The final and correct interpretation of John 1.1

by Hellrider 79 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  Narkissos

  This type of thinking seems very narrow minded.

  Sorry.

  Here in late 2005 there are Jehovah’s Witnesses, Catholics, Jews, Muslims, and Mormons (who btw, believe that Yahweh was a son of El), and all kinds of religions who hold an opinion about Yahweh.

  Why do you think things were any different back in GJohn’s day or Deutero-Isaiah’s day?

  I don't. Only when I study a specific work (such as the core of Deutero-Isaiah or GJohn, leaving out later additions) I must postulate at least some inner ideological consistency.

  Deutero-Isaiah wrote polemics against El and emphasized that other gods do not exist.

  Why was this necessary?

  Why did he write this stuff?

  Who were these El-worshippers he was talking about?

  Why did he single out El?

  Why not criticize other gods?

  Please show me where/how Deutero-Isaiah specifically targets El and spare other gods. To me, the "Yhwh-only-God" which he extols depends on a previous merging of both El and Yhwh traditions in extant henotheism (cf. Leolaia's post about Isaiah 13--14).

  Are you asking us to believe that GJohn kept the “wine” part but discarded the “son of god becomes human” part?

  I am not asking anybody to believe anything. In my previous posts I agreed that the whole idea of a human "son of god," and especially its narrative presentation in Mark, is influenced by earlier mythology (both Jewish and non-Jewish). To me this is not specifically Johannine.

  Here the subject, the "character," is the logos (not really a dionysian keyword btw), and the "son" image works as a comparison...

  Why are you arguing that this is a “comparison” and not a “description,” when a “description” seems simpler and answers more questions than it asks?

  This comment was restricted to the Johannine Prologue, especially to v. 14: "And the Word (ho logos, subject) became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as (hôs, comparison) of a father's only son, full of grace and truth." V. 18 otoh exceeds the comparison status by calling the logos "monogenès theos". The latter expression, mythological as it rings, doesn't suit a polytheistic pattern very well (although it is not impossible in a doxology, where a specific deity is worshipped as if s/he were unique). Anyway, in the rest of the Fourth Gospel Jesus is not the "Word" (logos) but the "Son" (huios), in an original development of a concept with can be found in many segments of early Christianity (Paul, Mark, etc.) and results from a complex network of influences.

  You might find other elements at http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/10/66342/1.ashx
• 

  Leolaia

  Chemosh....You seem to err in taking every single instance of 'l as a direct personal reference to the deity El, when the word also can simply mean "god" generically. That it has this meaning in Deutero-Isaiah can be seen in Isaiah 44:17: "From the rest he makes a god (l-'l), his idol (l-pslw), he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, 'Save me, you are my god ('ly 'th)' ". First of all, we may note that in Hebrew the possessive ending -y usually goes on regular nouns, not names, so 'ly is not "my El" but "my god". In an earlier post, you also took 'ly to mean "El" in the Aramaic of Matthew 27:46 ("El, El, why have you forsaken me"), which ignores the possessive ending and reads the deity El into the text. Second, the idol referred here is not specifically to "El" but to any "foreign" (zr) god (Isaiah 43:12) that the people were making idols of, which again suggests a generic "god". Moreover, Yahweh states that he alone is 'l (w-'ny 'l "and I [am] God") in 43:12, which suggests not an anti-El polemic (for why would Yahweh claim to be El if he is attacking this deity?), but a view that only Yahweh can be a god....i.e. there are no other gods (full monotheism). Thus, Mark Smith states that "Second Isaiah (Isa. 40:18-20; 41:6-7; 44:9-20; 46:1-13; 48:3-8) stresses the uniqueness of Yahweh in marked contrast with the lifeless, empty idols who represent lifeless, nonexistent deities" (p. 192). He also notes that "one indication that Yahweh and El were identified at an early stage is that there are no biblical polemics against El" (p. 33). He goes on to discuss the development of 'l as a generic noun in Hebrew, which is one sure sign that El has lost status as the name of an autonomous deity; thus there are formulae like 'l 'lhym yhwh "God of gods [is] Yahweh" in texts like Joshua 22:22, Psalms 10:12, 50:1. "In this verse the noun forms part of a superlative expression proclaiming the incomparable divine status of Yahweh. The phrase 'god of gods' may be compared to other superlative expressions of this type in the Bible such as 'king of kings' (Dan. 2:37; Ezra 7:12), the name of the biblical book 'Song of Songs' (Song of Songs 1:1), and the opening words of the first speech in Ecclesiastes, 'vanity of vanities' (Eccles. 1:2)" (p. 34). One may also note the Priestly account in Exodus 6:2-3 which explicitly identifies the patriarchal deity El Shaddai as Yahweh.

