MORE ON THE "SHEMA" (DEUTERONOMY 6:4)
"YHWH our God is one YHWH"
I have now had a bit of time to look at what various authorities say on the Hebrew of this text and the best defence of the orthodox position would appear to be here so I will use that as a jumping-off point. The controversy turns on the meaning of the word "one" ("ehad" in Hebrew) and the point is often made that the text could be implying either that YHWH is the ONLY God or that he is a SINGLE God. Trinitarians can live with meaning one but not with meaning two. But it seems to me that the Hebrew here is quite clear. There is a perfectly good Hebrew word for "only" -- "yahidh", but that word is NOT used in the text concerned. So it seems clear to me that the trinitarian interpretation of the text is an evasion. The Deuteronomy author deliberately uses the best word he could to indicate oneness. There are other places where YHWH is declared to be the ONLY God but this is not one of them.
The trinitarians obviously know that and have a second line of defence. They say that "ehad" can refer to something collective -- as in "the man and his wife will become "one" [ehad] flesh" or "many soldiers made themselves into one [ehad] group". But that too is an evasion. Of course anything can have parts or be made up of parts but that does NOT mean that it is several things -- which is what trinitarians and many pagans assert of their gods. The idea of Gods having several different identities and forms was an ancient one long before Athanasius imported it into Christianity and it is clearly that sort of claim that the Shema is rejecting.
So I think that the trinitarians clearly part company with the OT. But since they part company with almost every page of the NT (in such passages as where Jesus says "My father is greater than I" -- John 14:28) I guess that does not bother them. At the end of the day, however, they have a much better claim to be pagans than Christians. That is my outsider's judgment, anyway.
Saturday, February 05, 2005
MORE ON GENESIS 1:1
Wow! The more I learn about the Hebrew the more interesting it gets. Israeli blogger David Boxenhorn takes a great interest in linguistic matters and has been following my feeble attempts to disentangle what is going on in the Hebrew of Genesis 1:1. In his post he has referred us to Rashi on the proper translation of Genesis 1:1. And who is Rashi? According to David " Rashi is the foremost and most normative of Jewish biblical scholars, he lived in the 11th century".
Rashi apparently finds difficulties in the interpretation of Genesis 1:1 too and makes the VERY interesting point that "reshit" (part of "b'reshit" meaning "In beginning") is normally used only as part of a compound with a noun but that the noun is missing in Genesis 1:1. The next word in Genesis 1:1 is a verb: "bara". So Genesis 1:1 is VERY unclearly worded. Rashi's solution is in effect to say that "bara" is a misspelling and that we should read a different word there!
So on that account Genesis 1:1 is at least as elliptical and indefinite as John 1:1 is. There is nothing like a precise or particular "beginning" being specified in either text. The reader is given large latitude in deciding what the passage means. So if there is a good case for John 1:1 to be rendered as "in a beginning", the case would seem to me to be just as strong for rendering Genesis that way too. Putting it another way, both the translators of the Septuagint and the apostle John were accurately reflecting indefiniteness in the original Hebrew expression by rendering it in a indefinite way in the Greek.
I might note in passing that Rashi's observations about the difficulties of the passage do tend to support Moffatt's decision to render it in a very free way. Moffatt gives us: "When God began to form the universe" for the opening of Genesis 1:1. That is probably a pretty accurate translation of the intent of the passage.
Wow! The more I learn about the Hebrew the more interesting it gets. Israeli blogger David Boxenhorn takes a great interest in linguistic matters and has been following my feeble attempts to disentangle what is going on in the Hebrew of Genesis 1:1. In his post he has referred us to Rashi on the proper translation of Genesis 1:1. And who is Rashi? According to David " Rashi is the foremost and most normative of Jewish biblical scholars, he lived in the 11th century".
Rashi apparently finds difficulties in the interpretation of Genesis 1:1 too and makes the VERY interesting point that "reshit" (part of "b'reshit" meaning "In beginning") is normally used only as part of a compound with a noun but that the noun is missing in Genesis 1:1. The next word in Genesis 1:1 is a verb: "bara". So Genesis 1:1 is VERY unclearly worded. Rashi's solution is in effect to say that "bara" is a misspelling and that we should read a different word there!
So on that account Genesis 1:1 is at least as elliptical and indefinite as John 1:1 is. There is nothing like a precise or particular "beginning" being specified in either text. The reader is given large latitude in deciding what the passage means. So if there is a good case for John 1:1 to be rendered as "in a beginning", the case would seem to me to be just as strong for rendering Genesis that way too. Putting it another way, both the translators of the Septuagint and the apostle John were accurately reflecting indefiniteness in the original Hebrew expression by rendering it in a indefinite way in the Greek.
I might note in passing that Rashi's observations about the difficulties of the passage do tend to support Moffatt's decision to render it in a very free way. Moffatt gives us: "When God began to form the universe" for the opening of Genesis 1:1. That is probably a pretty accurate translation of the intent of the passage.
Friday, February 04, 2005
GENESIS 1:26
Todd Tharp has posted the following on his blog:
From a New Testament viewpoint, this is super-easy to answer. The NT repeatedly says that God created the earth THROUGH Christ. So the "we" above is God and JC in dialogue.
Being an atheist, however, I don't assume that all the books of the Bible had one writer so that explanation does not tell us much about the thinking of the Hebrew writer who wrote those words long before Christ.
But from a purely OT viewpoint the answer is easy too. But before I answer it, I will draw into the discussion another email I received that commented on an aside I made in my post two days ago. I commented in passing: "If we are going to use the OT, I think Deuteronomy 6:4 is pretty fatal to trinitarians too. "YHWH our god is one YHWH". It's a long way from saying: "There's actually three of us here", isn't it?"
In that connection, a reader writes:
I would need to get hold of a copy of Young's Analytical Concordance to follow that point up fully but I have only Strong's Exhaustive in my library so I will simply observe that 'yahidh' seems to mean more "only" rather than "one". Be that as it may, however, it seems likely to me that the usage of 'ehad' is in principle the same as the usage of "us" in Genesis 1:26. And that principle is one that applies not only to Hebrew but to a whole range of languages. The principle is that respectworthiness or dignity or majesty is often conveyed via plurality. The only remnant of that usage in English is the "Royal we". The Queen never refers to herself as "I" or "me". She always refers to herself as "we" or "us"-- which is of course an exact parallel to the usage in Genesis 1:26, where God refers to himself using "us" and "our".
In other languages, however, the usage is much more common. Unlike English, most European languages have both polite and familiar forms of address -- and the polite form is usually a plural -- e.g. "Sie" in German or "voi" in Italian. And something similar is true in Hebrew. As I noted in my post of 16th January, the Hebrew word for "God" normally takes the plural form "elohim" rather than the singular "eloah" ("Allah" in Arabic). That this is a linguistic convention rather than a religious statement can be seen from Judges 16:23, where the false god Dagon is referred to using a form of the title "elohim" but with a singular verb. And in Genesis 42:30 Joseph is spoken of as the "lord" of Egypt using another plural title -- namely "adhoneh".
Rather conveniently for us, Biblical Greek is one language that does not use a plural of majesty so we find that in Mark 12:29, Jesus himself is reported as translating the plural "elohim" of Deuteronomy 6:4 with the SINGULAR "ho theos". Is Jesus as reported by the apostle John a good enough authority for what Deuteronomy actually means? I like it as a trump card anyway! And Jesus does use the normal Greek word for the numeral "one" there too -- "eis".
Heh! Heh!
Todd Tharp has posted the following on his blog:
Regarding trinitarianism, what shall I make of the passages in Genesis where God refers to "us"?
Gen 1.26: NKJV
Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
What is meant by 'our' in this passage? I checked Biblegateway.com and looked at the other English version (RSV wasn't there) - all said 'our'.
This passage is immediately followed by references to God in the singular. What's up with that?
From a New Testament viewpoint, this is super-easy to answer. The NT repeatedly says that God created the earth THROUGH Christ. So the "we" above is God and JC in dialogue.
Being an atheist, however, I don't assume that all the books of the Bible had one writer so that explanation does not tell us much about the thinking of the Hebrew writer who wrote those words long before Christ.
But from a purely OT viewpoint the answer is easy too. But before I answer it, I will draw into the discussion another email I received that commented on an aside I made in my post two days ago. I commented in passing: "If we are going to use the OT, I think Deuteronomy 6:4 is pretty fatal to trinitarians too. "YHWH our god is one YHWH". It's a long way from saying: "There's actually three of us here", isn't it?"
In that connection, a reader writes:
The passage you refer to uses the term 'ehad' for one, which indicates a composite unity, if the author wished to express the scripture in the way you suggest he would have used the term 'yahidh' e.g. 'ehad' is also used in Genesis 2:24 "the man and his wife will be one ('ehad') flesh" as a composite unity. and 'yahidh' is used in Genesis 22:2,12,16
I would need to get hold of a copy of Young's Analytical Concordance to follow that point up fully but I have only Strong's Exhaustive in my library so I will simply observe that 'yahidh' seems to mean more "only" rather than "one". Be that as it may, however, it seems likely to me that the usage of 'ehad' is in principle the same as the usage of "us" in Genesis 1:26. And that principle is one that applies not only to Hebrew but to a whole range of languages. The principle is that respectworthiness or dignity or majesty is often conveyed via plurality. The only remnant of that usage in English is the "Royal we". The Queen never refers to herself as "I" or "me". She always refers to herself as "we" or "us"-- which is of course an exact parallel to the usage in Genesis 1:26, where God refers to himself using "us" and "our".
In other languages, however, the usage is much more common. Unlike English, most European languages have both polite and familiar forms of address -- and the polite form is usually a plural -- e.g. "Sie" in German or "voi" in Italian. And something similar is true in Hebrew. As I noted in my post of 16th January, the Hebrew word for "God" normally takes the plural form "elohim" rather than the singular "eloah" ("Allah" in Arabic). That this is a linguistic convention rather than a religious statement can be seen from Judges 16:23, where the false god Dagon is referred to using a form of the title "elohim" but with a singular verb. And in Genesis 42:30 Joseph is spoken of as the "lord" of Egypt using another plural title -- namely "adhoneh".
