Annihilationism and Conditional Immortality in John’s Ancient Bibles

By David Aaron Beaty

In the 1st century AD, when the New Testament was written, the primary spoken language in Israel was Aramaic, and the most common written language was Greek. It was in this environment that the New Testament writers did their important work. They were writing to an audience who primarily had access to the Old Testament in three different versions. Many of their audience accessed the Old Testament through the Aramaic Targums—Aramaic translations of Hebrew Old Testament books.

The Targums are not strictly just translations but are a blend of commentary and translation. In other words, they mainly consist of strictly translated Old Testament Scripture from Hebrew to Aramaic. Still, they also contain interpretive alterations and insertions that reflect the religious beliefs of the Jewish people who produced the Targums. The Targums were regularly read aloud in the Jewish synagogues, making them accessible to both literate and illiterate Aramaic-speaking people.

A significant portion of the original ancient audience of the New Testament also accessed the Old Testament in the form of the Greek Septuagint. The Greek Septuagint translation of the entire Old Testament was completed in the 3rd to 1st centuries BC. In the first century AD, Greek was a common language, which served as a bridge between people of various nationalities and other languages. A small portion of the original ancient audience of the New Testament would have been able to speak or write in Hebrew. By the 1st century AD, the Hebrew language was significantly confined to those involved in Jewish religious scholarship and religious leadership. These circumstances contribute to our understanding of why the New Testament was written in Greek.

These circumstances help us to understand why New Testament quotations of the Old Testament far more often match the specific wording of the Septuagint and far less the specific wording of the Hebrew Masoretic text Old Testament on which most of our modern English Bibles are primarily based. These circumstances help us to understand why the New Testament contains many phrases and concepts that also appear in the Targums. In spite of these circumstances, the Septuagint and the Targums continue to receive almost no attention in the teaching practices of evangelical churches today. The Hebrew Masoretic text Old Testament is the primary focus. If the New Testament’s use of the Septuagint and the Targums were trivial and had no value in helping New Testament readers understand the New Testament, then the neglect of the Septuagint and Targums would also be trivial. This is not the case, though. The New Testament writers used many phrases and concepts that only appear in the Septuagint and the Targums. These phrases and concepts do not appear in the Hebrew Masoretic text. Understanding the meaning of these phrases and concepts, as defined in the Septuagint and the Targums, is often essential to understanding what the New Testament writers are trying to say.

Of course, showing a few examples here is essential for anyone to be swayed. For the first example, let’s look at an odd wording in the book of Revelation, which most English Bible translations unintentionally conceal with words designed to smooth out the translation and make it sound normal to English speakers. To avoid the translational concealment that many smoothed-out plain English modern translations cause, we will look at these passages in the highly literal and accurate Disciples Literal New Testament. Notice the peculiar wording “one hour” and “one angel” in the two Revelation passages regarding the destruction of Babylon below:

[Revelation 18:9-10 DLNT] 9 “And the kings of the earth having committed-sexual-immorality with her and lived-luxuriously will weep and beat-their-breasts over her when they see the smoke of her burning, 10 while standing at a distance because of the fear of her torment, saying ‘Woe, woe, the great city, Babylon, the strong city— because your judgment came in one hour.’

[Revelation 18:20-21 DLNT] 20 “Celebrate over her, heaven and saints and apostles and prophets— because God judged your judgment from her!” 21 And one strong angel picked-up a stone like a large millstone and threw it into the sea, saying “In this manner, Babylon the great city will be thrown-down with violence and never found again.

As we see above in the two Revelation passages from the Disciples Literal New Testament, the Greek word for the number “one” is literally used in the Greek wording. Translating it correctly sounds funny, though, and most modern translations cover it with the word “an” so our heads don’t explode from reading something that sounds a little awkward (sarcasm heavily applied here). Peculiar biblical wording like this frequently hints that some more profound meaning is embedded into the text. Why would John choose 1 hour, not 2, 3, or 10 hours? What is the point of describing “one” Angel and not just “an” Angel?

