Shortest Verse in the Bible?

This is going to start with a bit of trivia mixed with a bad "fact" that has been bothering me. So all throughout Sunday school we are taught that John 11:35 is the shortest verse of the Bible. Not true. The NIV translation is the only translation I know that actually agrees with this though. Luke 20:30 just as many letters as "Jesus wept." However, when we take it to the Greek, we see something completely different. We see both of them becoming three words. Which we see Luke 20:30 represented as three words in most other translations. The funny thing about this is that in the context of the passage in Luke it is a list, in the Greek whenever they would list things they would put and before each word, in English we do not have to do that, so we typically do not translate the "kai" to "and" each time, but rather we recognize that there were different issues being listed. However, in John 11:35 it is only translated as two words in to English because the article "o" which typically means the in this case portrays that it is referring to the person of Jesus. Also in the letter count in the Greek, the Luke verse is much shorter.

I find most of this interesting for several reasons. One is that really what good is it to know what we believe to be the shortest verse in the Bible? Why is it one of those things that everyone who went to Sunday school knows only to know it incorrectly. With those points being made: I also just proved that all the previous information in this blog is pointless.

Second, it seems to really change everything you know about the Bible when you begin to view it in the original language. Which is what is really cool about Greekbible.com is that you can click on each of the words and you can figure out what each word means. You probably wont pick up the language this way, but it can help as a great study guide.

Third, Greek is fascinating.

I guess really this was just more of a plug for greekbible.com than anything else... I am okay with that.