Jason, I think a more realistic goal is to put together a Commentary and a study Bible based on popular versions of the Bible while including study notes that favor universalism. For example, I’m working on a commentary on Revelation.
Hi Tom,
My first reply in the topic reflected my previous thoughts about 2 Thessalonians 1:9. I’ve been chewing on your view of apo in 2 Thes 1:9 while studying the rest of 2 Thes and the use of apo in a NASB lexicon. I’m leaning toward agreeing with you while I remain undecided. In NASB language, apo sometimes clearly means “away” and sometimes clearly means “because”. In regards to 2 Thes 1:9, we can frame the debate to say that apo means either “away from” or “because of”. The NASB translates apo in 2 Thes 1:9 as “away from”. If you’re right, then it should be “because of”. I’m leaning more toward “because of” after studying a parallel in 2 Thes 2:8:
Then that lawless one will be revealed whom the Lord will slay with the breath of His mouth and bring to an end by the appearance of His coming;
This verse does not use the word apo, but it teaches that the coming of Christ will “bring to and end” the lawless one. Different Greek words are used for destruction and bring to an end while the meanings are similar. Likewise, if you’re right, both 2 Thes 1:9 and 2:8 describe a pattern of the Lord appearing and causing the destruction of evil people.
Matthew 25:41 teaches that Christ will banish the wicked from his presence when he returns, but if you are right, that is not also taught in 2 Thes 1:9.
Either translation of apo works with universalism. But I’m not sure that we can translate aionios to mean “everlasting” in this verse unless only the sin nature is subject to everlasting destruction, whether away from the Lord or whether in the presence of the Lord.
That’s a very interesting follow-up comparison, James!
I know some things I could comment on (or add to) about it, but I want to see what Tom thinks of it first.
Knoch was indeed a Universalist. The below ink details an exchange between Knoch and Charles Russel on the topic of Universal Reconciliation:
Wow… I totally couldn’t have guessed from his translation efforts (interesting as they otherwise were). Thanks!!
I’ll have to see if the forum search engine is good enough to find other places I’ve discussed Knoch, so I can amend any place I said I didn’t understand him to be universalist… I don’t want to propagate misunderstandings about him.
Update: I only found one other place where I stated my belief that he wasn’t a universalist; and I’ve appended a hindight note to that comment. There may be other forums or journals where I’ve said as much, but I hope not. In any case, I’ll keep this in mind for the future.
I love Knoch’s Concordant Version (CV) of the New Testament. So many passages that sound like everlasting Hell in the KJV (for example) have the Hell simply vanish out of them in the CV.
So can anyone please answer the question Tom asked in the OP? I’m interested.
The destruction of one’s fleshly self/old man? (Picking up from Paul’s old self/new self, old man/new man methaphor) Peter Hiett has talked about that a lot in some sermon’s of his I’ve listened to recently.
Hi Caleb, thanks for the reply. I’d like to think you are right, the only problem I’ve got is that I’m not so sure that the text would easily lead to this interpretation. It says:
or
It does tend to read like the people themselves will be destroyed rather than just some evil within them. Paul seems to be pretty good with his words and I can’t help thinking that if he had meant to convey the idea that they would be purged of all evil, he would have been able to communicate that thought very clearly rather than what seems tantamount to “they will be destroyed”. ??
As I understand it “everlasting destruction” is in itself an oxy-moron, akin to saying “endless annihilation”… one in fact cancels or negates the other.
Firstly: “eternal” simply needs to be seen as qualitative and not quantitative, that is, eternal speaks to the TOTALITY of the event not the LONGEVITY of such.
Secondly: taking an historical perspective with regards to 2Thess 1:9 minimises the difficulties often associated with the passage.
When you understand the absolute pinnacle Jerusalem and her Temple held in old covenant life, being the epicentre of their universe and Presence of God, then its doom and destruction and one’s subsequent banishment from it could and would be described in these terms; and so as such DO NOT require a post mortem and continual fulfilment…
2Thess 1:9 These will pay the penalty of eternal destruction, away from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power…
History bears witness to the fact that in the aftermath of Jerusalem’s AD70 conflagration aka ‘the Roman-Jewish Wars’ [what I also understand to be the lake of fire] a good portion of Jewish captives were taken back to Rome and paraded as slaves before the conquering Titus as part of the spoils of war. These captives were all still very much alive, yet having had “their part” in the ‘lake of fire’ were now banished forever… permanently exiled [DEATH] away from the presence of the Lord in Jerusalem – their world lay in ruins and they were as dead-men-walking… judged and found wanting. Nothing of their OC world bar the consequences of blasphemy Mt 12:32] would survive into the coming NC age.
