So, as we come to John chapter 8, many of you will probably notice something a little
bit unusual in your Bibles.
Unless you're using the New King James or the King James, you'll notice that John 7
verse 53 to 8 verse 11 is marked in a special way.
Some Bibles put this section in square brackets, others use horizontal lines above and below.
I'm using the NIV and my Bible has the whole section in italics, almost like an extended
quotation, just like that.
Most translations will have a little note or a footnote explaining why.
So, what's going on here?
Well, before we try to answer that, let's first acknowledge that this isn't the only place
where this happens in the Bible.
Turn for a minute to Mark chapter 16.
You'll probably notice that it's marked out in the last verses, verse 9 to 20, in the
same way.
The earliest manuscripts and some other ancient witnesses do not have verses 9 to 20, the note
in my Bible says.
Turn to Matthew 17, verse 21.
Similar kind of thing here.
In my Bible, the numbers go 20 right to 22.
And there's just a little 21 with square brackets there.
The verse is missing.
Flip forward to Matthew 18, verse 11.
Again, you see a similar thing.
You have verse 10 and then, in my Bible, 11's missing.
It's just the number 11 in small brackets with a little footnote.
And then right on to 12.
And you could flip forward again to a number of other verses.
We won't go to all of them.
Matthew 23, verse 14.
Acts 8, 37.
Same thing.
The verse is missing.
It's just the number and a little footnote.
So, I don't have the exact count, but I think if my online source is correct, there's at
least 16 verses where this happens in the New Testament.
And two of them are those longer sections.
The end of Mark there, and the one here, smack dab, in the middle of John.
So, what's going on here?
Why do some English Bibles have these verses and some do not?
That's our big question for this morning.
And just a heads up, it's going to be a little bit of a different kind of sermon this morning.
The truth is, it's a long story.
The story begins a long time ago when the gospel writers and the apostles first wrote the
scriptures of the New Testament.
Hopefully, it's no surprise to you, but back in the first century when John wrote the gospel
of John, he didn't write it in English.
He wrote it in Greek.
Common Greek or Koine Greek, as it was called.
That was the language that was spoken all over the Mediterranean world in his day.
And it's good to be reminded of this every now and then.
I haven't heard it said myself, but I've heard someone else say that every now and then they
come across a sweet little old lady who will say to them,
well, if St. Peter used the King James Bible, then that's good enough for me.
Well, it may astound you to be reminded, but the first English translation of the Bible
didn't come into being until over 1,400 years after the New Testament scriptures were originally
written.
1,400 years later, before we got our first translation into English.
And I think it's at about 100 or so for French.
And I don't know about Chinese, sorry.
But when you think about it, it means that we haven't had an English translation of the Bible
for very long.
It's actually pretty close to about 500 years.
And if you think about how long a person lives these days, that's not that many generations ago.
So the story of why some English translations have these verses and some do not is indeed
a very long story.
Back in John's day when he wrote this and when Paul and Peter wrote their letters, it
was a different world.
They wrote in Greek on papyrus.
And then they sent their letters by messenger to the recipients or to the churches.
When the church received the letter, they would read it aloud to the whole church.
And then they made copies.
And they did it by hand.
And then they began passing out the copies.
And then copies were made of the copies.
And passed on and so on and so forth.
Because the movable type printing press wasn't even invented until the 1400s.
So everything had to be done by hand.
Some copyists or scribes were better than others.
Some were very accurate.
Some were not so accurate.
And so over the centuries, errors and sometimes even the intentional change or addition crept
into some of the manuscripts.
And then into the copies that were made of those manuscripts.
And then into the copies and so on and so forth down the line.
And as the Mediterranean world changed, that also had a big impact on how the text of the
New Testament was passed on from generation to generation.
There came a time when the church divided over regional lines.
In 1054 was the official separation.
Which you can kind of see the geographical boundaries on the map there.
The Roman Catholic Church on the west, headquartered out of Rome.
