Jesus is Not 'The Word'

Tacenda · September 1, 2023

8 hours ago, manol said:

Imo what matters is that we follow the highest truth we know or have good reason to believe. It's not so much about following a book that claims to have the words of Christ. The Gospels are arguably the best written source we have of the words of Christ, but we do not know for sure how accurately the Gospels quote Christ. Some words attributed to him may not be accurate, and it's reasonable to assume that he said a great deal more than what we have a record of.

I think it would be a mistake to make a book the highest authority in our lives. Many people do so, and there are worse things that one can do, but I don't think such is necessarily the best course. The inner knowing which told you Christ is The Way – imo THAT is more reliable than any books we have. Imo that inner knowing is what we are to follow, and it should be the highest authority in our lives. And if we make a mistake, which will happen, we correct it and keep on going.

When your guide is that inner knowing, call it the Holy Spirit or whatever, THEN God can confirm to you things that are not found in the scriptural account of Christ's words. Imo God speaks to us through many voices, and while the actual words of Christ are the most pure transmission, they are not necessarily the only voice God can use.

In fact this concept is one of the things I like best about Mormonism – the idea that communication from God to us is ongoing. Our role is be seekers. And in a sense we are like radio stations, wherein our role is to stay tuned in to the station where God communicates to us through that inner knowing. This requires more consistent effort on our part than following a book requires.

Now it's not EITHER the Gospels OR the inner knowing – it's BOTH! But the inner knowing is how we recognize and fall in love with the truths found in the Gospels, and also it is how we can spot things in them which are questionable. We progress when we are tuned-in to that inner knowing.

In my opinion.

:good:

Edited September 1, 2023 by Tacenda

Benjamin McGuire · September 1, 2023

23 hours ago, Bassil said:

The author never meant for the 'The word' to be a title given to Jesus!

What a brilliant display of mind reading of a man who has been dead for two thousand years.

Saint Bonaventure · September 1, 2023

Here's a little from the Anchor Bible on this:

1:1. In the beginning. In the Hebrew Bible the first book (Genesis) is named by its opening words, “In the beginning”; therefore, the parallel between the Prologue and Genesis would be easily seen. The parallel continues into the next verses, where the themes of creation and light and darkness are recalled from Genesis. John’s translation of the opening phrase of Gen 1:1, which is the same as that of LXX, reflects an understanding of that verse evidently current in NT times; it does not necessarily give us the original meaning intended by the author of Genesis. E. A. Speiser (The Anchor Bible, vol. 1) translates: “When God set about to create heaven and earth …”
beginning. This is not, as in Genesis, the beginning of creation, for creation comes in vs. 3. Rather the “beginning” refers to the period before creation and is a designation, more qualitative than temporal, of the sphere of God. Note how the Gospel of Mark opens: “The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ [the Son of God] …”
was the Word. Since Chrysostom’s time, commentators have recognized that each of the three uses of “was” in vs. 1 has a different connotation: existence, relationship, and predication respectively. “The Word was” is akin to the “I am” statements of Jesus in the Gospel proper (see App. IV). There can be no speculation about how the Word came to be, for the Word simply was.

in God’s presence. We attempt here and in vs. 2 a rendering that will capture the ambiguity of the Gr. pros ton theon. Two basic translations have been proposed: (a) “with God”=accompaniment. BDF, § 2391, points out that although pros with the accusative usually implies motion, it is sometimes used in the sense of accompaniment, according to the general weakening in Hellenistic Greek of the distinction between prepositions of motion and of localization, e.g., between eis and en. The idea of pre-creation accompaniment appears in John 17:5: “that glory which I had with you [para] before the world existed.” See the alternate reading of 7:29. (b) “towards God”=relationship. In an article in Bib 43 (1962), 366–87, De la Potterie has argued strongly that the dynamic sense of eis and pros is not lost in John’s Greek. He insists that when John uses pros and the accusative, it does not mean accompaniment. He points (pp. 380 ff.) to vs. 18, which forms an inclusion with vs. 1, and the expression found there eis ton kolpon (literally, “into the Father’s bosom,” or as we translate, “ever at the Father’s side”). The argument that he draws from vs. 18 for the dynamic interpretation of the pros in vs. 1, however, depends on the dynamic use of eis in vs. 18, and this is disputed. An argument is also drawn from 1 John 1:2, “… this eternal life such as it was in the Father’s presence [pros ton patera].” Yet, since the subject of this sentence is “life,” communion rather than relationship seems to be implied. Comparisons between John and I John on the basis of vocabulary present difficulty, for the same words appear in the two works with slightly different nuances. Our own view is that there is a nuance of relationship in John 1:1b, but without the precision of that relationship between the Word and God the Father that some would see, e.g., filiation.

