Article July 11, 1942 Issue

Bible Notes

[The Biblical citations given in the Christian Science Quarterly are from the Authorized King James Version. The Bible Notes in these columns can be used, if deemed necessary, to elucidate some of the words or passages contained in the Bible Lessons. The Notes in this issue are related to the Lesson-Sermon designated to be read in Christian Science churches on July 26, 1942.]

"The word of God is quick, and powerful" (Hebr. 4:12)—It will be recalled that the word "quick" was regularly used in the sense of "living" in the early seventeenth century, when our Common Version was prepared, and when thus understood it represents a literal rendering of the Greek, which could be translated: "The word of God is living and active." Compare the rendering favored by the Twentieth Century New Testament: "God's Message is a living and active power."

"I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world" (John 17:6)—The Jews constantly stressed the significance of names. With them, a man's "name" was considered as practically synonymous with his character, his reputation, his real self, just as we today constantly speak of a man's "good name" in the sense of his good character or reputation. Hence we might render: "I have made plain thy character to the men whom thou gavest me from the world." Goodspeed suggests: "I have revealed your real self to the men you gave me from the world."

"I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" (John 17:14)—Goodspeed suggests the translation: "I have given them your message, and the world has come to hate them, for they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world."

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