More on John 1:18 and the born god

The most recent recension of the Greek NT that I have is by Nestle. It adds an extensive critical apparatus to support its various readings.  So I got around to looking at the authorities given for "theos" in John 1:18.

He gives only the available papyri plus the codices Sinaiticus and Vaticanus.  He clearly regards any further readings  as superfluous.  And he is right.  Those two codices are generally regarded as the best authorities for the Greek NT that we have and the concurrence of the papyri is particularly impressive. They are the earliest texts we have.

So when the exegetes cavil about variant readings, they are not doing so on the best textual grounds but rather on  theological grounds.  There is no real doubt about what John actually wrote in verse 18: "Theos".

I should probably add here that I don't write to discourage Christian belief.  I write only to disparage acceptance of the absurd Trinity doctrine.  Up until the work of Athanasius in the 4th century, NO Christian believed in the Trinity doctrine.  It is a totally non-Biblical confection.  It was a useful theological compromise at the time it was adopted but it is nothing more

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Does John 1:1 contradict John 1:18?

ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος, καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν, καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος.

(In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. KJV)

Oh boy! When you get into a discussion of the Gospel of John, you dive into complexities. John was clearly influenced by the mysterious style of the gnostic writers but at the same time made sure that what he said would not mislead a careful reader. He wrote very carefully and precisely.

So after my comments about verse 18, we inevitably get back to verse 1 (above). Does it not say there that Jesus was with God in the beginning and does it not say he is God? So how does that jibe with verse 18 where Jesus is said to be a born God? He was certainly born as a man but he was also born as a god, according to verse 18.

Both those claims about verse 1 turn, once again, on what the Greek actually says rather than conventional translations of it. The issue is anarthrous predicates -- i.e. what does it mean when the definite article is omitted? It is omitted both before "theos" and before "arche".

Omitting a definite article before a Greek noun is equivalent to our usage of the indefinite article. Greek does not have an indefinite article to indicate a class of things so where that is intended, "ho" (the) is simply omitted. An omitted definite article is significant.

The implication of that is that verse 1 should be translated to read "a beginning", not "the beginning" and "was God" should be rendered as "was a god". So verse 1 is in fact entirely consistent with verse 18. John was not confused. He was very precise. Jesus was NOT there in the beginning and he was NOT God

The exegetes know all that and try to wriggle out of it by saying it was a Greek custom to omit the definite artice where the noun is part of a predicate. That may be true of some writers but it clearly was not John's usage. No sooner than verse 4 of chapter 1 do we find John using a definite article in a predicate: τὸ φῶς

ἐν αὐτῶ ζωὴ ἦν, καὶ ἡ ζωὴ ἦν τὸ φῶς τῶν ἀνθρώπων·

The light was THE light of men. So the anarthrous predicate argument just will not wash. John really did say that Jesus was a god and that he existed in a beginning, which is perfectly consistent with him being a "born god"

Chapter 14 is another occasion where John's style of writing could mislead. He speaks there of Jesus being united with God. But in verse 28 he makes sure that he is not misunderstood. He emphasizes there that he is NOT God: "My father is greater than I"

My apologies to any mainstream Christians reading this. What I have said is inconsistent with your theology. But it is not me speaking. It is the apostle John

Update note:  Both Theos and Phos are predicates after the verb to be (een) so are entirely comparable

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Jesus was a born God (μονογενὴς θεὸς )

That's what it says in the original Greek of John 1:18.

 θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε· μονογενὴς θεὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο.  

(No man hath seen God at any time, the *only begotten Son*, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. KJV)

Mainstream Christianity embraces the Athanasian trinity doctrine that identifies Jesus as God.  The doctrine is rather confusing but it clearly identifies Jesus as eternal.  That has always seemed nuts to me.  Jesus prayed to God he was not God himself.

 So I have come across something that is great fun indeed:  The usage of "monogenēs theos" in the original Greek of John 1:18.  See above.  A single-born god!  Is that not clear enough that Jesus was created, despite having divine attributes?

The KJV (see above) translates "μονογενὴς θεὸς" as "only begotten son" in that passage. And the Griesbach recension of the Greek has that usage too "monogenes huios", begotten son.  So I was unaware that both Westcott & Hort and Nestle recensions give "monogenēs theos".  "theos" must be better attested than "huios" in the early MSS.  Westcott & Hort above.

So in the light of the best modern recensions of the original Greek text, the translation "only begotten son" is absurd.  The original text says "single-born  GOD" -- μονογενὴς θεὸς. Jesus was a god but not THE god.  That's what it says.  He was in  the bosom of THE god:  In the bosom of τοῦ πατρὸς (THE father)

Huge fun however is the way most modern translations render "monogenēs theos".  They either miss out "monogenes" entirely or say simply "only". And some stick with "son", despite that not being in the best renderings of the original Greek text.  Though the  NIV has the grace to put "son" in brackets!  It is obviously a hugely embarrassing passage to them.  Embarrassing enough for them  to mistranslate it deliberately.  They are just incapable of saying that Christ was both  "genes", "born", "conceived" (perhaps "generated" in modern terms) but also a "theos", a god!   "A born God".  Let those words sink in.

