December 31 Special

Greetings friends to this end of the year podcast! Before I share my own stories, I want to give you our last two Listener Stories for 2020, one from Tom and another from Tammy. I think Tammy’s story is especially interesting because the Coronavirus pandemic had a big impact on her. I think her story will resonate with many of you. 

Hello, my name is Tammy.  I recently retired from being a principal and before that a school teacher, a job I had done and loved for over 30 years.  I had oodles of plans for what I was going to do, places I was going to go and things I was really looking forward to doing-  like working with children at our church this summer.  When COVID hit and closed down school as we knew it on March 13, 2020, my life really changed.  I didn’t get to say goodbye to my students, parents and staff, it just all ended that Friday in March.  I was really struggling with what to me felt like a major loss. (This is in no way to disrespect those that have had greater losses due to COVID.)

I was talking to my husband explaining how I was feeling such an absence of being needed and like I was just wandering looking for what I was supposed to be doing with my life at this time.  My sweet husband said some very wise words to me.  He said, “Tammy, I believe God is just giving you this down time to recharge you and prepare you for what He has planned next for you to do for Him.  Take this time and use it to its best.”  While I knew he was right, I have to say I DON’T  do down time well.  When you work 60 hours a week for oodles of years and have people consistently needing things from you, to have that come to a screeching halt, really put me off kilter.  

I was struggling trying to figure out what God wanted me to do.  Then one morning in my devotion time God put on my heart that I have been wanting to complete a read through the Bible in a year program for a long time.  Even though it was August, I thought, this doesn’t have to wait until January to be a New Year’s Resolution, it can be my New Life Resolution. What a blessing this decision has been!  I looked at all different types of programs.  I found Digging Deeper Daily and liked the explanation of how this program was laid out. I wanted to learn about the “threads that unify the message of the Old and New Testaments”. I also like the fact that there were brief devotional notes that I thought would help me see the connections clearer.  

I started this journey on August 20th and upon hearing the first reading, I fell in love with this journey.  Phil’s voice was so calming and yet assured in what he was saying and reading.  The brief stories he shares of his work as a Bible translator make me feel like I have a new friend.  This adventure has helped me grow daily in my understanding of God’s word.   Being a Christian since a child, I had heard many stories from the bible, now I understand more deeply what was happening before, during and after those isolated events.  It has really helped make the Bible come to life for me.  

Phil explains how he started this project as a gift to leave his grandchildren.  He wanted to read the entire bible to them.  I feel his love each morning as I listen to him read and explain the daily passage, its as if for those brief moments I have been adopted into his family.  This has not only been a way for me to learn more about the Bible, grow closer to God, but also to feel like I am being gathered into the fold each morning.  

The brief explanations at the end of the readings are so helpful.  I always look forward to the prayer Phil delivers to close the devotional time.  Often, I will replay the prayer a time or two more.  At the end of “our time together” I try to conclude with a prayer for Phil and all those doing God’s work to bring His word to the nations that don’t have the Bible yet.  This reminder of what a gift the Bible is to us, that I often take for granted because I haven’t known a time without it, has made my daily time with God even more precious.  

Early on in the program, Phil was reading to us from Matthew.  When He read Matthew 11:28 which says, “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” I cried.  This to me reiterated what my husband told me.    I was in need of this passage.  When Phil read this verse, with such love in his voice, I felt as if it was God speaking it to me.  I needed rest, yet I wouldn’t let myself admit it.  Now, each morning I consider my time listening to Phil read God’s word as a time of rest, connection and recharging.  

I can’t wait to find out what great adventure God has in store for me next, or where He needs me in this stage of life, what I do know though is that Phil Fields and Digging Deeper Daily will be on that amazing ride with me.  

Thanks so much, Tammy, for your story! And with a sincere blush, I also say thanks for your kind words. I am so pleased— more than that— filled with joy, when people are able to look through the kind of one-way mirror that podcasting is, to become my friends and even adopted family. 

Thanks to Tom giving me this next story. Tom is mainly a reader (not a regular podcast listener). The 3D YouVersion plan he has followed for 2020 is called Read To Me Daily. (Link given in the episode notes.) Tom is a long time friend, dating back to my music teaching days. There is one odd, totally unplanned, similarity between his story and Tammy’s. I think you will catch it.

My name is Tom and I am a sixty-year-old Arkansan.  I have read through the Bible several times using different plans.  The last few times, using electronic media, such as Digging Deeper Daily, has aided me greatly through ease of access.  Reading the Bible entirely in one year gives one little time for Bible study, but I value the discipline of daily reading which stirs my thoughts and continually whets my appetite to, what else, dig deeper.

