The Evangelical Universalist Forum

More thoughts on aionion, Matt Slick's argument

Evangelical Universalism Arguments against Evangelical Universalism
#21

Is there any scholarly research to back this up?

#22

Based on the critical evaluation of myself and of others, I think the possibly weakest part of my position is the assertion that Christ’s reign (and thus the age to which it belongs) is not endless. While I see this assertion as being supported by a reasonable interpretation of Paul’s words in 1 Cor 15:24-28, many would hold up Luke 1:33 (“and of his kingdom there will be no end”) to challenge this assertion. But to this objection I would reply that, while there is a sense in which the Messianic kingdom/reign will have “no end,” I believe it is only a relative sense. That is, the Messianic kingdom will not end prematurely, or against the will of its ruler, by being “destroyed” or “left to another people,” as is the case with every other kingdom (Dan 2:44). But I think it is evident from the apostle Paul that the Messianic kingdom/reign is not endless in an absolute sense.

I’m certainly open to any other criticisms!

#23

Edited to remove objection: I lost track of who was making what assertion. :slight_smile:

The nuanced version from Stonehous(e) that I mentioned earlier (his name is sometimes spelled without an ‘e’ on the end), can hold both meanings without having to downplay the testimony from GosLuke you mentioned. Christ’s kingdom shall have no end, as the Son will continue to reign jointly with the Father once God is all in all; but Christ’s “eonian” kingdom usually being talked about in scripture (per Stonehouse) will have an end as (per Stonehouse) it refers to the purgative period of final evangelism after the lake of fire judgment (also apparently being testified to in 1 Cor 15’s eschatology digression.)

#24

I’m sure there is nothing new here, but I saw this today. It’s really long. I’m sure all of the points have been dealt with before, but there are a few I want to highlight in further posts to ask some of you experts about a few things:

Question: when an author chose the word “aionios” to describe God as in the “eternal God” why did he use this word instead of aidios? Paidon says that aionios NEVER means eternal so what does the author mean when he says “aionios” God? Why would he choose a word that means lasting but not eternal?
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#25

Most words have more than one meaning and even those meanings have different nuances. The fire that destroyed Sodom was aionios fire; and of course it only lasted a few hours, maybe a few days. And then judgment is also descrided as aionios; and I trust that it is not endless, as in us always being judged by God. To me it’s a word that is qualitative, not quantitative. And it often signifies that which is “beyond”, especially beyond time and beyond our present site and understanding.

#26

It seems to me that we are going in circles here. I have explained to the best of my ability, that although “aionios” NEVER means “eternal”, it is sometimes applied to that which is eternal, just as it NEVER means “lasting for hundreds of years” although it has often been applied to things which last hundreds of years. “Aionios” means “lasting”.

This kind of thing is not peculiar to the word “aionios”. One could think of hundreds of examples. Though the word “green” can be applied to grass which is wet, it would be ludicrous to say that “green” sometimes means “wet”. It NEVER means wet, although it is sometimes applied to things which are wet.

I can’t tell you why some authors, Paul for example in Romans 16:26, chose the word “aionios” instead of “aidios” to describe God. But I can tell you that Paul did chose the word “aidios” to describe God’s eternal power and deity in Romans 1:20.

#27

I think you explain it quite well. Paidon do you have any scholarship on your side? Are there any experts that agree with you?

#28

Michael Wood (Jerome Conspiracy) has done extensive research into the subject, and he claims that in classical Greek, aionios was used to mean eternal, but in Koine (the language of the NT), it never meant eternal.

I don’t know if he qualifies as an expert, but I’ve heard that the definition of an “expert” is: someone who has guessed right more than once. :laughing:

#29

That’s great to hear, but without hearing his actual argumentation, “it profiteth little” :slight_smile:
Is there anywhere to hear said arguments?

#30

He has a partial discussion of this here: christianforums.com/t7464293/ which dirtboy posted the link to in this thread on our board: A great discussion from the author of The Jerome Conspiracy

I suspect you’d need to read his book(s) to get the full arguments. The particular thread above from christianforums.com was based on his book The Jesus Secret.