I suppose trinitarians will waffle their way around that, as they usually do, but there is nothing unclear or mysterious in the original text.  If the text had said a born son, it could have meant Christ's incarnation. But it does not.  It was not a man that was born. It was a God.

Needless to say, the theologians and exegetes have gone wild trying to tell us that the text does not mean what it says. They say that μονογενὴς (monogenes) just refers to a particular person etc.  And they then give a pile of excerpts from classical and Biblical Greek in support of that. They also quote Liddell & Scott's definitions in support of their claims.   But all the examples they give are in fact of naturally born people and people identified by their particular birth.  Putting it another way, Greeks would on occasions refer to people as "borns", for various reasons. But born still meant born.

But let's leave the μονο aside and just look at γενὴς. They won't like Liddell & Scott's first definition of "genea", which is "of the persons in a family".  Not the mystical persons of the trinity but the individual persons of a normal family.  And let us look at a word we all know:  "Genesis".  It's exactly the same word in Greek and English and it's a form of γενὴς.  And we know what it refers to, don't we?  A beginning. So Christ was a god who had a beginning, a birth.

I would have been burnt at the stake for saying that at times in the past.  But it is not me speaking.  It  is John 1:18.

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How old was Adam and when did he live?

Tom Croucher has done a very scholarly analysis of the numbers used in Genesis. It is long and complex so I make no attempt to reproduce it here. I reproduce below just the Abstract and conclusion.

I have myself come to a similar but much less complex conclusion when I argued that the ages of Methuseah & co were a simple decimal mistake. I argued that the early scribes had misunderstood the numbers they saw and assumed that they were decimal when they were not. So if we move the decimal point one place we get more believable numbers. Methuselah lived only into his 90s. My article on that is below

http://jonjayray.com/methus.html

I am inclined to defer to Croucher on the matter but I note one difficulty in his account: He fails to consider the obvious different origins of Genesis chapter 1 and the rest of Genesis. Most of Genesis is consitent with the rest of the Torah in referring to God as Yahweh but Chapter 1 only refers to him as Elohim, a much later practice. So chapter 1 is an interpolation to the original text. Both chapter 1 and the other early chapters maybe of Sumerian origin but considering both as part of the same narrative is clearly fallacious. I do not doubt that chapter 1 is of Sumerian origin. Verses 6 and 7 clearly reflect Sumerian cosmology. I expand on that below:

https://ntwords.blogspot.com/2017/03/#8618250840934603253

I discuss WHY Chapter 1 was interpolated below:

http://jonjayray.com/why7.html

Finally, I think Croucher should simply delete from his account all mention of Chapter 1. That would not greatly harm his narrative


ABSTRACT
In the first two papers of this series, I developed the following propositions: Adam was not the first human, and he lived in Sumer, Southern Mesopotamia, in the period 3200 – 3000 BC. In this paper I use those conclusions to place the early chapters of Genesis in their Sumerian context and I propose that the original
written record of Adam was a Sumerian document where the ages that appear in Genesis 5 were recorded in a numbering system of that time, and this led to translation errors that result in the problematic ages of the patriarchs. I then propose a means of reverse-engineering the ages to the correct numbers when these
events were first recorded in Sumer. The conclusion is that Adam was 81 years old when he died.

CONCLUSION
The pre-Flood portion of the SKL uses simple statements to present a list of kings. While the list of names and places may be believed the lengths of the reigns are not believable.

However, the fact that every reign is a combination of multiples of 3,600 and 600, makes it easy to demonstrate how the misinterpretation may have occurred. When reverse-engineered the resulting reigns return to numbers consistent with human
lifespans.

From beginning to the end of the whole SKL there are three sections: the pre-Flood with lengthy number, the middle section showing a reduction in the numbers, and the final section showing reigns consistent with human lifespans.

The same thing happens in the Bible: the simple writing style of early Sumer in Genesis 1, 5, and 11; the pattern of reducing lifespans and longevity in Genesis 5 that can be reverse-engineered to produce normal human lifespans.

Therefore, I propose that Adam lived in the period 3200 – 3000 BC and that he probably lived to be 81 years old. This means that Adam lived at a time when the priests of Sumer were an elite class of people.Intelligent, well-educated, and highly trained, the priests developed both writing and mathematics — knowledge essential to manage their increasingly sophisticated society.

This knowledge helps establish the social, cultural and, most importantly, the religious context for Adam and leads to a different understanding of Genesis 1-5.

If this revised chronology does prove to be acceptable, then the propositions of the first two papers (that Adam was not the first human and that he lived 3200 – 3000 BC becomes a more certain proposition.

If the best explanation for the longevity in Genesis 5 is that they are the result of a misinterpretation of a numbering system from Shuruppak around 290 BC, then the record from Adam to Noah must be a Mesopotamian text written at that time. If that is the case, then the argument for the story being passed on as oral history is redundant. When a culture has a written record there is no need for oral history.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5c3564ed9f877042a04d1883/t/65a25e0f9514521be20306d4/1705139728552/Q3+-+How+old+was+Adam.pdf

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