In recent days, Edgar Allan Wright has asked investigators to examine Abaddon as a place and as a being, with...
In recent days, Edgar Allan Wright has asked investigators to examine Abaddon as a place and as a being, with references to 1 Samuel 28 in the Hebrew Bible and ‘shades’ in Virgil’s Aeneid and Homer’s Odyssey. My comments were getting spread out and long, so I wanted to summarize my research here.
Note: as a new investigator, the significance of these observations to the Investigation probably eludes me, but perhaps the more experienced investigators can help spot the connections between this literature and the current state of research.
The earliest name for the Pit (or Abyss or Grave – caps used because it is grammatically treated as a proper noun) in the Hebrew texts is Sheol, which is used alone in the Torah and Neviim (Law and Prophets, the first two sections of the Hebrew Bible), and Abaddon (and 1x Abaddo) are introduced in the last, and generally last-written, section: the Kethuvim (Writings). Abaddon almost always in parallel* with Sheol or sometimes qever (the word for a common grave).
[Technical note: Parallelism is the main feature of Hebrew poetry: Two terms that are parallel are not always identical – but the second word generally develops the idea of the first. So for example, the first reference to Abaddon is in Ps 88:11 (ascribed to the sons of Korah): Is declared in the grave (qever) your faithfulness, your steadfastness in Abaddon? (rendered here to show the ABBA parallelism between grave/Abaddon and faithfulness/steadfastness, even if it makes for bad English; better for English word order would be: Is your faithfulness declared in the grave, your steadfastness in Abaddon?)]
The shift of Abaddon from place to agent SEEMS accidental. All the references in the Hebrew Bible to both Sheol and Abaddon are to places subterranean (ditto the 4 references in the non-biblical Dead Sea Scrolls - the oldest references outside the Hebrew Bible: 1QHa 11:19 [parallel shaḥat, cf: Ps 16:10, where this word is parallel to Sheol], 4Q432, 4Q504 and 11Q10 18:5). But when you hit the wisdom literature, the poets refer to the Pit (Sheol and Abaddon) being 'hungry' and 'insatiable' (Proverbs 27:20) and 'naked' and 'uncovered' (Job 26:5-6). This use of personifying language opened the door for later writers (investigators?) to think of Abaddon as an agent rather than a place, since being naked and hungry are agent-y sorts of things to be about. So by the time you get to Revelation 9, Abaddon is not the pit itself but the angel who opens the pit. (Though it is interesting that this personification trend does not continue in mainline Judaism - the Babylonian Talmud has Abaddon as a toponym.)
The IDEA that there is an angel over Abaddon predates Revelation, however - he just had different names. Eremiel in Apocalypse of Zephaniah 6:11 (Numbering according to the Charlesworth edition), Jeremiel in 4 Ezra (AKA 2 Esdras) 4:36, Ramiel in 2 Baruch 55:3 and 63:6 (where he also 'gives true visions'). (1) Enoch 20 talks of a Remiel, an archangel over 'those who rise', the name is similar enough to the above to reckon this is the same being, but this name is not found in all manuscripts and the passage lists other spirits with duties that seem to overlap for example: Saraqaʾel over the sinful spirits, and Suruʾel/Uriel who is over 'Tartarus' (another name for the Pit, probably a translation of the Hebrew Tehom – The Deep – though the Hebrew is lost for this section, only Greek and Ethiopic translations survive. In Greek Mythology, Tartarus is either a separate section of Hades or a place lower than Hades – all the Dead go to Hades, but only the wicked ones go to Tartarus for punishment – infernal, rather than darkness and void, or sometimes a place of drowning. Whether this Greek concept of the Deep or something like it is in mind in the Hebrew text of Enoch is unknown, though the Apocalypse of Zephaniah writes of a Deep where people are tormented beneath or at the bottom of Hades).
Edgar Allan Wright had us looking at 1 Sam. 28. Therein, the dead prophet Samuel rises 'out of the ground/earth (erets)', fitting with the grave/pit metaphor, but the story makes explicit that Samuel was buried in Ramah (probably near Jerusalem) but raised out of the ground at ein-Dor, closer to the Sea of Galilee - about 90 km away. So while there are many myths that try to fix certain locations as 'the entrance to Hades' or the location of the 'Pit/Sheol/etc.' [I've walked past a sign for tourists in Turkey marking the entrance to Hades, and I've heard Jewish myths that place the fallen Watchers of Genesis 6/Enoch specifically underneath Mt. Hermon (you can ski there now!) bound 'in eternal chains in the deepest darkness awaiting judgment' a la Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2:4 (where 2 Peter has Tartaros, explicitly the place of punishment rather than just the Grave)], the notion that Samuel could rise wherever the witch happened to call, and the very ubiquity of these stories of locations of the Pit seems to indicate that the location is not (entirely) confined by our spatial dimensions.