I read through the Bible this year using the Amplified Bible, Classic Edition.  In the past I have used various translations and even some paraphrases and I may have been wiser to use the recommended New Living Translation or Good News Translation.  Instead, however, I wanted to use the AMPC this year to slow me down.  The many bracketed words and phrases in the AMPC which are used to further describe a translated word or passage, forced me to ponder over a word or passage and think about how an idea was being explained.  I did enjoy the New Living Translation as well as the Good News Translation versions referenced most often in the devotionals.  I found multiple translations of the same verses to be quite helpful.

Most years when using a daily reading plan I plowed right past the devotional passages and read only the scripture.  This year I was determined to include reading the devotionals, again, to slow me down and to help me think about what I was reading.  I enjoyed reading the Digging Deeper Daily devotionals which often gave the translator’s perspective of a passage, citing examples of difficult passages to translate and including real-life examples of working with an indigenous people group to help them understand the Bible.  In addition to translation notes, I appreciated the occasional summaries from prior days, reminding me of an important passage, even to the point of repeating some passages over consecutive days for emphasis.  I also appreciated being prodded by the devotional to live up to its title to, here it is again, dig deeper into particular passages.

I appreciated how the daily readings were divided up between Old and New Testaments, particularly saving Isaiah for the end of the calendar year with so many relevant passages for the advent season.  My favorite passage, personally, occurred late in the calendar year on September 21.  Matthew 11:28-30, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you.  Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” (NLT)  I am never more at peace than when I surrender to Christ’s yoke.

Finally, while I spent the year in the daily reading plan rather than listening to the daily podcasts, I did enjoy utilizing the audio podcasts through the Old Testament genealogies. 😊

Thanks for those great comments, Tom! I rejoice just as much for those who read the Bible for themselves, as I do for those listening to podcasts.

Before I share my own story, I want to say that I have revised the Read This First site, trying to make it easy to find information helpful to readers and listeners. The Read This First site is prominently linked at dailybiblereading.info.

For this first thing I want to share with you, I am reaching back to 1993. If you are one who reads along while listening, you will have noticed that I have a short list of words I substitute in the Bible text. When the text says ‘faith’, I normally read ‘fully believing’ instead. I have explained this in several podcasts, where I mainly just complain about how fuzzy the term ‘faith’ has become. However today I would like to tell the story of when this truth really came to my attention.

By 1993, we had been in the Orya translation project for 9 years. We had learned the language and translated books like Mark and James. The story I am about to tell happened when I was in the remote village of Guay without my family, and the translation team and I were working on revising Acts. A man I did not know well, Nahe, came up to me on Sunday morning and asked to have a private conversation with me that night. I agreed and he came. He told me this story:

You would not have heard this, but I died and came back to life. This happened in another village out on the coast where I was working. When I came to and started breathing again, the people were already building my coffin. While I was dead, I went to heaven. I saw how the people in heaven were rejoicing and so happy. But I was told to go back and enter into my body again. My body was revolting to me, but somehow I did that and came back.

After his story, ever so sincerely— with a tear and a shaky voice— he said, “I cry everyday because I know that someone like me can’t go to heaven. What do I have to do to get to heaven?”

“Wow,” I thought. “What a perfect opportunity!” I answered from Acts 16, “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” 

He said, “But that’s just the problem! How can I tell if I have believed.”

Incredulous, I asked, “Can’t you tell if you have believed?”

He said, “We Orya people don’t think one can know that.”

Several things dawned on me at once. The first was, “This will probably not be the great missionary story I was hoping it would be.” And the second was, “Everything that we have translated will have to be revised, because we obviously haven’t been using the right word for ‘believe’.”

Starting that Monday morning my team and I spent the whole day discussing what the word ‘believe’ is supposed to mean. The conversation I related above is not quite accurate. Here is what actually was said:

Nahe asked, “What do I have to do to get to heaven?”

I answered from our defective translation of Acts 16, “Have faith in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved.” (I didn’t say “Believe in the Lord Jesus.” I actually said, “Have faith in the Lord Jesus.”)

He said, “But that’s just it! How can I tell if I have faith.”

Incredulous, I asked, “Can’t you tell if you have faith?”

He said, “We Orya people don’t think one can know that.”

The Orya word which they had used ever since at least the 1950’s to translate the concept of ‘believe’ literally means to have ‘inner fruit’. It can be illustrated as like a papaya, because a papaya has inner fruit. All ripe papaya look about the same externally at the market, but if you buy one and cut it open, on the inside it may be either yellow or pink. I prefer the pink ones. So someone explained to me, “We have assumed that when you die, at the gates of heaven you kind of have an operation to see if you have any ‘inner fruit’ in you. If you do, you can go into heaven. If you don’t, you go to the other place.” No one knows if they have any fruit inside them before dying.

