>From: BTHURMAN@unca.edu
>Date: Tue, 29 Apr 1997 07:47:25 -0400 (EDT)
>Subject: annihilation
>To: CWCONRAD@artsci.wustl.edu
>Organization: University of North Carolina at Asheville
>MIME-version: 1.0
>Status:
>
>sorry i don't have time to go through motions on points of internet propriety.
>
>anollumi = apollymi and derivative verbs can refer to total destruction, but
>just as we might say "i'm destroyed" as a trope, so they might, scil. 'lost'.
>
>although some greek philosophical sects held to immortality of the soul, i
>doubt seriously that a single instance of yuxh = psyche in scripture as an
>inherently immortal entity can be cited. (i'm quite convinced that in Ap. 6,9
>it means 'corpses'.)
>
>generalizations like edith hamilton's "the greeks believed in the immortality
>of the soul" are so much poppycock (of dutch derivation). the atomists did
>not,
>most cynics did not, the aristotelians did not and many later stoics did not.
>aquinas was embarrassed about the nepi yuxhc = peri psyches > de anima.
>
>anyway, if i wanted to push annihilation, i think i'd push ole0poc = olethrus
>in 2 thess. 1,9. & i'd ask if anybody knows a greek term for total
>annihilation
>that is not used of the destruction of the wicked.
>
>the human sense of justice factor also seems to work pretty strongly here, as
>when paul at end of romans 1 points out that they know these things justly
>deserve death. they do. do they justly deserve endless supreme agony,
>perpetual
>barbecuing?
>
>if my whole spiritual system were as biblically fixed as that of many seems to
>be, i'd have to be annihilationist on linguistic grounds, but there are
>philosophical problems that give me trouble no matter how i might decide.
>
>shalom,
>bearded bill of asheville <bthurman@unca.edu>
>unca not having approved either whom or thereof.
>
Carl W. Conrad
Department of Classics, Washington University
One Brookings Drive, St. Louis, MO, USA 63130
(314) 935-4018
cwconrad@artsci.wustl.edu OR cwc@oui.com
WWW: http://www.artsci.wustl.edu/~cwconrad/