What Did Thomas Mean in Verse John 20:28 saying "My Lord and My God?" (Epistles, gnostic)

[Daniel O. McClellan]

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Daniel, you just don't know jack.

Obviously. I keep disagreeing with you, so I must be wrong.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Just the fact you don't know anything about aionios in Matthew 25:46 and you and the NRSV bible think it means "eternal" reveals your/their lack of education.

All you're doing is taking a principle you picked up from this translation and asserting it as fact. You don't know if it's true or not. All you know is that a few examples in English fit the principle as explained. You don't know if it's true of Greek at all. You clearly don't understand what the etymological fallacy is, or why it's a fallacy. You don't know lexicography, you don't know etymology, you don't know the principles or the standard behind any of the fields of study that govern the principles you're fighting against. I've explained the problems with your approach and you have flat ignored me, only to nakedly assert that I'm wrong. When you've actually managed to produce an argument, it has been flagrantly fallacious. Why on earth would anyone want to listen to what you have to say when you can't even sustain an intelligent conversation without falling back on naive dogmatism and fallacies?

Originally Posted by Eusebius

You are a pompous person who, when cornered can only say demeaning things.

Just the fact that you don't understand how adjectives work per the examples I gave is revealing.

I pointed out that you were appealing fallaciously to a select number of English examples. English is not Greek. English adjectives do not form and function exactly as Greek adjectives. Greek literature from Plato to Philo repeatedly defines aiwn in unambiguous terms as eternity, or something that does not have a beginning or end in time. Words change their meanings all the time, and to just systematically insist that an etymological root must always govern and restrict the meaning of any word in any language is utter and simple nonsense.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

And yet you want to be the one who corrects the Concordant Version? That's laughable. Go back to grade school and learn how adjectives work first, young man.

Trying to sound condescending now, huh? Why don't you go study up on the etymological fallacy for a bit. Later, if you still have time, you can learn Greek.

[Eusebius]

Originally Posted by Daniel O. McClellan

Obviously. I keep disagreeing with you, so I must be wrong.



All you're doing is taking a principle you picked up from this translation and asserting it as fact. You don't know if it's true or not. All you know is that a few examples in English fit the principle as explained. You don't know if it's true of Greek at all. You clearly don't understand what the etymological fallacy is, or why it's a fallacy. You don't know lexicography, you don't know etymology, you don't know the principles or the standard behind any of the fields of study that govern the principles you're fighting against. I've explained the problems with your approach and you have flat ignored me, only to nakedly assert that I'm wrong. When you've actually managed to produce an argument, it has been flagrantly fallacious. Why on earth would anyone want to listen to what you have to say when you can't even sustain an intelligent conversation without falling back on naive dogmatism and fallacies?

As I read the above I thought you must be talking to yourself.

I pointed out that you were appealing fallaciously to a select number of English examples. English is not Greek. English adjectives do not form and function exactly as Greek adjectives. Greek literature from Plato to Philo repeatedly defines aiwn in unambiguous terms as eternity, or something that does not have a beginning or end in time. Words change their meanings all the time, and to just systematically insist that an etymological root must always govern and restrict the meaning of any word in any language is utter and simple nonsense.

Of course adjectives in Greek follow the same laws of language as they do in English.

Show me one example where, in a PROPERLY translated bible, that the adjective is not related at all to the noun from which it is derived.

Trying to sound condescending now, huh? Why don't you go study up on the etymological fallacy for a bit. Later, if you still have time, you can learn Greek.

I'm sounding condescending just like you young man.

You are supposed to have learned Greek. Yet you fail at the most elemental laws of the language. You think aionios can be translated as "eternal". If I were you, I'd try to get my money back for what you spent for your education.

[Eusebius]

;

Originally Posted by Eusebius
A.E. Knoch, in making His literal translation, along with others who were helping him at the time around the world, was trying to give one English standard with synonyms for each Greek word.

Daniel O. McClellan

And that is just asinine. All words within all language operate within semantic domains, not semantic singularities. Words mean different things depending on context. Etymology is only one secondary aspect of meaning. This is why people could use the word "bad" in the eighties to mean the exact opposite of the etymological meaning of "bad." Between languages, the semantic fields never line up perfectly, so you're going to have a lot of overlap, a lot of ambiguity, and a lot of different translation possibilities. It is simply the very height of ignorance to suggest that one could, or should, institute "standard" synonyms for Greek words, much less the entire lexicon.