The problem is this: In Greek, ‘believe’ and ‘faith’ have the same root word. They are pisteo and pistis (or pisteos). The visual similarity could be compared to the English verb ‘to be certain’ and noun form ‘certainty’. The words for ‘believe’ and ‘faith’ really OUGHT TO look and sound like they belong to each other, but they don’t. By some strange quirk of linguistic perversity, while ‘faith’ and ‘believe’ look and sound similar in Greek, they don’t look and sound similar in Orya, in Indonesian, and in English! 

It is precisely because of that lack of root-word similarity in English that the abstract noun ‘faith’ is fuzzy and the meaning wanders all over the place. Faith is not like the word ‘certainty’, which can never wander very far from the verb form to be ‘certain’. 

Sleeplessly mulling over my conversation with Nahe, I was amazed when I realized that the English Bible often tells us, “Ya gotta have faith,” but that abstract noun is so fuzzy that people will not know if they have obeyed or not. They will think that they have to wait to find out if they are saved until they are standing at the gates of heaven. This is NOT what God wants!

Here is what I want you to know:

• If you are a believer in Jesus, God wants you to know that you are on your way to heaven. See Romans 10:9-10.
• Believing is a volitional action. You know if you believe something or not. 
• The abstract noun ‘faith’ is not a volitional act, so many people don’t really know if they have ‘faith’ or not.
• That is why I think it is important to share the Gospel in terms of ‘believing’, because people can’t really tell where they are in relation to the abstract noun ‘faith’.
• Any time you see the word ‘faith’ in your Bible, you can almost always substitute the words ‘fully believing’.
• If some preacher or prophet starts explaining what ‘faith’ is and he or she doesn’t talk about ‘believing’ what the Bible says, run away. All kinds of rituals or crystal gazing are purported to increase your faith. Don’t believe it. The faith of people who teach such things is just fuzzy sweet-smelling incense.
• Hey, would you like to have bigger faith?! I’m serious! I can tell you right now how to increase your faith! Believe what the Bible says about God, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and yourself!

By the way: Eventually Nahe died and didn’t come back. His widow is a fine Christian. She told me what I already suspected. She doesn’t think Nahe ever truly believed in Jesus. He got mixed up in false teaching instead.

 

From EveryWord 001 podcast

Here is a quote from from Pickering, The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken, concerning Mark 1:23.

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 . . . ?”

Early this year, when doing the first of the EveryWord podcasts, I found a little golden treasure I had never seen before. In Mark 1:24, the demon called Jesus a ‘Natsarene’ in Wilbur Pickering's translation:

23-24 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?!

 We all know that Nazarene is normally spelled with a z, but Pickering spells it with ts. 

Now Matthew 2:23 states, “So the family (that is Joseph’s 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? Here is the answer to this seeming mistake in God’s infallible Word:

In Hebrew, the word meaning ‘branch’ is netser. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Zechariah (plural prophets) refer to the Messiah as the Branch or Shoot. Isaiah 11:1 is one of those places:

Out of the stump of David’s family will grow a shoot — yes, a new Branch (netser) bearing fruit from the old root. (NLT Isaiah 11:1)

We might call the original name for Jesus’ hometown ‘Netser-place’, or Natsereth. But when Natsereth was translated into Greek, the ts became a z, Nazareth. The cool thing about this is that several hundred years before Christ came, someone founded a settlement called Branchville. I don't think this happened by accident. God definitely planned this. But the people who did that may simply have had the desire to remind others that God promised to send a Messiah who was going to be called ‘the Branch’. So it is significant, and a fulfillment of prophecy, that Jesus is called ‘the man from Branchville’.

The other two prophets use a related form of netzer, which is tsemah. Look at the neat correspondences when we put these four verses mentioning the ‘Branch’ together:

NLT'07 Jeremiah 23:5-6:
5 “For the time is coming,” says the LORD, “when I will raise up a righteous [branch//tsemah//descendant] from King David’s line. He will be a King who rules with wisdom. He will do what is just and right throughout the land.

6 And this will be his name: ‘The LORD Is Our Righteousness.’ In that day Judah will be saved, and Israel will live in safety.

NLT Jeremiah 33:15-16:
15 “In those days and at that time I will raise up a righteous [branch//tsemah//descendant] from King David’s line. He will do what is just and right throughout the land.

16 In that day Judah will be saved, and Jerusalem will live in safety. And this will be its name: ‘The LORD Is Our Righteousness.’

NLT'07 Zechariah 3:8-9:
8 “Listen to me, O Jeshua the high priest, and all you other priests. You are symbols of things to come. Soon I am going to bring my servant, the [Branch//tsemah].

9 Now look at the jewel I have set before Jeshua, a single stone with seven [facets//eyes]. I will engrave an inscription on it, says the LORD of Heaven’s Armies, and I will remove the sins of this land in a single day.

NLT'07 Zechariah 6:12-13:
12 Tell him, ‘This is what the LORD of Heaven’s Armies says: Here is the man called the Branch//tsemah. He will branch out from where he is and build the Temple of the LORD.

