Tartaros and Demons – Part 1

The word τάρταρος (tartaros), under its verbal form ταρταρώσας (tartarosas; to thrust down into tartaros), is found only once in all of the Scriptures, at 2 Peter 2:4, “the deity did not spare the angels who sinned, but ταρταρώσας (tartarosas; thrust them into tartaros), keeping them in chains of darkness unto a κρίσιν (krisin; judgment; decision made by tribunal).”¹ As James Orr writes, here tartaros “stands for the place of punishment of the angels.”²

S. D. F. Salmond similarly concludes, “the word is applied to the intermediate scene and condition of penalty in which those offenders are detained, held in chains of darkness, in reserve for the final judgment.”³

In neo-Christianity, the concept of tartaros, a word which primarily means “to incarcerate,” i.e., a place of incarceration in the deepest abyss,⁴ has been purposely blended with the following two concepts:

1. The pagan Greek notion of hades (the underworld of wicked immortal souls of the deceased).

2. A twisted interpretation of the scriptural concept of gehenna fire (the final punishment for the wicked).

During this transition, numerous English-speaking, neo-Christian groups, as Salmond states, have unfortunately mistranslated the Greek terms tartaros, hades, and gehenna, as well as the Hebrew word sheol, all indiscriminately as “hell.”⁵ This translation was sanctioned in a contrived effort to build support for the unfounded speculation that there is an underworld for wicked immortal souls.

In this imaginary view of a satanic underworld, three unrelated and entirely different concepts are merged together to form a region such as described by Dante’s Inferno. In this fiery underworld of the afterlife, Satan and the evil demons eternally punish and torment wicked immortal souls who have been imprisoned there against their will.

Interestingly, it is never explained who will continue this eternal torment of the wicked after, as Scriptures teach, Satan and his demons are destroyed.⁶

Tartaros is not Sheol or Gehenna
Tartaros has nothing to do with either sheol or the gehenna fire. Sheol, which was translated into Greek as “hades,” is not a conscious state of existence for immortal wicked souls. Rather, sheol is an unconscious state of being where the mortal nephesh (person) who has died, whether just or unjust, lies in a death sleep, clinging to the ‘aphar of the ground until he or she is resurrected.⁷

Meanwhile, the gehenna fire has nothing to do with either sheol or tartaros. In reality, there never existed a fiery underworld where immortal souls are being eternally punished, as the popular mythology for Hell portrays. Rather, the gehenna fire is the great worldwide destruction of the earth by the sacred ruach at the end of the Millennial Judgment Day.

This destruction will take place just as father Yahweh comes to join his family on the earth. In this great worldwide holocaust caused by the sacred ruach, all the wicked will be burned up and perish for eternity.⁸

Indeed, tartaros has nothing to do with either humans, the state of sheol, or the gehenna fire. Rather, tartaros is the state of imprisonment for fallen malakim (angels), who are also called demons. In this state of imprisonment, these demons remain mentally aware and active. Tartaros is defined as follows:

• The word τάρταρος (tartaros), verbal form ταρταρώσας (tartarosas), is “a dark abyss, as deep below Hades as earth below heaven, the prison of the Titans”;⁹ “the deepest abyss of Hades” and means, “to incarcerate.”¹⁰ George Ricker Berry translates tartaros as “the deepest abyss.”¹¹ Accordingly, tartaros is the deepest abyss where demons, called Titans and gods by the Greeks, were incarcerated.

We begin to understand the use of tartaros in Scriptures with its single usage in the book of 2 Peter:

For if the deity did not spare the angels who sinned, but thrust them into tartaros, keeping them in chains of darkness (var. “dens of darkness”)¹² unto judgment, and the ancient world was not spared, but the eighth (of those save on the ark), justified Noah, a herald, he preserved . . . (2 Pet. 2:4-5)

In 2 Peter the primary meaning of tartaros is defined as a place where fallen angels who have sinned are imprisoned, being held in the dark chains or dark dens of tartaros as punishment until a judgment is rendered. The book of 1 Baruch speaks of these angels as being “punished in chains.”¹³

We must place this thought from 2 Peter in context with how the Greeks used the term tartaros. Keph’s (Peter’s) usage is parallel in thought with the Greek idea of a place of incarceration for fallen gods. We also know that Keph, the author of the letter which is now called 2 Peter and which mentions tartaros, did not himself speak Greek. In fact, he was described as “unlearned in letters” and “uninstructed,” i.e., without a formal education even in his own Jewish language.¹⁴

