Category Archives: Tough texts

1 Cor 11:3/Eph 5:23 – ‘Kephale’: ‘head’? ‘source’? ‘foremost’?

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1 Corinthians 11:3 – ‘Christ is the head of every man, and the man is the head of a woman, and God is the head of Christ.’

Ephesians 5:23 ‘The husband is the head of the wife as also Christ is the head of the church.’

Much discussion has taken place over the meaning of kephale (‘head’) in these contexts.

Bartell (Men and Women in Christ) remarks that no writer earlier that Paul had used the kephale metaphor to apply to the relationship of a man to a woman.…

1 Kings 20:30 – ‘The wall collapsed on 27,000 of them’

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A hundred thousand casualties…the wall collapsed on twenty-seven thousand of them.

These numbers seem incredibly high.  Various explanations have been suggested.

1. Supernatural event

Older commentators tend to understand the numbers literally, and find a supernatural explanation.  With regard to the figure of 27,000, Barnes, for example, thinks that a ‘terrific earthquake’ took place.  But this is conjecture, and, in any case, still does not explain the large number of victims.

Poole says that such

‘might possibly happen through natural causes; but most probably was effected by the mighty power of God, then sending some sudden earthquake, or violent storm of wind, which threw down the wall, or walls, upon them; or doing this by the ministry of angels; which cannot be incredible to any man, except to him that denies the truth of all the miracles recorded in the Old and New Testament.’  

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2 Sam 24:1, 1 Chron 21:1 – Who incited David?

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2 Sam 24:1 The LORD’s anger again raged against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go count Israel and Judah.”

1 Chron 21:1 An adversary [NIV: ‘Satan’] opposed Israel, inciting David to count how many warriors Israel had.

The difficulty here is obvious: in the first passage, it is ‘the Lord’ who incites David, whereas in the second, it is ‘an adversary’ (‘Satan’?) who does so.

1. Some propose a different translation of 2 Sam 24:1. …

Psalm 137:8f – ‘Happy is he who dashes your infants against the rocks’

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137:8 O daughter Babylon, soon to be devastated!
How blessed will be the one who repays you
for what you dished out to us!
137:9 How blessed will be the one who grabs your babies
and smashes them on a rock!

This apparent celebration of violence is, for many, impossible to countenance.

Dan Barker judges v9 to be ‘the worst verse in the Bible’.

Ehrman (Jesus, Interrupted) asks:

‘Knocking the brains out of the Babylonian babies in retaliation for what their father-soldiers did?…

Mt 1:1-17 and Lk 3:23-38 – the genealogies of Jesus

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The genealogies of Matthew and Luke differ in a number of ways.

Commentators have been long been aware of these differences.  For instance, the 19th-century commentators Jamieson, Fausset and Brown write concerning some of the challenges involved in the genealogies:

‘That there should be difficulty in these genealogies is not surprising, considering,

1. the want of sufficient materials of comparison;

2. the double or triple names given to the same persons;

3. the intermediate names omitted;

4.

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2 Corinthians 5:21 – ‘God made Christ to be sin for us’

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2 Corinthians 5:21 ‘God made the one who did not know sin to be sin for us, so that in him we would become the righteousness of God.’

P.E. Hughes comments:

‘There is not sentence more profound in the whole of Scripture, for this verse embraces the whole ground of the sinner’s reconciliation to God.’

Kruse:

‘We obviously stand at the brink of a great mystery and our understanding of it can be only minimal’

Here, according to Stott:

‘is surely one of the most startling statements in the Bible, yet we must not on that account evade it.

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Romans 1:5 – ‘The obedience of faith’

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Romans 1:5 ‘Through him we have received grace and our apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles on behalf of his name.’

What is meant by ‘the obedience of faith’?  Here are the main interpretative options:-

(a) ‘Faith’ may mean ‘the faith’, or the body of apostolic teaching.  Compare Acts 6:7 – ‘obedient to the faith’.  But the definite article is absent in the original, and the context in Romans (which emphases ‘faith’) is against this interpretation.…

Mark 2:25f – ‘When Abiathar was high priest’

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Mark 2:25f – “Have you never read what David did when he was in need and he and his companions were hungry—2:26 how he entered the house of God when Abiathar was high priest and ate the sacred bread…?”

According to 1 Sam 21:1-6, Ahimelech was high priest at this time.  His son, Abiathar, became high priest shortly afterwards.

The problem is discussed from a sceptical perspective by this blogger.

The ESV Study Bible summarises two of the main approaches to harminisation:

‘The incident with David actually occurred when Ahimelech, not his son Abiathar, was high priest (1 Sam.

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John 20:21 – “Just as the Father has sent me, I also send you.”

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John 20:21 – “Just as the Father has sent me, I also send you.”

(See also Jn 17:18 – “Just as you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.”)

In what sense are Jesus’ disciples sent ‘just as’ he himself was sent?

The two ‘sendings’ use different Greek words: the first, apostellō, and the second, pempō.  However, as Kruse explains, nothing theological should be made of this difference, because the two words are used interchangeably throughout John’s Gospel. …

Matthew 25:40 – ‘The least of these brothers of mine’

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Matthew 25:40 – “Just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me.”

They are described as hungry, thirsty, homeless, naked, sick, and imprisoned.  But who are ‘these brothers of mine’?

Snodgrass regards this question as the most important issue in interpreting this parable.

Turning to consider in some details the various interpretations that have been offered:

1. Our Lord’s fellow-Jews?

Hagee espouses the Christian Zionist claim that a special debt of care is owed to the Jews. …