13 Yes, he will build the Temple of the LORD. Then he will receive royal honor and will rule as king from his throne. He will also serve as priest from his throne, and there will be perfect harmony between his two roles.’

Isaiah 742-695, 750-695 BC
Jeremiah 627-580, 628-588 BC
Zechariah active 520-518 BC, 520-515, 520-510

 

In line with the two verses from Jeremiah 33 that we just read, the people in the kingdom of Judah were looking for the prophesied King from David’s line. Like what blind Bartemaeus shouted on the road leaving Jericho, people were looking for the ‘Son of David’. But Jesus didn’t call himself that, as far as we know.

What I will share now is a very new insight for me, dating from October. To me this has been a major revelation. It has to do with Jesus’ favorite way of talking about himself, by the title the ‘Son of Man’. I was dissatisfied with the traditional translation of this title into Indonesian. The word for ‘Man’ that has been used in all Indonesian translations before now is ‘manusia’. Unfortunately that word is plural by default, so it comes out as  the ‘Son of Mankind’. Or to give you the idea, it means, Son of People/Humanity, and Indonesians have interpreted that to mean Jesus was very humbly claiming to be ‘no one special at all’. 

This doesn’t line up with how Jesus used the title the Son of Man. He used it in the following three ways, and supporting Scripture references from Matthew’s Gospel are found in the episode notes:

Jesus used ‘Son of Man’ as a Messianic title:

• He used it when He claimed that he had the right to give divine and kingly decisions in this world: Mat. 9:6; 12:8, 32; 13:37; 16:13.
• He used it when talking of his low status, taking on the role of a servant, and of his self-sacrifice: Mat. 8:20; 11:19; 12:40; 17:9, 12, 22; 20:18; 20:28; 26:2, 24, 45.
• He used it when speaking of his coming again in glory and victory: Mat. 10:23; 13:41; 16:27-28; 19:28; 24:27, 30, 37, 39, 44; 25:31; 26:64.

Jesus was NOT claiming to be ‘nobody special’ when He called Himself the Son of Man! 

Well, you listeners to the Daily Bible Reading podcast or those who have read the devotional material know that the title the Son of Man relates to Daniel 7. But there is something there I never saw before this year.

You may remember that God frequently called Ezekiel ‘son of man’. (GNT translates this ‘Mortal man’.) Not just ‘frequently’, but 93 times in that book! That’s almost twice per chapter. But guess what?! Literally in Hebrew the expression is ‘ben adam’ or ‘son of Adam’. Remember that in Genesis, Adam’s name means ‘man’. Biblical Hebrew doesn’t use capital letters to show whether adam is a name or the word man. So beginning in Genesis 3:20, there are verses in the OT where translators differ as to whether ‘adam’ is to be understood as Adam’s name or just the word for man. (Gen. 3:20; Job 31:33; Hos. 6:7)

Readers of the Chronicles of Narnia will remember Mr. Tumus’ question to Lucy, “Pardon me, are you a ‘daughter of Eve?” And the white witch called Edmund a ‘son of Adam’. Really, we can all say that we are sons of Adam or daughters of Eve.

In the short book of Daniel, just like his contemporary Ezekiel, Daniel is called a ‘ben adam’ or ‘son of Adam’ in chapter 8, verse 17. But now let’s take a look a Daniel 7:13-14:

ESV Daniel 7:13-14:

13 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.

14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.

But this key verse has a wrinkle I never saw before, and I apologize for this becoming a bit technical here. Parts of Daniel are written in Aramaic, not Hebrew. The all-important 13th verse for defining Jesus’ title is one of those parts. So in Aramaic, Daniel says that he saw ‘one like a son of man’, and Aramaic doesn’t say ‘son of Adam’. However one can say with certainty that the text would say ‘son of adam’ if it had been written in Hebrew. (And it would also have the ambiguity I have mentioned.)

All this made me ask an interesting question: What language did Jesus use when he called himself the Son of Man? Jesus lived in a multilingual situation. Ancient Hebrew would have been taught in synagogues and used for OT quotes or readings, but evidently Hebrew had not been commonly used in daily conversation in Israel for hundreds of years. In Jesus’ day, Aramaic was much more commonly spoken. But by Jesus’ day, people had for 300 years learned the language of their conquerors, first Greek, and more recently probably a smattering of Latin. Many Jews of the time quoted the OT from the Greek Septuagint. But in multilingual situations, people frequently borrow expressions from one language and sprinkle them into their speech in another language. So Jesus could have called Himself ‘son of Adam’ in Hebrew while speaking in Aramaic, or he could have called himself the Son of Man in Aramaic (like Daniel wrote), or could have called himself the Son of Man in Greek (as the Septuagint translates that expression).