Or perhaps anywhere you are, if you go down far enough, you hit Abaddon, which is why any old cave could (and many did) get the reputation of being an entrance. This certainly meshes with the image in Job 31:12 of a fire consuming as far as Abaddon parallel to the next line: so far into the ground that all the crop's roots are destroyed (though in Job 31, Abaddon is perhaps a metaphor for the womb, and the 'roots of my increase' refer to children rather than plants - it's a passage to do with adultery, but it parallels/echoes Deuteronomy 32:22 where the same imagery and similar language is used: a fire burning to the Pit/Grave (Sheol in this verse, not Abaddon), consuming the earth and it's increase/produce, setting fire to the foundations of the mountains.
Further tracing Abaddon through the literature I ran into an interesting passage in the Babylonian Talmud that lists Abaddon as one of seven names for Gehenna, but what interested me in relation to my previous paragraph was the Talmudic representation of Abaddon having multiple gates: one in Jerusalem (with additional, specific details: There are two palms in the valley of Hinnom, and a pillar of smoke ascends from between them…this is the gate to Gehenna), one in the wilderness, one in the sea. (See tractate b. ‘Erubin 2:1.)
This idea of Abaddon everywhere beneath us, but with certain locations rumored to be access points makes me think of Portals. Could XM bubble up from Abaddon? (Forgive me if investigators already know what XM is - I'm still catching up on the backlog.) What relationship might this (XM or shards) have with Abaddon (personified) opening the pit and smoke and locusts flying out in Revelation 9?
Also interesting to note that the witch in 1 Sam 28 calls Samuel an 'elohim' - which means a god. The word elohim typically is used of Yahweh, the head divine being in the Jewish myths, but it is used to describe a host of other divine beings (see Psalm 82:1: Elohim has taken his place among the divine council, in the midst of the elohim he holds judgment). Whatever transformation happened at Samuel's death, he ranks amongst the elohim. Unless the witch was mistaken, but we are given no indication of this in the text. Was the witch’s surprise at seeing Samuel at all, or seeing Samuel-as-elohim?
Started following the thread of the scant references to 'shades' in the Aeneid. Interesting that it refers to 'sacred shades below' in parallel to 'gods above'. There seems to be a parallel with Samuel as elohim, and like Samuel, the shades give oracles (even the message of the passages seem to echo each other: if god/the gods have picked a side, you’re screwed). Note: 10:40-48 (Loeb numbering in Williams' translation)
...If by thy will
unblest and unapproved the Trojans came
to Italy, for such rebellious crime
give them their due, nor lend them succor, thou,
with thy strong hand! But if they have obeyed
unnumbered oracles from gods above
and sacred shades below, who now has power
to thwart thy bidding, or to weave anew
the web of Fate?
The Aeneid continues with a reference of a divine being coming down from heaven to let loose a destructive being from the kingdom of the shades (Hades/Erebus?), reminiscent of Abaddon-as-angel coming down to let loose the fierce tormenting locusts in Revelation 9:
Why tell] of Iris sped from heaven? Now she moves
the region of the shades (one kingdom yet
from her attempt secure) and thence lets loose
Alecto on the world above, who strides
in frenzied wrath along th’ Italian hills.
Alecto being one of the Furies, avenging spirits who cause madness leading to death.
When looking for references to 'shades' in the Aeneid, note that there are two or three different Latin words rendered as 'shade' in English. Sometimes 'shade' just means 'shadow' and the word is usually 'umbra', though 'umbra' can mean a ghost. I suspect both meanings appear in the following passage of Book 4 of the Aeneid, first as a reference to abyss-like darkness and second as the inhabitants:
But may the earth gape open where I tread,
and may almighty Jove (Zeus) with thunder-scourge
hurl me to Erebus’ (Hades') abysmal shade (umbras),
to pallid ghosts (umbras) and midnight fathomless,
before, O Chastity! I shall offend
thy holy power, or cast thy bonds away!
