Are you saying “aionios” always meant the quality of life with God and not it’s duration, always, that is until the NIV mistranslated it? Is there evidence that the majority of the church always thought this way?
Alex,
You didn’t address those problems I mentioned earlier about using post-mortum salvation as a support.
You’re also dodging the climate change bullet, many people believe the global is warming up and that people caused it because the majority of scientist believe it. (But don’t worry if you concede this point, it’s got a sting in the tail for me as well.)
Roofus,
That argument doesn’t work because it means all the translators for nearly every single translation have got it wrong, that they were translators but didn’t know their Greek very well!
That’s an interesting argument but notice in your original link to the book about Jewish studies the author concedes that although in the very dim past (Homer) “aionios” may of had a limited duration but evolved into meaning eternal reflecting to quote that author the Hebrew word “owlam” which means “all time”, which in my mind seems alot like eternity so I’m not sure how that book or that thread supports either Alex’s opening thesis that eternal meant ethereal or the idea that eternal as used in the New Testmaent means a limited duration.
I’ve already given my understanding of it in another thread. But to put it simply, the facts are very clear on the word itself.
Here is my offered break down of it all;
Aion - An eon, an age; an existential state of being within a specific setting of which time is a key factor (ex. this present wicked aion/age/world).
Aionios - The adjective form of Aion.
Literally, Aionios = Instilling the qualified noun with the descriptive quality of being one that “pertains to a set of time, that is to say “an age”; an existential state of being within a ‘specific setting relevant to noun being qualified’.”
There is also an understanding implied of “ambiguous lastingness”. That is, there is no specific frame of time offered as in the case of words like “yearly” or “monthly” - and Biblical evidence (in The Septuagint) shows (as with the case of Jonah’s three days) that Aionios does not necessitate, nor imply a specific frame of time. It has more to do with a setting (literature term) than it does with our modern concept of time. Time is involved, as time is involved in “settings”. Time in the Greek, and especially the Hebrew mindset was a thing measured by the signs of the Heavens, and by the movements of the things thereof. That is, time dealt with the natural order of things, the movement of nature, the sun, moon, constellations, etc. Time was thought of through the lens of the world around it. Seasons, and the way plants would blossom and fade. The moon and how it would wax and wane. Constellations, and how their stars would roll across the night sky. The sun and how it would rise and set. Time and the place in which a person stood and existed, and interacted with existential experience in the Ancient world were inexorably inter-weaved.
Aion, as it pertains to time, pertains more fully with a concept of “setting”, in which time is a major emphasis. But time is not the full brunt of the word.
Applicably, lets look at the most famous example, the one upon which so much interpretation and controversy regarding the definition hinges;
Zoe aionion, and kolasin aionion.
In long hand would be;
*Life as pertaining to an age: a setting; an existential state of being within the specific setting relevant to Life. A lasting life, that lasts as long as the Life lasts.
Pruning or chastisement as pertaining to an age: a setting; an existential state of being within a specific setting relevant to pruning, or chastisement. A lasting chastisement, that lasts as long as the Chastisement lasts.* [size=70]a[/size]
a;[size=85]Until the pruning is finished, and the chastisement has reached its satisfaction; the redemption and correction of that which is being chastened. Until the silver has been cleaned of its dross, and is pulled out of the refiner’s consuming fire.[/size]
Is this the majority view Lefin, could you direct me to the relevant lexicon, the long tradition of translation and the variety of modern translations employing this meaning? Or is it, as I imagine, your hopeful reading of the word with the support of a minority of scholars and few historical translators?
You also, like many on this thread, have avoided the issue of ambiguity being applied to both life with God and punishment away from God. Why is life with God just as vague and ambiguous, will it also come to an end? I’m surprised no one’s tackled this, it seems like weak point in the Universalist translation of aionios.
Why do I need to cite what is common knowledge to anyone who knows about the methods of measuring time in Ancient Cultures? Common knowledge in grammar? At any rate, I’ll leave the citing and offering to others who have the resources and time.
Ancient Cultures’ concept of time revolved, and was linked to the natural world around them. I need not cite the various lunar calendars like the Hebrew Lunar calendar, the use of constellation signs for agricultural seasons, the measurement of years by the movement of the sun, etc. The festivals that revolve around the equinoxes…etc.
Hence; Time, as it were, to the Greek mind and the Hebrew mind would have been linked, and viewed from the lens of their “setting”. And there is always the Bible’s own example of Time/Setting coorelation, from the very mouth and purpose of God Himself.
(Gen 1:14-16) And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years: And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so. And God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
At the very least…from a Biblical perspective, from God’s perspective; from Jesus’ perspective - Time and Setting are linked, and were created to be that way from Genesis onward.
As for the grammar. Aion means “age” - that is a brute fact. The adjective of a noun cannot go beyond the constraints of the noun it describes. The Titanic can be a “long” ship, but it cannot be the length of the distance between the Earth and Polaris. Aionion, being the adjective form of Aion, therefore pertains to the nature of Ageness, Lastingness, that which Age in the Greek/Hebrew mind meant, or perhaps even especially what Age means to God’s mind (Jesus’ mind) in using the word to begin with when he said “kolasin aionion”; wherein time deals with setting. As seen in Genesis 1:14 where the very Creator (Jesus) made stars, suns, moons, etc; things of Setting, as measuring devices for time.
