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Question 1: "Fear God” or " Trust God"

I have heard some say that several of the " fear God" translations from the Greek should have been translated "trust God". Is this true and if so, can you give examples of the passages?

Question 2: How can we understand “fear”?

It seems that (throughout the Bible), we have been told to "not fear" but also to "fear God".

How can we understand this word "fear" in these two contexts? If this word in these two contexts carries the same meaning, isn't this a direct contradiction?

Some bible verses for word study

"Do not fear":

Genesis 26:24 (NKJV)
And the LORD appeared to him the same night and said, “I am the God of your father Abraham; do not fear, for I am with you. I will bless you and multiply your descendants for My servant Abraham’s sake.”

versus "Fear the Lord your God":

Deuteronomy 6:13 (NKJV)
You shall fear the LORD your God and serve Him, and shall take oaths in His name.

We can also see this in the New Testament:

Luke 12:5 (NKJV)
But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has power to cast into hell; yes, I say to you, fear Him!

Luke 12:32 (NKJV)
Do not fear, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

I won't argue that with the appropriate intention, the questioner could perhaps find the answer to their question in the alleged "exact duplicate", but these two questions are not "exact duplicates".

Is there any reason why the message, "This question was marked as an exact duplicate of an existing question." comes up in these cases? Is this something inherited from stackexchange in general, or is it something specific to BH and intentional?

In the above example:

  • No underlying Greek text is identified at all in Question 2, whereas Question 1 is asking for answers that specifically address the Greek.
  • There is no discussion about how the Greek phrase that is perhaps best suited to be translated as "trust God" is sometimes translated as "fear God" (since the Greek text itself is never even discussed).
  • The second answer does not directly answer the question, "Is this true ..."

I don't think that Question 1 is very well posed and I and others commented to the effect. Perhaps it should have been closed for other reasons, but what are others seeing that I am not that would lead one to see that Question 2 and Question 1 are "exact duplicates"?

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  • The first question really should have been closed simply as off-topic (for not referring to specific scriptural texts.) That they got given a link to another question which may help is a bonus!
    – curiousdannii Mod
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 9:25
  • Related: "How is this an “exact duplicate”?" (N.b. not an "exact" duplicate.) ;)
    – Dɑvïd
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 11:12
  • I agree that there were reasons to close the first question - or al least give the author time to edit it (he/she was a new user). It should not have been closed as an exact duplicate, though. It seems that a lot of time that if there is any sort of related question at all, people vote to close new questions as "duplicates" without really studying the questions closely to see if they are, in fact, asking exactly the same thing.
    – user33515
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 13:20
  • I read the answer to the other question and the answer below. Essentially the answer is that the label is misleading and that there is nothing that can be done.
    – user33515
    Commented Apr 13, 2017 at 13:25

1 Answer 1

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The wording of the interface is inherited from the Stack Exchange software and is common to all the sites. We can't do anything about that.

Forget the "exact" wording. Whether a question is a duplicate of another can be answered by reviewing what information would be required to generally cover each question. If a good answer (even if such an answer doesn't exist yet) to one of the questions would cover the basics of the other question they can be closed as duplicates.

In the event there is some detail or specific in one question but not the other, the less specific or developed question should usually be the one closed. If there are mutually exclusive details but significant overlap, they can still be closed, but encourage the OP to either ask a separate question focusing on the non-overlapping part or edit the question down to just that bit. This saves answerers having to cover the same ground over and over and encourages improving existing answers on the subject.

The duplicate label can be applied even more liberally in the case of questions that have other issues. If they aren't clear or are missing elements that would normally be required, sometimes being closed as a duplicate is a more useful pointer to the OP than just having them closed outright. Not only do they get some answers related to their issue they also get pointed to a better formed question as an example of how to ask one next time.

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