A persistent error soon becomes a serious heresy.

Xeno.of.athens said:

Well, no, it isn't. The Word of God is Jesus, the bible is scripture, the two are not the same thing.

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So what is Jesus calling the "word of God" in Mark 7:13? Is he calling himself the "word of God"?

Like could it be translated as Jesus saying:

"Making void Me by your own tradition, which you have given forth. And many other such like things you do."?

Xeno.of.athens said:

What God said. That is, "the word of God made of no effect through your tradition (teaching)" is what God said.

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I asked what he meant, not what he said. What does "the word of God" mean in Mark 7:13? What is Jesus calling "the word of God"?

Xeno.of.athens said:

In the Gospel according to saint John the Word is called God, he was with God in the beginning, and he made all things, in truth nothing that was made was made without him. He became flesh and dwelt among us; he is the one who has seen God because he is God the only Son.

Some people mistakenly call the holy scriptures "the Word of God".

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Including Jesus, Paul and Peter in the following:

Jn 10:35, Ac 12:24, 1 Th 2:13, 2 Tim 2:9, 1 Pe 1:23, 1 Jn 2:14, etc., etc., etc.

Get a grip. . .you're a wealth of misinformation. . .Jesus, Paul and Peter were not "mistaken."

Clare73 said:

Including Jesus, Paul and Peter in the following:

Jn 10:35, Ac 12:24, 1 Th 2:13, 2 Tim 2:9, 1 Pe 1:23, 1 Jn 2:14, etc., etc., etc.

Get a grip. . .you're a wealth of misinformation. . .Jesus, Paul and Peter were not "mistaken."

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I posted a long list here. They just don't want to concede that what's contained in scripture is called "the word of God" umpteen times.

The Liturgist said:

In all of these cases you can read the Word of God as referring to Jesus Christ. Of course the phrase refers to both, since Scripture is a verbal icon that reveals Christ our True God who reveals God the Father. It could almost be called the word of the word, except this would be an error since Jesus Christ, the incarnate Word, is God (John 1:1-18)

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Calling scripture (the Bible) the "word of God" is perfectly acceptable since that which is contained in scripture (spoken and written) is called the "word of God" by Jesus himself.

John 1:1 and John 10:35 are obviously contextually different. As are all the other numerous times "word of God" appears in the NT.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God John 1:1

Is not in the same context as:

If he called them gods, to whom the word of God was spoken, and the scripture cannot be broken; John 10:35

You're going to have to do hermeneutic backflips to say Jesus isn't clearly calling scripture "the word of God" in John 10:35

Xeno.of.athens said:

The trouble here is that you do not know the difference between what is written and what it means, "what was said" is what the written text means.

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Oh well then explain it to me. Of course Jesus put "word of God" and "scripture" together in John 10:35, but go ahead anyways, I'd love to hear it.

If he called them gods, to whom the word of God was spoken, and the scripture cannot be broken; John 10:35

ozso said:

John 1:1 and John 10:35 are obviously contextually different. As are all the other numerous times "word of God" appears in the NT.

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Actually John 10:35 very clearly uses the term the Word of God to refer to our Lord, because He had delivered the Scriptures to Moses on Mount Sinai, and the verse is a warning to the Christian church to not ignore the commandments of Christ (that can be summarized as loving God above all, and loving our neighbor as ourselves) as the Pharisees had.

We can assert it is using the phrase Word of God to refer to Jesus Christ because otherwise using Logos (Word) and Scriptures (graphe) would have been redundant, and furthermore John clearly established a Christological meaning for the word Logos in John 1. So this is a use of the phrase “Word of God” that is more obviously Christological, particularly when we consider it in the context of chapter 10 as a whole, where Christ asserts his divinity directly by saying “I and the Father are One” and in a similar manner to 10:35 also suggests that He is the Son of God.

Now, to be clear, unlike my friend @Xeno.of.athens I believe the phrase “Word of God” can and does refer to Scripture, but that it also in all cases refers to our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ; it is an example of a Scriptural term that has compound meanings, just like the Greek word Logos (which does not just mean Word, but also refers to Reason, Speech, Intellect, Logic, hence the word Logic, and so on) and the Aramaic word Memra, which had theological connotations in Judaism that corresponded neatly to pre-existing theological connotations in the Greek world due to the use of the word Logos by Platonic philosophers in relationship to God.

Xeno.of.athens said:

I await your defection into the "the bible is God" camp, an almost inevitable result of unfailingly identifying "the Word" with holy scripture.

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Falls somewhat short of addressing the Scriptures presented; i.e., Jn 10:35, Ac 12:24, 1 Th 2:13, 2 Tim 2:9, 1 Pe 1:23, 1 Jn 2:14.

BTW, Jesus is nowhere called the Word of God in the NT. He is the Word, who is God.

Xeno.of.athens said:

I await your defection into the "the bible is God" camp, an almost inevitable result of unfailingly identifying "the Word" with holy scripture.

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I think that’s a little unfair because @Clare73 has conceded that John 1:1-18 refers to Jesus Christ.

Xeno.of.athens said:

I await your defection into the "the bible is God" camp, an almost inevitable result of unfailingly identifying "the Word" with holy scripture.