The Eastern Orthodox on the east, headquartered out of Constantinople.
But long before these two regions officially separated, they began to grow apart.
Long before this, in the west, the Greek language kind of faded into the background.
And Latin became the standard for the Western Europe area.
So in the 4th century, the Greek New Testament was translated into Latin.
And that was kind of the standard Bible of the west.
But then in the Eastern Church, the Greek language continued to be used.
And so they continued to make copies in Greek.
There were even some Christians down in Egypt.
And so there ended up being what's called families of manuscripts.
Based on these regional divides as the copies continued to be made.
And then there was the fall of Rome.
Much before this, there was the Dark Ages that came after that.
There was a lot of upheaval and conquest in all of those years.
And really, it was a miracle of God that the scriptures were preserved through that time.
I mean, those were days in which libraries were burned to the ground.
Entire cities were.
And thankfully, God used monks in scriptoriums at the monasteries to preserve his word.
And to continue copying so that we could have copies today.
Now, there's tons of church history from the fall of the Roman Empire all the way up to the Reformation in the early 1500s.
That factors into this story.
But we're not going to go into all that.
For this morning, it's enough to know that up until the time that the printing press was invented in the 1400s,
the Latin Vulgate, the Latin Bible, was the main Bible of the church.
And then after the fall of Rome, Latin literacy fell so badly that it was very few who were able to read the Bible.
Mainly priests or bishops who were trained.
The people were very much dependent upon church leaders to know anything of what God had revealed in the Bible.
And unfortunately, the Roman Catholic Church became so corrupt that you weren't even guaranteed to have a bishop or priest who was a Christian in your local parish.
People went after leadership positions in the church for power and for prestige.
And sadly, many of the corrupt church leaders were all too happy to keep the people in the dark.
But then, something big happened.
In the 1400s, the movable type printing press was invented.
And it led to a whole bunch of changes.
Within about 60 years of its invention, a man named Desiderius Erasmus published the first ever printed Greek New Testament.
There's a picture of what it looked like.
They even managed to get colored ink on.
And it's actually kind of nice.
So this was a big deal.
Up until this point, attempts had been made to translate the Latin Bible into German and French and even English.
But the Catholic Church was very much opposed to it.
There was one authorized translation of the Bible.
And at the time, it was the Latin Vulgate.
Don't you dare make your own translation into another language.
You may have heard about John Wycliffe.
In the 1300s, just 100 years before the printing press-ish, he had been working to translate the Bible from the Latin into English.
Not only was he met with fierce opposition, but unfortunately, his translation wasn't very good.
It was a translation of a translation of the original.
Because the New Testament was written in Greek, then translated into Latin in the 4th century.
And now here's John Wycliffe translating the translation almost a thousand years later into English.
You can imagine the problem with that.
I mean, just imagine writing a very important document, giving it to David.
David translates that into French.
And then it sits around for a thousand years.
And some guy who speaks French and German picks it up and translates it into English.
How close to the original intention of the wording do you think it's going to be?
You better believe there's going to be some major differences there.
And if you don't believe me, you can just take one of Paul's long sentences in the epistles,
punch it into Google Translate, translate it into one other language,
and then try to translate it back into English.
And you'll see.
There were some major problems with John Wycliffe's translation.
But it was a start.
So Desiderius Erasmus, after the printing press had been invented,
he published the first ever Greek New Testament.
And Martin Luther, he actually got saved by studying this New Testament
as he was studying in the Book of Romans.
William Tyndale came along.
And he created the first ever published translation of the Bible into English
in about the early 1500s.
And he made it from Erasmus' Greek New Testament.
In fact, there were a whole bunch of translations of the Bible into English
that came within about 100 years of Erasmus' first publishing,
the Greek New Testament, in 1516.
And some of these translations were kind of based off each other
and reworks and revisions.
A couple of them were still based off of the Latin Vulgate,
out of kind of that respect for tradition in the Catholic Church.
But the best of them were direct translations from the Hebrew Old Testament text
that they had access to,
and from Erasmus' Greek New Testament.
