Podcasts about Codex Sinaiticus

bibles parchment codex sinaiticus

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 26, 2023

Codex Sinaiticus, a controversial early manuscript, has deeply influenced modern Bibles by its omission of key passages like Mark 16:9-20.

Session 4 | Forensic Examination of Sinaiticus | Beyond The Parchment

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 26, 2023

Modern forensic techniques like microscopy and spectroscopy could provide empirical data to validate or expose the contested origins of the Codex Sinaiticus.

modern examination forensic parchment codex sinaiticus sinaiticus

Session 3 | The Public Debate: Simonides vs. Sinaiticus | Behind The Parchment

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 26, 2023

Session 3 chronicles the 19th century clash between scholars over the Codex Sinaiticus, pitting its defender Tischendorf versus Simonides, who claimed it as his forgery.

parchment public debate codex sinaiticus tischendorf sinaiticus

Session 2 | Introduction To The Controversy | Behind The Parchment

controversy parchment codex sinaiticus

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 26, 2023

The Taos Prophecy Conference delves into the enigmatic figure of Constantine Simonides, his claim of authoring Codex Sinaiticus, and the ensuing academic controversy.

Episode 1117: SANTOS PADRES: Pastor Hermas. II. El mensaje de penitencia FIN (Discernimiemto de espíritus)

roma santos san diego padres lyon hechos escritura el mensaje nuevo testamento ritus el pastor ii el penitencia hermas tertuliano codex sinaiticus

Play Episode Listen Later May 27, 2023 9:27

El Pastor de Hermas es una obra cristiana del siglo II que no forma parte del canon neotestamentario y que gozó de una gran autoridad durante los siglos II y III. Tertuliano e Ireneo de Lyon lo citan como «Escritura», el Codex Sinaiticus lo vincula al Nuevo Testamento y en el Codex Claromontanus figura entre los Hechos de los Apóstoles y las cartas de Pablo. La primera versión de la obra fue escrita en griego, y de ella no se ha conservado el texto completo, pero inmediatamente fue traducida al latín quizás por su propio autor, Hermas de Roma.

Episode 1106: SANTOS PADRES: Pastor Hermas. El mensaje de penitencia (Habiendo yo)

roma santos san diego padres lyon hechos escritura el mensaje nuevo testamento el pastor habiendo penitencia hermas tertuliano codex sinaiticus

Play Episode Listen Later May 17, 2023 9:39

El Pastor de Hermas es una obra cristiana del siglo II que no forma parte del canon neotestamentario y que gozó de una gran autoridad durante los siglos II y III. Tertuliano e Ireneo de Lyon lo citan como «Escritura», el Codex Sinaiticus lo vincula al Nuevo Testamento y en el Codex Claromontanus figura entre los Hechos de los Apóstoles y las cartas de Pablo. La primera versión de la obra fue escrita en griego, y de ella no se ha conservado el texto completo, pero inmediatamente fue traducida al latín quizás por su propio autor, Hermas de Roma.

Episode 1096: SANTOS PADRES: Pastor Hermas. Piedras para constuir la Iglesia (Los dos Angeles)

roma santos san diego padres lyon la iglesia hechos escritura piedras nuevo testamento el pastor hermas tertuliano codex sinaiticus

Play Episode Listen Later May 9, 2023 7:15

El Pastor de Hermas es una obra cristiana del siglo II que no forma parte del canon neotestamentario y que gozó de una gran autoridad durante los siglos II y III. Tertuliano e Ireneo de Lyon lo citan como «Escritura», el Codex Sinaiticus lo vincula al Nuevo Testamento y en el Codex Claromontanus figura entre los Hechos de los Apóstoles y las cartas de Pablo. La primera versión de la obra fue escrita en griego, y de ella no se ha conservado el texto completo, pero inmediatamente fue traducida al latín quizás por su propio autor, Hermas de Roma.

Episode 1086: SANTOS PADRES: San Pacomio (Regla: Prefacío16FIN y Pastor Hermas. Piedras para constuir la Iglesia (Lo 7Catequesis ())

roma santos san diego padres lyon la iglesia hechos escritura piedras regla nuevo testamento el pastor hermas tertuliano codex sinaiticus

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 29, 2023 10:28

El Pastor de Hermas es una obra cristiana del siglo II que no forma parte del canon neotestamentario y que gozó de una gran autoridad durante los siglos II y III. Tertuliano e Ireneo de Lyon lo citan como «Escritura», el Codex Sinaiticus lo vincula al Nuevo Testamento y en el Codex Claromontanus figura entre los Hechos de los Apóstoles y las cartas de Pablo. La primera versión de la obra fue escrita en griego, y de ella no se ha conservado el texto completo, pero inmediatamente fue traducida al latín quizás por su propio autor, Hermas de Roma.

Episode 154: William J. Carl's Assassin's Manuscript

Across the Margin: The Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 2, 2023 47:55

This episode of Across The Margin: The Podcast features an interview with William J. Carl (PhD), a Greek scholar, screenwriter and playwright, former professor, seminary president, and pastor, who has spoken at Oxford, Cambridge, Princeton, Cornell, Boston University, Carnegie Mellon, as well as many other schools in the U.S., and internationally. He is the author of eight nonfiction books and one novel entitled Assassin's Manuscript — the focus of this episode. He also lectures on the Brain at medical schools and medical conferences. Assassin's Manuscript tells the story of when former CIA assassin Adam Hunter's last hit goes awry and he attempts to leave behind his world of espionage and murder by embarking on a career in ministry. But soon, he is pulled back in to crack a code hidden in an ancient manuscript in order to foil a terrorist plot. In the meantime, Renie Ellis, a lawyer in the small town he's moved to, gets caught up in his dilemma and falls in love with him, not realizing he killed her fiancé by accident. The heist of a famous Codex from the British Museum, Papal intrigue in the Vatican, Sicilian and Russian Mafia involvement, and a U.S. President who knows more than she admits, all play key roles in a story that keeps the reader guessing until the end. From Rome to Jerusalem, from Egypt's Mt. Sinai to Tennessee's Smoky Mountains, the characters in Assassin's Manuscript scramble for their lives, racing the clock to prevent an international disaster. In this episode host Michael Shields and William Carl discuss the vast amount of research involved in bringing Assassin's Manuscript to life (including interviewing multiple real-life assassins). They discuss the exotic locations brought vividly to life in the book and the diverse and unique motivations of the eclectic grouping of characters found in the novel. They explore the weighty themes present in the book, the legendary text (the Codex Sinaiticus) that lies at the heart of Assassin's Manuscript, what might be in store for the character of Adam Hunter moving forward, and so much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Day 7 2023 EveryWord --- Mark 16

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 7, 2023 20:00

This year I have promised and planned to publish a supplemental episode of one kind or another on the 7th of each month. So welcome to this January 7th extra podcast! Today I will do my best to convince you that the last 12 verses of Mark 16 shouldn't have brackets around them or footnotes that cast doubt on their authenticity. I believe that they are authentic Scripture inspired by God. Now, I try to stay away from saying anything controversial in the Daily Bible Reading Podcast series, and it kind of bothers me that here in this first Day 7 extra podcast of the year, I will say things that quite a few people with seminary training will consider leaning too much to the conservative side of the scale. But I feel constrained to be controversial now so I will come right out and say it: I believe what Moses (Deut. 8:3) and Jesus (Luk. 4:4) said: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” If we are to live by ‘every word', then it makes sense to me to believe that God would preserve every word for us. Please remember that all Bible translations were made by humans. This means that there is no such thing as a perfect Bible translation, as almost all good versions state in their prefaces. Even the KJV translators admitted this in their Preface. So I ask for your patient understanding as I set out a weakness in the NLT. The NLT has this at Mark 16:8: 8 The women fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.[c] c The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8. Other manuscripts include various endings to the Gospel. A few include both the “shorter ending” and the “longer ending.” The majority of manuscripts include the “longer ending” immediately after verse 8. Then with a sub-heading in bold and italic font: [The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude with verse 16:8. Later manuscripts add one or both of the following endings.] [Shorter Ending of Mark] Then they briefly reported all this to Peter and his companions. Afterward Jesus himself sent them out from east to west with the sacred and unfailing message of salvation that gives eternal life. Amen. [Longer Ending of Mark] verses 9-20 … When you get to Day 26 you will note that I didn't read the shorter ending for the podcast. That ending has extremely thin support in ancient manuscripts, and where the words occur, the manuscripts often also have the longer ending, verses 9-20. Some experts today think that Mark intended to end his Gospel with the words, “they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.” But this defies imagination! I don't think authors started using the type of endings where you leave-the-audience-hanging until centuries later, like perhaps just two centuries ago. Remember that Mark starts with the words, “This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.” Mark shows a pattern of telling the outcome for every miracle. He is not about to leave the main thesis of his story without its fulfillment. The fulfillment of the starting thesis is found in the next to last verse (16:19), which says, “19 When the Lord Jesus had finished talking with them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down in the place of honor at God's right hand.” That verse is also an important doctrinal statement, since no other Gospel includes those words as part of the story of Jesus' resurrection. And the same verse very appropriately links Mark's Gospel with Peter's teaching in 1Peter 3:22. I believe that God has preserved His Word for us. Therefore it is unacceptable to me to say that the Holy Spirit would leave a whole book of the NT without a clear ending. We have two choices for the ending: One says the ladies didn't tell anyone because they were afraid. The other ends with Jesus at the right hand of God. Which one seems to be the proper ending to you?! The NLT has words in bold italics before Mark 16 verses 9-20 which say, “[The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude with verse 16:8. Later manuscripts add one or both of the following endings.]” Well, how many manuscripts are we actually talking about with the words ‘The most ancient manuscripts'? Then the footnote says ‘later manuscripts add' the last 12 verses. What are the real numbers? Two of the very oldest manuscripts plus one other do not have the last 12 verses of Mark. But the manuscripts that include the last 12 verses number more than 1,650! 99.99% of ancient manuscripts contain the longer ending of Mark. The NLT also has a footnote that starts with “The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8.” But this statement is, in my opinion, totally false. The two manuscripts they are talking about (Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) cannot be said to be ‘reliable'. They are, however, recognized as the very earliest, dated at 325 and 345. However, for Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus to be considered reliable, one would hope they would be reasonably consistent with one another. Instead they differ from one another in 3,036 places. I believe that early scribes recognized that they were defective, and this offers a plausible explanation for why there are no extant copies made from them. Many old-school ‘experts' (by that I mean seminary teachers from the mid-20th century) will say that the two oldest manuscripts outweigh all of the 1,650 other ancient manuscripts. But an increasing number of today's informed experts will not agree with the people I just called the ‘old-school experts'. Here are some points to consider: Both of the two oldest manuscripts I just mentioned have an odd blank space at the end of Mark, showing that the scribe realized the manuscript he was copying had something left out. This is called a ‘memorial space'. Such memorial spaces are found in various places in other ancient manuscripts. So even though the two manuscripts do not have the last 12 verses of Mark, the scribes telegraphed to us that they knew such an ending existed. Remember that Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are from the early 4th century. There are quotes of verses from Mark 16:9-20 by church fathers that predate those two manuscripts. Earlier support for the longer ending of Mark include “four second-century witnesses, and 99.9% of the [other ancient] Greek manuscripts, and 99.99% of the [ancient] Latin manuscripts, and 99.5% of the [ancient] Syriac manuscripts, and 40 Roman-era patristic writers.” (These statistics are quoted from Dr. James Snapp's article: https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2013/08/robert-stein-and-ending-of-mark.html) Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in 1844. This touched off a lot of excitement, and a revolutionary new text of the NT was published by Westscott and Hort in 1881. Please consider that there are multiple examples in history where excitement over new discoveries resulted in mistaken theories. For example, Darwin's theory of evolution from the same time period is now discredited. Just like you have university teachers still bone-headedly holding on to the theory of evolution, so the theories of Westscott and Hort are no longer upheld by many of today's experts but are still being repeated by seminary teachers. Westscott and Hort's faulty decisions about what verses are not authentic are still seen in today's Bibles. I'm sure that you will hear someone claim that the last 12 verses of Mark contain non-Markan vocabulary, but that assertion has been repeatedly disproved. Please see the resources for the podcast that I link at the end of today's episode notes. According to one ancient writer, Mark wrote his Gospel in Rome. It is likely that Mark or one of his friends made several copies of the first manuscript. Let's say that one stayed in Rome and was copied, and let's say that four other copies were sent toward the north, south, east and west. Each copy was painstakingly copied by hand over and over again and sent to an ever-widening circle of locations until the Gospel arrived all over the ancient world. Each scribe worked independently to copy the text of an earlier manuscript. 1650 manuscripts could not have the last 12 verses of Mark if the verses had not come from the first papyrus copy written by Mark. The Greek text of the New Testament that is the direct descendant of the Westscott and Hort 1881 text is published now in various editions of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, and also published as the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament. There are, of course, slight changes in these editions coming down to the present day. But even today, the main text is still remarkably similar to the 1881 text by Westscott and Hort. These texts are referred to collectively as the Critical Text or the Eclectic Text. Most of our English Bible translations of the last century have been based on that text, including NASB, GNT, NLT, NIV, and ESV. It is for that reason that you will find faith-destroying footnotes in them. By ‘faith-destroying', I mean that thinking readers ask, “If whole verses could disappear and marr the conclusion of Mark's Gospel, how many other corruptions might there be in the New Testament?” Opponents of Christianity seize on such things to say that the Bible text is not reliable. Islamic people frequently repeat that criticism. It is for that reason that our New Testament translation into the Indonesian language is based on the Majority or Byzantine Text. The Majority Text is not the same as the text that was the basis of the KJV, but it is similar to it. I am so pleased that I can announce that at the end of 2022 Adam Boyd published his Text Critical English New Testament, which is an English translation of the Majority/Byzantine Text. (You can get this for free. I have included links to this and other resources at the end of the episode notes.) This is a real game changer because at last modern scholarship is able to give us accurate statistics about the percentage of manuscript support for variants in the Greek text. (The collating of manuscripts is still in process, and the percentages will continue to increase in accuracy.) Let me give you two short examples. It would help if you could open your Bible to Mark 1 and also open ebible.org/study/ on your computer and navigate to Mark 1. You will see two columns for Scripture. Put the TCENT in the first column and the NASB in the second column. You will see that both translations give the first verse as “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” But click the superscript footnote at the word ‘Christ' in the TCENT. It shows that 98.2% of the manuscripts have the last words, “the Son of God.” No matter what translation you are holding, it is likely that verse 1 ends with “the Son of God. Move to verse 2. The NASB starts with, “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,” whereas the TCENT begins with “As it is written in the prophets.” Which is right? The footnote in the TCENT shows us that 96.2% of ancient manuscripts say ‘in the prophets'. Only 1.3% of manuscripts say ‘Isaiah the prophet'. Well now look at the NASB and you will see a superscript cross reference symbol at the start of the quote. The quote in the last two lines of verse 2 is not from Isaiah, but from Malachi! (The quote in verse 3 is from Isaiah.) So the Majority Text is proved right. The NASB chose to follow the Critical Text. But at the time the NASB was translated, they would not have known that their translation was supported by only 1.3% of the manuscripts. I hope that finding a weakness in your printed Bible doesn't upset your belief in God preserving his Word. He has preserved his Word, and we humans have a persistent habit of messing things up. If you follow the links at the end of today's episode notes, you can find some good literal translations of the Majority/Byzantine Text. But unfortunately, we still do not have a good meaning-based translation of that text that rivals the NLT or GNT for understandability. We'll keep on with the NLT and GNT podcasts for now. But please join me in prayer that an easy-to-utderstand translation of the Majority Text will soon be made! Wow, what a difficult topic this is! If you have listened to this point, I thank you! Normally my extra podcasts on the 7th day of each month will not deal with such complicated topics! Until next time, may the Lord bless you ‘real good'. Resources: Please consider supporting the work of James Snapp by buying and reading his 400-page book entitled Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20: 2016 Edition. The Kindle book is only 99 cents. https://www.amazon.com/Authentic-Case-Mark-9-20-2016-ebook/dp/B01EU1OR9O Phil Fields, 2019, Playing ‘Follow the Leader' in Bible Translation: https://map.bloomfire.com/posts/3446975-playing-follow-the-leader-in-bible-translation Phil Fields, 2020, EveryWord podcast 005: https://dailybiblereading.libsyn.com/website/everyword005-mark-16 Please follow that last link to find the supplemental PDF for that episode containing an essay on the ending of Mark by Dr. Wilbur Pickering, plus two other articles. (The last one deals with Markan vocabulary.) Adam Boyd, 2022, Text Critical Greek New Testament (TCGNG) and Text Critical English New Testament (TCENT): https://byzantinetext.com/study/translations/ https://ebible.org/bible/details.php?id=engtcent&all=1 https://ebible.org/bible/details.php?id=grctcgnt This page has a downloadable PDF of the Introduction to the TCGNT: https://alkitabkita.info/bahasa-sumber-alkitab/ (Scroll down the page until you see the PDF file displayed in a box.) You will need the information in the Introduction to understand the abbreviations in the TCENT/TCGNT footnotes. My favorite way to access the TCENT using this nifty online study app provided by ebible.org: https://ebible.org/study/ You can also easily access the Introduction at the top of the book menu. (Click on the zero.)

Day 7 2023 EveryWord --- Mark 16

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Play Episode Listen Later Jan 7, 2023 20:00

This year I have promised and planned to publish a supplemental episode of one kind or another on the 7th of each month. So welcome to this January 7th extra podcast! Today I will do my best to convince you that the last 12 verses of Mark 16 shouldn't have brackets around them or footnotes that cast doubt on their authenticity. I believe that they are authentic Scripture inspired by God. Now, I try to stay away from saying anything controversial in the Daily Bible Reading Podcast series, and it kind of bothers me that here in this first Day 7 extra podcast of the year, I will say things that quite a few people with seminary training will consider leaning too much to the conservative side of the scale. But I feel constrained to be controversial now so I will come right out and say it: I believe what Moses (Deut. 8:3) and Jesus (Luk. 4:4) said: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” If we are to live by ‘every word', then it makes sense to me to believe that God would preserve every word for us. Please remember that all Bible translations were made by humans. This means that there is no such thing as a perfect Bible translation, as almost all good versions state in their prefaces. Even the KJV translators admitted this in their Preface. So I ask for your patient understanding as I set out a weakness in the NLT. The NLT has this at Mark 16:8: 8 The women fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.[c] c The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8. Other manuscripts include various endings to the Gospel. A few include both the “shorter ending” and the “longer ending.” The majority of manuscripts include the “longer ending” immediately after verse 8. Then with a sub-heading in bold and italic font: [The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude with verse 16:8. Later manuscripts add one or both of the following endings.] [Shorter Ending of Mark] Then they briefly reported all this to Peter and his companions. Afterward Jesus himself sent them out from east to west with the sacred and unfailing message of salvation that gives eternal life. Amen. [Longer Ending of Mark] verses 9-20 … When you get to Day 26 you will note that I didn't read the shorter ending for the podcast. That ending has extremely thin support in ancient manuscripts, and where the words occur, the manuscripts often also have the longer ending, verses 9-20. Some experts today think that Mark intended to end his Gospel with the words, “they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.” But this defies imagination! I don't think authors started using the type of endings where you leave-the-audience-hanging until centuries later, like perhaps just two centuries ago. Remember that Mark starts with the words, “This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.” Mark shows a pattern of telling the outcome for every miracle. He is not about to leave the main thesis of his story without its fulfillment. The fulfillment of the starting thesis is found in the next to last verse (16:19), which says, “19 When the Lord Jesus had finished talking with them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down in the place of honor at God's right hand.” That verse is also an important doctrinal statement, since no other Gospel includes those words as part of the story of Jesus' resurrection. And the same verse very appropriately links Mark's Gospel with Peter's teaching in 1Peter 3:22. I believe that God has preserved His Word for us. Therefore it is unacceptable to me to say that the Holy Spirit would leave a whole book of the NT without a clear ending. We have two choices for the ending: One says the ladies didn't tell anyone because they were afraid. The other ends with Jesus at the right hand of God. Which one seems to be the proper ending to you?! The NLT has words in bold italics before Mark 16 verses 9-20 which say, “[The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude with verse 16:8. Later manuscripts add one or both of the following endings.]” Well, how many manuscripts are we actually talking about with the words ‘The most ancient manuscripts'? Then the footnote says ‘later manuscripts add' the last 12 verses. What are the real numbers? Two of the very oldest manuscripts plus one other do not have the last 12 verses of Mark. But the manuscripts that include the last 12 verses number more than 1,650! 99.99% of ancient manuscripts contain the longer ending of Mark. The NLT also has a footnote that starts with “The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8.” But this statement is, in my opinion, totally false. The two manuscripts they are talking about (Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) cannot be said to be ‘reliable'. They are, however, recognized as the very earliest, dated at 325 and 345. However, for Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus to be considered reliable, one would hope they would be reasonably consistent with one another. Instead they differ from one another in 3,036 places. I believe that early scribes recognized that they were defective, and this offers a plausible explanation for why there are no extant copies made from them. Many old-school ‘experts' (by that I mean seminary teachers from the mid-20th century) will say that the two oldest manuscripts outweigh all of the 1,650 other ancient manuscripts. But an increasing number of today's informed experts will not agree with the people I just called the ‘old-school experts'. Here are some points to consider: Both of the two oldest manuscripts I just mentioned have an odd blank space at the end of Mark, showing that the scribe realized the manuscript he was copying had something left out. This is called a ‘memorial space'. Such memorial spaces are found in various places in other ancient manuscripts. So even though the two manuscripts do not have the last 12 verses of Mark, the scribes telegraphed to us that they knew such an ending existed. Remember that Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are from the early 4th century. There are quotes of verses from Mark 16:9-20 by church fathers that predate those two manuscripts. Earlier support for the longer ending of Mark include “four second-century witnesses, and 99.9% of the [other ancient] Greek manuscripts, and 99.99% of the [ancient] Latin manuscripts, and 99.5% of the [ancient] Syriac manuscripts, and 40 Roman-era patristic writers.” (These statistics are quoted from Dr. James Snapp's article: https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2013/08/robert-stein-and-ending-of-mark.html) Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in 1844. This touched off a lot of excitement, and a revolutionary new text of the NT was published by Westscott and Hort in 1881. Please consider that there are multiple examples in history where excitement over new discoveries resulted in mistaken theories. For example, Darwin's theory of evolution from the same time period is now discredited. Just like you have university teachers still bone-headedly holding on to the theory of evolution, so the theories of Westscott and Hort are no longer upheld by many of today's experts but are still being repeated by seminary teachers. Westscott and Hort's faulty decisions about what verses are not authentic are still seen in today's Bibles. I'm sure that you will hear someone claim that the last 12 verses of Mark contain non-Markan vocabulary, but that assertion has been repeatedly disproved. Please see the resources for the podcast that I link at the end of today's episode notes. According to one ancient writer, Mark wrote his Gospel in Rome. It is likely that Mark or one of his friends made several copies of the first manuscript. Let's say that one stayed in Rome and was copied, and let's say that four other copies were sent toward the north, south, east and west. Each copy was painstakingly copied by hand over and over again and sent to an ever-widening circle of locations until the Gospel arrived all over the ancient world. Each scribe worked independently to copy the text of an earlier manuscript. 1650 manuscripts could not have the last 12 verses of Mark if the verses had not come from the first papyrus copy written by Mark. The Greek text of the New Testament that is the direct descendant of the Westscott and Hort 1881 text is published now in various editions of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament, and also published as the United Bible Societies Greek New Testament. There are, of course, slight changes in these editions coming down to the present day. But even today, the main text is still remarkably similar to the 1881 text by Westscott and Hort. These texts are referred to collectively as the Critical Text or the Eclectic Text. Most of our English Bible translations of the last century have been based on that text, including NASB, GNT, NLT, NIV, and ESV. It is for that reason that you will find faith-destroying footnotes in them. By ‘faith-destroying', I mean that thinking readers ask, “If whole verses could disappear and marr the conclusion of Mark's Gospel, how many other corruptions might there be in the New Testament?” Opponents of Christianity seize on such things to say that the Bible text is not reliable. Islamic people frequently repeat that criticism. It is for that reason that our New Testament translation into the Indonesian language is based on the Majority or Byzantine Text. The Majority Text is not the same as the text that was the basis of the KJV, but it is similar to it. I am so pleased that I can announce that at the end of 2022 Adam Boyd published his Text Critical English New Testament, which is an English translation of the Majority/Byzantine Text. (You can get this for free. I have included links to this and other resources at the end of the episode notes.) This is a real game changer because at last modern scholarship is able to give us accurate statistics about the percentage of manuscript support for variants in the Greek text. (The collating of manuscripts is still in process, and the percentages will continue to increase in accuracy.) Let me give you two short examples. It would help if you could open your Bible to Mark 1 and also open ebible.org/study/ on your computer and navigate to Mark 1. You will see two columns for Scripture. Put the TCENT in the first column and the NASB in the second column. You will see that both translations give the first verse as “The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.” But click the superscript footnote at the word ‘Christ' in the TCENT. It shows that 98.2% of the manuscripts have the last words, “the Son of God.” No matter what translation you are holding, it is likely that verse 1 ends with “the Son of God. Move to verse 2. The NASB starts with, “As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,” whereas the TCENT begins with “As it is written in the prophets.” Which is right? The footnote in the TCENT shows us that 96.2% of ancient manuscripts say ‘in the prophets'. Only 1.3% of manuscripts say ‘Isaiah the prophet'. Well now look at the NASB and you will see a superscript cross reference symbol at the start of the quote. The quote in the last two lines of verse 2 is not from Isaiah, but from Malachi! (The quote in verse 3 is from Isaiah.) So the Majority Text is proved right. The NASB chose to follow the Critical Text. But at the time the NASB was translated, they would not have known that their translation was supported by only 1.3% of the manuscripts. I hope that finding a weakness in your printed Bible doesn't upset your belief in God preserving his Word. He has preserved his Word, and we humans have a persistent habit of messing things up. If you follow the links at the end of today's episode notes, you can find some good literal translations of the Majority/Byzantine Text. But unfortunately, we still do not have a good meaning-based translation of that text that rivals the NLT or GNT for understandability. We'll keep on with the NLT and GNT podcasts for now. But please join me in prayer that an easy-to-utderstand translation of the Majority Text will soon be made! Wow, what a difficult topic this is! If you have listened to this point, I thank you! Normally my extra podcasts on the 7th day of each month will not deal with such complicated topics! Until next time, may the Lord bless you ‘real good'. Resources: Please consider supporting the work of James Snapp by buying and reading his 400-page book entitled Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20: 2016 Edition. The Kindle book is only 99 cents. https://www.amazon.com/Authentic-Case-Mark-9-20-2016-ebook/dp/B01EU1OR9O Phil Fields, 2019, Playing ‘Follow the Leader' in Bible Translation: https://map.bloomfire.com/posts/3446975-playing-follow-the-leader-in-bible-translation Phil Fields, 2020, EveryWord podcast 005: https://dailybiblereading.libsyn.com/website/everyword005-mark-16 Please follow that last link to find the supplemental PDF for that episode containing an essay on the ending of Mark by Dr. Wilbur Pickering, plus two other articles. (The last one deals with Markan vocabulary.) Adam Boyd, 2022, Text Critical Greek New Testament (TCGNG) and Text Critical English New Testament (TCENT): https://byzantinetext.com/study/translations/ https://ebible.org/bible/details.php?id=engtcent&all=1 https://ebible.org/bible/details.php?id=grctcgnt This page has a downloadable PDF of the Introduction to the TCGNT: https://alkitabkita.info/bahasa-sumber-alkitab/ (Scroll down the page until you see the PDF file displayed in a box.) You will need the information in the Introduction to understand the abbreviations in the TCENT/TCGNT footnotes. My favorite way to access the TCENT using this nifty online study app provided by ebible.org: https://ebible.org/study/ You can also easily access the Introduction at the top of the book menu. (Click on the zero.)

