"VERILY" or "AMEN" ?

WHAT DID
JESUS SAY?
by Robert L. Lindsey
Everyone who has read the Gospels knows the phrase, "Verily I say unto
you," or, "Verily, verily, I say unto you." -1- According to the standard
English translations of the Old and New Testaments, Jesus alone is said
to have used this preamble.

Most Christians, long accustomed to such expressions in the Bible, and

perhaps long lulled by them, have taken for granted that "Jesus talked
that way." But, for me, it was a challenge.

In my translating of the Greek of the Gospels into Hebrew, I had found

that many passages in the Synoptics could be rendered verbally with
almost no change of word order, with the result that a Hebrew version of
that kind often shed fascinating light on the meaning of a given passage,
so much so that I no longer doubted that our authors had used Greek
texts which had been rendered very literally from Hebrew originals.

What at first struck me in "Verily I say onto you" was that the Greek text
used the Hebrew Amen for "verily." That in itself is not altogether
surprising, for elsewhere in the New Testament, notably in the Epistles
of Paul, Amen often comes at the end of an expression of honor or praise
of God. Paul speaks of God as the Creator "Who is blessed forever!
Amen" (Rom. 1:25) and exclaims, "To the King of ages, immortal,
invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen." (I
Tim. 1:17) In the Book of Revelation, honorific Amen responses appear
several times. All this is in perfect accord with occasional Old Testament
usage -2- and with present-day practice in the synagogue, and in all
Christian churches. Perhaps Amen entered the early Greek-speaking
synagogues and churches mainly on account of a predilection to keep
liturgical words alive even when transferring material from one language
to another. More puzzling, however, was that Amen came, or seemed to
come, at the beginning of something which Jesus was quoted as saying.
There are no other instances in the New or Old Testament of a statement
beginning, "Amen I say to you." Amen is a response. The Psalmist
writes, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel, from everlasting to
everlasting! Amen and amen." (Ps. 41:14) Before the priest gives her the
"bitter water," a wife suspected of infidelity must hearken to his words
and responsively add, "Amen, Amen." (Num. 5:22) Again and again we
hear the phrase, "And the people all said, Amen." (Cf. Deut. 27:16-26)
There is no exception in all our biblical literature, save this mode of
Jesus, "Amen, I say unto you."

Many writers and commentators have noted the uniqueness of Jesus' use
of Amen. The first that we know of is the author of the Revelation, who,
writing of the resurrected and ascended Jesus, calls him "The Amen":
"Thus saith the Amen." (Rev. 3:14) It would appear that, because Jesus
was so often quoted in the Gospels as using Amen, the author felt a
poetic license to use this appellative. Although, it may be surmised, not
wholly comfortable with the oddity of the locution, modern
commentators have accepted that the words were as unique as Jesus
himself was, and one of them has popularized the idea that, since the
phrase is too out of the ordinary to have been invented and put into the
mouth of Jesus, most of the "Amen I say unto you" occurrences are sure
evidence that we are reading his ipsissima verba. -3-

More recently, scholars have come more and more to suppose that the
Gospels are mainly a collection of late re-edited sayings which were
greatly changed from their original form before final redaction towards
the end of the first century. Hence, they have aired the notion that the
phrase is a convenient formula under which many invented sayings of
Jesus were collected to preserve their authority. -4-

My experience made it very difficult to endorse any of these suggestions.

If it is, indeed, possible in many cases to get back to a Hebrew original
of Jesus' words simply by finding the right Hebrew equivalents to a
Greek passage and putting them down in the order of the Greek text, we
cannot speak of a long period in which our Gospel stories and sayings
took form at the demand of a Greek-speaking Church.

