Section 15:1–20
The deeds that make someone unclean in God’s eyes
Over the years, Jewish religious leaders added many oral rules to God’s written laws. The Pharisees and teachers of the law considered these oral rules (also called traditions) to be as important as God’s written laws. One of their rules was that a person must wash his hands a certain way before he ate food. If a Jew did not follow this rule before he ate, they considered him ceremonially “unclean.” This meant that they did not allow him to worship God in public for a certain amount of time. Jesus made it clear that there was something far more important than how a person washed his hands. The important thing was the condition of his heart.
Here are some other possible headings for this section:
Jesus Challenges the Pharisees’ Traditions (God’s Word)
-or-
Jesus Teaches about Inner Purity/Cleanliness
There are parallel passages for this section in Mark 7:1–23 and Luke 11:37–39.
Paragraph 15:1–9
15:1a
Then: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as Then indicates that the events of 15:1–20 came after the events of 14:22–36. The Greek text does not indicate how much time passed between these two events. These events could have happened the same day, or there could have been several days between them.
Here are some other ways to translate this word:
After that
-or-
Later
some: The word some is not in the Greek text but the Berean Standard Bible and some other English versions (such as the New International Version and Good News Translation) add the word “some” to indicate that some, but not all, Pharisees came to Jesus.
Pharisees: The word Pharisees refers to men who were members of a particular Jewish religious group. The Pharisees believed that it was necessary to strictly obey all the laws of the Old Testament. It was also very important to them to carefully obey many other religious laws that they added. They also said that other people must obey these laws.
Here are some ways to translate Pharisees:
• Transliterate the word Pharisees according to the sounds of your language and indicate that it refers to a group of people. For example:
Farisi members
-or-
Parise group
• Transliterate the word Pharisees and indicate that it refers to a group of people with certain beliefs. For example:
people belonging to the Farise religious sect/group
-or-
members of the Jewish group called the Farasi
The word Pharisees first occurs in 3:7a.
scribes: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as scribes refers to men who studied, interpreted, and taught the law of Moses. These men were called scribes because their original work was to copy the laws of Moses by hand. In New Testament times, this was no longer their main task.
Here are some ways to translate this term:
teachers of the Law of Moses (Contemporary English Version)
-or-
teachers of religious law (New Living Translation (2004))
-or-
teachers of the law (New International Version)
-or-
experts in the law
The word scribe first occurs in 2:4a.
15:1b
came to Jesus from Jerusalem: In some languages, it may be more natural to add another verb here. For example:
came from Jerusalem and went to Jesus
-or-
left/exited Jerusalem and came to Jesus
and asked: The Greek word that the Berean Standard Bible translates as asked introduces a rhetorical question. For that reason, several English versions (such as the Berean Standard Bible) translate this word as asked.
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