by Wonderment 39 Replies latest watchtower bible
The New Testament in Plain English (published, 2003) translates John 1:1c as: "the Word was God." However, a footnote on this verse says: "or, Deity, Divine (which is actually a better translation, because the Greek definite article is not present before this Greek word)."
I would like to know what you all think of this comment.
It is a fair comment in the footnote.
This topic has been done to death on here over the years, I do hope this thread if it gets legs, does not go over old ground, like is the Trinity true blah blah.
I suggest you use the search facility on here, much learned stuff is to be found,even going into the Coptic tranlsation of John 1v1 for instance.
There is so much in the archive on here.
It's a bit more complex to convey a Gnostic thought in English than a simple translation from Greek. The "Word" or "Logos" is the creative force or principle, the "God Consciousness" that defines 3d reality. This may sound complicated but we can break it down into combinations of different frequencies of light, which create matter when condensed.
The footnote you mentioned is very good. While "God" may be "Divine", "Divine" does not necessarily mean "God", as in the Most High ....... the Supreme God, the Absolute, the source of all things. This verse was never intended to refer to Jesus of Nazareth. They took piecemeal Gnostic writings and made their new religion out of it, completely removing its spiritual element. While Jesus fully incarnated the Christ principle, he was not the definition of "Christ". What we ended up with was the Catholic Church's God-man version of this ancient metaphysical knowledge, below, of the Kabbalistic Tree Of Life:
The top circle, Kether, is the Father that Jesus spoke of throughout his ministry. There is only one Law in this realm, which is Love, and it cannot create physical reality by itself because true unconditional love must be reciprocated between at least two entities. This is why, in the beginning, the Kether or Father separated a piece of himself and created trillions and trillions of new souls, each one independent but also part of the ONE at the same time. To imagine this, think of all the water molecules in the Atlantic Ocean. Each can do its own thing, but each is part of a unit that works together to make one ocean, which has an ecosystem.
The top three circles, Kether, Hokhmah and Binah, represent the three vibrations that make up the Logos. They are reflected below, in a dualistic mirror, as Hod, Netsah and Yesod. This is why we live, as Paul said, in the "shadow of the reality". With each step downward, the amount of laws double, which means there are more restrictions. In the Logos, or the top three, there are six laws. In the next level there are 12....then 24, and finally, in our physical world at the bottom, Malkuth, there are 48 laws, such as gravity, inertia, etc. When Paul went to the "third heaven", he was astral projecting under only 6 laws and could "fly", "create", and interact with others in the heavenly realm. It has been said by the kabbalists and gnostics that in some really spiritually devoid places, people live under 96 laws!
Anyway, that's my half-arsed Tree of Life explanation..... here's a little bit more about it in light reading...
It is widely accepted by scholars, even trinitarian ones, that "the Word was God" referres to the nature of the Word and not the identity of The Word.
It doesn't change the Trinitarian implicit claim and can even be viewed as an explicit claim.
Well put P.Sac
I find the claim above,by Prodigal Son, that it was never intended to refer to Jesus of Nazareth a little strange if you read the whole of the Gospel of John.
Or am I missing something, and the prologue is not to be taken with the rest of the Gospel ?
Wobble, to clarify, the NT was put together centuries later after many theological battles.... it's a bit misleading to look at this book, or any book in the New Testament, as a coherent work in its orginal form. Everything has been doctored to fit an agenda. And that agenda is to have people look to a historical figure for salvation, requiring a mediator, rather than within themselves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism_and_the_New_Testament
The Gospel of John
To the gnostics [who?] , the Gospel of John shows the clearest similarity to later gnostic writing style in general, and to them parts of the gospel have a similar dream-like quality to the writing (compare the Gospel of Truth, more especially the Trimorphic Protennoia) [citation needed] .