Later, this was revised by Erasmus a number of times,
and then by a guy named Stephanas.
And after that revision, the King James Bible translation
was largely based off of Erasmus' Greek New Testament.
Now, before we talk about the major problem with Erasmus' Greek New Testament,
let's first talk about the amazing blessing and gift of God
that this was to the people of this day.
For the first time after 1,400 years,
English speakers like you and me,
though they spoke a little bit different version of English,
they could read the Word of God,
the very words of God,
in their own language.
And I'll just mention here that for this message,
I'm relying significantly on Daniel Wallace for a lot of this information.
Daniel Wallace is one of the best Greek scholars alive today.
He's a senior research professor of the New Testament
at Dallas Theological Seminary.
He's the director of the Center for the Study of New Testament Manuscripts.
He's traveled all over the world
and photographed ancient manuscripts of the New Testament with his team.
And he's, of course, he's been published all kinds of times
and has served as a consultant for, I think, four major Bible translations,
including the NIV, the ESV, the New King James.
Very helpful source.
In his words, William Tyndale's,
that first English translation of the Bible,
was a superb translation.
Back then they spoke in what's called Middle English,
and Tyndale was a highly educated man.
He had studied Greek and Hebrew.
He had a bachelor's and a master's degree from Oxford.
He studied at Cambridge.
He became fluent in six or seven languages.
And he had a fantastic grasp of the English language of his day.
Within 30 years of Tyndale's translation,
there was another Bible that came to be printed,
known as the Geneva Bible.
It was translated in Geneva, of course,
and it was the first English Bible translation done by a committee.
And it, too, was translated from Erasmus' Greek New Testament
and from the Hebrew Scriptures rather than just from Latin.
So finally, we come to the 1600s.
King James is on the throne of England.
And while the Geneva Bible is the popular translation,
which many people had in their homes,
the Bishop's Bible was what was being used in the churches.
The Bishop's Bible was kind of based off of Tyndale's translation,
though it had a whole bunch of different revisions at various points.
One of the past monarchs decided that the Bishop's Bible
should be the standard translation in England.
And so it was used in the churches,
but it had never really caught on because the people didn't like it.
The people liked the Geneva Bible translation better.
But King James, he didn't like the Geneva Bible translation.
And probably it wasn't so much because of the translation itself,
but because of the notes that were packaged in it.
Back then they used to put notes in the margins,
just like we do today with our modern-day study Bibles.
And the Geneva Bible's commentary was very Calvinistic.
Not only that, but the Reformers were very inclined
to highlight examples of justified civil disobedience.
It kind of fit with the whole flavor of the Reformation.
And King James did not like that in particular.
So King James summoned all the religious leaders of England
and he got them together to do some religious business.
They had a conference.
And they made a resolution at that conference.
The resolution was that
a translation be made of the whole Bible
as consonant as can be to the original Hebrew and Greek,
and this to be set out and printed without any marginal notes
and only to be used in all churches of England
in time of divine service.
Actually, this resolution was made by somebody at the conference,
but most of the church leaders didn't like the idea.
They kind of preferred the Geneva Bible.
But King James loved the idea.
In fact, he was so enthusiastic about this new project
that he himself took on a leading role in crafting the rules
for who the translators should be,
how they should organize.
He saw to it that they had everything that they need to do the work.
He assigned six panels of scholars to do the work for the King James,
three for the Old Testament,
two for the New Testament,
one for the Apocrypha,
and altogether there were 47 men
who worked together
on the King James translation of the Bible.
And the scholars looked at all the English translations
that had been done to date,
as well as the Latin Vulgate,
and specifically in the New Testament,
they again looked at that New Testament done in Greek
that Erasmus had done back in 1516.
Even though they weren't supposed to,
funny thing,
the translators of the King James Bible
ended up going with the wording of the Geneva Bible a fair bit,
but it was a good translation.
