Week 42
Yesterday I was thinking about The Messiah – mostly wondering why people in the 1st C were so interested in a character the OT hardly mentioned (I’d checked and knew The Messiah was only mentioned twice). But the follow-up problem was that my wordbook only mentioned The Messiah twice in the NT too. So today I took some time trying to figure out why such a low=profile character was so high-profile.
First (and an important background point): for several years I’ve read the same bible version – the NASB. And my wordbook is a listing of words found in that version.
Second: this year I’d switched versions to the NLT – which uses a bunch of words that are different from the NASB.
Third: I had to find a wordbook for the NLT.
Fourth: surprise! The NLT version uses the word Messiah 86-times.
Fifth: (this was my detectiving step). I randomly chose 4-verses where the NLT used Messiah (but the NASB didn’t). I found that where the NLT used Messiah:
NASB used the Expected One (margin: Coming One)
NASB used the Christ (margin: Messiah)
NASB used the Christ (margin: Messiah)
NASB used Christ (the margin: nothing).
So…because the NLT version uses the name The Messiah a lot more frequently than the NASB I get my explanation about why 1st century Jewish people were very interested in The Messiah.
But even though my question got answered the pay-off – unfortunately – seemed pretty minimal to me.
Note: quotes from Matthew 11:3 16:16 22:42 & 27:22 (NASB)