[B-Greek] word meaning

gene baker ekbaker at essex1.com
Fri May 23 17:00:24 EDT 2003


Brian,

"1. He says that each Greek word has exactly one, and only one real meaning.
True?  "

   I am certainly not a linguist, and cannot speak from broad experience,
but, your friend's statement is not correct for Greek any more than it is
for English.  Even if you do not read Greek, you may examine any fairly
comprehensive Lexicon and see that some words have quite a variety of
meanings.  To insist upon only one meaning of each word is going to produce
some pretty strange translations, IMO.

  blessings,

  Gene Baker
  Sterling, IL
----- Original Message -----
From: "Brian A. Phillips" <Brian.A.Phillips at insightbb.com>
To: "B-Greek List" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Friday, May 23, 2003 9:36 AM
Subject: [B-Greek] word meaning


Hi,

I have a friend who believes the bible teaches the ultimate salvation of
everyone, regardless of faith.  I know this group does not promote one
belief over the other, but perhaps you can help me examine some of his
reasoning.

He interprets the NT Greek very literally.

1. He says that each Greek word has exactly one, and only one real meaning.
True?  I think he would look at all the ways a word is used and attempt a
definition that fit each passage.  Is that possible?  One word that comes to
mind for me is Paul’s use of “flesh”.  I haven’t yet looked to the Greek,
but I thought I remembered seeing a usage that included a reference to his
race, and of course there is his use of that “which houses sin”.

2. He says that AION cannot ever mean “eternal” in the NT – that it is an
AGE, with an unspecified amount of time, but having a definite beginning and
end.  An example of his reasoning is the question that the disciples asked
Jesus: “What will be the sign of the end of the age”.  If this is translated
here as “eternity/forever” (as it is in many other passages in several
popular translations), it would not make any sense at all (what will be the
sign of the end of eternity).  I think he has a good point with that word,
but what I’m really interested in are the phrases “AION of AIONS”, or “AIONS
of AIONS” (note the plural for both aion's in the last one).  My friend
would say these should be taken literally, like the Holy of Holies, and King
of Kings – that they should be understood as “an age apart from all the
other ages”, and “two ages apart from all other ages”.  Most translations
use “forever” or “forever and ever” for these phrases.  Which is right?  Are
both translations legitimate (for the phrases)?  Bill Mounce makes reference
to the Jewish concept of time in Basics of Biblical Greek, but he doesn't go
into detail.  Did the Septuagint translate Hebrew terms for "everlasting" as
"age of ages",... or, in other words, is the phrase "age of ages" a Greek
idiom meaning forever?  Does Koine Greek have idioms?

I don’t want to be burdensome, so I will wait to ask other questions later.
(like the meaning of “of the faith of Christ”). ☺

Sincerely,
Brian A. Phillips
ARCO Cleaning, Inc.
317-578-2726


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