But it’s not a clear statement! There are two basic definitions, one philosophical and the other biblical. The first is that God can do anything imaginable that is non-contradictory, i.e. God has all the power imaginable. The second is that whatever power there is, is God’s, so He rules all things – that’s what Παντοκράτωρ, “Pantokratōr”, means: “All-ruler” or “All-might”.
So depending on who is saying, “God is omnipotent” the meaning can vary, and those hearing it may not understand it as meaning what the speaker intends.
That meaning is part of it, yes. But the first meaning is relational and is easily drawn from the Septuagint: Ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν, “Egō eimi ho ōn”, which can be translated as “I am the being-one”, or less clumsily, “I am the One who is” with the implication that God doesn’t relay on anyone or anything else for His existence but is self-generating – in contrast to the Israelites and the rest of us whose being derives from God.
What’s interesting in the Septuagint is that it isn’t the first two words that mean “I am” that Moses is instructed to tell the Israelites, it’s the second pair, so it reads, “Tell the children of Israel, ‘the Being One’ sent me to you”. As I recall there’s a non-standard Greek text that says, “I AM sent me to you”, but the most common and widespread text is the first one.
Except “Pantokrator” means exactly that all the power there is, is God’s. Martin Luther picked up on this when he said that the power of the thief is God’s power, that God doesn’t just “share out” His power but actively supplies it!
It ‘exists’ in the Old Testament (and the ancient Jews knew that without giving it a name: they understood that YHWH in Heaven is invisible, but YHWH who comes to Earth to deal with people has a solid, visible (human) body [the “two powers” doctrine] and yet there is also the Spirit of God who is distinct. And while it’s subtle in the Old Testament, it’s all over the New Testament starting with the numerous times Jesus asserted His divine identity, equal with the Father, and the times where the Holy Spirit is treated as a Person.
No – the final verb is present tense; if you want to use “exist” to translate it, then the verse states, “Before Abraham existed, I exist” – you don’t get to change the tenses. Besides that, by translating both γίνομαι and εἰμί with the same English word you blur the meaning since they are not the same word. So your translation fails twice; it is thoroughly incorrect.
6000 is not biblical, it is the result of ignorantly reading the Old Testament as something it is not.
I will once again note that there were Hebrew scholars who lived and breathed that language from toddlerhood who concluded from the text of the opening of Genesis that the universe began as something smaller than a grain of mustard (idiom for ‘the smallest size possible’), that it expanded rapidly and was filled with fluid so thick light could not shine (“waters”; “the deep”), that the fluid thinned to let light flow when God commanded light into existence, that the universe is old beyond imagining, and that the Earth is younger but also old beyond counting.
If Hebrew scholars from before Galileo ever heard of a telescope could see that in the opening of Genesis, then calling 6000 years “Biblical” isn’t remotely correct.
I never had to twist anything because the Bible does not contradict modern science. I came at the Creation issue from the perspective of the Hebrew text and only later considered whether what we know from science fits it. I noticed and dismissed the Gap Theory as incompatible with the Hebrew, dismissed Archbishop Ussher as hopelessly ignorant, and pondered the fact that nothing is said about how much time passed between the two distinct Creation stories, but my foundation was always the text.
So I “stand with the Bible as written”, but I refuse to stand with the approach that treats the opening chapters of Genesis like a friend’s great-grandfather’s diary of events he witnessed because it is not even similar. It may look that way in English, but that’s the result of reading without knowledge or understanding, forgetting that the two Creation stories are not modern news reports but are ancient literature of types alien (the first account) to us and fairly familiar (the second account) to us.
I will note in passing that if you want to take the first Creation account as some kind of history, it tells us that God did not make life directly, rather He commanded the sea and the land to “Bring forth” living things – which sounds rather more like what modern science has learned than anything . . . while keeping in mind that the details of that account cannot be taken separately from the account, they can only be treated as literal in order to grasp the message.
One final thought: the order of events in the first Creation account match the order found in the Egyptian and other ancient near eastern creation accounts. That tells us there’s something more going on than just a story!
Except there is. Geologists know from work in the laboratory how fast various minerals in their crystal form can be bent without breaking, plus how fast various rock types can bend without breaking. Applying this to the rocks in the field a minimum age of said rocks can be determined. Examining rocks in the Himalayan mountains, the result is that those mountains are at the very least many hundreds of thousands of years old.
So either the Earth is at the least many hundreds of thousands of years old, or God made it look like it is – and in the latter case that makes God a deceiver.
And that’s just one example from geology; I’ll let people who know biology and such comment in those areas.
