This essay is the work of “Leolaia”
Taken from:
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/
Tartarus
in 2 Peter 2:4
One
of the most explicit incursions of Greek mythology in the NT is the reference
to Tartarus in 2 Peter 2:4. Here we read that "God did
not spare the angels when they sinned, but cast them into Tartarus and committed
them to pits of darkness (sirois zophou), reserved for
judgment". The allusion is to the angels that intermarried with human
women, as the parallel text in Jude makes clear: "Angels
who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their proper abode, he has
kept in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day"
(Jude 6). In my recent thread on the Nephilim and the Rephaim (http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/68224/1.ashx),
I indicated that the legend of the Titans was broadly related to the Canaanite
and Hebrew myths of the Nephilim and Rephaim, but here in 2 Peter
we see more recent Hellenistic influence on Jewish legend.
According
to Hesiod and other Greek writers, the Titans were the wicked
offspring of Ouranius and Gaia ("Heaven" and "Earth") who initially had
sovereignty over the cosmos but whom Zeus and the Olympian gods defeated and consigned
to eternal bondage in the prison called Tartarus in the netherworld. Iliad
8:13-16 describes Tartarus as a bottomless pit located below Hades, a
distinction reminiscent of Hades and the abyss of Revelation.
The Jewish Hellenistic traditions that 2 Peter is dependent on
equates the angels that sinned with the Titans and their place of bondage as
Tartarus. As I showed in an earlier thread (http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/64432/993359/post.ashx#993359),
2 Peter 2:4 and Jude 6 are explicitly dependent
on the first-century B.C. apocalypse 1 Enoch which elaborated
considerably on the fallen angel traditions. Enochian allusions run throughout
the two Christian passages in the NT.
2 Peter 2:4: "For God did not spare the angels when they
sinned, but cast them into Tartarus
and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved
for judgment."
1 Enoch 10:4-6: " Bind Azazel
hand and foot and throw him into the darkness....He covered his
face in order that he may not see light; and in order that he may be sent into
the fire on the great day of judgment."
1 Enoch 10:11-12 : "Bind Semjaza
and the others who are with him, who fornicated with the women, that they will
die together with them in all their defilement...Bind them for seventy
generations underneath the rocks of the ground until the day of their judgment and of their
consummation, until the eternal judgment is concluded."
1 Enoch 20:1-2: "And these are
the names of the holy angels who watch [over the angels]: Uriel, one of the holy
angels, for he is over the world and Tartarus."
Jude 6: "And
angels who did not keep their own domain, but abandoned their
proper abode, he has kept in eternal bonds
under darkness for the judgment
of the great day."
1 Enoch 12:4: "Go and make
known to the Watchers of heaven who have abandoned the high heaven,
the holy eternal place, and have defiled themselves with women."
1 Enoch 15:3, 7: "For what
reason have you abandoned the high, holy, and eternal heaven; and slept
with women and defiled yourselves with the daughters of the people....I did not
make wives for you for the proper dwelling place of spiritual beings of
heaven is heaven."
1 Enoch 10:4-6: " Bind Azazel hand and foot
and throw him into the darkness....He covered his face in order that he may
not see light; and in order that he may be sent into the fire on the
great day of judgment."
1 Enoch 10:11-12: "Bind Semjaza and the
others who are with him, who fornicated with the women, that they will die
together with them in all their defilement...Bind them for
seventy generations underneath the rocks of the ground until the day of
their judgment and of their consummation, until the eternal
judgment is concluded.
1 Enoch is dependent, in
turn, on the Greek Tartarus traditions. For instance, 1 Enoch 18:11
refers to the Watchers' prison as khasma mega "great chasm"
which is exactly the description Hesiod uses for the prison of the Titans (cf. Hesiod,
Theogony 729, 742, 806). There are many other close verbal
parallels between the description of Tartarus in the Theogony
and the chasm-prison of the angels in 1 Enoch 18:11, 21:7-11 (=
Theogony 717-819). Finally, 2 Peter 2:4
decribes Tartarus as "pits of darkness" (sirois zophou), and
the parallel text in Jude 6 refers to angels "under
darkness" (hupo zophon). The same word occurs in 1 Enoch
17:2 referring to the netherworld as a "place of darkness" (zophode
topos), and zophos "gloom, darkness" also designates
Tartarus in Hesiod (Theogony, 729), who refers
to the Titans "under the misty darkness" (hupo zopho eeroenti),
a phrase strikingly similar to that in Jude 6. We also
encounter zophos used in phrases like "gloom of the world
below" and "nether darkness" in Odyssey 11.57, 155;
20.356; Illiad 15.191; 21.56; Asechylus Pers. 839. In Odyssey
20.356, Erebos is located "beneath" (hupo) the
"darkness" (zophos).
