For April-June 2003
Volume 6 Number 2 (continued)

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Spinning the New Testament: A True and Tested Formula for Its Misunderstanding

Rank-and-file Christians don't ordinarily think of their ministers, pastors, priests, and lay friends as spinning the Bible. Yet, from the earliest days of the Church, clerics and laity alike placed their spin on God's word. Today theological spin doctors continue to spin the New Testament to reach denominational objectives. How does this affect your understanding?

by Michael P. Germano

Both read the Bible,       day and night; But thou read'st black,       where I read white. --Wm Bryan

Spinning is a very old phenomenon. Ancient spin masters, or spindoctors if you prefer, spun their yarns to explain events, to create history, and to boaster the reputations of their masters. Spin masters served the pharaohs of Egypt, the emperors of Rome, the royal families of Europe, and the despots of every century across the globe. They spun the events of their day to bring their publics into their preferred world view.

It is in the very nature of language that enables statements of fact to be amenable to multiple interpretation. A single set of facts can provide diverse meanings in many languages. A skilled spin master argues facts to make his or her point plausible and convincing. The search for truth and meaning is not the objective but rather the advancing of a cause, damage control, or winning. In spinning, the goal is for us to adopt the opinions the spin masters want us to reach and to accept the reality they wish us to believe. The effective spin doctor spins the facts to bring us there. It is, of course, quite self-serving and results in an inaccurate understanding of the facts themselves.

SCRIPTURE SPINNERS? The original writers of the NT The translators, scribes, and ancient editors of NT writings The rank-and-file purveyors and users of the NT in our day

Perhaps spinning is a phenomenon common to all humans. We are sometimes amused at how our small children and grandchildren, attempting to stay out of trouble, but remaining short of telling a lie, concoct a story to explain themselves out of a troublesome situation. Moreover, spinning is part of our daily relationships. We experience it in gossip with our friends and family. When we attend church or synagogue our clergy presents their religious bias. We encounter it in the mass media advertising of our time. The pundits, lawyers, and politicians bombard us with it incessantly. Thankfully, most Americans, armed with some critical thinking skills as a result of decades of compulsory public education, seem to recognize this form of spin as just that and shrug it off. So while we may doubt what politicians claim, remain skeptical of the contentions of the classic authors, question the heroics recorded in ancient monuments, and cautious of what our clergy say we are often ignorant of the spin attached to the Bible itself. You may not realize it but to some degree you have been shaped by it.

Apostolic Spin

The Bible of the first Christians, preserved on rolls of vellum called scrolls, were the Hebrew Scriptures. In the ancient Jewish synagogues these bulky documents were kept in an ark for safekeeping and accessibility. As the New Testament came into being its various components joined the Hebrew Scriptures as holy scripture for the Church. One of the purposes for the origination of the Jewish synagogue was as a community center for prayer and scripture reading. This appears to be a reason for Christian synagogues of the apostolic period as well. Bellarmino Bagatti, in his The Church from the Circumcision, explains:

    The main scope of the Jewish synagogue was to have a place to unite the faithful for prayer and Bible reading. This purpose is also supposed by the Christian authors for their own synagogues. In fact the Apocalypse seems to have been written for public reading if we accept the words of the author: "Happy the man who reads and happy those who listen to the words of this prophecy" (1, 3)
    In order to listen in comfort to the reading, which took some time, seats were required; this is inferred from the letter of St. James when he contrasts the "sit here" of the rich man with "sit on the floor near my foot-rest" of the poor man. (Bagatti 1971a:113.)

The method of interpretation, a form of proof-texting, used by the early Christian leaders was quite different than the scholarly exegetical approaches practiced today. This involved their finding images in the Hebrew Scriptures which they could apply to Jesus of Nazareth. It amounted to the theological spinning of scores of texts in the Hebrew Scriptures. According to Bagatti:

The method of procedure adopted consisted in this: first take a deed or saying in the life of Jesus, and then proceed to find the biblical text which could explain it. (Bagatti 1971a:138.)

