Tartarus and the Titans: How Greek Mythology Infiltrated the Bible!

What if I told you that Greek mythology

found its way into the Bible? If you

read second Peter 2:4, Peter or maybe

someone writing in his name says this,

"God did not spare the angels who

sinned, but held them captive in Tatarus

with chains of darkness and handed them

over to be kept for judgment." Now, most

English translations render this as God

cast them into hell, but that is a

demythologization

of the verse since the Greek word

tatarosas is a participle which could be

literally rendered something like having

put them in Tatarus. So note this.

According to Peter, God condemned and

cast sinful angels into Tatarus. Not

into Hades, not into Gehenna or hell,

not into the lake of fire, into Tatarus.

So what exactly is Tatarus? Well, in

Greek mythology, uh, Tatarus was not

simply another name for the underworld.

It was the under underworld. Tatarus was

the deepest region beneath Hades. You

know, Hades or Shol is the waiting place

of the dead. Tatarus was the maximum

security wing beyond the land of the

living and the dead. It was a

purpose-built facility to hold rebel

gods. In Greek mythology, which affected

both the the Hellenistic and the Roman

world, the ancient Titans led by Kronos

rebelled against the younger Olympian

gods led by Zeus. And when Zeus won this

cosmic battle, he didn't just banish the

Titans. He chained them up in the

deepest, darkest subterranean abyss

imaginable. That's what Tatarus is. The

Greek author Heziod claimed in his own

cosmography of heaven, earth, and the

underworld, he said that if you dropped

a bronze anvil from heaven, it would

fall for nine days and nine nights

before hitting the earth. And if you

dropped it from the earth down towards

the underworld, it would fall for

another 9 days and nine nights before

finally landing into Tarus. So why would

a Jewish Christbelieving apostle writing

to various churches where they have a

ostensibly biblical worldview? Why would

he use a Greek word from Greek mythology

to describe the place where angels are

being incarcerated ahead of the final

judgment? Was Peter borrowing nakedly

from pagan ideas about the underworld?

Well, today I'm going to explore one of

the most fascinating intersections

between the Bible, second temple

Judaism, and Greek mythology. And if you

hang with me till the very end, you'll

see the very interesting interface

between Jewish ideas of the afterlife,

divine judgment, and the henistic world

kind of coales and crystallized in our

New Testament. And remember, if you like

this type of content, don't forget to

like and subscribe. I'm always dropping

videos on the Bible, church history, and

a bit of theology. So, subscribe to make

sure you don't miss out when the next

episode drops. Here's what you have to

remember. That the Jewish people lived

for centuries under Greek rule after

Alexander the Great conquered the Middle

East. Okay? Many Jews spoke Greek, they

read Greek, they debated in Greek, they

read philosophy, they even translated

the Old Testament into Greek, what we

call the Septuagent. This is a world

where, you know, all educated people

grew up reading something like Homer and

Hezi. uh they grew up on them the same

way we might grow up watching you know

superhero movies. And by the first

century AD, pretty much all Judaism from

Pho of Alexandra to the teacher of

Kumran, you know, where the Dead Sea

Scrolls were from were all living in a

world that to some degree or other was

saturated and influenced by Hellenism.

And that also affected the world of you

know Jesus, Paul, Peter, the apostles,

John. They were all inshed in a world

where Hellenism was a bit like oxygen.

It was everywhere to one degree or

another and everyone was sucking it in

so to speak. Now the interface of

Judaism and Henism is very complex and

it's not monolithic. the hellistic

influence of somewhere like Ephesus and

Antioch and Jerusalem were different in

degrees depending on what class you were

from or what you did for a living. And

we can't assume that everyone around

that time was reading Homer, you know,

debating philosophy and getting jacked

at the local gymnasium. But this is a

world where Hellenism could either be a

light or thick overlay and Jews

participated in that

permutation that that dissemination of

Hellenism all around them. And one clear

instance of that is the way Jewish

authors or Jewish Christian authors

could sometimes adopt Greek concepts and

language and use it to describe things

they found in their own scriptures or in

their own traditions. And Jewish use of

the word Tatarus is a good example of

that. So what you have to appreciate

here is that the the myth of Titans and

Tataros actually parallels Jewish

stories and Jewish traditions about

fallen angels that goes all the way back

to Genesis 6 and then gets explained or

extrapolated further in something like

the book of watchers we find in the

composite document known as one Enoch.

