Life Time Entirety: A Study of AION in Greek Literature and Philosophy, the Septuagint and PhiloHeleen M. Keizer, Apr 15, 2010 - 300 pages Some of the theses developed in this book: In the meanings of the ancient Greek word AIΩN (aion: lifetime, life-lot, generation, all time, “eternity”) three notions play a part, in variable combinations and with a variable centre of gravity. These notions are: LIFE, TIME, ENTIRETY. The meaning of the words aion and aionios in the Greek Bible (Septuagint and New Testament) is primarily that of the Hebrew word olam. The Hebrew word olam indicates time as it constitutes for us, humans, the horizon within which we live and which delimits the scope of the knowledge given us. This horizon can be limited as a human lifetime, but can also be – the widest conceivable – encompassing all time that is concomitant with the created world and its future. When Plato pronounces his famous dictum that time (chronos) is “an aionic image–which proceeds according to number–of aion which remains at one” (Timaeus 37d), the term “eternity” as the classic translation of aion does not give expression to the fact that the word here stands for time as a whole: a completeness of time comparable to a lifetime. Infinity is not an intrinsic or necessary connotation of aion, either in the Greek or in the Biblical usage. The Greek word aion refers to all time, seen ‘from outside’, as a whole; the Hebrew word olam refers to all time, seen ‘from within’, as a horizon. |
