by Eugene Shubert 63 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
.....or the trinity could exist in each and every particle of life--every atom:
What we originated from
What we are now
What we will become
Because what we are now, in the human form, is a derivative of what were were in the cosmos, as a divine creature. What we will become is unfathomable, and will be manifest when we return to "home". Perhaps this is what Jesus was trying to convey.
Just my 2cents.
Nakissos...I think we are agreeing. The priority of John (protoJohn) model attempts to account for the Gnostic Christology. It also fits well with the earliest reference to a GJohn(in some early form) having come from the Gnostic community. The Naasene Fragment 120-140CE. Of course the later layers in John show dependence on Matt and Luke. As much as 35% of the material is likely later additions. With the relocating of sections mixing up the plot.
I don't find P52 particularly relevant. It is so fragmented (no three words together as I remember)and brief (a dozen or so words)that it could be almost anything. If we assume the piece is a Gospel at all, it could be very easily an early form of the John text now lost or it could be a source story for the gospels, commentary etc.. The dating is equally questionable. Some date it as late as 200.
It's a real detective story with hundreds of clues but hard to assemble into a single recreation. Too much time and too many coverups. Fortunately for most of us the point that matters is that it is not the infallible word we were taught to believe it was.
Joseph Malik: At the very least you could perhaps admit that the writer of the fourth Gospel was very fond of toying with the idea of the "divinity" of Jesus. In that case my question would be: Why was he?
Narkissos,
Just what you mean by divinity is not apparent and this is not a guessing game. It is supposed to be a reasoned discussion of the facts as written in scripture. What I do know about John is that he had revelations not privy to the others. He mostly provided fills and information missing in the other accounts. John also participated in the controversy over Law, taking the side of the Jews for many years, the wrong side in fact that nearly had the apostle Paul killed. So John knew full well how dangerous false ideology could be. And John was among those that did not believe that our Lord was raised in the flesh until physically confronted by him. So he made sure that if anyone else shared such wrong views they could be identified as antichrist placing a stigma on all their teaching. John and the apostle Paul both spoke with clarity regarding the non-human realm and things that took place in such realm. And with all this clarity the trinity doctine is not taught or supported in their writings.
Joseph
Joseph,
You appear to misunderstand quite a few things that I said. I did not say that Jude 4 states that "Jesus and Jehovah are the same Being." I cited that as an example of why you cannot simply treat "only" as an exclusionary term pure and simple, since a strict literal reading of Jude 4 would seem to exclude the Jehovah (if he is not Jesus) as being our Lord and Master.
What is more, you are basing your reading of Jude 4 (where you try to distinguish between kurios "lord" and despotes "master" as referring to two different people) on the corrupt textus receptus and the KJV that is based on it. The Westcott & Hort text and nearly all modern translations based on it reads kai ton monon despoten kai kurion hemon Iesoun Christon argoumenoi "and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ." That is, only one person is meant and both titles are applied to him. This is confirmed by the parallel text in 2 Peter 2:1 which is the earliest witness to the Jude text (the second chapter of 2 Peter is largely derived from Jude) where we read agorasanta autous despoten argoumenoi "denying the Master who bought us," the use of agorasanta "bought" in this text clearly shows that the author of 2 Peter understood that Jesus Christ is the "Master" Jude 4 refers to. But if that isn't enough, Jude himself indicates Jesus as the "Master" in Jude 1, where he calls himself a doulos "slave" of Jesus Christ. If he is the doulos, Jesus Christ is the despotes "Master". Yet that is not all. If we go back to v. 4, we see again that Jude calls Jesus Christ "our only Master and Lord," or in Greek ton monon despoten kai kurion hemon Iesoun Christon. Why is this significant? Well, Jude 4 is an allusion to Jeremiah 3:14 which says "It is Yahweh who speaks for I alone am your Master." In Jeremiah 4:10, reference is made to the wicked punished by Yahweh who say: "Ah, Master Yahweh how utterly you have deceived us." In the original LXX Greek, this reads as despota kurie "Master Lord," the two titles Jude uses in v. 4 (and in the same order). Despota again occurs in reference to Yahweh in Jeremiah 15:11. So Jude applies to Jesus two titles which belong to Yahweh in the OT. And interestingly, the WTS arbitrarily lets kurie refer to Jesus Christ in v. 4 (despite the OT allusion to "Jehovah") yet renders kurie as "Jehovah" in v. 9 and 14.