Tell me Daniel, if it is so asinine, tell me where Knoch translated a Greek word like we today would use "bad" in different ways.
I'll be waiting.
That is just asinine that you use the NRSV as they don't even know the adjective aionios cannot properly be translated "eternal." I mean, really Dan. For all your pontificating, you are as well as your translators of that version, quite immature. You are acting like a baby that, when it doesn't get its way, pounds on the floor kicking and screaming.

[Daniel O. McClellan]

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Of course adjectives in Greek follow the same laws of language as they do in English.

Oh, my gosh, they absolutely do not. English does not have gender in their adjectives, nor do they repeat articles with adjectives. They don't have cases or adjectival genitives. In English you cannot use adjectives alone as nouns. There is no truth whatsoever to the notion that Greek adjectives develop and are used according to the same "laws of language" as in English. Good grief, do you actually think anyone believes you know what you're talking about?

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Show me one example where, in a PROPERLY translated bible, that the adjective is not related at all to the noun from which it is derived.

You're misrepresenting me. I didn't say they have nothing at all to do with their roots, I said the root doesn't govern and restrict their meaning. Most often there is semantic extension, as in the case with aiwn. Originally it meant "life," or "lifetime," but by extension came to refer to things like "destiny," "eternity," and even "spinal marrow." Just look at the LSJ entry:

αἰών, ῶνος, ὁ, Ion. and Ep. also ἡ, as in Pi.P.4.186, E.Ph.1484: apocop. acc. αἰῶ, like Ποσειδῶ, restored by Ahrens (from AB363) in A.Ch.350: (properly αἰϜών, cf. aevum, v. αἰεί):—period of existence (τὸ τέλος τὸ περιέχον τὸν τῆς ἑκάστου ζωῆς χρόνον . . αἰὼν ἑκάστου κέκληται Arist.Cael.279a25):
I. lifetime, life, ψυχή τε καὶ αἰών Il.16.453; ἐκ δ’ αἰ. πέφαται Il.19.27; μηδέ τοι αἰ. φθινέτω Od.5.160; λείπει τινά Il.5.685; ἀπ’ αἰῶνος νέος ὤλεο (Zenod. νέον) 24.725; τελευτᾶν τὸν αἰῶνα Hdt.1.32, etc.; αἰῶνος στερεῖν τινά A.Pr.862; αἰῶνα διοιχνεῖν Id.Eu.315; συνδιατρίβειν Cratin. 1; αἰ. Αἰακιδᾶν, periphr. for the Aeacidae, S.Aj.645 s.v.l.; ἀπέπνευσεν αἰῶνα E.Fr.801; ἐμὸν κατ’ αἰῶνα A.Th.219.
2. age, generation, αἰ. ἐς τρίτον ib.744; ὁ μέλλων αἰών posterity, D.18.199, cf. Pl.Ax.370c.
3. one's life, destiny, lot, S.Tr.34, E.Andr.1215, Fr.30, etc.
II. long space of time, age, αἰὼν γίγνεται 'tis an age, Men.536.5; esp. with Preps., ἀπ’ αἰῶνος of old, Hes.Th.609, Ev.Luc.1.70; οἱ ἀπὸ τοῦ αἰ. Ῥωμαῖοι D.C. 63.20; δι’ αἰῶνος perpetually, A.Ch.26, Eu.563; all one's life long, S. El.1024; δι’ αἰῶνος μακροῦ, ἀπαύστου, A.Supp.582,574; τὸν δι’ αἰ. χρόνον for ever, Id.Ag.554; εἰς ἅπαντα τὸν αἰ. Lycurg.106, Isoc.10.62; εἰς τὸν αἰ. LXX Ge.3.23, al., D.S.21.17, Ev.Jo.8.35, Ps.-Luc. Philopatr.17; εἰς αἰῶνα αἰῶνος LXX Ps.131(132).14; ἐξ αἰῶνος καὶ ἕως αἰῶνος ib.Je.7.7; ἐπ’ αἰ. ib.Ex.15.18; ἕως αἰῶνος ib.1 Ki.1.22, al.:— without a Prep., τὸν ἅπαντα αἰ. Arist. Cael.279a22; τὸν αἰῶνα Lycurg. 62, Epicur.Ep.1p.8U.; eternity, opp. χρόνος, Pl.Ti.37d, cf. Metrod. Fr.37, Ph.1.496,619, Plot.3.7.5, etc.; τοὺς ὑπὲρ τοῦ αἰῶνος φόβους Epicur.Sent.20.
2. space of time clearly defined and marked out, epoch, age, ὁ αἰὼν οὗτος this present world, opp. ὁ μέλλων, Ev.Matt.13.22, cf. Ep.Rom.12.2; ὁ νῦν αἰ. 1 Ep.Tim.6.17, 2 Ep.Tim.4.10:—hence in pl., the ages, i.e. eternity, Phld.D.3 Fr. 84; εἰς πάντας τοὺς αἰ. LXX To.13.4; εἰς τοὺς αἰ.ib.Si.45.24, al., Ep.Rom.1.25, etc.; εἰς τοὺς αἰ. τῶν αἰώνων LXX 4 Ma.18.24, Ep.Phil.4.20, etc.; ἀπὸ τῶν αἰ., πρὸ τῶν αἰ., Ep.Eph.3.9, 1 Cor.2.7; τὰ τέλη τῶν αἰ. ib.10.11.
3. Αἰών, ὁ, personified, Αἰὼν Χρόνου παῖς E.Heracl.900 (lyr.), cf. Corp.Herm.11, etc.; as title of various divine beings, Dam.Pr.151, al.; esp.Persian Zervan, Suid. s.v. Ἡραΐσκος.
4. Pythag., = 10, Theol.Ar.59.
B. spinal marrow (perh. regarded as seat of life), h.Merc 42, 119, Pi.Fr.111, Hp.Epid.7.122; perh. also Il.19.27.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

