Wednesday Bible Study Special edition

This one's going to be a lot different, as we veer off our track this week for something God has put on my heart.  For those of you that read these posts for entertainment value, I'm sure you will be entertained.  For those who view this as a supplement to their personal study, this might be the SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT Wednesday study I ever type up.  Before I get to the meat, let me establish a "base camp".

Now you are pretty much all aware of how MAN can stretch what the Bible actually says out of all proportion.  Let me use for example the Catholic concept of Purgatory- that there is a place for those who "merit" heaven, but have some sins to clean up, to go when they die until their fellows pray enough prayers and have enough masses said until they are released.  The basis of this is in the Apocryphal book of the Maccabees, which doesn't really matter, and neither does the verses that are claimed to "also state this", though I have never seen one.  What does matter is this- if the doctrine of Purgatory was true- then surely the thief next to Jesus on the Cross would have went there, as he was paying on earth for sins most of us don't want to commit.  Jesus did NOT say, "It's is finished- except for the next couple thousand years in Purgatory, to scrub off the stuff My Death missed."  He said, "It is finished", and whatever misreading one does to say Jesus' death WASN'T enough is simple blasphemy.

Or the perpetual virginity of Mary.  This one perhaps you can defense a little better.  There is some truth to the statement that the word "brothers" used in Mark 6:3 of the brothers of Jesus can be used for other relations.  HOWever, why doesn't Luke, then, call Elisabeth Mary's "sister", rather than cousin or kinswoman?  And besides which, let's use just a bit of thought- WHY would Mary stay a virgin, when she was marrying Joseph and had a social obligation to bear HIM children?  Was she in waiting in case God needed some more "little Jesuses" later on?

Now, take these two examples and file them under, "If it ain't in the Bible, it don't count."  Now, I want to get a little closer to our point today with an actual Biblical example- one that previously would have just hoisted me on me own petard, matey!

In Genesis 6, we have the whole deal I've discussed before with the "Sons of God" hooking up with the "daughters of men" and creating the "heroes of old, the men of renown."  Here, the Jewish traditions bring in fallen angels, called the "Watchers" as the "sons of God", and hint that the mythological pantheons were the result of their breeding with human women.  I used to subscribe to that, but I decided some time ago to apply the Kalko rule and look at the context.  Ignoring the other sources, I found that you could make sense of it without legends.  The sons of God were the faithful offspring of the line of Seth- an ever-dwindling line as the sinful line of Cain made inroads into their ranks, until only 8 were left standing when the Floodwaters came.

And that is the point- get it from the Bible, and gain understanding where you can from other sources.  But you still need to be careful.  Let me show you how I learned this from two examples that hit bang-bang for me last week as you read this.  The first was during my nightly reading, and I was in Colossians 1:

Col 1:16  For all things were created in Him, the things in the heavens, and the things on the earth, the visible and the invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created through Him and for Him. 

Now if you were brought up Catholic- or apparently Orthodox- you would recognize the terms "Thrones", Dominions", "Principalities" and "Powers" as four of the classifications of Angels.  Now, the question is, how do we get that out of this verse, which is THE place that that idea comes from?  So, I resorted to my list of Commentators on e-sword, and all but one agreed that these were angelic orders.  And I read on, wondering how they deduced that.  Now to me, Paul was trying to set bookends of the created world- starting with things of heaven on on side and of earth on the other; then, visible things on one side, and invisible on the other; then, thrones (kings) on one and kingdoms (dominions) on the other, and last nobilities (principalities) on the one and physical control (powers) on the other- and then show that no matter WHERE on the bookend continuum you were, CHRIST CREATED YOU.  Simple concept.  But the closest I came to an answer on the commentators thinking it otherwise was that word "whether" in the middle of the verse.  That it did not just separate another set of bookends, but it connected what came after to the single word next to it- "invisible"- and thus was talking about angels, as they were in the "invisible realm".

But just before I could pull my hair out, one lone commentator came bringing common sense:

From the People's New Testament:

The angelic hierarchy; different ranks of angels, according to the teachings of some of the Jewish doctors. A heresy had already been proposed that divided these into ranks, assigned them an undue prominence, and held that Christ was only an angel. Paul does not pause to say whether these divisions are correct, but declares that Christ is above them all, created them, and that they were created for him. One of these heresies he wished to counteract was the doctrine of angel worship. 

Get it?  Paul didn't give a hang whether there were divisions of rank in the angels- or about the men that were playing, "I'm with Cephas, I'm with Apollos" with them.  His ONLY concern was to stamp out the veneration of Angels, and he threw in terms he knew would catch the eyes of those who subscribed to the heresy to do it.

My point being, sometimes you have to dig deep- first in the Word itself, sometimes into the translations, and sometimes into the wisdom of those who came before you.  But the defining test is, what would Jesus have meant?  And this got born out the next day when Laurie questioned something.

Mar 1:40  And a leper came to Him, begging Him and kneeling down to Him, and saying to Him, If You will, You can make me clean. 

Mar 1:41  And Jesus, moved with compassion, put out His hand and touched him, and said to him, I will; be clean! 

Simple enough, right?  But look what happens when I use the NIV:

41 Jesus was indignant. He reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!”

So how do we go from compassion to indignant?  This was a complicated story, and I am glad I dug as deep as I did.  But to try to give you the complete idiot's guide so you don't fall asleep on me:

Basically, the majority of translations use the same Greek texts, and out of all the ancient texts, the one the NIV uses is one from 500 AD which alone translated the word not as the word for compassion (pity), but anger ( indignation).  Why was it different?  The first article I read surmised that the original was the "anger" version, as sometimes scribes would change things to make them "make more sense", or "harmonize" them with other Gospel accounts.  Therefore, since it was more likely that a scribe would "chill Jesus out"- and because the other two accounts skip Jesus's frame of mind- the one that "sounded" wrong had to be right.  Therefore Jesus was indignant.  

So I thought, well, was He upset over something that had happened before?  Not according to the preceding story.  And after, He firmly told the leper, "tell no one"- and apparently that was enough with the other supposition to convince the NIV that Jesus was in fact angry.  Me, I looked at Jesus, and I didn't buy it.

So I dug a little further.

And I found another article, and this article explained a bit more.  This source the NIV used was a copy of a Greek-Latin text- first a page was copied in Greek, then in Latin.  So most people supposed the Greek was correct, and the discrepancy came in the Latin translation.  But waitaminit, this guy said, let's think about this.  For one, ALL the Gospels had several examples of Jesus going "Wrath of God" on someone with no problem- why would they then change this one?

He figured three ways that it COULD have been an easy mistake.  Without getting into the messy details, look at it this way- the original copy has been redone XXXLXVI times by 500 AD, and while the original might have been written by Greeks ( the NIV's position), the last several copies had been made by LATIN speakers- and they hit a relatively rare word ( the Greek word used here for "compassion") and, not knowing for sure what it meant, they scanned the context- and saw the "strict warning" from Jesus.  They looked back at the Greek word- a long word whose second half looked like the more common Greek word for "indignation"- and said, "Well, it must be "indignation"!

So, does this mean you can't get to the truth of these controversial passages, since our copies are flawed?  NO, and this is my whole point.  Remember last week's ( not the latest, assuming I get one in on the 14th) Sunday Message?  JESUS IS the truth.  You're a leper coming to Jesus for healing.  You beg with proper reverence.  Is Jesus going to be compassionate, or mad?

So Doc Martin's rule for today?  Start with Jesus- end with Jesus.  The middle will fall into line on its own, yes?