Re what I wrote on John 1:1 you say:
Is this Word identified as the same as the God such Word was with? No! .... Is John teaching that this Word was God to the God he was with? No!
This completely misses the point of what I said. Your questions imply a Sabellian confusion which neither I nor the trinitarians endorse. John clearly distinguishes the Son and the Father with the preposition pros. These are two separate personalities existing in a mutual relationship with each other. Yet John wants to call both of them God! Not only in v. 1 but also in v. 18. That is why there is a subtle difference in article usage in John 1:1 so John can call both God yet distinguish them. The lack of an article does not by itself imply inferiority, since the Father does not get an article in v. 18 as well (theon oudeis eoraken popote, where theos is preverbal as well). It's just a device to distinguish the two. The Son is similarly distinguished in v. 18 where no one has seen God (unqualified) but people have seen the begotten God (qualified). And when Jesus is mentioned by himself, there is no qualification at all -- he is God (ho theos; John 20:28). It is hard to escape the fact that John sees Jesus as God! But for some reason, you say that Jesus was only "God to the human race created by him". Yes, John does present Jesus as the creator. But if humans have Jesus as their God, and if Jesus and the Father are "truly separate" as you claim, where does that leave the Father? And yet doesn't John 1:1 say that the Son was God "in the beginning," before his creation (v. 3)?
Re 1 John 5:20, it is a difficult verse, and not all agree in its interpretation. But just saying that my interpretation is "totally false" does not address the evidence I presented. The issue is who does houtos "this one" refer to in the preceding verse. Your view that it refers only to the Father is plausible since the Father is described as "one who is true" in the v. 19. But it is also grammatically plausible (and more natural) that houtos refers to the antecedent "Jesus Christ" in the preceding clause. The main problem with your interpretation is the second noun phrase that is equated (or predicated) with houtos in 5:30: zon aionios "eternal life". The kai "and" indicates that one who is "eternal life" is also "the true God." Now what is striking is that in the Johannine writings, while the Father possesses "life" (John 5:26; 6:57) as the Son does (John 1:4, 6:57; 1 John 5:11), only the Son is equated predicatively with life. We find this first in John 11:25: "Jesus said to her: "I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in me shall live even if he dies." The same formula occurs again in John 14:6: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me." What is significant about this verse is that, like 1 John 5:20, it equates the Son with both truth and life.
There is another illustrative parallel between the wording of 1 John and Jesus' "I am" statements in the Gospel. In 1 John 1:5, John writes: "This is the message we have heard from Him and announce it to you, that God is light [ho theos phos estin], and in him there is no darkness [skotia]." John attributes this statement as something Jesus said, and it finds its antecedent in John 8:12: "I am the light [ego eimi to phos] of the world; he who follows me shall not walk in darkness [skotia]." The similarity is even closer in the version of the same saying in POxy 655. In the prologue in John 1 the saying is again alluded to when John describes the Word as "the true light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man .... the light shines in the darkness, the darkness did not comprehend him" (1:5, 9). A statement that Jesus applied to himself is without impunity applied to God.
And as to who is referred to as "eternal life" within the context of 1 John, again the author clearly identifies zon aionios with Jesus Christ in the prologue: "The life [zon] was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life [zoen ten aionion], which was with the Father [en pros ton patera, cf. John 1:1, en pros ton theon "was with God"] and was manifested to us." (1 John 1:2) In light of this, the reference to "the only true God" in 5:20 probably refers either to Christ or both the Son and the Father (both mentioned in the preceding verse).
