1. Hebrews 11:8-11 – Faith That Goes (Abraham & Sarah) Part I

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ the Redeemer Church of Manhattan, KS, 11 Aug. 2019

Intro on Faith

v.8) With faith, Abraham, when he was called, obeyed [and] went out to the place which he was going to receive as an in­herit­ance – indeed, he went out, not knowing where he was going.

v.9-10) With faith he migrated into the country of the promise like it was a foreign one, residing in tents – with Isaac and then Jacob, the sucessive-heirs of the same promise, for he was expectantly-waiting for the city that has the foundations, the crafter and builder of which is God!

v.11) With faith, even Sarah herself received power for the purpose of the founding of a seed – {She gave birth} indeed beyond the standard-time of age [for it], once she decided that He who promised is trustworthy.



APPENDIX: Jesus as the “faithful one” in the NKJV

APPENDIX: Side-by-side Greek Text & English Versions of Heb. 11:8-16A

Greek NT

NAW

KJV

8 Πίστει καλούμενος ᾿Αβραὰμ ὑπήκουσεν ἐξελθεῖνB εἰς [τὸν]C τόπον ὃν ἤμελλε λαμβάνειν εἰς κληρο­νομίαν, καὶ ἐξῆλθεν μὴ ἐπιστάμενος ποῦ ἔρχεται.

8 With faith, Abra­ham, when he was called, obeyed [and] went out to the place which he was going to receive as an in­her­i­tance – indeed, he went out, not know­ing where he was going.

8 By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went.

9 Πίστει παρ­ῴκη­σενD εἰς [τὴν]E γῆν τῆς ἐπαγγελίας ὡς ἀλλο­τρίαν, ἐν σκηναῖς κατ­οικήσας μετὰ ᾿Ισαὰκ καὶ ᾿Ιακὼβ τῶν συγ­κλη­ρονόμωνF τῆς ἐπαγ­γελίας τῆς αὐτῆς·

9 With faith he migrated into the country of the pro­mise like it was a foreign one, residing in tents with Isaac and then Jacob, the sucessive-heirs of the same promise,

9 By faith he sojourned in the land of promise, as in a strange [country], dwelling in tabernacles with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with [him] of the same promise:

10 ἐξεδέχετοG γὰρ τὴν τοὺς θεμελίους ἔχουσαν πόλιν ἧς τεχνίτηςH καὶ δημιουργὸς ὁ Θεός.

10 for he was expect­antly-waiting for the city that has the foun­dations, the crafter and builder of which is God!

10 For he X looked for a city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God.

11 Πίστει καὶ αὐτὴ ΣάρραI δύναμιν εἰς κατα­βολὴν σπέρματοςJ ἔλαβε καὶ παρὰ καιρὸν ἡλικίας [ἔτεκεν]K, ἐπεὶ πιστὸν ἡγήσατο τὸν ἐπαγγειλάμενον.

11 With faith, even Sarah her­self re­ceived power for the purpose of the found­ing of a seed -{She gave birth} indeed be­yond the stan­d­ard-time of age [for it], once she de­cided that He who pro­mised is trustworthy.

11 Through faith also Sara herself received strength to conceive seed, and was deli­vered [of a child] [when she was] past X X age, because she judged him faithful who had promised.


1SOURCES: Latourette, A History of Christianity, p.104, and Isichei, A History of Christianity in Africa, p.32.

2Acts 7:2-5 "...Brethren and fathers, listen: The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, and said to him,`Get out of your country and from your relatives, and come to a land that I will show you.' Then he came out of the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran. And from there, when his father was dead, He moved him to this land in which you now dwell. And God gave him no inheritance in it, not even enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no child, He promised to give it to him for a possession, and to his descendants after him.” (NKJV)

3This hypothesis comes from Ruth Beechick’s book Adam And His Kin

4Vincent: “Δημιουργὸς ... originally a workman for the public (δῆμος); generally, framer, builder. It is used by Xenophon and Plato of the maker of the world (Xen. Mem. i. 4, 9; Plato, Tim. 40 C; Repub. 530 A). It was appropriated by the Neo Platonists as the designation of God. To the Gnostics, the Demiurge was a limited, secondary God, who created the world; since [they believed] there was no possibility of direct contact between the supreme, incommunicable God and the visible world.”

5Classical Greek expert, Marvin Vincent, explained in his Word Studies of the New Testament, “The sentence may be explained either, ‘received strength as regarded the deposition of seed,’ to fructify it; or, ‘received strength for the foundation of a posterity,’ [The Greek word for ‘seed,’] σπέρμα[τος] being rendered [‘descendant] in accordance with Hebrews 2:16 and Hebrews 11:18, and [the Greek noun] καταβολή in the sense of foundation, as [it is rendered] everywhere else [it occurs] in N.T.”
P.E. Hughes favored “foundation of a posterity,” saying, “the Greek terminology does not properly mean that she received power to conceive seed.”

