Lucas Banzoli<\/a> is a very active Brazilian anti-Catholic polemicist, who holds to basically a Seventh-Day Adventist theology, whereby there is no such thing as a soul that consciously exists outside of a body, and no hell (soul sleep and annihilationism). This leads him to a Christology which is deficient and heterodox in terms of Christ\u2019s human nature after His death.\u00a0He has a Master\u2019s degree in theology, a degree and postgraduate work in history, a license in letters, and is a history teacher, author of 27 self-published books, as well as blogmaster (active on and off) for six blogs. He\u00a0has many videos on YouTube<\/a>.<\/p>\n This is my\u00a059th refutation<\/a>\u00a0of Banzoli\u2019s writings. For almost half a year (5-25-22 to 11-12-22) he didn\u2019t write\u00a0one single<\/em>\u00a0word<\/em>\u00a0in reply, because my articles were deemed to be\u00a0\u201cwithout exception poor, superficial and weak . . .\u00a0only a severely cognitively impaired person would be inclined to take\u201d<\/span>\u00a0them\u00a0\u201cseriously.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>Despite this childish rationalizing, he found my refutations so\u00a0\u201centertaining\u201d<\/span>\u00a0that he bravely decided to\u00a0\u201cmake a point of rebutting\u201d<\/span>\u00a0them\u00a0\u201cone by one\u201d<\/span>;\u00a0this effort being his\u00a0\u201cnew favorite sport.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n He has now replied to me\u00a015 times<\/em>\u00a0(the last one\u00a0dated 2-9-23<\/a>). I disposed of the main themes of his slanderous insults in several Facebook posts under his name on my\u00a0Anti-Catholicism page<\/a>. I plan (by God\u2019s grace) to ignore the insults henceforth, and heartily thank him for these innumerable blessings and extra rewards in heaven (Matthew 5:11-12).<\/p>\n Google Translate is utilized to render Lucas\u2019 Portugese into English. Occasionally I slightly modify clearly inadequate translations, so that his words will read more smoothly and meaningfully in English. His words will be in\u00a0blue<\/span>.\u00a0Words from past replies of mine to him will be in\u00a0green<\/span>.<\/p>\n *****<\/p>\n This is my reply to a portion of Lucas Banzoli\u2019s article, \u201cMaria e os irm\u00e3os de Jesus achavam que ele estava louco? (Resposta a Dave Armstrong)\u201d<\/a> [Did Mary and Jesus\u2019 brothers think he was crazy?\u00a0(Reply to Dave Armstrong)<\/em>] (12-30-22). It was purportedly a \u201creply\u201d to my article, \u201cDid Mary Sin By Thinking Jesus was Crazy? (vs. Lucas Banzoli)\u201d<\/a> (9-8-22).<\/p>\n The crux of the dispute is Mark 3:21. Some well-known English translations render it as follows:<\/p>\n NIV<\/strong>\u00a0When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, \u201cHe is out of his mind.\u201d<\/p>\n ESV<\/strong>\u00a0And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for they were saying, \u201cHe is out of his mind.\u201d<\/p>\n NASB<\/strong> And when His own people heard\u00a0about this,<\/i>\u00a0they came out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, \u201cHe has lost His senses.\u201d<\/p>\n KJV<\/strong> And when his friends heard\u00a0of it<\/i>, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, He is beside himself.<\/p>\n Douay-Rheims<\/strong> (Catholic) And when his friends had heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him. For they said: He is become mad.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The problem to be solved is exactly which<\/em> people the \u201cthey\u201d in all of the above Bibles refers<\/em> to. Banzoli asserts that it refers to Jesus\u2019 own family, including His mother Mary. Others believe it is referring to the \u201cusual suspect\u201d enemies of Jesus, such as those described in the next verse:<\/p>\n Mark 3:22<\/strong> (RSV) And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, \u201cHe is possessed by Be-el\u2019zebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n It should be noted that the Blessed Virgin Mary is not mentioned in the immediate<\/em> context. She is<\/em> mentioned ten verses later, after an indeterminate period of time:<\/p>\n Mark 3:31<\/strong> (RSV) And his mother and his brothers came<\/em>; and standing outside they sent to him and called him.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The \u201ccame\u201d seems to me to mean that Mary was not present in the earlier verse when His \u201cfriends\u201d or \u201cown people\u201d or \u201cfamily\u201d came to \u201cseize\u201d (ESV) Him. Nor does \u201ccalled him\u201d have the same connotation as \u201ctaking charge\u201d or \u201cseizing\u201d or \u201ctaking custody\u201d or \u201claying hold\u201d of Him, which all virtually imply a forceful move, against Jesus\u2019 own will. When she is referred to it seems to be \u2014 at least prima facie<\/em> \u2014 a different scenario altogether.