Christian Universalism. What's not to like?

Hmm said:

Fair enough but "original" theories someone comes up with themselves tend to be a bit wayward because they do not get the reality check of peer reviews.

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Peer review is really only useful in empirical analysis. There's not much to check in what I've stated, as it is simply a way that what DBH claims is in his research of etymology may be useful.

Hmm said:

This is just another ad hom.

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Not at all, it's an assessment of the academy and academic degrees in general. They are more likely to indicate the person had the wealth to spend years in school than actually demonstrative of intellectual achievement. And if DA's post really is the credentials, you have way oversold that anyway. Let's face it, the only reason you care about what DBH has to say is because the letters after his name give your pet theology the appearance of credibility. Your whole presentation of him, and making him being a "scholar" the center of your argument, is an ad hom.

Hmm said:

Peer reviews are just as useful in theology. Anyone can make errors and an evaluation, even if informal, by other scholars who are knowledgeable about the topic give confidence that any errors, whether trivial or substantive, have been identified and corrected.

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The extent of the usefulness would be checking the citations are accurate, which don't really speak to argumentation. Peer review only really serves a purpose when there is something objective to check.

Hmm said:

I'm not sure what this is trying to say.

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My theory doesn't involve any original research, it's simply a way to synthesize a general fact(the judgment oracles are against the "house of Israel" not against individuals) with DBH's etymology to understand why the translators of the LXX may have found it a useful word. As such there's nothing to check, since all I've done is made use of DBH's claim.

Hmm said:

How so?

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Because what seems to matter to you is the man himself. It's all about how supposedly impressive this guy is, though(as an aside) from what I can gather his main claim to fame is that he's a cheeky polemicist.

Light of the East said:

More confusion. The furnace of fire is the fire of God's redeeming love. If you go to the Greek, you will find that it is a smelting furnace. What is a smelting furnace? It is a furnace which is used to purify, not to destroy. This is the problem with A.) not reading the Greek nor understanding it, and B.) reading into the text 1500 years of Western corruptions of the text. Let's look at Matthew 13:50
Matthew 13:49 so shall it be in the full end of the age, the messengers shall come forth and separate the evil out of the midst of the righteous, Matthew 13:50 and shall cast them to the furnace of the fire, there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of the teeth.'
First problem - bad translation. In the KJV and other Western translations, verse 49 reads "end of the world," which is a horrendously bad translation of the word "aion," which always means "age." So we see that Jesus is warning about the end of the age, not of the end of the world.
When did this happen? According to Matthew 24, it happened at the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70. The warning is about the end of the Jewish Age (the Old Covenant) and the fate of those who would enter into the coming Age (the New Covenant) as unrepentant sinners. They would be cast into the Lake of Fire, that fire being the love of God, and tormented until the full measure of their punishment was met (Matthew 18:35). The furnace of fire is the purifying fire of God's love, experienced as torment by the wicked and as joy by the righteous. It lasts only as long as required to meet the justice of God and produce repentance. For some, this will take a loooooooooooooong time. For others - relatively short.
Brimstone was used in healing in the ancient times. Part of the healing fire of God.

