Trinity.

[dizerner]

Well I'm sure at least you realize everything I've written was to counter this statement (as the others didn't seem to bother to check context):

"It appears that this introduction of John’s Gospel was written in opposition to the Gnostics"

Now you say of the Gospel of John chapter 1:

"I can think of no more confusing texts in all of the bible "

I guess with that presupposition you would look to outside sources to explain the meaning.

[TheEditor]

"I can think of no more confusing texts in all of the bible "

I guess with that presupposition you would look to outside sources to explain the meaning.

I think this is a little unfair. I come from a family of Swedish immigrants. Even though we are largely European in America and many of our customs have their roots in Europe, customs and language and the way things are received by an audience vary greatly even in the 20th/21st century among those raised elsewhere versus being raised here. Very simple case in point; the way cursing affects the ear in this country is largely a way we have been conditioned to respond to certain words. Oddly, in this country, when we say something like "He's a little devil", or "that was a devilish thing to do", any American would find that fairly innocuous. However, if you translate the English word for "devil" and use an expression like that in Swedish, a Swedish listener is impacted in much the way you or I are when we hear the "F"-word. Because I know a little Swedish, when I see movies in Swedish and the dialogue is in subtitles, I know when they are substituting an English word that has the same "punch" as opposed to doing a direct translation. Plus, I remember words my Dad and Grandmother used in frustration...

So, when we look back 2,000 years to a milieu of Greeks and Romans and Jews, and look at a saying such as "and God was the Word", or "the Word became flesh", we need to engage in a bit of fleshing out to make sense of the impact it had on the hearers. At the risk of irritating JR, I am posting a largely truncated excerpt from Barclay's comments on John 1. I encourage any who care to, to read it in it's entirety off of the E-Sword site.

"We shall go on to study this passage in short sections and in detail; but, before we do so, we must try to understand what John was seeking to say when he described Jesus as the Word.

The first chapter of the Fourth Gospel is one of the greatest adventures of religious thought ever achieved by the mind of man.

although it [Christianity] was cradled in Judaism it very soon went out into the wider world. Within thirty years of Jesus' death it had travelled all over Asia Minor and Greece and had arrived in Rome. By A.D. 60 there must have been a hundred thousand Greeks in the church for every Jew who was a Christian. Jewish ideas were completely strange to the Greeks. To take but one outstanding example, the Greeks had never heard of the Messiah. The very centre of Jewish expectation, the coming of the Messiah, was an idea that was quite alien to the Greeks. The very category in which the Jewish Christians conceived and presented Jesus meant nothing to them. Here then was the problem--how was Christianity to be presented to the Greek world?

Lecky, the historian, once said that the progress and spread of any idea depends, not only on its strength and force but on the predisposition to receive it of the age to which it is presented. The task of the Christian church was to create in the Greek world a predisposition to receive the Christian message. As E. J. Goodspeed put it, the question was, "Must a Greek who was interested in Christianity be routed through Jewish Messianic ideas and through Jewish ways of thinking, or could some new approach be found which would speak out of his background to his mind and heart?" The problem was how to present Christianity in such a way that a Greek would understand.

Round about the year A.D. 100 there was a man in Ephesus who was fascinated by that problem. His name was John. He lived in a Greek city. He dealt with Greeks to whom Jewish ideas were strange and unintelligible and even uncouth. How could he find a way to present Christianity to these Greeks in a way that they would welcome and understand? Suddenly the solution flashed upon him. In both Greek and Jewish thought there existed the conception of the word. Here was something which could be worked out to meet the double world of Greek Jew. Here was something which belonged to the heritage of both races and that both could understand.

Let us then begin by looking at the two backgrounds of the conception of the word.

In the Jewish background four strands contributed something to the idea of the word.

(i) To the Jew a word was far more than a mere sound; it was something which had an independent existence and which actually did things. As Professor John Paterson has put it: "The spoken word to the Hebrew was fearfully alive.... It was a unit of energy charged with power. It flies like a bullet to its billet." For that very reason the Hebrew was sparing of words. Hebrew speech has fewer than 10,000; Greek speech has 200,000. . . .