But even more surprising
is how closely the King James translation,
when it was done,
resembled William Tyndale's translation from 80 years earlier.
One analysis had that the wording was actually 90% the same
as what William Tyndale had done
in the first English translation ever made.
So when all was said and done,
the English-speaking churches,
they had a new version of the Bible,
and not only a new one,
but they had an excellent translation of God's Word
in their own language.
William Tyndale, back in his day,
he was just a little bit more concerned
with being faithful to the Greek and Hebrew wording
and word order,
so his translation was a little less easy to read.
It was a little less pleasing to the English ears.
But King James,
in his translation,
they placed a little bit more emphasis
on bringing the meaning through
in a way that sounded good
to the English speaker,
a way that was memorable and understandable.
Understandable.
And even today,
the King James Bible still stands out
as an elegant and beautiful translation
for those who are willing to put in the work
to learn some older words and grammar.
What a gift it was to the English speakers of that day,
and even to many who still use it,
even up to today.
But there is one significant weakness
or shortcoming,
not just of the King James translation,
but actually of all the English translations
made around that time.
It was that they relied exclusively
on the published editions
of this Greek New Testament
done by Erasmus.
That was the best that they had available
in their day, many of them.
And as I mentioned earlier,
there was a problem,
there was a weakness,
a shortcoming with his New Testament
published back in 1516.
Desiderius Erasmus,
when he published this,
and he actually admitted this,
it was a rush job.
The printing press had been invented,
and now it was,
who's going to be the first
to publish the Greek New Testament?
And unfortunately,
due to this rush,
it ended up coming out
in the first edition
with a whole bunch of typos and errors.
But the bigger issue
is that Erasmus'
Greek New Testament
was put together
from a grand total
of only eight manuscripts,
eight Greek manuscripts.
There's only seven on this list.
The eighth isn't on there,
but he used eight.
And the best manuscript
Erasmus had
was a manuscript copy
of the New Testament
that had been made
in the 11th century,
still a thousand years
from the time
that the New Testament
was originally written.
Not only that,
but Erasmus didn't even realize
that the 11th century one
was his best manuscript.
He used it the least,
and instead drew more
from some of the manuscripts
that had been copied
much closer
to his own time of publishing.
In general,
the closer to the time
of writing
the manuscript was copied,
the more accurate
the copy is likely to be.
It's not the only factor
that affects the accuracy,
but it's a general principle.
So these 12th to 15th century
manuscripts
that he used
to publish his
Greek New Testament
had all the copyist
and scribal errors,
and in some cases,
additions,
which had accumulated
in them
over the past
1,000 to 1,400 years.
In addition to that,
all but one of these manuscripts
came from the same family,
regional family
of manuscripts.
And that in itself
is not a bad thing.
It's just that it was
all he had
in his day
to use.
And out of all
of these eight manuscripts,
only one of them
had the book
of Revelation
in it.
And it was a copy
of an earlier manuscript
on which
some archbishop
back in the 1600s
named Andreas
had decided
he was going to make
all sorts of notes
and comments.
He wrote kind of a commentary
and some textual notes
all over it.
And all of that
commentary and notes
had been copied
forward for
hundreds of years.
And this was the copy
that Erasmus had
for Revelation.
And unfortunately,
in most of the previous ones,
it was easy to tell
what the commentary
and what the actual text
of the New Testament was.
But in this particular one,
the person who had copied it
actually wrote the commentary
in between the lines of text
of the Greek New Testament.
So this was the best
that Erasmus had.
And some of those
notes or comments
just above the words
accidentally ended up
getting into
his New Testament.
But what was even worse
than that
was that
his copy of Revelation,
the manuscript,
was missing the last page.
They had codexes
that were very much like
books that we have today.
You know how the last page
sometimes falls out?
Well, Erasmus,
he was missing the last page.
And so he didn't have
the last six verses
of Revelation.
So being the clever guy
that he was,
he cheated a little bit
on that.
And he actually
opened up his Latin Bible.
