Common Mistranslations – Galatians 2:15-16, Part 2

“Faithfulness Of” vs. “Faith In”

The root word translated “faith” from the Greek is pistis. This word embodies just why the translator’s task is so difficult, because there is no one word in the English language that encompasses it. To give an idea of the breadth of meaning inherent in the word pistis, here are some excerpts from David M. Hay’s paper on the subject:¹

Pagan writers commonly use pistis to mean “assurance” or “pledge” in the sense of a guarantee creating the possibility for trust regarding the truth of a statement or reliability of a promise. . . (p. 461) We may begin our investigation by noting that more than half of all Philo’s uses of pistis give it the sense of “evidence.” Closely related is his use of the term to mean “pledge.” I understand the latter English word to imply a desire on the part of the person giving the pledge to encourage confidence about some matter, ordinarily a promise about the future, in the mind of another individual. . . (p. 464f) Among the 195 occurrences of pistis in Josephus . . . we find 78 occurrences (40 percent) that may fairly be described as giving the term the sense of “objective evidence on which faith may be based” (p. 468, 469).

One might speak of sense data in general or of a particular empirical observation constituting pistis in the sense of “evidence”. . . Lawyers describe eyewitness reports as “conclusive proof” of their assertions . . . In the LXX, which uses pistis fifty-seven times, the “evidence” sense is generally absent. However, 2 Esdr. 20:1 (Neh. 10:1) uses the term to denote a written commitment made by Jewish leaders: “And regarding all these circumstances we make a firm covenant (διάτιθεμαθαπιστιν, translating כרתימ אמנה) and write it, and our leaders, Levis, and priests set their seal to it.” . . . (p. 461, 462)

Pistis is used to mean “confidence” (in men) in Ep. Arist. 37 and religious “faith” (or “loyalty”) in T.Levi 8:2 and T.Asher 7:7. In Sib. Or. 3:74, 584-85 and 5:285 it means “faith” or “trust” oriented toward either Beliar or God. (p. 462)

From his survey of the use of the word pistis, Hays comes to the conclusion:

My proposal for exegesis of Paul is that we should understand that the background for this “ground of faith” sense of the term lies in the widespread contemporary use of pistis to mean “pledge” or “evidence.”. . Jesus is a pledge or assurance from God which makes human faith possible. (p. 472) . . . Nowhere does the apostles plainly speak of Jesus as believing, trusting, or displaying pistis as “faithfulness.” Abraham, not Jesus, is held up as a model or precursor for Christians believers (Rom. 4:12, 24). (p. 474)

J.P. Holding, on the other hand, follows David A. deSilva’s Honor, Patronage, Kinship and Purity: Unlocking New Testament Culture in focusing on pistis as meaning both forensic evidence and a response of faithfulness:²

[N]ote that in very few cases is this form of pistis, as meaning a proof, in view. The meaning does give us a clue as to the nature of other meanings. It is often used as a noun to refer to the Christian “faith” as a set of convictions. In far many more cases the meaning intended is in the sense of faithfulness, or loyalty as owed to one in whom one is embedded for service (in this case, the body of Christ).

This now leads to an expansion of the pistis concept as derived from deSilva. As deSilva shows, the relationship between the believer and God is framed in terms of an ancient client-patron relationship. As God’s “clients” to whom he has shown unmerited favor (grace), our response should be, as Malina and Neyrey frame it, a “constant awareness” of prescribed duties toward those in whom we are indebted (God) and the group in which we are embedded (God’s kin group, the body of Christ).

This “constant awareness” is the expression of our faithfulness of loyalty — in other words, this is our pistis, or faith. “Faith” is not a feeling, but our pledge to trust, and be reliable servants to, our patron (God), who has provided us with tangible gifts (Christ) and proof thereby of His own reliability.

There are some further considerations, with specific reference to the modern idea of a “personal relationship with Jesus” that is the modern staple of evangelism.

Given the above data, the actual description that fits an authentic faith is not a personal relationship, but a patronal relationship. Modern sentiments that call Jesus our “friend” and suppose that we ought to talk to God as to our best buddy are, in this context, clearly misplaced.

Paul himself uses at least two definitions of pistis in Galatians: He refers to Abraham’s “faith” that Hashem would give him a son despite his advanced age in 3:6, but also quotes Hab. 2:4 in Gal. 3:22. This passage from Habbakuk is usually rendered, “The just shall live by faith,” but in the original Hebrew actually means, “The righteous shall live by his faithfulness” (Heb. b’emunato, באמונתו), a loyalty that stood in contrast with the almost entirely faithless nation to whom Habakkuk spoke.

So when Paul speaks of the “pistis of Messiah,” which definition makes the most sense? Is he saying Messiah had faith in God in the “belief” sense? While such a claim isn’t exactly contrary to Scripture, it is far too weak to be complimentary of Yeshua. Rather, I would argue that while Hays is correct that Paul is setting forth Yeshua as the Holy One’s pledge—the forensic evidence of God’s grace, if you will—Paul’s focus here is on Yeshua as the faithful minister of Hashem’s charge, faithful even unto death, and that in the most humiliating manner the Roman world could provide: that of the cross.

