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Mark,
The literal translation is, in fact, hate, but we must also understand
that Jesus was a Jew speaking to
Jews. He taught in much the same
way other Jewish Rabbi's taught and
spoke.
This culture was prone to hyperbole.
For example, Jesus said if you have
faith as small as a mustard seed,
you can speak to this mountain and
tell it to be thrown into the sea
and it will be done for you. (Matthew 17:20, Luke 17:6)
The point is that some translations
are more literal, while others attempt
to convey the dynamic meaning of
the text rather than a word—for—word translation. Jesus would never command
anyone to hate anyone else, let alone
break one of the commandments and
hate one's own parents. He is making
a point to a generation of Jews and
Pagans who would run into persecution
by their own families for becoming
Christians. Therefore one must love
Him more than ones own:
- family
- tradition
- culture, and
- nation.
Now to your question regarding certain
Old Testament Books which the Protestants
dropped from the Bible. Simply put,
Martin Luther, did not like what
some of those books taught, so he
needed a pretext to eliminate them.
That said, he dropped an entire group
called the Deuterocanonical books
(the Apocrypha, by Protestant
nomenclature). He chose the pretext
that the Jews in 90 A.D. rejected them.
This position is not solid.
- For one thing, by 90 A.D. the Jews
no longer had the authority to
discern the Bible.
- Secondly, the Jews also rejected
the New Testament books at the
same council of Jamnia in 90 A.D.
- Thirdly, the Jews rejected these
books for political reasons and
not theological ones.
To this day, Jews still pray for
the dead and believe the dead can
pray for them. These are the two
doctrines Luther was trying to eliminate.
These books were accepted by the
Church at the end of the fourth century
at the same councils that formally
defined the New Testament books.
- If the Catholic Church was wrong
about the Old Testament, then
what guarantee do we have that
the New Testament is trust worthy?
So the Protestants are left with
some philosophical problems to deal
with to defend their position. Most
of them aren't really aware of these
facts. Many seem to think that the
Church added these books at the Council
of Trent in the 1500s. This
is not the case. It is true,
that this Council dogmatically declared
which books belonged and which ones
did not, but it was simply reiterating
the same list given over a
thousand years before.
In fact, if you were to read Augustine's
writings, he runs down
the same exact list in the year
385 A.D.
The only reason Trent reiterated
the list was because the Protestants
were challenging them on this issue.
I hope this answers your questions.
Under His Mercy,
John DiMascio
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