Revelation 1.17 Jesus divinity? Or just "the first" raised from the dead"?

by Hellrider 239 Replies latest watchtower bible

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  Mondo1

  hellrider,

  I know that ELOHIM means "gods" (plural), and that it is here used as a word for angels. The funny thing is that Genesis 1.1 in hebrew reads "In the beginning the gods created the heavens and the earth". I wonder how you explain that within your anti-trinitarian view, but that is another matter. The point is that I have overturned the basic argument long ago, and this is why you are refusing to answer the direct questions asked above. Case closed.

  The plural does nothing for Trinitarianism. It means "gods" not "one God with multiple persons." It is also used as a majestic or emphatic plural, for individuals, such as the Jewish King in Psa. 45:6, just as the plural "lords" was used in the same way for Saul.

  It is laughable (quite literally) that you think you have overturned anything, when you won't even engage the argument. You only side step it. The fact is, the angels are gods in a sense higher than the judges and lower than God. I have soundly demonstrated this, and you refuse to engage it. If you think I'm not answering certain questions, you're right, I'm not, because I'm not allowing you to try and turn the discussion away from the topic, which is what you are trying to do because you have seen that your position has failed. You have introduced a red herring (the issue of whether or not Jesus is an angel) and I'm not going to allow you to get away with it, because you'll do what Trinitarians who have seen the error of their argument so often do, which is move into the subject of their red herring while avoiding the original issue.

  Deal with the issue, which is that angels are gods in a sense greater than those men who are identified as such, but in a sense less than that of the Almighty. This is the issue, but not it seems you are trying hard to avoid it.

  Mondo
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  Mondo1

  Kenneson,

  At no time have I articulated any of my position on those matters. You are asking those questions without knowing if they are even based upon a correct premise. Irregardless, when Jesus became a man, he truly "became flesh" and as he became it, he no longer was what he was before he became that something new.

  Mondo
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  Leolaia

  To address a few of the varied topics that have arisen in this thread:

  Allusion in Revelation 1:17-18

  In response to my demonstration of the allusional status of the title "First and Last" in Revelation, Mondo1 noted that NT writers can use OT material in innovative ways, such as "merely borrowing language in a new application". This certainly can be true; in fact, I would argue that every single use of OT material by later writers is interpretive to some extent and departs, whether slightly or greatly, from the thought of the original author. Indeed, this is a common theme in my threads. Mondo1 however conflates this issue with the question of whether there is an allusion in the first place, thereby restricting "allusions" to uses of older material that has some intentional reference to the source text. This however is not how "allusion" is defined in contemporary scholarship which seeks to distinguish allusions (which are simply the intertextual incorporation of earlier material in a manner other than direct quotation) from parallels that do not arise from literary dependance. The question is whether there is a literary relationship, and my last post demonstrated that there is -- along the lines of the criteria commonly used in intertextual studies.

  The question then becomes, what sort of an allusion is it? Is the allusion one that uses the language in a wholly innovative way that ignores entirely the original sense of the phrase, is it one that corresponds very nearly with the original sense of the phrase in its original context, or does it fall in between these two extremes? In his exhaustive work on Revelation, Jan Fekkes found that the author's general use of allusion was not haphazard and arbitrary but very predictable and far beyond "simply using [the OT] as a language and image base" (p. 102). As Dale Allison put it, "Revelation's scriptural borrowings are not neat cuttings but transplants with roots and some of the old soil" (p. 22). What this means is that "phrases pulled from it frequently carried specific associations" which survive intact in the new setting. This is the case in Revelation 1:17-18. The divine titles and doxologies "first and last", "one who lives", and "one living forever and ever" are each reinterpreted in a soteriological way in Revelation, but the fact that they are clustered together in a single verse also highlights their status as terms referring to God; it is their common denominator. Readers acquainted with OT theological language would then recognize that theologically-loaded phrases (particularly in the case of "first and last," which forms part of the declaration that "besides me there is no God") are applied to Jesus three times in a row in the verse. Now, it is exegetical issue to assess what the author intended to convey by using the language in this way, but the prior status of these phrases is hardly irrelevant. Hence, Aune characterizes the passage as incorporating "double entendre", evoking the old meaning while recasting it with the new.

