Hate Your Family?
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Hate Your Family? |
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| Angry Kid | Sibling Rivalry |
Luke 14:26 in the King James says "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple."
Churches like to claim that this is a bad translation, and that "hate" should be translated "love less" or "love less by comparison." They claim that God does not want us to hate our family (I think most of us would agree with that part), so something is wrong with the translation. In so doing, they find fault with the translation, rather than the Bible itself. Because they believe the Bible is flawless, they suppose it must be a translation error. However, that position seems to be based more on wishful thinking than a rational examination of the Greek.
Let's see what the definition of the Greek word translated hate really is. The word for hate is from the Greek miseo (pronounced mis-eh'-o). Thayer's Greek Lexicon defines miseo as "1) to hate, pursue with hatred, detest, 2) to be hated, detested".
Note that it does not say "love less." It says the meaning of miseo is to hate.
In Strong's miseo (#3404) is defined as "from a primary misos (hatred); to detest (especially to persecute); by extension, to love less:--hate(-ful)."
Yes, it does say "love less" here, but that is only "by extension" it's not the real meaning of miseo.
The Greek word miseo is used in the Bible 43 times. Let's look at each and every use so we can see, from the context of how this word is used in the Bible, what the Bible meaning of miseo really is.
| Matthew 5:43: "Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbor, and hate thine enemy." | Did the Old Testament merely tell us to love or enemies less or to hate them? If it merely said love them less, why did Jesus, in the next verse, need to replace that command with instructions to "Love your enemies"? |
| Matthew 5:44: "do good to them that hate you" | Was Jesus telling us to do good to those who hate us, or just to those who love us less? |
| Matthew 6:24: "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon." | Was Jesus telling us we would hate one, or just love that one less? If we loved both maters, couldn't we serve both of them? |
| Matthew 10:22: "And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake:" | Was Jesus warning the disciples that people would hate them, or simply love them less? Are men going to love Christians less, or will they hate them? |
| Matthew 24:9: "and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all" | Are they going to kill Christians simply because they love them less, or because they hate them? |
| Matthew 24:10: "shall betray one another, and shall hate one another." | Will they betray people because they love them (less) or because they hate them? |
| Mark 13:13: "And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake: but he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved." | Will Christians have to endure their love or their hate? |
| Luke 1:71: "That we should be saved from our enemies, and from the hand of all that hate us." | Do we need to be saved from those who simply love us less? |
| Luke 6:22: "Blessed are ye, when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and shall reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man's sake." | Is this blessing for those who are simply loved less? Would men ostracize, reproach, and defame those who they merely loved less? |
| Luke 6:27: "do good to them which hate you" | Was Jesus telling us to do good to those who hate us, or just those who love us less? |
| Luke 14:26: "to me, and hate not his father, and" | Here is the controversial verse in question. Does it mean hate or love less? Which "translation" (if "love less" can even be called a translation) is more consistent with the definition of miseo and the way the word is used in other Bible verses? |
| Luke 16:13: "masters: for either he will hate the one, and love" | See Matthew 6:24 above. |
| Luke 19:14: "But his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, We will not have this man to reign over us." | These same citizens ended up getting killed as punishment (v. 27). Does it sound like they hated him or loved him less? Did they refuse his rule because they love him less? Why were they called "enemies" if they merely loved him less? |
| Luke 21:17-18: "And ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake. But there shall not an hair of your head perish." | Will the persecutors merely love them less? |
| John 3:20: "every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light" | Do evil-doers simply love the light less? Is that what Jesus meant? Is that why they stay away from the light? |
| John 7:7: "The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil." | In verse one it says "the Jews sought to kill him." Does it sound like they merely loved him less? |
| John 12:25: "He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto live eternal." | Are we to hate this life or love it less? Does it make sense to say "He who loves his life shall lose it, and he who loves it less shall keep it"? |