There are numerous examples in the New Testament where you can easily verify this. For example, consider I Corinthians 10:4 where the apostle Paul insinuates that Christ was the rock struck by Moses (Exodus 17:6; Numbers 20:11). This understanding Paul read into the Hebrew text not out of it. Is this an example of apostolic eisogesis? The apostle Peter, according to Acts 2:34, provided an incredible construal of Psalms 110:1 when he claimed that the "Lord" was not David but Jesus the Messiah. This is not how Psalms 110:1 was understood in its original context wherein YHVH spoke to David. Bagatti says that the "methods by which the early Judaeo-Christian writers succeeded in seeing Jesus in so many texts were many, and for us, often unthinkable" (Bagatti 1971a:138).

PROOF-TEXTING Matthew 2:15 "He remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: "OUT OF EGYPT I CALLED MY SON' (NASB). This is a quote from Hosea 11:1, where it refers to the tribe of Ephraim, not the promised Messiah. Matthew 2:18 "A VOICE WAS HEARD IN RAMAH, WEEPING AND GREAT MOURNING, RACHEL WEEPING FOR HER CHILDREN; AND SHE REFUSED TO BE COMFORTED, BECAUSE THEY WERE NO MORE" (NASB). This quote from Jeremiah 31:15 is removed from its millennial setting. Acts 2:34 "For it was not David who ascended into heaven, but he himself says: 'THE LORD SAID TO MY LORD, "SIT AT MY RIGHT HAND,..." (NASB). This quote from Psalms 110:1 is used in the New Testament several times. It is a concept introduced by Christ himself. Arguably Psalms 110:1 literally refers to a "shepherd" as "The Shepherd says to my shepherd" and not "The Lord says to my Lord". This is a Jewish argument. The synoptic gospels record Jesus as holding Psalms 110:1 to read as "The Lord said to my Lord" (Matthew 22:44; Mark 12:36; Luke 20:42,43; cf. Hebrews 1:13.) Irrespective of the claim now that the Hebrew meant shepherd, Jesus' question stumped his Pharisee protagonists for they had no answer. Acts records Peter as quoting Psalms 110:1 as "The Lord said to my Lord" when preaching on the Temple Mount (Acts 2:34-35). Acts 13:22 "After He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, 'I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all My will.' (NASB) This quote is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures. I Corinthians 10:4 "and all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ" (NASB). Out of context Paul insinuates that Christ was the rock struck by Moses (Exodus 17:6; Numbers 20:11).

A slightly different example, a non-Christological one, occurs at Acts 13:22:

After He had removed him, He raised up David to be their king, concerning whom He also testified and said, 'I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all My will.' (Acts 13:22.)

Here we have Paul, it would seem, quoting I Samuel 13:14, which reads:

"But now your kingdom shall not endure. The LORD has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart, and the LORD has appointed him as ruler over His people, because you have not kept what the LORD commanded you." (I Samuel 13:14.)

The problem is that Nehemiah did not record a statement of the LORD that said "I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after my heart, who will do all My will." Indeed, this statement is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures. What we have is Nehemiah telling Saul that "The LORD has sought out for Himself a man after His own heart." Could the testimony Paul referred to be some extra-biblical source? Or are we dealing with simple apostolic spin?

We are left then with a basic question. What exactly is the nature and character of the New Testament? Minimalists argue that the New Testament, rather than being God's word, consists primarily of works by authors other than the apostles and represents various traditions about Jesus of Nazareth. As a result they pick and choose what they want out of the New Testament and destruct the rest. Maximalists, who often take a literalist approach, argue that it is the infallible world of God and fasten on every word.

I would suggest, in the alternative however, that the New Testament, or the Christian Scriptures, is the work product of the apostles themselves undertaken to create a fixed set of authoritative apostolic writings pertaining to the new covenant (II Peter 3:16) as the Hebrew Scriptures were for the old covenant. The apostles' conception of a compilation of inspired and authoritative apostolic writings likely arose from the model provided by the then-existing documents forming the recognized text of the Hebrew Scriptures.

