“Mansion” Is Not a False Friend in the KJV

John 14:2 is a passage that is often brought up in discussions of the differences between the KJV and other translations, and it is no surprise to find the word mansions from this passage listed among Mark Ward’s “false friends.” In his video on this word, Ward follows the typical anti-KJV argument by saying that “there’s an obvious contextual conflict. What in the world does it mean for the Father’s house to have many mansions inside it? Mansions are houses.” Regarding the Greek word translated as “mansions,” Ward claims, “The word means ‘room.’” Room is the word that most modern translations use here, and it has become widely accepted as accurate. Ward claims that the KJV translators also understood the Greek word to mean room and that they only used the word mansion because that word used to mean “room.” Ward is mistaken on several counts.

Mistake #1 – Mansions actually can fit in houses.
 
Ward’s first mistake in this passage has little to do with the word mansion. His understanding of the mansions mentioned here is limited by a flawed assumption about the word house. Ward assumes that the word house refers to a single building. He probably imagines the house in this verse to be a large stately building similar to the White House or one of the other governing residences in America, but that’s an overly simplistic understanding of the word house.
 
The word house in English and οἶκος (oikos) in Greek can be used for homes as humble as a cave or tent or as massive and lavish as a royal estate. Before we can answer the question of what the KJV translators meant by the word mansion in John 14:2, we should attempt to discover what Jesus meant when he used the word οἶκος or house in the same verse.
 
The largest house in history is known today as the Forbidden City, and it was built as the royal residence of the Emperor of China. This home sits on more than 700 acres surrounded by a wall and a moat, and there are 980 surviving buildings on the site. Access to the forbidden city was restricted to the Emperor, his household, and his invited guests. It is a single house that has many mansions within its walls.

Of course, it could be argued that John had no knowledge of the Forbidden City since he died long before it was constructed, but Jesus surely knew about it since He knows almost as much as the Father knows (Matt 24:36). Nonetheless, I’m sure that Mark Ward would argue that Jesus must have used an example that would have been familiar to His disciples. In that case, the Lord may have compared His Father’s house to the houses of the greatest rulers known to His disciples, the Roman Caesars.  These rulers also lived in houses with multiple mansions. Nero’s Domus Aurea (Golden House), for example, was a first-century home that included several individual mansions.

Or maybe Jesus was alluding to the grand Roman villas or country houses. These also were prone to having multiple buildings in a single house. The Roman Villa Borg had at least six distinct buildings.

And Hadrian’s Villa, the largest known villa, consisted of at least thirty individual buildings spread across 300 acres of land.

Even massive estates like these with multiple mansions have historically been referred to as houses. In fact, the Latin word domus in the name of Nero’s Domus Aurea is the word used for οἶκος in Latin translations of John 14:2. Thus, it is at least conceivable that Jesus was alluding to something similar to these palatial Roman estates when He said, “In my Father’s house are many mansions.”
 
Is the Father’s house a single building, maybe “a big, big house with lots and lots a room,” or is it more likely to be a large estate with many majestic buildings? We can find the answer to this question in Revelation 21 where we find John referring to the dwelling place of the Father. John described the Father’s house as both a city (vs. 2 & Rev 3:12) and a tabernacle or tent (vs. 3). The Father’s “tent” will be a city extending 1,400 miles on each side. God’s house will make even the Forbidden City and Hadrian’s Villa look puny, and it will have more than enough room for an abundance of stately mansions.
 
We are told in Hebrews that this city is built by God (Heb 11:10). He is both the architect (builder) and the worker (maker) responsible for its construction. The Father’s house is “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem” (Heb 12:22), and it is the place where the Father and the Son will dwell with the saints for all eternity (Rev 21:3 & 22-27). When we realize that the new Jerusalem is the city/house/tabernacle of the Father, we will have no difficulty at all figuring out how God can have many majestic buildings called mansions inside of His house.
 
Now, I don’t know anything about Ward’s eschatological views. He may believe that things found in the book of Revelation are not to be taken literally. But even if we were to assume that the new Jerusalem is just a metaphor, we would still have no difficulty imagining this metaphorical city/house/tabernacle having many metaphorical mansions inside of it.
 
Mistake #2 – The Greek word μονή does not mean “room.”
 
The word translated as “mansion” in the KJV is the word μονή (monay).  In his video on this topic, Ward said that he “just kept thinking about how simple and straightforward the translation of John 14 is.” He said that the word μονή is “not tricky to translate.” Ward then turned to the BDAG lexicon entry for this word and pointed out that the word “room” is listed as a possible translation for μονή. He concluded that
 
In a context like this one, the word means ‘room,’ and that makes a lot more sense . . . there’s just no way it means a whole separate house, because unless Jesus is really playing with words here in a way he doesn’t explain, by saying that this Greek word is in a house, he has to mean rooms.
 
