S.C.Carlson

I'll try my best, but I can't guarantee results.

BDAG gives several examples where this verb can be transitive, and, in this context, a transitive is best because of the following accusative πάντα τὰ ἔθνη.

I think this participle is attendent circumstances "go and ..." instead of modal. The following participle βαπτίζοντες is more likely to be modal.

This was already addressed.

"Teach" is the KJV's rendering of μαθητεύσατε. Interestingly, the Textus Receptus agrees with B and the Critical text against the Byzantine by including οὖν here. That's why the KJV has "therefore" against the majority reading.

Stephen

John Kesler

I appreciate your candor, but may I respectfully ask how you reconcile the fact that Jesus was wrong--and therefore was not speaking the word of Yahweh (Deuteronomy 18:21-22)--with your Christian faith? Doesn't being mistaken mitigate against the claim that Jesus was in any sense "God"?

Ben C Smith

That is a very good question; all I can say is that I do my level best to follow the evidence whithersoever it may lead. If it looks like Jesus (or Paul or Moses or Anthony of Egypt or Mother Teresa) was mistaken, I will say so. I do not even try to square that kind of thing with my faith; I believe, rightly or wrongly, that honestly pursuing the truth of the matter is service to God, no matter what it may look like from the human end of the stick.

On the one hand my faith is in something else entirely besides historical data, yet on the other hand my faith is also conditioned and disciplined by the historical data. The historical data have a legitimate shot at unseating my faith entirely; if they did not, then there would be little point in investigating the historical data.

I do not prejudge what God becoming man might look like. God presumably does not normally hunger, thirst, or feel physical pain, yet those same fathers who were most convinced that Jesus was God were also the quickest to assure us that Jesus hungered, thirsted, and felt physical pain.

But that, in the end, is a theological question, and I am the worst theologian you will ever have the misfortune to meet.

Ben.

John Kesler

How does one discern truth from error in an errant Bible? What specific historical data would "unseat" your faith? If I take this thread any further afield, I suppose that I should start a "try to 'deconvert' Ben" thread.

Ben C Smith

Much the same way one discerns truth from error in an errant history of the Americas, in an errant science textbook, or in an errant how-to manual.

If Jesus turned out not to have existed at all, or to have been a huckster who fleeced those whom he pretended to cure, or to have been a Roman spy infiltrating messianic circles in Galilee, or to have faked his own death in order to fool people into believing he rose from the dead, or....

The common thread in these options is their insidiousness, Jesus either claiming to be or being claimed to be something he was not (in an essential sense; claiming he had brown hair when it was really black would not be the same sort of thing). What would not unseat my faith is a claim that Jesus was just a man, since Jesus being divine in some way is precisely the sort of thing one has to take on faith in the first place. (IOW, it would not shake my faith merely to point out that I was taking something on faith.)

One question which I will not field right this moment is what I would do if his corpse was found (thus conclusively disproving a bodily resurrection), since I am honestly not sure to what degree my faith (and again, it is faith) depends on a bodily resurrection. That is an open question for me as yet.

You could always try to lure me away from the faith with unlimited supplies of horchata and fajitas, but odds are I would keep my faith and the goodies too.

Ben.

Mythra

Robert Price also makes a pretty convincing case that Acts 10 / 11 and the Great Commission in Matthew are irreconcilable. Why was it necessary for Peter to have special visions in Joppa that convinced him that the gospel wasn't just for the jews? And, why was this revelation greeted with apparent surprise when presented to the believers in Jerusalem?

Did they all simply forget the final words of Jesus? The gospels portray the disciples as a little thick-headed. But they couldn't have been that thick.

Chris Weimer

Ben Smith, I'm surprised you didn't try to cite me and my invisible paper you read and commented on. :wave:

A literal reading shows that there is no discrepancy here at all. In Matthew 10, he's saying that they haven't gone out to all the towns in Israel before the son of man comes, and in the other chapters he's saying to go out to all the nations, a word commonly used for Gentiles, and then when all the nations have heard, he will return. Think, though, because every town in Israel is not its own nation. He's not saying every person, but every nation.

Ben C Smith

Hi, Chris.

I do recall that paper, but I do not recall anything in it about the timing here, which is what I see as at least potentially problematic.

I just skimmed it again to make sure.

Yes, I agree that two different scopes are in view. It is Israel in chapter 10 and the nations in chapter 28.

However, chapter 10 makes it sound like the son of man will return very, very soon, possibly even before the disciples even return from their little mission tour in Israel (which is sort of how Schweitzer took it). But chapter 28 makes it sound like a bit more has to happen first.

It just seems odd to say on the one hand that Jesus will return before you get to all of the towns in one nation and to imply on the other that he will not return until you get to all the nations in the world (even allowing for the usual hyperbole).

The timing is the problem here, not the scope of the respective missions.

Ben.

TonyN

Those are certainly very good insights that you have!

The "Great Commission" is what Jesus gave to His disciples. It is to occur when Christ comes back and sets up His millennial kingdom and Israel will rule over all the nations. It is during that time that the disciples are to disciple all the nations on the earth.

OneInFundieville

What if we want to keep democracy instead?

What if we don't want to be discipled. I thought God gave us free will? Is there an expiration date?

Maybe so, seems like angels once had free will but that they no longer do...

I thought we didn't lose free will until we went to heaven as you can't sin there.

But then there's this argument that you can't really love and worship God without having been given the choice. The "God didn't create automatons" line of thinking. If that is so, how do we worship God in heaven without the free will? How do angels thus then love and worship God without the supposed free will prerequisite?

Well, best of luck ruling and disciplining all those freely governed nations of free willed people. Hope it works out for ya.