The followers of Jesus of Nazareth possessed a distinct advantage over later generations of Christians. They had the opportunity of learning directly from Jesus. In his post-resurrection appearance to the eleven and those with them Jesus "opened their minds to understand the [Hebrew] Scriptures" (Luke 24:45). Luke's gospel reports that the day after his resurrection Jesus of Nazareth appeared to two dismayed people, likely a man and a woman, walking the seven mile trek to Emmaus. He took that Sunday afternoon occasion to call their attention to the things concerning himself in the Hebrew Scriptures (Luke 24:25-27, cf. 24:32). The situation was one where Jesus made clear various Messianic prophecies and the symbolism imbedded in the Hebrew Scriptures concerning himself. Writing in The Expositor's Bible Commentary Liefeld explains the importance of these verses:

With great clarity they show that the sufferings of Christ, as well as his glory, were predicted in the OT and that all the OT Scriptures are important. They also show that the way the writers of the NT used the OT had its origin, not in their own creativity, but in the post resurrection teachings of Jesus, of which this passage is a paradigm. The passage also exemplifies the role of the OT in Luke's own theology. Although he does not directly quote the OT Scriptures as many times as Matthew does, nevertheless he alludes frequently to the OT, demonstrating that what God has promised must take place and employing a "proof-from-prophecy" apologetic for the truth of the gospel. (Liefeld 1984:1053.)

In John's Gospel lies evidence that the elderly apostle astutely confirmed the veracity of the Christian Scriptures. He established this point by his developing material, wherein appears a quotation of Jesus which includes a parenthetical comment concerning the nature of scripture. Breaking into Jesus� answer to Jews who were threatening to stone him, John wrote a fascinating statement. He recorded, "and the Scripture cannot be broken" (John 10:35). He wrote it at a time when the Judeo-Christian reader understood "Scripture" to be the Hebrew Scriptures and the existing, yet still uncompleted, set of apostolic writings.

The apostle Paul would have us believe that the Bible, as an infallible rule of faith and practice, is the inspired Word of God (II Timothy 3:16). The implication is that the Bible alone, consisting of the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, and the Bible in its entirety is the Word of God written and therefore inerrant in the autographs. Thankfully, the New Testament continues to serve and to protect the people of God by ensuring that future generations will have an accurate account of "The Way" (Hebrews 13:7; II Peter 1:15; John 14:6).

Even though the apostles utilized ways of interpreting the Hebrew Scriptures foreign to us, derived in the post-resurrection teachings of Jesus, God led them to create the wonderful compendium we call the New Testament. The New Testament portrays the apostles relationship with God as one of trust, faith, and divine guidance and there is no reason their writings should not so reflect. For we Christians, the ancient apostolic spin they attached to the Hebrew Scriptures we now consider fact and truth, well-proven as such over the last 19 centuries. It is not, however, ancient apostolic spin that threatens our biblical understanding. What we have to fear is the centuries of spin by generations quite removed from the simple Christianity of the apostolic period.

Editorial, Scribal, and Translator Spin

Based upon the premises and biases of their own society, ancient scribes, translators, and editors also placed their spins on the New Testament. These distort, obfuscate, and detract from the Gospel and impede an objective understanding of the norms, values, and standards of the ancient Church and the apostles' doctrine. Scores of these spins remain with us to this day. Is this significant? Often it is crucial to both Christian life and doctrine.

Consider the two most accepted critical texts of the New Testament, namely Eberhard Nestle's Novum Testamentum Graece (Nestle 1993) and the United Bible Societies� The Greek New Testament (Aland 1993). Both are commendable scholarly efforts to resolve ambiguity and to create the best possible critical Greek text from the hundreds of extant ancient Greek manuscripts and thousands of fragments. Nevertheless, exegesis always precedes translation, even in regard to the editing of these two widely accepted critical texts themselves, in something as simple as word, sentence, and paragraph breaks, let alone in capitalization and in the discernment of proper nouns. 

According to R. Omanson, writing in the Bible Review, "literally thousands of decisions are made by translators" relating to the original meaning of words in context as well as grammatical constructions and the segmentation and punctuation of the text (Omanson 1998:43). With regards to these issues, Omanson points out that: 

...the editors of these editions do not always agree on where breaks and punctuation marks should appear. And translators sometimes depart from the segmentation and punctuation found in these critical texts based on their own understanding of the New Testament writings. Their decisions can create real differences in meaning, as is shown by comparing several modern translations. (Omanson 1998:40.) 

Consider the simple difference punctuation can make in biblical understanding. Take, for example, the NASB rendering of Luke 23:43 based upon Eberhard Nestle's Novum Testamentum Graece (21st edition):

And He said to him, "Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise."

Compare this with the Fan Noli rendering based upon the approved text of the Church of Constantinople and the Church of Greece (the standard Byzantine text)

Jesus answered him: "Well, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradises."