To the eastern people a word is not merely a sound; it is a power which does things. Once when Sir George Adam Smith was travelling in the desert in the East, a group of Moslems gave his party the customary greeting: "Peace be upon you." At the moment they failed to notice that he was a Christian. When they discovered that they had spoken a blessing to an infidel, they hurried back to ask for the blessing back again. The word was like a thing which could be sent out to do things and which could be brought back again. . . .

We can well understand how to the eastern peoples words had an independent, power-filled existence.

(ii) Of that general idea of the power of words, the Old Testament is full. Once Isaac had been deceived into blessing Jacob instead of Esau, nothing he could do could take that word of blessing back again (Gen_27:1-46 ). The word had gone out and had begun to act and nothing could stop it. In particular we see the word of God in action in the Creation story. At every stage of it we read: "And God said..." (Gen_1:3; Gen_1:6; Gen_1:11). The word of God is the creating power. Again and again we get this idea of the creative, acting, dynamic word of God. "By the word of the Lord the heavens were made" (Psa_33:6). . . . Everywhere in the Old Testament there is this idea of the powerful, creative word. Even men's words have a kind of dynamic activity; how much more must it be so with God?

(iii) There came into Hebrew religious life something which greatly accentuated the development of this idea of the word of God. For a hundred years and more before the coming of Jesus Hebrew was a forgotten language. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew but the Jews no longer knew the language. The scholars knew it, but not the ordinary people. They spoke a development of Hebrew called Aramaic which is to Hebrew somewhat as modern English is to Anglo-Saxon. Since that was so the Scriptures of the Old Testament had to be translated into this language that the people could understand, and these translations were called the Targums. In the synagogue the scriptures were read in the original Hebrew, but then they were translated into Aramaic and Targums were used as translations.

. . . . the men who made the Targums were very much afraid of attributing human thoughts and feelings and actions to God. To put it in technical language, they made every effort to avoid anthropomorphism in speaking of him.

Now the Old Testament regularly speaks of God in a human way; and wherever they met a thing like that the Targums substituted the word of God for the name of God. Let us see how this custom worked. In Exo_19:17 we read that "Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God." The Targums thought that was too human a way to speak of God, so they said that Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet the word of God. In Exo_31:13 we read that God said to the people that the Sabbath "is a sign between me and you throughout your generations." That was far too human a way to speak for the Targums, and so they said that the Sabbath is a sign "between my word and you." Deu_9:3 says that God is a consuming fire, but the Targums translated it that the word of God is a consuming fire. Isa_48:13 has a great picture of creation: "My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens." That was much too human a picture of God for the Targums and they made God say: "By my word I have founded the earth; and by my strength I have hung up the heavens." Even so wonderful a passage as Deu_33:27 which speaks of God's "everlasting arms" was changed, and became: "The eternal God is thy refuge, and by his word the world was created."

In the Jonathan Targum the phrase the word of God occurs no fewer than about 320 times. It is quite true that it is simply a periphrasis for the name of God; but the fact remains that the word of God became one of the commonest forms of Jewish expression. It was a phrase which any devout Jew would recognize because he heard it so often in the synagogue when scripture was read. Every Jew was used to speaking of the Memra, the word of God.

So when John was searching for a way in which he could commend Christianity he found in his own faith and in the record of his own people the idea of the word. . . .

The Greek Background

. . . . How then did this idea of the word fit into Greek thought? It was already there waiting to be used. In Greek thought the idea of the word began away back about 560 B.C., and, strangely enough, in Ephesus where the Fourth Gospel was written.

In 560 B.C. there was an Ephesian philosopher called Heraclitus whose basic idea was that everything is in a state of flux. Everything was changing from day to day and from moment to moment. His famous illustration was that it was impossible to step twice into the same river. You step into a river; you step out; you step in again; but you do not step into the same river, for the water has flowed on and it is a different river. To Heraclitus everything was like that, everything was in a constantly changing state of flux. But if that be so, why was life not complete chaos? How can there be any sense in a world where there was constant flux and change?

