Chris Weimer

You accusing me of superimposing a doctrine? Laughable praxeus, especially in light of your affirmed beliefs. No, I'm not a mythicist, and yes, I disagree with Mr. Doherty on several things. But that is irrelevant when taking the passage into grammatical consideration. Let me reiterate what I said earlier - what seems best to me may be wrong, I'm not passing a judgement here. I'm not concluding anything. I'm giving my opinion.

Amaleq13

Please avoid making accusations of lying or otherwise speculating about the motivations of members. This behavior is against the rules but, more importantly, has no place in a rational discussion. There is a significant difference between establishing by evidence and argument that the claims of another are untrue and asserting that they are attempting to deliberately deceive others. The former is welcome while the latter is not.


Amaleq13, BC&H moderator

Steven Avery

And for the third time. Have you giving a grammatical analysis of the 2 John 7 passage ? (or are you simply stating what you think is the best contextual understanding ?)

Are you stating that you have done a grammatical analysis and that it supports the idea of 2 John 7 representing a past tense, completed action ?

Shalom,
Steven Averyhttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/Messianic_Apologetic

Chris Weimer

Grammatical analysis? How else could I read it first? That's necessary to read it, wouldn't you think?

οι μη ομολογουντες Ιησουν ΧÏ?ιστον εÏ?χομενον εν σαÏ?κι...

Who, confessing not that Jesus Christ having come in flesh...

Either way, Jesus would have already come in the flesh. In the classical sense, he probably would still be here. In the NT sense, he might have already gone. It's ambiguous. So we go from context.

Steven Avery

2 John 1:7 (KJB)
For many deceivers are entered into the world,
who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
This is a deceiver and an antichrist.

Thanks for giving us your translation.
Now we will discuss with this step by step,
although still on grammar and translation more than context.

=============================
EARL'S ERRORS

Earlier, Earl gave two reasons for his ideas about 2 John 7 ..

1) Participles ...adopt a tense in relation to the main verb.
In this case the verb is "went forth" which is an aorist, or past tense.

2) 2 John 7 is "governed" by 1 John 4:2

You haven't defended either of these, which is very understandable. The first was simply flat-out wrong, very easy to see in the English construction, (one may say that the present tense "confessing" is the main verb, but NOT "going forth" or "went forth", and even with "confessing" it would be easy to misuse the "main verb" relationship). And the second is wrong as well, simply a way to avoid dealing with the significant difference in the two sections.

Instead you have given your own translation (kudo, finally), however you are giving us a past continuous tense, which disagrees with virtually every known scholarly translation.

=========================================
TRANSLATIONS

KJB - who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh
Young - who are not confessing Jesus Christ coming in flesh;
Rotherdam - who do not confess Jesus Christ coming in flesh
NAS - who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh.
ASV - they that confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh.
ESV - those who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.
HCSB - they do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh.
Webster - who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
Darby - they who do not confess Jesus Christ coming in flesh
NetBible- who do not confess Jesus as Christ coming in the flesh

The reason for the disagreement is simple, your past-tense translation is not consistent with the Greek present participle.

======================================
GRAMMAR

http://www.preteristarchive.com/Crit...dt_tim_ca.html
Present: Continual Action, normally in the present time, sometimes the future. Best translated by the present participle "He is running."

http://www.cogsci.indiana.edu/farg/h...an/grkgram.htm
Present, denoting both continuous and habitual aspects ... (For example: Τον βοηθάω Ï„ÏŽÏ?α: I am helping him now; Or: Τον βοηθάω κάθε φοÏ?ά: I help him every time.) Usually the context provides disambiguation. Tense name in Greek: Modern: Ενεστώτας; Ancient: ’Ενεστώς.

