Hey Everyone,

I have been very busy, and will return to reply to all of the post waiting for me to respond hopefully tomorrow.

Just a quick question...

I don't want to start a debate on Purgatory again, but just have a question to ask.

A Catholic lady at work said that she asked a priest if Purgartory was in the Bible. She said that he told her the word was not in there, but the word Netherworld was. I hope I am spelling this correctly.

Is this word in there? Honestly, I have never heard anyone use this word before. Maybe this has been mentioned on another post, sorry if it has.

I have a New American Bible, can it be found in it? Where?

Thanks and God Bless!

-- Tim (tlw97@cox.net), December 12, 2002

Answers

"The nether world", or "the nether parts of the earth", depending on your translation, are mentioned by the prophet Ezekial, but there is no reason to think that Purgatory is what he was speaking of.

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), December 12, 2002.

I just looked it up online & found the word in Luke 10:13-16:

"Jesus said to them, "Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. And as for you, Capernaum, ‘Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the NETHERWORLD.' Whoever listens to you listens to me. Whoever rejects you rejects me. And whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me."

However, in my opinion that is not a reference to Purgatory but to Hell.

There is another scripture which I think is a much better description of the concept of Purgatory:

1Corinthians 3:12-15: "Now if any one builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each man’s work will become manifest; for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work which any man has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If any man’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire*."

Hope this helps!

-- Christine L. :-) (christine_lehman@hotmail.com), December 12, 2002.

Hi again Tim, Just noticed your question re: the New American Bible. In that translation the word only appears once - in Ezekiel 32:18. In some other translations it may appear up to 4 or 5 times.

Hi Christine, I wasn't aware of that New Testament reference to the term. Do you know which translation of the bible that passage you quoted came from?

Regards, Paul

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), December 12, 2002.

Hello, Tim.

Either the priest did not give your co-worker a good, Catholic answer -- or she misunderstood what he said. The term "nether world," as found in some Bible translations, is not synonymous with Purgatory.

A knowledgeable Catholic (priest or layman) could answer your friend's question something like this:
The word "purgatory" is not in the Bible, but that does not mean that Purgatory does not exist. The word "trinity" is not in the Bible, but the divine Trinity exists. We know what the Trinity is (as well as we are able to grasp a mystery), and there are many verses that help us to see that there is a Trinity. In like manner, there are many verses that help us to see that there is a Purgatory.

The term "nether world" does not appear in King James's partial Bible translation, but it does appear in the Revised Standard Version (in verses of Ezekiel). The term "nether world" appears in verses in a bunch of books of the New American Bible (where the KJV and RSV use different words instead).

God has not revealed even to Christians all the details of the afterlife. But a careful look at the Old Testament (and even some things stated in the New Testment) reveal that God had revealed even less about the afterlife to the Jews. They really did not refer to distinct non-earthly places like our heaven, hell, and purgatory. Instead, somewhat like non-Christian cultures of the time, they seemed to have a murky idea of some kind of subterranean world (sometimes called hades, tartarus, sheol, the pit, etc.) -- which lay below the bodies of the buried dead. This is sometimes called the "nether world," because the word "nether" means "lower." I'm not sure if it quite clear in the O.T. whether "sheol" is divided into two or more segments, related to righteousness or sinfulness.

I will quote two verses from Ezekiel that refer to "nether world," and I will insert the similar words that are present in the KJV:

Ezekiel 26:20: then I will thrust you down with those who descend into the pit, to the people of old, and I will make you to dwell in the nether world ["low parts of the earth" (KJV)], among primeval ruins ...
Ezekiel 31:14 -- ... for they are all given over to death, to the nether world ["nether parts of the earth" (KJV)], among mortal men, with those who go down to the pit.

Now please take a look at a couple of verses from the NAB translation of Job 26, followed by the NAB footnotes ...

5-6 The shades [see note 2] beneath writhe in terror, the waters, and their inhabitants. Naked before him is the nether world [see note 3], and Abaddon has no covering.

Note 2: "shades" -- the dead in sheol, the nether world; cf Psalm 6:6; 88:11.
Note 3: "nether world" -- cf note to Psalm 6:6. "Abaddon" -- Hebrew for "(place of) destruction," a synonym for nether world; cf Job 28:22; Rev 9:11.
(I'll leave it up to you, Tim, if you want to look up the cross-referenced verses.)

God bless you.
John

-- J. F. Gecik (jfgecik@hotmail.com), December 12, 2002.

