John 1:3

VanillaMocha73

How do JW's get around this verse? John 1:3 - "3Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made." I honestly can't remember and can't find anything in the pubs that deals with it. Jesus was created (they say) and yet, it says NOTHING was made except through him, which means he must have created himself.

sexyk

Yeah, he must of made himself, good point. That's crazy.

keith

unbaptized

Jehovah made Jesus (The Word), Jehovah & Jesus made all other things!

Jehovah resurrected Jesus, Jehovah thru Jesus resurrects the righteous and unrighteous!

Easy as 1,2,3

Terry

There was a period of time between Judaism, (Messianic Judaism, Christian-Judaism and, finally,) Christianity in which violent arguments over who/what Jesus was vis a vis deity took place.

One of the reasons for writing down the oral traditions was to solidify certain positions and "prove" a particular opinion by representing those opinions as from a higher source. After all, the Jews were the "people of the book" and no greater authority could be referenced in an argument over orthodoxy than what was "written".

Eventually hundreds (if not thousands) of Messiah stories, Jesus stories were circulated; each with yet more powerful representations of who or what his personage revealed as to nature and importance.

The names of important men became attached to these writings to bolster their authority and authenticity. (The Gospel according to.....)

Eventually.....

What became known as Christianity found an authority to back it up that had some real clout: a Roman Emperor!

The power of the STATE in the person of Constantine (worshipper in the cult of Sol-Invictus, the Sun god) championed Christianity and sought to solidify his constituency by smoothing over differences.

Constantine convoked a Council in Nicene in 325 c.e. for the purpose of working out issues of belief and airing opinions and weeding out troublemakers.

One of the most bitter controversies which seemed irreconcilable concerned the nature of Jesus in regard to his status as a human being or demi-god or deity.

The Roman world was pagan. Rome embraced the religion of Greece. Greece embraced philosophy. The philosophy of Plato and its permutations (known as neo-Platonism) were everywhere well-known. Familiarity with IDEAL FORMS and demi-gods was considered the natural state of existence. Even the emperor himself was often considered to be the son of god and of divine status. How could the leader of the Christian religion be LESS than an emperor???

Jesus, however, was from the religion of Judaism. Judaism was notorious for only having ONE supereme God and no OTHER gods. How could Jesus fit in with Judiac thought and theology if he represented a more pagan realization of theology??

The controversy was a bloody one. Churches were burned, men were beaten and deaths occured over this one issue like no other.

The Roman Empire under Constantine was in a position to settle the matter with the power of the state. It did. Contrary views were punished by violent means and writings were burned which contradicted official views of what was "true".

Eventually the Church which emerged from the Church-State union (Catholic) split within itself over the same argument over the definition of Christ's nature (substance vis a vis the Father) and the Greek Orthodox Church became a rival to the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Empire split apart into two emperors and two churches for the remainder of the Roman era of domination.

Athanasius and Arius are the two men most often quoted in the argumentations as to the nature of Jesus and his status as deity.

The writings now imputed to be Canon are writings accepted (others being burned) by the same group of arguing bishops and clergy who won the right to excommunicate their opponents.

Depending on the geographical location of a church or congregation; a different theology of Jesus would be preached as True.

The man named Saul who became the most influential self-named Apostle of Jesus, was from a pagan background in the midst of Judaism influenced by neo-Platonism. Paul sought to remove Jesus from Judaism and make his Messianic authority more broad based by appealing to pagans in their familiarity with demi-god status.

As writings about Jesus proliferated a gradual evolution is detected by scholars placing them on a timeline of change. Early writings demonstrate Jesus as human. Later writings color his deeds as superhuman. By the time the Gospel (attributed to John) of John comes along the Jesus represented is now fully on par with the Only True God of the Jews as a morph into equal status without conflict as to number. (Compare Mark with John as to the events in the garden of Gethsemane and the resurrection side by side.)