The subtle differences in translation reflect slight variations in the Greek manuscripts and the translators' choice of Greek-English equivalents. You can see other renderings by comparing translations (see Renderings of Luke 23:43 below). Bible students normally compare translations of difficult verses to gain a keener sense of the meaning of the verse in English. This is not always sufficient, however, and students usually proceed to refer to a critical Greek text. The Greek texts upon which we generally rely are replete with punctuation, the segregation of each word from others, upper and lower case type, and neatly arranged in paragraphs and chapters. In this editing and formatting spin arises based upon translators' underlying theology, assumptions, presuppositions, and simple bias.

RENDERINGS OF LUKE 23:43 RSV Young's Literal Translation And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise." and Jesus said to him, `Verily I say to thee, To-day with me thou shalt be in the paradise.' NIV Darby Translation Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." And Jesus said to him, Verily I say to thee, To-day shalt thou be with me in paradise. TEV NRSV Jesus said to him, "I promise you that today you will be in Paradise with me." He replied, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise." AV Douay-Rheims Bible And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise. And Jesus said to him: Amen I say to thee, this day thou shalt be with me in paradise.

The apostles chose the koine Greek as the language by which they published their apostolic complement to the Hebrew Scriptures. The early koine Greek texts of the New Testament had no punctuation. Their letters were all capital letters, in long strings, known as majuscules. The authors' intention of chapter and paragraph breaks are not always clear. Greek texts are not necessarily duplicates of the originals free of scribal error and editing. As a result, unknown to many laity and clergy, a cloud of ambiguity is inherent in the material. For the most part this ambiguity is not problematic but there are some subtle biblical texts where it is in issue.

More critical, however, is the altering of early New Testament texts to support Greco-Roman Christological doctrine by orthodox scribes of the second and third centuries (Ehrman 1993) and the later redaction of the Greek New Testament in the ninth century by dualistic Greco-Roman theologians when they adopted minuscules, added punctuation, and segregated words. Minuscules are the small or lower case Greek letters, and the small Greek cursive script developed from the uncial. The final product, the underlying structure of the later critical texts, replete with orthodox doctrinal spin, represented the Greco-Roman Christian worldview of those engaged in these efforts. According to church historian Justo Gonz�lez, during the Renaissance came the slow realization that the Christianity which then existed was not what it had once been. He wrote:

    The discovery of the extent to which mistakes had crept into ancient texts led to doubt as to the authenticity of some of the texts themselves. Since the manuscripts were not entirely trustworthy, was it not possible that some of the writings that supposedly were very old were in truth the product of a later age? (Gonz�lez 1984:368.)

This recognition ignited a quest for original sources, textual research, and analysis of thousands of fragments from the Renaissance to our day. Even so, there remain numerous echoes of orthodox corruption and spin in the two main critical texts and in our English translations conveying a false sense of early Christianity, its customs, and belief system. Luke 23:43 is a case on point. The punctuation chosen in the shift to minuscules was by orthodox, Greco-Roman Christian dualists who believed in the immortality of the soul and a body-soul dichotomy. Placement of the comma to stress the sense of "today you shall be with me in paradise" was consistent with their dualistic belief system.

The thrust of the phrase, to a person conditioned by dualism, would be that on that very day the thief received salvation and entered Paradise. Nevertheless, to many Protestants dualism is a heresy. In his Christian Doctrine: Teachings of the Christian Church, Shirley Guthrie, explains that "...dualism is a heresy dear to the hearts of many American Christians--including some who consider themselves "orthodox" precisely in this heresy" (Guthrie 1968:158). On the idea that man's soul is divine, with the body being merely the prison of man's truly human self, he writes:

This view also comes from the ancient Greeks, who believed that man's soul is divine, of the same essence as God himself, and that the body is only the prison of man's truly human (basically divine) self. Popular as this view has been in the Christian church, it is not biblical. (Guthrie 1968:189.)

It takes considerable convoluted logic to explain the immediacy of "today you shall be with me in paradise" by those who reject dualism and do not believe in the concept of an immortal soul. Absent an immortal soul the only place Jesus and the thief went was to the grave. Some authors choose to simply ignore it as illustrated in an article on baptism by Hank Hanegraaff. He wrote:

The thief on the cross provides perhaps the most potent proof that we are saved by faith or belief and not by baptism (or any other work). When this thief placed his faith in Christ on the cross, Jesus said to him, "today you will be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43). In this case there was neither the necessity nor the opportunity for baptism. Baptism would have symbolized his entrance into a community of believers on earth. The cleansing power of Christ's blood to which baptism points, however, was sufficient to assure him of his entrance into a community of believers in eternity. (Hanegraaff 1999:58).