In this way, I found that I reached a dead end in the study of the ancient languages. We simply don’t know enough about what languages Jesus used in different contexts to tell us what words He actually said. But remember that I am concerned with translating Jesus’ title meaningfully into Indonesian. Calling Jesus the Son of Humanity didn’t give the right meaning. It turns out that calling him the Son of Adam was rejected by my translation team. BUT Indonesian has an honorific word used for titles. Tacking on that word, the title becomes The Exalted Son of Adam, and that Works! 

Finally I get to share the special insight this gave me: What happens if we call Jesus the Prophesied Son of Adam? In Genesis 3 God said to the serpent:

“I will put enmity between you and the woman, 

and between your offspring and her offspring;

he shall bruise your head

and you shall bruise his heel.”

The prophesied Son of Eve, would by normal Jewish practice be called by Eve’s husband’s name. The Prophesied Son of Adam is the One all mankind has been waiting for since the Garden of Eden. Given this link, we find that Jesus’ title doesn’t just relate to Daniel 7, but it also relates all the way back to the first prophecy in the Bible. He is the One who vanquished Satan for us on the cross, who speaks with divine and kingly authority, and who will come again in glory and victorious power. This expansion of the meaning of Jesus’ title has been my biggest insight in 2020.

“Oh, how great are God’s riches! How deep are his wisdom and knowledge.” Rom 11:33

And how deep and amazing is God’s Word. “The word of God is alive and active, and sharper than any double-edged sword.” Heb. 4:12

Gale and I wish you a very happy New Year! May the Lord bless you ‘real good’.

 

Check out this episode!

Four 3D Listener Stories

Today I am sharing four listener stories. 

Before I do that, I want to respond to Sunny and Nate, who commented on my pronunciation of Bible names in the podcasts. Surely others have wondered about this, so let me explain. Some may, like Sunny, assume that I am saying the names right. (Well after all, one would think a Bible translator ought to know the right pronunciation!) So here’s my (somewhat embarrassed) explanation of what I have done. After studying a few other languages, I consider the standard English pronunciations of the letters a, i, and e, in many Bible names to be ugly. I really wish I could start a trend to pronounce Bible names differently! Basically, what I have done is to take the English spellings and pronounce them with the pure phonetic vowels of the Indonesian language. I don’t like pronouncing the letter a or e in multiple ways like English, so instead of pronouncing the two a’s differently in ‘Ray-h@b’s name, I say her name ‘Rahab’. And instead of Heze’kEYEya, I pronounce his name He’ZEKya when reading the Bible text. When reading my introductions, I try to give the correct English pronunciation. So my pronunciations cannot be called ‘right’ or even consistent, but pronouncing names with the pure vowels of the Indonesian language happens to make some names more like the Hebrew or Greek pronunciation. I strived to be more consistent in my pronunciation choices in the GNT podcast series.

I send my thanks to Catherine and Luisa, who have given us our first two listener stories. Here they are:

Before I play the next two listener stories, I have some listener feedback from Joy. She had a story like Julie from my last podcast with listener stories, but she added this little PS: Along with following another whole reading plan this year, she also read the YouVersion plan named Day by Day with Billy Graham. This is a 366 day reading plan, which often gives a reading of only one verse and a very short and interesting and pointed devotional thought. This has got to be a good one, because it has 50,000 completions. The link to this reading plan is in the episode notes.

Our next story is from Iryna. I couldn’t place her accent, and when I took a guess, I was way wrong. She is from Crimea, which became a Russian territory in 2014. She writes that her name (Iryna) derives from Greek, which is true for many names in Russia and the Ukraine. Her name means peace. Iryna is married to an Australian and they live in Australia.

Many thanks to Iryna. She sent pictures of two of the verses she has illustrated for the walls of their home. These can be seen at the bottom of the home page of the Read This First site. The link for that site is in the program notes, and it is the first link found at dailybiblereading.info.

Next I want to send my thanks to Nicole for this last listener story today. Her testimony wins the prize for being the best recommendation the Daily Bible Reading Podcast has ever received. So thanks, Nicole, for your very kind words. 

If you have questions or comments, my favorite way for you to contact me is via the Contact link at dailybiblereading.info. 

As I said in the podcast a couple of days ago (Three 3D Stories from Listeners), I will publish a podcast on December 31 which will contain my personal story including insights from my own Bible reading and Bible translation work. 

1Ths 5:23-24: GNT “May the God who gives us peace make you holy in every way and keep your whole being — spirit, soul, and body — free from every fault at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you will do it, because he is faithful.”

May the Lord bless you ‘Read Good’!

Check out this episode!

Three 3D Stories from Listeners

I am sharing three audio listener stories in this podcast in preparation for a Special Podcast that will be released on December 31. If you started the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan on January 1st this year, I hope you have remembered that this is a leap year. Some of you heard a Christmas day greeting today, that was one day early. Because of leap year, there would be no podcast released for December 31st, so I will release a special edition for that day.

