On Mark 7:19. The Greek says katharizōn panta ta brōmata. The ESV puts it plainly: “(Thus he declared all foods clean.)” The KJV has “purging all meats.” The words are in the original manuscripts.
You said the ESV puts it plainly as "Thus he declared all foods clean," but then you imply that the KJV's "purging all meats" means the same thing. Then you say that "the words" are in the original manuscripts. Which words? Purging all the foods or thus he declared all foods clean? Could you explain word-for-word how you get from
katharizon panta ta vromata—literally "purging all the foods"—to "Thus he declared all foods clean"? Even the word clean here is in the wrong form. In the Greek, it's a verb; in the ESV, it's an adjective. The English word "declared" is not present in the Greek. "He" is not in the Greek. In short, if you rely on a translation of
katharizon panta ta vromata as "thus he declared all foods clean," you're relying on a phrase that is not in the original.
Mark, under the Holy Spirit, is explaining the meaning of Jesus’ teaching: [...] You claim these four Greek words “do not mean ‘Thus He declared all foods clean’” and call it a mistranslation “in the loosest of definitions.” That is false. The phrase is there, and it means exactly that Jesus declared all foods clean. You are the one subtracting it and redefining it because it doesn’t fit your view.
This depends totally on which translation one is reading. I addressed this in my original post. The KJV has it all in red letter (Mark isn't explaining anything). The Literal Standard Version has no input from Mark. The NASB has the incorrect translation as commentary from Mark. The Tree of Life Version has it as the words of Christ. Young's Literal Translation has it all as the words of Christ. ESV has it as Mark's aside. In the Greek, Mark is not giving input here; they are all the words of Christ. When you say, "That is false. The phrase is there, and it means exactly that Jesus declared all foods clean," are you saying that every translation that has that phrase as the words of Christ are wrong?
Correct me if I'm wrong, but above you have already agreed that this verse, taken in the context of this passage or chapter,
does not convey an instruction that we may eat whatever we want. Here you're saying that this verse
does mean that Jesus was nullifying Lev. 11, for which you initially said you were relying on the context of the rest of scripture.
On Acts 10. You wrote a long breakdown claiming the vision “had not a thing to do with what we eat” and that it was only a metaphor for Gentiles. But the text itself shows animals on the sheet, Peter hungry, God saying “kill and eat,”
The text itself is what I pointed to. The text itself has Peter—the one who had the vision, and the one with whom I would not take issue—telling in clear language, not metaphorical, what the vision meant. It would be error to insert a meaning onto the text that is not in the text itself. I would never dispute the imagery of the animals and the words that Peter heard, "...kill and eat." If you take this approach to Peter's vision, however, then the same approach to Jn. 6:53 would have you in agreement with Catholics on transubstantiation: it's right there in the text, and could not possibly be metaphorical or symbolic.
Scripture gives both. You erase the food part entirely and say Peter’s explanation overrides everything else in the chapter.
Scripture does not give both. What you have is an interpretation, but it's an interpretation based on something other than the explanation that scripture itself provides. I did not erase the food part; I pointed out that the food part was a construct or medium that God used to convey His message to Peter.
You even bring in Jewish halakah and Talmud (tradition) to prop up your point, which you claim to reject. Scripture does not need extra-biblical traditions to explain itself.
Does this mean that you would reject anything from, say, Eusebius, Josephus, the Reformation, or the field of archaeology that might shed light on how we understand the scriptures...? I can think of one passage that requires extra-biblical knowledge or context to understand, which is Mt. 16:18-19. Catholics misinterpreted the meaning of this verse because they didn't consider where Jesus and the disciples were physically standing when this took place. If you go to Caesarea Philippi even today, it becomes clear that Peter is not the rock on which Christ would build His
ekklesia. Without understanding Jewish tradition (Jesus is Jewish), there is a lot that we wouldn't understand in scripture, e.g., Mt. 23:2-3. You talk as though I relied on it as a source of authority; which I obviously did not. Do you view scripture separated from its cultural history? Without knowing anything about halakah and Jewish tradition, how are we to understand Jesus' rebukes of the Pharisees, or of the Sadducees, on anything but a surface level?
