I have been teaching a Sunday School class for 10th, 11th, and 12th grade students. We have spent the past few weeks studying the prophets. This week we where in the book of Zechariah, specifically Zechariah 4:6. “He said to me, "This is the word of the LORD to Zerubbabel: Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the LORD of hosts” (NRSV). Like many other churches our classroom set of bibles is a bit thread bare, made up of a hog-pog of different translations. During class, much to our surprise we discovered that the Good News Bible has omitted verses 6 through 10a of chapter 4. We all found this very surprising and we wondered why it had been omitted.
How do you feel about the omission of certain text from the Bible? Are there times when this might be an appropriate action to take? How do you feel about Bibles that only include the New Testament and the Psalms?
My edition of Good News Bible with Apocrypha (1978)has a footnote on pg 1029 explaining the reason for a rearrangement of the text to "improve narrative flow." Verses 4:10b-14 are inserted between 4:5 and 4:6, but all the lines are there. My Harper Collins Study Bible (NRSV) does not make the rearrangement.
ReplyDeletePastor Hal