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NASB | John 7:46 The officers answered, "Never has a man spoken the way this man speaks." |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | John 7:46 The guards replied, "Never [at any time] has a man talked the way this Man talks!" |
Bible Question:
I am revisiting this verse. I have been asking of people whether Jesus has to be thought of as being a "man" [sic]. I like the way that the NKJ and Amplified versions show that there is a difference between a mere man and this Man. Yet, I wonder if there might be yet another interpretation of this verse using capitalization. What are your views on this rendering? John 7:46, The officers answered, "Never did a Man [sic] speak the way this Man speaks." From the heart, Ray |
Bible Answer: The translators of the Bible use capital letters when they wish to show respect to Lord in the names that refer to him. But I wonder what those soldiers would have written had they made a written report to their commanders rather than a verbal report. It is my impression that they would have been at a loss to know what to write in the second case. They had heard many someone speak, but they were thinking now, based on what they had heard, that Jesus was not a mere man. Comes to mind what some said about Herod when he had made his great speech (Acts 12). “The people gave a shout, saying, ‘It is the voice of a god, and not of a man’”. And yet, this was so different. It was not the mindless shout of a groveling crowd before a tyrant. This was a report from trained professionals, sent to make an arrest. And what had they heard from him? Jesus had said unto them, “Yet a little while am I with you, and then I go unto him that sent me. Ye shall seek me, and shall not find me: and where I am, thither ye cannot come”. He had also stood and cried, saying, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water”. Many others had marveled at his words before. Some had said that he spoke with authority, and not as the Scribes. Some had recognized his authority to speak to unclean spirits and to the winds and the waves, and the wonder of it, and the authority seen in it, was in the fact that they obeyed him. Some had wondered at the graciousness of his words. What was the effect of his words on those officers? Had they actually come to believe on him? We do not know. They seem to have reported that Jesus was unlike any other man, or maybe, that he did not seem to be a man at all. And now I would like to venture a statement, that Jesus should not be thought of as a man. He was God inhabiting a human body. This I say, aware that there have been many debates on the nature of Christ, where his humanity stops and his divinity starts, etc. I do not believe this is what you want to get into at this time. I think how Peter refused worship because he was only a man. Jesus received worship because he was more than a man. Paul refers to him in Acts 13:38 as a man and then says in 2 Corinthians 5 that he no longer regards him as a man. Jesus himself refers to himself as the son of man but never as a man. When his opponents said (in John 10) he was a mere man, Jesus responded that he was in fact the Son of God. His disciples did not refer to him as a man but as “that which was from the beginning”, “the Word”, “the life”, “the Word of life”, etc. (See 1 John 1). The rules of capitalization I have never understood, so I do not know the difference between a Man and a man. Again I would wonder whether such capitalization should represent the attitude of the speaker(s), in this case, the officers, or the person transcribing or translating what they had said. Could the listener(s), in this case, the chief priests and Pharisees, tell whether the speakers were reflecting the capitalized form in their speech? Should the word “Fellow” (in John 9:29) be capitalized. A quick look shows that one translation uses the word “One” and does capitalize it. I do not know about those things. So my answer here is to say that Jesus is not a man. God was found in fashion as a man and they called him Jesus. I know to capitalize his names and his titles. Lord. God. Jesus. Christ. Whether to capitalize “man”, especially in a phrase spoken by others, a phrase such as “never man spake as this man”, I cannot tell. |
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Questions and/or Subjects for John 7:46 | Author | ||
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Ray | ||
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Ray | ||
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Aixen7z4 | ||
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Ray |