I wasn’t in the forum for a long time but sometimes still visit, I would like to bring this summary concerning aionios in remembrance:
PS: If somebody knows renown scholars in this matter personally, I would be grateful if somebody could share this summary with them and ask if my conclusions are valid.
eternity and the bible.pdf (248 KB)
For me the core issue is the relationship between aion and olam , aionios being “of the aion”, the relationship between aionios and olam is still intensely relevant.
I think the argument for aionios as having a finite end is weak, always have. Olam is not a period of time with a finite end, it is an indefinite period of time determined by the subject it has in view.
"It shall come about if he says to you, ‘I will not go out from you,’ because he loves you and your household, since he fares well with you; 17then you shall take an awl and pierce it through his ear into the door, and he shall be your servant forever/olam.
The finite end of olam here is unknown, hidden from view- could be 3 days could be 30 years. It is translated “servant for life” in most versions because it is the indeterminate period connected to a flexible subject, the remaining duration of a human life. This might seem like too much to take into consideration in acquiring the thought within the word each time it is used- but if it proves consistent- aionios, regardless of how Plato or Aristotle used it, should be viewed through OLAM.
The Nephilim were on the earth in those days, and also afterward, when the sons of God came in to the daughters of men, and they bore children to them. Those were the mighty men who were of old(olam), men of renown. Gen 6:4
In Gen 6;4 olam refers to a period of time, too far back to determine specifically. In Deut 15:17 a period of time to subject to circumstance to determine specifically.
In current usage among Jews “olam ha-ba” is the good world to come. “olam ha ze” is this present troubled world. This is why we see aionios translated also as “world” … but the identifying concept was never “finite” or having a finite end, in fact it is just the opposite. It is the indefintiness of olam that makes it fitting for a spectacle through which to view aionios. The indefinite period is relative to its purpose. Thus the ages. Thus terms of imprisonment relative to the crime. Thus hazy views of the far distant past. Thus hazy views into the far distant future.
The strenght of aionios in the UR paradigm is not that it has a finite end- because it doesnt always. It is not a completely reversible application. It takes a stretch of exegetical integrity to make it so. ET scholars see it and they use it to refute a UR interpretation. It looks like a fast shuffle when you are really in the know concering the language of scripture. This is because in terms of the life of God and of believers and of the age in which God will be all in all- it has no end, the unknowably distant olam IS everlasting. Therefore this “finite end” assertion about aionios isnt effective when used as a term limit for “hell” among knowledgable scholars.
The real strength(of course this is just my opinion) of aionios/olam in relation to the UR paradigm is its VERY FLEXIBILTY, and application as a sort of random quantifier of “unknowness” and “unknowableness”
In the next world, the world to come, some will endure an indefinite term of some kind of correction. It will be many stripes for some, with comparatively few stripes for others. It will be olam punishment. Some will live forever in God, a life that has no end, a life we cannot see- olam life.
Olam still persists when used to describe the life of God in terms of duration and “beyond knowingness” because God’s life is “beyond the horizon”- “hidden with mists” as olam asserts, as is the “world to come”.
The insistence upon “age-during” correction or punishment is not thorough scholarship or completely defensible reasoning, imo- nor is it an easily proveable offensive solution to the doctrine of eternal punishment, because for one thing it presumes to base its strength on the Greek thought as original in nature. But that would be inconsistent with this Hebrew of Hebrews- Paul, who if he wrote aionios, was surely thinking of it in terms of Olam. What everyone really ought to want to know is what the word expresses out of the mind of God. Olam is the truer and more effective representative of that thought, so aionios should be considered in that light- as far as a contextual affirmation of meaning, at the very least.
Is the word in Jonah 2:6 aionios or αἰώνιοι?
According to two posters in the following thread the word in Jonah 2:6 is a plural form of the noun aion, not the adjective aionios:
“Please can I have a list of all LXX occurrences of aionios?”
“What do you make of /u/koine_lingua’s arguments?”
To put it succinctly, i think they are full of it.
To his credit, he does give the appearance of scholarship or expertise in certain very limited aspects.
Does that make him or any of us a:
scholar of philosophy reason & logic as per a Tom Talbott, for example? Who, i might add, has confounded & destroyed many such scholars as KL.
scholar of the Scriptures? No. KL seems rather an amateur in that regard.
scholar of the Holy Spirit’s teaching. No, apparently KL is not even a Christian.
scholar of understanding UR? Again, KL looks like a novice.
scholar who appears unbiased, objective, without an agenda? Yes/no? I’d say no.
scholar who is not on someone’s payroll or doing work for his own advancement, selfishness, ego, etc, without regard for the truth?
scholar of Satan (including those select scholars one references), who is the “god of this age” & world, as in the 1000+ years of ETC dominance,
with inquisitions, crusades, burnings of “heretics” & their writings.
