Jim Stone is wrong about his interpretation of Revelations 13:16!

While this is likely a “tempest in a teapot” for most readers of RMN, I do think it is important that we be accurate when we go off on these tangents, and especially when Holy Scripture is involved. I would send this directly to Jim if I knew how to do so, but with his problems concerning email, etc., I figured he would likely read this here, and besides many others might want to see this issue discussed as well.

In the above passage of scripture the Greek word translated “on” is the word “epi” which is a preposition that needs context to translate correctly, but in general it means “on, or upon”, and NOT just “in” as Jim says. In fact this word appears many times in the New Testament and is most often translated “on, or upon”. There are literally dozens and dozens of scriptures that use this word, including other passages in Revelations (Revelations 5:13 uses it twice – both translated “on or upon”).

But there is a bit more to consider here. The Greek word used in this passage for “mark” is the word “charagma” and it means, “engraving or scratching or etching, i.e. stamping, or sculpting.” While such a thing could be done from the inside out and not be visible the common usage of the word does not imply this; it implies an image stamped on something, like that stamped on a coin.

All in all, the idea that this passage has been mistranslated, or “corrupted” is just not viable. For those who would like to dig a bit further into this I will list the Strong’s numbers, etc. below, and I also encourage all who want to follow up on this to go to the web site “Bible Hub” – it is a fantastic resource for the serious student of scripture.

But before I do I want to say something that I think is of vital importance when discussing anything regarding “God’s word” – it seems to me that it is just plane crazy to think that a God who could create the universe, would ever let some dopy human “corrupt” His written word. And in all of the cases that I have looked at over the many, many years that I have studied this subject the evidence is just to shaky to take seriously – and in NO case that I am aware of does any of it actually alter the basic meaning of what is being said. And – no – I am NOT interested in getting into another extended debate over the veracity of various “texts” (the texts receptious, Vatican manuscript 1209, etc., etc., etc.) – none of that means dink-didly with regard to the simple basic truths espoused in scripture.

We are told that spiritual truth is spiritually discerned and trying to “force fit” human ideas into prophetic revelation is always a bad course of action. Over the centuries it has lead to a lot of very foolish false doctrines. Some of which are very popular right now, and are blinding a lot of folks to the reality of what is actually happening. The deception of these days is unprecedented in all of human history, but we were warned that it would be this way. I encourage everyone to read the 24th chapter of the gospel of Mathew.

The word “epi” is Strong’s word number 1909
The word “charagma” is Strong’s word number 5480
The link for Bible hub is simply “biblehub.com”

Oh yeah -- I guess I should reference Jim's actual article *smile*
http://82.221.129.208/1/.tw6.html