New Testament polluted by Greek philosophy? The "Word"=LOGOS

by Terry 31 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  PSacramento

  Leo,

  A valid point, it is hard to "draw the line",and I also agree with our example about the ressurection VS immortal soul.

  One can't really have bodily ressurection without an immortal soul or spirt, can one?

  I think that NT writers tended to blend and be eclectic in their use of Hellenistic views, they used what they needed to explain their judeo/soon-to-be-called christain beliefs so that the intended audience had a ever so crucial point-of-reference.

  I am sure that the Greek view of things infulenced them greatky, but did it infulence them in how the explained their views on christianity or did they infuence THEIR VIEWS of Christianity?

  We may never know for sure and I am not sure how much it actually matters.
• 

  Leolaia

  One can't really have bodily ressurection without an immortal soul or spirt, can one?

  Sure. There just has to be continuity, if not by the soul or spirit then the body (particularly, the bones). But even in OT eschatology, one's "spirit" may have a post-mortem conscious existence (but not necessarily "immortal" and not necessarily experiencing "life").
• 

  PSacramento

  Sure. There just has to be continuity, if not by the soul or spirit then the body (particularly, the bones). But even in OT eschatology, one's "spirit" may have a post-mortem conscious existence (but not necessarily "immortal" and not necessarily experiencing "life")

  Have you read NT Wright's "the ressurection of the son of God"?

  Its a long read, but he does a detailed historical anaylsis of the ressurection and how it was viewed in Judaisim (from the beginning and past the second temple) and the pagan religions that were their contemporieres.

  I think that there is an issue with terms when it comes to soul and spirit, not only have they were used and soemtimes intertwined but also with the term immortal and how it tends to be used alos and the ocnfusion of it with Eternal.
• 

  Leolaia

  I have the book. It has the most complete discussion of the relevant Jewish and early Christian texts I have ever seen. That said, Wright's analysis is not entirely convincing. I feel he tries too hard to press the texts into a uniform basic conception of resurrection, which comes across as quite strained in places (such as his insistance that resurrection is necessarily in the earthly sphere). I think there is too much variety in the texts to admit such an analysis. IMO.
• 

  Mary

  Very interesting thread.........Leolaia, if you were to translate John 1:1, how would you word it?
• 

  PSacramento

  I have the book. It has the most complete discussion of the relevant Jewish and early Christian texts I have ever seen. That said, Wright's analysis is not entirely convincing. I feel he tries too hard to press the texts into a uniform basic conception of resurrection, which comes across as quite strained in places (such as his insistance that resurrection is necessarily in the earthly sphere). I think there is too much variety in the texts to admit such an analysis. IMO

  I haven't read his other books that go with that one, "jesus the victory of God" and "the NT people", but I got to know Wright from his posts and lectures over on Biologos.org.

  I like the way he says things and his POV tend to mirror mine, but yes, I agree that at times his attempts to find one sole commonality in regards to the Jewish and pagn views on the ressurection, can be stretched, but that doesn't make them wrong (or right for that matter) ;)
• 

  Terry

  Life is competition.

  It is a kill and eat world for man or beast.

  Ideas compete.

  Poorly reasoned ideas are replaced by better ones as society becomes more sophisticate.

  The Hebrew/Semitic tribal ideas were replaced by encounters with larger theologies. (Captivity by Babylonians and Persians. Dominion by the Greek generals.)

  Better ideas are those which explain more of the unknown and allow better application of practical principles to everyday life.

  Greek Logic, Math, Geometry, Science trumped dependance on miracles and arbitrary Divine appeasments.

  Establishment Wealth was more dependable than angels and Heavenly interventions.

  The longest lasting Federal Power on earth was the Roman Empire. Rome absorbed all things Greek and put it to work as a practical Empire.

  The Greek practice of identifying sources by writers, developing dialogue in texts, attributing authorship, verbal rhetorical flourishes and establishing norms through argument crept into the Semitic ethos to produce Gospels identifying authors and mimmicking Socratic debate.

  Jesus as a character is part demi-God and part Socrates.

  Sophistication of Christian/Jewish mystery school terminology is rife with Greek mystery school pollutions and influence.

  The splinter groups PRE-CONSTANTINE within the Judeo-christian community is identifiably a spectrum of GREEK ideas and reasonings and terminology adapted to Semitic thought.

  The pagan structures of organization and logic (Greco-Roman) superimposed a template on Constantine's ORTHODOX Christian structure for the True Catholic Church.
• 

  Leolaia

  Well, if you are referring to the third clause, the majority opinion is that theos is neither definite nor indefinite but qualitative (which disfavors both "God" and "a god" in translation). This is the difference between saying I am woman (as in the Helen Reddy song) and I am a woman. Notice that the former is paralleled with other qualitatives in the Reddy song: "I am strong / I am invincible / I am woman". This is a very different statement than simply saying that "I am a member of the class customarily called 'woman' ". It emphasizes the nature and experience of womanhood in a way counter to patriarchal stereotype. This is analogous to how theos is used in John 1:1. Just as Helen declares "I am woman", the author of the Fourth Gospel affirms that the Logos is theos, i.e. the nature of the Logos is that of God. The NWT translation simply makes the Logos a member of a class of god, which fails to capture the qualitative force of the syntax. In the verse theos is 1) non-articular, i.e. anarthrous, 2) it is nominative, 3) it takes a copular predicate, and 4) it is in a preverbal predicate position. In Acts 28:6, where theos is clearly indefinite and non-qualitative ("they said that he was a god"), non-articular theos is NOT nominative and it FOLLOWS the verb rather than precedes it. The closest parallel to the verse is found in 1 John 4:8 (also Johannine in style) which says ho theos apagé estin, "God is love". As in John 1:1c, the qualitative noun (here apagé) is 1) non-articular (usual in the case of this noun, as it is abstract), 2) nominative, 3) it takes a copular predicate, and 4) it is in a preverbal predicate position. The qualitative force of the predicate noun highlights love as defining the nature of God. Similarly, theos defines the nature of the Logos in John 1:1. There is another parallel to both John 1:1 and 1 John 4:8 in the epistles of Ignatius of Antioch (writing in the early second century AD):

  "None of these things escapes your notice, if you have perfect faith and love toward Jesus Christ. For these are the beginning and end of life (zóés): faith is the beginning (arkhé men pistos), and love is the end (telos de agapé), and [the two existing in unity] are God ([ta de duo en enotéti genomena] theos estin)" (Ephesians 14:1).

