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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Kerygmania: Only Begotten
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Evensong
You can check out the Greek using the Blue Letter Bible.
I've set the first link at John 1:14. Cick on the blue "C" button and you get this.
You can check out the other references yourself. John 1:14 shows "monogenes". According to my Greek NT dictionary, Hebrews 1:5 (and 5.5) uses a different word (from the Greek "gennao".) I've had a quick look at another online resource and the same word is used in the Septuagint Greek in Psalm 2:7 (the origin of the Hebrews 1:5 and 5.5 texts). Generally, "gennao" means to father a child.
So when John 1:14 uses monogenes, he is not using the general word for fathering a child. The John text implies a unique, "one and only", begetting. From which it is actually quite a short journey to "begotten, not made" (Creed), given the rest of the context in John 1. But one which took a long time, and not without much controversy on the way.
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BroJames
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# 9636
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Okay. I'm still lost.
Barnabas said the John passages use the word monogenes. But you are saying all the NT references are not monogenes?
No, I'm just saying that none of the references from your link: quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
p.s. A few other instances of begotten in the bible.
Dunno if it's the same term used.
use the term monogenes, except (arguably) 2 Esdras which uses unigenitum which is often used in Latin as the translation for the Greek monogenes.
Monogenes is used in the NT in the following passages:
Luke's Gospel and John 1 and John 3, Hebrews and 1 John.
In those cases it is used to denote an only child (subject to the question how this applies to Isaac), or to denote Jesus' relationship to the Father. My impression is that in relation to Jesus two questions are in mind (a) Is he created by the Father - is he a creature? [A. No. The -genes tells us that he is begotten of the father - i.e he is of the same kind as the Father] (b) Are there others like him, also begotten of the Father? [A. No. The mono- tells us that he is unique in this respect.]
John goes on in John 1 to argue that through Jesus, the word made flesh, we are given the power to become children of God "born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." Our status as children of God derives from Jesus' unique status as the only-begotten of God.
[ 29. December 2010, 15:29: Message edited by: BroJames ]
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
Evensong
I've done a bit of Googling around and found the following online resources, which go some way towards uncovering the information you are looking for.
Here is a link to the Nicene Creed (Revised Version), giving Greek, English and Latin texts.
The word "begotten" appears in the sixth, seventh and tenth lines. In the sixth line the root Greek word is "monogenes" (only-begotten). In the seventh and tenth lines the root Greek is "gennao" (beget). You can confirm this by clicking on the Greek characters and getting the transliteration into our alphabet.
In both case, where "gennao" is the root, the text is qualified; "begotten from the Father before all ages" and "begotten, not made". The clear intention of the revised text was to rule out any sense that God created Jesus. Both the key New Testament words are used.
To clarify the revision of the Nicene Creed, here is a Wiki link which includes, inter alia, the changes to the Nicene Creed arising from the Arian controversy. If you scroll down, there is a line by line comparison.
So far, I haven't found a Greek text online for the original version of the Nicene Creed.
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
Thank you BroJames and Barnabas. ![[Yipee]](graemlins/spin.gif)
I was getting confused because I thought that link provided had the John texts in it too. ![[Hot and Hormonal]](icon_redface.gif)
And I was getting confused by all the different begottens in the creed. The different words you pointed out Barnabas cleared that up. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
I'm doing NT Greek next year. Not before time!!
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
Thanks, Evensong. Wish I had done NT Greek! Such NT Greek understanding that I do have has been very slowly accumulated. (Maybe I should!)
12uthy
It occurred to me that it might be worth illuminating the beliefs of Arians as some kind of help in understanding why Trinitarian Christians do not "as the Koran puts it 'add gods to God'".
