bible June 15, 2017

Is there any reason to think that Mark 7:19 has a later addition?

This is Mark 7:19 from the NIV:

For it doesn’t go into their heart but into their stomach, and then out of the body.” (In saying this, Jesus declared all foods clean.)

Every time I see a parenthetical note in an ancient text, I feel like it was a later addition from a scribe.

Does our oldest manuscripts contain that part of the verse? Even it does, is there any reason to believe that it was a later addition?

theology June 15, 2017

"Overcome" vs "comprehend" in John 1:5

John 1:5 reads in the ESV:

The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.

I recently heard the KJV quoted and was struck by the difference:

And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.

In the same vein as the ESV, other translations offer overpowered, extinguished, quenched, defeated. More in line with the KJV, other choices include understood and perceived.

The Greek for reference (NA28):

καὶ τὸ φῶς ἐν τῇ σκοτίᾳ φαίνει, καὶ ἡ σκοτία αὐτὸ οὐ κατέλαβεν.

BDAG provides options for the meaning of καταλαμβάνω carrying both senses (abbreviations expanded):

1. to make something one’s own, win, attain…
2b. seize with hostile intent, overtake, come upon…
4a. learn about something through process of inquiry…

The lexicon mentions this verse in all three of the entries above, but all I could get out of that without having the referenced works at hand is that it seems to be an open question. How should we decide which of these the author intended?

missions June 13, 2017

Islamic Disregard for the Heritage of Others

slamic Disregard for the Heritage of Others. http://andnowyouknowmore.blogspot.com The Taliban’s destruction of ancient Buddhist cultural treasures in the Bamian Valley of Afghanistan during 1998…