Daniel's Literal Translation and Commentary
The Renewed Covenant by Daniel Gregg
"Mark
7:15-19 There is nothing from without a man, that entering into him can
defile him, so much as the things which come out of him, those are
they that defile the man. 16 If any man have ears to hear, let him hear. 17 And
when he was entered into the house from the people, his disciples asked him
concerning the parable. 18 And he said unto them, Are ye so without
understanding also? Do ye not perceive, that all that without enters into
the man, it cannot defile him; 19 since it enters not into his heart, but
into the belly, and goes out into the intestine, cleansing all the food?" (DLT:
torahtimes.org).
.
so much as : αλλα = ει μη = אלא = unless, except. (cf. BLASS, §448). The sense is explained in the Greek by Thayer, "ουκ ...αλλα sometimes is logically equivalent to not so much ... as "; Liddell and Scott, "used adversatively to limit ...clauses". The word means "unless" or "except": Mt. 20:23, '...is not mine to give, unless for whom it is prepared of my Father"; Mt. 22:32, "Not he is the God of the dead unless of the living". The conjunction limits the first clause, i.e. "He is not the God of the dead" (which standing alone would be a false statement) to "He is not the God of the dead [only], except [also] of the living". John 3:13, "no man hath ascended up to heaven, unless he that came down from heaven". This usage is very important since the Semitic Apologetical Method, likes to introduce a statement with a seeming "untruth" only to qualify it in the next clause to make it true. It's a rhetorical teaching method that gets the attention of the audience. It is needed to understand a lot of biblical arguments like the classic "God is not the God of the dead, unless of the living" for proof of the resurrection. The point is that God is not the God of the persons who are just to be dead unless he plans to raise them. For why would they have him as God when only to be dead, or why would God be their God for them to be only dead. See also BDAG, pg. 45, 3rd edition, "for the mng. except for Mt 20:23=Mk 10:40, and Mk 4:22, also 9:8 v.1 (for ει μη) D 9:5. So also B-D-F §448; Mlt-Turner 330; MBlack, An Aramaic Approach3, '67, 113f." "αλλα ... Paul is particularly fond of it. It is a stronger adversative particle than δε but is often weakened in the clause where it most frequently occurs, that is, after a preceding ου or ου μονον: thus in Mt 1020 Mk 539 937 1436 Jn 1244 1Co 1510 etc. the meaning is simply not so much ... as. The preceding negative may easily be supplied in Mt 117-9 Ac 192 Ga 23, or an interogative may be the equivalent of a negative in Jn 748 Ac 1511. Thus the meaning is sed etiam .... It is clear from Mk 422 that αλλα must sometimes have the meaning of ει μη except (so Mt 2033, and αλλ η in Lk 1251 2 Co 113), just as ει μη serves for αλλα (Lk 426,27)—a confusion which may be traceable to Aramaic influence" (A Grammar of New Testament Greek, pg. 330, Moulton-Turner, III, Syntax). (DLC: torahtimes.org).
all that : Yeshua refers primarily to incidental dirt on unwashed hands here, but I think there is a little more to the text in the way of a רמז (hint) that if something enters by itself (cf. Rom. 14:14) without awareness that you should not eat it, that then it does not defile the spirit. That was Paul's basis for instructing us not to judge an ignorant brother. It was not his intention to use it to lay a foundation for lawlessness.since : οτι. BDAG, 3rd edition, def. 4. "because, since ". The conjunctive clause supplies the condition upon which Yeshua's preceding statement is true, i.e. in the case that what is not food is not noticed or recognized by the person as unclean. In that case, the body's eliminatory functions cleanse the problem and the heart is not defiled. The translations given in many versions, "Thus He declared all foods clean" (etc) are just another example of the abominable translation practices based on traditional misinterpretation, for which there in no excuse from the standpoint of the original language. Obvious examples like this should clue us in that the translations Christians provide for themselves have become increasingly corrupt over the centuries to go along with the increasing apostasy of the church.
comment: The Christian world has become like the Pharisees of old, who could not see Messiah in the Scripture. They think they have the truth because they think they have the Scriptures, but they are now an ossified and corrupt orthodoxy that does not believe in the faith once delivered to the saints nor the true gospel of forgiveness of sin through Messiah, which they have turned into a lawless acquittal. Because of this they are in a worse situation than some tribal pagan out in the jungle who has never heard the about Yeshua's pardon and who knows they don't have the truth, and are seeking it. Indeed, the leaven of the scribes and Pharisees is the modern problem for which there is no solution but conversion. (DLC: torahtimes.org)
composed 4/23/09
Daniel's Literal Translation and Commentary: (http://www.torahtimes.org/translation/mar0715.html)
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