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Please present an example of this assertion.

The Liturgist said:

Actually John 10:35 very clearly uses the term the Word of God to refer to our Lord, because He had delivered the Scriptures to Moses on Mount Sinai, and the verse is a warning to the Christian church to not ignore the commandments of Christ (that can be summarized as loving God above all, and loving our neighbor as ourselves) as the Pharisees had.

We can assert it is using the phrase Word of God to refer to Jesus Christ because otherwise using Logos (Word) and Scriptures (graphe) would have been redundant, and furthermore John clearly established a Christological meaning for the word Logos in John 1. So this is a use of the phrase “Word of God” that is more obviously Christological, particularly when we consider it in the context of chapter 10 as a whole, where Christ asserts his divinity directly by saying “I and the Father are One” and in a similar manner to 10:35 also suggests that He is the Son of God.

Now, to be clear, unlike my friend @Xeno.of.athens I believe the phrase “Word of God” can and does refer to Scripture, but that it also in all cases refers to our Lord, God and Savior Jesus Christ; it is an example of a Scriptural term that has compound meanings, just like the Greek word Logos (which does not just mean Word, but also refers to Reason, Speech, Intellect, Logic, hence the word Logic, and so on) and the Aramaic word Memra, which had theological connotations in Judaism that corresponded neatly to pre-existing theological connotations in the Greek world due to the use of the word Logos by Platonic philosophers in relationship to God.

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Okay then, calling the Bible "the word of God" is acceptable.

As for scripture and Jesus, Jesus is all throughout scripture in both the OT and NT. It's all about Jesus.

Clare73 said:

BTW, Jesus is nowhere called the Word of God in the NT. He is the Word, who is God.

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Actually, I could just as easily claim that the Scriptures are nowhere called the Word of God. The fact is that in every verse where the term appears, you could substitute Jesus Christ and or The Gospel and the term would still work.

It’s a case of both/and, not either/or. Indeed, I would argue that if the Word of God does not refer to Jesus Christ, then it also cannot refer to the Bible, since the Bible is the Word of God because it reveals Jesus Christ to us, the incarnate Word, who reveals the Father, but we cannot call the Bible the Word of the Word, because that would imply Jesus Christ is not God, so therefore, the Bible is the word of God and Jesus Christ is the Word of God.

Thus I reject your position and that of @Xeno.of.athens as a false dichotomy, in that the two of you each wish to assign one meaning to a phrase that clearly has two, which is built on a Greek word, Logos, that has several meanings, which corresponds to an Aramaic word, Memra, which in turn corresponds to a Hebrew word Davar which have similar properties.

Compound meanings are extremely common in Greek and are also known to pop up in Aramaic, unlike in Latin or especially English where a word usually does not carry multiple overlapping meanings at the same time, but rather, multiple words would be used to describe it. This is a defect of our language. With Logos, the most accurate English translation would be something like “The Word and/or Reason and/or Speech and/or Rationality and/or Logic” and likewise for Prosopon this means “Mask and/or Face and/or Visage and/or Persona and/or Personality and/or Person” with a kind of superficiality that resulted in the Church Fathers at Ephesus in refutation of Nestorius clarifying that the humanity and divinity of Jesus Christ are united in one person and one hypostasis (since the more low-key followers of Nestorius said He had two hypostases, one human and one divine, and the more intense ones said He was a human and divine person with a human and divine hypostasis united by a single divine will, which adds in a bonus heresy, Monothelitism, so with that form of Nestorianism you get two for the price of one).

The Liturgist said:

I think that’s a little unfair because @Clare73 has conceded that John 1:1-18 refers to Jesus Christ.

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Yes it clearly does. But I don't think that's necessarily true of every time "logos" appears in the LXX and the Greek NT manuscripts.

ozso said:

Okay then, calling the Bible "the word of God" is acceptable.

As for scripture and Jesus, Jesus is all throughout scripture in both the OT and NT. It's all about Jesus.

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Yes and yes. But it is also the case that the phrase “Word of God” can and in many cases obviously does refer to Jesus Christ as well as to Sacred Scripture. It is both/and, not either/or.

Clare73 said:

BTW, Jesus is nowhere called the Word of God in the NT. He is the Word, who is God.

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Actually there is:

And he was clothed with a vesture dipped in blood: and his name is called The Word of God. Revelation 19:13 KJV

ozso said:

Whether spoken or written, "word of God" is clearly not a reference to Jesus being the Word.

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Revelation 19:13 is undeniably an exclusively Christological reference, by the way, which I had forgotten about, but remembered just now. And it is significant because it was written by St. John the Theologian and Beloved Disciple, who also wrote the Gospel According to John, and that is of relevance in light of the meaning of John 10:35 - which I argue is chiefly Christological

The Liturgist said:

Yes and yes. But it is also the case that the phrase “Word of God” can and in many cases obviously does refer to Jesus Christ as well as to Sacred Scripture. It is both/and, not either/or.

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But the argument here and elsewhere is that calling the Bible "the word of God" is a big no-no. The usual retort I've seen numerous times is "Jesus is the Word of God, not the Bible!", or words to that effect.