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You are correct. What Aristotle [384-322 BC] said in Peri Ouranou 1, 9 (ed. Bekker, 1, 279) "the completeness which embraces all time and infinitude is aion, having received this name from existing for ever (apo tou aei einai), immortal (athanatos, undying), and divine."The following url review says "Aristotle never uses the word aiônios." You say (above) that he did.
https://biblicalscholarship.wordpress.com/2016/02/20/summary-terms-for-eternity-aionios-and-aidios-in-classical-and-christian-texts/
You seem to forget that the first known use of aionios is in Plato's writing and he used it synonymous with aidios. Since aionios is first found in Plato, some scholars think he coined the word from aion. Moses did not speak or write in Greek. If you want to believe that writers years after Plato were right and Plato was wrong you will have to prove it. When we read the word "square" in a 1st century document should we assume that it means "a person who is dull, rigidly conventional, and out of touch with current trends" or should we assume that it means something that has four equal sides?You include 2 Greek philosophers & a single quote from Philo & call that more than occasional? How many writers from Moses to Thomas Aquinas do you suppose used the words aion & aionion?
I provide evidence you make unsupported claims.Der Alter claimed: That later writers used it to mean a limited period of time is irrelevant.
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After your two Greek philosophers, the LXX, the NT Scriptures and other writings show aion used of limited time periods. Likewise writers more ancient than your two Greek philosophers give examples of aion used of limited time periods. Its first meaning, long before your two Greek philosophers (Plato & Aristotle), was "life" or lifespan.
No, we have not seen that. What does this writer say about Philo?"We have seen that lexicons agree in giving "life" as the first meaning of aion: the life of a human."
[Life Time Entirety. A Study Of Aion In Greek Literature And Philosophy, The Septuagint And Philo, p.16]
And your point is?As to one of your two pagan Greek philosophers, Aristotle, your own quote of him (at post 544) says:
"But the force of aion for both is a settled point; and Aristotle's explanation of aion as used for finite things, I have long held to be the true one; that is, the completeness of a thing's existence, so that according to its natural existence there is nothing outside or beyond it. It periechei the whole being of the thing."
And your point is?As for Plato:
"Plato uses both aiônios and aïdios in the sense of “eternal”. He uses the term aion in the following senses: “long time”, “our times”, “life”, and “eternity”. He uses aiônios in the following senses: “eternal”, “continuous”, and “what is beyond time”/”timeless”. Later Platonists also used the terms in the senses that Plato did."
Evidently the meaning of aionion did not change see e.g.Der Alter claimed: That later writers used it to mean a limited period of time is irrelevant. Some examples from our time. The word “gay” originally meant “happy,joyous” in our time it came to mean “homosexual.” The word “cool” originally meant “a temperature closer to cold than warm.” In later times it was used to mean “someone who fits in or is acceptable with a certain group.”
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Words often change meaning over time. So? Who would be more likely to give the more accurate New Testament meaning of the words aion and aionion written in Koine Greek, your pagan Greek philosopher, Plato, who used the Classical Greek language hundreds of years before the written koine Greek NT, or those Spirit filled Christians such as Origen who were scholars of Biblical Koine Greek and were hundreds of years closer to the time of the complete written NT?
Revelation 1:6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. [εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας] Amen.
Just as the meaning of cool, gay and square did not change although the words were used in a different way.The evidence proves it amigo. This is the meaning from 423-347 BC, “in eternity [aioni] nothing is passed, nothing is about to be, but only subsists.” Origen wrote 184–254, about 500 years later and the word was still being used to refer to unending, everlasting etc. Origen said "the body which rises again of those who are to be destined to everlasting fire or to severe punishments, is by the very change of the resurrection so incorruptible, that it cannot be corrupted and dissolved even by severe punishments." see my [post #99] in the Lake of Fire thread.Der Alter says: The earliest known use of aionion, ca. 423–347 BC it meant “in eternity [aioni] nothing is passed, nothing is about to be, but only subsists.” Plato did not change the meaning, Origen and other later writers did.
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Just saying it doesn't "make it so", Captain.
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