Jason said [most recently back in [url=http://www.evangelicaluniversalist.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=392&start=0&st=0&sk=t&sd=a]this thread, as well as elsewhere previously] : “1.) the word for ‘punishment’ in the Judgment of the Sheep and Goats, is a term borrowed from agriculture to mean a brisk hopeful cleaning. The same concept is frequently used elsewhere in scripture in positively hopeful or at least non-hopeless fashions, such as in Rom 11 where St. Paul talks about branches being grafted out of the vine and then being grafted back in.”
I have read that “kolasis” (is that the word you are speaking of) came to be used for punishment without correction as its aim. I think that this was discovered (though I am not sure) in the papyri.
This link proposes a different view from the one you presented:
cwhisonant.gotdns.com/documents/ … alism.html
From the article:
"At this point, since I am no Greek scholar, I will quote from a correspondence I have had with N.E. Barry Hofstetter, Ph.D. candidate: Westminster Theological Seminary, and Professor of Theology and Biblical Interpretation at The Center for Urban Theological Studies, Philadelphia, PA:
“One of Barclay’s failings is making secular Greek determinative of the meaning in the biblical context, even when the meaning that he wishes to impart does not fit that context. There are several problems:
- In general, Barclay is guilty of the genetic fallacy, assuming that the use of the word in later Greek must be the same as the use of it in earlier Greek.
- To a large extent, the theological use of terms in the NT is determined by the Greek OT. In LXX, the term kolasis is used in contexts which do not imply corrective punishment. Cf. Jer 18:20; Wis 16:24; 19:4. Barclay simply ignores the Septuagintal background, as though it did not exist or have any meaning for him
- The LSJ (Liddell & Scott), the standard classical lexicon, admits the meaning of “divine retribution” and cites Matt 25:46.
- Bauer (BAGD) simply defines the word as punishment, and cites a number of instances in Greek literature where it is used of divine retribution.
- In the structure of the sentence, “eternal punishment” lies in direct contrast to “eternal life.” The term aionios is particularly eschatological, and refers to the eternal state. The two are meant in parallel fashion, so that the contrast for eternal life is eternal punishment. I had meant to add also that these balanced, parallel clauses suggest an absolute contrast, not a limited one, so that eternal punishment and eternal life must be co-extensive of one another.”