\u00a0Psalm 139\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother\u2019s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
Psalm 139:16 is a key prooftext for the idea of Exhaustive Determinism taught in most Calvinist circles. The idea is that, from before time began, God ordained absolutely everything – every thought, word, and action – that would happen throughout time.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
R.C. Sproul famously wrote, \u201cIf there is one single molecule in this universe running around loose, totally free of God\u2019s sovereignty, then we have no guarantee that a single promise of God will ever be fulfilled.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n
This is nonsensical, of course, (literally!) but it’s hard to argue that Psalm 139:16 isn’t saying that God has predetermined our every action if all of our days are written in God’s book before we live any of them.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Well … that’s what the verse says in most English translations, anyway.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Just yesterday I learned that there has long been a controversy about how best to translate this particular verse.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
This leaves me wondering – In all the debates I have listened to between Calvinists and non-Calvinists over the last 3 years, how have I never heard the simple fact that most Hebrew scholars lean toward the alternate translation based on the grammar of the sentence?<\/p>\n\n\n
The JPS Hebrew-English TANAKH, for example, renders the verse this way:<\/p>\n\n\n
16:Your eyes saw my unformed limbs;<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
they were all recorded in your book;<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
in due time they were formed to the very last one of them.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
The original King James captured this same idea:<\/p>\n\n\n
Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n
What is being recorded in God’s book is the early unfolding of the embryo’s limbs and features, not all the days of life to come! That is a HUGE difference in meaning.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
Here’s another factoid worth knowing whenever this verse gets thrown around as an obvious prooftext for Calvinism: Want to take a guess as to who else recognized the validity of this alternate translation as being the unfolding of the embryo’s limbs?<\/p>\n\n\n
Yup, John Calvin.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0Psalm 139\u00a0 13 For you created my inmost being;you knit me together in my mother\u2019s womb.14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;your works are wonderful,I know that full well.15 My frame was not hidden from youwhen I was made in the secret place,when I was woven together in the depths of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9282","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9282","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9282"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9282\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9283,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9282\/revisions\/9283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9282"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9282"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9282"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}