Straining at or straining out gnats.
 

Since there has been an objection to including the discussion of "strain at a gnat" on the thread about a different translational question, http://av1611.com/forums/showthread.php?t=368&page=3
I decided to start a new thread on it. It might be best to let it drop altogether but I just reread Will Kinney's article on the subject and have more to say.

I read through his entire discussion and found ONE objective statement, only one and it is not emphasized at all even by him and not even brought up by anyone here. It occurs in his article in the midst of a sea of speculative comments, opinions, guesses and suppositions, and before a long section which does not address the topic at all but attacks the defenders of the new versions instead, which is irrelevant and an unseemly changing of the subject.

Here is the one piece of objective evidence in the whole article:

http://www.geocities.com/brandplucked/strain.html

This is CRUCIAL but it is stuck in the middle of nothing but a bunch of wild speculations. Why??? Unfortunately the statement is not clear enough to ascertain exactly what the evidence is. Some notes made on a copy of the Bishop's Bible that supposedly indicate what the translators thought must be changed? can this be verified?

If the book by Allen and Jacobs were not $40 plus shipping I'd almost want to have it just to find the reference to this particular quote which I assume they document better, but that truly would be an excessive exertion for such a small point.

But why oh why oh why is so much effort spent on speculative defenses of "strain at" instead of this ONE AND ONLY objective evidence? If this is true, and I'd love it to be true, IT IS THE ANSWER you all want, and NOTHING else anyone has said is any kind of answer at all. It does not matter that the phrase has been accepted as a proverb about excessive exertion on behalf of small problems to the neglect of great problems, it does not matter that we can make sense out of "strain at" even though the earlier Bibles had "strain out" and it is consistent with the Greek while "strain at" is not, etc. etc. etc. NONE of that matters. That's all opinion and guesswork.

But this claim is OBJECTIVE. It is THE evidence needed to support "strain at" over "strain out." It would be far far better if a REASON were given for such a decision, but IF IT IS CLEAR that it was a choice made by the translators, and I do mean CLEAR, VERY CLEAR that it was intentional, that is objective evidence.

Josh on the other thread has speculated that perhaps strain at used to mean strain out. Unfortunately there is NO evidence for such an idea and plenty against it. Three previous English Bibles all have "strain out," not "strain at." All the quotations given that use the term "strain at," including the commentaries of John Gill and Matthew Henry, use it in the sense of exertion or making an effort and NOT in the sense of filtering out something.

The proverb we are all familiar with has never meant filtering out to any of us and clearly did not mean that to those commentators either. We think of it in terms of exertion, making an effort against gnats, not filtering them out. Why Dr. Waite's Defined King James Bible has a footnote for "strain at" that says "i.e., out" I don't know. It seems to imply an equivalence but in fact there is no evidence that the terms were ever equivalent -- no evidence given by anyone in this discussion, no evidence in any of the links or references offered.

The two terms are not equivalent. We have accepted "strain at" for the last few centuries in the sense of making an exertion. That is not what the Greek says but if the translators wanted to preserve the commonly accepted sense nevertheless, and keep the meaning of exertion rather than filtering, and we can find out that in fact they did intentionally make that choice, then fine, but that doesn't make the terms mean the same thing.

Nobody ever read "strain at" to refer to filtering anything and you all know it.

Connie, I will begin by saying that I do not question the KJB, even in the face of stiff opposition. Secondly, I don't know my alpha from my omega, and I have no interest in knowing. Last, I am not expecting to change your mind here. You seek for tangible proof. If and when you find it, you will move on to the next puzzling passage. There are plenty to choose from, so you will not have to make a final decision on the accuracy of the KJB based on objective proof and logic for a long time to come.

What I do want to do is tell what I believe this passage is saying. The greek-geeks can slam me, and the confusionists can scoff at my naivete, but it does not matter to me. So here goes:

Long before I ever knew that there was a supposed error here, I saw the verse in this light. The Scriptures are always self-explanatory, therefore the message must be able to be derived from the context. The phrase "swallow a camel" is quite plain wording. Jesus said that the Pharisees could do something that was physically impossible, so it is symbolic hyperbole describing the fact that they allowed serious error to slip by unnoticed. On the other hand, swallowing a gnat is not difficult at all. For someone to choke on or gag on (strain at) a gnat when swallowing said gnat would be unusual. The Pharisees choked on (were strained to allow past, couldn't swallow) the tiniest of violation of rules while letting the important things, greatest commandments, be ignored. This can clearly be seen when the whole dialogue is read.