You say there is “no wording in this entire account that explicitly declares that we may now eat whatever we want.”
Yes, emphasis on the word "explicitly." I've explained this again above in this post. "Get up, Peter, and kill and eat." is not an explicit abrogation of Christ's dietary law.
You dismiss Mark 7 because Peter still refused years later, but that actually shows the old thinking was still strong until God corrected it, twice, in Mark 7 and then in Acts 10.
Where in Mark 7 and Acts 10—specifically—does it say that Peter struggles with shedding old ways of thinking? Or is that your own idea?
The bigger problem is your whole approach. You keep saying others assume context based on “what we believe,” but you are doing the same thing by forcing every passage to mean the Levitical diet still binds the church.
This, I am seeing, is the
problem and the
challenge with
Sola Sciptura. I say problem because so many are free to interpret scripture as we please, particularly when there is no authoritative structure to issue a ruling on interpretation, or to give the correct interpretation. As a result, we have countless denominations all bickering over who's right about this or that. I say challenge (or blessing) because I think it's part of God's design for this 2,000-year period that we see in a mirror dimly, to know in part, so that those who love Him are drawn to always seek Him and His presence and His will for our lives and to better understand His love for us and how to understand His word. Iron must sharpen iron if we are to be as the Bereans.
Much in your responses to me in this thread has been relying on interpretations that you hold, and hold dearly. I think the focus here should be on your use of the word "forcing," but first, what do you mean by "every passage"? Am I forcing an understanding of every passage? I'm raising questions and providing a perspective. I'm supporting my assertions with scripture. My position just happens to differ from your position.
Let me explain what I mean when I say that we assume context based on what we believe. I don't know if this happens today, but it used to be that when a new employee would start work in a bank, the new employee would be told to count stacks of bills, stack after stack after stack, for days and weeks. This was to train them how to spot a counterfeit bill. After weeks of this, the supervisor or manager would slip a counterfeit bill into a stack. Inevitably the new employee would stop at that bill. The new employee wouldn't know why exactly, just that it didn't look right or feel right or sound right. The purpose was to get the new employee so familiar with the genuine article that a counterfeit would jump out at him or her by instinct. The Catholic Church began inventing a new religion fairly early on, and many of its teachings are, in this analogy, counterfeit. The problem we have is that so many Catholic doctrines survived the Reformation intact into Protestant denominations. So the assumption I'm referring to is that Christendom today counts out these counterfeit Catholic doctrines over and over, and has been for generations, such that now the counterfeits "feel" like the real thing. Holding to these doctrines, we reject by instinct anything that challenges them. I'm not saying we should invite any Tom, Dick, or Harry peddling snake oil, but I am saying that scripture must be the authority on which we determine truth.
Look at the rest of what Scripture actually says, without subtraction:
The Jerusalem council in Acts 15 told Gentile believers to abstain from idol-sacrificed things, blood, strangled things, and sexual immorality. They did not require the full clean/unclean animal laws of Leviticus 11. If those laws still applied to everyone, the apostles under the Holy Spirit would have said so. They didn’t.
No, let's really look at this without subtraction. You're referring to Acts 15:19-20, but please read just one more verse. Why was it okay to tell gentiles turning to God to abstain from these four sins? Because from ancient generations, in every city, there are those who proclaim Moses, i.e., the Law, and they were to attend synagogue, on the Sabbath. In other words, these people are turning to the God of Israel, but they know nothing of Israel's culture or heritage, which is based on the Law. When someone comes to Christ, do we make them walk perfectly from day 1? Of course not. There were elements within the body of Christ who had converted from the Pharisees, and they were advocating for full and strict obedience to the Law (and the oral traditions)
as a precondition to being saved. The Jerusalem Council's determination was that Gentiles coming into the faith should start with these four laws (they're all in the Torah) and learn more and more as you go to synagogue every Sabbath. I literally heard a pastor giving a sermon make the same point you're making about Acts 15, and he read verses 19 and 20, paused as he read verse 21 to himself, and then hurriedly mumbled verse 21 as though he didn't need to read it because it supported what he had just said.