+46: The KJV Part 16: The Critical Text, Part 1

The Postscript Show

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 9, 2022

In this episode of the Ps+ we‘ll begin to look at the Critical Text and two important manuscripts that underly it: Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus.

ps codex sinaiticus codex vaticanus

S2 E17 - The Baseball Card - Translation

Blue-Collar Theology

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 30, 2022 14:21

Are there similarities between a stolen baseball card and the Codex Sinaiticus? What am I even talking about? Find out here!For a full transcript of this episode go to blue-collartheology.com/podcast/the-baseball-cardDigital scans of the Codex Sinaiticus can be found at https://codexsinaiticus.org/en/manuscript.aspx?book=16&lid=en&side=r&zoomSlider=0Follow at:Facebook: facebook.com/bluecollartheologyTwitter: twitter.com/blue_theologyContribute on Patreon: patreon.com/blue_theology

Where to see a $43 million copy of the US Constitution

The Daily Article

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 27, 2022 5:40

According to the Smithsonian, a rare original copy of the United States Constitution sold last year for $43 million, reminding Dr. Jim Denison of the first time he stood before Codex Alexandrinus and Codex Sinaiticus, two of the oldest New Testament copies in existence. Recalling seeing these invaluable documents, he then shares why "The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it" is erroneous thinking and how God's word holds the power to change those who read and heed its truth. Author: Dr. Jim Denison Narrator: Chris Elkins Subscribe: http://www.denisonforum.org/subscribe

god bible new testament copy smithsonian us constitution author dr recalling united states constitution codex sinaiticus

Truth Nuggets - 17 - Mirror of Passover: Chiasm of the Lambs

LIGHT OF MENORAH

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 15, 2022 48:06

TRUTH NUGGET #17 Jesus is the Lamb of God and the original Bible never says He is the Passover Lamb. This is clear in the ancient Greek manuscripts like Codex Sinaiticus dated to 330 A.D. We said He is the Passover Lamb. It is easy to see why but the Bible like the NASB or the KJV, the best translations from the ancient Greek and the Hebrew, state Jesus is the Passover and NOT the Passover Lamb in 1 Cor. 5:7. But, if we see Jesus as distinct from the Passover Lamb, if we see Jesus as the Lamb of God, these lambs on Passover create an amazing picture of God's redemption of His people, Israel, through Moses the first redeemer, and God's ultimate redemption of Jew and Gentile, the whole world, through Messiah Jesus the Ultimate Redeemer. Once again God has created an amazing literary structure in His Bible that creates a mirror to help us see His awesome truth. Let us now study the Mirror of Passover and see the centrality of the Cross from Genesis to Revelation. Rev. Ferret - who is this guy? What's his background? Why should I listen to him? Check his background at this link - https://www.dropbox.com/s/ortnret3oxcicu4/BackgrndTeacher%20mar%2025%202020.pdf?dl=0

Hidden Christianity: Forgotten Scriptures, Ignored Saints, Misplaced Mystics

Spiritual Awakening Radio

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 23, 2022 75:11

"Contend earnestly for the faith once delivered to the saints." (from the Book of Jude) The Septuagint Greek translation of the Jewish scriptures, made for the Library of Alexandria, was literally "The Bible" of early Christianity, and it included several additional texts (Apocrypha) not found in other Bibles. A translation of it in contemporary English has been published. Aramaic Was the Language of the Original Jesus Movement: There are impressive Aramaic-Syriac manuscripts of the New Testament that have been translated into English, and even older Aramaic-Syriac manuscripts of the four gospels. Discover the Peshitta, and the Old Syriac Gospels (Evangelion da-Mepharreshe) from Codex Sinaiticus. Divine Light in the Dead Sea Scrolls: We next turn our attention to the Dead Sea Scroll discovery of Qumran, and hear selections of hymns (psalms) composed by the enigmatic prophet, who was the founder of this community in antiquity, known only as "The Teacher of Righteousness". Also mentioned is the Book of First Enoch, quoted by Jude in the New Testament, and a popular text at Qumran. The Psalms of Early Christianity Are Back: The book where the Messiah perhaps for the first time begins to materialize, makes his first literary appearance in the first century A.D., is the Book of the Odes. This mysterious collection of ancient hymns written in Syriac, a dialect of the Aramaic language, has been described as "some of the most beautiful songs of peace and joy that the world possesses." These mystical poems and prayers remind me of Rumi and other Sufi poets. Sometimes I refer to the Odes as 'the would-be book of New Testament psalms', and I find the Odes to be a very spiritual book, one of the finest examples of a "lost book of the Bible" that got misnamed, misfiled and misplaced somewhere along the way. And, yes, it was viewed to be scripture in some places, such as Asia Minor, Syria/Mesopotamia and Egypt. The Author of the Gospel of Luke Said "Many" Had Already Composed Gospels Before He Wrote His: We learn about Sayings Gospel Q, a collection of the sayings of Jesus. Quotes from it were included in several early Christian gospels. We also explore a translation containing over twenty gospels and surviving fragments of gospels from the early centuries A.D. The Gospel of Thomas, A Wisdom Gospel or Gospel For Contemplative Mystics Seeking A Present-Tense Kingdom of God Here and Now: The Gospel of Didymus Jude Thomas the Twin, a collection of the sayings of Jesus, went missing for almost two millennia until three copies of it were almost miraculously discovered several decades ago: two sections of it written in Greek found at Oxyrhynchus, Egypt, and a more complete edition in the Coptic language discovered near a monastery not far from Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt buried under the sands of time in a clay storage jar. This important lost book has been found again. Practically predicting it's own rediscovery the book of Thomas says: "Know what is before your face, and what is hidden from you will be revealed to you. For there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor anything buried which will not be raised." (Saying Five) Also mentioned is the possible inclusion in the Gospel of Thomas of a few sayings of Yeshua from another early Christian scripture known as the Gospel of the Hebrews. If You Don't Want Your Saints and Mystics, We'll Tak'em! In the West, they might not be known, are not usually quoted, and their names are never spoken. Today we remember a few of the "orphan" saints and "homeless" mystics of Christianity, including those from the almost unknown community called "The Church of the East". Shared are excerpts from the out-of-this-world prayers of Joseph the Visionary. This Spiritual Awakening Radio podcast includes a list of recommended reading: translations of the scriptures referring to above, anthologies of apocryphal writings, and also mentioned is the book, Disciples, by Keith Akers, a scholarly, rather thorough and impressive documentation of the vegetarianism of the Jesus Movement (Ebionites or Hebrew Christians). In Divine Love, Light, and Sound, James Bean Spiritual Awakening Radio https://www.SpiritualAwakeningRadio.com

Differences Between Codex Sinaiticus And Codex Vaticanus Bible Manuscripts

Biblical Archaeology Today w/ Steve Waldron

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 11, 2022 5:33

There are several hundred differences in each of the four Gospels. It is easier to find 2 verse consecutive where they disagree rather than agree. God bless you and thank you for listening! Please subscribe and leave a 5 star review!

god gospel differences codex sinaiticus codex vaticanus bible manuscripts

Codex Sinaiticus

Biblical Archaeology Today w/ Steve Waldron

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 2, 2022 11:06

Fraud? Or Legitimate? Let's take a look. God bless you and thank you for listening! Please leave a 5 star review!

god fraud codex sinaiticus

EveryWord 2022 Day 26

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 26, 2022 18:29

I have prepared this Every Word podcast to discuss the ending of Mark 16, verses 9-20. Those are the verses that are bracketed in most translations made in the last century. The brackets indicate that the compilers of the Greek text used by the translators did not think those verses are part of the authentic inspired text. I am going to try to convince you today that the verses shouldn't have brackets around them, and that they are authentic Scripture inspired by God. The NLT, has this: Mark 16:8 NLT 8 The women fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.[c] c The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8. Other manuscripts include various endings to the Gospel. A few include both the “shorter ending” and the “longer ending.” The majority of manuscripts include the “longer ending” immediately after verse 8. [The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude with verse 16:8. Later manuscripts add one or both of the following endings.] [Shorter Ending of Mark] Then they briefly reported all this to Peter and his companions. Afterward Jesus himself sent them out from east to west with the sacred and unfailing message of salvation that gives eternal life. Amen. [Longer Ending of Mark] verses 9-20 I did not read the shorter ending for the podcast. That ending has extremely thin support in ancient manuscripts, and where the words occur, the manuscripts often also have the longer ending, verses 9-20. In my preparation to be a Bible translator, I was given virtually zero preparation about different Greek texts of the NT or the manuscript evidence supporting them. We were expected to simply follow the lead of the main English translations as we translated into the Orya language (an ethnic language of Papua Province) and later in our translation into Indonesia's national language. So the Orya translation and the first editions of our Indonesian translation include the brackets and a footnote. But our 3rd edition Plain Indonesian Translation (TSI) has no brackets for verses 9-20. I want to tell you why I changed my mind, and why the decision is important. Some experts today think that Mark intended to end his Gospel with the words, “they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.” But this defies imagination. I don't think authors started using the type of endings where you leave-the-audience-hanging until centuries later, like perhaps just two centuries ago. Remember that Mark starts with the words, “This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.” Mark shows a pattern of telling the outcome for every miracle. He is not about to leave his main thesis of his story without its fulfillment. The fulfillment of the starting thesis is found in the next to last verse (16:19), which says, “19 When the Lord Jesus had finished talking with them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down in the place of honor at God's right hand.” Verse 19 also is an important doctrinal statement, since no other Gospel includes those words as part of the story after Jesus' resurrection. And the same verse also very appropriately links the book of Mark with Peter's teaching in 1Pet. 3:22. Please check yourself. Do you believe what Moses and Jesus said?: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4) If we are to live by ‘every word', do you believe that God would preserve every word for us? I hope you respond, “Why yes, of course.” I believe that God has preserved His Word for us. Therefore it is unacceptable for me to say that the Holy Spirit would leave a whole book of the NT without a clear ending. We have two choices for the ending: One says the ladies didn't tell anyone because they were afraid. The other ends with Jesus at the right hand of God. Which one seems to be the proper ending to you?! The NLT has words in bold italics before Mark 16 verses 9-20 which say, “[The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude with verse 16:8. Later manuscripts add one or both of the following endings.]” How many manuscripts are we talking about with the words ‘most ancient manuscripts'? Then the footnote says ‘later manuscripts add' the last 12 verses. What are the real numbers? Two of the very oldest manuscripts plus one other do not have the last 12 verses of Mark. But the manuscripts that include the last 12 verses number more than 1,650! 99.99% of ancient manuscripts contain the longer ending of Mark. The NLT also has a footnote that starts with “The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8.” But this statement is actually false. The two manuscripts they are talking about (Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) cannot be said to be ‘reliable'. They are, however, recognized as the very earliest, dated at 325 and around 345. For Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus to be considered reliable, one would hope they would be reasonably consistent with one another. Instead they differ from one another in 3,036 places. I believe that early scribes recognized that they were defective, and this offers a plausible explanation for why there are no extant copies made from them. I do not agree with the practice of writing vague footnotes in our Bibles as seen above. Many of the footnotes in your Bible will talk about what ‘some manuscripts' say. It has actually been recommended to translators to keep such footnotes vague. I do not have the time to adequately explain why this has been done. It is time to give people better information. I will explain more about this in another podcast. Many old-school ‘experts' (by that I mean seminary teachers from the mid-20th century) will say that the two oldest manuscripts outweigh all of the 1,650 other ancient manuscripts. But many of today's informed experts will not agree with the people I just called the ‘old-school experts'. Here are some points to consider: Both of the two oldest manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) have an odd blank space at the end of Mark, showing that the scribe realized the manuscript he was copying had something left out. This is called a ‘memorial space'. Such memorial spaces are found in various places in other ancient manuscripts. So even though the two manuscripts do not have the last 12 verses of Mark, the scribes telegraphed to us that they knew such an ending existed. Remember that Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are from the early 4th century. There are quotes of verses from Mark 16:9-20 by church fathers that predate Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Earlier support for the longer ending of Mark include “four second-century witnesses, and 99.9% of the [other ancient] Greek manuscripts, and 99.99% of the [ancient] Latin manuscripts, and 99.5% of the [ancient] Syriac manuscripts, and 40 Roman-era patristic writers.” (Quote from Dr. James Snapp: https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2013/08/robert-stein-and-ending-of-mark.html) Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in 1844. This touched off a lot of excitement, and a revolutionary new text of the NT was published by Westscott and Hort in 1881. Please consider that there are multiple examples in history where excitement over new discoveries resulted in mistaken theories. For example, Darwin's theory of evolution from the same time period is now discredited. Just like you have university teachers still bone-headedly holding on to the theory of evolution, so the theories of Westscott and Hort are no longer upheld by many of today's experts but are still being repeated by seminary teachers. Westscott and Hort's faulty decisions about what verses are not authentic are still seen in today's Bibles. I'm sure that you will hear someone claim that the last 12 verses of Mark use non-Markan vocabulary, but that assertion has been repeatedly disproved. In my January 4 news and information podcast, I mentioned that the GotQuestions web site often included very good answers to questions Bible readers bring up. Generally I believe that is true. But evidently it is NOT true when it comes to textual issues like the long ending of Mark. The GotQuestions article I refer to is entitled Should Mark 16:9-20 be in the Bible? https://www.gotquestions.org/Mark-16-9-20.html But please don't read that one unless you also read Dr. James Snapp's refutation of it linked here: https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2013/07/the-got-questions-website-and-mark-169.html I would be very happy for you to read both articles, as this would show you how untruths are passed on by people who should know better. Please consider supporting the work of James Snapp by buying and reading his 400-page book entitled Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20: 2016 Edition. The Kindle book is only 99 cents. https://www.amazon.com/Authentic-Case-Mark-9-20-2016-ebook/dp/B01EU1OR9O Some of you might be interested in listening to my 2020 podcast entitled EveryWord005 Mark 16. Please follow that last link to find the supplemental PDF for that episode containing an essay on the ending of Mark by Dr. Wilbur Pickering. What I have said about the ending of Mark is important. Let me illustrate: About six years ago, the pastor at our church in Siloam Springs preached an expository series of sermons on the Gospel of Mark. Our pastor does an excellent job of preaching straight through books of Scripture, even through some of the hardest material in the Bible. So I was shocked that on the Sunday when we were all expecting to hear a message about Mark 16, the pastor began by telling us he would not be preaching about that chapter. Before he launched into the totally new topic he had chosen for that Sunday, he rather quietly said this, “I decided that I would not preach on the ending of Mark, because, after all, we don't know whether it is part of inspired Scripture or not.” Our pastor said, “after all, we don't know whether it is part of inspired Scripture or not.” He didn't say “I don't know.” He said ‘we' don't know if it is inspired. What a terrible thing for a pastor to say from the pulpit! If 12 whole verses could disappear and marr the conclusion of a book of Scripture, how many other corruptions might there be in the New Testament? This semester my wife (Gale) is teaching a morning and evening Bible study for women based on the Gospel of Mark. The same pastor (whom I highly respect) very nicely supplied four commentaries to help her. Three of the four do not discuss the last 12 verses of chapter 16. But none of them have a good explanation as to why they do not discuss it. Two of them hold to the idea that Mark intentionally left readers hanging with the words ‘because they were too frightened'. One of the books gushes, “What a perfect ending!” The footnotes and the brackets in our Bibles don't just confuse believers in Christ, but they confuse people who are wondering if the Bible is true. And opponents of Christianity seize on such things to say that the Bible text is not reliable. The answer to this problem is to base our Bible translations on the Majority Text of the New Testament, also called the Byzantine Textform. I will give more information about that later. Until then, the bottom line is that 1650 ancient manuscripts found all over the ancient world, all made by an army scribes each copying the text of an earlier manuscript, could not have the last 12 verses of Mark if the verses had not come from the first papyrus copy written by Mark. Until next time, may the Lord bless you ‘real good'.

god jesus christ lord english bible man gospel holy spirit christianity scripture greek good news new testament indonesia latin amen kindle verse his word bibles indonesians nt deut nlt day26 luk got questions every word hort syriac 1pet markan afterward jesus siloam springs codex sinaiticus vaticanus sinaiticus majority text orya

EveryWord 2022 Day 26

Logos Media (formerly Gnostic Media)

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 26, 2022 18:29

I have prepared this Every Word podcast to discuss the ending of Mark 16, verses 9-20. Those are the verses that are bracketed in most translations made in the last century. The brackets indicate that the compilers of the Greek text used by the translators did not think those verses are part of the authentic inspired text. I am going to try to convince you today that the verses shouldn't have brackets around them, and that they are authentic Scripture inspired by God. The NLT, has this: Mark 16:8 NLT 8 The women fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.[c] c The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8. Other manuscripts include various endings to the Gospel. A few include both the “shorter ending” and the “longer ending.” The majority of manuscripts include the “longer ending” immediately after verse 8. [The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude with verse 16:8. Later manuscripts add one or both of the following endings.] [Shorter Ending of Mark] Then they briefly reported all this to Peter and his companions. Afterward Jesus himself sent them out from east to west with the sacred and unfailing message of salvation that gives eternal life. Amen. [Longer Ending of Mark] verses 9-20 I did not read the shorter ending for the podcast. That ending has extremely thin support in ancient manuscripts, and where the words occur, the manuscripts often also have the longer ending, verses 9-20. In my preparation to be a Bible translator, I was given virtually zero preparation about different Greek texts of the NT or the manuscript evidence supporting them. We were expected to simply follow the lead of the main English translations as we translated into the Orya language (an ethnic language of Papua Province) and later in our translation into Indonesia's national language. So the Orya translation and the first editions of our Indonesian translation include the brackets and a footnote. But our 3rd edition Plain Indonesian Translation (TSI) has no brackets for verses 9-20. I want to tell you why I changed my mind, and why the decision is important. Some experts today think that Mark intended to end his Gospel with the words, “they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.” But this defies imagination. I don't think authors started using the type of endings where you leave-the-audience-hanging until centuries later, like perhaps just two centuries ago. Remember that Mark starts with the words, “This is the Good News about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God.” Mark shows a pattern of telling the outcome for every miracle. He is not about to leave his main thesis of his story without its fulfillment. The fulfillment of the starting thesis is found in the next to last verse (16:19), which says, “19 When the Lord Jesus had finished talking with them, he was taken up into heaven and sat down in the place of honor at God's right hand.” Verse 19 also is an important doctrinal statement, since no other Gospel includes those words as part of the story after Jesus' resurrection. And the same verse also very appropriately links the book of Mark with Peter's teaching in 1Pet. 3:22. Please check yourself. Do you believe what Moses and Jesus said?: “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4) If we are to live by ‘every word', do you believe that God would preserve every word for us? I hope you respond, “Why yes, of course.” I believe that God has preserved His Word for us. Therefore it is unacceptable for me to say that the Holy Spirit would leave a whole book of the NT without a clear ending. We have two choices for the ending: One says the ladies didn't tell anyone because they were afraid. The other ends with Jesus at the right hand of God. Which one seems to be the proper ending to you?! The NLT has words in bold italics before Mark 16 verses 9-20 which say, “[The most ancient manuscripts of Mark conclude with verse 16:8. Later manuscripts add one or both of the following endings.]” How many manuscripts are we talking about with the words ‘most ancient manuscripts'? Then the footnote says ‘later manuscripts add' the last 12 verses. What are the real numbers? Two of the very oldest manuscripts plus one other do not have the last 12 verses of Mark. But the manuscripts that include the last 12 verses number more than 1,650! 99.99% of ancient manuscripts contain the longer ending of Mark. The NLT also has a footnote that starts with “The most reliable early manuscripts of the Gospel of Mark end at verse 8.” But this statement is actually false. The two manuscripts they are talking about (Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) cannot be said to be ‘reliable'. They are, however, recognized as the very earliest, dated at 325 and around 345. For Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus to be considered reliable, one would hope they would be reasonably consistent with one another. Instead they differ from one another in 3,036 places. I believe that early scribes recognized that they were defective, and this offers a plausible explanation for why there are no extant copies made from them. I do not agree with the practice of writing vague footnotes in our Bibles as seen above. Many of the footnotes in your Bible will talk about what ‘some manuscripts' say. It has actually been recommended to translators to keep such footnotes vague. I do not have the time to adequately explain why this has been done. It is time to give people better information. I will explain more about this in another podcast. Many old-school ‘experts' (by that I mean seminary teachers from the mid-20th century) will say that the two oldest manuscripts outweigh all of the 1,650 other ancient manuscripts. But many of today's informed experts will not agree with the people I just called the ‘old-school experts'. Here are some points to consider: Both of the two oldest manuscripts (Sinaiticus and Vaticanus) have an odd blank space at the end of Mark, showing that the scribe realized the manuscript he was copying had something left out. This is called a ‘memorial space'. Such memorial spaces are found in various places in other ancient manuscripts. So even though the two manuscripts do not have the last 12 verses of Mark, the scribes telegraphed to us that they knew such an ending existed. Remember that Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus are from the early 4th century. There are quotes of verses from Mark 16:9-20 by church fathers that predate Codex Sinaiticus and Vaticanus. Earlier support for the longer ending of Mark include “four second-century witnesses, and 99.9% of the [other ancient] Greek manuscripts, and 99.99% of the [ancient] Latin manuscripts, and 99.5% of the [ancient] Syriac manuscripts, and 40 Roman-era patristic writers.” (Quote from Dr. James Snapp: https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2013/08/robert-stein-and-ending-of-mark.html) Codex Sinaiticus was discovered in 1844. This touched off a lot of excitement, and a revolutionary new text of the NT was published by Westscott and Hort in 1881. Please consider that there are multiple examples in history where excitement over new discoveries resulted in mistaken theories. For example, Darwin's theory of evolution from the same time period is now discredited. Just like you have university teachers still bone-headedly holding on to the theory of evolution, so the theories of Westscott and Hort are no longer upheld by many of today's experts but are still being repeated by seminary teachers. Westscott and Hort's faulty decisions about what verses are not authentic are still seen in today's Bibles. I'm sure that you will hear someone claim that the last 12 verses of Mark use non-Markan vocabulary, but that assertion has been repeatedly disproved. In my January 4 news and information podcast, I mentioned that the GotQuestions web site often included very good answers to questions Bible readers bring up. Generally I believe that is true. But evidently it is NOT true when it comes to textual issues like the long ending of Mark. The GotQuestions article I refer to is entitled Should Mark 16:9-20 be in the Bible? https://www.gotquestions.org/Mark-16-9-20.html But please don't read that one unless you also read Dr. James Snapp's refutation of it linked here: https://www.thetextofthegospels.com/2013/07/the-got-questions-website-and-mark-169.html I would be very happy for you to read both articles, as this would show you how untruths are passed on by people who should know better. Please consider supporting the work of James Snapp by buying and reading his 400-page book entitled Authentic: The Case for Mark 16:9-20: 2016 Edition. The Kindle book is only 99 cents. https://www.amazon.com/Authentic-Case-Mark-9-20-2016-ebook/dp/B01EU1OR9O Some of you might be interested in listening to my 2020 podcast entitled EveryWord005 Mark 16. Please follow that last link to find the supplemental PDF for that episode containing an essay on the ending of Mark by Dr. Wilbur Pickering. What I have said about the ending of Mark is important. Let me illustrate: About six years ago, the pastor at our church in Siloam Springs preached an expository series of sermons on the Gospel of Mark. Our pastor does an excellent job of preaching straight through books of Scripture, even through some of the hardest material in the Bible. So I was shocked that on the Sunday when we were all expecting to hear a message about Mark 16, the pastor began by telling us he would not be preaching about that chapter. Before he launched into the totally new topic he had chosen for that Sunday, he rather quietly said this, “I decided that I would not preach on the ending of Mark, because, after all, we don't know whether it is part of inspired Scripture or not.” Our pastor said, “after all, we don't know whether it is part of inspired Scripture or not.” He didn't say “I don't know.” He said ‘we' don't know if it is inspired. What a terrible thing for a pastor to say from the pulpit! If 12 whole verses could disappear and marr the conclusion of a book of Scripture, how many other corruptions might there be in the New Testament? This semester my wife (Gale) is teaching a morning and evening Bible study for women based on the Gospel of Mark. The same pastor (whom I highly respect) very nicely supplied four commentaries to help her. Three of the four do not discuss the last 12 verses of chapter 16. But none of them have a good explanation as to why they do not discuss it. Two of them hold to the idea that Mark intentionally left readers hanging with the words ‘because they were too frightened'. One of the books gushes, “What a perfect ending!” The footnotes and the brackets in our Bibles don't just confuse believers in Christ, but they confuse people who are wondering if the Bible is true. And opponents of Christianity seize on such things to say that the Bible text is not reliable. The answer to this problem is to base our Bible translations on the Majority Text of the New Testament, also called the Byzantine Textform. I will give more information about that later. Until then, the bottom line is that 1650 ancient manuscripts found all over the ancient world, all made by an army scribes each copying the text of an earlier manuscript, could not have the last 12 verses of Mark if the verses had not come from the first papyrus copy written by Mark. Until next time, may the Lord bless you ‘real good'.

god jesus christ lord english bible man gospel holy spirit christianity scripture greek good news new testament indonesia latin amen kindle verse his word bibles indonesians nt deut nlt day26 luk got questions every word hort syriac 1pet markan afterward jesus siloam springs codex sinaiticus vaticanus sinaiticus majority text orya

UnSpun 207 – Steve Jones: “The King James Bible vs. Codex Sinaiticus”

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 18, 2022 128:11

Live Tuesday at 5pm Pacific time – UnSpun #207 - simulcast on YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, Twitch and DLive: Season 14, Episode 3: Steve Jones returns for our awaited conversation on the Codex Sinaiticus, and how this version of the Bible, "discovered" by Constantin von Tischendorf, like the Dead Sea Scrolls, appears to be a fraud… The post UnSpun 207 – Steve Jones: “The King James Bible vs. Codex Sinaiticus” appeared first on Logos Media.

bible twitch pacific dead sea scrolls constantin king james bible steve jones live tuesday unspun codex sinaiticus tischendorf

418 One God 8: Jesus Called God?

Restitutio

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 20, 2021 44:09

Does the bible call Jesus God? If so, how many times? This seems like such a straightforward question, but it’s pretty hard to answer. We’ll examine three types of texts in which Jesus might be called God, including those with manuscript issues, translation issues, and interpretation issues. In each case we’ll see that, in fact, Read more about 418 One God 8: Jesus Called God?[…]

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The Oldest Complete New Testament? Codex Sinaiticus

Biblical Archaeology Today w/ Steve Waldron

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 18, 2021 5:05

In 1844, Constantin Von Tischendoff found a copy of the Bible at St. Catherine's Monastery. Debate ensued over its antiquity. The same with Codex Vaticanus found in the 1400s. God bless you and thank you for listening! Join us again!

god bible debate new testament oldest monastery codex sinaiticus codex vaticanus

Codex Sinaiticus

Vexed

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 25, 2021 20:12

In today's episode, Andrea tells the story of the discovery of the Codex Sinaiticus & highlights features of the manuscript.The Codex Sinaiticus is one of the world's oldest Bibles. This ancient treasure was discovered & made known to the world in 1859 by German scholar Constantin von Tischendorf. Dated to the 4th century AD, the Codex Sinaiticus is the ancestor of the book form of Bible we have today. Follow along as Andrea tells the story of its discovery and highlights its features.

bible german bibles dated constantin codex sinaiticus tischendorf

Who, When, and Where

Living Hope Classes

Play Episode Listen Later May 12, 2021 23:01

By The use of brackets in the New Testament and important markers to acknowledge while studying the Scriptures. BRACKETS John 7:53-8:11 The footnote from the ESV and NASB states: “Later mss add the story of the adulterous woman, numbering it as John 7:53-8:11 The website is codexsiniaticus.org. This website is very user friendly. From the top bar, you can type Continue Reading

new testament scriptures esv brackets nasb codex sinaiticus

Codex Sinaiticus identified / M62 coach bombing - February 4

This Day in History Class

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 4, 2021 15:00

Constantin von Tischendorf identified the Codex Sinaiticus, or Sinai Bible, on this day in 1859. / On this day in 1974, twelve people were killed in a bombing on the M62 motorway in northern England. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

coach england bombings identified constantin m62 codex sinaiticus tischendorf

All About the New Testament #4

Born to Win Podcast - with Ronald L. Dart

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 29, 2021 27:59

Once while I was driving home from watching the local fireworks display on the Fourth of July, I was thinking about the passage of time. It had been over 200 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. And my thoughts proceeded from there to the status of the New Testament some 200 years after the death of the last person who had seen Jesus alive after his resurrection. This was about the time when Emperor Constantine ordered 50 copies of the New Testament as they had it in hand for the church at Constantinople alone. Up until that time most copies were made on papyrus, and were quite perishable. We don’t have many of these for the obvious reason that they fell apart with constant use. Constantine had these copies made on vellum or parchment. After the first 100 years, settled procedures came into place for copying and handling old manuscripts. They were commonly destroyed as they became unusable lest they be desecrated. One of those 50 copies sits in the Vatican Library in Rome. They call it Codex Vaticanus. Another sits in the British Museum and is called Codex Sinaiticus because it was found at Saint Catherine’s monastery at Mount Sinai. Other ancient collections have been found that were created within the next 100 years. What is interesting about all these diverse manuscripts is that they reveal the obvious—that the various books of the New Testament had been circulating for a long time before this and were commonly being compiled into books. All this in a relatively short period of time, about the same as the history of the Declaration of Independence.

jesus christ rome new testament independence declaration mount sinai british museum constantinople emperor constantine saint catherine codex sinaiticus codex vaticanus

097- What I’ve Learned About Church Discipline- with Bill Holdridge of Poimen Ministries

