[B-Greek] Forever and ever
Steve Puluka
steve at puluka.com
Sun Jun 27 17:04:09 EDT 2010
On Jun 27, 2010, at 2:31 PM, Mark Frost wrote:
> There is some controversy over the idea of eternal hell, as you
> know. Some say that the phrase translated "for ever and ever" in
> Rev. 19:3 and 20:10 should more accurately be translated as "ages
> of ages" or to the "end of the age or ages", as a sum of its
> literal parts, claiming that the translators were effected by an
> erroneous presupposition more than by the language itself. Do you
> all, as Greek experts, know if this is a valid argument, or if the
> Greek phrase in these verses actually means or could only mean
> "forever and ever"? Why did the translators all choose to
> translate it as "forever and ever"? Is there some extra-biblical
> use of this phrase that causes us to know that the combination of
> these root words means "eternal" rather than just referring to
> ages? Please use plain English in answering this post, as I do not
> read Greek. Thank you for your expertiese.
The phrase EIS TON AIWNA TWN AIWNWN is essentially a semeticism
brought over to Greek through the translation of the Old Testament
known as the Septuagint. This renders the original double olam of
the Hebrew.
As there is no direct Hebrew word for forever this construction was
used in texts like Psalms 90:2, 103:17 and others to indicate
eternity. Since many of these usages are liturgical texts they
acquire a community usage that carries over in the Greek.
Down to this day you see the construction in Orthodox liturgical
doxologies based on these Byzantine Greek models and is translated in
similarly literal fashion into Old Church Slavonic, Coptic and other
more modern translations.
Thus the phrase is a construction to indicate forever but done in a
creative way so to speak. In English Byzantine liturgical
translations we see both versions used "ages of ages" and "forever
and ever". In either case the sense of the phrase is pretty clearly
indicating eternity.
Steve Puluka
MA, Theology Duquesne University
Cantor Holy Ghost Church
Carpatho-Rusyn tradition
Mckees Rocks, PA
http://puluka.com
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