Interpret John 1:1 by John 1:1.

by towerwatchman 77 Replies latest watchtower bible

• 

  John_Mann

  I challenge anybody to state it in their own words - and illustrate it - without using specialist language without contradicting themselves or committing heresy.

  Three distinct persons sharing the same nature.

  Just like past, present and future share the nature of time.

  Past is time, present is time and future is time. Past is not present, present is not future and future is not past.

  Why only three persons and not four or more?

  Because there's only two immanent properties in the God's nature. Intellect and will.

  How do we know that?

  Because the human nature has only two too and the human nature is an image of God's nature.

  The Son proceeds from the Father through intellect and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son through will.
  
  
• 

  towerwatchman

  To sir 82

  Attributes is what makes X ,X. As to how X is manifested 'stuff' is another matter. John opens describing the Logos as a spirit, then in vs. 14 the Logos 'became fleshed and dwelt among us.

  Same is in the opening of 1 John, John describes Jesus as being tangible, (seen, heard, touched).
• 

  towerwatchman

  To Finkelstein

  The Apostles would know if it was a lie or not. They are the ones preaching the Resurrection of Jesus. No one has taught them this. They are sharing and dying for something they witnessed themselves. If it was a lie, the lie would have originated with them. And no one does for a lie.
• 

  towerwatchman

  To half Banana

  On the contrary, just as Paul’s thorn in the side were the Judiazers, John’s thorn in the side was the Gnostics. Polycarp one of John’s disciples wrote about John’s dislike with Gnosticism. When we read the opening to John and especially 1 John, we notice that John is countering the Gnostic beliefs the Jesus was either a spirit [no flesh], or fully human [offspring of Joseph and Mary]. None of John’s writings are pro Gnostic.

  Notice John 1:1, in one verse John identifies Jesus as God, to the Greek as the “Logos” from whence everything commenced

  The Greek’s believed that everything pre existed as a thought and then came into existence. Logos was that divine reason or thought which created the physical world and causes the natural world to grow. John comes along and says that he knows the Logos and that it is not a thought but a person. That for the Logos thought to exist it had to have a thinker and that thinker was Jesus. This would have caught the attention of every Hellenistic thinker in that time. Not only does he identify the “Logos” to them but in the following verses John gives the “logos” a name, human qualities and affections making Jesus conceivable to them.

  
  
  

  And to the Jew = Jewish ‘dabar’ = Divine word.

  The rabbinical schools at that time taught that the Word was the image and likeness of God, the universe was created by God through the Word, the Word was God’s first and oldest creation, the Word was a separate being from Elohim, the Word had not descended to Earth, and had the Word a need for a body of flesh.

  John masterfully capitalizes on the idea and connects the Greek’s idea of “Logos” and the Jewish idea of “dabar” with Jesus Christ as God.
• 

  towerwatchman

  To Steel

  According to Jesus no one has seen or heard the Father. So the question is who spoke and manifested Himself in the OT. Manifestations were Jesus appearing in the OT, As to who spoke that could have been the HS or Jesus.

  Jn 6:46 Not that anyone has seen the Father, except He who is from God; He has seen the Father.

  Jn 5:37 And the Father Himself, who sent Me, has testified of Me. You have neither heard His voice at any time, nnor seen His form.

  John 1:1 is not referring to Jesus appearing in the OT. Note 1a, In the beginning was the Logos. John is referring to the beginning of time and space. Note who is with the Logos in the beginning, = only God.

  I agree it was Jesus appearing in the OT, but disagree John 1:1 is referring to such events.
• 

  Crazyguy

  The "word" is Logos and that goes back to Egypt and the god Ptah or Thoth
• 

  towerwatchman

  To Bungi Bill

  A predicate nominative or predicate noun completes a linking verb and renames the subject.