| John 15:18: "If the world hate you, ye know that it hated me before it hated you." | Did the world simply love Jesus less or did they hate him and crucify him? |
| John 15:19: "If ye were of the world, the world would love his own: but because ye are not of the world, but I have chosen you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you." | Will the world simply love Christians less? Didn't Jesus just say the world didn't love them? |
| John 15:23: "He that hateth me hateth my Father also." | This is still in the same passage. Verse 20 says they persecuted Jesus and did not keep his sayings. Verse 22 says they had no cloak for their sin. Does it sound like they hate him or just love him less? |
| John 15:24: "have they both seen and hated both me and my Father" | Same passage. |
| John 15:25: "in their law, They hated me without a cause." | Same passage. |
| John 17:14: "and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" | See John 15:19 above. |
| Romans 7:15: "for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that do" | Did Paul merely love his sins less, or did he hate them? |
| Romans 9:13: "As it is written, Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated." | A quote from Mal 1:2-3 written in Hebrew, which says, "Was not Esau Jacob's brother? saith the Lord: yet I loved Jacob, And I hated Esau..." So it seems that both the Hebrew and Greek say "hated" not "loved less" because the New Testament agrees with the Old. |
| Ephesians 5:29: "For no man ever yet hated his own flesh..." | Does "No man ever loved his own flesh less" make sense in this context? |
| Titus 3:3: "For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving diverse lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another." | Sounds like a list of sins. Is loving less a sin? Or does hate fit in better here? |
| Hebrews 1:9: "Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity..." | Does God love iniquity less, or does he hate it? |
| 1 John 2:9: "He that saith he is in the light, and hateth his brother, is in darkness even until now." | Are we in darkness just for loving our brother less? |
| 1 John 2:11: "But he that hateth his brother is in darkness ..." | Are we in darkness just for loving our brother less? |
| 1 John 3:13: "if the world hate you." | Does it mean to say that the world hates true Christians? Or merely loves them less? Do they really love true Christians at all? (See John 15:18 and 19 above). |
| 1 John 3:15: "Whosoever hateth his brother is a murderer: and ye know that no murderer hath eternal life abiding in him." | Are we a murderer if we merely love our brother less? Do we lose eternal life if we merely love our brother less? |
| 1 John 4:20: "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar:" | Are we a liar if we say we love God and but love our brother less than God? |
| Jude 1:23: "And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh." | Should we hate the garment spotted by the flesh, or just love it less? |
| Revelation 2:6: "But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate." | Should we hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans or love those deeds, but just love them a little less? |
| Revelation 2:15: "So hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. Repent; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will fight against them with the sword of my mouth." | Did Christ hate the doctrine of the Nicolaitans or love those false doctrines a little less? |
| Revelation 17:16: "And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire." | Will the ten horns hate the whore or love her less? Do they devour her and burn her because they love her or hate her? |
| Revelation 18:2: "a cage of every unclean and hateful bird." | Are the unclean birds (demons) hateful, or just a little less loving? |
Based on the definitions of miseo that we saw earlier, and on the way it is used repeatedly in other passages, I conclude that miseo in Luke 14:26 ("If any man ... hate not his father [etc] ...") means hate, not love less. It is not accurate to say that "love less" is a better translation. That does not seem to be a translation, but an interpretation, which is an entirely different thing. Once we start to interpret, we can make scriptures mean all sorts of things.
So here we have more evidence that the Bible is not a perfect book.
Some say that "hate" is the correct translation, but that it was merely hyperbole, that is to say, an exaggeration used to make a point. But if the Bible is a perfect book, why would it use hyperbole? If we believe that the Bible contains hyperbole then we open the door to dismissing all sorts of teachings as mere hyperbole. Turn the other cheek? Hyperbole. Love your enemies? Get real--mere hyperbole. Christ was actually resurrected? Hyperbole. Where does it end? People could use the "hyperbole" excuse to get out of anything they wanted to.
I do not accept that if God wanted to send a message to mankind, upon which our salvation depends, that he would use hyperbole.
Note: I got all the definitions and scriptures from the same page, on miseo, at www.bibletools.org. It was all at this URL (Jan 28, 2012):
http://www.bibletools.org/index.cfm/fuseaction/Lexicon.show/ID/G3404/miseo.htm