[Admin edited to add a link to [url=https://forum.evangelicaluniversalist.com/t/what-do-you-make-of-u-koine-linguas-arguments-part-2/5385/1]part 2 here on the EU forum. I don’t know where the poster found the original article pieces yet.]
Previous two installments can be found here and here. To reiterate, I’ll be going through Ramelli and Konstan’s Terms for Eternity: Aiônios and Aïdios in Classical and Christian Texts. This
As Ramelli and Konstan’s main arguments (or at least the main ones I’m interested in here) involve the denotation of aiōnios, in Jewish and Christian texts, as “of the eschatological age,” I won’t be discussing its use in the Classical period.
To start with their analysis of its uses in the Septuagint: on p. 40, they begin discussing instances where aiōnios potentially denotes “in the future world.” They suggest
As for Daniel 7.27: a simple look at the other uses of basileia/aiōnios and/or מַלְכּוּ עָלַם in Daniel would make it abundantly clear that kingdom “in the future world” would be impossible here, or elsewhere in Daniel (2.44, וְהִיא תְּקוּם לְעָלְמַיָּֽא; LXX καὶ αὐτὴ ἀναστήσεται εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας; 4.3; 4.34; 6.26, וּמַלְכוּתֵהּ דִּֽי לָא תִתְחַבַּל וְשָׁלְטָנֵהּ עַד סֹופָֽא; 7.14, 18).
There’s no reason at all to interpret aiōnios in Wisdom 10.14 as hinting at glory “in the world to come.” The concept of everlasting/timeless glory is well-attested in ancient Greek thought and, further, the association of wisdom itself with immortality is attested several places in Jewish thought (cf. Raurell 1979): for example the Aramaic Levi Document (which, in the 13th chapter, even makes the connection with Joseph, as Wisdom 10.13-14 is also focused on).
Finally, aiōnios in (LXX) Isaiah 54.4 is nothing more than the translator’s misunderstanding of the Hebrew text: where עֲלוּמִים, “youth” was misunderstood as עוֹלָם.
Moving on, Ramelli and Konstan write
That Tobit 3.6 is “the first place in the Hebrew Bible in which αἰώνιος unequivocally refers to the world to come” has misinterpreted the verse. Here, in his despair, Tobit requests from God that he “be released from this distress . . . into the eternal home” (ἀπολυθῆναί με τῆς ἀνάγκης . . . εἰς τὸν αἰώνιον τόπον). This is a clear parallel to the line just before this: …ὅπως ἀπολυθῶ καὶ γένωμαι γῆ “…that I may be released [from the face of the earth, א] and become dust.” That is to say, aiōnios here does not signify some future reality at all; and that this even refers to the afterlife is something only gleaned contextually. Rather, the “eternal place” is simply a figurative way of referring to death itself: not to its futurity, but rather its irreversibility: as Job says, “he who goes down to Sheol does not come up” (Job 7.9; cf. “the way of no return,” לא אשוב אהלך, Job 16.22).
This idiom for death can also be found in the pessimistic Qohelet (12.5), “For man goes to his eternal home אֶל בֵּית עֹולָמֹו / εἰς οἶκον αἰῶνος αὐτοῦ, with aiōn here in LXX itself signifying eternity] while mourners go about in the street,” and may already be found in Akkadian (cf. dārû in šubat dārâti/dārât?). As for the topos aiōnios in (LXX) Isaiah 33.14 that Ramelli and Konstan also mention here, this certainly stems from a misreading of מוקדי עולם (as מָקוֹם? מוֹקֵד is translated elsewhere in LXX as phrugios).
2 Maccabees 7.9 reads
That “αἰώνιος is used in 2 Maccabees 7.9 with reference to life in the future world” (as Ramelli and Konstan claimed, emphasis mine) may be true in the sense that it is used in conjunction with the idea of the afterlife / eschatology; yet, again, aiōnios itself does not denote “the future world” here. This interpretation might at first be somewhat compelling, in light of the contrast being made here, ἐκ τοῦ παρόντος ἡμᾶς ζῆν ἀπολύεις. Yet this becomes less compelling when we realize that aiōnios in εἰς αἰώνιον ἀναβίωσιν ζωῆς ἡμᾶς ἀναστήσει modifies anabiōsis, and that this idea as a whole is paralleled in 2 Maccabees 7.36 (using aenaos).