If we consult the Septuagint version of Daniel, we find the answers to these questions. In the Septuagint of Daniel below, the “one angel” who declares the restoration of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, after his being cut down in “one hour,” bears a striking resemblance to the same wording being used in Revelation above to describe the destruction Babylon:

[Daniel 4:1-2, 7, 14a-17, 20, 30c-34 NETS Septuagint] 1 In the eighteenth year of his reign, Nabouchodonosor said, “I was living at peace in my home and prospering on my throne. 2 I saw a dream, and I was alarmed, and fear fell upon me. 7 I was sleeping, and lo, a tall tree was growing on the earth. Its appearance was huge, and there was no other like it. ……. 14a It was cut down before me in one day, and its destruction was in one hour of the day. And its branches were given to every wind, and it was dragged and thrown away. He ate grass with the animals of the earth. And he was delivered into prison and was bound by them with shackles and bronze manacles. I marveled exceedingly at all these things, and my sleep escaped from my eyes. 15 And when I arose in the morning from my bed, I called Daniel, the ruler of the savants and the leader of those who decide dreams, and I described the dream for him, and he showed me its entire interpretation. 16 But since Daniel was greatly amazed and since foreboding pressed him and since he was afraid, as trembling seized him and his appearance changed, having shaken his head, having marveled for one hour, he answered me in a quiet voice: ‘O king, may this dream be for those who hate you, and its interpretation come upon your enemies! 17 The tree that was planted in the earth, whose appearance was great—it is you, O king, ……. 20 And the vision, which you saw, that an angel was sent in power by the Lord and that he said to destroy and cut down the tree: the verdict of the great God will come upon you, ……. 30c And at the completion of seven years my time of redemption came, and my sins and my ignorances were fulfilled before the God of heaven, and I entreated the great God of gods concerning my ignorances, and lo, one angel called me from heaven: ‘Nabouchodonosor, be subject to the holy God of heaven, and give glory to the Most High. The dominion of your nation is being given back to you, 33 “On that day my kingdom was restored to me, and my glory was given back to me. 34 I acknowledge the Most High, and I praise the one who created the heaven and the earth and the seas and the rivers and everything that is in them. I acknowledge, and I praise, because he is God of gods and Lord of lords and Lord of kings, because he does signs and wonders and changes seasons and times, removing the reign of kings and setting others in their place.

By invoking the “one angel” in Revelation who declares the destruction of Babylon in “one hour,” John is drawing on a bottomless and meaningful well of concepts that can only be accessed if we know the Septuagint. John is pointing specifically and only to a Septuagint passage, which communicates God’s supreme power and sovereignty to raise up and throw down kings and kingdoms at His whim, at the effortless utterance of his Word. As you can see in the Septuagint passage above, God cuts down and then raises up Nebuchadnezzar again like it’s nothing. And Nebuchadnezzar can do nothing except acknowledge that Jesus is Supreme, King of kings, and Lord of lords. The Revelation passage below informs us that it is Jesus, the Lamb, that Nebuchadnezzar is acknowledging in the Daniel Septuagint verses above:

[Revelation 17:14 DLNT] These will wage-war against the Lamb. And the Lamb will overcome them, because He is Lord of lords and King of kings, and the ones with Him are called ones and chosen ones and faithful ones”.  

If we consult the corresponding chapter of Daniel 4 in most of our modern Bibles, which are based on the often used and revered Hebrew Masoretic text, there is no “one angel,” and no destruction occurs in “one hour.” Instead, there is an “angelic watcher,” otherwise translated as “watcher” or “holy angel.” Most modern Bibles, based on the Hebrew Masoretic text, also show almost no signs of “one hour,” and instead use wording that is something like this from the NASB 2020 edition:

[Daniel 4:33 NASB20 Hebrew Masoretic] “Immediately the word concerning Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled; and he was driven away from mankind and began eating grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws.

