Rev 2:20 - "the adultery of eating food"

From: Jonathan Robie (jwrobie@mindspring.com)
Date: Mon Sep 29 1997 - 08:44:22 EDT


The title got your attention, didn't it?

I am now teaching a series on the Revelation in adult Sunday School at
Durham Mennonite Church. Yesterday we were working through the second half
of chapter 2, and I noticed that the New Jerusalem Bible translates Rev 2:20 as:

Rev 2:20 (NJB) Nevertheless, I have a complaint to make: you tolerate the
woman Jezebel who claims to be a prophetess, and by her teaching she is
luring my servants away to commit the adultery of eating food which has been
sacrificed to idols.

"the adultery of eating food which has been sacrificed to idols"? This
caught me off guard, and a glance at the Greek didn't help:

Rev 2:20 ALLA ECO KATA SOU hOTI AFEIS THN GUNAIKA IEZABEL, hH LEGOUSA
hEAUTHN PROFHTIN KAI DIDASKEI KAI PLANA TOUS EMOUS DOULOUS PORNEUSAI KAI
FAGEIN EIDWLOQUTA.

As I read the Greek, it seems to say something more like "luring my servants
away to commit adultery and eat food which has been offered to idols". I
suspect that I may be missing something. I haven't used it a lot, but my
impression is that the New Jerusalem Bible is a pretty good translation, and
there must be something in the Greek which led them to that translation.

Am I missing something in the Greek? Are they following a text variant not
found in UBS 3rd? What's the scoop here?

Jonathan

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Jonathan Robie jwrobie@mindspring.com http://www.mindspring.com/~jwrobie
POET Software, 3207 Gibson Road, Durham, N.C., 27703 http://www.poet.com
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