Some Scriptures to consider in this regard re his comments above are:
“Not giving heed to Jewish fables, and commandments of men, that turn from the truth.” (Titus 1:14)
“Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of such things God’s wrath comes on the sons of disobedience.” (Eph.5:6)
"O Timothy, guard the deposit entrusted to you. Avoid irreverent chatter and the opposing arguments of so-called “knowledge,” (!Tim.6:10)
“But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” (2 Cor.11:3)
“Then we will no longer be infants, tossed about by the waves and carried around by every wind of teaching and by the clever cunning of men in their deceitful scheming.” (Eph.4:14)
“For such men are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. 14And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.” (2 Cor.11:14-15)
“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be under a divine curse!”
(Gal.1:8)
“For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this world’s darkness, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” (Eph.6:12)
“All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,” (2Tim.3:16)
“This is good, and is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. 5 For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6 who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.” (1Tim.2:3-6)
“Origen”, if you’re going to continue, please withhold from insulting our guest posters, especially about being a scholar of Satan. That runs directly against our forum rules of discourse.
I’ve seen the scriptures you quoted flicked up against Christian universalists, too.
As far as your question about αἰώνιοι, I think the plural form of the noun wouldn’t have the iota after the nu; and if it’s translating a cognate for olam, specifically la-olam (me-limit or me-horizon), then it’s in bounds for translating as a Greek adjective (setting aside a related discussion about whether Hebrew even has adjectives: Greek definitely does, and both the LXX and the canonical authors use them when translating Hebrew, in the case of canonical authors whether directly or by reference to the LXX or by an inspired paraphrase/midrash, or some combination.)
Anyway, {aio_nioi} (with the underscore there signifying an omega, since I don’t have or don’t know a good diacritic mark on this keyboard for signalling the long vowel) is a 2-1-2 form adjective as far as I’ve been able to tell looking up things. It’s a masculine nominative (or vocative) plural form, meant to describe {hoi mochloi} or the bars.
Davo isn’t correct about it being a plural form of aion (except in the sense of it being a plural form of the adjective for aion). Paidion and I both agree on it being a plural adjective form. I didn’t find another poster saying it was a plural form of the noun; and Davo himself might not have really meant that, since there is some common conflation or confusion over the use of nouns and adjectives. (Even Paidion, who knows better, didn’t exactly specify for correction that {aion} just means age – it doesn’t mean “lasting”, that’s the adjective form of eon.)
Paidion and I have an ultimately trivial disagreement about whether eonian can mean eternal or everlasting or not. We both agree it doesn’t have that intrinsic meaning; and we both agree its meaning can be used in reference to that which is eternal or everlasting etc. I conclude this means the adjective can mean (as a secondary application, by extension) eternal/everlasting/never-ending. It can also mean, by the same token, a qualitative reference to the divine, whether as a euphamism for God (the Eternal as we’d say in English), or that which comes uniquely from God – but this meaning seems more proper to the NT, not the LXX. (Although there at least a small exegetical basis for it in the OT, too, where God once tells Israel He is “your eonian”. But most OT refs only accidentally fit that concept, and the underlying two Hebrew terms OLM and AHD don’t have an intrinsic meaning along that line; they’re nouns of horizontal and vertical distance used for adjective purposes by a poetic comparison.)
KL,
I’m pretty sure no fundamentalist would regard me as having a fundamentalistic view of the Bible. 
You did notice the part where I allowed that Jonah might be a fictional parable, right?
I think our differences are actually pretty minor, if there are any such at all. All I’m pointing out is that the terms (whether Greek or Hebrew, and there are two different Hebrew terms involved in translating to the Greek, the other term of which we haven’t been discussing in this thread) can and often (in the OT) do refer to things that in fact come to an end.
We may be disagreeing on whether the core meaning of the term (or term-group rather) refers in its normal OT usage (broadly considered across several centuries worth of texts at least) to that which never ends: I think it can mean that, not that it always means that; you seem to think it always means that, even when events turn out otherwise. If so, we’re only disagreeing though about a fluidity of meaning in the minds of the speakers/writers: Mom and I use “forever” in an exaggerated way on a regular basis, as many English speakers do. Do we actually mean at the moment of usage forever? The answer is both yes and no: yes, otherwise the rhetorical point wouldn’t make sense, but also no. If you pressed Obama on what he strictly meant in the (fictional?) example you gave, the answer would probably be the same: no, he doesn’t really think the monument and so the symbol will last forever/eternally; but yes, he was borrowing that meaning for the purpose of emphasis so he was positively using that meaning as eternal/forever.
When it comes to a theological argument, however, then your Obama parallel doesn’t really work: first, it would have to be Obama who is taking down something he previously described as olam, and second Obama would have to have God-level omniscience or some relevant level of intentionality with regard to the future. If God says He is giving X olam to Y, that raises questions of what God as God in the position of God meant by describing the gift that way when He turns around and repeals the gift later. No doubt there are several ways to look at answering those questions, some of which are not mutually exclusive to each other and/or to any given theology (although some answers may exclude one or more theology, too.)
