Biblical Translation And Interpretation

Paul wasn’t sure if he Baptized Any but Crispus and Gaius, Stephanas and his Household – Countering the Assumption of Water Baptism, Correctly Translating a Verse

I thank God that I baptized none of you, except Crispus and Gaius… (I also baptized the household of Stephanas; besides them, I don’t know whether I baptized any other.) (1Co 1:14,16 WEB) I have heard people explain this verse to mean that Paul just didn’t remember baptizing anybody but those few including Stephanas and …

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Indoctrination, Brainwashing and Deception in Everything from Santa Clause to Christianity Part 1

For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world’s rulers of the darkness of this age, and against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places. (Eph 6:12 WEB) In these articles as well as others all over this website we are going to …

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All Scripture is for our Learning But All Scripture is not Addressed to Everyone: Administrations

Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, (2Ti 3:16 WEB) Scripture is the Greek word graphe (Strong’s G1124) which just means writing. Of course, this verse is not saying that everything that has been written in the world is God-breathed. That would be ridiculous, everything …

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T 1.10.1 Tradition in Original Christianity, Not Only Is Jesus Called God In Scripture, But So are Moses, Judges, Magistrates, The Adversary, And Devil Spirits, But All Are Subject to the Father

Previous posts have declared that Unitarianism was the belief in Original Christianity including the last post, T 1.10 Tradition in Original Christianity, Part 10, The Apostles taught the Father alone was God, one of the Most Hidden Truths in Christianity Today. We have looked at references that admit that Unitarianism predated Trinitarianism.  We looked at …

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John 1 – The meaning of the Logos; The Slippery Slope of Applying Mathematical Precision to Language Expressions

This is a rewrite of an article published a dozen or so years ago with more insight hopefully to make clearer what the beginning of the Gospel of John actually says.  As John 1:1-14 is not literal the original article focused on how languages are imprecise and could be misleading if someone tried to take …

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Doing a Word Study To Determine a Word’s Meaning in the Original language

This particular word study is very personal to me, and it may be to you because it has to do with the origin of the Gospels. I was raised a Roman Catholic and had twelve years of religion classes in Catholic schools. However, my mother’s side called themselves Protestant and believed in the Bible as …

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T 1.1.1 Tradition in Original Christianity: The Importance of Doctrine, Reproof, and Correction in Christianity With Its Emphasis on Love

Christianity is about love.  And we are in the administration of grace.  So surely no persons or churches should be reproved, rebuked, or corrected, right? There should be no criticism of any kind, constructive or destructive, right?  Terms I hear expressed are to be loving, forgiving, “giving grace” and “endeavoring to keep the unity of …

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T 1.31 More on Paul’s Decision To Go To Jerusalem, How Tradition Can Affect Translation And Meaning, Accepting Deliverance When Available

Here is a picture of an ancient Greek manuscript page from the Digital Walters (link opens new tab to view page) which are released for free under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (link opens new tab to view page) license for anyone who wants to use them: This page is somewhere in Acts or …

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The Not Enough Information Rule – Sticking to What is Revealed; Context

Moses wrote in Deuteronomy 29: “The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law. (Deu 29:29 ESV) This verse is fairly plain but let’s just look at some of the words …

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T 1 Tradition in Original Christianity, Part 1, Rightly Dividing the Word of God

In T 0.1 Introduction to Tradition in the Church, we discussed that a tradition is a set of beliefs and customs that gets passed from one generation to another. We also looked at the verses that charged believers to follow the tradition that was handed down by the Apostles: So then, brothers, stand firm and hold …

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The Marvelous Story of Esther, Absent From Early Canons of Scripture

The teaching in church this week centered on the inspiring story of Esther. In a nutshell when Xerxes was king of Persia the Queen was named Vashti. And in a moment of defiance Vashti refused the command of the King. After consulting with his advisers the king decided on a process to find a new …

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Oral Transmissions of Religious Accounts Have Safeguards to Ensure Accuracy

I have heard people say they are suspicious about the accuracy of traditions that are passed down by word-of-mouth. Anyone familiar with the “telephone” game knows that in any given crowd if one person passes a sentence to another person and so forth, that the resulting sentence by the 10th or 20th person sometimes bears …

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Codex Sinaiticus, World’s Oldest Bible, Available Online

Would it surprise you to know that the bible read in the fourth century was not the same as the modern bible?  Most of it is the same, but there are some surprising differences. Codex Sinaiticus is called the world’s oldest bible (earlier manuscripts were probably burned by persecuting Romans, or simply didn’t survive the …

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More Manuscript Basics; Who, What, Where, and How Variant Readings are Evaluated and Rated

In More Manuscript Basics; Using a Textual Commentary, I discussed how the bible was transmitted up to the point where Greek New Testament editions were created, starting with Erasmus up until recent editions by the United Bible Society.  We finished by looking at an example of a textual variant in a textual commentary. Next we …

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Matthew 28:19 – Legitimate Verse that was not Carried Out by the Apostles or Scribal Forgery?

It is called “the Great Commission”, is cited as a proof of the Trinity, and is a standard verse used in many a sermon: Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them into the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit: teaching them to observe …

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Examples of Scribal Forgeries in the Bible

Critics of Christianity point to the variations, discrepancies, and even forgeries in the bible as one of their points to disprove Christianity.  Unfortunately, some of their criticisms are true. There are verses in the bible that are deliberately inserted, omitted,  and/or changed. But, the point of the critic that finding errors in biblical texts absolutely …

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There are Numerous Variations in the Texts From Which We Get The Bible; Using an Interlinear Text To See Them

Most of us are aware that we don’t have any original texts of the books of the bible.  There are a number of reasons for this.  One reason is that there were book destructions, i.e., book burnings done by governments who wanted to remove what they considered offensive religions from their society.  One such destruction …

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