Jots and Tittles
For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled, Matthew 5:18.
Anyone looking up the term "jot" will be immediately informed that the word "jot" is a variation of the word iota from the Greek alphabet. Most new translations merely render it "the smallest letter". The ESV actually uses the Greek word "iota". The King James translators did not for one second believe that Jesus Christ was referring to a specific letter of the Greek alphabet. Instead they used the word "jot" to signify the smallest letter of any alphabet.
Had Jesus Christ actually used the word "iota", and if he had done so in referring to the law, two great evils would be established. The first would be that he is acknowledging that the law existed in a Greek translation during his lifetime. That would confirm the myth of the Septuagint. The second great evil would be that God intended Greek to be the medium by which the Word of God was to be transmitted throughout the centuries. Wisely, and with Holy Ghost wrought understanding, the King James translators used an existing English word to signify the smallest letter.
To think that they used the word "jot" in an attempt to say "iota" is ridiculous on its face. When the translators wanted to say Alpha and Omega, they had no trouble transliterating those two letters into English.
What then was meant by the word "tittle". The Oxford English Dictionary which takes pains to give us the meanings of English words as they stood in antiquity defines tittle as; A small stroke or point in writing or printing. They also say; it is applied to any minute point or part of a letter, also the mark over a long vowel. They also call it a punctuation mark. The King James translators took pains to let you know that God intended the smallest minutia of the actual writings of the law to be preserved.
One of the greatest anti-Semitic teachings being bantered about in our major Bible colleges is the nonsensical notion that the Hebrew alphabet didn't use vowel markings until the Massorites. John Gill in his dissertation on the Antiquity of the Hebrew alphabet, the Letters, Vowel Points and Accents, took pains in the 18th century to document references to the Hebrew vowel markings in ancient writings predating the Massorites by centuries. Imagine how stupid the Jews would be if the Egyptians had figured out vowels, Sumerians had figured out vowels, the Greeks had figured out vowels, but the Jews hadn't.
God preserved those troubling little marks that modern professors claim weren't there. You can be sure that our English Bible is punctuated properly, but you might be surprised to find out how that was done.
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