How language evolves! These first two examples are such clear illustrations of how meanings morph and become things that they were not originally.

Any speaker of a romance language for example will know that the English word faith comes from a word that originally meant fidelity to a leader. Repent, obviously, literally means to rethink something, to change one’s mind.

When versions of the English language Bible were originally printed, readers would have received those meanings.

But over the centuries as religious concepts have developed, the very meanings of the words have changed in English to match those concepts.

Talk about a self-reinforcing feedback loop!

This is why critical textual analysis is so important.