Transliteration: Baptizo and Hades

There's another KJV argument that goes something like this:

Some modern translations use the word Hades instead of Hell! What is Hades doing in the Bible? That is of ancient Greek mythology, not the Bible. The KJV correctly uses the word Hell.


I wasn't too sure about this until a couple days ago, when it randomly hit me. (I kinda wonder if it's God just giving me random thoughts sometimes.) Hades is indeed the god of the underworld in Greek mythology. (In this case, the name of the god probably became used as the general underworld. We do that in English too. For example, the word scrooge was made up after Ebeneezer Scrooge, the old miser in A Christmas Carol.) So lemme ask this- what language was the New Testament written in?

Indeed, Greek. Perhaps the word for hell is hades?

If that's so, then they have merely transliterated the word rather than translated it! Only goes to show what a terrible translation it is, because obviously the people who made it don't want people to know where they're going without Christ when they die.


In that case, you've condemned your own KJV. It also has a transliteration- the Greek word baptizo. The translation is something like "to submerge, esp. in water".

So what? They obviously knew what that meant.


Nope. Remember, the KJV was going to be under King Jame's name, and the translators- and everyone in Britan- didn't wanna offend or contradict the king and his beliefs. Otherwise, off with your head. Short history lesson- the tradition was to merely sprinkle water upon the person's head, rather than submerging them. (It probably came from one of the ancient pagan traditions when Rome tried to convert England to Catholism.) One knows long-held traditions are not easily broken. If they made a Bible that contradicted the tradition and beliefs of the king, imagine what trouble they'd be in. So what'd they do? Made up a new word. Baptize! So if one condemns other Bibles for transliterating, one must also condemn the KJV for it.

I just checked it out with a KJV Bible program, in which I can click on a word and it shows me what its original was. In the Old Testament, I find that the only word for Hell is Sheol. (We've heard that one before, another transliteration.) It's the Hebrew word for Hell. Then in the New Testament, I've got Hades (told ya) and Geena, which I have never heard before. I'll have to check that out.

These three words do seem to be able to translate as Hell, but their definitions vary a bit. I'll have to look into them a bit more. I've found (I think) Hades and Sheol seem to be equivalents.

Oh, I found another one. Tartaroo.

Y'know, since the New Testament has a bunch of different words all being translated into one Hell, I wonder if they mean more than what the consolidated English word appears to say. I do think I'll be checking this out.