"In The Beginning was THE WORD..."

ORMLY,AS FAR AS CREATING EVIL GOES , WHAT DOES THE LORD MEAN WHEN HE SAYS IN ISAIAH 45:7 "I FORM THE LIGHT ,AND CREATE DARKNESS,I MAKE PEACE, AND CREATE EVIL, I THE LORD THAT DO ALL THESE THINGS"....formans lucem et creans tenebras faciens pacem et creans malum ego Dominus faciens omnia haec......latin vulgate

MrGoodbar said:

Respectfully, this is theology influencing translation.

I don't agree with the statement about an anarthrous noun preceeding a verb. Its a statement made to defend a position. The statement made by John is not some categorical simile reference. There are words in the greek for that, and they are not here.

How do you answer the context of the other sections of John, namely "before Abraham was, I am?" The action of Jesus walking on the water, of his speech about "the good shepherd..." etc...

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Jesus can do all that because he is the son of God....

He existed before Abraham was born....

and he can do miracles...

Because he is a god....

Anyone else ponder on why its worded this way?

**IN** The BEGINNING?

Is that referring to "a time" or a person if Christ Jesus IS named "The Beginning" ? (Rev 22:13)

**IN** The BEGINNING is it speaking of Him? or a time in this context?

Col 2:9 For **IN** HIM **dwelleth** all the fulness of the Godhead **bodily**

John 14:10 Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that **dwelleth** in me, he doeth the works.

The Word (God) made flesh (bodily form).

Another place I find interesting is the word (in the Beginning) WAS God verses the words CALLED God. It speaks of (elsewhere, and unrelated) of Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is CALLED God and showing himself that he IS GOD. It will just be HOW something is "worded" that will irk me sometimes.Yet we know He is CALLED the Word OF GOD= See ME = SEE THE FATHER. I always wondered why it doesnt say IS GOD. I'll just notice what "is called" (in wording) and was wondering if anyone else noticed that.

In relation to Abraham (of whom He says) before Abraham I AM it appears to be shown in Romans 4:15 which shows (in the context of Him) that God was calling things that were NOT AS THOUGH they were. Thats scriptural as well.

Rom 4:15 (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which BE NOT **as though they were**.

Which would get a bit off topic to discuss how Paul said they have not many fathers but that He himself had "begotten them" through the gospel. Elsewhere it shows that the gospel was preached of GOD "to Abraham" and it is Paul (who had begotten them) who had said (similiarly) He was not taught it of man but RECEIVED It by a revelation of Jesus Christ (this) GIVEN HIM of GOD. This and many other such like things remind me of Abraham as they can pertain to him (or rather, "before this faith" came) or "before Abraham" (even Paul) "I AM" (in these respects). Paul talks about them being sanctified by the faith "IN ME" and him being an example (or patern himself). All of this pertaining to the Gentiles (to whom Paul was sent). I know this part is slightly off topic, but I needed to explain (somewhat) concerning what I was looking at (at least in part).

So really, just regard the first part of the post concerning "the beginning" and "that" being a name for Jesus Christ. How do you guys see that?

Peace

Fireinfolding

scriptures said:

Jesus can do all that because he is the son of God....

He existed before Abraham was born....

and he can do miracles...

Because he is a god....

Click to expand...

A. Jesus' claim that "before Abraham was, I am" is a statement of divinity. "I am" is a rough translation of the Hebrew "YHWH" or name for God. It is not simply an identification that he existed before Abraham. To claim so is to ignore Hebrew scriptures and way the community at the time received the statement (wanted to stone him).

B. So doing miracles makes one "a" god? By this logic, the disciples were gods as well?

C. The good shepherd and power over the water also call to mind images from the Hebrew scriptures of God and His power alone.

MrGoodbar said:

A. Jesus' claim that "before Abraham was, I am" is a statement of divinity. "I am" is a rough translation of the Hebrew "YHWH" or name for God. It is not simply an identification that he existed before Abraham. To claim so is to ignore Hebrew scriptures and way the community at the time received the statement (wanted to stone him).

B. So doing miracles makes one "a" god? By this logic, the disciples were gods as well?

C. The good shepherd and power over the water also call to mind images from the Hebrew scriptures of God and His power alone.

Click to expand...

Mr. Goodbar, I suggest you check the book of Mr. BeDuhn....

and be informed about the correct translation of Jn 8:58 and how it is not related at all to Ex 3:14...

Here is the website

http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/newworldtranslation/john8.58files.htm

I read through these links, and am pretty unimpressed by the arguments.