I have received 8 encouraging listener and reader testimonies that I will share in the next days, and these will all be linked on the Read This First site that is linked at dailybiblereading.info. You can easily share these stories by using the share buttons, or all of them will be available all year on the home page of the Read This First site.

Before playing the first listener story, I would like to tell you that my YouTube video entitled How to Study the Bible — for beginners is back on the same page, the home page of the Read This First site. It is also linked in the episode notes for this podcast: https://youtu.be/sPyAp8ZxDBE

Beth started listening to the Daily Bible Reading podcast this year, and she contacted me early in the year. I later enjoyed a video call with Beth and her husband Steve, as they are interested in Beth getting involved in Bible translation. She sent me this message:

Our next listener story is from Julie. I will expand on some of the things Julie mentions. First let’s listen to her message:

Julie is correct, even though some people seem to listen to me for more than one year at a time, I don’t encourage anyone to do this. (Hey, you can always come back after a few years, like Julie will.) I am listing links to the three Bible reading plans I usually mention:
Daily Audio Bible with Brian Hardin
Bible in One Year 2021 by Nicky Gumbel
Daily Radio Bible by Hunter (and I don’t easily find his last name).

If you decide to still follow the Digging Deeper Reading plan, but would like to listen to a different voice for the Bible readings, Julie was right. My favorite option for the audio for the plan is to sign up for the Read To Me Daily YouVersion reading plan, listen to the NIVUK version, which is read by the famous actor David Suche.

Then Julie gives me the opportunity to say this also: There are two meaning-based translations that I hope every Christian reads all the way through at least in their lifetime. They are the New Living Translation (NLT) and the Good News Translation (GNT or GNB, also previously known as the Today’s English Version TEV). Many people fail in their plans to read the Bible in a year if they use a literal translation. Literal translations are great for study, especially when paired with a meaning-based translation. But literal translations are not friendly especially in audio form. That is why I have recorded the Digging Deeper Daily Bible reading plan in two translations: the NLT and the GNT. If you go to dailybiblereading.info, the GNT podcast site is right in the top bar. Here is the link: dailygntbiblereading.info.

Our last listener story is from Laura.

I want to say a big Thank You to Beth, Julie, and Laura.

The podcast on December 31 will contain my own story of things that have been meaningful to me this year, both in my reading and Bible translation work. I also have five more listener stories that I will publish like this in the next few days.

Check out this episode!

EveryWord001d.pdf

These are the formatted notes for the EveryWord001 podcast:

Download:
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/dailybiblereading/everyword001.mp3

Website:
https://dailybiblereading.libsyn.com/website/everyword-001-mark-11-28

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2020 October News Post

The year has been flying by for Gale and me. For the most part, we have not been too inconvenienced by the pandemic and are healthy. I hope the same for you!

How has it gone with you in listening to the Daily Bible Reading podcast, or following the Digging Deeper Daily reading plan? I would be very interested in hearing back from you, and for you to tell me about things like this:

• If you are a listener, what podcast app are you using to listen, or do you use our website?
• If you have a favorite app that you would recommend to others, please tell me what you like about it.
• Have you experienced difficulties in finding your next day's podcast?
• Have you experienced any difficulties while using the YouVersion Bible app?

To share with me, just reply to this message. Just before the beginning of next year, I will report back on what I learn from your responses. If you have enjoyed this year's readings or podcasts, please give our website address to your friends: dailybiblereading.info.

Many of you who started 2020 with day 1 of our Digging Deeper Daily reading plan have just started an intensive course in Bible prophecy that will run to the end of this year— with readings in Ezekiel, Isaiah, minor prophets and Revelation. I want to touch on just a few important points. One is that human teachers never get their interpretations of prophecy correct. The prophets in Jerusalem didn't know what God was going to do in Ezekiel's day, The Jews didn't get it right about what the Messiah would do. Just the other day I heard a radio preacher teaching an ordering of events for the end times that I think will be proved way wrong. Remember, God possesses all wisdom, and humans predicting what God will do based on prophecy have gotten it wrong time after time. (So I will only dare give a few major points below!)

If you are like me, we have joined Paul and John in praying "Come, Lord Jesus!" For a lot of my life, I have wished that I could see the Lord fulfill some prophecies signalling a quickening of the pace toward the return of Jesus. Guess what folks! Things are happening, and now we're saying, "Oh Lord, please stop it!" We all know that we are to avoid any marks on our hands and foreheads that could resemble any interpretation of 666. Those who refuse to receive the mark of the beast won't be able to buy or sell. But I sort of missed the implication that we who don't follow the beast's party line will one day be locked out of social media, sources of impartial news, and probably even the whole Internet. 

