Featured Miscellaneous translation notes.

That is so true we are Baptist!... Some are English Baptist and some are Greek!... Brother Glen

 

If one is born again, it is from above.

 

That seems unlikely, for wouldn't that mean that 3 have agreement within themselves (thus having only one opinion each) and only 2 disagree within themselves (thus having two opinions each)? More likely 10 or 15 opinions!

 

I believe your opinion might be correct however, I am of the opinion your math may be questionable.

 

I've never claimed math was my best subject!

...But 3 + 2 + 2 does equal 7.

 

Nope, that's not an answer. These are idioms, and they therefore don't give lexical knowledge about similar idioms. There are many idioms or sayings with the word "cat," but none of them tell us what the others mean: "Cat got your tongue?" "cat burgler;" "Cat's tongue" (Japanese idiom for sensitive tongue); "raining cats and dogs."

Again, "born over" is not an English expression or idiom. We simply do not say this. If you give a meaning, I can give my meaning, and neither of us can disprove the other's opinion, because there is no contemporary usage of the term (how a linguist determines meaning).

 

Where did you get the word "besides"? It's not in the KJV in my software, and I checked my genuine reproduction of the 1611 KJV and it's not there either.

The KJV actually translates para as "of" meaning "from" in 1611 English.

 

I'd say that "born again" became English through the Bible. My Geneva Bible has the phrase, so it was around before the KJV. If whoever originally did the "born again" rendering had chosen "born over," that would be the phrase we use, but it didn't happen that way.

Concerning "born again" or "born from above" in John 3, translators universally go with "born again" since that is how Nicodemus understood the word, as Martin ably pointed out in a previous post.

 

I just looked back through the thread, and I'm not sure what you mean here.

 

And if one is born from above, it is again.

 

Wouldn't the source of where one gets born again from be from above though?

 

Indeed. I think you'll find I said as much in my Post #13.

 

Well actually in Greek the genitive case (possessive) is not usually used for direction (as in "from"). You do need the preposition para to portray that.

 

No, sorry, this won't work. You are reading your modern English grammar into both the Greek and 1611 English. The para must be translated as from, even if that gives us a different difficulty to overcome in harmonizing the texts. And in 1611 English, the word "of" was sometimes used for what we say as "from."

If Stephen made a mistake in history here, that doesn't bother my position of inerrancy in the slightest. The doctrine of verbal-plenary inspiration guarantees the accuracy of history in the Bible, but it does not guarantee the accuracy of a recorded sermon of anyone but Jesus. Stephen could have simply had a faulty memory here, and the doctrine of inerrancy is still intact.