Monday with Mounce

One of the frustrations in translating into English is our inability to distinguish second person singular and plural. Usually, context will make it clear, but not always. Case in point: in Gethsemane, was Jesus frustrated with only Peter?

A few weeks ago I wrote about Mark 1:41 and how the original text says, I believe, that Jesus was angry. This is one of the seven main passages that Bart Ehrman uses to argue that the early scribes wanted to change people’s perception of who Jesus was, so they changed “indignant” to “felt compassion.”

I agreed with Ehrman that “indignant” or “angry” is the original reading, but I totally disagreed that this changed our understanding of who Jesus was, and you only have to read two more chapters to see why.

A common example of a contradiction in the Bible is the order of the temptations. In Matthew 4 the order is: turn stones to bread; jump off the temple; worship Satan. However, Luke reverses the order of the last two: turn stones to bread; worship Satan; jump off the temple. Can Greek help to solve this problem?

At the beginning of Jesus’ ministry, he came across a leper who said, “If you are willing, you can make me clean!” (Mark 1:40). The next verse gives an interesting insight into Jesus’ personality.

One of the major cultural issues we have in Western culture is seeing things as individuals. So often a biblical passage addressing a group is interpreted as applying to me as an individual, and we lose the corporate sense of the teaching. But the same can happen in reverse.