Theoretically, the formula may be as fully original with Jesus as the

Hebraic "behold" and "eat and drink" idioms so common in his speech.
Nor would it be strange if the earliest translators of the Hebrew life of
Jesus simply transliterated Amen as they wrote down their Greek text. -5-

Assuming, then, that Jesus did use Amen frequently, why should he have
used it unidiomatically? We may concede that even our Gospel writers
felt that the phrase was unusual and either, as in Luke, preferred to omit
the offending Amen or, as probably in Mark, inserted it in some sayings
in the editorial process just because it was unusual. But to find Jesus
deliberately reversing its position in speech even when he seems to be
speaking an otherwise normal Hebrew strains the imagination.

I checked all the appearances of Amen in the Septuagint. It was

interesting to find that, whereas in the earlier portions of the Old
Testament the Jewish translators had attempted to give a Greek
equivalent for Amen (often genoito, twice alethinon, once alethos), -6-
they had not troubled to do so for the latest mentions, those in Nehemiah
and I Chronicles. The translator of the original Hebrew texts of the
Gospels may well have followed suit. This offers a precedent for the
retention of Amen in the Greek text of our Gospels.

The same variation is visible in the Gospel of Luke: the author uses
"Amen I say unto you" six times, but three times writes, "Alethos (truly)
I say unto you." -7- Matthew, in his general parallel to three of the eleven
passages in which Luke writes only "I say unto you," has, in each,
"Amen, I say unto you." (Matt. 8:10; 11:11; 18:18) Since it seems
certain that Matthew and Luke independently used at least one common
literary source, and Matthew produces the Amen formula more than
thirty times, it is a good guess that the Greek text or texts standing
behind our Gospels kept the expression, "Amen I say to you," up to forty
or fifty times.

I then turned to an analysis of each use of Amen in the Gospels. A first

impression was that the "Amen I say to you" phrase has a kindred
one--"I say to you" or "But I say to you." Matthew and Luke join in
reporting that Jesus said concerning John the Baptist, "But what did you
go to see, a prophet? Ah yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet." (Matt.
2:9; Luke 7:26) Here, "I tell you" is the same in Greek as "I say to you,"
and there is no suggestion of Amen in either Gospel. In reprimanding
Chorazin and Bethsaida, both Matthew and Luke report in the same
words that Jesus compared them to Tyre and Sidon, saying that Tyre and
Sidon would long since have repented had those ancient cities had the
miracles wrought in them which had been wrought of late in Chorazin
and Bethsaida; "But I tell you, Tyre and Sidon will suffer less judgment
than you in the day of judgment." There are many "I tell you" or "I say to
you" sayings.

Parallels to the expressions "And I say" and "But I say" have been found
in rabbinic literature -8- and, in the contexts, a statement attributed to
another rabbi will often be contrasted with one introduced by "But I say"
or "And I say." However, there does not appear to be a complete rabbinic
parallel to "I say to you" or--certainly--to "Amen I say to you."

Hardly less intriguing, and perhaps more decisive as a clue, is that both
"I say unto you" and "Amen I say unto you" regularly occur in the
Gospels, not at the beginning of a logion, but in the middle of an
extended series of sentences. In the Parable of the Unjust Steward, Jesus
says that the "sons of this age are wiser than the sons of light" and adds,
"and I say unto you, make yourselves friends of the mammon of
unrighteousness." (Luke 16:9) In a short logion, he says, "See that you
look not down on one of these little ones. I tell you that their angels in
heaven do always behold the face of my father." (Matt. 8:10) "Blessed
are those servants," says Jesus, "who stand watching when their Lord
comes," and adds, "Amen, I say to you that he shall gird himself up, and
cause them to sit at table and then go about serving them." (Luke 12:37)
In these and many other examples, "I say to you" or "Amen I say to you"
both serve the purpose of providing a speech formula by which an
additional emphasis or piece of information can be joined to an earlier
statement.

