Catastrophic Subtle Sabotage—The Case of Mistranslating Jesus's Words
How many perverse translations of Jesus's words does it take to effectively sabotage the process of following Jesus into eternal life? Are these 8 mistranslations, found in nearly all English-language Bible translations, enough to turn off potential believers, and to turn away confessing believers from the narrow gate and hard-pressured way that uniquely* lead into eternal life?
Α. Do evil! It's good to commit theft and lie about it in an embezzlement scheme against one's employer, and lure others to join in these actions… says the Lord!? See Luke 16:9 and a briefish article on how this is horrific mistranslation.**
Β. Accept you’re evil! Having an adulterous heart is the inescapable condition of potentially all of Jesus's followers… says the Lord?! Because the act of looking at anyone with lust is to commit adultery in the heart? See Matthew 5:28, and my brief article showing how it's unnecessary to translate it so.***
Γ. You have to be perfect! A famous Japanese author stopped considering the Lord's message when he came upon this (mistranslated) commandment. See Matthew 5:48. Instead, there is a logical, rational and non-self-contradictory way to translate here: “You will therefore be absolute as the Father of yours, the Heavenly One, is absolute” [or “complete”, in loving both good and evil people].
Δ. Test God! Handling poisonous snakes is a way to test if your faith in Jesus is sufficiently strong—also drinking something deadly… says the Lord?! Laws in American states have arisen to ban such “church” practices. See Mark 16:17-18, and this article.*
Ε. You're disqualified from entering eternal life if you say goodbye to your family after choosing to follow the Lord… says Jesus?! See Luke 9:61-62. A few Bible translations (The Christ Family Bible, The Living Bible and The Message) see a more compassionate and understandable dialogue.**
Ζ. Asking for a sign from God is evil and adulterous… says the Lord Jesus?! See Matthew 12:39. The Ancient Greek gives an alternative reading that doesn't contradict the Lord’s other words*** and is entirely rational: “[An] evil and adulterous lineage seeks further [a] sign…” when 1 or more signs has already been provided.*
Η. Be violent! A popular misreading of Matthew 11:12, "the violent take it [the Kingdom of the Heavens] by force" tragically teaches that Christians need to be violent in some manner… towards Almighty God! But the Ancient Greek and the context point to a totally different reading, namely that the Lord is explaining the imprisonment of the herald of God's kingdom, John the Baptiser: “the Kingdom of the Heavens is constrained, and constrainers plunder it." See more information in my brief article.**
Θ. The Lord never warned about pharmaceuticals!? The New Testament ends with the conspicuous repetition twice of the Lord Jesus's condemnation to Hell of φαρμακοι (pharmakoi). Only 1 Bible translation known to me (The Christ Family Bible) points out that this Ancient Greek word had several senses, e.g. makers of (purported) medicines, poisoners, makers of sorcery. But that is vital information. Pharmaceuticals are well documented to be used for the intentional mass poisoning of the human population, the population of domesticated animals, and the environment. This at least 100-year-old project fulfills the Biblical prophecy that a dark spiritual movement, whose merchants become “the great [ones] of the Earth”, uses pharmakeia to mislead all nations”.***
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Notes
* “Go in through the narrow gate, because wide [is] the gate and roomy the way leading away into the destruction and many are the in-goers through it; because narrow [is] the gate and hard-pressured the way leading away into the life and few are the finders of it.” (The Good News According to Matthew 7:13-14)
** My article "Make friends...by unrighteous mammon" in A Guide to Misleading Bible Quotes, https://sites.google.com/view/misleading-bible-quotes/make-friends-by-unrighteous-mammon
*** My article “Already committed adultery" in A Guide to Misleading Bible Quotes, https://sites.google.com/view/misleading-bible-quotes/already-committed-adultery
* “They will handle snakes" in A Guide to Misleading Bible Quotes, https://sites.google.com/view/misleading-bible-quotes/they-will-handle-snakes
** Here is my translation in The Christ Family Bible: Yet also [an]other said, ‘I will follow You, Lord. Yet first permit me to detach* from the [ones] in the household of mine.’
Yet the Yashu‘a said to him, ‘No one thrusting the hand onto [a] plough and looking to the [things] behind is well placed in the kingdom of the God.’”
*The Greek word apotasso had senses of making formal arrangements, not merely "saying goodbye" as many translations read. See 1 Maccabees 4:61, 11:3 and Jeremiah 20:2 in the LXX Septuagint. So rather logically God can be read here to be warning that, like when ploughing a field, one cannot be focused on what’s behind one, the engagements of one's old lifestyle, to be well placed in God's kingdom.
*** The Lord commands his followers to look for signs ahead of catastrophic end times for societies individually and finally the whole world (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21). Jesus also promises (in a disputed text) that signs will accompany the people who are faithful to the commandment to go into all Creation and proclaim the good news of salvation (Mark 16).
* The Greek word used here is επιζητεω (epizeteo), which adds the prefix επι- to the commonly used word for the action of searching, ζητεω. The Liddell Scott Jones dictionary duly observes ancient uses of επιζητεω that likely mean “make further search for”, “inquire further”, “search for besides”.
** “The violent take it by force”, https://sites.google.com/view/misleading-bible-quotes/the-violent-take-it-by-force
*** See Revelation 18:23 and exposés of pharmaceuticals in for example documentaries such as “Rockefeller Medicine”, https://www.corbettreport.com/rockefeller-medicine-video/, the documentary “Vaxxed—From Coverup to Catastrophe” (https://thehighwire.com/ark-videos/vaxxed-from-cover-up-to-catastrophe/), the documentary “Vaxxed 2—The People’s Truth” (https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/chd-tv/videos/vaxxed-2/), the documentary “Fluoride on Trial: The Censored Science on Fluoride and Your Health” (https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/chd-tv/events/fluoride-on-trial-the-censored-science-on-fluoride-and-your-health/fluoride-on-trial/), the National Vaccine Information Center (https://www.nvic.org/vaccination-decisions/downloads/video-briefs), journalism by The Defender (childrenshealthdefense.org), books by Robert F. Kennedy Jr like The Wuhan Coverup, Thimerosal: Let the Science Speak: The Evidence Supporting the Immediate Removal of Mercury―a Known Neurotoxin―from Vaccines, and The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health.