Sabbath study, iii: proof that ‘modern Bible translations’ are gnostic-satanically corrupted
Argumentum per shawarma! 😋
The introduction of this lesson is a parable about food—so let’s just say that one day you’re tired of the same old meals and it’s time at long last to order some carry-out, perhaps—say—a hearty platter from a local authentic Levantine restaurant. You pick out therefore a robust variety of components to a satisfying meal: some chicken shawarma for protein, saffron rice or couscous for the grains with added pickled vegetables, a small tub of sauce (i.e. hummus or toum), and there is accompanied a few pieces of pita bread. Naturally, the trajectory for cultural authenticity is (anyone indigenously qualified in an understanding of the matter is welcome to correct me if I’m potentially off anywhere here) telling you to make some wraps! And so, you take out a spoon to spread the sauce onto the internal surface of the pita before adding the grains + vegetables, followed by the meat, and enjoy an awesome meal.
How is this relevant to a Bible study proving which translations are reliable and which are not? Well, before I get to that “solid food” explanation of the lesson, it is crucial to first supplement the “milk” in case any of you would otherwise stumble in confusion if I dive into the complex details too quickly. So let’s consider a well-prepared and folded pita wrap as a self-contained symmetry—here are the four components, and we can label with them letters:
A: a single pita bread wrap—the edible container holding all the gloriously delicious food within
B: sauce (my personal go-to is the toum a.k.a. garlic sauce)—it is spread evenly throughout the inner surface so each mouthful is not overly dry nor intensely oversauced, but a nice balance
C: grains + pickled vegetables—it is added in after the sauce is spread (from what I observed of the process)
D: protein—the central highlight is finally added, i.e. shawarma, gyro, or vegetarian options of grape leaves, falafel, or arook
Now, when you wrap it all up, and perhaps take a vertical slice, what is the anatomy of a well-prepared, wholesomely balanced pita wrap here? Let’s see:
A: “top” side of pita (from the perspective of it being hand-held as a wrap to delightfully ingest)
B: top layer of sauce
C: grains + vegetables between the top sauce layer and the meat
D: protein
C’: grains + vegetables between the meat and bottom sauce layer
B’: bottom layer of sauce
A’: “bottom” side of pita
And so, you hold together a nice wrap pocket and enjoy a mostly mess-free meal you assemble together at your dinner table, correct? Well: that is, if the pita sufficiently holds everything within it and doesn’t break, because if that edible thin pocket of bread cracks or tears apart, all those sauce-complimented grains, vegetables, and meat would spill out and cause a potential mess on your table on top of possible wasted food, would it not? It is, in other words, a vital prerequisite that the edible pita container you use is rigidly stable and is capable of holding all its internal contents without breaking, or else a spillage means you don’t have a structurally complete, properly assorted full wrap anymore.
If you guessed that this parable is an analogy for biblical chiasms, then a massive congratulations for actually paying attention to my posts this whole time! Here are some previous posts where I mentioned the scriptural chiasmus patterns:
Mind you, this parable’s primary emphasis for today’s sabbath study is not even about the far more complicated nature of all the flavor-packed, nuanced, multifaceted components that are enveloped within, but rather the baseline absolute non-negotiable standard that the very outer container must be stable. In the case of a chiastic literary structure in the Bible, this means that the outer A/A’ correspondence must always be bound together by a firmly obvious link (usually, if not always an intuitively and directly lexical one), or else there would be no “proof in the pudding” to demonstrate the A/A’ container that defines the start and end point of the chiasm, just as in the Levantine Near Eastern food analogy, there can be no coherently stable wrap to neatly hold in one’s hands and consume cleanly if the outer pita bread lacks the firm stability to contain everything within.
