[B-Greek] Forever and ever

Bryant J. Williams III bjwvmw at com-pair.net
Mon Jun 28 00:44:04 EDT 2010


Dear Nigel,

I refer you to following:
J. Guhrt, "Time," pp. 826-833, Volume 3, New International Dictionary of New
Testament Theology, Colin Brown, editor.

The introduction to the article is as follows:

"Time and eternity are two complementary categories for comrehending the
historical process. The Gk. language has a wealth of various terms with which to
express the experience of time. The most extensive one is AIWN. which is
primarily a designation for a long period of time. When such an age refers to
the past,  it denotes remote antiquity, the dim and distant past; when it is
directed to the on-going future AIWN can take on the meaning of eternity.
Eternity is thus not necessarily a timeless concept, but the most comprehensive
temporal one which the experience of time has produced. Theologically speaking,
lasting time is a property of God the Creator, whereas passing time belongs to
man as creature. CHRONOS chiefly denotes the quantitive, linear expanse of time,
a space or period of time, and is thus a term of the formal and scientific
conception of time. In this connexion there are several terms which comprehend a
particular span of time: especially ENIAUTOS, year; MHN, month, hEMERA, day and
hWRA, hour. By contrast, the characteristic stress of KAIROS draws attention to
the content of time, negatively as crisis and positively as opportunity. Since
he adverbs NYN, now, and SHMERON, today, which relate to the present, and are
also fundamentally claimed for the linear conception of time (in this case
marking a present point of time) are chiefly used in the NT in a qualificatory
sense, they are incorporated in the art. KAIROS. It is instructive for the whole
NT understanding of time that it is not the formal concept of CHRONOS, but that
of KAIROS, qualifying the content of the time of Jesus, which stands in the
foreground. For the concepts of day, maranatha and parousis > Present."

Articles:
AIWN, pp. 826-833, Volume 3, J. Guhrt (See above).
KAIROS, pp. 833-839, Volume 3, H.-C. Hahn.
Chronos, pp. 839-845, Volume 3, H.-C. Hahn.
hORA, pp. 845-850, Volume 3, H.-C. Hahn.

En Xristwi,

Rev. Bryant J. Williams III






----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nigel Chapman" <nigel at chapman.id.au>
To: "B Greek" <b-greek at lists.ibiblio.org>
Sent: Sunday, June 27, 2010 7:37 PM
Subject: Re: [B-Greek] Forever and ever


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 &#954;&#945;&#8054; &#948;&#949;&#973;&#964;&#949;&#961;&#959;&#957;
&#949;&#7988;&#961;&#951;&#954;&#945;&#957;,
&#7937;&#955;&#955;&#951;&#955;&#959;&#965;&#970;&#940;
&#954;&#945;&#8054; &#8001; &#954;&#945;&#960;&#957;&#8056;&#962;
&#945;&#8016;&#964;&#8134;&#962;
&#7936;&#957;&#945;&#946;&#945;&#943;&#957;&#949;&#953;
&#949;&#7984;&#962; &#964;&#959;&#8058;&#962;
&#945;&#7984;&#8182;&#957;&#945;&#962; &#964;&#8182;&#957;
&#945;&#7984;&#974;&#957;&#969;&#957;.
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
Face: http://facebook.com/nigel.chapman
Msgs: nigelchapman-au (Skype)

"When eras die their legacies are left to
strange police." -- Clarence Day
---
B-Greek home page: http://www.ibiblio.org/bgreek
B-Greek mailing list
B-Greek at lists.ibiblio.org
http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/b-greek


-- 
Internal Virus Database is out-of-date.
Checked by AVG Free Edition.
Version: 7.5.446 / Virus Database: 268.18.3/696 - Release Date: 02/21/2007 3:19
PM





More information about the B-Greek mailing list