That applies to most if not all conversations on this forum.
There is a saying along the lines of
If something has failed every time, why try it again?
Some people seem to think that changing the words of explanation will somehow change the understanding or maybe make it true?
We have all very clear ideas about what we believe and why. The idea is to expound them on their own merit rather than claim some sort of superiority or truth that others do not have.
This would appear to be where the discussion about apologetics would overlap.
Where can I read this in scripture? You later saidâŚ
Which is it, Vinnie? God incarnate, which is never even hinted at in scripture? Or Godâs Son - which is all throughout scripture? It canât be both. The Son of God cannot possibly be the very God he is the Son of.
Yes, as are we. As Godâs firstborn, Jesus is a much closer representation of his and our God than we are.
Jesus is never called the creator of anything in any scripture - except the whip he âcreatedâ out of cords. John 1 (and many other scriptures) identifies Jesus as the one through whom God created - not the one who created.
Even Tertullian, the one who first coined the phrase âtrinityâ, saidâŚ
âHe who creates is one, and he through whom the thing is created is another.â
Hebrews 1:1-2 lays it out very clearlyâŚ
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.
The prophets God spoke through in the past were not the authors of the words spoken, but the vessels through whom God conveyed His message to the people. The Son that God spoke through in the latter days was not the author of the message, but the vessel through whom God conveyed His message. Likewise, the one through whom God created is not the one who created.
Look at the bolded âheâ in the last line of the scripture I posted above. That pronoun refers back to âGodâ in the first line. So the one who made the universe is the one identified by the pronoun âheâ. That one is God, not Jesus. We are not told what exactly it means that God created all things through Jesus, but the two verses above are enough to know, not only that it was God who created the universe, but also that the âGodâ who created and âJesusâ are two different entities.
The Greek word refers to bowing down to pay homage. When the bowing is done towards a man or an angel, English translators mostly use âbowed down before himâ. When it comes to Jesus, they like to use âworshipâ, but the word doesnât inherently mean âGod worshipâ. The Hebrew equivalent works the same way, and causes a little conundrum in 1 Chronicles 29:20âŚ
King James Bible
And David said to all the congregation, Now bless the LORD your God. And all the congregation blessed the LORD God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads, and worshipped the LORD, and the king.
It seems right that they âworshipedâ Yahweh, but not so much King David, right? Yet it is the same word applied to both. Thatâs why most more recent translations sayâŚ
Anyway, that Godâs other angels will bow before Godâs firstborn angel to show obeisance doesnât indicate that these angels are worshiping Jesus as if he is their God any more than the congregation bowing before Yahweh and David meant they were worshiping David as their God.
No scripture gives the role of Creator to Jesus. And passages like Phil 2 further support the overall Biblical teaching that the Most High Creator of heaven and earth sent one of His many servants down from heaven to be born of a woman and to do His will on earth.
Yes â a Redeemer has to be a close relative to both parties for reconciliation and redemption to happen. If it wasnât God who walked the paths of Galilee and Palestine, then we have no Redeemer.
The first one is, but the second is from God. But it has to be read in the context of Godâs âheavenly councilâ of lesser âgodsâ. He isnât saying that man had become like God, but by the lesser beings of heaven.
Examining statements like this in the context of Godâs heavenly council points to a difficulty the ancient Hebrews had and that hasnât really gotten better: they needed an additional word for YHWH-Elohim because putting Him in the same category as other âgodsâ was a false equivalent, but they didnât have another word to use. The best they could do is use singular verbs with the plural âelohimâ for YHWH-Elohim and plural verbs for the other variety, but that still implied too much commonality.
Solid point! The attempt to make ancient Israel polytheist fails in Genesis, Exodus, and onward. They were at worst henotheist, but that still misses the polemical point of Genesis 1 that all the things the nations around Israel considered to be gods were created by YHWH-Elohim as tools! and it still also misses the point of the name âYHWHâ, which tells Moses that only the God of Israel exists in and of Himself â and when you put those two together, itâs plain that the all the âgodsâ around were just what the later prophets re-emphasized: no different than sticks and stones (which didnât deny they existed, just that they were made things with no greater status than a pebble or a twig).