Strength for Today's Pastor

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 19, 2021 43:07

Does anybody even practice what we call church discipline anymore? And if a church does practice church discipline, why do they do it? How do they do it? What is its purpose? Show host and Poimen Ministries Director Bill Holdridge draws from the scriptures, coupled with his experience in pastoral ministry, to make suggestions to pastors about the whys and how's of church disciple. For instance, Bill calls us these principles in mind: Church discipline is closely related to Christian discipleship. If the church discipline process requires separation from the body, the goal of the excommunication is restoration. Church discipline is actually an application of Divine chastening. To be a Great Commission church, the church must exercise church discipline with its many forms and applications. To be a holy church, the church must practice church disciple. To develop mature believers, the church must trust Jesus to assist Him as He perfects His people. One tool He uses is church discipline. This podcast is aimed at helping pastors and churches do this better, with grace and truth applied at the same time. BULLET POINT #1- Church discipline is closely related to Christian discipleship. Discipline and discipleship are part of the same idea. Discipleship could also be called preventative church discipline. When congregants are discipled, they are not candidates for church discipline. A person who is in the Word, in prayer, in fellowship, who exercises his/her spiritual gifts for others’ sake, who is involved in the Great Commission, who is accountable, etc. has made himself immune to the need for corrective church discipline. BULLET POINT #2- Church discipline is actually an application of Divine chastening. (Hebrews 12:6-8) BULLET POINT #3- Matthew 18:15-18 has to do with interpersonal conflicts. Against you is not found in Codex Vaticanus, Codex Sinaiticus do not contain these words, but the Majority text does. (https://credohouse.org/blog/textual-problem-study-matthew-1815) BULLET POINT #4- The number of people who are made aware of the discipline is determined by the number of people who know the ones being disciplined. BULLET POINT #5- If the church discipline process requires separation from the body, the goal of the excommunication is restoration. Restoration to God, first. Then to other believers, second. (Galatians 6:1) BULLET POINT #6- Authority to exercise church disciple comes directly from the Lord Jesus Christ. (Matthew 28:18-20) BULLET POINT #7- Conditions must be clear for the disciplined person’s return into full fellowship. BULLET POINT #8- The church governing documents (Bylaws) and board minutes must be consistent with the Bible’s teaching on church discipline, and internally consistent with BOD minutes or elder’s meeting minutes. BULLET POINT #9- Effective church discipline requires a deep team of leaders that are all-in, and who understand how church discipline should be practiced, Biblically.

durée : 00:55:02 - A la poursuite des livres manquants (1/4) : L'histoire sans fin de la Bible - Longtemps considérée comme un monument taillé d'un seul bloc, la Bible n'est pourtant pas tombée du ciel. Les recherches archéologiques et philologiques ont révélé l'histoire de la constitution de ce corpus, jalonnée de textes disparus, écartés, retrouvés. Car les sables du désert contiennent tout. * La Bible a commencé à révéler ses secrets de fabrication grâce aux fouilles archéologiques menées au Proche-Orient et par la comparaison des différents manuscrits retrouvés. Les enquêtes sur les textes bibliques n'en ont pas fini de remonter des sources toujours plus anciennes et qui éclairent d'un jour nouveau l'histoire de notre civilisation du livre. Parmi les dernières découvertes majeures, celle de l'Evangile de Juda conservé à la Fondation Martin Bodmer en Suisse, texte apocryphe que l'on ne connaissait que par la mention de son interdiction, et dans lequel Juda apparaît comme le disciple préféré de Jésus. De quoi laisser perplexe et poser quelques pierres d'interrogation sur les monuments de notre culture. Au début du XIXème siècle, les chercheurs partent à la recherche de manuscrits authentiques. Par exemple le Codex Sinaiticus montre l'état du nouveau testament au IVème siècle après JC. La grande surprise a été de s'apercevoir qu'il y a des passages qui ne sont pas dans les ouvres. Jusque-là, la bible était une sorte de monolithe. Estelle Villeneuve Avec : Thomas Römer, titulaire de la chaire "Milieux bibliques" au Collège de France Estelle Villeneuve, archéologue et journaliste scientifique Charles Méla, historien du livre et président de l'Association des Amis suisses de la Fondation Sainte-Catherine du Sinaï Nicolas Ducimetière, vice-directeur de la Fondation Martin Bodmer Florence Darbre, conservatrice-restauratrice de livres anciens et de papyrus, responsable de l'atelier de restauration de la Fondation Martin Bodmer Un documentaire de Elise Gruau, réalisé par Anna Szmuc Liens Fondation Martin Bodmer Info-bible.org, site d'information sur la Bible, propose de nombreuses pages sur l'histoire de la Bible L'aventure de la transmission du texte biblique : article à lire sur le site de la Bnf L'Évangile de Judas, damné, perdu, retrouvé, mais très maltraité : communication de Rodolphe Kasser publié dans Comptes rendus des séances de l'Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres n°3, 2006

Confessing the Faith, Part 1

Sermons by Bob Vincent and Others

Play Episode Listen Later Aug 9, 2020 30:00

This sermon explores the importance of short summaries of the Christian faith as found, for example, in 1 Timothy 3-16, a verse is part of a larger context dealing with how we are to act in God's house -- not the building in which people meet, but God's people and how we are to conduct ourselves as we worship -1 Timothy 3-14-15-.--Paul is quoting a familiar saying in 1 Timothy 3-16. Whether it was sung, chanted, or simply recited, we may call it a creed.--As we dealt with the first point, we took up the issue of the text of the New Testament. Did Paul write, -Who ---, hos- was manifest in the flesh,- or -God -----, theos- was manifest in the flesh----I shared the story of German-born, Russian count, Tischendorf, who -obtained- the very oldest complete Greek Testament, now called Codex Sinaiticus. He claimed that the monks at Saint Catherine's Monastery were using old manuscripts to start fires.--If his story is correct, it would point to the likelihood the reason this 4th century document survived is that it had been put on the shelf and unused because it was not as accurate as other constantly used manuscripts.--I then shared why I believe that the oldest manuscripts do not necessarily point to the original writings, because those upon which the vast majority of existing Greek manuscripts are based were worn out over the centuries.--We then looked at the first statement in light of John 1-1-3, 14. --Then we considered how the whole life of our incarnate God was through the ministry of the Holy Spirit -Matthew 1-18- 3-16-17- Romans 1-4-.

god german russian romans greek new testament faith part confessing monastery saint catherine holy spirit matthew codex sinaiticus tischendorf

340 Bible 11 – Two Corrected Corruptions (1 Timothy 3.16 & 1 John 5.7)

Restitutio Classes

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 8, 2020 36:25

Today we move from learning about manuscripts and textual criticism to actually doing textual criticism. I’ve chosen two well-known corruptions to illustrate the process of textual criticism: 1 Timothy 3.16 and 1 John 5.7. In each of these cases scribes have altered the text of scripture and we have the manuscript evidence to show exactly Read more about 340 Bible 11 – Two Corrected Corruptions (1 Timothy 3.16 & 1 John 5.7)[…]

bible incarnation 1 john 5 1 timothy 3 kjv corrected asv desiderius erasmus codex sinaiticus minuscules bruce metzger comma johanneum

340 Bible 11 – Two Corrected Corruptions (1 Timothy 3.16 & 1 John 5.7)

Restitutio

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 8, 2020 36:25

Today we move from learning about manuscripts and textual criticism to actually doing textual criticism. I’ve chosen two well-known corruptions to illustrate the process of textual criticism: 1 Timothy 3.16 and 1 John 5.7. In each of these cases scribes have altered the text of scripture and we have the manuscript evidence to show exactly Read more about 340 Bible 11 – Two Corrected Corruptions (1 Timothy 3.16 & 1 John 5.7)[…]

bible incarnation 1 john 5 1 timothy 3 kjv corrected asv desiderius erasmus codex sinaiticus minuscules bruce metzger comma johanneum

EveryWord005 Mark 16

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 2, 2020 64:10

Welcome to the FIFTH episode of the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament, which he named, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark chapter 16. Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. Beginning in 1881 there was a shift in the Greek text used for English Bible translations, caused by the influence of the Wescott and Hort Greek New Testament, which was based on a very small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type, that is from Egypt. [The main two manuscripts they relied on are Codex Sinaiticus (abbreviation א [Aleph] or 01) and Codex Vaticanus (abbreviation B or 03). Those are dated at 330-360 AD and 300-325 respectively.] At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into the most ancient manuscripts newly discovered in Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead they reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. However the myth continues to be taught that Alexandrian manuscripts are better despite evidence to the contrary, and despite that only the first two picked by Wescott and Hort are still the only ones that are given priority. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts. The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. It is my hope that these podcasts will build awareness of the faulty Greek text that underlies almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV. If you have questions you would like me to try to answer, please write. Aside from questions, please let me know where I have made mistakes. My favorite way for you to send your comments is via the Contact button at dailybiblereading.info. If you would like to send me a recording of your comments, it is very possible that I will play it. About 4-5 years ago, the pastor at our church in Siloam Springs preached an expository series of sermons on the Gospel of Mark. Our pastor does a great job of preaching through books of Scripture, even through some of the hardest material in the Bible. So I was shocked that on the Sunday when we were all expecting to hear the last message in Mark’s Gospel, the pastor started his message by telling us that he would not be preaching on chapter 16. Before he launched into the new topic he had chosen for that Sunday, he said something like this, “I decided that I would not preach on this passage, because, after all, we don’t know whether it is part of inspired Scripture or not.” I want you to know that my pastor believes in the inspiration of God’s Word. Was the pastor right to doubt if Mark 16:9-20 was written by Mark? Is he being inconsistent in his belief in the inspiration of the Bible if he doubts that the long ending of Mark is the correct text? What’s the evidence? This is an important point, and that’s what we will deal with today. After I read Pickering’s translation of Mark 16, I will read Pickering’s article, entitled Mark 16:9-20 and the Doctrine of Inspiration. This is the Appendix E in his book entitled The Identity of the New Testament Text. (See the Resources section of the episode notes for information on where you can download this book, or purchase it. The complete text of the article I will read parts from is in the PDF file attached to this podcast. To download the PDF, find the podcast entitled EveryWord005 at dailybiblereading.info.) I think some of you will be disappointed that Pickering doesn’t put the overwhelming textual evidence for the inclusion of the last 12 verses of Mark right at the front of his article. So if you don’t have time 45 minutes of interesting discussion that leads up to that info, you can skip to minute xxxx. I think it is good for us to start out considering the impact that the ending of Mark has upon our attitude toward the reliability of all of Scripture. I think Pickering’s article is a faith builder. ---------------------------------- My (PCF) comment at minute 33:54 Let me discuss briefly one of the ‘poison passages’ that Pickering mentioned, the one found in Luke 3:33. LUKE 3.33Majority Text: The son of Aminadab, the son of Aram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, Eclectic Text: The son of Aminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Arni, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah Dr. Timothy Friberg says in his What is what article:The reading of the Traditional Text is consistent with the known Old Testament account of Jesus’ ancestors (1Chronicles 2) and also Matthew 1, while the text of the Bible Society Text has no known Old Testament support. For a link to Friberg’s article, see the Resources section, at the bottom of the episode notes. PCF: Of new Bible translations, only NIV sort of follows the BT and harmonizes with 1Chronicles 2. All the others contain the fictitious Arni. I am surprised by this. It must be that most translators felt that most people would not notice a little change in Jesus’ genealogy. As I show in my Playing Follow the Leader article, in important places where readers will notice a difference, the translators for versions of the last century departed from the Eclectic Text about 30% of the time. Whenever translators do this, they show they are ashamed of the Eclectic Text. No one should deny that it contains the kind of ‘poison’ Pickering speaks of. ------------------------------- Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” That title contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott, Hort, and the succeeding managers of the Eclectic Text. They did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God. Nor did they believe that God actively inspired and has preserved every word of Scripture for us. Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Mat. 4:4; Luk. 4:4) May the Lord bless you ‘real good’! Resources: Fields, Philip: Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text. Friberg, Timothy: On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable. I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below. Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019. What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019. Pickering, Wilbur: New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35 The Identity of the NT Text IV This book is available as a free download for the Kindle reader app, and also can be purchased from Amazon. All of Pickering’s articles and books are freely available for download at PRUNCH.net. All are released under the Creative Commons license. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices. Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018. This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways. Article: Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27

EveryWord005 Mark 16

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 2, 2020 64:10

Welcome to the FIFTH episode of the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament, which he named, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark chapter 16. Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. Beginning in 1881 there was a shift in the Greek text used for English Bible translations, caused by the influence of the Wescott and Hort Greek New Testament, which was based on a very small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type, that is from Egypt. [The main two manuscripts they relied on are Codex Sinaiticus (abbreviation א [Aleph] or 01) and Codex Vaticanus (abbreviation B or 03). Those are dated at 330-360 AD and 300-325 respectively.] At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into the most ancient manuscripts newly discovered in Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead they reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. However the myth continues to be taught that Alexandrian manuscripts are better despite evidence to the contrary, and despite that only the first two picked by Wescott and Hort are still the only ones that are given priority. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts. The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. It is my hope that these podcasts will build awareness of the faulty Greek text that underlies almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV. If you have questions you would like me to try to answer, please write. Aside from questions, please let me know where I have made mistakes. My favorite way for you to send your comments is via the Contact button at dailybiblereading.info. If you would like to send me a recording of your comments, it is very possible that I will play it. About 4-5 years ago, the pastor at our church in Siloam Springs preached an expository series of sermons on the Gospel of Mark. Our pastor does a great job of preaching through books of Scripture, even through some of the hardest material in the Bible. So I was shocked that on the Sunday when we were all expecting to hear the last message in Mark’s Gospel, the pastor started his message by telling us that he would not be preaching on chapter 16. Before he launched into the new topic he had chosen for that Sunday, he said something like this, “I decided that I would not preach on this passage, because, after all, we don’t know whether it is part of inspired Scripture or not.” I want you to know that my pastor believes in the inspiration of God’s Word. Was the pastor right to doubt if Mark 16:9-20 was written by Mark? Is he being inconsistent in his belief in the inspiration of the Bible if he doubts that the long ending of Mark is the correct text? What’s the evidence? This is an important point, and that’s what we will deal with today. After I read Pickering’s translation of Mark 16, I will read Pickering’s article, entitled Mark 16:9-20 and the Doctrine of Inspiration. This is the Appendix E in his book entitled The Identity of the New Testament Text. (See the Resources section of the episode notes for information on where you can download this book, or purchase it. The complete text of the article I will read parts from is in the PDF file attached to this podcast. To download the PDF, find the podcast entitled EveryWord005 at dailybiblereading.info.) I think some of you will be disappointed that Pickering doesn’t put the overwhelming textual evidence for the inclusion of the last 12 verses of Mark right at the front of his article. So if you don’t have time 45 minutes of interesting discussion that leads up to that info, you can skip to minute xxxx. I think it is good for us to start out considering the impact that the ending of Mark has upon our attitude toward the reliability of all of Scripture. I think Pickering’s article is a faith builder. -------------------------------------- My (PCF's) comment at minute 33:54 Let me discuss briefly one of the ‘poison passages’ that Pickering mentioned, the one found in Luke 3:33. LUKE 3:33Majority Text: The son of Aminadab, the son of Aram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, Eclectic Text: The son of Aminadab, the son of Admin, the son of Arni, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah Dr. Timothy Friberg says in his What is what article:The reading of the Traditional Text is consistent with the known Old Testament account of Jesus’ ancestors (1Chronicles 2) and also Matthew 1, while the text of the Bible Society Text has no known Old Testament support. For a link to Friberg’s article, see the Resources section, at the bottom of the episode notes. PCF's comment: Of new Bible translations, only NIV sort of follows the BT and harmonizes with 1Chronicles 2. All the others contain the fictitious Arni. I am surprised by this. It must be that most translators felt that most people would not notice a little change in Jesus’ genealogy. As I show in my Playing Follow the Leader article, in important places where readers will notice a difference, the translators for versions of the last century departed from the Eclectic Text about 30% of the time. Whenever translators do this, they show they are ashamed of the Eclectic Text. No one should deny that it contains the kind of ‘poison’ Pickering speaks of. ------------------------------------ Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” That title contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott, Hort, and the succeeding managers of the Eclectic Text. They did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God. Nor did they believe that God actively inspired and has preserved every word of Scripture for us. Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Mat. 4:4; Luk. 4:4) May the Lord bless you ‘real good’! Resources: Fields, Philip: Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text. Friberg, Timothy: On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable. I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below. Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019. What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019. Pickering, Wilbur: New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35 The Identity of the NT Text IV This book is available as a free download for the Kindle reader app, and also can be purchased from Amazon. All of Pickering’s articles and books are freely available for download at PRUNCH.net. All are released under the Creative Commons license. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices. Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018. This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways. Article: Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27

336 Bible 7 – Greek New Testament Uncials

Restitutio Classes

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 24, 2020 33:38

Today we are moving into our second group of New Testament manuscripts–the uncials. However, before describing them, we’ll need to focus on how Christian scribes went about their work. As it turns out the situation is quite different than the Jewish scribes who preserved the Hebrew Bible. Then we’ll follow the exciting career of Bible Read more about 336 Bible 7 – Greek New Testament Uncials[…]

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336 Bible 7 – Greek New Testament Uncials

Restitutio

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 23, 2020 33:38

Today we are moving into our second group of New Testament manuscripts–the uncials. However, before describing them, we’ll need to focus on how Christian scribes went about their work. As it turns out the situation is quite different than the Jewish scribes who preserved the Hebrew Bible. Then we’ll follow the exciting career of Bible Read more about 336 Bible 7 – Greek New Testament Uncials[…]

bible jewish new testament hebrew bible manus greek new testament bible read codex sinaiticus codex vaticanus

EveryWord004 Mark 3

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2020 29:05

EveryWord004 Welcome to this FOURTH episode of the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament, which he named, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark chapter 3. The episode notes for this podcast provide the text of everything I’m saying and links to supporting documentation. Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. This podcast series shows why the Majority Greek Text is superior to the Eclectic Greek Text, which was used as the basis of most of the NT translations of the last century. The shift in the Greek text used for English Bible translations began in 1881, with the publication of Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which was based on an extremely small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type— that is from Egypt. [The main two manuscripts they relied on are Codex Sinaiticus (abbreviation א [Aleph] or 01) and Codex Vaticanus (abbreviation B or 03). Those are dated at 330-360 AD and 300-325 respectively.] At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into the most ancient manuscripts newly discovered in Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead they reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts. The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. It is my hope that these podcasts will build awareness of the faulty Greek text that underlies almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV. Mark 3: A Sabbath healing—the rejection Another time He went into the synagogue, and there was a man there with a withered hand. ² So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. ³ Well He says to the man with the withered hand, “Come out in the middle”. ⁴ Then He said to them: “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent. ⁵ After looking around at them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts, *They had no compassion, no agape; their only concern was to preserve their system, their position and authority. He says to the man, “Stretch out your hand!” So he stretched [it out], and his hand was restored as healthy as the other! *Perhaps 5% of the Greek manuscripts omit ‘as healthy as the other’, as in NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc. ⁶ Then the Pharisees went straight out, and with the Herodians *Pharisees and Herodians were political opponents, so this was a strange alliance; evidently they perceived Jesus as a common enemy; such a serious enemy that He needed destroying. started hatching a plot against Him, how they might destroy Him. PCF: The variant that Pickering shows us here is just returning three short words to the Greek text. While we already would know that the man’s hand was restored, it is nice to know that Jesus didn’t just give partial healing to this man. The hand wasn’t just better and useful again, but was just as strong as his other hand. Healings by the sea Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea; and a large crowd from Galilee followed Him—also from Judea, ⁸ from Jerusalem, from Idumea and beyond Jordan; even those around Tyre and Sidon. A huge crowd came to Him, having heard the sorts of things He kept doing. ⁹ So He told His disciples that a small boat should be kept ready for Him because of the crowd, lest they should press in on Him. ¹⁰ Because He had healed many, so that as many as had afflictions were pushing toward Him so as to touch Him. ¹¹ And the unclean spirits—whenever one saw Him, he would fall down before Him and cry out, saying, “You are the son of God!” ¹² And He kept giving them strict orders that they should not make Him known. *I wonder why the demons felt compelled to proclaim who Jesus was, evidently. I would say that He generally has the opposite problem with us! PCF: I like how Pickering translated two imperfect Greek verbs in this section using ‘kept’. (v. 8 and 12) The imperfect shows a prolonged situation or in this case a repeated action. The Twelve chosen He went up on the mountain and summoned those whom He wanted, and they came to Him. ¹⁴ He appointed twelve, *Less than 2% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, add ‘whom He also named apostles’, presumably imported from Luke 6:13, to be followed by NIV, LB, TEV, etc. that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach ¹⁵ —also to have authority to heal sicknesses and *Perhaps 1% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, omit ‘to heal diseases and’, to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc. to cast out demons: ¹⁶ namely Peter (a name He gave to Simon); ¹⁷ James son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (and a name He gave to them was Boanerges, that is, ‘Sons of thunder’); ¹⁸ Andrew, Phillip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananite; ¹⁹ and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him. ²⁰ Then they went into a house; *This may well have been His own house in Capernaum. If He were in someone else’s house, the hosts could have protected Him so He could at least eat. and again a multitude gathered, so that they were not even able to eat bread. ²¹ Well upon hearing this His family came to apprehend Him, because they were saying, “He is out of his mind!” PCF: When we find an addition to the Greek NT text, it is often where a copyist added something found in one Gospel and put that into the Gospel he was copying. The words ‘whom he named apostles’ was added to Mark by a copyist who liked those words in Luke’s Gospel. It is quite interesting to me that so many translations of the last century followed that addition, including those Pickering listed plus others like NLT, NET and ESV. The KJV does not contain those words. As a Bible translator, we often are tempted to do the same thing, shoring up the differences between Gospels. But it is better to allow each Gospel to stand on its own. Then in verse 15, we have another thing left out of most translations. The phrase ‘to heal diseases’ is in the ones Pickering mentioned, plus left out of the ESV, NLT, and NET. The KJV contains the words. This omission has the support of only 1% of Greek manuscripts, and the Bible translations of the last century don’t even bother to footnote this variant. There is a tiny textual variant that Pickering does not footnote. That is in v.18, the spelling of Simon’s designation as ‘the zealot’. The Greek word most often translated as ‘zealot’ is Kananaios (Καναναῖος) in the Eclectic Text, whereas the Majority Text has Kananités (Κανανίτης). 99% of Greek manuscripts have the spelling as in the Majority Text. So, both texts have the same word, but in the ET it is in the nominative form, and it is accusative in the MT. In either form, it can be translated as zealot (meaning a man wanting Israel to rebel against Roman rule) or as Pickering translates, a Cananite, (someone descended from the Cananite people). Either meaning would have been an epithet. Scribes blaspheme the Holy Spirit Then some scribes who had come down from Jerusalem *They had come all the way to Galilee, just to combat Jesus. started saying, “He has Beelzebub”, and “It is by the ruler of the demons that he casts out demons”. ²³ So summoning them He started saying to them in parables: “How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴ If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵ And if a household is divided against itself, that household cannot stand. ²⁶ And if Satan has risen up against himself and become divided, [his kingdom//he] cannot stand, but is finished. ²⁷ No one can plunder the strong man’s goods, *Since the definite article occurs with ‘strong man’ the first time the phrase occurs, the entity has already been introduced, so the reference is to Satan. Here is a biblical basis for binding Satan, which is now possible because of Christ’s victory. Hebrews 2:14 informs us that Jehovah the Son took on human form to destroy the devil, while 1 John 3:8 affirms that He was manifested to undo the works of the devil. But in John 20:21 the resurrected Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so send I you”, and not long after that He returned to the Father. He defeated Satan alright, but it is up to us to ‘undo the works’. invading his house, unless he first binds the strong man—then he may plunder the house. ²⁸ “Assuredly I say to you: all the sins of the sons of men can be forgiven, including whatever blasphemies they may utter; ²⁹ but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation” *Perhaps 1% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, read ‘sin’ instead of ‘condemnation’, to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc. ³⁰ —because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit”. *Those scribes committed the unpardonable sin. PCF: There are some footnotes from Pickering that I will not read. And there are two places in today’s reading where I have tweaked Pickering’s translation. Those are marked by square brackets in the program notes. If you want to see a nicely formatted PDF of the episode notes, please download that file from dailybiblereading.info. I am somewhat uncomfortable with Pickering’s footnote about binding Satan. Due to his brevity, his note might be interpreted to say that we have been given the right to bind Satan in every circumstance. So let’s be clear: The One with authority to bind Satan is Christ, not us. I agree, however, that Jesus left us with the task of undoing as much as we can of Satan’s works. I believe that binding Satan works for us in areas where we have clear legal authority in God’s sight. When we were working in Indonesia, a fellow missionary family was having difficulty with their two-year-old daughter screaming at night and uncharacteristically not wanting her mom to hold her. They thought, as I do, that this was some kind of demonic harassment. In a case like this, I believe that the head of the family can speak out and directly forbid the evil spirit from bothering their daughter or even approaching their house. This is done by making it clear that you (as the head of the family) are claiming authority based on your union with Christ. Doing this solved the problem. Note that I as an outsider would have had no authority to bind Satan for my friend’s family. Similarly, for a child that is grown up enough to be out of the authority of your home, and one who has ‘gone off the deep end’, we cannot any longer bind Satan in the same way. In a case like that we ask Jesus to do that and ask for spiritual protection for the grown child. Therefore also, an area where each of us can legally bind Satan and forbid harassing spirits is in our own lives, bodies, or minds. We can consider 2Corinthians 12:7-9 as an example of why this may not work in every case. The variant that Pickering points out in v. 29 is small but significant. ESV follows the Eclectic Text Mark 3:28-29 saying: “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” It is a little difficult to understand how a single sin can be eternal? The Majority Text reading makes better sense: “… but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation.” Being subject to eternal condemnation is scary-er to imagine than guilty of an eternal sin. And since 99% of the manuscripts say that, it is most likely to be the original form of the text. Jesus goes on the offensive New relationships Then His brothers and His mother came, and standing outside they sent to Him, calling Him. ³² A crowd was sitting around Him; so they said to Him, “Look, your mother and your brothers and your sisters *The reference to ‘sisters’ makes clear that the ‘brothers’ were indeed Mary’s sons. Some 30% of the Greek manuscripts omit ‘and your sisters’ (as in TR, AV and NKJV). are outside asking for you”. ³³ He answered them saying, “Who is my mother or my brothers?” ³⁴ And looking around at those seated in a circle around Him He said: “Behold [you who are sitting here are] my mother and my brothers! ³⁵ Because whoever does the will of God, the same is my brother, my sister, my mother.” *The claims of Christ’s Kingdom are more important than the claims of one’s family. PCF: The textual variant at v.32 has the support of only 70.9% of the Greek manuscripts. Note that this is one where the Textus Receptus and therefore the KJV do not have the words ‘and your sisters’. As Pickering points out in his Greek NT, this is “not a very difficult case of homoioteleuton.” That Greek term means a variant caused by words in the text starting the same way. The words ‘and your brothers’ and the ‘and your sisters’ are almost identical. Brothers in Greek is adelphoi and sisters is adelphai, so the two four-word phrases (in Greek) are just one letter different. A copyist would be very likely to skip over ‘and your adelphai’, thinking he had already copied that. Pickering says that “The reference to ‘sisters’ makes clear that the ‘brothers’ were indeed Mary’s sons.” Well actually, in the context of his mother being paired with ‘brothers’, I don’t think very many readers would think that the word ‘brothers’ means ‘Jewish brothers from Nazareth’. Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” That title contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott, Hort, and the succeeding managers of the Eclectic Text. They did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God. Nor did they believe that God actively inspired and has preserved every word of Scripture for us. Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Mat. 4:4; Luk. 4:4) May the Lord bless you ‘real good’! Resources: Fields, Philip: Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text. Friberg, Timothy: On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable. I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below. Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019. What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019. Pickering, Wilbur: New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35 All of Pickering’s articles and books are freely available for download at PRUNCH.net. All are released under the Creative Commons license. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices. Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018. This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways. Article: Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27

