NWT: who, although he was existing in God’s form, gave no consideration to a seizure, namely, that he should be equal to God.
KJV: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:
Someone is guilty of violating the warnings given in Rev. 22:18-19
"I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book."
I'll let ya make the decisions on this one.
Phil 2:6.... Who is right?
by A-Team 13 Replies latest watchtower bible
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A-Team
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Abandoned
Well, seeing as how the plagues are just a bunch of fairy tales, I guess it doesn't really matter whether the thing was changed in 1611 or in 1950.
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darth frosty
Wellll! According to my trusty Kindom Interlinear(published by the WTBT$) The greek translation reads "who in form of god existing not snatching he considered the to be equal (things) to God."
I'm no Freddy Franz. But at a guess I'll say 'snatching' and 'robbery' could probably be considered fair translations of the original greek words. Yes the kingdom interlinear, yet another chain around the WT$ neck. -
Pahpa
NIV
"Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped."
NASB
"Who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped."
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golf2
How do YOU prefer it to be read and understood?
Golf -
Sad emo
Neither the AV or NWT render the verse well.
Current thinking is that the difficult to translate Greek word for grasped/seized was used here in terms of holding or clinging onto something which is already in one's possession - as opposed to reaching out to grasp something which isn't theirs by right.
This of course has implications when exploring the deity of Christ - did he choose to let go (ie not cling to) of his divine nature in order to become human? This idea seems to make more sense to me because the other interpretation makes it look like Jesus not being God had the ability to become so - a preposterous idea when you sit down and really think about it - who can become equal to God of their own will and ability?
Thank you for posting this question - it straightened out another wrinkle in my thinking
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Narkissos
This is certainly a difficult passage, but I think the interpretation is made unnecessarily difficult by all the Christological weight which has been historically ascribed to it, and partly read into it. The context is actually parenetical (moral/spiritual exhortation), not doctrinal: it is about how to behave/act, not what to think about the relative nature of two heavenly characters ("Jesus" and "God").
One problem imo is that when we read it we take monotheism for granted as its only possible conceptual setting and assume that every occurrence of theos means (the only) God. That was definitely not the case in the original Greek context, and both occurrences of theos in v. 6 are anarthrous (contrary to v. 11). What if a very generic opposition between divine/immortal and human/mortal natureswas meant, and the paradox of a "god" choosing to become mortal? From this perspective it would make a lot of sense imo:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of a god,
did not regard the status of god
as something to be exploited,
but emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave,
being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form, he humbled himself
and became obedient to the point of death--
even death on a cross.An intermediate reading would give only the first occurrence of theos the generic meaning "god" (as the antithetical parallelism with "slave" and "human" suggests):
who, though he was in the form of a god,
did not regard equality with God
as something to be grasped,
but emptied himself... -
Leolaia
If we're talking about the translation in the NWT, it is pretty striking to observe how non-literal, unnecessarily wordy, and otherwise dreadful the rendering is, such as adding "although" (from the concessive force of the clause), turning a participle into an active "he was existing", turned "did not consider" into the more wordy "gave no consideration to", using the unusual word "seizure" to refer to an act of seizing (which makes one think Jesus tried to cure himself of epilepsy), adding "namely" to connect "that he should be equal to God" with the rest of the sentence (whereas in Greek the relation is simply HE DID NOT CONSIDER (equality to God) TO BE (a snatching)), and most strikingly, turning the infinitive "TO BE" and "equality to God" into a whole clause "that he should be equal to God" that has its own subject and the verb in the subjunctive mood. This subjunctive precludes the possibility that Jesus could have been equal to God, which goes hand in hand with their rendering of harpagmon "snatching" but which is absent in the actual text.