Absolutely. Even though in second Temple Judaism there was a recognition of three powers in heaven all who were YHWH, they were adamant that this was just one God.
Iâd replace âlargelyâ with ârabidlyâ â due to the prophetsâ exposition of the Torah, there was no doubt in the minds of second Temple Jews that there was YHWH-Elohim on the one hand, and things created by Him on the other â period. That was already clear in the first Genesis Creation account, but it took a millennium for it to really get through to the national consciousness.
[Personally I think the breaking point was the Exile; by all the definitions of the ANE at the time, the Exile meant that YHWH had been defeated, but the prophets insisted that was not the case, that YHWH-Elohim was just using those other nations as tools â He was still in charge. That view demotes all other claimants to deity to the status of pretenders at best.]
The scriptures are listed, and so you can read as much surrounding context as you wish. Go ahead and read around Psalm 8:5 and show from the context that David referring to angels as gods wasnât really David referring to angels as gods.
Hereâs another⌠you are free to consider as much surrounding context as you wish.
Exodus 12:12⌠On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD.
Yahweh used the plural for another nationâs gods in the verse above, and many other times.
Your recent posts make me think that you donât actually believe the Bible, and consider much of it to be man-made oral tradition. If that is the case, why would you bother entering this discussion at all?
According to what? The man-made oral tradition known as the Bible? By the way, Jesus is said in scripture to be both âbegotten/bornâ and âcreatedâ. They are synonymous anyway. To âbegetâ someone is to âcreateâ a life that didnât previously exist.
John 17⌠1After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
âFather, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.â
I donât believe it the way you do, but that does not mean I reject it. Your view seems to be shallow and literal.
Psalm 78
My people, hear my teaching;
listen to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth with a parable;
I will utter hidden things, things from of oldâ
3 things we have heard and known,
Scripture is not to be taken lightly or without due thought and consideration.
Iâve brought up their reaction already. Iâve asked why the charge of claiming to be God Himself wasnât leveled against Jesus during his trial. What is your answer to that?
I havenât gotten to Jerryâs explanation yet as Iâm reading through the responses, but please go ahead and give your own answer.
As for your ramblings on historical presents, you are inaccurate. From Greek expert Professor Jason BeDuhnâŚ
âThe majority of translations recognize these idiomatic uses of âI amâ, and properly integrate the words into the context of the passages where they appear. Yet when it comes to 8:58, they suddenly forget how to translate. All the translations except the LB and NWT also ignore the true relation between the verbs of the sentence and produce a sentence that makes no sense in English. These changes in the meaning of the Greek and in the normal procedure for translation point to a bias that has interfered with the work of the translators. No one listening to Jesus, and no one reading John in his own time would have picked up on a divine self-identification in the mere expression âI amâ, which, if you think about it, is just about the most common pronoun-verb combination in any language. The NWT understands the relation between the two verbs correctly. The average Bible reader might never guess that there was something wrong with the other translations, and might even assume that the error was to be found in the NWT.â
Here is the LB translation he mentionsâŚ
58 Jesus: âThe absolute truth is that I was in existence before Abraham was ever born!â
And here is the NWTâŚ
58 Jesus said to them: âMost truly I say to YOU, Before Abraham came into existence, I have been.â
AgainâŚ
Jesus spoke of knowing something about Abrahamâs thoughts.
The Jews said he couldnât have known Abraham because he wasnât even 50 year old.
Jesus CORRECTED their mistake - not by saying, âOh, by the way Iâm God Himselfâ - but by pointing out that he had already been alive before Abraham even came into existence.