Hanegraaff misses the point of the text. In context, how did the Jews of Jesus' day understand the nature of the dead? The common understanding in the Judaisms of the Herodian period was that the dead, who ceased to exist at death except for the lifeless body, knew nothing (Ecclesiastes 9:5). Only some, specifically the Pharisees, believed in an eventual resurrection of the dead at the time of judgment. In the context of his culture, Jesus statement would have been understood by the thief that he would be in the paradise to come at the time of the resurrection to judgment. There is no indication that the thief had been saved--only that he would be in paradise (the implication is that this would occur on judgment day).

The phrase "Truly I say to you today" induces a slight dissonance to the English ear as we do not speak that way. Consider, however, that Jesus commented on the thief's statement "Jesus, remember me when You come in Your kingdom!". For Jesus to have said in return "Well, I promise you today, you will be with me in Paradise" makes sense. Today we might paraphrase it "Well, I'll tell you now, you will be with me in paradise." When this is to occur and the nature of that paradise in another disputed matter.

Considering the two translations in this example there is sufficient room to render the punctuation of the verse in different ways.

NASB		"Truly I say to you, today you shall be with Me in Paradise."
Alternative 1		"Truly I say to you today, you shall be with Me in Paradise."
NOLI		"Well, I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
Alternative 2		"Well, I tell you today, you will be with me in Paradise."

This is an example of how exegesis precedes translation. The dualistic spin of Greco-Roman Christians still dominates English renderings of Luke 23:43. Does it matter? This depends upon your understanding of dualism and the nature of salvation. The point is the verse has doctrinal implications that divide Christians.

What Difference Can Punctuation Make In Regard to the Role of Women? Scripture   Should it read? Or is this what the writer intended? What is the doctrinal significance? I Cor. 7:1-2 Quotation Marks Now for the matters you wrote about. You say, "It is a good thing for a man not to have sexual intercourse with a woman." Rather, in the face of so much immorality, let each man have his own wife and each woman her own husband. (REB.) Now concerning the things whereof ye wrote unto me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman. (AV.) Does Paul advocate abstinence as a better Christian life? I Tim. 2:11-3:1 Paragraphing Women must listen quietly in church and be perfectly submissive. I do not allow women to teach or to dominate over men; they must keep quiet... But they will be saved through motherhood, if they continue to have faith and to be loving and holy, and sensible as well. This is a trustworthy saying. (Goodspeed 1935.) Here is a saying you may trust: "To aspire to leadership is an honorable ambition." (REB.) Did Paul emphasize the truthfulness of his statement about women or leadership?

Difficult scriptures make poor proof texts due to their inherent ambiguity. The ambiguity of hard scriptures tends to neutralize them. Those who argue from such scriptures bring so many assumptions with them that distortion nearly always arises. This is one reason I take exception to Hank Hanegraaff's comment, a classic case of spin, that Luke 23:43 is "the most potent proof that we are saved by faith..." Indeed, from this scripture alone we cannot know this at all. His logic is inadequate. Truly, we are saved by faith not works of our flesh, but this verse is no proof of that detail. In context, we simply have Jesus' comforting reassurance to a dying man that he would be with Jesus in paradise without Jesus specifying at what point in history it would happen.

So far, our discussion has dealt with a simple illustration, the difference punctuation can make in biblical understanding. For several examples of how punctuation impacts our understanding see "Punctuation in the New Testament" by R. Omanson in the Bible Review (Omanson 1998). Now its time to consider spin by contemporary clerics.

Contemporary Clerical Spin

You must never watch television to think that today's priests, preachers, televangelists, and theologians don't place their spin on the scriptures. Their spin often follows denominational lines and consists of placing scriptures in a false light to force meaning on them that simply does not exist. There are numerous examples, I present four in the chart below, but a serious contemporary illustration of such denominational spinning relates to Paul's letter to the Colossians.

