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 21:15-17b
Feed my lambs, tend my sheep. Four words vary, not two.
John 21:15-17, in every translation this tool compares.
A writer who swaps four pairs of words in three sentences is avoiding repetition. A writer who swaps one is making a point.
Because the famous variation is the two love-words, and John also varies the word for sheep, the word for know, and the word for feed in the same three verses. That is the evidence that the variation is style.
No version distinguishes any of the pairs, because English has one word for each.
βόσκω bosko · G1006 / ποιμαίνω poimaino · G4165
Three pairs beyond the love verbs: bosko and poimaino for feed and tend, arnia and probata for lambs and sheep, oida and ginosko for know. All four variations run through the same exchange.
English has one word for each pair, so all four variations vanish and only the first is ever preached.
Before building on one word change, count the others in the same passage. Four is a style. One is an argument.
Feed and take care of are the majority renderings; no version marks any of the pairs.
- bosko at 21:15, 17; poimaino at 21:16
- arnia at 21:15; probata at 21:16, 17
- oida and ginosko across 21:15-17
- Carson, Exegetical Fallacies, on the whole passage
