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Summary
- The word “religion” appears five times in the King James Version, the ESV and the NIV, in different verses, and never in the Old Testament.
- James 1:27 defines it: “Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.”
- The main Greek word, thrēskeia, means worship with the stress on its outward practice. Biblical Hebrew has no word that these translations render “religion.”
- Cicero derived the Latin religio from going over again; the Christian writer Lactantius derived it from the bond that ties people to God.
- The New Testament calls believers “Christians” three times and their movement “the Way.” The word “Christianity” first appears in Ignatius of Antioch, about AD 100.
- The Hebrew Bible of Judaism is the Christian Old Testament; the 27 books of the New Testament are Scripture for Christians only.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations from the King James Version (James 1:27; Acts 17:22), the English Standard Version (James 1:22, 26–27; Acts 9:2; 11:26; 17:18, 22–23; 19:28; 23:8; 24:14; 25:19; 26:5, 28; Colossians 2:18, 23; 1 Peter 4:16; Deuteronomy 10:12; Micah 6:8; Amos 5:21, 24; Isaiah 1:17; Hosea 6:6; Matthew 23:23; John 17:3; Judges 3:7; 1 Kings 11:7; Revelation 21:22; 22:3) and the New International Version (1 Timothy 5:4). Word counts are from the King James Version, English Standard Version, New International Version, Reina-Valera 1960 and Louis Segond 1910.
- Blue Letter Bible, Strong’s lexicon entries G2356 (thrēskeia), G2357 (thrēskos), G2454 (Ioudaismos), G1175 (deisidaimonia), G1174, G1479 (ethelothrēskeia), G2151 (eusebeō) and H1881 (dat). https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g2356/kjv/tr/0-1/ and https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/h1881/kjv/wlc/0-1/
- “דת,” Wiktionary, on the Persian origin of dat and its sense “religion” from Mishnaic Hebrew. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D7%93%D7%AA
- Cicero, De Natura Deorum 2.72, Latin text. https://www.thelatinlibrary.com/cicero/nd2.shtml
- Lactantius, The Divine Institutes, book 4, chapters 3 and 28, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 7. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/07014.htm
- Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, book 10, chapter 1, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, first series, vol. 2. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/120110.htm
- Ignatius of Antioch, Epistle to the Magnesians, chapter 10, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0105.htm
- Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, chapter 8, in Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 1. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/01281.htm
- “Christianity,” Wikipedia, on the earliest recorded use of the word. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity
- “Biblical canon,” Wikipedia, on the Tanakh and the Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox Old Testaments. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon
- “Lactantius,” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lactantius
