In Luke 24:46-47, according to the ESV ,
as Jesus commissioned His disciples to preach the gospel, He gave the church
its agenda for evangelism: He commanded them to regard ethnic differences as no barrier to brotherhood, and to invite all people to surrender to God in light of the reconciliation brought about by Jesus Christ: “Thus it is
written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, and
that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in His name to all
nations, beginning from Jerusalem.”
At least, that’s what the ESV
said in 2001, and in several editions that were released since then. Now in 2016, Crossway is releasing a
“Permanent Text” edition of the ESV – and it
has introduced a few changes in the text.
One of them is in Luke 24:47:
instead of referring to “repentance and forgiveness of sins,” Jesus now
refers to “repentance for forgiveness of sins.”
This is not a matter of translation-methods; the change in English
reflects a decision to favor the Alexandrian reading εις (for) instead of the
reading that is found in all other transmission-streams, and in almost all
Greek manuscripts: και (and).
A recent announcement at Crossway’s website listed the changes to
the text, and announced that this is how all copies of the ESV
are going to be from now on. This is the
“Permanent Text of the ESV Bible, unchanged
forever, in perpetuity.” The problem, as
far as Luke 24:47 is concerned, is that the ESV ’s Oversight Committee’s decision to prefer εις (for) instead of και (and) is incorrect.
Meanwhile, support for και is found in the writings of
Cyprian (in the mid-200’s) and Eusebius (early 300’s), and in the ancient codices Alexandrinus, Ephraemi Rescriptus, Bezae, and Washingtonensis, plus over a thousand later manuscripts. Και is also
supported by the Old Latin version which predates the 380’s, as well as by the Vulgate, the
Sinaitic Syriac manuscript, the Armenian version (made in the early 400’s), the
Ethiopic version, and the Palestinian Aramaic version, and in Augustine’s Sermon 2291. The diversity of these witnesses is
impressive.
From 2001-2015, the ESV said "and" in Luke 24:47, as shown on page 236 of the ESV Reader's Gospels. |
If it were possible to introduce the
compilers of the Nestle-Aland text to the variant-unit in Luke 24:47 and
describe only the variants, without saying which witnesses supported which
reading, the verdict would be clear: “repentance
for forgiveness of sins” is a
harmonization to the phrase in Mark 1:4 and Luke 3:3, where the authors refer
to “baptism of repentance for [that is, εις] forgiveness of sins.” The word “for” (εις) also precedes
“forgiveness of sins” in Matthew 26:28 and Acts 2:38. These passages are far more likely to have
been recalled by copyists than Acts 5:31 ,
where “and” (και) precedes “forgiveness of sins” but the words “to Israel ” also appear between the reference to “repentance” and the reference to
“forgiveness of sins.” Compared to the passages in the Gospels, Acts 5:31 is not much of a parallel. (Bruce Terry misquoted Acts 5:31 in his attempt to defend the decision of the UBS4 Committee.)
So, while I am glad that the ESV
Permanent Text edition did not make any drastic changes to the text, this
particular last-minute alteration in Luke 24:47 is incorrect; the reading και
should have been retained. The Gideons Edition of the ESV remains the best
available edition of the ESV .
(I note, in passing, that the UBS Greek New Testament in 1966 had και in the text, the 1984 NIV had “and” in the text, and Michael Holmes also adopted και in the 2010 SBL-GNT.)
Scripture quotations are from The ESV
Bible® (The Holy Bible, English Standard
Version®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway,
a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.
Used by permission. All rights
reserved.
Interesting observations.
ReplyDelete"for" makes very good sense, and is doctrinaly sound. Does one receive forgiveness of sins when one remains unrepentant of their sins? The Apostle Peter was sent by Christ to preach the Gospel, and he preached "Repent and be Baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ FOR the forgiveness of sins..." We are thus called by God, to repent for the purpose of obtaining forgiveness of our sins...as well as be Baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Those who refuse to repent and neglect to be Baptized remain in their sins and are in open rebellion against God, not obeying His Gospel. The false feel good, easy peasy gospel spread around today in certain circles says one need only believe in Christ and all is well, nothing else matters. But, sadly many are going to hear that woeful line come from Christ one day, when He says "I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of iniquity."
ReplyDelete"for" makes very good sense, and is doctrinaly sound. Does one receive forgiveness of sins when one remains unrepentant of their sins? The Apostle Peter was sent by Christ to preach the Gospel, and he preached "Repent and be Baptized everyone of you in the name of Jesus Christ FOR the forgiveness of sins..." We are thus called by God, to repent for the purpose of obtaining forgiveness of our sins...as well as be Baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Those who refuse to repent and neglect to be Baptized remain in their sins and are in open rebellion against God, not obeying His Gospel. The false feel good, easy peasy gospel spread around today in certain circles says one need only believe in Christ and all is well, nothing else matters. But, sadly many are going to hear that woeful line come from Christ one day, when He says "I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of iniquity."
ReplyDeleteThe problem textually speaking is that only 3 known manuscripts have the word FOR. 99.4% of all manuscripts have the word AND in Luke 24:47.
ReplyDeleteThe committee is making a decision based on the reality that the 3 manuscripts that do read "FOR" are earlier and therefore hold the most weight when deciding what the Apostles actually wrote. Just because a bunch of later copyists repeated the same erroneous reading doesn't mean that we should continue the error if we've found earlier manuscripts that predate the changed reading.
DeleteWhy did you say that Bruce Terry misquoted Acts 5:31. According to the link you posted he did not misquote it.
ReplyDeleteJoseph Pauley,
ReplyDeleteTerry presented the words "repentance and forgiveness" as if that is how they appear in Acts 5:31. A check of the passage will show that this is not the case; there are more words involved in that passage.
It's comparable to quoting someone as if the person referred to "peanut butter and jelly" but when you check, the person said, "peanut butter on toast and jelly in a glass jar." Not quite the same thing, when one is looking for references to the combination of peanut butter and jelly.