One of my periodic rants.
I am glad that I spent a year trying to grasp the rudiments of koine Greek, and gladder (in the style of Alice) that I have interlinear NT and OT on my shelf. Today was I reading over the Acts 10 passage for Sunday in the church's pew Bible (GNB 2nd Ed) and once more winced at a bad interpretative decision.
Acts 10:2 GNB says 'He was a religious man... He also did much to help the Jewish poor people...'
Says who? There is no mention of Jewish people in the Greek, nor of poverty for that matter, though the latter is implied. It says he gave alms. Is 'alms' too tricky a word for people to cope with? I wouldn't have thought so. Cornelius may have given alms to Jewish people, but he may not, we simply don't know, but let's not make it up to suit our own ends. Grrr!
Comments
This does shed new light on things. For example, "religion that the Lord requires" is to look after widows and orphans - the most likely recipients of alms. Of course, as a Roman centurion Cornelius was ritually "unclean" to Jews like Peter, but his behaviour showed that he had a "clean" heart, which is why God declared him "clean" in Peter's dream.
Just wondering ...