ECT ACTS 10 EXEGETICAL

[Arsenios]

Line by line, term by term, to see what the text actually says, so that the meaning of the text can be differentiated from the various interpretations of its words... I will work from the Greek text, providing a basic grammatical word for word translation, and place it into a more workable English translation, and then let the text address it's potential implications...

Dumping a long list of English translation text with an interpretation at the end of a sentence or two has not been seen to work here much...

This is not a place to debate the interpretations of the text, but simply to establish what it actually says... I have seen too much assumption of what is written being informed by an overall theological view... The aim here is more modest...

For instance - Most here believe that there was a Holy Spirit Baptism in Acts 10, and for each 'school' that will mean different things, but the question we will ask is simply this: "What does the text say?"

That is the meaning of exegetical...

And not: "Given what the text says, what does that MEAN?"

If you want to ARGUE the MEANING of what the TEXT SAYS, please use the entirety of the other TOL threads to do so... If you can work in Greek, so much the better... I can easily make mistakes, and welcome correction...

And if it gets too tedious or contentious, we can set the project aside... When I did this initially, reading the text of John as a non-Christian, the one thing I understood very quickly was that I needed a lot more than the words of the text to understand the meaning of what was written... So I will be revisiting that conclusion as we work along here in Acts 10, and perhaps some in Acts 11...

Arsenios

 

[Word based mystic]

looking forward to the rest.

 

[Arsenios]

The text I am using is that found in the on-line interlinear Bible at http://www.studylight.org/desk/interlinear.cgi. I am using the Byzantine text because that is my Tradition, but it is itself a manuscript that is solidly in the middle of the Majority Text tradition of the KJV... I have found that textual variants, so called re-writes, serve to clarify more often than they do to obfuscate textual meanings, unless, of course, one disagrees with a variant reading... So generally I try to give English words that are inclusive of both, insofar as possible.

And I highly recommend the Study Light site - It makes working the Greek as easy as it can be with the textual tools, parsing words as you roll over them with the mouse, and giving definitions when one clicks on a word, and showing as you roll over a word in either Greek or English the word in the other language that it is translating...

Here is the first:

BYZ –
ανηρ δε τις ην εν καισαρεια
A man now who there was in Kaisaria

ονοματι κορνηλιος
by name Kornelios

εκατονταρχης εκ σπειρης της καλουμενης ιταλικης
an officer out of a regiment called Italian.

So that if we clean it up into somewhat decent English narrative style, we may write:

Acts 10:1
Now in Caesaria there was a certain man named Cornelius,
an officer of the Italian Regiment.

This sentence in Greek literary composition lets you know that this is what the writing to follow is about or concerning... This is the story of Cornelius... ALL that follows has this sentence hanging over it... That is why it is the FIRST sentence in the Acts 10 narrative...

OK so far?

Arsenios

 

[Cross Reference]

What the original Greek/Hebrew means to convey can be understood only by Spiritual insight __ strongly lacking by most scholars.

 

[Arsenios]

Acts 10:2
BYZ –
ευσεβης και φοβουμενος τον θεον
pious and fearing the God

συν παντι τω οικω αυτου
together with all the house of him

ποιων τε ελεημοσυνας πολλας τω λαω
making especially mercy much to the People

και δεομενος του θεου δια παντος
and supplicating of the God through all

And in better English:

Acts 10:2
pious and God-fearing together with all his household,
especially doing much mercy (eg giving alms) for (to) the people,
and supplicating God on account (behalf) of all

Still about Cornelius...

Discussion is invited... The Greeks have funny ways of saying things by English standards...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

What the original Greek/Hebrew means to convey can be understood only by Spiritual insight __ strongly lacking by most scholars.

This thread is for us who have no spiritual insight who simply want to know what the text says, and not what it means to convey... Did you read the OP?

Arsenios

 

[Cross Reference]

This thread is for us who have no spiritual insight who simply want to know what the text says, and not what it means to convey... Did you read the OP?

Arsenios

I take it you don't care what it says or don't care to realize that what it says is what it means to convey simply because your intent is to make it say what you need it to say regardless of what it says and you will use the most favorable Greek to accomplish that. Thank you. I understand.

 

[WonderfulLordJesus]

This thread is for us who have no spiritual insight who simply want to know what the text says, and not what it means to convey... Did you read the OP?

Arsenios

Why do people need you, to determine what the text says?