Nevertheless, the example must stand that if God says (or is translated as saying, let us say ), that X is olam/eonian/AHD (or into the eon(s), to bring in the related prepositional phrase and its cognates, which probably translate the underlying Hebrew terms more literally anyway), that doesn’t necessarily mean God will choose to keep olam/AHD X going forever after all. He might or might not – the term(s) itself (or themselves) don’t make the decisive difference. Context, whether immediate, local, or extended, including conceptual as well as grammatic context, makes the decisive difference.
All of which is to say, more simply, that appealing to the term(s) per se doesn’t settle the question, even though they have an important role in setting expectations to work from.
Relatedly, as I said before, neither am I at all on the side of those who argue that the term(s) only pertain to an age – not least because the underlying Hebrew terms don’t have ages per se in mind at all in their intrinsic meanings. But also because while plural ages may eventually cease, although I doubt that’s what the {telos} refers to in that verse from EpistHeb people like to cite on the topic, I don’t see anything to argue that the ultimate Day/Age of YHWH ever comes to an end. That would be like saying the Lordship of YHWH ever comes to an end, or like saying a happy ending must itself necessarily come to an end even for God simply because it’s called an “ending” in English. (And as I have pointed out, if there can be “eons of eons”, then any eon can have eons, so there doesn’t have to be a hard-cut distinction between the Day of the Lord and continuing eons during that Age. Moreover, there can be overlaps between Ages, as demonstrated in various scriptural ways.)
So my objections have less than nothing to do with trying to promote that idea instead, in case you thought that’s what I was trying to do. 
Hi Jason… are you referring to HERE?
<αἰώνιος> aiōnios is indeed the adjective derivative of the noun <αἰών> aiōn.
Adjective (2-1-2): αιώνιοι aiōnioi = nominative and vocative masculine plural form of <αιώνιος> aiōnios = age-long / unending age-long, and therefore: practically eternal, unending; partaking of the character of that which lasts for an age, as contrasted with that which is brief and fleeting.
Thank you for the warning, Jason. I made several minor changes to make the statements speak more generally to all of us, myself included, especially regarding points 6 & 7.
BTW i would note the following remark from KL in post two of this series:
“Again, this isn’t to try to assassinate the character of the authors of the monograph, but I’ve isolated more than one instance where it looks like the larger context (or the form of its citation)—which would suffice to show that their revisionist reinterpretations are impossible on other grounds, too—may have been purposely omitted so as to reinforce their conclusion, and preemptively deflect criticism. And this seems to have gone well beyond a sort of natural/inadvertent selective bias, and into the territory of deception (unless it is merely incompetence of the highest order; though I tend toward it being more deliberate in some instances).”
Actually i am not seeing any references to the NWT on UR websites or forums where the subject is debated.
YLT is a most common one referenced or quoted, as well as the Concordant Literal Version. Also to a lesser
extent, Weymouth’s translation, which is also included in the following list. Additionally URists refer to
Greek-English and Hebrew-English interlinears. There is overall a clear preference for literal over idiomatic
(idiotic?) translations of the Sacred Scriptures, but UR is also easily argued from a KJV/dark ages/Augustine
ECT tradition (mis)translation (mere interpretation) of the Scriptures.
Translation of the New Testament from the Original Greek Humbly Attempted by Nathaniel Scarlett Assisted by Men of Piety & Literature with notes, 1798: “And These will go away into onian punishment: but the righteous into onian life.”
The New Testament by Abner Kneeland, 1823:
“And these shall go away into aionian punishment: but the righteous into aionian life.”
The New Covenant by Dr. J.W. Hanson, 1884:
“And these shall go away into onian chastisement, and the just into onian life.”
Young?s Literal Translation of the Holy Bible, 1898:
“And these shall go away to punishment age-during, but the righteous to life age-during.”
The Holy Bible in Modern English, 1903
“And these He will dismiss into a long correction, but the well-doers to an enduring life.”
The New Testament in Modern Speech, 1910:
“And these shall go away into the Punishment 1 of the Ages, but the righteous into the Life 1 of the Ages.”
A Critical Paraphrase of the New Testament by Vincent T. Roth, 1960
“And these shall go away into age-continuing punishment, but the righteous into life age-continuing.”
The Restoration of Original Sacred Name Bible, 1976
“And these shall go away into age-abiding correction, but the righteous into age-abiding life.”
The twentieth Century New Testament, 1900
“And these last will go away into onian punishment, but the righteous into onian life.”
The Peoples New Covenant, 1925
“And these will depart into age-continuing correction, but the righteous, into age-continuing life.”
Emphatic Diaglott, 1942 edition
“And these shall go forth to the aionian 1 cutting-off; but the RIGHTEOUS to aionian Life.”
The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Anointed, 1958
“And these shall go away into agelasting cutting-off and the just into agelasting life.”
The New Testament, a Translation, 1938
“And these will go away into eonian correction, but the righteous into eonian life.”
The New Testament, A New Translation, 1980
“Then they will begin to serve a new period of suffering; but Gods faithful will enter upon their heavenly life.”
