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Acts 1:11 -- Is Jesus
Coming or Going?
Editor's Note: This
response answers a reader's question concerning the ISV's rendering of Acts
1:11.
I have one suggestion to make
in order to remain consistent with the desire to be a literal and modern
translation. That is the way verse Acts 1:11 is worded. It appears you have
veered away from the literal word for word type translations and followed
the lead of the thought for thought translations which completely changes
the meaning of this verse.
Whose desire "to be a literal and modern translation"? Yours? Or that of
the ISV Committee on Translation (COT)? The COT isn't producing a "literal
and modern" translation. See our
web page for our specific
views on this subject. Also read the front matter to our translation. For
the record, we're producing a "literal-idiomatic" rendering, not a literal
translation, and not an idiomatic translation. We're using the best of
both methodologies. Meanwhile, however, your statement claiming that we
are "veering away from the literal" displays a comprehensive
misunderstanding of our principles of translation. Please read them in the
front matter of the latest downloadable edition of the ISV. And we haven't
completely changed the meaning of the verse. You have done this, however,
in your problematic suggestion that appears at the end of your email. More
on that, below.
and the ISV currently reads:
"While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, two men in white
robes were standing right beside them. They asked, 'Men of Galilee, why do
you stand looking up toward heaven? This same Jesus, who has been taken up
from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you saw him go up into
heaven.'"
First, you're incorrect about your citation of the ISV. That's not the
current rendering. You need to download our latest edition, which is
v1.4.5. Click here to do
this. Its rendering of Acts 1:10-11 reads as follows:
While he was going and they were gazing up toward heaven, two men in white
robes stood right beside them. They asked, “Men of Galilee, why do you
stand looking up toward heaven? This same Jesus, who has been taken up
from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you saw him go up
into heaven.”
...in the ISV: "will come
back in the same way you saw him go up into heaven." Changing the "come in"
to "come back in" completely changes the whole meaning of the verse.
Completely changes the
meaning? No. It reflects a nuance that is perfectly called for by the
context and permissible based on the Greek text.
The "come in" problem seems
to arise because people have a problem understanding how the Greeks used the
verb come. When we use it in the normal English method it implies a
direction that someone is coming towards us--hence the confusion that Jesus'
Second Coming is described by the verse.
We are unaware of this meaning
being communicated by any standard, accepted Greek grammar on the subject
of the verb "to come".
There are other
examples in the New Testament where the verb come implies that the subject
involved is going to a direction that is not towards the speaker. What is
really happening in this verse is that the Apostles see Jesus go into the
heavens and the angels testify that Jesus came into Heaven.
No. It says that he went
to heaven. And that he would be coming again to earth one day in the
future. Nothing more, really.
These two sets
of witnesses are looking at opposite sides of the same event.
No, they're not. The two sets
are in the same dimension—the earthly one—when the angels are being
quoted. So they're looking at the event from that perspective
Jesus leaves the
Apostles and he comes into Heaven.
No. He left them and WENT to
heaven.
Jesus passes
into the first heaven (the clouds) thru the second heaven (the stars) and
into the third Heaven (the dwelling place of God).
The text never says that he
did this in that order, only that he went up into the sky for a distance
until he was hidden by the cloud. What happened in the cloud is anybody's
guess. No reference in Acts 1:11 to three separate heavens is made at all.
It just says he left this dimension (the earth's surface), ascended into
the sky, and a cloud took him out of their visible frame of reference and
into heaven, like going through a door in space and time.
How he did this I don't know,
and it really doesn't matter, since all we need to know about the
methodology is that he is going to reverse the effect, so to speak, one
day in the future and return to the exact same spot from which he left
earth for heaven—the Mount of Olives. When you're dealing with
trans-dimensional travel from earth to God's other dimensions in heaven,
prepositions don't connote all that much anyway. Spatial prepositional
phrases like through, in, or into aren't all that
meaningful. The bottom line is that Jesus went away from the Mount of
Olives to heaven, and he'll return from there at that future day.
Jesus leaves the
Apostles and he comes into Heaven.
No. Jesus left the Apostles
and WENT to heaven.
Given the
audience Luke is writing to here, it is important to provide eye witness
accounts that Jesus really did go into Heaven. All of the audience won't
have read the Gospels and be entirely familiar with Jesus so will need to be
told where Jesus goes. Having not one, but two angels give testimony--is
important because the bible speaks of needing more than one witness. So
there is more than one witness to attest that Jesus was taken up into the
heavens and more than one witness that he came into Heaven.
Not "came into" but rather
"went into". You're missing the point of the Greek grammar. You have
"married the vein", as they say in the gold mining industry, of your own
narrow view and cannot see the larger forest for the trees.
Luke has to make
sure there is no doubt that Jesus did go to Heaven when he left sight of the
Apostles. I would suggest that the verse be written something along the
lines of: 11 They asked, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up toward
the heavens? This same Jesus, who has been taken up from you into the
heavens, will come into Heaven in the same manner as you saw him ascend into
the heavens.
The Greek grammar of Acts 1:11
does not support this rendering. It does support the rendering "...This
same Jesus, who has been taken up from you into heaven, will come back in
the same way you saw him go up into heaven."
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