And then he wrote
in Greek
the words he thought
they would have used
to basically translate
back from the Latin
into Greek
for the last six verses
of Revelation.
Of course,
he had to complete
his translation.
It's kind of a clever move.
But when he finally
did find some manuscripts
of Revelation
that had those verses,
uh-oh,
they aren't quite the same.
And already people
have been translating
off the one
he had cheated on
and making copies of that
and distributing it.
Turn for a moment
to Revelation 22,
verse 19.
Revelation 22,
verse 19.
It says,
If anyone takes away
from the words
of the book
of this prophecy,
God shall take away
his part
from the tree of life,
from the holy city,
and from the things
which are written
in this book.
Now,
if you're reading
the King James,
you'll notice
that it says,
God shall take away
his part
from the book of life.
The difference
is owing in part
to Erasmus'
back translation
from the Latin Vulgate,
because the Latin Vulgate
says the book of life
instead of the tree of life.
But even today,
with all the manuscripts
of the New Testament
that we have,
we do not have
a single one
that says
book of life
in it
that was copied
prior to the time
of Erasmus'
Greek New Testament.
They all say
tree of life.
And probably,
as some have noted,
why
the word book
ended up in there
is because in Latin,
the word for book
and the word for tree
looks very similar.
Ligno versus libro.
It's just two letters
difference.
Probably some Latin
copyist had just
made a mistake
somewhere back
in the centuries
before,
and it was carried
forward all the way
through to the
15th century.
And unfortunately,
this error
made it all the way
into the King James
version of the Bible,
and even today,
it still hasn't
been corrected
out of a respect
for tradition.
In fact,
even in 1982,
when the New King James
version was published,
they had the opportunity
to correct this,
and they were advised
to by some
that they consulted
with,
and they chose
not to.
They chose to base
their New Testament
off of that same
Greek text
that Erasmus did
out of respect
for tradition.
So,
here's why this is
such a shortcoming.
Erasmus had only
eight Greek manuscripts,
and all
except one
from a single family
of manuscripts,
but today,
we have over
5,000 plus
manuscripts.
The exact count
is hard to get,
so I picked
a very conservative
number.
Some would say
closer to 6,000.
And these are
in New Testament,
they're in libraries,
they're in music,
museums,
they're in personal
collections,
all over the world.
And we have several
online catalogs
of these manuscripts.
It's quite something.
You can actually
go online,
and for free,
you can view
the parchment,
the papyrus,
high-resolution
photographs that
have been taken
of the actual
manuscripts,
which they've found.
It's amazing.
Now,
not all of these
5,000 contain
the entire
New Testament.
Some are fragments
and pieces,
but according to
one source,
the average
size of a New
Testament manuscript
is 450 pages.
So it's
quite significant.
They used
fairly big letters,
all copied
by hand.
Not only do we
have a huge number,
but we also have
manuscripts from
all of the different
families of
manuscripts.
And beyond that,
we have over
10,000 manuscripts
of the New Testament
translated into
other languages,
Latin,
Coptic,
Syriac,
Armenian,
and even more.
We also have
copies of the
writings of the
church fathers
today,
who quoted
from their
copies of
the ancient
Greek New
Testament.
So we can
check and see
does it match
up.
And most
importantly,
we have many
manuscripts today
which date
back way
closer to
the time that
the New Testament
was originally
written.
An earlier
date of copy
and an earlier
manuscript means
that it is
closer to the
original source
which means
that generally
there's way
less chance
for error.
We have a
dozen manuscript
fragments
dating all the
way back
to the
second century.
That's within
a hundred years
of the time
that the
apostles and
the gospel
writers wrote.
Now those
are fragments,
most of them,
not the whole
New Testament.
In the third
century,
64 manuscripts.
From the
fourth century,
about 48
manuscripts.
And if you
just take those
300 years
together,
we have about
125 manuscripts
and in those
125 manuscripts
the whole New
Testament is
found represented
multiple times.
It's amazing.