#31

That was a fine article, DB! Was this Matt’s full article on the topic, or did you get it from somewhere else?

Paidion’s reply may be overpushing somewhat to say that eonian “never” means eternal but is sometimes used to describe something lasting eternally–which to me sounds like saying that eonian never means eternal but sometimes means eternal. :wink: I think you could make the same point, Paidion, if you rephrased it a bit: eonian always means “lasting” and sometimes thereby means “eternally lasting”, but sometimes not, depending on what it’s describing.

(Notably, the “green” example involves a category error: “lasting” relates to “eternally lasting” in a way that “green” doesn’t even remotely relate to “wet” except insofar as something may be both green and wet.)

My own theory would have different problems in the list than this: to say that someone is (so to speak) God from God, is not in the least a problem for me. :mrgreen: (Note that the article’s defense of either attributive or predicative use of the adjective, which is correct although the author doesn’t really distinguish between them, cannot be pressed against this interpretation without committing the author to doing ontological violence elsewhere: the eonian life of the believer, as well as the eonian judgment, punishment, etc., is not eonian intrinsically but is eonian from God Who is The Eonian. If the author declines one translation on ontological ground, he must decline this as well on a precisely similar ground, leaving my interpretive theory perfectly intact: and better suited, I would say, to meet maximally wide single usage.)

I do recall Stonehouse, however, arguing that in the verse cited (Romans 16:26), {tou aioniou Theou} refers to Christ distinct in person from the “only wise God”–although he’s addressing the verse in question of whether it fits his scheme, not as evidence for his broadband interpretation of eonian. But his interpretive tactic escapes well enough here: he expects Christ to be ruling as God for the coming age of judgment until everyone has submitted loyally to Him, after which the Son will give up direct rule of the kingdom to the Father having finished His mediatorial function. (The Son would still be ruling with the Father, but not in a mediatorial fashion, God being all in all at last.)

In other words, Stonehouse, who thinks eonian should everywhere be translated as involving a temporary (if sometimes a freakishly long) span of time, consequently thinks references like this are to Christ precisely because of the use of the term ‘eonian’.

I still like my own theory better, but his theory has some merits (as does Paidion’s) very worthy of respect. One problem with Stonehouse’s theory (but not with Paidion’s, by the way!) is that the adjective should import or report an intrinsic quality from somewhere in relation to the object so described; and Stonehouse’s theory doesn’t fit this usage very well. (The report above puts the same objection a little differently by arguing that for such a purpose the phrase should be “the God of the age”.)

It’s worth pointing out that the author of this paper (unlike Matt in the paper originally cited by the way) has either intentionally or accidentally avoided mentioning the times when eonian is used as an adjective in relation to things which are clearly not eternal but come to an end. I am inclined to think this is intentional, unfortunately, as one of his lexical entries retains brief remarks mentioning exceptions and speaking of the predominant usage of the term–but those qualifications are unreported by the author in reporting the lexical entry. This looks very much like an intentional choice to omit data that might open the door to contextual interpretation.

#32

Hey Jason,
The article was not Matt’s and I should have identified it as such. It was from here:
biblestudymanuals.net/aionion.htm

#33

Here are the first three reader reviews on Michael Wood’s book The Jesus Secret.
I’ve added some bolds and italics to emphasize some things that stood out to me about what people are saying about this book.

5.0 out of 5 stars Documented and Interesting, May 9, 2010
By Leonardo Mancha (USA)
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: The Jesus Secret (Paperback)
The Jesus Secret begins with the seemingly impossible claim that the translators of the first Bible didn’t even know the language they were translating. But then the book immediately shows the claim is an already established fact.

“For some time the Greek language of the New Testament confused many scholars. It was sufficiently different from Classical Greek that some hypothesized that it was a combination of Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Others attempted to explain it as a Holy Ghost language, assuming that perhaps God created a special language just for the Bible.” the WikiChristian entry for Koine Greek quoted in The Jesus Secret book.