God’s presence. The article is used with theos here. When the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are involved, ho theos is frequently used for God the Father (2 Cor 13:13). Verse 18, the inclusion with vs. 1, speaks of the Father, as does the parallel just mentioned in 1 John 1:2. By emphasizing the relationship between the Word and God the Father, vs. 1b at the same time implicitly distinguishes them.

was God. Vs. 1c has been the subject of prolonged discussion, for it is a crucial text pertaining to Jesus’ divinity. There is no article before theos as there was in 1b. Some explain this with the simple grammatical rule that predicate nouns are generally anarthrous (BDF, § 273). However, while theos is most probably the predicate, such a rule does not necessarily hold for a statement of identity as, for instance, in the “I am …” formulae (John 11:25, 14:6—with the article). To preserve in English the different nuance of theos with and without the article, some (Moffatt) would translate, “The Word was divine.” But this seems too weak; and, after all, there is in Greek an adjective for “divine” (theios) which the author did not choose to use. Haenchen, p. 31338, objects to this latter point because he thinks that such an adjective smacks of literary Greek not in the Johannine vocabulary. The NEB paraphrases the line: “What God was, the Word was”; and this is certainly better than “divine.” Yet for a modern Christian reader whose trinitarian background has accustomed him to thinking of “God” as a larger concept than “God the Father,” the translation “The Word was God” is quite correct. This reading is reinforced when one remembers that in the Gospel as it now stands, the affirmation of 1:1 is almost certainly meant to form an inclusion with 20:28, where at the end of the Gospel Thomas confesses Jesus as “My God” (ho theos mou). These statements represent the Johannine affirmative answer to the charge made against Jesus in the Gospel that he was wrongly making himself God (10:33, 5:18). Nevertheless, we should recognize that between the Prologue’s “The Word was God” and the later Church’s confession that Jesus Christ was “true God of true God” (Nicaea), there was marked development in terms of philosophical thought and a different problematic.

Raymond E. Brown, The Gospel according to John (I–XII): Introduction, Translation, and Notes, vol. 29, Anchor Yale Bible (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 2008), 4–5.

Bassil · September 1, 2023

1 hour ago, Saint Bonaventure said:

1:1. In the beginning. In the Hebrew Bible the first book (Genesis) is named by its opening words, “In the beginning”; therefore, the parallel between the Prologue and Genesis would be easily seen.

Join the line with many Christians who think the introduction in the Book of John was inspired by the beginning of Genesis.

The truth is that the introduction was inspired by the talk about wisdom in Proverbs, 8.

"

I, wisdom, dwell with prudence, And I
find knowledge and discretion.

" (Proverb, 8:12)

"

The LORD possessed me at the
beginning of His way, Before His works
of old.

From everlasting I was established,
From the beginning, from the earliest
times of the earth.

When there were no depths I was
brought forth, When there were no
springs abounding with water.

Before the mountains were settled,
Before the hills I was brought forth;

While He had not yet made the earth
and the fields, Nor the first dust of the
world.

When He established the heavens, I
was there, When He inscribed a circle
on the face of the deep,

When He made firm the skies above,
When the springs of the deep became
fixed,

When He set for the sea its boundary
So that the water would not transgress
His command, When He marked out the
foundations of the earth;

Then I was beside Him, as a master
workman; And I was daily His delight,
Rejoicing always before Him,

Rejoicing in the world, His earth, And
having my delight in the sons of men.

" (Proverbs, 8:22-31)

Edited September 1, 2023 by Bassil

Bassil · September 1, 2023

The introduction in the Book of John wasn't inspired by the beginning of Genesis. It was inspired by the talk about wisdom in Proverb 8.