T. C. Robinson reminds us how important footnotes are. Footnotes are generally used for three purposes: 1. To offer additional information, such as a source the text might be quoting, or a similar passage. 2. To let the reader know that the translator is not sure what the original means. 3. To let the reader…
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John Hobbins writes in favor of “retaining the standard ‘x and y’ collocation ‘God and men’” in I Samuel 2:26 and Luke 2:52, because it is an example of “standard literary English.” I think “peace on earth and good will toward men,” — another example that John mentions — is now a perfect example of…
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It seems that the default explanation for an unknown grammatical feature is to assume, often wrongly, that it is “emphatic.” Here are four examples, three from Hebrew (skip to them: one, two, three) and one from Greek (skip to it here). The Examples The Infix Nun From time to time, a nun will appear between…
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A well-known example in linguistics describes a group of people sitting a living room that has become chilly because a window has been left open. “It’s cold in here,” one person says, by which he means, “please close the window.” The second meaning is the pragmatic meaning in this case. The issue is important for…
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Rick Warren tweeted: To see consumerism on steroids, come here to Tokyo. “Life is not measured by how much one owns.” Luke 12:15 But neither Luke nor Jesus said that. Rick Warren did. (To be fair, so did the New Century Version translation.) The original Greek reads, “life is not estin…,” and estin just means…
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If for no other reason, the phrase “king of kings and lord of lords” is famous because it’s in Handel’s Messiah. We first find “king of kings” in the OT, where the appellation is used for Pagan rulers: Artaxerxes in Ezra (where “king of kings” is the Aramaic melech malchaya) and Nebuchadnezzar in Ezekiel and…
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Another great question from the About page: I have a question about Matthew 27:54. The centurion and the rest of the detachment set to guard Jesus body cried out and said “truly he was the Son of God!” — or is that really what they said? Since it lacks the articles in Greek, and Latin…
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Peter Kirk drew my attention to a post by Bill Heroman about I Timothy 2: If anyone wants us to be perfectly literal about 1 Tim 2:12, we should note, at least as a beginning, that Paul is primarily speaking against one-on-one mentoring, female to male. “I do not allow a woman to teach or…
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Karyn Traphagen points out that there are no distractions in the Old Testament: In doing some searches in Accordance, I happened to notice that there are no distractions in the Hebrew bible. No Hebrew word is translated by ESV, NIV, NRSV, NET (or many others) as “distract,” “distracted,” or “distractions.” The KJV does translate afuna…
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