2.1. For ever and ever
2 - For ever and ever For ever and ever
Many English-speaking peoples have heard and used the English expression "forever and ever." This phrase has become an "idiomatic" expression to most English-speaking people meaning "eternity, perpetuity or everlasting." This is an English rendering of actually several DIFFERENT phrases found in the Greek New Testament.
Many seminary students have been taught that the expression "forever and ever" is an idiomatic expression meaning "everlasting." Those of the Fundamentalist persuasion, who believe the Bible should be translated literally say that this term is translated into the English literally, that is, it is NOT an idiomatic expression, but a word-for-word literal rendering. Both are wrong. The ancient Greeks would probably render this translation "idiotic," NOT idiomatic! You see, the Greek construct of this term would make it extremely difficult for a first century Greek to see how we moderns even came close to concocting terms like "forever and ever" from the Greek word "aion" and its adjective "aionios" and their derivatives. Let me explain. The English idiom "It’s raining cats and dogs" only makes sense to us because we have been taught to associate the meaning, "It’s raining heavily" with those words. Should a Chinese person just beginning to learn English read "it’s raining cats and dogs," their natural instinct would first be to take the phrase literally. There is no way they could determine the "idiomatic" meaning of that phrase unless someone explained to them they were reading an idiom and then gave them its meaning. An idiom is an expression peculiar to a particular people or language, the meaning of which is not apparent to those outside that group. Most languages have them. American English is filled with them. "I’m hip," "that’s cool," "far out, man," "I dig you," are some examples. (I say "American" English because many idioms of the United States are not idioms of other English-speaking countries).
Many Bible translations contain the words "forever AND ever." It sounds nice because we have heard and read this expression thousands of times. Once a tradition is set into the language or customs of a particular people, it is difficult to remove. However, just because a tradition has been around a long time and has been assimilated by a large group does NOT make it true. There are more traditions in this world based upon pure falsehood and superstition than one can imagine. Santa, the Christmas tree, and the Easter Bunny are examples of how pagan myths and superstitions have entered christendom. Many of our Bible translations contain material as far off from spiritual truth as is the Easter Bunny. The phrase "forever and ever" is one of them. The phrase "forever and ever" is a traditional phrase which has been around in English-speaking nations for several hundred years. It has been accepted as a true rendering of the Greek New Testament for a long time by millions of people. Nevertheless, this "tradition of the elders" is false. Furthermore, it is a tradition that has caused great havoc and produced many contradictions in our English Bibles. Even more significantly, it is a tradition that besmears the character of the God of Christianity to such an extent that the original writers of the Bible would not recognize this God as the one they were inspired to write by in the first place! For example:
Revelation 20:10 is one of several places where we find the English phrase "forever AND ever." In the original it is written: eis tous aionas ton aionon Literal translation:
Unto (or into) the eons of the eons.
King James Version: for ever and ever.
Zondervan Parallel NT in Greek and English: unto the ages of the ages.
Young’s Literal Translation: to the ages of the ages.
Concordant Literal New Testament: for the eons of the eons. The part we want to focus on in the Greek is the "aionas ton aionon" part. As we can see, the literal translations and the Greek clearly focus on "ages of the ages," or "eons of the eons," rather than "for ever and ever" which actually makes no sense at all the way the Greek is constructed here.
Both "aionas" and "aionon" are in the plural in the Greek. There is no plural of "ever" in English. And if "ever" means eternity, what is the purpose of adding another "ever"? How does "eternity and eternity" sound? Sounds pretty stupid, doesn’t it? Well, that’s how stupid our "for ever and ever" would sound to an early Christian. However, "ages of the ages" made perfect sense to them then and it makes perfect sense to us in modern English. Our English word "eon" comes directly from the Greek word "aion." Our "eon" DOES have a plural form just like the Greek word "aion." So then, our English word "age" AND our English word "eon" work perfectly in correctly translating this Greek phrase. Why don’t ALL of our English translations use these words instead of "for ever and ever" which makes so sense at all? Tradition! As mentioned before, "aionas" and "aionon" are both PLURAL forms of "aion." Ever is singular. This should throw up a red flag. Furthermore, the Greek word "ton" between the two plural forms of "aion" means "of" or "belonging to" or "what comes out of" the aionon. It NEVER means "and" in the Greek. Why did some of our leading selling Bible translations violently break translation rules in this phrase and translate "ton" -- and? Again...plain old tradition. As we can see from the above examples, bringing the plural forms of "aion" into a plural form of age or eon works perfectly in the English. And translating "ton" into "of the" also works perfectly. There are many English translations which are done exactly like that either directly in the text itself or in the margins or footnotes. So why do SOME leading selling English translations still violate the original Greek and Hebrew text by grossly twisting this Greek phrase into the nonsensical "for ever and ever"? I’ll explain the REAL reason at the end of this article.
