Does "aionios" mean "eternal"?

commonsense
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Re: Does "aionios" mean "eternal"?

Post by commonsense » Tue May 18, 2021 7:14 pm

Homer wrote:
Sat May 15, 2021 2:43 pm
New American Standard Bible
27 And the slaves of the landowner came and said to him, ‘Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?’ 28 And he said to them, ‘An enemy has done this!’ The slaves *said to him, ‘Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?’ 29 But he *said, ‘No; while you are gathering up the weeds, you may uproot the wheat with them. 30 Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and at the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, “First gather up the weeds and bind them in bundles to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn.”’”
Homer, this is referring to the destruction of Israel, a reaping of what they had sown.
Homer wrote:
Tue May 18, 2021 1:05 pm

26 but now has been disclosed, and through the Scriptures of the prophets, in accordance with the commandment of the eternal (aioniou) God, has been made known to all the nations, leading to obedience of faith;
"When your judgments are in the earth, people learn righteousness."

And when people pass by and see the smoke of its burning, they will ask why. And it will be said because they have transgressed the covenant of God.

Romans 9: 29 "And as Isaiah said before: " Unless the Lord had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and Gomorrah."

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Paidion
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Re: Does "aionios" mean "eternal"?

Post by Paidion » Tue May 18, 2021 9:07 pm

Because "aionios" means "lasting", it can apply either to that which lasts a long time, or that which is eternal.
Paidion

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Homer
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Re: Does "aionios" mean "eternal"?

Post by Homer » Wed May 19, 2021 1:05 pm

Paidion,

I think you would find the article regarding aion/aionios in Kittle's Theological Dictionary to be very interesting. It begins in volume 1, page 197-209. The discussion shows that Plato used it to mean eternal and at one time it was used for "enduring" which sounds similar to your "lasting".

It is my opinion that root word study is of very limited use; what is decisive is what the context and writer meant when the word was used. I just read a universalist discussing this who wrote that aionios could mean "peanut butter sandwich" if that was the customary meaning at the time the word was used.

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