Rather, he spoke a Galilaean form of Aramaic-Hebrew,¹⁵ and “would teach his hearers in Aramean.”¹⁶ To compensate, as ancient Christian writers point out, Keph utilized Mark, who was competent to speak and write Greek, as his interpreter or translator.¹⁷

Greek Perspective
Furthermore, tartaros is a Greek word, not a Hebrew or Aramaic-Hebrew term. To understand the Hebrew word and thought originally used by Keph, we must look at the Greek view of tartaros to see what Hebrew expression the Greek translator was trying to convey. The following Greek writers explain their pagan view:

• The famous Greek writer named Homer speaks of “murky tartaros, far, far away, where is the deepest gulf beneath the earth, the gates whereof are of iron and the threshold of bronze, as FAR BENEATH HADES as heaven is above the earth.”¹⁸ In another place Homer refers to this region as “deep tartaros.”¹⁹

• Apollodorus provides a later interpretation, writing, “tartaros, a gloomy place in hades as far distant from earth as earth is distant from the sky.”²⁰

• According to Hesiod, a brazen anvil would take nine days and nights to fall from heaven to earth, and nine days and nights to fall from earth to tartaros.²¹

The early Greek notion of tartaros as a deep, dark abyss beneath hades (or in the later view the lowest place in hades) is further defined as a place where the fallen gods or demons were cast down in order to be imprisoned. In Homer, for example, Zeus is made to say to the other gods:

Whomsoever I will mark minded apart from the deities to go and bear aid either to Trojans or Danaans, smitten in no seemly wise will he come back to Olympus, or I will take and hurl him into murky tartaros, far, far away, where is the deepest gulf beneath the earth, the gates whereof are of iron and the threshold of bronze, as far beneath hades as heaven is above earth: then will you know how far the mightiest am I of all deities.²²

Apollodorus also tells the story of how the demon Cyclopes named Arges, Steropes, and Brontes were “bound” by the deity named Sky “and cast into tartaros.”²³ Later, the demon Titans were defeated in a battle with Zeus and the other gods, who “shut them up in tartaros, and appointed the Hundred-handers to be their guards.”²⁴

In these and other Greek stories, tartaros is always considered a dark underworld located in the deepest recesses of the earth, a place where deities (demons) are imprisoned as punishment for some terrible crime they have committed. This thought, as we have said, is parallel to the account from 2 Peter. 2:4, where angels that had sinned were placed in the “dark chains” or “dark dens” of “tartaros.” According to Jude, those who left their first principality are being kept in this dark prison until the judgment of the great day (i.e., the Judgment Day).²⁵

It is also important to note that, even in Greek mythology, tartaros is clearly separated from hades. Homer places tartaros “far beneath hades,”²⁶ while others writing much later, like Apollodorus, make it “a gloomy place in hades as far distant from earth as earth is distant from the sky.”²⁷ Although tartaros is being placed in the deepest section of hades by this latter view, it is still not equal to the greater realm of hades. Rather, it is the lowest region of everything.

An Abyss
The next connecting link between the pagan Greek concept of tartaros and the holding place of sinning angels (demons) as portrayed in Scriptures is the fact that tartaros is a great ἄβυσσος (abussos; abyss), being defined as “a dark abyss, as deep below Hades as earth below heaven”²⁸ and “the deepest abyss of hades.”²⁹

The Greek term ἄβυσσος (abussos) means “depthless . . . abyss,”³⁰ “with no bottom, bottomless, unfathomed . . . unfathomable, enormous.”³¹ The Greek idea of an abyss stems from the fact that, in their eyes, the bottoms of the oceans, being the abyss, were so deep that they were unknowable. It generally was used to describe something whose depths were enormous and boundless in size. An abyss, therefore, can be considered a vast, endless dimension.

As a place for holding wicked ruach beings (demons), a dark dimensional abyss fits the description, a region opposite the realm of the third heavens where father Yahweh dwells in light. To demonstrate, the existence of this demon abyss is referred to in Luke, where demons who were possessing a man from Gadarenes begged Yahushua not to command them to go “into the abyss” as punishment.³²

Next, during the period of the Great Tribulation the demon empire that is to afflict the world is said to “come up out of the abyss.”³³ Revelation also parabolically speaks of the demons rising up on the earth as locusts with the power of scorpions, prepared like horses for battle, with men’s faces and wearing gold crowns. These beings are to come up out of the “abyss.”³⁴

Further, when Satan is overthrown at the end of the Great Tribulation, he will be “bound” with a “chain” and cast “into the abyss” and shut up therein for a thousand years.³⁵ Here once again, the demon “abyss” is equivalent to “tartaros,” or a place where sinning angels are held.

