Do you think it is better to retain the distinction between “matheteuo” and “didasko” as used by our Lord in the Great Commission or obscure it? Why or why not?

Matthew 28:19-20 (Elzevir)
19 πορευθεντες ουν μαθητευσατε παντα τα εθνη βαπτιζοντες αυτους εις το ονομα του πατρος και του υιου και του αγιου πνευματος 20 διδασκοντες αυτους τηρειν παντα οσα ενετειλαμην υμιν και ιδου εγω μεθ υμων ειμι πασας τας ημερας εως της συντελειας του αιωνος αμην

Matthew 28:19-20 (KJV)
19 Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: 20 Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.

Matthew 28:19-20 (NKJV)
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

[PB1789]

I think that it should read "teach" rather than "make disciples".

Why---? Because it is up to The Holy Spirit to make disciples,,,not us.

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Matthew 28:19-20 (KJV)
Go ye therefore,
and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you:
and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.
Amen.

Originally Posted by PB1789

I think that it should read "teach" rather than "make disciples".
Why---? Because it is up to The Holy Spirit to make disciples,,,not us.

I think along the same lines, that this is the nature of the King James Bible wisdom on the verse.

As a little sidenote, note how Bible books end on a positive note, and often with an 'amen'. This is one of the many infallible proofs for the ending of Mark against the insipid idea that Mark ends with the woman afraid on verse 8.

Yesterday I was reading at the excellent William Grady book 'Final Authority' (1993) and he mentions that point in his chapter. A very, very solid book (yesterday I read the first 60 pages, now I am a bit more familiar with the material than when I first read it about a decade ago). Since it is a classic I would also use it as an example of the strength and pizazz of King James Bible writings in recent years long before the Riplinger surge (whatever one's view of the Gail Riplinger writings, some doofus opponents try to write as if the King James Bible defense was dormant and quiescent before her writings ). There are many other books and writings and speakers to reference, however William Grady's book has a classic sense, a good style, a type of breezy thoroughness. Perhaps my view is biased a bit as it was my 2nd KJB book; and the first wide-ranging one.

Oh, some King James Bibles have the following note on Matthew 28:19.

teach...: or, make disciples, or, Christians of all nations

However this is not in the 1611 online, a rare case in my experience, generally the footnotes in e.g. crosswalk.com are in the 1611 edition.
http://dewey.library.upenn.edu/sceti...ePosition=1255

So I would like to find out when that margin note was first placed. An early edition, or Scrivener, or something else ?

The King James Bible translates maqhteusate (5657) as "teach" and instruct in a few places. Here are the four usages.

Matthew 13:52
Then said he unto them,
Therefore every scribe which is instructed unto the kingdom of heaven
is like unto a man that is an householder,
which bringeth forth out of his treasure things new and old.

Matthew 27:57
When the even was come,
there came a rich man of Arimathaea, named Joseph,
who also himself was Jesus' disciple:

Matthew 28:19
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:

Acts 14:21
And when they had preached the gospel to that city,
and had taught many,
they returned again to Lystra,
and to Iconium, and Antioch,

Thus it is easy to see that "disciple" while in the range of meaning of the word would not work well at all (e.g. Acts 14:21) in some verses and is far from being a primary and necessary translation. The NT refers to disciples of Jesus, of John, and even of the Pharisees, an existing relationship, afaik we never see the phrase of "making disciples" and PB1789 gives a reasonable explanation as to why that would be particularly out-of-joint in Matthew 28:19.

Oh, there may also be the question of the missing verb to "make" disciples (ok, the verb doing double-duty as a verb and noun) however on that one I will happily defer to any Greek-savvy folks.

And it is possible that the Latin reflects the "teaching" concept more directly, as that is the simple translation of docete, and Jerome speaks similarly (through the Aquinas section, I haven't primary sourced this one) :

Jerome:
Observe the order of these injunctions. He bids the Apostles first to teach all nations, then to wash them with the sacrament of faith, and after faith and baptism then to teach them what things they ought to observe; “Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you.”

Also in synch is the John Calvin commentary.
http://www.ccel.org/ccel/calvin/calc...ml#ii.li-p18.1

Note that some translators and commentators have convert or preach instead of teach.

There are many interesting early church writer references, I used to look them up to refute the really dumb assertion that the original Matthew 28:19 did not have "of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" from Conybeare and Ploughman and some moderns. In fact that phrase is very possibly the single best-attested phrase in the whole Bible in early church writings. And is virtually 100% in MS and version consistency.

Shalom,
Steven

Originally Posted by PB1789

I think that it should read "teach" rather than "make disciples".

Why---? Because it is up to The Holy Spirit to make disciples,,,not us.

It was Jesus who made the distinction. Perhaps He should have checked with the Holy Spirit?

136 looks and no real answer yet…I guess I found one that stumped you.

[Brother Tim]

AgainstHeresies,
1. As always, Scripture interprets Scripture. Mark 16:15 says, "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." (emphasis mine)
Our duty is to "teach" (Matthew) / "preach" (Mark). We now have a clear message. "Make disciples" is not only nonexistent in the text, but it distorts our duty.

2. You said, "It was Jesus who made the distinction. Perhaps He should have checked with the Holy Spirit? " Not only is your humor unappreciated, for joking about the LORD Jesus or the Holy Spirit is tasteless at best and blasphemy at worst, but in frank reality it was the Holy Ghost who gave us the wording of which you complain.

Originally Posted by Brother Tim

AgainstHeresies,
1. As always, Scripture interprets Scripture. Mark 16:15 says, "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." (emphasis mine)
Our duty is to "teach" (Matthew) / "preach" (Mark). We now have a clear message. "Make disciples" is not only nonexistent in the text, but it distorts our duty.

2. You said, "It was Jesus who made the distinction. Perhaps He should have checked with the Holy Spirit? " Not only is your humor unappreciated, for joking about the LORD Jesus or the Holy Spirit is tasteless at best and blasphemy at worst, but in frank reality it was the Holy Ghost who gave us the wording of which you complain.

Okay. So your saying the Holy Spirit in Greek wanted it to be “Μαθητευσατε / διδασκοντε” and in English wanted it to be “teach / teach” because our going, baptizing, and teaching (the three participles modified by the Greek Word in the imperative form meaning “make disciples”) has nothing to do with making disciples?

No my friends the meaning of this passage is clearly to make disciples by Going, Baptizing, and Teaching.

(Note: Good exegesis may help in sermon preparation)

Of course God is the one who saves and sanctifies but He uses means to accomplish His purpose. So go about making disciples of Jesus Christ by taking the initiative to go to them, upon their confession of faith Baptize them into the Church, and continue to teach them the all the truth of God’s Word.

Grace be with you all.

[PB1789]

Originally Posted by Brother Tim

AgainstHeresies,
1. As always, Scripture interprets Scripture. Mark 16:15 says, "And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." (emphasis mine)
Our duty is to "teach" (Matthew) / "preach" (Mark). We now have a clear message. "Make disciples" is not only nonexistent in the text, but it distorts our duty.

2. You said, "It was Jesus who made the distinction. Perhaps He should have checked with the Holy Spirit? " Not only is your humor unappreciated, for joking about the LORD Jesus or the Holy Spirit is tasteless at best and blasphemy at worst, but in frank reality it was the Holy Ghost who gave us the wording of which you complain.

Brother Tim:--- Bingo! Ditto! Your reply shown above in #2 was "Nail-on-the-Head". It does seem somewhat odd that someone who calls himself "Againstheresies" could post that stuff... But, of course he uses the NK as his version here on an Authorized Version website...

[Biblestudent]

When it comes to better "translations", some thought came to my mind:

I don't know if there is anyone in this modern apostate times who can translate better a word that was translated by 47 best brains in 1611. I can assume that many (if not all) modern bible translators learned the original languages in seminary, while the KJV translators were all familiar of the languages even from childhood. But if anyone thinks they know how a word ought to be translated better than the KJV translators, I guess no one says he is a better translator than the Holy Spirit.

(Just some thoughts.)

[Steven Avery]

Hi Folks,

Matthew 28:19-20
Go ye therefore,
and teach all nations,
baptizing them in the name
of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you:
and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world.
Amen.

One of the nice aspects of dealing with cornfuseniks who have no pure Bible and really, really would prefer that others did not have a pure Bible as well (due to the authority represented in the Holy Bible, the King James Bible) is that they bring up issues that help us to see the purity and perfection of our Bible. And to understand more excellently the word of God. Before this little conversation I had never studied 'make disciples' as a concept and looking at the modern version mistranslation of Matthew 28:19 versus the proper Bible text has been interesting.

Originally Posted by againstheresies

no real answer yet…I guess I found one that stumped you.

Hmmm.. you simply ignored what I wrote above, so I could not take your approach too seriously. Others may have found your approach questionable on this forum as well, especially based on the earlier threads. However I am happy to stay on this topic a bit.

Originally Posted by Brother Tim

"Make disciples" is not only nonexistent in the text, but it distorts our duty.

A very crucial point. There is a type of translational tampering in all the modern versions.

First, there is in fact one scripture that talks of disciples being made, by Jesus and by John the Baptist, and as would be expected it uses two distinct words, a noun and a verb, for that purpose.