Concordant Literal New Testament, 1983
And these shall be coming away into chastening eonian, yet the just into life eonian."
Rotherham Emphasized Bible, 1959
“And these shall go away into age-abiding correction, But the righteous into age-abiding life.”
(Note: the forum engine prevents anyone from embedding more than three quote recusions, so I had to break out the quote format in another way.)
Yep, there, where you said it was a plural form of aion (the noun). It’s only a plural form of the noun in the sense of being a plural form of the adjective of that noun. “Origen” was challenging k_l based on your reply about it being the plural form of the noun aion (i.e. the proper translation should be “ages”), over against it being the plural form of the adjective (i.e. the proper translation should be “lasting” or something like that in a form connected in Greek grammar to the nearby plural nominative noun).
You didn’t clarify back there that you actually meant a plural of the adjective based on the noun, although I acknowledged you might have meant that but (for brevity’s sake perhaps) just didn’t say so. Either way, “Origen” was accidentally misled to challenge that the Greek word involved might have been “ages” which could open up a different category of translation options.
I don’t know why [tag]Paidion[/tag] was acting like there was a relevant distinction between the adjective “aiōnios” and the adjective “aiōnioi”. The only distinction would be which noun that either form is supposed to be connected to, and there isn’t an option for another noun to be described by the adjective in that sentence in Greek. Otherwise the terms mean exactly the same thing (for broad values of whatever “eonian” should mean in a context. ) My tentative guess is that he slightly misread it since the plural form of the noun looks quite a bit like the plural form of the adjective? – but he goes on very soon afterward to clarify he definitely recognizes the word is the plural adjective, not the plural noun. (Consequently, I was left wondering who the other person was that “Origen” thought was taking the position of the word being the noun and not the adjective, since as far as you went you looked like you were taking the position of the word being a plural form of the noun.)
I think k_l is being more nuanced than that. He seems to just be arguing that olam always has an intentional meaning of “eternal” in the sense of never-ending or ever-lasting or something along that line, even when things turn out differently, and he’s responding against attempts by some universalists to claim that the term never actually has that meaning but only happens to sometimes be used to describe things that do happen to continue forever. (And I’ve read some “kath” exponents myself who take that even farther, and argue that eonian life per se and the eonian God etc. have an end as “eonian” even though God, or possibly a god depending on their Christology, and the life involved happen also to not have an end.)
Thanks Jason… makes sense.
I put no value in the above opinion. IMO the doctrine of endless hell began with old horns & pitchfork. He, the god of this evil world & age
transmitted it to others of his choosing.
Perhaps many of the Jews, not all, adopted a belief in hell from their captivity in Babylon? Who knows.
In any case, Jesus says to many of them, particularly the leading Jewish sects, that they were erring re the scriptures and doctrine, hypocrites, of their father, the devil, etc.
Therefore, your chances of finding the truth from them are comparable to watching the Flintstones on the cartoon channel. Or shows depicting Greek fairy tales about Hades, the god of the underworld and Egyptian fairy tales from the “book of the dead”.
The early church searched the inerrant inspired Scriptures for truth, not the fables & fantasies of uninspired writings:
These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. (Acts 17:21)
and will pay no attention to Jewish myths or to the merely human commands of those who reject the truth. (Titus 1:14)
The revelations of Paul’s epistles - given to him directly from the Lord Jesus Christ - are particularly enlightening in this regard.
Moreover it was given to him alone, the “worst of sinners”, to “complete the word of God” (Col.1:25).
No wonder in early church history, after Paul’s epistles were written and widely distributed & read, we see very many Christian universalists:
“Augustine himself, after rejecting apokatastasis, and Basil attest that still late in the fourth and fifth centuries this doctrine was upheld by the vast majority of Christians (immo quam plurimi).”
"Of course there were antiuniversalists also in the ancient church, but scholars must be careful not to list among them — as is the case with the list of “the 68” antiuniversalists repeatedly cited by McC on the basis of Brian Daley’s The Hope of the Early Church — an author just because he uses πῦρ αἰώνιον, κόλασις αἰώνιος, θάνατος αἰώνιος, or the like, since these biblical expressions do not necessarily refer to eternal damnation. Indeed all universalists, from Origen to Gregory Nyssen to Evagrius, used these phrases without problems, for universalists understood these expressions as “otherworldly,” or “long-lasting,” fire, educative punishment, and death. Thus, the mere presence of such phrases is not enough to conclude that a patristic thinker “affirmed the idea of everlasting punishment” (p. 822). Didache mentions the ways of life and death, but not eternal death or torment; Ignatius, as others among “the 68,” never mentions eternal punishment. Ephrem does not speak of eternal damnation, but has many hints of healing and restoration. For Theodore of Mopsuestia, another of “the 68,” if one takes into account also the Syriac and Latin evidence, given that the Greek is mostly lost, it becomes impossible to list him among the antiuniversalists. He explicitly ruled out unending retributive punishment, sine fine et sine correctione.