However, 'the shades below' in the passage quoted previously, when divine or divinized beings of the underworld are in mind, the term is usually Manes. There are other terms that are sometimes juxtaposed against Manes to distinguish benevolent shades from malevolent ones, but I do not think these are found in the Aeneid. For if you want to help hunt down references, these terms are Larva, Larvae and Lemures.
Note: as a new investigator, the significance of these observations to the Investigation probably eludes me, but perhaps the more experienced investigators can help spot the connections between this literature and the current state of research.
The earliest name for the Pit (or Abyss or Grave – caps used because it is grammatically treated as a proper noun) in the Hebrew texts is Sheol, which is used alone in the Torah and Neviim (Law and Prophets, the first two sections of the Hebrew Bible), and Abaddon (and 1x Abaddo) are introduced in the last, and generally last-written, section: the Kethuvim (Writings). Abaddon almost always in parallel* with Sheol or sometimes qever (the word for a common grave).
[Technical note: Parallelism is the main feature of Hebrew poetry: Two terms that are parallel are not always identical – but the second word generally develops the idea of the first. So for example, the first reference to Abaddon is in Ps 88:11 (ascribed to the sons of Korah): Is declared in the grave (qever) your faithfulness, your steadfastness in Abaddon? (rendered here to show the ABBA parallelism between grave/Abaddon and faithfulness/steadfastness, even if it makes for bad English; better for English word order would be: Is your faithfulness declared in the grave, your steadfastness in Abaddon?)]
The shift of Abaddon from place to agent SEEMS accidental. All the references in the Hebrew Bible to both Sheol and Abaddon are to places subterranean (ditto the 4 references in the non-biblical Dead Sea Scrolls - the oldest references outside the Hebrew Bible: 1QHa 11:19 [parallel shaḥat, cf: Ps 16:10, where this word is parallel to Sheol], 4Q432, 4Q504 and 11Q10 18:5). But when you hit the wisdom literature, the poets refer to the Pit (Sheol and Abaddon) being 'hungry' and 'insatiable' (Proverbs 27:20) and 'naked' and 'uncovered' (Job 26:5-6). This use of personifying language opened the door for later writers (investigators?) to think of Abaddon as an agent rather than a place, since being naked and hungry are agent-y sorts of things to be about. So by the time you get to Revelation 9, Abaddon is not the pit itself but the angel who opens the pit. (Though it is interesting that this personification trend does not continue in mainline Judaism - the Babylonian Talmud has Abaddon as a toponym.)
The IDEA that there is an angel over Abaddon predates Revelation, however - he just had different names. Eremiel in Apocalypse of Zephaniah 6:11 (Numbering according to the Charlesworth edition), Jeremiel in 4 Ezra (AKA 2 Esdras) 4:36, Ramiel in 2 Baruch 55:3 and 63:6 (where he also 'gives true visions'). (1) Enoch 20 talks of a Remiel, an archangel over 'those who rise', the name is similar enough to the above to reckon this is the same being, but this name is not found in all manuscripts and the passage lists other spirits with duties that seem to overlap for example: Saraqaʾel over the sinful spirits, and Suruʾel/Uriel who is over 'Tartarus' (another name for the Pit, probably a translation of the Hebrew Tehom – The Deep – though the Hebrew is lost for this section, only Greek and Ethiopic translations survive. In Greek Mythology, Tartarus is either a separate section of Hades or a place lower than Hades – all the Dead go to Hades, but only the wicked ones go to Tartarus for punishment – infernal, rather than darkness and void, or sometimes a place of drowning. Whether this Greek concept of the Deep or something like it is in mind in the Hebrew text of Enoch is unknown, though the Apocalypse of Zephaniah writes of a Deep where people are tormented beneath or at the bottom of Hades).
Edgar Allan Wright had us looking at 1 Sam. 28. Therein, the dead prophet Samuel rises 'out of the ground/earth (erets)', fitting with the grave/pit metaphor, but the story makes explicit that Samuel was buried in Ramah (probably near Jerusalem) but raised out of the ground at ein-Dor, closer to the Sea of Galilee - about 90 km away. So while there are many myths that try to fix certain locations as 'the entrance to Hades' or the location of the 'Pit/Sheol/etc.' [I've walked past a sign for tourists in Turkey marking the entrance to Hades, and I've heard Jewish myths that place the fallen Watchers of Genesis 6/Enoch specifically underneath Mt. Hermon (you can ski there now!) bound 'in eternal chains in the deepest darkness awaiting judgment' a la Jude 6 and 2 Peter 2:4 (where 2 Peter has Tartaros, explicitly the place of punishment rather than just the Grave)], the notion that Samuel could rise wherever the witch happened to call, and the very ubiquity of these stories of locations of the Pit seems to indicate that the location is not (entirely) confined by our spatial dimensions.
