’t read the referenced Psalms translation). But again, this is straying from the point of the topic.

On the other hand, modernists love the NAB , as they use it to customize the faith.

I don’t think anyone “loves” the NABRE. They just use it because it is adequate and closest to what they hear during the readings at Mass. I’ve yet to hear someone use a peculiarity of how the NAB or NABRE translate something to justify any heresy, if you have any examples please do tell.

Back to the point:

Jesus used the word Gehenna. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (at least a current one, I’m not sure what you are using) clearly explains what this reference means in paragraph 1034. This is how our faith works, the Bible says what the Bible says and the Catechism is used to explain what it means along with what the Church position is, and it works fine in this instance.

 

[po18guy]

I’m not, that comment was specifically addressed to you and your comment “In looking at the overall picture of the American Church since 1970, one can see that the NAB has had a seemingly profound impact.”

I must retract that. Nearly all Catholic bibles I buy on the used market are unread. So, it can’t be the NAB.

Correlation does not equal causation.

Neither does it exclude it.

This problem is completely at the hands of the clergy, not the Bible translation being used.

For all of this pounding on Gehenna as being accurate, why is Mary not full of grace anymore? Why does Paul no longer forgive sins in the person of Christ? It goes on. The NSB does a lot of things right, but the Church can do, and has done, far better.

You either need to double check your Catechism or get a new one. Check 1034, which specifically explains what Gehenna is and what Jesus meant when he said it.

Who ever said that Jesus did not use “Gehenna” No one! You will please note that “Gehenna” in section 1034 is used within the doctrine of hell. Should the doctrine be changed from hell to Gehenna?

I don’t see a problem with a non Catholic expert or scholar being consulted regarding the translation.

I must point out that the NAB is the first American translation to rely substantially on secular theologians and the noted protestant, rather than ordained Catholic clergy/theologians. As we can see from the threads here at CAF, it shows.

Once again, correlation does not equal causation.

And, once again, neither does it exclude it.

Any “gay masses” that occured in Seattle have a lot more to do with the changing culture in the United States and problems in that particular diocese than anything with Vatican II. No where does Vatican II change anything about how the church feels regarding homosexuality.

That is the “spirit of Vatican II” Are you considering the spiritual aspects of all of this? Since a spirit of some type drives each and every human action, and since the testing of the spirits seems to have been at a low point in recent decades, could this entire Church malaise have a spiritual nature or origin? Of course.

Either way, this has nothing to do with the discussion of the topic at hand.

Are the bible translations that use “hell” defective in your opinion? You are a stickler for “Gehenna” while seemingly downplaying the many other linguistic oddities in the NAB. A curious bit, that is.

I re-read the OP, and I cannot fault his logic or his point.

 

[patrick457]

In older and more literal translations, the word “Hell” appears in the Bible over 80 times. But the trend in modern translations has been to use other words, so that the word Hell is used much less often. The NABRE does not use the world Hell at all.

The Catholic doctrine on Hell is based in large part on Sacred Scripture. But it becomes harder to support that doctrine, and easier to water it down, when modern translations eschew using the word itself.

I would take the opposite opinion. I would rather that Hadēs (‘Hades’) or Geenna (‘Gehenna’) or Tartaros (2 Peter 2:4) be left untranslated - at best there should be footnotes explaining what those words mean in context.

 

[bjh13]

po18guy, the replies are getting way off topic so I am going to specifically pair my response back down to just the use of Gehenna over Hell in the translation. I’m not here to argue about the supposed evils of Vatican II, I have no desire whatsoever to tread down that minefield of discussion and that isn’t what this is really about.

Who ever said that Jesus did not use “Gehenna” No one!

Yet you are in favor of changing the Bible so he says Hell instead. Your argument is that the word Gehenna is too vague for modern Catholics to understand so we should change what he says to match our Catechism instead.

You will please note that “Gehenna” in section 1034 is used within the doctrine of hell. Should the doctrine be changed from hell to Gehenna?

Of course we don’t need to change the doctrine. You can have the name of the doctrine be Hell and still acknowledge and properly translate the Bible to reflect what Jesus actually said.

Let me give you an example: the Trinity. The Catechism goes pretty in-depth into the Trinity, it is a central foundation of Catholic and indeed all Christian belief. The word Trinity does not appear in the Bible even once. Using your argument, should we add Trinity to the Bible? No, because altering the Bible to support our arguments is heresy. It is possible for a doctrine to use a word not found in Scripture, this has in fact been the case for centuries on many things.

Changing what Jesus said just so it better matches our Catechism is wrong. It’s the cart leading the horse. The Catechism is there to explain the Bible, we shouldn’t be altering the Bible to explain the Catechism. I’m not sure why I have to keep repeating this.

Are the bible translations that use “hell” defective in your opinion? You are a stickler for “Gehenna” while seemingly downplaying the many other linguistic oddities in the NAB. A curious bit, that is.

I’m not like a KJV-onlyist that believes in some sort of Inerrant or Inspired translation. All translations have flaws; anytime you go from the original language to another you are going to introduce inaccuracy due to the differences in the languages. Gehenna is the accurate translation and is therefore preferred. Jesus wasn’t using a generic term for the afterlife, he was using a specific metaphor to explain a concept and any Bible translation that reflects this is better at translating those verses than one that does not.

You are a stickler for “Gehenna” while seemingly downplaying the many other linguistic oddities in the NAB. A curious bit, that is.

I’m not downplaying them. This thread is about modern translations not using the world Hell, so that is what I am focusing on. Start another thread if you want to discuss other issues you have with the NAB or NABRE.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Billions of people are not going to burn forever in the trash pile known as Gehenna–they’re going to burn in Hell!

That’s why the word SHOULD be translated as Hell.

