PUZZLE #28 - Alpha & Omega

Do you know what the words alpha and omega mean? We live in the 20th century. English is the spoken language of our world, but 2,000 years ago, the Greek language had that honor. Today, we know that these two words are the Greek equivalent of our letters A and Z. They are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet.

You can find the expression alpha and omega in four places within the book of Revelation, the last book of the New Testament. John used these words as he quoted the Savior. They expressed His all-encompassing nature; A and Z, from Alpha to Omega, and everything between. John used these words because he wrote his book (Revelation) in the spoken language of his day, Greek.

When the King James scholars translated the New Testament into the English of their day, they did not translate these two words; they transliterated them. When they saw these Greek letters, they didn’t write down A and Z. They expressed the Greek letters in English words; hence alpha and omega show up in our Bible, rather than the letters A and Z.

To John's readers, the meanings of the letters alpha and omega were clear. They all knew these letters just like we know our letters A and Z. These were just two more Greek letters in a whole book of Greek words, the New Testament.

The Greek language is at the root of our English language. French and Spanish have that same root. Americans, are familiar with many of the old Greek letters. We can pull them up on most word processing programs (but not this one).

It's a PUZZLE to me why Jesus would say the following words to a bunch of people who communicated either in Hebrew or in so called 'reformed Egyptian'?

"I am the light and the life of the world. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end." 3rd Nephi 9:18 (Page 425)

Just exactly what did these words mean to the Nephites? I can just see them all standing there, looking dumb and asking each other what Jesus had said. These words were not transliterated by Joseph Smith in 1830. They were not Reformed Egyptian words nor letters. Nor were they Hebrew words.

They are letters from the Greek language of the first century after Christ, a language that did not even exist when the Lehites left Jerusalem. In 1830, these words were coppied right out of the book of Revelation by Joseph Smith.

"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last." (Revelation 22:13)

To John and the Greek speaking world, alpha and omega meant something. Joseph Smith did not take into account that the Nephites didn't speak nor understand Greek. He has Jesus using two Greek words as he speaks to them. That would be like having Jesus say to you; I am pjvqr and lkxzy, the beginning and the end. Would HE do that? Absolutely not!