Sunday, December 18, 2011

Evigheternas Evigheter

The Sunday following my long posts on time and eternity the lessons for the day are full of promises about everlasting kingship, unforgotten, timeless promises of the divine toward the chosen people, and "forever."

Just for fun I take the Swedish bible along and read the lessons in Swede while they're being read in English. The second lesson, Paul's doxology to the Romans reads - in Swedish - "den ende vise Guden tillhör äran genom Jesus Kristus i evigheternas evighet." I am not entirely sure of my translation, but I read this as saying "the only wise God through Jesus Christ to him belongs glory for the Eternal's eternity." The English reads "the only wise God, through Jesus Christ, to whom be the glory forever."

What's got me confused is the phrase "Evigheternas evigheter." The Endless ones foreverness? Something like that.

To solve the problem I need to consult commentaries and the Greek text. I wonder if this is an odd phrase in Greek as well as Swedish. What this does for me though is to keep me pondering the relationship between time and eternity, feeling fairly certain that I haven't yet gotten to the last insight on how Now fits into Forever.

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