"If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters...."

Sunday, 29 June 2003 @ 11:19 pm SGT

Contributed by: Barry

Comparing the two versions of Jesus' "Cost of Discipleship" teaching (Mt. 10:37-38; Lk. 14:26-33), one can see that, apparently, the author of Matthew decided that his readers would not understand the extremely Hebraic statement of his source (preserved in Luke), "If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters...." (Lk. 14:26).

Knowing his Greek-speaking audience, Matthew assumed that these Greek speakers would not understand the word "hate" in Hebrew, "hate" also can mean "love less than," just as "love" can mean "love more than, prefer" therefore, he wrote, "The person who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and the one who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me...." (Mt. 10:37).

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