According to Jewish tradition, as we

find it in Genesis 6, certain rebellious

angels descended to earth, corrupted

humanity, taught forbidden knowledge,

and then begat or produce these giants

called the Nephilim. Now, God responded

to this rebellion by imprisoning these

angels until the final judgment. I mean,

that's spelled out both in second Peter

and in Jude and also in wider Jewish

tradition. This is why in the the book

of watchers in one Enoch, the angel

Uriel is described as having

responsibility over the world and over

Tatarus. This is a thoroughly Jewish

story about the fall of the angels

that's taken up a well-known Greek word

like Tatarus and used it to describe the

prison where rebellious angels are being

kept awaiting their final fate in

judgment. Now the underlying story here

comes from Genesis, but the vocabulary

used to describe it comes from the world

of Greek mythology. Now this isn't a

case of you know Greek mythology

replacing Jewish theology or Jewish

mythology. Uh the Jews have their own

tradition on this type of thing

irrespective of what parallels that we

can see. But they are definitely using

Greek language, Greek concepts of the

underworld, Greek ideas of a

supernatural place where supernatural

beings are enclosed in judgment. And we

can find even more examples way beyond

second Peter of authors using this word

Tatarus. You know, if we look at the the

Septuagent, which is the Greek

translation of the Old Testament, and

Pho and Josephus, we'll find several

authors are in fact using this word

Tatarus. A really interesting example of

this comes from the Greek translation of

the book of Job where there are two

mentions of the word Tatarus uh in Job

41. And Job 41 is a long poem about the

Leviathan. and the underlying Hebrew

text there had zero interest in in Greek

mythology and Greek terms for the

underworld. But when Jewish scribes

translated this text into Greek, verse

24 describes Leviathan as regarding the

Tatarus of the deep as his own private

captive. So the abyss isn't something he

fears. It's it's the prison yard he kind

of owns and dominates. Now a chapter

earlier before that you know in Job

chapter 40 20 the Septuagental

translators do the same thing again

placing the behemoths playground in the

Tatarus of deep places. So clearly the

translators of Job when they think of

Leviathan and the behemoth they're

describing them as dominating or

inhabiting a place that's a kind of

equivalent to Tatarus. Another example

here is Pho of Alexandria. And he

applies this not to, you know, creatures

like the behemoth and Leviathan, but to

actually the fate of individuals in his

treaties on rewards and punishments. A

pho contrasts two fates. He says you've

got the gentile who converts to Israel's

God and can be expected to be exalted to

a fixed place in heaven. Contrasted with

his own, you know, fellow Jews who

apostasize from their faith. they

abandon their ancestral tradition, their

religious customs. He says they'll be

dragged down and hurled into Tatarus

itself and a profound darkness. Then

there's Josephus who in his uh work

against Aion. He sort of rails against

Greek mythology directly in mocking the

poets for inventing gods who scheme and

procreate, cheat and get locked up like

criminals. And he lists many of the

absurdities, you know, gods in heaven,

gods in the sea, gods under the earth,

and even the ancient of them all bound

in Tatara. So, Josephus, like other

Jewish authors before him, and even like

some Jewish authors themselves, kind of

pokes fun at the whole concept of Greek

henistic mythology and its account of

the gods. And many Greek philosophers

would poke fun at the gods as they're

depicted in literature and poetry.

Finally, to give a third example, we

have the cibilene oracles. This is a

text where Jewish material and later

Christian editing blend together with

the voice of an ostensible pagan

prophetess predicting judgment. And we

have there an oracle that describes what

happens to those who pursue wickedness.

We're told that immortal angels bind

them in unbreakable chains of fire,

throw them under many terrible beasts in

Gehenna where they experience many

torments in know these words dark dank

Tatarus. Uh this is the one place where

I think Gehenna and Tatarus uh do become

equivalents or synonyms but you know we

could describe that or talk about that

another day. Okay. in view of all what

we've seen so far, you know, the the

story of the Titans being cast into

Taurus in in in Greek poetry and myths

and legends and literature and the way a

number of Jewish authors, you know, who

speak Greek are beginning to describe

the underworld, you know, either in the

book of Job or the fate of individuals

as ending up in Tatarus. Let's go back

to second Peter chapter 2:4 and think

about what's going on here. We have here

a statement where you know Peter says

that God condemned and cast the sinful

angels into Tatarus. Is this a case

where Greek mythology influenced both

Judaism and early Christianity? Now, on

the one hand, you've you've got to admit

there are some very striking

similarities between the stories of

Zeus, the Titans, and Tatarus with

Jewish traditions beginning in Genesis 6

about fallen angels, you know, awaiting

judgment in a in a pit of darkness. And

that that gets developed, you know, in

places like, you know, Jude and as we've

seen in second Peter. So, what is going

on here? What I think is happening is

that in the Septuagent, particularly in

the the Greek translation of Job, as

well as in the Enoic book of Watchers,

as well as in Pho Josephus, and also in

second Peter, they're pretty much all

doing the same thing. They're taking a

word that many literate, you know, or

well- read people would know, you know,

uh, for the underworld, for a place of

of darkness, captivity,

for supernatural beings, but they're

filling it with distinctly Jewish and

eventually Christian content. And

they're trying to emphasize the point

that God alone judges rebellious

spiritual powers. And that judgment is

certain. And it even applies to beings

who are far more powerful than humans.

So if angels cannot escape divine

judgment because they're locked up in

somewhere like Tatarus or, you know, way

below Hades, if angels cannot escape

judgment, well, neither will human

beings. That seems to be the way that

authors like Peter, Pho, Josephus, and

others, I think, are using this term.

Hey, thanks for watching. Hope you've

enjoyed this episode of Early Christian

History. Uh, if you like this kind of

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