You seem to know them pretty well. I didn’t realize they had teams of scholars surrounding them. If they did, they may have a more ‘objective’ view like D.A. Carson who has put in more time dealing with translations than they have.
Jeff

If you don’t know much about me then how can you hold such a strong opinion on telling me not to tell some of the most respected preachers of our time to stop commenting on them?

Please read the previous comments.
Jeff

If you don’t know much about Greek then how can you hold such a strong opinion on to telling some of the most respected teachers of our time (who do know Greek) to stop commenting on translations?

You are correct that aion doesn’t have to mean eternity. That’s why it is frequently translated as “age”, the way we would use “iron age”, “industrial age”, “jurassic age”. A lot of the usage (and IMHO a lot of Paul’s usage) has to do with The Platonic year a 22k year astrological cycle caused by the Earth’s axial precession. Also aion has place associations which by analogy you see in modern usage with physics phrase “space time”, which is why translators sometimes use “world” as a lazy shorthand when translating aion.

Really though how to translate aion is a broader question:
Is Paul writing a Hellenistic book about Hellenistic topics using Hellenistic ideas
or
Is Paul writing a Christian book about Christian topics using Christian ideas

The arguments for annihilationism are fairly good if you assume the former and not the later. The are not so good if you assume the later. In other words you argument regarding aion is not specific to aion.

Should translation be Christianized? I blogged about another example which is less controversial recently Venus translation vs. transulturation.

I believe there is more Biblical evidence for eternal hell as opposed to ‘annhialism’ which is what you’re writing about where people are literally destroyed after a certain amount of time. There is big debate on this. But I’m not one to go to for these matters, especially since I’m recovering from surgery.

Maybe someone else here will weigh in.
Jeff

Jeff

I don’t agree with what they say about the TNIV.

That said, they are head and shoulders above most pastors/teachers/theologians regarding most things Biblical/theological. I stand with them wholeheartedly even if we differ on the TNIV.

I would much rather have my theological house in order with a difference regarding translations than the reverse. Rob Bell comes to mind. He likes the TNIV and his theological house sunk in the quicksand years ago.

It’s not an either/or, of course. Don Carson comes to mind here. He likes the TNIV and he knows his theology.

I’d defer to you on any knowledge of who may be the largest influencers. I don’t want to get into gossip but there sure are a lot of people saying the same seemingly unwarranted things.

I’ve written elsewhere (I can’t even remember where!) about how I agree with your take on 1 Tim. 5:8 although I haven’t done a whole lot of reading on it.

Jeff

Jason: Fee and Strauss make an astute observation in How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth when they say: “…it was decided by some to ‘update’ the KJV by ridding it of its ‘archaic’ way of speaking. But in doing so, the NKJV revisers eliminated the best feature of the KJV (its marvelous expression of the English language) and kept the worst (its flawed text).” (p. 40)

First, MacArthur is besides himself. Maybe he couldn’t find a fourth point and thought the TNIV would be an easy target.
……

I’m a big fan of these three also. Sproul’s writing on prayer and the cross have been very instructive for me and I really like his teaching style. MacArthur got me going on God’s sovereignty and preached on passages I’d never heard preached on. Piper also.

I think they should get some tutoring by D.A. Carson on translations the next time they see him at a conference.

Jeff