Leolaia
This discussion reminds me a bit of a 1990 WT article (15 July 1990, I believe it was) on Irenaeus, the second-century apologist. The article claimed that Irenaeus did not believe Jesus was God and it quoted a passage from Adversus Haereses which seemed to plainly rule out Jesus was being God. It expressed faith in "one God, the Father Almighty, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the seas, and all that is in them, and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was made flesh for our salvation." Seems, pretty open and shut, huh? Irenaeus is plainly saying that the Father Almighty is the "one God" while Christ Jesus is his "Son."
Wrong. The sneaky Watchtower quoted Irenaeus out of context. This is the complete passage (the part the WT cites are in italics):
"Now the Church, although scattered over the whole civilized world to the ends of the earth, received from the apostles and their disciples its faith in one God, the Father Almighty, who made the heaven, and the earth, and the seas, and all that is in them, and in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God, who was made flesh for our salvation, and in the Holy Spirit, who through the prophets proclaimed the dispensations of God--the comings, the birth of a virgin, the suffering, the resurrection from the dead, and the bodily reception into the heavens of the beloved, Christ Jesus our Lord, and his coming from the heavens in the glory of the Father to restore all things, and to raise up all flesh, that is, the whole human race, so that every knee may bow, of things in heaven and on earth and under the earth, to Christ Jesus our Lord and God and Savior and King, according to the pleasure of the invisible Father, and every tongue may confess him, and that he may execute righteous judgment on all." (Adversus Haereses, 1.10.1)
As it turns out, the WT was quoting a fragment of a trinitarian formula, and a few sentences later Irenaeus goes on to call Jesus his "God and Savior and King". This is not an isolated instance. Like all the other early church fathers (including Justin Martyr, Melito of Sardis, Athenagorus, Tatian, Tertullian, and many others), Irenaeus had no hestitation in calling Jesus God and did it over and over. In Proof of the Apostolic Preaching 96, for instance he says: "No other name of the Lord has been given under heaven, whereby men are saved, but that of God who is Jesus Christ the Son of God, whom even the devils obey, and the evil spirits, and all rebel powers." In Proof 47, he also expresses himself quite clearly:
"Therefore the Father is Lord, and the Son is Lord, and the Father is God and the Son is God; for He who is born from God is God. And thus God is shown to be one according to the essence of His being and power; but at the same time, as the administrator of the economy of our redemption, He is both Father and Son: since the Father of all is invisible and inaccessible to creatures, it is through the Son that those who are to approach God must have access to the Father."
That WT article is one example of dishonesty that upset me greatly at the time.
Leolaia
I still don't see much of a "New View of the Trinity" in this thread .... sorry.
How about something a little different, like ...... the Trinity is acutally composed of FOUR .... not just THREE.
In this way, the 4th can fill in when one of the other three is away on assignment.
THIS would be more of a "New View" ...sort of like the 5th Beetle thing.
***** Rub a Dub
Nakissos...I think we are agreeing. The priority of John (protoJohn) model attempts to account for the Gnostic Christology. It also fits well with the earliest reference to a GJohn(in some early form) having come from the Gnostic community.
Koester makes a very convincing case that the Johannine community drew on a body of gnostic Jesus sayings, much like the ones found in the Gospel of Thomas, but reinterpreted them to refute their Gnostic soteriology. Specifically, the "I am" formula is an anti-Gnostic device aimed to attribute solely to Jesus divine traits that the Gnostics claim that all his followers should develop. So, for instance, the original Gnostic sayings claim that the light of knowledge discerned in Jesus' words can bring them eternal life and open the door of the kingdom of heaven to them (the original home of true believers before coming into the world). The Johannine community restrict the application of these sayings to Jesus alone through the "I am" sayings, making Jesus himself the "door," the "light of the world" and so forth, and the long discourses so typical of the Gospel of John constitute further interpretation and explanation of these reformulated sayings. For John it is only in Jesus himself where salvation from death is to be found. Since the general claim to divinity was original to the Gnostic source material used by the Johannine authors, it appears that the attempt to restrict claims of divinity to Jesus alone was a significant factor in the development of the belief of Jesus as God himself.