As for avoiding the subject and not tackling it; I’m sure they have, but if they haven’t then here it is at its simplest;
Life, that is; Zoe Aionion - is Life that is God’s Life. Hence it is endless by default by nature of the life being God’s life. The life we’ve been given in Christ is a life that is as God’s life is. I don’t see where any issue regarding “Alas! Is the life not endless?” sort of question should ever arise, if one has an understanding of what that life is; His Life.
For chastisement…it is chastisement. God’s chastisement is not Biblically “endless”, certainly not in the Old Testament at any rate. Israel is always going back home it seems, and is always restored after its chastisement.
On the idea of it being a hopeful reading. Yes it is hopeful, but it is also faithful and assured. My belief that God is the saviour of all mankind is not based on the hinge of “all” or “aionios”. They are supporting buttresses on a building built on the very nature of God, by which I interpret the Bible.
I’d also add that the life with God is without decay, sin & death, which clearly implies no end.
Sorry Luke, I’ve just read back through the thread and can’t see you mentioning “postmortem” anywhere
I’m honestly not trying to dodge the bullet on climate change, it’s simply that I haven’t seen any good evidence against it, so I assume the majority are right (however, I’m still very open to looking at evidence against it).
Just to clarify, I’m not saying the alternative to “endless” is definitely “ethereal”, I just chose “ethereal” as it’s qualitative not quantitate, and it seems related. “age beyond sight”, “undefined/unknown age”, “lasting”, “an age of” are also possibilities.
That’s convenient. You’d think if the evidence was so clear most of the translations and lexicons would have picked this up.
Unfounded generalizations.
A noun and an adjective which are related can have different meanings, that’s often the way language works.
So you’re arguing that the same work used in exact parallel actually means different things? (Matt 25:46 springs to mind.) I guess if you believe something then you’ll make the translation do what you want. Although you could say the same about the majority of English translations, they’ve all translated aionios the wrong way. I thought it’d be more then just choose your own adventure.
Alex,
That’s OK all the thread blur together after awhile. The problems with the quotes about postmortem salvation that you’ve quoted is that we’d have to look at them individually to see if the author meant to contradict their belief in eternal punishment and also what they meant by death/salvation/punishment. I don’t think the quotes prove the authors were secret Universalists, they have been inconsistent or meant something else or were just wrong about that particular thing.
Just to summarise the thread from my perspective Alex,
So far the only evidence for “aionios” meaning anything but “endless”, has been an online lexicon and the argument that context changes the meaning of the word. No other lexicons or translations have been suggested to support the alternative view and explanation why the majority of scholars (conservative and moderate) would have mistranslated the word for so long and so often. There’s also been no historical evidence presented to verify a change in translation or meaning.
I don’t think they were secret Universalists either. And you’re right “postmortem salvation” isn’t an airtight argument.
When David Konstan gets back from his holiday, he said he would send me a good summary of the best evidence, which will hopefully move this conversation forward, as I for one, don’t have a degree in linguistics or history
But then it becomes David Konstan versus BDAG and most modern translators.
Just as in the climate change debate you have most scientists going one way and a couple of disenting scientists going the opposite direction. Although the climate is a complex beast, a good scientist should be able to present the evidence clearly enough for a lay person to evaluate it for themselves. It should be the same with this debate.
It seems important to see if there are any examples of translations that have been shown to be inaccurate throughout church history. Can anyone think of such? I can imagine that sola scriptura has brough about a new situation in the church, where long standing doctrines and translations are finally brought under scrutiny whereas before the Reformation you pretty much had to go with the Roman or Eastern churches interpretations.
From Vine’s Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words:
AIONIOS “describes duration, either undefined but not endless, as in Rom. 16:25; 2 Tim 1:9; Tit. 1:2; or undefined because endless as in Rom 16:26, and the other sixty-six places in the N.T.” (emphasis mine)
You ask for an example where it means anything other than endless and here it is. Vine’s clearly states that it does mean eternal when talking about hell, but it does give authority to the fact that it can mean something other than endless, which at least opens up the possibility that you can take another look at these texts and see if they have been translated incorrectly.
I don’t think an exhaustive study has ever been done on the words for eternal before David Konstan’s book, has it? Wouldn’t an exhaustive study on a word carry weight with you, Luke, if there was good evidence supporting his conclusions?
In scripture, aionios’ use to modify both judgment and the fire that destroyed Sodom was enough to indicate to me that aionios does not always, if ever, mean “endless”. I trust that Judgment does not go on and on and on, but that it is a “day” or set period of time of judgment, not something that goes on forever. And the fire that destroyed Sodom was certainly not something that lasted forever, was endless. As others have noted, it’s a word that connotes quality, not necessarily quantity. So the aionian judgment that scripture speaks of is not “endless” or “everlasting” judgment, but it is judgment that is from God. And the fire that destroyed Sodom was not endless or everlasting fire, but it was fire that came from God that was related to the judgment of God.