What this comes all down to is that salvation is dependent on not simply “faith” as it is popularly conceived, but on four separate elements:

1. Messiah’s faithfulness to both Hashem and his people Israel (and all who are grafted into Israel)
2. Messiah as the forensic demonstration of Hashem’s grace; Yeshua’s death being the “pledge” or downpayment on Hashem’s salvation
3. Our faith, in the sense of “trust,” in Hashem’s promise, just as Abraham trusted Hashem’s promise and was accounted righteous as a result.
4. Our faithfulness, our loyalty as a client to our patron, as a vassal to our King. This faithfulness is born from our trust, which we invest because of Yeshua’s faithfulness serving as Hashem’s pledge, but is ultimately empowered by the Spirit–which is why Paul says to the Ephesians (2:8f), “For by grace you have been saved through faith(fulness); and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.

Recognizing the unbreakable connection between faith and faithfulness in our response to Hashem’s grace actually clarifies a number of Biblical difficulties. For example, if we are saved by faith apart from works (as the phrase is commonly understood), then why does Yeshua say,

“Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you who practice lawlessness.’ . . .  Everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand.” (Mat. 7:22-23, 26)?

And why does Jacob (James) insist that “faith without works is dead” (Jas. 2:17)? Don’t such statements contradict the “true gospel of grace” preached by Paul? Attempts to reconcile such passages invariably stumble over an inability to define what a “true” faith is and should look like.

However, when we understand that “faith” and “faithfulness” are the same word, all such difficulties disappear. After all, one who truly trusts Hashem and his Messiah must, as a natural fruit, be faithful to him–and such faithfulness will be reflected in one’s works. It is not that works save, but that works are the fruit of a salvation born of both faith and faithfulness.

But lest we fall into a modern form of legalism, let’s be clear: Our faithfulness and loyalty is to a particular King, not a set of rules or even a set of creeds.

Recognizing this should give Messianics and Christians a feeling of freedom to test out even the most ancient creeds of our peoples in order to see if they are true and what their ramifications are without a fear that doing so will somehow lose them their salvation (or, if a Calvinist, somehow prove that they were never among the elect). After all, if one’s salvation is rooted in a Person instead of a creed, testing all creeds to see if they are good are a proof of a love for and fidelity towards that Person rather than evidence that one is “losing faith” by one’s questions.

On the other hand, recognizing the dual nature of pistis is a solemn warning against relying on a profession of faith and ritual baptism (Christianity’s own “works of law”) undertaken when one was young if one has since fallen away from walking with the Lord. Loyalty to the King will result in fruit–and if it does not, then the lack of an effect puts the supposed cause in doubt.

Is it possible to lose one’s salvation? Yes, but not by committing one’s 491st sin of the day. But if “those who have once been enlightened and have tasted of the heavenly gift and have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and have tasted the good word of God and the powers of the age to come, and then have fallen away” from both faith and faithfulness to their King, “it is impossible to renew them again to repentance, since they again crucify to themselves the Son of God and put Him to open shame” (Heb. 6:6).

Shalom

1David M. Hay, “Pistis as ‘Ground for Faith’ in Hellenized Judaism and Paul,” Journal of Biblical Liturature, Vol. 108, No. 3 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 461-476, available at http://www.jstor.org/stable/3267114

2 http://tektonics.org/whatis/whatfaith.html

Common Mistranslations – Galatians 2:15-16, Part 1

The Province of Galatia

First, off-topic: Thank you to everyone who has sent words and prayers of support. The family is saddened for our own loss, but very much at peace with my grandmother’s passing. Now that I’ve had a bit of down-time, I’m looking forward to getting back into the swing of things.

Galatians is often a challenging book to deal with from a Messianic perspective, particularly for those of Gentile birth who find themselves loving the Torah and its cultural commandments such as Sabbath, the Feasts, etc. As a result, Galatians is probably the most marked-up book in my wide-margin Bible, surpassing even Revelation in terms of sheer density of the notes.

It turns out that many of the problems Galatians would appear to present for Messianic Judaism are actually the result of one mistranslation and a lack of transparency in the translation of a certain word. We’ll start with the mistranslation, which appears in Gal. 2:15-16:

KJV - We who are Jews by nature, and not sinners of the Gentiles, Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law: for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified.

NIV – We who are Jews by birth and not sinful Gentiles know that a person is not justified by the works of the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by the works of the law, because by the works of the law no one will be justified.

ESV – We ourselves are Jews by birth and not Gentile sinners; yet we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified.

YLT - [W]e by nature Jews, and not sinners of the nations, having known also that a man is not declared righteous by works of law, if not through the faith of Jesus Christ, also we in Christ Jesus did believe, that we might be declared righteous by the faith of Christ, and not by works of law, wherefore declared righteous by works of law shall be no flesh.’

