I was just reading today in the book of Philippians chapter 1 verse 8 from my TBN Special Edition KJV/NLT Parallel Bible...(i know right, what does it even matter?) anywho, i began reading this verse in the New Living Translation and it reads:
God knows how much I love you and long for you with the tender compassion of Christ Jesus.
Sounds good huh? But...Then i read it in the King James Version and let me tell you, it gave me some real insight as to why the bible was retranslated. It reads:
For God is my record, how greatly i long for you all IN THE BOWELS of Jesus Christ.
just some back story, this is of course the Aposle Paul talking to the believers in Philippi and he is telling them how much that he misses them because he is away from them in prison.
that being said, why would Paul say that he is longing for them in Jesus' Bowels? i understand that ancient prisons were nowhere near as nicely furnished as todays prisons however, i think that comparing his conditions to someones stomach is a little out of place. OR was Paul telling them in the ever authoritative KJV that he was waiting for them literally in Jesus' stomach OR maybe that he wanted Jesus to eat all of them so that they could be in his bowels because he longed for them to be there? this of course led me to look back into the original language.
the word used in the greek text which describes either tender affection or a persons bowels is the word Splagchnon (Splangkh' non) which can be translated in any of these ways according to Strongs Biblical Concordance:
1. bowels, intestines, (the heart, lungs, liver, etc.)
a) bowels
b) the bowels were regarded as the seat of the more violent passions, such as anger and love; but by the Hebrews as the seat of the tenderer affections, esp. kindness, benevolence, compassion; hence our heart (tender mercies, affections, etc.)
c) a heart in which mercy resides
so then i see that the word is correctly translated as bowels however, when i consider the idea of Paul longing for them in Jesus' Bowels any number of misconceptions like the ones before can and will occur provided that reference tools like the concordance, which explains ancient idioms, were not at our disposal...this is why i am concerned for speakers of modern english who limit their understanding of scripture to a bible that was honestly written in another language (olde english) that they don't speak. I believe that the KJV is a valuable tool for anyone who desires to know the word of God but i don't think that in today's world it should be someones only bible.
In today's english there is a big diference between a persons bowels and tender affections. I don't know, i just thought that was an interesting little thing ;-)
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