Did Jesus misquote Scripture
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GuySmiley
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It depends on if Jesus made those finger 'quote' marks when He said it. He may be just paraphrasing. Or refering to John 7:38, which He knew would be written someday.
assuranceagent
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:rotfl:
Finger quotes? I hope you are kidding. I think you must be. I am asking a serious question here, and I think I just got a smart aleck response. Sigh.
The bible makes the claim (In 2nd Timothy, I think?) that all scripture is inerrrant and God breathed. John 7:38 shows that Jesus incorrectly quotes a scripture, or quotes a scripture that wasn't included in the canon of the bible, making the bible incomplete.
As far as paraphrasing, to my knowledge, Jesus never paraphrased his references to the OT. When debating the Pharisees, he always completely and accurately debated them using scripture, just as I am doing on this board.
As for Jesus quoting a scripture that was yet to come, the passage clearly states "as the scripture HAS said" - i.e. past tense.
The bible makes the claim (In 2nd Timothy, I think?) that all scripture is inerrrant and God breathed. John 7:38 shows that Jesus incorrectly quotes a scripture, or quotes a scripture that wasn't included in the canon of the bible, making the bible incomplete.
As far as paraphrasing, to my knowledge, Jesus never paraphrased his references to the OT. When debating the Pharisees, he always completely and accurately debated them using scripture, just as I am doing on this board.
As for Jesus quoting a scripture that was yet to come, the passage clearly states "as the scripture HAS said" - i.e. past tense.
keypurr
Well-known member
Notes from the NET Bible:
There is some difficulty in locating an OT text which speaks of rivers of water flowing from within such a person, but Isa_58:11 is often suggested: "The LORD will continually lead you, he will feed you even in parched regions. He will give you renewed strength, and you will be like a well-watered garden, like a spring that continually produces water." Other passages which have been suggested are Pro_4:23 and Pro_5:15; Isa_44:3 and Isa_55:1; Eze_47:1 (i.e. Ezekiel 47:1ff.); Joe_3:18 and Zec_13:1 and Zec_14:8. The meaning in this case is that when anyone comes to believe in Jesus the scriptures referring to the activity of the Holy Spirit in a person's life are fulfilled. "When the believer comes to Christ and drinks he not only slakes his thirst but receives such an abundant supply that veritable rivers flow from him" (L. Morris, John [NICNT], 424-25). In other words, with this view, the believer himself becomes the source of the living water. This is the traditional understanding of the passage, often called the "Eastern interpretation" following Origen, Athanasius, and the Greek Fathers
Hope this helps.
Wow. Thanks Keypurr for this much more intelligible reply than the first 2 posters. I have read those passages, but the only thing that is niggling in the back of my brain is that Jesus was very specific when he stated "as the Scripture has said". There are several instances of references in the bible to living waters, but nothing that really comes close to this direct quotation. Both your reply and that of Lion were very eloquently stated and well thought out, but they both rely on an interpretation, unless I'm mistaken. How can scripture be inerrant if it requires the interpretation of errant and fallible man to make sense? I hope I'm making sense on my own here. I look forward to any replies.
Jesus didn't say He was quoting a specific verse verbatim. He simply was expounding on the general teaching or gist of several different verses here. For example if I said, "There appears to be an inaccurate quotation by Jesus, as LostBoy said in his opening post, in John 7:38," would my statement be in error just because I didn't quote you verbatim? I wasn't claiming I was quoting you word for word, so what would be the problem? Jesus also did not claim to be quoting any specific verse word for word.
Depending on the version you read, it IS a direct quotation. I believe the NAS puts quotes around "out of his heart...". Were the translators of the bible in error to put these quotes in? Also, I am pretty sure that all other times Jesus quoted the bible, for example when debating the Pharisees, he quoted exactly. i.e. "You have heard it said that XXX, but I say YYY. " Why should this be different? And since you DID put quotes around your example statement in your reply, you would indeed be in error. When quotes are used, it implies verbatim.
Aimiel
Well-known member
I believe that Jesus was referring to the fact that Scripture (The Old Testament) tells us to believe in Jesus. It set the groundwork and gave us the ability to believe in Jesus. Had there been no Scripture, He would not have been recognized by anyone. He designed His Bible as an ID Badge, so-to-speak. So many prophecies were fulfilled by Jesus, it is impossible for Him to be anyone but The Christ, The Son of The Living God, Emmanuel, God with us.
There are no quotation marks in Hebrew. It is up to the english translators to decide if quotation marks are warranted in any specific verse. The Bible translators worth their salt didn't put quotes in this verse. But, not surprisingly, the heretical translators of the NAS did. Those heretics even left the following verses completely out of their so-called "translation."
• Matthew 17:21
• Matthew 18:11
• Matthew 23:14
• Mark 7:16
• Mark 9:44
• Mark 9:46
• Mark 11:26
• Mark 15:28
• Luke 17:36
• Luke 23:17
• John 5:4
• Acts 8:37
• Acts 15:34
• Acts 24:7
• Acts 28:29
• Romans 16:24
The next time you quote a Bible verse please quote from an actual Bible.
Here's an example of the "You have heard it said" verses: "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies..." (Matthew 5:43,44). That saying is nowhere in the Bible. In other words, it was just a saying like, "you can catch more flies with honey than vinegar." Do you really think everyone says that saying exactly the same way every time? Of course not. Sometimes people will say...
