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thomblake comments on Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality discussion thread, part 25, chapter 96 - Less Wrong
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It strikes me as strange taking the words "The last enemy to be destroyed is death" as a family motto and manifesto, considering that it orginates from 1 Corinthians 15:26, concerning the resurrection of the dead, Jesus Christ's second coming and the abolishment of death. While it is similiar to Harry's goal, it certainly opposes it by way of means. Harry seeking the abolishment of death through mortal, albeit supernatural and magical, means opposes the divine plan of God. That Harry took this as a mission pasted down the Potter line generation to generation seems a lot more unlikely than it being a suitable epitaph on a gravestone.
Given the timing, it seems more likely in-universe that the particular English translation of that bible passage was lifted from the wizard motto.
It's a fairly literal translation. I think the most likely option is that the Potter motto was first taken from the Bible in Latin, and at some point after the completion of the King James Bible (in the 1600s) the motto was updated to English.
The Peverells were, after all, contemporaries of Godric Gryffindor (at least in the HPMoR universe), so they would've been all over the Latin mottoes.
I was actually under the impression that the Perverells lived before Merlin.
To be honest, I've just been getting this idea from things other people have said. But in canon (apparently according to the book Harry Potter Film Wizardry), Ignotus Peverell was born in 1214, and I've found no evidence that this is different in HPMoR.
EDIT: Apparently it is different.
Hogwarts, on the other hand, was founded over a thousand years ago according to the Harry Potter books, while in HPMoR it is repeatedly stated to be eight hundred years old.
The motto is in Old English in the story, presumably dating from the time of the Peverells. It may have been taken from the bible verse, but then your own argument raises the question, why didn't they write their motto in Latin?
The Old English is the prophecy, not the motto.
Right, I stand corrected.
I am confused.
The particular Bible passage was written in Greek a solid millennia before Hogwarts was built, it was available in Latin at least since the 4th century (Latin being the language of the educated post-Roman Empire, and the language which magic seems to be based off of), and, according to a quick Wikipedia search, translated into Old English by the Venerable Bede in the 7th century.
You may be thinking of the Gospel of John, which Bede translated shortly before his death. As far as I can tell, there was never an Old English translation of 1 Corinthians, and if there was it was not well-known.
I would be surprised to discover an Old English translation of any part of the Bible. The major theological movement to translate the Gospels into the vernacular (Lutherian Reformation) post-dates Old English by several centuries.
Huh? thomblake just mentioned such a translation (though it's incomplete), and it's easy to verify on wiki or elsewhere.
We can steelman my post to say we shouldn't expect many translations given the theological positions, or we can believe TimS_yesterday failed reading comprehension.
I'm putting my probability mass on that latter. Sorry, thomblake.
Well, the Vulgar Latin translation of the Bible was itself in the vernacular at the time it was translated.
Hence "the particular translation".
EDIT: although, lets face it, the Bible verse probably came frist, and was then adopted by the Peverels.
Why would you think that? I assure you that Bible translators do NOT base their translations on popular fiction. In fact, I have to congratulate you on coming up with the most blasphemous idea I've ever heard.
King James version says, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." New International Version (first published in 1973) says, "The last enemy to be destroyed is death."
You're surely mistaken. The bible translators often brought in popular sayings and turns of phrase that seemed to fit. If there was a wizard motto with some currency that sounded like an appropriate translation when KJV was written, then I could totally see it being used in the bible, assuming there was any cross-pollination between wizards and christians at the time.
I don't see why the christians using a wizard motto would be particularly blasphemous, let alone maximally so.