"I have shown, indeed, that a few of “the 68” were not antiuniversalist, and that the uncertain were in fact universalists, for example, Clement of Alexandria, Apocalypse of Peter, Sibylline Oracles (in one passage), Eusebius, Nazianzen, perhaps even Basil and Athanasius, Ambrose, Jerome before his change of mind, and Augustine in his anti-Manichaean years. Maximus too, another of “the 68,” speaks only of punishment aionios, not aidios and talks about restoration with circumspection after Justinian, also using a persona to express it. Torstein Tollefsen, Panayiotis Tzamalikos, and Maria Luisa Gatti, for instance, agree that he affirmed apokatastasis.
“It is not the case that “the support for universalism is paltry compared with opposition to it” (p. 823). Not only were “the 68” in fact fewer than 68, and not only did many “uncertain” in fact support apokatastasis, but the theologians who remain in the list of antiuniversalists tend to be much less important. Look at the theological weight of Origen, the Cappadocians, Athanasius, or Maximus, for instance, on all of whom much of Christian doctrine and dogmas depends. Or think of the cultural significance of Eusebius, the spiritual impact of Evagrius or Isaac of Nineveh, or the philosophico-theological importance of Eriugena, the only author of a comprehensive treatise of systematic theology and theoretical philosophy between Origen’s Peri Archon and Aquinas’s Summa theologiae. Then compare, for instance, Barsanuphius, Victorinus of Pettau, Gaudentius of Brescia, Maximus of Turin, Tyconius, Evodius of Uzala, or Orientius, listed among “the 68” (and mostly ignorant of Greek). McC’s statement, “there are no unambiguous cases of universalist teaching prior to Origen” (p. 823), should also be at least nuanced, in light of Bardaisan, Clement, the Apocalypse of Peter’s Rainer Fragment, parts of the Sibylline Oracles, and arguably of the NT, especially Paul’s letters.”
afkimel.wordpress.com/2016/04/0 … coming-in/
Ilaria Ramelli, The Christian Doctrine of Apokatastasis: A Critical Assessment from the New Testament to Eriugena (Brill, 2013. 890 pp.)
The 8 words you have listed after αἰώνιος (aionios) are commonly rendered as follows:
Of those 8, the 5 that appear in the inspired Christian Greek Scriptures (the NT/27 books) are #'s 2,3,5,7 & 8.
Of those five, # 2, ATHANATOS, is used in Scriptre of immortal life (1 Cor.15:53-54; 1Tim.6:16), but never of the punishment of anyone. If, as you allege, extrabiblical uninspired texts used this word of “the eternity/continuity of afterlife torment”, the Divine Author rejected such an application. Instead, He only uses the word in a positive way re God & human beings.
According to LSJ (url below) ATHANATOS is used outside of Scripture of “death that cannot die”. OTOH Scripture nowhere speaks of such or anyone suffering a “death that cannot die” or an endless death. In fact, to the contrary, the New Testament says death will be abolished (1 Cor.15:26). https://lsj.translatum.gr/wiki/ἀθάνατος
Number 3 above, AIDIOS, is used in Scripture only of God & chains (Rom.1:16; Jude 6) but never of the afterlife endless torment of anyone. If Love Omnipotent believed in a doctrine of torments that have no end, why didn’t He apply this word, AIDIOS, in that regard, unlike that of which you allege in extra scriptural texts? If such a monstrous thing as endless torments were true, wouldn’t He want to express it as clearly as possible, using various words to express it forcefully & unambiguously, so that there would be no doubt about it?
Number 5, ADIALEPTOS, (cf Strongs #'s 88, 89) appears in the Scriptures, but is not used in regard to eschatological life or punishment.
Number 7, APERANTOS, occurs only in the NT at 1 Tim.1:4 & is not used there in regards to eschatological life or punishment.
Number 8, AKATALUTOS, occurs only in the NT in Heb.7:16 re life, so Scripture never uses it of eschatological punishment or torments, but only in a positive way.
BTW Scripture uses the phrase “no end”, OUK TELOS, of God’s kingdom (Lk.1:33), but never of the future punishment or torments of anyone. Surely this phrase would have been a superior way to express endless torments, as opposed to aionios, if Love Omnipotent, i.e. God, ever had such an intention in His heart of love. Therefore i conclude that He never did.
Aionios (& aion) was Jesus’ & Scripture’s word of choice re future eschatological punishment (or correction or chastening) & is clearly used of finite duration as evidenced in this thread:Scholarly EUs Assemble!
I’d suggest the New Testament evidence, as follows, opposes your “great elongation” theory & shows that the New Testament usage of the noun aion (age/eon) corresponds to its associated adjective, aionios (eonian) very closely, just as the English noun, eon, corresponds to its adjective, eonian, meaning of, or pertaining to, or related to, or constituting, an eon or eons.
In the NT aionios (Mt.25:41) corresponds exactly to aion (Rev.20:10), both verses speaking of the aionios destiny of Satan, one verse using the word aionios, the other verse using the related noun, aion (in the plural).
