Mark 3:22

3:22 The experts in the law ¹  who came down from Jerusalem ²  said, “He is possessed by Beelzebul,” ³  and, “By the ruler ⁴  of demons he casts out demons.”

Matthew 15:1

Breaking Human Traditions

15:1 Then Pharisees ⁵  and experts in the law ⁶  came from Jerusalem ⁷  to Jesus and said, ⁸ 

Luke 5:17

Healing and Forgiving a Paralytic

5:17 Now on ⁹  one of those days, while he was teaching, there were Pharisees ¹⁰  and teachers of the law ¹¹  sitting nearby (who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem), ¹²  and the power of the Lord was with him ¹³  to heal.

Luke 11:53-54

11:53 When he went out from there, the experts in the law ¹⁴  and the Pharisees began to oppose him bitterly, ¹⁵  and to ask him hostile questions ¹⁶  about many things, 11:54 plotting against ¹⁷  him, to catch ¹⁸  him in something he might say.

[3:22]  ¹ tn Or “The scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 1:22.

[3:22]  ² map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[3:22]  ³ tn Grk “He has Beelzebul.”

[3:22]  ⁴ tn Or “prince.”

[15:1]  ⁵ sn See the note on Pharisees in 3:7.

[15:1]  ⁶ tn Or “and the scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

[15:1]  ⁷ map For location see Map5 B1; Map6 F3; Map7 E2; Map8 F2; Map10 B3; JP1 F4; JP2 F4; JP3 F4; JP4 F4.

[15:1]  ⁸ tn The participle λέγοντες (legontes) has been translated as a finite verb so that its telic (i.e., final or conclusive) force can be more easily detected: The Pharisees and legal experts came to Jesus in order to speak with him.

[5:17]  ⁹ tn Grk “And it happened that on.” The introductory phrase ἐγένετο (egeneto, “it happened that”), common in Luke (69 times) and Acts (54 times), is redundant in contemporary English and has not been translated.

[5:17]  ¹⁰ sn Pharisees were members of one of the most important and influential religious and political parties of Judaism in the time of Jesus. There were more Pharisees than Sadducees (according to Josephus, Ant. 17.2.4 [17.42] there were more than 6,000 Pharisees at about this time). Pharisees differed with Sadducees on certain doctrines and patterns of behavior. The Pharisees were strict and zealous adherents to the laws of the OT and to numerous additional traditions such as angels and bodily resurrection.

[5:17]  ¹¹ tn That is, those who were skilled in the teaching and interpretation of the OT law. These are called “experts in the law” (Grk “scribes”) in v. 21.

[5:17]  ¹² sn Jesus was now attracting attention outside of Galilee as far away as Jerusalem, the main city of Israel.

[5:17]  ¹³ tc Most mss (A C D [K] Θ Ψ Ë^1,13 33 Ï latt bo) read αὐτούς (autous) instead of αὐτόν (auton) here. If original, this plural pronoun would act as the direct object of the infinitive ἰᾶσθαι (iasqai, “to heal”). However, the reading with the singular pronoun αὐτόν, which acts as the subject of the infinitive, is to be preferred. Externally, it has support from better mss (א B L W al sa). Internally, it is probable that scribes changed the singular αὐτόν to the plural αὐτούς, expecting the object of the infinitive to come at this point in the text. The singular as the harder reading accounts for the rise of the other reading.

[11:53]  ¹⁴ tn Or “the scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 5:21.

[11:53]  ¹⁵ tn Or “terribly.”

[11:53]  ¹⁶ tn For this term see L&N 33.183.

[11:54]  ¹⁷ tn Grk “lying in ambush against,” but this is a figurative extension of that meaning.

[11:54]  ¹⁸ tn This term was often used in a hunting context (BDAG 455 s.v. θηρεύω; L&N 27.30). Later examples of this appear in Luke 20.