Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
To Trap Him in His Words

To Trap Him in His Words

Last updated on: February 12, 2021 at 12:41 am by Philip Jenkins

To Trap Him in His Words 2021-02-11T20:28:59-04:00 Philip Jenkins

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

I recently had a sobering lesson in how we understand the New Testament. Obviously, it’s hard to make much sense of that text without at least some knowledge of the Greek in which it was written, to appreciate the nuances of the text, all the allusions and cross-references. But further, we have to understand that when that text’s authors and readers were referencing the Old Testament – which they did very frequently indeed – it often wasn’t in the form that we know today. We may know that fact intellectually, but the implications might escape us. So I offer another of my learned disquisitions (OK, they’re rants) about the importance of the Septuagint for understanding Christian origins.

Hunters, Traps, and Words

As I remarked recently, I am working on Psalm 91, and among other things, about what I believe to be its powerful and often unsuspected influence in many sections of the New Testament. Here is one example that I am arguing – it’s by no means the most important, but it does make the point. All three synoptic gospels tell the story of Jesus’s opponents trying to trap him on the issue of paying tax to Roman authorities, which Jesus resolves with his famous words about rendering to Caesar. But in Matthew’s gospel only, the exact choice of words for trapping is distinctive. Jesus’s Pharisaic opponents plan to “trap him in his words,” which leads to the famous dialogue about whether it is right to pay tax to Caesar (Matt 22.15). The King James version offers “how they might entangle him in his talk.”

Image is in public domain

I am confident that Matthew’s “trap him in his words” (or “entangle him in his talk”) is a direct allusion to Psalm 91, and specifically to verse 3 in that piece. You will then test that statement by looking up the psalm in any easily available Bible, and you will soon conclude that no such parallel exists. In the NIV, that verse promises deliverance “from the fowler’s snare and from the deadly pestilence.” The KJV offers “the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.” Well, okay, we have a snare or trap or entanglement, but nothing else seems even slightly relevant to the Matthew passage. So how on earth do I draw any connection whatever?

The first readers and hearers of Matthew’s gospel overwhelmingly operated in Greek, and the Bible they knew was the Septuagint translation, created perhaps three centuries before Matthew’s own time. That translation is a fine piece of work in most ways, but the scholars involved had their own quirks and foibles, and sometimes they just made errors. In that Septuagint, verse 3 offered defense against the trap (pagidos) of the thereuton, which is more likely to mean hunter than fowler. That in itself did not massively transform the verse’s meaning, but in the following words, our old friend the “noisome pestilence” morphed into the harmful logos or word – what a seventeenth century commentator would nicely render as “the word that be-muddeth.” The error was easy enough, a confusion of the Hebrew word deber, pestilence, with dabar, word. The same blunder recurs in verse 6, where a plague becomes a generic “thing,” pragmatos, almost a thingamajig.

Any reader of the Bible in Greek would see no explicit reference to a pestilence or plague in verse 3, but would rather have to puzzle out why a bitter word was ranked so high among the menaces itemized elsewhere in the psalm, all the plagues and evil spirits and harmful beasts. With that in mind, let’s look again at Matthew 22, where the Greek text about “trapping in words” reads pagideusosin en logo. As I suggested, the odd Septuagint (mis)translation of Ps. 91.3 closely juxtaposes the reference to the hunter’s snare (pagidos) with the harmful “word,” logos: ek pagidos thereuton kai apo logou tarachodous. As in Matthew’s gospel – and in no other contemporary examples that come obviously to mind – trapping is linked to words. The English translation of “to trap,” as mere metaphor, loses the very specific implication of a hunter’s cunning and deadly device. Nor do the English translations reflect the three different words that each Synoptic author uses for “trap,” each with its own implications and allusions.

That connection to Psalm 91 would have occurred immediately to the gospel’s earliest audiences, who knew that psalm so well, and in so many significant contexts and functions. Matthew himself had already allowed the Devil to quote it, in the description of Jesus’s Temptations in the Wilderness. Once that allusion registered, the hearer would set the Matthew 22 story in the proper context, with the Pharisees as the would-be hunters laying their snares, yet failing, because God would deliver the faithful. Once we know that connection today, it adds enormously to reading the narrative that follows, as the trap forms around Jesus, but he extricates himself. Jesus is the potential prey – yet with one bound, he is free.

Of Demons Laying Traps

A Psalm 91 reference here would also contextualize Jesus’s foes quite powerfully. At the time, this was the main text for use in spiritual warfare and demon-fighting, and was used thus at Qumran. The hunter, or fowler, was the Devil, or a demon. So in this reading, the Pharisees were demonic. That reading is reflected in another (mis)translation, where is our Psalm 91.6 talks about “the plague that destroys at midday.” But the Septuagint renders this as “the noonday demon,” daimoniou. The whole Septuagint version of Psalm 91 is highly demonic in a way the Hebrew just is not, and nor are our modern versions.