Yea, yea, I know that the greekies will say that the greek word translated "strain" means "filter" and not "choke" or "gag", but I read English, God gave me an English Bible, and the English can be understood to mean struggling with or, with the "swallow" later in the verse as a parallel, to choke or gag. Using my child-like, simple idea, the "at" works well. AND even if I couldn't figure it out, let God be true and every man a liar.

Now for those who think that this exercise is silly, and, yes, it is ripe for humorous comments, there is a deeper and far more important issue. Do we truly believe that every jot and tittle, every pronoun and preposition is there for a purpose, or do we settle for 99.44% pure and doubt God?

I can only answer you as I usually do, Brother Tim. Finding an error of any kind in the KJB does not at all to my mind mean settling for 99.44% pure and doubting God. Far from it. I consider the KJB to be God's word. This particular issue is, however, the very first I've run across that hints at a difference in actual meaning, although in practice we all grasp the proverbial sense of it nevertheless. Other changes I've thought might possibly be necessary don't involve a difference in meaning but simply the substitution of a contemporary English term that conveys exactly the same meaning to us now as the one that was used in 1611 did to the people then. NO change in meaning. I have to admit that I tend to judge the old words as I encounter them in the KJB as fine just as they are without any changes needed so that if I end up with a list at all it's going to be a very very short one.

Since we do grasp the meaning of the teaching about the gnat and the camel even if we do not have the precise context in mind that the original writers had, perhaps it's best not to consider that a change is needed at all. I'm still mulling this over.

I'm not interested in hunting down errors in the KJB for their own sake as you imply. This one struck me as a new kind of problem I would have to explain to people I'm trying to defend the KJB to, so I want to understand it well. What I'm interested in is finding the truth about the translation problems so that I can denounce the new versions intelligently enough to open people's eyes and defend the KJB intelligently enough to be convincing to true Christians who are under the spell of the new versions, and I know they exist. They are not all rebels as so many here seem to prefer to think. They are God's people doing their best under a handicap. I fully believe that the KJB is God's word in the fullest sense, and that the new versions are a horrific mutilation of God's word that ought to be challenged as effectively as we possibly can, and simply declaring that there are no errors in the KJB at all isn't going to serve that purpose. If I can find a way to defend "strain at" that makes sense, I will certainly defend it.

Connie, I really appreciate your intensity, and I agree that it is good to answer the concerns of those who are confused. I am not doubting you personally, or speaking to you as one who questions to validity of the KJB. I did not express that well in my last post. What I was trying to say, and your most recent post amplifies that even more, is that once you convince yourself enough to be able to confidently answer others, they will simply bring up another puzzle. If you think the "at vs. out" explanation will settle the problem, then they will just move to the "Easter vs. Passover" or the "love of money" arguments.

The bottom line is that if a person must be convinced through logical argument to trust in God's Word, then he or she will be convinced only until the next argument comes along. "for he that cometh to God must believe that he is," and I believe that goes for His Word as well. It is like the person that wants you to explain who Cain's wife was when you are trying to share the Gospel. If you get off message and patiently explain it, he or she doesn't then quietly listen, you just get another question, "but what about ...?"

By the way, if you would like to test out my point of endless questions from seemingly sincere Christians, I just finally left one forum where after months of discussing every argument under the sun, I was no better off. I'd gladly pass the baton to someone else. Also, I joined FreeSundaySchoolLessons' forum to be the token KJBer. Barry and GreekTim keep me very busy, and I could use some back-up. Sadly, it is really a waste of time, but I am sort of like a pitbull. Once I bite, you just about have to kill me to get me to turn loose. Actually, it is more like a dodgeball game where I am the only one in the middle and they are throwing balls at me from both sides. I keep thinking that because these are good, Godly people, that if I could just get my foot in the door, the light would come on, but it never happens.

I can't agree, brother Steven, that "strain at" is so obviously the better translation and I don't see how you derive that idea from the post of mine that you referenced.