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Just saw this today.
If this post is true perhaps someone can explain to me why olam/ad are translated; for ever 335 times, everlasting 67 times and eternal 2 times in the 1917 Jewish Publication Society translation of the Tanakh/Old testament?
How about aionios in the NT?
…..Some people claim that “aion/aionios” never means eternity/eternal because they sometimes refer to things which are not eternal.
However, neither word is ever defined/described, by other adjectives or descriptive phrases, as meaning a period of time less than eternal, in the New Testament, as in the following verses.
…..Jesus used “aionios” twenty eight [28] times. He never used “aionios” to refer to anything ordinary or mundane that was not or could not be eternal.
…..In the following ten verses Jesus defines “aionios” as “eternal.” Lk 1:33, John 6:58, 10:28, 3:15, 3:16, 5:29, 3:36, 4:14, 6:27, 8:51
In this verse the reign/basileusei, which is the verb form of the word, is "aionas" and of the kingdom/basileias, the noun form of the same word, "there shall be no end.” “Aionas” by definition here means eternal.
In this verse Jesus juxtaposes “aionios life” with “death.” If “live aionios” is only a finite period, a finite period is not opposite “death.” Thus “aionios” by definition here means “eternal.”
In this verse Jesus parallels “aionios” and “aion” with “[not] snatch them out of my hand”, “never perish.” If “aion/aionios” means “age(s), a finite period,” that is not the opposite of “[not] snatch them out of my hand’/never perish” “Aionios life” by definition here means “eternal life.”
In these two verses Jesus parallels “aionion” with “should not perish,”, twice. Believers could eventually perish in a finite period, thus by definition “aionion life” here means eternal or everlasting life.
In this verse Jesus parallels “aionios” with “shall not come into condemnation” and “passed from death unto life.” “Aionios” does not mean “a finite period,” by definition here it means “eternal,” unless Jesus lets His followers come into condemnation and pass into death.
In this verse Jesus juxtaposed aionios life with “shall not see life.” If aionios means an indefinite age that is not opposite “shall not see life” By definition aionios means eternal.
In this verse Jesus paralleled aionios with “shall [ου μη/ou mé][fn] never thirst.” If aionios means an indefinite age that is not opposite “shall never thirst.” By definition aionios means eternal. See footnote [fn] on “ou mé” below.
In this verse Jesus contrasted “aionios meat” with “meat that perishes” If aionios means an indefinite age that is not opposite “meat that perishes.” By definition aionios means eternal.
In this verse Jesus juxtaposes “unto aion” with “never see death.” By definition “aion” means eternity.
There are 16 more verses where other writers define/describe aionios/aion, if you care to review them.

Fervent said:

Source matters, sure. But there's a reason that Louw&Nida's lexicon is included by both Logos and Accordance and is used as a broad base lexical resource. Opening with an ad hom like that to try to poison the well is obvious chicanery.

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I see chicanery coming from you as well.

Anyways, I'm certainly not discounting Louw and Nida altogether. However, when it comes to this particular area, both their indoctrination and whom they needed to maintain their reputation with, is something worth taking into consideration. Just as you take those factors into consideration when referring to material produced by the "UR crowd".

Fervent said:

The septuagint is useful for a number of reasons, as often it reveals manuscript differences as well as bringing out details that have been lost to antiquity. There's also the fact that the LXX is more of a dynamic translation rather than a linear one which further brings out contextual details. It's also apparent that the LXX was a principal resource for Matthew since many of his scriptural references reflect it rather than a more linear Hebrew, for example the quotation of Isaiah 7:14 is clearly relying on the LXX not whatever Hebrew lineage the masoretes used.

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I have to scratch my head initially over the the idea that a Galilean Jew who emphasized Jewish tradition, would have had the LXX as his principal source of learning. Luke certainly. But Matthew?

Fervent said:

It doesn't rest on that at all, it's simply that the UR crowd has made vociferous attempts to undermine it because it is perhaps the most explicit and undermines any contention that the character of Jesus is contrary to hell since "eternal punishment" came from his lips. Narrative context, direct context, and linguistic data all agree that "eternal punishment" is not only the best read but also likely half of the entire point of the 3-parable package.

Given the contortions and rationalizations you give to rescue UR, though, it's quite clear what the text actually says isn't all that interesting to you so much as what you can make it say.

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The problems seen in the 3-parable package that's being used as irrefutable proof of ECT exist nonetheless. And it seems to me that you are going to greater extremes to prove they don't.

MMXX said:

I see chicanery coming from you as well.

Anyways, I'm certainly not discounting Louw and Nida altogether. However, when it comes to this particular area, both their indoctrination and whom they needed to maintain their reputation with, is something worth taking into consideration. Just as you take those factors into consideration when referring to material produced by the "UR crowd".