  As for the "water-to-wine" motif in John, it does probably bear some relation to Dionysian mysteries....thus we may cite the oft-mentioned parallel in Pausanius:

  "Between the marketplace and the Menius is an old theatre and a shrine to Dionysius. The image is the work of Praxiteles. Of the gods the Eleans worship Dionysius with the greatest reverence, and they assert that the god attends their festival, the Thyia. The place where they hold the festival they name the Thyia is about eight stades from the city. Three pots are brought into the building by the priests and set down empty in the presence of the citizens and of any strangers who may chance to be in the country. The doors of the building are sealed by the priests themselves and by any others who may be so inclined. On the morrow, they are allowed to examine the pots filled with wine. I did not myself arrive at the time of the festival, but the most respected Elean citizens, and with them strangers also, swore that what I have said is the truth. The Andrians too assert that every other year at their feast of Dionysius wine flows of its own accord from the sanctuary" (Pausanias, Description of Greece 6.26.1).

  However this is not a transformation of water into wine but rather the creation of wine in empty vessels (cf. also Euripedes, Maenads 704-707, which also has "the god's sweet wine flowing forth" from the ground). The concept is actually closer to the OT, which has stories of undrinkable water turned into potable water (cf. Exodus 15:23-25, 2 Kings 2:19-22), and especially the story of Moses turning the water of the Nile (and water in jars!) into undrinkable blood (Exodus 7:19-22)....which is the reverse of what happens in Cana and which casts Jesus in the mold of Moses (cf. also that this was the first plague for Moses, just as this was the first "sign" that Jesus performed in John), and there is a close verbal similarity in language with respect to the people's reaction to the sign and how people reacted to the plague in Exodus. The "Jesus-as-Moses" theme continues in the next few chapters in John, with Jesus fleeing from the Pharisees as Moses fled from Pharaoh (again, the text shows a close verbal resemblence), arriving in a foreign land and resting by a well (the land of Midian for Moses, Samaria for Jesus), and so forth.
• 

  stev

  
  I have read the posts on John 1:1, and Philo, but have not yet seen quoted here the most pertinent part of Philo to John 1:1. I have searched for it, but have not found it yet. Philo in his commentary on Genesis makes a distinction between the Logos called God (theos) without the article, and the most high God with the article (ho theos). Philo explicitly makes a distinction between the two based on the use of the article. Philo also calls the Logos a "second God". And he does this within the context of monotheism.
  
  In Wolfson's works on Philo and early Christianity, he explains that there is a two-stage theory about the Logos which Philo held, and he influenced the theology of the early Church fathers. The first stage was as the thought, mind, reason of God, a part of God, impersonal; the second stage was personal, an emanation from God, an intermediary being.
  Philo viewed the Logos as a mediator between the invisible God and the material world, including mankind. The Logos was neither created nor uncreated, but was on the boundary between the two, being an intermediary. Such logical distinctions and arguments, if the Logos created the world then the Logos must be uncreated himself and God, would not have phased Philo!
  Regarding the title "Son of God": this perhaps is a Messianic title derived the Davidic Covenant, where David's son is referred to as God's son, "I will be his father, and he shall be my son". 2 Sa. 7:14.

  Steve
  
• 

  myelaine

  
  So...God called us vapor/gods...

  Psalm 39:5 Indeed You have made my days as handbreadths, and y age is as nothing before You; certainly every man at his best state is but vapor.

  John 10:35 If He called them gods, to whom the word of God came (and the Scripture cannot be broken)

  ...then (the everlasting) Jesus, as King of kings and Lord of lords should be able to change water into wine....

  John 10:36-38 do you say of Him whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, You are blaspheming, because I said, I am the Son of God? If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me; but if I do, though you do not believe Me, believe the works, that you may know and believe that the Father is in Me, and I in Him.

  and of that "wine"...but I say to you, I will not drink of this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it "new" with you in My Father's kingdom (Matthew 26:29)

  michelle
• 

  stev

  I found the reference where Philo discusses the Logos as "theos" without the article:

  http://www.socinian.org/philo.html
  
  The Logos and Its Function
  in the Writings of Philo of Alexandria:
  Greek Interpretation of the Hebrew Myth
  and Foundations of Christianity
  
  
  
  
  "God"
  
  In three passages Philo describes the Logos even as God:
  
  a.) Commenting on Genesis 22:16 Philo explains that God could only swear by Himself since
  
  He alone has any knowledge concerning His actions; ... which is not possible for any one else to do ... For no man can rightly swear by himself, because he is not able to have any certain knowledge respecting his own nature, but we must be content if we are able to understand even His name, that is to say His Logos, which is the interpreter of His will. For that must be God to us imperfect beings, but the first mentioned, or true God is so only to wise and perfect man.
  
  b.) What then ought we to say? There is one true God only: but they who are called Gods, by an abuse of language, are numerous, on which account the holy Scripture on the present occasion indicates that it is the true God that is meant by the use of the article, the expression being "I am the God (ho theos);" but when the word is used incorrectly, it is put without the article, the expression being, "He who was seen by thee in the place, not of the God (ton theon), but simply of God" (theon); and what he here calls God is His most ancient Logos, not having any superstitious regard to the position of the names, but only proposing one end to himself, namely to give a true account of the matter; for in other passages the sacred historian, when he considered whether there really was any name belonging to the living God, showed that he knew that there was none properly belonging to Him, but that whatever appellation any one may give Him, will be an abuse of terms; for the living God is not of a nature to be described, but only to be.
  