~Romans 14:14 (ESV): “I know and am persuaded in the Lord Jesus that nothing is unclean in itself, but it is unclean for anyone who thinks it unclean.”
~1 Timothy 4:4-5 (KJV): “For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.”
~Colossians 2:16-17: Let no man judge you in meat or drink… which are a shadow of things to come, but the body is of Christ.
Hebrews says the old covenant with its carnal ordinances for food and drink is obsolete (~Hebrews 8:13, 9:10).
You are not letting these verses speak.
It's not that I am not letting these verses speak, and I don't know why you're saying that about me. We just haven't reached them yet. I would be happy to look at these one by one so that we don't get into further chaos. We can't do that, though—or shouldn't, in my opinion—because we haven't settled Peter's vision. Or even Mark 7:19, apparently.
You are nullifying them to keep the old dietary walls up.
I'm curious, why do you refer to Christ's dietary laws as walls? The definition of sin did not change the moment Christ was crucified or when He rose from the grave: "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law" (1Jn. 3:4). Murder is prohibited in the Law, and committing murder is still a sin. The law against murder is a wall; it keeps us from doing something physically harmful to another and spiritually and emotionally harmful to ourselves. It is a wall that we must not transgress. That wall is good, and it's there because God loves us all, saved and unsaved. It is because of that wall that we can, generally speaking, freely leave our homes to go to school, go to work, go shopping, go to church, visit friends, take vacations, etc. It's a wall that I welcome and appreciate.
You subtract the plain statements in the New Testament and add the idea that Leviticus 11 still binds the church today, even though the New Testament never repeats that requirement for believers after the cross.
What do you mean by the word "plain" when referring to the words or meaning of scripture? I'm not disputing the words; I'm disputing how they get read and interpreted. I'm disputing whether what you perceive as plain really is as plain as you believe. E.g., you say that the ESV says plainly that all foods are declared clean, yet that is not a correct translation from the Greek. Yes, that is a plain statement, but it's just not scripture; "purging all the foods" is. These convey very different meanings, and we can't claim both. You say that the dietary laws are not mentioned in NT scripture, but what I'm arguing is that NT scripture nowhere anulls the dietary laws. Every verse or passage that the early Catholic Church interpreted as anulling the dietary laws, and that the Protestant churches carried forward from the Reformation, are misinterpreted due to a severe lack of or ignoring context.
If the text kept the full Levitical diet for all believers, it would say so plainly. It does not.
Jesus did not need to repeat every one of the 613 commandments for them to remain valid. What's important is that, not only did He not anull any of them, He continually taught them and pointed others to them.
You have twisted Mark 7 and Acts 10 to remove what they actually say, ignored the direct teaching in Romans, 1 Timothy, Colossians, and Acts 15, and then turned around and charged others with adding to Scripture.
You have yet to demonstrate that I have twisted Mark 7 and Acts 10. I have ignored no scripture, and this is the second time in this post you have leveled this against me. We have not yet come to discuss Romans (do you really mean the whole book, or just chapter 14?), 1Ti., Col., and Acts 15. You are again using terms that I think detract from this discussion; like "plain," you're now using "direct" as in direct teaching. What do you mean by "direct"? Direct as in I should not question what you say about them?
Regarding adding to scripture, yes, your position on Peter's vision requires the addition of vision interpretation that is absent from the text. That is, by definition, added.
That is not handling the word rightly.
Your repeated claims that your interpretation is the only possible interpretation is a not the same as proving that I mishandle the Word of God.
Rebuke accepted or not, the text stands as written. Stop redefining it. Let Scripture correct Scripture instead of forcing one part of the old covenant over the clear words of the new.
I'm not sure you're in a position to rebuke me, not yet anyway. You're in a position to block or ban me, but a rebuke must be delivered based on solid proof of error. I understand that you viscerally dislike my take on scripture, and that's okay with me. I'm not trying to discredit you because I don't like your interpretation of this or that passage. I am still hopeful of having a meaningful discussion.
