“Muscle
and a Shovel”, 5th edition revised: November 2013, by Michael Shank
My
first reaction to reading Michael Shank’s book, “Muscle and a Shovel”, [I know,
the rule is “comma inside quotes”, but that’s true only inside the U.S. and not
if you are referring to computer codes or addresses. So, because the internet reaches a ‘round-the-world
audience, I’m bending the rule.] was that it has been decades since I’ve heard
some of these old Church of Christ interpretations, and that some of these
interpretations are just wrong.
My
first impression was editorial. [Since I’m in the process of editing a book for
Createspace, I can’t help comparing.] The book itself, not including appendices,
is about 351 pages, but each of 40 chapters and an epilogue have a whole page
just for the Chapter title. This adds about 60 cents to the cost of printing,
and inflates the page count by about 20 pages. From the first blank page inside
the cover, to last printed page is 380. I know because the author chose to
print page numbers on every one of those pages.
Ordinarily page numbers don’t start until the first page (or title page)
of chapter 1, or the prologue. The font
is a good size, and readable. The paper is cream rather than white.
My
second impression was when I stumbled over the meaning of a quoted verse, and
thought, “King James? Really?” Taken from 2 Thessalonians 1:7 it reads, “And to
you who are troubled rest with us,…” And I thought, “the rest of who? Is this a
sentence? Is ‘rest’ a verb? Troubled
rest? Is there a comma missing? What does this even mean?” And yes, the context does help determine the
meaning. It could have been clearer with more punctuation (which does not exist
in the Greek). Beginning in verse 6 it
reads: “Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to
them that trouble you; 7 And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the
Lord Jesus shall be revealed…” But if
you translate the Greek in the same word order it might have said: Seeing [it
is] just(right) that God render: to them that trouble you, trouble; and to you,
the troubled, rest, with us when shall be revealed the Lord Jesus…” So punctuation makes a big difference in our
ability to understand what the meaning of what is written might be.
King
James? Really? But even though the King James version (KJV) is hard to
understand, and sometime requires actual work to make sense of it. Not
everything about the KJV is bad. Yes, it’s
full of thees and thous, but every one of those thees and thous is singular and
only the yous are plural. You can’t see
that in modern translations. And
sometimes the punctuation in the KJV is better than more modern versions. For example, reading on with this same
passage in verses 7b-8a, the KJV say: “…when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed
from heaven with his mighty angels, 8 In flaming fire taking vengeance on them
that know not God,…” But there is a wide
variety of differences in both punctuation and verse placement in other
versions:
KJV: “…with his mighty angels, 8 In flaming fire
taking vengeance…
NASU:
“…with His mighty angels in flaming fire, 8 dealing out retribution…”
ASV:
“…with the angels of his power in flaming fire, 8 rendering vengeance…”
BBE:
“…with the angels of his power in flames of fire, 8 To give punishment
Douay-Rheims:
“…with the angels of his power: 8 In a flame of fire, giving vengeance…”
ESV:
“…with his mighty angels 8 in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance…”
NIV:
“…in blazing fire with his powerful angels. 8 He will punish…”
So,
it looks like the more modern versions have placed both Jesus and his mighty
angels in flaming fire. Where the KJV and Douay-Rheims (a Catholic version) use
both punctuations and verses to put the flames of fire into verse 8, applying
it to that vengeance from God.
But
what does the Greek say? A word for word
translation in the order of the Greek words, might look like this: “when [that] shall-be-revealed (apocalypse)
the Lord Jesus from heaven with angels mighty his in fire flaming taking
vengeance on-they not that-know God…”
So
where would you put the “in flaming fire”?
It looks to me like the flaming fire is part of the vengeance being
taken, and not something surrounding Jesus and his mighty angels. So, in this case, the King James Version seems
almost certainly more correct than other, more modern versions, especially when
you look at other passages in the Bible relating to fire and punishment.
The
point being, that yes, while the King James Version is awkward and hard to
understand, even using more modern versions, we still have to use our brains
and whatever other tools are at our disposal to interpret the meaning of the
Bible for ourselves. We cannot always
trust the translators to get the words right, or the printers to get the
punctuation right, all of the time. But
thanks be to God, He does not save us based on the perfection of our own
understanding of everything in the Bible.
KJV - King James Version
NASU - New American Standard version Updated
ASV - American Standard Version
BBE - Bible in Basic English
Douay-Rheims Bible
ESV - English Standard Version
NIV - New International Version 1994
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