[Admin edited to add [url=https://forum.evangelicaluniversalist.com/t/what-do-you-make-of-u-koine-linguas-arguments-part-3/5386/1]a link to part 3 here.]
My last post ended with Ramelli/Konstan proposing an apparent “disparity” between the use of aiōnios and aidios in 4 Maccabees (with the former applied to the “destruction” of the unrighteous and the latter applied to the reward of the righteous): the “disparity in [4 Maccabees’] use of the two terms anticipates, or may be taken to anticipate, the usage in the New Testament.”
What are Ramelli and Konstan’s arguments here? They say, further, that aidios “is indeed applied to enduring punishment, but not to that of human beings” (50). If their argument is in any way that in certain circles aidios had come to be reserved for non-human agents, this falls flat. And although aidios is used to refer to God(’s power) in Romans 1.20, there are of course many other parallels where the eternity of God is described using aiōnios and other words. In this sense, aidios and aiōnios are merely synonyms. (Also, a note on why aidios may have been used in Rom 1.20: what’s fascinating is that it’s virtually beyond doubt, in my view, that—as several scholars have demonstrated—Romans 1.18-32 employs prosōpopoeia: that is, Paul is not presenting his own argument here, but rather portraying the argument of someone else. This is almost certainly what has led some scholars to propose that this is an interpolation [including on lexical grounds: cf. O’Neill 1975:40f.; Walker 2001:169f.]. Yet the option of prosōpopoeia is more compelling… and may account for the special vocabulary here. Interestingly, numerous scholars have recognized that the closest parallel to the type of arguments Romans 1.18-32 presents is found in the Wisdom of Solomon—the same text in which one of the two occurrences of aidios in the Septuagint occurs!)
The only other use of aidios in the New Testament is found in Jude 6. Here, the Lord has kept rebellious angels εἰς κρίσιν μεγάλης ἡμέρας δεσμοῖς ἀϊδίοις ὑπὸ ζόφον, “in eternal bonds under darkness for the judgment of the great day.”
It is to this that Ramelli and Konstan refer when they say that aidios is “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.” But, again, it’s hard to parse the argument. Of course, it’s certainly possible to argue that the text suggests that they are only kept in the bonds until the day of judgment, at which point these will no longer exist. It could perhaps be noted, though, that this was not phrased that they were “eternally kept” in chains, but rather kept in “eternal chains.”
Although this may not be a particularly strong counter-argument, what is more persuasive is that Josephus knows of an eschatological εἱργμὸν ἀίδιον of no release, and it is applied to humans. (That being said, it’s precisely this type of argument that some have made regarding the “inextinguishable fire” of Mark 9.43, etc.: that it is not that the fire unceasingly punishes the unrighteous, but simply the fire itself that is unceasing.)
The argument that NT authors purposely avoid “negative” uses of aidios for ideological/theological reasons (if this is indeed an argument that Ramelli and Konstan put forth) is an argument from silence—and a poor one at that. I have already suggested what may have influenced Paul to include this word in Romans 1. We can only speculate as to what led the author of Jude to use this word. Köstenberger, Kellum and Quarles write that Origen already
But as currently stands, if an author’s limiting of the span of aidios does not mean that aidios does not otherwise (usually) denote a genuine eternity, then surely the same logic would apply to aiōnios, when it’s also (elsewhere) demonstrated to genuinely denote eternity.
Again, the end of my previous post had discussed 4 Maccabees 10.15, “by the blessed death of my brothers, by the αἰώνιον destruction of the tyrant, and by the ἀΐδιον life of the pious, I will not renounce our noble family ties,” which prompted this sort of excursus.
There’s perhaps a further ambiguity from Ramelli and Konstan on this. They have written that aidios life here refers to the “afterlife of the martyrs,” and aiōnios destruction to “the destruction of their persecutor in the world to come.” But do they understand aidios life to (in and of itself) signify “eternal life in the world to come,” too? If so, then the two phrases in 4 Macc 10.15 would seem fairly precisely parallel (though, again, I believe this interpretation would then be doubly intolerable). But if they take “aidios life” to mean nothing more than “perpetual life,” there would seem to be a fairly significant disjunction here (“perpetual life” vs. “destruction in the world to come”), if aidios and aiōnios are normally synonymous otherwise.