The next reference, 4 Maccacees 15.3, is designated only as a further parallel to 2 Maccabees 7.9—which, again, (somewhat ambiguously) suggested a use of aiōnios ”with reference to life in the future world.” 4 Macc 15.3 reads τὴν εὐσέβειαν μᾶλλον ἠγάπησεν τὴν σῴζουσαν εἰς αἰωνίαν ζωὴν κατὰ θεόν, “She loved piety more, which σῴζουσαν them εἰς αἰωνίαν ζωὴν, according to (the will of) God.” Again, it’s unclear whether Ramelli and Konstan understand aiōnios itself here to denote “the future world”; but perhaps the use of sōzō here might suggest this logic to someone: that the (interpreted) “preservation” here could be for the future realm or age itself, and not quite so much the quality of eschatological life (as eternal).
This interpretation may, in fact, have an instructive parallel in John 12.25: ὁ φιλῶν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἀπολλύει αὐτήν καὶ ὁ μισῶν τὴν ψυχὴν αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ τούτῳ εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον φυλάξει αὐτήν, “Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it =φυλάξει] εἰς ζωὴν αἰώνιον.” In light of this, I’ll refrain from passing conclusive judgment on aiōnios here; though see my comments on 4 Macc 12.12 below for a consideration that may allow us to do so. (And cf. later discussion of Shephard of Hermas 7.3.)
The next two verses Ramelli and Konstan discuss are
The first reads
4 Macc 13.15 reads
Both of these verses use aiōnios with basanos.
For the latter, there is no ambiguity as to what Ramelli and Konstan think aiōnios denotes: “great is the fight of the soul and the trial in torment in the world to come lying before those who transgress…” Yet is there anything else to indicate what aiōnios actually denotes here?
In fact, there is a verse that appears in between these chapters of 4 Maccabees (chs. 9 and 13) that might be of enormous value in helping us discern what the author could have understood by aiōnios, both here and elsewhere in his text. This is 4 Maccabees 12.12 (mentioned near the very beginning of this post as a whole):
Here, again, we find a use of basanos. Yet, instead of being modified only by aiōnios, it is modified by another adjective, too: puknoteros, a comparative form of puknos, probably meaning “intense, strong” here (and so “stronger”).
Since this adjective suggests the quality of fire, aiōnios cannot be understood here to mean “in/of the world to come” (“eschatological”), because “justice will reserve you for a stronger and eschatological fire” would make no sense (much less “justice will reserve you for a stronger fire and in/of the world to come”).
It appears that the combination puknos and aiōnios here genuinely denotes the intensity and duration of the fire, respectively; and so we should translate “justice will reserve you for (a) stronger and everlasting fire and for tortures…”
With the second part of the verse, there’s a textual ambiguity: {αἳ} εἰς ὅλον τὸν αἰῶνα οὐκ ἀνήσουσίν σε (deSilva (2006:40) brackets αἳ in his critical text). When the two parts of these verse are combined, this could be understood either as “Because of this, justice will reserve you for (a) stronger and everlasting fire and (for) tortures: these will not release you for all of time” or “Because of this, justice will reserve you for (a) stronger and everlasting fire and tortures for all time; these will not release you.”
Although it’s hard to decide which interpretation is preferable, in either case aiōnios is in effect glossed here as—literally—“for all time” (ὅλον τὸν αἰῶνα).
Also significant, though, is the use of tamieuō in 12.12, here meaning “to store up, reserve.” Combined with the shared use of eis, this parallels the use of sōzō in 4 Macc 15.3, discussed above, thus allowing the interpretation of the latter as “She loved piety more, which brings them into everlasting life, according to (the will of) God” (as opposed to “…piety, which preserves them for life in the world to come”; though, again, cf. John 12.25).
It is interesting that, later in the chapter (p. 48), Ramelli and Konstan indeed mention 4 Maccabees 12.12; however, they only note that here
This understanding is, again, impossible.
It’s at this point that they also note that, elsewhere in 4 Maccabees,
It is very difficult to follow Ramelli and Konstan’s line of argumentation here.
In any case, 4 Maccabees 10.15 reads
It seems that they mean that the aiōnios destruction here signifies that at the eschaton, the tyrant will be irreversibly annihilated—not that he’ll merely undergo perpetual/enduring torment. Conversely, the use of aidios does suggest genuine perpetuity, which is the life that the righteous enjoy. But how they can say that the “disparity in [4 Maccabees’] use of the two terms anticipates, or may be taken to anticipate, the usage in the New Testament” is puzzling: first, because this supposed disparity is still only asserted, not supported; second, there are only two occurrences of aidios in the NT (Romans 1.20 and Jude 6; hardly enough data); and finally because, in one of these instances (Jude’s), aidios “seems to be qualified in such a way as to have, or seem to have, a limited duration” (emphasis mine)… which seems rather the opposite of what they’ve argued.
[Admin edited to add [url=http://www.evangelicaluniversalist.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6331]a link to part 4 here.]