<\/p>\n One doesn\u2019t say, for example, \u201cI seized<\/em> my wife from watching the Grammy Awards and she voluntarily<\/em> came with me.\u201d It\u2019s two different things; seemingly mutually exclusive. If someone agrees to leave a place, they don\u2019t have to be \u201cseized.\u201d They simply walk away. But this argument is a new thought that I had just now. My original argument was an appeal to several Bible translations that have \u201cpeople\u201d rather than \u201cthey\u201d: which means that they thought \u2014 in their scholarly opinions \u2014 that the crowds<\/em> thought Jesus was crazy, not His family or friends. Here they are:<\/p>\n RSV<\/span> <\/strong>And when his family heard it, they went out to seize him, for people<\/em><\/strong> were saying, \u201cHe is beside himself.\u201d<\/p>\n NRSV<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for\u00a0people<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0were saying, \u201cHe has gone out of his mind.\u201d<\/p>\n Phillips<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0. . . for\u00a0people<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0were saying, \u201cHe must be mad!\u201d<\/p>\n NEB<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0. . . for\u00a0people<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0were saying that he was out of his mind.<\/p>\n Good News \/ (TEV)<\/span>\u00a0<\/strong>When his family heard about it, they set out to take charge of him, because\u00a0people\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>were saying, \u201cHe\u2019s gone mad!\u201d<\/p>\n Moffatt<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0. . . . . . for\u00a0men<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0were saying, \u201cHe is out of his mind.\u201d<\/p>\n Easy-to-Read Version (ERV)<\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>. . . They went to get him because\u00a0people<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0said he was crazy.<\/p>\n Mounce Reverse Interlinear<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0. . . for\u00a0people<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0were saying, \u201cHe is out of his mind.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n This clearly separates<\/em> Jesus\u2019 family, including His mother<\/em>, from those who thought He was (take your pick) beside himself, out of his mind, mad, or crazy. That\u2019s what all these scholars who translated these eight versions of the Bible thought: how they determined in their knowledge of Greek and English, that the passage was best interpreted and understood.<\/p>\n Now, the amazing thing is that Banzoli chose not to interact with this legitimate difference of opinion among significant and important Bible translations (which the first four above certainly<\/em> are; the last four much less so, but still legitimate), but rather, to simply dismiss them out-of-hand and trash them with rank insults and condescension (precisely as he always treats me!). Apparently he routinely does this with anyone<\/em> who dares to disagree with his sublime and unquestionable opinions.<\/p>\n They must be incompetent or dishonest or both, and ignoramuses, imbeciles, and idiots. They can\u2019t possibly<\/em> have an honest, sincere, different opinion from what he holds. The very fact that they disagree with the Great and Unconquerable Banzoli (sounds like a circus trapeze act!) is absolute proof that they are deceiving morons and sophists: intent on leading people astray. [note<\/strong>: I think Banzoli is sincere, though I reserve the right to say that he is lying in some specific instances, when it concerns me or something I have written].<\/p>\n I think this (among many many other outbursts and goofy ideas, including thinking that Jesus could vanish into nonexistence when He died and then somehow raise Himself from the dead while not existing) removes him from the realm of serious apologetics or theological thinking. He has lost all credibility. I only<\/em> deal with him because he is leading many people astray; out of love for them<\/em>. If he is eventually persuaded of anything<\/em>, great. But by all indications it\u2019s exceedingly unlikely.<\/p>\n The RSV or Revised Standard Version<\/a> (the Bible I myself use in almost all of my articles and books) is very widely recognized \u2014 by Catholics and Protestants, and Englishmen and Americans alike \u2014 as one of the best modern translations in English. It\u2019s almost certainly the most influential and most-used in the last seventy years, besides the King James Version, which has been uniquely and immensely influential these past 400+ years. The great Protestant Bible scholar F. F. Bruce<\/a> (I have twelve of his books in my own personal library) wrote about it:<\/p>\n For the English-speaking world as a whole there is no modern version of the Bible which comes so near as the R.S.V. does to making the all-purpose provision which the A.V. [KJV] made for so many years. (History of the Bible in English<\/em>, Oxford University Press, 3rd ed., 1978, 203)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The NRSV (New Revised Standard Version<\/a>) is a revision of the RSV, and also widely used and respected, and is the version most preferred by Bible scholars.