Lately, I’ve been looking at the Greek and Hebrew behind Bible translations a lot. I can’t read Greek or Hebrew on my own yet, but with the aid of Strong and Thayer, I can at least know what the originals actually say.

Recently (as in five minutes ago), I was discussing James 2:22 with someone, and they used it as evidence that works are necessary to complete faith — that you can’t be saved without works completing your faith. Looking at the translation of the verse, it does seem to support the claim. The person being discussed in the passage is Abraham. I’ve put the phrase in question in bold in all the passages.

James 2:22 ESV You see that faith was active along with his works, and faith was completed by his works.

James 2:22 KJV Seest thou how faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect?

James 2:22 ASV Thou seest that faith wrought with his works, and by works was faith made perfect.

James 2:22 BBE You see that his faith was helping his works and was made complete by them.

There is, however, one translation I found that represents a different perspective:

James 2:22 CEV Now you see how Abraham’s faith and deeds worked together. He proved that his faith was real by what he did.

That’s interesting! It seems to be saying something rather different than the other translations doesn’t it? Of course, the Contemporary English Version isn’t exactly widely known as a Biblical standard, but I think it indicates that it might be useful to look at the original text.

James 2:22 βλεπεις οτι η πιστις συνηργει τοις εργοις αυτου και εκ των εργων η πιστις ετελειωθη

So let’s look at the definition of each of the bold words and see if we can’t sort out what they mean.

εκ is pretty easy. It’s pronounced “ex,” and is used as a common prefix in english. It means out of, from, by, or away from.

των is a basic article, translating to “the.” It bears no apparent significance on the passage except as a function of grammar.

εργων is pronounced “ergon.” According to Strong’s, it means work, toil, or deed.

So we have the first part of the phrase: “from/by the work/toil/deed…” That much is agreed on by all the translations, although the CEV rearranged the sentence structure.

η is another article that translates as “the.”

πιστις or “pistis” means, “persuasion, that is, credence; moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation; abstractly constancy in such profession; by extension the system of religious (Gospel) truth itself: – assurance, belief, believe, faith, fidelity” (Strong’s, G4102)

So now we have, “from/by the work/toil/deed, the persuasion/conviction/assurance/belief/faith…”

Now for the big one. The next word is the verb, and will show us just how faith and works relate — which is what we’re trying to find out from this passage. Basically, this word is the key to understanding the passage, and without it we just have two things and no way to relate them.

ετελειωθη is τελειόω in the aorist tense (for our purposes, we’ll simplify this as past tense), passive voice, and indicative mood.

According to Thayer, here’s the definition of τελειόω (“teleioo”):

This is obviously a different sense than we get from most of the translations, because we’ve misunderstood what was meant by “made perfect.” It seemed, from the ESV or KJV, that “made perfect” might mean “made real/complete/whole,” but it seems now that a more accurate understanding was that it means “made effective/fulfilled/finished.” The verb teleioo actually comes from the adjective teleios (τέλειος) which indicates having been brought to an end, or to maturity or consumation. It doesn’t have so much to do with being made whole as one might initially assume.

James 2:22 CPV (Caleb’s Personal Version) …by work, faith was fulfilled.

I think that’s a much nicer and less misleading translation, don’t you?

Based on a quick glance at the rest of the sentence, there could also be some very interesting things brought out by going through this process with the whole verse, but I really don’t have the mental capacity to keep at this that long.

Thoughts?

Click here to read a great article by my Xanga-friend Ron. Mom, you definitely oughta read this one!

 “Our ancestors searched the stars to figure out who they were..I guess current culture goes to Starbucks.”

I’m the second person today to post a link to this, so I guess that means it’s pretty good. It’s where I got the above quote.

I’m not sure I ever actually posted this song in the weblog section, so here it is. It had words at one point, but they were changed. Then entirely new words were written for it, and they were lost. I think it shall remain a wordless song henceforth. I’m playing the repetitive part, and my friend Sam is playing the part he made up on the spot. There’s a few rough spots (and one or two notes that clash), but I think it turned out really well for being, to some degree, improvisation.

Oh english paper, why assailest thou me?

Some cool blogs to check out, since I haven’t had much to say lately…they’re all on my reading list:
Pyromaniacs — reformed rants, reflections, and really good debates
Pulpit Magazine – more good reformed stuff
Reformed Reflections — ok, you got me, everything I read is reformed (but this one’s written by my cousin)
The Seventh Sola — um…yeah…another reformed blog
There’s more where those came from if you find that you have ridiculous amounts of time on your hands, or if you want to have no time for a social life.

EDIT:
I love the stuff that comes up on Wikipedia when you click the random buttons.

