Hades.  The temporary abode of the dead, known in the Old Testament as Sheol.  Luke 16:19-31 provides a fascinating insight into Hades.  There was a rich man and a poor man, the latter named Lazarus.  The poor man died and was carried by the angels to “the bosom of Abraham,” a place of comfort.  When the rich man died, he found himself tormented in the flames.  There was a gulf fixed between the two of them so that Lazarus could not come over to comfort the rich man.  A case can be made that when Jesus ascended to the Father, He took captives with Him.  So that now, for believers, “to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.”  When believers die, they go to heaven to be with Jesus.  At the end, Hades will be cast into the Lake of Fire and Brimstone, which is the Second Death.

Hamartiology. The Biblical study of sin.  The Greek word for sin is hamartia.  Hamartiology focuses on the origin of sin in Genesis 3, the effect of sin upon the image of God in which man was created, the types of sin of which man is guilty, including imputed sin, inherited sin, and personal sin; and the results of sin, including physical death, spiritual death, and second death.

Hapax Legomenon. (pl. Hapax Legomena). A word that occurs only once in the Greek New Testament or in the Hebrew Bible. Occasionally, writers will restrict the scope of a hapax legomenon to one book, say Matthew or Ephesians. Sometimes called, for short, a hapax (pl. hapaxes), a word that occurs only once is difficult to define because words are defined by other uses of the same word in various contexts. When only one noun occurs, a working definition can frequently be built by multiple occurrences of the corresponding verb (or vice versa). Sometimes the etymology of a word can be used to arrive at a definition. In other cases, definitions can only be built by consulting usages in extra-biblical literature. Sometimes a definition can be approximated by consulting Bible translations in other languages. For example, a hapax in the Masoretic Text of the Hebrew Bible can often be aided by consulting the Greek Septuagint translation of the Old Testament (LXX).  Here are two examples of hapax legomena in the Greek New Testament with appropriate resolutions. 

The Greek word theopneustos, an adjective, occurs only once in the New Testament in 2 Timothy 3:16. We can use etymology to determine its meaning. Theos is a noun which means God, and pneustos is an adjectival form from the root of the noun pneuma, which means wind or breath on the one hand, or spirit on the other. Putting the two concepts together, the word means "God-breathed," or "that which God has breathed out." It is impossible to eliminate the overtone of spirit from the word. A fuller translation of theopneustos might be, "God-breathed (by means of His Spirit)."

In the same context (2 Tim. 3:16) the noun elegmos appears as a hapax. Its corresponding verb, elegxw, appears seventeen times. The verb is variously translated (in NASB) as "to convict" (5X), "to reprove" (5X), "to expose" (3X), and once each "to show (someone) his fault," to reprimand," "to rebuke," and "to refute." So we can see that "reproof," as translated by the NASB, is an accurate rendering of the word elegmos in 2 Timothy 3:16.

Heaven.  The present abode of God and the redeemed of all ages.  Here are some things we can deduce about heaven:  There is a holy mountain of God in heaven (Ezek. 28: 14, 16).  Evidently this holy mountain is the heavenly Mount Zion that exists within heaven (Heb. 12:22; Rev. 14:1).  God rules from His throne, evidently located in the temple situated on the heavenly Mount Zion  (Psalm 11:4; Isa. 6:1; Rev. 7:15; 16:17).  But heaven is not the eternal home either of God or Jesus or of the redeemed.  New Jerusalem presently exists within heaven.  But it will eventually come down out of heaven to be associated forever with New Earth (Rev. 21:1-4, 10).  New Jerusalem will be the eternal abode of Christ and God, the capital of New Earth, which will be redeemed man’s eternal home (Rev. 22:3-5).

Hermeneutics. A study of the appropriate methods to interpret Scripture. Hebrew poetry, for example, includes synonymous parallelism and antithetical parallelism. Hebrew narrative is typically repetitive. In the letters Paul has written in the New Testament, each prepositional phrase carries significant import.  Prophetic literature oftentimes incorporates different symbols. But the symbols represent something literal. One has to distinguish between what is symbolic and what is literal. Dispensationalists use a literal, historical, grammatical, contextual method of interpretation. What the author intended for his original audience is of great import. A given statement cannot be divorced from its surrounding context. Dispensationalists also interpret from a stance of Testamental parity. In other words, promises made by God in the Old Testament to the forefathers of Israel cannot be abrogated by promises made to the Church in the New Testament. Paul urged Timothy, "Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth" (2 Timothy 2:15, emphasis mine). Every interpreter of the Bible must make it his goal to interpret the Bible correctly. If he misinterprets Scripture, inserting his own ideas or the ideas of some philosophy he espouses, he runs the risk of being disapproved and ashamed when he stands before God.

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