...
You are of course right. Peter´s claim about a different future meaning of (WLM is idiosyncratic and has nothing to do with the science of lexical semantics. ...
... That a word, even one refering to
time, should have a different lexical meaning in a future contexts in
contrast with past contexts is something I have never seen that anybody
has claimed. ...
... But Peter has developed a personal view of lexical meaning of words
based on his training as a Bible translator, and he rejects the basic
psycholinguistic concepts that are fundamental for the study of applied
linguistics (non-Biblical translation), at least in Oslo.
Literal translation has been criticised because one English word choosen for
a Hebrew word can have unwanted connotations. The same can be true with
idiomatic translations as well, and the English word "eternal" is such an
example, because the modern concept signaled by this word evidently is
different from the concept of (WLM. I bring a quote from one who has
written a dissertation dealing with the view of time in the ancient world: R Boman (1970) "Hebrew
Thought Compared with Greek", pp. 151, 152:
"The commonest word for boundless time is ´olam; according to the most
widespread and likeliest explanation the word is derived from ´alam meaning
"hide; conceal". In the term ´olam is contained a designation of time
extending so far that it is lost to our sight and comprehension in darkness
and invisibility. It is characteristic of the nature of this term that it
can be used of hoary antiquity as well as of the unbounded future, thus,
´olam is not an endlessly long time but simply a boundless time... Although in
the Old Testament ´olam always means time which is boundless in certain
respect, nothing is said therein of the objective duration of astronomical
time; it is always the concern of exegesis to ask in each case how far the
author´s gaze pursued time."
...
A claim that (WLM with future reference can *only* refer to unending time in the astronomical sense of the word cannot be proved; ...
... because of problem of induction, even a reading of all old extant Hebrew texts will not give such a proof. And if such a claim is not made, why should the modern word "eternal" be used to render (WLM?Because it is the clear meaning in context of *some*, perhaps even *many*, occurrences of `olam in the Hebrew Bible.
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