  "Beginning of God's creation" in Revelation 3:14

  Mondo1 regards Revelation 3:14 as an allusion to Proverbs 8:22 which is possible, tho less certain than the case of the title "First and Last" discussed above (i.e. it satisfies fewer criteria); a much closer intertext may well be Job 40:19 LXX or Colossians 1:15 which share more features in common with 3:14. But to return to Mondo's earlier point, the actual exegesis of what is meant in Revelation 3:14 is going to depend more on its specific syntax, semantics, and local context than the meaning imported from the intertext. These factors could well show that arkhé in the later text is used in way divergent from its use in Proverbs 8:22 LXX. Although a propartial sense (i.e. Jesus being "the first part of God's creation") is possible, there is semantic evidence that it is less likely than the governmental sense (i.e. Jesus being "the authority over God's creation)....according to Michael Svigel (Bibliotheca Sacra, 2004), the propartial sense is much less common in the LXX and NT than the governmental nuance and it is not used to refer to people whereas the governmental nuance is the second most common and is frequently applied to people (the most common nuance, the protemporal, is inappropriate because it would make Jesus himself the "first point in time" or "first phase" of an event, as in 2 Peter 3:4 ap arkhés ktiseós "since the beginning of creation"). It is not necessarily the case that the author would have used arkhón if he wished to indicate a governmental sense, for arkhé is very commonly used with this nuance, occurring in 88 out of 305 instances of arkhé, or almost a third of the time. See, for instance, Genesis 1:16 LXX, Exodus 6:25 LXX, Nehemiah 9:17 LXX, Job 40:19 LXX, Isaiah 9:5-6 LXX, Hosea 1:11 LXX, Micah 3:1 LXX, Daniel 11:41 LXX, Luke 12:11, 20:20, 1 Corinthians 15:24, Titus 3:1, Martyrdom of Polycarp 10:2, etc. The sense of "source" is imho least likely because God is already mentioned as the source (theou as a genitive of origin).

  Ultimately the phrasing is ambiguous, as it is in the thematically and syntactically parallel Job 40:19 LXX. There Behemoth is arkhé plasmatos kuriou "[the] beginning of the fashioned-things of the Lord," and this could either be a propartial "first member of the fashioned things" or a governmental "ruler over the fashioned things". One plausible explanation is that the ambiguity in Revelation 3:14 is intentional, as a double entendre...e.g. governmental in the sense of "ruler" over creation and propartial as the "first member" of the new creation via the resurrection. The reference to Jesus as "the faithful and true witness" (ho martus ho pistos) in 3:14 is a link backward to 1:5 where Jesus is described as "the faithful and true witness, the firstborn (prótotokos) from the dead, the ruler (arkhón) of the kings of the earth", where a governmental relationship is paramount (cf. the genitive of subordination) and where the cognate arkhé occurs. The polysemy of prótotokos is also latent, where "firstborn" can either refer to the first of a group (in this case, the "first" of the general resurrection; cf. Jesus as the "first fruits" in 1 Corinthians 15:20) or a governmental sense as it is in the intertext in Psalm 89:27 and in Hebrews 1 where the "firstborn" (v. 6) is "appointed the heir of all things" (v. 2).

  "Created" in Proverbs 8:22

  Mondo1 also claims that use of ktizó in Proverbs 8:22 LXX is a "proper" rendering of the Hebrew qny and denies a quasi-biological sense of "beget". This is not the conclusion of the various lexical studies I have seen of Proverbs 8:22, in particular those of William Irwin (JBL, 1961) and Bruce Vawter (JBL, 1980). They note the lack of evidence that this root is used to mean "create" (as a fashioning or constructing of things), and show that most instances in the OT have the sense of "acquire/possess" and "produce/become parent of". The latter has a quasi-biological nuance in Genesis 4:1, Deuteronomy 32:6, Psalm 139:13, and one may also recall qnyt ilm as an epithet of Asherah, which has in view her status as mother of the gods.

  Irwin notes that qnny in Proverbs 8:22 is syntactically connected to the phrase r'shyt drkw, and drk when attributed to God (e.g. drk yhwh "way of Yahweh") refers to God's qualities and principles (cf. "righteousness" and "justice" in Genesis 18:19, see also Psalm 119:27, 33, Proverbs 10:29, Jeremiah 5:4, Ezekiel 18:29, etc.); "wisdom" would thus be the drk "way" that is possessed or produced by Yahweh "before (qdm) his works of old". As for r'shyt (which lacks a preposition unlike the temporal b-rshyt in Genesis 1:1 or m-r'sh in Proverbs 8:23), Irwin finds a protemporal meaning unlikely:

  "The origin of Wisdom was long antecedent to God's work in creating the world and is sharply contrasted with it: before the mountains and hills, before earth or heavens were made, then Wisdom existed. The emphasisis not that Wisdom came into being, by whatever process, as the first of God's creative activities nor at their beginning, but long before them. This is stated so clearly in v. 22b and 23 that there should have been no confusion" (p. 140).