Rather conveniently for us, Biblical Greek is one language that does not use a plural of majesty so we find that in Mark 12:29, Jesus himself is reported as translating the plural "elohim" of Deuteronomy 6:4 with the SINGULAR "ho theos". Is Jesus as reported by the apostle John a good enough authority for what Deuteronomy actually means? I like it as a trump card anyway! And Jesus does use the normal Greek word for the numeral "one" there too -- "eis".
Heh! Heh!
Thursday, February 03, 2005
"En arche"
In my post of Jan. 28th., I noted that the meaning of the Greek term "en arche" in John 1:1 was a considerable difficulty for the "irrefutable" trinitarian proof based on John 1:3. Both Mr Irrefutable and I agreed that the term can be translated as "In a beginning". John 1:1 is however clearly an allusion to Genesis 1:1 and I have just received an email that informs me that the Septuagint (an ancient translation of the OT into Greek -- probably the version of the OT that many early Christians used) renders the opening of Genesis 1:1 as "en arche" also. I have always resisted acquiring a copy of the Septuagint so I cannot check the matter myself but such a translation seems highly reasonable. Why? Because that is how the Hebrew reads too. My knowledge of Hebrew is vanishingly small these days but my Bagster Hebrew Student's Manual informs me that the opening of Genesis is "br'shith" -- which also literally means "in beginning", just as "en arche" literally means "in beginning" (no equivalent of "the" present) . In other words it is in both languages left open for the reader to decide whether a unique beginning is intended or not. In the case of Genesis, there is no reason to doubt what is intended but in John there is.
Note furthermore that even if we DO translate John 1:1 as "in the beginning", the trinitarians are still not out of the woods. Because we still obviously have to ask WHAT beginning? Why? Because God is said to be eternal so it cannot be the beginning of God that John is talking about. So we cannot be discussing the nature or identity of God in that passage. But we ARE discussing the Logos! So the probable inference just from that is that the Logos is not God. In fact the passage could be read to say that the Logos was God's first creation!
So the matter is left open as to which beginning we are referring to. And that it is the beginning of our earth and life on it that is being referred to in John 1:1 is a perfectly reasonable and obvious inference. Genesis is of course different in that it immediately goes on to specify what beginning is being referred to: "eth ha shamayim v'eth ha aretz" -- "the heavens and the earth".
In my post of Jan. 28th., I noted that the meaning of the Greek term "en arche" in John 1:1 was a considerable difficulty for the "irrefutable" trinitarian proof based on John 1:3. Both Mr Irrefutable and I agreed that the term can be translated as "In a beginning". John 1:1 is however clearly an allusion to Genesis 1:1 and I have just received an email that informs me that the Septuagint (an ancient translation of the OT into Greek -- probably the version of the OT that many early Christians used) renders the opening of Genesis 1:1 as "en arche" also. I have always resisted acquiring a copy of the Septuagint so I cannot check the matter myself but such a translation seems highly reasonable. Why? Because that is how the Hebrew reads too. My knowledge of Hebrew is vanishingly small these days but my Bagster Hebrew Student's Manual informs me that the opening of Genesis is "br'shith" -- which also literally means "in beginning", just as "en arche" literally means "in beginning" (no equivalent of "the" present) . In other words it is in both languages left open for the reader to decide whether a unique beginning is intended or not. In the case of Genesis, there is no reason to doubt what is intended but in John there is.
Note furthermore that even if we DO translate John 1:1 as "in the beginning", the trinitarians are still not out of the woods. Because we still obviously have to ask WHAT beginning? Why? Because God is said to be eternal so it cannot be the beginning of God that John is talking about. So we cannot be discussing the nature or identity of God in that passage. But we ARE discussing the Logos! So the probable inference just from that is that the Logos is not God. In fact the passage could be read to say that the Logos was God's first creation!
So the matter is left open as to which beginning we are referring to. And that it is the beginning of our earth and life on it that is being referred to in John 1:1 is a perfectly reasonable and obvious inference. Genesis is of course different in that it immediately goes on to specify what beginning is being referred to: "eth ha shamayim v'eth ha aretz" -- "the heavens and the earth".
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
ISAIAH 43: 10
"Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me"
There you are! -- say the trinitarians. What's this business of Jesus being a god? Clearly there is only one god and no god was formed after him.
As I said yesterday, we are getting to a stage now where refutations are as easy as taking candy off a baby. The scripture does NOT say that no god was formed after YHWH was formed. It says that no god SHALL BE after YHWH. But since YHWH is eternal, there IS no "after" YHWH! What the trinitarians would require is a statement that no god was formed DURING the existence of YHWH.
If we are going to use the OT, I think Deuteronomy 6:4 is pretty fatal to trinitarians too. "YHWH our god is one YHWH". It's a long way from saying: "There's actually three of us here", isn't it? And the stress on the unity of YHWH was precisely because gods who take different forms are in fact a commonplace in pagan religions. Far from being sophisticated, then, the Trinity is an old and thoroughly pagan conception.
"Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me"
There you are! -- say the trinitarians. What's this business of Jesus being a god? Clearly there is only one god and no god was formed after him.
As I said yesterday, we are getting to a stage now where refutations are as easy as taking candy off a baby. The scripture does NOT say that no god was formed after YHWH was formed. It says that no god SHALL BE after YHWH. But since YHWH is eternal, there IS no "after" YHWH! What the trinitarians would require is a statement that no god was formed DURING the existence of YHWH.
If we are going to use the OT, I think Deuteronomy 6:4 is pretty fatal to trinitarians too. "YHWH our god is one YHWH". It's a long way from saying: "There's actually three of us here", isn't it? And the stress on the unity of YHWH was precisely because gods who take different forms are in fact a commonplace in pagan religions. Far from being sophisticated, then, the Trinity is an old and thoroughly pagan conception.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
HEBREWS 1:6 and MATTHEW 14:33
"Let all God's angels worship him" and "and those in the boat worshipped him"
These scriptures are a bit of a forlorn hope for trinitarians. The argument is that if Jesus is worshipped he must be God. Catholics would of course have no trouble seeing more than one meaning in these scriptures. Protestants often accuse Catholics of worshipping their plaster saints and Catholics in Mediterranean countries do indeed give every evidence of worshipping the various effigies they cart about the place on holy days. Any priest will patiently explain to you however that the people are not REALLLY worshipping the effigy but rather the Saint depicted by it -- whom everybody knows is now well and truly ensconced in Heaven.
Be that as it may, however, the real answer to what the two scriptures above are saying lies in the Greek. The word is "proskuneo", which originally referred to the familiar Oriental custom of showing respect by prostrating oneself (in extreme form actually lying on the ground) before some high official or King. It can of course also be used figuratively to indicate the sort of attitude that goes with such behaviour. So a translation of the term as "bow down before" or "make obeisance to" would usually capture best what the word is basically referring to. And since you can with perfect propriety prostrate yourself before a high official, there is no implication that the one so respected is God, though no doubt God deserves that honour too.
I think I have now come to the end of the scriptures that give the trinitarians a good argument in favour of their views. There are a few others which are occasionally clung on to which I may also mention in later posts here but I think it is now clear that the NT DOES have a consistent picture of Christ. There are literally thousands of passages that portray him in a subordinate role to his heavenly father and there are only the few passages I have discussed so far which appear at first sight to offer a picture of Christ inconsistent with that. I have however shown fairly well, I think, that the passages concerned are not really inconsistent with the rest of the NT. So what is the picture of Christ in the NT? It is a picture of a mighty spirit being but one subordinate to the creator.
I would welcome emails from readers about where I might go with this blog from this point on. I started it mainly to show that the trinty doctrine is an absurd confection that has no support in the NT and which in fact runs counter to the teachings of the NT and I think I have gone as far in that direction as reason can take us. Matters of faith are not something that reason normally has much impact on, however, so I doubt that I have "converted" anybody.
One thought I have is that I might from now on have a look at what the NT says about the afterlife. Do we all whizz straight off to heaven (or hell) on death or do we have to await a "last trump" before we get our marching orders? At some stage too I think a discussion of whether Jesus was a Leftist or a Rightist could be fun.
"Let all God's angels worship him" and "and those in the boat worshipped him"
These scriptures are a bit of a forlorn hope for trinitarians. The argument is that if Jesus is worshipped he must be God. Catholics would of course have no trouble seeing more than one meaning in these scriptures. Protestants often accuse Catholics of worshipping their plaster saints and Catholics in Mediterranean countries do indeed give every evidence of worshipping the various effigies they cart about the place on holy days. Any priest will patiently explain to you however that the people are not REALLLY worshipping the effigy but rather the Saint depicted by it -- whom everybody knows is now well and truly ensconced in Heaven.
Be that as it may, however, the real answer to what the two scriptures above are saying lies in the Greek. The word is "proskuneo", which originally referred to the familiar Oriental custom of showing respect by prostrating oneself (in extreme form actually lying on the ground) before some high official or King. It can of course also be used figuratively to indicate the sort of attitude that goes with such behaviour. So a translation of the term as "bow down before" or "make obeisance to" would usually capture best what the word is basically referring to. And since you can with perfect propriety prostrate yourself before a high official, there is no implication that the one so respected is God, though no doubt God deserves that honour too.
I think I have now come to the end of the scriptures that give the trinitarians a good argument in favour of their views. There are a few others which are occasionally clung on to which I may also mention in later posts here but I think it is now clear that the NT DOES have a consistent picture of Christ. There are literally thousands of passages that portray him in a subordinate role to his heavenly father and there are only the few passages I have discussed so far which appear at first sight to offer a picture of Christ inconsistent with that. I have however shown fairly well, I think, that the passages concerned are not really inconsistent with the rest of the NT. So what is the picture of Christ in the NT? It is a picture of a mighty spirit being but one subordinate to the creator.
I would welcome emails from readers about where I might go with this blog from this point on. I started it mainly to show that the trinty doctrine is an absurd confection that has no support in the NT and which in fact runs counter to the teachings of the NT and I think I have gone as far in that direction as reason can take us. Matters of faith are not something that reason normally has much impact on, however, so I doubt that I have "converted" anybody.