The answer of Heraclitus was: all this change and flux was not haphazard; it was controlled and ordered, following a continuous pattern all the time; and that which controlled the pattern was the Logos, the word, the reason of God. To Heraclitus, the Logos was the principle of order under which the universe continued to exist. Heraclitus went further. He held that not only was there a pattern in the physical world; there was also a pattern in the world of events. He held that nothing moved with aimless feet; in all life and in all the events of life there was a purpose, a plan and a design. And what was it that controlled events? Once again, the answer was Logos. . . .

Once the Greeks had discovered this idea they never let it go. It fascinated them, especially the Stoics. The Stoics were always left in wondering amazement at the order of the world. Order always implies a mind. The Stoics asked: "What keeps the stars in their courses? What makes the tides ebb and flow? What makes day and night come in unalterable order? What brings the seasons round at their appointed times?" And they answered; "All things are controlled by the Logos of God." The Logos is the power which puts sense into the world, the power which makes the world an order instead of a chaos, the power which set the world going and keeps it going in its perfect order. "The Logos," said the Stoics, "pervades all things."

In Alexandria there was a Jew called Philo who had made it the business of his life to study the wisdom of two worlds, the Jewish and the Greek. No man ever knew the Jewish scriptures as he knew them; and no Jew ever knew the greatness of Greek thought as he knew it. He too knew and used and loved this idea of the Logos, the word, the reason of God. He held that the Logos was the oldest thing in the world and the instrument through which God had made the world. He said that the Logos was the thought of God stamped upon the universe; he talked about the Logos by which God made the world and all things; he said that God, the pilot of the universe, held the Logos as a tiller and with it steered all things. He said that man's mind was stamped also with the Logos, that the Logos was what gave a man reason, the power to think and the power to know. He said that the Logos was the intermediary between the world and God and that the Logos was the priest who set the soul before God.

Greek thought knew all about the Logos; it saw in the Logos the creating and guiding and directing power of God, the power which made the universe and kept it going. So John came to the Greeks and said: "For centuries you have been thinking and writing and dreaming about the Logos, the power which made the world, the power which keeps the order of the world, the power by which men think and reason and know, the power by which men come into contact with God. Jesus is that Logos come down to earth." "The word," said John, "became flesh." We could put it another way--"The Mind of God became a person."

Slowly the Jews and Greeks had thought their way to the conception of the Logos, the Mind of God which made the world and makes sense of it. So John went out to Jews and Greeks to tell them that in Jesus Christ this creating, illuminating, controlling, sustaining mind of God had come to earth. He came to tell them that men need no longer guess and grope; all that they had to do was to look at Jesus and see the Mind of God.

----------------------------

Regards, Brenden.

[dizerner]

If 1 John specifically says why it is written do we need to find another reason?
Yes - no

That answer shows a presupposition in approaching the text.

The Gospel of John was written to give an account of the life of Christ. Not to fight Gnosticism, not to harmonize pagan philosophical ideas with Christianity, to give an account of the life of Jesus Christ. If we take that assumption, that the book is honest about it's intentions, it becomes very, very clear the Logos is a description of the person of Christ. This is not an obscure idiom that might mean the opposite thing in English.

[TheEditor]

Of course it is meant to be an account of Christ, but surely you see it is radically different in character and nature and fills in blanks (for reasons not too hard to reckon). But the import of what Logos meant then as opposed to now is radically different. I'm not sure what you mean about an obscure idiom? If you say "I give you my blessing", I will take that radically different then the way Jacob would have taken it. I'm not sure how you cannot acknowledge this.

This is what I mean about "theological ox"; I was raised an Arian, and for many reasons I tried to divest myself of that grid because other things (of greater importance) were taught to me in error. I have no particular "view" to defend in this very lengthy thread. I post as a foil to those that do--nothing more. If I could honestly and intellectually affirm what other trinitarians do, I would. Why wouldn't I? I honestly and intellectually affirmed my Arianism once upon a time, and let me tell you, it's a tougher road to hoe in "the church" then affirming "the blessed trinity".

