Saturday, May 23, 2009
Eternal life?
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Ilkka Rauhala posted this video to his facebook status. It nicely states some of the communication issues in presenting "the gospel" to a Buddhist.
I can't help wondering if (even for Western cultures and languages) "eternal life" is the best translation of ζωή αἰώνιος? Might αἰώνιος not suggest more life of the age that's coming, so be suggesting something like the dreams of a new age in texts like Rev 21:1ff. or Is 11:1ff.; 61:1ff.? Can any of you Greek/NT scholars help clarify this for me?
I am an INFP so I work most easily with intuitions, and my intuition is that ζωή αἰώνιος sounds like "life of the age to come" especially if I back translate to something like עוֹלָם...
I can't help wondering if (even for Western cultures and languages) "eternal life" is the best translation of ζωή αἰώνιος? Might αἰώνιος not suggest more life of the age that's coming, so be suggesting something like the dreams of a new age in texts like Rev 21:1ff. or Is 11:1ff.; 61:1ff.? Can any of you Greek/NT scholars help clarify this for me?
I am an INFP so I work most easily with intuitions, and my intuition is that ζωή αἰώνιος sounds like "life of the age to come" especially if I back translate to something like עוֹלָם...
Labels: bible, greek, hebrew, mission
¶ 8:42 AM
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No comments - sorry about that Tim. The reality is breaking in on us sometimes in spite of liturgical practice - sometime because of it. I like your jumping of the Hebrew-Greek divide. I am planning a new blog on Matthew as a Hebrew book as my reintroduction to the NT. I think I will look at several Hebrew NT translations and see what comes of the parallelisms on retranslation.
But serious work will begin when I have to take all my books on Job back to the library:) and I hope to find a good commentary on Matthew from his Jewish point of view.