One thought I have is that I might from now on have a look at what the NT says about the afterlife. Do we all whizz straight off to heaven (or hell) on death or do we have to await a "last trump" before we get our marching orders? At some stage too I think a discussion of whether Jesus was a Leftist or a Rightist could be fun.
Monday, January 31, 2005
HEBREWS 1:8
"But of the Son he says, Thy throne, O God is for ever and ever" (RSV)
I will mention the Greek of this text in a minute (forewarning: mean old Moffatt again) but I personally think that context is all here. The text quoted is one of a series of things that God is supposed to have said about Jesus. In particular, it is a series of things which are said to elevate Jesus over the angels. And the writer of Hebrews would obviously not need to be doing that if Jesus was God. The underlying assumption is that Jesus is one of the many spirit beings in heaven and it is desired to show that he is particularly high up in the heavenly hierarchy. And if you doubt that, read the text for yourself from verse 1 onwards -- preferably in the RSV or some similarly competent translation.
So we read that Jesus "reflects the glory of God", that he sat on God's right hand, that he alone is called God's son and that all the angels have been commanded to worship him. And it is in that context that God says of Jesus, "Thy throne, O God is for ever and ever". So I am inlined to take the text at its word here. Jesus IS a god -- a subsidiary god but a God nonetheless. That was certainly a view held by some of the early church fathers -- e.g. Origen -- and I see no difficulty with it.
On to the Greek:
Jesus is referred to in the text concerned as "ho theos", which is how God himself is normally referred to -- but pagan gods were also referred to in that way so the usage rather reinforces my interpretation of Jesus as a subsidiary god rather than anything else. Unlike the OT usage of the tetragrammaton (YHWH), the NT has no distinctive way of referring to the all-powerful creator God of the Hebrews except in that Jesus himself usually refers to him as "Father".
I will not delve further into the ambiguities in the Greek text of this passage. They get a bit subtle for me but do again largely depend on how you punctuate the passage. I will content myself with noting how Moffatt translates the passage. For those who don't like the idea of Jesus being a subsidiary god, Moffatt does in fact provide some comfort. He renders the passage as:
"He says of the Son, "God is thy throne for ever and ever""
So go with the RSV if you want Jesus to be a subsidiary god or go with Moffatt if you want the text to say nothing about Jesus being any sort of god. You get a choice.
"But of the Son he says, Thy throne, O God is for ever and ever" (RSV)
I will mention the Greek of this text in a minute (forewarning: mean old Moffatt again) but I personally think that context is all here. The text quoted is one of a series of things that God is supposed to have said about Jesus. In particular, it is a series of things which are said to elevate Jesus over the angels. And the writer of Hebrews would obviously not need to be doing that if Jesus was God. The underlying assumption is that Jesus is one of the many spirit beings in heaven and it is desired to show that he is particularly high up in the heavenly hierarchy. And if you doubt that, read the text for yourself from verse 1 onwards -- preferably in the RSV or some similarly competent translation.
So we read that Jesus "reflects the glory of God", that he sat on God's right hand, that he alone is called God's son and that all the angels have been commanded to worship him. And it is in that context that God says of Jesus, "Thy throne, O God is for ever and ever". So I am inlined to take the text at its word here. Jesus IS a god -- a subsidiary god but a God nonetheless. That was certainly a view held by some of the early church fathers -- e.g. Origen -- and I see no difficulty with it.
On to the Greek:
Jesus is referred to in the text concerned as "ho theos", which is how God himself is normally referred to -- but pagan gods were also referred to in that way so the usage rather reinforces my interpretation of Jesus as a subsidiary god rather than anything else. Unlike the OT usage of the tetragrammaton (YHWH), the NT has no distinctive way of referring to the all-powerful creator God of the Hebrews except in that Jesus himself usually refers to him as "Father".
I will not delve further into the ambiguities in the Greek text of this passage. They get a bit subtle for me but do again largely depend on how you punctuate the passage. I will content myself with noting how Moffatt translates the passage. For those who don't like the idea of Jesus being a subsidiary god, Moffatt does in fact provide some comfort. He renders the passage as:
"He says of the Son, "God is thy throne for ever and ever""
So go with the RSV if you want Jesus to be a subsidiary god or go with Moffatt if you want the text to say nothing about Jesus being any sort of god. You get a choice.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
TITUS 2:13 and 2 THESSALONIANS 1:12
Titus: "The appearing of the glory of our great God and saviour, Jesus Christ" (RSV)
Thessalonians: "according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ" (RSV)
That Titus text looks pretty good for the trinitarians, doesn't it? The Thessalonians text rather spoils the party, however, as we shall see.
Note that the words God and Jesus are juxtaposed in both passages yet the meaning appears very different due to the punctuation and the insertion or non-insertion of a "the". Yet there is NO punctuation in the original Greek texts. So why the difference? There is no real reason. It is arbitrary. There could just as well have been a "the" put in front of "saviour" in the Titus text too. There is no definite article in either text in the Greek. The omissions of the article would however appear to be elliptical in both texts as it would make little sense to translate the texts as "a saviour" or "a Lord". In other words, the Titus translation in the RSV could equally well have been: "The appearing of the glory of our great God and the saviour Jesus Christ". There is no necessary implication that "God" and the saviour are the same. Putting it another way, the appearance of BOTH God and the saviour would be consistent with the text.
And guess how that mean old Moffatt renders the Titus text? "the appearance of the glory of the great God and of our saviour Christ Jesus". And Moffatt was a very eminent Greek scholar.
That was an easy one today.
UPDATE
Dienekes thinks he knows better than Prof. Moffatt.
Titus: "The appearing of the glory of our great God and saviour, Jesus Christ" (RSV)
Thessalonians: "according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ" (RSV)
That Titus text looks pretty good for the trinitarians, doesn't it? The Thessalonians text rather spoils the party, however, as we shall see.
Note that the words God and Jesus are juxtaposed in both passages yet the meaning appears very different due to the punctuation and the insertion or non-insertion of a "the". Yet there is NO punctuation in the original Greek texts. So why the difference? There is no real reason. It is arbitrary. There could just as well have been a "the" put in front of "saviour" in the Titus text too. There is no definite article in either text in the Greek. The omissions of the article would however appear to be elliptical in both texts as it would make little sense to translate the texts as "a saviour" or "a Lord". In other words, the Titus translation in the RSV could equally well have been: "The appearing of the glory of our great God and the saviour Jesus Christ". There is no necessary implication that "God" and the saviour are the same. Putting it another way, the appearance of BOTH God and the saviour would be consistent with the text.
And guess how that mean old Moffatt renders the Titus text? "the appearance of the glory of the great God and of our saviour Christ Jesus". And Moffatt was a very eminent Greek scholar.
That was an easy one today.
UPDATE
Dienekes thinks he knows better than Prof. Moffatt.
Saturday, January 29, 2005
COLOSSIANS 2:9
"For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (KJ)
"For in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fulness of life in him who is the head of all rule and authority" (RSV)
I seem to have caught up with all my emails now so if anybody has sent me something that I do not yet appear to have answered, please re-send it.
I will look at the Greek first:
I have quoted above the KJ version of the text as that is the form which trinitarians most like -- for obvious reasons. But the RSV is of course far more accurate and in this case reads very smoothly too.
There are two words above (RSV) which seem crucial to me: "deity" and "fulness". And context seems important too. Just a little further on in the passage (3:1) we read: "Christ is seated at the right hand of God". Now I know that for trinitarians having God sit at his own right hand is no problem, but for a humble student of the original texts who simply wants to get straight what the original authors were getting at, it is an absurdity. So I am going to look for a meaning of "deity" that does not involve us in such absurdities -- as I am ABSOLUTELY sure that Paul did not intend to utter absurdities.
And the word Paul uses here ("theotetos" -- or "theotes" in the nominative case) that is translated above as "deity" is an odd one anyway. My Abbott-Smith NT Lexicon tells me that the above passage in Colossians is its ONLY occurrence in the NT. So we need to go to a more general Greek Lexicon to get an idea of what it means. And Liddell & Scott give two meanings: "divinity" and "divine nature". And the second of those meanings surely takes us a long way from identifying Christ with God. It says Christ has a Godlike nature and that is of course a claim that any Christian, Arian or trinitarian, would endorse.
But does not the text do more than that? Does it not tell us that the "whole fulness" of a godlike nature dwells in JC? It does. But what is meant by "fulness"? We should get a clue in the very next part of the sentence where the same Greek word (though in a different case) is used again. We read that the Christians to whom Paul was writing have come to "fulness of life in him". Now I frankly don't know what Paul means there. It could mean many things. It surely does not mean that they are literally more alive. So I think we have to say that what Paul was driving at in his immediately previous use of the word is indeterminate too. If he can use it in some vague and indeterminate way in one part of the sentence, we surely have to suspect the same vagueness and indeterminacy when it is used elsewhere in the same sentence. Paul was undoubtedly a theologian and I personally conclude that what we have in this passage is little more than a fine-sounding theological flourish.
If we want to move outside this passage for an idea of what "pleeroma" ("fulness") means however, Abbott-Smith tells us that the general meaning of the term has to do with "filling up". So if we give Paul credit for more than fine-sounding rhetoric here, he is probably saying that Jesus is "full-up" with godlike nature just as the lives of the Colossians he addresses were "full up" with Christ. However you cut it, however, the statement is highly metaphorical rather than literal.
To move on to the theology:
HOW can the whole fulness of the deity reside in a body? Does God have a body? (Note that this was written after the resurrection). But God is omnipresent. So if he is omnipresent how can the WHOLE of him also be in one particular body? And which body is it? Is Christ's human body still lurking around somewhere? And if it is, could it contain the WHOLE of God? As far as I can make out, even trinitarians don't claim that.
So what is Paul talking about? I think we again have to conclude that Paul COULD not be talking about God here. If he were he would surely have used "theos" rather than "theotetos", anyway. So once again we have to conclude that Paul is talking about something to do with God -- such as a godlike nature -- rather than about God himself.
