Then Peter came up and said to him, "Lord, how often shall my brother
sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?"
Jesus said to him,
"I do not say to you seven times, but seventy times
seven."
-- Matthew 18:21-22 of the Revised Standard Version
These same words are found in the King James version, the Phillips Modern English version, The Living Bible, the New English Bible, and many other translations.
However, in The Jerusalem Bible, the Augsburg Study Bible
New Revised Standard Version, and several other more modern
translations, Matthew 18:22 reads,
Jesus answered, "Not seven, I tell you, but
seventy-seven times."
Somebody changed the math. In the older translations, Jesus' answer
was 70 x 7 or 490 times, but the newer translations changed his answer
to 77 times. Of course, Jesus did not mean that we should stop forgiving
after 490 times or even 77 times -- he meant that there should be no
limits to our forgiveness. In The Interpreter's Bible,
it mentions both of these numbers, but it calls this "celestial arithmetic"
-- we must do the math in our hearts. It is a problem in conduct
rather than in arithmetic.
The rabbis said that three pardons were enough. Peter proposed magnanimity,
and so suggested seven. But Jesus insisted that there must be no limits to
forgiveness.
Luke 17:4 also mentions this conversation with the seven times.
Luke 17:5 tells us that when the disciples heard this requirement of
Jesus for unlimited forgiveness, they exclaimed, "Increase our faith!"