A Short Tract on "Aion"

How would you feel if I used the word "age" in the following manner. First of all I would use it as a period of time with a beginning and an end. I could use it for a very short period of time like 3 days or for a very long period of time covering thousands of years. Then I would also use the word to mean world or course of this world. I would also use the word to mean eternal or everlasting. If I said, "age of the age," I really mean forever or forever and ever or for evermore. If I said, "age (singular) of the ages (plural)," I mean throughout all the generations of. If I said, "age (singular) of the age (singular)," I also mean for ever and ever. In addition, if I used the word age in the plural form, ages it means more than one age. If I used it as an adjective, I would mean eternity.

It should be clear to anyone reading this, that we would have a very difficult time communicating with each other if I used the word age in the manner I just described. The Greek word aion, which should consistently be translated age, was used exactly as described in the above paragraph in the King James Bible.

A thorough study of this word in a good concordance such as Young's Analytical Concordance to the Bible will reveal that the King James Bible butchered that word. Why? If they didn't twist the word the way they did, the doctrine of eternal punishment could not be supported by the Bible. So they took a word which simply means an indeterminate period of time or an age and twisted it into a word which can be as short as a day to the concept of timelessness, that is, eternity.

The fact that the King James Bible says that the Aaronic Priesthood is an "everlasting" priesthood when the book of Hebrews clearly states an end to it should make one think. (see Ex. 40:15 and Heb. 7:14-18) KJV has Jonah in the belly of the whale "forever" which actually ended three days later. (Jonah 2:6) Dozens of examples like the ones above should make one see that the King James translators did not handle the translation of this word aion and its Hebrew counterpart olam correctly.

Modern Bible translations have come a long way in clearing up much of the outright contradictions found in the King James Bible. But there is still more work to be done. The doctrine of eternal torment is what is at stake. If the translators render the word aion and its adjective aionios consistently as a period of time with beginnings and endings, then the teaching of "eternal" punishment will no longer find a place in the Bible. This teaching has been the main instrument used to hold people in institutional churches. Those who use fear to hold people will not abandon this weapon.

Write for a list of Bibles that have already removed the false teaching of "eternal punishment" from their pages. Also, we have gathered dozens of books, booklets, tracts, etc. which will prove to the open-minded that the teaching of eternal punishment in hell is a pagan concept which is not found in correctly translated Bibles.