Soul Invictus

Just a few questions.

What language is this passage written in?

Per the KJV it reads:

Outside of being a weird choice of wording, I'd like to know what "come" translates into, and what this word is supposed to mean or indicate.

ETA: Maybe it might be better to ask what the phrase "come in the flesh" means also.


Regards

SI

Chris Weimer

εÏ?χομενον εν σαÏ?κι

What else could it mean besides its literal interpretation of coming into the flesh? Not Flesh -> Come into flesh -> flesh.

CJD

I agree here, Chris. This is especially pertinent if the author of the Johannine letters had an eye on some form of early docetism (e.g., Cerinthianism).

Steven Avery

Excellent question, Soul. Yes, the language is Greek :-) And the tense is worthy of careful note. I'm currently reading a (pre-publication) short book that focuses on the exegesis of this verse. After work I can try to give a couple of quotes.

One of the important aspects is that this is a now and current and continuing relationship, not just the coming of the man Jesus Christ walking Jerusalem and Galilee, also His manifesting through the body of believers in our real time :-)

Shalom,
Steven Avery
Queens, NY
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Julian

My Greek isn't the best so correct me if I make a grammar mistake here.

εÏ?χομενον is a present tense middle/passive participle which would then translate to 'coming.'

The use of εν is interesting since it mirrors a similar anti-separationist change in GMark (if memory serves, I have no books here) where the spirit of god at the baptism was originally said to be descending into (εις) Jesus as opposed in (εν) which it was changed to later to counter the 'heretics.'

If it had been εις instead of εν in this example here, a case could have been made for a separationist idea. The gnostics, docetists and other 'heretics' were quite adept at interpreting the proto-orthodox scripture in a manner that supported their particular religious views. The proto-orthodox became quite careful with their wording as time went by.

Anyways, 'coming in [the] flesh' is the most appropriate translation and would point to a flesh and blood Jesus, although I could think of ways that even that could be 'corrupted' by a gnostic view.

Julian

Soul Invictus

I guess what I'm getting at it that "coming in the flesh" sounds stupid and it is awkward wording...especially when translated into English.

What does this concept encompass? I was born on 12/29/1977. Was this the date that I "came into the flesh"?

Soul Invictus

But what does it mean to come into the flesh? It sounds like an act occured. What does the Greek origination for our "come" mean. Is it equivalent to our verb "is", or is it more synonymous with a different verb?

Chris Weimer

Perhaps, or perhaps nine months earlier for some? It's when the "soul" (in this case God himself) enters into the body. For Judaism, if I read it right, it actually occurs at birth when the child first breathes air. Platonists make the distinction between mind and body, thus for Platonists its when the mind first assimilates itself with the body? MY knowledge here is too deficient to give you a better answer, sorry.

Julian

Be careful, the word here should be 'in,' not 'into.' The distinction is important precisely because 'into' indicates a movement from outside to inside, potentially supporting a separationist viewpoint. I think it is clear that the writer means that Jesus came here in the flesh, as a human being. Greek does have a word for 'to be,' of course, which would throw the rest of the sentence into the form of a predicate nominative. No, the word 'coming' is appropriate here and I don't think that it could be read in any other way than a fleshy arrival.

However, it should be noted that gnostics could easily read such a sentence differently using the techniques used by apologists today. For example, I read somewhere that Sophia (wisdom) also came in the flesh, in the sense that all men possess some of it and it is therefore present in the flesh, although Sophia herself is not actually a human being. Yeah, I know... Theology.

Also, I made a small error here in a previous post. The εις Mark attestation is good being B D and F13 according to Swanson, whereas the other variant is not εν as I indicated earlier but επι (επ') which was still done to avoid the unfortunate 'into.'

Julian

Soul Invictus

Gotcha. I should have read further. So depending on your philosophy "come in the flesh" denotes fetus development or conception, yes?