Current Problems in Hermeneutics

A Spiritual Appraisal of Spiritual Things

In my studies of 1 Corinthians in both the King James Version (the Authorized Version) and the ESV and NASB (or Alexandrian Text), I've found a couple differences in terms of what is written in 1 Cor. 2:13. The last part of the verse really confuses the reader for the most part, if the reader considers the Greek while comparing the various translations. The verb that elicits "combining" or "comparing" seems to be a little misleading after reading the following word "spiritual." What most of the authorities tend to agree on is that the word suggest "binding together tightly" which is what the AV seems to purport. (However, this is universally known to be a point of contention among translators.) The following, therefore, makes it all the more difficult to interpret: "Spiritual things to Spiritual" (Authorized Version). The NASB reads this way: "Spiritual thoughts with Spiritual words." In trying to make sense of this verse, the NASB adds "thoughts" and "words," which are not found in the original text, the same for the word "things" found in the AV. The NASB I think gets the overall meaning of the context, albeit adding words. Previously the Apostle Paul wrote about human wisdom concerning their form of learning, i.e. "words." The concept here in the context is concerned with the thoughts conveyed in human wisdom communicated in words; in contrast, Paul writes our learning is in spiritual thoughts and words in the following verse. Therefore, the Apostle Paul is concerned with the form: one is appraised spiritually and the other isn't. This renders the text to say that the unbeliever doesn't have an appraisal of spiritual thoughts because he cannot (ability) appraise them. He is not able, in all his might, to appraise them—even if he wanted to (Romans 3:11; Acts 17:27).

As I started to read some commentaries on this problem, I have found that they don't spend much time on this clause since there's no uniform acceptance on how this verse should be rendered. The text, after all, only has three Greek words: pneumatikois pnuematika sugkrinonotes, which if we translate it literally reads, "Spiritual things to spiritual collate [or combine]." This is why this is so difficult.