That still of course leaves the minor problem of what body Paul is talking about. No prizes for guessing that he means Christ's body but surely Christ's human body was long gone back to dust by the time Paul was writing? I suppose the simple answer to that is: "Apparently not". Apparently it still is lurking around somewhere. Or does Christ have a "spirit" body (whatever that may mean) now? I think I might just throw up my hands at making any more sense of this passage at this stage. I think I have cast a fair amount of light on it but I think I would be getting too far into speculation to continue any further.
"For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (KJ)
"For in him the whole fulness of deity dwells bodily, and you have come to fulness of life in him who is the head of all rule and authority" (RSV)
I seem to have caught up with all my emails now so if anybody has sent me something that I do not yet appear to have answered, please re-send it.
I will look at the Greek first:
I have quoted above the KJ version of the text as that is the form which trinitarians most like -- for obvious reasons. But the RSV is of course far more accurate and in this case reads very smoothly too.
There are two words above (RSV) which seem crucial to me: "deity" and "fulness". And context seems important too. Just a little further on in the passage (3:1) we read: "Christ is seated at the right hand of God". Now I know that for trinitarians having God sit at his own right hand is no problem, but for a humble student of the original texts who simply wants to get straight what the original authors were getting at, it is an absurdity. So I am going to look for a meaning of "deity" that does not involve us in such absurdities -- as I am ABSOLUTELY sure that Paul did not intend to utter absurdities.
And the word Paul uses here ("theotetos" -- or "theotes" in the nominative case) that is translated above as "deity" is an odd one anyway. My Abbott-Smith NT Lexicon tells me that the above passage in Colossians is its ONLY occurrence in the NT. So we need to go to a more general Greek Lexicon to get an idea of what it means. And Liddell & Scott give two meanings: "divinity" and "divine nature". And the second of those meanings surely takes us a long way from identifying Christ with God. It says Christ has a Godlike nature and that is of course a claim that any Christian, Arian or trinitarian, would endorse.
But does not the text do more than that? Does it not tell us that the "whole fulness" of a godlike nature dwells in JC? It does. But what is meant by "fulness"? We should get a clue in the very next part of the sentence where the same Greek word (though in a different case) is used again. We read that the Christians to whom Paul was writing have come to "fulness of life in him". Now I frankly don't know what Paul means there. It could mean many things. It surely does not mean that they are literally more alive. So I think we have to say that what Paul was driving at in his immediately previous use of the word is indeterminate too. If he can use it in some vague and indeterminate way in one part of the sentence, we surely have to suspect the same vagueness and indeterminacy when it is used elsewhere in the same sentence. Paul was undoubtedly a theologian and I personally conclude that what we have in this passage is little more than a fine-sounding theological flourish.
If we want to move outside this passage for an idea of what "pleeroma" ("fulness") means however, Abbott-Smith tells us that the general meaning of the term has to do with "filling up". So if we give Paul credit for more than fine-sounding rhetoric here, he is probably saying that Jesus is "full-up" with godlike nature just as the lives of the Colossians he addresses were "full up" with Christ. However you cut it, however, the statement is highly metaphorical rather than literal.
To move on to the theology:
HOW can the whole fulness of the deity reside in a body? Does God have a body? (Note that this was written after the resurrection). But God is omnipresent. So if he is omnipresent how can the WHOLE of him also be in one particular body? And which body is it? Is Christ's human body still lurking around somewhere? And if it is, could it contain the WHOLE of God? As far as I can make out, even trinitarians don't claim that.
So what is Paul talking about? I think we again have to conclude that Paul COULD not be talking about God here. If he were he would surely have used "theos" rather than "theotetos", anyway. So once again we have to conclude that Paul is talking about something to do with God -- such as a godlike nature -- rather than about God himself.
That still of course leaves the minor problem of what body Paul is talking about. No prizes for guessing that he means Christ's body but surely Christ's human body was long gone back to dust by the time Paul was writing? I suppose the simple answer to that is: "Apparently not". Apparently it still is lurking around somewhere. Or does Christ have a "spirit" body (whatever that may mean) now? I think I might just throw up my hands at making any more sense of this passage at this stage. I think I have cast a fair amount of light on it but I think I would be getting too far into speculation to continue any further.
Friday, January 28, 2005
JOHN 1:3
"All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made"
LOTS of fun today. Another email to start us off:
In the link my reader gives, John 1:3 is described as "irrefutable" proof that Jesus was God. I however can see several holes in that bucket.
OK: The first part of the verse is in my view FATAL to trinitarians who identify the Logos with Christ -- as this author does. It clearly implies that things were only made THROUGH ("dia") the Logos not BY the Logos. Do I hear something crashing in flames somewhere? Perhaps not.
But, after that, the second part of the argument becomes silly. The second part turns on the second part of the verse: "without him was not anything made that was made". So all creation was made by the Logos so the Logos cannot himself be created. So he must be God. So which are we to believe? He himself created everything or everything was merely created THROUGH him? Clearly something is awry to have such a contradiction within the space of one sentence!
The problem goes away however if we accept that if John had meant Christ he would have said Christ. John's term "Logos" clearly has a more gnostic or at least a broader meaning than just old JC. And just about any one of the many expansions of what John meant by "logos" removes the apparent contradiction in John 1:3. If we substitute (say) "wisdom" for "Logos" we get "all things were made through God's wisdom and without his wisdom was not anything made that was made". No problem! So which interpretation do we accept? One that makes John self-contradictory or one that makes perfect sense? I will leave it to the reader to answer that.
The reason people identify the Logos with Christ is of course John 1:14 -- "and the word became flesh and dwelt among us". And -- as I have already spelt out at some length -- John, as a gnostic writer, probably intended simple people to take that message away. Clearly, however, the text suggests a more complex meaning for those who read more carefully and to say (for instance) that God's wisdom was embodied in Christ is in fact no great stretch at all as an interpretation of John 1:14. In short, the identification of the Logos with Christ is simplistic.
Well, I think that's the theology of it but a look at the Greek is fruitful too. As my correspondent rightly says, you must look at the context. And I am slightly peeved that the author of the "irrefutable" site has anticipated my first point: That the whole passage begins with "In a beginning". In other words, the Greek ("en arche") contains NO definite article so "In THE beginning" is going well beyond the original Greek. Although he recognizes this point our "irrefutable" author gives no substantial reply to it. He just seems to say that it is implausible. He does not even refer to the grammatical argument about anarthrous predicates -- an argument I shot down at the very beginning of this blog. Here is what he actually says:
I will be polite and call that a mere expression of opinion.
Clearly, John begins his Gospel with "en arche" in emulation of Genesis 1:1 "br'shith bara elohim" -- "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth" but the fact that he does not say THE beginning leaves it very open that he is referring to the creation of the earth only. So if we DO accept that the Logos was Christ we are still in the clear for Christ to be created. John 1:3 then tells us that nothing ON THE EARTH was created without Christ.
I think that's two pretty large holes in the bucket so far but, fear not! There is a third. And in a sense it is the biggest hole of all: The word "egeneto" is translated as "was made" in most translations but it could equally mean "was done" or "happened" or "came to be" or "came to pass". I can even give you a link about that. So the New English Bible translation of "egeneto" as "created" is certainly tendentious. If we substitute "was done" for "egeneto", however, we get: "Everything through it was done and without it was done not one thing that was done". Nothing about the creation or otherwise of Christ there at all! And if we translate it as "happened" (my preference) we get: "Everything through it happened and without it nothing happened that did happen". So the Logos was in on all the happenings!
Just to really nail that point about "egeneto" in good comparative style, note that "egeneto" is also used in Luke 5:1 "It happened as the crowd pressed on him to hear the word of God...". How much sense would it make to say: "It was created as the crowd pressed ... "? Not much.
A final point: The word "choris" is a bit vague too. It is often translated "without" but it can also be translated as "apart from" -- as Moffatt does. So the text on that account says that: "apart from it was not one thing done that was done" -- which is just a reassertion that everything was done THROUGH the Logos, not BY the Logos.
Mr Irrefutable will hate me if he ever reads this. Though I think he actually dropped his bundle over "en arche".
"All things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made"
LOTS of fun today. Another email to start us off:
The problem here is your leap from John 1:1 doesn't prove Jesus was God to "so there is NO scriptural basis for the Trinity doctrine." The problem is you violated the single most important rule of interpeting religious texts...."never read a scripture verse" because single verse=/=whole of scripture. You must always read the the whole paragraph.
It's true that really dumb Trinitarians still use John 1:1 but smart Trinitarians use John 1:3 to clarify John 1:1. When you do this it becomes clear that your interpetation that Jesus was simply "one of the many people who have allegedly gone to Heaven" is impossible if by "people" you mean less than divine. John 1:3: "All things came into being through Him and apart from Him nothing come into being that has come into being." For the rest of this argument from John 1:3, please visit http://www.str.org/free/solid_ground/SG0007.htm.
The doctrine of the Trinity is not based on a single scripture verse but was the best solution problem with the whole of scripture's different statements refering to the identity of the three figures "the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost." You may not agree with the doctine but it was not just decided willy-nilly. It was the best the Church Fathers could do given the threat from Gnosticism which would have changed Christianity into a monist religion and that would changed into something very much like Buddhism. Remember one thing about Christianity; it is a integrated system of beliefs and practices which is very old and is derived from even older systems. If the system was so easily deconstructed it wouldn't have lasted as long as it has or built as much as it it has built.
In the link my reader gives, John 1:3 is described as "irrefutable" proof that Jesus was God. I however can see several holes in that bucket.
OK: The first part of the verse is in my view FATAL to trinitarians who identify the Logos with Christ -- as this author does. It clearly implies that things were only made THROUGH ("dia") the Logos not BY the Logos. Do I hear something crashing in flames somewhere? Perhaps not.
But, after that, the second part of the argument becomes silly. The second part turns on the second part of the verse: "without him was not anything made that was made". So all creation was made by the Logos so the Logos cannot himself be created. So he must be God. So which are we to believe? He himself created everything or everything was merely created THROUGH him? Clearly something is awry to have such a contradiction within the space of one sentence!