Let's not miss this often-repeated warning: We must learn to trust the Lord and endure in faithfulness to Him no matter what happens. Please consider what God has done in the past. He told Abraham what would happen to the Jews. Then it happened: They were enslaved in Egypt, and then God brought them back to the promised land, just as He said He would. No other God has done something like that! Then God told Moses, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Isaiah (and others) about a similarly big thing that would happen. Over and over we read that the Jewish people would be unfaithful and would be exiled to far-away country— to Babylon, as it turns out. But God promised to return them to their country. Then in Isaiah, God even tells the name of the king who would allow the Jews to return to Israel, some hundreds of years before it happened. In that same passage God Himself asks the readers, "What other God has ever done something like that?!" God told the exiled people that he would take care of them in exile, and He did. So, I am sure that God will take care of us in whatever suffering (even tribulation) that we face. “This means that God's holy people must endure persecution patiently and remain faithful.” (Rev. 13:10)

We will see in our prophecy readings that many things that God predicts eventually get fulfilled multiple times. One of the chief examples of this is Daniel's prophecy about a king who would oppose the people of God. "The king will do as he pleases, exalting himself and claiming to be greater than every god, even blaspheming the God of gods." Extending from Roman kings, to Hitler, and now into our time, the closer we come to the end, the more like the antichrist our rulers will become. We hate to see this happen! But there is a comforting side: God is in control. He is not surprised by what is happening. The best thing we can do to prepare for the times to come is to study His Word. Use God's Word to answer those who do not know the truth.

More and more I pray for God to open minds. 2Cor. 4:3 says that “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don't believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News. …” In verse 6 Paul says, “For God, who said, ‘Let there be light in the darkness,’ has made this light shine in our hearts so we could know the glory of God that is seen in the face of Jesus Christ.” Just so, I am confident that as YOU lovingly share the simple Good News with people, God will turn on the lights in the minds of some to behold the glory. But as Paul says in verse 7, “We now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure.” That's how God wants us to be at this time. Join the club feeling fragile!

If you are in the USA, I urge you to know the issues and vote.

In Revelation, Jesus' saying, "He that has and ear let him hear," is repeated eight times. And of course, there are many times in the Gospels where Jesus says that. I have been amazed as a Bible translator at how many times I have needed to revise that saying. It is very hard to get that one right! Recently we revised all those verses in our Indonesian translation. Let me tell you that that saying always points backward. Jesus is not telling people to listen to what He's going to say. He's telling people to pay attention to what He's just said. In our Indonesian translation, the problem was that— the way we had expressed it— Jesus was coming off as angry or impolite. We had translated like what I have given as the meaning in the Daily Bible Reading podcast: "Ya got ears, don't ya?! Well listen!" So in searching for an answer, Balazi (the head of our translation program) said, "Ya know, there's something that Indonesian teachers and pastors say frequently, and here it is: Don't let what I've said go in your right ear and straight out your left." In English we say, "Don't let what I said just go in one ear and out the other!" That's our translation of Jesus' saying, except there needs to be one last command: "Meditate on it!" Yes, meditate on it! That's what we need to be doing with all our Bible readings at the end of this year.

The Daily Bible Reading podcast has done well in 2020. Our daily downloads are about 50% higher than around February, or on many days are 90% higher than they were last year at this same time.

Amazing things are happening in Indonesia. I normally would be there now, but not this year. My next trip will happen the spring of next year, Lord willing. You on this list did not get my updates about our work, but you can see our August letter here and our October letter here. 

May the Lord bless you ‘real good’!
Phil

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EveryWord005 Mark 16

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 3:33
Majority 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

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DBRP July 2020 news update

I’m really thankful for all of you Bible readers and listeners! I hope that you are staying healthy. Gale and I are fine. 

I am thankful to see that DBRP listeners are a faithful bunch. I can tell from the download statistics that many of you have kept on listening daily even in the worst of the Covid19 epidemic. Some of you skip listening on the weekends because you listen while commuting to work, but you catch up again during the work week. Keep it up, friends! In our troubled times, knowing God’s Word is the rock and anchor we need.

For some DBRP listeners, especially for any listeners who are not in sync with those who started listening on January first, you might have difficulty finding your next episode at certain times of the year. (This has to do with how episodes are rescheduled for broadcasting.) If it ever happens that you can’t find the day number you want, you should always be able to find that day’s episode at our website, dailybiblereading.info. Another cause of the problem could be the podcast app you are using. It will help if you choose a podcast app that allows you to track your position in the calendar and automatically download a certain number of episodes in advance. Please share your favorite app for that with me, so that I can add the information to our website.

I want to express thanks to my volunteer secretary, Vicky Pool, who does the queuing up DBRP episodes every week.