Here is the link to the Wiki article on Arianism. As the article says, much of what we can now read about the beliefs of Arius and Arians is found in documents written by those who believed them to be wrong. But there are a few helpful documents whose contents have been preserved. And here is a key extract (quoted in the Wiki article). quote:
A letter from Arius to the Arian Eusebius of Nicomedia succinctly states the core beliefs of the Arians:
Some of them say that the Son is an eructation, others that he is a production, others that he is also unbegotten. These are impieties to which we cannot listen, even though the heretics threaten us with a thousand deaths. But we say and believe and have taught, and do teach, that the Son is not unbegotten, nor in any way part of the unbegotten; and that he does not derive his subsistence from any matter; but that by his own will and counsel he has subsisted before time and before ages as perfect God, only begotten and unchangeable, and that before he was begotten, or created, or purposed, or established, he was not. For he was not unbegotten. We are persecuted, because we say that the Son has a beginning, but that God is without beginning
Arius did not believe that Jesus was semi-divine, or angelic, but "perfect God". What separated him from the Orthodox looks on the face of it to be a little thing. He sees that since Jesus was begotten, there must have been "a time before all times" when God the Father was and God the Son was not. God the Son had a beginning. Which seems perfectly logical. But it created a problem.
Did he really mean that God the Father created God the Son? It's actually not clear that he even meant that. But from the above quote, he allowed for the possibility that it was so. In the end, and despite all the sometimes unedifying politics during the controversy, this seems to be the key as to why Arianism was ruled out. In the process, what was demonstrated that it was not orthodox Trinitarian belief to "add gods to God". We believe in one God.
So whatever the Koran meant by "add gods to God", the Arian controversy demonstrates that orthodox Christian belief in the Trinity does not do that. Where we differ from Islam is about the self-revelation of this one God, who is in His essence unknowable "immortal, invisible, in light inaccessible hid from our eyes" (as the beautiful old hymn puts it). Our monotheism is expressed as "One in three Persons" because we believe this is how God has revealed Himself. Although His essence remains a mystery to us. We see through a glass, darkly (another wonderful quote). We specifically do not claim to see everything about the essence of God. But what we do see is wonderful, and enough for us.
At least, that's how I see what we see! It is just a layman's view.
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leo
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# 1458
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Posted
My notes on this:
μονογενή means "only" or "unique"
coming from μονο — "mono" meaning "only"
and γενή coming from γενος "genus" meaning kind - "only one of its kind",
mistake at this point is to translate "genus" according to its Latin meaning.
In Greek, however, "genos" (γένος) may mean offspring, a limited or extended family, a clan, a tribe, a people, a biological entity (e.g. all the birds), or indeed any group of beings sharing a common ancestry.
Older English translations as well as the Latin contain "only-begotten", "unigenitum" on the belief that γενή comes from the word for γενναω "born".
Old Latin manuscripts of the New Testament translate μονογενή as "unicus", "unique".
"only-begotten" is currently deemed an acceptable translation into English within Orthodox Christian jurisdictions that routinely use liturgical Greek.
A considerable part of this confusion is due to the similarity of the key Greek verbs "gennao" and "gignomai".
"Γεννάω" (gennao) means "to give birth" and refers to the male parent.
The female equivalent is "τίκτω" (tikto), from which derive the obstetric terms "tokos', labour, and "toketos", delivery, and words such as "Theo-tokos", Mother of God, and the proparoxytone "prototokos", firstborn, as opposed to the paroxytone "prototokos", primipara (one giving birth for the first time).
Γίγνομαι (gignomai) means "to come into existence".
The etymological roots of the two verbs are, respectively, "genn-" and "gen-", and therefore the derivatives of these two verbs exhibit significant auditory and semantic overlap.
the Greek word for "parent" can derive both from "gennao" (γεννήτωρ, gennetor, strictly applicable only to the male parent)
and from "gignomai" (γονεύς, goneus, which applies to both parents).
In ancient and modern Greek usage however, the word "monogenes" invariably refers to a son without other brothers, or a daughter without other sisters, or a child without other siblings.
both "only-begotten" and "only one of its kind" are equally valid translations.
the word "monogennetos" (a father's only son) and "monotokos" (a mother's only child) do not exist
"monotokos" means a female who can only have one offspring at a time.
The Greek word ὁμοούσιον indicates that the Father and the Son are "consubstantial", i.e. of the same substance, essence or being, because the Son is begotten of the Father’s own being (ἐκ τῆς οὐσίας τοῦ πατρός)
Here and elsewhere (such as John 1:14) where the Greek has MONOGENETOS HUIOS, an English translation may read either "only Son" or "only begotten Son." The Greek is ambiguous. The root GEN is found in words like "genital, genetics, generation," and suggests begetting. However, it is also found in words like "genus" and suggests family or sort or kind. Accordingly, we may take MONOGENETOS to mean either "only begotten" or "one-of-a-kind, only, sole, unique".
