civic
Well-known member
The messiah is not mentioned once in John’s Prologue. Nice try though.
Those who deny the Lord Jesus is God (=YHWH) are not saved (2 Corinthians 11:4)
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civic
Well-known member
The messiah is not mentioned once in John’s Prologue. Nice try though
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.
6 There was a man sent from God whose name was John. 7 He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. 8 He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
9 The true light that gives light to everyonewas coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— 13 children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory,the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, “This is the one I spoke about when I said, ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.’”)16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and[b] is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
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Matthias
Well-known member
I agree. The Messiah is not mentioned in John’s prologue. John is not speaking about the Messiah in his prologue.
Matthias
Well-known member
John is speaking in his prologue about what existed in God’s own logos. That’s what was with him. The Son existed only in God’s logos until what existed only in God’s logos became flesh. That’s John’s understanding of incarnation, not trinitarianism’s understanding of incarnation.
Trinitarians are reading the Son into the text of John’s prologue, not out of that text.
Trinitarians are reading the Son into the text of John’s prologue, not out of that text.
civic
Well-known member
No He is speaking about the Eternal Son, God in the flesh. The Eternal Word who is God Himself the creator
Matthias
Well-known member
That’s trinitarian theology. I’m talking about John’s Jewish theology.
Matthias
Well-known member
“In the beginning was the Messiah, and the Messiah was with God, and the Messiah was God.”
Why didn’t John write this, if that what he had in mind?
He doesn’t have the Son in mind. He doesn’t have the Messiah in mind. What he has in mind is God’s unspoken word which, when spoken, created, brought into existence or being, everything which was in his plan.
Matthias
Well-known member
I don’t recall now where I read it on this forum, but someone posted here that the NT is a Jewish book. That’s an excellent observation. The Hebrew Bible and the NT combined, the Bible, is a Jewish book.
The Bible isn’t a trinitarian book. Trinitarianism came much later in history and is read back into the Bible. It leaves those who do it with a deity who is not the God of the Jews.
Trinitarianism, as Gregory of Nyssa explicitly says, destroys the Jewish dogma.
The Bible isn’t a trinitarian book. Trinitarianism came much later in history and is read back into the Bible. It leaves those who do it with a deity who is not the God of the Jews.
Trinitarianism, as Gregory of Nyssa explicitly says, destroys the Jewish dogma.
Peter
Member
In John 1 the Father did not create anything. It was the Word who is Jesus that created all things and nothing that was made was made without Him.
Matthias
Well-known member
In the beginning was the second person of the Trinity, and the second person of the Trinity was with God, and the second person of the Trinity was God.”
If that is what John had in mind, why didn’t he write it?
Je didn’t write it because he didn’t have it in mind. He knows nothing about a second person of the Trinity. That concept was developed by the church, hundreds of years after he died.
When John is resurrected to life when the Messiah returns and learns of this, he’s going to hearing about something which he didn’t know anything about in his lifetime.
Matthias
Well-known member
John himself wouldn’t have agreed with that. John is a Jew. He believed that his God - the God and Father of a fellow Jew - is the creator.
A person, as my conversation partners in this thread have pointed out, isn’t an “it”.
Consider reading the prologue as rendered in the Geneva Bible - the Bible of the Protestant Reformation.
The word there is “it,” not “he”. The trinitarian translators see in John’s writing that John is not speaking about a person who was with God, but rather God’s own word that was with God.
Just as God’s word is with God, so is your word with you.
When God speaks his word, he speaks it.
When you speak your word, you speak it.
Peter
Member
The Father is not mentioned in John 1 and the Word is identified as Jesus in John 1. And the Word who was God created every thing.
APAK
Active member
You are not serious here are you? Those words of yours, meant as mine, never were written by me or even implied in thought. The Father's spirit is the 'it.' I would have thought you would have understand this point of mine by now. In Genesis it speaks of the Spirit hovering of the empty/void earth etc. This is the same one, the Spirit of the Father.