Youâre welcome to your delusion that, âBefore Abraham came into existence, YAHWEH!â would be some kind of a sensible answer (âsecret codeâ) to the Jews (who for some odd reason ended up charging Jesus with claiming to be the son of God when they could have just charged him with claiming to be God Himself). I donât have the extreme âJesus IS the very God he is the Son OFâ bias that you do, and so I donât have to pretend such nonsense.
That is not what I said. In Genesis God speaks as âweâ , that is, in the self plural. Unless you are going to claim some sort of âRoyal weâ it is clearly not of God.
In the Decalogue God says that we should have no other Gods. That does not mean that any other God actually exists. It means that we should not worship others as God. Or that anything or person should be addressed as (a) God.
The fact that others believed in other Gods is not in dispute. When God claims to bring judgement He is judging their existence not confirming their reality. On Mt Carmel Bhaal is ridiculed and proven to not exist.
The whole point of the Old Testament Scriptures is to establish the one God, which is why we read it in context, not just verses but the whole thing.
An âunbiblical doctrineâ? What other writings do you hold up to the holy scriptures as equals? And when you say they âbased it on the Hebrew, nothing elseâ, what do you mean? Which Hebrew writings in particular? Link the writings here so we can all read them and come to our own conclusions on whether or not those writings are based on any scriptural teachings. Thanks.
How do you know he was a âbrother Christianâ at all? Even Satan can masquerade as an angel of light, right?
The statement I made is 100% factual and true. There is no ancient Earth and ancient universe in the Bible. Nor is there any empirical scientific evidence of such things in the present. There is only wild speculation about things that cannot be observed, tested, or repeated, and are therefore not a part of science at all.
Please provide the scripture(s) and other link(s) that support your claims.
No, it actually doesnât. A couple examples from prominent Trinitarian scholarsâŚ
"Accordingly, from the point of view of grammar alone, [QEOS HN hO LOGOS] could be rendered âthe Word was a god,âŚâ - Murray J. Harris
âIf a translation were a matter of substituting words, a possible translation of [QEOS EN hO LOGOS]; would be, âThe Word was a godâ. As a word-for-word translation it cannot be faulted.â - C. H. Dodd
And Iâve already shown the note from the 25 Trinitarian scholars who produced the NET BibleâŚ
âColwellâs Rule is often invoked to support the translation of θξĎĎ (qeos) as definite (âGodâ) rather than indefinite (âa godâ) here. However, Colwellâs Rule merely permits , but does not demand, that a predicate nominative ahead of an equative verb be translated as definite rather than indefinite.â
They also sayâŚ
âThe construction in John 1:1c does not equate the Word with the person of God (this is ruled out by 1:1b, âthe Word was with Godâ)âŚâ
Anyone with common sense can understand that if there truly is literally only one god, and that one god is a Trinity of three persons, then it couldnât be said that âGod was WITH God in the beginningâ. What would that even mean? That the Trinity Godhead was WITH the Trinity Godhead? Because in the Trinity Doctrine, the Father alone isnât God. Nor is the Son alone or the Spirit alone. So to say, âGod said/did x, y or zâ is to say the Trinity Godhead said/did x, y or z. There is no âFather Godâ, since the ONLY God in existence is the combo of all three. And the combo certainly couldnât have been WITH the combo in the beginning.