EveryWord004 Mark 3

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 3, 2020 29:05

EveryWord004 Welcome to this FOURTH episode of the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament, which he named, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark chapter 3. The episode notes for this podcast provide the text of everything I’m saying and links to supporting documentation. Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. This podcast series shows why the Majority Greek Text is superior to the Eclectic Greek Text, which was used as the basis of most of the NT translations of the last century. The shift in the Greek text used for English Bible translations began in 1881, with the publication of Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which was based on an extremely small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type— that is from Egypt. [The main two manuscripts they relied on are Codex Sinaiticus (abbreviation א [Aleph] or 01) and Codex Vaticanus (abbreviation B or 03). Those are dated at 330-360 AD and 300-325 respectively.] At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into the most ancient manuscripts newly discovered in Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead they reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts. The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. It is my hope that these podcasts will build awareness of the faulty Greek text that underlies almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV. Mark 3: A Sabbath healing—the rejection Another time He went into the synagogue, and there was a man there with a withered hand. ² So they watched Him closely, whether He would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse Him. ³ Well He says to the man with the withered hand, “Come out in the middle”. ⁴ Then He said to them: “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil, to save life or to kill?” But they remained silent. ⁵ After looking around at them with anger, being grieved at the hardness of their hearts, *They had no compassion, no agape; their only concern was to preserve their system, their position and authority. He says to the man, “Stretch out your hand!” So he stretched [it out], and his hand was restored as healthy as the other! *Perhaps 5% of the Greek manuscripts omit ‘as healthy as the other’, as in NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc. ⁶ Then the Pharisees went straight out, and with the Herodians *Pharisees and Herodians were political opponents, so this was a strange alliance; evidently they perceived Jesus as a common enemy; such a serious enemy that He needed destroying. started hatching a plot against Him, how they might destroy Him. PCF: The variant that Pickering shows us here is just returning three short words to the Greek text. While we already would know that the man’s hand was restored, it is nice to know that Jesus didn’t just give partial healing to this man. The hand wasn’t just better and useful again, but was just as strong as his other hand. Healings by the sea Jesus withdrew with His disciples to the sea; and a large crowd from Galilee followed Him—also from Judea, ⁸ from Jerusalem, from Idumea and beyond Jordan; even those around Tyre and Sidon. A huge crowd came to Him, having heard the sorts of things He kept doing. ⁹ So He told His disciples that a small boat should be kept ready for Him because of the crowd, lest they should press in on Him. ¹⁰ Because He had healed many, so that as many as had afflictions were pushing toward Him so as to touch Him. ¹¹ And the unclean spirits—whenever one saw Him, he would fall down before Him and cry out, saying, “You are the son of God!” ¹² And He kept giving them strict orders that they should not make Him known. *I wonder why the demons felt compelled to proclaim who Jesus was, evidently. I would say that He generally has the opposite problem with us! PCF: I like how Pickering translated two imperfect Greek verbs in this section using ‘kept’. (v. 8 and 12) The imperfect shows a prolonged situation or in this case a repeated action. The Twelve chosen He went up on the mountain and summoned those whom He wanted, and they came to Him. ¹⁴ He appointed twelve, *Less than 2% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, add ‘whom He also named apostles’, presumably imported from Luke 6:13, to be followed by NIV, LB, TEV, etc. that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach ¹⁵ —also to have authority to heal sicknesses and *Perhaps 1% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, omit ‘to heal diseases and’, to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc. to cast out demons: ¹⁶ namely Peter (a name He gave to Simon); ¹⁷ James son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James (and a name He gave to them was Boanerges, that is, ‘Sons of thunder’); ¹⁸ Andrew, Phillip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James son of Alphaeus, Thaddaeus, Simon the Cananite; ¹⁹ and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed Him. ²⁰ Then they went into a house; *This may well have been His own house in Capernaum. If He were in someone else’s house, the hosts could have protected Him so He could at least eat. and again a multitude gathered, so that they were not even able to eat bread. ²¹ Well upon hearing this His family came to apprehend Him, because they were saying, “He is out of his mind!” PCF: When we find an addition to the Greek NT text, it is often where a copyist added something found in one Gospel and put that into the Gospel he was copying. The words ‘whom he named apostles’ was added to Mark by a copyist who liked those words in Luke’s Gospel. It is quite interesting to me that so many translations of the last century followed that addition, including those Pickering listed plus others like NLT, NET and ESV. The KJV does not contain those words. As a Bible translator, we often are tempted to do the same thing, shoring up the differences between Gospels. But it is better to allow each Gospel to stand on its own. Then in verse 15, we have another thing left out of most translations. The phrase ‘to heal diseases’ is in the ones Pickering mentioned, plus left out of the ESV, NLT, and NET. The KJV contains the words. This omission has the support of only 1% of Greek manuscripts, and the Bible translations of the last century don’t even bother to footnote this variant. There is a tiny textual variant that Pickering does not footnote. That is in v.18, the spelling of Simon’s designation as ‘the zealot’. The Greek word most often translated as ‘zealot’ is Kananaios (Καναναῖος) in the Eclectic Text, whereas the Majority Text has Kananités (Κανανίτης). 99% of Greek manuscripts have the spelling as in the Majority Text. So, both texts have the same word, but in the ET it is in the nominative form, and it is accusative in the MT. In either form, it can be translated as zealot (meaning a man wanting Israel to rebel against Roman rule) or as Pickering translates, a Cananite, (someone descended from the Cananite people). Either meaning would have been an epithet. Scribes blaspheme the Holy Spirit Then some scribes who had come down from Jerusalem *They had come all the way to Galilee, just to combat Jesus. started saying, “He has Beelzebub”, and “It is by the ruler of the demons that he casts out demons”. ²³ So summoning them He started saying to them in parables: “How can Satan cast out Satan? ²⁴ If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. ²⁵ And if a household is divided against itself, that household cannot stand. ²⁶ And if Satan has risen up against himself and become divided, [his kingdom//he] cannot stand, but is finished. ²⁷ No one can plunder the strong man’s goods, *Since the definite article occurs with ‘strong man’ the first time the phrase occurs, the entity has already been introduced, so the reference is to Satan. Here is a biblical basis for binding Satan, which is now possible because of Christ’s victory. Hebrews 2:14 informs us that Jehovah the Son took on human form to destroy the devil, while 1 John 3:8 affirms that He was manifested to undo the works of the devil. But in John 20:21 the resurrected Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so send I you”, and not long after that He returned to the Father. He defeated Satan alright, but it is up to us to ‘undo the works’. invading his house, unless he first binds the strong man—then he may plunder the house. ²⁸ “Assuredly I say to you: all the sins of the sons of men can be forgiven, including whatever blasphemies they may utter; ²⁹ but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation” *Perhaps 1% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, read ‘sin’ instead of ‘condemnation’, to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc. ³⁰ —because they were saying, “He has an unclean spirit”. *Those scribes committed the unpardonable sin. PCF: There are some footnotes from Pickering that I will not read. And there are two places in today’s reading where I have tweaked Pickering’s translation. Those are marked by square brackets in the program notes. If you want to see a nicely formatted PDF of the episode notes, please download that file from dailybiblereading.info. I am somewhat uncomfortable with Pickering’s footnote about binding Satan. Due to his brevity, his note might be interpreted to say that we have been given the right to bind Satan in every circumstance. So let’s be clear: The One with authority to bind Satan is Christ, not us. I agree, however, that Jesus left us with the task of undoing as much as we can of Satan’s works. I believe that binding Satan works for us in areas where we have clear legal authority in God’s sight. When we were working in Indonesia, a fellow missionary family was having difficulty with their two-year-old daughter screaming at night and uncharacteristically not wanting her mom to hold her. They thought, as I do, that this was some kind of demonic harassment. In a case like this, I believe that the head of the family can speak out and directly forbid the evil spirit from bothering their daughter or even approaching their house. This is done by making it clear that you (as the head of the family) are claiming authority based on your union with Christ. Doing this solved the problem. Note that I as an outsider would have had no authority to bind Satan for my friend’s family. Similarly, for a child that is grown up enough to be out of the authority of your home, and one who has ‘gone off the deep end’, we cannot any longer bind Satan in the same way. In a case like that we ask Jesus to do that and ask for spiritual protection for the grown child. Therefore also, an area where each of us can legally bind Satan and forbid harassing spirits is in our own lives, bodies, or minds. We can consider 2Corinthians 12:7-9 as an example of why this may not work in every case. The variant that Pickering points out in v. 29 is small but significant. ESV follows the Eclectic Text Mark 3:28-29 saying: “Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” It is a little difficult to understand how a single sin can be eternal? The Majority Text reading makes better sense: “… but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is subject to eternal condemnation.” Being subject to eternal condemnation is scary-er to imagine than guilty of an eternal sin. And since 99% of the manuscripts say that, it is most likely to be the original form of the text. Jesus goes on the offensive New relationships Then His brothers and His mother came, and standing outside they sent to Him, calling Him. ³² A crowd was sitting around Him; so they said to Him, “Look, your mother and your brothers and your sisters *The reference to ‘sisters’ makes clear that the ‘brothers’ were indeed Mary’s sons. Some 30% of the Greek manuscripts omit ‘and your sisters’ (as in TR, AV and NKJV). are outside asking for you”. ³³ He answered them saying, “Who is my mother or my brothers?” ³⁴ And looking around at those seated in a circle around Him He said: “Behold [you who are sitting here are] my mother and my brothers! ³⁵ Because whoever does the will of God, the same is my brother, my sister, my mother.” *The claims of Christ’s Kingdom are more important than the claims of one’s family. PCF: The textual variant at v.32 has the support of only 70.9% of the Greek manuscripts. Note that this is one where the Textus Receptus and therefore the KJV do not have the words ‘and your sisters’. As Pickering points out in his Greek NT, this is “not a very difficult case of homoioteleuton.” That Greek term means a variant caused by words in the text starting the same way. The words ‘and your brothers’ and the ‘and your sisters’ are almost identical. Brothers in Greek is adelphoi and sisters is adelphai, so the two four-word phrases (in Greek) are just one letter different. A copyist would be very likely to skip over ‘and your adelphai’, thinking he had already copied that. Pickering says that “The reference to ‘sisters’ makes clear that the ‘brothers’ were indeed Mary’s sons.” Well actually, in the context of his mother being paired with ‘brothers’, I don’t think very many readers would think that the word ‘brothers’ means ‘Jewish brothers from Nazareth’. Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” That title contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott, Hort, and the succeeding managers of the Eclectic Text. They did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God. Nor did they believe that God actively inspired and has preserved every word of Scripture for us. Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by every word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Mat. 4:4; Luk. 4:4) May the Lord bless you ‘real good’! Resources: Fields, Philip: Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text. Friberg, Timothy: On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable. I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below. Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019. What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019. Pickering, Wilbur: New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35 All of Pickering’s articles and books are freely available for download at PRUNCH.net. All are released under the Creative Commons license. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices. Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018. This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways. Article: Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27

How Did Jesus Treat The Woman Caught in Adultery, and Was That Story Originally in the Bible, or Added Later, as some scholars believe? #79

Bible Questions Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 18, 2020 42:01

Happy Shelter in Place Day, Friends! I find myself living in the part of Central California right now that has been essentially shut down for the next 22 days, and our Shelter in Place order just went into effect about an hour ago. These are strange, strange times! So – sometimes people ask me how it’s going doing a daily podcast. I can tell you that each episode takes just a little under 3 hours from start to finish, which includes writing the episode, recording it, editing it in Audacity, and entering all of the pertinent information into a WordPress and Libsyn post. Longer episodes take longer, shorter episodes can be around 2 hours of time. Last night was one of the later nights for the show. One of my daughters wanted to watch a show with me, and I’ll take just about any excuse I can to spend time with them, so we watched a show together, which began after midnight. Then I wrote a fairly long pastoral email to the congregation of the church I pastor about the coronavirus pandemic. When I say fairly long, I mean over 1800 words, so about 6 pages worth. We’re in California, and on a virtual lock-down, so hopefully they had a little extra time to read. One of the problems being in a church that is pastored by somebody who fancies himself as a writer is that you can get very long emails from time to time. If you are a leader at the church I pastor, you got a 2100 word email from me AND an 1800 word email from me within the space of 4 days. I should repent in sackcloth and ashes for that, I suppose, but these are trying times we live in right now, filled with dangers like novel viruses, lack of toilet paper, and novel-length emails from pastors. ANYWAY, the point of what I was trying to say earlier before I rambled was that I didn’t start WRITING the podcast until around 3AM. Fortunately, I had some great material from pastor David Platt to use, so I didn’t have to write a ton of original material myself. It was, however, one of the few times since I began this daily podcast in January that I kind of just wanted to go to bed, and not spend 2 hours or so on a podcast. HOWEVER – when I got to the point of recording it, and I got to the part where I was just reading the Scriptures into the microphone, that’s when I noticed something that happens practically every time I do the podcast: THE WORD OF GOD ENCOURAGED ME. It gave me HOPE. It built me up. It elevated my mood. Almost every time I record this show, I come away encouraged. Not because I like recording and editing a podcast – that can get a little tedious…but because the WORD of God is powerful, and supernatural, and it just builds me up in faith, because faith comes by HEARING THE WORD OF GOD. I just wanted to share that with you as a benefit. You can get that same benefit – without the 2-3 hours of writing, recording and editing by simply READING (or listening!) to the WORD OF GOD! If you haven’t done so yet, allow me to encourage you to listen to the other half of today’s episode – episode #78 – I split today’s show into two parts so it wouldn’t be too long. In today’s reading, we encounter the story of the woman caught in adultery, known to scholars as the Pericope Adulterae. Many scholars, including many evangelical ones, consider this passage to be a later edition to the New Testament, and in most modern Bibles, this part of John is set apart to show doubt about the passage. So – what’s going on here, and was this story original to John’s Gospel, or was it a later edition? The Pericope Adulterae, found in John 7:53-8:11, is surrounded by more controversy and conjecture than any other New Testament Passage with the possible exception of the ending of Mark. The authorship and placement of this pericope has been hotly debated at least since the fifth century, and there are still scholars lined up on opposite sides of the issues surrounding this passage. Attempting to extract meaning and application from this passage is almost meaningless without first wrestling with the genuineness of the text and the mass of evidence for and against it. The issue is simple to grasp – if this pericope is a genuine and accurate happening in the life of Jesus, then it carries just as much weight as the rest of the New Testament. Conversely, if the passage is a later edition with no basis in fact (i.e. it never happened) then the passage is notable only for its historical value and the question of how it became inserted into many manuscripts of the New Testament. Though it will be argued that there is no way to be certain of the historicity of this passage, the preponderance of the evidence points to it being a genuine happening in the life of Jesus, and as such it does have application in the modern church and it can inform how we live and interact with each other. Summary of the Passage 7:53-8:2 The Pericope Adulterae begins with a somewhat awkward[1] transition from the previous narrative. The stage is set here; Jesus has spent the night at the Mount of Olives and dawn finds Him mingling with the crowd near the temple courts. His very presence attracts a crowd and notably (for the fourth Gospel)[2] Jesus sits down to teach them. 8:3-8:6a As Jesus is teaching the people, The scribes and Pharisees bring in a woman and stand her in front of the crowd. They explain to Jesus that the woman was caught in the act of committing adultery, and (on the surface) they present her to Jesus for judgment. The question is, should the woman be stoned in accordance with the law of Moses? The text informs us that this question is a trap for Jesus, a classic catch 22, there is no clear way that Jesus can give a verdict here without opening Himself up to some basis for accusation, either in the eyes of the Roman authorities, or the people. 8:6b-8:9 Perplexingly, Jesus doesn’t answer their questions immediately, indeed, He never gives them the verdict. Instead, He leans over and writes on the ground. The accusers persist in their questioning, and Jesus finally responds with His classic retort, challenging any one of the accusers without sin to be the one that casts the first stone. Though we don’t know how much time passed after Jesus’ challenge, one can almost be assured of an awkward silence, punctuated by occasional stones hitting the soft earth as they fall from the hands of the accusers. Beginning with the eldest among them, the scribes and Pharisees melt away into the crowd. 8:10-8:11 Jesus and the accused woman are left as the center of attention. He initiates dialogue her, asking the obvious questions – where is everybody? Is no one left to condemn? Upon her acknowledgment that they have all left, Jesus also refuses to condemn the woman, but warns her to leave behind her life of sin. Controversy and Canonicity: Contra Johannine This Pericope is a wonderful piece of literature; very moving and dramatic. Jesus cleverly meets the challenge of the scribes and Pharisees without compromising and without falling into a trap, and the woman caught in sin is given a second chance to repent. It’s a powerful story, but is it genuine? Did it really happen? If it did really happen, why is there so much evidence against it being an original part of the gospel of John? A survey of the evidence for and against genuineness is presented below. The majority of New Testament scholars are fairly adamant that the Pericope Adulterae is non-Johannine in origin. The ancient manuscript evidence is indeed stacked against this Pericope. Bruce Metzger points out that all major early Greek manuscripts omit the Pericope, including our oldest and most respected early manuscripts, Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, p66 and p75.[3] Though some Old Latin manuscripts include the Pericope, many omit it as well, and the early Syriac, and Coptic manuscripts do not contain the passage[4]. Codex Bezae is the only major Greek manuscript prior to the 8th century that this pericope appears in, and Bezae is known for its many interpolations. In fact, Metzger states, “No other manuscript has so many and such remarkable variations from what is usually taken to be the New Testament Text. Codex Bezae’s special characteristic is the free addition (and occasional omission) of words, sentences and even incidences.”[5] Further manuscript evidence against the Johannine nature of the Pericope is the variety of places it is attached in some of the manuscripts that do contain it. In some manuscripts, it appears after John 7:36, in some after John 7:44, some as an addition at the end of John’s gospel, some after Luke 21:28, and some even after Luke 24:53.[6] Though the number of manuscripts that displace this pericope is not overwhelming, the mere fact of its varied appearance in even a few manuscripts tends to cast doubt on the concreteness of its location after John 7:52. The final bit of manuscript evidence is the unusually high number of textual variants found in the manuscripts that do contain the pericope. Gary Burge points out that line per line, these twelve verses contain more textual variants across the manuscript tradition than almost any other passage of scripture. [7] There is also much patristic evidence, especially in the east, stacked against the passage. This pericope is not mentioned by any Greek Father until Euthymius Zigabenus in the 12th century and isn’t found in the writings of the early Fathers in the west either. Thus, it is omitted by Origen, Clement, Cyprian, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyril and Chrysostom,[8] even in writings where it would seem to be an appropriate resource for them to use. While Zane Hodges tries to make the case that the absence of the Pericope in these church fathers constitutes an argument from silence, and thus proves nothing[9], the fact of the matter is that this is more empirical evidence stacked against the pericope, and it adds weight to the non-Johannine argument. While the manuscript evidence would seem to be the greatest evidence against the Pericope, there are also suspicious grammatical and contextual features of the text. Statistical analysis of the text has claimed to show several features which “prove” its non Johannine nature. Vern Poythress has examined the grammatical use of the conjunctions “de”, “oun”, “kai”, and “asyndeton” in the Gospel of John, and developed some general rules that John appears to follow. Upon examination of the adulteress pericope, it would appear that there are enough variations in its use of conjunctions (compared with the rest of John) to allow Poythress to conclude that this Pericope is not written by John.[10] Further grammatical evidence focuses on the words that are used in the passage. Bryant and Krause point out that approximately nine percent, or 15 of the words used in this pericope do not occur elsewhere in the gospel, the highest percentage for a passage of this size in John[11]. The Mount of Olives, The scribes, and the phrase “early morning” are not found anywhere else in the gospel of John, but all are somewhat common in the synoptic gospels. In addition, only here in John is Jesus addressed as teacher. While some of these unique words can be explained by the nature of the story, as well as the semi-technical judicial language employed, there are still a high frequency of unique words and constructs here compared with the rest of John. Finally, there is contextual evidence that seems to indicate this pericope is out of place. Borchert[12] and many others believe that the text disrupts the flow of the Feast of Tabernacles narrative. Many point out its similarity in time and setting to Luke 21:37-38, and (as mentioned above) some manuscripts place the passage right after verse 38 because it seems to be a better fit. It is also true that the flow of the text from 7:52 to 8:12 is smooth and uninterrupted when this passage is removed, but of course, that could be said of many passages! Controversy and Canonicity: Pro Johannine Most scholars believe the evidence against the Pericope Adulterae is overwhelming, but there is much positive evidence for the ancientness of this event, and even some evidence that would seem to indicate the text is Johannine and not at all out of place. The strongest evidence for the veracity and Johannine nature of the Pericope comes from the manuscripts and church fathers of the west. Several Old Latin manuscripts do in fact contain the Pericope. Hodges argues valiantly that the absence of the passage in our earliest and most reliable manuscripts (Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, p66 and p75) is due to those manuscripts being of a proto-Alexandrian origin, and thus likely coming from the same (ancient) exemplar, one which had the passage intentionally excised.[13] He posits that the Pericope was removed from some texts very early (before 200), but that the passage was quite possibly in the original autograph. The Patristic evidence for the Pericope is surprisingly strong in the west. Several church fathers in the fourth and fifth century mention the text, beginning with Pacian of Barcelona, and including Ambrose, Ambrosiaster, Jerome and Augustine. Jerome and Augustine in particular add much to the pro Johannine side of the argument, providing significant ancient evidence and speculation on the passage. Jerome includes the Pericope Adulterae in his Latin Vulgate translation of the scriptures, thus cementing its future acceptance among the Catholic church. In his Dialogue against the Pelagians, Jerome makes a very intriguing reference to this passage, “In the Gospel according to John in many manuscripts, both Greek and Latin, is found the story of the adulterous woman who was accused before the Lord.”[14] This comment is very significant in considering the Pericope Adulterae, and would seem to stand as the strongest pro-Johannine evidence available. As Hodges points out[15], Jerome was well traveled, and would have had a wide exposure to both Greek and Latin texts, many of which were older than any that has survived to this day. Jerome’s statement should carry much more weight with modern New Testament textual scholars than it appears it does. Augustine goes even further than Jerome does in his commentary on the passage, acknowledging the already existing controversy over the passage and offering a reason for it’s removal from some manuscripts, “Certain persons of little faith, or rather enemies of true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest their wives should be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord’s act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as if He who said ‘sin no more’ had granted permission to sin.” [16] While Augustine’s hermeneutical approach to the passage contains a common mistake (Jesus did not specifically forgive the adulterous woman), his observation is very relevant and offers an intriguing possible explanation for the manuscript problems (and textual variances) associated with this passage. Hodges further quotes Ambrose who makes a similar suggestion to Augustine’s – that the passage is a stumbling block. The contextual argument against this pericope is perhaps the easiest to answer. While many commentators have pointed out the “disruption” of the Feast of Tabernacles narrative that this pericope seems to effect, Allison Trites convincingly argues the opposite; the entire passage fits into the overall theme of controversy in John 1-12.[17] Other contextual clues could be seen to indicate the proper placement of this passage. For one, it would seem that the story is a great illustration of John 3:17, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17, NIV) The Pericope can also be seen in a literary sense as a response to the question posed in John 7:26, “Here he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Christ?” (John 7:26, NIV) While much has been made of the grammatical analysis of this pericope, specifically focusing on what is considered non Johannine grammar, there has been some grammatical work on the passage that offers different conclusions. Alan Johnson has used some of the existent grammatical statistical methods on other, non disputed passages of John, and concluded that some of those would be considered non Johannine based on the very same methodology used on the Pericope Adulterae. In addition, he also points out several grammatical features in this passage that are consistent with the rest of John, including the use of “de”, “touto” and “legein” [18] My own grammatical analysis of the passage has produced some interesting results, further casting doubt on the ability of statistical grammatical analysis to effectively determine canonicity and authorship questions. The phrase “meketi amartane” (no longer sin, or stop sinning) only occurs here in the pericope and in John 5:14, where Jesus likewise instructs the paralytic to stop sinning. “ina ecosin” (that they might) is a phrase found only in verse six, and John 17:13. “Kai palin” (and again) in verse 8 is found six other times in John but only once in Luke. Finally, the phrase “eis ten gen” (in the earth) from verse 6 is found 23 times in the New Testament, 5 are in John, and 12 are in Revelation – so of the 23 times that phrase is used, 17 times it is Johannine. That analysis might be used to impress upon some a level of certainty that John did write this passage, but in fact, in the final analysis it doesn’t add much to the argument one way or the other – except to possibly refute those who use statistical grammatical analysis to “prove” that this Pericope is non-Johannine. A thorough survey of the evidence reveals one thing quite clearly: the authorship and position of the Pericope Adulterae is not an easy issue to decide. It is perplexing and frustrating to see the certainty that is exhibited by many scholars on both sides of this issue. Bruce Metzger, Phillip Comfort, Kurt Aland, Raymond Brown, George Beasley-Murray, Leon Morris and many others all make absolute statements on the Pericope and point to overwhelming evidence that it is either non-canonical or non Johannine. Beasley-Murray goes so far as to write, “It is universally agreed by textual critics of the Greek NT that this passage was not part of the Fourth Gospel in its original form.”[19] What an outrageous and misleading statement! On the other hand, there are a few scholars (Elmer Towns, some scholars in the King James only camp, and several Dallas Theological Seminary professors) who are equally adamant that this passage is certainly genuine, and right where it belongs in the New Testament. The fact is that the best and most irrefutable evidence against the Johannine nature of the Pericope Adulterae is its lack of attestation in many of our earliest and best surviving manuscripts. When this manuscript evidence is considered in light of Jerome’s quote above on all of the Greek and Old Latin manuscripts he saw that contained the Pericope (and likely were older than most that we have now) we have a clear conundrum, one that cannot be fairly answered without new evidence coming to light. Thankfully, one thing is agreed upon by most N.T. scholars – this pericope is very old[20] and very likely to be an accurate event in the life of Jesus. Thus Metzger writes that John 7:53-8:11, “has all the earmarks of historical veracity”[21], and Raymond Brown writes, “There is nothing in the story itself, or its language that would forbid us to think of it as an early story concerning Jesus.”[22] If this Pericope is in fact a genuine event in the ministry of Jesus – how is it that it is absent in so many early Biblical texts? To put the issue another way, Phillip W. Comfort offers a list of suspect passages in the Textus Receptus, including the Pericope Adulterae. He challenges those who would argue for the inclusion of these questionable passages to, “come up with good arguments as to why scribes (in the early centuries) would have purposely excised these passages.”[23] Gary Burge proposes an interesting, though improvable suggestion that answers both questions: the Pericope Adulterae text was excised from some early manuscripts for theological reasons. Burge points to the unbiblical Doctrine of Penance, as articulated by early church fathers like Tertullian, Clement and Cyprian. Sexual sins in the eyes of many of the early church fathers were very grave, and in some cases unforgivable.[24] In light of that, it is conceivable that this passage was removed, under the impression that it was or too light on a sin, or in fear (As Augustine suggests above) that it would give others license to sin without fear of reprisal. It is also a possibility that the text is a real happening in the life of Jesus that never was put into the gospels because of the fear listed above (or for another reason – as John says, if everything Jesus did was written down, the world couldn’t contain the books!) A Deeper Look at the Text We now turn our attention back to the text itself, and from the perspective that it is a genuine happening, and is placed in the appropriate place in the text. Examining this passage in its literary context, we see that Jesus’ ministry, previously marked by amazing miracles and healings at the time of the adulterous pericope had become quite controversial. Jesus’ teachings were very challenging, and He even lost some disciples because of them. In the events leading up to the encounter, Jesus brothers urge Him to go the Feast of Tabernacles, and he temporarily declined, only to come later and begin to interact with the people. As He teaches, many people believe in Him, and many don’t – causing arguments and strife. The temple guards are sent to arrest Jesus, but they themselves become arrested by His words and fail to complete their job. The Pharisees and other religious leaders meet in anger, considering what to do and finding no solution. It is directly after this that the incident with the adulterous woman happens. The Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 22 states, “If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die.” (Deuteronomy 22:24, NIV) Leviticus 20 states similarly, “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.” (Leviticus 20:10, NIV) These were the laws of Moses referred to in vs. 5 of this passage. Curiously, there is no mention of the man that was with the woman – this has led many to conclude that the situation was a set up from the beginning, (i.e. the woman was also “trapped”) The scribes and Pharisees, therefore, were wanting Jesus to rule on a case that was flawed from the beginning – they were asking Him to incompletely apply the law of Moses to this situation. This was merely another attempt by the religious leaders to put Jesus in a position where there is no good way out. A similar incident occurs in Matthew 22 (and the other Synoptics): Jesus is asked whether it is right to pay taxes to Caesar, if He answers yes, then the crowds would get angry with Him, if He answers no, then He risks making enemies of the Roman leaders. Also, Jesus uses the same technique against the religious leaders in Matthew 21 when asked who gave Him his authority, His return question, was John’s Baptism from heaven or not, could not be answered in such a way as to not cause the leaders problems. In this particular instance, if Jesus were to “rule” that the woman should be stoned, He would run afoul of Roman laws against mob violence[25] and if He let the woman off the hook, then He would be countermanding the Law of Moses. The response of Jesus to this dilemma, certainly knowing the religious leader’s hearts and motives, is very interesting: He merely stoops down and writes on the ground. Much ink has been wasted trying to determine what exactly it was that Jesus wrote in the ground. Beasley-Murray offers a good list of past suggestions: Was He writing out His decision in the case before verbally announcing it? Was he writing out a passage from Exodus that warns against supporting a wicked man as a malicious witness? Was He writing in the dust to remind the scribes of Jeremiah’s words, “Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust, because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.” (Jeremiah 17:13, NIV).[26] I prefer Raymond Brown’s proposal; that Jesus was merely doodling[27], possibly to consider how to handle the situation wisely, possibly in prayer. The fact is that what Jesus wrote has not been recorded, so it clearly was only an important issue for the exact time the incident took place, if even then. By suggesting that the one who is without sin cast the first stone, Jesus brilliantly defuses the situation. It’s very possible He could be referring to Deuteronomy 17, which prescribes that nobody should be put to death on the testimony of just one witness, and that the witnesses should be the first one to cast the stone. Is Jesus pointing to the possibility of the corruption of the witnesses here – understanding that the woman, though guilty, was caught in an elaborate set up, and thus invalidating the “prosecution’s” case against her, or is He articulating a more basic principle – if you are sinless you can participate in her stoning? This is a difficult question to answer; Stephen James argues somewhat convincingly that what Jesus means by “without sin” in this context is that their case must be presented without evil motives, and in accordance with the law of Moses (how many witnesses to the act were there, more than one? What of the man?) The religious leaders knew their motives weren’t correct, and therefore left the scene.[28] It is also important to point out here that in defusing the scene the way He did, Jesus did not abrogate the Law of Moses, nor did He completely uphold it – He chose a third, an option that leaves open the question of whether those laws were still applicable in His mind. The incident ends with Jesus challenging the woman to go and leave her life of sin. Modern and ancient preachers and commentators alike have written or preached that Jesus actually forgave the woman – this is not the case – Jesus did not explicitly forgive her as recorded in the text, He simply chose not to condemn her, and exhorted her to also stop sinning. Application If we accept the hypothesis that this Pericope is an accurate and genuine happening, then how does it apply today? Did it abolish the death penalty, as many have argued? Did it usher in an age of more leniency on sin? What sort of standard is Jesus setting for those who would be in a position to judge or pronounce punishment over another? While it is very important to not draw doctrine out of a narrative that doesn’t explicitly indicate doctrinal things, this text can still go beyond being a beautiful story of the mercy and wisdom of Jesus and find application in our modern setting. The first application to consider is what this story says about the death penalty, if anything. As Stephen James points out, many (including John Howard Yoder, Dwight Erricson, Lewis Smedes, G.H. Clark, Charles H. Milligan etc) have used this passage to argue for the abolishment of the death penalty.[29] A careful reading of the text will clearly show that Jesus does not abolish the death penalty, indeed, He doesn’t even address the issue. Thus, both opponents and proponents of capital punishment will need to look in other places to justify their beliefs. I believe the real modern application of this passage is found in Jesus’ challenge to the religious leaders, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7 NIV) There seems to be a profound connection to this principle and the plank-eye principle that Jesus articulates in Luke 6 – in order to help remove the speck from your brother’s eye, you must first remove the plank from your own. The principle is this, that we should judge and purify ourselves, worrying less about the bad things we see in other people – until our own issues are dealt with – then we will see clearly to help others out. The principle is not advocating merely minding your own business – it is advocating personal holiness that can lead to corporate holiness when we help and challenge each other in right heart and attitude. The Pharisees and scribes were not at all interested in the principle behind the Mosaic laws they were urging Jesus to rule on (i.e. purge the evil from among you), they were just interested in accomplishing their own agendas. The church today cries out for those who would walk in holiness and near the heart of God to the point where we can see clearly enough to help our brothers out with the specks in their eyes, and we can pass judgments rightly. Conclusion An objective look at the Pericope Adulterae, its context, its grammar and its manuscript history leads one to the conclusion that this passage has been rightly seen as controversial through the ages. There is not the kind of overwhelming evidence that is needed for dogmatic statements regarding the authorship and canonicity of John 7:53-8:11 either for or against. There is substantial evidence, however, to demonstrate that this text represents a genuine and accurate event in the life of Jesus, and as such it can inform the modern believer about the nature of Jesus and the importance of holiness in the realm of judgment. [1] Somewhat awkward, but not completely out of place – see below. [2] Some scholars point out that Jesus sitting and teaching is a common feature of the Synoptic Gospels, and cite it as further proof of the Non-Johannine authorship of the Pericope – see John 6:3, however for another instance of Jesus sitting down among the people. Borchert, Gerald The New American Commentary Volume 25A: John 1-11. (electronic edition) Logos LibrarySystem (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1996) [3] For a full list of the major Greek manuscripts that omit this pericope, see: Metzger, Bruce M. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Ed. (New York: Oxford, 1992.), 219-220 [4] Brown, Raymond E. John 1-11. Anchor Bible 29. Garden City: Doubleday, 1982, 335 [5] Metzger, Bruce M. The Text of the New Testament – Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration, Third Ed. (New York: Oxford, 1992.), 50 [6] The Text of the New Testament – Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration p. xxix [7] Burge, Gary M. “A Specific Problem In The New Testament Text And Canon: The Woman Caught In Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 27 no.2), 144 [8] “A Specific Problem In The New Testament Text And Canon: The Woman Caught In Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” 142 [9] Hodges, Zane C. “Problem Passages in the Gospel of John Part 8: The Woman Taken in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” (Bibliotheca Sacra 136 no. 544 (October, 1979), 329 [10] Poythress, Vern S. “Testing for Johannine Authorship by Examining the Use of Conjunctions” (Westminster Theological Journal 46, no. 2 Fall 1984), 362 [11] Bryant, Beauford H. and Krause, Mark S. John. The College Press NIV Commentary. (Joplin: College Press, 1998) [12] Borchert, Gerald – John 1-11 The New American Commentary. (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1996) [13] “Problem Passages in the Gospel of John Part 8: The Woman Taken in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” 323 [14] As quoted in “Problem Passages in the Gospel of John Part 8: The Woman Taken in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” 330 [15] “Problem Passages in the Gospel of John Part 8: The Woman Taken in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” 330 [16] As quoted in “Problem Passages in the Gospel of John Part 8: The Woman Taken in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” 331 [17] Trites, Allison A. “The Woman Taken in Adultery” (Bibliotheca Sacra 131 no. 522 April, 1974) 138-144 [18] Johnson, Alan F. “A Stylistic Trait of the Fourth Gospel in the Pericope Adulterae” Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society (IX Spring, 1966) 91-96 [19] Beasley-Murray, George R. The Gospel according to John The Word Biblical Commentary. (Dallas: Word Incorporated, 1999.) [20] Raymond Brown quotes Eusebius, who in turn quotes Papias writing near the time of the Apostles about a woman who was brought before Jesus accused of many sins. Brown also mentions the 3rd century Syrian Didascalia Apostolorum, which gives clear reference to the events of the Pericope Adulterae which indicates that 2nd century Syria knew of the narrative. John 1-11, p. 335 [21] Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, p. 220 [22] John 1-11, p. 335 [23] Comfort, Phillip W. Encountering the Manuscripts (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2005) p.99 [24] “A Specific Problem In The New Testament Text And Canon: The Woman Caught In Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” pages 146-148 [25] John 1-11 The New American Commentary [26] The Gospel according to John The Word Biblical Commentary [27] John 1-11. Anchor Bible 29 p. 334 [28] James, Stephen A. “The Adulteress And The Death Penalty.” (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 22 no. 1 March, 1979) pages 49-50. [29] “The Adulteress And The Death Penalty.” Pages 45-46

