JOHN 6:4 ... Yet Another BAD Bible Translation from the HEBREW ROOTS Camp ... via Michael ROOD

MICHAEL ROOD: Another Bad Bible-Maker

~ Or ~ How long, O LORD, Holy and True... must we endure unscrupulous hands on HOLY SCRIPTURE ?

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Michael John Rood, yet another Hebrew Roots "Messianic" leader, has re-written Scriptures to his own tune, sadly enough.

He is the author of the 2013 edition of The Chronological Gospels; The Acceptable Year of The LORD. Containing the standard four Gospels, it adds in Revelation as the fifth Gospel book.  It also includes the book of Acts.

The title page informs the reader it records The Life and Seventy Week Ministry of the Messiah  and "The Annotated Gospels Reconstructed in Chronological Order".

Well, that is certainly honest enough, "reconstructed" being the key word here, the main characteristic of Mr. Rood's Gospel book. 

He plies together from all six books the events of the Life of The LORD JESUS, similar to the parallel Gospel books. He presents the reader with a partial New Testament, instilling his time references and charts at will throughout the pages.   

Mr. Rood does not tell readers what TEXT he uses. Rather, he calls his translation the CORRECTED King James Version. Here is one of his corrections, John 1:14, page 33:

The Word became Flesh

and tabernacled among us.

We witnessed His+ judgment

as the judgment

of the only begotten of the Father,

full of grace and truth.

There is no problem with "tabernacled." The Greek text attests to that with eskhnwsen. 

But judgment ? What text has that in it ? Even Nestle-Aland's 26th edition has no variants for John 1:14 ! And GLORY doxan  is definitely in there, twice.  [* See note at end of article.]

A "corrected" KJV is handy. Mr. Rood then has the leeway to rearrange phrases and verse locations to suit his reconstructed time frame, which he readily admits. See his own note, page 43, in his partial New Testament "Order of verses are altered to insert Zecharyah's prophecy chronologically." 

Time frame ?

Yes, Mr. Rood reconstructs the standard Hebrew calendar.  Then, he reconstructs the time frame of events in the New Testament based on his corrected version of the Hebrew calendar. Thus , he overlays upon the Gospels, Revelation, and Acts  his own re-constructed chronology.

Basically, he hones the activities of The LORD JESUS CHRIST into taking place during a 70-week time of earthly ministry, starting with HIS+ Baptism and progressing to the out-pouring of the HOLY SPIRIT on Pentecost after His+ Resurrection.

Which brings us to another problem: John 6:4 does not fit into his reconstructed time frame. It does not fit because it contributes to the three Passovers which are recorded during the LORD'S earthly ministry.

The solution

To resolve this discrepancy of inconvenient fact, Mr. Rood removes that verse from his Corrected KJV and casts aspersions on it.  Mr. Rood calls John 6:4 an "inserted" verse in the "later" Greek texts. Yet, it is also found in the Peshitta and Aramaic texts. 

And the Passover,

a feast of the Jews, was nigh.

John 6:4

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Arbitrarily, Mr. Rood of  A Rood Awakening  ministry, has decided that this verse hindered his perspective , his time-line theory, and his theology… so it must be spurious. 

Thus, Mr. Rood conjured up a mis-placed passion to convince others that John 6:4 was "inserted into later copies of the Greek text in order to artificially lengthen the ministry of Yeshua," page 4, introduction.

The Charge of "Insertion of Error" by including John 6:4 in the Texts  

( See manuscript details

at the end of this article.)

Manuscript documentation is at the end of this article, but let it be known that John 6:4 is indeed part of the ancient text in BOTH the Alexandrian  and Byzantine manuscripts, with only a very few ( 2 ? ) late-dated exceptions.

And the Passover,

a feast of the Jews,

was nigh.

John 6:4

Yes, Mr. Rood, we need John 6:4 and we need it in there at that place where it is recorded for better reasons than you have for tossing it out of Scripture.

Number one, it lists that the Passover was near when The LORD JESUS CHRIST went over the Sea of Galilee.  It sets the time frame of The LORD'S ministry to include three Passovers.

And those 3 Passovers become a huge problem for Mr. Rood's Chronological Bible. It is difficult to fit three Passovers into a 70-week ministry. 

But secondly, John 6:4 reveals a deeper truth about the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 men recorded in Chapter 6. 

Passover was "drawing near." All leaven was to be removed from the home and diet. The barley loaves, Scriptures says, were just barley loaves that the young boy offered to The LORD.   

Scripture does not state if they were leavened or unleavened. Seeing that it was the Passover season, the boy may have been carrying only dried unleavened bread and dried fish.

How did The LORD "make" the bread to feed the multitude? We know Philip did not know from where the bread was to come, even after observing all the miracles and signs that The LORD had just done. 

Who is it that gave them the 

true Bread from Heaven ?

The later part of John 6 tells us.