What the passage is meant to teach us, or the moral of the story as it were, is pretty much the same in both cases (although Brother Tim seems to have his own individual way of arriving at it). That is, in either case the Lord is teaching us not to be myopically focused on small concerns when there are much more important ones that need our attention. That is true whether we are talking about excessive exertion to rid ourselves of gnats (I personally have always pictured swatting at them, which is all "straining at" them brings to my mind) or talking about anxiety not to swallow a nearly microscopic unclean beast. In both cases it holds up as a proverb about our priorities in the Christian life. So I can't rank one over the other as far as that goes.

I'm not sure I'm up to the depth of research you are suggesting, but if you happen to find a quote somewhere that would shed light on the translators' intention that would be very helpful.

I'm not sure yet what I think, but if it can be shown for sure that the KJB translators themselves actually chose "strain at" I would concede that they must have had excellent reason for the choice, because I think of them as God-fearing honorable men of the highest scholarship, and men who consulted each other before arriving at their decisions too.

As I say above, I don't see the importance you attach to this distinction. I've reread my post and I don't grasp your point. Futile effort holds up fine as a proverb, but so does using a strainer to get rid of a nearly microscopic unclean food while ingesting a huge unclean beast without a thought.

And the fact that three major English Bibles before the King James have "strain out", particularly the Bishop's Bible that the translators were laboring in fact to preserve to the utmost, is very convincing to me that "strain out" is a perfectly fine choice.

But it would be wonderful to find any comment by one of the translators saying that they choose "strain at" over "strain out" and giving their reasons, because all the reasons you or I can think of just remain conjecture.

Again, I don't see at ALL that strain at makes more sense than strain out. The idea of swatting at gnats hardly makes more sense than catching them in a fine mesh, and it is nowhere near as apt for paralleling swallow a camel. It works well enough for conveying the instruction to us, both of them do, and otherwise it doesn't make MORE sense at all.

And if you are going to go down that path of questioning whether every stone was turned in the pursuit of all the nuances of the Greek, don't you have to be wary that anyone defending or rejecting many things in any Bible can say the same thing? What we don't know we don't know, but we do know that some worthy Bibles have said "strain out" and we do know that this describes what the Pharisees did.

I dunno, Dr. Waite is a major contributor to the King James Only debate so I can't just overlook a note like that. I acknowledge the immense value of the information at this site, and Bibleprotector's and Will Kinney's (and Dr. Waite's and Dr. Cloud's too) while reserving the right to raise questions and criticisms where they present themselves.

Dr. Waite's son, D.A. jr is the footnote author of the Defined and put the Greek in where it "may" help, and writes "mistakes may have inadvertantly crept in" besides other disclaimers and defers to the translators. If you look on the page opposite of Genesis 1, you'll see The Golden Rule of Bible Interpretation. "When the PLAIN SENSE of Scripture makes COMMON SENSE, SEEK NO OTHER SENSE." I believe Brother Tim has done that with Mat 23:24, and that Dr. Waite would concur. I read part of Matthew Henry's commentary on this in this overdone thread, and he concurs that strained AT is the common sense rendering. COMMENTARIES-PROCEED WITH CAUTION!!!...

Matthew Henry:

2. They avoided lesser sins, but committed greater (Mt 23:24); Ye blind guides; so he had called them before (Mt 23:16), for their corrupt teaching; here he calls them so for their corrupt living, for their example was leading as well as their doctrine; and in this also they were blind and partial; they strained at a gnat, and swallowed a camel. In their doctrine they strained at gnats, warned people against every the least violation of the tradition of the elders. In their practice they strained at gnats, heaved at them, with a seeming dread, as if they had a great abhorrence of sin, and were afraid of it in the least instance; but they made no difficulty of those sins which, in comparison with them, were as a camel to a gnat; when they devoured widows' houses, they did indeed swallow a camel; when they gave Judas the price of innocent blood, and yet scrupled to put the returned money into the treasury (Mt 27:6); when they would not go into the judgment-hall, for fear of being defiled, and yet would stand at the door, and cry out against the holy Jesus (Joh 18:28); when they quarrelled with the disciples for eating with unwashen hands, and yet, for the filling of the Corban, taught people to break the fifth commandment, they strained at gnats, or lesser things, and yet swallowed camels. It is not the scrupling of a little sin that Christ here reproves; if it be a sin, though but a gnat, it must be strained at, but the doing of that, and then swallowing a camel. In the smaller matters of the law to be superstitious, and to be profane in the greater, is the hypocrisy here condemned.