<\/p>\n The Wikipedia article on the NEB<\/a> (New English Bible) stated:<\/p>\n Because of its scholarly translators, the New English Bible has been considered one of the more important translations of the Bible to be produced following the\u00a0Second World War. Biblical scholar\u00a0F.\u00a0F. Bruce\u00a0declared that \u201cTo the sponsors and translators of the New English Bible the English speaking world owes an immense debt. They have given us a version which is contemporary in idiom, up-to-date in scholarship, attractive, and at times exciting in content\u2026\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The Phillips version of the New Testament (translated by the Anglican priest J. B. Phillips<\/a>) is also widely regarded as perhaps the best English paraphrase<\/em> or \u201cdynamic equivalent\u201d version of the New Testament. Bruce writes glowingly of it: particularly its translation of Paul\u2019s epistles:<\/p>\n Undoubtedly, of all modern English translations of the New Testament epistles, this is one of the best \u2014 perhaps actually the best \u2014 for the ordinary reader. The reader who has never paid much attention to Paul\u2019s writings, and finds them dull and sometimes unintelligible in the older versions, would be well advised to read them through in Dr Phillips\u2019 version. (Ibid<\/em>., 223)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Please keep in mind the stature of these four translations and the high regard in which they are widely held by all sorts of Christians, as I now document what Banzoli says about them and any version that dared to use the word \u201cpeople\u201d in Mark 3:21, against the wishes of Infallible Banzoli, who alone has the final say on proper Bible translations (despite knowing neither Greek nor Hebrew).<\/p>\n He played the same ludicrous anti-scholar \/ anti-Bible translator game in another recent article<\/a>, where he argued that \u201cneither of the two Greek words used in 1 Timothy 3:15 mean \u201cfoundation,\u201d . . . it would not make the slightest sense that Paul would say that the church (that is, Christians) are the\u00a0\u201cfoundation\u201d\u00a0of the truth, . . . Dave . . . fails miserably to prove . . .\u00a0<\/span>that the text speaks of being the \u201cfoundation\u201d of the truth, . . . 1st Timothy 3:15 does not speak of \u201cfoundation\u201d. . .\u201d<\/span> I then proceeded to document how 24 English translations chose the rendering of foundation<\/em>\u00a0or\u00a0foundation-stone <\/em>in 1 Timothy 3:15. What was the result of that? Well, King Solomon observed over 2900 years ago: \u201cDo not reprove a scoffer, or he will hate you; reprove a wise man, and he will love you.\u201d Guess which<\/em> reaction Banzoli exhibited?<\/p>\n But back to our present topic. Banzoli opined about any Bible translation that was different from his own preference:<\/p>\n We now come to one of the funniest parts of the article, the one where Dave starts desperately hunting down half a dozen BLATANTLY ADULTERATED translations in the most shameless way, to use to his advantage without informing his readers that those translations shamefully adulterate the Greek<\/strong>. I wonder how much time he must have spent looking for these translations, since none of them is a known or reputable translation, <\/strong>and all the minimally serious versions <\/strong>(including the Catholic ones) translate correctly<\/strong>.\u00a0<\/span><\/span>The urge to hunt for \u201cevidence\u201d in his favor goes so far that any crap will do<\/strong>, literally.<\/span> (capitals his own and my bolding throughout) . . .<\/p>\n What all<\/strong> these translations have in common, besides their total lack of reputation<\/strong>, is the addition of the word\u00a0people<\/i>\u00a0(\u201cpeople\u201d) to the text, to change the meaning of the text<\/strong> as Dave wants and needs it.\u00a0It is the same kind of maneuver<\/strong> that the sects make to include their false doctrines in the Bible, without worrying about the threats that God himself directed to those who dare to do this type of thing:<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n Revelation 22:18-19<\/strong> (RSV)\u00a0I warn every one who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if any one adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book,\u00a0[19] and if any one takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book. . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Dave doesn\u2019t seem to understand that not a single word can be taken away or added by dishonest people like him (or maybe he\u2019s eager to receive the plagues described in the text).