This post is designed to address the claim made by AK4 that Revelations 14:11 does not end by stating that the torment described will last forever.
More than once, AK4 has accused scholars of “interpreting” rather than “translation” (although it is impossible to translate any long text without interpretation), and this is one area where apparently scholars have misled people by translating the sentence in question by stating “forever and ever” or some variant.
I intend to show that the relevant clause IS properly translated as “forever and ever” and that it DOES refer to eternity. I will do this in two ways. First, I will address the semantic properties of the various syntactic constituents in the phrase. Second, I will address the semantic range and use of the relevant lexical item (aion) itself.
To start, let us look at the relevant passage itself:
Rev. 14:11- And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name
Now, the part translated as “for ever and ever” (which AK4 objects to) is in Greek εἰς αἰῶνας αἰώνων/ eis aionas aionon or IN(To).prep AGE/EON.acc.pl AGE/EON.gen.pl. Literally rendered, the phrase reads “into the ages of the ages.”
But what does that phrase mean? As I said, I will approach this in two ways. The first is to deal with the semantic values of the syntactic constituents of the phrase.
First and foremost, we have aion in the accusative case. Now, anyone who has studied Greek or Latin (or even one of the Germanic languages, for that matter) will most likely immediately associate this case with the D(irect) O(bject), and only secondarily with other semantic roles. As such, the accusative for most classicists or students of biblical Greek is primarily a syntactic case, and only secondarily a semantic one.
However, this was likely not the original role of the accusative. For almost a century now, a number of Indo-European specialists have postulated that at some point the mother language of Greek (called Proto-Indo-European or PIE) possessed ergative syntax.
The “ergative” case is likely a foreign term even to professors of Classical Languages. Basically, an ergative language distinguishes between the subject of a transitive verb on the one hand (which is marked as ergative) and the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of the transitive verb on the other. In other words, in an ergative language, the word “you” in the sentence “I love you” and in the sentence “You awoke” would both be marked the same (as absolutive), while the “you” in “you hit him” would be marked as ergative. In a language like Latin, Greek, or English, this type of distinction is not made. All subjects are marked the same (nominative in Greek and Latin) and the Direct Object is marked differently.
Recently however, criticisms have been leveled against the theory that PIE was an ergative language. These criticisms most importantly involve aspects of PIE which do not cohere with any known ergative language. Instead, many experts in PIE are now proposing that PIE was an Active language.
An Active language does not possess transitive verbs at all. Rather, it distinguishes between active verbs (to stand up, to make, to move) and stative verbs (to be standing up, to be dry, to become old, etc). Also, nouns in active languages are distinguished as either animate or inanimate, and this aids in determining their roles in a sentence.
For my purposes, it doesn’t matter if PIE was ergative or active (although I believe it was an active language), because either type would have the same relevancy for my point: the initial role of the accusative.
As I said earlier, any student of Greek will most likely associate the accusative case first and foremost with the DO (direct object). However, if PIE was either ergative or active, a direct object as it existed in Greek was not present. Rather, it is likely that the accusative case came to be associated as DO through a semantic mapping of the feature of “goal” into the object of most verbs.
In other words, the accusative which evolved into the Greek accusative was at least as much a semantic as a syntactic case, and certain semantic roles (like that of Goal) were earlier than the syntactic role of DO.
Even in Homer, the accusative can function by itself in a purely semantic role. One of these roles is the goal accusative as one of motion, on a spatial plane:
Toi d’ ham heponto Argeion basilees hosoi kekleato boulen/ and the kings of the Argives were following, those who had been called to the council.
What is important to note here is that to the council is represented only by a single accusative. The “motion goal” is within the case itself. Unlike with later Greek (and even in Homer this is rare) no preposition is needed.
Furthermore, if localist grammar has taught us anything, the mapping of the spatial plane onto a temporal one is a cross-linguistic phenomenon. Certainly, it is present in Greek. The words or phrases which mean “across space” can also mean “across time.” The same is true with through space/time, into space/time, etc.
The point of all of this is that the accusative of time (which, in any large reference grammar, is found somewhere under the list of possible uses of the accusative) is actually simply an aspect of the general meaning of the accusative itself. To draw a simple diagram, the various uses of the accusative (direct object, motion towards, extent of time, etc) can all be represented as such:
X ----------------------------------------->
By the time of the Greek of the New Testament, the accusative had to be used with a preposition in order for it to have any of its former semantic values, as by this time it was the DO par excellence.
So, in Rev. 14:11, we have the preposition eis. This preposition is late in Greek, having developed from dialectical borrowing of a variant of a similar preposition en. This preposition is now needed to represent a semantic value which the accusative had on its own at one time. It is noteworthy that such semantic roles of Goal (whether spatial or temporal) are still limited to the accusative, even though prepositions are now required.
Eis with the accusative, when referring to time, is used to indicate the time until a certain state occurs (for example, until a certain year). Again, in a diagram, this can be visualized as X----------------------------------------------> where X is the starting point and the accusative takes you into its referent. For example, kai nu ken es dekaten geneen heteron g’ eti boskoi/ indeed into the tenth generation would it also feed someone else.” Od.19.294
The limit placed on the extent of the accusative of time is in the noun placed in the accusative itself. In the above example, the tenth generation is in the accusative case, and so the extent of time will last up until the tenth generation.
