From Bill

I did some research on Mark 1:41. I thought it might be helpful to send this out on the blog:

If you were in the service yesterday at Castle you’ll recall that we had a little discussion when I read the lesson from Mark 1. When we got to verse 41, I mentioned that the NIV read “indignant” while most translations interpret that Greek word as “compassion” or “pity”. I found an explanation when I studied it further after we left. Those of you who were reading the NIV commented that it read “compassion” in your version after I commented that the NIV reads “indignant”. Which is it? 

If you read Mark 1:41 in an NIV printed before 2011, and in an NIV printed after 2011, you will find two different statements.  The early editions of the NIV say that when a leper approached Jesus seeking to be healed, Jesus was “filled with compassion.”  In 2011, the NIV was revised in order to adopt many of the changes that had been introduced in the discontinued TNIV.  Among those changes was the introduction of a different form of Mark 1:41 which states that Jesus, rather than feeling compassion, became “indignant,” that is, angry. Those are clearly two vastly different interpretations. My statement Sunday about the NIV’s interpretation being “indignant” was because I was consulting an NIV version printed in 2011, while you were presumably reading an NIV version printed prior to 2011.  

The explanation as to why the two very different translations gets into some extremely technical areas of interpretation including textual variants, textual criticism, ancient Greek texts considered while translating, Latin translations of the Greek text, etc, etc. I won’t try to go any further right now so as not lose us all in details.  I will say that in my opinion after the brief research I’ve done, “compassion” or “pity” is the more accurate translation. 

See you Sunday, 

Bill