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#25. The Revised Version.
"Things that differ."
pp. 66 - 69
There are two verbs in constant use throughout the N.T. which the R.V. has
distinguished, but which are often confused in the A.V. These two verbs are eimi,
"to be", and ginomai, "to become".
For example, in the epistles to the Corinthians:--
"Ye were bought with a price; become not bondservants of men" (I Cor. 7: 23).
"If the ministration of death . . . . . came with glory . . . . . how shall not rather the
ministration of the spirit be with glory" (II Cor. 3: 7, 8).
Here the change of verb is registered and the essential difference between the two
covenants enforced.
Again, in Luke:--
"Which of these three, thinkest thou, proved (not `was') neighbour unto him?"
(Luke 10: 36, R.V.).
The question was not so much what the man was, but how he responded when the
time came; and to convey this the Revisers have used the word "proved".
Again, the A.V. of John 9: 39 is harsh and misleading. The Lord did not say that He
came "into this world . . . . . that they which see might be made blind", but that they
might "become" blind, as a result of their added responsibility.
In John 1: 14, instead of the "The word was made flesh", the R.V. reads: "The Word
became flesh", a rendering which is more in agreement with the intention of the writer.
Again, in I Cor. 15: 45, the R.V. reads:--
"The first man Adam became a living soul. The last man Adam became a life-giving
Spirit."
In II Cor. 5: 21, the contrast in the original between the words, "to be made" and
"to become" is obscured in the A.V. The R.V. restores it:--
"Him who knew no sin He made to be sin on our behalf; that we might become the
righteousness of God in Him."
In Rom. 7: 13, the A.V. reads as though there were two verbs used--"made death"
and "become exceeding sinful". The R.V. restores the sense of the original, reading
"become" in both cases. For some reason, however, the Revisers seem at times to have