χάσμα

From the study of Luke 16:26

Range of meaning

A gaping opening, a split in the earth, an abyss or pit. It comes from the verb meaning 'to gape' or 'yawn open' (BDAG: 'chasm'). It is used of cracks made by earthquakes, of deep pits, and in Greek poetry of the abyss under the world.

Against the English

Modern versions have 'chasm.' The KJV and WEB have 'gulf,' which in 1611 meant an abyss or yawning depth. Today most people hear 'gulf' as a bay of the sea, or as a figure of speech for a difference of opinion.

How it drifted

In early modern English 'gulf' meant a deep hollow or abyss, close to 'chasm.' That sense has faded, and the geographical meaning (Gulf of Mexico, Persian Gulf) has taken over.

Used elsewhere in the period

Hesiod (Theogony 740) calls Tartarus, the deepest part of the underworld, a 'great chasm' (chasma meg'). That is exactly the phrase used here. The Greek Old Testament uses chasma mega for the deep pit in the forest into which Absalom's body was thrown (2 Samuel 18:17). In Jewish writings about the afterlife, 1 Enoch 22 describes the dead kept in separate hollows, with the righteous apart from sinners, and 4 Ezra 7:36 sets the 'pit of torment' facing the 'place of rest.' Neither uses the word chasma, but they share the idea of the two groups separated in space and facing each other. The Latin Vulgate renders the word with chaos, 'yawning void.'