Thread: Dwight Prior on Mathew 9

Intro - for those not familiar with the Hebrew Roots movement they expound the Hebrew words found/recovered from the New Testament Greek.

I was listening to Dwight Prior speaking in session 10 of Jesus our Jewish Messiah. Anyway he was expounding Mathew 9 and the “forgiveness” which is divine in origin rather than human. The Hebrew word is “salach” which apparently only is used in the OT of divine forgiveness, other words being used for men forgiving men.

This reinforces the impression that Jesus was asserting Himself as divine. There is nothing inherently wrong with this teaching. I am however concerned to verify that it is a correct exposition of Mathew 9.

Looking more closely at the text of Mathew 9 the actual word used is aphiemi (Strongs No. 689). This same Greek word (Strongs No. 689) is used in the Lord’s Prayer Mathew 18 v27 to describe our forgiving others. It is also used again in the rich man forgiving (Strongs No. 689) the debts of the steward in Mathew 18.

The Greek, as I understand it, does not support this teaching. Indeed assuming the use of the Septuagint to translate back into the “original Hebrew” we would need to examine which word is used.

The Old Testament uses the word salach (Strongs No. H5545) to mean the divine forgiveness exemplified in Leviticus 4:20. The Septuagint does indeed translate this as aphiemi (Strongs No. 689) but as already discussed the NT uses this Greek word indiscriminately for human and divine forgiveness. This totally undermines the exposition assuming the Septuagint is the “key” to discovering the “original Hebrew”.

Has anyone else analysed the Hermeneutics of Dwight Prior? He is doing a good job of explaining the divinity of Jesus but I feel his hermeneutics are wrong. If your hermeneutics are wrong how long until you start expounding heresy?

Am I wrong to be so critical or am I missing something in Dwights use of the NT?

Just from reading your post, I think you made a pretty good, fairly patient analysis, trying to let the facts speak (but SFAIK, aphiemi is Str#G863). There is no way of knowing if Jesus used one Hebrew word or another (assuming he was speaking Hebrew--but what about the fact that Aramaic was the patois of the day?).

The fact is that nearly every instance of forgiveness and pardon spoken of in the OT is Divine--so, there's little comparative to go on. However, Gen.50:17 has a request that Joseph forgive his brothers, and guess what? In the LXX, this word is aphiemi. So, all the way around this is poor exegesis and reasoning.


I know this has been said before, but there's a lot of good Bible-teaching out there. I hope you are not taking too much time on the subject of this brand of interpreter, and missing the feast.

Originally Posted by Contra_Mundum

I know this has been said before, but there's a lot of good Bible-teaching out there. I hope you are not taking too much time on the subject of this brand of interpreter, and missing the feast.

I am more concerned about my brother who cannot see any cause for anxiety in a "retored Hebrew text" for the New Testament. The concept of a "textus recepticus" seems totally foreign and irrelevant.

For myself I am currently reading Jonathan Edwards. I am also listening to a PRTS series on the English Puritans. I am torn between note taking and just listening. Likewise with Jonathan Edwards, do I keep taking notes with page numbers or just read for pleasure?

So rest easy Contra_Mundum, I am not spending all my time crushing rock for a few flakes of gold!

I myself am very wary of supposed "restored Hebrew" or underlying Hebrew meanings of things in the NT.

Usually these consist of "suppositions" that mysteriously turn into facts that become the basis for a theology.

In my opinion, the best way to see meaning in the NT Greek is to study the Greek, and let it do the work, and to not forget culture or history but to keep away from "this may have been" or "that may have been" sorts of things.

just my 2cents.

I am following this up as it appears to address the problem of taking the greek text and doing a "straight" translation to Hebrew. It was referred to as a good treatise of the problems inherent in backwards translation by DA Carson (Exegetical Fallacies).