After I have my Bible reading time in the morning, I listen to a podcast I hope you have heard about called The World And Everything In It. It gives world news from a Biblically-based world view. If you haven’t listened to it, I recommend that you give it a try.

I want to apologize to all those who are listening to the NLT Daily Bible Reading Podcasts. I have been listening to those again this year, one day ahead of people who started on January first. I keep finding mistakes and have fixed quite a few of them, and I have made notes for fixing some episodes later. But here is the main problem: The NLT series was recorded when I was new to podcasting. The initial recording quality was awful for half of the year. So when I now record little improvements (perhaps a sentence or two), the voice quality is significantly different. Some episodes have become a patchwork quilt, with corrections or improvements made over time, which make me sound like five different men. Oh, and by the way, back in 2014 when I first made those podcasts, I was using an older edition of the NLT. 

This leaves me with a problem: I am very focused now on my Bible translation work for Indonesia. I cannot take the time this year or next to re-record the NLT Bible series, either in part or all of it. Someday, I hope to record the whole Bible again, but not now. But I have thought of the solution!

How about if YOU record a 20 minute podcast episode for one of the days in 2021?! How about if there were voices from all around the globe that would do this, and we could look forward to hearing from different people every day? We have time to make this happen for 2021 if we start now. But I will need several volunteers who will be willing to act as editors and organizers for this. If you want to hear more about this opportunity, I will give more information after the close of this podcast.

Some of you have been interested in what I have shared in the EveryWord podcast series, for which I have published just 4 episodes and will soon publish the 5th. This is the podcast where I read from Wilbur Pickering’s translation of the NT which is entitled The Sovereign Creator Has Spoken. I have had a difficult time making the 5th episode, making several starts, then scraping that material and starting over. After praying about it, I have decided to cover the ending of Mark 16 in this next episode. Verses 9-20 of Mark 16 are enclosed in brackets in most Bibles today, but should they be?! Recently a fellow missionary serving in Indonesia heard me mention that we support using the Majority Text for Bible translations, and he fired back the question, “Do you think that Mark 16:9-20 was part of the original text?” I feel that the answer to that question is vitally important.

Here are a few verses that have stood out to me in Ps 119 recently:

Ps 119:89: Lamedh

Your eternal word, O LORD, stands firm in heaven.

Now I wasn’t thinking of textual variants in Greek when I marked that. We can be comforted in our time that there is one thing that can be an anchor for our hearts and minds in this troubled time. God is in control and He is causing his purposes to be fulfilled. Let’s recommend God’s unchanging Word as the answer and source of truth for this world which has lost its moorings.

Ps 119:105: Nun

Your word is a lamp to guide my feet and a light for my path.

These verses comfort me in a time when we all seem so vulnerable and the world seems to be falling apart:

Ps 119:114,116: 114 You are my refuge and my shield; your word is my source of hope. 

116 LORD, sustain me as you promised, that I may live! Do not let my hope be crushed.

Ps 119:123: 123 My eyes strain to see your rescue, to see the truth of your promise fulfilled.

Let’s pray:

Lord, we call out to You, and we seek at this time to more sincerely put all our hope in You. Be our strong tower, our place of refuge, and the source of our quiet confidence. Please open our minds to be able to find treasures in your Word that will give us new hope, not just for ourselves, but also to share with others. At this time our eyes strain to see your rescue, especially to see Jesus coming back again. No matter how You choose to rescue us today, please let your Word and your presence with us be our source of joy.

May the Lord bless you, ‘real good’!

 

Now if you are staying around to hear more about what I am hoping for next year, here is what I hope some of you will want to participate in. I love the way the podcasts for The World and Everything In It start, with a new voice giving a greeting, telling who they are and perhaps a sentence about where they are and what they do. I would like opening greetings to be like that for each episode recorded by you and other listeners next year, and your voice would continue to read the day’s Bible readings. You could base your introductory comments and the prayer at the end on mine, or you could embroider and improve on what I have written down. If you want to, feel free to involve other members of your family in your recording. Another difference for next year: You can choose which version you would like to read from a list I will provide. 

To do these recordings, we hope that you are someone who can read in such a way that listeners can follow the meaning. I freely admit that I often have to record some sentences three or more times before I get them down without mistakes and carrying the intonation I am aiming for. So if you are someone who makes mistakes like me, then I hope that you can edit your audio file yourself, or be willing to learn that skill. It isn’t hard, and someone else will help polish the file you give us. I hope that next year we will hear old and young voices, voices that reveal different ethnicities, and speaking with accents from various regions and countries. 

I need several people who will be able to help me put all this together. One would be someone who could manage the audio polishing process I just mentioned. We will give more pointers about how to make good recordings to people who express interest. The best way to contact me is to use the contact button at dailybiblereading.info. 

And again, Gale and I say, May the Lord bless you ‘real good’!

Check out this episode!

EveryWord004 Mark 3

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

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