Some translations, like the World English Bible and Young’s Literal Translation, shown below, come close to showing the “one hour,” but still aren’t quite a precise match:

[Daniel 4:33 WEB Hebrew Masoretic] This was fulfilled the same hour on Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from men, and ate grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of the sky, until his hair had grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.

[Daniel 4:33 YLT Hebrew Masoretic] ‘In that hour the thing hath been fulfilled on Nebuchadnezzar, and from men he is driven, and the herb as oxen he eateth, and by the dew of the heavens his body is wet, till that his hair as eagles’ hath become great, and his nails as birds.’

Should it be any surprise to us that John in Revelation made a specific reference to one of the translations of the Old Testament Bible that his audience most frequently used? Of course, his audience was using the Septuagint, so it makes perfect sense that he would teach from and refer to one of the Old Testament Bibles they used. The reader should not understand that I’m trying to say that the New Testament never references the Hebrew Masoretic Old Testament. What I am saying is that the New Testament is also full of specific references to the other two Old Testament Bibles frequently used by the ancient audience of the New Testament. Of course, those are the Targums and the Septuagint. Compare the verses from Revelation below with the Targum Old Testament passages which follow them:

[Revelation 2:11 NASB20] ‘The one who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. The one who overcomes will not be hurt by the second death.’

[Revelation 2:17 NASB20] ‘The one who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. To the one who overcomes, I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and a new name written on the stone which no one knows except the one who receives it.’

[Isaiah 22:14 Targum Jonathan] The prophet said, With my ears I was hearing when this was decreed before the LORD God of hosts: “Surely this sin will not be forgiven you until you die the second death,” says the LORD God of hosts.

(Chilton, 1990, Vol. 11, pg. 44)

[Isaiah 65:15 Targum Jonathan] You shall leave your name to my chosen for an oath, and the LORD God will slay you with the second death; but his servants, the righteous, he will call by a different name. (Chilton, 1990, Vol. 11, pg. 124)

The resemblance between Revelation and the Targum passages above would not be as remarkable if it weren’t for the fact that the phrase “second death” very likely originated in the Targums. Except for the Targums, the phrase has almost no known appearances in any ancient documents written before the New Testament or in any of the languages commonly used by the original ancient audience of the New Testament, including Aramaic, Greek, Latin, and Hebrew. On the other hand, the phrase appears several times in the Targums and even in Targum passages closely related to the New Testament, such as the examples shown above. Targum scholars date the origination of the oldest Targums that we have to roughly the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, but they also argue that they contain much pre-New Testament material.

So, should those who want to understand the New Testament in a new and more profound way give some thought and time to study the Septuagint and the Targums? Of course, the answer to this is clear. Just in the book of Revelation, the Greek phrase “forever and ever” in Revelation 14:11 points to numerous explanatory passages in the Septuagint, giving us a much broader and fuller understanding of the topic of hell. The several Greek word names used to refer to satan in Revelation 12:9 exactly match satan’s Greek names in Isaiah 27:1 in the Septuagint, where we see a prophecy of satan’s death. But doesn’t Revelation 20:10 say that satan will be tormented for eternity? And, of course, the second death receives description and definition in the Targums, which may apply to its use in the book of Revelation. Studying the ancient Bibles that form the ancient context into which the New Testament was written is just doing the necessary background work to understand the New Testament in the way its first recipient audience would have understood it. It may be helpful to recall that much of the New Testament is letters written to specific people living in a specific time. Their minds were generally instilled with a specific body of knowledge about their religious background. If we are going to read their mail, we should probably make some effort to understand the background knowledge that would have influenced their own understanding of their own mail.