Is there, in fact, any difference in the function of these outwardly

different expressions? After all, if you remove the Amen from the one
phrase, you have exactly the same words left as are found in the other: "I
say to you." Patently, the Amen either acts like the adverb "truly" to
strengthen "I say to you," or somehow stands on its own and is unlinked
syntactically to "I say to you." It is clear that Luke, at least, has decided
that the first possibility is the more likely and therefore has not hesitated
at times to use alethos (truly) in place of Amen.

But the second possibility also exists, particularly if there is good reason
to think that the appearance of Amen in our Greek texts is an
untranslated Hebraism. It has been retained because it had become
popular and understandable in Greek-speaking synagogues and churches.
In other words, it is possible that we should read Amen as the response
that it normally is, and separate it from "I say to you" by placing a full
stop after it. -9-

In my search for clues to explain the Amen formula, I did not at first see
the connection between "I tell you" and "Amen I tell you." I was induced
to conjecture that Amen was still a response by observing that its normal
position was not at the beginning of a saying but after a strong
statement, and that the following "I say to you" introduced an additional
sentence of emphasis and confirmation. The Amen was, therefore, a way
of reinforcing the original affirmation, and "I tell you" added a further
point of stress.

Carefully studied, it will be seen that the Amen occurrences normally

show the following pattern: Original Strong Statement--Amen--Further
Confirming Statement.

This is particularly evident in Jesus' makarioi (blessed) sayings.

Blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear.
Amen! I tell you, many prophets and righteous men longed to see
what you see and to hear what you hear and did not hear it. (Matt.
13:16-17 [cf. Luke 10:23])

Blessed is that servant whom his master when he comes will find
so doing. Amen! I tell you, he will set him over all his
possessions. (Matt. 24:46 [cf. Luke 12:43])

Blessed are those servants whose Lord shall find them watching.
Amen! I tell you that he will gird himself and make them to sit
down at table and will come and serve them. (Luke 12:37)

These are undoubted examples of the Strong Statement--Amen--

Confirming Statement pattern, and the use of the Hebraic makarios
almost as an expletive underlines the claim that a strong affirmation
introduces the formula.

In more than one example, another speaker affirms strongly and Jesus
responds with "Amen," going on to add, "I tell you." Matthew (21:28-
29) recounts the story of the Two Sons. One son tells his father that he
will not do a certain thing the father requested but changes his mind and
does it. The second son says he will obey a certain thing the father orders
but does not do it. Jesus asks, "Who of the two did the father's will?" The
listeners answer, "The first." Jesus then says, "Amen! I tell you, the
publicans and harlots enter into the kingdom of God before you!" (Cf.
Luke 18:28-29 and 23:43)

The explanation that Amen appears here as a response is very

convincing. If there were no Amen, and "I tell you" were used alone, it
would hardly be so; by saying "Amen!", Jesus responds like the
conversationalist and teacher that he is.
On one occasion, Amen appears as the reaction to something impressive.
In the story that we call The Widow's Mite, Luke (21:1-4 [cf. Mark
12:41-44]) describes Jesus watching with his disciples near the treasure
bin in the Temple as the affluent pass by to make their gifts. A widow
drops in her "mite." The story says simply, "And he said, Truly I say to
you, this widow has put in more than all the rest, for all of these have
contributed out of plenty but she out of poverty." The original response
must have been simply, "Amen! I tell you that she has given more than
all..."

In the light of this illustration, we should widen our pattern of the Amens
of Jesus. There is no conversation between the widow and Jesus. Jesus
prefaces his Amen not with strong words but with an account of
something seen. The pattern becomes: Strong Statement or Significant
Action--Amen!--Further Confirming Statement.

Almost every utterance of Amen in Jesus' sayings will be found to

conform. All the Lukan and most of the Matthaean instances fit. Two or
three in the Gospel of Mark are without an introductory statement and
Matthew usually follows Mark there. It is probably because Mark is freer
towards his texts and Matthew tends constantly to copy him even when
his parallel source disagrees textually. In John, the formula has been
extended to Amen, Amen, and Amen is clearly thought of as adverbial,
the repetition being a means of dramatizing. The fact that in John no
introductory statement or action is necessary again exemplifies that
author's method of picking out a Synoptic literary device and enlarging
its use without conserving original contexts.

