[B-Greek] Forever and ever

Nigel Chapman nigel at chapman.id.au
Sun Jun 27 22:37:03 EDT 2010


On Mon, June 28, 2010 7:04 am, Steve Puluka wrote:

> Thus the phrase is a construction to indicate forever but done in a
> creative way so to speak.  ...
> In either case the sense of the phrase is pretty clearly
> indicating eternity.

I've occassionally wondered whether Rev 19:3 offers a counterexample to
this interpretation:

3 καὶ δεύτερον
εἴρηκαν,
ἁλληλουϊά·
καὶ ὁ καπνὸς
αὐτῆς
ἀναβαίνει
εἰς τοὺς
αἰῶνας τῶν
αἰώνων.
KAI DEUTERON hEURHKAN, ALLHLOUIA; KAI O KAPNOS AUTHS ANABAINEI EIS TOUS
AIWNAS TWN AIWNWN.

In the vision, an angel declares that smoke from the ruins of an unnamed
city shall ascend "forever and ever" (same Greek phrase as elsewhere) --
but shortly thereafter, a new heavens and a new earth replace the old ones
and, presumably, the smoking ruins promptly disappear. That's possibly the
shortest 'forever' in literature if the author used it to say 'eternity'.

This tends toward a theological discussion, however (since, if the smoke
does not survive the new creation, then why not the lake and all that it
contains?)

Hence, to trim down to a possibly-on-topic question: Is there a reference
to the "aeon of aeons" (in any relevant literature, but mainly the NT)
that would explicitly demand infinite duration, even if all present were
accustomed to thinking in and anticipating aeons/epochs/ages?

Nigel.

-- 
Nigel Chapman, Sydney AU

Home: http://chapman.id.au
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"When eras die their legacies are left to
strange police." -- Clarence Day



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