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 3_3_0—3_6_0 AD and 3_0_0—3_2_5 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 KJ