Maybe the ancient scholar Origen can shed some lightâŚ
âWe next notice Johnâs use of the article in these sentences. He does not write without care in this respect, nor is he unfamiliar with the niceties of the Greek tongue. In some cases he uses the article, and in some he omits it. He adds the article to the Logos, but to the name of God he adds it sometimes only. He uses the article, when the name of God refers to the uncreated cause of all things, and omits it when the Logos is named God⌠Now there are many who are sincerely concerned about religion, and who fall here into great perplexity. They are afraid that they may be proclaiming two Gods, and their fear drives them into doctrines which are false and wicked⌠To such persons we have to say that God on the one hand is Very God (Autotheos, God of Himself); and so the Saviour says in His prayer to the Father,4665 âThat they may know Thee the only true God;â but that all beyond the Very God is made God by participation in His divinity, and is not to be called simply God (with the article), but rather God (without article). And thus the first-born of all creation, who is the first to be with God, and to attract to Himself divinity, is a being of more exalted rank than the other gods beside Him, of whom God is the God, as it is written,4666 âThe God of gods, the Lord, hath spoken and called the earth.â⌠The true God, then, is âThe God,â and those who are formed after Him are gods, images, as it were, of Him the prototype. But the archetypal image, again, of all these images is the Word of GodâŚâ
Origen understood that the Bible is the account of many different real, living gods - and the Most High God of all those other gods, who created not only them but also the heaven, earth, sea and everything in our world. Jesus was that Godâs first creation - the archetype of all the other gods that came after him, but before mankind.
He also understood that John knew exactly what he was doing when he included the article for the true God the Word was with, and omitted the article when calling the Word âgodâ.
There does seem to be some evidence, but Iâll leave this one alone since the threefold formula doesnât say anything one way or the other about a Trinity Godhead anyway.
Please show me the scripture where the Jews officially charged Jesus with his crimes, and âmaking himself equal with Godâ was among them.
You are full of ad hominem insults, but not very much else. I just quoted Trinitarian scholars in my last post that refute your assertion that âa godâ couldnât possibly be a valid translation of John 1:1c, right? Perhaps youâre confusing, âI disagree with Mikeâ and âI have refuted Mikeâ or something.
You are 100% correct that the âusâ in Gen 3:22 refers to Yahweh and His divine council of âlesser godsâ/âlesser beings of heavenâ! And can we also agree that the Hebrews/Jews, and Yahweh Himself, openly referred to these living beings as gods all throughout the Bible?
Because that would be a great starting off point for everyone involved in this discussion.
I donât know of any scriptures to support your assertion here. But I do see scriptures that refer to all these false gods as things that are not âbeingsâ at all as you seem to presume. Jesus refers to âMammonâ as a god we shouldnât serve. âMammonâ essenetially means money or riches or material wealth - not anything that is locatable as an actual being. In Deuteronomy 4 (verse 28 and on) we read: â⌠you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.â So just because things are personified as beings or referred to as âgodsâ doesnât at all mean that they are actual beings - spiritual or otherwise, even though the worship of all these false âgodsâ very much does have spiritual implications for us.
I run into this occasionally when the Creed is read in English; in that language, it isnât exactly obvious that âbornâ here doesnât indicate that there wasnât ever a situation where âthere was only God and then there was God who birthed a sonâ. I put in italics the parts that in Greek make it clear:
âbornâ is in a Greek form that indicates not a time but a state or condition; it tells us that the Son was always in a state of being begotten
âbefore all agesâ means it was that way out of eternity, and thus reinforces the above by indicating the eternal condition of the Son vis a vis the Father
âconsubstantialâ indicates that everything that is true of the Fatherâs being is also true of the Sonâs being, and thus the Son was always there with the Father, and indeed âFatherâ and âSonâ are indicative of this; since God is unchanging, then âFatherâ and âSonâ are not titles pinned on happenstance but on eternal condition â God has always been Father and this also there has always been God the Son as well.
So the Greek makes plain that this is an eternal Trinity, not one that developed at some point. âTrinityâ is thus an eternal truth about the Godhead.
He did so repeatedly.
âJesus never claimed to be Godâ is the battle cry of the uneducated who are self-satisfied in their lack of knowledge.
Absolutely.
Except even the second Temple Jews recognized that there is more than one YHWH â not different versions of YHWH, but different âeditionsâ, so to speak, that exist side-by-side. Besides that, every time âelohimâ is used with a singular verb it posits plurality of a single subject.
That would mean three different statements of Creation.
But in both linguistic and literary terms, 1:1 is part of the first Genesis Creation account (which spills over into the next chapter because whoever divided the chapters wasnât very good at reading literature).