The problem goes away however if we accept that if John had meant Christ he would have said Christ. John's term "Logos" clearly has a more gnostic or at least a broader meaning than just old JC. And just about any one of the many expansions of what John meant by "logos" removes the apparent contradiction in John 1:3. If we substitute (say) "wisdom" for "Logos" we get "all things were made through God's wisdom and without his wisdom was not anything made that was made". No problem! So which interpretation do we accept? One that makes John self-contradictory or one that makes perfect sense? I will leave it to the reader to answer that.
The reason people identify the Logos with Christ is of course John 1:14 -- "and the word became flesh and dwelt among us". And -- as I have already spelt out at some length -- John, as a gnostic writer, probably intended simple people to take that message away. Clearly, however, the text suggests a more complex meaning for those who read more carefully and to say (for instance) that God's wisdom was embodied in Christ is in fact no great stretch at all as an interpretation of John 1:14. In short, the identification of the Logos with Christ is simplistic.
Well, I think that's the theology of it but a look at the Greek is fruitful too. As my correspondent rightly says, you must look at the context. And I am slightly peeved that the author of the "irrefutable" site has anticipated my first point: That the whole passage begins with "In a beginning". In other words, the Greek ("en arche") contains NO definite article so "In THE beginning" is going well beyond the original Greek. Although he recognizes this point our "irrefutable" author gives no substantial reply to it. He just seems to say that it is implausible. He does not even refer to the grammatical argument about anarthrous predicates -- an argument I shot down at the very beginning of this blog. Here is what he actually says:
"This grasping-at-the-wind is an example of what I call "Bedtime Story." Here the detractor tells a story to put your argument to rest, but like all mere stories there is no foundation in fact. Nothing in the details of the text itself suggests this alternate translation".
I will be polite and call that a mere expression of opinion.
Clearly, John begins his Gospel with "en arche" in emulation of Genesis 1:1 "br'shith bara elohim" -- "In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth" but the fact that he does not say THE beginning leaves it very open that he is referring to the creation of the earth only. So if we DO accept that the Logos was Christ we are still in the clear for Christ to be created. John 1:3 then tells us that nothing ON THE EARTH was created without Christ.
I think that's two pretty large holes in the bucket so far but, fear not! There is a third. And in a sense it is the biggest hole of all: The word "egeneto" is translated as "was made" in most translations but it could equally mean "was done" or "happened" or "came to be" or "came to pass". I can even give you a link about that. So the New English Bible translation of "egeneto" as "created" is certainly tendentious. If we substitute "was done" for "egeneto", however, we get: "Everything through it was done and without it was done not one thing that was done". Nothing about the creation or otherwise of Christ there at all! And if we translate it as "happened" (my preference) we get: "Everything through it happened and without it nothing happened that did happen". So the Logos was in on all the happenings!
Just to really nail that point about "egeneto" in good comparative style, note that "egeneto" is also used in Luke 5:1 "It happened as the crowd pressed on him to hear the word of God...". How much sense would it make to say: "It was created as the crowd pressed ... "? Not much.
A final point: The word "choris" is a bit vague too. It is often translated "without" but it can also be translated as "apart from" -- as Moffatt does. So the text on that account says that: "apart from it was not one thing done that was done" -- which is just a reassertion that everything was done THROUGH the Logos, not BY the Logos.
Mr Irrefutable will hate me if he ever reads this. Though I think he actually dropped his bundle over "en arche".
Thursday, January 27, 2005
JOHN 1: 29-34
"The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world ... this is the son of God"
An email received some time ago which I have finally gotten around to:
With no disrespect to the reader who wrote the above, I have to admit to some amusement at his argument that John the Baptist's words identify Christ with God. The "lamb" that "takes away sin" is clearly an allusion to the primitive practice of sacrificing an animal in order to propitiate a god -- a practice common to the Jews of Jesus' day and practically everybody else at that time. So John the Baptist is (rightly) prophesying that Jesus will die as such a sacrifice too. But in any ritual of sacrifice is the animal slaughtered seen as BEING the God who is propitiated?? Hardly!
I think I need say no more about that
His second point about the meaning of the Logos is fair enough. The term can bear many interpretations and I have no strong preferences among them.
The third idea that the Trinity is a name is fine up to a point but to deny that it is also a doctrine certainly makes us wonder what all the creeds and credal disputes were about! Nobody disputes that the OT God was YHWH -- but who or what the NT God might be caused tremendous upheavals for hundreds of years. I can if I like call my car "Trinity" and assert that it has three equal parts all capable of independent action but saying so does not make that description an accurate one. It remains the humble little Japanese chariot that I have always had. Conferring different names on things has no magical powers -- though the politically correct brigade seem to think it does.
"The next day he saw Jesus coming toward him and said, "Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world ... this is the son of God"
An email received some time ago which I have finally gotten around to:
You are, of course, proof-texting with John 1:1. You also fail to note the subsequent verse: "and the word was made flesh and dwelt among us." [John 1:14] . John 1:29-34 is also highly suggestive, especially the reference by John the Baptist to Jesus as the Lamb of God, who "takes away the sins of the world." To an observant Jew (like the Baptist), only God (Yawheh) could forgive sins; to claim otherwise (as Jesus subsequently did) was blasphemy (as the Sanhedrin noted in Jesus' interrogation). The Baptist was clearly proclaiming Jesus' divinity.
You also neglect to note, though you surely know, that "word" is an English translation of "logos," and logos is more than a mere "message," as you imply. In philosophy, logos has traditionally been understood to mean the controlling principle of the universe; in Christian theology, this understanding is not abandoned, but supplemented as the eternal thought or word of God, incarnate in Christ (not in Christ's "message," whatever that might mean).
One final confusion is the consideration of the Trinity as a doctrine. The Trinity, in Christianity, is first and foremost the Name of God. In Judaism, the name of God is Yahweh; in Islam, the name of God is Allah; in Christianity, the name of God is "The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit." This name identifies and specifies a particular God who acts in history in a specific way. Another name would not identify the Christian God.
As a corollary, the notion that the Trinity is a property, description, or quality of God, or a proposition about God, is a mistake. In Christianity, God is not predicated in the Trinity. In Christianity, the Trinity is God; it's an identity, not a predicated relation.
With no disrespect to the reader who wrote the above, I have to admit to some amusement at his argument that John the Baptist's words identify Christ with God. The "lamb" that "takes away sin" is clearly an allusion to the primitive practice of sacrificing an animal in order to propitiate a god -- a practice common to the Jews of Jesus' day and practically everybody else at that time. So John the Baptist is (rightly) prophesying that Jesus will die as such a sacrifice too. But in any ritual of sacrifice is the animal slaughtered seen as BEING the God who is propitiated?? Hardly!
I think I need say no more about that
His second point about the meaning of the Logos is fair enough. The term can bear many interpretations and I have no strong preferences among them.
The third idea that the Trinity is a name is fine up to a point but to deny that it is also a doctrine certainly makes us wonder what all the creeds and credal disputes were about! Nobody disputes that the OT God was YHWH -- but who or what the NT God might be caused tremendous upheavals for hundreds of years. I can if I like call my car "Trinity" and assert that it has three equal parts all capable of independent action but saying so does not make that description an accurate one. It remains the humble little Japanese chariot that I have always had. Conferring different names on things has no magical powers -- though the politically correct brigade seem to think it does.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
ROMANS 9:5
"Christ came who is over all, God blessed forever" (KJ)
So Christ is God? No. The first thing one needs to note here is what all good pedagogues tell us about the importance of punctuation. And the original Greek, of course had NO punctuation. So let us see how RSV punctuates it: "of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed forever." A lot more orthodox!
The RSV is of course much more scholarly than the KJ but it is in the end a judgment-call about how to punctuate the passage so I am rather impressed that the RSV departed from the KJ. They did normally of course stick fairly closely to KJ if they could. I can only conclude that there must be subtleties in the Greek or in comparable passages that tip them towards that punctuation. Or perhaps they were just playing safe in some sense. The New English Bible and Moffatt agree with the RSV in the matter.
I have mentioned the Moffatt translation of the Bible before but although it was once very popular, I am guessing that most of my readers have never heard of it -- so just a quick word about it. It is one of the early attempts to translate the Bible into "modern" English. My copy says it was first published in England in 1925. It was based on the Von Soden recension as far as the Greek NT is concerned -- which was fairly recent at the time. I personally like Moffatt's attempt to translate the Bible as a "normal" text. I think he strikes a good balance between faithfulness to the text and readability. Moffatt was a Professor of Greek at Oxford university so his NT renderings are probably of greatest interest.
Although he was of "Wee Free" (strict Presbyterian) origins, he was a bit of a modernist as far as textual criticism is concerned and his re-arrangement of some OT passages evoked a few grumbles -- which is probably one reason why his translation did not retain its initial popularity.
The last Presbyterian church of which I was a communicant was originally "Wee Free". Their only stained-glass was abstract patterns -- no "graven images" thank you very much. But that was a long time ago. The church concerned is still going but its congregation these days is -- Korean! The stern Scots who built it would be amazed -- but probably pleased too.
"Christ came who is over all, God blessed forever" (KJ)
So Christ is God? No. The first thing one needs to note here is what all good pedagogues tell us about the importance of punctuation. And the original Greek, of course had NO punctuation. So let us see how RSV punctuates it: "of their race, according to the flesh, is the Christ. God who is over all be blessed forever." A lot more orthodox!
The RSV is of course much more scholarly than the KJ but it is in the end a judgment-call about how to punctuate the passage so I am rather impressed that the RSV departed from the KJ. They did normally of course stick fairly closely to KJ if they could. I can only conclude that there must be subtleties in the Greek or in comparable passages that tip them towards that punctuation. Or perhaps they were just playing safe in some sense. The New English Bible and Moffatt agree with the RSV in the matter.
