Tool Beta
Is It Actually in the Bible?
Phrases people quote as Scripture. The real verse, or the honest answer that there is not one.
Romans 1:29 lists "debate" alongside murder and envy, as if the Bible is condemning formal argument or reasoned disagreement.
In 1611 English "debate" meant strife and quarreling, not a civil, structured argument.
Romans 1:29, in every translation this tool compares.
Romans 1:29 (KJV) reads: "Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity." The Greek word translated "debate" is eris, the same word Galatians 5:20 renders "strife," describing destructive rivalry and contentious wrangling driven by pride, not a search for truth.
Modern "debate" suggests something respectable: a classroom or parliamentary debate. But 1611 "debate" carried the older, more hostile sense of quarreling and contention. Paul isn't condemning reasoned disagreement here; he's condemning strife-mongering, closer to what we'd now call feuding.
