Greek Mythology in the New Testament: Tartarus

Here is an interesting question for my friends who regard the Bible as being literally the Word of God, Himself: Must I believe everything written in its pages to be truth revealed from God?* There may be the odd equivocation here and there, but my impression is that religious leaders, whose beliefs about the Bible correspond to what a majority of Southern Baptists are said to believe, would answer that question in the affirmative.¹

There are reports in the Bible, however, that will cause a twenty-first century human being, who has had a basic science course, to pause before answering. One incident that comes immediately to mind is God causing the sun to remain at its zenith in the heavens and not go down for an entire day. Practically, this means the earth pauses in its journey around the sun. The incident is reported in the book of Jashar, which is not in the Bible, but it is also found in Joshua 10:12-14, which is in the Bible. There are also many other things in the Bible that might even tax the incredulity of a generally credulous true believer.²

            There is one passage, however, in Second Peter that, if pondered, just might undermine how most Baptists (and others) view the Bible (well, except for true believers, who are generally disinclined to ponder what they read).

For if God did not spare the angels who had sinned, but delivered them down captive into Tartarus in chains of nether darkness in custody until judgment…(2 Pet 2:4a, my translation)³

The word translated Tartarus is tartarōsas. It does not signify a person, place, or thing; it is a participle from the verbal form tartaroō, describing an action. In this case, "being held captive in Tartarus."

            I don't know of a story in the Bible about angels, who having sinned, were cast into nether darkness into Tartarus, but the Book of Enoch has a report about sinful angels and their fate (1 Enoch 10:4, 11-12).⁴ In Greek mythology Tartarus is both an earth-God (one of the earliest primeval Gods of Greek tradition, Hesiod, Theogony,115-129) and it is also a place, the deepest location beneath the earth. It is

as far beneath the earth as heaven is above the earth; for so far is it from earth to Tartarus. For a brazen anvil falling down from heaven nine nights and days would reach the earth upon the tenth; and again, a brazen anvil falling from earth nine nights and days would reach Tartarus upon the tenth. (Hesiod, Theogony, 721–725)

Tartarus is lower even than Hades. The ancient Greek poet, Homer, describes the distance from Hades down to Tartarus being, "as far beneath Hades as heaven is above earth" (Iliad 8. 16). Hades is the abode of the dead and Tartarus is reserved for the enemies of the Gods.

            Hadēs, is another bolt out of the Greek mythological blue: in Greek mythology Hades is also an ancient Greek God and a location beneath the earth, where people are punished for their sins.⁵

            How are believers in the Bible, as in some sense "the Word of God," supposed to handle what are standard features of Greek mythology appearing in the Bible? Are they mandated to take aspects of Greek mythology as God's Word?

            What they believe about these texts does not alter what they are, however: texts written by human beings whose inspiration by God could never be investigated; texts collected by human beings whose names are lost to memory; texts translated into numerous language, human beings choosing the modern language equivalent for the Greek and the Hebrew; texts whose Hebrew and Greek words that appear in the critical text are decided by human beings (text critics) and translators by judicious comparison of the ancient manuscripts that have survived.

            The truth is: the Bible is a collection of selected Hebrew and Greek texts that point toward a particular understanding of God.

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

¹Here, for example, is what Southern Baptists say that a majority of Southern Baptists believe about the Scriptures: "The Baptist Faith and Message Statement 2000," https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/#i

²See Charles W. Hedrick, "Superstition, faith, and the Marginal Relevance of the Bible" in Unmasking Biblical Faiths. The Marginal Relevance of the Bible for Contemporary Religious Faith (Eugene, Or: Cascade, 2019), 1-12.

³Compare a similar translation in the Holman Christian Standard Bible, a translation that is associated with the Southern Baptists.

⁴See also Gen 5:1-4; Jude 6.

⁵And a regular word for the place of punishment in the New Testament. For example, Hadēs: Matt 11:23, 16:18, Acts 2:31, Rev 1:18. Gehenna (generally translated Hell) is another name for a place of punishment in the New Testament: Matt 10:28, Luke 12:5, Mark 9:47, Jas 3:6.

