Badly translated Bible – mustard seeds and birds of the air

The Kingdom of Heaven is like a mustard seed planted in a field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but it becomes the largest of garden plants; it grows into a tree, and birds come and make nests in its branches.

This little parable is found in the first three Gospels, with the version above being taken from Matthew 13:31-32. There's a lot in these two short verses that we might miss, simply because we aren't first century Jews. Apparently, one of the problems facing gardeners of Jesus' time was how to keep out mustard. It was very quick-growing and invasive, like Japanese knotweed and stinging nettles in the UK nowadays. So ancient Jewish gardeners weren't fond of mustard! Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw put it like this in their book, Jesus for President:

When those first-century peasants heard Jesus' images, they probably giggled, or maybe they told him to hush before he got himself killed for using this infamous plant to describe God's kingdom subtly taking over the world.

So that's a bit of context we won't notice if we aren't aware of how ancient Jews viewed the mustard plant. There's more to come, though, and this is the part that gets into the territory of badly translated Bible. The 'birds' that Jesus said would make nests in the mustard tree's branches were not powerful, noble eagles or the like, instead they were the unclean birds that farmers and gardeners didn't want anywhere near their land. Quoting from Jesus for President again:

Jesus... said the “fowls” can come and rest in the branches of the mustard bush. The fowls are not the mighty eagles that would dwell in the cedar [see, for example, Numbers 24:6 and Psalm 104:16] but the detestable birds, the ones that ate animal carcasses (Gen. 15:11; Deut 28:26). Farmers didn't want fowls in their garden. That's why they put up scarecrows. Bless his heart, Jesus was saying the Kingdom of God is “for the birds”; the undesirables find a home in this little bush.

Jesus chose his parables and metaphors so well, yet we miss much of his meaning if we don't dig a little bit into the culture of his time. And we could miss the real significance of Jesus likening his kingdom to the mustard plant – 'a wild contagion of a weed, a healing balm, a sign of upside-down power – official sponsor of the Jesus revolution'.


Previous posts in the Badly Translated Bible series

Did Jesus get the future wrong?
Looking at Mark 13:30, did Jesus predict his second coming within the next 30 years or so?

Seek first God's kingdom...
Matthew 6:33 - should it be God's kingdom and his righteousness, or is 'justice' a better translation. What difference does it make?

Badly translated Bible – did Jesus get the future wrong?

Here's the second part of my series on parts of the Bible that have been translated badly (check out part one if you missed it). Again, I'm looking at something Jesus said, this time in Mark's Gospel:

I tell you the truth, this generation will not pass from the scene before all these things take place.

This line is from Mark 13:30, towards the end of a passage that is usually taken to be about Jesus' second coming and the end of this era. Hold on a minute, I hear you say; the generation that Jesus was referring to 'passed from the scene' over 1,900 years ago! Well, yes. And perhaps this is why most versions of the Bible have a little footnote linked to that word 'generation', giving a couple of alternative translations ('age' and 'nation'; I might have seen 'race' too).

The problem with this is that the Greek word in question (genea) clearly means 'generation'. Ancient Greek had different words for 'age' and 'nation', something you can check for yourself by cross-referencing between the Bible Gateway and Scripture for All websites (if you're so inclined). It seems to me that the translators are simply trying to avoid the obvious implication – that Jesus predicted the future incorrectly.

But did he?

Perhaps not. As I mentioned in some detail within my post from last month about the end of the world (click here to have a look), some Bible scholars think Mark 13, and the parallel passages in Matthew and Luke, are actually about the end of the Jewish Temple-based religious system. This makes plenty of sense for at least three reasons:

Firstly, the chapter starts with Jesus talking with his disciples about the Temple. In response to one of the disciples marvelling at the Temple, Jesus says this:

Yes, look at these great buildings. But they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!

At some point afterwards (the text simply says 'later'), Jesus' closest disciples ask him when this will happen and what warning they should look for. It's now that Jesus gives his long account of what will happen and how the disciples should respond; and I think it's sensible to assume they are all still talking about the Temple. No change of subject is indicated.


The second reason for Mark 13 being about the end of Temple-based Judaism begins with Jesus' words in Mark 13:24-25:

At that time, after the anguish of those days: the sun will be darkened, the moon will give no light, the stars will fall from the sky, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken.

I'm sure you're thinking this is classic end-of-the-world language, right? Not so fast. What do you make of these three passages?

The heavens will be black above them; the stars will give no light. The sun will be dark when it rises, and the moon will provide no light.

When I blot you out, I will veil the heavens and darken the stars. I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon will not give you its light.

The earth quakes as they advance, and the heavens tremble. The sun and moon grow dark, and the stars no longer shine… The sun will become dark, and the moon will turn blood red before that great and terrible day of the Lord arrives.