Abyss = Tahum
The ancient Greek LXX uses the word ἄβυσσος (abussos; abyss) to translate the Hebrew term תהום (tahum).³⁶ The Hebrew term is defined as follows:

• תהום or תהם (tahum), plural תהמום (tahumuth) means, “an abyss (as a surging mass of water), espec. the deep (the main sea or the subterranean water-supply):—deep (place), depth,” “primeval ocean, deep,” “the deep.”³⁷ The term derives from הום (hum), “to make an uproar, or agitate greatly,” “heave, swell, be tumultuous.”³⁸ Tahum is often translated into English as “the deep.” It refers to a great body of water, such as the ocean or the mass of subterranean water.

The following are some scriptural passages where the idea of tahum is expressed. In Genesis we read:

In the beginning (period) eloahim created the heavens and the land. And the land had become a wasteland and ruin, and darkness was upon the face of the tahum. (Gen. 1:1-2) 

In the LXX the Hebrew term “tahum” in this passage is rendered into Greek as “abussos” while in many English translations it is given as “the deep.” In this passage, the “face of the tahum” is equated with “the face of the oceans.”

When the great Flood of Noah began, “all the fountains of the great tahum were risen and the windows of the heavens were opened.”³⁹ After the Flood had ceased, we read, “And the fountains of tahum and the windows of the heavens were stopped, and the rain was restrained from the heavens.”⁴⁰

In these two above passages, tahum is equated with the great underground water supply located deep within the surface of the earth as well as within the oceans. The LXX again renders the Hebrew tahum at this point as “abussos.”

Meanwhile, in Isaiah we read that it was Yahweh who led the Israelites “by the right hand of Moses, with his glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make for him a world-age lasting name, leading them through the tahum, like the horse in the wilderness they did not stumble.”⁴¹ This verse equates the passage of the Israelites through the opening made in the Suph Sea (or Red Sea) with passing through the “tahum.” The LXX also renders tahum in this passage as “abussos.”

Very important for our discussion is the additional fact that there is more than one place called tahum. In Psalms, for example, we read:

All which Yahweh desired to do, he did, in the heavens and on the land, on the seas and ALL THE TAHUMUTH. (Ps. 135:6)

The above verse shows that tahum can be separately thought of from the seas and the land, and can be viewed in the plural (tahumuth).

In another Psalm we read:

Tahum calls to tahum through the voice of your waterfalls; all your waves and your billows have passed over me. (Ps. 42:7)

In this verse even the waterfalls of flowing rivers are an extension of different regions of tahum (deep places). Once more a connection with water lying deep in the earth is established.

Meanwhile, in Proverbs the angel Yahweh tells us:

When he (father Yahweh) prepared the heavens, I (Wisdom = Yahu Yahweh)⁴² was there; in his setting A CIRCLE ON THE FACE OF TAHUM, in his strengthening the clouds from above, in making strong THE FOUNTAINS OF TAHUM, in his setting for the sea its limit that the waters should not pass over their mouth, in his decreeing the earth’s foundations, and I was at his side, a workman. (Prov. 8:27-30)

This passage shows that by the expression, “circle on the face of tahum,” the great oceans of the earth are meant. The “fountains (or springs) of tahum” reflect the great reservoirs of water lying underneath the earth’s surface. The LXX translates this latter phrase as “the fountains of the land.”

The early Christians also correctly understood the scriptural concept of tahum. Theophilus, a Christian writer from the mid-2nd century C.E., for example, writes:

What he (Moses) calls “land” is equivalent to a base and foundation. “Abyss” is the “multitude of the waters.”⁴³

Underground Water
Those unfamiliar with the Hebrew language may find it surprising that a tahum includes the subterranean water supply. During Noah’s Flood, for example, “all the fountains of the great tahum and the windows of the heavens were opened; and the rain was upon the eretz (land) 40 days and 40 nights.”⁴⁴

The LXX and Philo both state that, “all the fountains of the abyss were broken up, and the flood-gates of the heavens were opened.”⁴⁵ The book of Jubilees refers to the lower waters as the “springs of tahum,”⁴⁶ while 1 Enoch calls them the “water of the fountains” and “fountains of water which are below.”⁴⁷

