I have been looking at variances between the diffe..

How do you decide which translation

9 w

I have been looking at variances between the different Septuagint versions and in my search came across Mark 1:41 which is unrelated, but shows a similar issue.

Was Yeshua angry or compassionate according to Mark 1:41 as it depends on which translation a person uses?

That then follows on, so how do we decide which translation to use if even the oldest manuscripts have different messages?

Do you follow a specific method of thinking when you come across these differences or do you simply accept the most compassionate version?

#mark1 #deciding

Comment

I give very little credence to the lxx. The hebrew mark1:41 is pictured:

· Reply · 1750969218

3 Replies

my method of choice is to read the passage in context, carefully.

in ths instance of mark 1:41, the leper starts his request with the words 'if You are willing...'
this is followed by Yeshua being 'moved', and His response starts with 'I am willing.'

using this context, it looks like what is 'moving' Yeshua is the leper's questioning of His (Yeshua's) willingness.

and that would suggest anger, or indignation, more than compassion.
in fact what comes up in my mind is it's sort of the OT equivalent of a flaring of nostrils, very definitely indicating rage.
said anger being directed toward our unbelief, our doubt, more than toward ourselves.

but then, if we stick with the greek, which uses the word indicating feeling coming from the insides, generally described as having 'the bowels yearn', ie compassion/sympathy/pity,
were this therefore to suggest compassion, it would seem to me to be compassion not for our leprosy, but for our unbelief in His willingness.

both versions fit, when considering the cause of what moved Him to be our unbelief in His willingness.

pondering just one step further, look at the passage.
take out those three words - 'moved with compassion/anger'.
you'd just read it as another in the string of miracles proving Him to be the Messiah. in fact, matthew and luke don't have those words.
but now add the three words in.
suddenly, for glimpsing Him as a person, we reflect on the passage, and then only do we see that the description of Him being moved is offering a critique on our doubt of His willingness to heal us.
with three words and the reflection they (should) bring about, the biggest obstacle facing our acceptance of the Messiah is addressed.
you might want to read that again.

so to me what moved Him is the subject of importance, and then whether it was to compassion or anger is a moot point.

· Reply · 1751005738

3 Replies

https://docs.google.com/docume....nt/d/1qJk_tSYZA-1Z4R

· Reply · 1751019501

Rhy, I try to look at multiple versions, including hebrew interlinear and aramaic, to get the meaning of a passage. I find that all versions are skewed in one manner or another somewhere. When I come across a passage of interest and dig, I frequently end up doing an exhaustive concordance study. Sometimes, Im still not convinced the translators are right, but I dont know ancient hebrew or aramaic much, so I try to understand their interpretations, but I often am left unenlightened to the Truth and have to knock it up to being lost to time. Its quite unsatisfactory, but is a state of our cursed existence.

· Reply · 1751061628

2 Replies

Rhy, Ill try to research the dating of hebrew mark, but Im not sure if the info is out there in internet land

· Reply · 1751061822

I did a brief search. This is what I came up with:

· Reply · 1751079555

1 Reply

This is a great question… And one of a number of issues of textual criticism that provides more circumstantial evidence that the writings of the disciples were originally in Hebrew. Almost all textual variants are either scribal privilege (the translator’s choice) or copyist errors.

If Greek is the original, it does not make sense to have two variants, so opposed to each other for this passage. But if Hebrew is the original, it makes perfect sense.

The Greek variants are: splagchnizomai and orgistheis.

The meanings are opposite and the words aren’t closely spelled not etymologically related.

It’s virtually impossible for a scribe to make an error in the greek from anger to compassion or visa versa….if the greek is the original.

If the Greek is the original of Mark at least, then only one of two possibilities exists. Either one of the scribes was highly incompetent all of a sudden in this passage and then resumed competency thereafter or the scribe deliberately changed the text to fit his belief… in which case one of the two texts is untrustworthy, and we can’t tell which.

Or since early Christian bias for greek and against Hebrew is the only reason people believe greek is the original of the disciples’ writings, we should check into the fact that just maybe Hebrew was the original and this is simply an issue of accidental copying of the wrong word…followed by the variant making it into an otherwise faithful greek translation of an accident in Hebrew.

