Melinda at Intellectuelle has a post up about one of her pet peeves: the misuse of “the truth shall set you free.” It’s a phrase from the Bible that is referring specifically to the Gospel message, but it’s commonly used to refer to just truth in general, stripped of the original Biblical context.
That got me thinking about other common misquotes of the Bible. Many years ago, part of my job involved answering emails sent in to the Bible Gateway by its users, and I was amazed at the number of people wanting help locating in the Bible phrases that weren’t actually in the Bible. Some examples that came up really frequently:
- “God helps those who help themselves”—yeah, this sentence mentions God and sounds vaguely Proverbs-ish, but this particular gem was imparted to the world by Ben Franklin, not Solomon or Jesus.
- “Money is the root of all evil”—this one isn’t technically a misquote, but it’s missing a part of the sentence that radically changes the meaning. The full phrase is “The love of money is the root of all evil.” Three tiny words, one big difference in meaning!
- “Better to reign in hell than serve in heaven”—I know this sounds like the sort of thing you’d find in the Bible, but it’s not. Should’ve paid attention in World Lit 101, people!
I don’t mean to sound overly snarky; I know that misquotes like this are done in innocent ignorance. But they’re still a pet peeve of mine. Anybody else have a “favorite” Bible misquote to add to the list?
