God or Satan?

by peacefulpete 26 Replies latest watchtower bible

peacefulpete
The theme of my recent comment in another thread demonstrated how in some circles the 'Word/Logos' had become understood to be implied within OT texts that mention an Angel or Destroyer (in the case of Ex 12). The comment got no response so I'll repost it now as a springboard for a further observation:
- Here's another example of the extreme personification of the Logos/Word from the Wisdom of Solomon (approx. 100BCE) describing the Word as the Destroyer in the Exodus 12 story. The original in Exodus reads:
  12 For I will pass through the land of Egypt that night, and I will smite all the first-born in the land of Egypt, both man and beast; and on all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgments: I am the Lord. ..23 For the Lord will pass through to slay the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door, (and will not allow the Destroyer to enter your houses to slay you).
  First of all, notice how the text repeatedly says 'the Lord' would do the slaying, then note the added phrase at the end that suddenly without explanation introduces a Destroyer. Clearly some scribal sensitivities motivated the introduction of an agent of the Lord who, as the text now reads, is easily (if not intentionally) identified as the Lord.
  The Wisdom of Solomon describing this story reads: 18:14
  ...when their firstborn were destroyed, they acknowledged your people to be God’s child. .For while gentle silence enveloped all things, and night in its swift course was now half gone,15 your all-powerful Word leapt from heaven, from the royal throne, into the midst of the land that was doomed, a stern warrior 16 carrying the sharp sword of your authentic command,
  and stood and filled all things with death and touched heaven while standing on the earth.
  The Destroyer/Lord is now referred to as the all-powerful Word who comes from the 'royal throne'.
  The description of the Word as immense spanning from heaven to the earth is reminiscent of the 1 Chron 21 story of the Angel of the Lord sent to destroy Jerusalem with a sword:
  15 And God sent an angel to destroy Jerusalem. But as the angel was doing so, the Lord saw it and relented concerning the disaster and said to the angel who was destroying the people, “Enough! Withdraw your hand.” The Angel of the Lord was then standing at the threshing floor of Araunah[b] the Jebusite. 16 David looked up and saw the Angel of the Lord standing between heaven and earth, with a drawn sword in his hand extended over Jerusalem.
  This also reminds us of the immense Mighty Angel in Rev 10 and various other apocalyptic works of the period.
  Anyway, the Wisdom of Solomon passage demonstrates the concept of the Logos/Word acting as an agent of the Lord but also equated with the Lord. This is Logos theology.
  The related point I wish to expand upon now is how the evolving conception of God is demonstrated in the 1 Chron 21 story as well. Reading the whole pericope, we read that the Angel of the Lord was sent to destroy Jerusalem because of the census David conducted.
  Note how the Chronicler's version of the story reads:
  21 Satan rose up against Israel and incited David to take a census of Israel. 2 So David said to Joab and the commanders of the troops, “Go and count the Israelites from Beersheba to Dan. Then report back to me so that I may know how many there are.”3 But Joab replied, “May the Lord multiply his troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all my lord’s subjects? Why does my lord want to do this?
  As we know the Chronicler was basically rewriting material from the Deuteronomist histories, doing so with slightly different concerns and perspectives. His/their source in this case was 2 Sam 24 which reads:
  24 Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, number Israel and Judah.”[a] 2 So the king said to Joab and the commanders of the army,[b] who were with him, “Go through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and number the people, that I may know the number of the people.” 3 But Joab said to the king, “May the Lord your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, while the eyes of my lord the king still see it; but why does my lord the king delight in this thing?
  The difference in the opening of the two versions is obvious. 2 Sam says it was an angry Yahweh/Lord that inspired David whereas the Chronicler (or a later editor) changed that to 'Satan'. (The reference to Satan as a proper name here is surprising, given it is the only reference to a 'satan' in the OT without a definite article. In fact, if the word here is meant to be understood a proper name, it is the oldest example of this by about 200 years. This has led to suggestions that this usage ought also be understood as a descriptive role like the other examples (the satan, Job 1,2 and Zechariah) and not a proper name) Regardless how we understand the term, the fact stands that the Chronicler adjusted his source. Why? The scholarly suggestion is simple, the Chronicler did not conceive his God the same way the Deuteronomist did. While he apparently had no issue with his God using a deceptive spirit agent (see 2 Chron 18 and the source 1 Kings 22) he was not comfortable with his God inspiring (or tempting) humans directly.
  Interestingly scholar Peggy day (An Adversary in Heaven: śātan in the Hebrew Bible 1988) suggests the Chronicler intended the 'satan' (opponent) in this verse not to be a name but rather to be the role/title of the same figure called the 'Angel of the Lord destroying/executing a few verses later (in a manner similar to the 'the satan' in Job and Zechariah). This would then parallel the story mentioned above in 2 Chron 18 where God sends an angel to deceive Ahab.
raymond frantz