It’s a happy day for web denizens (and homeschoolers) everywhere — spell check for comments! Sadly, it doesn’t come from Xanga’s own crack team of web developers responsible for the new punch-in-the-eye front page. Instead, it comes in the form of a new version of the Mozilla Firefox browser. It has a feature that checks the spelling in any text field in a webpage, like comment boxes. Of course, people like me make very little use of such a feature, but I know others who desperately need it. You know who you are.

This message has been driven and parked by the Fire Department of Education (you know what I’m talking about, Grayson).

New post over at The Worship Cafe by yours truly. Go there. Now! :crazy:

“Obfuscation is not unlike the subjective condition of having had no one other than a certain individual, in accordance with the definition of the word, make it, in no uncertain terms, completely and utterly quite far from a reasonable level of ease to, for lack of a better term, understand, or rather receive elucidation as to what may, or may not have been (this matter, is of course, subject to debate, considering several metaphysical and etymological ramifications, but all in good time…) the original intention of the statement, in other words, a means of anacoluthic circumlocution, often being inclusive of what many would certainly come to a consensus to be unnecessarily aggrandized words, as well as having among its structure a superfluous amount of clauses and phrases contained in one sentence, deliberately constructed in such a fashion in order to possess the desired effect, which can be correctly deduced to be an effect of confusion, or perhaps an attempt of verbal subterfuge for the express purpose of escaping comprehension.”
 - Uncyclopedia

Please note that I do not intend, whether you perceived that it was implied before this or not, whether by the title of this post or by other means, to, whether by some unanticipated coincidence in the future or by some unrecalled past occurrence, in the sequence of events, commonly known as “time,” or “the passage of time,” though occasionally termed other things, on this site, being my personal (as in, belonging to myself) webpage under the domain of www.xanga.com which I usually use for things other than this purpose (that purpose being the topic of discussion within the confines of this sentence and the comments section below, the discussion and words of which I am not responsible; not to say that I am irresponsible, but rather that I claim no responsibility for the aforementioned), post, propogate, publish, publicate (not a word), or otherwise perform any other action beginning with the letter “P,” a daily word or word of the day, that being one word in a document also containing the definition of that word, posted, published, publicated (also not a word), et cetera, each day, meaning each of the three hundred and sixty five and one quarter days contained in each earth year, one year being defined as the approximate (near estimated) time taken by the earth (assuming time exists, but I shouldn’t digress) to revolve once around the celestial body of fissionating (“fissionating” is to “a real word” as “intelligent” is to “my sister’s dog”) helium and hydrogen commonly called “the sun” by the speakers of the language called “English” by its own speakers, those speakers being members of the race called “humans” (by the aforementioned speakers of “English”), native to the planet “earth” (see previous parenthetical note), that planet being the third planet by distance from the aforementioned celestial body.

Just thought I should make that clear.

April 8th, I’m supposed to teach at my youth group. I’ve decided on 1 Corinthians chapter 1 as my text, and will be going through the basic points in it (unfortunately, I’ll only have 10-15 minutes).

1 Corinthians 1:1-31 ESV (1) Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes, (2) To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: (3) Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. (4) I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, (5) that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge– (6) even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you– (7) so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, (8) who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. (9) God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. (10) I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree, and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment. (11) For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there is quarreling among you, my brothers. (12) What I mean is that each one of you says, “I follow Paul,” or “I follow Apollos,” or “I follow Cephas,” or “I follow Christ.” (13) Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? (14) I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, (15) so that no one may say that you were baptized in my name. (16) (I did baptize also the household of Stephanas. Beyond that, I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.) (17) For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (18) For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (19) For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” (20) Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? (21) For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. (22) For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, (23) but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, (24) but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (25) For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (26) For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. (27) But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; (28) God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, (29) so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (30) And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, (31) so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

I’ll probably be posting a lot more about this passage, but I’d like to gather the wisdom of my readers first. Thoughts, anyone?

[an advertisement on Xanga]

I’m taking care of the niece today. We’re having lots of fun making random noises at each other. She’s learned a new one recently. See for yourself:

I’d also like to introduce to you the world’s youngest new member of the blogging community.

She seems to really like pressing buttons and trying to touch things on the screen. She wrote the title for this post, in case you couldn’t tell.

In case babies and funny noises don’t interest you, here’s a Bible passage that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately:

1Co 1:17-31 For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power. (18) For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. (19) For it is written, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.” (20) Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? (21) For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. (22) For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, (23) but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, (24) but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. (25) For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (26) For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. (27) But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; (28) God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, (29) so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. (30) And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, (31) so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

Howdy folks. New feature. I think you’ll like this one. :paranoid:

On another note, it seems I made a fairly obvious mistake when picking out my username. People keep shortening it and calling me “Xristos,” which is borderline blasphemy. I was hoping it would end up as “XA,” which, because it has an X in it and Xs are always cool, would be totally kickin’. Alas, lazy typers and a general lack of knowledge of Greek prevail…