That said, the first Creation account has nothing to do with âhow the things familiar to humans appeared in the created Earthâ. As a story of a mighty accomplishment of a great king â the simplest of the literary forms in Genesis 1 â it is peripherally concerned with âthings familiar to humansâ, but its point is that this âKing YHWH-Elohimâ created all that exists by His own power. As a story of a temple establishment and inauguration, it is again peripherally concerned with âthings familiar to humansâ, but its main point is that what seems familiar isnât after all because all of it is the temple of the Creator and the things He filled it with. Both forms are concerned with the relationship of YHWH-Elohim to His Creation, and only secondarily with anything being familiar to humans.
Though if you were going to fashion a creation account, by necessity youâd fill it with the parts of creation that are familiar to your audience!
The third intent of the first Creation account is revealed in that the writer takes the Egyptian versionâs order of events and turns the Egyptian version on its head by turning everything in the Egyptian version that was considered a god or divine and demoting them all to the status of mere created tools of YHWH-Elohim. In that intent nothing is really about being familiar to humans, it is all about a polemic that in essence declares to the Egyptians âAll your gods are belong to YHWHâ and to the Israelites âYour YHWH-Elohim is master of allâ.
I donât understand what that means. Are you saying that when God said, âLet us make man in our imageâ that it was one member of the Godhead speaking to the other two members?
I agree that we are not to worship other gods. I disagree that Godâs command to have no other gods before/above Him means that no other gods exist. It seems to imply that there are other gods - otherwise it would be senseless to tell people to not place any of those other gods before/above Him.
But our disagreement about that commandment is easily settled by the rest of the Bible anyway. Iâve already shown you a few scriptures that speak of other real, living gods (Godâs spirit sons). Here is another that is explicitâŚ
The word translated in verse 1 as âdivine councilâ is âelâ (god). This psalm describes the Most High God, Yahweh, presiding over âthe assembly of godsâ and pronouncing judgement upon some of those gods for doing the exact opposite of what they were supposed to be doing. And Yahwehâs judgement was that, although being created immortal and called gods by Yahweh Himself, they would end up dying like flesh and blood men die.
What? When Yahweh said that He would punish the gods of Egypt, you think He really meant âthe gods of Egypt arenât realâ? I think the gods of Egypt are among those upon whom Yahweh passed judgment in Psalm 82.
Numbers 33⌠3The Israelites set out from Rameses on the fifteenth day of the first month, the day after the Passover. They marched out defiantly in full view of all the Egyptians, 4who were burying all their firstborn, whom the Lord had struck down among them; for the Lord had brought judgment on their gods.
Did Yahweh bring judgment upon âthe thought that the gods of Egypt were realâ?
Hereâs a better look at itâŚ
Jeremiah 46:25⌠The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: âI am about to bring punishment on Amon god of Thebes, on Pharaoh, on Egypt and her gods and her kings, and on those who rely on Pharaoh.
Here Yahweh identifies Amon, god of Thebes, and Egyptâs other gods as separate entities from Pharaoh and Egyptâs other kings. One couldnât sensibly claim that the single word âpunishmentâ refers to one thing in the case of Pharaoh and the other kings, but something else in the case of Amon and the other gods. These are all living entities who will be (have been) punished by Yahweh.
Show me in scripture that Baal was âproven to not existâ.
2 Timothy 3:16⌠All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousnessâŚ
Add to that the many times Jesus made his case with the words, âIt is writtenâŚâ. Written where?
And add to that the question I asked but you didnât answer: What OTHER writings do you hold in higher esteem than the scriptures, so that they might take precedence over the scriptures if the two disagree?
1 John 4:1⌠Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
What do we test those spirits against, Richard, if not against the scriptures?
Now Iâm not saying the Bible is the ONLY book of information in the history of mankind. Iâm saying it is the ULTIMATE authority if another source of information conflicts with it.