I'm sounding condescending just like you young man.

So you're descending to my level, huh? Bravo.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

You are supposed to have learned Greek. Yet you fail at the most elemental laws of the language.

Name one of these laws. Don't summarize some silly axiom your Concordant Literal Translation asserts, give me a "law of language" that is agreed upon by the academy at large and that I've neglected. Just one.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

You think aionios can be translated as "eternal". If I were you, I'd try to get my money back for what you spent for your education.

Zing! Now you've convinced me I'm wrong. The repeated displays of abject ignorance of the Greek language and linguistic basics in general were one thing, but once you told me to get my money back, you completely crippled my argument. I'll give Oxford and the rest of the universities I studied Greek a call.

[Daniel O. McClellan]

Originally Posted by Eusebius

;


Tell me Daniel, if it is so asinine, tell me where Knoch translated a Greek word like we today would use "bad" in different ways.

This isn't even a complete sentence, and I have no idea what you're trying to say. Koch misunderstands and misuses the Greek and the English throughout, so I can't really point to anywhere where he's been insightful enough to pick up on semantic extensions like the contemporary use of "bad," if that's what you mean.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

I'll be waiting.

That is just asinine that you use the NRSV as they don't even know the adjective aionios cannot properly be translated "eternal."

Good grief. You're flagrantly begging the question.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

I mean, really Dan. For all your pontificating, you are as well as your translators of that version, quite immature. You are acting like a baby that, when it doesn't get its way, pounds on the floor kicking and screaming.

At least I can provide an argument for my case. All you're doing is just making up ludicrous ideas about language and translation and just appealing to the force of your own assertions as evidence. That's another fallacy they call argument by assertion. It's the rhetorical equivalent of "Nu-uh!" and it's one of the most common methods used around here to respond to informed and rational discussion.

[Eusebius]

Originally Posted by Eusebius
;


Tell me Daniel, if it is so asinine, tell me where Knoch translated a Greek word like we today would use "bad" in different ways.

Daniel replied: This isn't even a complete sentence, and I have no idea what you're trying to say. Koch misunderstands and misuses the Greek and the English throughout, so I can't really point to anywhere where he's been insightful enough to pick up on semantic extensions like the contemporary use of "bad," if that's what you mean.

Daniel, I'm beginning to worry about you. You've been higher educated, as you say, yet you can't see a complete sentence? I believe you are bringing up a subterfuge (you bring up incomplete sentence and apparent ignorance as to my request) so as not to have to answer my request.

As to your further statement: In other words, you are going to slam the Concordant Version and its compiler but cannot back up your statement that Knoch didn't translate the Greek the way you would because today we use "bad" in different ways and so did the Greeks (even though you only stated they did without proving thus) but Knoch failed to do this since he gave each Greek word ONE ENGLISH standard with synonyms. Get real Daniel. Either prove Knoch didn't translated the way you would have in making Greek words have antonyms in his translation.
So according to you, maybe Knoch should have translated a specific Greek word as one way and the other way to translated the same Greek word he would have had to translated it to mean the opposite of elsewhere the same Greek word was used in the Bible. So show us Daniel where Knoch is guilty of this. Prove your point or fail . . . again.