You are relying on the book Wisdom of Solomon to make the case that Jesus is Satan this is problematic as the book is not included in Jewish or Modern Bibles and for a good reason, the book was written by a Jewish scholar familiar with Greek culture, likely in Alexandria, Egypt, during the Hellenistic period (between the 2nd century BCE and 1st century, the book was written in Greek, not Hebrew, and contains sophisticated Greek philosophical ideas and expressions.
Jeffro

the book was written by a Jewish scholar familiar with Greek culture
So was John, evident from the Logos theology present in the opening verse.
raymond frantz

Come on... the difference is obvious, John the disciple of Christ vs some unknown non Christian Jewish writer. Can you please elaborate more on the point you're trying make without the questionable references ?
Jeffro

You do know that the gospels are actually anonymous and the supposed authors including ‘John’ are only traditional attributions after the fact, don’t you?
raymond frantz

Why do you believe this nonsense? Who is the earliest "scholar" to promote this preposterous idea that the writers of the Gospels were not the disciples of Christ? And was not the original post about Christ being Satan?
Jeffro

I dismiss the idea that ‘Jesus was Satan’ as nonsense because ‘satan’ was only a generic concept of ‘an opposer’ in Judaism and ‘the devil’ is a fictional character introduced into Judaism and Christianity from the Persians.
As for your simplistic belief that the gospels aren’t anonymous, you’re at odds with mainstream scholarship (including Christian scholarship) so i don’t care. Authorship of ‘John’ wasn’t attributed to him until the late 2nd century.
raymond frantz

The eatliest "scholar" was Hermann Samuel Reimarus (1694–1768) in the 18th century who explicitly rejected the traditional understanding that the Gospels were written by their acclaimed authors. As is a common practice amongst ALL historians , they take the earliest historical references as authority so is the case here. I believe the first Christian Fathers that lived 50 to 200 years after the writing of the Gospels from the opinion of a scholar that lived 1600 years after the event.
Sea Breeze

From "Got Questions"

The Gospel of John doesn’t explicitly name its author. At every mention of himself, the author states that he is “the disciple whom Jesus loved” (e.g., John 13:23). The author was an eyewitness to the events (see John 21:24), and, based on the fact that he was the disciple “leaning back against Jesus” at the Last Supper (John 13:25), he was likely one of Jesus’ inner circle, with Peter and James.
Peter is mentioned as separate from the author (John 21:20), and James was martyred early in the history of the church (Acts 12:2). That leaves John as the remaining disciple of the inner three and, thus, the author.

Apart from the internal clues, the early church uniformly affirmed the authorship of John. Church fathers like Irenaeus plainly spoke of John writing an epistle. Besides Irenaeus, writers like Tatian, Theophilus, Clement, and Tertullian attributed the fourth Gospel to John. John’s Gospel was more theological because he sought to address the theological issues faced by the newer generation of Christians as the apostolic age ended. False teachers had sprung up, questioning core beliefs of Christianity, such as Jesus’ humanity (see 1 John). As a counter, John began his Gospel by introducing the Word who was God and who became flesh (John 1:1, 14).
If John was not the author of his book, where is the testimony of the early church pastors claiming fraud? In fact, , they claimed John was the author:
The early church father Irenaeus (d. AD 200) claimed that John wrote the Fourth Gospel after he was released from prison on the island of Patmos (Rv 1:9) and lived in Ephesus. Irenaeus also wrote that he personally learned this information from the aged Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna (d. AD 155), who in turn was discipled by the apostle John.
raymond frantz

@sea breeze, correct, I wish more exjws did their due diligence on this matter rather than relying on weak modern "scholarship"

God or Satan?

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