And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?, Mark 2:8.
What is meant when the King James Bible sometimes uses a lowercase "s" when spelling the word "spirit" and sometimes capitalizes the first letter when using the same word? The use of capitalizing or not capitalizing the word "spirit" or "Spirit" is undoubtedly one of the least studied and most misunderstood aspects of a King James bible.
As I mentioned in my last post (HERE), even the fundamental Sword of the Lord organization can't get that straight. They have a published bible in which some editor who clearly did not understand why the King James bible sometimes capitalized "Spirit" and sometimes did not, went through the bible and capitalized every usage of the word "spirit" when it was clear to him that it was deity.
There is a typical verse changed by The Sword of the Lord. In a properly printed King James Bible, that "spirit" uses a lower case "s".
I am reminded of a picture that my sister drew and then colored when we both very young. On a white piece of paper she had drawn her impression of what a field looked like when it had only patches of snow and wasn't fully covered. Cleverly, she used green and brown crayons to depict the grass and trees, but for the patches of snow she left the natural white color of the paper.
I, being little more than a toddler, took a black crayon and tried to color those places that she "missed". All of her white patches in which she had cleverly depicted patches of snow, now had black scribbling in them. Since there are no commentaries that explain why "spirit" is sometimes capitalized and sometimes not, how could we ever expect a dues paying fundamentalist to ever know that the there was indeed a purpose?
Like my 3 year old little self, these editors for The Sword of the Lord and just about every other editor for every other version of scripture, just colored in everything that was beyond their knowledge. Others may see a respect shown to deity when they see all of these capitalizations, I see scribbled black crayon.
To illustrate their bankruptcy, look at Luke 23:46 in The Sword of the Lord King James Bible.
When editors go to great lengths to capitalize every "spirit" that they believe is deity, and they obviously leave every reference to the spirit that Jesus Christ clearly had in the gospels as a lower case spirit, what are they telling us? They are telling us that despite their earnest belief that Jesus Christ is deity, they believe that his spirit on earth was created and less than deity.
Notice that they capitalized "My". This allows them to march around their offices playing We've Come This Far by Faith on their kazoos, and it keeps them in good stead with the people who matter, but the King James translators who by every witness that we have were scholars of the first order were not so silly as to think that proper pronouns existed, (Post on Proper Pronouns). No previous generation of editors when editing the King James Bible thought so, and by every reckoning, they were far greater scholars.
Hint: the spirit of Luke 23:46 is eternal and has dwelt with the Father for all of eternity. For thus saith the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy; I dwell in the high and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones, Isaiah 57:15. The only witness that you have to that is a King James Bible. The world of fundamental Christianity is filled with men for whom that is not enough of a witness.
When your King James Bible says; Jesus rejoiced in spirit, Luke 10:21, it is not saying that some created spirit inside of Jesus Christ rejoiced. It is saying that the spirit of the eternal creator rejoiced. That's who Jesus Christ is. He is the creator of all things; By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed the crooked serpent , Job 26:13. Who garnished the heavens? Jesus did.
The Old Testament witnesses over and over again that Jesus is the Lord. It does so by making the spirit that Jesus clearly had in the gospels match the work of Jehovah God in the Old Testament.
Thou gavest also thy good spirit to instruct them, Nehemiah 9:10.
would God that all the LORD'S people were prophets, and that the LORD would put his spirit upon them!, Numbers 11:29.
And I have filled him with the spirit of God, Exodus 31:3.
Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me, Psalm 51:11.
Thou sendest forth thy spirit, they are created, Psalm 104:30.
Whither shall I go from thy spirit?, Psalm 139:7.
And the spirit of the LORD shall rest upon him, Isaiah 11:2.
I have put my spirit upon him, Isaiah 42:1.
Could any biblical reference state more clearly the intention of God to preserve his word than Isaiah 59:21? As for me, this is my covenant with them, saith the LORD; My spirit that is upon thee, and my words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LORD, from henceforth and for ever. This is the same thing that Jesus Christ says in Mark 13:31; Heaven and earth shall pass away: but my words shall not pass away.
If all a person had was a King James Bible edited as it has been for hundreds of years to prove who his God is, and how that God reveals himself, and how the Lord wants to be perceived , it would be very plain that Jesus Christ is deity, he is the Lord God of scripture, and he is the creator of the ends of the earth. Every fiber of the King James Bible bears witness to that including whether a word is capitalized or left lower case.
For those who pay homage to the King James Bible but distrust anything not stated clearly in a commentary, I have gone too far in this post. For those who read where Peter Ruckman said that the "S"s don't matter, the bible that he so courageously championed won't matter as much as what he said. Studying the word "spirit" in a King James Bible is one of the least understood studies.
The same God who told you that he would preserve his word, told you that jots and tittles matter. Orthography, which is the science of how punctuation, spelling and capitalizations work is as holy in a King James Bible as any of the words. Should Jesus Christ be described as God or as god? It matters. The Holy Ghost scattered enough orthography throughout the King James bible to scream at you that Jesus Christ is God, but the scholars chewing their pencils trust the commentaries more than the bible itself.