You know there is a big difference between the Father God as one person and his composition of two essential core attributes. The spirit is one of his core attributes besides his word - his sense of expression that is applied to his spirit (the it) for execution and completion as in create something..
So I hope that clears this up for you....
Matthias
Well-known member
So then you actually see only one person in John 1, Jesus.
Trinitarians see two persons in John’s prologue.
Do you self-identify as trinitarian? Or do you self-identify as non-trinitarian?
Matthias
Well-known member
Jesus Only. That rings a bell.
Matthias
Well-known member
I don’t use unitarian sources when speaking with trinitarians and binitarians. Why? They tend to reject them out of hand. In the words of one man (I think he was a binitarian, but he might have been a trinitarian, “Anything unitarian is unfit to be read. It belongs in a trash bin. Unitarians are the spawn of Satan. Don’t believe a word that any of them say.”
So, I’m going to use a unitarian source to try to speak with this gentleman? No. That would be a futile effort.
Will the man listen to what a trinitarian source has to say? Maybe. Maybe not. Try, and find out.
The link I’m providing in this post is intended for a unitarian audience. Trinitarians and binitarians are welcome - more than welcome, in fact - to read it. It addresses the reason why Tyndale and other trinitarian scholars did what they did in their translations of John’s prologue.
integritysyndicate.com
So, I’m going to use a unitarian source to try to speak with this gentleman? No. That would be a futile effort.
Will the man listen to what a trinitarian source has to say? Maybe. Maybe not. Try, and find out.
The link I’m providing in this post is intended for a unitarian audience. Trinitarians and binitarians are welcome - more than welcome, in fact - to read it. It addresses the reason why Tyndale and other trinitarian scholars did what they did in their translations of John’s prologue.
Understanding Logos - The true meaning of the Word in the prologue of John
Earliest English translations of the 16th century translated the Prologue of John 1:1-3 interpreting the Word (Logos) as an “it” - an attribute of God
integritysyndicate.com
Matthias
Well-known member
The Geneva Bible is a trinitarian translation. Let’s forget for a moment that the GB is being quoted by a unitarian. In fact, let‘s assume that unitarians don’t even exist. There is no such thing as a unitarian. There is not a unitarian to be found anywhere on the planet.
The date is October 11,1620. The location is somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. A boat carrying the Pilgrims is a month away from landing on the shores of America. A Pilgrim is below deck with his family, reading the Gospel of John, from the Geneva Bible. The Pilgrims aren’t alarmed at what they’re reading in John’s prologue. There is no commotion, no angry shouts of protest. No calls to toss the Bible into the sea. Why? Don’t the Pilgrim’s think the translators are calling calling Jesus an “it”? No. They don’t.
Fast forward to September 11, 2023. It’s a little over four hundred years later. The Pilgrims, trinitarians, are long ago dead and buried. The location is an Internet discussion forum. A trinitarian picks up the trinitarian produced Bible used by the Pilgrim’s on their journey to America and turns to the Gospel of John. As the trinitarian reads John’s prologue he’s reading exactly what his spiritual ancestors read four centuries earlier. The trinitarian is shocked at what he’s reading. There is a commotion, there is an angry protest. There is a call to destroy the Geneva Bible. Whoever the trinitarian scholars were who produced it must have been grammar illiterates. The brightest minds in 16th century Protestantism were calling a person an ”it”. And not just any person. The trinitarians who produced the Geneva Bible were calling the second person of the Trinity an “it”.
Has the 21st century trinitarian reader carefully thought this through? Does the 21st century trinitarian reader really believe that the trinitarians who came before him believed the second person of the Trinity is an “it”?
The reaction of the 17th century trinitarian reading the Geneva Bible and the 21st century trinitarian reading the Geneva Bible are polar opposites. It never even crossed the minds of the 17th century reader of the Geneva Bible that the trinitarian scholars who produced the Geneva Bible were calling the second person of the Trinity an “it”. It shouldn’t cross the mind of the 21st century reader that the trinitarian scholars who produced the Geneva Bible were calling the second person of the Trinity an “it”.
