Eternal and Forever: Unending or Just a Very Long Time?

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As to the possibility of the "everlasting punishment" of the wicked and the "eternal life" of the righteous being the same, it doesn't exist. The Greek word, "aeonian" simply means, "pertaining to the age". "Aeonian," being the adjective form of "aeon," is descriptive of both the kind of life of the righteous and the kind of punishment of the wicked. In the strictest sense, it really has no reference to time at all but to the quality of that life or punishment. Does that do away with eternal life for the redeemed? Not at all, for it is clearly taught by many other scriptures throughout the Bible, but "aeon/aeonios" does not describe the duration of that life.

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I don't quite agree with this.The noun "Aeon" in Greek means 'century', i.e. a finite period of time. However, the adjective "Aeoni /os /a /o" means, literally, 'through the centuries'. The more prosaic translations are 'eternal', 'neverending' or 'everlasting'.The adjective pertains to something that spans centuries without a finite end. In the strictest sense, it's only used to describe unbounded time span, i.e. everlasting.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

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These are the verses in Matthew that use the noun form of "aion". None of them are translated as forever. They speak of the current age (world) or the end of the age. So the verse you shared would reasonably be the end of the age and not the physical world. The author's audience probably understood it that way.

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The use of the noun in singular 'aion' always refers to a finite period of time. In modern Greek it always refers to a 100-year time period, i.e. we live in the 21st 'aion'. The only exception to this rule is the phrase "eis ton aiona ton aionon" (literally: to the century of centuries) used to indicate an immeasurable period of time, i.e. forever.When the noun is used in its plural form 'aiones' and in the absence of a numerical or other predicative qualifier (e.g. 2 aiones = 2 centuries = 200 years) it can only be translated as referring to an immeasurable period of time, practically everlasting. In ancient texts and the NT the phrase 'eis tous aiones' (literally: towards the centuries) is being used and it can only be translated to indicate something that lasts beyond our ability to measure, i.e. everlasting.The adjective "aionios" indicates something that spans an indefinite/immeasurable number of centuries, i.e. for all intents and purposes eternal.

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Then we have the noun, "aion", used as an adjective, "aionios", which is translated as eternal in Matthew. We have eternal fire, eternal life, and eternal punishment.

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it's not a case of the noun being used as an adjective, "aionios" is an adjective in its own right and it is used to assign the attribute of immeasurable / indefinite duration. dunno, I didn't make up the rules . I suppose it's because it's derived from the unqualified plural form of the noun which denotes unbounded duration. I can't think of an English word equivalent off the top of my head.

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Also in this article entitled Olam/Aion/Aionian/Aionias (by Mike Burke), Burke and others suggest that the usage of olam/aionios may deal more with quality than duration.

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this is like saying that the adjective 'colourful' deals with size !

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

err...technically yes, I suppose, though semantically it's the same as 'eternal' or 'everlasting'.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Jeremiah was not written in Greek, so I can't comment on it.Matthew 18:8 uses the adjective "aionios" which is rightly translated as 'eternal'. The fact that the fire no longer burns has nothing to do with the writer's intention to convey a meaning of everlasting.Romans 1:20 and Jude 1:6 uses the adjective "aidios" which is a synonym for everlasting, albeit in a more abstract sense.The subtle difference between the two is that "aionios" implies something so durable that it's beyond our ability to measure while "aidios" implies something outside time altogether.as an example, one could describe the Universe using either of those terms. That doesn't mean that the universe is never going to end, it just means that for all intents and purposes it won't.Most writers in the links you mentioned use theological bias in their translation of the phrases and split semantic hairs in order to support their POVs.IMHO, when you see either of the adjectives in Greek text you can safely assume that the author describes something of unending duration.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

yes, absolutely. The writer thought that the fire would keep burning through immeasurable centuries. In this instance he was obviously wrong, but that's another story. no, no more than any other predictive statement in any text. It's just an expression of hope, desire, belief, etc. They thought that the fire would be eternal. As it turned out it wasn't. Not the only place in the Bible where they got things wrong.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."