As you can see, Ward’s only argument for why μονή must mean “room” in this verse is that a house can’t have a whole separate building inside of it. I’ve already demonstrated that this argument is flawed because it has always been common to use the term house in reference to large estates with multiple buildings. This leaves Ward’s claim without any supporting evidence, but what about the fact that “room” is listed as a possible translation in the BDAG lexicon?
 
I looked up the word μονή in several different lexicons including Friberg, Louw-Nida, BDAG, Thayer, TDNT, EDNT, VGNT, and LSJM. The BDAG was the only lexicon that gave “room” as a possible translation for μονή. The LSJM offered “apartment” as a possible translation, but it listed John 14:2 as the only source for that possibility. The entry in BDAG did not give any sources for “room” as a translation, but both Danker and Gingrich (the D and G of BDAG) list John 14:2 as their source for that definition.
 
I also read through about a dozen occurrences of this word in Greek literature, and I was unable to find any uses of μονή for a single room within a house. What I found instead were multiple uses of this word to refer to houses, tents, temples, and monasteries. Granted, I am nowhere near as widely read in Greek as I am in English, but my meager efforts coupled with the fact that none of the lexicons provide a source outside of John 14:2 for translating μονή as “room” lead me to the conclusion that this particular translation choice is based on the flawed assumption that the Father’s house is a single building. In other words, the BDAG lists “room” as a possible translation of μονή solely because some theologians claim that John 14:2 must be referring to rooms within a house.
 
This means that Ward is using circular reasoning when he claims that John 14:2 should be referring to rooms within a house because of the listing in BDAG. He is claiming that μονή should be translated as “room” in John 14:2 because BDAG says that μονή means “room,” but BDAG only says that μονή means “room” because μονή is translated as “room” in some of the English translations of John 14:2. Ward is forgetting that the lexicons reflect the choices of the translators. Without an example of μονή being used for “room” in some other ancient document, it is illogical to view this part of the BDAG entry as a rule for translators to follow.

Mistake #3 – Mansion has never meant “room.”
 
Ward’s argument is already based on a weak foundation, but he compounds his error with even more assumptions when he discusses the English definition of mansion. Ward’s conclusion about the Greek word μονή is that it means “room” in this passage, and he tries to assert that the English word mansion means the same thing. There’s just one itty-bitty problem. None of the dictionaries that Ward quoted and none of the additional dictionaries that I searched ever say that mansion could mean “room.”
 
Ward notes that the American Heritage Dictionary, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, and the OED all say that mansion could be defined as “a separate apartment or lodging in a large structure.” But throughout this section of his video, Ward repeatedly equates the word apartment found in the English definitions of mansion with the word room found in the BDAG definition of μονή. After reading the OED definition of mansion, Ward exclaims “Ah-ha! That is exactly what the Greek word means!” But there is an important difference between the word apartment and the word room. The word room used in this sense always refers to a single enclosed space inside of a building, but the word apartment has a much broader application.
 
In modern America, the word apartment is generally, but not exclusively, used to refer to a suite of rooms to be used as a dwelling place. This is listed as definition 1.b of apartment in the OED, but apartment is a broad enough term that it can be used for any subdivision of space set aside for a dwelling space within a larger structure. For example, the 1893 Inspector General’s report to the U.S. Secretary of War speaks of a military barracks that is large enough to serve as a “sleeping apartment” during the night and a drill room during the day in case of inclement weather. The word apartment here refers to an entire building, but it is appropriate for this context because it is speaking of a subdivision of the military base that is set aside as a dwelling place.
 
The definitions of the words mansion and apartment overlap. Both words are used for dwelling places, and both can refer to subdivisions within a larger structure. The primary difference between them is that the word apartment is generally focused on the structure of the space itself while the word mansion is focused more on the purpose of the space.
 
It is significant to note that Ward left out part of the definition of mansion found in the OED. The actual definition is: “each of a number of separate dwelling places or apartments in a large house, group of buildings, etc.” Ward dropped the words “group of buildings, etc.” This seemingly insignificant part of the OED’s definition demonstrates that their lexicographers recognized that this sense of mansion can be applied to a stand-alone structure within a larger complex of buildings like the Forbidden City or Domus Aurea.
 
Ward claims that mansion meant “room” in the early seventeenth century, but that is not supported by the literature. The closest mansion gets to meaning “room” is in the sense where it refers to a separate dwelling place in a larger structure, but even this sense allows for mansion to mean separate buildings within a complex. Just as with the lexicon treatment of μονή, the dictionaries do not give any indication that the word mansions in John 14:2 must be limited to a reference to rooms within a house.
 
Mistake #4 – Mansion has not changed in meaning.
 