The three texts above are from Old Testament prophets, with each text referring to the fall of a major kingdom or city (not the end of the world). The first passage (Isaiah 13:10) is about Babylon, the second (Ezekiel 32:7) Egypt, and the third passage (Joel 2:10 and 31) concerns the fall of Jerusalem. It seems that ancient Jewish writers had a habit of using dramatic, even over-the-top language to describe what we might call earth-shattering events (oh, we use dramatic language too!).


Finally, the events that Jesus describes in Mark 13 did all take place when the Jerusalem Temple was destroyed by the Romans in AD 70. Far from being a false prophet, Jesus actually foresaw what was soon to happen! In the years leading up to AD 70, there were indeed people claiming they were the Messiah (verse 6), there were wars, earthquakes and famines (v7-8), Christians were persecuted harshly (v9), and there may well have been a great flight from Jerusalem (v14-20 – to a town called Pella).

It's also worth noting that there are a few ideas as to what Jesus might have been on about with the 'sacrilegious object that causes desecration standing where he should not be'. The one I like (which has the merit of explaining why the text says 'where he should not be' rather than 'it') notes that the Jewish resistance leader set up his headquarters in the Temple itself, thus desecrating the place where God's presence was made known to His people.


So there you are. Bible translators bending the text in order to allow a bit of wiggle room in our interpretation of it. It's a shame, really, when there are actually ways of interpreting the passage that are both true to the original language (that little word 'genea') and compatible with what we take from the rest of Scripture (we can't really have Jesus as a false prophet, can we?).

Badly translated Bible – 'Seek first God's kingdom and his righteousness'

This blog entry is the first in a series where I'll look at words and passages in the Bible that often get translated badly. I want to do this because I think it can make a real difference to how we live; what we read shapes our thinking, which then shapes our behaviour. I hope it's not just an academic exercise that actually ends up getting in the way of real change (here are my recent thoughts on that).

Let's begin, then, with Matthew 6:33. Jesus has been telling his followers and a wider crowd that they shouldn't worry about material things like food and clothing. Instead, Jesus says this:

But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.

Seek the Kingdom of God above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need.

These are three popular versions of Matthew 6:33, firstly from the New International Version, then the New King James Version, and finally the New Living Translation.

What strikes you about this verse? 'Seek first the kingdom of God...' What does that mean; what is this 'kingdom of God' all about and what does it mean to seek it? Let's look at the second half of the verse for a clue: '…and his righteousness' or maybe '…and live righteously'. So the kingdom of God is about living a righteous life, it seems. I suppose that means don't murder, don't steal, love God and your neighbour, don't be jealous of what other people have; the stuff in the Ten Commandments and in the New Testament teaching on morality. Maybe... I'm sure that's part of it. But let's take a closer look at that phrase, 'and God's righteousness'? It's time for some Greek!

The word that most Bibles translate as 'righteousness' is the ancient Greek word dikaiosune. From what I've read, its meaning certainly includes what we would call 'righteous living' or 'righteousness', in the sense of living the right way. But it also carries the meaning of 'justice', which rather changes the sense of Jesus' comment in Matthew 6:33:

But seek first the kingdom of God and His justice, and all these things shall be added to you.

Seeking God's justice is rather more challenging than seeking his righteousness, it seems to me. Especially if you think of the latter as being mainly about your personal devotions; how much time you spend on so-called holy activities like praying or reading the Bible. Jesus' instruction is changed from being something like this:

Make sure you're living an outwardly good life, trying to follow my commands as best you can. And make sure you're doing a lot of praying, studying and reading.

...to something like this:

Make sure you're joining in with what I'm doing, bringing justice, peace and reconciliation to the world.

It's good to pray, study and read. It's good to not steal or murder. But perhaps Jesus is calling his followers to something bigger in this passage. If he did really have more of the global picture in mind, rather than merely the personal, then 'Seek first God's kingdom' becomes a marvellous invitation to join with God in his work of reconciling the world to himself, of bringing what Hebrew people, both ancient and modern, call shalom



Post script

The inspiration for this blog post came from Brian McLaren's book, 'The Last Word and the Word After That'. In a passage looking at how we might understand the good news of Jesus Christ as being more than 'Go to heaven when you die', McLaren says this:

I tell people God loves them, God accepts them, God isn't holding their sins against them, God wants them to follow his way. I ask them to rethink their lives, to be ready for a new beginning. I tell them how God sent Jesus to invite us to follow him and live in the way God wants us to live. I tell them that Christ died for their sins and that the Holy Spirit can enter their life and begin transforming them. I tell them they truly can be transformed. I invite them to make their first priority to seek God's kingdom and God's justice.

Here are a few links to definitions of that Greek word dikaiosune. You'll see the definitions tend to include both 'righteousness' and 'justice' although the Bible translations rarely pick this up.

Dictionary of Spiritual Terms
Greek lexicon at Bible Study Tools
greek-dictionary.net