JoyJuice

In reading Matthew 19:28 where he tells the disciples to reach out to all nations: And then comparing it to Jesus’ referencing of The Syrophoenician Woman as a dog:
And this from …Matthew 7:
And his attitude towards Gentiles in these verses:
Doesn’t the Great Commission seem a bit out of place given Jesus attitudes toward Gentiles? Wouldn’t this be kind of fall under the “what an odd thing to say” given textual criticism?

Or could it be “nations” is not the best translated word here?

Just seems a bit odd?

OneInFundieville

"Timing is everything" is the customary explanation I heard.

Julian

That would be 28:19 for the great commission, the OP got the scripture reference backwards.

Here is the Greek for that verse:

πορευθεντες ουν μαθητευσατε παντα τα εθνη βαπτιζοντες αυτους εις το ονομα του πατρος και του υιου και του αγιου πνευματος

The word used is εθνη, from εθνος, which is the standard word for nation or people, as in a people.

Julian

Ben C Smith

The usual explanation, as OneInFundieville hinted, is that (for Matthew at least) the mission to the gentiles began after the resurrection.

Ben.

Julian

Actually, I have been looking at the Greek out of the corner of my eye and it strikes me that there might be something wrong with the translation. If Ben or Stephen or some other Greek knowledgeable person could correct my thinking (or corroborate, you never know):

μαθητευσατε for starters is imperative active = be or become a disciple. Not make which is an important observation, in my opinion.

πορευθεντες is a participle which attaches to μαθητευσατε telling the disciples how to be disciples.

So 'all the nations' is the accusative object of πορευθεντες which makes more sense to me, to wit:

Then be disciples by going to all the nations, baptizing them, in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit.

Now, what is wrong with my translation?

Julian

P.S. Sheesh, check out the KJV translation. Where do they get 'teach' from? Is that in the TR? In the Byzantine it is only missing ουν but other than that it is identical to NA27.

Ben C Smith

It is imperative active, true, but in this case it is also transitive, since it has a direct object in all nations. See Acts 14.21 for another example of this verb used transitively. The sense here is certainly not that Paul and Barnabas preached and became disciples; rather, they preached and made disciples.

The aorist participle with the imperitive literally comes out as having gone, disciple all nations. But it is pretty common to break the participle from the verb with a conjunction in tranlation (go and disciple all nations).

I am not sure that verb can take an object. At least, it usually takes a prepositional phrase with εις; refer to Matthew 2.20; 17.27; 21.2; 28.16.

It disagrees with mine.

Teaching is the opposite of learning, and a disciple (from Latin disco... not the obsolete dance form), both in Latin and in Greek, is a learner. So if you disciple, or make disciples, you are teaching. I myself do not prefer this translation, but it is not out on a limb.

Ben.

John Kesler

Perhaps you can shed light on what appears to be a discrepancy. Here is Matthew 10:5, 16-23:

Now compare this passage to Matthew 24:9-14:

And finally, the passage in question, Matthew 28:19-20:

If Jesus told his disciples that they were to go only to Israel and not to Gentiles, and that Jesus would return even before the disciples had evangelized all Israel (per Matthew 10), then why would Jesus later state that the "good news" had to be "proclaimed throughout the world" before "the end" came, and still later state that "all nations" were to be evangelized. If he was going to return as promised in Matthew 10, then why was there even allowance for a Gentile mission? Is this after-the-fact rationalization for the delay of the parousia (see also Matthew 16:27-28)?

Julian

That's a pretty good point, actually. Grumble, grumble...

Is it possible, and I am just guessing here not even knowing how I would look this up, that παντα τα εθνη is in effect a preposition, an atticism of the kind where they would use noun forms where the later koine would use prepositions? By this I mean that we see the more subtle locative, ablative, instrumental and so forth become obsolete and be replaced by the more blunt prepositions. Could it be 'going [to] all the nations' with the 'to' being implied by the accusative form of the noun phrase?

Julian

Ben C Smith

I know exactly what you mean, but I do not think any such sense applies here; I do not recall (nor can I find in Smyth) an accusative of destination or such. (In my Greek classes, my strategy with any accusative I could not identify was to call it an accusative of respect, but not even that old standby will work here. ) The old locative case (which at any rate would mean at, not to) is subsumed under the dative, not the accusative, AFAICT.

Look at the word order:

∏ορευθεντες ουν μαθητευσατε παντα τα εθνη....

Word order is, of course, more flexible in Greek than in noninflected languages such as English, but it still serves as a good indicator, and it would take an awful jolt in the sense of the sentence to make me go back and connect παντα τα εθνη with πορευθεντες instead of the (main) verb right at hand, μαθητευσατε. With Acts 14.21 as our model, I see it as practically a lock that all nations is the object of the main verb here.

Ben.

Ben C Smith

I agree that it is a genuine discrepancy.

The venerable Schweitzer used this very verse to argue that Jesus expected the end within his own ministry, then later had to adjust his timetable; long story short, he went to Jerusalem in order to force the eschatological issue and bring on the end. There may be something to this; it is certainly possible that the historical Jesus expected the end within his own lifetime and his followers had to gradually modify that expectation as time passed.

I really do not have a nice little pat solution, but I can observe that the line about enduring to the end probably comes from Mark; if it conflicts with what Matthew has written elsewhere, so be it. Sources can conflict.

If it comes down to which saying or set of sayings sounds more plausible on the lips of Jesus, I think the one about the towns in Israel wins. At the time when the gospels were written, the gentile mission would have been in full swing, yet they all seem to admit in their own ways that Jesus himself did not have a mission to the gentiles. The saying about the towns in Israel may be a remnant from a time before the gentile mission (whether from Jesus himself or not).

It may well be. The whole question of the timing of the end in the NT is a very important one, I think.

Ben.