\u00a0And the worst thing is that I went to research some of these translations and they are really scorned for the poor level they have. . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n As I noted, I claim that four of the eight are quite reputable and influential. Banzoli didn\u2019t assert that only some of the eight were \u201ccrap\u201d<\/span> and not even \u201cminimally serious\u201d<\/span> and not \u201cknown or reputable translations[s]\u201d<\/span> and ones that suffered from a \u201ctotal lack of reputation,\u201d<\/span> but all eight<\/em><\/strong>. That includes RSV, NRSV, Phillips, and NEB. It\u2019s clear now that Banzoli doesn\u2019t give a fig about what mere scholars<\/em> would think of his arguments. He has completely self-destructed. No one can possibly<\/em> take his work seriously anymore, after this<\/em> astonishing display of absurdly insulated and arrogant anti-intellectualism, or, in common parlance, sheer stupidity.<\/p>\n But since all that matters to Dave is accumulating bad arguments that he can use in his favor, it becomes a true \u201canything goes\u201d, and even horrible biblical translations<\/strong> that he would never read or use as a reference<\/strong> become an \u201cargument\u201d to use in your favor, when it\u2019s convenient. . . .<\/span><\/p>\n As I noted, I use RSV in almost all of my work, and have for many years now. About the only time I use KJV is when copyright issues are involved (usually with a book).<\/p>\n But, after all, what does the Greek say, . . .? . . . <\/span><\/p>\n This is precisely, of course, what translators of Bibles are trained for and commissioned to determine<\/em>!!!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n I could note another fifty Catholic translations here without the shameful adulteration<\/strong> of the \u201ceasy to deceive\u201d translations that Dave quoted<\/strong>, but since I am not a loafer who has all day free to write articles, I limit myself to challenging you to find in the Catholic <\/span>Bible Online<\/span> any translation that favors Dave\u2019s position. . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n That\u2019s easy. It would be the RSV-CE [Catholic Edition]: which Catholics accept with only very<\/em> minimal alterations (like \u201cfull of grace\u201d at Lk 1:28; just a few passages). That\u2019s why almost all my books published by Catholic publishers (including my upcoming one next month) use RSV for the Bible passages, or why Scott Hahn\u2019s Ignatius Catholic Study Bible<\/em>, etc., use it.<\/p>\n (never minding that it\u2019s a gross tampering<\/strong> with the originals). . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Why doesn\u2019t Dave quote these and many other famous Catholic versions in his article, rather than quote a bunch of obscure versions, taken from who knows where, maybe the fifth of hell, versions that nobody knows and which are ridiculed by academics? <\/strong><\/span>The reason is obviously because these versions corroborate their faulty and distorted reading of the text, and the serious versions<\/strong> do not. <\/span>This is the\u00a0modus operandi<\/i> that Dave has operated since I started playing with refuting him, which surpasses any sense of the ridiculous. . . .\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Banzoli then sets out to prove that distinguished Catholics, too, believe it was the family of Jesus who thought He was crazy. We know that some of His \u201cbrothers\u201d (i.e., non-sibling relatives) did<\/em> disbelieve in Him, because the Bible says so (and I\u2019ve written about that several times and freely acknowledged it). But the Bible never says specifically that the Blessed Virgin Mary<\/em> did not believe in Him, let alone think He was crazy. And \u2014 lo and behold \u2013, not a single one of the Catholics he cites, states that Mary<\/em> thought that.<\/p>\n He cites Fr. Bantu Mendon\u00e7a <\/span>(source)<\/span><\/a>, who refers to Jesus\u2019 \u201crelatives\u201d and never states that Mary thought He was crazy. 0 for 1.<\/span><\/p>\n He cites the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops <\/span>(source)<\/span><\/a> who also merely mention \u201cJesus\u2019 relatives\u201d and not Mary. 0 for 2.<\/span><\/p>\n He cites the Sisters of Saint Benedict of Ferdinand <\/span>(source)<\/span><\/a> who refer to \u201cJesus\u2019 relatives\u201d and not Mary. If they had implicated Mary herself (as with all these sources), surely Banzoli would be right on that, citing it, too. He wouldn\u2019t have missed the opportunity<\/em>. 0 for 3.<\/span><\/p>\n He cites Catholic Resources for the Bible<\/em>, from Fr. Felix Just <\/span>(source)<\/span><\/a>, who (no surprise!) mentions the \u201cfamily\u201d but not Mary in particular. 0 for 4.<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/572\/2023\/02\/Jesus17.jpg\")
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