Language Studies

This familiar passage in Ephesians 4:7-11 goes on to talk about the appointing of the so-called fivefold ministry of apostles and others within the Church. These then seem to be regarded as Christ's gifts to men. The source of the quotation is undoubtedly Psalm 68:18 (LXX 67:19; MT 68:19), which in the NKJV reads as follows…

The Pharisees are a modern byword for nitpicking hypocritical killjoys. They have a semi-deserved reputation which they even accepted themselves with the rabbis making jokes about the seven types of Pharisee including…

The beautifully graphic and perhaps ordered picture of Psalm 1:1 could be taken as a synonymous parallelism of equal phrases with little difference between the postures, actions or classes of people. A similar discussion is held over whether the language of Matthew 5:22 represents…

This is not a flippant article for there are millions of Christian vegetarians in the world but nonetheless I will examine it Scripturally and ethically, in so far as one can. I have taken John 21 as a theme for it follows after the resurrection and the word rendered 'meat' is interesting in its own right. The AV speaks of 'meat', the NIV of 'fish', the…

The majority of Bible versions translate this verse as "Abraham still stood before the LORD", a rendering confirmed by the earliest translations of the Greek Septuagint and the Aramaic Targums. Since, the majority are always right and the weight of tradition appears to…

Every schoolboy or girl knows of Pi, very few can quote it beyond a few decimal places, although several have mastered Pi to between ten and forty thousand digits as record breaking attempts (http://pi-world-ranking-list.com/lists/memo/index.html). What most teenage children or adults with at least some recollection of geometry will tell you…

We recently noted some of the imperfections in Jacob (see Article), according to some, which did not prevent his being used as the foundation of God's people through becoming Israel. In Genesis 27:19,24 Jacob lies when he pretends that he is Esau, but inspired by his mother. In the same way his grandfather and our spiritual father…

What could be the problem here? Esau's cunning or Jacob's tent dwelling? Actually I have chosen to find a problem in that most innocent of phrases "Jacob was a plain man". What is wrong with being plain or ordinary, or "quiet" (JPS), "simple" (LXX, aplastov), "mild" (NKJ), "homely" (Darby), "peaceful" (NAS)? Other modern translations render…

Here's one, often asked by youth groups, just where did Cain and Abel get their wives and if they did marry their sisters (at which most youth groups in unison shriek "yuck!") why were they allowed to since it was banned under the divine legislation revealed to Moses. Amused youth are not only ones asking this question. It was raised…

The Hebrew of this verse presents us with some curious grammar difficulties that in turn make for theological dilemmas. English sentences tend to be subject-verb-object and Hebrew verb-subject-object. In addition, the Hebrew here lacks the word 'the' and is just "In beginning" just as in John 1:1's echo of Genesis 1:1 which also lacks the definite…

Job feared that his sons had sinned and cursed God (Job 1:5, lit. blessed — see the Difficult Sayings column on Job 2:9). Satan tried to induce Job to bless God to his face (Job 1:11; 2:5). Job’s wife encouraged him to get it over with, “bless God, and die” (Job 2:9). But Job did not sin (1:22; 2:10; 31:30) by cursing. So, we get a shock when we read that…

This is not a flippant article for there are millions of Christian vegetarians in the world but nonetheless I will examine it Scripturally and ethically, in so far as one can. I have taken John 21 as a theme for it follows after the resurrection and the word rendered 'meat' is interesting in its own right. The AV speaks of 'meat', the NIV of 'fish', the…

Job turned down his wife's offer as foolish and chose not to "sin with his lips" (2:10) although in 3:1 Job does "curse the day of his birth" [see next week's column]. It is understandable that cursing God would be sinning but if you read the Hebrew text or a typical Bible's footnote such as…

This particular section in Matthew, normally paralleled in Luke 7 or 16, is not mentioned by Luke. However we have the wonderful contradiction in John 1:21 when John denies that he is Elijah or the Prophet to come and in Matthew 17:12 // Mark 9:13 where Jesus says that…