My first nit to pick is less a mistranslation than an interpolation in the Alexandrian text of the Greek word de (“and, or, but”) which is picked up on by the ESV, ASV, NASB, CSB, and several other translations (sadly, including the Complete Jewish Bible) which turns the straightforward statement, “We Jews . . . know that a man is not declared righteous by the works of the law” into a statement of comical surprise: “We are Jews . . . and yet we still somehow know that a man is not declared righteous by the works of the law!” Only someone unfamiliar with the teachings of Judaism would think it surprising that a Jew would understand that the “works of law” (which we will explain in a minute) do not have the power to make one righteous before God.

The other problems in this passage (of which YLT does manage to escape from nearly all of them) are as follows:

1. Rendering ean me (εαν μη, “if not” or “unless”) as “but,” in the sense of “in opposition to.”
2. Rendering pisteus Iesou Christou (πιστεωςιησου χριστου) as “faith in Jesus Christ” when the preposition en (“in”) is entirely missing.
3. Rendering ergun nomou (εργων νομου) as “works of the law” instead of “works of law” when there is no definite article (“the”) in the original Greek.

Let’s break down the errors and look at how rendering them correctly would change the meaning of this passage.

“If not” vs. “But”

The Greek phrase ean me (εαν μη) is a very common one, appearing 49 times in 48 verses in the NT. It literally means “if not,” rather than “but”–that is, it sets up a complimentary statement, not a direct contrast. For just a few examples:

Mat. 5:20 – For I say to you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. (Therefore, if your righteousness surpasses the scribes and Pharisees, you will enter the kingdom of heaven.)

Mark 4:22 – For nothing is hidden, except to be revealed. (Therefore, if something is hidden, it will be revealed.)

Rom. 10:15 – How will they preach unless they are sent? (Therefore, if they are sent, they will preach.)

1Co. 8:8 – We are neither the worse if we do not eat, nor the better if we do.

The ean me in Galatians serves the same purpose: “A man is not justified by works of law if not by the faith of Yeshua the Messiah,” but therefore may be justified—that is, declared righteous in the heavenly court—by works of law through the faith of Yeshua the Messiah. The common mistranslation sets these “works of law” in opposition to the faith, whereas the real meaning of the passage is that the works of law could not save us without the enduring faith of Messiah.

De Boer sheds some light on why so many translators render ean me as “but” instead of the more literal “if not”:

With this meaning the conjunction could be taken to imply that someone is not justified as a result of works of the law unless by way of “the faith of Jesus Christ.” In other words, “the faith of Jesus Christ” is compatible with, or complements, works of the law in the matter of justification. Given. v. 16c, where works of the law and the faith of Christ are regarded as mutually exclusive in the matter of justification, ean me must mean “but” for Paul himself, despite the pattern of his usage elsewhere (so most interpreters). . . In v. 16a, then, Paul is apparently appealing to a formula stemming from Christian Jews in which “works of the law” and “the faith of Jesus Christ” were regarded as compatible and complementary. Christian Jews, including the new preachers in Galatia, would have understood the ambiguous ean me as exceptive.¹

As well they should have, since Paul and Jacob both denied that Paul was teaching Jews among the nations “to forsake Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children nor to walk according to the customs” (Acts 21:21, as detailed earlier). But I fail to see why we should interpret the latter half of Gal. 2:16 in such a way as to contradict the plain meaning of the first half. In fact, there is no contradiction at all: Paul is saying that the works of law will not justify one in the heavenly court unless by the “faith of Yeshua” (which we will come to in a moment); therefore, he and Peter (“we”) have put their faith in Yeshua so that they might be justified by Yeshua’s faith (or faithfulness) rather than than trusting (only) in their own works of law. While the emphasis is certainly on trusting in Yeshua, Paul is not saying that the works of law are bad or in opposition to the faith of Yeshua, only that they have no power in and of themselves to save.

But what exactly does “faith of Messiah” (or, if you prefer, “faith of Christ”) mean? We’ll discuss that in the next entry.

1Martinus C. De Boer, Galatians: A Commentary (Westminster John Knox, 2011), p. 144

Rest in Shalom

At a little after 3:00 pm today, my grandmother Virginia Baity passed away in the same manner in which she lived her life: Quiety and with dignity.

Thank you to everyone who has been keeping us in your prayers. Please continue to do so, and lift up my mother, Jean Bugg, in particular.

I don’t yet have details on the funeral arrangements, but right now the very rough plan is to have normal synagogue services on Shabbat and then my father and I will drive out on Sunday. This blog is likely to go without updates for at least a week; my apologies to my regular readers.

Shalom.

Update on Grandmother’s Stroke

Just got the word: The stroke was catastrophic and is causing a massive hemorrhage in her brain. She’s unconscious and not expected to wake up. She signed a DNR which my mom and my aunt are honoring, so this isn’t expected to drag out for too long.