  The thought is the same as in 1 John 4:8 although with the predicates reversed ("love is God" rather than "God is love"). But with the predicates flipped, we here have an exact equivalent to the theos in John 1:1c: 1) theos is non-articular, 2) it is nominative, 3) it takes a copular predicate, and 4) it is in a preverbal predicate position. As in John 1:1, God is the nature borne by the subject (the Logos in John 1:1 and faith and love in unity in Ignatius). There is also a parallel here to the sharing of nature between two entities in unity; in John 1:1 the nature of theos is shared between God (ho theos) and the Logos (ho logos), and in Ignatius the nature of theos is shared between faith and love.

  So how can this thought be best expressed in English? Notice that the translation of Ignatius above (that of Michael Holmes) renders the theos as "God", as most English translations do in John 1:1. The problem with this translation is that in English, "God" is uniquely the name of a specific unique entity. This overrides the qualitative nuance in a way that saying "I am woman" does not (and it facilitates the misunderstanding that the Logos is simultaneously the God he is with). And since the noun theos is specifically amenable to theological interpretation, its translation is inherently problematic. Some have tried to translate the theos via the adjective "divine". This gives full credit to the qualitative nuance. But this is problematic as well. The qualitative force in adjectives is usually weaker than that of qualitative nouns (which are more marked). So in the Helen Reddy song, saying "I am womanly" or "I am female" fails to express the much stronger import that "I am woman" expresses. It is the same with 1 John 4:8. "God is love" is more powerful than saying "God is loving" or "God is lovelike". The evangelist did not use the adjective theios "divine", he used a stronger qualitative noun. "The Word was divine" is weaker because it admits the reading that the Logos is less divine than God (ho theos). The idea instead is that the Logos and God are equally divine. The idea in 1 John 4:8 is that "Everything love is, God is". Similarly, the idea in John 1:1 is "Everything theos is, the Logos is". This accords well with the theological idea repeated throughout the gospel that although the Son is subject to the Father in their own mutual relationship, he is equal to the Father in nature and activity (see 5:18 which says "Whatever the Father does, the Son does too" and the preceding verse in which the evangelist — not Jesus' opposers — asserts that the Son was indeed "making himself equal to God"), thus Jesus declares "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father .... I am in the Father and the Father is in me" (14:9-10).

  So it is hard to express this thought without a paraphrase. The NEB renders as "what God was, the Word was"; Philip Harner suggests "the Word had the same nature as God". The usual translation "The Word was God" is okay as long as it is understood in the same sense as Helen Reddy saying "I am woman", but it is hard for most English readers to sustain that qualitative understanding without succumbing to a definite reading that takes "God" to be equivalent to the Father whom the Logos was with. That is due to fact that "God" is almost exclusively used as the name of a specific deity in English, as opposed to theos in Greek which had a more flexible usage. As a third example of qualitative theos emphasizing nature, consider the following from Melito of Sardis (middle of the second century AD), who was clearly influenced by the Fourth Gospel:

  "For indeed the Law has become reason (ho nomos logos egeneto), and the old new (ho palaios kainos [egeneto]), and the commandment grace (hé entolé kharis [egeneto]), and the impression truth (ho tupos alétheia [egeneto]), ... and the sheep man (to probaton anthrópos [egeneto]), and the man God (ho anthrópos theos [egeneto]). ... He rose from the dead as God (anesté ek nekrón hós theos), being by nature God and Man (phusei theos ón kai anthrópos)" (Melito of Sardis, Peri Pascha 7-8).

  Notice that phusis "nature" is even used in the same clause with the qualitative nominative predicate theos.
• 

  PSacramento

  I think that John 1:1 is one of those passages that needs to be translated as is "The word was God", but with a footnote/bracket to expand on what John means : What/All that God is, The Word is".

  Not because it NEEDS to be done that way, but because it helps to understand John from the very beginning and makes the rest of the GOJ so much the better to understand.
• 

  Terry

  

  John 1:1. Just as Helen declares "I am woman", the author of the Fourth Gospel affirms that the Logos is theos, i.e. the nature of the Logos is that of God.

  When each of us hears certain words: Truth, Beauty, Justice, God, etc.....we immediately pump our own "reality" into it. Those aren't so much concrete realities as vessels of imputed value.

  A Muslim thinks of the True God in a strikingly different way than a Christian. There is no equivalency.

  

  Beauty is perhaps a more easily understood concept as a vessel of meaning. One man's girlfriend is beautiful to him and just plain dumpy to us.

  Justice to the victim's family is entirely different than to the accused's loved ones.

  

  John 1:1 gives us multi-layered interpretive problems because WE AREN'T DEALING WITH REALITY in the everyday sense of tangible, definitive, measurable referents.

  Unless and Until we recognize that barrier of time, custom, indoctrination, philosophy, ethos and mysticism in the 1st century (versus our 21st Century) we will be like the dog who chases its own tail: what will the dog DO with that tail if he grasps it finally?.