[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

A bit more on the 1500's and early 1600's.

Strange as it may seem, we will see shortly that the original major accusation against 'strain at a gnat' was not really translational, nor proverbial, it was English grammatical. And out of this English stiffness developed the various false misprint accusations.

Thus it is interesting to show that William Shakespeare used "strain at.."

http://books.google.com/books?id=LKAXAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA88
Troilus and Cressida III. 2. 112 (1602)
Ulysses: I do not strain at the position — It is familiar — but at the author's drift; Who in his circumstance expressly proves That no man is the lord of any thing, That no man is the lord of any thing, Though in and of him there be much consisting, Till he communicate his parts to others;

http://books.google.com/books?id=-nYOAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA53&
Theobold - "ie. I do not hesitate at it, I make no difficulty of it"

Surely we see that the opponents of the purity and perfection of the King James Bible do in fact strain at the position that God's pure and perfect word can be read and embraced by the ploughman .. and even the seminarian.

Shalom,
Steven