When I read The Jerome Conspiracy (another book by Michael Wood), I wasn’t sure the information in that book could possibly be true. So I asked a Priest friend of mine to read it, and he didn’t have any comebacks for the information documented in that book. Since then I’ve learned to keep a more open mind and look at the evidence myself.

Like when I read the WikiChristian quote I got his point. It says that Koine Greek was different from Classical Greek, which was the only Greek those scholars knew about. This means the first English Bibles really were written by men who only knew a significantly different Greek than what the Bible was written in. So I have to believe it would have been impossible for them not to have made a lot of mistakes. They had to. They couldn’t magically guess the right words for a language they didn’t even know.

Now I can’t say I totally believe that the actual teachings of Jesus had been lost for 2,000 years, and now they are found in his book. But I also have to admit that he makes a really good case that this is actually what happened.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Why Wikipedia? … Maybe there’s a Great Reason!, May 29, 2010
By Cuban Doc (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Jesus Secret (Paperback)
**Almost any student of Koine Greek would instantly recognize the WikiChristian quote found in The Jesus Secret, because the quote is from one of the greatest Koine scholars, William Mounce. It was William Mounce who wrote:

“For a long time the Greek language of the New Testament confused many scholars because it was significantly different from Classical Greek. Some hypothesized that it was a combination of Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Others attempted to explain it as a ‘Holy Ghost language,’ meaning that God created a special language just for the Bible. But studies of Greek papyri found in Egypt over the last one hundred years have shown that Koine Greek was the language of the everyday people used in the writings of wills, letters, receipts, shopping lists, etc.” (Greek for the Rest of Us, by William Mounce, page 3)

And Mounce wrote THE VERY SAME THING in Basics of Biblical Greek Grammar, page xix. And he probably wrote it in other books too. This is Mounce’s standard introduction to Koine. No wonder why the author used this quote! Those who ridicule the quote are only demonstrating their own lack of knowledge of the original source. **

My guess is the author was so familiar with the quote that he assumed any knowledgeable Koine reader would instantly recognize the source. And I would further guess he referenced WikiChristian so that anyone with an internet connection could see the quote themselves. I’m sure the author would have never imagined that such a well known quote from such a well known Koine author would ever be used against his work. I’m sure the author could never have imagined that quoting Mounce’s most famous words could ever be seen as a lack of serious scholarship.

*The Jesus Secret is doing a very bold thing in bringing the Koine language to the everyday person. So I’m not surprised people are attacking it, even if they have to stoop to a disinformation campaign to do so. The scholarship of The Jesus Secret is so unassailable that critics can only attack the form of the presentation, not the substance. This is the clearest sign that The Jesus Secret is unveiling the truth. *

Finally, the actual teachings of the Bible are on display for everyone to read. And they are on display in The Jesus Secret.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Well Researched, Surprising Revelation, May 18, 2010
By Ralph C. Schulz - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)
This review is from: The Jesus Secret (Paperback)
For the Glory of God through Jesus teachings… The Jesus Secret unlocks the truth in the Bible’s scripture through the translation of the language of its origin, Koine Greek… critically important, since scholars years ago needed to interpret a language they really never understood.

**Mr Wood has brilliantly researched, used compelling facts and logic to seek truth and The Jesus Secret delivers a rude shock… that Jesus most central teaching had been buried with the language for almost two thousand years. **

It’s hard not to recommend this book. For skeptics, cynics or for those whose horizons may be limited by their bias… read The Jesus Secret. Open minded readers will not want to miss it. Then go right ahead be thoughtful, accept this revelation and live The Jesus Secret in a troubled world that needs our love.

#34

As I see it, that doesn’t matter. However, if that “category error” is important to you, let me give an example in which the “error” does not occur.

Let’s suppose that the Universe is infinite in its extension. Now suppose someone asks, “How big is the Universe?” Then Joe Bloe answers, “It is VERY large.” Because Joe has applied the adjective “large” to an infinitely large entity, does this mean that the word “large” sometimes means “infinitely extensive”?