What Does 1 Corinthians 15:6 Mean in the King James?
After that, he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once; of whom the greater part remain unto this present, but some are fallen asleep.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The resurrection is pictured as a shared encounter that holds the living and the sleeping within one community.
THE MEANING
More than five hundred see at once; the encounter is shared, not a lone person’s private experience. The verse holds two conditions within one community: some remain, and some have fallen asleep. Its language leaves awakening in view even as it names death.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
It undoes the belief that the resurrection rests on one isolated person’s private claim: the verse presents many seeing together.
THE ROOT
ὤφθη
ōphthē from
GROWS FROM
ὁράω
horaō
to see, perceive; ὤφθη means “he was seen” or “appeared.”
“seen” in this verse is ōphthē from. The Greek verb carries seeing into perceiving: the encounter is something witnessed, not merely an idea held inwardly. That shared perception fits the verse’s striking scale, more than five hundred see at once.
ALSO GROWS
opsomai: I will see; the future form in the ὁράω verb family.
ὄψομαι
The same verb family holds seeing across what is witnessed and what remains to be seen.
oida: I know, perceive; a perfect form related through εἶδον (eidon), the aorist form in the ὁράω paradigm.
οἶδα
Greek links seeing with knowing, opening “seen” toward perception through encounter.
μένουσιν
menousin from
GROWS FROM
μένω
menō
to remain, stay, continue.
“Remain” is more than a count of who is still present: the word carries the sense of continuing and abiding. Beside those who have fallen asleep, it places ongoing life and death within one community.
ALSO GROWS
epimenō: to continue, persist, remain.
ἐπιμένω
This compound intensifies the same staying that marks those who remain in the verse.
monē: a dwelling, an abode.
μονή
This noun from the same root gives remaining the sense of a place where one abides.
ἐκοιμήθησαν
ekoimēthēsan from
GROWS FROM
κοιμάω
koimaō
to sleep, fall asleep.
“fallen asleep” in this verse is ekoimēthēsan from. The verse speaks of death with the word for sleep, leaving the image of waking within reach. The language itself keeps the deceased within the community’s shared story rather than naming them as erased.
ALSO GROWS
koimaomai: to sleep, fall asleep.
κοιμάομαι
This form preserves the same sleep-language used for those who have died.
koimētērion: a sleeping place; later, a cemetery.
κοιμητήριον
This later word grows from the same root and carries the verse’s sleep-image into the name for a burial place.
THE PATTERN
Resurrection language names the dead as sleeping and holds awakening open.
And many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept.THE THREAD
These things said he: and after that he saith unto them, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep.Both verses use κοιμάω (koimaō, “sleep” or “fall asleep”) for death. In John, the sleeper is someone Jesus says he will awaken; the same root keeps “fallen asleep” from sounding like the end of the shared story here.
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