Case in point, example i: Col. 1:14-20
If we use a Bible translation rendered from the Textus Receptus (TR), a.k.a. the gold standard restored collation of the original New Testament produced by Erasmus and accepted by the soundly informed theologians of the Protestant Reformation, then it is evident with eyes to see that this Colossians pericope is structurally a chiasm:
a (1:14): “…in whom we have the redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of the sins,”
b (1:15): “who is the image of the invisible God, first-born of all creation,”
c (1:16a): “because in him were the all things created,”
d (1:16b): “those in the heavens, and those upon the earth, those visible, and those invisible, whether thrones, whether lordships, whether principalities, whether authorities;”
c’ (1:16c-17): “all things through him, and for him, have been created, and himself is before all, and the all things in him have consisted.”
b’ (1:18-19): “And himself is the head of the body — the assembly — who is a beginning, a first-born out of the dead, that he might become in all [things] — himself — first, because in him it did please all the fulness to tabernacle,”
a’ (1:20): “and through him to reconcile the all things to himself — having made peace through the blood of his cross — through him, whether the things upon the earth, whether the things in the heavens.”
Note that the beginning (v. 1:14) and end (1:20) of this pericopal chiasm—which defines the boundaries of this vv. 1:14-20 pericope in Colossians—is denoted by a shared lexical reference to the shed blood of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ on the cross. V. 1:14 specifies “through [H]is blood,” and v. 1:20 recapitulates this reference in an even additionally clarifying phrasing, “through the blood of [H]is cross.” It is very blatant that this is the central lexical anchor affirming without a doubt the chiastic connection between v. 1:14 and 1:20 as the outer brackets defining the first and last branch of the pericopal chiasm.
What happens if you use a modern Bible translation? Well, all of them (as far as I’m concerned, from what I found) omit the phrase “through [H]is blood” from v. 1:14, and their contorted realm of apologetics will assert i.e. “the oldest and most reliable manuscripts don’t contain ‘through his blood’ and therefore that phrase was a late-dated forged interpolation not found in Paul’s original letter.”
However, that argument runs in the face of literary scrutiny and falls apart quickly when chiastic integrity is considered—without the lexical anchor “through his blood” as preserved in the Textus Receptus, there is no solidly identifiable correspondence to definitively show that 1:14 is absolutely attached chiastically to 1:20, thereby invalidating any conclusion of a seven-branched pericopal chiasmus-menorah structure for Col. 1:14-20 as a cohesively demarcated pericope.
Let’s just briefly remember what the New Testament affirms (in validation of the documented Old Testament precedent1):
Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.2
It is also written in your law, that the testimony of two men is true.3
In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word be established.4
Consider also this insight given by King Solomon:
Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labour. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow: but woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up. Again, if two lie together, then they have heat: but how can one be warm alone? And if one prevail against him, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.5
Just as a shawarma wrap necessitates a stable foundational exterior holding its contained tasty robust grains/vegetables, sauce, and meat within on both the top and bottom sides, so too a biblical chiasm necessitates as its definitive sealing character not solely one witness, but two—one that encapsulates the beginning, and a second witness repeating the message of the first witness that defines the conclusion, in order to complete a single pericopal unit of thought.
Trying to understand God’s word in Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians for just vv. 1:14-20 alone (let alone the rest of the letter which I’m not even getting to studying in today’s lecture, or let alone the rest of the New Testament!) is like trying to eat a Levantine shawarma wrap when the entire top side of the wrap—as you hold it in your hands—falls apart and all that delicious sauce-coated grains, vegetables, and meat spills out on the table at best or the floor at worst. The A/A’ branch correspondence unit represents the beginning and end of a chiasm, and in the food parable, it is paralleled by the very exterior wrap that contains everything in between—if the pita cannot hold together on even just one side of the wrap, then the interior components will fall out and you don’t have a full shawarma wrap anymore.
For the faith of God, that leads men and women unto eternal life, “should not stand in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.”6 Attempting to understand the Bible through “modern” translations whose substantive content are determined by man-appointed ecumenical committees is like trying to store new wine in old wineskins—the new wine will inevitably burst asunder and spill out.7
Case in point, example ii: Rev. 1:9-20
Need another example, just so you realize that how consistent a pattern it is that modern Bible translations are wholly unsuitable for reading and studying? Consider the introductory chapter of the Book of Revelation:
a.I (1:9-11a): “I, John, who also [am] your brother, and fellow-partner in the tribulation, and in the reign and endurance, of Jesus Christ, was in the isle that is called Patmos, because of the word of God, and because of the testimony of Jesus Christ; I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, saying, ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last;’
a.II (1:11b): “and, ‘What thou dost see, write in a scroll, and send to the seven assemblies that [are] in Asia; to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamos, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea.’”
