[Forest Keeper]

Actually "saints" is used 96 times throughout scripture a third of which is used in the Old Testament.

Good call. It is absolutely clear that they are referred to as living. I'm not sure of the significance, but I was amazed to see 96 references to the word "saints", and ZERO references to the word "saint".

[kosta50]

It is absolutely clear that they are referred to as living. I'm not sure of the significance, but I was amazed to see 96 references to the word "saints", and ZERO references to the word "saint"

The words used in Hebrew are not the same as those used for God. The word used by +Paul for the believers is agios (holy), which is the same word used for God. There is a definite distinction.

This is another example of biblical linguistics. Another drastic example is 1 Cor 13:3. All western Bibles say:

"and if I surrender my body to be burned..."

This appears in the Greek Majority Text and subsequently ends up in Textus Receptus, and from there on in just about every western Bible.

Older Greek texts use a word that differs only by one letter, and means "to boast" rather than to "be burned."

Thus, instead of kauchesomai the word is kauthesomai; someone misread one single letter as θ instead of χ, and changed the meaning of the whole verse and all the Bibles in the west.