What Difference Can Translation of the Greek Text Make? Scripture Should it read? Or is this what the writer intended? What is the doctrinal significance? Colossians 2:16-17 Therefore no one is to act as your judge in regard to food or drink or in respect to a festival or a new moon or a Sabbath day things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; but the substance belongs to Christ. Therefore, let no one judge you in regard to food, or drink, or in respect to a festival, or a new moon, or Sabbath days which are a mere shadow of what is to come, but the body of Christ.N1 The judge in these matters was the apostolic church itself. The annual Sabbaths have prophetic symbolic meaning for Christians. Luke 24:21 "but we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, it is the third day since these things happened." "but we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, the third day since these things happened has passed."N2 The third day was by then over requiring the Resurrection to have occurred before Sunday (ruling out any possibility of a Sunday morning resurrection). Luke 3:23 When He began His ministry, Jesus Himself was about thirty years of age, being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, the son of Eli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,... Now Jesus himself was beginning to be about thirty years old, being�as was supposed�the son of Joseph, who was the son-in-law of Heli, son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melchi, the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph,...N3 This genealogy is through Mary's father not through Joseph (Luke's gospel provides the physical genealogy while Matthew's gospel records the legal genealogy of Jesus of Nazareth). II Peter 1:1   Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ... Simon Peter, a bond-servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have received a faith of the same kind as ours by the righteousness of Jesus Christ, our God and Savior,...N4 The apostle Peter taught that Jesus Christ was God.

^N1See NASB marginal notes for Colossians 2:16-17.
^N2Following construct in Walter Bauer�s A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature [Gingrich & Danker, 2nd edition, University of Chicago press, 1979] on page 14, column 2, item 4 (Arndt and Gingrich 1979:14).
^N3See A Harmony of the Gospels In Modern English (Coulter 1976).
^N4Compare parallelism in I Peter 1:3 NASB translated as "the God and Father."

While imprisoned at Rome, Paul wrote his epistle to the congregation at Colossae, ca. CE 56-58, upon learning of a raid on the group by Jewish Gnostics known as Essenes. At that time Essene recruiters traveled about seeking proselytes as their asceticism required new converts lest the sect die out. The matters addressed in the epistle were in reference to the realities of Essene Gnosticism not Greek philosophy nor the demands of the Torah, nor the halakhic traditions of the Pharisees. The Essenes observed the weekly Sabbath as did other Jews but unlike the Pharisees and Sadducees they adhered to a solar calendar. The Essene Solar Calendar included feasts and annual Sabbaths (holy days) but differed from the luni-solar calendar of traditional Jews. Essene feasts and holy days fell on specific weekdays. Passover Sabbath, for example, would always begin at sunset Tuesday night and end at sunset Wednesday night. At the time even the small sect of the Pharisees held views concerning the calendar at variance with the Levitical priests. The Pharisees sought to place the Feast of Weeks (Leviticus 23:16, 23:21) or (Pentecost) on a fixed calendar day not a fixed day of the week as did the priests.

Consider now the meaning of Paul's statement in Colossians 2:16-17. Protestant clerics are quick to remind us that in this verse Paul held that Christians are not to let any man judge them in regard to food, drink, new moons, festivals and Sabbaths. This much overworked scripture, however, is problematic. The NASB rendering of Verse 17 reads "things which are a mere shadow of what is to come; the substance belongs to Christ." This interpretation disregards the context of the epistle.

While I agree that the teaching of the New Testament is that we are not to let today's religious leaders, whether they be rabbi, priest, minister, or imam, be our judges in such matters this is not the contextual meaning of Colossians 2:16-17. What then is its meaning in the context of its writing? What specific point did the apostle Paul convey in Colossians 2 to his followers in Colossae?

Paul wrote his epistle, ca. CE 58, from his prison cell in Caesarea Maritima on learning of a raid by Essene Jews disrupting the Colossian congregation. The apostle Paul cautioned the Colossians not to allow these intruders to judge the congregation with respect to holy days, that is, Sabbath days which are a shadow of things to come (Colossians 2:16). It is important to take note that the Essenes significantly differed with the leadership of the early Church of God regarding the issues outlined in Colossians 2:16�eating, drinking, festivals, new moons, and Holy Days. The calendar used by the Essenes was not that followed by the early church, nor was the New Covenant emphasis on the redemption of humanity the teaching of the Essenes, nor did it abide by the dietary practices advanced by the Essenes, nor did it observe the Essene annual Sabbaths.