b (1:12-13): “And I did turn to see the voice that did speak with me, and having turned, I saw seven golden lamp-stands, and in the midst of the seven lamp-stands, [one] like to a son of man, clothed to the foot, and girt round at the breast with a golden girdle,”
c (1:14-15a): “and his head and hairs white, as if white wool — as snow, and his eyes as a flame of fire; and his feet like to fine brass, as in a furnace having been fired,”
d (1:15b): “and his voice as a sound of many waters,”
c’ (1:16): “and having in his right hand seven stars, and out of his mouth a sharp two-edged sword is proceeding, and his countenance [is] as the sun shining in its might.”
b’ (1:17a): “And when I saw him, I did fall at his feet as dead,”
a’.I (1:18): “and he placed his right hand upon me, saying to me, ‘Be not afraid; I am the First and the Last, and he who is living, and I did become dead, and, lo, I am living to the ages of the ages. Amen! and I have the keys of the hades and of the death.’”
a’.II (1:19-20): “Write the things that thou hast seen, and the things that are, and the things that are about to come after these things; the secret of the seven stars that thou hast seen upon my right hand, and the seven golden lamp-stands: the seven stars are messengers of the seven assemblies, and the seven lamp-stands that thou hast seen are seven assemblies.”
In this pericopal chiasm, it is blatant that the A/A’ outer pericopal branch correspondence is connected by two parallel links: the first parallel is where Jesus’s affirmed title as the First and the Last is testified of a first witness in vv. 1:9a-11 and and a second witness in v. 1:18. The second parallel is of course the fact that God’s command to the apostle John to scribally document the prophecies as written words is mentioned (1:11b) and repeated.
Now, in the modern Bible translations, just about all of them (at least the vast, vast majority of them, if not literally all), Jesus’s recorded self-attribution, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last,” is omitted, and the higher-critic scholars and accompanying bootlickers will claim that that specific phrase was interpolated into v. 1:11 as a needlessly pointless repetition of v. 1:8’s mention of “I am the Alpha and the Omega” for no good reason.
However, from the analysis of vv. 1:9-20 as a pericopal chiasm, it is clear that the first parallel segment in the A branch obviously hinges on that contested quotation because the mention of “I am the First and the Last” is repeated as a second witness in the corresponding parallel segment of the A’ branch.
To take out the lexical anchor for the first witness in the first parallel column would be as if the forward half of a shawarma wrap on the top side was torn/mutilated or just plain missing—on the other side of the wrap, all the internal food contents would be nicely held within the wrap, for sure, but for an entire half of the wrap, there is no stable top side of the wrap to hold the contained sauce-coated grains, vegetables, and meat together, and half of it spills out!
Anyone who would still like to convince serious Bible students to use gnostically corrupted, Origenist Alexandrian-manuscript-reliant “modern translations” should first demonstrate by example the supreme virtue of eating a Levantine shawarma wrap built with a pita bread completely torn on one side that is unable to hold all the internal components together and which instead falls out on the floor as all that delectably tasty shawarma winds up harrowingly wasted.
For any sensible person who knows that the ways and thoughts of God are higher than those of man because the heavens are higher than the earth,8 the call is clear: fear God and keep His commandments, because this is the whole duty of man.9 And how can one keep God’s commandments unless they understand to internalize the full word of truth10 through a comprehension of rightly divided11 chiasmus pericopes that preserves the full bread of life12 in its untorn, preserved, intact form?
Cf. Deut. 19:15.
Matt. 18:15-16.
Jn. 8:17.
II Cor. 13:1b.
Ecc. 4:9-12.
I Cor. 2:4-5.
Mk. 2:22; Matt. 9:17; Lk. 5:37.
Isa. 55:8-9.
Ecc. 12:13.
II Tim. 3:16-17.
Cf. II Tim. 2:15.
Jn. 6:35, 48, 51.