Matthew 22.15 has a close verbal echo in 12.14, when again the Pharisees plot together against Jesus, in this case to destroy him rather than to trap him. That earlier line in chapter 12 comes immediately before a heated row with the Pharisees about casting out demons, daimonia, invoking Beelzebub, and other appropriately diabolical themes (12.22-29). That in turn leads into a passage about good and bad words, by which one many be condemned or acquitted (12.33-37). The whole passage offers a neat parallel and prefiguring of the chapter 22 episode I have discussed, and at every point, the Septuagint’s Psalm 91 is lurking in the background.

That is one small and specific example, but issues like this run throughout the New Testament. If you don’t refer to the Septuagint, for instance, then the Epistle to the Romans can sound like a horrible mishmash of half-remembered misquotations from the Old Testament. But in fact, it’s anything but that. Once you realize how thoroughly acquainted Paul was with the Septuagint, things make a lot more sense.

How We Lost the Septuagint, and Why It Matters

It also helps to recall what that Septuagint actually is. We usually speak of it as a flawed or tendentious version of a pristine Hebrew original, and I have done something like that here. But the standard Masoretic Hebrew text did not emerge in final form until much later, and did not achieve canonical status for centuries. The Septuagint reflects rival Hebrew readings that were quite standard at the time of the translation, and which are, for instance, often reflected at Qumran. The Septuagint is way more respectable than we often think, and it is a real shame that we have lost it in mainstream usage.

In the sixteenth century, Christian churches rediscovered Hebrew, and they rapidly applied that skill to reading the Old Testament. That event created an unbridgeable linguistic gulf between all later Christian generations and the world of the New Testament and the Church Fathers. If we know the Old Testament in a reliable translation from the Hebrew, like the NIV, that is a treasure to have, but often, the readings we find there are simply not the ones that the early Church knew. The problem for modern readers is that our modern Old Testament translations are just too accurate to let us understand the church’s earliest thinking.

So if we do have to choose an Old Testament version to use as background for studying the New Testament, if we absolutely must choose between a scholarly rendering of the Hebrew Masoretic text, and the error-prone Septuagint … Then, to adapt the title of a film I love dearly: Let The Wrong One In.

Of Asps, and Even More Asps

On a trivia note, I offer a quick story of “those wacky translators at work.” As part of my Psalm 91 wok, I have been looking at Isaiah 11.8, which is part of one of the most famous passages in the Hebrew Bible, portraying the peace and harmony of the messianic age. In the NIV, verse 8 reads as follows: “The infant will play near the cobra’s den, and the young child will put its hand into the viper’s nest.” In the Hebrew, there are two not too common words for types of venomous snake, respectively pethen, and the more obscure tsepha’. There is a lot of debate about exactly what each refers to, but the point is that there are two different very dangerous snakes, which are juxtaposed in poetic balance. This is the classic parallelism that we so often find throughout the psalms.

Now move forward to (probably) Alexandria around 200 BC, where a translator was working on the Greek translation. He decided easily enough that the first beast was an asp. He then sat long and hard looking at his sources and tried to work out what a tsepha’ might look like, the only minimum requirement being that it has to be something, anything, except an asp, so as not to duplicate the word. Parallelism had to be preserved. At some point, he concluded, “It’s just a snake. I have a lot of work to do.” The Septuagint as we have it thus reads “And the young child shall put his hand over the hole of the aspidon, asp, and on the lair of the offspring of aspidon, asps.” Sometimes, you can tell when translators have just had a long day.

