[B-Greek] AIWN in the plural
Carl W. Conrad
cwconrad at artsci.wustl.edu
Tue Nov 16 06:32:29 EST 2004
Gabe Chesster (Chesster67 at aol.com)
Mon Nov 15 23:55:53 EST 2004
"Carl Conrad wrote: <<<<Luke (1:33 has KAI BASILEUSE EPI TON OIKON IAKWB
EIS TOUS AIWNAS KAI THS BASILEIAS AUTOU OUK ESTAI TELOS. I take it that the
phrase here means "recurrent chronological cycles--years, ages, 'great
years' ...>>>
GC: "That would make perfect sense, but is this to necessarily imply an
endless perpetuality? Perhaps the use of the plural here indicates that
Christ's reign will last until the consummation of the ages when He hands
over the Kingdom to the Father (1 Cor. 15:23).
CWC: <<<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.>>>
GC: "This makes perfect sense to me, if I am indeed understanding you
correctly, as this way of understanding the Koine grammar would be akin to
the proper understanding of hAGIA hAGIWN in Hebrews 9:3. That is, "the age
of the ages" would be a reference to the crowning age of all ages, just as
"the holy of the holies" would refer to the innermost and Holiest chamber
of all. It would strike me as most sensible, then, to understand "the ages
of the ages" to refer to the final ages, superior to the ones which were
precedent, and to understand "the holies of the holies" to refer to the
innermost and most sacred of the chambers. What do you think?"
You are evidently understanding something a bit different from what I
intended. I think that TO hAGION TWN hAGIWN in the LXX represents a Hebrew
construction that is probably different from the Greek usages I was citing.
While perhaps we could indeed understand BASILEUS TWN BASILEWN as the
BASILEUTATOS PANTWN TWN BASILEWN, I don't think that we could understand
Aristotle's NOHSIS NOHSEWS as an entity or activity supreme in the category
of intuition. More below.
[B-Greek] AIWN in the plural
Chesster67 at aol.com Chesster67 at aol.com
Tue Nov 16 00:09:09 EST 2004
Steve Puluka wrote: "I've been told that this is a Septuagintism. That
the expression develops over time in the Septuagint translation. The Torah
using the expression EIS TWN AIWNA XRONON and the later translations EIS
TOUS AIWNAS TWN AIWNWN. This is supposed to be because Hebrew does not
have a word for eternity. So the Greek is slavishly following the Hebrew
expressions trying to speak of eternity without access to a single word."
GC: "At this point, my understanding of OLAM is that it generally denotes
1) time extending from a particular point into the unseen realm, 2) time
past, extending into the unseen realm, and 3) the aggregate of all time. I
do not see any legitimate reason, however, to believe that Olam is ever
used to denote the nonsensical and inherently contradictory notion of
infinite time."
Once again I think you are confronting the real likelihood that there are
different conceptions of time in different cultures, that the original
sense of Hebrew Olam may be of a finite time-space continuum with a
beginning and end, while ancient Greek thinking did indeed conceive of
endless temporal sequence--without beginning and end. I think there may
well be two distinct phases in the development of the Greek word AIWN to
represent Hebrew Olam (admittedly I am speculating, but not, I think,
speculating in the dark): (1) AIWN refers to the space-time continuum
created by God and destined to continue until it's end ('the end of the
world'), when God will create a new space-time continuum or world--a new
creation; (2) AIWN refers to that new space-time continuum as an extent of
time that has a beginning but no end, the 'age-to-come" or Olam-Ha-Ba; (3)
AIWN is used with the genitive of the same noun (EIS TOUS AIWNAS TWN
AIWNWN,which becomes in the Vulgate the familiar Latin phrase 'in saecula
saeculorum' probably conceived as successive extensions of astronomical
time measured by the cycles of heavenly bodies or groups of heavenly bodies
and extending endlessly. At any rate, I think it's a mistake to impose any
one philosophical understanding of the nature of time upon Biblical usage
of temporal terms.
--
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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