KJV Words Not in Other Versions

I have heard sermons on the word individual words in the KJV which is not found in other versions so I looked at this email skeptically.

 

Recently I received an email on the meaning of the “folded napkin” in Jesus’ tomb. I’ve heard sermons on the same topic. It appears to from a sermon Jerry Shirley, a Baptist preacher, preached in 2006. Shirley presumed the Hebrew folks had a tradition regarding the folded napkin. Is it true? He provides no credits. I have been unable to find any information about Hebrew tradition that every Jewish knew concerning folding a napkin.

 

The King James Version:  "...and the napkin that was about his head, not lying with the linen clothes, but wrapped together in a place by itself."

KJV, AS, and RSV translate the cloth as a "napkin;" NIV a "burial cloth;" NKJV a "handkerchief;" and NASB, ESV a "face-cloth."   I understand the Greek word comes from a Latin word for "sweat."  An example might be a towel for wiping sweat and could be Greek for a towel or cloth, not specifically a table napkin.

NIV and NKJV translates the word "folded;" NASB, SAV, RSV "rolled up;" KJV "wrapped together." Again I understand the Greek word is from words that may mean to twist or to entwine.

Illusion-of-Truth-Effect

God gave us a brain and he intends for us to use it.

 

Everyone is confident with their religious beliefs. We all have our holy books. Presuming the Church of Christ was the only Christian religion at the time the Church of Christ gave rise to the Catholic Church. Why do you suppose it did? My guess is the unwillingness of the laity to question what they believed and to question their clergy.  

 

Studies have shown we are more likely to believe that a statement is true if we have heard it before---whether or not it is actually true: “illusion-of-truth effect.” Subjects rated the validity of plausible sentences every two weeks. Without letting on, the experimenters snuck in some repeat sentences (both true and false ones) across the testing sessions. And they found a clear result: if subjects had heard a sentence in previous weeks, they were more likely to now rate it as true, even if they swore they had never heard it before. This is the case even when the experimenter tells the subjects that the sentences they are about to hear are false: despite this, mere exposure to an idea is enough to boost its believability upon later contact. The illusion-of-truth effect highlights the potential danger for people who are repeatedly exposed to the same religious edicts or political slogans.

 

How many untruths do Christians believe only because they have heard it all of their lives?

 

How many untruths do we believe because we have sung them in songs all of our lives; songs written by people we believe are going to Hell.

 

John Jenkins
865-803-8179  cell
Gatlinburg, TN



Email: jrjenki@gmail.com
Blogs: http://littlepigeon.blogspot.com/
         http://alumcave.blogspot.com/

"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

Christians are Alone

Christians believe they have an angel on their shoulder, nothing bad ever happens. They are protected, they are safe. When something bad happens the angel on their shoulder is done. Anything can happen to anyone at anytime.

God does not intervene; he cannot. Christians are alone.

Affects on Behavior

An example of a microscopically small organism taking over the behavior of a host: the rabies virus. After a bite from mammal to another, this tiny bullet shaped virus climbs its way up the nerves and into the temporal lobe of the brain. There it ingratiates itself into the local neurons, and by changing the local patterns of activity it induces the infect host to aggression, rage, and a propensity to bite. The virus also moves into the salivary glands, and it this way it is passed on through the bite to the next host. By steering the behavior of the host, the virus, a measly seventy-five billionths of a meter in diameter, survives by commandeering the massive body of the host twenty-five million times larger than it. The lesson is that invisibly small changes inside the brain can cause massive changes to behavior. Our choices are inseparably married to the tiniest details of our machinery.  

For Christians the Nineteenth Century was Rough

We are told the Bible is inspired by God but what constitutes being inspired? What in the New Testament suggests the writers were inspired?  Was John inspired when he wrote Revelation or was he taking dictation? Was Luke inspired or was he making a record for his friend as he claimed he was doing and how about the rest of the New Testament?

 

Were the writers of the Old Testament inspired or taking dictation or reporting? What constitutes being inspired?

 

For Christians the nineteenth century was rough. In a span of about twenty years, three independent, technical and powerful forces converged to challenge the historical reliability of Genesis, not to mention other parts of the Old Testament. The conflicts that ensued are the very stuff of liberal-versus-conservative divide and continue today.

 

One of the three forces is natural sciences advance and its effect on how we understand our planet. In the eighteenth century, geology, showed by the fossil record the earth is millions upon millions of years old---far older than most people had taken for granted and far older than a literal interpretation of the Bible allows. Darwin's work in the nineteenth century followed on the heels of these discoveries. His theory of human origins further challenged the biblical view of the origin of life, to put it mildly.

 

The second force is developments in biblical studies known as biblical criticism; the academic study of the Bible that is marked mainly by a historical investigation into the date and authorship of biblical books.

 

Complementing the work of biblical criticism was a third factor, biblical archaeology; the growing field of archaeology of ancient Israel and the surrounding area.

 

The nineteenth century was without a doubt a pivotal moment in recent intellectual history with huge implications for a good many things, including how we read Genesis and thus also for the evolution discussion as well as the discussion of the authorship and dates of the Old Testament including the Pentateuch.

 

We all have a tendency to believe that the way things are they have always been but this is not necessarily correct and the Bible is no exception. As anyone who wants to remain relevant in their professional field must be aware of changes and discoveries in their field of expertise the same goes for Christians.

If Christians are to remain relevant we should not ignore Augustine of Hippo’s advice?

“In matters that are so obscure and far beyond our vision, we find in Holy Scripture passages which can be interpreted in very different ways without prejudice to the faith we have received. In such cases, we should not rush in headlong and so firmly take our stand on one side that, if further progress in the search for truth justly undermines this position, we too fall with it. That would be to battle not for teaching of Holy Scripture but our own, wishing its teaching to conform to ours, whereas we ought to wish ours to conform to that of Sacred Scripture"

One of the reasons the church loses a large number of its youth may be that when those youth find themselves in situations unlike those to which they are accustomed they find some of what they have been taught is not true. That should not be.