Not only that,
but with the
technology that we
have today,
we're able to
analyze these
manuscripts in
ways that were
never possible
before.
We have
different types
of imaging
today that
can help
better read
old and
faded text
on parchment.
We have
computers that
are able to
catalog every
manuscript that
we have and
we can program
to sift through
them all and
try to help us
narrow down the
most likely
original reading
of the New
Testament scriptures
in those places
where there are
some variations.
We can pull up
images of
manuscripts, a
manuscript that's
in Germany, a
manuscript that's
in England, and
pull them up on
the screen side
by side and
compare, something
that they couldn't
do in Erasmus' or
Stephanus' day.
So because of
this, we have the
ability to narrow
things down even
better and be even
more confident that
the Greek New
Testament we have
today contains
accurately the
words that the
apostles originally
wrote.
And what that
means is that the
best of our
modern-day English
translations, they're
actually more
accurate than the
early English
translations ever
could be.
I don't know about
you, but I find
that reassuring.
I find that
encouraging.
Back to John 7
verse 53.
The reason this
passage is
specially marked
out like this is
because there's a
very high degree of
confidence that it
was not part of the
original gospel of
John, but that it
was added later.
According to D.A.
Carson, a very
respected Bible
scholar, the
medieval Greek
manuscripts, they
have these verses,
but if you go back
before that to the
earlier manuscripts,
it's absent from
virtually all of
them across all
families of
manuscripts.
These verses are
missing from the
earliest translations
of the gospel into
Syriac, Coptic,
Latin, and
Armenian.
All of the early
church fathers omit
this section
completely.
From their
commentaries on
the gospel of
John, and the
early church fathers
were not known for
being brief.
They loved to
comment at length
on every verse
of the Bible, but
they just passed
right from verse 52
of chapter 7 to
verse 12 of chapter
8 as if it wasn't
even there in their
commentaries on
John's gospel.
In fact, the
earliest citation or
quote from this
passage by a church
father that we know
of isn't until the
10th century.
And then on top of
that, there are also
a number of later
manuscripts that
have this section
in John marked in a
special way to show
that they're not
confident of its
authenticity.
As the note in my
Bible says, there are
a few manuscripts that
have these same
verses in different
places.
Some of them in
Luke in a couple
different spots.
Some of them in
John 7 in a couple
different spots.
At least one of
them at the end of
the Gospel of John.
All of these
indicating that they
weren't sure if that
was part of the
original, probably
because they had two
different copies, one
that had it and one
that did not.
And this is the same
kind of thing that's
basically going on in
all of these verses
that we looked at at
the start, that we
talked about at the
start.
Somewhere along the
way, a scribe or
copious made an error,
usually unintentional,
though sometimes
intentionally to
correct or to
adjust the text to
what he thought it
should say, or to
add something that
he thought should be
in there.
And by the time it
got to Erasmus' day,
these verses and
the others we looked
at were all part of
the eight manuscripts
that he drew from.
And so they're in the
King James Bible today,
and in many of your
translations as well,
whether they're in
brackets or in
italics.
But since 1611,
we've discovered and
collected and analyzed
thousands of
manuscripts, and the
earliest of them just
do not have these
verses in them.
Here's some pictures
of Papyrus 66,
P66.
This has almost the
complete gospel of
John in it, and
amazingly, it dates to
about 200 AD.
It's amazing.
It sure looks brittle
in the picture there.
There's another picture
of the page.
Straight on.
This right here is the
page that this is on,
and right about that
little dot right there,
that's where the whole
section of 753 to 8,
verse 11 is, and it's
not in this manuscript
at all.
It just keeps on going,
as if it never was there.
So the evidence is
pretty overwhelming that
this excerpt was added
later, and wasn't part of
what John wrote under the
inspiration of the Holy
Spirit.
However, it's probably
here for a reason.
Just because John didn't
write it himself doesn't
mean that it never
happened.
So we don't need to
assume based on this that,
you know, somebody just
completely fabricated a
story and stuck it in,
that it's completely
fictitious.