[Daniel O. McClellan]

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Daniel, I'm beginning to worry about you. You've been higher educated, as you say, yet you can't see a complete sentence?

It wasn't a complete sentence. Observe:

tell me [imperative verb] where [relative pronoun] Knoch [subject of subordinate clause] translated [verb of subordinate clause] a Greek word [direct object of subordinate clause] like [preposition introducing comparative clause] we [subject of comparative clause] today would use [verb of comparative clause] "bad" [direct object of comparative clause] in different ways [adverb of comparative clause].

Originally Posted by Eusebius

I believe you are bringing up a subterfuge (you bring up incomplete sentence and apparent ignorance as to my request) so as not to have to answer my request.

Your request makes no sense. Do you want me to show where Knoch correctly renders Greek words that have different meanings, where he incorrectly Greek renders words that have different meanings, where he renders English words that have different meanings? You went off on a bunch of subordinate clauses and forgot to have them make sense.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

As to your further statement: In other words, you are going to slam the Concordant Version and its compiler but cannot back up your statement that Knoch didn't translate the Greek the way you would because today we use "bad" in different ways and so did the Greeks (even though you only stated they did without proving thus) but Knoch failed to do this since he gave each Greek word ONE ENGLISH standard with synonyms. Get real Daniel.

So you mean you want me to show you examples where Knoch incorrectly rendered a Greek word that is supposed to mean the opposite of what its etymology would suggest? Here you ignore the fact that I was using an extreme example from contemporary English to show that semantic meaning can depart significantly from etymological meaning. This is more common in colloquial English today than it was in Koine Greek of the first century CE. To insist that I am wrong if I cannot come up with a Greek word that developed a meaning exactly opposite of its etymological origin is just a ridiculous misrepresentation of my case and a cowardly evasion of a very simple and undeniable semantic fact.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

Either prove Knoch didn't translated the way you would have in making Greek words have antonyms in his translation.

You know very well that was not my contention. This is a ridiculous strawman.

Originally Posted by Eusebius

So according to you, maybe Knoch should have translated a specific Greek word as one way and the other way to translated the same Greek word he would have had to translated it to mean the opposite of elsewhere the same Greek word was used in the Bible. So show us Daniel where Knoch is guilty of this. Prove your point or fail . . . again.

You know this wasn't my point. It was a modern and extreme example to illustrate semantic extension. I've made myself perfectly clear, and you know that very well. This strawman is a joke.

[Richard1965]

Originally Posted by Daniel O. McClellan

Obviously. I keep disagreeing with you, so I must be wrong.



All you're doing is taking a principle you picked up from this translation and asserting it as fact. You don't know if it's true or not. All you know is that a few examples in English fit the principle as explained. You don't know if it's true of Greek at all. You clearly don't understand what the etymological fallacy is, or why it's a fallacy. You don't know lexicography, you don't know etymology, you don't know the principles or the standard behind any of the fields of study that govern the principles you're fighting against. I've explained the problems with your approach and you have flat ignored me, only to nakedly assert that I'm wrong. When you've actually managed to produce an argument, it has been flagrantly fallacious. Why on earth would anyone want to listen to what you have to say when you can't even sustain an intelligent conversation without falling back on naive dogmatism and fallacies?



I pointed out that you were appealing fallaciously to a select number of English examples. English is not Greek. English adjectives do not form and function exactly as Greek adjectives. Greek literature from Plato to Philo repeatedly defines aiwn in unambiguous terms as eternity, or something that does not have a beginning or end in time. Words change their meanings all the time, and to just systematically insist that an etymological root must always govern and restrict the meaning of any word in any language is utter and simple nonsense.



Trying to sound condescending now, huh? Why don't you go study up on the etymological fallacy for a bit. Later, if you still have time, you can learn Greek.

Daniel, have you ever studied the Irish language?...

[Richard1965]

Originally Posted by Daniel O. McClellan

Oh, my gosh, they absolutely do not. English does not have gender in their adjectives, nor do they repeat articles with adjectives. They don't have cases or adjectival genitives. In English you cannot use adjectives alone as nouns. There is no truth whatsoever to the notion that Greek adjectives develop and are used according to the same "laws of language" as in English. Good grief, do you actually think anyone believes you know what you're talking about?

At one time English did have all those...

Originally Posted by Daniel O. McClellan

You're misrepresenting me. I didn't say they have nothing at all to do with their roots, I said the root doesn't govern and restrict their meaning. Most often there is semantic extension, as in the case with aiwn. Originally it meant "life," or "lifetime," but by extension came to refer to things like "destiny," "eternity," and even "spinal marrow." Just look at the LSJ entry:

If the Greek is anything like the Hebrew, it's words would be formed by function tather than abstact ideas...