People aren’t afraid of a trash pile–they are afraid of Hell!

The worst instance in the NAB is where it has Jesus saying “The gates of the NETHERWORLD shall not prevail against it” instead of “the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it”.

It’s a crying shame when Protestant translations get that right and the NAB gets it wrong–that’s the #1 verse in favor of the papacy and of the Catholic Church and we get Netherworld in the NAB.

If anyone is so “scholarly” that they think that is a good thing then they don’t have a clue and are part of the problem!

If Hell isn’t in any particular bible translation then the devil must have written it!

 

[patrick457]

Billions of people are not going to burn forever in the trash pile known as Gehenna–they’re going to burn in Hell!

That’s why the word SHOULD be translated as Hell.

People aren’t afraid of a trash pile–they are afraid of Hell!

The worst instance in the NAB is where it has Jesus saying “The gates of the NETHERWORLD shall not prevail against it” instead of “the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it”.

It’s a crying shame when Protestant translations get that right and the NAB gets it wrong–that’s the #1 verse in favor of the papacy and of the Catholic Church and we get Netherworld in the NAB.

If anyone is so “scholarly” that they think that is a good thing then they don’t have a clue and are part of the problem!

If Hell isn’t in any particular bible translation then the devil must have written it!

There was NO burning rubbish heap at the Hinnom Valley, contrary to popular belief. It was all speculation by a medieval French rabbi. The “Valley of (the son/s of) Hinnom,” (cf. 2 Chronicles 28:3, 33:6; Jeremiah 7:31, 19:2-6; Nehemiah 11:30) as it was called in the OT, is the location where Israelites performed worship of other deities like Moloch. It is because of this nasty reputation - as well as the fact that there were tombs in the area - later ages applied the name to the place where the wicked are punished as a metonym. The gospels are our first literary evidence to this.

Again, I repeat my opinion: Gehenna should be left as it is. But then again, I’m the type of person who prefers to leave certain words (particularly foreign ones) as they are whenever they appear in the text. So I’m all for retaining korban/korbonas (Matthew 27:6 “It is not lawful to put them into the korbonas, since it is blood money”), sikera (Luke 1:15 “And he must not drink wine or sikera, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, even from his mother’s womb”), raka, mammon. Not to mention I’d rather translate “for ever and ever” more literally as “to the ages of the ages.”) Good thing I’m not the Magisterium.

People aren’t so stupid to not realize (if taught) that Gehenna = Hell. (Come on, let’s not be lazy; folks could do with a little more knowledge, no?) So what if it isn’t translated ‘Hell’? Does the Bible need to contain every key word pertaining to doctrine? We might as well insert ‘hypostatic union’ or ‘Trinity’ or ‘transubstantiation’. If the text says Gehenna, then Gehenna it is.

Let’s just say that I agree in principle with the translators of the original Douai-Rheims: if the text is ambiguous or obscure, one should leave it at that “for fear of missing or restraining the sense of the Holy Ghost to our fantasy.” If one so wants to explain the word’s meaning, well that’s what footnotes are for. (I mean, quite a number of people read the footnotes more than they read the text proper. ) Or at least, I think so.

 

[bjh13]

Billions of people are not going to burn forever in the trash pile known as Gehenna–they’re going to burn in Hell!

That’s why the word SHOULD be translated as Hell.

Please tell me, what word did Jesus use?

If Hell isn’t in any particular bible translation then the devil must have written it!

So is the Nova Vulgata a devil written translation? What about the Clementine Vulgate? They both used Gehenna, as did any Vulgate before that. So do all the Greek manuscripts, Textus Receptus included.

Jesus used the term Gehenna for a particular reason. Read the Catechism, specifically paragraph 1034, it explains why Jesus used the term and what it means.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

If you took a poll of scholars who supported Gehenna instead of Hell what percentage of them would believe in universalism? Do you think it would be higher than the people who wrote the catechism?

Why netherworld all you Gehenna lovers?

Patrick: Could you at least go for Hell in all the footnotes for all the people who don’t know the difference? Call me whenever the NAB does something like that!

I do like using Tartaros just because I think it’s a cool word.

If it was up to me supersubstantial would be in the Our Father in the bible–no one knows the EXACT meaning of that word–since it is so ambiguous I say do as Jerome did–“daily bread” in one account of the Our Father and “supersubstantial bread” in the other.

Do you think that the people who are involved in the NABRE translation are surprised by how many Catholics here constantly and forever bring up its shortcomings?

Do you think they might try to send some defenders seeing that they eventually are shooting for one translation for liturgical devotional and study use and they would like to get better support for it here at CAF?

If the bishops of the USCCB were asked to vote yes or no for “A virgin will conceive” and “Hail Full of Grace”–how would they vote?

I think they would vote for Gehenna–I don’t think they’d vote for Netherworld.

 

[patrick457]

If it was up to me supersubstantial would be in the Our Father in the bible–no one knows the EXACT meaning of that word–since it is so ambiguous I say do as Jerome did–“daily bread” in one account of the Our Father and “supersubstantial bread” in the other.

I think that’s really a remnant of the fact that the Vulgate gospels are not so much a new translation from the Greek (as the Hebrew OT was), but a revision of preexisting translations. I mean, the word for ‘high priest’ (archiereus) is rendered in Vulgate Matthew and Luke as princeps sacerdotum, in Vulgate Mark as summus sacerdos, and in Vulgate John as pontifex. St. Jerome was ordered by Pope Damasus to revise the translations of the gospels then used in Rome using Greek texts available to him; he changed the original (Vetus Latina) reading only when it seemed absolutely necessary. In this case apparently Jerome only came up with supersubstantialem for Matthew while he left the Lukan version unchanged.