============================================
GRAMMAR DISCUSSION OF 2 JOHN 7

"in 2 John 7 .. John uses the present participle, "is coming", which so unavoidably specifies an action continuing in the presentthat respected translators ... have rendered this verse as "Jesus contiinues to come" (Williams)." - Confessing Jesus Has Come in the Flesh

2 John 7 - Schep - The Resurrection Body
"In .. II John:7, the anti-Christian deceivers are portrayed as men who “confess not that Jesus Christ cometh in the flesh.� The expression “in (the) flesh: is the same as in I John 4:2, but it is remarkable that the present participle has replaced the perfect participle. This is generally understood as a timeless present"

www.btinternet.com/~MisPar/GNotes/week235.doc
Greek Notes - Peter Misselbrook
Marshall comments, "The present continuous tense used is suprising when compared with 1 John 4:2: 'Jesus Christ has come in the flesh.' We might have expected a simple past tense, 'Jesus Christ came in the flesh' (cf. 1 Jn 5:6), as a confession of the historical reality of the incarnation in a point of past time, It seems unlikely, therefore, that the false teachers simply denied the reality of the incarnation. The use of the present and perfect tenses becomes significant if the point is that Jesus Christ has come and still existed 'in the flesh.'

=============================================

In summary: you have played around a bit with the translation, (exactly what I asked you not to do), in order to match Earl and/or your contextual and interpretative views of the Johannine epistles.

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

Chris Weimer

My apologies, praxeus, it actually is a present participle.

The passage in full:

"οτι πολλοι πλανοι εξηλθον εις τον κοσμον, οι μη ομολογουντες Ιησουν ΧÏ?ιστον εÏ?χομενον εν σαÏ?κι, ουτος εστιν ο πλανος και ο αντιχÏ?ιστος."

οτι - for
πολλοι πλανοι - many deceivers
εξηλθον - (aorist indicative active 3rd-person plural) - came out
εις τον κοσμον to the world
οι - who
μη - not
ομολογουντες - (present active participle masculine nominative plural) - confessing
Ιησουν ΧÏ?ιστον - Jesus Christ
εÏ?χομενον - (present middle/passive participle masculine accusative singular)
εν σαÏ?κι - in flesh

Where I got perfect from is beyond me. Tiredness, maybe. A day off of work, look what it did for me

Even as your sources cited said: the past would look better here, but why is it not? The relationship between main verb and participle stands - perhaps the εξηλθον is indicative of what ομολογουντες and εÏ?χομενον mean?

A good place to ask would be B-Greek.

pharoah

All that the above quotes show is that Christianity is full of complete nonsense. It's one thing to say that Jesus is still here spiritually; it's an altogether different proposition to say that he's here in the flesh. If Jesus is here in the flesh then Christians should be able to produce him. Otherwise you're just using the word flesh as a synonym for spirit, which is quite anti-Pauline.

Steven Avery

Thanks for the acknowledgement. Will never begrudge an honest oversight.

Ahhh, this is the big question. And it gets to the heart of the three or four understandings of the verses (some of which overlap). Everything in decency and order. And it seems like the grammatic questions needed to be hashed out first.

b-greek worked around it a bit, acknowledging that it was unusual, and since they really don't like to go into interpretations, made a mild conjecture and dropped it. This was a while back. I'll try to post on that (you can see a similar view in the Daniel Wallace commentary at bible.org) after a little rest from the thread (hours, or a day or two).

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

Steven Avery

Unless one would say that He embodies Himself when the Spirit of Jesus is poured into the heart of man through the immersion of the Spirit, and the ongoing nourishment of the body of Messiah. Then He is coming, manifesting, in and through the body of believers. Jesus "come in the flesh" is His body, His authority, manifest in the world through the submission and love one another of His people.

John 13:35
By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples,
if ye have love one to another.

Ephesisans 5:30
For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.

Se also 1 Corinthians 12

There are three other views of possible consistency that I can think of. All of these, except #1, would include His life from Bethlehem to Calvary as an element.

One is like yours - "aww, its just nonsense"

Another is eschatological - "Jesus maintains a fleshly body after the resurrection, and John is pointing towards the second coming". You can especially find elements of this in the various rapture/preterism debates.

Another would be something like Earl's - "this was inconsistent tense usage, or perhaps hyperbole, and all it really means is that Jesus existed as a man"

There might be a fourth, that combines elements of historicity, and then recognizing His ongoing office as Son of God, the Messiah, and looks toward His second coming. Sometimes though this view can be vague about the "come in the flesh" phrase.

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

Chris Weimer

Nor will I. Let's see if we can truly maintain this level of cordiality, and BC&H will improve indefinitely.

Unusual. That's a perfect word for it. It's highly unusual.

However, I hope the opening poster received his full translation, some two pages down the line.