Afraid I don't understand the purpose of this exercise. There are numerous Bible translations, produced by scores of scholars and consensus, down generations, which may be read and compared, even on various websites, freely at peoples' fingertips. Put it this way. Is there some reason people should be seeking a new translation, by one individual, on a web message board, to determine what the text says? Even doctorates of theology, dedicated to ministry, don't go around translating scripture wholesale, rather sparingly looking at Greek or Hebrew words, to derive some possible insights, knowing full well, as educate seminarians, they can't, as individuals, produce better Bible texts than what are already available. What credentials do you have that make your private translation more truthful and reliable than whole committees of scholars, down the ages? Why does the world need, or why should people even trust, your translation?

By the way, and I quote you, "This is not a place to debate the interpretations of the text, but simply to establish what it actually says...". Yet your thread title is "ACTS 10 EXEGETICAL." Exegesis IS interpretation of scripture text. So, it's only a place for your amateur exegesis, to go unquestioned?

 

[DAN P]

Ac
Acts 10:2
pious and God-fearing together with all his household,
especially doing much mercy (eg giving alms) for (to) the people,
and supplicating God on account (behalf) of all

Still about Cornelius...

Discussion is invited... The Greeks have funny ways of saying things by English standards...

Arsenios

Hi and does this site provide the verb tense in verse 2 ?

All 3 verbs tenses in verse 2 are in the Present Tense of Continuous action !
Just asking !!

dan p

 

[Arsenios]

Why do people need you, to determine what the text says?

They don't - They need the Greek, the original texts are Greek...

All I am doing is establishing a very basic literal rendering of the Greek text, to which a person can refer in the higher level discussions that occur here...

Afraid I don't understand the purpose of this exercise. There are numerous Bible translations, produced by scores of scholars and consensus, down generations, which may be read and compared, even on various websites, freely at peoples' fingertips. Put it this way. Is there some reason people should be seeking a new translation, by one individual, on a web message board, to determine what the text says? Even doctorates of theology, dedicated to ministry, don't go around translating scripture wholesale, rather sparingly looking at Greek or Hebrew words, to derive some possible insights, knowing full well, as educate seminarians, they can't, as individuals, produce better Bible texts than what are already available. What credentials do you have that make your private translation more truthful and reliable than whole committees of scholars, down the ages? Why does the world need, or why should people even trust, your translation?

Most translations are exegetical with an axe to grind... I do not have that axe... The Puritans, for instance, omitted the Deuterocanonicals from their Bibles, even though the original KJV included them... Their reason? The deuterocanonical scriptures were at odds with their theological understanding of the meaning of the text... Mormons and JWs do the same, as do all the schools of theology, with committees and all manner of textual helps and redactions...

But with what I am doing here, one can see for one's self what the Greek actually says, and thereby have a basis for evaluating other translations... Correction of a translation must begin with the Greek, and most are too flippin' intimidated to look at it, so I am but making that looking easier to do...

By the way, and I quote you, "This is not a place to debate the interpretations of the text, but simply to establish what it actually says...". Yet your thread title is "ACTS 10 EXEGETICAL." Exegesis IS interpretation of scripture text. So, it's only a place for your amateur exegesis, to go unquestioned?

Everyone claims exegesis, but the standard for exegetical is its faithfulness to the written text, and that begins with a literal translation from the Greek...

Arsenios

 

[OCTOBER23]

Arsenios said,

This is not a place to debate the interpretations of the text, but simply to establish what it actually says... I have seen too much assumption of what is written being informed by an overall theological view... The aim here is more modest...
===============================

THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT WE DO HERE

 

[Arsenios]

Hi and does this site provide the verb tense in verse 2 ?

Yes, just roll your mouse over the verb, or any other word, and you can read its parsing just below the text...

All 3 verbs tenses in verse 2 are in the Present Tense of Continuous action !
Just asking !!

dan p

Indeed they are, present participles, which literally translate with the ongoing present verb-ing form of the verb... And they CAN be translated as simple English presents, but are better done as ongoing presents: Instead of John runs, we would normally say: John is running in the present, and in the present participle, we say: John, running, (caught the ball)...

The idea is to make English work like the Greek where it can, which is a great deal of the time... Sometimes not... One Greek expression that in English transliterates: "The before the door" is much better translated: "The porch..." in US of A English!

Arsenios

 

[WonderfulLordJesus]

Everyone claims exegesis, but the standard for exegetical is its faithfulness to the written text, and that begins with a literal translation from the Greek...

