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Companion to the revised version of the English New Testament
Companion to the revised version of the English New Testament Author:Alexander Roberts Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER I. CORRECTION OF MISTAKES IN THE MEANING OF GREEK WORDS. There are not very many instances in which the Authorised Version has positively mista... more »ken the import of the original. The translators had before them the labours of many able predecessors, and upon the whole turned to good account the advantages which they thus enjoyed. Still, there are cases in which they have gone quite astray in the meaning assigned to the Greek, and to the chief of these we now proceed to direct our attention. Matt. x. 4 and Mark iii. 18. In these passages we read in the Authorised Version of "Simon the Canaanite." This naturally suggests to an English reader the idea that one of the Apostles did not belong to the family of Abraham, but to the race of the Canaanites. Such a notion, however, rests upon an utter mistake. The epithet applied to Simon is taken from the Aramaic patois, then commonly spoken in Palestine. It is replaced by the Greek wordmeaning " Zealot" at Luke vi. 15 and Acts i. 13, just as the same Evangelist gives the Greek equivalent at Luke viii. 54 for the Aramaic words in Mark v. 41. The meaning, therefore, is that Simon had, before he became a follower of Christ, belonged to the Jewish faction of the Zealots. Accordingly, this explanation has been given on the margin of the Revised Version at Matt. x. 4, and Mark iii. 18, while Cananaean has taken the place of the erroneous and misleading form " Canaanite," in the text. Matt. xiv. 8. Here we read in the Authorised Version, "She, being before instructed of her mother,"« less