Hi Sonia,
I’m really puzzled at your seeming implication that “highly qualified persons” don’t disagree. After all, do not the major lexicons present things in the ECT way? Anyhow, here’s another review of the book: worlds longest URL 
:
docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cac … AEDRsz0mKw
I didn’t mean that there are no qualified persons that disagree–only that I have not yet found evidence of extensive research that disagrees–have the qualified people taken a deep enough look at the data? It seems like when people really take a lot of time to focus on this word, they agree that the word does not have the meaning of “endless”.
But the lexicons usually agree that the word doesn’t always mean endless, and that the adjective derives from a noun that does not always mean “eternity.” That means the decision about where it means “eternity” must be determined by context, and that’s appropriate–but how one understands the context is rooted in theological tradition, so that complicates things.
In any case, I don’t think the doctrine of UR rests on the definition of aionios. That was a particular barrier to me–which caused me to seek other explanations for the universalist texts–and that’s the reason I take interest in the word. I know for others it’s not that important–and ultimately, I agree with them. In my view, the fact that there are clear universalist texts should be a clue towards defining this abstract word/concept. The difficult to define word should not be allowed to redefine other clearly stated texts.
Thank you for the link to the review! I appreciate you finding that and will take a look.
Sonia
Thanks, Sonia, for the reply. The argument from aionios is the chief argument of the ECT proponents and is therefore so very important to be able to explain. I believe that a stance is only as strong as its’ ability to explain the data of the Bible.
Aligns with my research. I wish I had a book like this in 2004.
I don’t see how June 1.6 doesn’t sink his thesis. It’s not a defeater for UR, but it doesn’t look good for his thesis about aidios (that it always means “eternal”). Regardless of how you construe ‘until’ (“eis” + the accusative as showing finality or purpose or direction, whatever), it seems to me that these “chains” cannot be “eternal” in the sense he David claims because these chains are not divine, they’re created (or they represent a created/finite state of affairs) which by definition makes them corruptible and finite.
Tom
Just wanted to say, I appreciated that comment Tom, thanks! I find the more I look into these words, the more clearly I understand them.
The excerpt from Robin’s blog on the book accords with that sort of take on Jude 6…
“We turn now to the two uses of the more strictly philosophical term aïdios in the New Testament. The first (Rom 1:20) refers unproblematically to the power and divinity of God. In the second occurrence, however (Jude 6), aïdios is employed of eternal punishment—not that of human beings, however, but of evil angels, who are imprisoned in darkness “with eternal chains” (desmois aïdiois). But there is a qualification: “until the judgment of the great day.” The angels, then, will remain chained up until Judgment Day; we are not informed of what will become of them afterwards. Why aïdios of the chains, instead of aiônios, used in the next verse of the fire of which the punishments of the Sodomites is an example? Perhaps because they continue from the moment of the angels’ incarceration, at the beginning of the world, until the judgment that signals the entry into the new aiôn: thus, the term indicates the uninterrupted continuity throughout all time in this world—this could not apply to human beings, who do not live through the entire duration of the present universe; to them applies rather the sequence of aiônes or generations.”
I think that’s a pretty good stab at the language, no matter what your position on UR is.
Robin’s Blog: Why aïdios of the chains, instead of aiônios, used in the next verse of the fire of which the punishments of the Sodomites is an example? Perhaps because they continue from the moment of the angels’ incarceration, at the beginning of the world, until the judgment that signals the entry into the new aiôn: thus, the term indicates the uninterrupted continuity throughout all time in this world—this could not apply to human beings, who do not live through the entire duration of the present universe; to them applies rather the sequence of aiônes or generations."
Tom: I guess so. Not sure. It’s just that given his thesis, I suspect just what he suspected, that aionios would be the appropriate term here, not aidios. To explain it by saying aidios is used “to indicate the uninterrupted continutity throughout all time in this world” is just to give aidios the sort of meaning one gives to aionios. Doesn’t that undermine his thesis?
Weird,
Tom
Robin is quoting David Konstan. Maybe you could ask David about it on “Terms for Eternity: Aiônios & aïdios” talk part 2?
It may be a daunting task, but I have an idea. I have a link to a LXX Greek text, along side the English translation. On you browser, assuming you have IE (I have Windows IE7), if you go to ‘Edit’, the ‘Find on this Page’, you could insert the greek form of ‘aidios’, that’s ἀΐδιος and go through every chapter until you find it. What might cut down you time is to only search the passages that have ‘eternal’ or ‘everlasting’ or whatever is the equivalent in English and search just those.
ellopos.net/elpenor/greek-te … efault.asp
Happy Hunting!
In Jude 1:6 the angels are reserved in everlasting chains until the judgment of the great day). The chains are everlasting. Not the act of being chained up. The angels will be loosed from the chains so as to be judged but the chains are still there to be used again. So aidios is not compromised as meaning eternal as you think if you see the true context of the verse. It is not talking about the event but the chains that are everlasting. And i am gualified to speak by the Holy Spirit not man. For i drive a truck for a living but it seems the Holy Spirit helped me to know this when so called qualified theoligens could not. Just saying.
Everyone is waiting for an ‘end’ to time. So they don’t realize that the ‘end’ doesn’t speak of society or civilization but of us in spiritual terms and on the individual level. Physical Humanity will be living for as long as we have breathe, God isn’t going to put an end to humanity, we will seed the stars. I am happy to see civilization but I wish to see what we are in 1000 more years but the same moral issues that plagued us in 4000BC, 2000BC, 0AD, 1000AD 2000AD will happen in 3000AD and beyond.