Why aren't the words " believe, believer, and believing " in italics in the English translation of scripture?
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No. You misread Strong. He says in the passive and the reflexive it means to be persuaded. peithO is present indicative active form, I am persuading (someone).
peisthomai is the indicative active passive and reflexive/middle form I am being persuaded and I am persuading myself..
Look at persuade in the Strongs glossary ( if you have the book like I do) and you'll see 3982 peitho, defined in all 4 instances as " to assent to evidence.
You really need to look at the YouTube video I mentioned. You'll see the intent of the word Emunah which is the root of peitho, pistis, and pisteuo.
In one gospel alone, that word is used so frequently to settle the foundational doctrine of man's response to the Lord's death, burial and resurrection.
Believe (th, s, ing, ed) in various tenses from pisteuo was correctly translated and there is no sound reason to italicize that most highly emphasized term.
Believe (th, s, ing, ed) in various tenses from pisteuo was correctly translated and there is no sound reason to italicize that most highly emphasized term.
From Strong’s via Blue Letter Bible online -
πείθω peíthō, pi'-tho; a primary verb; to convince (by argument, true or false); by analogy, to pacify or conciliate (by other fair means); reflexively or passively, to assent (to evidence or authority), to rely (by inward certainty):—agree, assure, believe, have confidence, be (wax) confident, make friend, obey, persuade, trust, yield….
STRONGS G3982:
πείθω [(from the root meaning 'to bind’...
1. Active;
a. to persuade, i. e. to induce one by words to believe: ...
2. Passive and middle [cf. Winers Grammar, 253 (238)];
a. to be persuaded, to suffer oneself to be persuaded; to be induced to believe:
Reading between the lines, your trying to shore up the mistranslated words believe, believer, and believing. You seemingly trying to achieve this by abandoning pistis, pisteuo and their definitions, by jumping to peitho and using that definition " to assent to evidence " and then trying to reestablish the mistranslated words.
Is your understanding of pistis and pisteuo, faith and faithing, " believing " in what Jesus did and said, resulting in recieving the Holy spirit?
Yes or no?
As I see things -
PisteuO is acting/behaving as someone who is persuaded. It is not merely mental assent, It is acting in accordance with that to which one has mentally assented.
Pistis is a mental state of having been persuaded, as in “having faith in God". Or, also, the content of which one is mentally persuaded , as in “the faith".
OK Paul I'll ask it in a different way.
In your understanding, what is the faith response to the call of the Father?
I know that the Vines definition of pisteuo is the most accurate of all definitions.
" a personal surrender to Him and a life inspired by such surrender. "
Do you accept the Vines definition of pisteuo being the specific response to the call of the Father, that begins, maintains, and completes the salvation process here on earth? Including the receiving of His spirit and His mind?
Yes, pisteuO is an active response to being persuaded by the call of the Father. It is to act in accordance with the Father’s call to submit to His Son, acting in accordance with the teaching of Jesus and the implanted life of the Holy Spirit.
It sounds like we are kind of in agreement.
But I have to push my luck. If you are in agreement with the faithing response to the call of the Father, (pisteuo - a personal surrender to Him and a life inspired by such surrender), i would like to submit to you my understanding of the salvation process , broken down into specific things that must happen and happen in the right order.
If that interests you I'll start a thread on the salvation process.
The average believer is not required to study the Bible in the original languages.
A good teacher assigned by God should be the one to do that for him.
Simply using word studies and Bible dictionaries can not reveal the exactness and richness of certain passages.
The Holy Spirit and you can not properly translate certain passages.
Impossible unless you are a historian and can read Hebrew, Greek, and even some Chaldean.
We all need help to keep growing in understanding why certain passages were written in the first place...
In other words. We need to know the historical background as why something was being recorded in the Bible.
In my case? After years of searching, the Holy Spirit led me to finding a teacher who has been a blessing to me ever since.
Both Hal Lindsay and Chuck Swindoll began in his church. Not to mention, Billy Graham once asked him to be
his private mentor. He needed to turn Billy down because he was too busy with his church where he was teaching six
nights a week... from the Hebrew and Greek texts.
Well?
If the Spirit is leading you to check it out?
Here is the teacher.
https://rbthieme.org/about-us
And, if you find yourself willing to give it a try?
Order something. No money will be asked for.
https://rbthieme.org/about-us/grace-financial-policy
grace and peace .........
I love the first half of this post, I've known two true gifted Bible teachers and thats seriously looking for 38 years. It a huge problem people thinking we are all gifted teachers.
Gifted teachers are charged with perfecting saints. So we are either a gifted teacher perfecting saints, or saints being perfected by a gifted Bible teacher. No middle ground where we perfect ourselves.
I don't know about your teacher, but a good post otherwise.
AI answers your question below.
Yes — there is an important distinction here between what the Greek says, how English normally expresses it, and the convention governing italics in English Bible translations.
1. You are correct about the Greek verb
The Greek verb is πιστεύω (pisteuō).
It is a verb, whereas:
- πίστις (pistis) = faith, faithfulness
- πιστεύω (pisteuō) = have faith, trust, believe
- ἄπιστος (apistos) = faithless, unbelieving
- ἀπιστέω (apisteō) = disbelieve, be unfaithful, refuse to believe
So there isn't a separate Greek verb corresponding exactly to the English concept "believe" as opposed to "have faith."