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My reviews at http://layreadersbookreviews.wordpress.com
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12uthy
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# 9400
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Posted
Leo thank you whole heartedly for that, it has been most enlightening.
Barnabas thank you also, you have also enlightened me, however, I must confess that I still cannot believe in the three persons in one God, firstly because I don't believe the paraclete to be a person and secondly it makes no sense to me to make the Christ joined to the Father in any way. As for the idea that it had to be God that came and died for us, that is nonsense. He had to be human is the important thing so as to be a propitiatory sacrifice for Adam.
I accept now that Jesus was begotten not made by God the father but as to him being two persons in the same God it still smacks of "adding gods to God" because it is an unnecessary complication.I can find no Scripture to support it.
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Love 12uthy
(Romans 12:1) . . .present YOUR bodies a sacrifice living, holy, acceptable to God, a sacred service with YOUR power of reason.. . .
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
OK 12uthy. Happy to leave it there. The Personhood of the Holy Spirit is probably best handled in some separate discussion. And I guess that if you don't take the Creeds plus the church's stance against Arianism as strong evidence (to present to sceptical Muslims) that orthodox, traditional, Christianity was a monotheistic religion before Islam emerged, there is probably nothing more to be said about that either. (Others' Mileage May Vary.)
In the end, we all have to speak as we find, and it's better that we do so.
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by 12uthy:
He had to be human is the important thing so as to be a propitiatory sacrifice for Adam.
![[Tear]](graemlins/tear.gif)
More nonsense
[ 31. December 2010, 12:00: Message edited by: Evensong ]
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Why does Jesus have to = God?
1) because we really shouldn't worship him otherwise. But we certainly began to in NT times
This is the key thing IMO. Passages such as Thomas saying "My Lord and my God!" would be completely inappropriate if Jesus were *not* God.
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Why does Jesus have to = God?
1) because we really shouldn't worship him otherwise. But we certainly began to in NT times
This is the key thing IMO. Passages such as Thomas saying "My Lord and my God!" would be completely inappropriate if Jesus were *not* God.
Does that mean you think the Roman Emperor was God too?
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Did Thomas say "My Lord and my God" to the Roman emperor too? Slut.
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Did Thomas say "My Lord and my God" to the Roman emperor too? Slut.
Host hat on
Mousethief, this is a C3 violation. Personal insults are not allowed on this board.
Host hat off
Moo
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See you later, alligator.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
I wish to apologize to Evensong if she thought I was calling her a slut -- I was not. I have opened a Styx thread on this.
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Did Thomas say "My Lord and my God" to the Roman emperor too? Slut.
I don't know.
But how is that relevant? Others certainly did.
Calling someone God doesn't make them so. I'm certainly not of the opinion Roman Emperors were God/s
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
I wish to apologize to Evensong if she thought I was calling her a slut -- I was not.
No worries. Easy to confuse me with Thomas. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Did Thomas say "My Lord and my God" to the Roman emperor too? Slut.
I don't know.
But how is that relevant? Others certainly did.
Calling someone God doesn't make them so. I'm certainly not of the opinion Roman Emperors were God/s
I think the point is that Thomas isn't just anybody, but a person recorded in the Gospel as calling Jesus, God. The Gospels being part of the New Testament, being part of the Bible, being part of the Tradition of the Church. What other people elsewhere called somebody else really is, as you say, irrelevant. But what's in the Gospels surely isn't irrelevant to the Christian faith. Nu?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
Sticking a "liberal interpretation" hat on my head for once. Just suppose that the author of John (or some subsequent editor) is using the character of Thomas to make a point. What is that point?
Surely, it is the same point made in the John 1 prologue. That even the doubting disciples recognised via the resurrection that Jesus was, in very truth, the Divine, eternally existent Word, who was God,who was what God was, who had indeed become flesh and dwelt among them. Even if one sees the gospel as polemical at this point, then what other point could the author have possibly been making?