Another example is the aionion correction/chastening of the wicked (Mt.25:46) is spoken of in terms of an aion in Jude 1:13. These terms, aion and aionion are, then, exactly parallel.
Likewise Mark 3:29 equates the loss of pardon for an eon with the penalty of an eonian sin.
Other instances of the inspired correspondence between the noun aion & its adjective aionios are Mk.10:30; Lk.18:30… " and in the coming eon, life eonian" (Mk. 10:30, CLV)
“In the Gospels there are instances where the substantive aion and the adjective aionios are juxtaposed or associated in a single image or utterance (most directly in Mark 10:30 and Luke 18:30). This obvious parallel in the Greek is invisible in almost every English tanslation” (p.540, The New Testament: A Translation, by EO scholar David Bentley Hart, 2017).
BTW, comparable to Lk.18:30 above, ECF John Chrysostom limits aionios to a specific age of finite duration: “For that his[Satan’s] kingdom is of this age,[αἰώνιος] i.e., will cease with the present age[αιώνι] …” (Homily 4 on Ephesians, Chapter II. Verses 1-3). http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/230104.htm
There are many passages showing that aionios life is equivalent to life for an aion. See Lk.20:35; Jn.6:51, 58; 8:51-52; 11:26 for aion & compare that to others referring to aionion life (Jn.3:15-16, 36, etc). In each of Jn.4:14 & 10:28 both words occur in parallel in a single verse in regards to the blessing of eschatological life.
Likewise “before the eons” [aion plural] (1 Cor.2:7) is equivalent to “before times aionios” (2 Tim.1:9; Titus 1:2).
Excellent! I am very happy that we have your input here!
According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary eonian is a variant spelling of aeonian. Another variant is aeonic. They all mean, according to Webster’s definition, “lasting for an immeasurably or indefinitely long period of time”. Webster’s adds “Origin and Etymology of aeonian…from Greek aiṓnios “lasting an age, perpetual” (derivative of aiṓn eon) + 2-an; aeonic from eon + 1-ic”. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/eonian
Another dictionary says re eonian “Of, relating to, or constituting an eon” & “eonian - of or relating to a geological eon (longer than an era) aeonian. 2. eonian - continuing forever or indefinitely…” https://www.thefreedictionary.com/eonian
“continuing forever or indefinitely” https://www.vocabulary.com/dictionary/eonian
"Pertaining to or lasting for eons; everlasting: also spelled aeonian. "http://www.whatdoesthatmean.com/dictionary/E/eonian.html
"lasting for an indefinitely long period of time"http://www.definition.com.co/eonian.htmlhttp://www.webster-dictionary.org/definition/eonian
"Of, relating to, or constituting an eon"http://www.memidex.com/eonian+pertaining-adjective
"Of or pertaining to an eon"https://www.definitions.net/definition/EONIAN
That text is alleged by KL to be one “that hinted at the eternity/continuity of afterlife torment, with various vocabulary used.” The postdoctorate researcher & author of “Reincarnation in Philo of Alexandria” (p.67 ff, see google preview) elaborately questions the interpretation that the passage quoted by KL, De Cherubim 1.2, is affirming “eternal damnation”.
More significantly, perhaps, he remarks "As for the horrors being “for all time (μέχρι του παντός αιώνος)”, we should also remember the meaning of αἰών as “the whole length of life (ἅπαντα τὸν αἰῶνα)” at Mut. 185.”
It is common, as one of the meanings of αἰών (= aion) in ancient Greek, that it is limited to the finite mortal “life” of a human being. Moreover, the phrase “for all time” does not indicate endlessness, if time has an end. Likewise if the term aion refers to a single age, eon or epoch, beyond which there is another eon, then aion is finite. Even if this particular context required that the word αἰῶνος, aion, should be rendered “eternity”, it does not require aion in any New Testament context must do likewise.
BTW re aion, Philo refers elsewhere to " "ton apeiron aiôna, the unlimited aiön”, [which] is Philo’s paraphrase of the more-than-aion expression in Exod. 15:18 describing God’s kingship. Before Philo ton apeiron aiona is attested only once, in a fragment from Aristotle where it has the (non-philosophical) sense of “all, endless, time” (Chapter II text [33])…The present passage appears to use the phrase in the same sense, while emphasizing the notion of continuity by the words “not for one moment ungoverned” and "uninterrupted” "(“Time, Life, Entirety” by Helena Keizer, p.212, google preview, citing Philo Plant. 51).
https://books.google.ca/books?id=l-SmshbeyUsC&pg=PA205&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false
If Philo had thought aion had the inherent meaning of eternal, why would he add a word to it that means unlimited or endless?
In “Terms for Eternity…” Ramelli/Konstan (p.55-56) render “eternal banishment” in De Cherubim 1.2 as " “permanent exile” (ἀίδιον φυγὴν) from God (cf. the same expression at 9 of Hagar and Ishmael driven out by Abraham…). In this case the term means something like “lasting” rather than “eternal” in the strict sense."
