A comma does not merely pause a sentence. It reassigns which word attaches to which
clause, which frequently means reassigning who is doing what to whom. “Let us eat, Grandma” addresses Grandma as
the listener. “Let us eat Grandma” makes
Grandma the meal. The comma is the difference
between an invitation and a confession to cannibalism. That illustration is a well-worn teaching
device rather than a historical event – hopefully.
Luke 23:43 records Jesus responding to the repentant criminal crucified
beside him. The original Koine Greek
carried no punctuation at all:
καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ
ὁ Ἰησοῦς, Ἀμὴν λέγω σοι, σήμερον μετ' ἐμοῦ ἔσῃ ἐν τῷ παραδείσῳ
Kai eipen
autō ho Iēsous, Amēn legō soi, sēmeron met' emou esē en tō paradeisō.
Every comma in every modern translation was inserted centuries later by
translators making an interpretive choice, not transcribing an authorial
instruction. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate,
completed in 405 CE, rendered the verse this way:
Et dixit
illi Jesus: Amen dico tibi: Hodie mecum eris in paradiso.
The Vulgate’s own punctuation places the break before Hodie (“today”),
attaching it to the second half of the sentence, “today you will be with me in Paradise,”
which is the traditional reading. Yet
the underlying Greek word order, sēmeron sitting immediately after legō
soi, “I say to you,” rather than immediately before met' emou esē, “you
will be with me,” has given later scholars grounds to argue the opposite
attachment is at least grammatically defensible.
The Doctrinal Fork This Produced
Placed one way, the verse reads: “Truly I tell you, today you will be
with me in Paradise,” meaning the criminal enters Paradise that same day. Placed the other way, it reads, “Truly I tell
you today, you will be with me in Paradise,” where “today” modifies the act of
speaking rather than the timing of Paradise, leaving that timing
unspecified. Most major translations,
the New International Version, the English Standard Version, and the New
American Standard Bible, follow the Vulgate’s placement, supporting immediate
entry into Paradise at death. The New
World Translation, used by Jehovah’s Witnesses, places the comma after “today,”
consistent with their doctrine that the dead remain in an unconscious state
until a future resurrection rather than entering Paradise immediately. Professor Carl W. Conrad of the Department of
Classics at Washington University in St. Louis argued the Greek word order
itself favours attaching “today” to “I tell you,” rather than to “you will be
with me.”
A single punctuation mark, inserted by a translator with no punctuation
to guide him in the source text, has shaped what millions of believers
understand about the immediate afterlife.
This is not a comma correcting an ambiguous business contract, the kind
of dispute that costs a dairy company several million dollars and gets resolved
in an appeals court. This is a comma deciding
eschatology, embedded so deeply into familiar translations that most readers
never suspect the punctuation was ever a choice at all, let alone a choice with
a rival camp still arguing the other side of it, in Greek, in Latin, and in
every language translated from either.
The Verdict
Every comma in every sacred or legal text carries an invisible decision
behind it, made by someone who was not the original author and who may not have
shared the original author's intent. A
reader who assumes punctuation is neutral, mechanical scaffolding holding up an
author's unambiguous meaning has misunderstood what punctuation is. It is interpretation, dressed up as
formatting, and Luke 23:43 proves that even a single comma, absent from both
the Greek original and disputed even within its earliest Latin rendering, can
decide whether a man enters Paradise today or merely gets told something today,
with Paradise arriving whenever the translator’s rival happens to believe it
should.
Terence Nunis, DTM | Division Advisor, District 80 Division M | Club
Advisor, AIA Toastmasters | Past President & Founder, Awesome Toastmasters
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