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Member (Idle past 4951 days) Posts: 2703 From: melbourne, australia Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Is Jesus God? | |||||||||||||||||||||||
hERICtic Member (Idle past 4538 days) Posts: 371 Joined: |
NET Bible writes:
Mt. 13:41 The Son of Man will send his angels, and they will gather from his kingdom everything that causes sin as well as all lawbreakers. KB writes: "Son of Man" was a term that Jesus used of Himself. Note that He claims that these are HIS angels and HIS kingdom. But other places in the Gospels refer to angels as "angels of God" (e.g. Lk 12:8-9; Jn 1:51). And the Gospels quite often refer to the kingdom as the "kingdom of God" (e.g. Mt. 12:28; 19:24; many others).Jesus seems to be equating Himself with God in saying that God's angels and God's kingdom are His angels and His kingdom. I think its its pretty clear that there are quite a few verses that show god has given Jesus authority to perform many tasks. I believe the verse below explains perhaps how Jesus can make the claim they're "his" angels. Matthew 18:13: ALL authority in Heaven and on Earth has been given to me.
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kbertsche Member (Idle past 2153 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined: |
quote:Correct--God the Son is not the same person as God the Father. The Father and Son are two persons who share one essence. The Greek grammar of John 1:1 has this trinitarian implication. The first "God" in Jn 1:1 has the article, and is referring to God the Father. The second "God" is anarthrous and with inverted word order, stressing quality or essence, so means "deity". As the NET note on Jn 1:1 states: NET note writes: The translation what God was the Word was is perhaps the most nuanced rendering, conveying that everything God was in essence, the Word was too. This points to unity of essence between the Father and the Son without equating the persons. quote:This is not too bad--it is another way to stress the essence or quality. But I think the word "deity" conveys it more clearly.
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kbertsche Member (Idle past 2153 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined: |
quote:Reference, please?
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kbertsche Member (Idle past 2153 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined: |
quote:Your long cut and paste does not address my question. Most of the quotes do no directly address Jn 1:1. The closest thing is a Coptic translation, which is interesting but not very definitive. quote:Perhaps this is one trinitarian scholar who would translate it as "a god," but the quote is not clear that his comments specifically apply to Jn 1:1. quote:References, please? Where do they say that the meaning of Jn 1:1 is "a God" rather than "God?" I see nothing else in your post where a trinitarian directly addresses Jn 1:1. Edited by kbertsche, : No reason given.
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hERICtic Member (Idle past 4538 days) Posts: 371 Joined: |
KB writes: Your long cut and paste did not address my question. It presents no evidence of "trinitarian scholars" who believe that "a God" is a better translation for Jn 1:1c than "God". The closest thing is a Coptic translation, which is interesting but not very definitive. Hello again. I have three "pages" in which I copied initially, so I'm only presenting them as I have them. He (the author, whom I do not recall) is not here to actually debate you. I'll try to go back to the debate site that he posted them to originally (quite awhile ago) and see if I can find the author. Here is part three, which I should have included earlier to answer your question: #5, 6, and 7 show some of the best and earliest authorites which render John 1:1 as "a god" rather than "God." Also, 8. Even the very trinitarian Greek expert, W. E. Vine, (although, for obvious reasons, he chooses not to accept it as the proper interpretation) admits that the literal translation of John 1:1c is: "a god was the Word". - p. 490, An Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, Thomas Nelson, Inc., 1983 printing. Equally trinitarian Professor C. H. Dodd, director of the New English Bible project, also admits this is a proper literal translation: "A possible translation [for John 1:1c] ... would be, 'The Word was a god.' As a word-for-word translation it cannot be faulted." - Technical Papers for the Bible Translator, vol. 28, Jan. 1977. The reason Prof. Dodd still prefers "God" here as the actual meaning intended by John is simply because it upsets his trinitarian interpretations of the rest of John's Gospel. Highly trinitarian NT scholar Murray J. Harris also admits that grammatically John 1:1c may be properly translated, 'the Word was a god,' but his trinitarian bias makes him claim that "context" will not allow such an interpretation. - p. 60, Jesus as God, Baker Book House, 1992. Trinitarian Dr. Robert Young admits that a more literal translation of John 1:1c is "and a God (i.e. a Divine Being) was the Word" - p. 54, ('New Covenant' section), Young's Concise Critical Bible Commentary, Baker Book House, 1977 printing. And highly respected trinitarian scholar, author, and Bible translator, Dr. William Barclay wrote: "You could translate [John 1:1c], so far as the Greek goes: 'the Word was a God'; but it seems obvious that this is so much against the whole of the rest of the New Testament that it is wrong." - p. 205, Ever yours, edited by C. L. Rawlins, Labarum Publ., 1985. Young (and Barclay in the quotation following Young's above) is perfectly aware that "a God" makes little sense. There was no capitalization in the original manuscript nor in the copies that followed for centuries thereafter. We, today, capitalize "god" when we wish to denote the only true creator of everything. Therefore "God" is not a "class" at all but a single individual, and, as we will see, was identified by using the definite article ('the') with 'god.' Therefore, there cannot be "a God," but, instead, John using theos without the article would intend the indefinite meaning "a god." The reason they are compelled to admit that it is the literal translation is that most often a nominative case noun (used as a subject or predicate noun), when it is without the article ('the') in the original language, and is a "non-prepositional" count noun ('man,' lamb,' 'house,' 'prophet,' 'sinner,' 'god,' etc.), will be translated properly into English with the indefinite article ('a,' or 'an'). For example, all the uses of the nominative "man" (anthropos) as found in John's Gospel which are used as described above: John 1:6; 3:1; 3:4; 3:27; 5:5; 7:23 [UBS text (3rd ed.) and Received Text]; 7:46; 9:16; 10:33; 16:21 All are properly translated as "a man"!