  Instead of taking it as temporal, he takes r'shyt with a nuance of "preeminent" (as in Numbers 24:20) as an accusative in apposition to the first person suffix, i.e. "he possessed/produced me as the foremost of his ways/attributes". As for Vawter's analysis, he notes that in Proverbs 8:22 "wisdom is said to have pre-existed the created order and therefore to be outside of it, though in some fashion it subsequently became instrumental in the production of the created order" (p. 213), and regards the drkw "his way" as referring to Yahweh's creative modus operandi and "principle" (p. 214), pointing to Proverbs 4:7 which strikingly states that the r'shyt chkmh "beginning of wisdom" is to "acquire wisdom (qnh chkmh)". In this close parallel (which uses the key words qnh and r'shyt in connection with chkmh "wisdom"), r'shyt is used to indicate the fundamental or elementary principle of wisdom (cf. elemental r'sh in Psalm 119:160 and elemental arkhé in Hebrews 5:12, 6:1), namely, that it must be acquired. In this light, "Yahweh acquired/possessed me as the r'shyt of his ways" would then mean that Yahweh's acquisition of wisdom (= qnh chkmh of 4:7) is the basic elementary principle underlying his ways (= r'shyt chkmh in 4:7). Both analyses agree that r'shyt is not used in a protemporal sense.

  The LXX rendered r'shyt drkw as arkhén hodón autou "beginning of his ways" and r'shyt chkmh of 4:7 as arkhé sophias "beginning of wisdom", but qnny in 8:22 is unexpectedly translated as ektise me "created me". This rendering is unusual because Hebrew qny is regularly rendered with ktésthai "acquire" in the LXX (61 or 63 times, as opposed to only 3 with ktizó), hence Proverbs 4:7 LXX has ktésai sophian "acquire wisdom". The expected ektésato me "acquired me" in fact occurs in the versions of Aquila, Symmachus, and Theodotion (cf. possedit "he possessed" in the Vulgate). It is noteworthy that the correct ektésato me "acquired me" is very similar to ektise me "created me", suggesting that a copyist error may have occurred at some point; in fact yqnw in Jeremiah 32:15 appears erroneously as ktisthésontai in one MS of the LXX, as opposed to the correct ktéthésontai in the others.

  Of course, the LXX rendering with ktizó would have been one important source of influence for Hellenistic Jewish wisdom/Logos theology and early Christian christology, regardless of what Proverbs 8:22 meant in the original Hebrew; the LXX rendering should thus be treated separately from the Hebrew text. Most strikingly, Sirach 1:4, 9, 24:8-9 allude to Proverbs 8:22, i.e. "wisdom was created before all other things (protera pantón ekistai sophia)" in 1:4 and "in the beginning he created me (ap arkhés ektisen me)" in 24:9. But cf. ektésamén in 24:6 (= primatum habui in the Vulgate), which may be alluded to in Colossians 1:18. Philo of Alexandria however did not follow the attested LXX rendering....he rendered Proverbs 8:22 as "God acquired me as the very first of his works (ho theos ektésato me prótistén tón heautou ergón), a reading that takes r'shyt as propartial and qnny as "he possessed/acquired".
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  Kenneson

  Mondo1,

  I was under the assumption that you are a Jehovah's Witness. Am I wrong?

  Irregardless, you state that Jesus was no longer what he was before he became the something new. Could you clarify if you don't hold to the Witness beliefs? I'm interested to know how there can be such a complete break or discontinuity from his previous being. Was there nothing in Jesus that remained constant?
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  Mondo1

  Leolaia,

  I plan to respond, but in order to do so properly and completely (and also because I am slightly behind in my class work.. spending too much time here lately) it will likely be several days before the response will be posted.

  Kenneson,

  I am one of Jehovah's Witnesses, but even as such I would not say that each detail of what I believe 100% corresponds to everything the WT states.

  For Jesus, he remained who he was, but what he was changed. He was the same person, with a new type of existence.