Jews could no longer accept such a Messiah which violated thousands of years of monotheism. These Jews could have (and did) represented a real holdout to any doctrine of Trinity. However, the Roman army moved against Jewish patriots who were rebellious in Jerusalem. The majority of the Jewish population was dispersed into frightened communities as Rome destroyed the center of worship in Jerusalem. The bulwark against Trinitariansim was sent packing!

This left only the neo-Platonic advocates in a position to widely influence thinking about Jesus and his role as a demi-god/true god.

This status is reflected in John 1:3.

The "truth" of history is written by the winners.

VanillaMocha73

Unbaptized,

You are saying "Jehovah made Jesus (The Word), Jehovah & Jesus made all other things.Jehovah resurrected Jesus, Jehovah thru Jesus resurrects the righteous and unrighteous!" But the Bible says "3 All things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence." (New World Translation). What this is saying is "All things came into existence through Jesus (or the Word), and apart from Jesus not even one thing came into existence." Therefore, that first statement of "Jehovah made Jesus" just does not make sense. Apart from Jesus not even ONE thing came into existence - it does not say anything about one thing being made and then Jesus made all things.....

I have researched this in the WT pub library and really don't find anything that addresses the question.
Terry,
I still believe that God is powerful enough to protect His word from adulteration. So I do tend to believe the Bible for what it says. I know this is a matter of personal faith, so it is fine if you differ. :-)

BluesBrother

The original q. was "How do the dubs get around the verse?" - well I am no scholar and I never claimed to be clever. - but as a dub I would have read the verse in the NWT as

" (John 1:3) 3 All things came into existence through him, and apart from him not even one thing came into existence.. ."

The understanding, as we read the chapter was that ; .All {other} things came into existence through him and except for him not even one thing came into existence. T he first expression "All things" was general statement that was clarified by the second phrase which described that after he was created, everything else came through him.

I did not translate the Bible that way, and I am not going to defend it. But that is how J W's see the verse

Amber Rose

Yes, like Blues Brother said. When JW's read that verse they see the word "other" - all other things were created. You can read the words that really are there to them all that you want but they won't get it because "obvoiusly" that's the only way it makes sence, duh.

greendawn

Terry one clarification, the Church didn't split up in the 4th century but rather the 11th ostensibly on the filioque clause (West claims the Holy Spirit is emanated from the Father and the Son the East says only from the Father), though the real reasons were political. It was the Middle Eastern churches (Egypt, Syria, Armenia) which split off in the 5th century on the nature of Christ.

VanillaMocha73

So, in other words, they cannot explain this Scripture without adding words to it. Words that, according to the Greek Interlinear (also in their possession) are not there.
Revelation 22:18:
I am bearing witness to everyone that hears the words of the prophecy of this scroll: If anyone makes an addition to these things, God will add to him the plagues that are written in this scroll; and if anyone takes anything away from the words of the scroll of this prophecy, God will take his portion away from the trees of life and out of the holy city, things which are written about in this scroll.

Terry

Terry,
I still believe that God is powerful enough to protect His word from adulteration. So I do tend to believe the Bible for what it says. I know this is a matter of personal faith, so it is fine if you differ. :-)

I could not agree with you more. God, by definition, IS POWERFUL ENOUGH to protect His word from adulteration.

However, this opens the door for a follow up thought. To wit: Any writings NOT belonging to God would automatically not place God in the position of protecting from adulteration.

If the oral stories, opinions, arguments, embellishments and such reported as true actually were nothing more than MEN trying to persuade MEN of something on their own agenda; it would stand to reason such as this would be subject to corruption.

You only have to demonstrate ONE TIME that the bible has been corrupted in text for your premise to be proved false.

This is easily demonstrated.

For myself, I had to let go of the "just because the bible says it--it must be true" fallback position because defending it would lead to intellectual dishonesty on my part. This only leaves two alternatives.

1.God did not have anything to do with preserving this assembly of voted-on stories because it did not originate with Him.

2.Man has responsibility for Man and the very issue and identity of God (or Jesus) is outside meaningful discussion.

John 1:3

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