by Ucantnome 74 Replies latest jw friends
Hey ozziegal!
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Fernando
Queensland, Australia
Cannot remember where it is, a prophesy about Jesus.
"No broken reed will he crush"
Seems the org does the opposite and drives us broken people away, but when Jesus himself comes, he wont destroy us just because we are not JW perfect.
2 Corinthians 2:17 "Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit. On the contrary, in Christ we speak before God with sincerity, like men sent from God". ~ I used to wonder about this bible text as I went door to door offering subscriptions and accepting donations for the WTBT$.
@anezthy
I wonder if the original greek actually says profit or simply money. I have never checked but it would be interesting if some have changed money for profit.
Here are two articles about the word and its usage. Very interesting read.
2 Corinthians 2:17 - "which corrupt the word of God"
"For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ."
The majority of modern versions render this as "peddle" or "sell the word of God for profit" instead of "corrupt the word of God." The Greek word kapeleuontes does carry the meaning of a peddler or retailer. However, it connotes one who sells with deceit, a corrupter. Dr. Walter Bauer states that the word came to mean "to adulterate." [1] Dr. Joseph Thayer agrees, noting, "But as peddlers were in the habit of adulterating their commodities for the sake of gain . . . (the word) was also used as synonymous with to corrupt, to adulterate." [2] Likewise, Dr. Gerhard Kittle states that kapeleuontes, "also means 2. to falsify the word (as the kapelos purchases pure wine and then adulterates it with water) by making additions . . . This refers to the false Gospel of the Judaizers." [3]
The early church fathers understood the verse to refer to those who corrupt God's word. Athanasius (373 AD) wrote, "Let them therefore be anathema to you, because they have 'corrupted the word of truth'." [4] Gregory of Nazianzus (390 AD) alludes to 2 Corinthians 2:17, Isaiah 1:22 and Psalm 54:15, using the word "corrupt":
And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as the many, able to corrupt the word of truth, and mix the wine, which maketh glad the heart of man, with water, mix, that is, our doctrine with what is common and cheap, and debased, and stale, and tasteless, in order to turn the adulteration to our profit . . . [5]
Both translations are possible. But in light of its historical and contextual usage, the word corrupt is much more likely. Regardless, it is clearly not a translational error. Dr. James R. White, noted Christian apologist and author, makes an interesting claim concerning this verse. He writes, "Surely if the KJV translators were alive today they would gladly admit that 'peddle' is a better translation than 'corrupt,' and would adopt it themselves." [6] If this is true, how would one explain the notes of Dr. John Bois, one of the translators of the KJV? In his notes on 2 Corinthians 2:17, Dr. Bois writes, "Ibid. v. 17. kapeleuontes ] [being a retail dealer, playing tricks, corrupting] i.e. notheuonetes [adultering]. kapelos is derived apo tou kallunein ton pelon [from glossing over lees] by corrupting and adultering wine." [7] Apparently, the translators of the KJV were aware of the meaning of this word.
[1] Walter Bauer, A Greek-English Lexicon Of The New Testament And Other Early Christian Literature, 403.
[2] Joseph Thayer, A Greek-English Lexicon Of The New Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Book, 1977 edition), 324-325.
[3] Kittle, Vol. III., 605.
[4] Athanasius, Apologia Contra Arianos (Defence Against The Arians), III:49.
[5] Gregory Nazianzus, Oratition 2 ("In Defence Of His Flight To Pontus"), 46.
[6] White, 114.
[7] John Bois, Translating For King James, trans. by Ward Allen. Vanderbilt University Press, 1969), 51.
and one more....
"For we are not, as so many, peddling the word of God" -NKJV
It's been said facetiously that a good definition of the KJV-only position is that any Bible that doesn't have 'corrupt' in 2 Corinthians 2:17, is. While I wouldn't go so far as to say that, I would like to critically evaluate the ways that kapeyleuonte s has been translated into English.
To begin with, kapeyleuontes is a hapax legomenon, that is, a word only used once in the New Testament.
Thus it is difficult to translate without having any other context to help determine meaning. This is some of what the B-A-G lexicon has under this word:
kapeleuo . trade in, peddle, huckster (of retail trade), Isaiah 1:22 also fig. adulterate (so Vulgate, Syriac, Gothic). . .
Let's look at Isaiah 1:22 as literally translated from the Septuagint and the Vulgate:
LXX: Your silver is worthless, thy wine merchants mix the wine with water.
Vulgate: Thy silver is turned into dross: thy wine is mingled with water.
