The initial question and why not? is particularly important at this point. One may, however, need to introduce it by some such expression as “someone may ask, Why did they not find the law?”

The second sentence of this verse (literally “because not from faith, but as from works”) has no verb phrase, with the result that one must be supplied. The Good News Translation translates this sentence as because what they did was not based on faith but on works, while the Jerusalem Bible translates, “because they relied on good works instead of trusting in faith.” The Greek text includes a particle (hōs = “as”) which is used by Paul to indicate that this was the opinion of the Jews by which they thought they could be right with God, and so does not represent his own thinking. This is the basis of the New English Bible “because their efforts were not based on faith, but (as they supposed) on deeds”; the Revised Standard Version translates this particle by “as if it were” (“because they did not pursue it through faith, but as if it were based on works”). This sentence may also be rendered, “they did not find these laws because they depended on what they were doing and not on trusting God.”

Most translations render “stone of stumbling” as stumbling stone (so King James Version, Revised Standard Version, Jerusalem Bible). An American Translation* translates this as “that stone that makes people stumble” (see Moffatt “the stone that makes men stumble”), while the New English Bible renders as “the ‘stone.’ ” As can be seen from the following verse, this phrase comes from the Old Testament.

Quoted with permission from Newman, Barclay M. and Nida, Eugene A. A Handbook on Paul’s Letter to the Romans. (UBS Handbook Series). New York: UBS, 1973. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .