The Rendering of Olam/Aion

A 20 year veteran of the NYC subway maintenance team said that 600 volts DC and several thousand ampere of current runs through the 3^rd rail in the subway tunnel. If a steel rod shorts it, we were told, steel literally evaporates. Anyone falling onto or even touching the 3^rd rail while not grounded, risks being electrocuted and even death with that much electrical power running through it.

The likelihood of injury to or the death of a career is what has led members of congress and other politicians to refer to controversial legislation as political 3^rd rail issues and they won’t touch them because of their volatile natures.

Could the rendering of the Hebrew olam and the Greek aion in English Bibles as “age(s)” be a theological 3^rd rail issue? Let’s ask that question again at the end of this post.

Adolph Ernst Knoch, in his book All in All, indicated that one very helpful method of word study is to create a list of every passage that contains the word you’re studying in the context in which it appears and read them through prayerfully until things like consistencies and inconsistencies, common themes, variances, peculiarities, and contradictions (if any) begin to appear.¹

So, I created an Excel workbook and am listing every occurrence of olam in the Old Testament. This is the Hebrew equivalent to the Greek aion rendered “forever”, “eternal”, and “everlasting”. Across the top are the column headings: Reference, Passage, Hebrew, Definition, Young’s Literal Translation (YLT), and Notes. There are over 400 occurrences of the word in the Hebrew Bible, 70 of which I have imported from just the Pentateuch and have completed the analysis of those. I am absolutely astounded as to what I have found.

Consider Exodus 40:15

“And thou shalt anoint them, as thou didst anoint their father, that they may minister unto me in the priest’s office: for their anointing shall surely be an everlasting priesthood throughout their generations.”

• An everlasting priesthood. The word rendered “everlasting” is the Hebrew olam. The priesthood of Jesus Christ is superior to that of the Old Testament Law. Christ’s priesthood is sinless, perfect, and decreed as such by God. The Levitical priesthood was to be temporary – it was flawed and imperfect in that it concerned itself with the shadow of things and not the very things themselves (Hebrews 10:1). It wasn’t meant to last forever. Jesus was made surety of a better testament, His is a better priesthood, part of a better covenant, with better promises. Therefore, the rendering of olam as everlasting here creates a contradiction of massive proportions and makes of the Levitical priesthood something it is not.

• There are scores of passages in which olam is rendered continuously as everlasting in reference to the priesthood, the covenant, the statutes and ordinances, the anointing, the offerings, etc. None of these things were eternal. The priests continued to make sin offerings on the altar for another 40 years after Christ was offered on the cross. The perfect sacrifice made the offerings of the old priesthood obsolete, but they continued to offer them because they did not believe that Jesus was the Messiah. God sent His armies to destroy Jerusalem and the temple, bringing an end to their illegitimate ordinances.

• Furthermore, olam is rendered everlasting or forever in connection with the Abrahamic covenant and circumcision. The fact that olam is mistranslated is suggested by the fact that circumcision in the flesh, the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham, was not intended to be forever but only to the end of the age of the law. (Acts 15:5, 24: 1 Corinthians 7:18-19; Galatians 5:1-6) Declared by God to be a covenant in the flesh of Abraham to the end of the age (Young) after which the church proclaims that it is not binding on the Gentiles (Acts 15:10,19) and Paul said that it no longer means anything in that it foreshadowed baptism. (1 Corinthians 7:19; Colossians 2:11). Rendering olam as everlasting in these passages is to say that circumcision was to continue for millions of years and that is just absurd.

• Olam is used in scriptures relative to Passover. The inception of the Passover feast by statute of God was set to be the 10th day of the 1st month and the mode of observance was set as well – blood on the door posts, killing and eating of the Paschal lamb, etc. The Passover has not been observed according to the “everlasting” statute enacted in Egypt the night of the killing of the first born for nearly 2,000 years. It was a foreshadowing of the cross of Christ and was always intended to be an observance until the end of the age of the Law.

• In all these passages in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy relative to the covenants, the priesthood, the ordinances, the statutes, the washings, the circumcision, the Passover, and more are said to be everlasting because the Hebrew olam is mistranslated forever. If it is rendered “to the end of the age”, then all of these contradictions and inconsistencies vanish.

The New Testament equivalent of the Old Testament olam, again, is aion and the Septuagint (the Greek Old Testament translated from the 3^rd to the 1^st century BC) renders olam as aion throughout giving us a solid footing to view the two words to mean the same thing. Just as in the Old Testament’s issue with olam, the New Testament takes issue with the rendering of aion the same way. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15:22-28, reveals to us a future in which the reign and priesthood of the Messiah comes to an end when all things have been placed under the feet of Christ. When all things are under Him, then the Son also will subject Himself to the Father and God will be all in all.

So, if in the purpose and plan of God, the mediatorial role of Jesus Christ comes to an end, then why does He say that Christ is a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. (Hebrews 5:6,10; 6:20; 7:1,10,11,15,17,21). Furthermore, other passages are quoted as saying, “But unto the Son he saith, ‘Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever…’” (Hebrews1:8) and “…but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated for evermore.” (Hebrews 7:28).

In the passages referenced above, the Greek aion is rendered “forever”, “ever”, and “evermore” instead of “to the age” or “to the age of ages”. Just as in the rendering mishaps of olam, the translation of aion to indicate an eternal reign and priesthood of Christ is a mishap. If this one biblical issue were to be resolved, eternal conscious torment, the eternal hell myth, would not be able to stand under the weight of the scrutiny it would undergo and would come crumbling down.

Alluding to the definition of aion as being eternal or endless, Rev. Ezra S. Goodwin (1787-1833), a biblical scholar and one of the most profound critics of his day, said, “Here I strongly suspect is the true secret brought to light of the origin of the sense of eternity in aión. The theologian first thought he perceived it, or else he placed it there. The theologian keeps it there, now. And the theologian will probably retain it there longer than anyone else. Hence it is that those lexicographers who assign eternity as one of the meanings of aión uniformly appeal for proofs to either theological Hebrew, or Rabbinical Greek, or some species of Greek subsequent to the age of the Seventy, if not subsequent to the age of the Apostles, so far as I can ascertain.”²

(Godwin is relegating any rendering of aion to include timelessness to sources that are much later in history than to be able to be of significance in determining the etymological meaning of the word.)

The issues and contradictions relative to the rendering of aion as it has been in the English Bibles is not difficult to see and is why, I believe, Bible scholars and theologians are perpetuating the eternal conscious torment/hell myth. If the rendering of olam and aion were to follow the more accurate route toward age(s) across the board, there would be doctrinal chaos all over the Christian world and its hard to see where that would end up.

Many scholars and theologians alike may be avoiding this, seeing it as a third rail issue that may or may not, in their estimation, mean the demise of the ECT and the hell myth, but could mean more chaotic outcomes. Others, along with ministers and pastors, it is probable, just aren’t looking. Either way, the Universalism movement is gaining momentum.

NOTES

¹Knoch, A. E., All in All, The Goal of the Universe, Almont, MI: Concordant Publishing Concern, ©1978, P. 65

²Goodwin, Ezra S., Reverend, Christian Examiner, Vol. X. page 47. (The Christian Examiner was an American newspaper published between 1813 and 1869.)