What Does 2 Peter 1:16 Mean in the King James?
For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
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
Its hinge is a Greek word for seeing: the claim about the Lord’s majesty is carried as eyewitness testimony, not as a clever construction.
THE MEANING
The verse places skillfully shaped stories beside testimony rooted in sight. The power and presence of Jesus, the anointed one, are made known through people who have seen his majesty. The claim reaches the reader now as testimony grounded in encounter.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The claim that this account rests on clever invention alone is undone by the verse’s stated ground of witness: the speakers identify themselves as those who saw.
THE ROOT
ἐπόπται
epoptai
GROWS FROM
ὀπ-
op-
To see; the eye or act of seeing.
The Greek names these speakers by what they have seen, setting their testimony against a story skillfully composed. Luke uses the same seeing-root in αὐτόπται (autoptai), “eyewitnesses,” making the link between sight and what is passed on especially clear.
ALSO GROWS
autoptai: Eyewitnesses; those who see for themselves.
αὐτόπται
Luke’s word shares the seeing-root and shows how testimony begins in direct sight.
opsis: Sight or appearance.
ὄψις
It keeps the focus on what is seen, the basis the speakers give for their claim.
παρουσία
parousia
GROWS FROM
πάρειμι
pareimi
To be present or be at hand; to be alongside.
The word rendered “coming” also carries the sense of presence. The witnesses speak of the Lord’s presence as something encountered, joined here to power and majesty.
ALSO GROWS
pareimi: To be present or at hand.
πάρειμι
This verb carries the sense of presence within the verse’s word for coming.
parōn: Present; being there.
παρών
This related form brings out the nearness contained in the testimony about the Lord’s coming.
Χριστός
Christos
GROWS FROM
χρίω
chriō
To anoint; to apply oil.
“Christ” in this verse is Christos. Χριστός (Christos) means “the anointed one,” a title, not a family surname. Jesus’ Hebrew name, יֵשׁוּעַ (Yeshua), means “deliverance” and comes from יָשַׁע (yasha), “to deliver”, a name that carries movement from constriction into spaciousness.
ALSO GROWS
chriō: To anoint.
χρίω
This verb is the root behind the title attached to Jesus in the verse.
chrisma: Anointing.
χρῖσμα
This related word preserves the same anointing-root that gives the title its meaning.
THE PATTERN
Testimony takes its ground from what witnesses have seen and carries that seeing forward.
Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life: but teach them thy sons, and thy sons’ sons;Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life;THE THREAD
Even as they delivered them unto us, which from the beginning were eyewitnesses, and ministers of the word;Luke’s αὐτόπται (autoptai) and Peter’s ἐπόπται (epoptai) share the Greek seeing-root ὀπ-. Luke makes the link especially clear: what is delivered onward begins with what witnesses have seen.
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