THE TIME OF THE END QUESTIONS, Part II
*******
Question: Why is the phrase “the end of the world” used when Jesus’ disciples reportedly asked him in Matthew, “Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign of thy coming, and the end of the world?” (24:3)
Answer: The writer of Matthew likely used this story from Mark’s manuscript (Johnson 166; The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible 4:302), where one reads: “Tell us, when shall these things be? And what shall be the sign when all these things shall be fulfilled?” (13:4) William Arnold Stevens and Ernest Burton translated the end of the Mark verse this way: “…when these things are about to be accomplished?” So where did the words “the end of the world” come from in the Matthew translation?
Both Stevens and Burton in their book, and Scofield in his, wrote that those questionable words in Matthew come from the Greek, meaning “consummation of the age.” The word consummation means “the act of fulfilling” and comes from the verb to consummate. It does not come from consume, implying that the concern had something to do with being destroyed.
So, if not from the Greek of Mark or Matthew, where did the British translators of the seventeenth century arrive at “the end of the world”? Perhaps those British scholars had been influenced by the scholastic theology of both their past and of their times. Like any good student, perhaps Christians, spotting a notable difference when harmonizing the Gospels, should not accept the questionable as the idea of the translation, but should start their own investigation of what was the original intent. Just like playing the game “telephone,” the message of the original text is most authoritative.