Something like this
probably did happen at
some time in Jesus'
ministry.
Even as we read it,
we'll notice that most
of it is something that
very much fits with the
kind of situations Jesus
found himself in, and the
kind of things that Jesus
said and did.
The teachers of the law,
it says in verse 3,
and the Pharisees brought
in a woman caught in
adultery.
They made her stand before
the group and said to
Jesus, teacher, this woman
was caught in the act of
adultery.
In the law, Moses commanded
us to stone such women.
Now what do you say?
They were using this
question as a trap in
order to have a basis for
accusing him.
Well, if we look at the
other places in the
Gospels, that sounds
pretty characteristic of
the religious leaders.
They were often trying to
trip Jesus up with all
kinds of things.
At one point in this
account, Jesus bends down
and starts writing on the
ground with his finger.
And there's been all
kinds of speculation as to
what exactly he wrote.
Some people are pretty
sure that they know.
It's kind of a strange
thing, isn't it?
Just in the middle of all
this, start writing on the
ground.
We aren't told what he
wrote or why, but it's not
totally out of characteristic
for Jesus.
I mean, he has done some
strange things.
Among them is spitting in the
mud and then smearing it
into a man's eyes.
That's how he healed one of the
blind people that he healed.
And, you know, last time I
got sand or dirt in my eye, it
was a very unpleasant
experience.
Jesus does some strange
things sometimes, so this
isn't totally out of
characteristic for him.
Jesus also tells the men that
are gathered there, I love
what he says to them.
He says,
whichever of you is without
sin, cast the first stone.
A very wise answer, a very
clever way of reminding them
that every single one of you
is also guilty of breaking
God's holy law.
All of you are in need of God's
mercy, just as this woman is.
And this too happened all the
time.
Jesus had that perfect wisdom
and was able to answer his
opponents every time.
At the end of this account,
they all leave, of course,
one by one.
Nobody throws a stone.
Jesus tells the woman that
he does not condemn her.
She receives mercy.
And we're reminded from other
places in the scripture that
this is the kind of thing Jesus
did.
He said to the paralytic man who
was lowered on the mat,
your sins are forgiven.
He had the authority to
forgive people of their sins
on the spot.
He says,
I do not condemn you to this
woman.
We're also reminded of John
chapter 3 verse 17,
where it says,
For God did not send his son
into the world to condemn
the world, but to save the
world through him.
I do not condemn you.
But Jesus also doesn't condone
her sin.
I'm reminded of the guy at the
pool of Siloam, whom Jesus
healed and found later at the
temple.
He said,
Stop sinning, or something
worse may happen to you.
In a similar way, Jesus tells
the woman,
Go now and leave your life of
sin.
He shows mercy, but he also
takes sin seriously.
He commands her not to do it
anymore.
Be done with doing the things
that you know are wrong.
So as far as the content of this
section, I think we can treat it
as historical, just as we would
any other literature from the
time, even if we acknowledge
that it wasn't written by John,
or that it was later added in
by someone else.
Finally, what should we take
from all this?
It's been a different sort of
sermon, I know, but I want to
give some practical help as we
think about Bible translations.
This is not the kind of sermon
we're going to do very often,
but we'll refer back to this if
we need to in future times when
we come to similar passages.
First of all, I think we should
thank God that after 1400 years
of having no Bible translation in
our own language, we should thank
God that by his grace and mercy,
he gave us his word in the
language that we speak.
And we should thank God that he
preserved all those manuscripts
over that long period of time
and allowed us to find them and
collect them so that we can be
confident that we do have his
words.
We do.
Second, I think it's important
that we humbly admit that no
translation of the Bible is
perfect.
What the prophets and the
apostles wrote was in another
language, and that alone is
inspired by God.
That is the thing that was
breathed out by God when they
first wrote.
And every translation of the
Bible, since, has weaknesses.
It's imperfect.
The King James is elegant 17th
century English, and it was
beautifully done in its time.