  Mondo
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  Leolaia

  The funny thing is that Genesis 1.1 in hebrew reads "In the beginning the gods created the heavens and the earth". I wonder how you explain that within your anti-trinitarian view, but that is another matter.

  Actually, it does not mean that in Hebrew. The verb br' "he created" is inflected for the singular, not the plural.
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  Hellrider

  Mondo:

  In your last post, you are accusing me of many things, like "creating red herrings" and refusing to deal with the issue. Let us summarize what the discussion has been so far: I mentioned that when jesus is referred to as God, this is done on a different level than when others in the Bible are called "gods". You called this "entirely unfounded", and claimed that angels are also referred to as "gods". I showed the one place in the english translation that they are called "gods", and how they in this context are specified as "sons of the most high", and therefore, it is clear that the term "gods" when used about them,it is not used in the same way as when it is used about Jesus Christ. The argument about angels goes directly to the core of the view on Jesus Christs status in the Bible. According to you and your religion, Jesus was an angel before he came to earth (Michael the archangel) and when he returned to heaven, he again became a "spirit creature"/angel. It is therefore you are arguing that when Jesus is called "god" in the Bible ("my Lord and my God"), this is "nothing special", because, as we both agree, even angels are sometimes referred to as "gods". I was wrong in claiming that the term "gods" were used only one place about angels: The term (ELOHIM) is also used in Psalm 8,5, like you said. But like most Jehovahs Witnesses, you are good at just "name-dropping" Bible passages without caring to take the context into consideration, and I find it extremely funny that you should bring up Psalm 8,5 as your "proof", when this passage in fact confirms what I have been claiming all along: That the angels, even though on a very few occasions referred to as "gods" is not considered (in the Bible) to be that much higher than humans. You are creating a strawman (like you are accusing me of constantly) by trying to make it look like I claimed that the angels are no "higher" than humans. I never claimed this, but I did say that they are not of very high status, they are just a little higher in status than humans! And they are certainly and definitely not on the same level as Jesus Christ! Only while he was in his human form, he was "a little lower than them". But that does not mean that the angels are "exalted beings", or deserving of being called gods in the same way Jesus is (and, which I showed, the early church fathers understood this very well). I would like to repeat this, and I am going to prove this:

  One reason is that the Bible calls angels "men" or "people." For example, we are told that "the man Gabriel" appeared to Daniel (Daniel 9:21). Angels were also called people when they appeared to Abraham (Genesis 18:2), Joshua (Joshua 5:13), Manoah's wife (Judges 13:6), Ezekiel (Ezekiel 9:2,3), Zechariah (Zechariah 1:8, 11), and the women at the sepulcher (Mark 16:5, Luke 24:4, John 20:12).

  A second reason is that angels look like people. There is no mention in the Bible of angels having wings. In fact, when angels appeared to Abraham and Lot, they did not look any different from other people. The people who saw them did not even realize that they were angels. That is why Paul says, "Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels" (Hebrews 13:2). The only thing which might distinguish angels from people in appearance is that sometimes the face and clothes of angels appear shining (Daniel 10:6, Matt 28:3, Luke 24:4). This does not mean angels are a different race. Moses' face also shone after speaking with God (Exodus 34:29), and Jesus said that after death all good people will "shine forth as the sun in the Kingdom of their Father" (Matthew 13:43).

  A third reason for believing that angels and men are the same race is that both are described in the same terms. In both Hebrew and Greek, the words for "angel" simply mean "messenger." When people from the spiritual world appeared, they usually brought messages from the Lord, so they were called "messengers" (Greek angeloi). Being an angel is a matter of one's function or office, not one's race. In this respect the word "angel" is like the words "king" and "prophet"--it describes the person's function. In fact, since the word for angel means "messenger" it is used to describe people on earth who are messengers. For example, Haggai and John the Baptist were called messengers or "angels" of the Lord because they spoke for Him (Haggai 1:13, Malachi 3:1).

  Sometimes the Bible uses special names to refer to angels, such as "the holy ones" (Daniel 4: 13,17), "the sons of God," or even "gods" (Psalm 8:5). Yet people still on earth are also called "holy ones" (Psalm 30: 4 and many other places, usually translated "saints"), "sons of God" (John 1:12, 1 John 3:1-2), or even "gods" (Psalm 82:6). In short, the words used to describe angels are also used to describe people on earth.