I have mentioned the Moffatt translation of the Bible before but although it was once very popular, I am guessing that most of my readers have never heard of it -- so just a quick word about it. It is one of the early attempts to translate the Bible into "modern" English. My copy says it was first published in England in 1925. It was based on the Von Soden recension as far as the Greek NT is concerned -- which was fairly recent at the time. I personally like Moffatt's attempt to translate the Bible as a "normal" text. I think he strikes a good balance between faithfulness to the text and readability. Moffatt was a Professor of Greek at Oxford university so his NT renderings are probably of greatest interest.
Although he was of "Wee Free" (strict Presbyterian) origins, he was a bit of a modernist as far as textual criticism is concerned and his re-arrangement of some OT passages evoked a few grumbles -- which is probably one reason why his translation did not retain its initial popularity.
The last Presbyterian church of which I was a communicant was originally "Wee Free". Their only stained-glass was abstract patterns -- no "graven images" thank you very much. But that was a long time ago. The church concerned is still going but its congregation these days is -- Korean! The stern Scots who built it would be amazed -- but probably pleased too.
Tuesday, January 25, 2005
MEANINGS OF "LOGOS"
As every reader of this blog knows, I depend a lot on my email to get me started on a topic. Yesterday, however, I received an email that I like so much that I am going to put it up by itself as my post for today. Ben Swett writes:
As every reader of this blog knows, I depend a lot on my email to get me started on a topic. Yesterday, however, I received an email that I like so much that I am going to put it up by itself as my post for today. Ben Swett writes:
"I am enjoying your discussion. I appreciate your scholarship and your style of presentation. Some thoughts for interpretation of logos in the context of John 1:1-18:
1) As you know, "word" isn't the primary meaning of logos. Equal or better translations would be "reason" or "reasoning" or "rationale" or "inward thought" or even "logic" (in the sense of structured reasoning).
2) I have read that John wrote his Gospel in Greek, in Ephesus. Given that he was writing to Greeks and not Jews, perhaps he used this word in a Greek and not Hebrew sense. The philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus (c. 500 BC) gave the term O LOGOS a very special meaning. As well as I can determine from the fragments of his writings, he used it to denote the first principle of creation.
3) I think the punch-line of the preamble to John's Gospel comes in verse 1:14 "And the logos became flesh and dwelt among us ... full of grace and truth," and verse 1:17 "the law was given through Moses, grace and truth became through Jesus Christ." Grace and truth.
4) Surely, grace (graciousness) and truth (truthfulness) are creative in their effects among humans -- drawing people together in trustworthy groups -- whereas the opposites of grace and truth are destructive in their effects -- turning people against each other and driving them apart.
5) Thus, it seems to me that John is saying Jesus embodied and revealed the creative principle of grace and truth -- which is and always was the divine rationale for humans (and all other spirit-beings).
6) I am reminded that the logos of a necklace is the thread that holds the beads together.
Monday, January 24, 2005
DIENEKES ON "MY GOD" VERSUS "OUR GOD"
("my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God" -- John 20:17)
I start with an email from Dienekes received some time ago:
Dienekes is hanging an awful lot on a small hook here. He draws large inferences from the fact that Jesus mostly uses the term "my" Father rather than "our" Father. He seems to think that such terminology makes Jesus God or at least equal with his Father. The logic of that entirely escapes me however.
Since Dienekes has raised it, however, I will offer a couple of comments on why I think Jesus used "my" rather than "our".
I am sure any modern evangelical Christian who stresses the importance of a personal relationship with God would recognize immediately that Jesus is stressing HIS personal relationship with God too. No mystery. End of discussion.
But I think there is another perfectly straightforward theological point to be made here too. Jesus is absolutely clear (e.g. John 8:58) that he sees himself as essentially an embodied form of a very ancient spirit being -- probably God's first creation. So clearly, his knowledge of his Father and relationship with his Father is more extensive than that of any purely earthly creature. So in saying "my Father" rather than "our father" Jesus is rightly and understandably stressing that his relationship to God is different. But only Dienekes thinks that tells us the details of the relationship concerned.
("my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God" -- John 20:17)
I start with an email from Dienekes received some time ago:
You said:
Before I comment directly on the text, however, let me again draw attention to some pesky context. In verse 17 Jesus said: "I ascend unto my Father and your Father; and to my God and your God". So whom are we to believe? Thomas or Jesus himself? If Jesus said the Father was his God -- which clearly puts him into a VERY subordinate position to the Father, are we to understand that Thomas is EQUATING him with the Father?
In John it is clear that Jesus has a "special relationship" with God (let's not get into what that exactly is for the time being). It is clear that "Father" means something different when applied to Jesus and when applied to Thomas, and so does "God". Otherwise, he could have said "I ascend unto our Father and to our God."
Indeed, the plain reading of this passage suggests (1) that the words Father and God do not refer to the same entity; "I ascend unto my Father and your Father" alone would have sufficed if they did so (*) (2) that as stated in the above paragraph, the "paternal" relationship of the Father to Jesus is not the same as that of the Father to Thomas, since otherwise "our Father" would have sufficed. So, this passage is in agreement with the orthodox doctrine of Jesus being son of the Father through GENNHSIS (generation), while Thomas is a son in the sense of GENESIS (creation). Similarly, God is Thomas's God as a Creator, but it is Jesus' God as his divine Nature.
* Otherwise it would be analogous to an expression like "I'm going to the Netherlands, I'm going to Holland", a pleonasm since Netherlands and Holland are synonyms
Dienekes is hanging an awful lot on a small hook here. He draws large inferences from the fact that Jesus mostly uses the term "my" Father rather than "our" Father. He seems to think that such terminology makes Jesus God or at least equal with his Father. The logic of that entirely escapes me however.
Since Dienekes has raised it, however, I will offer a couple of comments on why I think Jesus used "my" rather than "our".
I am sure any modern evangelical Christian who stresses the importance of a personal relationship with God would recognize immediately that Jesus is stressing HIS personal relationship with God too. No mystery. End of discussion.
But I think there is another perfectly straightforward theological point to be made here too. Jesus is absolutely clear (e.g. John 8:58) that he sees himself as essentially an embodied form of a very ancient spirit being -- probably God's first creation. So clearly, his knowledge of his Father and relationship with his Father is more extensive than that of any purely earthly creature. So in saying "my Father" rather than "our father" Jesus is rightly and understandably stressing that his relationship to God is different. But only Dienekes thinks that tells us the details of the relationship concerned.
Sunday, January 23, 2005
ACTS 20:28
"... the church of the Lord which he obtained with his own blood" (RSV)
It's time we had a break off the writings of John but I am sure we will get back to them.
So we see in this scripture from Acts that God has blood. Clearly the reference is to Christ so Christ must be the Lord. OK?
Not really OK. Does God have blood? Could the passage be saying that God owned Jesus's blood -- which he then shed? I am afraid it could. As readers will have noted, I mostly use the RSV (Revised Standard Version) in my postings to this blog and the RSV in fact offers in a footnote an alternative translation for this passage -- as: "with the blood of his own". And the reason why is pretty clear in the Greek. We even have that nasty word "dia" ("through") again: "dia tou aimatos tou idiou" -- which literally means "through the blood of the own". The word for "own" is "idios" in the Greek and Abbott-Smith gives two meanings: "of that which is private and personal" and "of property, home, friends, country etc." So one could even translate the passage as "through the blood of his property". No-one would, of course, but it serves to show that the blood came from something God possessed rather than from God himself.
So in fact the passage does tend to show that Jesus was God's property rather than God himself. How pesky!
"... the church of the Lord which he obtained with his own blood" (RSV)
It's time we had a break off the writings of John but I am sure we will get back to them.
So we see in this scripture from Acts that God has blood. Clearly the reference is to Christ so Christ must be the Lord. OK?
Not really OK. Does God have blood? Could the passage be saying that God owned Jesus's blood -- which he then shed? I am afraid it could. As readers will have noted, I mostly use the RSV (Revised Standard Version) in my postings to this blog and the RSV in fact offers in a footnote an alternative translation for this passage -- as: "with the blood of his own". And the reason why is pretty clear in the Greek. We even have that nasty word "dia" ("through") again: "dia tou aimatos tou idiou" -- which literally means "through the blood of the own". The word for "own" is "idios" in the Greek and Abbott-Smith gives two meanings: "of that which is private and personal" and "of property, home, friends, country etc." So one could even translate the passage as "through the blood of his property". No-one would, of course, but it serves to show that the blood came from something God possessed rather than from God himself.
So in fact the passage does tend to show that Jesus was God's property rather than God himself. How pesky!
Saturday, January 22, 2005
JOHN 1:1 AND CHRISTOLATRY
An interesting email from Dave Roberts:
I think the time has come for me to spell out what I think happened in the early Christian movement. Christianity was after all a new religion with considerable reason to be antagonistic to orthodox Jewry and it seems to me almost certain that the ordinary Christian followers (most of whom would have been no more educated than the apostles -- and the apostles described themselves as "agrammatoi kai idiotai" or "ignorant and unlearned" in Acts 4:13) would rapidly have become Christolators. A new religion needed a new God and the tremendous focus on the person of Christ in Christian teaching would have made the view of Christ as the new God of the new religion a very natural step.
The intellectuals of the movement, however, were of course aware of the scriptures that they had so carefully collected and you can hardly open a page of the NT without finding somewhere a clear statement that Christ was the son of God, not God himself. The Gospel accounts in particular constantly make clear Christ's subordinate role in one way or another. So, knowing what they did, the intellectuals could not join in the Christolatry. They remained conventional monotheists and saw Christ as simply a lesser spirit being -- God's first creation in fact. And the very careful historical survey here does confirm that the early Christian intellectuals were indeed of that mind.
Evidence that the ordinary Christian people tended to be Christolators, however, is much harder to come by. History records primarily what the intellectuals said and did. We do however have some very strong indirect evidence for it. When Athanasius proposed his heretical and unscriptural Trinity doctrine he immediately found strong support. Where did the support come from? Not from the intellectuals. They were aghast at this departure from the teaching they had always followed -- and poor old Arius just happened to be the man on the ground there at the time who had to stand up to the brilliant Athanasius. So it must have been its fulfilment of a popular need that put such wind into the sails of Athanasius's Christolatric doctrine. And the fact that Athanasius was an Egyptian preaching in Egypt suggests where he got his idea from. There was a pagan Egyptian Trinity long before there was a Christian one: Isis, Osiris and Horus. History has of course been rewritten to make Arius the heretic but victors do that. I think enough of the early writers have survived to show who the heretic was, however.