Leolaia
Actually, I thought the Trinity was already the Father, the Son, and the Spirit-directed Organization. No?
Leolaia
It's a real detective story with hundreds of clues but hard to assemble into a single recreation. Too much time and too many coverups. Fortunately for most of us the point that matters is that it is not the infallible word we were taught to believe it was
Shouldn't that REALLY sum it up?
Here we have a god, who wants BADLY, his infallable word, to pass throught Moses, and the prophets, onto Jesus time, through the apostles. He has scribes carefully copy these divine sayings..........then he lets the most important part......the part about mankinds only savior recorded in the New Testement, become a piece of literature with so many missing parts and provable data, that theologians must debate with critics to a point which nothing can be proven. And were supposed to put our absolute faith in this bible god who so CAREFULLY preserved his word to mankind. I don't think so.
Gumby
You appear to misunderstand quite a few things that I said. I did not say that Jude 4 states that "Jesus and Jehovah are the same Being." I cited that as an example of why you cannot simply treat "only" as an exclusionary term pure and simple, since a strict literal reading of Jude 4 would seem to exclude the Jehovah (if he is not Jesus) as being our Lord and Master.
Leolaia,
What you really said regarding Jude 4 was this: It seems to be intellecutalizing on the WTS' part that turns Jesus' affirmation of the trueness of God into a denial of his own divinity. Jude 4 refers to Jesus Christ as "our only Master and Lord" -- does that prove then that Jehovah is not our Master and Lord? Of course not.
John understands that the Son and Father have a mystical unity amid distinction of each other, so that both the Father and Son could be described as theos (God) existing with each other in John 1:1.
And you said this because you disagree with WTS interpretations of this text and support the trinity doctrine which teaches that Jesus and Jehovah and the holy spirit are the one true God. That makes Jesus, Jehovah and the holy spirit one Being or one Entity if the term Being is offensive. You do not have to say this as it is implied in all your comments. Makes no difference to me as this is the very purpose for this discussion. So we cannot now say that we are misunderstood since this is precisely the point you are trying to make. This is not about ?only? as you state. It is about AND or two people, two Beings, two entities being discussed in the texts. While I am aware that the KJV contains errors and renders some texts poorly it still uses AND to separate the two Beings in question and the verse can be explained using this version. As you know Master and Lord which I emphasized are separated by this AND. Who is to say that this version is not more precise in this case than some other that Trinitarians prefer? If you prefer to use something like the NASB then we find the AND in another part of the text but still designating two Beings or Entities like this: 4 For certain persons have crept in unnoticed, those who were long beforehand marked out for this condemnation, ungodly persons who turn the grace of our God into licentiousness and deny our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ. That two persons, two Gods, two Beings or two Entities are under discussion both here and throughout the NT cannot be disputed. Such verses are not saying that this Master and Lord is also true God. Jews would mainly be the ones doing the things accused of and they believed in the true God. In doing so anyone denying our Lord or Jesus would be denying the faith we hold in common and would be rejecting the faith which was once delivered unto the saints. This is essentially what Trinitarians are doing as a consequence of the doctrine under discussion.
Is this Word identified as the same as the God such Word was with? No! .... Is John teaching that this Word was God to the God he was with? No!
You said: This completely misses the point of what I said. Your questions imply a Sabellian confusion which neither I nor the trinitarians endorse. John clearly distinguishes the Son and the Father with the preposition pros. These are two separate personalities existing in a mutual relationship with each other.
The points discussed above apply here as well. I discussed the texts and pointed out how John used them which was not refuted by any of the comments you made. I am not concerned with your suggestion that it is a Sabellian confusion which neither I nor the trinitarians endorse. All I am concerned about is the truth as this is the purpose of this discussion. John is only concerned with the creation of the world of mankind. So to answer your question: And yet doesn't John 1:1 say that the Son was God "in the beginning," before his creation. No, John is not concerned about past events. It is an introduction to how man came into existence and projects the identity of the one responsible for it. This is what introductions do. Another example of this can be found in John's introduction of the Last Passover.
Joseph