The best evidence available says that the text of John pre-dated by well over two hundred years the key ecumenical councils which settled the issue for Orthodoxy. Which I take as impressive evidence that there were at least some "John" Christians who believed in Jesus, the Divine Saviour, the Word made flesh, from very early on. Whatever other variations may have co-existed.
The notion that the Orthodox views re Trinity and Person of Jesus did not have clear Apostolic antecedents doesn't make any sense to me. It seems very clear that the ingredients were all there in John's gospel at least, and were recognised by many as being authoritative long before the settling of the canon. All of which seems pretty clear to me just through reading Irenaeus, writing before the end of the 2nd century.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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pimple
Ship's Irruption
# 10635
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Posted
Thanks for the link. What a happy way to start the new year!
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In other words, just because I made it all up, doesn't mean it isn't true (Reginald Hill)
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
<tangent>
Oh, you mean the sig! We liked that a whole lot too. Singing the Lord's song in a strange land (well at least an unfamiliar place).
<tangent>
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
Did Thomas say "My Lord and my God" to the Roman emperor too? Slut.
I don't know.
But how is that relevant? Others certainly did.
Calling someone God doesn't make them so. I'm certainly not of the opinion Roman Emperors were God/s
I think the point is that Thomas isn't just anybody, but a person recorded in the Gospel as calling Jesus, God. The Gospels being part of the New Testament, being part of the Bible, being part of the Tradition of the Church. What other people elsewhere called somebody else really is, as you say, irrelevant. But what's in the Gospels surely isn't irrelevant to the Christian faith. Nu?
Hmnn. No, it's not irrelevant what Thomas says. I was really just raising the point that it wasn't uncommon in that age to call people you thought highly of, God.
So just calling Jesus God doesn't make him God. Anymore than calling a Roman Emperor God makes him God....at least God as we understand the term today....
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Sticking a "liberal interpretation" hat on my head for once. Just suppose that the author of John (or some subsequent editor) is using the character of Thomas to make a point. What is that point?
Surely, it is the same point made in the John 1 prologue. That even the doubting disciples recognised via the resurrection that Jesus was, in very truth, the Divine, eternally existent Word, who was God,who was what God was, who had indeed become flesh and dwelt among them. Even if one sees the gospel as polemical at this point, then what other point could the author have possibly been making?
That he was better than the Emperor?
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
The best evidence available says that the text of John pre-dated by well over two hundred years the key ecumenical councils which settled the issue for Orthodoxy. Which I take as impressive evidence that there were at least some "John" Christians who believed in Jesus, the Divine Saviour, the Word made flesh, from very early on. Whatever other variations may have co-existed.
The notion that the Orthodox views re Trinity and Person of Jesus did not have clear Apostolic antecedents doesn't make any sense to me. It seems very clear that the ingredients were all there in John's gospel at least, and were recognised by many as being authoritative long before the settling of the canon.
I don't actually want to get into a raging debate about this. Been there, done that, got the tshirt.
The gospel of John is very antisemitic and the main source of the Jesus = God idea. I can't help that think the early church was very influenced by Roman society on this one.
But it's actually neither here nor there. This is what they decided, this is what were are.
Mentally and rationally, I think the trinity causes more problems than it answers, especially in relation to scripture.
The reason I can sit with it and call myself a trinitarian is because the prayers work. They make sense, they are powerful...
At the end of the day....that's kind of where it's at.
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
No need to be shy, Evensong. I'm sure you can give succinct reasons for your own views. Which is all I've been trying to do. In this context, all any of us can do is to provide shorthand summaries, behind which there may be much reading and reflection.
But if you don't that's OK.
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
OK! Encouraged by that, let me be specific. On the face of it, the notion that Thomas is saying that Jesus is "better than the emperor" supposes a dating and authorship of John which would make that comment appropriate. For on the face of it, nothing could be further from the mind of an AD 30's disciple confronted with a risen Jesus.
Therefore it seems that you must hold a view of the authorship, dating and purpose of John's gospel which would make such a polemic appropriate. Is that the case, and if so, what is the basis for that view?
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
For on the face of it, nothing could be further from the mind of an AD 30's disciple confronted with a risen Jesus.