Fascinating, perhaps even amusing, is a kind of ironic use of the

formula, found once in Luke and twice in Matthew. The Matthaean
examples are connected with the phrase, "they have their reward" (Matt.
6:2,5). In the first, Jesus teaches how one should not give alms. "Do not
be like the hypocrites, sounding a trumpet in front of you so men will
praise you." Then comes Amen, and Jesus adds, "I tell you, they have
their reward already." In the second, he warns his hearers not to pray like
the hypocrites, "on the corners of the streets, so they will be seen by
men." Once more Amen and "I tell you, they have their reward already!"

To think that Jesus would have used this strong Amen almost in mockery
seems at first somewhat curious. It could be argued that Matthew added
Amen to "I tell you" by analogy. But in the fourth chapter of the Gospel
of Luke is a remarkable episode in which this ironic nuance can scarcely
be absent. It is just possible that this, as a rule called the Lukan story of
the Rejection in Nazareth, provides the final clue to the origin of Jesus'
use of the pattern. It is a superb example of Hebrew narrative. As so
often in Luke, the literal translation of the Greek text into Hebrew yields
a passage brim full of Hebrew idioms, proverbs, and ways of thought. It
appears as the first event of Jesus' ministry in Galilee. There is,
therefore, good reason to suppose that Luke placed it here (Luke 4:16-
30) as an introduction to the teaching of Jesus concerning his entire
mission. Jesus comes to Nazareth and goes to the synagogue on the
Sabbath day "as was his custom." He is given the Book of Isaiah and
reads from it:
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good tidings to the afflicted;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor... (Is. 61:1-2)

From the rabbinic literature, we know that the verse was considered a
prophecy of the coming Son of David, because of its use of the word
"anointed" ("Messiah" being, literally, "the Anointed One"). It was a
bold claim when Jesus announced to his listeners that the prophecy had
been "fulfilled today in your ears." Little more of what he said about
himself is narrated but he must have spoken at some length, for the
crowd is said to have marveled "at the words of grace which proceeded
from his mouth." At the same time, the crowd appears to have been more
intrigued than affected, remarking that Jesus is, "after all, just Joseph's
son."

Jesus retorted, "You will doubtless quote me the parable, 'Physician, heal
yourself.' What we have heard you have been doing in Capernaum, do
here too." Then he said, "Amen! I tell you, no man is a prophet in his
own town." He ended by suggesting that, just as Elijah and Elisha
worked miracles of healing and feeding for outsiders only, so his own
miracles would be limited to the people beyond the confines of his own
village.

As in so many stories in the Gospels, Jesus' preoccupation with the

writings and works of the Old Testament prophets is striking, and it is
perhaps not astonishing to find a parallel to his way of speaking in an
incident in the twenty-eighth chapter of Jeremiah. In verses 1-11 we
learn that the prophet Hananiah of Gibeon appeared before Jeremiah and
"the priests and all the people" and dramatically declared that the
recently exiled Judaeans, together with the captured vessels of the
Temple, would soon be sent back to Jerusalem. Such a promise ran
contrary to the message of Jeremiah, who answered: "Amen! May the
Lord do so! May the Lord make the words which you have promised
come true, and bring back to this place from Babylon the vessels of the
house of the Lord and all the exiles." Jeremiah then corrected Hananiah's
false prophecy by using the phrase, "But hear the words I speak in your
ears."