Hello Debau,
I have agreed many times that there is no problem with "strain at" as far as the teaching we glean from it goes, although I don't think it is superior to "strain out" in that regard. The Greek means to filter, the other English Bibles reflect that meaning, and "strain at" doesn't mean to filter, it means to exert oneself against something. It nevertheless works to make the point Matthew Henry teaches: In the smaller matters of the law to be superstitious, and to be profane in the greater, is the hypocrisy here condemned but so does the other rendering make that point just as well, and more truly to the original context.

Your reference to Matthew Henry does not add anything. He does not appear to even be aware that there ever was a reading of "strain out" and simply accepts "strain at" as a given, so you cannot say rightly that "he concurs that strained AT is the common sense rendering." We have no idea from that passage you quote whether he would have thought that if he were even aware that there had ever been another rendering.

This topic is about the question whether or not "strain at" was intended by the translators since it is a departure from the earlier Bibles' use of "strain out." Doesn't it matter what Jesus actually had in mind when he gave that teaching?

Brother Steven,
I simply did not recognize the names you were referring to in your post and it sounded like a lot of research you were proposing. I did not recognize the name Jeffrey Nachimson that you brought up and I still don't. I don't know what you are referring to. You say he has proved that the translators intended "strain at?" I haven't seen this yet although you are claiming it is so. Also, apparently I didn't grasp what you were suggesting about finding the point in the Allen and Jacobs book, so now that I do I can see if it's possible to follow up on that.

In this post you are simply repeating the interpretation that Will Kinney gave that I already answered. It's a strained interpretation to try to make "strain at" fit into the context of filtering out a gnat. Either "strain" means to filter (with "out") or it means to exert (with "at"), and it appears that what has happened is that because the English word is identical in spelling although it is really two different words (this occurs quite a bit in English, to the chagrin of many foreigners who try to learn it) their meanings have become confused with each other over time and now everybody is trying to make them mean the same thing when they don't.

If there were such a natural mingling of the two different senses in English then yes, we might suppose such a mingling in other languages as well, but there is no such natural mingling that I know of. In English filtering is a different action from exerting.

Yes, this is my own speculative thinking in answer to your speculative thinking. Yes, that's all there is at this point. Except you do claim that there is objective evidence that the translators intentionally made the change to "strain at." In fact you assert it with finality although to this point that supposed proof has not yet been shown here, and it remains for me the question that needs answering. And again, it seems to be getting buried in a lot of conjecture when all by itself it would make the point if it were true and we don't need the conjecture.

I see there is no point in continuing this discussion right now because everybody who is arguing with me starts from the premise that the KJB is absolutely right and puts all his energy into conjectures that seem to make it so and there is no way to argue with that sort of thing.

I got a gnat down in my ear while at an outdoor funeral today. While I debated on how to strain at getting it out, it flew away. Perhaps we need to do the same with this thread. Just let it fly away. ;)

Yes, we can let it fly away. I'll take it eventually to some other site because I still need to get some answers.

Steven, I don't think I was clear about my answer to you. You are continuing and elaborating that same interpretation Will Kinney and others give, about how using a strainer in case there might be a gnat is making an unnecessary exertion. I don't see it although you say you think I recognized it. You make quite a plausibility out of it by bringing in other teachings and parables of Jesus, but really there is no necessity of including those in this one.

There is no special exertion involved in pouring your soup or drink through a strainer. When we read "strain at" I really do not think most of us picture anything having to do with filtering or trying to filter a gnat out of a drink. I never had that context in mind when I read it, and neither do the commentators mentioned, John Gill and Matthew Henry. Using a strainer simply does not enter into the discussion at all when dealing with the phrase "strain at" because we know that means to exert onself and does not imply the context of filtering -- that would just not occur to us. They are two separate words in all our minds and the attempt to make them into one just doesn't work, it is strained reasoning as I have said many times.

And again, even less strained conjecture isn't going to deal with this question anyway if you are trying to talk to people who don't think the KJB has to be perfect at every point of the translation in order to be God's word. What is needed is objective evidence. And again, you claim it has been produced but I haven't seen it.

I think I just came to the conclusion that God made sure the KJV would say "strain at a gnat" just so we could see who the gnat strainers are!

I have already said this before, but anyone who makes an issue of this phrase is giving a dictionary example of irony.

(Just for the record, I accept the KJV reading as perfect.)

Undelete.