In any case, as noted elsewhere, the New Testament never uses the Greek word ἀίδιον (aidios) in regards to punishment as a final destiny. Furthermore, if the uninspired De Cherubim 1.2 uses Greek terms meaning “incurable”, “undying”, “continuous and unrelieved” of the final destiny, or endless punishment, of any of the wicked, the inspired Greek Christian Scriptures (NT/27 books) don’t follow suit.
P.S. If Philo believed in reincarnation, is it likely he also believed in eternal damnation?
P.S. #2 As far as i can tell the quoted translation of De Cherubim 1.2 posted by KL didn’t translate the word παντὸς, while the rendering by the author of “Reincarnation in Philo of Alexandria” translated it as “all” in "“for all time”, where “time” is the word “αιώνος”. Yet another different translation of the passage, & one that also includes the English word “all”, appears on p.668 here:
New Englander and Yale Review, Volume 30
edited by Edward Royall Tyler, William Lathrop Kingsley, George Park Fisher, Timothy Dwight
There are many Greek texts of the Philo passage online, such as the following, for a few examples, which i haven’t checked to see if there are any variances in them:
KL continues (see previous post) with more non biblical texts that he alleges “hinted at the eternity/continuity of afterlife torment, with various vocabulary used”:
At the following link the NRSV note indicates the Greek actually says “throughout the whole age”, not “throughout all time”: https://biblia.com/bible/nrsv/4%20Macc.%2012.12
So a more literal translation, substiting “eonian” for “eternal” & eon for age in the NRSV footnote, would be:
12 Because of this, justice has laid up for you intense and eonian fire and tortures, and these throughout the whole eon will never let you go.
Which can be easily understood as not hinting at endless torments. The context might reveal otherwise, but this more literal reading of verse 12 by itself does not do so. Also, if eonian fire & tortures itself meant endless torments, why add the rest of the sentence as in the NRSV? And if “time” ends, then the verse doesn’t prove endless torments. In any case, none of this seems to have any relevance to inspired contexts in the Greek Scriptures (NT/27 books).
Ramelli/Konstan in “Terms for Eternity…” (p.48) says re the verse “an impious tyrant is threatened with “eternal fire,” or “fire in the world to come” (αἰωνίῳ πυρί) . . . for the entire age to come (εἰς ὅλον τὸν αἰῶνα)”. They add:
“But here we find the expression βίος ἀΐδιος or “eternal life” as well (τὸν ἀΐδιον τῶν εὐσεβῶν βίον), in reference to the afterlife of the martyrs (4Macc 10:15); this blessed state, moreover, is opposed to the destruction of their persecutor in the world to come (τὸν αἰώνιον τοῦ τυράννου ὄλεθρον, ibid.). This contrast between the parallel but antithetical expressions ὄλεθρος αἰώνιος and βίος ἀΐδιος is notable, and was to prove fateful. Both adjectives refer to the afterlife, that is, a future αἰών, but whereas retribution is described with the more general and polysemous term αἰώνιος, to life in the beyond is applied the more technical term ἀΐδιος, denoting, at least in classical philosophy, a strictly endless condition. This difference or disparity in the use of the two terms anticipates, or may be taken to anticipate, the usage in the New Testament, where the term ἀΐδιος . . . is indeed applied to enduring punishment, but not to that of human beings, and in any case seems to be qualified in such a way as to have, or seem to have, a limited duration; and this circumstance could, in turn, be interpreted to mean that the torments of the damned were not eternal in the strict sense of the term. . . . Origen, just as many other Christian authors, observes the same distinction as the one apparently intimated in 4Macc, applying to the future life either αἰώνιος or ἀΐδιος, while for death in the future he employs only αἰώνιος (and this rarely), but ἀΐδιος never” (p.48-50).
Nowhere do the inspired Greek Scriptures ever speak of a “deathless retribution” or deathless punishment, deathless torments or any similar “deathless” expression. Though Christ was aware of the teachings of the Essenes & Pharisees, and speaks many words in the New Testament, not once does He affirm their view using such expressions.
Never do the Scriptures say any human being will suffer “eternal imprisonment εἱργμὸν ἀίδιον”. As for ἀδιάλειπτος, it is found in the NT, but never in regards to eschatalogical punishment.
Yet nowhere does the inspired New Testament (NT) use such language of Gehenna or those who go there. As for the meaning of the Hebrew word עולם, erroneously rendered “forever”:
http://biblehub.com/hebrew/5769.htm
Actually the view of many (if not the majority) of scholars of “traditional understanding”, as well as scholars who are biased to the endless hell viewpoints, is that they are in agreement with the Christian universalist position you have described, namely “that the Greek adjective αἰώνιος (hereafter transliterated as aiōnios), as it is used in the Septuagint, New Testament and elsewhere, does not necessarily mean “eternal”…”, inasmuch as it “can instead have several other quite different denotations”, or at least one other “quite different denotation”. For a few examples, (1) Vine’s lexicon states that aionios can refer to duration that is finite; (2) Spiros Zodhiates, a Greek-American Bible scholar wrote, among other things, re aionios, “belonging to the aion”; (3) LXX scholar T. Muraoka has “1. lasting for very long…2. having existed very long, long past, ancient…he remembered the olden days”, etc (A Greek-English Lexicon of the Septuagint, 2009, p.19). Even many English Bible translations of “traditional understanding” render aionios using one or more words other than “eternal”, such as “ages”, "world, “beginning”, etc.