Why?
If it was common practice in the Roman world? As a way to give glory and honor to someone important?
The imperial cult started in about 30BC and went on long after John would have been written.
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
For on the face of it, nothing could be further from the mind of an AD 30's disciple confronted with a risen Jesus.
Why?
If it was common practice in the Roman world? As a way to give glory and honor to someone important?
The imperial cult started in about 30BC and went on long after John would have been written.
How about the first and second commandments?
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
I suppose that was too brief? The first and second commandments seem to me to be symbolic of something deeply ingrained in Jewishness, namely that to profane the name of the Lord was deeply, deeply wrong. So if we take it to be historical, or representative of a genuine apostolic conviction (it doesn't really matter which) it is hardly likely that Jews of AD30 vintage would have addressed even their beloved leader in the same language which was commonplace (lip-service or otherwise doesn't matter) in Greco-Roman culture. Jews knew deeply that their beliefs contradicted such divinisings of Emperors.
And this notion of profane speech passed over directly into early Christian practice. People were martyred precisely because they would not proclaim allegiance to Roman Emperors in such terms.
So the sitz im leben which I see seems to exclude any possibility of that, which is why I also see the Thomas declaration as the final underlining of the truth of the prologue. Which seems to me, on literary grounds alone (never mind the issue of history) to be the purpose of the author at that point in the gospel. It is a massive, final underlining. Clearly you see the sitz im leben differently, but I am at a loss to understand why.
[ 03. January 2011, 10:06: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
For on the face of it, nothing could be further from the mind of an AD 30's disciple confronted with a risen Jesus.
Why?
If it was common practice in the Roman world? As a way to give glory and honor to someone important?
The imperial cult started in about 30BC and went on long after John would have been written.
How about the first and second commandments?
It's exactly the second commandment (lets go Exodus 20:4-5 here) that makes me think John and Thomas were influenced by Roman culture and have strayed from the Judaism and theocentricness of Jesus.
quote:
Ex 20:4-5
4 You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 5You shall not bow down to them or worship them;
Jesus is a human being. He is of the earth. How can he be God? There is no form on earth that can be compared to God. How can worshipping him not be idolatry?
This is why making Jesus God is, IMO, a Roman, not Jewish, invention.
The sitz im leben has to be a Roman/Hellenistic transference. How can it be otherwise?
Idolising a human being is completely at odds with Jewish belief.
[ 03. January 2011, 11:48: Message edited by: Evensong ]
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
Thanks, Evensong, that's very clear. I understand better where you are coming from.
I think your position holds intellectual water only if you reclassify John's gospel as sub-Apostolic at best i.e in no way an accurate witness to the Apostolic tradition. Which kicks the prologue of the gospel and its literary cohesiveness into the non-authoritative long grass. Orthodox understandings of the Trinity and the person of Christ may well end up in the same long grass. At which point you and I would part company. But amicably.
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Orlando098
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# 14930
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Posted
I think the "only begotten" language is rather confusing - I think a fair number of people would not know what it means at all, and of those who do know, most might assume if means the Holy Spirit impregnating Mary.
It seems rather obscure theological talk to say the son was begotten of the father even though they have both always existed and are both the same being... (in the same way it seems hard to know what saying the Son is the "second" person is supposed to actually mean in this context) but as someone said the Trinity has never made a lot of sense looked at logically and has to be approached with faith
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The sitz im leben has to be a Roman/Hellenistic transference. How can it be otherwise?
Idolising a human being is completely at odds with Jewish belief.
quote:
If it was common practice in the Roman world? As a way to give glory and honor to someone important?
There's a problem with the sequence here. From a very early time Christians were firmly of the opinion that it was wrong to worship the Roman Emperor. They didn't see it as a way to give glory and honour to someone important; they saw it as an infringement on the honour due to God.
At the same time, they were giving divine honours to Jesus. So on the above account they were simultaneously adopting the Hellenistic viewpoint and decisively rejecting it.
The sequence would have to run: Jewish origins of the Christian movement. The Christian movement then moves into the Hellenistic world and becomes Hellenised. But then - and this is the bit that is a problem - it would have to have reJudaised. Because from a pretty early period it didn't understand the supposedly Hellenised parts of its belief in a Hellenised way - it understood them to be saying pretty much the things that a Jew would never say.