This is lying by misdirection. The Big Bang was proposed by a scientist whose bias was “In the beginning God created the heavens and the Earth”.
Besides showing a misunderstanding of how science is done, this is also false: testing and repeating does not require directly observing the events being studied. Finding for example a certain sequence of rock layers in a place where the evidence suggests how they got there can be tested by finding other places with that same or very similar sequences of the same rock layers and seeing what the evidence there indicates is a form of repeating and testing.
I disagree. Let’s talk about it. First off, did the ancient Jews refer to YHWH with “He/Him” or “They/Them”?
Of course I do. It’s called an “historical present”, and we change them to past tense all the time in the Bible so that it makes sense to us in English. One similar example is found in John 14:9…
New International Version
Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time?”
The words translated as “I have been” in most English Bibles (by far) is the present tense ego eimi, or “I am”.
But we don’t say, “I AM married to her for 5 years” in English. We say, “I HAVE BEEN married to her for 5 years”.
That’s just from a proper Greek to English translation standpoint. Then we also must consider the context. The Jews were claiming that Jesus was less than 50 years old, and therefore couldn’t have even known Abraham, right? Did he agree with them - or correct them? Since it is clearly the latter, the correction was to let them know that they were wrong, and in fact even before Abraham came into existence, he had already been in existence. So yes, he did know Abraham, and no, he wasn’t less than 50 years old.
And finally, Trinitarians like to see Jesus somehow identifying himself as YHWH in that passage - based solely on the use of the words “I AM”… the most common pronoun/verb phrase in any language. Of course this is nonsensical, since it would amount to Jesus saying, “Before Abraham came into existence, YHWH!” - and nothing more. What would that even mean? “Before Noah’s flood, YHWH!” “Before the the exodus from Egypt, YHWH!”
See? They are all nonsensical statements that don’t say anything about YHWH. To make a claim of being YHWH, Jesus would have had to use a few more words.
Yes they are two different Greek words. The first means “to come into existence”, and the latter means “to exist”. I most certainly do not “blur the meaning” by translating as, “Before Abraham came into existence, I have existed.”
This is the proper translation, rendering the present tense “ego eimi” as the historical present it clearly is - just like the majority of English translators do in John 14:9 and many other places in the NT.
I’m reading it at face value. And since you’ve already agreed that there isn’t anything in the scriptures themselves to suggest I should take it any other way than at face value, your claim that I’m taking it “as something it is not” is empty.
Did these “Hebrew scholars” come to their conclusions sola scriptura - or are their conclusions extrabiblical?
Psalm 33:9… For He spoke, and it came to be; He commanded, and it stood firm.
What do you mean by “the first Creation account”?
We’re told it was conceptualized by a Catholic Priest. How you know that one man’s heart/mind well enough to say I’m lying is beyond me. Maybe you need a quick history lesson in the “holy Catholic” religion and leaders.
This statement shows your ignorance, not mine. One time unique events that may or may not have happened in the distant past are simply not a part of science - whether you believe that fact or not.
Anyway, your thoughts on the Trinity Doctrine interest me. Let’s focus on that for a while if you don’t mind.
I’m fairly sure that the vast majority of Catholics are decent God-fearing people. I’m just as certain that the Vatican organization is a synagogue of Satan. But since I really want to discuss the Trinity Doctrine that Catholics believe in, let’s start there. I’ve asked a question about whether God is a “He/Him” or a “They/Them” in the scriptures. What is your answer?
I don’t think the answer is entirely consistent but the most common image to me in Scripture is the one that naturally comes from a patriarchal society. God was considered male or described that way more frequently than as a woman. My personal belief is that God does not have sex/gender.
I also don’t really think the Trinity is in the Old Testament. It is not obvious in the New Testament either but it did develop in the church as it reflected on who Jesus was. This leads to some back-reading and typology in the OT (e.g. out of Egypt I called my son).
So you can argue from a canonical perspective that the typology was meant to be there.
From a historical-critical perspective there is no Trinity in the Old Testament anymore than there are computers or automobiles.
It’s all about what hermeneutic you choose to espouse.
I don’t consider the Trinity super important. I don’t think about it often. Fundamentalists and evangelicals and their doctrinal litmus tests bore me. God is God. The Holy Spirit is God’s Spirit. Jesus is the incarnate Son of God. Monotheistic Trinitarian is a contradiction in terms to me but I have no problem with the Nicene Creed nor necessarily with God having a triune nature.
If we asked the historical Jesus if he thought he was equal with God himself, I suspect his answer might surprise a lot of Christians.
If you want to insist on a Biblical interpretation that makes the Bible demonstrably false, that is your choice.