As far as interpretation is concerned, I think that one must recognize the immediate context, as the preceding verses describe the kind of situation in the church that Jesus demonstrated in his incarnation ("in humility consider others better than yourselves", v. 3; in this case, Jesus would have considered God better than himself by humbling himself as a man) and contain much of the same language that appears in v. 6-8 (see kenodoxian "empty glory" in v. 3 and ekenósen "emptied" in v. 7, such that Jesus emptied himself of his divine "glory"; alla ... tapeinophrosuné "but ... lowly-mindedness" in v. 3 and alla ... etapeinósen "but ... he made [himself] lowly" in v. 7-8, hégoumenoi "considering" in v. 3 and hégésato "he considered" in v. 6, heautón "ourselves" in v. 3-4 and heauton "himself" in v. 7-8). The verse that links v. 3-4 with v. 6-7 instructs the reader to "have the mind" (phroneite) that was exhibited by Jesus in his incarnation, and this word also links back to the ideal Christian situation mentioned in v. 2: "having the same mind (phronéte) and having the same love, being joined together in soul, with one mind (to hen phronountes)". Paul therefore saw the situation between Jesus and God at the incarnation as parallel to the situation between brothers in the church, and used the same language to describe both. Paul did not consider some brothers as intrinsically superior than others; all were supposed to be joined together with one mind in Christ, all sharing the same hope and glory, with no distinction between circumcised and uncircumcised, between slave and free man (compare Romans 10:12, 1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:26-28, Colossians 3:11). But even though all are equal brothers in Christ, the proper attitude is to treat your fellow brother as better than yourself, to have "lowly-mindedness" about yourself. Similarly, even though Christ shared the same glory as God and was of one mind (hen phronountes) with him, he did not treat God as his equal but demonstrated lowly-mindedness (tapeinophrosuné), setting aside his glory so that he could be "obedient" to him. In return, God "raised him on high and gave him the name which is above all other names", making him Lord over all (v. 9-11) and granting him "a power that enables him to bring everything under his control" (3:21). In both cases there is an interesting paradox, oneness and equality in Christ involves subjection to one another, by making oneself unequal by choice. Christians may be equal each other by status as adopted sons of God, but in role they are to humble themselves to each other. At least that is how I construe the point. Paul in fact uses the same illustration of Jesus' incarnation in 2 Corinthians to induce the Corinthians to give their surplus money to the poor, so there would be economic parity between the rich and poor:
"Remember how generous the Lord Jesus was: he was rich, but he became poor for your sake, to make you rich out of his poverty... Our desire is not that others might be relieved while you are hard pressed, but that there might be equality. At the present time your plenty will supply what they need, so that in turn their plenty will supply what you need. Then there will be equality (isotés)" (2 Corinthians 8:9, 13).
Another complicating feature of the text is its intertextuality with Genesis 1-3, as Paul construes Jesus in Adamic terms but always as one greater than Adam (cf. Romans 5:12-14, 1 Corinthians 15:22, 45). The description of Jesus as en morphé theou huparkhón "existing in the form of God" in Philippians 2:6 corresponds to man (= Adam) as eikon kai doxa theou huparkhón "existing [as] the image and glory of God" in 1 Corinthains 11:7. This phrase is clearly based on Genesis 1:27, which describes man as created kat' eikon theou "according to the image of God", and the rest of the passage in 1 Corinthians 11 is replete with allusions to the Garden of Eden story, by referencing the creation of woman from Adam (11:8 = Genesis 2:23), the reason for her creation being for man's sake (11:9 = Genesis 2:20), their unity in not being "apart" from each other (11:10 = Genesis 2:24), and the woman being given a "covering" (11:15 = Genesis 3:21). Adam was created kat' eikon theou and not en morphe theou "in the form of God," and he grasped at equality with God (cf. esesthe hós theoi "you will be as gods" in Genesis 3:5) by taking the forbidden fruit (labousa tou karpou in Genesis 3:6). Thus Adam did the opposite of what Christ did and the consequence was the opposite as well: whereas Christ eliminated slavery to sin and was glorified by God in return, Adam was punished by God and introduced slavery to sin: "Through one man sin entered into the world and death through sin" (Romans 5:12). The use of harpagon in Philippians 2:6 may thus allude to the contrary act of Adam who grasped at the fruit of knowledge of good and evil and the divine status that it accords, with an implicit contrast in the case of Jesus.
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Leolaia
To make the above points more easy to grasp, I've laid out the literary context and parallels in the following synoptic comparison (with some additional links noted), where in each comparative feature is indicated in a distinctive font or color:
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Narkissos
I'd just like to point out that, in addition to the inner antithetical parallelism of morphè theou with morphè doulou / homoiôma anthrôpou / skhèmati... hôs anthrôpos, the intertextual link with Genesis 3:6 LXX hôs theoi (plural) weighs in favour of construing theos in Philippians 2:6 as generic...