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How Did Jesus Treat The Woman Caught in Adultery, and Was That Story Originally in the Bible, or Added Later, as some scholars believe? #79

Bible Reading Podcast

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 18, 2020 42:01

Happy Shelter in Place Day, Friends! I find myself living in the part of Central California right now that has been essentially shut down for the next 22 days, and our Shelter in Place order just went into effect about an hour ago. These are strange, strange times! So – sometimes people ask me how it’s going doing a daily podcast. I can tell you that each episode takes just a little under 3 hours from start to finish, which includes writing the episode, recording it, editing it in Audacity, and entering all of the pertinent information into a WordPress and Libsyn post. Longer episodes take longer, shorter episodes can be around 2 hours of time. Last night was one of the later nights for the show. One of my daughters wanted to watch a show with me, and I’ll take just about any excuse I can to spend time with them, so we watched a show together, which began after midnight. Then I wrote a fairly long pastoral email to the congregation of the church I pastor about the coronavirus pandemic. When I say fairly long, I mean over 1800 words, so about 6 pages worth. We’re in California, and on a virtual lock-down, so hopefully they had a little extra time to read. One of the problems being in a church that is pastored by somebody who fancies himself as a writer is that you can get very long emails from time to time. If you are a leader at the church I pastor, you got a 2100 word email from me AND an 1800 word email from me within the space of 4 days. I should repent in sackcloth and ashes for that, I suppose, but these are trying times we live in right now, filled with dangers like novel viruses, lack of toilet paper, and novel-length emails from pastors. ANYWAY, the point of what I was trying to say earlier before I rambled was that I didn’t start WRITING the podcast until around 3AM. Fortunately, I had some great material from pastor David Platt to use, so I didn’t have to write a ton of original material myself. It was, however, one of the few times since I began this daily podcast in January that I kind of just wanted to go to bed, and not spend 2 hours or so on a podcast. HOWEVER – when I got to the point of recording it, and I got to the part where I was just reading the Scriptures into the microphone, that’s when I noticed something that happens practically every time I do the podcast: THE WORD OF GOD ENCOURAGED ME. It gave me HOPE. It built me up. It elevated my mood. Almost every time I record this show, I come away encouraged. Not because I like recording and editing a podcast – that can get a little tedious…but because the WORD of God is powerful, and supernatural, and it just builds me up in faith, because faith comes by HEARING THE WORD OF GOD. I just wanted to share that with you as a benefit. You can get that same benefit – without the 2-3 hours of writing, recording and editing by simply READING (or listening!) to the WORD OF GOD! If you haven’t done so yet, allow me to encourage you to listen to the other half of today’s episode – episode #78 – I split today’s show into two parts so it wouldn’t be too long. In today’s reading, we encounter the story of the woman caught in adultery, known to scholars as the Pericope Adulterae. Many scholars, including many evangelical ones, consider this passage to be a later edition to the New Testament, and in most modern Bibles, this part of John is set apart to show doubt about the passage. So – what’s going on here, and was this story original to John’s Gospel, or was it a later edition? The Pericope Adulterae, found in John 7:53-8:11, is surrounded by more controversy and conjecture than any other New Testament Passage with the possible exception of the ending of Mark. The authorship and placement of this pericope has been hotly debated at least since the fifth century, and there are still scholars lined up on opposite sides of the issues surrounding this passage. Attempting to extract meaning and application from this passage is almost meaningless without first wrestling with the genuineness of the text and the mass of evidence for and against it. The issue is simple to grasp – if this pericope is a genuine and accurate happening in the life of Jesus, then it carries just as much weight as the rest of the New Testament. Conversely, if the passage is a later edition with no basis in fact (i.e. it never happened) then the passage is notable only for its historical value and the question of how it became inserted into many manuscripts of the New Testament. Though it will be argued that there is no way to be certain of the historicity of this passage, the preponderance of the evidence points to it being a genuine happening in the life of Jesus, and as such it does have application in the modern church and it can inform how we live and interact with each other. Summary of the Passage 7:53-8:2 The Pericope Adulterae begins with a somewhat awkward[1] transition from the previous narrative. The stage is set here; Jesus has spent the night at the Mount of Olives and dawn finds Him mingling with the crowd near the temple courts. His very presence attracts a crowd and notably (for the fourth Gospel)[2] Jesus sits down to teach them. 8:3-8:6a As Jesus is teaching the people, The scribes and Pharisees bring in a woman and stand her in front of the crowd. They explain to Jesus that the woman was caught in the act of committing adultery, and (on the surface) they present her to Jesus for judgment. The question is, should the woman be stoned in accordance with the law of Moses? The text informs us that this question is a trap for Jesus, a classic catch 22, there is no clear way that Jesus can give a verdict here without opening Himself up to some basis for accusation, either in the eyes of the Roman authorities, or the people. 8:6b-8:9 Perplexingly, Jesus doesn’t answer their questions immediately, indeed, He never gives them the verdict. Instead, He leans over and writes on the ground. The accusers persist in their questioning, and Jesus finally responds with His classic retort, challenging any one of the accusers without sin to be the one that casts the first stone. Though we don’t know how much time passed after Jesus’ challenge, one can almost be assured of an awkward silence, punctuated by occasional stones hitting the soft earth as they fall from the hands of the accusers. Beginning with the eldest among them, the scribes and Pharisees melt away into the crowd. 8:10-8:11 Jesus and the accused woman are left as the center of attention. He initiates dialogue her, asking the obvious questions – where is everybody? Is no one left to condemn? Upon her acknowledgment that they have all left, Jesus also refuses to condemn the woman, but warns her to leave behind her life of sin. Controversy and Canonicity: Contra Johannine This Pericope is a wonderful piece of literature; very moving and dramatic. Jesus cleverly meets the challenge of the scribes and Pharisees without compromising and without falling into a trap, and the woman caught in sin is given a second chance to repent. It’s a powerful story, but is it genuine? Did it really happen? If it did really happen, why is there so much evidence against it being an original part of the gospel of John? A survey of the evidence for and against genuineness is presented below. The majority of New Testament scholars are fairly adamant that the Pericope Adulterae is non-Johannine in origin. The ancient manuscript evidence is indeed stacked against this Pericope. Bruce Metzger points out that all major early Greek manuscripts omit the Pericope, including our oldest and most respected early manuscripts, Codex Sinaiticus, Codex Vaticanus, p66 and p75.[3] Though some Old Latin manuscripts include the Pericope, many omit it as well, and the early Syriac, and Coptic manuscripts do not contain the passage[4]. Codex Bezae is the only major Greek manuscript prior to the 8th century that this pericope appears in, and Bezae is known for its many interpolations. In fact, Metzger states, “No other manuscript has so many and such remarkable variations from what is usually taken to be the New Testament Text. Codex Bezae’s special characteristic is the free addition (and occasional omission) of words, sentences and even incidences.”[5] Further manuscript evidence against the Johannine nature of the Pericope is the variety of places it is attached in some of the manuscripts that do contain it. In some manuscripts, it appears after John 7:36, in some after John 7:44, some as an addition at the end of John’s gospel, some after Luke 21:28, and some even after Luke 24:53.[6] Though the number of manuscripts that displace this pericope is not overwhelming, the mere fact of its varied appearance in even a few manuscripts tends to cast doubt on the concreteness of its location after John 7:52. The final bit of manuscript evidence is the unusually high number of textual variants found in the manuscripts that do contain the pericope. Gary Burge points out that line per line, these twelve verses contain more textual variants across the manuscript tradition than almost any other passage of scripture. [7] There is also much patristic evidence, especially in the east, stacked against the passage. This pericope is not mentioned by any Greek Father until Euthymius Zigabenus in the 12th century and isn’t found in the writings of the early Fathers in the west either. Thus, it is omitted by Origen, Clement, Cyprian, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyril and Chrysostom,[8] even in writings where it would seem to be an appropriate resource for them to use. While Zane Hodges tries to make the case that the absence of the Pericope in these church fathers constitutes an argument from silence, and thus proves nothing[9], the fact of the matter is that this is more empirical evidence stacked against the pericope, and it adds weight to the non-Johannine argument. While the manuscript evidence would seem to be the greatest evidence against the Pericope, there are also suspicious grammatical and contextual features of the text. Statistical analysis of the text has claimed to show several features which “prove” its non Johannine nature. Vern Poythress has examined the grammatical use of the conjunctions “de”, “oun”, “kai”, and “asyndeton” in the Gospel of John, and developed some general rules that John appears to follow. Upon examination of the adulteress pericope, it would appear that there are enough variations in its use of conjunctions (compared with the rest of John) to allow Poythress to conclude that this Pericope is not written by John.[10] Further grammatical evidence focuses on the words that are used in the passage. Bryant and Krause point out that approximately nine percent, or 15 of the words used in this pericope do not occur elsewhere in the gospel, the highest percentage for a passage of this size in John[11]. The Mount of Olives, The scribes, and the phrase “early morning” are not found anywhere else in the gospel of John, but all are somewhat common in the synoptic gospels. In addition, only here in John is Jesus addressed as teacher. While some of these unique words can be explained by the nature of the story, as well as the semi-technical judicial language employed, there are still a high frequency of unique words and constructs here compared with the rest of John. Finally, there is contextual evidence that seems to indicate this pericope is out of place. Borchert[12] and many others believe that the text disrupts the flow of the Feast of Tabernacles narrative. Many point out its similarity in time and setting to Luke 21:37-38, and (as mentioned above) some manuscripts place the passage right after verse 38 because it seems to be a better fit. It is also true that the flow of the text from 7:52 to 8:12 is smooth and uninterrupted when this passage is removed, but of course, that could be said of many passages! Controversy and Canonicity: Pro Johannine Most scholars believe the evidence against the Pericope Adulterae is overwhelming, but there is much positive evidence for the ancientness of this event, and even some evidence that would seem to indicate the text is Johannine and not at all out of place. The strongest evidence for the veracity and Johannine nature of the Pericope comes from the manuscripts and church fathers of the west. Several Old Latin manuscripts do in fact contain the Pericope. Hodges argues valiantly that the absence of the passage in our earliest and most reliable manuscripts (Sinaiticus, Vaticanus, p66 and p75) is due to those manuscripts being of a proto-Alexandrian origin, and thus likely coming from the same (ancient) exemplar, one which had the passage intentionally excised.[13] He posits that the Pericope was removed from some texts very early (before 200), but that the passage was quite possibly in the original autograph. The Patristic evidence for the Pericope is surprisingly strong in the west. Several church fathers in the fourth and fifth century mention the text, beginning with Pacian of Barcelona, and including Ambrose, Ambrosiaster, Jerome and Augustine. Jerome and Augustine in particular add much to the pro Johannine side of the argument, providing significant ancient evidence and speculation on the passage. Jerome includes the Pericope Adulterae in his Latin Vulgate translation of the scriptures, thus cementing its future acceptance among the Catholic church. In his Dialogue against the Pelagians, Jerome makes a very intriguing reference to this passage, “In the Gospel according to John in many manuscripts, both Greek and Latin, is found the story of the adulterous woman who was accused before the Lord.”[14] This comment is very significant in considering the Pericope Adulterae, and would seem to stand as the strongest pro-Johannine evidence available. As Hodges points out[15], Jerome was well traveled, and would have had a wide exposure to both Greek and Latin texts, many of which were older than any that has survived to this day. Jerome’s statement should carry much more weight with modern New Testament textual scholars than it appears it does. Augustine goes even further than Jerome does in his commentary on the passage, acknowledging the already existing controversy over the passage and offering a reason for it’s removal from some manuscripts, “Certain persons of little faith, or rather enemies of true faith, fearing, I suppose, lest their wives should be given impunity in sinning, removed from their manuscripts the Lord’s act of forgiveness toward the adulteress, as if He who said ‘sin no more’ had granted permission to sin.” [16] While Augustine’s hermeneutical approach to the passage contains a common mistake (Jesus did not specifically forgive the adulterous woman), his observation is very relevant and offers an intriguing possible explanation for the manuscript problems (and textual variances) associated with this passage. Hodges further quotes Ambrose who makes a similar suggestion to Augustine’s – that the passage is a stumbling block. The contextual argument against this pericope is perhaps the easiest to answer. While many commentators have pointed out the “disruption” of the Feast of Tabernacles narrative that this pericope seems to effect, Allison Trites convincingly argues the opposite; the entire passage fits into the overall theme of controversy in John 1-12.[17] Other contextual clues could be seen to indicate the proper placement of this passage. For one, it would seem that the story is a great illustration of John 3:17, “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17, NIV) The Pericope can also be seen in a literary sense as a response to the question posed in John 7:26, “Here he is, speaking publicly, and they are not saying a word to him. Have the authorities really concluded that he is the Christ?” (John 7:26, NIV) While much has been made of the grammatical analysis of this pericope, specifically focusing on what is considered non Johannine grammar, there has been some grammatical work on the passage that offers different conclusions. Alan Johnson has used some of the existent grammatical statistical methods on other, non disputed passages of John, and concluded that some of those would be considered non Johannine based on the very same methodology used on the Pericope Adulterae. In addition, he also points out several grammatical features in this passage that are consistent with the rest of John, including the use of “de”, “touto” and “legein” [18] My own grammatical analysis of the passage has produced some interesting results, further casting doubt on the ability of statistical grammatical analysis to effectively determine canonicity and authorship questions. The phrase “meketi amartane” (no longer sin, or stop sinning) only occurs here in the pericope and in John 5:14, where Jesus likewise instructs the paralytic to stop sinning. “ina ecosin” (that they might) is a phrase found only in verse six, and John 17:13. “Kai palin” (and again) in verse 8 is found six other times in John but only once in Luke. Finally, the phrase “eis ten gen” (in the earth) from verse 6 is found 23 times in the New Testament, 5 are in John, and 12 are in Revelation – so of the 23 times that phrase is used, 17 times it is Johannine. That analysis might be used to impress upon some a level of certainty that John did write this passage, but in fact, in the final analysis it doesn’t add much to the argument one way or the other – except to possibly refute those who use statistical grammatical analysis to “prove” that this Pericope is non-Johannine. A thorough survey of the evidence reveals one thing quite clearly: the authorship and position of the Pericope Adulterae is not an easy issue to decide. It is perplexing and frustrating to see the certainty that is exhibited by many scholars on both sides of this issue. Bruce Metzger, Phillip Comfort, Kurt Aland, Raymond Brown, George Beasley-Murray, Leon Morris and many others all make absolute statements on the Pericope and point to overwhelming evidence that it is either non-canonical or non Johannine. Beasley-Murray goes so far as to write, “It is universally agreed by textual critics of the Greek NT that this passage was not part of the Fourth Gospel in its original form.”[19] What an outrageous and misleading statement! On the other hand, there are a few scholars (Elmer Towns, some scholars in the King James only camp, and several Dallas Theological Seminary professors) who are equally adamant that this passage is certainly genuine, and right where it belongs in the New Testament. The fact is that the best and most irrefutable evidence against the Johannine nature of the Pericope Adulterae is its lack of attestation in many of our earliest and best surviving manuscripts. When this manuscript evidence is considered in light of Jerome’s quote above on all of the Greek and Old Latin manuscripts he saw that contained the Pericope (and likely were older than most that we have now) we have a clear conundrum, one that cannot be fairly answered without new evidence coming to light. Thankfully, one thing is agreed upon by most N.T. scholars – this pericope is very old[20] and very likely to be an accurate event in the life of Jesus. Thus Metzger writes that John 7:53-8:11, “has all the earmarks of historical veracity”[21], and Raymond Brown writes, “There is nothing in the story itself, or its language that would forbid us to think of it as an early story concerning Jesus.”[22] If this Pericope is in fact a genuine event in the ministry of Jesus – how is it that it is absent in so many early Biblical texts? To put the issue another way, Phillip W. Comfort offers a list of suspect passages in the Textus Receptus, including the Pericope Adulterae. He challenges those who would argue for the inclusion of these questionable passages to, “come up with good arguments as to why scribes (in the early centuries) would have purposely excised these passages.”[23] Gary Burge proposes an interesting, though improvable suggestion that answers both questions: the Pericope Adulterae text was excised from some early manuscripts for theological reasons. Burge points to the unbiblical Doctrine of Penance, as articulated by early church fathers like Tertullian, Clement and Cyprian. Sexual sins in the eyes of many of the early church fathers were very grave, and in some cases unforgivable.[24] In light of that, it is conceivable that this passage was removed, under the impression that it was or too light on a sin, or in fear (As Augustine suggests above) that it would give others license to sin without fear of reprisal. It is also a possibility that the text is a real happening in the life of Jesus that never was put into the gospels because of the fear listed above (or for another reason – as John says, if everything Jesus did was written down, the world couldn’t contain the books!) A Deeper Look at the Text We now turn our attention back to the text itself, and from the perspective that it is a genuine happening, and is placed in the appropriate place in the text. Examining this passage in its literary context, we see that Jesus’ ministry, previously marked by amazing miracles and healings at the time of the adulterous pericope had become quite controversial. Jesus’ teachings were very challenging, and He even lost some disciples because of them. In the events leading up to the encounter, Jesus brothers urge Him to go the Feast of Tabernacles, and he temporarily declined, only to come later and begin to interact with the people. As He teaches, many people believe in Him, and many don’t – causing arguments and strife. The temple guards are sent to arrest Jesus, but they themselves become arrested by His words and fail to complete their job. The Pharisees and other religious leaders meet in anger, considering what to do and finding no solution. It is directly after this that the incident with the adulterous woman happens. The Old Testament, in Deuteronomy 22 states, “If a man is found sleeping with another man’s wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die.” (Deuteronomy 22:24, NIV) Leviticus 20 states similarly, “If a man commits adultery with another man’s wife—with the wife of his neighbor—both the adulterer and the adulteress must be put to death.” (Leviticus 20:10, NIV) These were the laws of Moses referred to in vs. 5 of this passage. Curiously, there is no mention of the man that was with the woman – this has led many to conclude that the situation was a set up from the beginning, (i.e. the woman was also “trapped”) The scribes and Pharisees, therefore, were wanting Jesus to rule on a case that was flawed from the beginning – they were asking Him to incompletely apply the law of Moses to this situation. This was merely another attempt by the religious leaders to put Jesus in a position where there is no good way out. A similar incident occurs in Matthew 22 (and the other Synoptics): Jesus is asked whether it is right to pay taxes to Caesar, if He answers yes, then the crowds would get angry with Him, if He answers no, then He risks making enemies of the Roman leaders. Also, Jesus uses the same technique against the religious leaders in Matthew 21 when asked who gave Him his authority, His return question, was John’s Baptism from heaven or not, could not be answered in such a way as to not cause the leaders problems. In this particular instance, if Jesus were to “rule” that the woman should be stoned, He would run afoul of Roman laws against mob violence[25] and if He let the woman off the hook, then He would be countermanding the Law of Moses. The response of Jesus to this dilemma, certainly knowing the religious leader’s hearts and motives, is very interesting: He merely stoops down and writes on the ground. Much ink has been wasted trying to determine what exactly it was that Jesus wrote in the ground. Beasley-Murray offers a good list of past suggestions: Was He writing out His decision in the case before verbally announcing it? Was he writing out a passage from Exodus that warns against supporting a wicked man as a malicious witness? Was He writing in the dust to remind the scribes of Jeremiah’s words, “Those who turn away from you will be written in the dust, because they have forsaken the Lord, the spring of living water.” (Jeremiah 17:13, NIV).[26] I prefer Raymond Brown’s proposal; that Jesus was merely doodling[27], possibly to consider how to handle the situation wisely, possibly in prayer. The fact is that what Jesus wrote has not been recorded, so it clearly was only an important issue for the exact time the incident took place, if even then. By suggesting that the one who is without sin cast the first stone, Jesus brilliantly defuses the situation. It’s very possible He could be referring to Deuteronomy 17, which prescribes that nobody should be put to death on the testimony of just one witness, and that the witnesses should be the first one to cast the stone. Is Jesus pointing to the possibility of the corruption of the witnesses here – understanding that the woman, though guilty, was caught in an elaborate set up, and thus invalidating the “prosecution’s” case against her, or is He articulating a more basic principle – if you are sinless you can participate in her stoning? This is a difficult question to answer; Stephen James argues somewhat convincingly that what Jesus means by “without sin” in this context is that their case must be presented without evil motives, and in accordance with the law of Moses (how many witnesses to the act were there, more than one? What of the man?) The religious leaders knew their motives weren’t correct, and therefore left the scene.[28] It is also important to point out here that in defusing the scene the way He did, Jesus did not abrogate the Law of Moses, nor did He completely uphold it – He chose a third, an option that leaves open the question of whether those laws were still applicable in His mind. The incident ends with Jesus challenging the woman to go and leave her life of sin. Modern and ancient preachers and commentators alike have written or preached that Jesus actually forgave the woman – this is not the case – Jesus did not explicitly forgive her as recorded in the text, He simply chose not to condemn her, and exhorted her to also stop sinning. Application If we accept the hypothesis that this Pericope is an accurate and genuine happening, then how does it apply today? Did it abolish the death penalty, as many have argued? Did it usher in an age of more leniency on sin? What sort of standard is Jesus setting for those who would be in a position to judge or pronounce punishment over another? While it is very important to not draw doctrine out of a narrative that doesn’t explicitly indicate doctrinal things, this text can still go beyond being a beautiful story of the mercy and wisdom of Jesus and find application in our modern setting. The first application to consider is what this story says about the death penalty, if anything. As Stephen James points out, many (including John Howard Yoder, Dwight Erricson, Lewis Smedes, G.H. Clark, Charles H. Milligan etc) have used this passage to argue for the abolishment of the death penalty.[29] A careful reading of the text will clearly show that Jesus does not abolish the death penalty, indeed, He doesn’t even address the issue. Thus, both opponents and proponents of capital punishment will need to look in other places to justify their beliefs. I believe the real modern application of this passage is found in Jesus’ challenge to the religious leaders, “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.” (John 8:7 NIV) There seems to be a profound connection to this principle and the plank-eye principle that Jesus articulates in Luke 6 – in order to help remove the speck from your brother’s eye, you must first remove the plank from your own. The principle is this, that we should judge and purify ourselves, worrying less about the bad things we see in other people – until our own issues are dealt with – then we will see clearly to help others out. The principle is not advocating merely minding your own business – it is advocating personal holiness that can lead to corporate holiness when we help and challenge each other in right heart and attitude. The Pharisees and scribes were not at all interested in the principle behind the Mosaic laws they were urging Jesus to rule on (i.e. purge the evil from among you), they were just interested in accomplishing their own agendas. The church today cries out for those who would walk in holiness and near the heart of God to the point where we can see clearly enough to help our brothers out with the specks in their eyes, and we can pass judgments rightly. Conclusion An objective look at the Pericope Adulterae, its context, its grammar and its manuscript history leads one to the conclusion that this passage has been rightly seen as controversial through the ages. There is not the kind of overwhelming evidence that is needed for dogmatic statements regarding the authorship and canonicity of John 7:53-8:11 either for or against. There is substantial evidence, however, to demonstrate that this text represents a genuine and accurate event in the life of Jesus, and as such it can inform the modern believer about the nature of Jesus and the importance of holiness in the realm of judgment. [1] Somewhat awkward, but not completely out of place – see below. [2] Some scholars point out that Jesus sitting and teaching is a common feature of the Synoptic Gospels, and cite it as further proof of the Non-Johannine authorship of the Pericope – see John 6:3, however for another instance of Jesus sitting down among the people. Borchert, Gerald The New American Commentary Volume 25A: John 1-11. (electronic edition) Logos LibrarySystem (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1996) [3] For a full list of the major Greek manuscripts that omit this pericope, see: Metzger, Bruce M. A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, Second Ed. (New York: Oxford, 1992.), 219-220 [4] Brown, Raymond E. John 1-11. Anchor Bible 29. Garden City: Doubleday, 1982, 335 [5] Metzger, Bruce M. The Text of the New Testament – Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration, Third Ed. (New York: Oxford, 1992.), 50 [6] The Text of the New Testament – Its Transmission, Corruption and Restoration p. xxix [7] Burge, Gary M. “A Specific Problem In The New Testament Text And Canon: The Woman Caught In Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 27 no.2), 144 [8] “A Specific Problem In The New Testament Text And Canon: The Woman Caught In Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” 142 [9] Hodges, Zane C. “Problem Passages in the Gospel of John Part 8: The Woman Taken in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” (Bibliotheca Sacra 136 no. 544 (October, 1979), 329 [10] Poythress, Vern S. “Testing for Johannine Authorship by Examining the Use of Conjunctions” (Westminster Theological Journal 46, no. 2 Fall 1984), 362 [11] Bryant, Beauford H. and Krause, Mark S. John. The College Press NIV Commentary. (Joplin: College Press, 1998) [12] Borchert, Gerald – John 1-11 The New American Commentary. (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1996) [13] “Problem Passages in the Gospel of John Part 8: The Woman Taken in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” 323 [14] As quoted in “Problem Passages in the Gospel of John Part 8: The Woman Taken in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” 330 [15] “Problem Passages in the Gospel of John Part 8: The Woman Taken in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” 330 [16] As quoted in “Problem Passages in the Gospel of John Part 8: The Woman Taken in Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” 331 [17] Trites, Allison A. “The Woman Taken in Adultery” (Bibliotheca Sacra 131 no. 522 April, 1974) 138-144 [18] Johnson, Alan F. “A Stylistic Trait of the Fourth Gospel in the Pericope Adulterae” Bulletin of the Evangelical Theological Society (IX Spring, 1966) 91-96 [19] Beasley-Murray, George R. The Gospel according to John The Word Biblical Commentary. (Dallas: Word Incorporated, 1999.) [20] Raymond Brown quotes Eusebius, who in turn quotes Papias writing near the time of the Apostles about a woman who was brought before Jesus accused of many sins. Brown also mentions the 3rd century Syrian Didascalia Apostolorum, which gives clear reference to the events of the Pericope Adulterae which indicates that 2nd century Syria knew of the narrative. John 1-11, p. 335 [21] Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, p. 220 [22] John 1-11, p. 335 [23] Comfort, Phillip W. Encountering the Manuscripts (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2005) p.99 [24] “A Specific Problem In The New Testament Text And Canon: The Woman Caught In Adultery (John 7:53-8:11)” pages 146-148 [25] John 1-11 The New American Commentary [26] The Gospel according to John The Word Biblical Commentary [27] John 1-11. Anchor Bible 29 p. 334 [28] James, Stephen A. “The Adulteress And The Death Penalty.” (Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 22 no. 1 March, 1979) pages 49-50. [29] “The Adulteress And The Death Penalty.” Pages 45-46