Why would people reJudaise the claim that Jesus was God if they didn't know enough about Judaism to know that it was something that no Jew could ever say?
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
The notion that the Orthodox views re Trinity and Person of Jesus did not have clear Apostolic antecedents doesn't make any sense to me. It seems very clear that the ingredients were all there in John's gospel at least, and were recognised by many as being authoritative long before the settling of the canon.
Yes, this is clearly true.
The language used here, and in the other Johannine writings, is Temple language, based on the Torah and Psalms and Temple worship, and its literary context is the apocalyptic literature of the previous few centuries. Its thoroughly Jewish, not Roman or Greek at all.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Thanks, Evensong, that's very clear. I understand better where you are coming from.
I think your position holds intellectual water only if you reclassify John's gospel as sub-Apostolic at best i.e in no way an accurate witness to the Apostolic tradition. Which kicks the prologue of the gospel and its literary cohesiveness into the non-authoritative long grass. Orthodox understandings of the Trinity and the person of Christ may well end up in the same long grass. At which point you and I would part company. But amicably.
I'm happy to hold both John and the Synoptics in heterodox tension and keep the entire New Testament as faithful witness to apostolic tradition.
I am not happy to override the Synoptic tradition for the Johannine one however, which, IMO, alot of later church doctrine does.
The bible, New Testament or Old Testament, rarely holds only one position on God. It's the "church" that tends to do that.
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The sitz im leben has to be a Roman/Hellenistic transference. How can it be otherwise?
Idolising a human being is completely at odds with Jewish belief.
quote:
If it was common practice in the Roman world? As a way to give glory and honor to someone important?
There's a problem with the sequence here. From a very early time Christians were firmly of the opinion that it was wrong to worship the Roman Emperor. They didn't see it as a way to give glory and honour to someone important; they saw it as an infringement on the honour due to God.
At the same time, they were giving divine honours to Jesus. So on the above account they were simultaneously adopting the Hellenistic viewpoint and decisively rejecting it.
Or transferring that rejection on something that fit better.....?
So yes, succumbing eventually, but not to the original enforcer.
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
The sequence would have to run: Jewish origins of the Christian movement. The Christian movement then moves into the Hellenistic world and becomes Hellenised. But then - and this is the bit that is a problem - it would have to have reJudaised. Because from a pretty early period it didn't understand the supposedly Hellenised parts of its belief in a Hellenised way - it understood them to be saying pretty much the things that a Jew would never say.
Why would people reJudaise the claim that Jesus was God if they didn't know enough about Judaism to know that it was something that no Jew could ever say?
You've lost me a bit here Dafyyd. But my idea is only a theory. It's quite possibly off. It's just the only way I can make sense of why John's gospel chose to break the second commandment.
Do you have a better idea?
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
It's just the only way I can make sense of why John's gospel chose to break the second commandment.
Do you have a better idea?
Well ....There is always the possibility that the ecumenical councils got it about right. John's gospel only breaks the second commandment if it is not a truthful witness.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Why would people reJudaise the claim that Jesus was God if they didn't know enough about Judaism to know that it was something that no Jew could ever say?
You've lost me a bit here Dafyyd. But my idea is only a theory. It's quite possibly off. It's just the only way I can make sense of why John's gospel chose to break the second commandment.
Do you have a better idea?
All the other evidence that we have is that Christians were just as concerned about breaking the second commandment (*) as Jews were.
Greek philosophers may well have wanted to glorify and honour their teachers; they may well have believed that their teachers were more deserving of divine honours than the emperors were. Yet as far as we know, there's no instance of a philosopher, even a cynic, refusing to sacrifice to the emperor. The only people we know of who did that were the Jews and the Christians. The Christians didn't refuse to sacrifice to the emperor because they wanted to honour someone else more; they refused because they thought they had to obey the first (**) commandment.
The Hellenistic influence theory doesn't explain why, except in the one case of Jesus, the early Christians kept on regarding the first commandment as one of their defining principles. It doesn't explain why the Christians didn't notice that they were violating it every time they gave divine honour to Jesus.
