[B-Greek] Jn 1:1 - Alternate Reading?

David Lang dlang at accordancebible.com
Wed Oct 4 18:38:47 EDT 2006


On Oct 4, 2006, at 4:12 PM, mike.murphy at pb.com wrote:

> The word "theos" is translated  as  "godly"  in  the  King  James
> Version  at least 5 times, (1 Tim 1:4, 2 Cor 1:12, 7:9, 7:11, and
> 11:2). The possible alternate reading would be, "In beginning was
> the  Word, and the Word was with God, and the word was godly. The
> same was in the beginning with God."


Strong's numbers are a helpful tool for getting at the Greek words  
behind an English translation, but this is an excellent example of  
how looking at Strong's numbers alone can be misleading.

When I searched the KJV for cases where the word "godly" is tagged  
with the Strong number for "theos," I found seven occurrences (2Cor  
1:12; 7:9, 10, 11; 11:2; 1Tim 1:4; 3John 1:6). If you look at the  
actual Greek text, however, you find that in all of these cases, the  
word "theos" is either in the genitive case or it is the object of  
the preposition "kata" (according to). The KJV translators used the  
adjective "godly" rather than more wooden renderings like "jealously  
of God" or "the sorrow which is after the manner of God." But as  
someone else has pointed out, in all of these cases the noun "theos"  
technically refers to "God."

Sincerely,
David Lang



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