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Is Christ
the Passover, or the Passover Lamb in 1 Corinthians 5:7?
I have only
recently discovered the ISV bible edition, and must confess so far I am
impressed. My general proof text is always 1 Corinthians 5:7. The New
King James I feel renders this verse better than the ISV, and here is my
reasoning: Christ is the goal and fulfillment of the Torah and so Christ is
not simply the passover lamb, but the fulfillment of the feast. Therefore
Christ is our passover. Please could the committee or someone interested
please give good reason for the addition of this word "lamb" into the text
of 1 Corinthians 5:7?
The ISV
text of 1 Corinthians 5:7 reads in v1.4.3 as follows:
Get
rid of the old yeast so that you may be a new batch of dough, since you
are to be free from yeast. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been
sacrificed.
And the
Greek text of that verse reads:
ἐκκαθάρατε τὴν παλαιὰν ζύμην, ἵνα
ἦτε νέον φύραμα, καθώς
ἐστε ἄζυμοι· καὶ γὰρ τὸ πάσχα ἡμῶν ἐτύθη Χριστός.
The relevant portion about which you
are inquiring is the Greek phrase
καὶ γὰρ τὸ
πάσχα ἡμῶν ἐτύθη Χριστός. Please note
definition number two in the following citation from Strong's Concordance
this phrase
πάσχα:
3957
πάσχα
[pascha
/pas·khah/]
n n. Of Aramaic origin cf 6453; TDNT 5:896; TDNTA 797; GK 4247; 29
occurrences; AV translates as “Passover” 28 times, and “Easter” once.
1
the paschal sacrifice (which was accustomed to be offered for the
people’s deliverance of old from Egypt).
2
the paschal lamb, i.e. the lamb the Israelites were accustomed to slay
and eat on the fourteenth day of the month of Nisan (the first month
of their year) in memory of the day on which their fathers, preparing
to depart from Egypt, were bidden by God to slay and eat a lamb, and
to sprinkle their door posts with its blood, that the destroying
angel, seeing the blood, might pass over their dwellings; Christ
crucified is likened to the slain paschal lamb.
3
the paschal supper.
4
the paschal feast, the feast of the Passover, extending from the 14th
to the 20th day of the month Nisan.
We admit
that the Strong's concordance is a layman's tool, and not something we
consult frequently. However, Strong's summarizes the definition rather
adequately. Specifically, the Greek term
πάσχα,
rendered by the ISV as our "Paschal Lamb" in 1
Corinthians 5:7 has been rendered by our COT in accordance with Strong's
definition number two. See also the more modern and up-to-date
Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domain (commonly
referred to as "GK"):
4247
πάσχα
(pascha),
τό
(to):
n.neu.; ≡ DBLHebr 7175; Str 3957; TDNT 5.896—1.
LN 51.6
Passover festival
(Jn 18:39);
2.
LN 51.7
Passover meal
(Mt 26:19);
3.
LN 4.27
Passover lamb
(Mk 14:12; Lk 22:7; 1Co 5:7+)
Swanson, J. (1997). Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic
Domains : Greek (New Testament) (electronic ed.) (GGK:4247). Oak
Harbor: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
It's not our responsibility that the
KJV did not include the word "lamb" in the text, since the word "lamb" is
part of the term
πάσχα,
as you'll note from the GK definition of
πάσχα
as meaning "passover lamb". A more likely explanation, by the way, for the
omission of the term "lamb" by the KJV translators is because they assumed
their readers knew that the word "lamb" was part and parcel, so to speak,
of the term "passover", since the KJV reads that Christ "was sacrificed
for us"—and that means He was the fulfillment Lamb for which the passover
dinner lamb was the antetype! It never occurred to them that anybody would
take the meaning you're advocating! To sum up, the text of the KJV
connotes that Christ was the lamb who was sacrificed as fulfillment of the
antetype. Therefore for the ISV to put the word "lamb" in the passage is
to provide a full translation, in contrast to the KJV rendering, which
though not inaccurate, isn't complete. As a subjective matter, we note
that your position comes—by your own admission—from your feelings. The new
KJV "I feel renders better," you write. We gently exhort you not to judge
translations by feelings. The text of the Greek of I Corinthians 5:7 does
not say that "Christ is our passover" only, true though that sentiment is.
It's saying that as the
πάσχα,
Jesus was sacrificed for us—as the Lamb who took away the sins of those
for whom he was to die—his people. In further support of our view, we
refer you to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, which
reads in pertinent part (Volume 5, page 900), see the red text below:
The casual way
in which Paul says:
τὸ πάσχα
(®
n. 8)
ἡμῶν ἐτύθη Χριστός,
1 C. 5:7, suggests that this comparison was already familiar to the
Corinthian church. It is indeed common in the NT (1 Pt. 1:19; Jn.