Therefore, while the underground water supply heaved up, rain poured out of the sky to cause the Flood. In this regard, Scriptures tell us that there are “spring waters (fountains) of tahum” and that one must come “up” from tahum.⁴⁸ It is also clear that when speaking of both the oceans as well as the underground water supply, Scriptures refer to them in the plural as תהמות (tahumuth).⁴⁹

One of the interesting proofs for the authority of Scriptures is, in fact, its knowledge of this vast reservoir of underground water, which its authors believed lay everywhere under the eretz (surface of the earth, land). The geologist Jerome Wyckoff writes that today we recognize the existence of this great underground reservoir:

Every driller knows that he could strike water almost anywhere on Earth—even in the middle of the Sahara Desert—if he drilled deep enough. Our planet’s crust is soaked with water, even under “dry” land. The water occupies cracks and tiny spaces between the grains of soil and rock. In some regions such spaces add up to a great deal of room for underground water; in others, there is little space. But wherever there is “dry” land, we can be fairly sure that there is water somewhere beneath its surface. Geologists call it ground water, and it is very important in the story of Earth’s crust.⁵⁰

Accordingly, there are several realms of the abyss or tahum, the depths of oceans and underground water, as well as vast empty regions of darkness. Tartaros is the deepest one. Herein is the reason that George Ricker Berry, as noted above, translated “ταρταρώσας (tartarosas)” as “the deepest abyss.”

In the original Aramaic-Hebrew of 2 Peter, 2:4, Keph would most likely have used the phrase “thrown down to the עמק תהום (amoq tahum; deepest tahum).”⁵¹ His translators then associated this phrase with the Greek term ταρταρώσας (tartarosas).

A Dimensional Region
The demon prison of tartaros is not so much a tahum under or within the depths of the earth as it is a dimensional region farthest away from the third heavens, the abode of father Yahweh.

For example, in Scriptures we are told, “Does not eloah soar above the heavens and sees the topmost stars? Indeed they are high! But you say, What does el know?”⁵² Therefore, father Yahweh dwells beyond and looks down upon the farthest stars, which are an unfathomable number of light-years distance from the earth. Yet despite the fact that the third heavens are described as being enormously far away, they are still very near.

Yahushua the messiah, to demonstrate, was able to make the trip from the earth to the third heavens and back again within a very short period of time.⁵³ Possibly, these realms are explained by their being dimensional. In this sense, tartaros lies downward, the outermost dimensional region, opposite to the third heavens, which is the furthest upward, being the present abode of father Yahweh.

One should note, in the abode of father Yahweh there is light, while in the region of the deepest tahum (tartaros) there is darkness.

Demons
The fallen or sinning angels who are placed in tartaros were formerly part of the sons of eloahim and were called ruachuth (spirits) and demons. The following evidence demonstrates this principle.

To begin with, Genesis 6:2-5, refers to the “sons of eloahim” who took men’s daughters for wives. In the Alexandrian Greek text these are called “angels.” Likewise, in the works of Josephus, 1 Enoch, Jubilees, Justin Martyr, and Philo, these sons of eloahim are specifically called “angels.”⁵⁴

Meanwhile, where Psalms 8:5, states that the messiah was made “a little less than eloahim,” the LXX version and the Greek text of Hebrews, 2:7, which quote of this verse, have “a little less than angels.”

Next, the books of Hebrews, Psalms, and LXX Psalms all note that Yahweh’s angels are ruachuth or pneumata (spirits).⁵⁵ S. S. Smalley correctly observes, the Greek term pneuma (pneumata, etc.)—Hebrew ruach and ruachuth—i.e., “spirits,” is used throughout the Scriptures “only of supernatural beings, never of departed human beings.”⁵⁶ A number of scriptural and ancient Jewish texts also confirm that sinning spirit-beings (angels) are defined as unclean spirits and demons.

In Scriptures we read:

• Matthew 8:28-34; Mark 5:1-18; Luke 8:26-38, where in all three accounts of the same story the “demons” that possessed the man are also called “unclean pneumata (spirits).”

• Matthew 5:21-28; Mark 7:24-30, having an unclean ruach (spirit) is equated with being demon-possessed.

