Here it is, I hope this helps you see what has been presented to you
Here it is, I hope this helps you see what has been presented to you
Rolf – I don’t know greek, I’ve never studied it. I know how to reference “reference works” and compare contextual use pretty well. I am in no way presenting to you my scholarship or my translation, because I do not know how to read Greek. I am using your translation to demonstrate it’s own inconsistency an inaccuracy.
This all be done using the KJV with the rendering of 2Pet 3.9, “come to”.
Here is the text in question
2Pet 3.9
2Pe 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
I did a search for all occurrences of the same word for “come to”. John 21.25 was the only other occurrence, although as Jeremy points out, the same word in different forms have other occurrences.
Here is John 21.25
Joh 21:25
And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.
The negative idea is provided by an earlier word. Here is a Greek and Enlish interlinear to help you see the location of the words with the English equivalents.
Disclaimer: I think there are one or two letters in the font that differ from the font in my bible study program, so this text may be off in a letter here or there, but this example is not about letters but about word position and general word meaning to help the reader understand that the negation idea “not” is provided prior to the “could contain” idea. This is not a crucial nor disputed issue, but to simply demonstrate how informative a word comparison study can be.
Joh 21:25
[size=3.5]estin de[/size] {AND THERE ARE} [size=3.5]kai[/size] {ALSO} [size=3.5]alla[/size] {OTHER THINGS} [size=3.5]polla[/size] {MANY} [size=3.5]osa[/size] {WHATSOEVER} [size=3.5]epoihsen o[/size] {DID} [size=3.5]ihsouv[/size] {JESUS,} [size=3.5]atina[/size] {WHICH} [size=3.5]ean[/size] {IF} [size=3.5]grafhtai[/size] {THEY SHOULD BE WRITTEN} [size=3.5]kay en[/size] {ONE BY ONE,} [size=3.5]oude[/size] {NOT EVEN} [size=3.5]auton[/size]auton {ITSELF} [size=3.5]oimai[/size] {I SUPPOSE} [size=3.5]ton[/size] {THE} [size=3.5]kosmon[/size] {WORLD} [size=3.5]cwrhsai[/size] {WOULD CONTAIN} [size=3.5]ta[/size] {THE} [size=3.5]grafomena[/size] {WRITTEN} [size=3.5]biblia[/size] {BOOKS.} [size=3.5]amhn[/size] {AMEN.}
So by that we understand that the word behind the English words, “could not contain”, actually is the word kho-reh-o, which is Strong’s 5562, and contributes the idea “could contain”, not “could not contain”.
So here are those two verses again this time side by side, with the word in question highlighted in blue.
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Joh 21:25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that should be written. Amen.
Now, so far, all I have shown you is that I can look up the same Greek word and compare two verses using the same word with the same voice tense mood according to my bible study program (the OnLineBible). The verses are all using the KJV, the Gree from the TR for searching and display only.
Now, this is my observation, it is not an argument I am making up. To examine the translation’s consistency, we can just look at the renderings to see how they come across. They are
“should come”
“could contain”
on the surface, they are both permitting ideas showing some ability of action.
Now, lets swap the rendering in the verses to see how the context fleshes things out. This is where the differences between these two renderings become more evident.
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all could contain repentance.
Joh 21:25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I suppose that even the world itself should not come to the books that should be written. Amen.
Earlier I started to mix up the idea “not” into my comparison and I apologize for that mistake, the thought that the would should not approach writing about God’s awesomeness should not enter the comparison. The “use” of the word in 2Pe 3.9 is in the positive and so to make an “apples to apples” comparison, we should render the use in John 21.25 in the positive as well, which is easily accommodated.
2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all could contain repentance.
Joh 21:25 And there are also many other things which Jesus did, the which, if they should be written every one, I do not suppose that even the world itself should come to the books that should be written. Amen.
Findings
In 2Pe 3.9 the general idea of “could contain” is roughly “have room for” or “make room for” etc. so this idea seems to fit pretty good with the sense in which it is used.
But, when you look at John 12.25, it does not fit very well. Consider this rendering in terms of action. “Come to” is the idea of “approaching” or “arriving at”. But the idea being graphically displayed in John 21.25 is not so much “approaching” or “arriving”, it’s about “having enough room”, the whole world may not have enough room for all the books ... so it’s a word about “having” or “making room” or as the text was rendered “containing”, “could contain”.
Assessment
This swapping of renderings would make 2Pet 3.9 into a reasonable verse, but John 21.25 is problematic at best, because what in the world would it matter if the world could or could not approach these books? John is not talking about the issue of world wide access to these books, but rather the idea is all about the enormity of such books and that the world could not
“have enough room for” them, it
“could not contain” them.
Also, I grant that the contextual use of a word does not determine the words meaning per say, but it can give good indicator’s of it’s appropriate use, and by comparing alternate renderings it can become easier to see what aspects of the rendering fits and what does not. So what I just did does not exactly limit the scope of the meaning of this word, but it does serve to demonstrate the inconsistency of the translation and that it’s contextual use is not I agreement with the dubious rending in 2Pet 3.9. The rendering in John 12.25 fits both verses just fine so that rendering passes the test, but the rendering in 2Pet 3.9 does not fit John 12.25 very well. Such observation indicates a dubious rendering since it is a very poor fit/bad in John 12.25.
In conclusion
Thus, based upon the translator’s treatment of this same word, it is reasonable to assume that “make room” is better than “should come”, it certainly fits into each context much more clearly, while “come to” hardly fit’s John 12.25 at all.
Again this is going strictly by their own translation work, I am simply observing the noticeable inconsistency with what they submitted was the correct renderings, and how the Pet rendering does not compare well while the John rendering does just fine. So please don’t misunderstand what has been presented for your consideration. This is not mocking the translators per say. This is demonstrating their own inconstancy and how these two examples serve to
invalidate “come to” and
validate “could contain”, “make room for”, “to make room for”.