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When I speak of the "UR crowd," I do not do so prejudicially but illustratively. To call their education "indoctrination" alone is nothing more than undue assassination. There is no value to what you've said except an ad hoc attempt to equivocate. When I speak of the motivated reasoning, it is not simply based on the fact that the individuals support UR but that their arguments are clearly being driven by an attempt to argue in favor of the doctrine rather than a passive attempt to sus out what is present within the text.

MMXX said:

I have to scratch my head initially over the the idea that a Galilean Jew who emphasized Jewish tradition, would have had the LXX as his principal source of learning. Luke certainly. But Matthew?

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It's quite a mystery, but the linguistic data is what it is. When Matthew quotes an OT scripture that is identifiably from a Hebrew source or the LXX, it's almost invariably the LXX(See Beale and Carson's NT use of the OT). Most likely it's due to his intended audience rather than his own background though it was not uncommon for individuals to be educated primarily in reading/writing in Greek even in historically Jewish areas and Matthew's job as a tax collector increases those odds. So it's mostly surprising from limited knowledge of the historical period.

MMXX said:

The problems seen in the 3-parable package that's being used as irrefutable proof that ECT exist nonetheless. And it seems to me that you are going to greater extremes to prove they don't.

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First, I never claimed these passages irrefutably prove anything. Simply that the reading that makes th most sense of the text itself in Matthew 25 is ECT. I don't personally subscribe to ECT, tending towards inclusive annhilationist thinking instead. But what's important to me is we wrestle with the text as written and it is only through sophistry that the weight of the evidence for this passage indicates anything but ECT.

Fervent said:

When I speak of the "UR crowd," I do not do so prejudicially but illustratively. To call their education "indoctrination" alone is nothing more than undue assassination. There is no value to what you've said except an ad hoc attempt to equivocate. When I speak of the motivated reasoning, it is not simply based on the fact that the individuals support UR but that their arguments are clearly being driven by an attempt to argue in favor of the doctrine rather than a passive attempt to sus out what is present within the text.

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You know, I almost wish I was as strategically minded as you're constantly accusing me of. When I said indoctrinated, I just meant initial core beliefs that someone is taught. Some people are raised Southern Baptist or are introduced into Christianity through an SB church (or whatever) and adhere to it for the rest of their life. While others go outside of their foundational teaching. Needless to say, when someone adheres to what they were initially taught, then by default they're going to reject whatever is outside of it. Now the testimony of at least three UR proponents here is that they initially believed in ECT. And at least a couple of them started out trying to disprove UR. In other words they were dogmatic in their study of it, rather than being swayed by emotion and embracing it at their first hearing of it.

Fervent said:

It's quite a mystery, but the linguistic data is what it is. When Matthew quotes an OT scripture that is identifiably from a Hebrew source or the LXX, it's almost invariably the LXX(See Beale and Carson's NT use of the OT). Most likely it's due to his intended audience rather than his own background though it was not uncommon for individuals to be educated primarily in reading/writing in Greek even in historically Jewish areas and Matthew's job as a tax collector increases those odds. So it's mostly surprising from limited knowledge of the historical period.

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What I've heard up until now was how distinctively Jewish/Hebrew Matthew's writing is compared to Luke's. That his gospel is the most Jewish / least Greek out of the four.

Fervent said:

First, I never claimed these passages irrefutably prove anything. Simply that the reading that makes th most sense of the text itself in Matthew 25 is ECT.

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Overall I've seen those three presented as irrefutable proof of ECT and any other possible view is completely out of the question. Usually suggesting any other view is referred to as calling Jesus a liar and changing the Word of God etc with veiled insinuations of going to hell over it.

Fervent said:

I don't personally subscribe to ECT, tending towards inclusive annihilationist thinking instead. But what's important to me is we wrestle with the text as written and it is only through sophistry that the weight of the evidence for this passage indicates anything but ECT.

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That's interesting. Then why do you argue so adamantly against aionios kolasis meaning anything other than everlasting torment?