Regards, Brenden.

[Homer]

Brenden,

Excerpt from your excerpt :

In the Jonathan Targum the phrase the word of God occurs no fewer than about 320 times. It is quite true that it is simply a periphrasis for the name of God; but the fact remains that the word of God became one of the commonest forms of Jewish expression. It was a phrase which any devout Jew would recognize because he heard it so often in the synagogue when scripture was read.

What Barclay wrote seems to me to be strong evidence that in John's mind Jesus was God; that "the Word" was, to john, a round about way of saying that Jesus was the person of God in that to a Jew the name represented the person in a way that to us it does not. For example, to "be baptized into (literal Greek eis) the name of" meant to be baptized into the person. And so we are said to be "baptized into Christ".

[dizerner]

This is what I mean about "theological ox"; I was raised an Arian, and for many reasons I tried to divest myself of that grid because other things (of greater importance) were taught to me in error. I have no particular "view" to defend in this very lengthy thread. I post as a foil to those that do--nothing more. If I could honestly and intellectually affirm what other trinitarians do, I would. Why wouldn't I? I honestly and intellectually affirmed my Arianism once upon a time, and let me tell you, it's a tougher road to hoe in "the church" then affirming "the blessed trinity".

Regards, Brenden.[/size]

I know what it's like to feel the pain from being an outsider, trust me. I know what it's like to stand for something against the "mainstream" because you have principles. As I'm sure you know Servetus was martyred simply because he merely wanted to use a Biblical description of Christ as the Son of God and not God. You know I've said multiple times I respect that stance. There was a time, and I remember it clearly, when I thought "I only believe the Trinity because others told me to." And I just took my Bible and my prayer closet and said, I'm going to have to "see the nail marks in his hands" to believe. Even now I'd say many Trinitarians are, perhaps, overly simplistic in their understanding of the incarnation. If a man was caught up to third heaven and still said "this mystery is great," I feel pretty comfortable saying the mystery is great as well. But the truth is, John 1:1 simply must be speaking of Christ. There is absolutely no room for doubt on that point, there is no "gore" in the world that can kill that theological ox. Now what "kai theos vn ha logos" exactly means, well... I'm not saying that's exactly obvious. I do think it speaks strongly of pre-existence, and it only becomes "confusing" when you think Christ was only a man. Of course it's "confusing" then...

I'm not sure what you mean about an obscure idiom? If you say "I give you my blessing", I will take that radically different then the way Jacob would have taken it. I'm not sure how you cannot acknowledge this.

I get your point. Perhaps this isn't the best phrase to illustrate it—I feel like, sure it would have been more solemn for them back then, because we live in an age of religious disrespect and flippancy, but then again, maybe Esau's friends would also mock or belittle the idea that Jacob's blessing meant anything. Yet still today if I bless or curse something, people essentially know what that means. We could find idioms that have translated over very badly though, that's clear.

[TheEditor]

Hi Homer,

I'm not sure. Barclay is saying that to the Jew saying "word of God" was a round about way of saying "YHWH" (if my understanding of "paraphresis" is correct). But if Barcaly thinks John is concluding what you have suggested, it's absent from his commentary. Barclay affirms the idea that "the Word was God" but takes a different approach:

"Finally John says that the word was God. This is a difficult saying for us to understand, and it is difficult because Greek, in which John wrote, had a different way of saying things from the way in which English speaks. When Greek uses a noun it almost always uses the definite article with it. The Greek for God is theos and the definite article is ho. When Greek speaks about God it does not simply say theos; it says ho theos. Now when Greek does not use the definite article with a noun that noun becomes much more like an adjective. John did not say that the word was ho theos; that would have been to say that the word was identical with God. He said that the word was theos--without the definite article--which means that the word was, we might say, of the very same character and quality and essence and being as God. When John said the word was God he was not saying that Jesus was identical with God; he was saying that Jesus was so perfectly the same as God in mind, in heart, in being that in him we perfectly see what God is like.

So right at the beginning of his gospel John lays it down that in Jesus, and in him alone, there is perfectly revealed to men all that God always was and always will be, and all that he feels towards and desires for men."

