Originally posted by robycop3:
With all due respect, John, I don't think Jesus suffered hematridosis in the garden. Why? Please analyze Luke 22:44 closely, and you'll see that His sweat RESEMBLED great drops of blood. He and His disciples were in limited light, and an observer woulds seen profuse sweat dripping from His beard and nose. I work in a steel mill, and I know what profuse sweat is when I hafta work near 2000 degree metal...sweat drips off my chin & nose in large drops as if I had a leaky faucet on my head! I also had an amateus boxing "career" of several years, and an 11-year semipro football "career", and on one more than one occasion I sweatted most profusely, and if I had a nick or cut, I appeared to have bled out a gallon!
But again, the key is that the Scripture says His sweat RESEMBLED great drops of blood. If it WERE blood, He woulda been a bloody mess when He was arrested, and Scripture would NOT have failed to have noted it.
Hey, I see where you are coming from, robycop3. In my younger days I shed my share of blood and sweat. I've been knocked out in 4 sports: wrestling, judo, kung fu and karate! Of course that doesn't make me tough. Like the guy in the cowboy movie said, "He's not tough. The guy that gave him those scars is the tough one!" If we ever meet face to face I'll let you KO me so I can make it 5 sports.
You do have a good point on the interpretation of this verse. I looked more carefully at the word translated "like," which is
hosei. Your interpretation is certainly possible. The word does often mean "like." However, it has a different range of meaning from the English word "like," with the primary meaning being "approximately," which surprised me. In favor of my interpretation, it can mean "in the form of," such as in Matt. 3:16.
The commentaries that I have are divided.
The Expositor's Bible Commentary (Liefeld) and
The New International Commentary on the NT (Geldenhuys) take your side. On my side are Vincent, Alford and A. T. Robertson, who says, "In an agony (en agôniâi). It was conflict, contest from agôn. An old word, but only here in the N.T. Satan pressed Jesus harder than ever before. As it were great drops of blood (hôsei thromboi haimatos). Thick, clotted blood. An old word (thromboi) common in medical works, but here only in the N.T. . . . Aristotle speaks of a bloody sweat as does Theophrastus."
As for Jesus looking like a bloody mess because of hematridosis, that would depend on the mix of blood and sweat. If the drops were mostly sweat, Jesus could simply wipe His face and not look bloody.
I'm going to stick to my interpretation here, especially because of the word
thromboi, which adds a medical dimension to the verse, and was used in classical Greek in a similar way to how it is used here, as Robertson points out.