Thus, during this Passover season, the LORD HIMSELF+ produced the Passover Bread ... as HE+ always does ... to feed the multitude who came to HIM+.  It could not have been anything else but unleavened Passover Bread !

We see HIM+ doing the same kind of miracle which announced Who+ HE+ was  in John 2, at the wedding in Cana.  When the wedding party was lacking wine, HE+ was called upon to help.

HE+ changed the water of purification into wine, responding to His+ birth-mother, "Woman, what have I+ to do with thee ? My+ hour is not yet come." 

In both of these instances, The LORD JESUS CHRIST was showing the people, so lost, WHO+ was among them ... if they had eyes to see. 

This was THE  most important SIGN of all the signs HE+ gave to that multitude , the Sign which pointed to Himself+ as being their Bread of Life  , to which HE+ was referring in John 6:26.  

Notice how HE+ reprimanded those who missed the significance of that Sign, the miraculous Passover Bread which fed the multitude.

JESUS  answered them and said,

Verily, verily, I+ say unto you,

Ye seek ME+,

not because ye saw the miracles

( semeia = signs)

but because ye did eat of

the loaves, and were filled.

Labor not for the meat

( Brwsin  = food )

 which perisheth,

but for that meat

which endureth unto Everlasting Life,

which the SON+ of Man shall give

unto you:

for HIM+ hath

GOD The FATHER sealed.

John 6:26-27

Thus we see that the verse,  John 6:4 --- And the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was nigh ---  is CRUCIAL to understand the most important SIGN that The LORD  JESUS CHRIST  was giving to the multitude that day. The SIGN was of HIMSELF+ being the Passover Bread of Life, the Bread which alone could give Life unto the world.  

This was WHY 

the miraculous feeding of the 5,000 

occurred 

during the Passover season.

Those translators and textual critics who work against the Deity of The LORD JESUS CHRIST are often "used" to remove texts which point to His+ Divinity.

The question is: 

Who, then, is "using"

those translators ?

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END-NOTES

*W.E. Vine's Complete Expository Dictionary (1996) , p. 267, states this for doxa, a noun: "glory" (from dokew  "to seem" ) , primarily signifies an opinion, estimate, and hence, the honor resulting from a good opinion.  ~ This seems to be the meaning Mr. Rood chooses to apply instead of GLORY, changing it into "judgment."

Why  does he do this? 

In ALL THE NEW TESTAMENT,  doxa, and its derivatives , is NEVER, EVER translated as “judgment.”  There are a handful of Greek words that are ALWAYS used in a judgmental sense, but  doxa  never is. See Vine, p.61, Topical Index Appendix, same volume.  

   

“Insertion of Error” Documentation for the Inclusion of John 6:4 in the Texts. Details

Herman C. Hoskier does not include any review of John 6:4 in his meticulous scholarly study of the Vaticanus ~ Codex B 03 and the Sinaiticus ~  Codex Aleph 01. That fact means there was NO QUESTION regarding the authenticity of that verse in those two ancient codices.

DEAN John William Burgon, in his famous The Revision Revised, p. 353 , points out:

" Another specimen of conjectural extravagance occurs at S. John 6:4 where Dr. Hort labors to throw suspicion on "the passover" ( to pasca ) in defiance of every known Manuscript, --- every known Version, --- and every Father who quotes or recognizes the place." DEAN Burgon lists 12 Early Christians who either quote or recognize the verse in footnote 1 on that page.

Evidence for the Authenticity of John 6:4 from  Manuscripts and Apparatus

Mr. Rood states on page 135,

Chronological Bible,2013,  

this statement:

“ Note 12  Critical:  All  of the words found in John 6:4 were added after the third century and are absent from the ancient Greek MSS 472 & 850.”

Mr. Rood gives an explanatory note saying John 6:4 was added “to deceptively lengthen Yeshua’s ministry so as to justify Eusebius’ ludicrous interpretation of Daniel’s ‘seventy sevens’ prophecy.”  

However, Mr. Rood failed to look at manuscript 850 very carefully.  MS 850, a minuscule, is a 12^th century manuscript which ONLY HAS JOHN 7:25 through John 10:18 .  There is NOTHING at all FROM JOHN, CHAPTER 6  in manuscript 850 !

Manuscript 472  is a 13^th century manuscript and is only one of two manuscript witnesses which omit verse 6:4,  OUT OF THE HUNDREDS that are extant.

  

Here is the rest of the manuscript evidence FOR JOHN 6:4.

Nestle-Aland 26th edition has the entire verse printed but marked as omitted by minuscule 472 and pc ... a few others. Min. 472 is a 12th or 13th century manuscript , rather rudely done and ill-preserved, according to information found at Wikipedia: According to Scrivener it was "shamefully ill written, torn and much mutilated", but it has "valuable readings by far the most important at Lambeth.^[3] Scrivener, Frederick Henry Ambrose; Edward Miller (1894). A Plain Introduction to the Criticism of the New Testament. 1 (4 ed.). London: George Bell & Sons. p. 249.

