Javaman

So you are a fundementalist. That's cool. It's quite the minority Christian viewpoint but that's OK.And God commanding you to stone your children to death should they ask you to follow other Gods. Oh, yeah, and proscribing only a fine if you kill an unborn child. That kind of stuff. Those are obviously not metaphores.When you write 'interpretations', I think you simply mean translations, huh? 33,380 recognized groups of Christians interpret whatever translation they like differently.

Joshua Adams

Don't throw rocks at me, but I agree with Toto's reading. I just can't see how you can grammatically justify claiming it's the guy in the story talking here.
KJV:
24And he said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds.
25(And they said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds.)
26For I say unto you, That unto every one which hath shall be given; and from him that hath not, even that he hath shall be taken away from him.
27But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
NASB:
24"Then he said to the bystanders, 'Take the mina away from him and give it to the one who has the ten minas.'
25"And they said to him, 'Master, he has ten minas already.'
26"(L)I tell you that to everyone who has, more shall be given, but from the one who does not have, even what he does have shall be taken away.
27"But (M)these enemies of mine, who did not want me to reign over them, bring them here and (N)slay them in my presence."
YLT:
24`And to those standing by he said, Take from him the pound, and give to him having the ten pounds --
25(and they said to him, Sir, he hath ten pounds) --
26for I say to you, that to every one having shall be given, and from him not having, also what he hath shall be taken from him,
27but those my enemies, who did not wish me to reign over them, bring hither and slay before me.'
DARBY:
24And he said to those that stood by, Take from him the mina and give [it] to him who has the ten minas.
25And they said to him, Lord, he has ten minas.
26For I say unto you, that to every one that has shall be given; but from him that has not, that even which he has shall be taken from him.
27Moreover those mine enemies, who would not [have] me to reign over them, bring them here and slay [them] before me.

All of the above translations have Jesus say "I say to you" (or similar). If you look at the parable in full, you'll note he identified the speaker of every line. Every one either has "he said" or "the citizens" or whoever. The speaker mentioned immediately before the slaying-part is "I", not "he". Why, why, why do you insist that it is "he" who is saying it? Note also that the king cannot be the one saying I rather than Jesus since it is "they", the bystanders, who speak last, not the king.

Interestingly, that bastion of unbias and textual integrity, the NIV, renders it this way:
24“Then he said to those standing by, ‘Take his mina away from him and give it to the one who has ten minas.’
25“ ‘Sir,’ they said, ‘he already has ten!’
26“He replied, ‘I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away.
27But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them-bring them here and kill them in front of me."
Also, here's the Amplified Bible:
24And he said to the bystanders, Take the mina away from him and give it to him who has the ten minas.
25And they said to him, Lord, he has ten minas [already]!
26And [said Jesus,] I tell you that to everyone who gets and has will more be given, but from the man who does not get and does not have, even what he has will be taken away.
27[The indignant king ended by saying] But as for these enemies of mine who did not want me to reign over them--bring them here and [g]slaughter them in my presence!

If anybody sees a shred of support for that bracketed phrase, please do point it out. I don't like being wrong.

Also, NLT agrees with NIV/Amp

Keep in mind I have no vested interest in what's in the Bible, but I just honest-to-dog think it means what it says here. The latter translations seem like fiddling with the text to get rid of an "uncomfortable" passage [Which, I understand, the NIV is notorious for, as in the case of Jeremiah and his not "only" burnt offerings]

Perhaps if someone reads Greek, that person can clear this up? Which rendering is more accurate? Or do different manuscripts disagree?

Amaleq13

You seem to have missed Jesus' expressed point in teaching with parables. He explicitly told the disciples that the true meaning of them was not the superficial meaning (Mt 13:11-13).

Wallener

"pretty damn close" means "different".

Amaleq13

I think he makes a good argument. Young's Literal Translation appears to consider verse 27 as a continuation of Jesus' summary of the moral:

for I say to you, that to every one having shall be given, and from him not having, also what he hath shall be taken from him, but those my enemies, who did not wish me to reign over them, bring hither and slay before me.'

Mageth

I have a hard time reconciling the "no killing", "love your neighbor", and "love your enemies"...love, love, love not kill, kill, kill claims of Christians regarding the NT with the story of Ananias and Sapphira.

They were just plain-flat killed - not given a chance to repent, not kicked out of the Church, not reprimanded, but killed outright and on the spot. Allegedly or supposedly killed by God, and not by Christians, but killed nonetheless. And, IMO, killed by a decidedly OT type of God, not an NT type of lovey-dovey Jesus God.

Javaman

Very true, Mageth. What say you to that particularly unpleasant passage at the beginning of Acts 5, Rednals? Or does it not bother you?

Rednals

1) Just so you know, I am not Christian... but I hang out at churches, sometimes, and ask them to try to convince me...

2) Jesus did teach in parables... but Jesus didn't write the Bible. I don't feel that the Bible is written in only parables and is to be translated in different interpretations...

3) Could you show me an example in which a sect believes one interpretation of one passage, and another sect believes in something else of the same passage?

4) Is that sarcasm? Try to keep sarcasm out of the Internet... it is hard to tell...

But if it was sarcasm, then I would have to say... yeah, they weren't. Why would they be?

It's not like they had guns back then, else it would say something like, "slay your children with your sticks of fire!"

5) That story in Act 5... I don't know... I can't really discount it...

However, if you go back to the beginning of the Book of Acts, you will discover that the disciples have been given miraculous powers... it is quite possible that the disciple himself struck the couple dead... not necessarily God...

The Bible doesn't say God did it so I'm not going to assume it was God just because it could be... unlike those who believe in fluid and ever-increasing interpretations...

Mageth

In Christian theology, "miraculous powers" are generally considered as always from God, and so it would be God striking them dead, just like it would be God healing the sick person, and not the apostle/disciple himself.

Most Christians who've defended those scriptures around these parts in the past (when others have pointed out that Peter may have killed them or had them killed) have taken the stance that it was God what struck them down, not Peter.

Joshua Adams

That was one of the translations I quoted. It does appear to be about evenly split between the two renderings. I looked in 8, found 4 for each side (I didn't bother to post "The Message").

The reason I side with the KJV/NASB/YLT/Darby version is that I am automatically leery of any rendering that is convenient for apologetical purposes. I can see a rather obvious motive for falsifying (or at least, straining the meaning of) the text to read "he said"; however, I can't imagine why anyone would attribute the quote to Jesus unless they were compelled to do so through the phrasing of the text.

Now that I think about it, appealing to the expertise of a board member isn't any more valid than appealing to the expertise of the translators of the Bible. I mean, those guys understood Greek, hopefully!