{"id":1022,"date":"2013-12-09T14:18:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-09T14:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/12\/the-surprising-truth-behind-biblical-prophecies.html"},"modified":"2013-12-09T14:18:00","modified_gmt":"2013-12-09T14:18:00","slug":"the-surprising-truth-behind-biblical-prophecies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/rhetoricraceandreligion\/2013\/12\/the-surprising-truth-behind-biblical-prophecies.html","title":{"rendered":"The Surprising Truth Behind Biblical Prophecies"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
Ask most people what happens to prophecies in the Bible, and the response will be that they get fulfilled. But that popular answer is based on a fundamental translation mistake. The Bible doesn\u2019t say that prophecies come true. Here\u2019s what led to that widespread misunderstanding.<\/span><\/div>\n
Greek has a verb\u00a0plerow,<\/i>\u00a0commonly pronounced \u201cplay-ROH-oh.\u201d It primarily means \u201cfill,\u201d and appears throughout the Bible. Romans 15:13, for example, reads, \u201cMay the God of hope fill\u00a0[plerow]<\/i>\u00a0you with all joy.\u201d In Matthew 13:48, the word refers to a dragnet that is \u201cfull\u201d of fish. And so on.<\/span><\/div>\n
This look at the context of\u00a0plerow<\/i>\u00a0is helpful, because context is the best way to figure out what an ancient word means, as I explain in\u00a0And God Said: How Translations Conceal the Bible\u2019s Original Meaning<\/i><\/a>, and as I summarize\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/span><\/div>\n
Because the English word \u201cfulfill\u201d contains the word \u201cfill,\u201d translators wrongly thought that the Greek word\u00a0plerow<\/i>\u00a0could mean \u201cfulfill\u201d in addition to \u201cfill.\u201d But language doesn\u2019t work that way.<\/span><\/div>\n
Just as \u201csupplant\u201d in English is different than \u201cplant,\u201d and \u201csupply\u201d is different than \u201cply,\u201dplerow<\/i>\u00a0doesn\u2019t jump in meaning from \u201cfill\u201d to \u201cfulfill.\u201d These pairs only have superficial similarities in common, and looking at internal structure in this way leads people astray. (Read more about why.<\/a>)<\/span><\/div>\n
Read the rest here<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ask most people what happens to prophecies in the Bible, and the response will be that they get fulfilled. But that popular answer is based on a fundamental translation mistake. The Bible doesn\u2019t say that prophecies come true. Here\u2019s what led to that widespread misunderstanding. Greek has a verb\u00a0plerow,\u00a0commonly pronounced \u201cplay-ROH-oh.\u201d It primarily means \u201cfill,\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Surprising Truth Behind Biblical Prophecies<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Ask most people what happens to prophecies in the Bible, and the response will be that they get fulfilled. 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