But its Greek manuscript basis is
weak.
And so it contains some of those
scribal additions and changes that
were accumulated over the years,
and that tradition sought to keep
going.
That, and if you want to use the
King James, then there's a good
number of English words that have
since changed meaning that you'll
have to look up or understand why
they use it differently back then
than we do today.
The NIV is a great, simple,
readable, modern-day English
translation.
It's one that I like to use for
most of my reading.
But it has its weaknesses too.
It omits crucial conjunctions.
It neuters participles in the
epistles, all to make the
sentences simpler and easier to
read.
Those conjunctions, those
participles contain important
information to help us see the
logical flow of what Paul or
Peter is saying.
It makes interpretive decisions in
places where the wording of the
original is ambiguous.
Some of those decisions may be
correct.
Some of them probably aren't.
The recent NIV revision also flirts
needlessly, I think, with modern-day
political correctness when it tries to
be gender neutral.
And in some places, it's fine.
Brothers and sisters, of course
they're not meaning to exclude
women when they write that.
But in at least a place or two that
I've seen, it's a big boo-boo.
The New American Standard Bible,
another fantastic word-for-word
translation of the Bible.
If you want to do a word-for-word
study, that's one of your best bets.
You will have to wrestle with some
words that have fallen out of usage in
modern-day English and some really
long, grammatically complex sentences
in the epistles.
It's not always easy to read, but it
contributes significantly to
understanding the original words.
The ESV is another solid Bible
translation.
It aims to be somewhat word-for-word
and yet stay close to the old
Revised Standard Version.
So you'll also have to put up with
some strange word order and some
19th century English at times.
But if you love the style and the
wording of the King James Version,
but you want a translation that
takes the latest New Testament
manuscript evidence into account,
the ESV is probably the translation
for you.
Whatever translation of the Bible you
choose to read in or study in or
memorize, I encourage you to make
sure you know its weaknesses.
You probably already know why you like
it, but do you know its weaknesses?
Do you know which other translations
of the Bible might be able to help
supplement those weaknesses?
You can read God's Word in more than
one translation.
And if you're studying, I would
recommend it.
It's one of the best ways to do it.
Finally, let's not forget about
context either.
Which translation will be most
understandable to the people that you
are trying to minister to?
Whether you're teaching children or
sharing a verse with an unbelieving
friend, if you're talking to a young
person here in Davidson who's scarcely
been in church, it's probably not going
to be all that helpful to quote from
some passages in the King James.
A passage in Job comes to mind,
And the Lord said unto Satan,
Whence comest thou?
Then Satan answered the Lord and said,
From going to and fro in the earth and
from walking up and down in it.
You're going to get some strange looks
if you do that.
And not only will you have to translate
what you just said into today's English,
but then you'll have to explain what it
means.
So context is so important.
What will be most helpful to the people
that you're sharing with?
If you have any questions,
or if you're looking for help
on figuring out Bible translation stuff,
I'd be happy to chat anytime.
And I just encourage you to let me know.
And I'd be happy to sit down.
It's been a bit of a different sermon,
but I hope that it's been helpful to you.
And I think it's important that we do
talk about this kind of thing
every once in a while.
I hope that you appreciate in a new way
what God has done over centuries
to bring his word into your very hands.
It's easy to take this for granted.
People in past generations
have put in thousands of hours
of study, of scholarly work,
so that you could read it for yourself
in the language that you know best.
So I want to encourage you this morning
to read it.
And let's thank God together
for the gift of his word in our hands
2,000 years later.
Father in heaven, we thank you
that you have done this,
that you have preserved your word for us.
We know that there's still languages today
that do not have your words
translated into them yet.
And we pray and ask that you would
start a work and bring it to those people.
But we thank you so much
that you have given it to us.
And we ask that you'd help us
not to take this for granted.
We ask that you would help us
to see the riches and treasures
we have in your very words,
in our own language,
in our hands.
In Jesus' name, amen.