Prayers still appreciated.

Shalom

My Grandmother just had a stroke

We have no idea how serious it is yet. I may be a bit scarce for a while depending on the outcome. Please keep us in prayer.

Common Mistranslations – The Book of Hebrews

Title page of the Epistle to the Hebrews, Walters Manuscript W.533, fol. 291r (Photo credit: Walters Art Museum Illuminated Manuscripts)

The book of Hebrews has long been interpreted to be a kind of Galatians to the Jews, warning Jewish Christians not to go “back” to the religion of Judaism. For example, Albert Barnes writes in the introduction to his commentary,

The general purpose of this Epistle is, to preserve those to whom it was sent from the danger of apostasy. Their danger on this subject did not arise so much from persecution, as from the circumstances that were fitted to attract them again to the Jewish religion. . . It was that of being affected by considerations like these, and of relapsing again into the religion of their fathers, and of apostatizing from the gospel; and it was a danger which beset no other part of the Christian world.¹

Likewise, Matthew Henry’s famous commentary introduces this book:

As to the scope and design of this epistle, it is very evident that it was clearly to inform the minds, and strongly to confirm the judgment, of the Hebrews in the transcendent excellency of the gospel above the law, and so to take them off from the ceremonies of the law, to which they were so wedded, of which they were so fond, that they even doted on them, and those of them who were Christians retained too much of the old leaven, and needed to be purged from it. The design of this epistle was to persuade and press the believing Hebrews to a constant adherence to the Christian faith, and perseverance in it, notwithstanding all the sufferings they might meet with in so doing.²

Indeed, nearly every Christian commentary assumes that Hebrews is a warning to Jewish Christians against keeping the Torah that defines what is is that makes us Jewish. However, when we properly interpret two key verses, the whole argument comes apart.

Hebrews 4:9

KJV – There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God.

NIV - There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God;

ESV – So then, there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God,

YLT – there doth remain, then, a sabbatic rest to the people of God,

The King James Version is the worse offender here, but while modern translations draw closer to the true meaning of this verse, they still miss the mark. The word commonly translated as “rest” or “Sabbath rest” is sabbatismos (σαββατισμος). Thayer’s Lexicon notes that the correct translation is “a keeping sabbath.” Likewise, Barnes’ writes in his Notes on this verse,

It properly means “a keeping Sabbath” from σαββατίζω sabbatizō – “to keep Sabbath.” This word, not used in the New Testament, occurs frequently in the Septuagint; Exo. 16:30; Lev. 23:32; Lev. 26:35; 2Ch. 36:21; and in 3 Esdr. 1:58; 2 Macc. 6:6.

Indeed? If the meaning of the word is so plain, why obscure it behind the phrase, “Sabbath rest,” suggesting (as indeed many commentaries take it) that this rest is either optional, or else refers to a future “rest” after the return of Messiah (either the eternal state or the Millennium, depending on your eschatology)?

It is not difficult to understand. For at least nineteen centuries, after all, Christian doctrine has stated that since the seventh-day Sabbath is (allegedly) not commanded in the New Testament, then either it has been set aside as part of the old law or else has been superseded by a new sabbath given on the first day of the week in honor of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ. If the correct translation of this passage were given, that argument would fall apart.

Here is how we would understand the passage if it were rendered correctly:

For if Joshua [Yeshua] had given them rest, he would not have spoken of another day [of rest] after that [in Psalm 95:7-11]. So there remains a Sabbath to keep (lit. ‘Sabbath-keeping’) for the people of God, for the one who has entered into [Messiah's] rest also rests (aorist tense) from his works as God did from his (Heb. 4:8-10) . . . For he has said elsewhere concerning the seventh [day], “And God rested on the seventh day from all of his works” (v. 4, quoting Gen. 2:2) . . . Therefore let us be diligent to enter that [Sabbath] rest [of the seventh day], so that no one will fall through the same example of disobedience” (Heb. 4:11).

As I noted long ago in Mistranslation Pet Peeves and the ISV, I actually got in touch with Dr. William Welty on this one. He agreed, reluctantly, and told me that the ISV would be amended to read, “There remains, therefore, a Sabbath rest for the people of God to keep . . .”

Now, does this mean that Christians of Gentile birth who fail to keep the Sabbath are under the condemnation of God as those who fell in the wilderness were (as we might suppose from the overall argument of Hebrews chapter 3-4)? Not necessarily. After all, Hebrews was written to, well, the Hebrews, those born and circumcised as Jews, not to Gentiles like the book of Galatians. While there is a Divine invitation for those Gentiles who wish to draw near to Israel and participate in her Sabbaths and sacrifices (Isa. 56:3, 6-7, quoted in Mat. 21:13, Mark 11:17, and Luke 19:46), there is also an argument to be made that certain commandments, like the Sabbath, are “signs” and cultural markers distinct to Israel (Exo. 31:13). Such commandments, many argue, are not and have never been required for Gentile Christians.