Given the fact that both "aionas" and "aionon" were in their plural form, if the King James Bible and its cousins wanted to translate the Greek word "aion" as "ever," AND stay true to the Greek forms of speech, they should have come up with the following rendering: "for the evers and evers." As we can plainly see, this is getting pretty messy. Neither "for evers AND evers" nor "for evers of the evers" makes any sense in English at all. But "for the ages of the ages" or "for the eons of the eons" makes perfect sense both in the Greek and in the English.
There are MANY English Bibles who have broken the "tradition of the elders" in this regard in order to bring forth the true meaning of the Greek. Many more will do so in the years to come. They have translated this Greek phrase "aionas ton aionon":
"for the eons of the eons" -- Concordant Literal New Testament.
"for the ages of the ages" -- Young’s Literal, and others.
"for the aeons of the aeons" -- The New Covenant by Dr. J.W. Hanson.
"unto the ages of the ages" -- Rotherham’s Emphasized, and others.
"through the ages of the ages" -- The Holy Bible in Modern English.
What is really more amazing is that the double construct phrase of the Greek word "aion" appears in two other forms in the Bible. In one form both aions appear in the singular and in the other form, one aion is singular and the other is plural. In order for the "traditional" folks to be honest in their translating and still maintain that "aion" means "ever," they would have to give us English that reads like this:
"Ever and ever," and "ever and everS," and "everS and everS." As a rational person can begin to see, our English "forever and ever," has NO resemblance to the original Greek form. The Greeks would NOT be able to understand at all how we came to such a meaning so remote from the original Greek. They would NOT consider these Greek constructions "idiomatic" expressions at all, NOR literal translations. They would consider it all theological bunk (which is what it all really is). The Greeks had no problem with plural forms of the word "aion," because it meant to them what our modern word "eon" means to us. Eons are periods of time, NOT eternity. Eon, eons, eon of the eon, eon of the eons, eons of the eons, made perfect sense to the Greeks of the first century A.D. AND they make sense in modern English. We have many translations which have translated these Greek phrases this way or similar ways, as I pointed out previously. When we allow "aion" and its derivatives to be an indeterminate period of TIME (which is what it really means), rather than "eternity," reason returns to us instead of senseless meanings which only wreak havoc by destroying the true image of the God of the Bible. When it is determined that "aion" means and has always meant "an indeterminate period of time," sometimes long enough to be called an "age," sometimes as short as the three days and nights Jonah spent in the fish (Jonah 2:6), then we can easily see a number of ages in succession. Then phrases like the "age of the ages" becomes a particular age out of several ages. This is exactly what the Greeks had in mind.
Below are some examples where the Greek double construct of aion shows three completely separate renderings which the King James and its kissing cousin Bibles hide from our hungry eyes. The Greek language is a very precise language. If it uses three different constructions of the double use of "aion," there is a very good reason for it. To arbitrarily translate all of them exactly the same way "forever and ever" as the KJV, NIV, NASB, NRSB, Amplified, Living, etc. have done, is NOT translating, it’s butchering the Greek through dark age traditions.
Singular/plural (aionos ton aionon): Ephesians 3:21.
Singular/singular (aiona tou aionos): Hebrews 1:8.
Plural/plural (aionas ton aionon): Revelation 20:10; 1 Peter 4:11.
The word "aion" in ALL its forms refers to "ages" which have ends AND beginnings. There are at least 5 ages (perhaps more) mentioned in the Greek New Testament. There is only ONE eternity, not multiples.
If there were "aions" in the past, then it means they each must have ended for they are now past! The New Testament writers spoke of "the present wicked aion" which ended during that very generation. Obviously, it was followed by another "aion" -- the "aion" in which we presently live. If there are "aions" to come, it must mean that this one we live in will also end.
There is a verse which says "the consummation of the aions" showing that each "aion" ends. So how can they be eternal?
There is "the coming eon" (Matthew 12:32; Luke 18:30).
There is "the present wicked eon" (Galatians 1:4).
There is "the oncoming eons" (plural and future) (Ephesians 2:7).
There is "the conclusion of the eon" (present) (Matthew 13:39-40).
There is "the secret concealed from the eons" (past) (Ephesians 3:9).
The Greek and Hebrew languages have several expressions which are constructed similarly to the double construct of the word "aion" as in "aionas ton aionon." We frequently find expressions like "King of kings," "Lord of Lords," and "Holy of Holies." But "for everS AND everS" makes no real sense to anyone in any language except to the traditionalist who refuses to let go of their tradition because it would cost them more than they are willing to let go of.