>>18623952“World”, as defined in 1611 when the KJV was translated:
Old English woruld, worold; human existence, the affairs of life, a long period of time, mankind, humanity, age of man, a word peculiar to Germanic languages.
These are three Greek words which appear in the New Testament and are commonly translated as “world” in English. They are αἰών (aeon), κόσμος (cosmos), and οἰκουμένη (oikoumene). To the ancient Greeks, the meaning of these words to Greek readers in the first century should govern how Christians understand them, for the modern conception of the word is surely alien to any ideas which the Greeks themselves had when the New Testament was written.
aeon: “a period of existence...one’s lifetime, life...an age, generation, a long space of time, an age, a definite space of time, an era, epoch, age, period, hence its usage in plural, εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας for ever.”
The time aspect of the word “world” fits the time aspect of αἰών.
kosmos: “order, good behavior, decency, the form, fashion of a thing, of states, government, an ornament, decoration, a regulator, the world or universe, from its perfect order, mankind, as we use ‘the world’, N.T.”
oikoumene: “the inhabited world, a term used to designate the Greek world, as opposed to barbarian lands, so in Roman times the Roman world.”
And it came to pass in those days that there went out a decree from Cæsar Augustus, that all the world should be taxed.
Luke 2:1 “all the world”, in the sense of the modern colloquial understanding of the word “world” might mean the “whole planet”. But Cæsar did not tax the whole planet: he did not tax China, India, South America, the Congo; he taxed the whole Roman World: this word here is translated from οἰκουμένη. Strabo defines “οἰκουμένη” in his “Geography”, and it includes only White nations, not China, the Congo, etc.
