[B-Greek] AIWN in the plural
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Sat Nov 13 06:34:11 EST 2004
At 2:29 AM -0500 11/13/04, Chesster67 at aol.com wrote:
>Hello B-Greekers,
>
>Can anyone think of an example in the New Testament where the plural form
>of AIWN is used as an intensification device to express the concept of
>eternity?
>
>Thanks for any help you might have to offer!
Sure: Luke (1:33 has KAI BASILEUSE EPI TON OIKON IAKWB EIS TOUS AIWNAS KAI
THS BAASILEIAS AUTOU OUK ESTAI TELOS. I take it that the phrase here means
"recurrent chronological cycles--years, ages, 'great years' ...
Then a favorite of Paul, in addition to that EIS TOUS AIWNAS, is EIS TOUS
AIWNAS TWN AIWNWN (Gal 1:5, Phil 4:20, 1 Tim 1:17, 2 Tim 4:18). I was told
once that the use of the genitive of a noun attached to the same noun was a
way of superlativizing the noun: BASILEUS TWN BASILEWN = "king without
par," NOHSIS NOHSEWS = pure intellection.
--
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University (Emeritus)
1989 Grindstaff Road/Burnsville, NC 28714/(828) 675-4243
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
WWW: http://www.ioa.com/~cwconrad/
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