(Near alternate possibility: a mistranslation of a faithful Hebrew copy could be possible also.)

In Hebrew “Chesed” and “Chemah” are words for mercy or compassion and anger or rage.

Both are three letters in Hebrew and each starts with Chet. Samech and Mem can be mistaken for each other if a scribe doesn’t write clearly enough or the copyist is making an error in reading. Dalet and Hey are harder to confuse but if the scribe accidentally had a mark on the page under the Dalet or the copyist mistakenly saw one then a Dalet would look enough like a Hey to make the mistake.

There are so many possibilities but the simplest is almost always the case especially in textual criticism.

And if we consider the context of the scene aswell with a man asking for mercy from the one He knows holds power to provide it, a response of anger doesn’t fit the scene but mercy does.

All in all, it is best not to accept any variant as absolute because so much has gone into the translations that we possess and textual criticism is critical to understanding them.

Knowing that the variants exist is critical as well. Because most people only have the version of the Bible they read, which is based off of the version that the translators accepted, and unless someone such as yourself brings up the fact that there is a variant in the text, most people will not know. But we just have to be very careful when studying and to consider how biased our forebears were against the Hebrew language and anything else they deemed to be Jewish whether it really was Jewish or not. And how (KJV-only-ist-like) deeply they held a bias for the Greek language, which could not properly express Hebrew thought and could not escape its pagan nature.

This is a great question… And one of a number of issues of textual criticism that provides more circumstantial evidence that the writings of the disciples were originally in Hebrew. Almost all textual variants are either scribal privilege (the translator’s choice) or copyist errors.   
  
If Greek is the original, it does not make sense to have two variants, so opposed to each other for this passage. But if Hebrew is the original, it makes perfect sense.   
  
The Greek variants are: splagchnizomai and orgistheis.   
  
The meanings are opposite and the words aren’t closely spelled not etymologically related.   
  
It’s virtually impossible for a scribe to make an error in the greek from anger to compassion or visa versa….if the greek is the original.  
  
If the Greek is the original of Mark at least, then only one of two possibilities exists. Either one of the scribes was highly incompetent all of a sudden in this passage and then resumed competency thereafter or the scribe deliberately changed the text to fit his belief… in which case one of the two texts is untrustworthy, and we can’t tell which.  
  
Or since early Christian  bias for greek and against Hebrew is the only reason people believe greek is the original of the disciples’ writings, we should check into the fact that just maybe Hebrew was the original and this is simply an issue of accidental copying of the wrong word…followed by the variant making it into an otherwise faithful greek translation of an accident in Hebrew.   
  
(Near alternate possibility: a mistranslation of a faithful Hebrew copy could be possible also.)  
  
In Hebrew “Chesed” and “Chemah” are words for mercy or compassion and anger or rage.  
  
Both are three letters in Hebrew and each starts with Chet. Samech and Mem can be mistaken for each other if a scribe doesn’t write clearly enough or the copyist is making an error in reading. Dalet and Hey are harder to confuse but if the scribe accidentally had a mark on the page under the Dalet or the copyist mistakenly saw one then a Dalet would look enough like a Hey to make the mistake.   
  
There are so many possibilities but the simplest is almost always the case especially in textual criticism.   
  
And if we consider the context of the scene aswell with a man asking for mercy from the one He knows holds power to provide it, a response of anger doesn’t fit the scene but mercy does.   
  
All in all, it is best not to accept any variant as absolute because so much has gone into the translations that we possess and textual criticism is critical to understanding them.  
  
Knowing that the variants exist is critical as well. Because most people only have the version of the Bible they read, which is based off of the version that the translators accepted, and unless someone such as yourself brings up the fact that there is a variant in the text, most people will not know. But we just have to be very careful when studying and to consider how biased our forebears were against the Hebrew language and anything else they deemed to be Jewish whether it really was Jewish or not. And how (KJV-only-ist-like) deeply they held a bias for the Greek language, which could not properly express Hebrew thought and could not escape its pagan nature.

· Reply · 1751123835

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· Reply · 1751124778

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