• 

  Narkissos

  stev,

  I don't know about Philo calling the logos "theos," with or without article (the difference is usually due to syntax, as has often been shown re: John 1:1). He often calls it theou logos ("Word of God") or theios logos (divine word). On the other hand, the reference to its "second" status may be found in Allegorical Interpretation, II, 86:

  Moreover, the soul falls in with a scorpion, that is to say, with dispersion in the wilderness; and the thirst, which is that of the passions, seizes on it until God sends forth upon it the stream of his own accurate wisdom, and causes the changed soul to drink of unchangeable health; for the abrupt rock is the wisdom of God, which being both sublime and the first of things he quarried out of his own powers, and of it he gives drink to the souls that love God; and they, when they have drunk, are also filled with the most universal manna; for manna is called something which is the primary genus of every thing. But the most universal of all things is God; and in the second place the word of God. But other things have an existence only in word (to de genikôtaton estin ho theos, kai deuteros ho theou logos, ta d'alla logô monon huparkhei), but in deed they are at times equivalent to that which has no existence.

  I agree on your assessment re: "created or uncreated"; the status of the Philonic logos as a mediating figure between God and creation is undecidable from the perspective of this (later) dichotomy.

  I also think that however personified, Philo's logos remains basically an intellectual abstraction. In that sense GJohn and later Christian theology give more weight to Philo's metaphorical expressions than to his real intent.
• 

  Narkissos

  stev,
  
  I didn't see your post before sending mine. Too bad your source doesn't give the actual references in Philo...

  Edit: Found it! The first excerpt (about swearing by himself) is in Allegorical Interpretation III, 203ff. The second one (about the use of the article) is On Dreams, I, 228ff.
• 

  Chemosh

  Hey Narkissos and Leolaia,

  Thanks for your posts. Your words were not in vein. I have come to agree that the author of GJohn was probably unaware of the Deut 32:8 paradigm.

  The deathblow to my hypothesis comes in verses like John 5:43…

  I have come in my Father’s name …

  Yahweh (saves) says he has his dad’s name.

  Ditto 10:25.

  I guess I am just frustrated hearing time after time about how the “son of God” stuff originates from “pagan sources” or from “Philo” or from “Hellenized Jews.” I would like to know more about this “Hellenization” process. In light of verses like Deut 32:8-9 what exactly is Helen bringing new to the table?

  Doesn’t it seem absurd to think that all this “son of God” stuff faded away and was completely forgotten, and then one day (just out of shear coincidence) a similar idea popped into Philo’s little creative imagination?

  Doesn’t this seem more like an evolutionary type of thing?

  Does any non-Christian religion have an agenda do blame all this stuff on Philo?

  Are Christians the only ones who believe Yahweh is a real g_d?
• 

  Chemosh

  Hey Narkissos and Leolaia,

  I guess I’m all confused again.

  Have you ever wondered if (in some circles) Yahweh may have been considered a “messenger of El?”

  Have you ever wondered if (in some circles) Yahweh may have been considered the “word of El?”

  What do you think of all those places that read, “messenger of the LORD?”

  Can’t they be translated as, “the messenger that is Yahweh?”

  Doesn’t the Hebrew “malek” go with the Greek “logos?”

  Don’t messengers deliver words?

  Isn’t this basically the same in idea?

  Isn’t the word “logos” used thousands of times in the LXX as a translation for the original Hebrew word "dabar?"

  Do you like my goofy translation for Genesis 15:1?

  After these things the logos Yahweh came to Abram in a vision …

  Of course this is all sheer speculation, but do you ever wonder if GJohn 1:1 meant this?

  In the beginning was the messenger Yahweh, and the messenger Yahweh was with El, and the messenger Yahweh was a son of El.

  ..
• 

  Hellrider

  Just read thru page 4, and I am in awe. You people know so much, I`m just amazed. Just an input:

  The deathblow to my hypothesis comes in verses like John 5:43…

  I have come in my Father’s name …

  Yahweh (saves) says he has his dad’s name.

  Is this really a "deathblow" to your hypothesis? Personally, I don`t think so. The "I have come in my Fathers name"-passage, and also the "the name that you have given me", isn`t necessarily Jesus saying he has his dads name, even though Yehushua might mean "yahweh saves". Couldn`t it mean that he has been given a task to make his fathers "name" known? And by name, I don`t mean tell the whole world that Gods name is "yahweh", like the JWs seem to believe, but to spread the word of God thruout the world?! To "make someones name known" in this context would probably mean this, rather than telling everyone that Gods name is yahweh, don`t you think? At least this is what I think Jesus (or the author of etc etc) meant by these statements.