August 24

THE ETERNAL PURPOSE / PART 5

OLAM

According to C. Gary Reid and Ernest L. Martin:

-"The word “olam” is derived from the primitive root “alam”, meaning to veil from sight, to conceal. An analysis of the passages where “olam” appears shows clearly that the word does not express “eternity” or “everlasting” as it has been frequently translated in the King James Version. Rather, it simply expresses a duration, a time during which a person, thing, or state of a thing exists — literally an age of time which has a definite beginning and conclusion. The duration of an age in scripture is sometimes defined and sometimes undefined. “Olam”, including its usage in the singular and plural and with prepositions and negatives, is translated differently in the Old Testament of our English Version. These various translations with their number of occurrences are tabulated below:

by C. Gary Reid and Ernest L. Martin, Ph.D., 1975
Typeset and footnoted by David Sielaff, November 2004"

-The following is an excerpt from: ( The Power Of Life And Death In A Greek Four Letter Word - Aion, Gary Amirault ) … “While studying this Hebrew word "olam," I came across some quotations from leading scholars which began to give me much understanding. The classical Wilson's Old Testament Word Studies by William Wilson gives as the meaning of "olam," "duration of time which is concealed or hidden," in other words, an unknown length of time. This unknown length of time could be 3 days and nights as in the case of Jonah, or the length of a man's life, or as long as the period of time the Aaronic Priesthood was in effect, which was around 1600 years. Well, that seemed to solve all the problems. This definition took care of all the clear contradictions between the Old and New Testament and got old Jonah out of "hell forever." From Jonah's point of view, while he was in the fish, he didn't know how long he was there since he couldn't see the sun and moon. (They didn't invent Timex watches until a few thousand years later.) But while the problem was solved in the Old Testament, it presented some different problems in the New Testament. The Greek equivalent for the Hebrew “olam” is the word “aion”. We get the English word "eon" from this word. It seems that many Bible translators carried the error of mistranslating “olam” to the Greek word “aion”. ( Gary Amirault )

-This brings us to our next stop on our journey through the ages. We will consider the Greek word “aion” next, giving its meaning, and showing how it too has been grossly mistranslated in many leading “selling” English translations. We are now beginning to see …

-THE PURPOSE OF THE AGES COME TO LIGHT!-