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On Acts 16:17—
"A Way" or "The Way" of Salvation?
Acts 16:17 in the ISV reads:
"She would follow Paul and us and shout, 'These men are servants of the Most
High God and are proclaiming to you a way of salvation!'"
Shouldn't this read as in most other translations: "She would follow Paul
and us and shout, 'These men are servants of the Most High God and are
proclaiming to you the way of salvation!'"?
In a word, "No," it
shouldn't. The Greek text contains no definite article that can be
translated as "the".
If the demons who Jesus was
casting out were correctly calling him by His proper title (to the point
where Jesus was tell them to keep silent, rather than correct their actual
words), surely a demon possessed woman would be continuing this pattern.
No. This entity was
not "continuing this pattern". The ones who were confessing the identity
of Jesus in the Gospels were doing so—to Christ—under duress. This entity
was talking to the crowds, not to the Ascended Christ or to the missionary
apostles. This entity was voluntarily following them around, correctly
identifying them as servants of God, but subverting the message by
employing the subtle insult of claiming that the message was a way (i.e.,
one of many possible ways) to salvation, not "the way" of salvation. In
short, the passage is teaching the very opposite that you're claiming it
does! The apostle was grieved by this subtle slap in the face to Christ,
and called the demon to leave. You really do need to read the context of
what you're reading before you accuse us of making such an elementary
grammatical error as to ignore the presence or lack of a definite article
in the Greek. Uh, come to think of it, the elementary error was made by
every other translator that renders the passage as "the way of salvation,"
and not by us. So thank you for giving us an opportunity to point out the
the ISV really can be described as the "most readable and accurate English
Bible translation ever produced".
It
seems like the ISV is putting words into her mouth to make it sound like
these demons in particular didn't have their doctrine strait.
Huh? They didn't have their doctrine straight. After all, they're demons.
What else should we expect? Has it occurred to you to ask yourself why a
demon would cite correct doctrine? By definition, they're lying spirits!
Every other translation of Acts 16:17 that contains the phrase "the way"
is wrong. Period. If you have doubts about this, we refer you to Dr. David
Black, who rendered the base translation of this passage. He's arguably
one of the foremost authorities on NT Greek in the United States.
[At this point, the writer cited a portion of a popular online electronic
version of the KJV that has been seeded with blue letter Strong's Numbers.
His citation read:]
Again...
Jhn 14:6
Jesus
2424
saith
3004
unto him
846,
I
1473
am
1510
the way
3598
,
2532
the truth
225,
and
2532
the life
2222:
no man
3762
cometh
2064
unto
4314
the Father
3962,
but
1508
by
1223
me
1700.
With all due respect, we
don't use laymen's tools like Strong's, Young's, or the Blue Letter Bible
to produce the ISV. These are good for non-Greek speakers (except where
they err, such as in their treatment of Acts 16:17's lack of a definite
article), but we rely on more sophisticated works intended for use by
professionals who don't resort to interlinear renderings. In light of
this, please take a look at the following relevant portions of the
passages you've cited above:
Acts 16:17:
ὑμῖν ὁδὸν σωτηρίας.
John 14:6:
ἐγώ εἰμι ἡ
ὁδὸς
The first citation contains
no definite article "ἡ".
The second one contains the definite article "ἡ".
The first citation is correctly rendered in the ISV as "a way of
salvation" because the demon talking is saying that the apostles were
declaring a way of salvation. The first citation is incorrectly
rendered in the KJV and in any other translation that adds the definite
article "the," which does not appear in the original.
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