A Robin Hood story
From A collection of short essays. Project references reflect the source essay; see our current status.
Back around 1200 AD, Prince John (who eventually succeeded his absentee brother, King Richard the Lionheart, and became famous for the heavy taxes that he imposed on the people) and the fictitious Sheriff of Nottingham were the evil tyrants against which the legendary Robin Hood contended. Imagine, that Robin Hood has been reported to be in a certain area, and the king’s soldiers surround the location and slowly move in until Robin Hood is isolated and disarmed. The captain gets off his horse and says loudly, “We hereby arrest you in the name of Prince John.” Then as he shouts, “In the name of John, in the name of John,” and getting louder, “John, John, John,” Robin Hood starts trembling.
I’ve heard similar shouting at Pentecostal/charismatic healing meetings, (but using ‘Jesus’ of course instead of ‘John’), and I believe it is misguided. In middle English, ‘in the name of Prince John’ didn’t mean that there was anything special about the prince’s name, or that chanting his name brought some special power to the soldiers. Rather it was an idiom that represented the authority that the ruler had given to his army.
The modern policeman doesn’t have to shout his name at you on the highway to make you stop your car. Nor does he have to be a large man with bulging muscles. No, we recognise the authority that’s vested in his/her uniform and painted on their vehicle. It’s not their personal strength that we submit to, but the power of everything that’s behind their office.
So could it be that Yeshua was talking about his authority when he told us to do various miracles ‘in my name’? (Well, we know that his name wasn’t Jesus so if we’re shouting that name, it’s not very likely that any demons will start trembling. Try Yeshua [Joshua] or Yaysous or similar.)
An idiom is when a certain phrase (like ‘kick the bucket’) doesn’t mean what the individual words would indicate. And ‘in my name’ in the Bible almost certainly has more to do with authority than the enunciation of someone’s badly-translated name. The Open English Translation strives to translate the meaning of the scriptures rather than just what the individual words say, as so often, literal translations seem attractive but end up being misleading. We aim to bring better Bible translation into the 21st century…