How Jesus's Meaning is Lost: 4 Context

This article dissects the concept of context and then demonstrates how that context changes the way that words are heard and understood. The word “context” has many meanings when we are talking about understanding Jesus’s words. Context is narrowly defined as what is said before and after a statement. This is the immediate context that is most influential over meaning. Context can be more broadly seen as the current situation in which one is speaking: who he is talking to and the general issues being discussed.

A broader context is an understanding of Jesus’s teaching taken from other times that he said related things. The broadest context is connecting what Jesus said to statements elsewhere in the Bible, which is the foundation of his teaching. The broader the context, however, the less reliable it is. This is because it depends heavily on our selecting what in that broad context is most relevant and interpreting it correctly.

The Wrong Context

Biblical translation, however, is heavily influenced by an even broader context: popular Christian teaching. This was true in the first translation of the Bible to Latin and it is still true today. Translations like the Living Bible paraphrase Jesus’s words to fit more easily into what is taught by Christian preachers.

There have been many great religious teachers over the last two thousand years, but Jesus’s listeners were influenced simply by his words. It was his words and the context of his story that were preserved. These were was exciting enough to start a new religion. His story exists to provide a context for his sayings. This is what the apostles taught. Paul learned about Jesus from those who remembered his words. This is not to say that his words didn’t confuse people over and over again. Even during Jesus’s life, his apostles were often confused by what he said. But the fact that his words were confusing was part of what made them interesting enough to repeat and pass on.

Jesus’s message was and is difficult. This may be because his ideas cannot be express more simply. When they are simplified, key elements of his teaching may be lost. Perhaps, Jesus’s words can only be properly appreciated if they are partly a riddle, a riddle that is not completely explained by Christian teaching.

And Instructive Example

The simplest and most important form of context is the immediate statements, what Jesus says before and after. Jesus uses many words with a wide range of meaning. This enables his word play, but it also allows him to use the same words over and over, bringing out different shades of meaning hidden within them. Those different shades of meaning are most often exposed by changing a phrase’s context. What is before is the “set-up” for a phrase. What comes after can be the “punchline.”

We will look at a series of versions where the meaning of its key words is influenced by the verses before. We start with Luke 13:30.

KJV: And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last.

The “trick” words here are “first” and “last.” Both have a lot more dimensions than our English words. Jesus uses the same two Greek words in eight other verses. In these verses, this phrases meaning subtly shifts with context.

The Greek word translated as “first’ is protos. In place, this means "before," “previous,” "in front," “outermost,” and, as a noun, “the most extreme,” "the foremost." Of time, it means "former," "earlier," and, as a noun, "the initial." In order, it means "the first." In math, it means the prime numbers. Of rank or degree, it means "superior" or, as a noun, "the highest" or "the best."

The word translated as “last” is almost as complicated. It is eschatos. In space, this means "furthest." In degree, it means "uttermost" and "highest." In persons, it means "lowest" and "meanest." Of time, it means "last" and "ending." The verb form means “to be at the edge.”

Notice how the “first” and “last” can converge. Both can mean “highest” or "the most extreme” and “uttermost.”

Different Dimensions

In Luke 13:30 above, the previous verse (Luke 13:29) is about people coming from the four directions into the realm of the Divine. This makes the context “physical place.” Those who come must arrive at different times and form a line to get it, the first up front and the last behind:

KJV: And, behold, there are last which shall be first, and there are first which shall be last.
Listeners Heard: And, look there! They are last? Those ones will be first! And they are first? Those ones will be last. 

Though the two versions translate the key words the same, Jesus’s listeners heard a more playful phrasing of it. He points to this reversal of first and last, like a magic trick, “see there!. In English we say this with the French word, “voila!”

A similar verse, Mark 10:31, has a different context. The previous verse (Mark 10:30) is about his followers giving up everything, including their families, and Jesus promising them a hundred times more in perpetual life. Jesus is promising to lift them up in the higher realm.

KJV: But many that are first shall be last; and the last first.
Listeners Heard: But many highest shall be lowest; and the ones lowest? Highest!

This context of Mark 9:35, is Mark 9:33 where the context is apostles arguing about who is superior. So the context is now what it means to be superior in

KJV: If any man desire to be first, [the same] shall be last of all, and servant of all.
Listeners Heard: If anyone wants to be superior, he will be inferior to all and a servant of all.

Jesus uses the same words expressing similar ideas in these three different contexts. One advantage in Jesus using the same words in these three different contexts is that it allows us to get a better fix on the concept.