  According to Greek scholar E. C. Colwell: "A definite predicate nominative has the article when it follows the verb; it does not have the article when it precedes the verb...A predicate nominative which precedes the verb cannot be translated as an indefinite or a 'qualitative' noun solely because of the absence of the article; if the context suggests that the predicate is definite, it should be translated as a definite noun despite the absence of the article." This is known as Colwell’s rule, this principle applies to certain uses of the Greek article. Now, I agree with WTS, that Colwell’s rule does not prove a definite article for “theos”, but it most definitely supports it.

  The Watchtower Society states that in the Greek, when a singular predicate noun has no definite article “the” and it occurs before the verb, [as in the original Greek], then this points to a quality about the subject. Therefore, since the second occurrence of theos “God” has no definite article, it then refer to lower or lesser deity who possess godlike qualities therefore; “a god”.

  It should be noted that in the NWT “God” is capitalized, therefore translated as articular [with the definite article] even though being anarthrous [not having the definite article] in John 1:6,12,13,18, 3:2,21, 9:33. If the WTS rule is etched in stone, and supersedes the translator’s interpretation of the verse why were these verses translated as God instead of a god.

  Note that within the New Testament “God” appears 282 times anarthrous, of which it translates the anarthrous as articular 266 times as "God" and the remaining 16 times as anarthrous translating theos as either god, a god, gods, and godly. There is no question that from the context fifteen of the sixteen anarthrous “theos” were correctly translated, only John 1:1c is questionable.

  Why?
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  Bungi Bill

  Again, more than a superficicial knowledge of Koine Greek grammar is required to accurately determine what is going on here.

  Despite having a surfeit of time on my hands at the moment, I don't intend to wade my way through the 50-odd pages of Daniel Wallace's Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics that deal with both this matter and how it relates to John 1:1

  (even if our local library had a copy of this work, which they haven't).
• 

  towerwatchman

  To cofty

  A predicate nominative or predicate noun completes a linking verb and renames the subject. According to Greek scholar E. C. Colwell: "A definite predicate nominative has the article when it follows the verb; it does not have the article when it precedes the verb...A predicate nominative which precedes the verb cannot be translated as an indefinite or a 'qualitative' noun solely because of the absence of the article; if the context suggests that the predicate is definite, it should be translated as a definite noun despite the absence of the article." This is known as Colwell’s rule, this principle applies to certain uses of the Greek article. Now, I agree with WTS, that Colwell’s rule does not prove a definite article for “theos”, but it most definitely supports it.

  The Watchtower Society states that in the Greek, when a singular predicate noun has no definite article “the” and it occurs before the verb, [as in the original Greek], then this points to a quality about the subject. Therefore, since the second occurrence of theos “God” has no definite article, it then refer to lower or lesser deity who possess godlike qualities therefore; “a god”.

  It should be noted that in the NWT “God” is capitalized, therefore translated as articular [with the definite article] even though being anarthrous [not having the definite article] in John 1:6,12,13,18, 3:2,21, 9:33. If the WTS rule is etched in stone, and supersedes the translator’s interpretation of the verse why were these verses translated as God instead of a God.

  Note that within the New Testament “God” appears 282 times anarthrous, of which it translates the anarthrous as articular 266 times as "God" and the remaining 16 times as anarthrous translating theos as either god, a god, gods, and godly. There is no question that from the context fifteen of the sixteen anarthrous “theos” were correctly translated, only John 1:1c is questionable.

  Deity of Christ. explicit in John 1:1, 20:28, 12:41, Phil 2:6, Titus 2:13, and 2 Pe 1:1

  As to the Deity of Jesus evolving over generations note what the early church fathers wrote on the subject.

  Ignatius (105 AD): "Continue in intimate union with Jesus Christ, our God."

  ibid: "I pray for your happiness forever in our God, Jesus Christ."

  Aristides (125 AD): "The Christians trace the beginning of their religion to Jesus the Messiah. He is called the Son of the Most High God. It is said that God came down from heaven. He assumed flesh and clothed Himself with it from a Hebrew virgin."