More than once, AK4 has accused scholars of “interpreting” rather than “translation” (although it is impossible to translate any long text without interpretation), and this is one area where apparently scholars have misled people by translating the sentence in question by stating “forever and ever” or some variant.
I intend to show that the relevant clause IS properly translated as “forever and ever” and that it DOES refer to eternity. I will do this in two ways. First, I will address the semantic properties of the various syntactic constituents in the phrase. Second, I will address the semantic range and use of the relevant lexical item (aion) itself.
To start, let us look at the relevant passage itself:
Rev. 14:11- And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name
Now, the part translated as “for ever and ever” (which AK4 objects to) is in Greek εἰς αἰῶνας αἰώνων/ eis aionas aionon or IN(To).prep AGE/EON.acc.pl AGE/EON.gen.pl. Literally rendered, the phrase reads “into the ages of the ages.”
But what does that phrase mean? As I said, I will approach this in two ways. The first is to deal with the semantic values of the syntactic constituents of the phrase.
First and foremost, we have aion in the accusative case. Now, anyone who has studied Greek or Latin (or even one of the Germanic languages, for that matter) will most likely immediately associate this case with the D(irect) O(bject), and only secondarily with other semantic roles. As such, the accusative for most classicists or students of biblical Greek is primarily a syntactic case, and only secondarily a semantic one.
However, this was likely not the original role of the accusative. For almost a century now, a number of Indo-European specialists have postulated that at some point the mother language of Greek (called Proto-Indo-European or PIE) possessed ergative syntax.
The “ergative” case is likely a foreign term even to professors of Classical Languages. Basically, an ergative language distinguishes between the subject of a transitive verb on the one hand (which is marked as ergative) and the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of the transitive verb on the other. In other words, in an ergative language, the word “you” in the sentence “I love you” and in the sentence “You awoke” would both be marked the same (as absolutive), while the “you” in “you hit him” would be marked as ergative. In a language like Latin, Greek, or English, this type of distinction is not made. All subjects are marked the same (nominative in Greek and Latin) and the Direct Object is marked differently.
Recently however, criticisms have been leveled against the theory that PIE was an ergative language. These criticisms most importantly involve aspects of PIE which do not cohere with any known ergative language. Instead, many experts in PIE are now proposing that PIE was an Active language.
An Active language does not possess transitive verbs at all. Rather, it distinguishes between active verbs (to stand up, to make, to move) and stative verbs (to be standing up, to be dry, to become old, etc). Also, nouns in active languages are distinguished as either animate or inanimate, and this aids in determining their roles in a sentence.
For my purposes, it doesn’t matter if PIE was ergative or active (although I believe it was an active language), because either type would have the same relevancy for my point: the initial role of the accusative.
As I said earlier, any student of Greek will most likely associate the accusative case first and foremost with the DO (direct object). However, if PIE was either ergative or active, a direct object as it existed in Greek was not present. Rather, it is likely that the accusative case came to be associated as DO through a semantic mapping of the feature of “goal” into the object of most verbs.
In other words, the accusative which evolved into the Greek accusative was at least as much a semantic as a syntactic case, and certain semantic roles (like that of Goal) were earlier than the syntactic role of DO.
Even in Homer, the accusative can function by itself in a purely semantic role. One of these roles is the goal accusative as one of motion, on a spatial plane:
Toi d’ ham heponto Argeion basilees hosoi kekleato boulen/ and the kings of the Argives were following, those who had been called to the council.
What is important to note here is that to the council is represented only by a single accusative. The “motion goal” is within the case itself. Unlike with later Greek (and even in Homer this is rare) no preposition is needed.
Furthermore, if localist grammar has taught us anything, the mapping of the spatial plane onto a temporal one is a cross-linguistic phenomenon. Certainly, it is present in Greek. The words or phrases which mean “across space” can also mean “across time.” The same is true with through space/time, into space/time, etc.
The point of all of this is that the accusative of time (which, in any large reference grammar, is found somewhere under the list of possible uses of the accusative) is actually simply an aspect of the general meaning of the accusative itself. To draw a simple diagram, the various uses of the accusative (direct object, motion towards, extent of time, etc) can all be represented as such:
X ----------------------------------------->
By the time of the Greek of the New Testament, the accusative had to be used with a preposition in order for it to have any of its former semantic values, as by this time it was the DO par excellence.
So, in Rev. 14:11, we have the preposition eis. This preposition is late in Greek, having developed from dialectical borrowing of a variant of a similar preposition en. This preposition is now needed to represent a semantic value which the accusative had on its own at one time. It is noteworthy that such semantic roles of Goal (whether spatial or temporal) are still limited to the accusative, even though prepositions are now required.
Eis with the accusative, when referring to time, is used to indicate the time until a certain state occurs (for example, until a certain year). Again, in a diagram, this can be visualized as X----------------------------------------------> where X is the starting point and the accusative takes you into its referent. For example, kai nu ken es dekaten geneen heteron g’ eti boskoi/ indeed into the tenth generation would it also feed someone else.” Od.19.294
The limit placed on the extent of the accusative of time is in the noun placed in the accusative itself. In the above example, the tenth generation is in the accusative case, and so the extent of time will last up until the tenth generation.
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