Fuquay Bible | Updates

God . . . was with me on the way that I went

Completed Genesis 35.

Sirs, what must I do to be saved

Completed Genesis 34.

I am too small for all the mercies that you have shown

Completed Genesis 32.

Rachel have I loved, but Leah have I hated

Completed Genesis 29. I follow James Jordan and Luther in believing that Rebekah and Jacob’s deception was righteous. Many modern commentators observe that Laban's deception is a kind of payback for Jacob. But I think this fails to recognize that Laban is more an echo of Isaac than of Jacob.

Ascending

Completed Genesis 28.

Faces, redux

Completed Genesis 27.

Charge, commandments, statutes, and laws

Completed Genesis 26.

Perfect

That is, whole, complete: Genesis 25.

I will go

Added Genesis 24.

A prince of God

Added Genesis 23.

Yahweh will provide

Added Genesis 22.

Line upon line

Plodding very slowly. Added Genesis 18–21 today, although these chapters don’t have third–person annotation.

A change of strategy

I’m taking a break from working through chapter by chapter, and have switched to working comprehensively on KJV archaisms and basic formatting. I expect this to take quite some time. My goal in doing this is to be able to offer to subscribers a translation that is no worse than something more contemporary like the NKJV or the MGB, even while I work slowly to improve beyond that point. We’ll open to subscriptions once I have reached this point.

The first round of this work is to work through words alphabetically. I’m in the Bs just now. So far the most entertaining word has been beeves.

Happy new year!

Yahweh saves

I’ve changed all occurrences of God’s name in the Hebrew from Lord and God to Yahweh or Yah.

It’s true that the New Testament translates this as Lord; consider Matthew 3:3:

For this is he who was spoken of by the prophet Isaiah, saying:
“The voice of one crying in the wilderness:
‘Prepare the way of the Lord;
Make his paths straight.'”

However, Yahweh is actually the name he was known by in former times, so we will not obscure this.

Only now he has revealed himself to us as Jesus: Yahweh saves.

Red stuff

The Fuquay Bible will not have red–letter markings.

First, all scripture is given by inspiration of God, a work of the Holy Spirit. There are no less–inspired or less–profitable passages.

Second, there are a great many Old Testament passages that are spoken by the Son. For example, it is widely regarded that the angel of Yahweh is a theophany of the second person. How about a red–letter edition of Leviticus?

Now Yahweh called to Moses, and spoke to him from the tabernacle of meeting, saying, . . .

Finally, all of the word is not only Spirit–breathed but is also the speech of the Word himself. Hebrews 10 quotes Psalm 40 in an unusual and striking way:

Therefore, when He came into the world, He said:
“Sacrifice and offering You did not desire,
But a body You have prepared for Me.
In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin
You had no pleasure.
Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come—
In the volume of the book it is written of Me—
To do Your will, O God.’”

To produce a red–letter edition really is to print the entire Bible in red.

Second person

Genesis 16–17 added today.

By second person I mean the part of speech, rather than Jesus. But all of the words of Scripture are Jesus’s words, so there is a sense in which he is in the background here. And I cannot think of this double entendre without recalling that of Tolkien:

“That Second Voice, you know: he had me sent here; he said you had asked to see me. I owe it to you.”

“No. You owe it to the Second Voice,” said Niggle. “We both do.”

(J. R. R. Tolkien, “Leaf by Niggle,” The Tolkien Reader, 116)

One of the things I’m attempting to do here is to mark when the second person is singular and plural. If you look carefully, you should notice a single underline for singular occurrences, and a double underline for plural occurrences. Also if you hover you mouse over the text you will see “singular” or “plural” appear. A good example of this is Genesis 17:10:

This is my covenant, which you shall keep, between me and you and your seed after you: every male among you shall be circumcised.

Faces

The next set of chapters is progressing more slowly after encountering and working on H6440, which occurs over 2,100 times in the Old Testament. The KJV in most cases hides the sense of face from our faces, so to speak.

This emphasizes the theological and ritual symbolism of faces, and is a significant consideration for the church as she reflects on the events of 2020 and 2021. One book—Esther—takes pains to show how seeing and seeking the face of the king is crucial, and how hiding or having your face hidden from the king is both the cause and the result of the king’s judgment that you are forever banished from his own face. Ritually speaking, then, a ruler who masks his people is laying judgment and humiliation on them; and a worshipper who masks himself is hiding from his king.

In the beginning

Site created; Genesis 1–15.