John 4:1
When therefore the Lord knew how the Pharisees had heard that Jesus made and baptized more disciples than John,

This English does reflect the Greek, since it has two distinct words. 'Make disciples' in Matthew 28:19 takes a dubious translational license by radically changing the Greek, which is a command to 'ye' to teach (some say 'disciple', some 'instruct', some 'convert' - we may get to that later) all nations, Jesus did not give a command about the people who would be taught (or made into students, disciples or anything else) which is the man-centered nose-counting approach. The real focus is on what Jesus calls us to do, to teach.

As one writer, not particularly sympathetic to the King James Bible yet with some savvy on this quetion, says:

http://voiceofthesheep.wordpress.com...-the-question/
To Disciple, Or Make Disciples…That is the Question

the modern translations at this verse seem to support the man-centered evangelism techniques that we see so prominent in the church today. Instead of going and instructing and teaching and discipling…we have Christians who go and try to make disciples….to make conversions.

Thus the literal versions, Young and Rotherdam, accurately follow the King James Bible in only using a verbal form in Matthew 28:19. The same correct understanding of simply a verbal form is in all the earlier English Bibles, I checked Coverdale, Tyndale, Geneva and Bishops. And the early translations to Latin and Aramaic simply reflected a verbal form, showing that this was the historic understanding of Matthew 28:19 in the first centuries, when Biblical Greek was a more natural language. And thus the English Latin-based (e.g Wycliffe and Rheims) and Aramaic versions do so as well, simply a verbal form. Also, even after the King James Bible, in the 1700's and 1800's Mace (1729) and Wesley (1790) and Webster (1833), despite a Bible-correction approach, did not make the error of improperly adding a noun. (Even the translations of Ignatius, Irenaeus, Tertullian, Cyprian, Diatessoran and other church writers generally reflect simply the verb.) The modernist error of "make disciples" in Matthew 28:19 appears to have come into the English understanding around the time of the decrepit Revision (1881) as well as Darby (1890 English edition) and is only in line with the later modernist retinkering of historic and clear grammatical understandings.

Originally Posted by againstheresies

No my friends the meaning of this passage is clearly to make disciples by Going, Baptizing, and Teaching.

Error begets error. This interpretation, that this is what is called a 'grouped clause with modal participles' -- the later parts all elements, perhaps sequential, of the initial -- seems to be relatively recent (especially A. T. Robertson) and is hotly contested even in the Greek-ish circles. The English grammar clearly does not indicate this, nor is it required and indicated in the Greek (this is discussed in depth on those biblical greek forums). And one basic mistake that makes this view difficult is the one covered above, the fact that there is not any command to 'make disciples' whatosever.

As a sidenote, the strongest defenders historically of the modal approach, with its implied sequential component, to interpreting Matthew 28:19 is by the proponents of infant baptism, since if you group baptism as the first action after a command to "make disciples" and the baptism is before the teaching, then ..wow, you can baptize infants.

Notice how 'against' has to contradict himself, by adding elements and changing around sequence, in his self-proclaimed 'good exegesis'.

Originally Posted by againstheresies

... So go about making disciples of Jesus Christ by taking the initiative to go to them, upon their confession of faith Baptize them into the Church, and continue to teach them the all the truth of God’s Word.

Yet by his own expressed exegesis no confession of faith or teaching precedes baptism, baptism would be the first step.

I had a few more notes, however time is short and a few important issues I have tried to clarify a bit. The issues I discuss here are far more fundamental than 'teach, disciple, instruct' or another word, like the most dubious 'convert' on Matthew 28:19, although that would be interesting as well. It was fun looking into the truth of the matter, to learn about the mistranslation 'make disciples' in Matthew 28:19 in the modern versions (I would like to know more definitely the first proponent of the "make disciples" error, any help on that appreciated).

Originally Posted by Biblestudent

I don't know if there is anyone in this modern apostate times who can translate better a word that was translated by 47 best brains in 1611. I can assume that many (if not all) modern bible translators learned the original languages in seminary, while the KJV translators were all familiar of the languages even from childhood.

Amen. When you read the modern scholars, you can sense their difficulties, they are fractionist and fragmented and ultra-conjectural and unsure and they don't have the sense and heart and clarity of mind of the strong and dynamic scholars of earlier days, the King James Bible translators being the finest company ever assembled.

Note, as I often indicate, I personally claim no Greek expertise. I simply find that the modern correctors write on such a low level that it is not difficult to research their fallacious claims, such as the modal approach of 'against' above being simply declared by fiat against lots of solid argumentation and writing and interpretation. Or checking the historic understanding and usage of a simple linguistic connection of the Greek to the English (verb == verb). And I read carefully the various explanations given by modernists for going around the simplicity of the languages, ie. a straight and simple and direct translation, and generally they have no oomph, no power, no pizazz. And often, on issues like this one, they look to be little more than excuses for the errant alexandrian-based Westcott-Hort text or the errant modern translations. Or they assume a validity that is neither historical nor warranted.

Shalom,
Steven