Even the staunchest Geocentrists in Galileo’s time saw the futility in trying to cling to demonstrably false Biblical interpretations.
“Third, I say that if there were a true demonstration that the sun is at the center of the world and the earth in the third heaven, and that the sun does not circle the earth but the earth circles the sun, then one would have to proceed with great care in explaining the Scriptures that appear contrary, and say rather that we do not understand them than what is demonstrated is false.”–Cardinal Bellarmine, 1615
All events at scales larger than single atoms are one-time past occurrences that cannot be exactly replicated. How are complex ones like planet formation any different from simple ones like chemical reactions in terms of necessary methodology?
As the Scriptures are basically male dominated/orientated, the answer should be obvious, But, genderism is not an issue as such in Scripture, so the question becomes academic. Genderism has only become an issue in the last century or so.
Perhaps it should not be an issue in this case. Some people seem to need to emphasise the feminine side of God, but their reasons for it are social rather than spiritual.
In short, the sayings material in John comes from the post Easter church. I am not saying it’s wrong but I think it developed out of Jesus’s own self-views based upon experiences of the post-Easter community.
John reframed synoptic traditions in my mind and he scoffs at the notion of Jesus asking the cup be taken from him.
Not to mention, a lot of the “divinity” sayings of Jesus are only obviously divinity sayings after almost 2000 years of Christian interpretation. Jesus could have had a high view of himself without thinking he was fully God. Though John 1:1 makes his own views on this issue quite obvious.
Plus along the way missing huge amounts of the glory of God by not reading the text for what it is!
Plus that all the things that the Egyptians considered to be gods are nothing but tools made by YHWH-Elohim for His purposes!
That’s not what he said at all. Misrepresenting is bad form; not understanding isn’t all that great, either.
Really? That’s a common talking point that quite commonly turns out to be not the case.
I have – in one geology class we were given rocks to examine and determine their age. We weren’t told where they came from, we weren’t told an age they were estimated to have, we were just given the rocks and the instruction to determine an age.
The youngest rock in that set was at least a quarter-million years old; the oldest was at least two million years old.
So yes, it is possible to “do that”, and it is done regularly by geologists when they encounter formations for which there is no existing data or comparison.
This makes me growl because in what you say you impugn the integrity of just about every science professor I had, especially all the Christian ones, and including the ones who opened every class with a prayer (my favorite was “Lord, be in my heart and in my yearning, also in my mind and in my learning”). Their inherent bias was that God created the heavens and the Earth, and their task was to “think God’s thoughts after Him”.
It also shows a failure to even know what science is. You’re treating it as though scientists are oracles who announce truths, which is totally wrong. “Tossed about” does not mean, as you seem to think, that it is just guesswork/speculation, when it in fact is used for how different scientists see a data set differently and brainstorm or discuss things in an effort to reach a conclusion. In the case of the age of the Earth, every time there is new or better information scientists toss that information about, arguing from what they understand towards a common conclusion – and when they “toss about” a number, it’s to find one that fits everything that’s been learned.
So 13.79 billion years is the latest conclusion that fits all the known facts, it is not the latest “speculation and conjecture”. It is the latest refinement based on numerous different methods for dating the universe. Will it get replaced by a new number? Almost certainly, especially now with the James Webb telescope showing us galaxies older than any we’ve ever seen before, pushing back the earliest known galaxies closer to the start. And just BTW, they’re known to be truly old not just because of distance and redshift but because of the elements in them.
The divinity of Jesus and his relationship to God was a question that led to the very first schism in the Christian church which led to the split between Arianism and Nicene Christianity. This was 400 years after the birth of Christianity. Quite obviously, Nicene Christianity won out and is by far the dominant form of Christianity today. So it was closer to 400 years of Christian interpretation, not 2000. I would hazard a guess that the Nicene interpretation was already present well before the first council.
You mean 300 years? I’m talking about us reading the gospels and the New testament today. We are reading ~1900 year old writings through the lense of orthodoxy that was established a long time ago. I don’t read all pre-Nicene texts as if they all taught this understanding all along. Nicene/Orthodox Christianity was certainly influenced by Christians teaching, preaching and writing that predated it by 300 years. We are dependent on all of it and history is of course usually written or told by the winners.
Certainly parts of it were. That is undeniable since the Gospel of John was written by the turn of the first century. Matthew 28 even has the beginnings of a Trinitarian formula around 50 years after Jesus died (Father, Son, Holy Spirit). Most certainly I would say the historical Jesus had a high view of himself. Whatever it was is historically lost to us. We only know what the early Church came to believe.