You can catch more flies with honey than vinegar
You can catch more flies with honey instead of vinegar
You can catch a lot more flies with honey than vinegar
You can catch a lot more flies with honey rather than vinegar
You've probably heard that expression a dozen different ways and so have I. I'm sure that unbiblical expression Jesus referenced in Matthew 5 was also spoken in several different ways in His culture.
My example didn't quote you verbatim, it quoted me verbatim. Here it is again:
See what I mean?
You said, "Jesus quotes scripture here, but his quotation appears nowhere in the Old Testament. What gives?"
But I said, "There appears to be an inaccurate quotation by Jesus, as LostBoy said in his opening post, in John 7:38,"
That's hardly quoting you verbatim. If I quoted you verbatim I would have said, "Jesus quotes scripture here, but his quotation appears nowhere in the Old Testament. What gives?"
See the difference?
To sum it up, we have so far...
1) Jesus wasn't using air quotes (whatever) - (Guy Smiley)
2) You're right, it isn't there, so you have to interpret it (Keypurr)
3) It's only symbolic (Lion)
4) Jesus didn't really quote verbatim, even though he states "as scripture has said" (Jefferson)
5) Please read a "Real Bible", not one written by damn heretics (Jefferson)
Does anyone else have any different ideas? Thanks for all the contributions so far. Like I said, I'm new here and I appreciated the involvement I am seeing here. So far everyone but Jefferson has been exceedingly polite, so thanks.
1) Jesus wasn't using air quotes (whatever) - (Guy Smiley)
2) You're right, it isn't there, so you have to interpret it (Keypurr)
3) It's only symbolic (Lion)
4) Jesus didn't really quote verbatim, even though he states "as scripture has said" (Jefferson)
5) Please read a "Real Bible", not one written by damn heretics (Jefferson)
Does anyone else have any different ideas? Thanks for all the contributions so far. Like I said, I'm new here and I appreciated the involvement I am seeing here. So far everyone but Jefferson has been exceedingly polite, so thanks.
LostBoy, if you are determined to see an error where one does not exist, go ahead, be my guest. Have yourself a field day. But if it was your intention to cause fundies to question their faith, you failed miserably. Try again. Maybe you'll do better on your next attempt.
BTW, welcome to TOL.
BTW, welcome to TOL.
Well, I knew better than to get an admission that the Bible doesn't say what you think it says, or what you have been told it says. If you were to admit that the Bible contains even one mistake, your entire house of cards would come tumbling down. I know that from my Christian days that I would accept ANY explanation, no matter how feeble, that would help me from facing the truth that the Bible contains very little truth. I am not trying to wake you up or convert you. Rather, I am shoring up my arguments to counter those I meet in public who are trying to convert me. The skeptics and freethinkers have so many arguments that sound good when I read them, but some come undone when I debate them with believers. I am willing to concede that some of your beliefs are logical and well-reasoned, and make sense, even if you are unwilling to concede that my loss of faith is based on reason and logic. I imagine this will be the death of this post, but I do have more inconsistencies that I would like to bring to light, and perhaps through an intelligent debate I can be shown that the contradictions/inconsistencies/difficulties are not insurmountable. Thanks for the dialogue.
This is the first time I have ever read an atheist say something this open-minded on any forum. You just might be a breath of fresh air around here.
I don't doubt that you use reason and logic, it's just that 2 reasonable and logical people often come to different conclusions with one or maybe even both of them being wrong.
BTW, I think you would get a kick out of reading perhaps our most famous thread.
LostBoy, did you ever give any thought to translation? Do you know for certain that in the language Jesus spoke that He did not quote it verbatim? you have to remember that the OT is translated from Hebrew, and the NT is translated from Greek. And many people believe that Jesus spoke in another language entirely. with all of that going on, what makes you think the English translations of the different languages, especially if another language was used in between, are going to match up verbatim?
GuySmiley
Well-known member
One of those answers stands out above the rest. Do I have to point out its number 1?
I'm curious... What makes you think that Jesus is quoting an OT scripture here?
Could Jesus just actually be speaking for himself?
After all, he also told the woman at the well that he had WATER to give her from which she would never thirst again. By this he was referring to eternal life.
I call this reference to an abundance of water revealing that Jesus was once again talking about wells of divine water within a person that imparts eternal life to that person.
There are references to this provision of life giving water by the ROCK of our salvation in Ex. 17 and Num. 20. Moses demonstrated that the ROCK of salvation would be struck to provide the life giving water for Israel.
Sorry for the double post ... I was having trouble editing what I originally wrote!
To PS82, the only scripture available to Jesus was the OT. The NT obviously hadn't been written yet. And since the verse does day "as Scripture has said..." I don't see how he could have been speaking for himself. When talking to the women at the well, did he mention "as it is written, or scripture has said"? Hope that answers your question.
To lighthouse. I believe Jesus spoke Arameic (sp?). I searched the OT using an online concordance, and there is nothing remotely close to this verse in the OT. Even with minor variations in translations, there should be at something close to this, but it simply isn't there. See Keypurr's post for a more detailed synopsis. Excellent question though.
To lighthouse. I believe Jesus spoke Arameic (sp?). I searched the OT using an online concordance, and there is nothing remotely close to this verse in the OT. Even with minor variations in translations, there should be at something close to this, but it simply isn't there. See Keypurr's post for a more detailed synopsis. Excellent question though.
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