Footnote
a The Catholic Douay Bible reads: “And the rich man also died: and he was buried in hell.” The Latin Vulgate and the Roman Catholic Confraternity translation of 1941 read similarly. The Catholic Version by Monsignor R. A. Knox reads: “The rich man died too, and found his grave in hell.” (Luke 16:22) These readings, stating that a man makes his grave in hell, proves what all the rest of the Bible shows, namely, that the Bible hell is the common grave of mankind, gravedom, the realm of the dead, not of the living. This is corroborated by Revelation 20:13, 14: “And death and hell gave up their dead that were in them; . . . And hell and death were cast into the pool of fire. This is the second death.” (Apoc. 20, 13, 14, Dy; AV) Here the Catholic translation of 1946 by Rev. F. A. Spencer, O.P., reads: “And Death and the Grave gave up the dead who were in them, . . . And Death and the Grave were cast into the Lake of Fire. This is the second death—the Lake of Fire.” By this very comparison of Roman Catholic authorities themselves it stands proved that the Bible hell is mankind’s common grave, without our making any argument on the subject.
A more extended comparison by any honest courageous person will disclose to him that where the Douay Version reads “hell” in the Hebrew Scriptures, the King James Version reads “grave”. The American Standard Version discloses that in all these places the Hebrew original word is “She.ol”, whereas the Greek Septuagint Version uses the word “Hades”. No hellfire screecher can disprove this. Now you can understand why Amos 9:2 says: “They dig into hell.”