Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!dimacs.rutgers.edu!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: gross@dg-rtp.dg.com (Gene Gross) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Is Jesus God!! Message-ID: Date: 5 Mar 91 02:46:06 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: Data General Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC Lines: 86 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu Mr. Hill writes: # Is the rendering "a god" consistent with rules of Greek grammar? Some # reference books argue strongly that the Greek text must be translated, "The # Word was God." But not all agree. Bible translator William Barclay states: # "Now normally, except for special reasons, Greek nouns always have the # definite article in front of them, and we can see at once here that theos # the noun for God has not got the definite article in front of it. When a # Greek noun has not got the article in front of it, it becomes rather a # description than an identification, and has the character of an adjective # rather than of a noun....If John had said ho theos en ho logos, using a # definite article in front of both nouns, then he would definitely have # identified the logos with God, but because he has no definite article in # front of theos it becomes a description, and more of and adjective than a # noun. The translation then becomes, to put it rather clumsily, `The Word # was in the same class as God, belonged to the same order of being as God' # ...John is not here identifying the Word with God. To put it very simply, # he does not say that Jesus was God." John 1:1 should be translated the # word was with the God. Let me start with Barclay's translation of John 1:1,2, which reads: "When the world had its beginning, the word was already there; and the word was with God; and the word was God. The word was in the beginning with God." Now, before I quote Barcaly any further, let me provide some background that even Barclay uses in his book on the Gospel of John (Volume 1). The men who translated the Hebrew texts into Aramaic, did not want to ascribe human thoughts and feelings and actions to God. They tried to avoid every anthropomorphism. So, when it came to a passage like Exodus 19:17, where we read "Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet God," the Targums thought this too human a way to speak of God, so they said that Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet the 'word of God.' In the Jonathan Targums the phrase "the word of God" occurs no fewer than about three hundred and twenty times. While it is quite true that it (the phrase) is simply a periphrasis for the name of God, the fact remains that this phrase became one of the commonest forms of Jewish expression. Every Jew was used to hearing this phrase and used to speaking of "the Memra" (the word) of God. John knew this when he wrote his Gospel. Being raised in the Jewish faith, he was very well aware of the language used and used this language in his own writings. His use of "Logos" matches clearly that manner in which Memra was used. Keep this in mind for the rest of this post. I'd like to now quote Barclay on the translation of John 1:1 where John writes "...and the Word was God." "Finally John says that "the word was God." This is a difficult saying for us to understand, and it is difficult because Greek, in which John wrote, had a different way of saying things from the way in which English speaks. When Greek uses a noun it almost always uses the definite article with it. The Greek for God is 'theos' and the definite article is 'ho.' When Greek speaks about God it does not simply say 'theos'; it says 'ho theos.' Now when Greek does not use the definite article with a noun that noun becomes much more like an adjective. John did not say that the word was 'ho theos'; that would have been to say that the word was 'identical' with God. He said that the word was 'theos' -- without the definite article -- which means that the word was, we might say, of the very same character and quality and essence and being as God. When John said 'the word was God' he was not saying that Jesus was identical with God; he was saying that Jesus was so perfectly the same as God in mind, in heart, in being that in him we see what God is like." Notice that Barclay does not say that Jesus was identical to God, but rather Jesus was the "same as God in mind, in heart, in being..." Notice "in being" that is a key phrase here. Barclay is a Trinitarian. To misconstrue what he says as support for some other view is invalid. More imporatantly, when we look at the context of what John says, we are left with no other conclusion but that the Word was God. This being the case, then when we are told in vs. 14 of this same chapter of John that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, the inescapable conclusion is that Jesus is the Word, and therefore, Jesus is God. Notice that I did not say Father. There is a real distinction between Father and Son, as there is between Father and Holy Spirit, and Son and Holy Spirit. En Agape, Gene