rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
Slim...The JW Christology denies the divinity of Christ/Logos. The Logos was God, it/he/she was a semiautonomous aspect of God. This was also so for angels; while they started as transformed sons/gods in El's council, they were in later fully monotheistic Hellenized Judaism, projections of God himself. Think Dr. Manhattan if you were into comics.
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going through justin martyr's dialogue with trypho yesterday, i found a variation on the baptism scene :.
88. and let this be a proof to you, namely, what i told you was done by the magi from arabia, who as soon as the child was born came to worship him, for even at his birth he was in possession of his power; and as he grew up like all other men, by using the fitting means, he assigned its own [requirements] to each development, and was sustained by all kinds of nourishment, and waited for thirty years, more or less, until john appeared before him as the herald of his approach, and preceded him in the way of baptism, as i have already shown.
and then, when jesus had gone to the river jordan, where john was baptizing, and when he had stepped into the water, a fire was kindled in the jordan; and when he came out of the water, the holy ghost lighted on him like a dove, [as] the apostles of this very christ of ours wrote.
As mentioned above the early Diatessaron mentioned the Jordan stopping its flow, This concept was shared by other early writers. The river also was thought to have momentarily reversed course.
The Testimony of Truth describes the scene:
But the Son of Man came forth from Imperishability, being alien to defilement. He came to the world by the Jordan river, and immediately the Jordan turned back. And John bore witness to the descent of Jesus.
This text is one of many that understood the scene and its symbolism as metaphor for transition, but that is another topic.
Orthodox Christians to this day celebrate the Epiphany in part by singing a hymn called, En Iorthani Vaptizomenou Sou Kyrie (When you Were Baptized in the Jordan Lord) and dropping crosses into the Jordan. Many believe the waters momentarily reverse. The Jordan Reversed Its Flow! / OrthoChristian.Com
The obvious source of this tradition (like many if not all) is the OT. Specifically, the original Jesus (Joshua) and the crossing of the Jordan.
Hippolytus quoting a Naassene work:
This, according to them, is the spiritual generation. This, he says, is the great Jordan which, flowing on (here) below, and preventing the children of Israel from departing out of Egypt–I mean from terrestrial intercourse, for Egypt is with them the body,–Jesus drove back, and made it flow upwards.(RoAH book 5)
In this quote Jesus is the OT character who was typologically understood.
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
Apparently someone did not like my last comment. What part of the comment was inaccurate? A quick search found a Simonian quote equating Moses as the Logos.
Altered, however, by Moses–that is, by the Logos–that bitter (water) becomes sweet....Hippolytus (RoAH book 6) quoting a Simonian work.
Enoch of course also was famously in the end revealed to have been Metatron aka Logos and returned to the heavenly throne.
The point simply being, in the century or more before the traditional start of Christianity, the Logos and other emanations of God were identified as manifest beings. To the extent that any character or storyline was assumed historical, the Logos was as well.
Simon is a special case in that an assumed recent historical person (and his woman Helena as 'Wisdom') was revered/worshipped as the most recent example of the Logos inhabiting human form. It is not entirely certain that Simon actually existed, but regardless, was believed to have by Simonians and by the author of Acts, who wished to diminish and denigrate the eponymous founder of a rival sect.
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
However, Philo is not describing a created being but rather a divine manifestation of God's activity, functioning as an intermediary—not a literal creature.
Obviously the two are not mutually exclusive. Why can a divine manifestation not be a literal creature? That is a central tenet of Christianity, is it not? What is more, we know of at least one other example of a human being identifying as the Logos, Simon Magus. If the church Fathers are to believed Simon was believed to be the Logos and also claimed the Logos had taken human form throughout history.
Clearly many Christians had no difficulty bridging the Logos concept with literal beings. If Philo himself (or his Alexandrian school) did is much debated. He certainly seems to be open to the idea of the Great Angel or other manifestations of the Logos having been literal.
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
Again as has been pointed out in detail there is nothing incompatible with the Son being addressed as both God and an Angel. That is the very foundational concept that developed into a second power theology. The angel/man that was also addressed as God in the Genesis theophanies.
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
Blotty....As far as sophistication, there were a spectrum of conceptions of God within Judaism. No doubt for the less educated, he was seen a simple powerful patron of war or farming. That is probably why the writer of the prologue of John played off that OT phrase about 'no one having seen/perceived God'. God was something they had not perceived. The Son was understood to have unfolded/revealed an up till then 'unseen' God.
As has been extensively shown, Jews such as Philo and others had developed a very complex and lofty conceptions of deity manifest through emanations such as 'angels' and the 'Word', much akin to the writer of John's.
No, just as Kaleb said, the texts themselves do not explicit a Trinity doctrine but nor do they only describe a God that children could comprehend.
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
Kaleb.. ...I appreciate your detailed contribution to the discussion. I wasn't suggesting you were doing some googling. I said I had done some googling and found a few articles that suggest the Johannine timeline was an earlier creation. It has the advantage of greater Christological typology, both in the Jonah parallel as well as the Paschal lamb sacrifice.
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
Kaleb, certainly John in its final reordered and redacted form fits the description you just gave. I'm coming at this from a textual/redactional critical perspective. You probably know there are those who hold to an Ur-John priority. I'm not entirely convinced but it certainly is a possibility. Much of the assumption otherwise is rooted in the historical Jesus premise, in which a man gradually became mystically understood. The opposite direction in which a mystical template predates a historization is also possible. In which case the spiritual concepts that distinguish John might in fact predate the Synoptics.
My speculations are just fun hypotheticals. You have to admit that if the earliest crucifixion traditions intended Jesus to be like Jonah, (3 days and 3 nights) John's having him killed on Preparation makes more sense. I know John has been assumed to be the last and most 'spiritual', and in its final form, that is almost certainly the case. The final redactor/editor of John certainly knew the Synoptics. It is however not impossible, in this particular detail, John preserves an older telling of the Passion story. Doing a little googling I found a few articles suggesting as much.
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
You really don’t get simpler than that,....
The problem is you assume it was supposed to be simple. The Jews had very sophisticated conceptions of deity. I recently tried to illustrate that in another of your many anti-Trinity threads. This is what I meant about the WT 'dumbing down" the concepts of Christ as Son of God and Logos. It has broad appeal to those inclined toward simplicity, but it doesn't reflect the whole spectrum of ideas present in the OT and NT.
rowan williams, the former archbishop of canterbury gave an interesting answer to the somewhat stark question, what’s the point of us existing?
as a christian, my starting point is that we exist because the most fundamental form of activity, energy, call it what you like, that is there, is love.
that is, it’s a willingness that the other should be.
If Preparation and crucifixion was thought of as on Thurs then resurrected on ("very early the first of the sabbath/week") early Sunday (the day of the sun), the expression '3 days and 3 nights' fits.
It's all a bit of fun. The story one way or the other was changed. Was John's timeline the older version, changed later through gentile Christian confusion about the day the lambs were slaughtered? Did Josephus' reading contribute to that? Josephus as we know had a huge role in shaping Luke's Gospel........