god jesus christ california friends lord bible law fall gospel writing reading forgiveness revelation modern greek biblical exodus journal testing comfort barcelona treat catholic old testament sexual baptism fathers controversy longer restoration new testament latin conclusion feast scriptures apostles syria deuteronomy pharisees commentary corruption application mount doctrine word of god examining bible study caesar dialogue leviticus shelter wordpress pages passage gospel of john added audacity adultery bibles mosaic scholars apologetics niv conversely origen cyril olives clement hodges king james manuscripts ambrose krause george r libsyn tabernacles statistical holman metzger deeper look penance milligan christ john garden city john part dallas theological seminary central california irenaeus david platt cyprian woman caught in adultery burge tertullian coptic eusebius alexandrian bible questions alan johnson synoptic gospels syriac chrysostom greek new testament patristic evangelical theological society stephen james latin vulgate fourth gospel johannine poythress textus receptus gary m niv there papias codex sinaiticus leon morris greek nt john howard yoder codex vaticanus vaticanus pelagians new testament text bruce metzger sinaiticus bibliotheca sacra niv leviticus

EveryWord003 Mark 2

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 8, 2020 31:33

EveryWord003 Mark 2 Welcome to this THIRD podcast in a series that I am calling the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament, to which he gave the name, “The Sovereign God Has Spoken.” In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark chapter 2. Please bear in mind that the episode notes for all of my podcasts provide the text of everything I’m saying and links to supporting documentation. Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. I consider the Majority Text to be superior to the Eclectic Greek Text** which was used as the basis of most of the NT translations of the last century. **Footnote: The Eclectic Text is also called the Critical Text, the Nestle-Aland text, and the United Bible Societies (UBS) Text. The succeeding editions of the Eclectic Text have primarily followed Wescott and Hort, while the apparatus (or footnotes) dealing with textual variations has grown significantly to show details about textual variants found among Alexandrian manuscripts. The shift in the Greek text used for our Bible translations began around 1881, with the publication of Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which was based on an extremely small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type*— that is from Egypt. *Footnote: The two are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These are dated at 330-360 AD and 300-325 respectively. At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into newly discovered ancient New manuscripts from Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead the papyri manuscripts reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts. The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. It is my hope that these podcasts will build awareness of the faulty Greek text that underlies almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV. It is high time (now that I’ve reached the 3rd podcast) that I admit to you that— although I have worked as a Bible translator for most of my life— I am a new-comer to the whole study of textual criticism. In my article Playing Follow-the-Leader in Bible Translation, I speak about how little missionary Bible translators of my generation were trained in the area of textual criticism. I— unlike many of my colleagues— did not have the benefit of seminary education. My degrees are in the field of music. But from what I have heard from my seminary-trained colleagues, there is not much taught to normal seminary students about textual criticism. Few pastors today know anything about the subject. It was in April of 2018 that I had the opportunity to visit Timothy and Barbara Friberg in Indonesia. Four years prior to this my team and I had published the Plain Indonesian NT. Dr. Timothy Friberg is famous for compiling the Analytical Greek New Testament, which is a reference work that virtually all Bible translators use. (Incidentally the AGNT is now being released in a new and improved edition.) I sought Dr. Fribergs advice because of his experience translating the NT for Muslim background audiences, because I am a consultant for such a project. During my two-day visit, I received excellent advice, but also received a bonus I didn’t expect. Tim Friberg convinced me that the Majority Greek Text should be used in translating the New Testament for Muslim background believers. But then he asked, “Well, what about your Plain Indonesian New Testament? Are you going to revise that to follow the Majority Text?” This was a hard question for me because that NT was already published. I had just played follow-the-leader in basing that translation on the Eclectic text. After some thought and prayer, I concluded that God would be most glorified if my translation team and I revised our published New Testament to follow the Majority Text. The revisions are now about 75% complete. Please pray for us in this: Please pray that we will work carefully so that we do not make mistakes as we revise the Plain Indonesian New Testament. Please pray that Bible readers in Indonesia would be happy to have a translation following the Majority Text, even though that will make our translation different from the default Indonesian Bible. Being aware that the United Bible Society publishes the Eclectic Greek Text, please pray that the Indonesian Bible Society or other parties will not publicly criticize our move to the Majority Text. As I admitted above, I do not have training in the field of textual criticism. Because of that, I am sure that I have already made mistakes in these EveryWord podcasts. If you find errors in my statements, feel free to use the contact button at dailybiblereading.info to send your input to me. Mark 2 Pickering’s footnotes are indented and italicized in the PDF attached to this podcast. Find EveryWord003 at dailybiblereading.info and use the red Download PDF button to get it. A paralytic— the evaluation ¹ Well a few days later, He again entered Capernaum, and it was heard that He was at home. ² Without delay so many were gathered together that there was no more room, not even around the door, and He was speaking the Word to them. ³ Then four men came, carrying a paralytic to Him. ⁴ And not being able to get near Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof where He was; The roof was presumably flat, with an outside staircase leading up to it. I suppose damaging someone else’s roof could be considered a crime, but they were determined. If Jesus was in His own house, there would be no problem. upon breaking through they lowered the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. ⁵ So seeing their faith Jesus says to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you”. ⁶ Now some of the scribes were sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts: ⁷ “Why does this guy speak blasphemies like that? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” ⁸ Immediately Jesus perceived in His spirit what they were reasoning within themselves *Time and again the Inspired Record will point out that Jesus could read people’s thoughts. and said to them: “Why are you reasoning these things in your hearts? ⁹ Which is easier: *I suppose the point to be that the first is easier to say, because no one can see whether it happened or not. But if you tell a paralytic to get up and he doesn’t, you get egg on the face. The Lord did it that way to help them believe that He could really forgive sin. There was nothing wrong with the scribes’ inference; indeed only God can forgive sin, so in fact Jesus was claiming to be God! to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins have been forgiven’, or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your pallet and start walking!’? ¹⁰ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on the earth to forgive sins” —He says to the paralytic: ¹¹ “To you I say, get up, pick up your pallet and go to your house!” ¹² So forthwith he got up, picked up his pallet and went out in front of them all; so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!” Quite right; they never had! PCF: I agree heartily with Pickering’s footnote on v. 8. I think especially of the Gospel of John that repeatedly shows that Jesus could read people’s thoughts. I do not agree with Pickering’s first sentence about ‘which is easier to say’. The idea he supports is that it would be easier to forgive sins because no one could tell if it happened. But even he seems a bit doubtful about saying that, because his sentence starts with, “I suppose the point to be …” Yes, the interpretation he gives— that forgiving the man’s sins would be the easier to say— can be found in some commentaries. But that is worldly thinking. Jesus would have known that saying ‘I forgive your sins’ would mean that He would pay for those sins on the cross. But Pickering is right in the last part of that footnote. Only God can forgive sin, so the scribes’ inference was right. He might as well as said, ‘I am God’. There is interesting linguistic support for only God being able to forgive sins. In the Orya language of Papua, Indonesia, and in many other languages, ordinary persons cannot ‘forgive’ someone else’s wrongs or sins. The word the Orya language uses for forgiving on a person-to-person level is simply to ‘forget’. You can choose to ‘forget’ a sin someone commits against you. But the real word for ‘forgive’ in Orya means to ‘finish’ or ‘nullify’ the sin. Only God can finish all the liabilities of a sin or nullify the consequences. So the scribes were right that it takes an action of God to have one’s sins forgiven. Matthew called ¹³ Then He went out again by the sea; and the whole crowd came to Him, and He began to teach them. ¹⁴ As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and He said to him, “Follow me”. So he got up and followed Him. ¹⁵ Now it happened, as He was reclining at the table in his house, Matthew’s—he evidently put on a big dinner and invited all his associates. that many tax collectors and sinners ‘Tax collectors and sinners’ seems to have been almost a frozen idiom. A Jew who collected taxes for Rome was viewed as a traitor and held in very low esteem. joined Jesus and His disciples at the table; for there were many and they followed Him. ¹⁶ The scribes and the Pharisees, seeing Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, said to His disciples, “Why is it that He is eating and drinking with the tax collectors and sinners?” ¹⁷ Upon hearing it Jesus said to them: “It is not the healthy who have need of a doctor, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Perhaps 10% of the Greek manuscripts omit ‘to repentance’, to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc. Fasting ¹⁸ Now John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees were fasting; and they came and said to Him, “Why do John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?” ¹⁹ So Jesus said to them: “Can the groomsmen fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom to themselves they cannot fast. ²⁰ But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast, in those days. Some 15% of the Greek manuscripts read ‘day’ instead of ‘days’ (as in NIV, NASB, TEV, etc.), but obviously the fasting would take place on more than one day. PCF: The two textual variants from the Majority Text that Pickering points out in verses 17 and 20 both make better sense than what is found in the Eclectic text. In particular, it seems a shame that most Bibles of the last century left out the words ‘to repentance’ in verse 17. The men who compiled the Eclectic Text chose a principle that would favor the Alexandrian manuscripts. They decided that a shorter variant in a text was more likely to be correct. Verse 17 is shorter without the two words ‘to repentance’ but it leaves the reader wondering, “Where is Jesus calling sinners to come to?” In the early years of the Eclectic Text movement, people did not yet realize that Alexandrian copyists frequently shortened the texts they copied. This goes for secular works as well as NT books. Alexandrian copies of Homer’s poems are much shorter than manuscripts found in other places. Together with verse 17, there are four places where Mark’s account uses the words ‘repent’ and ‘repentance’. Clearly the call to repentance was an important part of what both John the Baptist and Jesus taught. In Mark, Jesus sent the disciples out preaching that people ‘should repent’. (6:11) So having Jesus say that his mission was to call sinners to repent makes good sense in the context of this gospel. Cloth and wineskins ²¹ “Further, no one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, or else the new tears away some of the old, and a worse hole results. ²² And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine spills out and the skins will be ruined; rather, new wine must be put into new wineskins.” There is no way of renewing an old wineskin. Whenever a church becomes an ‘old wineskin’, any introduction of new wine will always cause a split. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath ²³ Between verses 22 and 23 all of John chapter 5 takes place—that chapter revolves around the second Passover of His public ministry, in 28 A.D. A year and a half have passed since His baptism. Now it happened, on a Sabbath, that He was passing through some grain fields, and His disciples began to make a path, picking the heads of grain. ²⁴ So the Pharisees said to Him, “Just look, why are they doing on a Sabbath that which is not permitted?” ²⁵ And He said to them: “Did you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him? ²⁶ How he entered the house of God (making Abiathar high priest) My rendering is rather different than the ‘in the days of Abiathar the high priest’ of the AV. We are translating three Greek words that very literally would be ‘upon Abiathar high priest’. When we go back to the Old Testament account, we discover that David actually conversed with Ahimelech, Abiathar’s father, who was the high priest at that moment (1 Samuel 21:1-9). Within a few days Saul massacred Ahimelech and 84 other priests (1 Samuel 22:16-18), but his son Abiathar escaped and went to David, taking the ephod with him (1 Samuel 22:20-23; 23:6). That David could use it to inquire of the LORD rather suggests that it had to be the ephod that only the high priest wore (1 Samuel 23:9-12). That ephod was to a high priest like the crown was to a king; so how could Abiathar have it? The Text states that David’s visit filled Ahimelech with fear, presumably because he too saw Doeg the Edomite and figured what would happen. Now why wasn’t Abiathar taken with the others? I suggest that Ahimelech had a pretty good idea what would happen, so he deliberately consecrated Abiathar, gave him the ephod, and told him to hide; Abiathar escaped, but carried the news of the massacre with him; only now he was the high priest. Putting it all together, it was David’s visit that resulted in Abiathar’s becoming high priest prematurely, as David himself recognized, and to which Jesus alluded. and ate the consecrated bread, which only priests are permitted to eat, and shared it with those who were with him?” ²⁷ Then He said to them: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. This is a crucial point. The Pharisees, etc., had turned the Sabbath into an instrument of domination that they used to impose their authority on the people. ²⁸ Therefore the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” The Lord of the Sabbath can change the rules, or even retire it! Abiathar is not Ahimelech Mark 2:26 X 1 Samuel 21:1 Some of my readers may be aware that this verse has destroyed the faith of at least one scholar in our day, although he was reared in an evangelical home. He understood Jesus to be saying that Abiathar was the priest with whom David dealt, when in fact it was his father, Ahimelech. If Jesus stated an historical error as fact, then he could not be God. So he turned his back on Jesus. I consider that his decision was lamentable and unnecessary, and in the interest of helping others who may be troubled by this verse, I offer the following explanation: “How he entered the house of God (making Abiathar high priest) and ate the consecrated bread, which only priests are permitted to eat, and shared it with those who were with him.” My rendering is rather different than the ‘in the days of Abiathar the high priest’ of the AV, NKJV and NIV. We are translating three Greek words that very literally would be ‘upon Abiathar high-priest’ (but the preposition here, επι, is the most versatile of the Greek prepositions, and one of its many meanings/uses is 'toward'―the standard lexicon, BDAG, lists fully eighteen areas of meaning, quite apart from sub-divisions). When we go back to the Old Testament account, we discover that David actually conversed with Ahimelech, Abiathar’s father, who was the high priest at that moment (1 Samuel 21:1-9). Within a few days Saul massacred Ahimelech and 84 other priests (1 Samuel 22:16-18), but his son Abiathar escaped and went to David, taking the ephod with him (1Samuel 22:20-23; 23:6). That David could use it to inquire of the Lord rather suggests that it had to be the ephod that only the high priest wore, since only that ephod had the Urim and Thummim (1 Samuel 23:9-12; cf. Numbers 27:21, Ezra 2:63). That ephod was to a high priest like the crown was to a king; so how could Abiathar have it? The Text states that David’s visit filled Ahimelech with fear, presumably because he too saw Doeg the Edomite and figured what would happen. Now why wasn’t Abiathar taken with the others? I suggest that Ahimelech foresaw what would happen (Doeg probably took off immediately, and Ahimelech figured he wouldn't have much time), so he deliberately consecrated Abiathar, gave him the ephod, and told him to hide―he probably did it that very day (once the soldiers arrived to arrest Ahimelech and the other 84, it would be too late). Abiathar escaped, but carried the news of the massacre with him; only now he was the high priest. Putting it all together, it was David’s visit that resulted in Abiathar’s becoming high priest prematurely, as David himself recognized, and to which Jesus alluded in passing (which is why I used parentheses). But why would Jesus allude to that? I suppose because the Bible is straightforward about the consequences of sin, and David lied to Ahimelech. Although Jesus was using David's eating that bread as an example, He did not wish to gloss over the sin, and its consequences. Recall that Jesus was addressing Pharisees, who were steeped in the OT Scriptures. A notorious case like Saul's massacre of 85 priests would be very well known. And of course, none of the NT had yet been written, so any understanding of what Jesus said had to be based on 1 Samuel (“Have you never read…?”). If we today wish to understand this passage, we need to place ourselves in the context recorded in Mark 2:23-28. The Pharisees would understand that if Abiathar was in possession of the ephod with the Urim and Thummim, then he was the high priest. And how did he get that way? He got that way because of David's visit. It was an immediate consequence of that visit. Some may object that 'making' is a verb, not a preposition. Well, the 'in the days of' of the AV, etc., though not a verb, is a phrase. Both a pronoun and an adverb may stand for a phrase, and a preposition may as well. TEV and Phillips actually use a verb: ‘when… was’; NLT has ‘during the days when… was’. Where the others used from two to five words, I used only one. PCF: Just a little comment from me on the this topic. The problem in this verse is very hard to deal with, and I am linking an article here written by Dr. Daniel Wallace to illustrate how hard this is. As I said before, we can’t prove anything because of how vague Greek prepositions are. An added thing to think about is that Jesus could have been speaking in Aramaic, not Greek, because that was the everyday language for him. I am willing to set this aside as a problem we cannot solve for sure. But one thing I hold onto is that God’s Word is true in the Old Testament record, and what Jesus said was also true. It seems more likely to me to conclude that He knew much more than us about it, and various things could have happened like what Pickering posits. Secondly I think the comment about this verse destroying the faith of a Christian scholar is interesting. If you know who that scholar was, please let me know. My searches on the internet for likely choices failed to turn up the answer. Just the other day my son, David, mentioned how a little thing like this that erodes one’s faith puts a person on a dangerous slippery slope. He told about a fellow graduate of his Christian university who was his friend. But the friend learned things that shook his faith. He ended up as a pastor in an extremely liberal denomination. But now he has left even that and has taken up with Hindus in India, but it is unclear if he really believes what they teach either. A little thing like the presence of footnotes in our Bibles could be the thing that would cause someone to embark on that slippery downward slope. People will think, “Well, who knows what the apostles really wrote?” This has been a problem with the adoption of the Eclectic Text starting in 1901, which has contributed to liberalism in the church for over a century. Now I ask my listeners, Would your church hire someone as (let’s say) an associate pastor if the person did not believe in the inspiration of the Bible? I think I can hear the answer. My church wouldn’t. If someone interviewed for a job at my church without believing in Jesus or the inspiration of the Bible, the interview would quickly change to my pastor seeking to share the Gospel with that person. So then I ask, Do you think that it would be a good idea to trust a person with beliefs like that to manage the Greek text that is translated for our Bibles? I don’t think so! I recommend an an article I found about the beliefs of Kurt Aland, the one whose name is on the publications of the Nestle-Aland Eclectic Greek Text. It is linked here in the episode notes. The episode notes for all of the Every Word podcasts will include a Resources section which gives links to articles that will give further documentation about all of my claims about the Majority Text, the Eclectic Text, and about different Bible translations. All of Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s works are released according to the Creative Commons License and are available at PRUNCH.net. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices. Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” That title contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott and Hort. In their age Darwinism had invaded the church. W&H did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God. Nor did they believe that God has actively inspired every word of Scripture and has made sure that every word has been preserved. Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by Every Word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4) May the Lord bless you ‘real good’! Resources: Fields, Philip: Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text. Friberg, Timothy: On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable. I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below. Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019. What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019. Pickering, Wilbur: New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35 Articles and other major works: See PRUNCH.net. Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018. This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways. Article: Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27

god jesus christ family time lord apple bible man gospel creator leader putting scripture numbers greek rome jews muslims old testament android fasting sabbath new testament indonesia robinson differences egyptian passover individual pharisees john the baptist phillips tax baptist kindle verse gospel of john av recall homer bibles 1 samuel mark 2 niv if jesus nt esv lb deut only god capernaum nlt rsv eclectic nkjv cloth in mark luk hindus wh aramaic pickering bible translations darwinism nasb papua layman every word hort english bible alphaeus urim alexandrian gnt doeg asv abiathar tev although jesus edomite immediately jesus greek new testament thummim ahimelech wescott friberg daniel wallace download pdf codex sinaiticus codex vaticanus ot scriptures bdag that david majority text orya agnt nestle aland

