Interpreting the Centurion’s Words: Son of God or a God?
Matthew 27:54, Mark 15:39, Luke 23:47
Matthew 27:54 (LEB)
54 Now the centurion and those with him who were guarding Jesus, when they* saw the earthquake and the things that took place, were extremely frightened, saying, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”
Mark 15:39 (LEB)
39 And when* the centurion who was standing opposite him saw that he expired like this, he said, “Truly this man was God’s Son!”
Luke 23:47 (LEB)
47 Now when* the centurion saw what had happened, he began to praise* God, saying, “Certainly this man was righteous!”
This is another case where the Merged Gospels had a slightly confusing interpretation of these 3 passages, so I listed each verse separately. Matthew and Mark both seem to say that “Truly, this man was God’s Son”, but when you look at the Greek, it could also mean they said ‘this man was a son of a god’. Why, you ask? There is no indefinite article in the Greek, nor does the passage use the indefinite or definite article. The KJV says ‘the Son of God’ which inserts the definite article. To me, these interpretations are not crystal clear. If you consider that the centurion is a Roman citizen and probably pagan, he may have been thinking ‘a son of a god’. This was the reason I didn’t include him at first.
But when you look at Luke, the centurion was praising God. The Greek word for ‘praise’ here is δοξάζω (doxazō) which is where we get the English word ‘doxology’ which means to praise. Plus the centurion thinks Jesus was righteous. This is why I ended up including him in my list.
Number of Fish: 1
Total Fish: 148
153 Fish 