Ten Views on the Falling Away

Authors

John Gee

Keywords

Falling away, apostasy

Abstract

Latter-day Saints have long known about the falling away or Apostasy of Christianity from the Church established by Jesus Christ. The two terms both come from 2 Thessalonians 2:3. Falling away is the expression used by the King James translators to render the Greek word apostasia, which came into English as a loan word: apostasy. The terms are thus synonyms for the same thing. The term apostasia was a later form of the classical term apostasis and a more intense form of the term stasis, all of which mean “dissension,” “revolt,” or “rebellion.” The Septuagint uses both the terms apostasia and apostasis to translate the Hebrew word maʿal as “disloyalty, infidelity, fraud (KJV: falsehood, grievously, sore, transgression, trespass),” mered as “rebellion (KJV: rebellion),” beliyyaʿal as “uselessness, wickedness (KJV: Belial, evil, naughty, ungodly, wicked),” and mešûbāh as “falling away, apostasy (KJV: backsliding, turning away).”

Recommended Citation

Gee, John (2024) "Ten Views on the Falling Away," BYU Studies Quarterly: Vol. 63: Iss. 2, Article 8.
Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/byusq/vol63/iss2/8