Jovial (12 Apr 2015)
"The word "Apostacia""

I documented at http://www.fivedoves.com/letters/feb2013/jovial218-1.htm how the word used for "rapture" in Scripture is CHATUF in Aramaic and ARPAGES in Greek.  APOSTACIA (apostasion) is not the word used when the rapture is discussed.

The word "Apostacia" is correctly translated "apostacy", "rebel" or "falling away" and does not refer to a physical departure.  If it did, Greek Christians might be pre-Trib, but they overwhelmingly don't believe in a pre-trib rapture.

Last week Pastor Bob quoted a large number of verses that allegedly come from the same word, but do not.  He confused a DIFFERENT Greek word together with the one in 2 Thess 2:3 and passed them off as being the same root word when they were not.  They do look similar in English, but once you see them spelled in Greek you can see that they are not the same word.

  • APOSTACIA (apostasion) means apostacy or to apostate or rebel.  The English word comes from the Greek word.  Not hard to explain to English speakers for that reason.  It is a combination of two Greek words;
    • APO = apo 
    • STASI = stasi
  • APHISTUMI (afisthmi) is the root word used in several verses Pastor Bob quoted last week.  It can mean to depart, but it is simply NOT the same word used in 2 Thess 2:3.  Unlike APOSTACIA, this word is NOT a combination the two words above, but very different.
    Since a "p" is written "p" in English and a "f" can be written as "ph" in English, it is easy to confuse these together when one is looking at an English text and I guess Pastor Bob mistook these two words due to his unfamiliarity with Greek.  Also, in certain conjugations of this word, the "f" changes to a "p" in the Greek, making the situation even more confusing for someone not skilled in Greek.
    This word is the root word used in Luke 2:37, 4:13, 8:13, 13:27, Acts 12:10, 15:38, 24:9, 22:29, 2 Cor 12:8, 1 Tim 4:1, 2 Tim 2:12, Heb 3:12, and perhaps some other verses I have overlooked.  I checked one Lexicon that lists this word as being the root to each of these verses.  Pastor Bob used most of these verses to "prove" his point, but he was using a completely different Greek word and these two words are not comparable, not the same word, even if they do have some resemblance when written in English and after Greek Grammatical case ending alterations to the root word make them even more alike than their root word spellings.
  • APHIHMI (afihmi) To send away.
  • APOSTOS (apwstoV) or APOSOS (apwsoV) both mean to send away. This is not the same as "DEPART", but the OPPOSITE.  The presence of the "t" is not significant with this word.  Note that both "apo" and "apw" might get spelled "APO" in English, but are not connected.
  • APOSTOS (apostoV) or APOSOS (aposoV) both mean unnumbered. Note is is spelled EXACTLY the same way in English as the previoous word, but not the same in Greek.
  • APUSTOS (apustoV) looks very similar to the previous word, but means to not remember. 
  • APISTIA (apistia) disbelieve.

Note how many words here in Greek start with "ap-st-" but mean something different.  That vowel in the 3rd letter makes a HUGE difference, doesn't it? 

Now when you compare Greek word #1 to a second Greek word who's meaning is what you WISH the first one meant, it is easy to "prove" your point.  But it doesn't prove the point because it is not the same word.  But that is what Pastor Bob did here.  He compared APOSTACY = APOSTACIA (apostasion) with APHISTUMI (afisthmi) , but they are not the same word.  Their post -conjugated forms do look something alike and I can see what someone with only an introductory level of knowledge of Greek could confuse the two.  I could see where all of the above 5 could be confused by a novice.

The desire to equate these two words is theologically driven, and there are a lot of Theologically driven word definitions in the Church.

There are only 2 verses in the entire New Testament where the word APOSTACIA is used.

All of the other verses that Pastor Bob used to "prove" his point involved comparing the word used in 2 Thess 2:3 with a DIFFERENT Greek word, not the same word.

The 2 places where the word "APOSTACIA" are used in the Greek New Testament are:

  • 2 Thess 2:3
  • Acts 21:21: "they are informed of thee, that thou teachest all the Jews which are among the Gentiles to FORESAKE (apostasion) [rebel against / apostacy, etc] Moses, saying that they ought not to circumcise their children, neither to walk after the customs"

 

ALL OF THE OTHER VERSES used by Pastor Bob other than the above two were for a DIFFERENT WORD!


But ANYTIME you think you are going to prove something through a Greek study that violates the theology of Greek speaking Christians, you are probably heading down the wrong path.  This is one example.  I've surfed the net in Greek enough to know that almost everyone living in Greece today that believes in a pre-trib rapture moved there from America or something.  Greek speaking Christians overwhelmingly aren't pre-trib.  A belief in the pre-trib involves a reading between the lines, whether you are reading in Greek or English or whatever.

Shalom,

Joe