  Diognetus (c.125-200 AD): "God did not, as one might have imagined, send to men any servant, angel, or ruler.... Rather He sent the very Creator and Fashioner of all things - by whom He made the heavens.... As a king sends his son, who is also a king, so God sent Him. He sent Him as God."

  Second Clement (c.150 AD): Brethren, it is fitting that you should think of Jesus Christ as of God - as the Judge of the living and the dead."

  Justin Martyr (c.160 AD): "The Word...He is Divine."

  ibid: "The Father of the universe has a Son. And He, being the First-Begotten Word of God, is even God."

  ibid: "For Christ is King, Priest, God, Lord, Angel, and Man."

  ibid: "He deserves to be worshipped as God and as Christ."

  ibid: "David predicted that He would be born from the womb before the sun and moon, according to the Father's will. He made Him known, being Christ, as God, strong and to be worshipped."

  ibid: "The Son ministered to the will of the Father. Yet, nevertheless, He is God, in that He is the First-Begotten of all creatures."

  ibid: "If you had understood what has been written by the prophets, you would not have denied that He was God, Son of the Only, Unbegottten, Unuttterable God."

  Melito (c.170 AD): "God was put to death, the Kiing of Israel slain."

  Athenagoras (c.175 AD): "There is the one God and the Logos proceeding from Him, the Son. We understand that the Son is inseparable from Him."

  Irenaeus (c.180 AD): "For He fulfills the bountiful and comprehensive will of His Father, inasmuch as He is Himself the Savior of those who are saved, and the Lord of those who are under authority, and the God of all those things that have been formed, the Only-Begotten of the Father."

  ibid: "I have shown from the Scriptures that none of the sons of Adam are, absolutely and as to everything, called God, or named Lord. But Jesus is Himself in His own right, beyond all men who ever lived, God, Lord, King Eternal, and the Incarnate Word.... He is the Holy Lord, the Wonderful, the Counselor, the Beautiful in appearance, and the Mighty God."

  ibid: "Thus He indicates in clear terms that He is God, and that His advent was in Bethlehem.... God, then, was made man, and the Lord did Himself save us.

  ibid: "He is God, for the name Emmanuel indcates this."

  ibid: "Christ Himself, therfore, together with the Father, is the God of the living, who spoke to Moses, and who was also manifested to the fathers."

  ibid: "Or how shall man pass into God, unless God has first passed into man?"

  ibid: "It is plain that He was Himself the Word of God, who was made the son of man. He received from the Father the power of remission of sins. He was man, and He was God. This was so that since as man He suffered for us, so as God He might have compassion on us."
• 

  towerwatchman

  To John Mann

  Sometimes you have to do your own homework. Hope the following helps.

  Monotheism = there is only one true God.

  There are three divine persons called “God” in the Bible.

  Within the one being that is God there exist eternally three coequal and coeternal persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

  “Person” refers to the center of consciousness and includes the idea of mind, will and desire.

  “Being” refers to the essential attributes that make God what he is, holy, omnipresent, omniscient, immutable, all-powerful.

  “Co-equal” fully shared the being that is God never one third.

  “ Coeternal” all three exist within eternity, one did not exist before the other.

  God is a spirit thus not limited to the physical, eternally exists outside of time and space. He is not limited to time, space, and matter as we are.

  God= what. Three persons= who.

  Not Modalism one person with three personalities.

  Not Polytheism three separate beings.

  One very common but mistaken analogy of the Trinity is water in a glass that can exist either as water, steam or ice. This is Modalism, which states that God is a single person, who reveals Himself in different forms or modes. This view states that that Father , Son, and HS never all exist at the same time, but rather it is the same being manifesting Himself as either of the three throughout history. Thus the idea of one glass, and within that glass the same measurement of H2O appearing in different forms.

  At the other end of the spectrum is Polytheism which teaches three separate beings, each with their own personalities which are gods. Here we have three glasses of water, first holding water, second holding steam, third holding ice.

  Trinitarians teach three persons sharing the one Godhead. Therefore, we have one glass and within that one glass steam, water, and ice at the same time.