And your point about pisteuō being an action is significant. For example:
It describes someone exercising πίστις toward something/someone, rather than a merely neutral mental opinion.
But I would make one correction to your formulation: ἀπιστέω does not simply mean "faithing away." It means not believing, disbelieving, refusing to believe, being unfaithful depending upon context. The opposite of πιστεύω isn't necessarily a technical "reverse-direction faith."
2. Why don't English Bibles put "believe" in italics?
Because italic type in older English Bibles does not mean "this English word has no Greek equivalent."
That's the key point.
The italics traditionally used by translations such as the KJV generally indicate words supplied in English to make the sentence grammatically intelligible, where the translators believed the sense was implicit in the original.
For example, in the KJV:
Some words are supplied to make the English readable.
But believe is not treated as a supplied word because the translators regarded πιστεύω as having an established English equivalent: believe.
In other words, the translators weren't thinking:
They were thinking:
So believe was considered a translation of the Greek verb, not an addition to the Greek text.
3. And this is where your observation about English becomes interesting
You are right that modern English doesn't normally use faith as a verb.
We say:
rather than:
But that doesn't mean English has no way of translating the verbal concept of πιστεύω. Believe is precisely the English verb traditionally used.
The problem is that believe has changed in meaning and range in modern English.
Today someone can say:
That can mean merely:
But πιστεύω can carry considerably more than intellectual assent, especially when it takes a person as its object.
For example:
John repeatedly uses πιστεύω with εἰς ("into"), which gives the expression a stronger relational/directional character than our ordinary modern use of "believe."
4. There is another important point: "faith" and "believe" are not two different Greek concepts
This is where I think your argument is strongest.
Consider:
πίστις → faith
πιστεύω → believe
They are related words from the same Greek word-family.
The English translation makes them look more different than they actually are.
For example:
and
The Greek reader sees the relationship between πίστις and πιστεύω immediately.
The English reader sees:
faith ←→ believe
and may assume they are conceptually different things.
They aren't unrelated concepts. They are noun and verb forms within the same lexical family.
5. But I would not say that "believe" should therefore be italicized
This is the distinction I'd make.
If the question is:
No. It is a Greek verb whose semantic range includes believing, trusting, having faith, relying upon, etc.
If the question is:
No. πιστεύω is actually in the Greek text.
If the question is:
Absolutely.
If the question is:
It could make the relationship clearer in some passages, but it would produce very unnatural English because faith is ordinarily a noun in English.
6. One particularly revealing example
Look at John 3:16:
Literally, we have something like:
English cannot naturally say that.
So the translator has to choose an English verb.
"Everyone believing in him" is therefore not an addition to the Greek. It is the translator's English representation of the Greek πιστεύων.
And this is why the italics question is important:
The italic convention concerns supplied English words, not whether the English word perfectly reproduces every aspect of the Greek word's semantic range.
The deeper issue
I think your underlying concern is actually more important than the italics.
If we translate πιστεύω consistently as merely "believe", modern readers can unconsciously reduce it to:
But the NT usage can involve trust, reliance, commitment, and personal confidence in Christ, depending on context.
So rather than saying:
I think the stronger linguistic argument is:
And that distinction becomes especially important when we examine πιστεύω εἰς, πίστις, ἀπιστέω, and passages concerning salvation.
If you want, we can take every occurrence of πιστεύω in the NT concerning salvation and examine what the Greek actually says without allowing the English words believe/belief/faith to predetermine the interpretation.
Often times he taught things designed for the ears of those who love to study from the original languages.
Pastors from around the country were ordering his messages for their personal study.
I learned about him in Bible college where I later discovered some of the teachers ordered his messages for their own study.
One who recommended him to me (one night at a church service) was the Professor of Ancient languages at the school.
I began ordering lessons soon after hearing the president of the Bible college give a message...
"Anyone living in any area of his life? If it is not according to Bible doctrine? Is a liar!"
It was absolutely the quickest prayer if ever had answered.
As I was leaving class and walking down the hall, I prayed the following short prayer...
"Father, in Jesus name. Give me Bible doctrine for every area of my life."
Within seconds, I felt a tap on my shoulder.
Maureen then asked if I would like to borrow a doctrinal notebook that was her brother's (who is a pastor).
Without hesitation, I told her, 'yes!'
The notebook had been compiled by Pastor Ralph G. Braun, who took notes while attending my future pastor's church.
That notebook contained 1000 doctrines.
The rest was decreed history.
Thanks for all the work you put into this post, i really liked it. 30 years of trying to explain pisteuo and someone finally seems to get what I've been trying ti warn people about.
The italics thing was kind of a knee-jerk thought I posted. But you started digging into the heart of the problem. I have another thread called rediscovering pisteuo. It covers some of what was brought up here and more. Check it out I you get a chance.
Thanks for the great post.
The teachers i referenced have the largest collection of biblical manuscripts in private hands behind the Vatican. Thats what they teach from. Fluent in all the ancient dialects. Lots of credentials, Stanford professor and Stanford graduate.
So my bar is high for those gifted teachers. One thing I do know is I'm not one of the them, but I am a good student, love to point the called out ones in the right direction. And I think thats allowable for the saint being perfected.