Matthew 5:20-22 revising and extending my remarks

On a quick review of the text, I’ve seen that I have moved too quickly in the last few posts. Both the KJV and the RJB need a more thorough comparative treatment with my own translation and the text of the original. For that reason, I will here, as the congressional saying goes, revise and extend my remarks on the passage. First, the text and translations:

Λέγω γὰρ ὑμῖν ὅτι ἐάν μὴ περισσευσῇ ὑμῶν ἡ δικαιοσύνη πλεῖον τῶν γραμματέων καὶ Φαρισαίων, οὐ μὴ εἰσέλθητε εἰς τὴν βασιλείαν τῶν οὐρανῶν. 21 Ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἐρρέθη τοῖς ἀρχαίοις’ οὐ φονεύσεις’ ὅς δ’ ἄν φονεύσῃ, ἔνοχος ἔσται τῇ κρίσει. 22 ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ ὀργιζόμενος τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ ἔνοχος ἔσται τῇ κρίσει’ ὅς δ’ ἄν εἴπῃ τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ’ ῥακά, ἔνοχος ἔσται τῷ συνεδρίῳ’ ὅς δ’ ἄν εἴπῃ μωρέ ἔνοχος ἔσται εἰς τὴν γέενναν τοῦ πυρός.

My translation: For I say to you that unless your uprightness should overflow more than [that of] the Scribes and the Pharisees, you all will not enter into the kingdom of the heavens. (21) You have heard that [which] was said to the ancients: “Thou shalt not kill,”: he who would kill will be answerable to punishment. (22) But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be answerable to punishment: he who would say to his brother: ‘empty-one’, will be answerable to the Sanhedrin: he who would say ‘fool,’ will be answerable to the Gehenna of fire.

KJV: For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed [the righteousness] of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: But I say unto you, That whosoever is angry with his brother without a cause shall be in danger of the judgment: and whosoever shall say to his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council: but whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire.

RJB: “For I tell you, if your virtue goes no deeper than that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never get into the kingdom of heaven. You have learned how it was said to our ancestors: You must not kill; and if anyone does kill, he must answer for it before the court. But I say this to you: anyone who is angry with his brother will answer for it before the Sanhedrin; and if a man calls his brother ‘fool,’ he will answer for it before than Sanhedrin; and if a man calls him ‘Renegade’ he will answer for it in hellfire.

περισσευω seems like a word with a history. σευω in Homer means “to speed,” “hasten,” “surge,” “set in motion, In book 6 of the Iliad, it is often used of Hector, rushing around the city to find his wife, while μετασσευω or something like (I may be misspelling), is used of the Trojan women following (μετα = together with). It seems as though it is a word singularly accustomed to having its meaning modified by various prefixes. περισσευω, to give it the full force of the pre-fix, means then, to “hasten around,” “set in motion around,” etc. Here the aspect is aorist, and so the image is a sudden one of the δικαιοσυνη speeding upward and around. πλειον is the direct object of the verb which is then modified by the genitives των γραμματεων and Φαρισαιων, both of which are genitives of comparison. What then, is the best translation for περισσευω, if we give it the full force of its prefix? “Shall exceed” as the KJV translates is not a bad translation, but fails to bring across the περι which is prefixed to the word. The “if your virtue goes no deeper” translation of the RJB translates words that do not appear in my Greek text, so I can only assume that it is reading from a different manuscript. It should at least be known that it translates off of a manuscript that is different from at least one leading critical edition. I have chosen “overflow,” since this definition (besides being listed as a definition in the lexicon) brings to mind the kind of circularity implied by περι (the notion of overflowing typically brings to mind water surging over a bathtub or a pot, and so actually throws an image of circularity onto the mind by association) as well as capturing the aorist totality of event, even though a perfect — totality of event with lasting effect — might have been more apt (though I don’t believe it would have been grammatically possible).

The KJV, additionally, fails to translate and rather transliterates, the word ῥακα as Raca. The existence of words like this makes a KJV only stance rather indefensible since it is most likely a product of ignorance on behalf of the translator/compiler. In the context in which the KJV was compiled, there can be no doubt that knowledge of Greek and Latin was excellent, even if the translation is (as many translations are) a bit loose. Their knowledge of Aramaic was probably less advanced. But if you are translating in a Semitic context, you must be on the look out for Semitic words and idioms — something that I try to do by using the commentary that I’ve listed in my sources. Ρακα is a word that comes into the Greek a transliteration, probably from Aramaic, as a strong term of abuse, meaning something like “empty-one.” If one is a biblical literalist, this passage borders on absurd. Am I really to think that the word Raca, is some magical incantation that, should I use it, will condemn me to judgment? As a note, it is interesting to consider how a translator should value the linguistic context (native language, existing idioms, etc.), against fidelity to the language of composition. It is a question I have not resolved in my own mind, but I imagine, that it would be interesting to survey the four gospels and then analyze the content of their idioms based on their intended (as far as we know) audiences. It would be an interesting start, but is, I think, a project beyond the scope of this blog.
Overall though both translations are good — I had to be nit-picky, though nits are rather serious business if one wants to start attributing any poetic meaning to the gospels, etc, and so I hope that this commentary has picked some important nits. The poetic ramification of the actual passage comes through more clearly in my translation, especially for the reasons surrounding the word περισσευω, than in either of the others.

This will be followed by a revision and extension of my remarks on the next two verses which I already covered in the previous post. Study well!

Credo Ut Intellegam

JS