There are some folks that believe that there is no literal hell and if there is God would never send anyone to hell.
They will argue that in Matt 25:46 Jesus did not say "eternal punishment" but really said "age during correction. They replace the "adjective" "aionios" with a noun "age" and a preposition "during."
EOB Matthew:25:46 When he will answer them, saying: ‘Amen, I tell you: as much as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46 These [ones on the left] will go away into eternal [αἰώνιος/aionios] punishment, [κόλασις/kolasis] but the righteous into eternal [αἰώνιος/aionios] life.”
Greek has been the language of the Eastern Greek Orthodox church since its inception, 2000 years ago +/-. Who better than the team of native Greek speaking scholars, the translators of the Eastern Greek Orthodox Bible [EOB], quoted below, know the correct meaning of the Greek words in the N.T.
?
Link to EOB online:
The New Testament ( The Eastern-Greek Orthodox Bible) : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive
…..The Greek word “kolasis” occurs only twice in the N.T., 1st occurrence Matt 25:46 and the 2nd occurrence 1 John 4:18.
EOB 1 John 4:18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear, because fear is connected with punishment.[ κόλασις/kolasis] But the one who fears is not yet perfect in love.
Note, the native Greek speaking Eastern Orthodox Greek scholars, translators of the EOB, translated “aionios” as “eternal,”
NOT “age.”
In the EOB the Greek word “kolasis” is translated “punishment” in both Matt 25:46 and 1 John 4:18. Some folks claim “kolasis” really means “prune” or “correction.” However, according to the EOB Greek scholars it means “punishment.”
Note: in 1 John 4:18 there is no correction, the one with “kolasis” is not made perfect. Thus “kolasis” does not/cannot mean “correction.
…..It is acknowledged that modern Greek is different than koine Greek but I am confident that the Greek speaking EOB scholars are competent enough to know the correct meanings of old words which may have changed in meaning or are no longer used and translate them correctly. Just as scholars today know the meaning of archaic words which occur in the KJV and translate them correctly.
