Grace (Chesed) and Truth (Emet)

Some years ago Frank Selch pointed out a significant error in John (Yochanan) 1:17 where the KJV has “For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.”, with an implication that somehow the ‘law of Moses’, i.e. Torah is not ‘grace and truth’!

This false doctrine is extremely common, and almost universal within Christendom. You may have noted that the KJV has ‘but’ in italics, meaning it was not there in the Greek texts used (mostly 15^th century versions) by the KJV translators.

But the Greek conjunction (or connective particle) ‘δέ’ (transliteration is ‘deh’ meaning ‘but’, or ‘and’, or ‘now’  - Strongs 1161) was there in Papyri 66 (P66 - circa 200 CE), the earliest extant Greek version of Yochanan 1:16-17. Intriguingly though, it was ERASED from all future Greek mss, starting with the Codex Sinaiticus (circa 350 CE).

What is clear though from the construction of the text in P66, and from the Torah compliant mindset and understanding of the author Yochanan, is that the ‘deh’ should be translated as ‘and’ not ‘but’.

Uriel Ben Morchai explained all this in his weekly online class last week and gave this translation directly from P66:

16 ...and thus, extending out its [the Torah’s] fullness, we [AM Israel] have all received Chesed on top of Chesed.

17...in other words, the Torah by way of Moshe, had granted [i.e. had given, committed or gifted] the Chesed and the Emet, AND by way of Yeshua Ha'Mashiach coming into existence [the same was granted].

* Words in [] are an amplification, as this is a ‘dynamic equivalence’ translation.

What a world of difference! After all, the Torah itself is truth! Mizmor (Ps) 119:142: “Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and your Torah is the truth.”

Also when we properly understand ‘chesed’/grace, we will also recognize that any suggestion that Torah is not ‘chesed’ is also totally false! See my article ‘Amazing Grace’ at circumcisedheart.info for details on this - http://goo.gl/JFPxsM

The Messiah (Mashiach) is the goal of Torah, so verse 17 is stating that the coming of Mashiach added to Torah’s grace and truth but expanding and, in a sense, completing it – see my article ‘The Goal of Messiah at http://goo.gl/gv4AXz for more on this thought.

I strongly recommend you consider joining Uriel’s weekly class – go to http://www.ntcf.org/register.html