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 3:36
He that believeth not. The Greek verb in the second half is disobey, not disbelieve.
John 3:36, in every translation this tool compares.
He did not agree. He did not comply. Two different failures, and only one of them is about the mind.
Because the verse sets belief against something, and the something is not unbelief. John switches verbs deliberately and almost every English version prints the same idea twice.
The King James reads believeth not. The ESV and NASB read does not obey. The NIV reads rejects.
ἀπειθέω apeitheo · G544
The first clause uses pisteuo, believe. The second uses apeitheo, to refuse to be persuaded, to disobey. The contrast is between trusting and refusing, not between two states of opinion.
English believe has no natural opposite that means refuse to comply, so versions either print does not believe and lose the switch or print does not obey and surprise the reader.
When a verse sets up a contrast, check whether both halves use the same root. If they do not, the switch is the argument.
Most modern English versions print does not obey; the King James reads believeth not.
- apeitheo at Romans 2:8; Hebrews 3:18; 1 Peter 2:8
- pisteuo in the first clause of the same verse
- The noun apeitheia at Ephesians 2:2
