WAITING

WAITING FOR THE REDEMPTION OF OUR BODIES
those who are unsaved but righteous in accordance with the law went to this
compartment and still remains there awaiting resurrection and judgment.
When the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek in ancient Alexandria around 200 BC
the word "Hades" (the Greek underworld) was substituted for Sheol, and this is reflected in the
New Testament where Hades is both the underworld of the dead and the personification of the
evil it represents.
Many modern English versions, such as the New International Version, translate Sheol as
"grave" or simply transliterate "Hades". It is generally agreed that both Sheol and Hades do not
typically refer to the place of eternal punishment, but to the grave, the temporary abode of the
dead, the underworld. It is not hell since hell denotes the place of punishment after the
judgment. Greek, uses the word "κόλασις" (kolasis – literally, "punishment"; cf. Matthew
25:46, which speaks of "everlasting kolasis") to refer to what nowadays is usually meant by
"hell" in English.
Charon and the the obolus
In Greek mythology, Charon or Kharon (Χάρων) is the ferryman of Hades who carries souls of
the newly deceased across the rivers Styx and Acheron that divided the world of the living from
the world of the dead. Styx is said winds around Hades nine times. Its name comes from the
Greek word stugein which means hate.
A coin to pay Charon for passage, usually an obolus or danake, was sometimes placed in or
on the mouth of a dead person. Some authors say that those who could not pay the fee, or
those whose bodies were left unburied, had to wander the shores for one hundred years. In
the catabasis mytheme, heroes –such as Heracles, Orpheus, Aeneas, Dante,
Dionysus and Psyche – journey to the underworld and return, still alive, conveyed by the boat
of Charon.
17