Matthew 6:30. ‘Ye of little faith.’
King James Bible
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? O ye of little faith in Matthew 6:30 is mistranslated in all editions of the New Testament. However, the Greek reveals a different story.
New International Version
You of little faith?
New Living Translation
Why do you have so little faith?
English Standard Version
O you of little faith?
Berean Study Bible
O you of little faith?
Berean Literal Bible
O you of little faith?
Please see: https://biblehub.com/matthew/6-30.htm
Matthew 6:30 Corrected – O you of little faith.
“But if the Almighty so arrays the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will he not much more do so for you little faithful ones?” (Mat. 6:30, Good News of Messiah).
The difference here is “little faithful ones” vs. “you of little faith”; If you value the work put into the Good News of Messiah New Testament. When Matthew produced his Greek edition, he related what Messiah said as ολιγοπιστοι < ολιγοπιστος < ολιγος; here is the footnote in GNM explaining this.
Matthew 6:30 is one of the many texts that fall victim to the Church’s constant mistranslations of Scripture. It may not seem like a big deal to some, but in the end all the little bits add up to the difference between inventing your own religion and holding faithful to Messiah by obeying his Torah.
Good News of Messiah and notes by Daniel Gregg (pg 22).
Thanks – how would you translate Matt 17:20…’Because of your little faith’?
Hi Dave
20 And he said to them, “because of the littleness of your courage, because amҽn, I say to you, if you may be having steadfastness as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible to you.
A classic:
https://www.hebraic-roots.com/colossians-216
Bobby
Thanks Bobby. I really appreciate this translation’s insights in this verse. I wonder though, would ‘because of the littleness of your fidelity’ or ‘because of the paucity of your faithfulness’ not be better here? Courage is a different virtue than fidelity/faithfulness. One can have courage and still not be faithful. θάρσος, courage, is not directly connected to πιστός, faithful.
To my mind, ‘steadfastness’ is open to the same charge. One can be steadfast in a course of action without being faithful to your original pledge. In context, the disciples were being steadfast in their failure to exorcise the boy!
Would it not be better to show the connection between ὀλιγόπιστος and πίστις more directly by translating the verse:
‘…because of the paucity of your faithfulness, because amҽn, I say to you, if you may be having fidelity as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain…’
Just a thought. Open to your corrections in my thinking.
I really enjoyed your analysis on Col 2:16. Thank you for all your hard work on this issue. I too think it can reasonably be interpreted in a pro-Torah way and that the issue is whether the Jesus followers should be eating and drinking on [some of] these days or not. The assumption being that they were observing them. These things – feasts, new moons and sabbaths – were (and are!) still ‘a shadow of things coming’, even post resurrection.
I can see that it makes some difference whether ἐν μέρει + genitive noun means ‘in a portion of / in participation of’ or ‘as regards’. The former underlines an on-going involvement in these things that is potentially avoided in the latter.
My only query here is would Paul have used this rather abstract construction had he wanted to underline participation? Would he not have used some form of ἑορτάζω as he does in 1 Cor 5:8 or μετέχω as used several times in 1 Cor 10 to explicitly denote celebrating or sharing in/participating in a feast?
I also see that BDAG shows μέρει with the preposition ἐν to have the meaning of “in the matter of, with regard to”:
—ἐν μέρει in the matter of, with regard to … ἐν μέρει ἑορτῆς with regard to a festival Col 2:16
However I think the phrase probably carries the meaning ‘whether in the particulars of a festival, or of a new moon, or of sabbaths’. I favour the word ‘particulars’ as it covers both the part/portion/participation aspect as well as the ‘as regards’ aspect.
In any case I too understand that the argument was around the detail of whether to feast or abstain in practice on certain days, not whether they were to be observed per se.
Again open to your correction on the above. Thanks for all.
20And he said to them,
“because of the littleness of your courage, because amҽn, I say to you, if you
may be having steadfastness as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain,
‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible to
you.