Saturday, June 8, 2019

Craig Keener's use of "Bible" in Galatians 3:13 and "Bible" in the Book of Mormon


In his recent translation and commentary of Galatians, Craig Keener offered the following translation of Gal 3:13:

Christ purchased our deliverance from the above-mentioned curse of the law, by becoming a curse on your behalf. This is because the Bible says, “Everyone who was hanged on tree is cursed.” (Craig S. Keener, Galatians: A Commentary [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Academic, 2019], 253)

What is rather interesting is that Keener translates the Greek phrase ὅτι γέγραπται as “the Bible says,” notwithstanding this being an anachronistic term for the time of Paul. We see something similar in the Book of Mormon where at a translation level, Joseph Smith rendered as “Bible” a word Nephi used to describe the then-future collection of books that we now know as the Bible (see 2 Nephi 29:3-4, 6, 10). If a professional scholar such as Craig Keener can do it, so can Joseph Smith, contra Richard Packham and other critics (see Allegedly Anachronistic Greek Words in the Book of Mormon)

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