{"id":3497,"date":"2015-08-24T11:06:28","date_gmt":"2015-08-24T09:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.contradictingbiblecontradictions.com\/?p=3497"},"modified":"2016-04-02T08:59:34","modified_gmt":"2016-04-02T06:59:34","slug":"how-many-were-in-the-kings-presence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.contradictingbiblecontradictions.com\/?p=3497","title":{"rendered":"How many were in the King\u2019s presence?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#B22222;\"><strong>Five men<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n\t<em>18 And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the door: 19 And out of the city he took an officer that was set over the men of war, <\/em><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><em>and five men of them that were in the king&#39;s presence<\/em><\/span><em>, which were found in the city, and the principal scribe of the host, which mustered the people of the land, and threescore men of the people of the land that were found in the city.<\/em><br \/>\n\t2 Kings 25:18-19&nbsp; KJV<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#B22222;\"><strong>Seven Men<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n\t<em>24 And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the door: 25 He took also out of the city an eunuch, which had the charge of the men of war<\/em><em>; <span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">and seven men of them that were near the king&#39;s person<\/span><\/em><em>, which were found in the city; and the principal scribe of the host, who mustered the people of the land; and threescore men of the people of the land, that were found in the midst of the city.<\/em><br \/>\n\tJeremiah 52:24-25&nbsp; KJV<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/skepticsannotatedbible.com\/contra\/with_king.html\"><span style=\"color:#008000;\"><strong>SAB Contradiction&nbsp; 483<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>The fatal <\/strong><strong>&lsquo;<\/strong><strong>And<\/strong><strong>&rsquo;<\/strong><br \/>\n\tThe Septuagint translators (200 BC) primarily used the meaning <em>and<\/em> with sometimes disastrous consequences and the Christians in their translations depended heavily on the Septuagint.<br \/>\n\tThe Hebrew word for <em>And, and <\/em>is the small copula <em>w<\/em> (pronounced wu as in wump). As with many small words it has a variety of connected meanings like: <em>and, also, together (with), with, (and) that is, or<\/em>. They are all in the vocabularies (e.g. Koehler Baumgartner &ndash; 1953). In short, the Hebrew word for <em>And <\/em>is an elastic word with many possibilities of meaning and a correct translation is to be deduced from the context, which implies that all features of that context are involved (Tout se tient.). Otherwise the result will be a flat and empty translation or even a false translation.<br \/>\n\tAdd to this the fact that there are no punctuation marks in the classic Hebrew texts (only a colon at the ending of a sentence). Knowing this let&rsquo;s get down to business.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Better translation and meaning of the five men<\/strong><br \/>\n\t<em>18 And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest; and the three keepers of the door, 19 and out of the city he took an officer that was set over the men of war<\/em>&mdash;<em><span style=\"color:#B22222;\">also<\/span><span style=\"color:#FF0000;\"> <\/span><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">five men of <\/span><span style=\"color:#B22222;\">those<\/span><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"> that were in the king&#39;s presence<\/span>, which were found in the city, <span style=\"color:#B22222;\">including<\/span> the principal scribe of the host, which mustered the people of the land<\/em>&mdash;<em>and threescore men of the people of the land that were found in the city.<\/em><br \/>\n\t2 Kings 25:18-19<\/p>\n<p>\t<em>Meaning<\/em>. Two names of important men are given: Seraiah and Zephaniah. They were the first and second priests in function. Then follow five unnamed but important men (3 doorkeepers, 1 general, 1 head of scribes) who were <span style=\"color:#B22222;\">also<\/span> direct advisors of the King. Finally sixty men at random were taken out of the city.<\/p>\n<p>1. Translation changes <span style=\"color:#B22222;\">in red<\/span>.<br \/>\n\t2. A parenthetical clause, logical in the meaning of the section as the officer over the men of war and his pricipal scribe<em> are seperated<\/em> by the clause of the counting of five.<br \/>\n\t3. <span style=\"color:#B22222;\">Also <\/span><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">five men<\/span><span style=\"color:#B22222;\"> <\/span>implies an addition of 5 men to the two main priests who were acquaintances of the king. So in total 7 individuals in the king&#39;s presence are at stake.<br \/>\n\t4. The construction seems complicated but not if one take it as a result of documentation style.<\/p>\n<p>In this translation it is mentioned that apart from the head priests Seraiah and Zephaniah <em>there were taken also five other important individuals<\/em> from the narrow circle of the King to be killed by the Chaldeans after the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC, together with sixty citizens of the city.&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Better translation and meaning of the seven men<\/strong><br \/>\n\t<em>24 And the captain of the guard took Seraiah the chief priest, and Zephaniah the second priest, and the three keepers of the door, 25 He took also out of the city an eunuch, which had the charge of the men of war<\/em>&mdash;<em><span style=\"color:#B22222;\">that is<\/span><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"> seven men of <\/span><span style=\"color:#B22222;\">those<\/span><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"> that were near the king&#39;s person<\/span>, which were found in the city; <span style=\"color:#B22222;\">including<\/span> the principal scribe of the host, who mustered the people of the land<\/em>&mdash;<em>and threescore men of the people of the land, that were found in the midst of the city.<\/em><br \/>\n\tJeremiah 52:24-25&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\t<em>Meaning.<\/em> Compared with the former example. Jeremiah probably used the former account of the occasion as used in 2 Kings and thought it easier to read <em>seven men.<\/em> He knew very well that Seraiah and Zephaniah also belonged to the circle of the King&rsquo;s confidants as well as the other five unnamed individuals.<\/p>\n<p>1. Translation changes <span style=\"color:#B22222;\">in red<\/span>.<br \/>\n\t2. A parenthetical clause (see above), also logical in the meaning of the section.<br \/>\n\t3. Apparently Jeremiah changed <span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">5<\/span> into <span style=\"color:#0000FF;\">7 <\/span>to make it easier to read.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conclusion<\/strong><br \/>\n\tTrue, the usual translations taken together may support the feeling that something is wrong in these texts. People believing in the truth of the Bible often have no direct answers in case of biblical discrepancies and Christian scholars not infrequently tend to fudge or even deny them instead of addressing them. Which is a pity. Anyway, in this case, concerning the Hebrew text we may frankly state:<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color:#0000FF;\"><strong>No Bible Contradiction<\/strong><\/span><br \/>\n\t&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>Additional<\/strong><br \/>\n\t1. All the <em>substantives<\/em> and <em>verbs<\/em> in the two discussed texts are exactly the same in Hebrew. Take note of the unnecessary differences in the KJV translations of these texts and also in many other translations. The only significant issue is the difference between <em>five<\/em> and <em>seven<\/em> in them. (There are a few minor details not contributing to a different meaning of the texts.)<br \/>\n\t2. For another <em>and<\/em>-problem see the article: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.contradictingbiblecontradictions.com\/?p=39\">Did Jephtah sacrifice his own daughter?<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Septuagint translators (200 BC) primarily used the meaning and with sometimes disastrous consequences and the Christians in their translations depended heavily on the Septuagint. <!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,39,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2-kings","category-jeremiah","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contradictingbiblecontradictions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contradictingbiblecontradictions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contradictingbiblecontradictions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contradictingbiblecontradictions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contradictingbiblecontradictions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3497"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.contradictingbiblecontradictions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3865,"href":"https:\/\/www.contradictingbiblecontradictions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3497\/revisions\/3865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.contradictingbiblecontradictions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contradictingbiblecontradictions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.contradictingbiblecontradictions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}