So clever old John too appears to have taken the Christolatric tendencies of the masses into account -- which is why the intitial impression given by the first verse of his Gospel seems to support such thinking. Intellectuals who read more carefully, however, find other meanings there. Whether you call that gnostic or not I don't really mind. But I think there are now few who would dispute that there is more than one level of meaning there.
An interesting email from Dave Roberts:
Your analyses of the 'Trinity' texts are quite interesting. If nothing else, it tells me that any kind of dogmatic or final statement on it would be misguided at best, if not downright heretical! (This of course is the case for most, if not all, Biblical doctrines.) Gives a new slant on the concept of heresy, anyway.
I have a bit of a bone to pick with your description of John 1. You say (in "A non-enemy on John 1 again" on Wednesday Jan 19):
"And John 1:1 does makes a lot of sense as being gnostic: The surface meaning for simple people is a ringing affirmation that Jesus was God (despite all that Jesus himself said to the contrary) and the less controversial gnostic meaning for sophisticated readers is that the message or wisdom embodied in Christ's life and words is of divine origin."
That argument doesn't really ring true for me. It seems to me that this is the exact opposite of what a gnostic would do. Why would John put the controversial interpretation as the literal, surface meaning and the less controversial hidden away for more sophisticated readers only. Why would he want to mislead the simpler reader into thinking he was saying that Jesus is God if that wasn't what he believed? I think it would be far more likely for him to put the 'standard theory' as the obvious reading - and at the time of writing I assume the 'standard theory' wasn't of a Trinity - as you said yourself, the (Jewish) apostles would probably have found that doctrine heretical.
I think the time has come for me to spell out what I think happened in the early Christian movement. Christianity was after all a new religion with considerable reason to be antagonistic to orthodox Jewry and it seems to me almost certain that the ordinary Christian followers (most of whom would have been no more educated than the apostles -- and the apostles described themselves as "agrammatoi kai idiotai" or "ignorant and unlearned" in Acts 4:13) would rapidly have become Christolators. A new religion needed a new God and the tremendous focus on the person of Christ in Christian teaching would have made the view of Christ as the new God of the new religion a very natural step.
The intellectuals of the movement, however, were of course aware of the scriptures that they had so carefully collected and you can hardly open a page of the NT without finding somewhere a clear statement that Christ was the son of God, not God himself. The Gospel accounts in particular constantly make clear Christ's subordinate role in one way or another. So, knowing what they did, the intellectuals could not join in the Christolatry. They remained conventional monotheists and saw Christ as simply a lesser spirit being -- God's first creation in fact. And the very careful historical survey here does confirm that the early Christian intellectuals were indeed of that mind.
Evidence that the ordinary Christian people tended to be Christolators, however, is much harder to come by. History records primarily what the intellectuals said and did. We do however have some very strong indirect evidence for it. When Athanasius proposed his heretical and unscriptural Trinity doctrine he immediately found strong support. Where did the support come from? Not from the intellectuals. They were aghast at this departure from the teaching they had always followed -- and poor old Arius just happened to be the man on the ground there at the time who had to stand up to the brilliant Athanasius. So it must have been its fulfilment of a popular need that put such wind into the sails of Athanasius's Christolatric doctrine. And the fact that Athanasius was an Egyptian preaching in Egypt suggests where he got his idea from. There was a pagan Egyptian Trinity long before there was a Christian one: Isis, Osiris and Horus. History has of course been rewritten to make Arius the heretic but victors do that. I think enough of the early writers have survived to show who the heretic was, however.
So clever old John too appears to have taken the Christolatric tendencies of the masses into account -- which is why the intitial impression given by the first verse of his Gospel seems to support such thinking. Intellectuals who read more carefully, however, find other meanings there. Whether you call that gnostic or not I don't really mind. But I think there are now few who would dispute that there is more than one level of meaning there.
Friday, January 21, 2005
JOHN 2: 19-22
"Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up" .... But he spoke of the temple of his body"
With this text I think we have just about come to the end of the main source of alleged Trinitarian passages -- in the Gospel of John. There is of course also the spurious passage in 1 John 5: 7,8 but I won't insult the knowledge of my readers by going into that.
Anyway .... Once again of course we are dealing with highly figurative and elliptical language -- so elliptical that it in fact misled the people to whom it was addressed. But the Trinitarian argument is that in this passage Jesus said he was going to resurrect himself. So let's look at some other elliptical language that Jesus used. In Luke 8: 48 we find Jesus saying: "Daughter, your faith has made you well". He said it after she had experienced a miraculous healing after touching him.
Did Jesus intend us to believe that the healing was SOLELY the doing of the woman? Are we meant to believe that she did it all by herself? Of course not. The clear implication is that all the woman had to do was to have strong faith and the power of God then went to work and produced the desired result. Similarly Jesus having faith was a necessary but not sufficient condition for his own resurrection.
In case my usual language-comparison approach seems a bit weak on this occasion, let me get theological and point out that it was only his BODY, not HIMSELF, that Jesus said he was going to raise up. He himself was of course in his own view primarily a powerful spirit being and once he had returned to the spirit realm he could of course do whatever he liked with the body he used to inhabit.
So that was an easy one, I think. I am feeling a bit lazy today. I might try something harder tomorrow. I am still getting interesting emails, I am pleased to say. I have just got another one on John 1:1 that I might go through tomorrow. I think the amount of email I get about that one text is itself pretty powerful proof of what a gnostic text it is!
"Jesus answered them, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up" .... But he spoke of the temple of his body"
With this text I think we have just about come to the end of the main source of alleged Trinitarian passages -- in the Gospel of John. There is of course also the spurious passage in 1 John 5: 7,8 but I won't insult the knowledge of my readers by going into that.
Anyway .... Once again of course we are dealing with highly figurative and elliptical language -- so elliptical that it in fact misled the people to whom it was addressed. But the Trinitarian argument is that in this passage Jesus said he was going to resurrect himself. So let's look at some other elliptical language that Jesus used. In Luke 8: 48 we find Jesus saying: "Daughter, your faith has made you well". He said it after she had experienced a miraculous healing after touching him.
Did Jesus intend us to believe that the healing was SOLELY the doing of the woman? Are we meant to believe that she did it all by herself? Of course not. The clear implication is that all the woman had to do was to have strong faith and the power of God then went to work and produced the desired result. Similarly Jesus having faith was a necessary but not sufficient condition for his own resurrection.
In case my usual language-comparison approach seems a bit weak on this occasion, let me get theological and point out that it was only his BODY, not HIMSELF, that Jesus said he was going to raise up. He himself was of course in his own view primarily a powerful spirit being and once he had returned to the spirit realm he could of course do whatever he liked with the body he used to inhabit.
So that was an easy one, I think. I am feeling a bit lazy today. I might try something harder tomorrow. I am still getting interesting emails, I am pleased to say. I have just got another one on John 1:1 that I might go through tomorrow. I think the amount of email I get about that one text is itself pretty powerful proof of what a gnostic text it is!
Thursday, January 20, 2005
ISAIAH 43:11
"I am Yahweh and besides me there is no saviour"
I think today I will look at an idea from REAL Bible students -- the fundamentalists who know their Bible really well -- including the OT. They point to the scripture above and say: "There it is. Jesus is the saviour so Jesus must also be Yahweh, the one God of the Hebrews".
The context of course is that Yahweh is there saying that he is the only real saviour of Israel compared to Baal and all the other pagan Gods.
But NT usage is slightly different. In Titus 1:3, Paul speaks of "God our saviour". He then goes on to say: "Grace and peace from God the Father and and Jesus Christ our Saviour". So in NT terms both God and Christ can be saviours. How come? Jude 25 reveals that it is our old friend, the word "dia" at work again. God is there spoken of as "the saviour THROUGH Jesus Christ our Lord".
So how's that? Have I won? Have I defeated the fundamentalists' argument yet? "No way", they will say. The NT does not supersede the OT. Both are part of the single word of God. At that point I could dive off into an argument that the NT DOES supersede the OT but I won't. It is much simpler to go to the Hebrew. The word "saviour" Yahweh purportedly uses in Isaiah is "mohshia" and exactly the same word is used at Judges 3:9 to describe Othniel, one of the Israeli judges. So was Othniel God?
Of course not. In Isaiah Yahweh was simply saying that he was the only god who could save Israel from her enemies of the time and any broader interpretation of his words is perverse. Again, context must be heeded.
Note: I took my quotes above from the RSV but substituted "Yahweh" where the tetragrammaton appears in the Hebrew text.
"I am Yahweh and besides me there is no saviour"
I think today I will look at an idea from REAL Bible students -- the fundamentalists who know their Bible really well -- including the OT. They point to the scripture above and say: "There it is. Jesus is the saviour so Jesus must also be Yahweh, the one God of the Hebrews".
The context of course is that Yahweh is there saying that he is the only real saviour of Israel compared to Baal and all the other pagan Gods.
But NT usage is slightly different. In Titus 1:3, Paul speaks of "God our saviour". He then goes on to say: "Grace and peace from God the Father and and Jesus Christ our Saviour". So in NT terms both God and Christ can be saviours. How come? Jude 25 reveals that it is our old friend, the word "dia" at work again. God is there spoken of as "the saviour THROUGH Jesus Christ our Lord".
So how's that? Have I won? Have I defeated the fundamentalists' argument yet? "No way", they will say. The NT does not supersede the OT. Both are part of the single word of God. At that point I could dive off into an argument that the NT DOES supersede the OT but I won't. It is much simpler to go to the Hebrew. The word "saviour" Yahweh purportedly uses in Isaiah is "mohshia" and exactly the same word is used at Judges 3:9 to describe Othniel, one of the Israeli judges. So was Othniel God?
Of course not. In Isaiah Yahweh was simply saying that he was the only god who could save Israel from her enemies of the time and any broader interpretation of his words is perverse. Again, context must be heeded.