Oddly, NA26 edition does not bother to list ALL uncials, minuscules, and other manuscripts ( Early Christian apologists, versions, etc., )  which include this verse. Why ? Because the list would be too long for the apparatus !

Nestle-Aland 27th edition also has the verse in the text but drops the minuscule 472 in the apparatus and adds min. 1634 ... a 14th century manuscript... which has omitted John 6:4, according to Tim Hegg

, Should John 6:4 Be Considered a Spurious Insertion into John’s Gospel?, https://www.torahresource.com/articles/   

Now, we come to the Nestle-Aland 28th edition which prints that verse in its Greek text and we find there are no variants listed at all in the apparatus, according to Hegg, the same article, above.   

That is because the few manuscripts omitting John 6:4 are of minor value, of late date, and are over-ridden by the vast amount of other, weightier, and far earlier manuscripts which ALL INCLUDE that verse.

Now, let's check Kurt Aland's Institute for New Testament Research (INTF) in Munster, Germany.  Here we find some interesting information.

The INTF lists 25 Papyri with John's Gospel or parts thereof which have NO MENTION OF JOHN 6:4. They are early and some of them were found in the Oxyrhynchus collection.

But let the researcher be on guard with INTF:  Most likely, it is a computer-generated program which simply identifies which Papyri contain or does not contain the John 6:4 verse in the search. It does NOT tell which Papyri may or may not include the entire CHAPTER 6 of John or that passage.

Only one out of those 25 Papyri has chapter 6 of John in it; most are quite fragmentary, containing only a few verses.  P-28 does have a few verses from John 6, but they start at verse 8 , which is no help to us here.

Thus none of these 25 Papyri can count as having "omitted John 6:4"  because NONE of John's chapter 6 can be found on these Papyrus fragments. 

(The INTF listed five newer-identified fragments with some verses from John on them, but no information was available for exactly which verses were included in P-119, 120,121,122,128 )

The INTF, in its thorough way, listed Uncial 04 C Ephraemi Syriac as omitting John 6:4, but that Uncial does not contain John 5:17 to 6:38… so the entire passage is missing, not just the verse, according to information on Codex C (04) at:

 http://www.skypoint.com/members/waltzmn/ManuscriptsUncials.html#uC

[ INTF also listed minuscule 1241 as omitting John 6:4, but I cannot locate this manuscript online to verify this information. It seems this must be a mis-print because ms 1241 would have been listed in the three editions of the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testaments previously if the verse had been omitted in this minuscule.]

John 6:4 was present in P 66, P 75, 01, 02, 03, 05, 18, 33. Oddly enough, the INTF must favor the Alexandrian texts because John 6:4 is also present in the Byzantine texts, only they were not listed as witnesses. 

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A note about Michael Rood

Mr. Rood is the main personage in  a Hebrew Roots ministry called "A ROOD Awakening." 

His ministry is on-line as a website and YouTube channel and is broadcast on television as well. 

He has been hosted on a number of well-known Christian talk shows. Mr. Rood's ministry is seemingly very popular and internationally-based and appears to be quite lucrative.

He makes some statements which are prophetic ( ? ) about the end of the world coming in various past years, but which obviously did not happen. 

The Internet is replete with articles about Mr. Rood's past involvement with a variety of ministries, including The Way International ( as a leader in that movement.)

Here are a few short excerpts from his current newsletter, on-line at his website, 9.21.2017.  

SPECIAL UPDATE FROM ISRAEL: Michael Rood talks about “the great sign in the heavens”

The following is a transcript of a video Michael Rood recorded on the morning of September 21 [ 2017 ] from Jerusalem, Israel:

... Well, we are saying and would see is the rider on the white horse is Trump as a messianic figure, and he really is a messianic figure because he is bringing such division to America, and righteous division. He is speaking the truth as I have been saying for twenty years, if you think CNN and the news is telling you the truth and any more than propaganda, then you are deluded....

 So what we are going to see is Trump going forth in righteousness to conquering and to conquer. And this is exactly what the United States did when they entered into the war against Germany.... 

... And here we are seeing the rider on the white horse going forth conquering the conqueror. And what we should see is the United States, in order to bring safety and security to the earth, going forth conquering the conqueror....

... So the response to that would be something that is going to cause even more division in America. And as I say, Trump is a messianic figure because Yeshua said, “Do not think for one moment that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not. I came to bring a sword of division. I came to separate mother from father, from children, from siblings. A man’s enemies will be they of his own household.”

 ... And this is what we are seeing in America today. ...

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Let the hearer 

beware. 

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And JESUS answered 

and said unto them, 

Take heed that 

no man deceive you.

For many shall come

 in My+ Name, 

saying, 

I am CHRIST; 

and shall deceive many.

Matthew 24:4-5