MMXX said:

You know, I almost wish I was as strategically minded as you're constantly accusing me of. When I said indoctrinated, I just meant initial core beliefs that someone is taught. Some people are raised Southern Baptist or are introduced into Christianity through an SB church (or whatever) and adhere to it for the rest of their life. While others go outside of their foundational teaching. Needless to say, when someone adheres to what they were initially taught, then by default they're going to reject whatever is outside of it. Now the testimony of at least three UR proponents here is that they initially believed in ECT. And at least a couple of them started out trying to disprove UR. In other words they were dogmatic in their study of it, rather than being swayed by emotion and embracing it at their first hearing of it.

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It's not a matter of being strategic, but "indoctrination" is a necessarily pejorative term. Sometimes people are taught things that are correct, so simply not abandoning what is taught is no reason for question.

MMXX said:

What I've heard up until now was how distinctively Jewish/Hebrew Matthew's writing was compared to Luke's. That his gospel was the most Jewish / least Greek out of the four.

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This is a matter of Jewish thought vs Greek thought rather than a language one. Matthew's gospel is almost directly about prophecy fulfillment and Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, circling around very Jewish tropes and eschatological thinking. The quotations of Scripture, though, are almost universally from the LXX when there is an identifiable linguistic peculiarity(which if you're interested in more information, Beale and Carson). As in the example given, "virgin" is not actually the most accurate translation of almah, only clearly indicated in the LXX.

MMXX said:

Overall I've seen those three presented as irrefutable proof of ECT and any other possible view is completely out of the question. Usually suggesting any other view is referred to as calling Jesus a liar and changing the Word of God etc with veiled threats of going to hell over it.

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MMXX said:

That's interesting. Then why do you argue so adamantly against aionios kolasis meaning anything other than everlasting torment?

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Because the linguistic data is pretty clearly in favor of the "eternal punishment" reading. My interest is in what the text itself says, regardless of where my doctrine lies in regards to it. Wrestling with what that means is part of the journey.

Fervent said:

It's not a matter of being strategic, but "indoctrination" is a necessarily pejorative term. Sometimes people are taught things that are correct, so simply not abandoning what is taught is no reason for question.

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What you said I was doing sounded a lot more strategic than my simply making a poor choice of words.

Fervent said:

This is a matter of Jewish thought vs Greek thought rather than a language one. Matthew's gospel is almost directly about prophecy fulfillment and Jesus as the Jewish Messiah, circling around very Jewish tropes and eschatological thinking. The quotations of Scripture, though, are almost universally from the LXX when there is an identifiable linguistic peculiarity(which if you're interested in more information, Beale and Carson). As in the example given, "virgin" is not actually the most accurate translation of almah, only clearly indicated in the LXX.

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I'll have to look into that more.

Fervent said:

Because the linguistic data is pretty clearly in favor of the "eternal punishment" reading. My interest is in what the text itself says, regardless of where my doctrine lies in regards to it. Wrestling with what that means is part of the journey.

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Why can't "eternal punishment" equate to annihilation?

Fervent said:

Let's face it, the only reason you care about what DBH has to say is because the letters after his name give your pet theology the appearance of credibility.

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Personally I'd go more by his standing within the Eastern Orthodox Church and among other theologians.

Hmm said:

For myself, I used to believe that scripture supported ECT because the term "eternal punishment" seemed irrefutable to me. But I could never square that with a loving God and so for me, I believed in the God reflected in Jesus but I had to admit that I couldn't account the presence of "eternal hell" in the Bible. I rejected the concept but still it was an anomaly that was unsettling and it did leave questions in my mind about the veracity of Christianity. It was only after learning that the correct translation of "aiõnios kolasis" was something like "correction for an age" that I realised my whole moral dilemma was the result of a simple mistranslation, incredible though that seemed!

You may ask then, why don't the various English Bibles translations correct the error if it has been proved. Some have but as was pointed out earlier in the thread the most popular English translations would undoubtedly suffer a huge drop in sales if they did this because of the.powerful attachment we have seen in this thread that many people have to ECT.