Previous Post

February 11, 2021

LaVell Edwards: The Mormon Father of Modern Football

Next Post

February 15, 2021 Of Fakes, Forgeries, and Stonehenge

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abolitionism Abortion Abraham Joshua Heschel Abraham Kuyper Abraham Lincoln Academia Activism Adam Renberg Advent Adventist africa African American Religion Agnes Howard Albert Camus American History American Religious History American Revolution American West Anabaptists Ancient History Andrea Turpin Andrei Tarkovsky Anglicanism Annales Ansley Lillian Quiros anti-Catholicism Antisemitism Anxious Bench apologetics Apparitions Arash Azizi Archaeology archives art Artificial Intelligence Asia Asian Americans Augustine Authors Bad Bunny Baptism Baptists Barack Obama Battle of Hastings Benjamin Franklin Bernard-Henri Levy Beth Allison Barr Beth Moore Bethany Mannon Bible Bill Cunningham Billy Graham Black Music Bob Dylan Body Boenhoffer Books Breastfeeding Bruce Springsteen C.S. Lewis Calvinism Cancel Culture Capitalism Carmelites Catholicism Cedric Robinson Cesar Chavez Charismaticism charity Charles Dickens Charles Lindbergh Che Guevara Chicago Children Chinese Christianity Chris Gehrz Christ Christian death Christian Higher Education Christian life Christian Nation Christian Nationalism Christianity Today Christmas Church life Church Practice cinema Civil Religion Civil Rights Movement Civil War civility Classics Climate Change Cold War Colonial Mexico colonialism Comer Communism community complementarianism Conference on Faith and History Congregationalism Conspiracies Conspiracy Conversion Narratives Coronavirus Costa Rica Council of Nicaea Covid-19 Creation Critical Race Theory Crusades Culture culture wars Daniel K. Williams David Barton David Swartz Death Ways death with dignity DEI democracy Democratic Party Devotion Digital Age Diplomacy discipleship diversity Donald Trump Drama Dua Lipa Early Church early modern Early modern Catholicism Easter Eastern Christianity economic exploitation Education elections Elie Wiesel Elizabeth II Elizabeth Taylor emotions Empire Engineering England enslavement Entertainment Episcopal Church Erica Ramirez eschatology Eurocentrism Evangelicalism Evangelicals Exegesis Family Feminism Film Flannery O'Connor folk music Food Foreign Policy founding fathers Franciscans Franciscus Junius fundamentalism Funerals G.K. Chesterton Gender Genocide genre geography George W. Bush George Washington George Whitefield Global Christianity Global church Grief Guadalupe guest post Guest Post gun control gun violence Gustavo Gutierrez Hamid Dabashi Harold John Ockenga Harvest Hate Hawaiian Christianity Healing health care Heather Cox Richardson Hell Heresy Hermeneutics Higher Education Hinduism Hippocratic oath Historical Fiction Historical Methodology Historical Profession Historical Profession Historical Theology Historical Thinking historiography Holidays Holocaust horror movies Human rights Humanitarian Work humanities Hummingbirds Hungary hymns Imago Dei Immigration Injustice Interviews Iran Islam Islamophobia Israel Ivan's Childhood Jacob Randolph James Bratt Janine Giordano Drake Japanese history Japanese Literature Jean Paul Sartre Jesse Miranda Jesus Jesus Christ Jimmy Carter Joan Baez Joan Didion Joanne Freeman João B. Chaves Joao Chaves Joey Cochran John Calvin John Fea John Tillotson John Turner Johnny Cash Jonathan Edwards Jonathan Tran Joseph Smith Josh Howerton Journalism Jr. Judaism Jürgen Moltmann Just War Justice Justin Brierley Karl Barth Katelyn Beaty koi ponds Kris Kristofferson Kristin Kobes Du Mez Latin American Religious History Latino Americans Lectio Divina Leisure Lent Leonard Cohen liberal arts liberalism Liberation Theology Linda Ronstadt Lisa Clark Diller Literature Lou Reed Lynchings Lynneth Miller Renberg Mainline Protestantism Malcolm Foley Marilyn Monroe Maritime history Mark Noll Marriage Martin Luther Martin Luther King Martyrdom Marxism Mary Masih Alinejad mass shootings material culture medieval Christianity Medieval Ethiopia Melissa Borja memory Mennonites Mental Health Mental Illness Methodism Mexican Americans Mexicans Mike Madrid Miles Mullin Min Jin Lee Miscarriage Missionaries Mister Rogers Mitt Romney modernity Monasticism Mormonism Motherhood Mothers of the Church Moving Music Musicals Nadya Williams Nahua Christianity Native Americans Natsume Sōseki New Contributor New England New Year New York Nico Non-Violent Protest Orthodoxy pacifism Paleo Evangelicals Palestinians Parenting Patti Smith Paul Kingsnorth Pedro Calderón de la Barca Pentecostalism Philip Jenkins Phillis Wheatley physician-assisted suicide pilgrimage Pilgrims Piracy pluralism Plutocracy Poetry Politics Pope Francis Pope Leo XIV post-modernism prayer preaching Presbyterians prosperity gospel Protest Public Executions Public history Publishing Puritans purity culture Quakers race Race Massacres Racial Capitalism racial reconciliation racialization Racism Raha Bahloulipour Re-Enchantment reading Reformation Refugees religion and the university religion and war Religious Freedom Religious Nones Religious Pluralism Religious Symbols religious violence Republican Party Revival Rita Coolidge Ritual Roger Williams Roman Catholic church Royalty Russell Moore same-sex marriage Sarah Irving-Stonebraker Scandinavia Science Science and Technology Scopes trial Scriptural Interpretation secularism Selena Quintanilla seminary Seventh-Day Adventists sexual morality Sexuality Sikhs Silence slaveholders theology Slavery Slavoj Zizek social justice Social Media Southern Baptist Convention Southern Religion Spain Spiritual Autobiography Spiritual but not religious Spiritual Discipline Sports Stanley Hauerwas Suffering Summer Camps Sunday Night Odds and Ends Supernatural Supreme Court Syriac Christianity Tal Howard Taylor Swift Teaching Technology Television Thanksgiving The Beatles The Mission theater TheoBros Theology Thomas Dixon Thomas Jefferson Thomas Kidd Thomas Merton Tim Gloege Tim Walz Tom Holland Tourism tradition Tragedy Translation Transnationalism Travel Trump Ukraine Uncategorized Unitarians United Methodist Church US History Vanessa Chan Velvet Underground Verónica A. Gutiérrez Veronica Gutierrez Vikings Violence Virgin Mary Virtue Virtue ethics Visions Voting War WCTU Wendell Berry Westminster Assembly White Evangelicalism Wildfires Winnie the Pooh Witches women Women in Ministry Women's and Gender Studies Work Worship writing Yasunari Kawabata Zena Hitz

Select a Month November 2026 October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What was Jesus' earthly profession?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Shepherd Fisherman Carpenter Tentmaker