In the opinion of the following url “The word olam is found in the Septuagint 308 times. Except for about 20 cases, where it is used to translate words such as ad, it is always used as the Greek equivalent of olam. Aionios is used 92 times in the Septuagint and is the equivalent of olam except in 6 cases” (“Death and the Afterlife By Robert A. Morey”).
Helena Keizer calculates that “When we look from the Hebrew/Aramaic side, of the 447 olam/alam phrases in the MT, 430 (96%) are rendered by either aion (322) or aionios (108)” (Life, Time, Entirety, p.118).
https://books.google.ca/books?id=l-SmshbeyUsC&pg=PA205&source=gbs_toc_r&cad=3#v=onepage&q&f=false
I wonder if this author had your comment in mind when he penned:
“…the proper acceptation of aionios in the New Testament is anything but a flex of modern faddish revisionism”.
Eastern Orthodox scholar David Bentley Hart continued:
“If one consults the literary remains of Greek-speaking Jewish scholars of late antiquity, for example, one will find few instances of aion or aionios used to indicate eternal duration: for both Philo of Alexandria (an older contemporary of Jesus) and Josephus (born within a decade of the crucifixion), an “aeon” is still only a limited period of time, usually a single lifetime, but perhaps as much as three generations. And the same is true of Christian thinkers of the early centuries.”
"Late in the fourth century, John Chrysostum, in his commentary on Ephesians, even used the word aionios of the kingdom of the devil specifically to indicate that it is temporary (for it will last only until the end of the present age, he explains). In the early centuries of the church, especially in the Greek and Syrian East, the lexical plasticity of the noun and the adjective was fully appreciated - and often exploited - by a number of Christian theologians and exegetes (especially such explicit universalists as the great Alexandrians Clement and Origen, the “pillar of orthodoxy” Gregory of Nyssa and his equally redoubtable sister Makrina, the great Syrian fathers Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret of Cyrus, and Isaac of Ninevah, and so on, as well as many other more rhetorically reserved universalists, such as Gregory of Nazianzus).”
“Late in the fourth century, for instance, Basil the Great, bishop of Caesarea, reported that the vast majority of his fellow Christians (at least, in the Greek-speaking East with which he was familiar) assumed that “hell” is not an eternal condition, and that the “aionios punishment” of the age to come would end when the soul had been purified of its sins and thus prepared for union with God. Well into the sixth century, the great Platonist philosopher Olympiodorus the Younger could state as rather obvious that the suffering of wicked souls in Tartarus is certainly not endless, atelevtos, but is merely aionios; and the squalidly brutal and witless Christian emperor Justinian, as part of his campaign to extinguish the universalism of the “Origenists”, found it necessary to substitute the word atelevtetos for aionios when describing the punishments of hell, since the latter word was not decisive."
“Early in the eighth century, John of Damascus delineated four meanings of aion, the last which - “eternity” - is offered not as an intrinsic, but merely an imputed, connotation, presumed whenever the word is used of something (like the Age of God’s Kingdom) known to be endless; and, even then, John affirms, the true eternity of God is beyond all ages.”
“As late as the thirteenth century, the East Syrian bishop Solomon of Bostra, in his authoritative compilation of the teachings of the “holy fathers” of Syrian Christian tradition, simply stated as a matter of fact that in the New Testament le-alam (the Syriac rendering of aionios) does not mean eternal, and that of course hell is not endless. And the fourteenth-century East Syrian Patriarch Timotheus II thought it uncontroversial to assert that the aionios pains of hell will come to an end when the souls cleansed by them, through the prayers of the saints, enter paradise” (The New Testament: A Translation, by David Bentley Hart, 2017, from the post NT translation notes, p.539-540).
BTW, in the book “Terms for Eternity…”, Ramelli & Konstan elaborate at length on the Basil remark (p.194-199). Here’s a summary of the entire book:
Even among pro endless hell scholars & modern lexicons i can’t recall even one that has said that aionios in ancient Greek always means eternal, except when used in exaggeration (hyperbole), which you seem to imply above. It seems that almost all scholarship opposes you, including BDAG, TDNT, LSJ, & many others. Is there even one that concurs with your view in the past 3000 years, including church fathers? Even restricting the subject to the New Testament, many (if not the majority of) scholars whose conclusions are anti universalist admit that the word sometimes refers to an age or a finite duration. If the above stated perspective of aionios is not your view, can you list even one instance where you allege that aionios is used of finite duration outside of such a definition, i.e. not in hyperbole?