[00:00:00] Hello listeners, welcome to my podcast. We will continue from yesterday, Acts Commentary by E. M. Blaiklock. Additional notes, Acts 14, 27-15, 35-15, 3. The delegation were brought on their way. The word occurs again at 20, 38, 21, 5, 28, 15, 15, IO.
[00:00:30] Moffat adjusts the Greek text by the omission of the words for God. The resultant meaning is, no doubt, smooth and consistent with the narrative. Why are you trying to impose a yoke on the neck of the disciples? Thus to tamper with the text in order to make the writer say what the translator would prefer him to have said is a fault with which Moffat may sometimes be charged.
[00:00:54] The only authority for the reading chosen is one Latin manuscript and a few Latin patristic contexts. There is therefore no likelihood that Luke wrote what Moffat renders. Bold emendation is justified only where no meaning can otherwise be extracted from the text. The words, tempt God, have, moreover, a clear enough meaning in Scripture. They mean to
[00:01:23] Distrust his guidance and in consequence disobey his revealed will. Compare Psalm 15, 9-11, 1 Corinthians 10, 9, Hebrews 3, 9. Ananias and Sapphira are said to have agreed to tempt the Spirit of the Lord by acting as though they thought they could deceive God. Acts 5, 9.
[00:01:50] Verse I, 2. The tenses again are interesting. The verse might be rendered, Then all the gathering fell silent, and they set themselves to hear Barnabas and Paul. 15. I, 7. James quotes Amos from the Septuagint, which suggests that the proceedings, involving, as they did, Gentile Christians, were conducted in the Greek language.
[00:02:17] If Amos 9, 2, and 12 is compared, it will be seen that the Septuagint differs considerably here from the traditional Hebrew text. Amos pictures the restored tabernacle, and the people of David restored along with it, as the possessors of the remnant of Edom and all the heathen.
[00:02:39] The Septuagint, remarks Lumby, as an exposition, speaks of the residue of men seeking unto the restored tabernacle. St. James makes both clear by showing that to seek after the Lord is to be the true upbuilding both of the house of David and of all mankind besides.
[00:03:00] It is also worth remembering that the Hebrew for man is Adam, whose consonants are identical with those of Edom. Remnant of Edom and residue of men are therefore identical in an unpointed text. The Dead Sea Scrolls have already taught us that the Septuagint is a translation to be respected for its retention of a sound textual tradition.
[00:03:29] The verb translated subverting, which occurs only here, is used in classical Greek for the entire removal of a person's furniture and possessions. The effect of the Judaistic heresy was, it suggests, to turn the mental furniture of the Gentile converts upside down and to destroy the ordered comfort of their minds. 15, 31, and 32.
[00:03:55] The AV translates paraklesis of 31 by consolation, but renders the cognate verb paraklesan of 32 by exhorted. Consoled is the correct translation, and the word is eloquent of the comfort the letter from Jerusalem brought. The Gentile Christians clearly accepted the communication as a gracious compromise and a magnanimous attempt to meet their wishes.