At issue were the "Sabbath days which are a mere shadow of what is to come" [annual Sabbaths with prophetic symbolic meaning for Christians] not the weekly Sabbath. At that time the weekly Sabbath was the common day of worship for traditional Jews, Essene Jews, and the Church of God. This day of corporate worship for all three groups was the weekly Sabbath extending from sunset Friday night to sunset Saturday night. The point made by the apostle Paul was that in these matters the congregation was not to let anyone, and in particular the Essenes, judge them except "the body of Christ" (Colossians 2:17, see marginal notes in the NASB). He was claiming the right of the apostolic church to be the judge not the Essenes. Now, in the immediate context of Colossians and the greater context of all the apostle Paul's writings, what does the metaphor the "body of Christ" refer too?

The apostle Paul consistently utilizes the metaphor of the "body of Christ" being the q^ehal'el, Church of God, in his epistles. See I Corinthians 12:12�28; Ephesians 1:22�23, 4:12; 5:30; Colossians 1:18; 1:24; 2:17�19; 3:14; cf. Acts 26:23. How can we understand this phrase in any other way without violating the text? We can't. In context, specifically in Colossians itself, the rules of exegesis require the metaphor "body of Christ" in Colossians 2:16-17 to refer to the apostolic church under the leadership of the apostles themselves. What rules of exegesis? Three reasonable ones any conservative Christian should be willing to follow are:

1. The Bible is the inspired word of God.

2. Every scripture must be understood in its immediate context.

3. Any interpretation of scripture must be understood in the context of all other scriptures.

The apostle Paul�s passing reference at Colossians 2:16 to the practice of observing new moons in his ca. CE 58 epistle infers that a controversy had arisen concerning the time the new moon would have been observed. The evidence suggests that for the first time signal fires were set by the Samaritans to disrupt the signaling of new moons around CE 50. If the Samaritans were closer to the Jews at the time of Christ, for example, the Jews didn�t object to baptizing Samaritans ca. CE 31 the way they did the Gentile Cornelius ca. CE 35, there may have been another flare up. Paul pointed out that it was not men who judged doctrinal matters but the Church of God. To which church was Paul referring? The apostolic church. Its standard, now set forth in the New Testament, is the pattern for Christians today and the basis of judgment. Accordingly, the apostles left no minister, priest, rabbi, imam, or other religious leader with the authority to set the standard for Christian conduct. The New Testament, for all Christians for all time, sets that standard.

Guard Against the Distortion of God's Word

Translators see themselves as bringing to the rest of us the meaning of God's word but they leave their twist to the English translations of the New Testament. Why would they spin Paul's words in this way? Is it not to be free of any authority that might suggest that Christians have to do anything Jewish? It amazes me that some Protestant ministers explain we should not let anyone judge us in regard to drink and Sabbaths and then in the same breath have no problem whatsoever demanding that we cease drinking alcohol and insisting that we keep a Sunday (Lord's-day) Sabbath.

Usually Gentile Christians, clerics and laity alike, spin the New Testament in terms supportive of traditional orthodoxy be it Greek, Roman Catholic, or Protestant. But now some Gentile Christians and Messianic Jews are recasting aspects of the New Testament to make it more politically correct. A trend, in recognition of the Jewish character of the New Testament, is translation into a more Semitic style. Another distortion is the feminization of the New Testament.

I encourage you to educate yourself in the Bible and the culture of the biblical world. My demonstration of some of the ambiguity inherent in the New Testament is not meant to aid and abet those who would deconstruct it. Rather I want to show that important ambiguities exist in the New Testament that allow for a variety of theologies. These theoretical constructs cannot all be correct. Some argue that Judeo-Christianity itself, the apostolic culture that produced the New Testament, was divided on any number of doctrinal maters. Others see a unity in the movement manifesting itself in the New Testament. Even if we had the original autographs of the New Testament there would remain doctrinal controversy over meaning in scores ambiguous texts.

In biblical archaeology we see the whole Bible, the Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament, as artifacts derived in a particular cultural context. As we seek to discover, to know, and to explain that culture we look to literary evidence and other material culture. Hopefully, these vagaries and ambiguities can be reduced by a fuller grasp of the subtleties of the Apostolic Age and enhance our understanding of God's word. As we come to a fuller understanding of the actual teachings of the apostles then we individually have to decide their relevance for our lives.

Page last edited: 11/28/04 08:43 AM