Actually, yes, I understand 1611 English quite well. Grew up with the KJV, so I've heard it and/or read it for 67 years now. Took 6 credits of Shakespeare in college as an English minor. My major was Bible, and yes, it was the KJV.
But you won't even tell me if you know what "letteth" means in the KJV. So, do you understand the early English language of the 1611?
So I've taken a stand and said exactly what I believe about the inspiration of the Bible. Can you take courage and do the same? Will you stand up for what you believe?
If you don't mind, since you skipped the second half of my inititial question to you, please, let's proceed to discussion of the Doctrine of the passage of 2Thessalonians. Otherwise, I'm going to perceive this as a word game challenge that is equivalent to playing Bible Pong with JWs while they argue with me, trying to convinve me that The Holy Bible is wrong; "Do you know what Stau-ros' means?"
Please, feel free to share your thought about it. I do value your input here, since you are a teacher of the Greek. (No sarcasm or humor in this remark; I do value your input and hope that we might can come to a mutual understanding). I intend to make a case later of how various Modern Translations have been made using the exact same method and pattern as this Occult Group, and tie that in with how others propagating such inferior mis-translations, use the same method of gathering quotes from various "Scholars" to make the same type of repitious brainwashing arguments. Here's an example of how they run to the Greek and quote numerous people in the procress to promote their antichrist work of fiction:
"What does the original Greek reveal as to the shape of the instrument on which Jesus was put to death?
Most Bible translations say Christ was “crucified” rather than “impaled.” This is because of the common belief that the torture instrument upon which he was hung was a “cross” made of two pieces of wood instead of a single pale, or stake. Tradition, not the Scriptures, also says that the condemned man carried only the crossbeam of the cross, called the
patibulum, or
antenna, instead of both parts. In this way some try to avoid the predicament of having too much weight for one man to drag or carry to Golgotha.
Yet, what did the Bible writers themselves say about these matters? They used the Greek noun
stau·ros′ 27 times and the verbs
stau·ro′o 46 times,
syn·stau·ro′o (the prefix
syn, meaning “with”) 5 times, and
a·na·stau·ro′o (
a·na′, meaning “again”) once. They also used the Greek word
xy′lon, meaning “wood,” 5 times to refer to the torture instrument upon which Jesus was nailed.
Stau·ros′ in both the classical Greek and Koine carries no thought of a “cross” made of two timbers. It means only an upright stake, pale, pile, or pole, as might be used for a fence, stockade, or palisade. Says Douglas’
New Bible Dictionary of 1985 under “Cross,” page 253: “The Gk. word for ‘cross’ (
stauros; verb
stauroo . . . ) means primarily an upright stake or beam, and secondarily a stake used as an instrument for punishment and execution.”
The fact that Luke, Peter, and Paul also used
xy′lon as a synonym for
stau·ros′ gives added evidence that Jesus was impaled on an upright stake without a crossbeam, for that is what
xy′lon in this special sense means. (Ac 5:30; 10:39; 13:29; Ga 3:13; 1Pe 2:24)
Xy′lon also occurs in the Greek
Septuagint at Ezra 6:11, where it speaks of a single beam or timber on which a lawbreaker was to be impaled.
The
New World Translation, therefore, faithfully conveys to the reader this basic idea of the Greek text by rendering
stau·ros′ as “torture stake,” and the verb
stau·ro′o as “impale,” that is, to fasten on a stake, or pole. In this way there is no confusion of
stau·ros′ with the traditional ecclesiastical crosses. (See TORTURE STAKE.) The matter of one man like Simon of Cyrene bearing a torture stake, as the Scriptures say, is perfectly reasonable, for if it was 15 cm (6 in.) in diameter and 3.5 m (11 ft) long, it probably weighed little more than 45 kg (100 lb).—Mr 15:21.
Note what W. E. Vine says on this subject: “STAUROS (σταυρός) denotes, primarily, an upright pale or stake. On such malefactors were nailed for execution. Both the noun and the verb
stauroo, to fasten to a stake or pale, are originally to be distinguished from the ecclesiastical form of a two beamed cross.” Greek scholar Vine then mentions the Chaldean origin of the two-piece cross and how it was adopted from the pagans by Christendom in the third century C.E. as a symbol of Christ’s impalement.—
Vine’s Expository Dictionary of Old and New Testament Words, 1981, Vol. 1, p. 256.
Significant is this comment in the book
The Cross in Ritual, Architecture, and Art: “It is strange, yet unquestionably a fact, that in ages long before the birth of Christ, and since then in lands untouched by the teaching of the Church, the Cross has been used as a sacred symbol. . . . The Greek Bacchus, the Tyrian Tammuz, the Chaldean Bel, and the Norse Odin, were all symbolised to their votaries by a cruciform device.”—By G. S. Tyack, London, 1900, p. 1.
The book
The Non-Christian Cross, by J. D. Parsons (London, 1896), adds: “There is not a single sentence in any of the numerous writings forming the New Testament, which, in the original Greek, bears even indirect evidence to the effect that the stauros used in the case of Jesus was other than an ordinary stauros; much less to the effect that it consisted, not of one piece of timber, but of two pieces nailed together in the form of a cross. . . . It is not a little misleading upon the part of our teachers to translate the word stauros as ‘cross’ when rendering the Greek documents of the Church into our native tongue, and to support that action by putting ‘cross’ in our lexicons as the meaning of stauros without carefully explaining that that was at any rate not the primary meaning of the word in the days of the Apostles, did not become its primary signification till long afterwards, and became so then, if at all, only because, despite the absence of corroborative evidence, it was for some reason or other assumed that the particular stauros upon which Jesus was executed had that particular shape.”—Pp. 23, 24; see also
The Companion Bible, 1974, Appendix No. 162." Insight Volume I Page 1191 - 1988 (Watchtower Society JW Occult Publication)