[B-Greek] More on AIONIOS

Iver Larsen ialarsen at multitechweb.com
Wed Oct 27 11:53:59 EDT 2004


> Gabe Chester asked>
> > I wonder what everyone might have to say regarding the merits of
> > the following quote by Joseph A. Baird....
> >
> > "'Eternal fire,' for example, does not necessarily mean a fire
> > that burns endlessly (quantitative meaning), but may also mean a
> > fire 'peculiar to the realm and the nature of God' (qualitative
> meaning)."
>
>
> Ivar Larsen responded
>
> > AIWNIOS is used in the NT mainly in connection with ZWH (43 out of 71
> > times), but also in connection with punishment and fire, and a few other
> > instances.
>
> > Louw and Nida says: "pertaining to an unlimited duration of time".
>
[Chaplin:]> However, Louw and Nida also say:
> "In combination with ZWH, there is evidently not only a temporal element,
> but also a qualitative distinction."
>
> How much weight one puts on the qualitative component is partly a
> matter of
> approach to language and how much weight you might give to its
> relation with
> AIWN as well as to the words it is found in combination with, but also a
> matter of theological perspective (which lies outside the scope of this
> list).
> I would, myself, give a much higher weight to qualitative
> perspectives than Ivar does.
>
> Doug Chaplin

Let me answer both Gabe and Doug here:

Gabe, when I say the strict sense of "eternal" I mean absolutely never
ending and/or without beginning.
In certain contexts AIWNIOS can imply this sense when understood together
with other words in the context, but the basic meaning is as L&N says
"pertaining to an unlimited duration of time."

Let me try to explain by example. If a man on his wedding day says to his
bride: "I will love you with an eternal love" this implies that somehow he
will love her even beyond death. But if he says "I will love you for ever",
he just means that he cannot imagine an end to his love, but obviously it
will not go beyond death. It is this last sense that is closest to the
Hebrew olam and Greek AIWNIOS. It is unlimited without a specified end, but
it does not have to be "eternal" in the English sense of that word.
Is there a qualitative aspect of the words "for ever" in the sentence above?
I don't think so, but I can see that this can be subjective. My preference
is to say that the qualitative aspect is from the word "love" rather than
"for ever". What if he had said "I will hate you for ever"?

Doug,
Since you quote a bit more from L&N, let me quote the whole paragraph:

"The most frequent use of AIWNIOS in the NT is with ZWH 'life,' for example,
... 'so that everyone who believes in him may have eternal life' John 3:15.
In combination with ZWH there is evidently not only a temporal element, but
also a qualitative distinction. In such contexts, AIWNIOS evidently carries
certain implications associated with AIWNIOS in relationship to divine and
supernatural attributes. If one translates 'eternal life' as simply 'never
dying,' there may be serious misunderstandings, since persons may assume
that 'never dying' refers only to physical existence rather than to
'spiritual death.' Accordingly, some translators have rendered 'eternal life
' as 'unending real life,' so as to introduce a qualitative distinction."

L&N was prepared for Bible translators and they often as here have a lexical
explanation of a word and then a translation suggestion. The second
paragraph does not deal so much with the semantic content of AIWNIOS as with
how to translate the concept "ZWH AIWNIOS". I do not agree with L&N's
remarks on divine and supernatural attributes, because those concepts do not
come from AIWNIOS, but from ZWH and the context. Their comment is relevant
for how to translate ZWH. This kind of life called "life for ever" is not
just ordinary physical life, but a life that starts here and goes beyond
death. All that we know about this "life for ever" is derived from the whole
context of the NT, and a translator needs to have the whole concept in mind
when translating in order not to create misunderstandings for the readers.
However, we should not attempt to put all we know about this life into the
word AIWNIOS, and this seems to me to be where Mr. Baird (and even to some
degree L&N) venture out on shaky ground.

Iver Larsen
Bible Translation Consultant




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