This approach highly characterizes the recent book produced by this author, Hell is Made Holy. Hell is Made Holy looks specifically at the topic of hell in Revelation and attempts to apply the background knowledge of Revelation’s ancient audience to the topic. This directs the reader of Revelation to the Targums, the Septuagint, the biblical Dead Sea scrolls, and even some of the non-biblical sectarian religious writings of 1st and 2nd century AD Judaism. With this approach of seeking to understand the religious background knowledge of Revelation’s ancient audience, verses like these below from the Masoretic Hebrew and Targum versions of Jeremiah 51 may have significance:

[Jeremiah 51:39, 57 Targum Jonathan] 39 Bring distress upon them, and they shall be like drunken men, so that they shall not be strong; and they shall die the second death, and shall not live for the world to come, says the Lord. ……. 57 And I will make her princes and her wise men drunk, her governors and her tyrants and her mighty men; and they shall die the second death and not live for the world to come.” says the King; the Lord of Hosts is his Name. (Hayward, 1987, Vol. 12, pgs. 187 to 189)

[Jeremiah 51:39, 57 NASB20 Hebrew Masoretic] 39 “When they become heated up, I will serve them their banquet And make them drunk, so that they may rejoice in triumph, And may sleep a perpetual sleep And not wake up,” declares the LORD. ……. 57 “I will make her leaders and her wise men drunk, Her governors, her officials, and her warriors, So that they will sleep a perpetual sleep and not wake up,” Declares the King, whose name is the LORD of armies.

Would John’s audience of Revelation have understood hell, the “second death” in Revelation, through the lens of the Jeremiah 51 verses above? It’s possible. Would John’s audience have understood the final fate of Satan in Revelation 20:10 through the lens of the Isaiah Septuagint passage below:

[Isaiah 27:1 LES2 Septuagint] On that day God will bring the holy and great and mighty sword against the dragon, a fleeing serpent, against the dragon, a twisted serpent; he will slay the dragon.

[Revelation 20:10 ESV] and the devil who had deceived them was thrown into the lake of fire and sulfur where the beast and the false prophet were, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

In the Isaiah verse above, the Septuagint uses two Greek words for the names of Satan, which are identical to the Greek words that John uses in Revelation here:

[Revelation 12:9 DLNT] And the great dragon was thrown down— the ancient serpent, the one being called the devil and Satan, the one deceiving the whole world— he was thrown-down to the earth. And his angels were thrown-down with him.

Is this connection significant? Maybe the background we see in the Septuagint Job passage below is just reiterated by John’s use of Satan’s Greek names in Revelation above?

[Job 26:12-13 LES2 Septuagint] 12 By power he hindered the sea, and by understanding he laid low the sea monster. 13 And the barriers of the heavens fear him, and by a command he killed the rebel serpent.

For further confirmation of who the sea monster, rebel serpent is in the previous verses, it’s helpful to look at the Masoretic Hebrew version below of the Isaiah 27:1 verse that I also showed far above from the Septuagint:

[Isaiah 27:1 NASB20 Hebrew Masoretic] On that day, the LORD will punish Leviathan the fleeing serpent, With His fierce and great and mighty sword, Even Leviathan the twisted serpent; And He will kill the dragon who lives in the sea.

Moving on to yet another example, is it possible that when John’s audience of Revelation read Revelation 14:11 below that, they would have called to mind the Targum verses I am also showing below?

[Revelation 14:11 NASB20] “And the smoke of their torment ascends forever and ever; they have no rest day and night, those who worship the beast and his image, and whoever receives the mark of his name.”

[Isaiah 34:3, 9-10 Targum Jonathan] 3 Their slain will be cast out, and the smoke of their corpses shall rise; the mountains shall flow with their blood. ……. 9 And the streams of Rome shall be turned into pitch, and her soil into brimstone; her land shall become burning pitch. 10 Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up for ever. (Chilton, 1990, Vol. 11, pg. 68)

The Targum verses above sound a lot like the corpses in hell that Jesus described by referencing Isaiah 66 in the two passages below:

[Mark 9:47-48 NASB20] 47 “And if your eye is causing you to sin, throw it away; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than, having two eyes, to be thrown into hell, 48 where THEIR WORM DOES NOT DIE, AND THE FIRE IS NOT EXTINGUISHED.

