church of Christ at 26th and Connecticut
Joplin, Missouri

Phone
417-781-2326
Fax
417-781-2326

   Worship Schedule

Sunday
    Bible Class              9 am
    Morning Worship    10 am
    Evening Worship      6 pm

Wednesday
     Devotional & Class   7 pm

Upcoming Activities

EARTH “EXPOSED”

There’s a great day coming when this old earth will pass away and we will live in a new earth.  Mark 13:31 says, “Heaven and earth shall pass away.”  And Rev. 21:1 says, “I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away.”

“burned up”

Likewise, 2 Peter 3:10, in the RSV (that is, the Revised Standard Version), says, “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.”  And verse 13 says, “But according to his promise we wait for new heavens and a new earth….” But notice especially those words from verse 10: “the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up.”

“exposed”

A few years ago, a new revision of the RSV was published.  It’s called the ESV (that is, the English Standard Version).  Among the changes that were to the RSV was this one in 2 Peter 3:10: the words “burned up” were changed to “exposed,” so that the statement reads, “the earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”  What’s the reason for this change, and which translation is correct?

“katakaesetai”

Modern man does not have the original copy of 2 Peter (or any other book in the Bible).  All we have to go by today are later copies (called “manuscripts”).  One manuscript is called the Alexandrian manuscript.  It dates back to the fifth century.  It has the Greek word “katakaesetai,” which means “burned up.”  Then there are some two-dozen later manuscripts that also use this word.  Well, the translators of the RSV believed that this was the word that Peter used, and so their translation says, “burned up.”

“heurethesetai”

But then there are two manuscripts called the Vaticanus and Sinaiticus manuscripts.  And they date back to the fourth century (and so are older than the Alexandrian manuscript).  And these manuscripts have the Greek word “heurethesetai,” which means “exposed,” “laid bare,” “found,” “discovered.”  There are also some half-dozen later manuscripts with this word.  Well, the translators of the ESV believed that this was the word that Peter used, and so their translation says, “exposed.”

Listen to Hugo McCord

In our brother Hugo McCord’s translation, the “Freed-Hardeman Version,” the passage reads: “the earth and its works will be consumed by fire.”  Then in the appendix, he stated that he agreed with scholar Bruce Metzger’s statement (from A Textual Commentary, page 706), that “heurethesetai” makes no “acceptable sense.”  In contrast, McCord wrote, “katakaesetai” was the “reading fitting the context.”

Listen to Wayne Jackson

But what if Peter actually did write, “heurethesetai” instead of “katakaesetai”?  Can we make “acceptable sense” of that?  Our brother Wayne Jackson wrote, “If heurethesetai is the original word, the meaning likely would be simply this (as paraphrased by Thayer): ‘shall be found [laid bare] … for destruction, i.e., will be unable to hide themselves from the doom decreed them by God’ (J.H. Thayer, Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, p. 261)” (From Wayne Jackson’s article, “Does the ESV Translation Support Watchtower Doctrine?” on the website Christiancourier.com).

The earth is stored up for fire