Regards, Brenden.

[Homer]

Brenden,

From your Barclay quote:

When Greek uses a noun it almost always uses the definite article with it. The Greek for God is theos and the definite article is ho. When Greek speaks about God it does not simply say theos; it says ho theos.

But John speaks of God in 1:18 and does not use the definite article, though God is a noun:

John 1:18 (NASB)

18. No one has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him.

Perhaps John needed Greek lessons?

[dizerner]

If anyone's interested in further studied it's called an anarthrous noun:
http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/b-gr ... 30380.html
http://inthesaltshaker.com/drills/article2.htm

[jriccitelli]

‘What Old Testament understanding of "Logos" is there that helps you ascertain what the author had in mind when he penned his Gospel account? (Brenden)

Johns context is clear, it is Genesis and the Creation account. John is referring to the Creator of the world, who is God:

‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was moving over the surface of the waters. 3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. 4 God saw that the light was good; and God separated the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day’ (Genesis 1)

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. 4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. 5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it’ (John 1)

‘What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life-- 2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us’ (1 John)

Even the Greek Septuagint uses the word logos in Psalm 33, which is the word used in Peter (below) when referring to Psalm 33:

‘τῷ λόγῳ (logos) τοῦ Κυρίου οἱ οὐρανοὶ ἐστερεώθησαν καὶ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ πᾶσα ἡ δύναμις αὐτῶν’ (Psalm 32:6 Septuagint (Psalm 33:6)

By the word of the LORD the heavens were made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth… For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm’ (Psalm 33:6-9)

‘But they deliberately forget that long ago by God's word (logo) the heavens came into being and the earth was formed out of water and by water’ (2Peter 3:5)

Note the word logos is used to translate both James and Hebrews. The word word means 'word'. Gnostics, or no Gnostics, Greek or not Greek, we know how the world was formed from the context of Genesis and the Prophets; It was formed by God! God is continuing to form and create, even us, now: by His Word. If I say to you: 'His Word is growing and forming you', does that not mean it is God who actually forms us? Who or what else? His word is not an energy, force or concept, God forms us just as God formed us in The beginning:

‘for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word (logos) of God’ (1Peter 1:23) ‘By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word (rhema) of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible’ (Hebrews 11:3) ‘… coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow. 18 In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word (logos) of truth, so that we would be a kind of first fruits among His creatures’ (James 1:18)

Hebrews associates God with the Creator and God Himself, Jesus is The Creator, and his Word still is creator. Nothing has changed, and Jesus has not changed, nor did Jesus come into existence at some point, He was and is the Alpha and the Omega:
‘… in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world… “YOU, LORD, IN THE BEGINNING LAID THE FOUNDATION OF THE EARTH, AND THE HEAVENS ARE THE WORKS OF YOUR HANDS; 11 THEY WILL PERISH, BUT YOU REMAIN; AND THEY ALL WILL BECOME OLD LIKE A GARMENT, 12 AND LIKE A MANTLE YOU WILL ROLL THEM UP; LIKE A GARMENT THEY WILL ALSO BE CHANGED. BUT YOU ARE THE SAME, AND YOUR YEARS WILL NOT COME TO AN END” (Hebrews 1:2,10. upper case from online bible, not mine)

As John writes, the Word 'became' manifest. God had already revealed his Word, and we understood God through His own Word, but now God was manifest in the flesh, now we see what God has said, in the flesh. I do not know why this is difficult. Jesus' incarnation has explained God. A 'word' explains an object. It is simple. Jesus did say He is The Bread from heaven, that would be hard to understand, but Jesus told us The bread 'is His word'' (This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die... the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life). Do we understand that, I hope so:
Words are used to describe 'something'.
Words are used to express even 'things unknown'.
Words are used to verify something unknown 'by what is known'.
This is exactly what Jesus did. Jesus explained God, by manifesting God in the flesh: 'What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life'

‘While you have the light, believe in the light so that you may become sons of light." Jesus said this, then went away and hid from them’ (John 12:36)