The biggest fallacy in this line of thinking is the assumption that the fourth evangelist suddenly brings a polytheistic theology to this conversation. It can be argued the the Israelites were not strictly monotheistic until the exile (a position that I do not agree with, but it could be at least argured) but can't be argued much after. So for over 500 years, this is the theology, and also the interpretation of the historians who wrote/edited much of the old testament.

Your interpretation is forced to offer "alternative" interpretations to tons of verses in order to support it.

It ignores multiple CONTEXTUAL evidences that contradict it. Christ saying "the father and I are one," "No one has seen heaven except the Son of Man," the relation of Jesus to the "good shepherd" and use of the "ressurection" language in the Lazarus episode. All have to be explained away...

I am not at all impressed with the knowledge of Greek demonstrated by the authors of this website. Particularly their argument about mixing tenses in english. You want to open that can of worms in the greek, enjoy attempting to translate directly every use of the present active indicative, aorist, and imperfect tense in a narrative and make it work plainly in english. Tenses connote individual actions and continuing actions in ways we don't have simple words to describe. Thus, the "we cannot mix our tenses in such a way" argument demonstrates either a lack of knowledge of Greek and english translation, or an intentional misleading.

Additionally, presenting the word order of the greek transliteration proves absolutely nothing, and seems to be used by the author to impress and confuse someone who does not know the original language.

Both seem to me (someone who has a basic working knowledge of theology and original language) to indicate an intent to try to convince a reader who will seem impressed by their knowledge, and who will not dig too deeply into their argument.

I can point you to a number of PUBLISHED theology works by respected scholars who would disagree profoundly.

Are trying to say Mr. BeDuhn is not a respected scholar?

Are you saying Mr. BeDuhn is wrong when he said Jn 8:58 and Ex. 3:14 are not the same?

I did not say that he was not respected. I can say that his view is most likely in the minority of Greek scholarship.

And I will say that it does not appear that it is his work that I was reading when I wrote that, but someone who was trying to paraphrase his argument, and was doing it poorly. The author of that part of the website could not even transliterate consistently. Not to mention that I don't have the septuagint in front of me, but my Greek professors would have shot me if I translated "ego eimi ho on" as "I am the being." I can buy "I am the one who is" or "I am that which will be" or "I am what I am."

You can beat around it all you want, and say the wording of the two is not IDENTICAL, which is apparently what most of the arguments seem to do, or imply that the term is used to connote something different, but these arguments fail to convince that the allusion is clearly to the personal divine name of YHWH, which is mentioned many more times after it is introduced in Exodus. Every time you see "the LORD" it is the tetregrammaton "YHWH" in Hebrew (in most translations, I must admit that I am not intimately familiar with the NWT).

The rest of the allusions in John support this. God is described in Isaiah and Ezekiel as the one who will shepherd Israel, since its human shepherd-kings have failed. Jesus describes himself as the good shepherd in John. In the Ancient near East, and in Genesis as well, God was seen as prevailing over the chaotic sea. Christ walks on water in all 4 gospels. Again, this is a major point of John, not John 1, not John 8:58, but the entire book.

Additionally, this is coming at the translation from the presupposition that there is more than one God. I have not yet heard my contextual evidence argued against, for even Furuli stated that contet will determine the translation, in which he argues the immediate but not the broader context.

Another problem is that the arguments become overly semantic, and are clearly bringing their theological presupposition to the argument, while claiming that it is the overwhelming majority of Christianity who is biased. Since I will state again that the Israelites at this time cannot be argued to be polytheistic. So why would they attempt to stone him if he had just claimed to be one god among many? Who existed before Abraham and could have existed still at the time of Jesus? You have to rewrite Hebrew theology to come up with an answer other than the one and only God.

Jesus was to be stoned for saying that he existed before Abraham was born....

Thats all......

scriptures said:

Jesus was to be stoned for saying that he existed before Abraham was born....

Thats all......

Click to expand...

Please then give me an explanation of the Pharisaic beliefs at the time and why this would have offended them.

Additionally, there is much more to my post than this. Your one-line response to this, which is basically the equivalent of saying "no its not" and nothing more, is hardly worthy of continued discussion. I've argued my points, if you wish to bring more to the discussion, I will continue, if not, then God bless...

57 Then the Judeans asked, ‘You aren’t fifty years old yet, and still you’ve seen Abraham?’
58 And Jesus replied, ‘I tell you the truth, I existed before Abraham was born.’
59 And at that, they picked up rocks to throw them at him, but Jesus [went and] hid. Then he left the Temple.

The issue here was not about Jesus identity, it was about Jesus age.

The above translation is correct in contrast to the common translation which link EX 3:14 and capitalizing the "I AM".

That's all about the text. No hidden meaning. No trinity just like Jn 1:1