Ephesians 2:6
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| Ephesians 2:6 in Alexandrinus (ca. 5th century) |
ESV and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
NIV84 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
NIV And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
HCSB Together with Christ Jesus He also raised us up and seated us in the heavens,
NASB and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
NET and he raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus,
Check a: connection with previous verse
I recognize that many times a long Greek sentence needs to be broken up in order for the English translation to be clear. Ephesians 2:4-7 is one sentence. The subject is in verse 4: God. Then there is a parenthetical statement about God’s love and mercy. Verse 5 begins by reminding the reader where the discussion began and then Paul finally gives the reader the main verb of the sentence: made us alive together. That is followed by a parenthetical praise. Verse 6 contains two other main verbs that are parallel to the first. God did three parallel actions: made us alive, raised us, and seated us. All three verbs begin with the preposition sun attached to the front of them (all three are rare verbs in this form). Verse 7 gives us the purpose (some might say result) of these actions taken by God. The modern reader will not know that all three verbs are parallel if a new sentence begins at verse 6. It is preferable to make this a rather long sentence with parentheses rather than lose the parallel actions of God that Paul describes. The ESV, NASB, and NET do this well. The NIV84, NIV, and HCSB are not terribly misleading, and they seem to try to connect the thoughts together (“and” in the NIV84 and NIV; “also” in the HCSB).
Check b: the “heavenly places”
There is a more concentrated use of epouranios in Ephesians than in any other book in the New Testament. To figure out how to best translate this word, one must study all of its occurrences in Ephesians. While the precise meaning of this word is beyond the purview of this study, the general meaning of this word is “pertaining to being associated with a locale for transcendent things and beings” (BDAG). While the translation of heavenly places/realms is admittedly ambiguous, the phrase “in the heavens” (HCSB) could be downright misleading. The HCSB could be understood as referring to the sky or outer space.
| | 1-5 | 6a | 6b | sub-total |
| ESV | 7 | 1 | 1 | 9 |
| NIV84 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 8 |
| NIV | 9 | 0 | 1 | 10 |
| HCSB | 11 | 0 | -1 | 10 |
| NASB | 9 | 1 | 1 | 11 |
| NET | 8 | 1 | 1 | 10 |
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