by logansrun 33 Replies latest watchtower bible
Do you believe that "John" was subtly hinting that Jesus "was God" in some way?
I believe the "epistes" were how the early followers believed in Jesus........a spiritual Jesus......not one with an earthly fleshly history. The gospels were added to give Jesus an earthly existence which is why you don't find the epistles give any credence to an earthly life of Jesus. Now then........you don't need an answer from Alan f because the great and wise and powerful Gumby has spoken dammit!
Gumby
My personal view therefore is that the NWT is incorrect in translating the word was “a god”. The Bible describes Satan as a god (“the god of this system”)! Other translations have used expressions such as “the Word was God like” or “the Word was divine”. It would have been better to have to have translated exactly as the Greek rendered it, was God, and then given a clear explanation as to what John meant.
Hi eyeslice. Thanks for your post. You are very articulate at indicating that John by not using "ho theos" did not mean that Jesus was "God" but "god";yet you state the exact translation should have been "was God". Didn't you mean: "was god"?
You know, I'm glad you brought this up. After reconsidering this, it seems clear to me now that John simply meant:
"In the beginning was the Word, the Word was with God and the word was a god."
I used to think this was a reference to his position, being in every since like God with just the exception of God and thus he was a "co-ruler-god" with the Father. But now I think the rendering is more accurate by saying "a god", and that's because if Christ was the ultimate "god" with the exception of his father, then how is it that after coming to the earth, he was given a "higher position" than what he had before.
John 1:18 thus referes to him as "a god", that is "the only-begotten god in the bosom position of the father."
Likewise, Jesus is considered as having "fellows", the angels, and they are called "gods" too.
So in that context, "god" would be a "powerful being" or "an angelic spirit creature" since angels are "gods" as well.
Again, if we can't get a direct translation from Greek to English because languages just don't work that way, then we must look to other verses for consistency and Jesus is described as "a god" when John calls him the "only-begotten god in the bosom position of the Father". But I don't think we can inflate that reference past that, though he was by far the foremost angle, the only archangel, since he was yet lacking something if God made him greater after he came to the earth. Furthermore, he was not immortal as none of the angels are, but he will be granted immortality.
"The only begotton god in the bosom position of the Father" is John's concept of Jesus' godship. To me, that is more consistent with "a god".
Thanks for your comments though. I stand corrected on my previous view!!
JC
Now then........you don't need an answer from Alan f because the great and wise and powerful Gumby has spoken dammit!
LOL! Yep, now as far as I am concerned, this trhead is closed!
I hate paste and run posters but this is an excerpt from an article at the Infidels site entitled," The Hellenization of Jesus".
In John we find the culmination of Greek philosophy that has created the Jesus that we are the most familiar with today. A fully-formed Hellenized Jesus has emerged to become an equal with God. The Gospel of John (ca. 120 CE) is complex and mystical. It's purpose is to propagandize the message that Jesus is God Himself, creator of the universe, and so powerful that "whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (3:16)..................
We see in John a desire to use Greek pagan concepts and philosophies as a tool for communicating Jesus as the Logos to a Christianized Gentile audience. John's Logos would not be understood by Jews and his book would only be familiar to someone practiced in the pagan mystery cults that flourished in the Hellenistic world. Heraclitus of Ephesus used the word Logos around 500 BCE to describe his concept of the regularity with which the universe seemed to operate. The universe was a divine machine and Heraclitus credited the Logos (literally the reason) as the ultimate rationale which secretly operated the universe and the heavens above.
The Logos was often ill-defined, but was responsible for keeping the ratio of all things in proportion, much like the balance of Eastern yin (dark) and yang (light). The cult of Hermes made use of this to describe their Hermetic corpus written about in the Poimandres:
The [Poimandres] writer fell into a deep and heavy trance, in which there appeared to him a being who introduced himself as Poimandres (Shepherd of Men), "the Mind of Authority." Poimandres then shows the mystic a vision, in which he sees a great light and a great darkness, respectively reality and matter. From the light comes "a Holy Logos," ...the "shining Son of God," who proceeds from Mind itself...(2)
By the beginning of the Common Era, the Logos was a deeply felt and intricate part of Greek thought despite its mystical and sometimes confusing machinations. It was well established that the Logos was a divinely felt presence of God, but no philosopher could find a more practical implementation for how the Logos actually mattered to humans and their lives. The man who would provide this meaning and give personified substance to the Logos at the beginning of the Common Era was Philo.
Philo of Alexandria (30 BCE - 45 CE) introduced the concept of the Logos as an allegorical force of Yahweh. He was a Jew of the dispersion, and observed the mitzvot, yet like a lot of cosmopolitan Alexandrians of the time, worshipped the Greek gods too. Philo believed that the two worlds were not irreconciliable and the Logos was his attempt at melding Yahwism with the Greek vision of God. The Greeks, armed with the powerful philosophy of Plato, and later Aristotle, believed that God was inherently "unknowable." He was beyond human understanding and all attempts to describe God would end in failure. However, a glimpse of God could be attained through rational thinking and deep meditation. If one could achieve the Hermetic level of mystical awareness as chronicled in the Poimandres, one will be able to experience God........
Philo's work bridged this gap, postulating an ousia of God, or a singular essence, which is the unknowable, and an energeiai (energy) which was the very thoughts of God. God's energy could interact and touch the lives of mortals despite the remote ousia which was inaccessible to man. Philo believed that humans interact with God by experiencing the energy of where he had been; God's shadow could come into a mortal's life even if only briefly. The Logos was a mediator for God; making it possible to realize the energy of God, and thus, by extension, the impossible ousia of God Himself.
