Tool Beta
Hebrew and Greek Without Learning Either
A walk through Genesis, the Psalms, and John, plus the key Hebrew and Greek words worth knowing. Each card is a place the English Bibles part company, and what in the Hebrew or Greek made them.
John 11:48
The Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.
John 11:48, in every translation this tool compares.
The House voted. Downing Street responded. English uses places for institutions constantly, and only insiders catch every one.
Because place here is almost certainly the temple, and nothing in the English tips off the reader that a common noun is being used as a euphemism.
Every version reads our place, and some footnote temple.
τόπος topos · G5117
Topos, place, is used in Jewish Greek as a way of referring to the temple without naming it, as at Acts 6:13-14 and 21:28. The Sanhedrin is worrying about the sanctuary and the nation, which is exactly what happened in AD 70.
English place is too general, so the specific reference is lost unless a footnote supplies it.
Common nouns used as institutional euphemisms are invisible to outsiders. When a sentence seems oddly vague, ask what it was polite not to name.
Our place is the majority rendering; our temple appears in some modern versions and in footnotes.
- topos of the temple: Acts 6:13-14; 21:28
- 2 Maccabees 5:19 uses the same euphemism
- The irony against the events of AD 70
