From: Rod Decker (rdecker@bbc.edu)
Date: Mon Sep 29 1997 - 07:12:44 EDT
Thanks to the several who contributed comments on EIS TON AIWNA. I gather
from them that this phrase is almost exclusively found in "biblical Greek"
(LXX and NT, although there is a wider, but divergent use of the word AIWN
outside bib. lit.). Would the ff. be a fair summary?
This is apparently not a common expression in classical Greek. BAGD (27)
cites two specific classical writers who employ the term (Isocrates, 4th C.
BC, and Diodorus Siculus, 1st C. BC) and several collections of papyri, but
no other writers from the main body of classical literature.
(BAGD also cites EIS AIWNAS from Sextus Empiricus, but he is 2d C. AD.)
I have not been able to find any other citations from that corpus in the
secondary literature and I do not have access to the TLG database to
perform a search of the primary literature. Does anyone have TLG access
(and the time and inclination!) to verify this conclusion? The search would
need to include both the singular (EIS TWN AIWNA), plural (EIS TOUS AIWNAS,
and the double plural (EIS TOUS AIWNAS TWN AIWNWN) forms, and ideally might
search the same phrases without the article as well.
Thanks,
Rod
_________________________________________________________________
Rodney J. Decker Baptist Bible Seminary
Asst. Prof./NT P O Box 800
rdecker@bbc.edu Clarks Summit PA 18411
http://www.bbc.edu/courses/BBS/RDecker/Index.htm USA
_________________________________________________________________
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