EveryWord003 Mark 2

Christian History Almanac

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 8, 2020 31:33

EveryWord003 Mark 2 Welcome to this THIRD podcast in a series that I am calling the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament, to which he gave the name, “The Sovereign God Has Spoken.” In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark chapter 2. Please bear in mind that the episode notes for all of my podcasts provide the text of everything I’m saying and links to supporting documentation. Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. I consider the Majority Text to be superior to the Eclectic Greek Text** which was used as the basis of most of the NT translations of the last century. **Footnote: The Eclectic Text is also called the Critical Text, the Nestle-Aland text, and the United Bible Societies (UBS) Text. The succeeding editions of the Eclectic Text have primarily followed Wescott and Hort, while the apparatus (or footnotes) dealing with textual variations has grown significantly to show details about textual variants found among Alexandrian manuscripts. The shift in the Greek text used for our Bible translations began around 1881, with the publication of Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which was based on an extremely small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type*— that is from Egypt. *Footnote: The two are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These are dated at 330-360 AD and 300-325 respectively. At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into newly discovered ancient New manuscripts from Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead the papyri manuscripts reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts. The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. It is my hope that these podcasts will build awareness of the faulty Greek text that underlies almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV. It is high time (now that I’ve reached the 3rd podcast) that I admit to you that— although I have worked as a Bible translator for most of my life— I am a new-comer to the whole study of textual criticism. In my article Playing Follow-the-Leader in Bible Translation, I speak about how little missionary Bible translators of my generation were trained in the area of textual criticism. I— unlike many of my colleagues— did not have the benefit of seminary education. My degrees are in the field of music. But from what I have heard from my seminary-trained colleagues, there is not much taught to normal seminary students about textual criticism. Few pastors today know anything about the subject. It was in April of 2018 that I had the opportunity to visit Timothy and Barbara Friberg in Indonesia. Four years prior to this my team and I had published the Plain Indonesian NT. Dr. Timothy Friberg is famous for compiling the Analytical Greek New Testament, which is a reference work that virtually all Bible translators use. (Incidentally the AGNT is now being released in a new and improved edition.) I sought Dr. Fribergs advice because of his experience translating the NT for Muslim background audiences, because I am a consultant for such a project. During my two-day visit, I received excellent advice, but also received a bonus I didn’t expect. Tim Friberg convinced me that the Majority Greek Text should be used in translating the New Testament for Muslim background believers. But then he asked, “Well, what about your Plain Indonesian New Testament? Are you going to revise that to follow the Majority Text?” This was a hard question for me because that NT was already published. I had just played follow-the-leader in basing that translation on the Eclectic text. After some thought and prayer, I concluded that God would be most glorified if my translation team and I revised our published New Testament to follow the Majority Text. The revisions are now about 75% complete. Please pray for us in this: Please pray that we will work carefully so that we do not make mistakes as we revise the Plain Indonesian New Testament. Please pray that Bible readers in Indonesia would be happy to have a translation following the Majority Text, even though that will make our translation different from the default Indonesian Bible. Being aware that the United Bible Society publishes the Eclectic Greek Text, please pray that the Indonesian Bible Society or other parties will not publicly criticize our move to the Majority Text. As I admitted above, I do not have training in the field of textual criticism. Because of that, I am sure that I have already made mistakes in these EveryWord podcasts. If you find errors in my statements, feel free to use the contact button at dailybiblereading.info to send your input to me. Mark 2 Pickering’s footnotes are indented and italicized in the PDF attached to this podcast. Find EveryWord003 at dailybiblereading.info and use the red Download PDF button to get it. A paralytic— the evaluation ¹ Well a few days later, He again entered Capernaum, and it was heard that He was at home. ² Without delay so many were gathered together that there was no more room, not even around the door, and He was speaking the Word to them. ³ Then four men came, carrying a paralytic to Him. ⁴ And not being able to get near Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof where He was; The roof was presumably flat, with an outside staircase leading up to it. I suppose damaging someone else’s roof could be considered a crime, but they were determined. If Jesus was in His own house, there would be no problem. upon breaking through they lowered the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. ⁵ So seeing their faith Jesus says to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you”. ⁶ Now some of the scribes were sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts: ⁷ “Why does this guy speak blasphemies like that? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” ⁸ Immediately Jesus perceived in His spirit what they were reasoning within themselves *Time and again the Inspired Record will point out that Jesus could read people’s thoughts. and said to them: “Why are you reasoning these things in your hearts? ⁹ Which is easier: *I suppose the point to be that the first is easier to say, because no one can see whether it happened or not. But if you tell a paralytic to get up and he doesn’t, you get egg on the face. The Lord did it that way to help them believe that He could really forgive sin. There was nothing wrong with the scribes’ inference; indeed only God can forgive sin, so in fact Jesus was claiming to be God! to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins have been forgiven’, or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your pallet and start walking!’? ¹⁰ But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on the earth to forgive sins” —He says to the paralytic: ¹¹ “To you I say, get up, pick up your pallet and go to your house!” ¹² So forthwith he got up, picked up his pallet and went out in front of them all; so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!” Quite right; they never had! PCF: I agree heartily with Pickering’s footnote on v. 8. I think especially of the Gospel of John that repeatedly shows that Jesus could read people’s thoughts. I do not agree with Pickering’s first sentence about ‘which is easier to say’. The idea he supports is that it would be easier to forgive sins because no one could tell if it happened. But even he seems a bit doubtful about saying that, because his sentence starts with, “I suppose the point to be …” Yes, the interpretation he gives— that forgiving the man’s sins would be the easier to say— can be found in some commentaries. But that is worldly thinking. Jesus would have known that saying ‘I forgive your sins’ would mean that He would pay for those sins on the cross. But Pickering is right in the last part of that footnote. Only God can forgive sin, so the scribes’ inference was right. He might as well as said, ‘I am God’. There is interesting linguistic support for only God being able to forgive sins. In the Orya language of Papua, Indonesia, and in many other languages, ordinary persons cannot ‘forgive’ someone else’s wrongs or sins. The word the Orya language uses for forgiving on a person-to-person level is simply to ‘forget’. You can choose to ‘forget’ a sin someone commits against you. But the real word for ‘forgive’ in Orya means to ‘finish’ or ‘nullify’ the sin. Only God can finish all the liabilities of a sin or nullify the consequences. So the scribes were right that it takes an action of God to have one’s sins forgiven. Matthew called ¹³ Then He went out again by the sea; and the whole crowd came to Him, and He began to teach them. ¹⁴ As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office, and He said to him, “Follow me”. So he got up and followed Him. ¹⁵ Now it happened, as He was reclining at the table in his house, Matthew’s—he evidently put on a big dinner and invited all his associates. that many tax collectors and sinners ‘Tax collectors and sinners’ seems to have been almost a frozen idiom. A Jew who collected taxes for Rome was viewed as a traitor and held in very low esteem. joined Jesus and His disciples at the table; for there were many and they followed Him. ¹⁶ The scribes and the Pharisees, seeing Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, said to His disciples, “Why is it that He is eating and drinking with the tax collectors and sinners?” ¹⁷ Upon hearing it Jesus said to them: “It is not the healthy who have need of a doctor, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” Perhaps 10% of the Greek manuscripts omit ‘to repentance’, to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc. Fasting ¹⁸ Now John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees were fasting; and they came and said to Him, “Why do John’s disciples and those of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not?” ¹⁹ So Jesus said to them: “Can the groomsmen fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom to themselves they cannot fast. ²⁰ But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast, in those days. Some 15% of the Greek manuscripts read ‘day’ instead of ‘days’ (as in NIV, NASB, TEV, etc.), but obviously the fasting would take place on more than one day. PCF: The two textual variants from the Majority Text that Pickering points out in verses 17 and 20 both make better sense than what is found in the Eclectic text. In particular, it seems a shame that most Bibles of the last century left out the words ‘to repentance’ in verse 17. The men who compiled the Eclectic Text chose a principle that would favor the Alexandrian manuscripts. They decided that a shorter variant in a text was more likely to be correct. Verse 17 is shorter without the two words ‘to repentance’ but it leaves the reader wondering, “Where is Jesus calling sinners to come to?” In the early years of the Eclectic Text movement, people did not yet realize that Alexandrian copyists frequently shortened the texts they copied. This goes for secular works as well as NT books. Alexandrian copies of Homer’s poems are much shorter than manuscripts found in other places. Together with verse 17, there are four places where Mark’s account uses the words ‘repent’ and ‘repentance’. Clearly the call to repentance was an important part of what both John the Baptist and Jesus taught. In Mark, Jesus sent the disciples out preaching that people ‘should repent’. (6:11) So having Jesus say that his mission was to call sinners to repent makes good sense in the context of this gospel. Cloth and wineskins ²¹ “Further, no one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, or else the new tears away some of the old, and a worse hole results. ²² And no one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine spills out and the skins will be ruined; rather, new wine must be put into new wineskins.” There is no way of renewing an old wineskin. Whenever a church becomes an ‘old wineskin’, any introduction of new wine will always cause a split. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath ²³ Between verses 22 and 23 all of John chapter 5 takes place—that chapter revolves around the second Passover of His public ministry, in 28 A.D. A year and a half have passed since His baptism. Now it happened, on a Sabbath, that He was passing through some grain fields, and His disciples began to make a path, picking the heads of grain. ²⁴ So the Pharisees said to Him, “Just look, why are they doing on a Sabbath that which is not permitted?” ²⁵ And He said to them: “Did you never read what David did when he was in need and hungry, he and those with him? ²⁶ How he entered the house of God (making Abiathar high priest) My rendering is rather different than the ‘in the days of Abiathar the high priest’ of the AV. We are translating three Greek words that very literally would be ‘upon Abiathar high priest’. When we go back to the Old Testament account, we discover that David actually conversed with Ahimelech, Abiathar’s father, who was the high priest at that moment (1 Samuel 21:1-9). Within a few days Saul massacred Ahimelech and 84 other priests (1 Samuel 22:16-18), but his son Abiathar escaped and went to David, taking the ephod with him (1 Samuel 22:20-23; 23:6). That David could use it to inquire of the LORD rather suggests that it had to be the ephod that only the high priest wore (1 Samuel 23:9-12). That ephod was to a high priest like the crown was to a king; so how could Abiathar have it? The Text states that David’s visit filled Ahimelech with fear, presumably because he too saw Doeg the Edomite and figured what would happen. Now why wasn’t Abiathar taken with the others? I suggest that Ahimelech had a pretty good idea what would happen, so he deliberately consecrated Abiathar, gave him the ephod, and told him to hide; Abiathar escaped, but carried the news of the massacre with him; only now he was the high priest. Putting it all together, it was David’s visit that resulted in Abiathar’s becoming high priest prematurely, as David himself recognized, and to which Jesus alluded. and ate the consecrated bread, which only priests are permitted to eat, and shared it with those who were with him?” ²⁷ Then He said to them: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. This is a crucial point. The Pharisees, etc., had turned the Sabbath into an instrument of domination that they used to impose their authority on the people. ²⁸ Therefore the Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath.” The Lord of the Sabbath can change the rules, or even retire it! Abiathar is not Ahimelech Mark 2:26 X 1 Samuel 21:1 Some of my readers may be aware that this verse has destroyed the faith of at least one scholar in our day, although he was reared in an evangelical home. He understood Jesus to be saying that Abiathar was the priest with whom David dealt, when in fact it was his father, Ahimelech. If Jesus stated an historical error as fact, then he could not be God. So he turned his back on Jesus. I consider that his decision was lamentable and unnecessary, and in the interest of helping others who may be troubled by this verse, I offer the following explanation: “How he entered the house of God (making Abiathar high priest) and ate the consecrated bread, which only priests are permitted to eat, and shared it with those who were with him.” My rendering is rather different than the ‘in the days of Abiathar the high priest’ of the AV, NKJV and NIV. We are translating three Greek words that very literally would be ‘upon Abiathar high-priest’ (but the preposition here, επι, is the most versatile of the Greek prepositions, and one of its many meanings/uses is 'toward'―the standard lexicon, BDAG, lists fully eighteen areas of meaning, quite apart from sub-divisions). When we go back to the Old Testament account, we discover that David actually conversed with Ahimelech, Abiathar’s father, who was the high priest at that moment (1 Samuel 21:1-9). Within a few days Saul massacred Ahimelech and 84 other priests (1 Samuel 22:16-18), but his son Abiathar escaped and went to David, taking the ephod with him (1Samuel 22:20-23; 23:6). That David could use it to inquire of the Lord rather suggests that it had to be the ephod that only the high priest wore, since only that ephod had the Urim and Thummim (1 Samuel 23:9-12; cf. Numbers 27:21, Ezra 2:63). That ephod was to a high priest like the crown was to a king; so how could Abiathar have it? The Text states that David’s visit filled Ahimelech with fear, presumably because he too saw Doeg the Edomite and figured what would happen. Now why wasn’t Abiathar taken with the others? I suggest that Ahimelech foresaw what would happen (Doeg probably took off immediately, and Ahimelech figured he wouldn't have much time), so he deliberately consecrated Abiathar, gave him the ephod, and told him to hide―he probably did it that very day (once the soldiers arrived to arrest Ahimelech and the other 84, it would be too late). Abiathar escaped, but carried the news of the massacre with him; only now he was the high priest. Putting it all together, it was David’s visit that resulted in Abiathar’s becoming high priest prematurely, as David himself recognized, and to which Jesus alluded in passing (which is why I used parentheses). But why would Jesus allude to that? I suppose because the Bible is straightforward about the consequences of sin, and David lied to Ahimelech. Although Jesus was using David's eating that bread as an example, He did not wish to gloss over the sin, and its consequences. Recall that Jesus was addressing Pharisees, who were steeped in the OT Scriptures. A notorious case like Saul's massacre of 85 priests would be very well known. And of course, none of the NT had yet been written, so any understanding of what Jesus said had to be based on 1 Samuel (“Have you never read…?”). If we today wish to understand this passage, we need to place ourselves in the context recorded in Mark 2:23-28. The Pharisees would understand that if Abiathar was in possession of the ephod with the Urim and Thummim, then he was the high priest. And how did he get that way? He got that way because of David's visit. It was an immediate consequence of that visit. Some may object that 'making' is a verb, not a preposition. Well, the 'in the days of' of the AV, etc., though not a verb, is a phrase. Both a pronoun and an adverb may stand for a phrase, and a preposition may as well. TEV and Phillips actually use a verb: ‘when… was’; NLT has ‘during the days when… was’. Where the others used from two to five words, I used only one. PCF: Just a little comment from me on the this topic. The problem in this verse is very hard to deal with, and I am linking an article here written by Dr. Daniel Wallace to illustrate how hard this is. As I said before, we can’t prove anything because of how vague Greek prepositions are. An added thing to think about is that Jesus could have been speaking in Aramaic, not Greek, because that was the everyday language for him. I am willing to set this aside as a problem we cannot solve for sure. But one thing I hold onto is that God’s Word is true in the Old Testament record, and what Jesus said was also true. It seems more likely to me to conclude that He knew much more than us about it, and various things could have happened like what Pickering posits. Secondly I think the comment about this verse destroying the faith of a Christian scholar is interesting. If you know who that scholar was, please let me know. My searches on the internet for likely choices failed to turn up the answer. Just the other day my son, David, mentioned how a little thing like this that erodes one’s faith puts a person on a dangerous slippery slope. He told about a fellow graduate of his Christian university who was his friend. But the friend learned things that shook his faith. He ended up as a pastor in an extremely liberal denomination. But now he has left even that and has taken up with Hindus in India, but it is unclear if he really believes what they teach either. A little thing like the presence of footnotes in our Bibles could be the thing that would cause someone to embark on that slippery downward slope. People will think, “Well, who knows what the apostles really wrote?” This has been a problem with the adoption of the Eclectic Text starting in 1901, which has contributed to liberalism in the church for over a century. Now I ask my listeners, Would your church hire someone as (let’s say) an associate pastor if the person did not believe in the inspiration of the Bible? I think I can hear the answer. My church wouldn’t. If someone interviewed for a job at my church without believing in Jesus or the inspiration of the Bible, the interview would quickly change to my pastor seeking to share the Gospel with that person. So then I ask, Do you think that it would be a good idea to trust a person with beliefs like that to manage the Greek text that is translated for our Bibles? I don’t think so! I recommend an an article I found about the beliefs of Kurt Aland, the one whose name is on the publications of the Nestle-Aland Eclectic Greek Text. It is linked here in the episode notes. The episode notes for all of the Every Word podcasts will include a Resources section which gives links to articles that will give further documentation about all of my claims about the Majority Text, the Eclectic Text, and about different Bible translations. All of Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s works are released according to the Creative Commons License and are available at PRUNCH.net. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices. Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” That title contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott and Hort. In their age Darwinism had invaded the church. W&H did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God. Nor did they believe that God has actively inspired every word of Scripture and has made sure that every word has been preserved. Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by Every Word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4) May the Lord bless you ‘real good’! Resources: Fields, Philip: Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text. Friberg, Timothy: On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable. I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below. Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019. What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019. Pickering, Wilbur: New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35 Articles and other major works: See PRUNCH.net. Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018. This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways. Article: Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27

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Tuesday, February 4, 2020

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 4, 2020 7:36

On this day in 1859, the Codex Sinaiticus was discovered. And a few years later in 1906, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born. The reading is from Bonhoeffer's "Meditations on the Cross." We’re a part of 1517 Podcasts, a network of shows dedicated to delivering Christ-centered content. Our podcasts cover a multitude of content, from Christian doctrine, apologetics, cultural engagement, and powerful preaching. Support the work of 1517 today.

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Show #111 – Simonides Affair

Messiah Matters

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 3, 2020

Was the discovery of Codex Sinaiticus by Tischendorf as great as everyone thinks? Or is this codex a forgery, as Constantine Simonides claimed? The post Show #111 – Simonides Affair appeared first on Messiah Matters.

affair codex sinaiticus tischendorf

EveryWord002 Mark 1:29-45

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 23, 2020 30:29

Welcome to this SECOND podcast in a series that I am calling the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament. The NT was named, “The Sovereign God Has Spoken,” and I will read from the 2016 2nd edition. In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark 1:29-45. This is the kind of podcast where it might be better to look at the episode notes while listening. If you are flying down the freeway right now, just bear it in mind that you may want to check this out later. With a few exceptions that I will discuss today, Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. I consider the Majority Text to be superior to the Eclectic Greek Text which was used as the basis of most of the NT translations of the last century. The shift in the Greek text used for our Bible translations began around 1881, with the publication of Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which was based on an extremely small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type*— that is from Egypt. *Footnote: The two are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These are dated at 330-360 AD and 300-325 respectively. At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into newly discovered ancient New manuscripts from Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead the papyri manuscripts reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts. The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. In this podcast, I am trying in a small way to undo the damage caused by Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which passed a legacy of mistakes down to all succeeding editions of the Eclectic/Critical Greek Text.** The damage I speak of can be found in almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV. **Footnote: The Eclectic Text is also called the Critical Text, the Nestle-Aland text, and the United Bible Societies (UBS) Text. The succeeding editions of the Eclectic Text have primarily followed Wescott and Hort, while the apparatus (or footnotes) dealing with textual variations has grown significantly to show details about textual variants found among Alexandrian manuscripts. You may ask, “How can I find the damage that you speak of in my Bible?” The quick answer is to examine the footnotes found in the New Testament. Then check out what Pickering has to say in his NT translation. Mar 1:29-45: Pickering’s footnotes are indented and italicized. Peter’s mother-in-law 29 Immediately upon exiting the synagogue they went into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Simon’s mother-in-law was lying down with a fever, so without delay they told Him about her. *WP footnote: The parallel passage in Luke 4:37 specifies that it was a high fever—she was burning. 31 So He went and grasping her hand lifted her up; immediately the fever left her and she began to serve them. *WP footnote: A high fever usually leaves a person weak, even after it passes, so we really have a double miracle here: Jesus dismissed the fever, but also reversed its effect. Many healings 32 That evening, when the sun had set, they started bringing to Him all who were sick and the demonized. 33 So much so that the whole town was gathered at the door, 34 and He healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons; and He did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew He was Messiah. *WP footnote: I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission; most versions omit “He was Messiah”. Alone to pray 35 Now very early, still night, He got up, slipped out, and went off to a solitary place, where He was praying. 36 Simon and those with him hunted for Him, 37 and upon finding Him they said to Him, “Everyone is looking for you”. 38 But He said to them: “Let us go to the neighboring towns, so I can preach there also; that is why I have come.” *WP footnote: I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission; most versions have ‘come forth’, presumably referring to why He had slipped out of town. 39 He was constantly preaching in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and also casting out demons. The hinge—proof, evaluation, rejection, blasphemy A leper—the proof 40 A leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling before Him and saying to Him, “If you want to, you are able to cleanse me”. 41 So being moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, *WP footnote: Wow! In those days, no one would touch a leper, because of contamination. Notice that Jesus agreed with the leper: “I want to; be cleansed!” Beautiful! and said to him: “I want to; be cleansed!” 42 And when He said this, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed. 43 And He sent him away at once, sternly warning him, 44 by saying: “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing the things that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” *WP footnote: This would be the first case the priest had ever had of evaluating a cleansed leper, because only the Messiah could cure leprosy. By instructing the cleansed leper in this way, Jesus was serving notice to the priests that the Messiah had come. 45 However he [the leper] went out and began to proclaim it freely, spreading the news, But he did go to the priest, which resulted in the following evaluation—Luke makes this point clearly in his parallel account. That said, however, I can sympathize with that leper—he had good reason to sound off! But it did increase the pressure on Jesus. so that He [Jesus] was no longer able to enter a town openly, but remained outside in deserted places; yet [people//they] kept coming to Him from all over. *WP footnote: There were an awful lot of sick people who all of a sudden had hope. My comments: Before commenting on two textual variants footnoted by Pickering in the portion I just read, I would like to go back to the first episode to verse 1, and the variant that I pointed out at the end of the verse: 1 A beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God! Pickering has a footnote that says, “There is no definite article with ‘Son’, which in this case emphasizes the inherent quality of the noun.” So Pickering makes this comment about his translation, not about a textual variant. He says that in Greek, ‘Son of God’ has no article before it. In other words, Greek doesn’t say, ‘the Son of God’. His comment may be right that in Greek, the absence of an article gives emphasis. Unfortunately, English doesn’t work that way, and not using the article ‘the’ before ‘Son of God’ makes the sentence sound odd to me, and an odd-sounding sentence doesn’t give me a feeling of emphasis. Pickering also leaves out a ‘the’ in a similar place is verse 34, and to me his translation sounds odd there too. (“and He did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew He was Messiah.”) So here’s a little translational principle for free from me: Forcing an English translation to follow the Greek in tiny little grammatical things often doesn’t work very well. It just makes the translation sound odd, and perhaps alert the reader to look at the footnote. To add emphasis in English, we may need to add a word or two, or switch around the order of the words. But I mentioned in the last episode that there is a variant that Pickering didn’t mention. To be complete I should have said that Wescott & Hort’s Greek text include ‘Son of God’ in brackets. The brackets indicate that they had some doubts that the words were in the original text, but decided to keep not erase the words in the text. Most of the time W&H were bolder in their choice of variants, and the mention of them was relegated to the footnotes. W&H started a giant game of follow-the-leader in such things. Succeeding editions of the Eclectic Greek NT followed W&H in similarly casting doubt about the authenticity of those three Greek words in Mark 1:1 by putting them in brackets. And now finally the popular SBL Greek Text* totally deletes the words. As I said in the last episode, 98.4% of ancient Greek manuscripts have those words. *Footnote: The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) is jointly published in partnership with Logos Bible Software. Thankfully, the translators of nearly all of the Bible versions of the last century decided to include the bracketed words, ‘the Son of God’ in Mark 1:1. That is probably why Pickering didn’t mention that variant. So why am I even bringing all this up? Because I want to point out a rather interesting thing about Bible translation in the last century. Since W&H and the ASV of 1901, modern Bible translators have inherited the extra responsibility to choose whether or not to include words in brackets in the Greek text in their translation. You might think that diligent translators would carefully research each variant when brackets appeared in the text. But I have shown in my article entitled, “Playing follow-the-leader in Bible translation” that most Bible translators simply followed the choices that were made by the ASV of 1901. (See the link to that article in the episode notes.) Indeed, whether a variant is in brackets or in the footnotes, Bible translators of the last century rather often switched between the Greek text they used, and often did not mention in a translation’s footnotes. So when you read in the preface of the NET, NIV, or the ESV that the translators followed the Eclectic Text (which might be called the Critical Text, Nestle-Aland Text, or the UBS Text), do not take that to mean that they followed that text 100% of the time. I give data in my follow-the-leader article which shows that for 44 significant variants in the Greek text, the translators of the last century followed their Eclectic Text an average of 71% of the time. 29% of the time they were following the Majority Text (or probably, whatever the KJV had). The reason for the giant game of follow-the-leader is that the 1901 ASV and the RSV NT of 1946 bore the brunt of negative reactions from readers to the things that they missed in their KJV Bibles. So the safe thing for all succeeding Bible translators has been to just make the same decisions as the previous versions. Meanwhile they continue the appearance of scholarship by imitating the misleading footnotes that say, “Some ancient manuscripts say x y z.” Let me say it again in a different way: The Bible translators for the major Bible versions of the last century didn’t follow ANY Greek text faithfully. They played follow-the-leader with decisions that were made in 1901 based on following W&H. This method of switching back and forth between different Greek source texts is not academically or objectively supportable. It is time that we insist that our New Testament translations be made following just one Greek text in a consistent manner. Now, everything that I have just said about how Bible translators have used published Greek texts is a backdrop for the two textual variants that Pickering footnotes in the portion of his translation I read. These are located at verses 34 and 38. 32 That evening, when the sun had set, they started bringing to Him all who were sick and the demonized. 33 So much so that the whole town was gathered at the door, 34 and He healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons; and He did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew He was Messiah. *WP footnote: I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission; most versions omit “He was Messiah”. ESV: … And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. PCF: Pickering translates Greek kriston here as ‘Messiah’. Messiah is a word we transliterate from Hebrew and it means ‘the anointed one’, and kriston (Christ) is the Greek word meaning ‘the anointed one’. I like how this variant completes the text by saying WHAT INFORMATION the demons knew about Jesus. The ESV translation might be misunderstood to say that the demons knew Jesus in a friendly relationship. 36 Simon and those with him hunted for Him, 37 and upon finding Him they said to Him, “Everyone is looking for you”. 38 But He said to them: “Let us go to the neighboring towns, so I can preach there also; that is why I have come.” *WP footnote: I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission; most versions have ‘come forth’, presumably referring to why He had slipped out of town. ESV: … that is why I came out. PCF: I respect Pickering’s control of Greek as being WAY better than mine. However, if we follow the Eclectic Text and translate ‘come forth’, it is still not clear whether Jesus was meaning coming forth from heaven to earth, or from Peter’s town. I believe that either of the two Greek words here (ἐξῆλθον or ἐξελήλυθα) could be taken either way. I think it likely that this is one of several places which have a double meaning. The disciples might have understood, ‘why I came out of town,’ while Jesus may have been thinking, ‘why I came forth from heaven to earth’. But now I want to discuss what Pickering said in both of the two footnotes that I just read to you. He said, “I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission …” Hey, 40% is not a majority of the Greek texts! So whenever Pickering says something like this, he is actually departing from the Majority or Byzantine text and following a subset of Byzantine texts which is called the f35 family of texts. Wow! The plot thickens here! Googling F35, I see that this is the name of a line of Lockheed-Martin fighter jets. That’s not what we mean. From my very limited reading I am concluding that Pickering has constructed a somewhat more restrictive version of the Majority Text. Here is Pickerings explanation, which can be found as the last footnote in each book of his Greek NT: The citation of f 35 is based on thirty-five MSS*—18, 35, 141, 204, 510, 547, 586, 645, 689, 789, 824, 928, 1023, 1072, 1075, 1133, 1145, 1147, 1199, 1251, 1339, 1435, 1503, 1572, 1628, 1637, 1667, 1705, 2253, 2323, 2382, 2466, 2503, 2554 and 2765—all of which I collated myself. None of them is a ‘perfect’ representative of f 35 in Mark, as it stands [an unreasonable expectation, presumably, for a book this size, besides being a Gospel]. But 586 is only off by one letter, and its exemplar, and that of 35 and 2382, probably were perfect! And several other exemplars come close—that of 1628 was off by one variant, those of 510 and 2253 were off by two variants, those of 824, 1435, 1503 and 1637 were off by three, several by four, and so on. [This refers to the MSS I have collated—there may be even better ones out there! In fact, since I have collated scarcely 10% of the family representatives for this book, there probably are better ones out there.] The uniformity is impressive. Since these MSS come from all over the Mediterranean world (Sinai, Jerusalem, Cyprus, Patmos, Constantinople, Aegean, Tirana, Mt. Athos [six different monasteries], Corinth? , Athens, Grottaferrata, Vatican, etc.) they are certainly representative of the family, giving us the precise family profile—it is reflected in the Text without exception. *Footnote: In the preface to the F35 Greek NT Pickering states, “I call that segment [of Greek manuscripts that formed the basis for his NT] Family 35, because cursive [manuscript] 35 is the complete New Testament, faithful to the family archetype, with the smallest number.” So Pickering compiled his Greek NT from the 35 manuscripts listed above, but he named the family based on just one of them, number 35, which is the earliest manuscript that contains a complete NT and was faithful to the family archetype. For much more about this, see Pickering’s book, The Identity of the New Testament Text IV, or the other articles in the section of Prunch.net entitled Objective Authority of the Biblical Text. Pickering has taken the time to compile his Greek text of the NT with two different sets of footnotes. One gives footnotes that show textual variants with all known manuscripts, then a second one shows variants found just within the f35 family, which represents 40% of the Greek manuscripts. Can you imagine the time it took for Pickering to painstakingly compare every letter of 35 Greek manuscripts?! Here is my tentative conclusion about the f35 family of manuscripts: It is impressive that such a consistent family of manuscripts can be grouped together. But this designation has something I don’t like: It doesn’t seem right to me to depart from the historically unvarying Majority Greek Text to adopt a subset defined in the last century by Pickering. Let me explain this from my perspective of translating for the majority Islamic nation of Indonesia. There are Muslim scholars who love to point out that Christian Bibles have been fiddled with. They claim that our Greek texts have been corrupted. All they have to do to prove their assertion about textual instability is to point out the footnotes in the Bible translations of the last century. But if we translate the historical Majority Text, we don’t need any such footnotes, because it has remained stable since the third century. So although I am attracted to the two variants Pickering translated in verses 34 and 38, I believe I would still choose the Majority Text to translate for my audience. Please don’t take my words as a harsh criticism of Pickering. I think we will see that he doesn’t often choose the minority 40% in his translation. It just so happens that two times happened in our reading for today. Quite a few other footnotes in today’s reading had to do with Pickering pointing out cool details. He loves to comment on Jesus’ miracles. I particularly like what he said about verse 45: 45 However he [the cured leper] went out and began to proclaim it freely, spreading the news, *WP footnote: But he did go to the priest, which resulted in the following evaluation—Luke makes this point clearly in his parallel account. That said, however, I can sympathize with that leper—he had good reason to sound off! But it did increase the pressure on Jesus. so that He [Jesus] was no longer able to enter a town openly, but remained outside in deserted places; yet they kept coming to Him from all over. *WP footnote: There were an awful lot of sick people who all of a sudden had hope. PCF: By the words ‘which resulted in the following evaluation …”, Pickering is talking about what happened next in the story. His next section heading at Mark 2:1 is A paralytic—the evaluation. In other words, Pickering considers the juxtaposition of the story of the healing of the leper and the arrival of Pharisees and teachers of the law from Jerusalem in the next story to show that the leper not only told everyone in his town about his healing, but he followed Jesus’ instructions and went to the temple in Jerusalem to tell his story to the priests. We can’t prove that, but it is a neat little insight to consider. The episode notes for all of the Every Word podcasts will include a Resources section which gives links to articles that will give further documentation about all of my claims about the Majority Text, the Eclectic Text, and about different Bible translations. All of Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s works are released according to the Creative Commons License and are available at PRUNCH.net. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices. Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” That title contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott and Hort. In their age Darwinism had invaded the church. W&H did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God. Nor did they believe that God has actively inspired every word of Scripture and has made sure that every word has been preserved. Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by Every Word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4) Let’s pray: Lord Jesus, we want to know You better. Like the leper in today’s story, we come to You in our sin and sickness and say, “If You want to, You are able to cleanse me.” Yes, Lord, we DO believe in You. In faith we see you reaching out and touching us, saying “I want to.” Thank You, Lord, for your power and love revealed to us today in Mark 1. Resources: Fields, Philip: Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text. Friberg, Timothy: On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable. I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below. Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019. What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019. Pickering, Wilbur: New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35 Articles and other major works: See PRUNCH.net. Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018. This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways. Article: Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27