Pilgrim,
So it looks like Tom continued the post in a part II thread: evangelicaluniversalist.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=50&t=229
Brilliant! Great find Caleb cheers. I’ll have a good read of part II
Hi again Caleb
I have studied the second part now and I wish I could say that I was thoroughly convinced by the UR arguments. Note that they are plural (eg Paidion’s differs markedly from Tom’s). This plurality is always (to me) a warning flag, an indication of the straining needed in order for a text to comply with one’s belief (or with other scriptural passages). I think Tom, in his replies, indicates as much and that we do have to live with the tension of texts which appear to be at odds with other texts.
I am glad to say that I am perfectly happy with the ‘coming from’ rather than the ‘away from’ interpretation. But as for the eternal destruction of (whatever), I generally ask myself (of any particular interpretation) “is that how the author would naturally write the passage if the proposed interpretation was what he was wanting to convey, or would he obviously have written it differently?”
For me, if Paul had intended to convey eternal annihilation of the person, then he could well have written in that manner. However, if Paul had intended to convey destruction of the wicked element in order to purify the person, I have a little difficulty in believing that he would have constructed the sentence in that manner.
However, the thread has helped to some degree. Perhaps it is TRUE that Jesus came to destroy the world, to destroy us. I am being serious. I have heard that Jesus does not want to make us better people, He wants to destroy us completely and make us anew. If only Paul had included that latter part in this text!
Oh well, I’ll have to live with that, and I’ll have to live with the tension of clearly seeing UR texts elsewhere whilst having to acknowledge (to any ECTers) that I see difficulties with the text in Thessalonians.
Thanks once again for your help.
John
As I see it Pilgrim this is only “a problem” because ECTers have read their position into the text so universalists have felt obliged to read their position out of the text… IMO it is neither, but more akin to what I shared above.
I did go into a lot of detail upthread about “eonian whole-ruination” and its contexts. It wasn’t like I ignored that part.
This does remind me I haven’t posted up my collected notes on the verses for the ExCom yet! – also that I haven’t compiled a few more things, and I need to redraft what’s in my notes a bit (since what’s there was based originally on a placekeeping copy-paste from my notes elsewhere for the the TFan debate. So it has debate refs that should be deleted, and some linguistic discussion that I originally broke out for a different part of the debate, etc.)
I’ll post a link here when I finally set up the new ExCom thread, hopefully before lunch. 
I can’t think of any theological position that doesn’t have problem texts. I think there are only two ways to deal with that:
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Assert that the Scriptures do not contradict one another. Then determine what is the main thrust of the Scriptures, and interpret the problem texts in ways harmonious with the Scriptures’ main thrust.
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Assert that the Scriptures contradict one another. Then determine what is the main thrust of the Scriptures, and ignore the problem texts.
At the end of the day, either option comes to basically the same thing: Belief in the main thrust of the Scriptures, and (one way or the other) putting the problem texts aside.
Well, it took until after lunch, but… Lo! It Comes! 
Possibly my longest single entry so far; but I was able to put it in a single post so at least I can guarantee it’s less than 30K characters. 
The same Greek word for “destruction” is used in the following verse:
… deliver such a one to Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. (1Cor 5:5)
^^ Yep! One of several pieces of evidence that Paul didn’t mean a hopeless punishment at 2 Thess 1.
First let me thank you Jason for a thorough response to my questions (on the parallel thread ) and to assure you that I would like to reply to that earlier post to me very shortly but as the 1 Cor 5:5 text has been raised again, perhaps it makes sense for me to first comment on that.
Bear in mind, if I take the stance which appears to be critical of seeing UR in texts, then let me assure you that it is definitely NOT because I want my criticism to hold water. On the contrary, it is one of my personality traits that if I venture upon some possible ‘good-news’ I often feel the need to check, double check, prod, squeeze, even play devils advocate in order to fully convince myself that I am not embarking on some wish fulfilment pipe-dream. I also wish to respect the position of any detractors (ECTers etc.) if I believe that they have reasonable cause to hold to a more hopeless interpretation. Perhaps we are not dissimilar in this respect.
(Thankfully I regard several other texts as clearly indicating UR)
So, let me make comment on the connection with 1 Cor 5:5:
Yes, I too can see the connection in that the same Greek word is used. This gives me concern rather than comfort and IMO adds to the weight of evidence towards a ‘hopeless’ interpretation in II Thess 1:9
The point about 1 Cor 5:5 is that the object of the destruction is the mortal body ONLY and Paul makes that absolutely clear. So the only relevant question we must ask is whether the object of the ‘destruction’ is destroyed absolutely and forever? YES, I believe it is. We are all to be given a new incorruptible body in the future but that sinner (in Corinth) will have finished with his earthly body once and for all. So surely the Greek word in this instance was used to convey absolute eternal destruction.
Of course, the object to be ‘destroyed’ in II Thess 1:9 (unfortunately) has not been flagged up by Paul as merely the earthly body. Isn’t that the rub?