OK, so the LXX is making a passive into an active and supplying the subject, which has been translated into English as 'merchants'. But what is being emphasized in this verse is not the act of selling the wine, but the act of illicitly diluting (i.e. corrupting) it before the sale. Thus from this use of kapeyloi in the Greek OT, we see the connotation of selling under false pretenses. Moving on now to 2 Corinthians 2:17, we look again at the Vulgate:
"For we are not as many, adulterating the word of God"
How was this translated in the earliest English Bible? Let's check Wycliffe (All spelling is updated):
"For we be not as many, that do adultery by the word of God."
OK, Wycliffe misunderstood the connotation of adulterantes here as adultery rather than adulteration.
Better move on to Tyndale, who had the advantage of being able to read both Erasmus' eclectic Greek text and his Latin translation & commentary--as well as Luther's translation into German based on Erasmus. He translated:
"For we are not as many are, which chop and change with the word of God"
See the return to the idea of 'adulterate'; Luther had:
"For we are not as the many, which falsify the word of God"
This meaning continued to be carried forward in subsequent revisions of the English New Testament.
Coverdale 1535 left Tyndale as he found it, apparently using an English idiom of the 16th century:
"For we are not as many are, which chop & change with the word of God"
Geneva 1560 changed the wording to reflect the 'merchant' connotation, but left the 'corrupt' connotation in a footnote:
"For we are not as many, which *make merchandise of the word of God" (* that is, preach for gain, & corrupt it to serve men's affections )
Bishops' 1568 removed the footnote, but--significantly--returned to the wording of Tyndale:
"For we are not as many are, which chop & change with the word of God "
The KJV 1611 left out the footnote, but incorporated its meaning into the text, giving a different shade of meaning in a new footnote:
"For we are not as many which *corrupt (* deal deceitfully with ) the word of God"
In all of these English versions we see the difficulty of fully expressing the full connotation of kapeleuo . It consists of:
1) Taking a pure product and adulterating it with some foreign element;
2) Passing it off as the real thing;
3) In order to realize dishonest gain.
Thus Paul is referring to other preachers who
1) Take the word of God & mix into it corrupting elements;
2) Pass this 'new and improved' gospel off as genuine;
3) In order to realize some profit from their audience.
The charge the KJV-only people are making is that this exactly describes what the purveyors of the New Modern Versions are doing--and that they are covering their tracks by mistranslating the verse.
To their credit, I don't think the Modern Versions do any worse of a job at covering the full meaning of kapeyleuontes than earlier ones did:
RV 1881-1901: "For we are not as the many, *corrupting (* or making merchandise of ) the word of God"
RSV 1946-1973: "For we are not, like so many, peddlers of God's word"
NASB 1960-1995: "For we are not like many, *peddling (*corrupting ) the word of God"
NIV 1973-2006: "Unlike so many, we do not peddle the word of God for profit"
NRSV 1989: "For we are not peddlers of God's word like so many"
So we see that regardless of the version, only element #1 or #3 comes across in translation. If we we include footnotes, RV has both, and only NASB has element #2--but at the expense of omitting #3.
Jay P. Green suggests 'hawking' which carries well the idea of #3 and lesser so #2, but gives no indication of #1. The Strong's Lexicon has:
--from kapelos (a huckster); to retail, i.e. (by implication) to adulterate (figuratively): corrupt.
The most succinct way of combining the information found in all of the above versions is:
"For we are not like many--hawking an adulterated version of God's word purely for profit."
Ouch. That does strike a bit close to home, in view of the copyright protection carried by all the modern versions, each of which, despite their copyrighted distinctions, claims the title 'The Holy Bible
Psalm 146:3
"Do not put your trust in nobles Nor in the son of earthling man to whom no salvation belongs"
smiddy
Jonah 1:1-3
1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
3 But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the LORD.
Jonah, the bitter prophet.
Gotta respect someone that hears the word of God personally and has the balls to say "screw that!"
Even after he's forced to go prophesy, he goes, calls down evil on the city and then goes out to watch the fireworks. For the first time, a city listens and converts which pisses him off even more.
Jonah's my kind of guy.
@para
Do you realise that Jonah is simply a story about the Son. Jonah means dove as in the a bird. The three days he was in the whale or darkness are the 3 days the sun dies over the cross at xmas. Bird imagery was often used for the Sun in past religions, in the case of Horus he was a falcon. Im not going to tell the obvious that Jonah is of course a story and never happened. Everybody knows that men cannot fit into a whales belly simply because whales cannot swallow something that big.
@mP Oh I know the bible is just myths and fairy tales, doesn't mean I can't have a favorite one.
mp, maybe he was a midget.