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hERICtic Member (Idle past 4538 days) Posts: 371 Joined: |
Deleted bc I gave the wrong scripture. Need to locate the proper one. Sorry.
Edited by hERICtic, : In response to "If a high priest can forgive sins"...
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Peg Member (Idle past 4951 days) Posts: 2703 From: melbourne, australia Joined: |
kbertsche writes: and yet the high priest had authority to forgive the sins of the whole nation... Reference, please? sorry, thats a bad habit of mine. The only way the isrealites could get their sins forgiven was by presenting themselves to the priest who was able to make the atonement for them. We may think that it was the sacrifice that made the atonement, but in fact it wasnt and we know this because if they could then the isrealites could have made their own sacrifices. But they could not do that, they had to present themselves to the priests and only the priests had authority to make the sacrifices legal for forgiveness to take place.
Leviticus 16:15 writes: And he must slaughter the goat of the sin offering, which is for the people, and he must bring its blood inside the curtain and do with its blood the same as he did with the bull’s blood; and he must spatter it toward the cover and before the cover.16And he must make atonement for the holy place concerning the uncleannesses of the sons of Israel and concerning their revolts in all their sins Also at
Leviticus 5:5-10 writes: ‘And it must occur that in case he becomes guilty as respects one of these things, then he must confess in what way he has sinned...and the priest must make an atonement for him for his sin....8And he must bring them to the priest, who must present first the one for the sin offering and nip off its head at the front of its neck, but he should not sever it. ...and the priest must make an atonement for him for his sin that he has committed, and so it must be forgiven him We also have the example of King Saul at 1Samuel 13 who tried to make a priestly sacrifice for the people before battle and was promptly removed from his position for the action. So only thru the priests could forgiveness of sins take place.
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Peg Member (Idle past 4951 days) Posts: 2703 From: melbourne, australia Joined: |
a list of john 1:1 renderings writes:
1808 and the word was a godThe New Testament, in An Improved Version, Upon the Basis of Archbishop Newcome’s New Translation: With a Corrected Text, London. 1864 and a god was the WordThe Emphatic Diaglott (J21, interlinear reading), by Benjamin Wilson, New York and London. 1935 and the Word was divineThe BibleAn American Translation, by J. M. P. Smith and E. J. Goodspeed, Chicago. 1950 and the Word was a godNew World Translation of the Christian Greek Scriptures, WT Brooklyn. 1975 and a god (or, of a divine kind)was the WordDas Evangelium nach Johannes, by Siegfried Schulz,Gttingen, Germany. 1978 and godlike sort was the LogosDas Evangelium nach Johannes,by Johannes Schneider,Berlin. 1979 and a god was the LogosDas Evangelium nach Johannes,by Jrgen Becker, Wrzburg, Germany. Im sure these translators cannot all be wrong on the rendering of John 1:1 What is interesting about trinitarian translators is that they insist on rendering John 1:1, The Word was God, and yet they don't hesitate to use the indefinite article (a, an) in their rendering of other verses where a singular anarthrous predicate noun occurs before the verb. Such as at John 6:70. Both JB and KJ refer to Judas Iscariot as a devil, and at John 9:17 they describe Jesus as a prophet. they willingly insert an indefinite article into these verses which have exactly the same sentence construct, yet they say that its not gramatically correct to insert the indefinite article in John 1:1.... thats evidence enough which shows they are deliberately fudging the numbers to make a case for their theology. Edited by Peg, : No reason given.
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kbertsche Member (Idle past 2153 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined: |
quote:I've already responded to these in Message 19. The rest of the examples give essentially say that while "and the Word was a god" is grammatically possible, "and the Word was God" is to be preferred. This is not very strong support for your position.
quote:Not relevant. Your poster misunderstands the grammatical construction and grammatical rule involved in John 1:1c--he does not capture all of the unique features. The construction here is an anarthrous predicate nominative which precedes the verb. (i.e. no definite article on the noun, noun is not the subject but the predicate, and this noun precedes the verb.) This construction emphasizes the quality or essence of the noun as opposed to the individuality of the noun.
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kbertsche Member (Idle past 2153 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined: |
quote:Yes, but this is very different from your earlier claim that quote:"thru the priests" only says that they are the means, not the source of forgiveness. According to the OT, forgiveness of sins comes from God alone but comes through the sacrificial system (sacrifices, priests, tabernacle/temple, etc.). The experts in the Law understood this--no one can forgive sins except God. This is why they reacted to Jesus as they did in Mark 2, accusing him of blasphemy. If your contention is correct (that priests can actually forgive sins), why didn't the experts in the Law understand this? And why didn't Jesus point out their error? (He had a perfect opportunity to do so.) No, this contention doesn't make any sense.