6Acts 7:5; Rom. 4:21; Gal. 3:19; Tit. 1:2; Heb. 6:13; 10:23; James 1:12; 2:5; 1 John 2:25

7See appendix on this topic

AThe Greek is the Majority text, edited by myself to follow the majority of the earliest-known manuscripts only when the early manuscript evidence is practically unanimous. My original document includes notes on the NKJV, NASB, NIV, & ESV English translations, but since they are all copyrighted, I cannot include them in my online document. Underlined words in English versions indicate a standalone difference from all other English translations of a certain word. Strikeout usually indicates that the English translation is, in my opinion, too far outside the range of meaning of the original Greek word. The addition of an X indicates a Greek word left untranslated – or a plural Greek word translated as an English singular. [Brackets] indicate words added in English not in the Greek. Key words are colored consistently across the chart to show correlations.

BThe KJV, NKJV, NIV & ESV connected the infinitive “to go out” with the participle “called,” four words previous to it, and while “called… to go out” seems more natural to an English speaker, I don’t think that it is as natural to the Greek grammar. It seems more natural that the author would have intended the infinitive “to go out” to be connected to the verb “obeyed” immediately previous to it, as the NASB interpreted it. Once again, in God’s providence, it doesn’t make a difference, because the verb “he went out” is repeated, clearly indicating that this was how Abraham obeyed. Because of this repeated verb, I interpreted the introductory conjunction as ascensive “indeed.”

CThe traditional Greek editions (Textus Receptus, Greek Orthodox, Majority) all include the definite article (“THE place”), and this is how the NKJV renders it, but about a dozen Greek manuscripts don’t contain the definite article (“A place”) including all four first-millennium manuscripts, so the UBS and Nestle-Aland GNT’s omit it, as do the NASB, NIV, ESV – and surprisingly the KJV.

DInterestingly, the only other time this verb is used in the NT is when Cleopas described Jesus with it!

EAlthough the Majority of Greek manuscripts (and the Greek Orthodox editions and Textus Receptus) include this definite article (“THE land”), it’s not in over two dozen Greek manuscripts (among which are the three oldest-known), so it’s not in the contemporary critical GNT’s. It makes no real difference though, and all the English versions make the “land” definite – even those that follow the critical text!

FThis verb only occurs three other times in the Greek Bible: Rom. 8:17 (joint heirs with Christ); Eph. 3:6 (Jews & Greeks co-heirs of Christ); 1 Pet. 3:7 (wives are co-heirs with their husbands of the grace of life).

GΕξεδεχετο may well be intensive in force. Spicq, for example understands it to mean, ‘he expected with an absolute confidence’” ~P.E. Hughes

HRev. 18:22 (generally translated “craftsman”) is the only other instance of this word in the Bible.

ISome 20 Greek manuscripts (including one of the four oldest-known ones) add the word στειρα (“barren”) here, thus it is in most of the ancient versions and in the contemporary critical GNT editions (and therefore in the NIV). While the adjective was true of Sarah up until the time she conceived Isaac, I lean toward the majority of the Greek manuscripts (supported by the majority of the oldest-known ones) and the traditional editions (Textus Receptus, Patriarchal, Contemporary Greek Orthodox) which did not include that word, and I see that Chrysostom, Augustine (contra the Vulgate), the KJV, NASB & ESV also went that route with me.

JThis is the only place in the Greek Bible where spermatos is the object of katabolen; in all 10 other instances the object is kosmos (Matt. 13:35; 25:34; Lk. 11:50; Jn. 17:24; Eph. 1:4; Heb. 4:3; 9:26; 1 Pet. 1:20; Rev. 13:8; 17:8). “The sentence may be explained either, 'received strength as regarded the deposition of seed,' to fructify it; or, 'received strength for the foundation of a posterity,' σπέρμα being rendered in accordance with Heb. 2:16 & 11:18, and καταβολή in the sense of foundation, as everywhere else in N.T." ~Marvin Vincent

K“Bore a child” is in the majority of Greek manuscripts and is in all the traditional editions of the Greek New Testament (Greek Orthodox and Textus Receptus) and therefore is in the KJV, but it does not appear in the four oldest Greek manuscripts (the earliest appearance being in the 6th century Claramontanus), thus it is not in contemporary critical editions of the GNT. It was not in the ancient Vulgate or Coptic translations (although it was in the ancient Syriac), and it is not in the contemporary NAS & ESV. The dispute is not over whether Sarah gave birth to the child conceived, for the next verse makes it plain that she did; it is more a dispute over how many words the original author used to recount the facts. NIV has a very curious translation of this verse.

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