How would an early reader/hearer have understood the parallelism here? Again, the evidence is against understanding aiōnios as signifying “in the world to come” in texts like this. Does this mean, then, that it’s possible to interpret these phrases in 4 Macc 10.15 as rather precisely parallel, on the idea that they both refer to genuinely perpetual outcomes (but not semantically in-and-of-themselves encompassing the notion of “the world to come”)? Here the issue would center around the word ὄλεθρος (olethros), which has been translated as “destruction.”
Although the idea of constant destruction or annihilation may seem counterintuitive, there are in fact instances when olethros could have a broader denotation, signifying merely affliction or torment.
Mahlerbe (2000:402) suggests, unequivocally, that olethros “does not mean annihilation, but everlasting ruin.” Perhaps the clearest indication of olethros as affliction or torment in the New Testament is 1 Corinthians 5.5, where most scholars would argue that it simply denotes temporary punishments (objections to this have been made, yet have not gained wide traction: cf. Tertullian; Barrett; Smith).
In BDAG, olethros, when, paired with aiōnios, is said to suggest “a state of destruction, ruin, death.” Yet this combination is rare, e.g. appearing only once in the New Testament (in 2 Thessalonians). However, olethros—which appears nowhere else in 4 Maccabees (nor does its verb form olethreuō)—has an almost perfect synonym in the word apōleia (cf. apollumi), which is joined with aiōn or aiōnios in several other places.
The eternal olethros of 2 Thessalonians 1.9 will be addressed later; but can anything be said about the intension of (its use in) 4 Macc 10.15 based on the use of apōleia/apollumi?
A deverbal form appears in the 4 Macc 2.14, to signify those who would destroy trees in a military siege (NRSV translates this as “marauders”; compare RSV’s “destroyers”). In 4 Macc 8.9 and 15.24, apōleia/apollumi is used in conjunction with the torture of the seven brothers.
I had written all this months ago, but apparently never finished a section here, and the rest of what follows was sort of fragmentary. I had written “It might be true that when apōleia is employed w/r/t (human) life, it can be used to refer to a sort of broad “extinguishing,” either by death or annihilation”; and the only thing after this was a note to look up 1 Enoch 108.
I also noted that, as mentioned, we have several instructive uses of apōleia in conjunction with aiōn/aiōnios, and that several of these are found in the Psalms of Solomon: e.g. PssSol 2.31 where the “arrogant” will be “put to rest in(to) apōleian aiōnos.” Wright (2007) translates “He is the one who raises me up into glory, and who brings down the arrogant ὑπερηφάνους] to sleep, to their dishonorable destruction forever, because they did not know [God]"; but I think I cited the Greek text here because of the potential ambiguity:
I also cited PssSol 15.10 “For destruction and darkness is reserved for sinners and their lawlessness will pursue them even down into Hades.”
…and the section had ended with things that I had never followed up on: I had just written “stylistic variation” and “eis ton aiōna (2.34; 3.11, 12).”
I’ve found a whole new file that had apparently started a much more detailed examination of Psalms of Solomon and its parallels, but then abandoned it. Within it, though, I found some texts and translations previously referred to: for example, 1 Enoch 108.2-3
(Translation by Stuckenbruck; and I had noted to cf. Jubilees 22.21 here, which also has “…seed will be destroyed.” Cf. also 1 En 84.5, ሐጕል ለዓለም.)
Most relevant is some commentary by Stuckenbruck that I had copied. He writes that
and
I had two citations from 4 Maccabees which seem to support some use of apōleia to denote torture + death, at least for those killed on earth: 4 Macc 8.9,
and 4 Macc 15.24:
And, again, we’re are harping back to 4 Macc 10.15 here. Earlier in this post, I noted that Ramelli and Konstan
That the persecutor’s destruction is eschatological is of course not contentious, as the context suggests. But the point of contention is precisely over whether aiōnios here was itself ended to encompass the notion of “in the world to come.” To this I think conclusively not; and in one of the very few complete thoughts from this section that I had written, I had said
(I never really finished my examination of apōleia; so certainly there’s room for caution here as to what exactly this “destruction” consists of.)
[Admin edited to add [url=http://www.evangelicaluniversalist.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6332]a link to part 5 here.]