[Isaiah 66:23-24 NASB20 Hebrew Masoretic] 23 “And it shall be from new moon to new moon And from Sabbath to Sabbath, All mankind will come to bow down before Me,” says the LORD. 24 “Then they will go out and look At the corpses of the people Who have rebelled against Me. For their worm will not die And their fire will not be extinguished; And they will be an abhorrence to all mankind.”

When thinking about the two passages above, remember that in the book of Jeremiah, it was prophesied that the fires that the Babylonians would use to destroy Jerusalem in the 6th century BC would “not be quenched” or “not go out.” The Jeremiah prophecy uses the same Hebrew word for “quenched,” “extinguished,” or “go out,” as we see in the Isaiah 66 passage above. Despite this, Jerusalem is not still burning. This allows us to understand that in Hebrew, describing a fire that is “not quenched” can simply mean that nobody intentionally puts it out with water or other means. It burns until it consumes. The Jeremiah prophecy is in the verses below:

[Jeremiah 7:19-20 NASB20 Hebrew Masoretic] 19 “Are they provoking Me?” declares the LORD. “Is it not themselves instead, to their own shame?” 20 Therefore this is what the Lord GOD says: “Behold, My anger and My wrath will be poured out on this place, on human and animal life, and on the trees of the field and the fruit of the ground; and it will burn and not be quenched.”

[Jeremiah 17:27 NASB20 Hebrew Masoretic] “But if you do not listen to Me, to keep the Sabbath day holy by not carrying a load and coming in through the gates of Jerusalem on the Sabbath day, then I will set fire to its gates, and it will devour the palaces of Jerusalem and not go out.”  ‘”

There are many more examples of enlightening ancient background context provided to the topic of hell in Revelation by ancient works such as the Targums, the Septuagint, the biblical Dead Sea scrolls, and others. If we undertake the significant task of looking at many more of these examples, what we will find is that biblical support for the traditional view of hell as endless, eternal conscious torment completely evaporates. Applying the fitting and appropriate ancient background context to the topic of hell in Revelation, and even in all of the Bible, results in our seeing how the Bible describes that the final end of the wicked is the annihilation of body and soul, not endless torment. Jesus summarizes this same conclusion for us:

[Matthew 10:28 NASB20] “And do not be afraid of those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

So, should we keep our blinders on and only consider our modern Bibles, which primarily use the Hebrew Masoretic text in the Old Testament? Should the Hebrew Masoretic text Old Testament be the only ancient context we consider when attempting to understand hell in Revelation? It’s useful to note here that even our modern Bibles, which we so highly value do not limit their consideration to only the Hebrew Masoretic text of the Old Testament. For example, in the famous prophecy of Jesus’ crucifixion found in Psalm 22, they take the approach I am suggesting throughout this article by consulting other ancient Bibles to effectively clarify our understanding of prophecy. In the Hebrew Masoretic text of Psalm 22, Jesus’ crucifixion is effectively erased and replaced with an absurd hand-nibbling lion:

[Psalm 22:15-16 JPS Tanakh Hebrew Masoretic] 15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd; And my tongue cleaveth to my throat; And Thou layest me in the dust of death. 16 For dogs have encompassed me; A company of evil-doers have inclosed me; Like a lion, they are at my hands and my feet.

Consulting the ancient background context of the Psalm 22 passage above in the Septuagint and the Dead Sea scrolls clears up the confusion and brings Jesus right back into crisp focus:

[Psalm 22:15-16 LES2 Septuagint] 15 My strength was dried up like an earthen vessel, and my tongue has been glued to my throat. You led me into the dust of death. 16 For many dogs encircled me. A gathering of those doing evil surrounded me. They pierced my hands and feet.

[Psalm 22:15-16 DSSB Dead Sea scrolls Hebrew] 15 [My strength is dried up like a potsherd], and my tongue melts in [my mouth. They] have placed [me] as the dust of death. 16 [For] dogs are [all around me]; a gang of evil[doers] encircles me. They have pierced my hands and my feet.