However, regardless of one’s stance on the “Jewish” commandments, the correct translation of Hebrews 4:9 makes it clear that there is no New Testament warrant for forbidding Jewish disciples of a Jewish Messiah from keeping the Sabbath, which is sadly how the Christian Church has interpreted this book for literally thousands of years.

Let us move on to the second example.

Hebrews 7:12

KJV – For the priesthood being changed, there is made of necessity a change also of the law.

NIV - For when the priesthood is changed, the law must be changed also.

ESV – For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well.

YLT - for the priesthood being changed, of necessity also, of the law a change doth come,

While I fault the King James translators for getting this passage wrong, I believe that the ongoing propagation of the error that I will explain below has less to do with a conspiracy to change the Bible than with simple bias. After all, all Christians know, or think they know, that it is an obvious truth that the Law was changed with the coming of Christ. I’ve actually had some that I’ve engaged claim that to deny a change in the Law, which is to say the Torah, is tantamount to denying the work of Christ on the Cross.

However, regardless of what theological implications about the Law that one draws out of the Messiah’s sacrifice, that’s not what the passage actually says. The key words translated “changed” and “change” are metatithemenes (μετατιθεμενης) and metathesis (μεταθεσις). Both of these words indicate a transference, a change of place or location, not an alteration in an existing body or the switching out of one for another.

Different conjugations of both words are together by the author of Hebrews later in the book: “By faith Enoch was taken up (lit. “translated,” metatethe / μετετεθη) so that he should not see death, and he was not found, because God had taken (“translated,” metatheseus / μεταθεσεως) him. Now before he was taken he was commended as having pleased God” (Heb. 11:5, ESV). Metathesis is further used in Heb. 12:27 to denote a removal of those things which can be shaken (as in, moved, not destroyed) to make way for those things which cannot. In addition, metatithemi is used to indicate a transference of place in Acts 7:16 (Jacob’s bones to Shechem), and a transference from the metaphysical “position” of true doctrine to a position falsehood in Gal. 1:6 and Jude 1:4.

So what’s the difference? The translation as it stands in nearly all versions of the Bible implies that the Torah itself has been either severely altered or else swapped out for another law. This idea is untenable for several reasons. First and foremost, Yeshua himself claimed that he had not come to abolish the Torah, but to “fill” it—that is, to demonstrate its full measure and meaning (Mat. 5:17-19).³ Secondly, the Torah itself states that one cannot add to or take away from its commandments (Deu. 12:32). It goes so far as to state that anyone who attempts to change it, to “seduce you out of the way the LORD your God has commanded you to walk,” no matter what signs or miracles they perform, is de facto a false prophet (ibid., 13:1-5).

But moreover, even Hebrews itself mandates against such an interpretation. Just two verses after the verse in question (Heb. 7:14), the book reads, “For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, a tribe with reference to which Moses spoke nothing concerning priests.” If the Torah were really radically altered, or changed out for another law, why would this matter at all? Only on the context of the Torah still having the full weight of God’s authority does the author’s argument make any sense at all.

Understanding the Point of Hebrews

So what, then, is the point of the passage? Simply this: Hebrews was written at a time when the Temple still stood, but Yeshua’s followers knew by his own word that it was soon to fall (Mat. 24:2, Luke 21:6)–and it was not difficult for them to infer that this second destruction would last far longer than the seventy years of the first (see Lev. 26:18, 21, 24, and 28). To a Christian, this seems like no big deal, but to the early Jewish disciples, it was an almost inconceivable thought. We know that they were zealous for the Torah (Acts 21:20) and that many of them were even Pharisees (Acts 15:6, 23:6). To an observant Jew, the whole Torah is effectively one commandment (cf. Rom. 7:9-12); how then could they continue to keep the Torah if whole segments were about to be rendered impossible to observe by the coming judgment on Jerusalem?

The entire book of Hebrews was written to answer that question. In short, its answer is thus: The coming destruction of the Temple was anticipated, and the prophets, David in particular, foresaw a coming Anointed One who would be like Melchizedek, both a priest and a king. However, since this Messiah is, as prophesied, of the tribe of Judah, he could not possibly serve in the earthly Temple / Tabernacle, since that is reserved to the Levites (Heb. 7:14). However, even in the Torah it is made clear that the earthly Tabernacle was only a copy of a Heavenly reality. Therefore, to fulfill both Psalm 110 and keep the Torah, this High Priest of Judah serves in the Heavenly throne room—and he does so forever, having offered a perfect sacrifice that encompasses and surpasses all of the previous sacrifices!

Therefore, Hebrews’ author argues from logic, since there is a transference of the High Priesthood from Levi to Judah, there must be a corresponding transference in law (not “the” Law as commonly translated) as well. Since the author has appealed to logic, we must approach this logically as well: This is not to say that every commandment has been set aside by virtue of being transferred into the Heavenly realm. One cannot claim, for example, that since the Law has been transferred, adultery against one’s earthly wife is okay as long as one does not commit spiritual adultery against God!

