1 Corinthians 14:29, NKJV. ‘Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge.’
1 Corinthians 14:29, NIV. ‘Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said.’
On another thread, I mentioned that the NIV not only leaves out many verses contained in the NIV and NKJV, but it also adds some. Here in 1Cor 14:29, the words ‘what is said’ do not appear in any Greek manuscript whatsoever. They have been added by the translators as a sort of ‘interpretative gloss’ to try to clarify the meaning.
But do they? What is being judged or ‘weighed’ here? The NIV allows only one answer. A prophet stands up in the assembly and says, “This is what the Lord has said to me today.” Then the others pitch inn and one says, “Well, brother, I don’t think that came from the Lord, because He told me something quite different.” And another says, “Well I think part of it may be right, but I think the second part contradicts something that was said last week.” Then the first one says, Are you calling me a liar?” And it all ends with a punch-up. Given that most of us (?) believe that Prophecy in the sense of telling the future is no longer extant (1Cor 13:8 Eph 2:20), nonetheless, does this scenario conform to Paul’s instruction that everything should be done ‘for edification’ and that all things should be done ‘decently and in order’ (v40)?
But there is another possible scenario which the NIV, by its added words, does not allow for. It is of the prophets in Corinth coming together before the meeting and telling each other what the Lord has been telling them during the preceding week. Then they confer together and ‘judge’ or ‘weigh’ which 'two or three' messages are the most important ones for the congregation to hear. Finally they decide that the messages of, say, Gaius, Junius and Lucius are really important and need to be relayed to the church without delay, while those of Tertius, Julius and Rufus, though just as much the word of God, are less vital and can wait until the meeting the following week. That seems to me to be much more in line with the Apostle’s instructions.
This has a practical application. My church has had a couple recently start attending who have come out of an ultra-charismatic, ‘Word-Faith’ assembly. The husband has been reading Pagan Christianity by Viola & Barna and has come to the conclusion that church meetings should be free-for-alls where anyone can come and give a word and anybody else can ‘judge’ it “as it is in 1Cor 14.” I have to go and see this guy next week and tell to him that this isn’t going to happen and explain to him why not.
I don’t want this thread to become an argument about church practices in Corinth. Another thread can be opened to do that. I only want to show the NIV translation prevents anyone from coming to an understanding of the text which is at least a valid one, and IMO, the correct one.
Rippon pointed out correctly that the NKJV and KJV also add words: indeed it’s sometimes essential to make the translation intelligible, but these translations put added words in italics so that the reader can see that they’re not part of the text. In the NIV, ESV and others, it is impossible to tell unless one has a knowledge of the original languages.
The same problem also arises in 1John 2:2.
Steve
1 Corinthians 14:29, NIV. ‘Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said.’
On another thread, I mentioned that the NIV not only leaves out many verses contained in the NIV and NKJV, but it also adds some. Here in 1Cor 14:29, the words ‘what is said’ do not appear in any Greek manuscript whatsoever. They have been added by the translators as a sort of ‘interpretative gloss’ to try to clarify the meaning.
But do they? What is being judged or ‘weighed’ here? The NIV allows only one answer. A prophet stands up in the assembly and says, “This is what the Lord has said to me today.” Then the others pitch inn and one says, “Well, brother, I don’t think that came from the Lord, because He told me something quite different.” And another says, “Well I think part of it may be right, but I think the second part contradicts something that was said last week.” Then the first one says, Are you calling me a liar?” And it all ends with a punch-up. Given that most of us (?) believe that Prophecy in the sense of telling the future is no longer extant (1Cor 13:8 Eph 2:20), nonetheless, does this scenario conform to Paul’s instruction that everything should be done ‘for edification’ and that all things should be done ‘decently and in order’ (v40)?
But there is another possible scenario which the NIV, by its added words, does not allow for. It is of the prophets in Corinth coming together before the meeting and telling each other what the Lord has been telling them during the preceding week. Then they confer together and ‘judge’ or ‘weigh’ which 'two or three' messages are the most important ones for the congregation to hear. Finally they decide that the messages of, say, Gaius, Junius and Lucius are really important and need to be relayed to the church without delay, while those of Tertius, Julius and Rufus, though just as much the word of God, are less vital and can wait until the meeting the following week. That seems to me to be much more in line with the Apostle’s instructions.
This has a practical application. My church has had a couple recently start attending who have come out of an ultra-charismatic, ‘Word-Faith’ assembly. The husband has been reading Pagan Christianity by Viola & Barna and has come to the conclusion that church meetings should be free-for-alls where anyone can come and give a word and anybody else can ‘judge’ it “as it is in 1Cor 14.” I have to go and see this guy next week and tell to him that this isn’t going to happen and explain to him why not.
I don’t want this thread to become an argument about church practices in Corinth. Another thread can be opened to do that. I only want to show the NIV translation prevents anyone from coming to an understanding of the text which is at least a valid one, and IMO, the correct one.
Rippon pointed out correctly that the NKJV and KJV also add words: indeed it’s sometimes essential to make the translation intelligible, but these translations put added words in italics so that the reader can see that they’re not part of the text. In the NIV, ESV and others, it is impossible to tell unless one has a knowledge of the original languages.
The same problem also arises in 1John 2:2.
Steve
