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 8:12
I am the light of the world. Said during a festival lit by enormous lamps.
John 8:12, in every translation this tool compares.
I'm the one who turns the lights on. Said in an empty room it is a boast. Said during a blackout it is something else.
Because the saying is timed to a ritual, and the setting is what makes it a claim rather than a metaphor. The Greek is ordinary; the calendar is the information.
Every version reads I am the light of the world.
ἐγώ εἰμι τὸ φῶς τοῦ κόσμου
Another predicate I am saying. The context is the Feast of Tabernacles, during which great lamps were lit in the court of the women. Speaking these words in that courtyard at that feast is the point.
The words carry over fine. What's lost is the calendar, which no translation can supply.
When a saying is dated to a festival, look up what happened at that festival. John dates his scenes carefully and rarely explains why.
I am the light of the world is universal.
- The setting at John 7:2, 37; 8:20
- Mishnah Sukkah 5 describes the lamps in the court of the women
- The predicate I am sayings listed at John 6:35