Because of Philo's allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament, Moses, when descending Mount Sinai with Yahweh's Torah is depicted as experiencing Yahweh's energy and we are told that the people who saw Moses were 'blinded' by the energy of God's presence which still emanated from Moses' face. In the New Testament, Philo's Logos ushers in a new way of thinking about Jesus, leaving behind the Messianic messenger of the Q source and the early Synoptics.
Philo never explained clearly what his Logos was, but it often took on the form of the essence or divine nature of God. Philo's Word was extremely popular among Jews and non-Jews alike, successfully splitting God into multiple personifications that pagan worshippers would later refine further from Bi- to Trinitarian concepts that we are familiar with today. We first see the application of the philosophy of the Logos in the prologue of the Gospel of John which begins by proclaiming Philo's triumph:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God .... The same was in the beginning with God ... and the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father [God]." (John 1:1-14)
John is distinct from the Synoptic Tradition because of the nature of the transformation of Jesus. The shift takes us from the Judaic idea of a chosen people's messiah, to a Wisdom, a sophia, that pervades all things and all people. The Word that has existed from the beginning, and while the Word came and dwelt among men, "they knew him not." (1:12) John has promulgated the Logos in a radically new way. Suddenly, man is not only capable, but deserved from the beginning of time, to accept the Logos, the Word, the Christ, as a gnosis, an available knowledge of the Elect. This gnosis tills man's evil nature and produces fertile ground so that the perfect God and the flawed Man can meet and establish a fellowship. Like other Greek philosophical constructs: beauty, wisdom, and truth, Jesus, as the Logos, becomes God.
It is possible that the author of John was heavily influenced by the Essenes, a mystical ascetic Jewish sect who sequestered themselves from civilization and waited for the Parousia, the apoclyptic end of the world. There are similarities between Essenic writings such as the famous Dead Sea Scrolls and John such as the belief that men must repent spiritually and then be baptised to become purified in that spirit. This concept is alien to Messianic Judaism, but baptism was practiced by the Essenes who, in turn, learned it from the Greek Pythagorean mystery-cult.(6) Other similiarities include the numerous allegories between the "light" and the "dark." We are told that the "light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not" in John 1:5 and later:
While ye have light, believe in the light, that ye may be the children of light. These things spake Jesus, and departed, and did hide himself from them.(7)
The Essenes wrote extensively about the Children of Light who were constantly engaged in a battle against their nemesis, the Wicked Priest who was of darkness. The contrasts of those who walk in the light and those lost in the dark are played heavily in John. Dialogues are set up between dupes who are of the dark (the world), and Jesus of the light (heaven). There is no hope for these children of darkness who are doomed to take Jesus' rhetoric literally. The woman at the well in Samaria is told that "Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst, but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life" (4:13-14). She does not understand Jesus' meaning, but John's intended readers who are already well-versed in Philo's allegory are well aware of the spiritual water that Jesus is referring to.......................
John 1:1 could well be the most controversial scripture in the entire Bible.
Is it? That's a very large statement. To whom? More info needed here. I'd suggest it was only "controversial" to those who are confronted by it.
This whole John1:1 mess would never have come about if everyone realized it was a simple metaphor, from the beginning.
"My love is a rose" - does she actually have leaves and a green stem?
It's simple.
metatron
We could also look at John 3:16 which talks of Gods only begotten son. It doesnt say created son or made up son. I mean to say that, like BEGETS like, common sense tell us this. Could I beget anything less than an imperfect human being? Say an earthworm? NO! of course not. God can only beget God.
my 2 cents, MJ
I noticed nobody commented on the fact that.............
The EPISLES contain nothing.....about an earthly life of Jesus except for two refrences if I remember.
Wouldn't it seem that since most of these episles(letters) were written by close followers of Jesus.....ones who ate, slept, and walked with him.......would have at least mentioned that he raised the dead, healed the sick, fed the hungry, ......something of his earthly nature? A man who upset..especially in later years........the Roman world? Yet there is no talk about him when he roamed the streets of Palestine in the letters......only the Gospels......and even his geneology is screwed up there. The Gospels go through through the trouble to prove Joseph was Jesus dad, and Jesus never came out from his loins
Gumby
Wouldn't it seem that since most of these episles(letters) were written by close followers of Jesus.....ones who ate, slept, and walked with him.......would have at least mentioned that he raised the dead, healed the sick, fed the hungry, ......something of his earthly nature? A man who upset..especially in later years........the Roman world? Yet there is no talk about him when he roamed the streets of Palestine in the letters......only the Gospels
The epistles were mainly written as doctrinal expositions, and not as historical accounts, so it makes perfect sense to me that details of events occurring in Jesus' life would not be included. Should we conclude that no such person as, say, Joshua ever existed because he isn't mentioned in any of the Psalms?
The Gospels go through through the trouble to prove Joseph was Jesus dad, and Jesus never came out from his loins
Most likely so that Jesus' genealogy (and thus his eligibility to be the Messiah) would be established through the lines of both of his legal parents.
BTW< I'm no Greek scholar, but I've read a fair amount on John 1:1, and my understanding of the use of theos in that verse is that it is qualitative. In other words, the verse was not saying, "the Word was God" in the sense that we might say, "George W. Bush is President," i.e. that he holds that position or title. Rather, it is speaking to the very nature of the Word, that He is God by nature. One translation (I believe it might have been Rotherham's) uses the wording, "the Word was, as to his essence, absolute deity."
