What's written in a dictionary is static, unless revised. Language never stops changing.
Showing archaic meanings is a history lesson. People aren't going to "discover" a long lost meaning in a dictionary reintroduce that meaning into common usage. The ship has sailed, as we say.
I don't believe 99% of all English speakers are stupid. I was a High School and College tennis player. The word "Let" in tennis means the ball struck the top of the net but still landed in the court. The ball was "hindered" but not stopped, by the net.
So, "let" meaning "hindered" is still in usage in early 21st century English. Not lost. Not archaic. :)
Not on a mission to abandon the use dictionaries, are you? ;) I've never seen anyone who reads much of anything who didn't need one. Interesting fact about language changing is that since dictionaries are static, modern language can get ahead of the dictionary. Old folks (such as myself) often have more trouble with current usage than archaic usage!
Meaning is determined by use, context, etc. and dictionaries define all the meanings that go with usages and contexts (with the above exception of language change outpacing the dictionary).
According to Dictionary.com, it has a hindrance connotation regarding law as well: Chiefly Law. an impediment or obstacle: to act without let or hindrance.
Nothing to do with the biblical usage, but this discussion reminded me of a way my Dad often used "to let". He might say something like "so-and-so has timber to let" (when I was a kid I thought people were saying "gillette"). By this he meant that person had an abundance of whatever he was talking about.
The old meaning of hindrance is certainly archaic. To 99.9% of native English speakers, not to mention those who have English as their second language -- it means to allow or permit. To deny that is to deny reality.
Now when it comes to renting an apartment 'to let' means 'the granting of use' according to Merriam-Webster.
Fine to like the KJV, long as one doesn't believe the false, man-made KJVO myth that the KJV is the ONLY valid English Bible translation out there. And that "watered down" stuff is part of that myth.
Again, no one is decrying the use of dictionaries, but people usually only use them to look up words they've never encountered. The average person isn't double checking words they use every day to make sure they don't have an archaic meaning which is opposite of their current meaning. Tennis players included.
I also think that words in the KJV which typical readers think that they know can cause misunderstanding when those words have a very different meaning than the ways that the words are used now.
People do not look up words whose meanings that they assume that they know.
A typical one-volume English dictionary does not list all the archaic or old meanings that some words in the KJV may have and they may not list all the actual words found in the KJV.
While true, any favorable mention of the letters K, J, and V in the "Bible Versions & Translations" forum of the Baptist Board can be like the torero waving the muleta rojo before the toro enojado.:eek:
I think it was more of calling modern versions "watered-down" that does it. Most have
no issue with the KJV, but when you take a postion behind it to attack other transaltions, that is when the bull charges.
Let me just speak openly for a moment--I think it's ridiculous for KJVO's to bash modern translations as they cast doubt on the Word of God and disrupt the fellowship of believers. Also, they try to pit the Word of God against the Word of God when they argue that the KJV is not only superior to other TRANSLATIONS, but that it is the Only Credible One. Most do not attack the KJV--why would we? it's the word of God! But KJVO's ask for an argument that makes it seem Non-KJVO's do not like the KJV.
Guys, It's a TRANSLATION.
Open your eyes, KJVO's...God has Blessed us with Translations in English. Your group is causing more harm than Good.
And yet I only asked for a clear and fair way of stating doesn't ever mean versus doesn't usually mean.
Even those saying "let" doesn't mean "hinder" 99% of the time are "allowing" that it does mean it 1% of the time. So is it wrong to ask that we not say the offending word doesn't still mean what it meant in 1611, even when everyone (so far) seems to actually agree with what I said, even though having difficulty saying it?
I said it doesn't mean hinder 99.9% of the time to native English speakers and certainly to those having English as a second language. You are putting way too much optimism into .1% ! LOL!![/quote]
And why would I think you are not? You are not the only one who replied, or the only one who mentioned a percentage.
And I'd say you're putting too much pessimism, but what we say about made up percentages doesn't matter that much except to ourselves.
Fact is, "let" meant hinder in 1611, so it is wrong to say that 2 Thessalonians 2:7 means the exact opposite of what the KJV says it means, and it still can mean hinder in 2018, so it is wrong to say that it never means hinder. I have not asserted that "hinder" is any way the common meaning we attach to "let" in current usage.
I said .1% of people, especially folks with English as a second language do not associate the word 'let' meaning hinder.
If folks with no background with the antiquated language of the KJV would read 2 Thess. 2:7 they would have to do double duty to decode the phraseology. The KJV is not a very serviceable Bible version for folks in 2018. Man it wasn't so serviceable 118 years ago.
For what little it might be worth, I think the KJV has a nice cadence when read out loud.
Struggling over archaic grammar and words whose meanings have changed are what sends me to more modern translations for personal reading [NASB at present].