A Fresh Look At The First Verse of the New Testament. Lighten up! For all.

The First line of the New Testament needs to be redone!

Let us be a little irreverent here. The Beginning of the New Testament lacks panache. It is a non-starter from the get go. Seriously.

Changing the Bible is just normal.

We list here the different translations to show the, well the difference. It is to illustrate the boring nature of the lead in to very exciting stuff and to show man does just fine changing the Bible around to serve his purpose and perhaps His purpose. But really it is to get rid of fear caused by: Revelation 22: 19 And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are written in this book. And if you take this to mean the Bible you are foolish for the Bible was not written for decades later and this clearly means “this” book so it had to exist. Your irony here is in the literal, for if you read this you are reading a changed translation as we are not even sure what language this was written in first though many assume the authorship of John, so Hebrew would be a guess but it was first biblicized through Greek, we understand John to have been near there when the revelation struck.

Look at the first line:

King James Version; 1 The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

New Revised Standard Version; 1 An account of the genealogy[a] of Jesus the Messiah,[b] the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Good News Version; 1 This is the list of the ancestors of Jesus Christ, a descendant of David, who was a descendant of Abraham.

Latin Vulgate; (it is the same as King James)

New Living Translation; 1 This is a record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of David[a] and of Abraham.

And so it is that all versions lack some draw, some magnetism or at least some uplifting stuff.

We can say we don’t want to attract anyone that cannot begin a book slogging through a genealogy report. But do we want to do that? We do not think so. So here is a suggestion for that first line.

“Here is Jesus Christ’s human family tree.” But the problem is is that we are not all Jews. Most folk do not know Abraham from Adam. Most folk read this and do not even have a clue who these folks are, even church goers in evangelical churches or youth in Catholic churches.

Do we have to put a notion in the “preamble” that folks have to study in depth the Old Testament wars and sins before they get to the “good news”? My wife is not Jewish. She is no longer Buddhist. She is a real Christian in word and deed and love of Christ. She don’t know Rebekah from Esther. She gets Adam pretty well and those notions. She loves the stories of Abraham and she is perplexed by “original sin”. I call that good enough. Jesus came upon her. She did not come upon Jesus. Truth. She has no need to understand David and Goliath although she kind of gets “House of David” as ancestors are important to her. And therefor she has asked explanation of Mathew 1: 1-10. I get it so I tell her fanciful stories of parting of seas and coats of many colors and jawbones and heresy and infidelity and idol worship and killing of first born and a whole bunch of begetting and living to 300 years old.

So let us leave in the genealogy but jazz up that first line. Think this way. Back then they did not have a real last name. They had like Eric of Nazareth, house of Bill, son of Jeb. (never father of joe) If we are going to rephrase the Bible anyway let us do it with some attractive flare.

Now on to more serious matters.

Jesus did not come from this line of people. He was born into this house of people. Notice that they are not giving us a line from Mary. So think about that and what it means in our own lives. We are not coming from our parents but rather given to them. Now Mark starts out right : 1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God;

And Luke: 1 Forasmuch as many have taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are most surely believed among us,

And John: 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

You see the glory and salvation and resurrection do not start or end with genealogy. We are not caused or asked nor instructed to learn of the before Christ beginning his ministry. Even John makes short work of the past but reminds us of the darkness that was before Christ.

So let us rework the entire first 10 versus of Mathew (Matthew) but let us not rewrite for as we see that is a fools’ errand and we can just succumb to a preacher man and learn what we need to learn, not from the preacher man but from ourselves and our connection with our Lord as we understand our Lord.

How about this for starters. There was a guy with really humble beginnings and end. He was powerful yet humble. He was loving and yet wrathful (poor fig tree and poor hand that steals). His name was Jesus and though knowing fishing and carpentry He chose to teach, so he was a teacher/preacher man. You would have liked Him very much. In time, like many of us, you might choose to like Him even now as it mystery He lives with us today. Yes strange but if you listen to His story we think you will get the message of Love. And in that you will get a really nice message of eternity and how some things never die. This guy taught me to love you before I even knew you and that if you hated me to love you even more. Hey! He is the author of that very special notion of this: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. So my man Jesus has some credentials. Do not worry so much about his earthly credentials though he comes from a long line of special folks and kings. Think about his spiritual side and come along and learn with me and all of us.

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