HADES IS MYTHOLOGICAL (BUT HELL IS REAL)--SAMPLE UNAUTHORIZED VERSIONS THAT *TAKE AWAY* "HELL" AND *ADD* "HADES" IN MATTHEW 16:18--AND WHAT THIS SORT OF THING COULD LEAD TO
Revelation 22:18 For I testify unto every man that heareth the words of the prophecy of this book, If any man shall ADD unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written in this book:19 And if any man shall TAKE AWAY from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book.
In the Authorized Version of the Bible, Matthew 16:18 reads thus--
Matthew 16:18 And I say also unto thee, That thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church; and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.I searched out Matthew 16:18 at blueletterbible.org for a few unauthorized versions of the Bible. The following unauthorized versions of the Bible replaced "the gates of hell" with "the gates of Hades": NIV, NASB, NKJV, and ASV.
What is Hades? An Encyclopedia Americana (1971) excerpt--
HADES, in classical MYTHOLOGY..god of the underworld and ruler over the souls of the dead. He was considered stern and aloof, and because he was unmoved by prayer, he was rarely worshipped....Hades was likewise the name given to the underworld kingdom, and AS SUCH is used in the Revised Version of the New Testament...Hades is not hell, it is a fable from mythology.
In Matthew 16:18, the RSV took away, "the gates of hell" and added, "the powers of death". Is "the powers of death" a reference to Hades as the "ruler of the souls of dead" as seen in the above Encyclopedia Americana excerpt?
Definition of "mythology" from Webster's 1828 Dictionary--
MYTHOLOGY, n. [Gr....a fable, and ...discourse] A system of fables or fabulous opinions and doctrines respecting the deities which heathen nations have supposed to preside over the world or to influence the affairs of it.
Under the entry for "Hades" in the Funk & Wagnalls Standard Reference Encyclopedia (c. 1965) we find--
HADES, in GREEK MYTHOLOGY, the god of the underworld...was represented as grim, gloomy, and devoid of compassion...In writers after Homer, Hades is employed to denote the realm of divinity, called by the earlier poets "House of Hades". According to general belief, it was in the depths of the earth. Another view...placed the home of the dead in the far west, the region of sunset and night. Wherever situated, Hades was depicted as a melancholy region...In the Septuagint, THE GREEK VERSION of the Old Testament, Hades is the translation of the Hebrew Sheol...The Old Testament was written in Hebrew. It appears that when the Old Testament was translated into the (GREEK) Septuagint, the word hell was (at least at times) translated, "Hades" which is from GREEK MYTHOLOGY.
Hades is not hell, it is a fable from Greek mythology.
When I was a sophomore in college (ignorant of the Bible and the way of righteousness), my humanities teacher impudently said before the class, "The Bible is a myth," which is a lie. If she had had an unauthorized version of the Bible and had said, "My unauthorized Bible contains a myth," then that would have been helpful to know so that we who were unlearned would know to bypass the unauthorized versions of the Bible and look for the authorized version of the Bible instead.
According to the Funk & Wagnalls Standard Reference Encyclopedia (c. 1965)--Wherever situate, Hades was depicted as a melancholy region, with its wide gates ever open to receive the shades [our note: The shades...in Webster's 1828, under entries for shadow one can find references to shade as "the soul", "a spirit", "a ghost".]....In the joyless meadow of asphodels in Hades the shades wandered forlornly.Hades is not hell. The wicked will not wander around forlornly in a meadow--some people nowadays might not even mind that kind of after-death existence, but it will not happen.
MYTHOLOGIST, N. one versed in mythology; one who writes on mythology, or explains the fables of the ancient pagans.
Is it a possibility that a mythologist could insert myths and other lies into an existing document (like the Bible) while retaining the same name of the document? Could he do it somewhat slowly over time, changing the text here and there, by stages, by degrees? Could the original document come to be known as a myth or fable because only the tampered-with document (retaining the name of the original document) is known? Is it a possibility that a mythologist could write a commentary or book on the tampered-with document (ostensibly to explain the document) leading readers into further error? Is it possible that after reading the tampered-with document that people could start calling the original document a myth because of the changes inserted in it--or could people actually begin obeying the tampered-with document thinking that they are following the true document--or could the people start following any document they want to because the one they believed in was found to be a myth? Or perhaps all of these could happen at once as different individuals manifest different responses to the same stimulus but joined together in a common bond of error and deception. Excerpt from "The KJV Only Controversy"--
I have read excerpts of H.G. Wells who was used of Satan to help bring about a Luciferian age. He called for a new Bible version. In his book, "The Salvaging of Civilization: A Probable Future of Mankind," published in 1921 he had two chapters entitled, "The Bible and Civilization." He said that the world needed a new Bible with all the same books in it--including Leviticus and Deuteronomy--but with the new [wicked] understandings. He was calling for a new Bible about 90 years ago, and the Luciferian agents have been delivering. Wells' book is online for all to see, but I am not recommending it.Has legion been let loose where practically any deceiving and deceived individual can put his own deceivings on the book market as an unauthorized version of the Bible?
In this day and age, saying "the Bible says" is not necessarily enough--one must say, "the Authorized Version of the Bible says." Telling someone that they need to read the Bible is not enough. They need to read the Authorized King James Version of the Bible.
[12-2-12]