The parallels are too close to be accidental. Jeremiah talks "in the ears"
of the people; Jesus says the Scripture is fulfilled "in your ears!"
Jeremiah can say Amen to a prophecy that he wishes would come true
but knows will not; Jesus can say Amen to a hope of the working of
miracles in Nazareth although he knows that he must deny it. Jeremiah
counters the words of the false prophet with his own "I speak"; Jesus
counters the false hopes of the inquisitive with his own "I tell you." The
ironic use of Amen by both suggests that Jesus deliberately adopted the
pattern of Amen and "I tell you" from the almost exactly similar speech
pattern of Jeremiah.

I submit, then that the word Amen, which appears again and again in the
Greek texts of our Gospels, is a transliterated Hebrew expression used by
Jesus as a response, and that the "I tell you" which invariably follows
was added by Jesus to introduce a new affirmation designed to
strengthen in some way the original purpose for which the Amen was
uttered. The contention that Jesus used "Amen I say to you" as a phrase
characterized by an adverbial Amen is untenable, but it remains true that,
when he said "Amen!" and added "I tell you," Jesus was adopting a
prophetic speech mode known from the example of the prophet
Jeremiah, and we may infer that he wished his adherents and listeners to
understand that this device of speech matched his prophetic career and
messianic claims.

___________________________

Dr. Robert Lindsey's preparation for biblical research began when his
local pastor in Norman, Oklahoma, encouraged him to study Greek and
Hebrew for a deeper understanding of Scripture. Dr. Lindsey pursued
his studies at the University of Oklahoma, where he earned a B.A.
degree in Classical Greek, and he continued to concentrate in classical
languages and biblical studies during his graduate career at Southern
Baptist Theological Seminary and Princeton School of Divinity.

He first came to Israel in 1939, spending fifteen months acquainting

himself with the country and people, and refining his knowledge of the
Hebrew language. This initial exposure to the Hebrew Scriptures in
their natural setting marked the beginning of a long and remarkable
career in biblical research. He returned to Israel to serve as pastor of
the Narkis Street Baptist Congregation in West Jerusalem from 1945-52.
After completing his doctorate in the United States in 1954, he resumed
his work with the church in Israel, eventually coming back to the Baptist
Congregation in Jerusalem where he continued to serve until just
recently.

In addition to his work as a pastor, Dr. Lindsey has distinguished

himself in New Testament scholarship, focusing particularly on the
Gospels and working closely with leading Israeli Jewish scholars in the
field. His years of carefully studying the Greek texts of Matthew, Mark,
and Luke have revealed their profoundly Hebraic character, and led Dr.
Lindsey to conclude that it is possible to form a far more reliable picture
of the person and life of Jesus than is commonly held by scholars today.

A number of other Christian and Jewish biblical scholars in Jerusalem

have joined Dr. Lindsey in forming the Jerusalem School for the Study
of the Synoptic Gospels, which is dedicated to tracing Christianity back
to its original Hebraic roots. The Jerusalem School's current project is
the preparation of a verse-by-verse commentary on the synoptic Gospels
which will reflect the renewed insight provided by a Hebraic perspective

___________________________

-1- The latter phrase appears only in the Gospel of John. RETURN
-2- For example, Deuteronomy 27:15 and I Chronicles 15:36. RETURN
-3- Cf. J. Jeremias, Neutestamentliche Theologie, pgs 43, 44. RETURN
-4- Cf. V. Hasler, Amen, pg 177ff in particular. RETURN
-5- The word Gehenna (hell), used throughout the Gospels, is clearly
such a case, from the Hebrew Ge ben Hinnom, "Valley of the son of
Hinnom." RETURN
-6- genito -- "let it be so;" RETURN
-7- Mark gives Amen in each of his parallels to Luke's alethos. RETURN
-8- Cf. Morton Smith, Tannaitic Parallels to the Gospels, pgs 25-29.
RETURN
-9- In early Greek manuscripts, to be sure, there was no period to mark
the end of a sentence, and words were not divided, so that there is
nothing to prevent us from adopting for this usage whatever punctuation
the facts may demand. RETURN

Yavo Digest Vol. 2, No. 1, 1988