You have such a lack of respect for people who are trying to deal with the questions that people raise about the KJB I wonder why you even bother to run a site to educate anyone. Leave it up to God. He'll lead everybody to your perfectly correct position without your help, right? Seems to me there's a lot of smug self-righteousness around here and petty put-downs that are far from a Christian spirit but full of chest-beating pride and vindictiveness.

No, Steven, we haven't discussed it at all. I have merely referred to what was posted here, which addresses the meaning of "strain at" without mentioning the option of "strain out" as I recall. But nobody answered me until now. All I read was what somebody posted.

If he makes a comment somewhere about the choice of "at" over "out" that should have been the first -- and probably only -- thing quoted from him. It might have saved a lot of useless speculation.

Pointing out the irony of debating "strain at/out a gnat" is not "vindictiveness." I certainly believe the KJV reading is correct and I am happy to allow people to defend that reading. But this is at least the third time this question has come up, and it doesn't appear to bear any fruit.

The "camels" of Bible translation and corruption are far weightier. Once you finish straining at the gnat of "strain at a gnat" you will move on to the next minutia. It will never end.

At some point one must decide what their final authority is. There is an abundance of evidence pointing the way to the KJV -- the purpose of this site is to provide for it. But until someone puts their faith in God's word received, one will find a gnat behind every page to strain at.

Connie, first, aren't you painting your criticism with a very broad brush? Second, you seem to assume based on your last post that either (a) we all have a library of resources and limitless time to search for a truly minimal point, or (b) we are all plotting to hide the truth from you and stretch this issue out needlessly.

I am bailing on this discussion. It is no longer edifying.

I wasn't talking about either you or Steven Avery, Brother Tim, and it was unfortunately an accumulation of incidents over time that I was responding to from other threads. But the conversation WAS over I think, unless someone was going to post the whole context of John Gill on the subject. I will eventually look it up myself, however, and the conversation is probably over in any case. No, I don't assume anybody's access to resources, but Steven hinted that John Gill said more than was posted here without saying what that might be.

I will probably eventually look up John Gill, Steven, I have made use of his commentary before, but my comments here were in relation only to what was posted here from him. I would have expected that whatever was posted would have been the most relevant to this topic, wouldn't you? Therefore I did not expect that the poster would have left out a discussion about the former use of "strain out" and the translators' choice of "strain at." And now I see that despite your hint that he has more to say I should know about, he no doubt doesn't discuss this at all. But that's what I'm saying is the necessary objective evidence.

The rest of your post I simply am not following. You are making a lot of assertions about something but I don't know what, what "scholarly references" and so on. The speculations I found at Will Kinney's site remain speculations as far as I can see, simply explanations people come up with for how "strain at" makes sense to them, not actual evidence that its occurrence in the AV was not an error. If you see something there that is objective and not merely speculative, shouldn't you quote it so I can see what you mean? Otherwise I have no idea what you mean and all you are doing is slinging accusations at me.

I did not notice Jeffrey Anybody there and at this point don't see why I need to since you have not given me reason to. Where you say

all I can answer is that this is a perfect example of the typical speculation I was talking about. Can't you see that this is speculation and interpretation? It's clearly an attempt to make sense of the fact that the text has "strain at" but the Greek means filtering. This is what everybody is doing with this passage, Will Kinney, you, etc., but it's strained reasoning. But if you accept it as authoritative then nothing I say about its being strained reasoning is going to be persuasive.

This is not evidence that "strain at" was intended by the translators, this is just the usual attempt to explain it in such a way that makes it useful for Christian life. But I've already said I accept that it is useful. So is "strain out" useful in exactly the same way. Both give useful instruction, but "strain out" is an accurate translation and "strain at" is not. What I need in order to be convinced is not plausible interpretations but objective evidence that the translators intended "strain at" in spite of the fact that it is not an accurate translation, which of course they would have known. If they chose it, then they chose it for some other reason they considered more important. It's a simple enough requirement. Nothing else will do. If it's not available then I have to decide if I can swallow such strained rationalizations as I'm being offered as God's word. If John Gill does not assert in his commentary that the translators intended it then I see no point in checking John Gill either. I'm sure his interpretation of "strain at" is just as plausible as everybody else's is, but that doesn't prove the translation was correct and it doesn't tell me whether it is in the KJB in error or not.

Thank you for your attention to this topic. I believe I now know all I need to know about it.

