Medicine Hat Joe

Week 40  Romans

There’s a lot of OT-related content in Paul’s letter to the Roman church and I was asking myself the question: why so heavy with the OT & with (what I’d call) Israelitisms?
The church in Rome would have had Jewish people in it. I wondered how many? A whole lot? I started digging for demographic info.
Pretty quickly I realized I was on shaky ground. I couldn’t even find the population of the whole city of Rome (estimates were from under 500,000 to more than a million).
I wondered how many Jewish people lived in the city of Rome? Numbers were all-over-the-map from lows of 10,000 on up to 100,000. But no hard data.
What was the size of the church in Rome? Forget-it.
And what about my main question? What was the ratio of Jewish to non-Jewish people in the church? Well…take your pick.
Either way Paul was writing to both Jewish & non-Jewish people. He specifically addressed Jews. And Greeks. And Jews & Greeks. But the high volume of OT content is a surprise. If the church wasn’t majority-Jewish people then why the big chunks of OT material in Romans 2 3 4 7 9 & 11? And why the dozens of OT quotes & references?
A regular bible-reader is faced with a couple of questions. How much attention do I need to pay to burdensome OT-related questions that I’m not even asking? And a second practical question: should I focus most of my attention on the NT content that relates to contemporary issues?

Week 40  Romans 5

I was lurching through Romans 5 when I noticed a long dash at the end of verse-12.
I checked online. A long dash is called an “em dash” and it’s used to ‘set off extra or amplifying information. It can also show an abrupt change in thought’.
I checked to see if other versions used an “em dash” after 5:12. Nineteen did (~30%) (the others just ploughed straight on through). Paul didn’t likely use a long dash in his original letter so it’s a translator’s add-on. Despite that it’s a helpful visual clue that Paul might be heading off on an extra-information tangent.
One thing that isn’t very helpful is that there’s only one “em dash”. A second one would be a nice tip-off to show where the supplemental info ends. So I’m on my own. My best-guess is that a second “em dash” to end the section would come after 5:17. I delete the in-between verses – 5:13 14 15 16 & 17 – and the passage says:
Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all people, because all sinned – …Consequently, just as one trespass resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act resulted in justification and life for all people’.
It makes sense. The “em dash” paragraph might be edited out & gone but where Paul began – just as – he wrapped up five verses later – so also.

Note: “em dash” definition is from Search Assist September 28, 2026. Quote is from Romans 5:12 & 18 (NIV)

Week 39  Acts

When Luke wrote Acts it was an original one-&-only document. Ever-afterwards every Acts of the Apostles was a handwritten copy. Some copies were perfect. Some weren’t. Both kinds survived.
Knowing that the bible has these manuscript glitches means that there can be a dilemma for readers. And different readers deal with glitches differently.
One way to think of it is that there’s a bible reader’s Manuscript Glitch-Management Continuum. The continuum has a succession of many points where a bible reader can land. Here’s three:
• Out at one end of the line are readers who decide that the textual snags make the bible unacceptably imperfect. So the bible lands in the Mythology & Legend category.
• At the other end are readers who accept the bible pretty much unquestioningly. They’re unfazed by manuscript puzzlers and might pay no attention to them at all.
• Somewhere in the middle are readers who accept that a) there are uncertainties or inconsistencies but that b) the bible conveys the big ideas the original writer was driving at. Reliable accuracy.
I admit that it simplifies things if I’m out on one of the continuum’s end points where I can be in an unruffled state of mental certainty. It’s no surprise when a reader gravitates toward the ends of the continuum. It’s the middle ground that’s a challenge. I lose some certainty there and I have to be prepared to mentally recalibrate. But it’s my preferred spot.

Week 38  Acts

My sense is that lots of people aren’t too concerned about manuscript discrepancies. But they concern me.
I scanned through Acts looking for marginal notes about what I’d call manuscript glitches. I found 33 notes saying things like:
some ancient mss. do not contain…
some mss. add…
many mss. do not contain…
Getting a little reminder about the uncertainty of the verse is helpful. But it’s also demanding:
Helpful: variations tell me that there’s some undecidedness in the text. So I might end-up saying: “I’m not sure about it” (and there’s nothing wrong with I’m-not-sure).
Demanding: variations make reading more taxing. They mean I have to be cautious as I go. I have to be wary about what I’m accepting or thinking or concluding.
Luke tells a story about the Bereans: they received the (gospel) message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.
I think that second phrase. It’s a nice promo for an attentive reading.