  A fourth reason is that angels themselves reject the idea that they are superior beings. When the apostle John fell at the feet of an angel to worship him, the angel said, "See that you do not do that! I am your fellow servant, and of your brethren who have the testimony of Jesus. Worship God!" (Revelation 19:10). Later John echoes this idea when he speaks of "The measure of a man, that is of an angel" (Revelation 21:17).

  A fifth reason to believe that angels were not created as a separate race is that the Bible never mentions angels being created, even though the creation story carefully includes everything else in creation: sun, moon, stars, people, animals, birds, plants, ocean, fish, even insects and worms. But no angels! (Genesis 1). The reason is that people were created to become angels.

  A sixth reason to believe that people become angels after death is that Jesus Himself said that those who are worthy become after death "equal to angels" (Luke 20:36, Matthew 22:30, Mark 12:25), and would have similar powers (Luke 10:17,19; Mark 16:17,18; 11:23; John 14:12).

  To sum up, there are many reasons to believe that people become angels after death:
  

  • The Bible calls angels "people."
  • Angels look just like people.
  • The words that refer to angels also refer to people.
  • Angels are our fellow servants and brothers.
  • The Bible never mentions the creation of angels.
  • We become just like the angels after death.

  So, let`s summarize: Angels are not to be worshipped. Revelation 19.10: 19:10 So I threw myself down at his feet to worship him, but he said, “Do not do this! I am only a fellow servant with you and your brothers who hold to the testimony about Jesus. Worship God, for the testimony about Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

  ... but Jesus is: 1:6 "But when he again brings his firstborn into the world, he says, “Let all the angels of God worship him!”

  Matthew 28,9: "Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid."

  The Bible is very clear on this, no matter how much your cult wants to twist the scrriptures into saying "pay obeisance to Jesus".

  Angels are not the ones who will "inherit all things". Jesus is: Hebrews 2: 5 "It is not to angels that he has subjected the world to come, about which we are speaking. 6 But there is a place where someone has testified: "

  Now that I have answered your argument, which can be summarized this way: "but, but...even angels are called gods...so there is no big deal when Jesus is called god, because he isn`t, only Jehobah is", I considered for a second to ask you again the question above: "Is Jesus an angel, or is he not? - but I wouldn`t get an answer anyway, because you have no answer. The truth is, you don`t give a shit. You are just like every other jw-troll: You show up, spew some propaganda, refuse to answer questions (because you are unable to) and refuse to respond to arguments. Good for you. I couldn`t care less.
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  Hellrider

  Leolaia: I was not aware of that. I was certain that it was in plural, but I understand that it is not. My mistake.
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  Mondo1

  Hellrider, The question was whether or not there is an intermediate sense of the word god. This would mean a sense that is higher than the judges of Israel but lower than God Almighty. You denied this. So the discussion went on to demonstrate that this is the case, and I did so. You attempted to bring in a red herring, which is whether or not Jesus is an angel. This was not the topic at all. I'm sorry if you are upset, but we need to stick with the issues, and these were the issues. Mondo
• 

  Hellrider

  Mondo:

  The question was whether or not there is an intermediate sense of the word god. This would mean a sense that is higher than the judges of Israel but lower than God Almighty. You denied this.

  BS, and you know it. I never denied that there is an intermediate state of the word "god". I never denied this, but you claim that I did. That means you are constructing a strawman, and anyone can see it, by just scrolling back in the thread. You mentioned this intermediate state first, in your post 84, where you write:

  "The problem is you are too dependant upon English translations, and so you see "God" and you think ontologically the same God as the Father, which is simply false.

  ...to which I responded:

  "I believe what the early church fathers said, proves you wrong. Yes, some held a subordationist view, but for your argument here to be correct, the early church fathers should have spoken in other ways than they did. In your view, and what you meant when you said you could call Jesus "God", you meant in the same manner as how the prophets or lawmakers could be called "gods" (John 10:34). In other words, someone "high-ranking".

  Where is the denial? Nowhere. I never denied that the word has two meanings. Nice try on a strawman. Easy way for you to not have to deal with the arguments and questions.

  You attempted to bring in a red herring, which is whether or not Jesus is an angel

  This is not a red herring. It is a central point in this entire discussion. Because if Jesus is not eternal, like you say, if he was created, like you say, if the term "god" is applied to him in the same sense as the angels, like you imply, then what is he, according to you? This is an important question that goes straight to the core of what we were trying to figure out from the very beginning of this thread. But you are slipping away from these questions like an oiled-up eal. I am not surprised.