EveryWord002 Mark 1:29-45

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 23, 2020 30:29

Welcome to this SECOND podcast in a series that I am calling the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament. The NT was named, “The Sovereign God Has Spoken,” and I will read from the 2016 2nd edition. In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark 1:29-45. This is the kind of podcast where it might be better to look at the episode notes while listening. If you are flying down the freeway right now, just bear it in mind that you may want to check this out later. With a few exceptions that I will discuss today, Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. I consider the Majority Text to be superior to the Eclectic Greek Text which was used as the basis of most of the NT translations of the last century. The shift in the Greek text used for our Bible translations began around 1881, with the publication of Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which was based on an extremely small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type*— that is from Egypt. *Footnote: The two are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These are dated at 330-360 AD and 300-325 respectively. At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into newly discovered ancient New manuscripts from Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead the papyri manuscripts reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts. The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. In this podcast, I am trying in a small way to undo the damage caused by Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which passed a legacy of mistakes down to all succeeding editions of the Eclectic/Critical Greek Text.** The damage I speak of can be found in almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV. **Footnote: The Eclectic Text is also called the Critical Text, the Nestle-Aland text, and the United Bible Societies (UBS) Text. The succeeding editions of the Eclectic Text have primarily followed Wescott and Hort, while the apparatus (or footnotes) dealing with textual variations has grown significantly to show details about textual variants found among Alexandrian manuscripts. You may ask, “How can I find the damage that you speak of in my Bible?” The quick answer is to examine the footnotes found in the New Testament. Then check out what Pickering has to say in his NT translation. Mar 1:29-45: Pickering’s footnotes are indented and italicized. Peter’s mother-in-law 29 Immediately upon exiting the synagogue they went into the house of Simon and Andrew, with James and John. 30 Simon’s mother-in-law was lying down with a fever, so without delay they told Him about her. *WP footnote: The parallel passage in Luke 4:37 specifies that it was a high fever—she was burning. 31 So He went and grasping her hand lifted her up; immediately the fever left her and she began to serve them. *WP footnote: A high fever usually leaves a person weak, even after it passes, so we really have a double miracle here: Jesus dismissed the fever, but also reversed its effect. Many healings 32 That evening, when the sun had set, they started bringing to Him all who were sick and the demonized. 33 So much so that the whole town was gathered at the door, 34 and He healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons; and He did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew He was Messiah. *WP footnote: I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission; most versions omit “He was Messiah”. Alone to pray 35 Now very early, still night, He got up, slipped out, and went off to a solitary place, where He was praying. 36 Simon and those with him hunted for Him, 37 and upon finding Him they said to Him, “Everyone is looking for you”. 38 But He said to them: “Let us go to the neighboring towns, so I can preach there also; that is why I have come.” *WP footnote: I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission; most versions have ‘come forth’, presumably referring to why He had slipped out of town. 39 He was constantly preaching in their synagogues throughout all Galilee, and also casting out demons. The hinge—proof, evaluation, rejection, blasphemy A leper—the proof 40 A leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling before Him and saying to Him, “If you want to, you are able to cleanse me”. 41 So being moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, *WP footnote: Wow! In those days, no one would touch a leper, because of contamination. Notice that Jesus agreed with the leper: “I want to; be cleansed!” Beautiful! and said to him: “I want to; be cleansed!” 42 And when He said this, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed. 43 And He sent him away at once, sternly warning him, 44 by saying: “See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest and offer for your cleansing the things that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” *WP footnote: This would be the first case the priest had ever had of evaluating a cleansed leper, because only the Messiah could cure leprosy. By instructing the cleansed leper in this way, Jesus was serving notice to the priests that the Messiah had come. 45 However he [the leper] went out and began to proclaim it freely, spreading the news, But he did go to the priest, which resulted in the following evaluation—Luke makes this point clearly in his parallel account. That said, however, I can sympathize with that leper—he had good reason to sound off! But it did increase the pressure on Jesus. so that He [Jesus] was no longer able to enter a town openly, but remained outside in deserted places; yet [people//they] kept coming to Him from all over. *WP footnote: There were an awful lot of sick people who all of a sudden had hope. My comments: Before commenting on two textual variants footnoted by Pickering in the portion I just read, I would like to go back to the first episode to verse 1, and the variant that I pointed out at the end of the verse: 1 A beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God! Pickering has a footnote that says, “There is no definite article with ‘Son’, which in this case emphasizes the inherent quality of the noun.” So Pickering makes this comment about his translation, not about a textual variant. He says that in Greek, ‘Son of God’ has no article before it. In other words, Greek doesn’t say, ‘the Son of God’. His comment may be right that in Greek, the absence of an article gives emphasis. Unfortunately, English doesn’t work that way, and not using the article ‘the’ before ‘Son of God’ makes the sentence sound odd to me, and an odd-sounding sentence doesn’t give me a feeling of emphasis. Pickering also leaves out a ‘the’ in a similar place is verse 34, and to me his translation sounds odd there too. (“and He did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew He was Messiah.”) So here’s a little translational principle for free from me: Forcing an English translation to follow the Greek in tiny little grammatical things often doesn’t work very well. It just makes the translation sound odd, and perhaps alert the reader to look at the footnote. To add emphasis in English, we may need to add a word or two, or switch around the order of the words. But I mentioned in the last episode that there is a variant that Pickering didn’t mention. To be complete I should have said that Wescott & Hort’s Greek text include ‘Son of God’ in brackets. The brackets indicate that they had some doubts that the words were in the original text, but decided to keep not erase the words in the text. Most of the time W&H were bolder in their choice of variants, and the mention of them was relegated to the footnotes. W&H started a giant game of follow-the-leader in such things. Succeeding editions of the Eclectic Greek NT followed W&H in similarly casting doubt about the authenticity of those three Greek words in Mark 1:1 by putting them in brackets. And now finally the popular SBL Greek Text* totally deletes the words. As I said in the last episode, 98.4% of ancient Greek manuscripts have those words. *Footnote: The Society of Biblical Literature (SBL) is jointly published in partnership with Logos Bible Software. Thankfully, the translators of nearly all of the Bible versions of the last century decided to include the bracketed words, ‘the Son of God’ in Mark 1:1. That is probably why Pickering didn’t mention that variant. So why am I even bringing all this up? Because I want to point out a rather interesting thing about Bible translation in the last century. Since W&H and the ASV of 1901, modern Bible translators have inherited the extra responsibility to choose whether or not to include words in brackets in the Greek text in their translation. You might think that diligent translators would carefully research each variant when brackets appeared in the text. But I have shown in my article entitled, “Playing follow-the-leader in Bible translation” that most Bible translators simply followed the choices that were made by the ASV of 1901. (See the link to that article in the episode notes.) Indeed, whether a variant is in brackets or in the footnotes, Bible translators of the last century rather often switched between the Greek text they used, and often did not mention in a translation’s footnotes. So when you read in the preface of the NET, NIV, or the ESV that the translators followed the Eclectic Text (which might be called the Critical Text, Nestle-Aland Text, or the UBS Text), do not take that to mean that they followed that text 100% of the time. I give data in my follow-the-leader article which shows that for 44 significant variants in the Greek text, the translators of the last century followed their Eclectic Text an average of 71% of the time. 29% of the time they were following the Majority Text (or probably, whatever the KJV had). The reason for the giant game of follow-the-leader is that the 1901 ASV and the RSV NT of 1946 bore the brunt of negative reactions from readers to the things that they missed in their KJV Bibles. So the safe thing for all succeeding Bible translators has been to just make the same decisions as the previous versions. Meanwhile they continue the appearance of scholarship by imitating the misleading footnotes that say, “Some ancient manuscripts say x y z.” Let me say it again in a different way: The Bible translators for the major Bible versions of the last century didn’t follow ANY Greek text faithfully. They played follow-the-leader with decisions that were made in 1901 based on following W&H. This method of switching back and forth between different Greek source texts is not academically or objectively supportable. It is time that we insist that our New Testament translations be made following just one Greek text in a consistent manner. Now, everything that I have just said about how Bible translators have used published Greek texts is a backdrop for the two textual variants that Pickering footnotes in the portion of his translation I read. These are located at verses 34 and 38. 32 That evening, when the sun had set, they started bringing to Him all who were sick and the demonized. 33 So much so that the whole town was gathered at the door, 34 and He healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons; and He did not allow the demons to speak, because they knew He was Messiah. *WP footnote: I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission; most versions omit “He was Messiah”. ESV: … And he would not permit the demons to speak, because they knew him. PCF: Pickering translates Greek kriston here as ‘Messiah’. Messiah is a word we transliterate from Hebrew and it means ‘the anointed one’, and kriston (Christ) is the Greek word meaning ‘the anointed one’. I like how this variant completes the text by saying WHAT INFORMATION the demons knew about Jesus. The ESV translation might be misunderstood to say that the demons knew Jesus in a friendly relationship. 36 Simon and those with him hunted for Him, 37 and upon finding Him they said to Him, “Everyone is looking for you”. 38 But He said to them: “Let us go to the neighboring towns, so I can preach there also; that is why I have come.” *WP footnote: I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission; most versions have ‘come forth’, presumably referring to why He had slipped out of town. ESV: … that is why I came out. PCF: I respect Pickering’s control of Greek as being WAY better than mine. However, if we follow the Eclectic Text and translate ‘come forth’, it is still not clear whether Jesus was meaning coming forth from heaven to earth, or from Peter’s town. I believe that either of the two Greek words here (ἐξῆλθον or ἐξελήλυθα) could be taken either way. I think it likely that this is one of several places which have a double meaning. The disciples might have understood, ‘why I came out of town,’ while Jesus may have been thinking, ‘why I came forth from heaven to earth’. But now I want to discuss what Pickering said in both of the two footnotes that I just read to you. He said, “I here follow some 40% of the Greek manuscripts, including the best line of transmission …” Hey, 40% is not a majority of the Greek texts! So whenever Pickering says something like this, he is actually departing from the Majority or Byzantine text and following a subset of Byzantine texts which is called the f35 family of texts. Wow! The plot thickens here! Googling F35, I see that this is the name of a line of Lockheed-Martin fighter jets. That’s not what we mean. From my very limited reading I am concluding that Pickering has constructed a somewhat more restrictive version of the Majority Text. Here is Pickerings explanation, which can be found as the last footnote in each book of his Greek NT: The citation of f 35 is based on thirty-five MSS*—18, 35, 141, 204, 510, 547, 586, 645, 689, 789, 824, 928, 1023, 1072, 1075, 1133, 1145, 1147, 1199, 1251, 1339, 1435, 1503, 1572, 1628, 1637, 1667, 1705, 2253, 2323, 2382, 2466, 2503, 2554 and 2765—all of which I collated myself. None of them is a ‘perfect’ representative of f 35 in Mark, as it stands [an unreasonable expectation, presumably, for a book this size, besides being a Gospel]. But 586 is only off by one letter, and its exemplar, and that of 35 and 2382, probably were perfect! And several other exemplars come close—that of 1628 was off by one variant, those of 510 and 2253 were off by two variants, those of 824, 1435, 1503 and 1637 were off by three, several by four, and so on. [This refers to the MSS I have collated—there may be even better ones out there! In fact, since I have collated scarcely 10% of the family representatives for this book, there probably are better ones out there.] The uniformity is impressive. Since these MSS come from all over the Mediterranean world (Sinai, Jerusalem, Cyprus, Patmos, Constantinople, Aegean, Tirana, Mt. Athos [six different monasteries], Corinth? , Athens, Grottaferrata, Vatican, etc.) they are certainly representative of the family, giving us the precise family profile—it is reflected in the Text without exception. *Footnote: In the preface to the F35 Greek NT Pickering states, “I call that segment [of Greek manuscripts that formed the basis for his NT] Family 35, because cursive [manuscript] 35 is the complete New Testament, faithful to the family archetype, with the smallest number.” So Pickering compiled his Greek NT from the 35 manuscripts listed above, but he named the family based on just one of them, number 35, which is the earliest manuscript that contains a complete NT and was faithful to the family archetype. For much more about this, see Pickering’s book, The Identity of the New Testament Text IV, or the other articles in the section of Prunch.net entitled Objective Authority of the Biblical Text. Pickering has taken the time to compile his Greek text of the NT with two different sets of footnotes. One gives footnotes that show textual variants with all known manuscripts, then a second one shows variants found just within the f35 family, which represents 40% of the Greek manuscripts. Can you imagine the time it took for Pickering to painstakingly compare every letter of 35 Greek manuscripts?! Here is my tentative conclusion about the f35 family of manuscripts: It is impressive that such a consistent family of manuscripts can be grouped together. But this designation has something I don’t like: It doesn’t seem right to me to depart from the historically unvarying Majority Greek Text to adopt a subset defined in the last century by Pickering. Let me explain this from my perspective of translating for the majority Islamic nation of Indonesia. There are Muslim scholars who love to point out that Christian Bibles have been fiddled with. They claim that our Greek texts have been corrupted. All they have to do to prove their assertion about textual instability is to point out the footnotes in the Bible translations of the last century. But if we translate the historical Majority Text, we don’t need any such footnotes, because it has remained stable since the third century. So although I am attracted to the two variants Pickering translated in verses 34 and 38, I believe I would still choose the Majority Text to translate for my audience. Please don’t take my words as a harsh criticism of Pickering. I think we will see that he doesn’t often choose the minority 40% in his translation. It just so happens that two times happened in our reading for today. Quite a few other footnotes in today’s reading had to do with Pickering pointing out cool details. He loves to comment on Jesus’ miracles. I particularly like what he said about verse 45: 45 However he [the cured leper] went out and began to proclaim it freely, spreading the news, *WP footnote: But he did go to the priest, which resulted in the following evaluation—Luke makes this point clearly in his parallel account. That said, however, I can sympathize with that leper—he had good reason to sound off! But it did increase the pressure on Jesus. so that He [Jesus] was no longer able to enter a town openly, but remained outside in deserted places; yet they kept coming to Him from all over. *WP footnote: There were an awful lot of sick people who all of a sudden had hope. PCF: By the words ‘which resulted in the following evaluation …”, Pickering is talking about what happened next in the story. His next section heading at Mark 2:1 is A paralytic—the evaluation. In other words, Pickering considers the juxtaposition of the story of the healing of the leper and the arrival of Pharisees and teachers of the law from Jerusalem in the next story to show that the leper not only told everyone in his town about his healing, but he followed Jesus’ instructions and went to the temple in Jerusalem to tell his story to the priests. We can’t prove that, but it is a neat little insight to consider. The episode notes for all of the Every Word podcasts will include a Resources section which gives links to articles that will give further documentation about all of my claims about the Majority Text, the Eclectic Text, and about different Bible translations. All of Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s works are released according to the Creative Commons License and are available at PRUNCH.net. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices. Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” That title contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott and Hort. In their age Darwinism had invaded the church. W&H did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God. Nor did they believe that God has actively inspired every word of Scripture and has made sure that every word has been preserved. Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by Every Word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4) Let’s pray: Lord Jesus, we want to know You better. Like the leper in today’s story, we come to You in our sin and sickness and say, “If You want to, You are able to cleanse me.” Yes, Lord, we DO believe in You. In faith we see you reaching out and touching us, saying “I want to.” Thank You, Lord, for your power and love revealed to us today in Mark 1. Resources: Fields, Philip: Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text. Friberg, Timothy: On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable. I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below. Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019. What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019. Pickering, Wilbur: New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35 Articles and other major works: See PRUNCH.net. Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018. This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways. Article: Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27

EveryWord001 Mark 1:1-28

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 13, 2020 28:53

Welcome to this first podcast in a series that I am calling the Every Word Podcast. This is a podcast series for those who enjoy studying details found in God’s Word. In every episode I will read from Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s fresh-sounding translation of the New Testament. The 2016 2nd edition of this NT was published with the name, “The Sovereign God Has Spoken.” It is available for a free download for the Kindle bool reading app. In today’s episode, I will read and comment on Pickering’s translation of Mark 1:1-28. This is the kind of podcast where it might be better to look at the episode notes while listening. If you are flying down the freeway right now, just bear it in mind that you may want to check this out later. The full text that I will read is attached, but the attachment can only be found at dailybiblereading.info, not in podcast apps. (Click on the PDF download icon to get the attachment. For Android users, if you use our dedicated Daily Bible Reading app, you can get the PDF by clicking the gift icon.) The prettiest way to read Pickering’s NT is via the Kindle app using a tablet, and it is a free download. Dr. Pickering’s translation is based on the Majority Text of the Greek New Testament, which is also called the Byzantine Text. I consider the Majority Text to be superior to the Eclectic Greek Text which was used as the basis of most of the translations of the last century. The shift in the Greek text used for our Bible translations began around 1881, with the publication of Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which was based on an extremely small sampling of manuscripts of the Alexandrian Text Type*— that is from Egypt. *Footnote: The two are Codex Sinaiticus and Codex Vaticanus. These are dated at 330-360 AD and 300-325 respectively. At the time Wescott and Hort were working, it was anticipated that research into newly discovered ancient New manuscripts from Egypt would reveal a coherent textual stream that would point to the authentic initial form of the Greek text. Now, over a century later, those ancient Egyptian papyrus manuscripts have been analyzed, but they do not reveal a coherent textual stream that can be followed. Instead the papyri manuscripts reveal that Egyptian scribes very freely edited the texts they copied. In contrast, the Majority Text of the New Testament was made by copyists who lived in the same places as the original recipients of the apostles’ writings. Individual scribal errors have been weeded out, since this text type is based on the majority reading of thousands of Greek manuscripts. The Majority Text has been stable over the centuries and is the best academically defendable text of the Greek New Testament that we have today. In this podcast, I am trying in a small way to undo the damage caused by Wescott and Hort’s Greek New Testament, which passed a legacy of mistakes down to all succeeding editions of the Eclectic/Critical Greek Text.** The damage I speak of can be found in almost all of the English Bible translations of the last century, starting with the ASV (1901), and including RSV, NASB, NIV, GNT, NLT, NET, and ESV. **Footnote: The Eclectic Text is also called the Critical Text, the Nestle-Aland text, and the United Bible Societies (UBS) Text. The succeeding editions of the Eclectic Text have primarily followed Wescott and Hort, but the apparatus (or footnotes) dealing with textual variations has detailed the other variants found among Alexandrian manuscripts. I realize that all this stuff I have just tried to explain may ‘sound like Greek to you’. But I promise that the examples I give will be interesting, and you won’t need to know any Greek to understand them. It will be helpful to your understanding if as you listen you are able to see Pickering’s translation beside your own Bible translation while listening to this podcast. See the attached PDF for all the readings. 1 A beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, Son of God! Pickering makes a footnote for many of the textual variants. The Eclectic Text does not include ‘Son of God’, and the Lexham Bible (published by Logos) doesn’t translate ‘Son of God’. But most of the last century’s translations follow the 1901 ASV, including those words with a footnote saying, “Some manuscripts do not include the Son of God.” Actually, it is only one Alexandrian manuscript that doesn’t have the three words. 98.4% of manuscripts have it. Another 0.4 percent have it slightly shortened. Only Codex Sinaiticus doesn’t have it, but it was one of Wescott and Hort’s favorites. So that one manuscript dropping the words has caused a footnote in many of today’s translations. Such footnotes have the unintended effect of causing people to question the accuracy of God’s Word.*** ***Footnote: I take all percentage information from Pickering’s footnotes in his Greek NT. What might have guided Wescott and Hort to have left out ‘Son of God’? Here I quote from Pickering’s article entitled The Root Cause of the continuous defection from Biblical Infallibility: F.J.A. Hort, a quintessential 'son of the disobedience'. Hort did not believe in the divine inspiration of the Bible, nor in the divinity of Jesus Christ. Since he embraced the Darwinian theory as soon as it appeared, he presumably did not believe in God.2 His theory of NT textual criticism, published in 1881,3 was based squarely on the presuppositions that the NT was not inspired, that no special care was afforded it in the early decades, and that in consequence the original wording was lost—lost beyond recovery, at least by objective means. His theory swept the academic world and continues to dominate the discipline to this day.1 Footnote 2: For documentation of all this, and a good deal more besides, in Hort's own words, please see the biography written by his son. A.F. Hort, Life and Letters of Fenton John Anthony Hort (2 vols.; London: Macmillan and Co. Ltd., 1896). The son made heavy use of the father's plentiful correspondence, whom he admired. (In those days a two-volume 'Life', as opposed to a one-volume 'Biography', was a posthumous status symbol, albeit of little consequence to the departed.) Many of my readers were taught, as was I, that one must not question/judge someone else's motives. But wait just a minute; where did such an idea come from? It certainly did not come from God, who expects the spiritual person to evaluate everything (1 Corinthians 2:15). Since there are only two spiritual kingdoms in this world (Matthew 6:24, 12:30; Luke 11:23, 16:13), then the idea comes from the other side. By eliminating motive, one also eliminates presupposition, which is something that God would never do, since presupposition governs interpretation (Matthew 22:29, Mark 12:24). Which is why we should always expect a true scholar to state his presuppositions. I have repeatedly stated mine, but here they are again: 1) The Sovereign Creator of the universe exists; 2) He delivered a written revelation to the human race; 3) He has preserved that revelation intact to this day. 2 As it is written in the prophets4— 4 Around 3.3% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘Isaiah the prophet’ instead of ‘the prophets’ (to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.). The 96.7% are correct. ESV ‘As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,’ Here the Majority Text is right with plural ‘prophets’, because two quotes that follow are by two different prophets, Malachi and Isaiah. (Mal. 3:1; Is. 40:3) There are a number of inaccuracies like this that have been introduced in our Bibles because of following the Eclectic Text, and this is a good example of one of them. 10 And immediately upon coming up from11 the water He saw the heavens being torn open and the Spirit, like a dove, descending upon Him. 11 Perhaps 3% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘out of’ instead of ‘from’ (to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.). This is my own comment, not Pickering’s: The difference here amounts to a difference of two prepositions. The Majority Text has ‘apo’ and the Eclectic Text has ‘ek’. Someone is going to try to use the difference here to show the method of baptism used by John the Baptist. Don’t base any doctrine on Greek prepositions. They have a very wide range of meaning. Neither preposition can be used to prove the depth of the water where Jesus was baptized. 13 And He was there in the wilderness forty days being tested1 by Satan, 1 Our ‘test’ and ‘tempt’ are translations of a single Greek word, the context determining the choice. To tempt is to test in the area of morals. In this context I consider that ‘tempt’ is too limited, but it is included in the wider meaning of 'test'. Note that the Spirit impelled Him, which means that this was a necessary part of the Plan. The three specific tests recorded by Matthew and Luke presumably happened near the end of the forty days. Pickering here gives an interesting translational note. This is not about a textual difference. I think it interesting and probably right that Satan was doing more than merely tempting Jesus. He was testing Who he was up against. 1:14 Now after John was put in prison,4 Jesus went into Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom5 of God, 5 Some 2% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, omit ‘of the Kingdom’ (to be followed by NIV, NASB, LB, TEV, etc.). ESV ‘gospel of God’ My comment: In the very next verse, Jesus said, “The time has been fulfilled and the Kingdom of God has approached. Repent and believe in the Gospel.” The phrase ‘gospel of God’ (meaning that God owns or sponsors the Gospel) does occur in the Pauline epistles and in 1st Peter, but not in any of the Gospels or Acts. To me, especially because of verse 15, it seems much more fitting for Jesus to specify, ‘Gospel of (or about) the Kingdom of God’. 16 Then, as He was walking beside the Sea of Galilee, He saw Simon and Andrew his brother, [the son of] of Simon,7 casting a circular net onto the water,8 for they were fishermen. 7 Some 90% of the Greek manuscripts have ‘his brother, of Simon’—presumably a reference to their father. If Peter was the eldest son, he would have been named for his father. PCF: I think this is an interesting textual variant. If Simon’s father was also named Simon, this part of the story would match the next part where we hear of Zebedee, the father of James and John. If you are looking at the episode notes, you will note that I made a slight alteration to Pickering’s translation. I added the words ‘the son’ before ‘of Simon’, so that the listener will be able to catch the meaning Pickering intends. When I make alterations like this, I will mark them with brackets. I think the Greek can be understood in the sense ‘his brother— that is Simon’s’. That seems to be the way the World English Bible takes it. (The WEB is another translation of the Majority Text, and it is freely available in many Bible apps.) 23 Now there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, 24 saying: “Hey, what do you want with us, Jesus Natsarene?!13 13 The name of the town in Hebrew is based on the consonants נצר) resh, tsadde, nun), but since Hebrew is read from right to left, for us the order is reversed = n, ts, r. This word root means ‘branch’. Greek has the equivalent for ‘ps’ and ‘ks’, but not for ‘ts’, so the transliteration used a z (zeta) ‘dz’, which is the voiced counterpart of ‘ts’. But when the Greek was transliterated into English it came out as ‘z’! But Hebrew has a ‘z’, ז) zayin), so in transliterating back into Hebrew people assumed the consonants נזר ,replacing the correct tsadde with zayin. Neither ‘Nazareth’ nor ‘Nazarene’, spelled with a zayin, is to be found in the Old Testament, but there is a prophetic reference to Messiah as the Branch, netser—Isaiah 11:1—and several to the related word, tsemach—Isaiah 4:2, Jeremiah 23:5, 33:15; Zechariah 3:8, 6:12. So Matthew (2:23) is quite right—the prophets (plural, being at least three) referred to Christ as the Branch. Since Jesus was a man, He would be the ‘Branch-man’, from ‘Branch-town’. Which brings us to the word ‘natsorean’. The familiar ‘Nazarene’ (Nazarhnoj) [Natsarene] occurs in Mark 1:24, 14:67, 16:6 and Luke 4:34, but in Matthew 2:23 and in fourteen other places, including Acts 22:8 where the glorified Jesus calls Himself that, the word is ‘Natsorean’ (Nazwraioj), which is quite different. I have been given to understand that the Natsareth of Jesus’ day had been founded some 100 years before by a Branch family, who called it Branch town; they were very much aware of the prophecies about the Branch and fully expected the Messiah to be born from among them—they called themselves Branch-people (Natsoreans). Of course everyone else thought it was a big joke and tended to look down on them. “Can anything good . . . ?” PCF: This time Pickering’s note points to a treasure he wants us to understand, not a textual variant. You may have picked up in my pronunciation that Jesus was called the ‘Natsarene’. Pickering’s footnote is long, and I think it would be hard to understand for podcast listeners— who may be going down the freeway at 70 miles an hour. The full footnote, complete with Scripture references, is found in the episode notes. But I will summarize what Pickering is pointing out. In Mark 1:23, the demon called Jesus a ‘Natsarene’, following the spelling in Wilbur Pickering's translation. We all know that Nazarene is normally spelled with a z, but Pickering spells it with ts. Recall that Matthew (2:23) states, “So the family went and lived in a town called Nazareth. This fulfilled what the prophets had said: He (Jesus) will be called a Nazarene.” But the name Nazarene or Nazareth appears nowhere in the Old Testament, so how could this fulfill what plural prophets wrote? Unlike what is often assumed, the name Nazareth has nothing to do with the Old Testament nazarite vow. But in Hebrew, the word meaning ‘branch’ is netser. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah (plural prophets) refer to the Messiah as the Branch or Shoot (which is netser or a related word). Isaiah 11:1 is one of those places: Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot — yes, a new Branch bearing fruit from the old root. (NLT Isaiah 11:1) So we might call the original name for Jesus’ hometown as ‘Netser-place’, or Natsereth. But when Natsereth was translated into Greek, the ts became a z, Nazareth. So the cool thing about this is that before Christ came, someone founded a settlement called Branchville. I don't think this happened by accident. At the very least, they named the town with the intent to remind people that God’s promised a Messiah who was given the title, ‘the Righteous Branch’. So it is significant, and a fulfillment of prophecy, that Jesus is called ‘the man from Branchville’. 27 And all were astounded, so that they questioned among themselves, saying: “What is this? What can this new [teaching//doctrine] be?3 Because with authority he commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him!” 3 Instead of ‘what can this new [teaching//doctrine] be’, perhaps 0.5% of the Greek manuscripts, of objectively inferior quality, have ‘a new doctrine’ (as in NIV, NASB, LB, etc.). ESV And they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him.” The word ‘Because’ is also part of the textual variant. The ESV follows the Eclectic Text, and connects the rather disjointed text so that it makes sense. ESV has an incomplete sentence, ‘A new teaching with authority!’ But the Majority Text includes the verb ‘be’, and a logical connector, ‘for/because’ which renders a much smoother text with complete sentences and good logical flow. The episode notes for all of the Every Word podcasts will include references to articles that will give further documentation about all of my claims about the Majority Text, the Eclectic Text, and about different Bible translations. All of Dr. Wilbur Pickering’s works are available at PRUNCH.net. Additionally, his second edition (2016) NT translation is available for a free download via the Kindle app. It is also freely available as a module in the MyBible program for Android and Apple devices. Dr. Pickering named his NT, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken.” I have not found where Pickering has explained why he gave his NT translation that title. From the forward, I think that it relates to his opinion that God sovereignly protected the original wording of the New Testament through the best line of Greek manuscripts.* *Footnote: As will be explained in further podcasts, Pickering has chosen a more narrow line of transmission, as found in the F35 family of manuscripts. This is slightly different from the Majority/Byzantine Text Type as published by Robinson and Peerpoint, 2018. I note further that the title, “The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken,” contains three concepts that were not believed by Wescott and Hort. In their age Darwinism had invaded the church. They did not believe that our Creator created humans as described in Genesis. They did not believe in the sovereignty of God, and nor did they believe that God had actively inspired every word of Scripture and was making sure that every word would be preserved. One of my favorite verses is in Jeremiah 1:11-12: The word of the Lord came to me: “What do you see, Jeremiah?” “I see the branch of an almond tree,” I replied. 12 The Lord said to me, “You have seen correctly, for I am watching* to see that my word is fulfilled.” *The footnote says, “The Hebrew for watching sounds like the Hebrew for almond tree.” God will carry out his threats and his promises. If God is watching his word to fulfill it like that, it is logical to believe that He also was careful to preserve his Word for us. For the New Testament, God blessed the Majority line of Greek texts so that they predominate and the text has remained unchanged through the centuries. I think it is a good goal to hope for better translations in this century which will preserve every word that should be in the Greek text, and that every word should be translated in a way that fits the English language. As Moses and Jesus said, “Man shall not live on bread alone, but by Every Word of God.” (Deut. 8:3; Luk. 4:4) Let’s pray: Lord, my listener and I want to know You better through your Word, that we may be transformed to obey you from the heart. We thank You for sending the Righteous Branch, Jesus, to be our King, just like the prophets foretold. Resources: Fields, Philip: Playing Follow the Leader in Bible Translation, 2019, by Phil Fields. See the Resources list in that article for many more helpful articles on the superiority of the Majority Greek Text. Friberg, Timothy: On the text of the Greek New Testament that also happens to be the right one for cousin audiences Although the title of this four-page paper refers to translating for Muslims, the principles and summary is widely applicable. I suggest reading this paper before reading Friberg’s other articles listed below. Layman’s Guide — A modest explanation for the layman of ideas related to determining the text of the Greek New Testament, 2019. What is what? — Differences between the Traditional Text and the Bible Society Text of the Greek New Testament. Some data for the reader to weigh, 2019. Pickering, Wilbur: New Translation of the New Testament: The Sovereign Creator has Spoken Greek Text of the New Testament based on Family 35 Articles and other major works: See PRUNCH.net. Robinson, Maurice: The New Testament in the Original Greek: Byzantine Textform, 1991, 2005, 2018. This is available in free digital form in the MyBible Bible app, and in other ways. Article: Full Text of the 105 verses lacking overall Greek Manuscript Support in the NA edition 27

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