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Buzsaw Inactive Member |
Peg writes: So to understand Thomas's words, its a matter of understanding that the Messiah was of divine origin and could rightly be called, a god. 'god' is a title that means a divine being. Jesus was certainly a divine being for he even said that he was from heaven and that he existed with God before the founding of the world. Hi Peg.I'm pretty much on the same page with you on this. Jesus was not a man before he was born a man. In that he came forth from the Holy Spirit, indicates that his pre-existence was totally spirit, i.e part and parcel of the Holy Spirit, being the spirit of the father and of the son. Jesus's role relative to man is that he is lord/master and son of Jehovah, god. You will notice that in the first & second greeting verses of nearly all of the epistles we read phrases, something like, "Greetings from God our Father and our Lord, Jesus Christ." These are two different roles. Jesus will be our judge in the rewarding of the saints judgement etc and he will be lord/master/messianic ruler of the planet in the messianic millenium which will indeed come soon on earth. We, God's children by new (Holy Spirit) birth, i.e. receiving Jesus, i.e. his spirit) will be co-heirs with our lord/master Jesus in that messianic kingdom. The church/true Christians are depicted as the bride of Jesus/lord/master. The role of Jesus is not to be recipient of our prayers. That is the role of the father, Jehovah, Jesus being the mediator in who's name we pray. He was the sinless perfect sacrifice offering for sin and he is the perfect sinless high priest/mediator so as to get our (sinner's) prayers through to a holy god. There's nothing wrong with the term trinity, meaning three in unity, i.e. unified by one spirit. The three are mentioned in Matthew relative to baptism in the name of the father, son, and spirit (3) Only two, however have proper names, being Jesus/son of Jehovah/god and Jehovah/father/god, father of Jesus by birth and Christians by new birth. THE TRINITY WAYGod is our father, to whom we should pray. Jesus, God's son is our lord and the way. The Spirit was given from God in his love To give us new life and be born from above. God is the father; Jesus the son.The Spirit of them makes the three one. God sent the savior to die on the treeTo pay for our sins and redeem you and me So believe in Christ Jesus; yield to him all Your soul he will save, as on him you call. Buz BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW. The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.
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kbertsche Member (Idle past 2153 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined: |
quote:I can find many more translations that render it "and the Word was God." And I'm equally sure these translators cannot all be wrong on the rendering of John 1:1. quote:Are you sure? I suspect the good translators DO hesitate about adding the indefinite article in these places. Some of them translate it in other ways or explain things in a footnote. The indefinite article misses the nuances of the Greek construction. quote:I've already commented on Jn 6:70 in Message 8--NET renders this as "the devil" instead of "a devil." Jn 9:17 would perhaps better be translated as "prophetic" instead of "a prophet," to better capture the qualitative implication of the Greek.
quote:Not at all. The indefinite article is not an ideal translation for any of these passages. It does not adequately capture the implications of the Greek.
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kbertsche Member (Idle past 2153 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined: |
quote:This is a well-known verse, so you probably already have an answer for it. But I'd like to hear it anyway: NET Bible writes:
Note the verb tense. Jesus didn't say "before Abraham came into existence, I was." Instead, He used the present tense, "I am." Both phrases would claim that He pre-existed Abraham, but the latter implies even more. It implies that to Jesus, all time is like the present. This suggests that He is eternal. John 8:58 Jesus said to them, I tell you the solemn truth, before Abraham came into existence, I am! How do you explain Jesus' claim to pre-exist Abraham, and the further suggestion that He is eternal?
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kbertsche Member (Idle past 2153 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined: |
quote:What about Hebrews 1? The writer is arguing that Jesus is superior to the angels, and then applies Psalm 45:6 to Jesus: NET Bible writes:
Thus the writer to the Hebrews claims that Jesus is God.
Heb. 1:8 but of the Son he says,Your throne, O God, is forever and ever, and a righteous scepter is the scepter of your kingdom.
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kbertsche Member (Idle past 2153 days) Posts: 1427 From: San Jose, CA, USA Joined: |
quote: Revelation 1 has this description of God:
NET Bible writes:
And again in chapter 21, God is seated on the throne:
Rev. 1:8 I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord Godthe one who is, and who was, and who is still to comethe All-powerful!NET Bible writes:
A similar phrase is used in Isaiah:
Rev. 21:6 He also said to me, It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. NET Bible writes:
The titles "Alpha and Omega", "Beginning and End", and "First and Last" are titles for God in Scripture. Is. 41:4b I, the LORD, am present at the very beginning,and at the very end—I am the one. But Jesus applies all three of these titles to Himself:
NET Bible writes:
In claiming divine titles for Himself, Jesus is claiming to be God.
Rev. 22:12-13 (Look! I am coming soon,and my reward is with me to pay each one according to what he has done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end!)
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