Note: I took my quotes above from the RSV but substituted "Yahweh" where the tetragrammaton appears in the Hebrew text.
Wednesday, January 19, 2005
A NON-ENEMY ON JOHN 1:1 AGAIN
Dienekes has an excellent post about my interpretation of John 1:1. He and I do not quite see eye to eye but I don't think there are any important disagreements. I think his exposition of the Greek is pretty good even though it is a bit different from mine. I quote:
So we seem to be sinking into very fine points of theology here. We both agree that the Logos was not being referred to simply as God but rather as being in some way god-natured. Dienekes interprets that as being that the "Word's essence is God". I myself cannot really see that that is any different from saying that the Logos was "divine" but maybe Dienekes's usage is clearer. Certainly, to go any further we would have to define what "essence" means and that takes us well beyond the text.
Dienekes's point about there already being a good Greek adjective from "theos" (meaning "divine") I have already answered in my post of 17th.
Other than that, Dienekes makes a point that I myself am normally highly sympathetic to -- that we should not overinterpret the text. Both in my translations from the Greek here and in my translations from the German over at MarxWords I normally go in for highly literal translations rather than "free" translations. So Dienekes disputes that I should make any mention of Christ in a discussion John 1:1 on the grounds that Christ is not explicitly referred to. I would normally agree with that but I think it is a bit blind in this case. Practically everyone I have spoken to takes the passage "and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" to mean that the Logos was just another name for Christ. And I think that is ONE of the meanings John intended. My view of John as a gnostic writer however implies that several interpretations are possible and intended so I can agree both with Dienekes's interpretation and the normal interpretation. And that is of course one of the central things I want to say (and I am far from alone in saying it) about John 1:1 -- that it is at least ambiguous and, as such, in no way clear support for anything trinitarian. And if we accept my view of the passage as gnostic, it is in fact quite Arian in its deeper meaning.
I might recap on that final point: Given his authorship of Revelations, it is clear that John does write in a gnostic way (i.e. with secret or non-obvious meanings) so when we see enigmatic and ambiguous phrasing in his other writings our suspicions should be aroused. And John 1:1 does makes a lot of sense as being gnostic: The surface meaning for simple people is a ringing affirmation that Jesus was God (despite all that Jesus himself said to the contrary) and the less controversial gnostic meaning for sophisticated readers is that the message or wisdom embodied in Christ's life and words is of divine origin. And a more controversial gnostic interpretation would be that Christ was in fact literally "a god" -- thus rejecting Jewish monotheism in favour of some created spirit personages also being called gods and having at least some godly powers. And many early Christians -- including the great scholar Origen -- did clearly believe that Christ was a subsidiary God.
I have a series of emails from Dienekes that are subsequent to his blog post which I also hope to get on to soon. From his surname he is himself actually Greek -- which definitely gives him an advantage! Though Bible Greek and modern Greek do differ greatly, of course.
Dienekes has an excellent post about my interpretation of John 1:1. He and I do not quite see eye to eye but I don't think there are any important disagreements. I think his exposition of the Greek is pretty good even though it is a bit different from mine. I quote:
John says that the Word was theos and not that he was ho theos. In Greek, the statement that X is ho theos means that there is an identity between X and ho theos. It is akin to the English phrase "Bob was the captain", and implies an identity between Bob and the (unique) captain. Bob and the captain are the same entity. If ho (=the) is not used, then this means that the Word was God, i.e., that Word's essence is God, but the two are not identical. It is similar to the expression "Bob was captain", i.e., his essence is captain, but captain is not identical to Bob, since there are other persons like Bob who are also captain.
So we seem to be sinking into very fine points of theology here. We both agree that the Logos was not being referred to simply as God but rather as being in some way god-natured. Dienekes interprets that as being that the "Word's essence is God". I myself cannot really see that that is any different from saying that the Logos was "divine" but maybe Dienekes's usage is clearer. Certainly, to go any further we would have to define what "essence" means and that takes us well beyond the text.
Dienekes's point about there already being a good Greek adjective from "theos" (meaning "divine") I have already answered in my post of 17th.
Other than that, Dienekes makes a point that I myself am normally highly sympathetic to -- that we should not overinterpret the text. Both in my translations from the Greek here and in my translations from the German over at MarxWords I normally go in for highly literal translations rather than "free" translations. So Dienekes disputes that I should make any mention of Christ in a discussion John 1:1 on the grounds that Christ is not explicitly referred to. I would normally agree with that but I think it is a bit blind in this case. Practically everyone I have spoken to takes the passage "and the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us" to mean that the Logos was just another name for Christ. And I think that is ONE of the meanings John intended. My view of John as a gnostic writer however implies that several interpretations are possible and intended so I can agree both with Dienekes's interpretation and the normal interpretation. And that is of course one of the central things I want to say (and I am far from alone in saying it) about John 1:1 -- that it is at least ambiguous and, as such, in no way clear support for anything trinitarian. And if we accept my view of the passage as gnostic, it is in fact quite Arian in its deeper meaning.
I might recap on that final point: Given his authorship of Revelations, it is clear that John does write in a gnostic way (i.e. with secret or non-obvious meanings) so when we see enigmatic and ambiguous phrasing in his other writings our suspicions should be aroused. And John 1:1 does makes a lot of sense as being gnostic: The surface meaning for simple people is a ringing affirmation that Jesus was God (despite all that Jesus himself said to the contrary) and the less controversial gnostic meaning for sophisticated readers is that the message or wisdom embodied in Christ's life and words is of divine origin. And a more controversial gnostic interpretation would be that Christ was in fact literally "a god" -- thus rejecting Jewish monotheism in favour of some created spirit personages also being called gods and having at least some godly powers. And many early Christians -- including the great scholar Origen -- did clearly believe that Christ was a subsidiary God.
I have a series of emails from Dienekes that are subsequent to his blog post which I also hope to get on to soon. From his surname he is himself actually Greek -- which definitely gives him an advantage! Though Bible Greek and modern Greek do differ greatly, of course.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
AN ENEMY!
This blog has an enemy now! What fun! Dogfight has made some very high and mighty criticisms of my postings here. Being high and mighty would be OK if he had something big to contribute but he doesn't. Anyway, I will try to ignore the tone and just deal with the points he makes:
His first substantial point (after all the abuse) is: "koine Greek had a perfectly serviceable and distinguishable word theios which means 'divine'." I think I dealt with that point adequately yesterday.
His next substantial point seems to be that using "ho theos" instead of "theos" in John 1:1 "would have also made the second clause in the sentence meaningless". The second clause is "and the word was with god" ("kai ho logos een pros ton theon" -- where "ton" is the definite article). I do not follow that criticism at all. Why would using the definite article twice in a row make the first occurrence "meaningless"? Beats me. I think the basic meaning of the text is perfectly clear -- "the Logos was with THE God and was himself god-natured but was not THE God". Anyway, as I pointed out yesterday, authorities on Greek much more eminent than I am have come to conclusions similar to mine. Dogfight is simply being dogmatic -- which rather fits!
His next point is to take umbrage at my description of the anarthrous usage as "lazy". He seems to think I was making some sort of moral judgement there -- which of course I was not. I did in fact consider using the correct grammatical term there -- "elliptical" -- but chose "lazy" as easier to understand. I already use lots of academic vocabulary on the blog for reasons of economy and precision but I try not to overdo it and "lazy" was no doubt much more widely understood than "elliptical" would have been. I will not of course let ill-willed comments put me off my practice of making my posts as readable as I reasonably can. There is enough unreadable theology and exegesis out there as it is without my adding to it.
The remainder of his comments are simply ad hominem abuse and, as such, are of no scholarly interest. They're not very Christian, either.
Interesting that his comments are so very derogatory. I have had a lot of correspondence about this blog and several comments on other blogs but all the writers concerned have been at least civil and most have been cordial. But not Mr Dogfight. Why? I guess he wouldn't be a Leftist who regards Australia's armed forces as being paid assassins would he? Leftists do seem to be hate-filled people. The current leader of Australia's major Leftist party recently described himself as "a great hater".
This blog has an enemy now! What fun! Dogfight has made some very high and mighty criticisms of my postings here. Being high and mighty would be OK if he had something big to contribute but he doesn't. Anyway, I will try to ignore the tone and just deal with the points he makes:
His first substantial point (after all the abuse) is: "koine Greek had a perfectly serviceable and distinguishable word theios which means 'divine'." I think I dealt with that point adequately yesterday.
His next substantial point seems to be that using "ho theos" instead of "theos" in John 1:1 "would have also made the second clause in the sentence meaningless". The second clause is "and the word was with god" ("kai ho logos een pros ton theon" -- where "ton" is the definite article). I do not follow that criticism at all. Why would using the definite article twice in a row make the first occurrence "meaningless"? Beats me. I think the basic meaning of the text is perfectly clear -- "the Logos was with THE God and was himself god-natured but was not THE God". Anyway, as I pointed out yesterday, authorities on Greek much more eminent than I am have come to conclusions similar to mine. Dogfight is simply being dogmatic -- which rather fits!
His next point is to take umbrage at my description of the anarthrous usage as "lazy". He seems to think I was making some sort of moral judgement there -- which of course I was not. I did in fact consider using the correct grammatical term there -- "elliptical" -- but chose "lazy" as easier to understand. I already use lots of academic vocabulary on the blog for reasons of economy and precision but I try not to overdo it and "lazy" was no doubt much more widely understood than "elliptical" would have been. I will not of course let ill-willed comments put me off my practice of making my posts as readable as I reasonably can. There is enough unreadable theology and exegesis out there as it is without my adding to it.
The remainder of his comments are simply ad hominem abuse and, as such, are of no scholarly interest. They're not very Christian, either.
Interesting that his comments are so very derogatory. I have had a lot of correspondence about this blog and several comments on other blogs but all the writers concerned have been at least civil and most have been cordial. But not Mr Dogfight. Why? I guess he wouldn't be a Leftist who regards Australia's armed forces as being paid assassins would he? Leftists do seem to be hate-filled people. The current leader of Australia's major Leftist party recently described himself as "a great hater".
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