Why do interlinears have Chilia Ete isn't that the specific and correct way to express a thousand years. While chilioi Etos or chilia eth can be used they do open the door for pural debate which you seem to deny has any merit yet it continues on.fatherfisher wrote:All the critical Greek texts have chilia eth
Chilioi and Chilia are the same Greek word; it’s just that one is a masculine plural, the other is neuter plural, so they have corresponding endings. When used by itself, the Greek word means one thousand. When used as an adjective, it has to be the same gender as the noun it modifies (“years” in this case). But the word always means one thousand.
I have seen where some people have tried to argue that “chilioi” is the plural form of “chilia”, and should therefore be translated “thousands” and not “thousand”, but they are mistaken. Both words are plural and are different only because of the gender of the noun they modify. So chilioi (masculine plural) or chilia (neuter plural) makes no difference, they both mean a thousand.
You can see this in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible done before the birth of Christ by Jews living in Alexandria, Egypt):
2 Samuel 19:18 refers to “a thousand men” brought from Benjamin and uses chilioi
Psalm 90:4 refers to “a thousand years” and uses chilia
Xila eth is even lesser explored rendering and could in fact be talking of a long period of time rather than specific one thousand years.
Nope. As far as the Greek goes, it could not mean anything other than a thousand years.
If John had wanted to express something larger than a thousand, or some indefinite large number, there are other words in Greek which he could have used, as he did in Revelation 5 when describing the number of angels around the throne.
Help me understand if it was cut and dried as you suggest then why did the early church question what was meant? Some believed it was a literal one thousand years and others a unspecific period of time. Why was that debated?
There has to be something in the way this is said that begs the question and you keep denying it anything to do with the Greek words used but everyone else says it is the Greek sentence construction.