Or perhaps anywhere you are, if you go down far enough, you hit Abaddon, which is why any old cave could (and many did) get the reputation of being an entrance. This certainly meshes with the image in Job 31:12 of a fire consuming as far as Abaddon parallel to the next line: so far into the ground that all the crop's roots are destroyed (though in Job 31, Abaddon is perhaps a metaphor for the womb, and the 'roots of my increase' refer to children rather than plants - it's a passage to do with adultery, but it parallels/echoes Deuteronomy 32:22 where the same imagery and similar language is used: a fire burning to the Pit/Grave (Sheol in this verse, not Abaddon), consuming the earth and it's increase/produce, setting fire to the foundations of the mountains.
Further tracing Abaddon through the literature I ran into an interesting passage in the Babylonian Talmud that lists Abaddon as one of seven names for Gehenna, but what interested me in relation to my previous paragraph was the Talmudic representation of Abaddon having multiple gates: one in Jerusalem (with additional, specific details: There are two palms in the valley of Hinnom, and a pillar of smoke ascends from between them…this is the gate to Gehenna), one in the wilderness, one in the sea. (See tractate b. ‘Erubin 2:1.)
This idea of Abaddon everywhere beneath us, but with certain locations rumored to be access points makes me think of Portals. Could XM bubble up from Abaddon? (Forgive me if investigators already know what XM is - I'm still catching up on the backlog.) What relationship might this (XM or shards) have with Abaddon (personified) opening the pit and smoke and locusts flying out in Revelation 9?
Also interesting to note that the witch in 1 Sam 28 calls Samuel an 'elohim' - which means a god. The word elohim typically is used of Yahweh, the head divine being in the Jewish myths, but it is used to describe a host of other divine beings (see Psalm 82:1: Elohim has taken his place among the divine council, in the midst of the elohim he holds judgment). Whatever transformation happened at Samuel's death, he ranks amongst the elohim. Unless the witch was mistaken, but we are given no indication of this in the text. Was the witch’s surprise at seeing Samuel at all, or seeing Samuel-as-elohim?
Started following the thread of the scant references to 'shades' in the Aeneid. Interesting that it refers to 'sacred shades below' in parallel to 'gods above'. There seems to be a parallel with Samuel as elohim, and like Samuel, the shades give oracles (even the message of the passages seem to echo each other: if god/the gods have picked a side, you’re screwed). Note: 10:40-48 (Loeb numbering in Williams' translation)
...If by thy will
unblest and unapproved the Trojans came
to Italy, for such rebellious crime
give them their due, nor lend them succor, thou,
with thy strong hand! But if they have obeyed
unnumbered oracles from gods above
and sacred shades below, who now has power
to thwart thy bidding, or to weave anew
the web of Fate?
The Aeneid continues with a reference of a divine being coming down from heaven to let loose a destructive being from the kingdom of the shades (Hades/Erebus?), reminiscent of Abaddon-as-angel coming down to let loose the fierce tormenting locusts in Revelation 9:
Why tell] of Iris sped from heaven? Now she moves
the region of the shades (one kingdom yet
from her attempt secure) and thence lets loose
Alecto on the world above, who strides
in frenzied wrath along th’ Italian hills.
Alecto being one of the Furies, avenging spirits who cause madness leading to death.
When looking for references to 'shades' in the Aeneid, note that there are two or three different Latin words rendered as 'shade' in English. Sometimes 'shade' just means 'shadow' and the word is usually 'umbra', though 'umbra' can mean a ghost. I suspect both meanings appear in the following passage of Book 4 of the Aeneid, first as a reference to abyss-like darkness and second as the inhabitants:
But may the earth gape open where I tread,
and may almighty Jove (Zeus) with thunder-scourge
hurl me to Erebus’ (Hades') abysmal shade (umbras),
to pallid ghosts (umbras) and midnight fathomless,
before, O Chastity! I shall offend
thy holy power, or cast thy bonds away!
However, 'the shades below' in the passage quoted previously, when divine or divinized beings of the underworld are in mind, the term is usually Manes. There are other terms that are sometimes juxtaposed against Manes to distinguish benevolent shades from malevolent ones, but I do not think these are found in the Aeneid. For if you want to help hunt down references, these terms are Larva, Larvae and Lemures.
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