• The famous 1st century C.E. Alexandrian Jewish writer named Philo writes, “It is Moses’ custom to give the name of angels to those whom other philosophers call demons, psuchai (souls) that is which fly and hover in the air.”⁵⁷ Ephesians similarly states that Satan is “the ruler of the authority of the air, the pneumatos (spirit) now working in the sons of disobedience.”⁵⁸

• Philo also defines the Greek understanding of demons and souls when he writes, “So if you realize that psuchas (souls) and demons and angels are but different names for the same one underlying object, you will cast from you that most grievous burden, the fear of demons or superstitions. The common usage of men is to give the name demon to bad and good demons alike, and the name of psuchas (souls) to good and bad ones.”⁵⁹

In these above quotes, Philo (who spoke and wrote in Greek) is adhering to the broader Greek understanding for the term psuchas (soul), i.e., a spirit being, and not to the narrower NT usage, which only refers to the human nephesh.

• 1 Corinthians 10:19-21; Revelation 9:20, show that the worship of idols is in fact the worship of demons while Colossians 2:18, warns us against the worship of angels. Satan, meanwhile, is the prince of the demons and will lead a revolt of one third of the angels of the heavens against Yahweh’s loyal angels.⁶⁰

These facts show that the fallen angels are spirit beings who, among other things, want to be worshiped as gods. In Greek the word δαίμων (daimon; demon) means a “god,”⁶¹ while the angels are identified in Scriptures with eloahim, a collective noun also understood as “gods.”⁶² The Greek concept of sinning gods (demons) being imprisoned in a tartaros underworld, therefore, fits precisely with the idea of the fallen eloahim (demons) being imprisoned in a deep abyss, or the deepest tahum.

This concludes “Tartaros and Demons – Part 1.” Be sure to continue with “Tartaros and Demons – Part 2,” where we will address the topic of the sinning angels called Watchers who mated with women and produced offspring who were giants.

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Footnotes:
Click for Bibliography and Abbreviations

1 The Greek term κρίσιν (krisin) means, “a separating, power of distinguishing . . . choice, selection . . . a decision, judgment . . . the result of a trial, condemnation” (GEL, p. 451); “opinion, formed and expressed . . . judgment, the act or result of . . . condemnation and punishment . . . a tribunal . . . justice” (ILT, p. 58); “decision (subj. or obj., for or against); by extens. a tribunal; by impl. justice (spec. divine law)” (SEC, Gk. #2920).
2 ISBE, 2, p. 1371.
3 ADB, 2, p. 344.
4 SEC, Gk. #5020. Only later did tartaros, like the concept of hades, come to mean the nether world (GEL, p. 793).
5 ADB, 2, p. 343.
6 Ezek. 28:11-19; Matt. 25:41.
7 Ps. 119:25.
8 For an in-depth discussion see The Millennial Judgment Day.
9 GEL, p. 793.
10 SEC, Gk. #5020. The demons were considered immortal by the ancient Greeks. Therefore, their imprisonment was calculated to be eternal.
11 ILT, at 2 Pet., 2:4.
12 For variant texts see ILT, p. 604, n. c.
13 2 Baruch 56:13.
14 Acts 4:13.
15 NBD, p. 971; see Mark 14:70.
16 ONT, p. 67.
17 Eusebius, H.E., 3:39:15; Jerome, Lives, 1.
18 Homer, Iliad, 8:13ff.
19 Homer, Iliad, 8:481.
20 Apollodorus, Lib., 1:1:2.
21 Hesiod, Theog., 617ff, 717ff.
22 Homer, Iliad, 8:10-19.
23 Apollodorus, Lib., 1:1:1f.
24 Apollodorus, Lib., 1:1:2–1:2:1; Hyginus, Myths, 150.
25 Jude 6.
26 Homer, Iliad, 8:13f.
27 Apollodorus, Lib., 1:1:2.
28 GEL, p. 793.
29 SEC, Gk. #5020.
30 SEC, Gk. #12.
31 GEL, p. 2.
32 Luke 8:26-39, esp. 31.
33 Rev. 11:7, 17:8.
34 Rev. 9:1-11.
35 Rev. 20:1-3.
36 CS, 1, p. 1, #1. E.g., LXX at Gen. 1:2, 7:11, 8:2; Deut. 33:15.
37 SEC, Heb. #8415; CHAL, pp. 386f; HEL, p. 280.
38 SEC, Heb. #1949; HEL, p. 66; CHAL, p. 78.
39 Gen. 7:11.
40 Gen. 8:2.
41 Isa. 63:12-13.
42 That Wisdom refers to Yahu Yahweh (Yahushua the messiah), see Luke 11:49 (cf., Matt. 23:34-36); 1 Cor. 1:24-30; Matt. 11:19; and see Justin Martyr, Trypho, 61:1-5; Hippolytus, Frag. on Prov., 9:1; Origen, de Prin., 1:2:1-4, 10, 1:3:10-12, 2:9:4; Theophilus, Ad Autol., 2:10; Eusebius, D.E., 5:8, 6:1, H.E., 1:2, P.E., 7:12.
43 Theophilus, 2:13.
44 Gen. 7:11.
45 LXX, Gen. 7:11; Philo, Gen. 2:18.
46 Jub. 5:24-25.
47 1 Enoch 67:11, 54:7.
48 Prov. 8:28; Ps. 71:20.
49 Prov. 8:22-23.
50 MTE, p. 24.
51 SEC, Heb. #6009, 6010, 6011, 6012, 6013 & 8415.
52 Job 22:12-13. NTB, renders the verse to read, “Is not God high in heaven? Does he not look down on the topmost star? And yet you say, ‘God never notices!’”; NJB has, “Does not God live high in the heavens, does he not see the zenith of the stars? And because he is up there, you have said, ‘What does God know?’”
53 Shortly after sunrise on the day of his resurrection, Yahushua could not be touched because he had not yet ascended to the heavens (John 20:17; cf., 20:1-18). Yet only a short time afterward, he was touched by several other women (Matt. 28:9). Then later that same day, his disciples were commanded to touch him (Luke 24:39-40; cf., v. 24:13, 29, 33-41).
54 Jos., Antiq., 1:3:1; 1 Enoch 6:6; Jubilees 4:15, 22, 5:1; Justin Martyr, Trypho, 79:1; Philo, de Gig., 2.
55 Heb. 1:7, 14; Ps. 104:4; LXX Ps. 104:4.
56 NBD, p. 1212.
57 Philo, de Gig., 2.
58 Eph. 2:2.
59 Philo, de Gig., 4.
60 E.g., Matt. 12:24, 25:41; John 12:31, 14:30, 16:11; Rev. 12:1-10, 20:10.
61 GEL, p. 172; NBD, p. 310, s.v. Devil, #II.
62 For example, cf., MT and LXX at Gen. 3:5; Exod. 20:3, 23:13; Deut. 5:7, 7:4; Josh. 23:16, 24:2; Judg. 5:8, 10:13; and so forth.