Note: marginal notes from Acts 2:44 5:32 8:37. Quote from Acts 17:11 (NIV).
Added 1: the shortform for manuscript is mss. Added 2: I re-checked 33 glitchy verses to see if mss. differences significantly changed the text. I didn’t find any that did. That’s not to say I’m okay with discrepancies. I’m not. I think they make the text untidy and they make me uncertain. But that aside alternate mss. readings didn’t seem to change Acts in any serious way at all.

 

Week 38  Acts 24

Paul is on trial. The prosecutor lists the accusations:
5 …we have found this man a real pest and a fellow who stirs up dissension among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.
6 And he even tried to desecrate the temple; and then we arrested him. [We wanted to judge him according to our own Law.
7 But Lysias the commander came along, and with much violence took him out of our hands,
8 ordering his accusers to come before you.] By examining him yourself concerning all these matters you will be able to ascertain the things of which we accuse him.
A couple of sentences have square brackets and the note says: “early manuscripts do not contain the remainder of v6, v7, or the first part of v8”.
Without the brackets it looks like this:
5 For we have found this man a real pest and a fellow who stirs up dissension among all the Jews throughout the world, and a ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes.
6 And he even tried to desecrate the temple; and then we arrested him.
8 By examining him yourself concerning all these matters you will be able to ascertain the things of which we accuse him.
Other versions also skip that section because it’s not in the earliest manuscripts.
And that’s a problem with Johnny-come-lately add-ons. Someone added them on. And that muddies-the-water for bible readers.

Note: quote from Acts 24:5-8 (NASB 1995 edition)

 

 

Week 38  Acts 8:37

Some bibles have Acts 8:37. And some don’t. So that’s a problem.
The book of Acts that Luke wrote was a hand-written document that he sent to a man named Theophilus.
That first copy was the single & pristine & original & only book of Acts. I’ll call it Acts #1.
Even though from-there-on-out no one knows exactly what happened it’s safe to say that Theophilus – or one of his friends – copied his pristine original Acts #1. So then there was Acts #1 plus a hand-copied version of Acts #1 – I’ll call it Acts Copy #1.
Public demand meant that more copies would be copied. Some copies were likely copies of the original Acts #1. Others were copies of Acts Copy #1 or copies of Acts Copy #2 or Acts Copy #3. Copies of copies of copies.
The best case for accuracy would be that all copiers were careful & focused & exacting. But let’s say one careless error was made in Acts Copy #345. Now there’s an inexact copy. If a copier then copies inexact Acts Copy #345 carefully & exactly then Acts Copy #346 is wrong – just like Acts Copy #345. One of the problems with hand-copied copies is that an error can get baked-in.
Anyway it’s a different problem in Acts 8:37. There it’s not a typographical error. In verse-37 a copier stopped being a copier and decided to add a fictional quote: I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
The quote might be correct and the man could have said it. But it looks like Luke didn’t say it in Acts #1.

 

 

Week 38  Acts 8:37

Philip crossed-paths with an Ethiopian. He told him about Jesus and the man believed. The story goes on:
36 …they came to some water; and the (man) said, “Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?”
37 [And Philip said, “If you believe with all your heart, you may.” And he answered and said, “I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.”]
38 And he ordered the chariot to stop; and they both went down into the water…and he baptized him.
I’m reading a New American Standard Version bible published in 1977. It has square brackets around verse-37 with a note in the margin: ‘many manuscripts do not contain this verse’.
Hmm. I check a 2020 edition of the NASB:
36 …they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look! Water! What prevents me from being baptized?”
38 And he ordered that the chariot stop; and they both went down into the water…and he baptized him.
The text jumps straight from 8:36 to 8:38. There is no 8:37. It’s there in 1977 and then forty-three years later it’s gone (it’s not absolutely gone. NASB 2020 adds 8:37 in the margin and says: ‘late manuscripts add (it) as v 37’.)
Other versions also marginalize 8:37 with explanations like:
‘Some manuscripts add all or most of verse 37’
‘Early manuscripts omit this v’
‘A few later manuscripts add…’.
Manuscripts are a problem that I’ll have to think about. I need to see what I can ferret-out.