The trinitarian reader in the 17th century didn’t slander the trinitarian scholars who produced the Geneva Bible. Neither should the trinitarian reader in the 21st century.
The date is October 11,1620. The location is somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. A boat carrying the Pilgrims is a month away from landing on the shores of America. A Pilgrim is below deck with his family, reading the Gospel of John, from the Geneva Bible. The Pilgrims aren’t alarmed at what they’re reading in John’s prologue. There is no commotion, no angry shouts of protest. No calls to toss the Bible into the sea. Why? Don’t the Pilgrim’s think the translators are calling calling Jesus an “it”? No. They don’t.
Fast forward to September 11, 2023. It’s a little over four hundred years later. The Pilgrims, trinitarians, are long ago dead and buried. The location is an Internet discussion forum. A trinitarian picks up the trinitarian produced Bible used by the Pilgrim’s on their journey to America and turns to the Gospel of John. As the trinitarian reads John’s prologue he’s reading exactly what his spiritual ancestors read four centuries earlier. The trinitarian is shocked at what he’s reading. There is a commotion, there is an angry protest. There is a call to destroy the Geneva Bible. Whoever the trinitarian scholars were who produced it must have been grammar illiterates. The brightest minds in 16th century Protestantism were calling a person an ”it”. And not just any person. The trinitarians who produced the Geneva Bible were calling the second person of the Trinity an “it”.
Has the 21st century trinitarian reader carefully thought this through? Does the 21st century trinitarian reader really believe that the trinitarians who came before him believed the second person of the Trinity is an “it”?
The reaction of the 17th century trinitarian reading the Geneva Bible and the 21st century trinitarian reading the Geneva Bible are polar opposites. It never even crossed the minds of the 17th century reader of the Geneva Bible that the trinitarian scholars who produced the Geneva Bible were calling the second person of the Trinity an “it”. It shouldn’t cross the mind of the 21st century reader that the trinitarian scholars who produced the Geneva Bible were calling the second person of the Trinity an “it”.
The trinitarian reader in the 17th century didn’t slander the trinitarian scholars who produced the Geneva Bible. Neither should the trinitarian reader in the 21st century.
I only looked at what was written about Rev 19:11-16 and I could only gasp at the article's DD ineptitude. It abstracted away Rev 19:11-16 based on what was written in Rev 19:10. Actually, Rev 19:10 was written to explain why we should not worship angels, not to abstract away the Word of God. John was not to worship the angel but God alone. Since John was worshiping the angel in response to the prophecy given, the angel ensured that John understands that Jesus is the source of the communication and He alone is worthy of that worship (cf. Luke 4:8; Acts 14:11–15). We are to worship not the purveyor of the message but the Source of the message. And that is a perfect lead-in verse into the Word of God as vividly presented in Rev 19:11-16.I don’t use unitarian sources when speaking with trinitarians and binitarians. Why? They tend to reject them out of hand. In the words of one man (I think he was a binitarian, but he might have been a trinitarian, “Anything unitarian is unfit to be read. It belongs in a trash bin. Unitarians are the spawn of Satan. Don’t believe a word that any of them say.”
So, I’m going to use a unitarian source to try to speak with this gentleman? No. That would be a futile effort.
Will the man listen to what a trinitarian source has to say? Maybe. Maybe not. Try, and find out.
The link I’m providing in this post is intended for a unitarian audience. Trinitarians and binitarians are welcome - more than welcome, in fact - to read it. It addresses the reason why Tyndale and other trinitarian scholars did what they did in their translations of John’s prologue.
Understanding Logos - The true meaning of the Word in the prologue of John
Earliest English translations of the 16th century translated the Prologue of John 1:1-3 interpreting the Word (Logos) as an “it” - an attribute of God
Rev 19:11-16 conclusively proves that the Word of God is a "He" and not an "it".
I haven't read the rest of the article but if everything is handled as poorly as Rev 19 was handled then it's not worth anyone's time to read it.
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