In his debate with Dan Haifley, Ward said that “mansions did not mean in 1611 a large, stately, opulent residence.” This statement illustrates one of the major flaws in Ward’s assertion that there are “false friends” in the KJV. Ward claims in his book that “many words and phrases in the KJV are still in use but meant different things in seventeenth-century England.” In my rebuttals of Ward’s arguments, I’ve focused mostly on the modern uses of these words and phrases to show that he is ignorant of the continued use of older definitions, but we could reverse that demonstration and show just as easily that Ward is ignorant of the ancient use of what he considers to be modern definitions.
 
Ward asserts that the word mansion did not mean a large and stately residence in 1611, but his “beloved OED” disagrees with him. According to the OED, this definition of the word mansion as a large, stately, and opulent residence dates back to at least 1375. In fact, the current edition of the OED actually claims that the earliest known use of this definition pre-dates the earliest known use of the definition Ward attributes to the word by about twenty-five years.

By 1611, the word mansion already had about as much nuance as it has today. The only exception is that the use of mansion to refer to a large building containing individual flats or apartments didn’t enter the language until the latter half of the nineteenth century. Apart from that, the original readers of the KJV were confronted with just as many options for understanding the word mansion as we have today. Had they consulted the dictionaries of that time, they would have found that mansion could be applied equally to any dwelling place from the smallest apartment to the grandest castle. How did the KJV translators expect their readers to grasp the correct understanding of this word?
 
But wait, there’s more! The Greek word μονή has the same range of meanings as the English word mansion! How were the original readers of the Gospel of John or even the people who heard Jesus speak supposed to know which meaning to attribute to the words of Christ? How were they to know whether to expect mansions in Heaven or mere rooms in a house?
 
I suspect that the answer lies in the phrase “if it were not so, I would have told you.” Given the broad spectrum of definitions available for μονή and mansion, which end of the spectrum is more likely to have produced Christ’s statement that He would have told us if it weren’t true? If He were merely telling His disciples that there are lots of rooms in God’s house, why would that be anything to doubt? There’s nothing strange or fantastical about the idea that God lives in a big house with lots of rooms. Imagine someone from the Midwest visiting Washington, D.C., and then going around to everyone in his hometown and telling them, “You know what? There are a lot of rooms in the White House. It’s true! If it weren’t true, I would tell you because I’ve been there and have seen it for myself.” Would people be relieved to hear this assurance that the White House has lots of rooms, or would they be concerned that this man was mentally disturbed?
 
What if that same man came back from Washington, D.C., all excited about the art, the architecture, and the wealth of history found in the capital? Imagine this man returning home and telling everyone about the grand paintings in the Rotunda. He might say, “You wouldn’t believe the art on display in the capital. Pictures on the internet just don’t do it justice. You’ve heard people talk about the art there before, but I’m telling you it’s incredible. You’ve got to go and see it for yourself. I’ve been there, and if it weren’t worth the trip, I’d tell you.” Would people look at this man with concern for his mental health, or would they be more likely to catch his excitement and wish that they could experience the art of the capital for themselves?
 
Clearly, the second scenario is a closer parallel to Christ’s words in John 14:2. If Jesus were just telling His disciples that there were lots of rooms in His Father’s house, there would be no reason for Him to essentially say, “Believe me, if it weren’t true, I would tell you.” Why would anyone say that about a house having lots of rooms in it? Who would find it hard to believe that there’s a big house somewhere in Heaven? But if Jesus was talking about mansions being built for the saints, His reassurance that He would have told us if it weren’t true makes a lot more sense. Mark Ward and all of the modern Bible translators are living proof that people doubt the existence of large stately houses in Heaven. Christ’s guarantee of individual mansions is validated by their doubts.
 
Conclusion
 
To wrap this all up, the Greek word μονή has a very wide range of uses. It can refer to literally any dwelling place from the smallest shack to grand palaces. While I could not find any uses of μονή that referred to individual rooms within a house, it could certainly be used for apartments in a large building. The English word mansion is just as expansive as μονή because mansion is nothing more than the word μονή carried into English by way of Latin. The only argument for assuming that μονή means “room” in John 14:2 is the claim that mansions can’t fit inside of houses, but this argument ignores the two facts that (a) the word house can be applied to large complexes of buildings and (b) the new Jerusalem is large enough for many buildings and is still called “the tabernacle of God.” Plus, the “plowboys” of both the first and the seventeenth centuries would have had just as many possible definitions of mansion as we have today.
 
In the contest between mansion and room as a translation of μονή in John 14:2, mansion is clearly the better option of the two. Ward’s insistence that Jesus was only speaking of rooms within a large house is completely groundless. Jesus used a word with a range of definitions that could include a suite within a house but could also include an entire building. The word room does not have that same range of possible definitions, and without clear contextual limitations, it is always better to use a word with the same range of meanings as the original.  In this case, μονή should be translated as “mansion” and not as “room.”