The
curious Jewish addition to the Greek Titan tradition is that the angel Uriel is
in charge of Tartarus. But this element is in itself dependent on Near East
mythology. In 1 Enoch 18:11 and 19:1-2
(also 21:1-9), Uriel serves as the interpreting angel for the
prison(s) of the angels and in Sibylline Oracle 2:228 it is
Uriel who leads the Titans and the giants (offspring of the Watchers) out of
Hades to judgment:
"Bodies of humans, made solid in
heavenly manner, breathing and set in motion, will be raised on a single day.
Then Uriel, the great angel, will break the gigantic bolts, of
unyielding and unbreakable steel, of the gates of Hades, not forged of metal;
he will throw them wide open and will lead all the mournful forms to judgment,
especially those of ancient phantoms, Titans and the Giants and such as the
Flood destroyed" (Sibylline Oracle 2:225-232)
The figure of Uriel is also reminiscent of
the angel "having the key to the abyss and a great chain in his hand"
who binds Satan and presumably releases him after the millenium (Revelation
20:1-3). The connection of an angel of light (Uriel = "Fire"
or "Light of God") with judgment of those in the netherworld is
probably dependent on the Near Eastern tradition of the sun-god having judgment
over those in the nether regions. The Sumerian Two Elegies, for
instance, speaks of the sun-god's role as an infernal judge: "Utu, the great lord of
the underworld, after changing the place of darkness to light, will render your
judgment". In Akkadian tradition the sun-god Shamash is also
portrayed as the arbiter of decisions:
"Illuminator of all, the whole of
heaven, who makes light the darkness for mankind above and below, Shamash
illuminator of all .... The careful judge who gives just verdicts, controls the
government, lives like a prince" (Shamash Hymn, COS 1.117 1-3,
101-102)
After traveling through the netherworld at
night, Shamash was believed to decide fates at Duku in the eastern horizon,
just prior to his rising between the peaks of Mount Mashu. One may also observe
the western entrance to the netherworld in the Sumerian myth Inanna's
Descent. Inanna, also known as Ishtar and Venus, surprises the
gatekeeper of the "land of no return". Instead of going to the
"place of sunrise" where she would rise as the morning star Venus,
she has instead come to the "land of no return" in the west, where
Utu enters into the underworld. Also in the Baal Cycle, Anat
asks the sun-god Shapsh to lift her brother Baal's corpse in the realm of Mot.
Shapsh, traveling daily west to east, has access to the netherworld and
recovers Baal's body.
There
is one other connection to Akkadian myth in the legend of Tartarus and Uriel in
1 Enoch. In 1 Enoch 18:11-12 we learn
that the Watcher's chasm is in proximity to a desrt place of sorts, and Azazel
is represented as being cast into a chasm located in the desert in Dudael (1
Enoch 10:4). This is not an isolated tradition; according to the Targum
Ps.-Jonathan, Beth-hadure (byt hdwr') is the rocky
place where the goat for Azazel is led (cf. Leviticus 16:21)
and Beth Hadudu (byt chdwdw) is described as a rocky wilderness
in m. Yoma 6:8. Since Hebrew chdr means "sharp,
pointed," the Targum form possibly reflects world play
(note also the similarity between "d" and "r" in
Hebrew/Aramaic). The original Greek form of the name (Dadouel) in 1
Enoch (and possibly the m. Yoma form) suggests
a derivation from Aramaic dd' "breast". According to Milik,
this etymology is also reflected in the Dendayn of 1 Enoch 60:8
where Behemoth is said to dwell. The Similitudes of 1 Enoch
characterize Dendayn as a desert which cannot be seen but which lies east of
the garden where the chosen and righteous dwell. The etymology of
"breast" evokes the "two breasts" imagery of Akkadian and
Sumerian cosmology relating to Mount Mashu, the mountain which twin peaks which
oversees the setting and rising of the sun, located in both the east and west
at the point of sunrise and sunset. Both Dendayn and Mount Mashu may also bear
some connection to sdy known from the theophanic epithet El Shaddai.
Shaddai has been associated with Ugaritic tdw or tdy
"breast, mountain", which in turn is related to Akkadian shadu.
We therefore find within the Enochian corpus a number of traditions about the
holding place of the angels, connected to Greek Tartarus, which is also related
to Akkadian and Near Eastern beliefs about the entrance and exit of the
netherworld at the twin mountains at the extremity of the world, in a chasm
located in an infernal desert presided over by the sun-god.