The Theological Implications of Bird Poop

Does everything happen for a reason? If I said that someone survived a car crash with barely a scratch, but four others in the car were killed outright, most people, religious or not, would likely observe, “stuff happens for a reason.” Behind that observation is the popular religious belief that God micromanages the world. But if I were to ask, was there some divine reason for a bird dropping poop on my forehead rather than on my shoulder this morning, many might think that my question was silly. Nevertheless, a serious issue lies behind both situations: is anyone completely in charge of the universe?

            One answer is that God is in charge and micromanages the universe. If so, everything happens for a reason. A micromanaging God would scarcely leave anything to chance. This way of reasoning leads inevitably to the conclusion that even bad things (the recent pandemic, for example) are due to God’s deliberate management. Hence, since by popular definition God can do no wrong, whatever seems bad must really be good—and that includes the bird poop on my forehead. A micromanaging God would have had good reason for the bird poop—for under the theory of divine micromanagement, God makes everything happen for a benevolent reason

            Perhaps, however, God only generally manages the universe and is simply not responsible for everything that happens. Under “general” management some things are divinely manipulated but other things are simply allowed to happen for no reason at all. Under this theory the universe has been set up to work in a well-regulated way, and God only intrudes every so often for whatever reason strikes the divine fancy. For the most part things do seem to work fairly well in our world. The world turns with general regularity and only an occasional glitch or two (cancer and destructive tornadoes come to mind). This theory raises the question: how can we ever really be certain what is caused by God, what is part of the regular pulse of the universe, and what is a glitch in the system? The bird poop is well accommodated by this explanation: it is just one of those billions of little things that never register on the divine radarscope, or are just part of the regular pulse of the universe where things happen for no particular reason—like a leaf falling off a tree or bird droppings. I simply happened to look up at an opportune moment this morning at the precise time the bird pooped. Such occurrences are part of the regular design of things, for leaves fall from trees and birds poop all over the place. But under this theory one can never be sure of anything God does or does not do.

            It is also possible that God has chosen to be an observer of events in a universe designed to run itself, more or less—or worse God has gone missing. One may well ask, how is that possible? God created the world, so why would he abandon it? Good question! But since we cannot even prove that God exists, how could we possibly know whether God is missing? A missing God, however, does make a kind of perverted sense of our human situation, and could account for natural disasters and unconscionable human suffering (cancer, tsunamis, and hurricanes come to mind)—in short, no one is minding the store. Bird poop on the forehead makes excellent sense in such a world. A God absent for the big things could scarcely be expected to be around for the little things.

            Perhaps we have simply misunderstood God’s character. If God were a bit devious, it could explain the general regularity of the cosmos and its blessings when things work without the glitches, such as natural disasters, the tragedies of human disease, and fatal accidents. In short, God may be prone to be a bit “impish,” so to speak. Certain passages in the Bible seem to support such a theory, at least the early Israelites and Christians must have thought so by some of the ways they portrayed God (the Book of Job comes to mind). Bird poop on the forehead is precisely the kind of thing one might expect from a mischievous God.

            Of course, it is always possible there is no God. The only difference between this possibility and the last is that human tragedy and natural disaster could not be caused by a nonexistent God, but must be the result of randomness in the universe that never had a manager of any sort. We would be alone in a sort of well-regulated universe—except for the occasional glitch. Such a situation accommodates regularity, natural disasters, and bird poop on the forehead.

            The five possibilities for explaining bird poop and divine management of the universe boil down to this. Do you choose to believe in an uptight micromanager, a lax general manager, a God gone missing, a mischievous deity or in no God at all? I suppose one could choose to ignore human experience (which the Bible is), and fashion a God of one’s own imagination. I suspect that is what most of us do.*

Charles W. Hedrick
Professor Emeritus
Missouri State University

*This essay appeared originally in Hedrick, House of Faith or Enchanted Forest. American Popular Belief in an Age of Reason (Cascade: Eugene, OR, 2009), 13–15.