And then there is the fact that in the LXX it was used to translate the concept of Olam Haba, the age to come, even the Messianic age to come. Olam haba is a pictoral word which speaks of that which is over the horizon, vague, distant, not distiquishable, and somewhat just out of site. It also speaks metaphorically of that which is beyond our understanding, something we cannot fully grasp.
But if a person’s belief in ECT rests on aionios ONLY meaning “endless” or “everlasting” then no evidence to the contrary will persuade them otherwise. Hell, ECT is a foundational element of the traditional bad-news, and if that is shaken it shakes with a level 9.0 earthquake the world-view based on the assumption of the damnation of others!
To me aionios is really a minor issue because the fact that Hell is not named or warned of clearly in the Law and the prophets was huge. Something so important as Hell would be all over scripture, like it is in the mistranslated KJV. Of course, any student of Hebrew and Greek can quickly affirm that neither Sheol, Hades, or Gehenna mean Hell/ECT. The wages of sin is “death”, not ECT.
And btw, it never ceases to amaze me that people have such faith in Jesus for the damnation of others, faith that Jesus fails to save untold millions of people - “others” of course. It’s much more difficult to have faith in Christ for personal salvation if salvation is limited to only a select few or only the qualified few. If however Christ saves everyone, then I trust He can even save me, the chiefest of sinners.
When did “eternal” change from “ethereal” to “endless”? I don’t know that it has wholly changed. In some literary contexts “eternal” is still meant to convey the meaning of “ethereal” or that which is beyond the constraints of time as opposed to that which is “endless”. Eternal - that which is “out there”, beyond what we can see/understand completely.
And of course, just because Vine reads “endless” into the other passages, does not mean that aionios was meant to convey endless in those passages any more than in the passages where he admits that it clearly was not meant to convey endless. If a word has multiple meanings, then we, whether right or wrong, interpret that word based upon not only the literary context, but also upon our presuppositions and assumptions. Those who “assume” ECT will read “endless” into aionios, where those who do not believe Jesus fails to save anyone will not read “endless” into aionios. Even aionios life is not meant, imo, to convey the concept of “endless” as it is meant to convey the quality of life one experiences when rightly connected to the source of all life and existance!
It would appear from its usage and context that aionios is referring to the quality and/or “pertaining to” aspect of the aion(s) in question. Besides which, there are other words and phrases that refer more specifically to duration (such as immortal, incorruptible), so I think that any quantitative component that aionios may possibly have has been overstated, particularly since our modern notion of “eternity” is referring to a state in which time is nonexistent.
I don’t think that it was the NIV per se that mistranslated it (originally, at least), although it seems to have carried on the tradition. A lot of the mistranslations that have occurred and have carried through are partially the result of the language difficulties that arose when the texts in the original languages were translated into Latin.
Whether there is evidence that the majority of the church always thought this way or not is a moot point as far as I’m concerned; the “majority of the church” has been wrong about a number of things for most of its history. Majority opinion does not decide the truth.
There was in fact a change in the understanding of the Greek word “ἀιονιος”. It was essentially Jerome and Augustine who propogated the notion that the word meant “everlasting”, and brought it into translations. These two were a strong influence on the development of the whole church,not only concerning this matter, but many others as well. In order to retain both the historic Christian teaching that Gehenna (“hell”) was remedial and also their view of everlasting conscious punishment, the concept of purgatory was invented to take care of those who were not good enough for heaven or bad enough for everlasting punishment.
Although I don’t consider Jerome and Augustine’s actions as a “conspiracy”, there are some who do — for example Michael Wood, author of The Jerome Conspiracy.
Theodoret (A. D. 300-400) “Aiõn is not any existing thing, but an interval denoting time, sometimes infinite when spoken of God, sometimes proportioned to the duration of the creation, and sometimes to the life of man.” (5)
Now, that’s a very interesting quote. It reminds me of Thomas deQuincey’s view, it seems to reflect Philo as well…
very mysterious word (what a conundrum!)
Yes. Rebellion against God is the worst thing, not because God is so terribly offended, but because our rebellion hurts us so badly. And God loves us.
Why is the father of an drug addict so angry? Is it because his personal glory has been diminished? Or because his child no longer treats him with the respect and dignity befitting his paternal office? Or because the child he loves is being destroyed?
Come on Luke. God is not some proud, narcissistic, preening Monarch who is only happy when his subjects grovel, fawn, flatter and simper. Our God has very thick skin. He is quite willing to get his hands dirty. Here is the splendor of Almighty God: he kneels to wash our feet. Yes. God will defend his glory to the death. And we are his glory.
Why was Jesus so angry at the money changers? Because he was personally offended, or because they were preventing the multitudes from coming to God?
Does the odious doctrine of ECT prevent multitudes from coming to God and loving him with a full and glad heart? You bet it does. Is God offended by this? I reckon he is. Christ died to save these people. He died to reveal the depth, breadth and power of his love. ECT hides this light under a bushel. Barely a glimmer escapes.