Paul, I think that you are coming up nearly empty in the NAB because you are looking for the term as one word (netherworld), when it actually appears a lot in its normal form, as two words (nether world).
JFG

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), December 12, 2002.

Sorry about the rapid-fire postings, but just as a point of information ... In Luke 10:15, The New American Bible and the American Standard both use "Hades". the Douay-Rheims and the King James Version both use "Hell".

Incidentally, www.unboundbible.org is a great site for looking up this kind of information. Is everyone familiar with it?

Peace! Paul

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), December 12, 2002.

Thanks for your answers, everyone.

I agree with you Christine, with the references I too believe that it is refering to Hell and not a place called Purgatory.

J. F. Gecik, honestly, that is what she told me. Maybe she didn't understand what he meant. I had just never heard of that before and figured someone at this forum would have at least heard of it or could tell me what it was.

But I didn't want to draw into debat over it. I understand what you are saying about Purgatory and the Trinity. The words not being in the Bible. Although I believe there are verses that prove the Trinity, I must admit I do not know of any verses that prove Purgatory to be real.

I will let her know what you have said here, and I think she was going to reask the priest she had talked to.

Thanks Again!

-- Tim (tlw97@cox.net), December 12, 2002.

Dear Tim,

Even though it is not necessary to find scripture verses to validate a Catholic doctrine (for the authority was given to the Church, not to the book), there are scripture passages which provide evidence of Purgatory.

Peter tells us that after Jesus died, He "went and preached to the spirits in prison" (1 Pet. 3:19). We know that these spirits were not in heaven. Heaven surely is not a prison. And we know they were not in Hell. There would be no point in Jesus preaching to the damned. They were waiting somewhere else, for the gates of heaven to be opened. We are not certain that this place was Purgatory, but it may have been, and even if it was not, this serves as clear evidence that the souls of the deceased may go temporarily somewhere other than Heaven or Hell.

In Matt 12:32, Christ refers to a sinner who "will not be forgiven either in this age or in the age to come" (Matt. 12:32) This suggests that atonement for sin is something not restricted only to this lifetime, and that at least some of the atonement process can occur - somewhere - after this lifetime.

In 1 Cor 3:15 we are told that after our death we will be judged on our works, but that even if our works are found lacking, we can still be saved, "but only as by passing through fire". This purification cannot take place in Heaven, for there is no suffering there, and "passing through fire" certainly indicates suffering. But it cannot refer to Hell either, because no-one in Hell can be saved.

In 2 Macc. 12:43–45, we read that "it is a good and wholesome thing to pray for the dead, that they may be loosed from their sins". Praying for the dead makes no sense if they are in Hell, where they cannot benefit from prayer; and it makes no sense if they are in Heaven, where they have no need of prayer. (Of course, Protestants are not impressed by this passage, since their founder removed the books of Macchabees from their Bible.) This passage not only gives strong evidence of the existence of Purgatory, but shows that this truth had been revealed to the Chosen People even before the coming of Christ, and also confirms that we on earth can help the souls in Purgatory by our prayers.

The purpose of Purgatory is summed up in Rev 21:37, which tells us nothing unclean (or impure, depending on your translation) can come into God's presence. How many of us die in a perfectly pure state? Denial of Purgatory forces us to accept one of two beliefs - either (1) that Revelation 21 is wrong, and God actually does take unclean, impure persons into Heaven; or (2) that the slightest spiritual blemish sends a person directly to Hell. Both these ideas are in direct opposition to both the teaching of the Church, and Scripture.

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), December 13, 2002.

Great stuff, Paul! I also love the following passage from the Book of Wisdom:

"Wisdom 3:1-7
"But the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them.
"In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be an affliction, and their going from us to be their destruction; but they are at peace.
"For though in the sight of men they were punished, their hope is full of immortality.
"Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself; "like gold in the furnace he tried them, and like a sacrificial burnt offering he accepted them.
"In the time of their visitation they will shine forth, and will run like sparks through the stubble."

People who didn't want to believe in the truth of purgatory, expressed most clearly in Maccabees and Wisdom, decided to toss those books. (They figured they could "finesse" the other books that were not tossed.) That alone should tell anyone studying Christianity that Catholicism is the only way to go. It is the only original Church of Jesus himself. Sacred Tradition testifies something that is confirmed by the fact that Septuagint texts are quoted througout the New Testament -- namely, that Jesus and his Apostles recognized the divine origin of Maccabees, Wisdom, and the other "deuterocanonical" books.

God bless you.
John

-- (jfgecik@hotmail.com), December 15, 2002.