The reason we have a doctrine of the Trinity is that the early Christians could see that there was a need to explain why worshipping Jesus was not a violation of the first commandment. Faced with the choice between ceasing worship of Jesus, abandoning the first commandment, and saddling Christianity with the Trinity (which is at best counterintuitive) they felt they had to choose the Trinity.
In summary, the early Christians walked into treating Jesus as divine knowing what they were doing.
(*) I assume that you're using the Talmudic/Modern Jewish numbering.
(**) 1st century Jewish/ Christian numbering.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
It's just the only way I can make sense of why John's gospel chose to break the second commandment.
Do you have a better idea?
Well ....There is always the possibility that the ecumenical councils got it about right. John's gospel only breaks the second commandment if it is not a truthful witness.
You and Dafyd have lost me.
The second commandment says nothing in the form of anything in heaven or earth should be made an idol.
How is worshiping a human being not contravening that?
The trinity explains that Jesus is God and Man.
How is worshiping man not in contravention of that commandment?
[ 04. January 2011, 11:48: Message edited by: Evensong ]
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Well ....There is always the possibility that the ecumenical councils got it about right. John's gospel only breaks the second commandment if it is not a truthful witness.
And you ignored my comment that John was a truthful witness...
Just not the only one...
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
Don't think I ignored it, Evensong. But perhaps I should have added, for clarity, "to an apostolic understanding of the person of Jesus."
That understanding just strikes me as the central theme of the gospel; not just in the prologue, not just in the Thomas declaration. It's in the "I am"s with which the text is decorated and dotted.
The bread of life, the light of the world, the resurrection and the life, the door, the good shepherd, the way the truth and the life, the true vine. And, strikingly, "Before Abraham was, I am".
[ 04. January 2011, 12:12: Message edited by: Barnabas62 ]
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Don't think I ignored it, Evensong. But perhaps I should have added, for clarity, "to an apostolic understanding of the person of Jesus."
So all the other apostles are irrelevant if they differ from John's understanding?
Or are you using the word apostolic in terms of what comes after the bible?
In that case, yes, they took John's line. Which still leaves you the problem of worshipping a man.
But I'm a bit of an evangelical (?) that way.... I take scripture more seriously than I do the Church.
[ 04. January 2011, 12:16: Message edited by: Evensong ]
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TurquoiseTastic
Fish of a different color
# 8978
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Don't think I ignored it, Evensong. But perhaps I should have added, for clarity, "to an apostolic understanding of the person of Jesus."
So all the other apostles are irrelevant if they differ from John's understanding?
Well Matthew and Luke seem to think that the disciples "worshipped him" (Matthew 28:17, Luke 24:52)
And in Ananias's vision of Jesus in Acts 9 he seems to reckon that the Christians worship Jesus (Acts 9:14)
And Paul talks about "all people everywhere who worship our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 1:2)
And the writer to the Hebrews quotes approvingly that "All God's angels must worship him" (Heb 1:6)
And in 2 Peter there is reference to "our God and Saviour Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:1)
And in Philippians Jesus is said to be "in very nature God" (Philippians 2:6)
So I'm not sure the other apostles are entirely in opposition to John.
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The second commandment says nothing in the form of anything in heaven or earth should be made an idol.
How is worshiping a human being not contravening that?
It's not making Jesus into an idol if Jesus is God already. It's not us who made Jesus God; God did.
quote:
The trinity explains that Jesus is God and Man.
How is worshiping man not in contravention of that commandment?
We don't worship Jesus as man. We worship Jesus as God.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Barnabas62
Shipmate
# 9110
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Don't think I ignored it, Evensong. But perhaps I should have added, for clarity, "to an apostolic understanding of the person of Jesus."
So all the other apostles are irrelevant if they differ from John's understanding?
I think you missed the significance of the "an". The synoptic gospels strike me as more Messianic in their view of Jesus. But even in the synoptics it is a transformed Messianic message.
I don't see the synoptics being in opposition to John. Nor the early letters (Romans, 1 & 2 Cor, Galatians). But I do see a distinctive in John. It strikes me as the most "ontological" of the gospels. The "I am"s emphasise clearly the overall importance of the "being" of Jesus, in contrast say to the Mark emphasis on "doings and sayings". As someone said, John comes across much more as an intentional "portrait" than a narrative biography.
