Should “The Book” Be Panned?
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Footnotes
Endnotes
Elsewhere in this passage, The Book uses “the way to heaven” instead of “gospel” (Galatians 1:6, 11).
See, for example, the works of Rudolf Otto, Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer, C. H. Dodd and Hans Conzelmann.
The Book similarly alters the synoptic parallels to Mark 13:29–30. In The Book Matthew 24:34 becomes “Then at last this age will come to its close,” and Luke 21:32 becomes “I solemnly declare to you that when these things happen, the end of this age has come.”
Also, when “gentile” has similarly pejorative connotations, it is translated “heathen” in The Book (Matthew 5:47, 6:7).
In Romans 10:4, Paul also refers to Torah as that which leads to Christ: “For Christ is the end of the law, that every one who has faith may be justified” (RSV). The word “end” (telos) can stress either “goal” or “terminus” and is intriguingly ambiguous, but undoubtedly Paul (as we can tell from his extensive discussions) intends it to mean that Christ is the “goal of Torah.” The Book, however, removes the ambiguity and takes it to mean “termination”: “They don’t understand that Christ gives to those who trust him everything they are trying to get by keeping his laws. He ends all of that.”