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Bibliography and Abbreviations
ADB = A Dictionary of the Bible, Dealing with its Language, Literature, and Contents, Including the Biblical Theology, edited by James Hastings, vol. 2 (Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1898)

CHAL = A Concise Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament. William L. Holladay. Based upon the Lexical Work of Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner. William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1971.

CS = A Concordance to the Septuagint and the Other Greek Versions of the Old Testament (including the Apocryphal Books). Edwin Hatch and Henry A. Redpath. 3 vols. Vols. 1 & 2 are reprod.of the 1897 ed. pub. by the Clarendon Press (Oxford). Vol. 3 is a reprod. of the 1906 ed. pub. by the Clarendon Press (Oxford); reprinted by Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1991.

GEL = An Intermediate Greek-English Lexicon. Founded upon the seventh ed. of Liddell and Scott’s Greek-English Lexicon. At the Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1961.

HEL = Hebrew-English Lexicon. Zondervan Edition, 1970. Catalog #6264. Samuel Bagster & Sons, LTD., London. Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan.

ILT = Lex. Greek–English Lexicon to the New Testament. This lexicon is located in the back of The Interlinear Literal Translation of the Greek New Testament. George Ricker Berry. Zondervan Publishing House, Michigan, 1958.

ISBE = The International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia. Ed. by James Orr. 5 vols. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co, Michigan, 1939.

Jos. = Flavius Josephus (37–ca. 100 C.E.)
— Antiq. Jewish Antiquities
— Wars History of the Jewish Wars Against the Romans

LXX = The Greek Septuagint.

MTE = Wyckoff, Jerome. Marvels of the Earth. Golden Press, 1964.

NBD = The New Bible Dictionary. Ed. by J. D. Doublas. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., Grand Rapids, Michigan, 1971.

ONT = Loisy, Alfred F. The Origins of the New Testament (Les Origines du Nouveau Testamento). Tr. by L. P. Jacks, University Books, New York, 1962.

SEC = Strong, James. Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, together with Dictionaries of the Hebrew and Greek Words. Riverside Book and Bible House, Iowa.
– Heb. = A Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Hebrew Bible.
– Gk. = A Concise Dictionary of the Words in the Greek Testament.

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