1:29, 36;
®
I, 338–340; cf. Rev. 5:6, 9,
12; 12:11) and probably goes back to Jesus Himself, for, since
σῶμα/αἷμα
==
בִּשְׂרָא/דְּמָא
are, like
ἐκχύννεσθαι,
sacrificial terms, one may conclude that in the sayings at the Lord’s
Supper (Mk. 14:22–24 and par.) Jesus was
comparing Himself with the paschal lamb, and calling His death a
sacrifice. This comparison is the core of a rich Passover
typology in the primitive Church. This is found in three forms, a. In
Lk. 22:16
(ἕως
ὅτου πληρωθῇ ἐν τῇ βασιλείᾳ τοῦ θεοῦ)
Jesus calls the banquet of the age of salvation a fulfillment of the
Passover. b. In 1 C. 5:7 f. the community for which Christ was
sacrificed as the paschal lamb is called the unleavened dough. This
expresses the fact that to be in Christ is to be already in the
fulfilled Passover. c. In 1 Pt. 1:13–21 the baptised are compared to
the people of God which, redeemed by the blood of the lamb without
spot or blemish (v. 18f.), sets forth on its pilgrimage (v. 17) with
loins girded (v. 13). In both 1 C. and 1 Pt. the typology is set in
the service of admonition, to the purifying of the congregation and
the heart on the one side, to sanctification and walking in fear on
the other.
Also see the abridged
version of TDNT, page 797:
3.
The Lamb.
The
NT frequently equates Jesus with the Passover lamb
(cf. 1 Cor. 5:7;
1 Pet. 1:19; Jn. 1:29). The sayings of Jesus at the Last Supper probably
underlie the equation (Mk. 14:22ff.). In Lk. 22:16 the messianic banquet
is a fulfilment of the Passover, in 1 Cor. 5:7-8 the community is the
unleavened dough, and in 1 Pet. 1: 13ff. the people redeemed by the
blood of the spotless lamb sets out on pilgrimage.
(Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1995, c1985).
Theological dictionary of the New Testament. Translation of:
Theologisches Worterbuch zum Neuen Testament. Grand Rapids, Mich.:
W.B. Eerdmans.
I understand full well that Christ
represents the passover lamb in that he is the fullness of the old
testament passage, but he is also the fullness of the use of the
bitter herbs, for representation of suffering. should we then not
add this into the text so that the reader can take this aspect on
board also.
You're
right: to mention bitter herb fulfillments, etc., would be to add to the
text of 1 Corinthians 5:7, a practice we will not undertake. But to
include (not "add") the word "lamb" to the text of 1 Corinthians 5:7 is
not an addition. It's a translation—an accurate one, too!—that fully
connotes the intent of the author, who clearly was referring to the lamb,
since it's the lamb that is sacrificed at Passover, not the herbs or any
other part of the passover dinner!
If the reader of the new
testament does not understand the allusions being made, they should go back
and see where they came from.
But
that's the role of pastor/teachers and commentators, who, if they read the
study tools cited in our previous email, will be equipped to communicate
the nuance of the words to their hearers—it's not our function as Bible
translators. Our function is to communicate the original author's
sentences accurately, a task we cannot in good conscience say we have done
in 1 Corinthians 5:7 if we leave out the word "lamb" like other versions
do.
To
summarize my position, this quote from 'http://home.clara.net/arlev'
under passover section - this site is nothing to do with me, but sums it up:
"There can
be little doubt that the NT believers thought of Jesus as the Passover
lamb (John 1:29, I Peter 1:18-19, Rev 5:6,13 and throughout the book of
Revelation) - the Lamb that was slain to redeem men and women out of
bondage (I Peter 1:18 talks of being ‘ransomed’ before going on to speak
of the Lamb in v.19. Rev 5:9 says of the Lamb that ‘by Thy blood [Thou]
didst ransom men for God’ where the same redemption language is
employed). Christ, then, is the fulfillment of the Passover lamb...
Well now, the guy who wrote this was right up
to this point. Then he goes astray:
Some
translations in dealing with I Cor 5:7 render the final sentence as ‘For
Christ, our paschal/Passover lamb has been sacrificed’ though the word
for ‘lamb’ isn’t in the Greek text and the sentence would be more
accurately translated ‘For Christ, our Passover, has been sacrificed’ By
seeing in the word ‘sacrifice’ the implication that an animal is meant
(Deut 16:2 speaks of the Passover sacrifice being ‘from the flock or the
herd’) many commentators have been prompted to interpret I Cor 5:7 as
referring to the Passover lamb. But this is too narrow a view for Christ
is not only the fulfillment of the lamb, but also of the entire
festival. "
The scholarly citations
we cited in our previous email response refutes the position posted at
http://home.clara.net/arlev.
That's because the rest of 1 Corinthians 5:7 refutes that
citation. The "passover...was sacrificed for us," writes Paul. To
compare the modern passover to the text of 1 Corinthians 5:7, what part
of the passover was sacrificed, Steve? The bitter herbs? The wine? The
bread? The afikomen? The salt? The egg? Of course, the answer is
neither of these were sacrificed. Only the lamb. Which is why we're
not adding to the text by supplying the word "lamb" in
translation, we're merely being accurate. Because the word "lamb" is
inherent—granted, not in the Greek wording of 1 Corinthians 5:7—but in
the meaning of the Greek word
πάσχα
itself. By the way, based on the actual meaning of the Greek word
πάσχα,
if the apostle Paul had added the Greek word for lamb after the word
πάσχα, his
readers would have thought him to be redundant, or even non-sensical.
Sort of like creating a "Department of Redundant Theology Department".
So to speak... :-)
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