Nor can one simply claim, as Christians are wont to do, that the “ceremonial” Law is what has been transferred, leaving us only the “moral” Law to follow. Quite aside from the fact that one cannot so easily separate the two (e.g., Is giving one’s servant the Sabbath off moral, or merely ceremonial?), as we have seen from the proper interpretation of Hebrews 4:9, there still remains a Sabbath for the people of God to keep—and therefore there still remain certain ceremonial observances for the disciples of the Messiah Yeshua that are not directly connected to the Temple sacrificial service.

To put it another way, since the author of Hebrews is focused on the “law” (Gr. nomos) of the Temple’s sacrificial service, we must limit our interpretation of just what “law” has been transferred along with Yeshua into the Heavenly Tabernacle to the Temple’s sacrificial service as well.

Many will object to limiting the language of Hebrews in this way. However, the logic is eminently sound—and is not restricted to the musings of Messianics. For example, John Calvin writes of Hebrews 7:12,

By the word Law, we understand what peculiarly belonged to Moses; for the Law contains the rule of life, and the gratuitous covenant of life; and in it we find everywhere many remarkable sentences by which we are instructed as to faith, and as to the fear of God. None of these were abolished by Christ, but only that part which regarded the ancient priesthood.⁴

Simply by letting these two key passages speak for themselves as the plain Greek demands, we find that the book of Hebrews teaches almost precisely the opposite of what most Christians believe it to. Far from telling Jews not to “return” to their old faith, it actually provides the Scriptural and logical rationale for a post-temple Messianic Judaism.

Shalom

1 Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible, introduction to the Book of Hebrews

2 Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Whole Bible, introduction to Hebrews

3 Compare to Gal. 5:14, “For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’” This obviously cannot mean that if I love my neighbor as myself just once I have fulfilled the Law so as to see its mission fulfilled and it set aside—and then can punch him in the face and steal his wallet. Rather, Paul clearly intends for us to understand “fulfilling” the Law by love to our neighbor as an ongoing act. In the same way, Yeshua “fulfilled” (lit. ‘made completely full’) the Torah by demonstrating its full meaning. Since he insists that this fulfillment does not “abolish” the Law in any way, and even goes on to insist that one should keep and teach even the least commandments, we must understand his use of the term to be in agreement with Paul: While the Messiah certainly fulfilled the Torah to a degree that no other man ever could, this does not release us from the obligation to keep the commandments (cf. John 14:15, 1Jn. 5:3).

4 John Calvin’s Commentary to Hebrews 7:12

Related articles

• Even Resurrection Pauses For Sabbath Rest (godspace.wordpress.com)
• Is Sabbath, Saturday, Sunday or Everyday? Defining the Biblical Sabbath day – Part III (biblethingsinbibleways.wordpress.com)
• A Priest in the Order of…….Who? (wrob77.wordpress.com)
• Remembering the Past (sigmonjl.wordpress.com)

Common Mistranslations – Acts 21:20

Let’s face it: Rendering a fully accurate, nuanced translation from one language to another is a Herculean task at the best of times, even if the languages come from the same family tree; e.g., Italian to Spanish. The task is made ten times more difficult when you have to translate between two completely unrelated languages, like Koine Greek and English or (Heaven help you) Hebrew and English. There’s the constant tension between trying to translate the original author’s words (which may cause shades of meaning to be lost) and their thoughts (which puts the translator in the seat of a commentator). Even doing amateur translations from Hebrew to English as practice, I’ve come to greatly respect the translator’s job and appreciate the difficulties they face.

However, there are a number of translation errors that routinely pop up in Christian translations of the New Testament that are so obvious that even someone with absolutely no knowledge of the Greek, but using a program like e-Sword for ten minutes can pick them out. These outright errors are not ones that I’ve cherry-picked from one or two Bible versions, but are so ubiquitous that they might as well be universal. This seems particularly strange to me when each new version of the Bible claims in its introductory notes to attempt to be a faithful (to the best of its translator’s ability) translation from the original Greek, and yet when it comes to the mistranslations that I will detail below, seem to do little more than quote or paraphrase the King James Version. I have also avoided discussing verses where there is room to debate the correct translation or some ambiguity that could lead to honest disagreement among scholars. These posts will only presents unambiguous, blatant errors.

Let me start with a passage that seems innocuous at first, but turns out to be very important. Here is how Acts 21:20 is translated by four major versions of the Bible:

KJV – And when they heard it, they glorified the Lord, and said unto him, Thou seest , brother, how many thousands of Jews there are which believe ; and they are all zealous of the law:

NIV - When they heard this, they praised God. Then they said to Paul: “You see, brother, how many thousands of Jews have believed, and all of them are zealous for the law.