Arsenios

Well, your premise is quite correct and noble, though, in terms of English, somebody can read Acts 10 in a KJV or NASB and get a most faithful translation, one of the very criticisms of the NASB, among modern language texts, is it being so literal it's awkward, lacking smoothness and poetic beauty. But I hear your comments about some Bibles with axes to grind, especially the cult ones, which go as far as altering and blatantly omitting some text. Whatever, your endeavor is more interesting than about anything else around here, of late, and I'm thinking you just may do a pretty good job!

 

[Arsenios]

Arsenios said,

This is not a place to debate the interpretations of the text, but simply to establish what it actually says... I have seen too much assumption of what is written being informed by an overall theological view... The aim here is more modest...
===============================

THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT WE DO HERE AND

Sigh...

How can you correct a Biblical claim that is not what the Biblical text says without being able to refer to the Greek Text from which it is mis-translated? It happens a lot here... And if one uses the StudyLight interlinear site, most of the hard Greek work is done for you, and a couple of fairly literal translations are offered...

One that we will be coming to is the idea of being baptized BY the Holy Spirit, which is NOT in the Bible... That is why I chose to take on Acts 10, for that is the strike zone for Mad Theology... And getting MAD folks to actually engage the text is seldom a happening on this site...

Most prefer to attack the character of the person who insists on an accurate translation... As you just did when you typed:

YOUR STATEMENTS ARE A LOT OF SELF RIGHTEOUS BALONEY

This is pretty much the default MAD methodology in discussing theology here...

Arsenios

 

[Arsenios]

Well, your premise is quite correct and noble, though, in terms of English, somebody can read Acts 10 in a KJV or NASB and get a most faithful translation, one of the very criticisms of the NASB, among modern language texts, is it being so literal it's awkward, lacking smoothness and poetic beauty. But I hear your comments about some Bibles with axes to grind, especially the cult ones, which go as far as altering and blatantly omitting some text. Whatever, your endeavor is more interesting than about anything else around here, of late, and I'm thinking you just may do a pretty good job!

May your kindness be blessedly fulfilled...

And through your prayers it shall be!

Arsenios

 

[WonderfulLordJesus]

One that we will be coming to is the idea of being baptized BY the Holy Spirit, which is NOT in the Bible...

There you go. What a bummer! If I may inject here, despite your professed mandate, I hear a sharpening wheel spinning... sorry, but no baptism of the Holy Spirit?!

I've really got to see this, if nothing else.

 

[WonderfulLordJesus]

May your kindness be blessedly fulfilled...

And through your prayers it shall be!

Arsenios

Thank you, your kindness also returned. But no baptism of the Holy Spirit? This is suddenly becoming depressing... Do message boards carry some contagion, I wonder? If we never see our way clear in theological terms, it would make for an interesting novel. Maybe I'll work on that, while you're destroying the doctrine of millennia.

 

[DAN P]

S

This is pretty much the default MAD methodology in discussing theology here...

Arsenios

Hi and I do not like the MAD symbol as it does not describe me as I am Acts 9 believer , and and laughing at your Default methodology !!

Give me a verse where we Default ?

dan p

 

[Lon]

Diagramming sentences and translation:

Odd to see so much banter. Arsenios is posting the 'plain' text - a translation, without interpretational contest. In so doing, he is setting the groundwork for a basic English translation of the text AND showing why he chooses English wording (like your NIV or KJV). The ONLY contest for such should be whether he has translated well. Any other contest is agenedization from a specific theological perspective. He may indeed delve into that after translation work, but there really should be no contest at this point in thread. It just isn't warranted. He is doing basic exegetical work, taught in every Greek AND English class. It is odd to see 'debate' at this venture. He is simply laying out the text. Other than clarification/correction of that very straightforward task, there is no need for interruption. You should just be looking at the text and correcting things. If you can't read Greek, use your Concordance for perhaps a preferred word or slight rephrasing. Check it with the English Bible you use. That's the only discussion needed at this venture. You may not 'like' exegesis, but this is fairly established by language rules and cannot and should not be debated or altered. Since the rules establish the context, the important job of all is simply to tell him where he may have translated incorrectly specifically by following the same exegetical rules.

My two cents

-Lon

 

[OCTOBER23]

ARSENIOS,

This Forum is here to debate the meanings and understanding of the scriptures.

The posters here do it to gain a fuller meaning and understanding and to exchange

their interpretations such as ....

Baptized - BY - the Spirit.

Isaiah 4:4 When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion,

and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst

thereof by the spirit of judgment, and by the spirit of burning.


1 Corinthians 6:11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed,

but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus,

and by the Spirit of our God.


2 Corinthians 3:18 But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord,

are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.