The phrase "and the Word became flesh, and dwelt amongst us" is generally seen as being against docetism, a belief that many Gnostics held that the human nature of Jesus was illusory, as the Perfect Saviour inherent in a Christ could not partake in the inherently corrupt (according to gnosticism) nature of matter. Also, the opening phrase is generally understood as being against Arianism, a 4th century sect of Christianity, later branded as heretical, which asserted that there was a time previous to Jesus' existence.
Much of John has this form, consistently drawing on positions held by later 2nd century and early 3rd century groups in order to contradict them and cast them as heretical. [citation needed] In the case of these supposed 3rd century groups Rylands Library Papyrus P52, Papyrus 66, Papyrus 75 all have been dated to be before the 3rd century. These groups frequently did not exist in the late 1st century and early 2nd century, Arianism being a prime example, and it would be odd for them to arise if a gospel was circulating which so clearly condemned the positions that did not yet exist. For this reason, and since also the first quotations from the Gospel of John appear in the anti-heresy works of Irenaeus, many scholars like K.G. Bretschneider (1776–1848), Hegel and F.C. Baur (born 1792 - died 1860) cast doubt on the Authorship of the Gospel of John, and often consider it to have been a 2nd century polemic by an author holding what later became the position of the orthodoxy.
Most of the above is called into question by Rylands Library Papyrus P52 which contains a fragment from John chapter 18 dated with a fair measure of confidence to the first half of the 2nd century. As well as the recent work of Charles Hill's The Johannine Corpus in the Early Church. In which Charles Hill gives evidence that the Gospel of John was used between CE 90 and 130, the possible use of uniquely Johannine gospel material in several works which date from this period. These works and authors include Ignatius (c.107); Polycarp (c.107); Papias’ elders (c.110-120); Hierapolis' Exegesis of the Lord’s Oracles (c.120-132).
Elaine Pagels, a prolific modern writer on Gnosticism, has written a book on the role of John in Gnosticism: Johannine Gospel in Gnostic Exegesis: Heracleon's Commentary on John.
The Letters of Paul pre-date ANY of the gospels and that are some of the most "christolgical" of writings we have.
The Oldest COPY of GOJ is dates to the early 2nd century, which means the orginal was probably made mid to last 1st centuty.
The writings of the apostolic fathers, some of them dated to last 1st century already speak of the writings of John.
Gnoscticim, that writings we have of it, are all AFTER the Gospels and the letters of Paul, what we know as the NT.
The Letters of Paul pre-date ANY of the gospels
You just proved my point. Who was Paul writing about if the Gospels weren't even out yet? Why does he never quote Jesus or mention any of his life details?
If you're saying the "authentic" gospels were stolen by the Gnostics, that is diametrically opposite of the truth. There was no "spiritual osmosis" of the Holy Canon down to the Roman Councils. The Church took Gnostic writings referring to a Cosmic Christ and made Christ into a historical figure.
PSac, why not give this a read and maybe it'll shed some more light on what I'm saying....
The Esoteric Character of the Gospels
http://www.blavatsky.net/blavatsky/arts/EsotericCharacterOfTheGospels.htm
You just proved my point. Who was Paul writing about if the Gospels weren't even out yet? Why does he never quote Jesus or mention any of his life details?
Paul style was to quote creeds, whic he did often.
You don't see many Jesus quotes in any of the letters from John or Peter either.
But Paul does reference perhaps one of the oldest Christain Creeds in 1 Corinthians.
If you are insinuating the Paul was a Gnostic, you don't have much tpo support that.
If you're saying the "authentic" gospels were stolen by the Gnostics, that is diametrically opposite of the truth. There was no "spiritual osmosis" of the Holy Canon down to the Roman Councils. The Church took Gnostic writings referring to a Cosmic Christ and made Christ into a historical figure.
Disgree with that view and their is no evidence for that and since the Gnostics came after the Gospels and what we know as the NT, it woudl seem that the gnostic put THEIR spin on things and NOT the other way around.