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I think if it was changed in the translations that are read the most, it would cause a panic of biblical proportions.

Hmm said:

There would also be a lot of outrage from the victims of ECT: "Why weren't we told?"

It.may well cause a great schism with Team Hell on the one side and everyone else including the many new believers who would undoubtedly flock to the church once this immoral and damaging concept was abandoned on the other.

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Yes, if there were churches that preached UR, the growth would be explosive. Right now, there is nowhere to go. It's really an underground movement, so to speak. (as was the early church)

ECT is keeping people away. Young people leave the church when they come of age. Those outside the church want nothing to do with church because of it.

Saint Steven said:

Yes, if there were churches that preached UR, the growth would be explosive. Right now, there is nowhere to go. It's really an underground movement, so to speak. (as was the early church)

ECT is keeping people away. Young people leave the church when they come of age. Those outside the church want nothing to do with church because of it.

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And even those in the church accept it as a necessary "evil". With various degrees of support for it. From those who adamantly defend it, to those who just look the other way. And then there are the few, like us, who really give it some consideration and find it lacking in credibility.

Saint Steven said:

And even those in the church accept it as a necessary "evil". With various degrees of support for it. From those who adamantly defend it, to those who just look the other way. And then there are the few, like us, who really give it some consideration and find it lacking in credibility.

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That and there's milder versions of it. A lot of what I heard was it just being described as eternal separation from God. And there's the levels of hell. The beast, false prophet, Hitler etc are in the worst part. The girl scout who got hit by a bus before accepting Jesus will wind up in the mildest part. Not that I ever heard it presented exactly that way.

MMXX said:

That and there's milder versions of it. A lot of what I heard was it just being described as eternal separation from God. And there's the levels of hell. The beast, false prophet, Hitler etc are in the worst part. The girl scout who got hit by a bus before accepting Jesus will wind up in the mildest part. Not that I ever heard it presented exactly that way.

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Yes, it's interesting that the opponents of UR are concerned about a seeming lack of consensus among UR supporters, but don't consider the fact that Infernalism has a much broader range of differences. As we have noted, both in definition and application.

Saint Steven said:

That is a very interesting observation. Could you post the six verses for discussion?

It seems that these "punishments" were either natural consequences, or God had caused/allowed them to prompt repentance. (turning back to him)

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These are the 6 verses where "kolasis" is used in LXX. Quotations are from the CSB and are based on the Hebrew text:

Eze 14:3 “Son of man, these men have set up idols in their hearts and have put their sinful stumbling blocks in front of themselves.Should I actually let them inquire of me?

Eze 14:4 “Therefore, speak to them and tell them, ‘This is what the Lord Godsays: When anyone from the house of Israel sets up idols in his heart and puts his sinful stumbling block in front of himself, and then comes to the prophet, I, the Lord, will answer him appropriately. I will answer him according to his many idols,

Eze 14:7 For when anyone from the house of Israel or from the aliens who reside in Israel separates himself from me, setting up idols in his heart and putting his sinful stumbling block in front of himself, and then comes to the prophet to inquire of me, I, the Lord, will answer him myself.

Eze 18:30 “Therefore, house of Israel, I will judge each one of you according to his ways.”This is the declaration of the Lord God. “Repent and turn from all your rebellious acts, so they will not become a sinful stumbling block to you.

Eze 43:11 and they will be ashamed of all that they have done. Revealthe design of the temple to them—its layout with its exits and entrances—its complete design along with all its statutes, design specifications, and laws. Write it down in their sightso that they may observe its complete design and all its statutes and may carry them out.

Eze 44:12 Because they ministered to the house of Israel before their idols and became a sinful stumbling block to them, therefore I swore an oathagainst them”—this is the declaration of the Lord God—“that they would bear the consequences of their iniquity.

It looks like the meaning is to "pay the price" or "take the consequences."