ESV – And when they heard it, they glorified God. And they said to him, “You see, brother, how many thousands there are among the Jews of those who have believed. They are all zealous for the law,

YLT – and they having heard, were glorifying the Lord. They said also to him, `Thou seest, brother, how many myriads there are of Jews who have believed, and all are zealous of the law,

The problem is that none of these are correct. The Greek word translated “thousands” here is muriades (μυριάδες), which means not “thousands,” but “tens of thousands.” If only “thousands” were intended, the word chiliades (χιλιάδες) would have been used instead. Each of these versions correctly translates muriades in Rev. 5:11. (Young’s Literal Translation realizes the fallacy of translating the word as “thousands,” but dodges the point by transliterating muriades rather than properly translating it.)

So why, if the word so obviously means “tens of thousands” why do Christian translations consistently underplay the number of Jewish believers in the First Century by a whole order of magnitude? The answer is that the real number tends to undermine the standard Christian narrative about the New Testament, that “the Jews rejected Jesus, but the Gentiles accepted him.”

There are two ways of looking at this passage: Either Jacob (and the mistranslation of a perfectly good Jewish name into the very English “James” probably deserves its own article) and the elders are referring to the nominal population of Jerusalem and the surrounding villages, or they are referring to the numbers of believers who had made their pilgrimage for Shavuot.¹ If the former, then we’ve got a real problem, since Jerusalem had a nominal population of 60-80,000 during the 1^st Century²—implying that a minimum of a quarter of its population believed in Yeshua. That would be devastating for the Christian narrative that “the Jews” rejected Yeshua, since if over a quarter of Jerusalem’s population believed in Him, this would far outstrip the percentages of Gentiles who came to believe anywhere else in the world.

However, it seems unlikely that Jacob was referring to Jerusalem’s nominal Messianic population, given that this took place during a pilgrimage feast³: Why would he not include the pilgrims in his number? This second option is equally devastating, but for a different reason. While it “thins the soup” somewhat, we note that the sacred Scriptures report to us that all of these tens of thousands of Jews from all over the world were zealous for the Torah.

It is sometimes assumed by those not familiar with Jewish circles that all Jews are as zealous for the Torah and keep it as strictly as the Orthodox (the successors to the Pharisees) do. Nothing could be further from the truth! The Orthodox today represent only 7% of the Jewish people. The remaining 93% is made up of Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, and outright secular Jews. Likewise in the 1^st Century, a Jew might be a Pharisee or an Essene, zealous for keeping the Torah according to the strictest possible standard, but in the Diaspora, he was far more likely to be a Hellenist, far more lax in both the Torah and the traditions and in most things following the ways of the Greeks. Indeed, as close-by as Galilee, the standards for keeping the Torah and the zealousness for its minutiae were far less than in Judea.⁴

This means that among Yeshua’s Jewish disciples, the level of Torah-observance went up, not down. They did not see the Law as something that they needed an escape from or which had been “fulfilled” by the Messiah so that they could now live as Gentiles. On the contrary, the coming of the Son of David instilled in them an even greater love and zealousness for the Torah. In short, the Jews of the 1^st Century who became Nazarenes repented back to the Torah, not away from it. When we realize that they were not a tiny remnant, but perhaps in the neighborhood of 10% of the Jewish people, we have to ask a very simple, and devastating, question: What happened to all of these myriads of Jewish believers who were zealous for the Torah?

Sadly, the answer is that they were persecuted and driven underground not only by the Jewish community, but by the Church as well.

To really drive home how important this is, let me repeat some of what I wrote in The Jew and the Law:

When Paul returns to Jerusalem after many years abroad, he immediately reports in to Jacob, Yeshua’s brother, and the other elders. They are overjoyed to find out that his mission was so successful: In the council related in chapter 15, they had discovered in the prophecies that Gentile inclusion was a necessary prerequisite for the Messiah to return and restore the Davidic monarchy. But, they explained, there was a problem. A big one. “You see, brother, how many tens of thousands there are among the Jews (or Judeans) of those who have believed, and they are all zealous for the Torah. They have been informed about you, that you teach all the Jews who are among the Gentiles to forsake [the Torah of] Moses, telling them not to circumcise their children neither to walk after the customs” (vv.:20-21). How ironic that Paul’s opponents in the 1st Century and his devotees in the nineteen centuries since make the same accusation!

What is their solution? “We have four men who have taken a vow. Take them, and purify yourself with them, and pay their expenses for them, that they may shave their heads. Then all will know that there is no truth in the things that they have been informed about you, but that you yourself also walk keeping the Torah” (vv. 23-24). Paul agrees to their proposal (v. 26). Since the whole point of the endeavor is to show Paul’s continued fidelity to the Torah, and since there is only one vow in Scripture that has anything to do with shaving the head, this must be a Nazrite vow (Num. 6:18).

