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 3:3
Born again, or born from above. The Greek word means both and Nicodemus hears only one.
John 3:3, in every translation this tool compares.
Can you run that by me again? The order came down from on high. Two different ideas, and imagine one word covering both. Now watch someone answer the wrong one and build a whole confused reply on it.
Because the whole conversation that follows is Nicodemus getting it wrong, and he gets it wrong because the word has two meanings and he picks the wrong one. The misunderstanding is the point, and it is invisible in English.
Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
King James, NIV and NASB read again. The NRSV and NET read from above and footnote again. The margin of almost every version carries the other.
ἄνωθεν anothen · G509
Anothen means from above and also again, a second time. John uses it in the from above sense at 3:31 and 19:11. Jesus almost certainly means from above. Nicodemus takes it as again and asks about re-entering a womb, which is why the next three verses are about correcting him.
English has no word carrying both a direction and a repetition. Whichever one a translator picks, the misunderstanding in verse 4 stops making sense.
When a character in a narrative misunderstands a saying, check the word they tripped on. A deliberate double meaning is often the reason the scene exists.
Again fits Nicodemus's reply and four hundred years of English usage. From above fits John's own use of the word elsewhere and fits the born of the Spirit line that follows. Most commentators take from above as the meaning and again as the misunderstanding the passage is built on.
- anothen in the from above sense at John 3:31; 19:11; James 1:17
- anothen in the again sense at Galatians 4:9
- Carson, The Gospel According to John (PNTC), at 3:3, on the double meaning as deliberate