And perhaps that, as much as anything, goes some way to explaining the particular influence of the gospel during the journey towards orthodoxy.
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ByHisBlood
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# 16018
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Posted
I worship Christ - period.
We presently have the Man Jesus who is the only mediator between us and God. The sole Judge of all, The Creator, The Saviour, The King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
So like all believers, I have, I will and I do worship Christ just as He is.
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"Much more then, being now justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him" - Romans 5:9
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The second commandment says nothing in the form of anything in heaven or earth should be made an idol.
How is worshiping a human being not contravening that?
It's not making Jesus into an idol if Jesus is God already. It's not us who made Jesus God; God did.
quote:
The trinity explains that Jesus is God and Man.
How is worshiping man not in contravention of that commandment?
We don't worship Jesus as man. We worship Jesus as God.
But he was a man.....that's the whole point.....it just breaks the second commandment.
To worship a man, then say that man must be God because we worship him is just bizarre. It doesn't make any sense.....
It's like saying that man is wearing a dress, he must be a woman.
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Evensong
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# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by TurquoiseTastic:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Don't think I ignored it, Evensong. But perhaps I should have added, for clarity, "to an apostolic understanding of the person of Jesus."
So all the other apostles are irrelevant if they differ from John's understanding?
Well Matthew and Luke seem to think that the disciples "worshipped him" (Matthew 28:17, Luke 24:52)
And in Ananias's vision of Jesus in Acts 9 he seems to reckon that the Christians worship Jesus (Acts 9:14)
And Paul talks about "all people everywhere who worship our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Cor 1:2)
And the writer to the Hebrews quotes approvingly that "All God's angels must worship him" (Heb 1:6)
And in 2 Peter there is reference to "our God and Saviour Jesus Christ" (2 Peter 1:1)
And in Philippians Jesus is said to be "in very nature God" (Philippians 2:6)
So I'm not sure the other apostles are entirely in opposition to John.
Quite right. Not entirely in opposition. John just goes a step further in actually using the word God twice in reference to Jesus.
But it raises the question even for them. What were they doing worshiping a man? ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
Don't think I ignored it, Evensong. But perhaps I should have added, for clarity, "to an apostolic understanding of the person of Jesus."
So all the other apostles are irrelevant if they differ from John's understanding?
I think you missed the significance of the "an". The synoptic gospels strike me as more Messianic in their view of Jesus. But even in the synoptics it is a transformed Messianic message.
I don't see the synoptics being in opposition to John. Nor the early letters (Romans, 1 & 2 Cor, Galatians). But I do see a distinctive in John. It strikes me as the most "ontological" of the gospels. The "I am"s emphasise clearly the overall importance of the "being" of Jesus, in contrast say to the Mark emphasis on "doings and sayings". As someone said, John comes across much more as an intentional "portrait" than a narrative biography.
And perhaps that, as much as anything, goes some way to explaining the particular influence of the gospel during the journey towards orthodoxy.
Yes. It is much more ontological. Naturally so as it's later....more time to reflect.
And yes....all the creedal stuff seems to be more concerned with ontology, rather than message.
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
To worship a man, then say that man must be God because we worship him is just bizarre. It doesn't make any sense.....
We don't say that he is God because we worship him. We worship him because he is God.
Okay, we get it, you don't believe in the incarnation. But we do, so for us worshipping Christ is not breaking the second commandment. Is that hard to understand? Not accept. Understand. Not understand the Incarnation. Understand that we believe it.
[ 05. January 2011, 02:04: Message edited by: mousethief ]
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
No it's that mousethief.....it's just ignoring the fact that even if Jesus is God, he was a human being also, and a worshiping a human being is a direct contravention of the second commandment.
As a human being, Jesus is of the earth. As God says nothing in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth should be worshipped. It is a direct contravention of the faith of Jesus.
I've never heard anyone able to get around this. It's like it's just completely ignored by Christians.
But I put up with it. That's the way we've gone. I'm happy with the fact that the trinity is irrational.
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