Good grief. I think that explanation of "strain at" is a very strained rationalization, that's how it hits me, an acrobatic mental exercise in cramming the meaning of exertion and filtering into one -- which in fact I've been saying all along and in fact you seemed to see the point yourself a few posts back. It's not really relevant that lexicons use the Greek sources, or that John Gill did, that I can see, you'd have to show how they used it in this case, a discussion of the Greek meaning etc., but you aren't doing that, you are content to upbraid me for some sin or other in finding the interpretation to be forced. I didn't assert anything by the way about John Gill except what was in the quote given here and all he did was interpret "strain at" without reference to the Greek or "strain out," so no, I am not committing this sin you accuse me of.

You want me to accept this interpretation, this explanation, this rationalization of "strain at" as if it is objective evidence for its intentional inclusion in the Bible. Now if the translators themselves give this same explanation or interpretation, THAT I would have to take seriously, but otherwise this just sounds like everybody is straining to put the two different meanings together. What if the translators chose "strain at" just because it had become the accepted idea and not because it accurately reflected the Greek? Is that a possibility? What if nobody would ever have known there was that other meaning of filtering if the new versions hadn't forced so many of us to be constantly looking up the Greek? Brother Tim didn't even picture the action of filtering out a gnat with a strainer. Most of us don't read "strain at" to include anything about filtering. You can interpret the passage just fine without any indication of filtering, as it appears Matthew Henry did (You are saying John Gill included it but I haven't seen it yet and yes, again, I would expect you to quote it since you are asserting it).

You want me to just "see" as you all seem to, that WHATEVER is in the KJB is exactly what is supposed to be there and it's a spiritual problem of mine if I don't, so that ends it for you. Fine, let it be ended. I'm spiritually deficient and that's that.

I haven't called any of this a conspiracy so please drop that term. If I suppose anything about how it might have happened I don't think of an intentional plot, I think of plausible explanations occurring in people's minds for a phrase they take as given by God.

It looks to me like Schaff simply contributed the accepted understanding of "strain at a gnat" without it involving anything having to do with translation.

myth of the printer's error
 

You seem to be asking me to do a lot of work to check out what you are saying to even know what you are talking about so I can't answer until I have more time to slog through it all. I have been answering according to what I remember at Will Kinney's site (all speculation except for the reference to Allen and Jacobs) and of what was posted from John Gill (nothing referring to "filtering") and what I remember seems to remain true.

I don't see why it matters that a lexicon is a favorite of "textcrits" if all they have to offer is that same strained explanation of "strain at" that isn't convincing evidence.

Perhaps you have finally given enough information for me to follow your point about Jeffrey Nachimson, but you still refer me back to a previous post you don't identify and I don't recall. You don't like to make it easy to understand you it seems.

In the last post perhaps you are now offering some real evidence that the change was deliberate, which I asked for a long time ago, which is quite amazing after this long go-round, but I will have to think about it later.

However, isn't it odd that such a long list of pre-KJB commentaries have "strain at" when the Bibles of the time had "strain out?" Nobody has even tried to explain how that might have happened either-- or have I missed that explanation too? (It could be). Early in this discussion somebody already posted two pre-KJB commentators that had "strain at" -- I haven't overlooked that fact but again, nobody has explained it as of yet that I recall.

And which one on the list was a KJ translator, why don't you identify him instead of making me look it up? -- the way you insisted that I look up John Gill without giving any reason why I should make that extra effort.

You tediously misunderstand me, you tediously require me to fill in blanks you should have filled in yourself for the sake of politeness and ease of communication, and only now are you seeming to come up with actual evidence. Fine, I'll check it out later.

John Gill on Matthew 23:24 - who strain at a gnat
 

1800's accusations - "error of the press" "oversight" "misprint"
 

This is interesting stuff to present. One thing we notice about those who readily reject the King James Bible view is that they will jump at anything to attack the KJB (it is like they will more quickly accept an atheist’s opinion against the KJB than anything else). It is clear that already unbelief was much advanced by Webster, and that by the time of Trench, Scrivener and others, this view was continued by the "scholars", so that the modern writers can make something "fact" because of the apparent depth of attestation.

Steven, thank you for your labors in defense of the KJV reading here. I think this thread has some of the most detailed information on this verse that I have read.

Great information! I thank the Lord for clearing this issue up for us, as I've seen this mentioned before as well. Thanks Steven!

Josh