WEEK THREE

Come prepared to discuss the “it is written” lists as well as this blog.

It’s about time that we defined temptation, don’t you think? If you look into various Bible translations you will discover that the words tempt, try, and test appear in temptation contexts. Why is it that such a variety of translations exists? Which is the correct term to use in each place? Well, here’s the reason—the very same Greek word can be translated any one of these three ways. There is only one way, therefore, to determine which word best fits a context.

That being so, you will translate the New Testament this week! (I don’t mean the whole thing!) Haven’t you always wanted to do that? You see, you have as much right to use one of these words or another depending on the context, as I said. So, here’s what you’ll do:
1. Get out your trusty concordance. If you don’t have one larger than the one that you find right before the maps in the back of your Bible, you ought to get one.
2. Now, look up the passages where each of these words appears in the New Testament (If you want to look at the Old Testament as well—then that’s OK too. But don’t bite off more than you can chew!).
3. Next, determine which word should be used in each instance according to the context.

Well, how did it go? Was it fun? Biblical translators have not always agreed on how the original word ought to be translated, so you were free to decide for yourself. And, since context alone must determine the way it is used on a particular occasion, your translation is as valid as anyone else’s.

4. The final thing that you will want to do is to write out the reasons why you think that the particular word you decided to use is a better translation in any given context than the others.

Homework for next week: do the concordance study assigned in the blog.