Note: quotes from Acts 8:36-38 (NASB ESV LSB NET)

Week 37  Acts 8

Right away after Stephen was executed chapter 8 opened with this: on that day a severe persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout the land (the other versions I checked all said “all” and all said “except”).
So there are two facts.
1. all the believers in Jerusalem left town
2. the 12 apostles stayed in town.
The explanation for the exodus of the believers was persecution.
By contrast there’s no explanation about why the 12 apostles stayed-put.
The problem with non-explanations is that I’m left wondering ‘why?’ Why did the 12 stay? I start thinking about what the answer could be. That might lead me to develop a theory about it – maybe… Leadership Mobility Decisions When Confronting Adversity.
There are a couple things I can do when faced with no explanation:
1. I can just read what’s in the text and decide to disregard speculative questions like ‘why did the 12 stay?’ (I don’t know so I don’t guess).
2. I can try filling-in my own answers or explanations (I don’t know but I can hypothecate).
Readers do both. With #1 I’m on pretty solid ground – I limit myself to The Text. With #2 I have to keep in mind that filling-in blanks is a conjectural exercise. What I end up with is The Text + My Addition to The Text.
It’s a distinction worth remembering. The text is The Text but My Addition to The Text isn’t.

Note: quote from Acts 8:2 (CSB)

Week 37  Acts 8

Simon the Magician appears once in the bible in Acts 8. Twenty-six verses and then never mentioned again.
He’s a pretty intriguing character. Famous & charismatic & mysterious:
Simon practiced sorcery…and amazed all the people of Samaria
He boasted that he was someone great
People said this man is rightly called the Great Power of God
He had amazed (people) for a long time with his sorcery.
Simon was a powerful & arrogant & well-established practitioner of dark magic. So it was against the odds when he believed and was baptized by Philip.
The last part of his story gets interesting… Simon offered Peter money so he would have power to dispense the Holy Spirit. It was an outrageous offer and Peter lowered-the-boom – told Simon to repent of his wickedness. The story ends with Simon asking Peter: pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.
That’s it. No report that Simon repented for himself. Just that he asked Peter to stand-in for him as a kind of proxy-repenter.
I looked outside the bible. There’s quite a bit about Simon. If it’s reliable none of it is very hopeful. It looks like he returned to sorcery and stayed a pagan & magician & heretic. A convert who un-converted.
Acts 8 doesn’t spell that out and it’s possible that Simon stayed true to the faith. But later tradition is pretty emphatic – after testing-the-waters of faith Simon decided he didn’t like what he’d found.

Note: quotes from Acts 8:9-11 & 24 (NIV)

 

Week 37  Acts 7

Almost 90% of chapter 7 is Stephen’s public speech. I’ve tended to think of it as his life-on-the-line self-defense speech. And my bible agrees – it adds the title “Stephen’s Defense”.
But there’s not a lot of self defense there. Mostly it’s a recap of Israel’s history. And Stephen ends up telling the court: you stiff-necked people!…You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit! Was there ever a prophet your ancestors did not persecute? They killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One…and now you have murdered him.
It’s  pretty inflammatory. No detectable diplomacy.
I decided to take Stephen’s concluding idea about resistance and reread the speech with that in mind. Resistance & rejection did show up occasionally (but subtly):
• because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph, they sold him as a slave into Egypt
• Moses was challenged: who made you ruler and judge over us?
• later Moses was rejected – even though he was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself
• finally: our ancestors refused to obey Moses. Instead, they rejected him and in their hearts turned back to Egypt.
Stephen likely knew from the start which way the judicial winds were blowing. So instead of defending himself he gave a selective history of Israel that pointed out Israel’s resistance & rejection (and finally) persecution & murder of people the Lord sent. Looks like in his last speech Stephen decided to accuse the guilty rather than defend himself.

Note: quotes from Acts 7:51-52 7:9 27 35 & 39 (NIV)