Originally Posted by Daniel O. McClellan

Zing! Now you've convinced me I'm wrong. The repeated displays of abject ignorance of the Greek language and linguistic basics in general were one thing, but once you told me to get my money back, you completely crippled my argument. I'll give Oxford and the rest of the universities I studied Greek a call.

Degenerating into this is not very mature, if you ask me....

[Eusebius]

Daniel O. McClellan's favorite translation is the NRSV.

They translated aionios as "eternal" not once but twice in Matthew 25:46.

I wonder why they think God is going to eternally torture people just for withholding a cup of water from one of His saints? Are those translators that morbid that they think God does that?

Also, it reveals a complete show of ignorance on the part of the """scholarly""" (ahem) translators who translated the adjective aionios as "eternal." Aionios should never ever be translated as eternal in any Bible. If it is, please let Daniel bring forth the scripture where it MUST be translated eternal.

For the adjective "aionios" to be "pertaining to eternity" it's nounal form "aion" would have to have the meaning of "eternal." Never once in the Bible is aion ever to be translated eternal. No, not even once. But Daniel, with all his education (smile) along with the "educated fools" who made up the NRSV can't even understand this grade school principle.

Besides, if it ever should be translated as "eternal" (which it shouldn't) this would contradict too many scriptures in the Bible. It appears Daniel and the translators of the NRSV don't care anything about that.

F.W. Farrar on “Aeonian”

“Of all the arguments on this question, the one which appears to me the most absolutely and hopelessly futile, is the one in which so many seem to rest with entire content; viz. that "eternal or aeonian life" must mean endless life, and therefore that “aeonian chastisement” must mean “endless chastisement.” This battered and aged argument, . . . if it had possessed a particle of cogency, would not have been set aside as entirely valueless by such minds as those of Origen and the two Gregories in ancient days, nor by multitudes in the days of St. Augustine and St. Jerome, nor by the most brilliant thinker among the schoolmen, nor by many of our greatest living divines . . . . No proposition is capable of more simple proof than that aeonian is not a synonym of endless. It only means, or can mean, in its primary sense, pertaining to an aeon, and therefore “indefinite,” since an aeon may be either long or short; and in its secondary sense “spiritual,” “pertaining to the unseen world,” “an attribute of that which is above and beyond time,” an attribute expressive not of duration but of quality. Can such an explanation of the word be denied by any competent or thoughtful reader of John 5:39; 6:54; 17:3; 1 John 5:13,20? Would not the introduction of the word “endless” into those Divine utterances be an unspeakable degradation of their meaning? And as for the argument that the redeemed would thus lose their promised bliss, it is at once so unscriptural and so selfish that, after what Mr. Cox and others have said of it, one may hope that no one will ever be able to use it again without a blush. I cannot here diverge into a discussion with Bishop Wordsworth and Canon Ryle, whose sermons need some adversaria rather longer than I can here devote to them; but as they both dwell on the fact that people who spoke Greek interpreted aionios to mean endless, I reply that some of the greatest masters of Greek, both in classical times and among the Fathers, saw quite clearly that, though the word might connote endlessness by being attributively added to endless things, it had in itself no such meaning. I cannot conceive how any candid mind can deny the force of these considerations. If even Origenists would freely speak of future punishment as aionios but never as ateleutetos [without end] –– if, as even these papers have shown, Plato uses the word as the antithesis of endlessness –– if St. Gregory of Nyssa uses it as the epithet of “an interval”–– if, as though to leave this Augustinian argument without the faintest shadow of a foundation, there are absolutely two passages of Scripture (Hab.3:6 and Rom.16:25,26) where the very word occurs in two consecutive clauses, and is, in the second of the two clauses, applied to God, and yet is, in the first of the two clauses, applied to things which are temporary or terminated –– what shall be said of disputants who still enlist the controversial services of a phantom which has been so often laid in the tomb from which it ought never again to emerge? How is it that not one out of the scores of writers who have animadverted on my book have so much as noticed the very remarkable fact to which I have called attention, that those who followed Origen in holding out a possible hope beyond the grave founded their argument for the terminability of torments on the acknowledged sense of this very word, and on the fact that other words and phrases which do unmistakably mean endless are used of the duration of good, but are never used of the duration of evil?”
The Wider Hope (1890), pages 327-330.