The words in the Psalm 22 passage above from the Dead Sea scrolls, which are in brackets, are missing from the damaged and fragmentary scroll. As you can see, the critical words describing Jesus’ crucifixion are not in brackets. Just as Jesus’ crucifixion is brought back into crisp focus by applying relevant ancient background context from ancient Bibles, we also should consider bringing the topic of hell back into crisp focus with a similar approach.

I invite you to take that journey with me by reading my new book, Hell is Made Holy, and this article can prepare you for the type of content you can expect to find in the book. I hope this article has been a blessing to you, and may His face shine upon you and give you peace.

___________

Excerpted from: Hell Is Made Holy: How the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Book of Revelation show that the wicked and hell cease to exist. Hell is Made Holy is currently for sale on Amazon at https://a.co/d/95hCkg4. For those with limited resources, it can also be downloaded for free as a pdf from https://davidaaronbeaty.com/.

___________

Sources:

Chilton, Bruce D. The Aramaic Bible, The Isaiah Targum, Vol. 11. 1990. Collegeville MN: A Michael Glazier Book, The Liturgical Press
DLNT. Scripture quotations marked (DLNT) are used from Disciples’ Literal New Testament. Copyright © 1999. Translated by Michael J. Magill. Beaverton OR: Reyma Publishing
DSSB. Scripture quotations marked (DSSB) are used from The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible. Copyright © 1999. New York: Harper Collins Publishers
ESV. Scripture quotations marked (ESV) are used from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®. Copyright © 2001. Crossway Bibles. Good News Publishers.
Hayward, Robert. The Aramaic Bible, The Targum of Jeremiah, Vol. 12. 1987. Wilmington DE: Michael Glazier Inc.
JPS. Scripture quotations marked (JPS) are used from The Holy Scriptures According to the Masoretic Text. A New Translation. Copyright© 1917. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America. All rights reserved.
LES2. Scripture quotations marked (LES2) are used from the Lexham English Septuagint second edition. Copyright© 2019. Bellingham WA: Lexham Press
NASB20. Scripture quotations marked (NASB20) are used from the New American Standard Bible® (NASB®). Copyright© 2020. The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. www.lockman.org.
NETS. Scripture quotations marked (NETS) are used from A New English Translation of the Septuagint. Copyright© 2007. International Organization for Septuagint and Cognate Studies, Inc. Used by permission of Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
WEB. Scripture quotations marked (WEB) are used from the World English Bible. 1997. www.worldenglish.bible

___________

A Note from the Author: Thank you for taking an interest in my writing and teaching ministry. This ministry partly comes from an almost lifelong passion that I have had for reading and studying God’s word.  As of 2018, I worked full-time as a mechanical engineer in the power generation industry. In the years leading up to this, I found myself frequently visited by a gnawing feeling that I would be wasting the skills and gifting that God has given me if I were to spend the rest of my career in engineering. I felt, too, that it would be selfish for me not to share some of the things that I believe God has taught me. To be obedient to what I felt very well could be a calling from God, I began to transition my place of residence and livelihood towards a focus on teaching God’s word. Little did I know that my choice in this transition would soon be virtually eliminated.

In the several years leading up to the end of 2021, I experienced a rapid and dramatic deterioration of the condition of my spine. This condition led to persistent, mostly always-on pain all over my body, which significantly elevates or subsides when I work for any significant number of hours using my arms and hands daily.

I type now for a limited time each day using my voice, a microphone, speech recognition software, and small movements of my computer mouse on the edge of the desk. I hope that God will allow me to use my remaining physical capability to serve Him, encourage the church, and help build God’s kingdom of royal priests and us, His saints.

My website and the content from my writing ministry are geared toward that purpose. I hope this content will be helpful to you in your journey to understanding who God is. May He bless you and keep you. May His face shine upon you and give you peace with eternal life.