Christian authors are understandably uncomfortable with this passage and its implications. For example, Adam Clarke remarks,

Had they done this in order to acquire justification through the law, Paul could not have assisted them in any measure with a clear conscience; but, as he did assist them, it is a proof that they had not taken this vow on them for this purpose. . . Besides, God had not yet fully shown that the law was abolished, as has already been remarked: he tolerated it till the time that the iniquity of the Jews was filled up; and then, by the destruction of Jerusalem, he swept every rite and ceremony of the Jewish law away, with the besom of destruction.

Matthew Henry in his Concise Commentary goes much farther, even accusing Paul and Jacob of sinning!

The apostles were not free from blame in all they did; and it would be hard to defend Paul from the charge of giving way too much in this matter. It is vain to attempt to court the favour of zealots, or bigots to a party. This compliance of Paul did not answer, for the very thing by which he hoped to pacify the Jews, provoked them, and brought him into trouble. But the all-wise God overruled both their advice and Paul’s compliance with it, to serve a better purpose than was intended.

Both authors (and others that we could cite) miss the question that should drive our understanding of this event: Why exactly did Jacob and the elders choose a Nazrite vow as proof of Paul’s fidelity? Surely his enemies would simply say, as some Christians do, that Paul was simply making a show in order to placate them!

The answer is deceptively simple: It was because Paul had already taken a Nazrite vow on his own, while traveling among the Gentiles, before he ever knew that there was a problem back home. In Acts 18:18, Luke suddenly mentions, in an almost off-hand way, in the middle of his travelogue, “He (Paul) shaved his head in Cenchreae, for he had a vow.” Since Paul had taken his vow while traveling, completing his vow under Jewish law and helping four other Jewish disciples of Yeshua to complete theirs’ would be the perfect refutation of his enemies’ accusations. Paul had actually returned to Jerusalem with the intent of completing his vow: “Now after some years, I came to bring gifts for the needy to my nation, and offerings” (Acts 24:17). The word translated “offerings” in this verse (prosphoras) always refers to a sacrificial offering–such as the three animal sacrifices, grain offering, and wine oblation required to complete the Nazrite vow (Num. 6:14-15). By agreeing to help four other Nazrites, Paul had actually agreed to pay for a total of fifteen sacrificial animals. One hopes he was able to get a bulk discount.

Of course, due to the false rumor that Paul had brought Gentiles into the Holy Place (Acts 21:28), Paul was attacked and arrested, and was never able to complete his own vow. He evidently remained under it until his death. This may be why he had to persuade Timothy to “Be no longer a drinker of water only, but use a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your frequent infirmities” (1Ti. 5:23). Jewish disciples were extraordinarily dedicated to their rabbis, even to the point of superseding their relationships with their own parents, and we see hints of just such a relationship in Paul’s letters (1Ti. 1:2, 18; 2Ti. 1:2, 2:1). It is very likely that Timothy, without taking a formal vow, had decided that as long as Paul was constrained from drinking wine (Num. 6:4), he would not drink wine either, even to the detriment of his own health. This again proves the dedication Paul had to the Torah. A modern Christian would likely decide that God’s grace permitted him to break his vow due to the unforeseen circumstances that had waylaid Paul, but to the Apostle to the Gentiles, such a flagrant and deliberate breach of the Torah’s commandment was unthinkable.

When both properly translated and understood, Acts 21 provides such a rebuke to Christian attacks on Jews keeping the Torah that it provokes an almost panicked reaction from some Christian commentators–who are forced to side with Paul’s enemies when they claim that he was indeed teaching Jews to forsake the Torah of Moses, not to circumcise our sons, and not to keep our traditions. But there’s a terrible arrogance in the claim that those from the same culture and same time as the Messiah himself–many of whom heard his teaching with their own ears and saw his example with their own eyes–somehow misunderstood everything he had taught them.

Shalom

1 While it is not a given that the events of Acts 21:20-23:11 took place on Shavuot (Pentecost), we do know that Paul had been racing to arrive in Jerusalem in time for the Feast (Acts 20:16), so it is not too much a stretch to suppose that he either arrived on time or soon enough thereafter that many of the pilgrims still remained. (See also Acts 2:9-11, which details the far reaches of the world from which Jews would travel to make their pilgrimage.)

2 Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary (JNTP, 1988), p. 301., citing pp. 10-15 in Biblical Archeology Review 4:2 (1978)

3 Paul had been in haste to arrive in Jerusalem in time for Shavuot (Pentecost; Acts 20:16). Technically, the narrative does not tell us whether he made it on time, though I tend to presume that he did. However, whether he arrived on time or shortly after the Feast ended, it is likely that the numbers of Jewish disciples of Yeshua would have remained elevated for some time after the Feast (as in Acts 4-6, in which provision had to be made for the many Greek-speaking, and hence foreign, Jews who remained in Jerusalem to receive instruction after that first, Spirit-filled Shavuot).

4 See Stephen M. Wylen, Jews in the Time of Jesus (Paulist Press, 1995), p. 64

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