Chris Weimer

But that would indicate that's its an indicative verb! Being a participle, he doesn't actively come, but is coming in the flesh - although that does appear rather odd to me?

Mathetes

What's an indicative verb? All verbs have an indicative mood.

I am confused. If you mean that participles are passive, this happens in English, yes (begun, sold, etc.). In Greek they can be active or passive. á¼”Ï?χομαι is deponent, so its forms are active and passive all over the place, but its meaning is always active: "I go", "I went", "I have gone".

Maybe you are saying that this could also be translated by:

...which is true.

Steven Avery

Oops, sorry. First I transcribed wrong (hurried, off to work) on the 2 John verse, here is what they have...

"perfect participle" - 1 John 4:2
"present participle" - 2 John 1:7 - "is coming"

My error, not my source, on 2 John. Any difficulties now ?
Beyond that, I will catch up on the thread now.

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

EarlDoherty

Which is exactly the wording (in a different order) of the primary version of this thought expressed in 1 John 4:2:

every spirit which confesses Jesus Christ in the flesh having come is of God.

My view is that this is a direct reference to the historicist claim over the mythicist one, that is, it comes from a time when certain circles were starting to declare that Jesus had been incarnated, whereas the opponents were holding to the old view that he was a spiritual entity who had not been to earth. (Verse 3: "and every spirit which does not confess (this) Jesus is not from God, but is the (spirit) of the Antichrist."

Two things to note. Both views are determined by revelation (spirit); no appeal is made to history or historical tradition, of which there is not a word in the Johannine epistles. No sign of apostolic tradition, no sign of oral traditions going back to Jesus, no sign of written gospels at the end of the first century. The other is that it is often claimed that this is a reference against gnosticism, and that the author is defending the reality of the flesh of Jesus. But there is no reference to gnosticism in the epistle and no defense against it, no anti-gnostic arguments.

2 John 7 is simply the same statement being more obliquely (in a grammatical sense) referred to:

Because many deceivers went forth into the world, those not confessing Jesus Christ coming in the flesh.

Here the participle "coming" is in the present, but that does not mean it refers to the present time. Participles don't have tenses in the usual sense, they adopt a tense in relation to the main verb. In this case the verb is "went forth" which is an aorist, or past tense. So the ones "confessing" Jesus Christ "coming" are thought of in relation to the "went forth", giving them a past sense. You can't really read any significance into the meaning of "coming" according to some imagined placement in the author's "present".

I don't know what Praxeus' sources are, but they sound to me like they are trying to draw subtleties and 'evangelical' (by which I mean lessons or even 'pastoral') meanings, when this letter is simply about down and dirty polemical disputes between different sects within Christ belief at the end of the first century. The most direct, simplest, meaning of "they don't confess Jesus Christ having come in the flesh" is they don't believe he came to earth incarnated in flesh.

For anyone interested, I discuss the Johannine epistles in depth, including this point, in my Article No. 2: A Solution to the First Epistle of John

Earl Doherty

Steven Avery

Hi Earl, while I am definitely not a Greekaphile, I do know my language a bit, and how to check resources think and chew gum, and it appears quite clear that you are making a tense argument of convenience here.. Let's go to the videotape and look at a few of the excellent translations and compare them to your simplistic idea that this is a "past tense" because they the deceivers "went forth" ..

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."

Two 'literal' translations
Young
many leading astray did enter into the world
who are not confessing Jesus Christ coming in flesh;

Rotherdam -
many deceivers have gone out into the world
they who do not confess Jesus Christ coming in flesh

None of these have a simple past tense.
All of them refer to action that is continuing in the present time.

This is just a misreading of the sentence as translated by every skilled translator I have seen. And I could add many to the three above, and afaik zero who would agree with you.

However, you had to defacto mistranslate the earlier part of the phrase (noticing pointedly that you never offerred your full translation) to come to this error on the later part of the verse.

Most definitely, they approach the chapter as the inspired Word of God, laden with meaning.

Well of course that is a convenient presumption. I read the chapter and see a depth of study and meaning for the church brethren, of examination and teaching, of warning and caution, of spiritual and day-to-day instruction.

Which begs the question of the book I am studying, and more significantly here ... the question of the thread, the unusual tense of the statements.

Eark, we see a completely different context of the Johannine epistles, and I see it as emphasizing and recognizing Jesus Christ come in the flesh through His representative and manifested body of beleivers.

The problem I see in most of your analysis is that you seem like a hammer looking for a nail, reading into the book various contexts from 'silence evidences' that have much simpler explanations --

a) The letter was written by John, the apostle who has written the Gospel of John. This answers all the questions about the supposedly needed historicity references. And there are markers throughout the epistle supporting a presumption of historical camraderie and agreement. Clear markers.

b) The actual fact of the life of Jesus Christ was not the issue at all. There were two major issues - recognizing his specialness, as the Son of God, and as Paul wrote, "God manifest in the flesh" .. and recognizing His body on earth, those who truly love one another, overcoming sin by their submission to and deep participation in the life-blood of His body, of believers, manifest on earth.

Earl, we look at the works with very different eyes. There is perhaps little confluence for real dialog, however I appreciate any sincere scholarly endeavor to understand the Word of God.

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

EarlDoherty

And never the twain shall meet.

When one side declares his approach is to understand the word of God, this rather makes dialogue impossible, let alone any spirit of inquiry to arrive at historical reality. I wish you all the best.

Earl Doherty

Chris Weimer

Ahem...that would indicate that it's in the indicative mood. Better?

No, I didn't mean this at all. I meant that it being a participle it is an adjective - adjectives can't express motion? Jesus doesn't come into the flesh, he *is* coming, although I don't recall seeing it used like that at all? It's never used like that in Classical Latin, what about Greek? Is this another sign of bad Greek, or am I missing something?

Soul Invictus

You are correct. I am trying to understand what idea the author intended to convey...based on the Greek writing.

To me, it would appear that an awkward phrasing cannot be unambiguously construed and/or is less persuasive to suggestive interpretations because the text could be figuratively explained different ways. What was the intended purpose of such a deliberate wording? What is accomplished by wording it the way that is has been?

Soul Invictus

It seems to be some degree of consensus that this passage originally utilized the present participle or present middle participle. If there is a dissenting view, please voice it to discuss. Also, if someone could point out which of the two that it definitively is, that would be great. Lastly, if there is a material difference between the two options, please illustrate why. I'd really appreciate it.

Can someone explain the ramifications of the participle of usage on the viewpoints explained in 2 John 1:7? This drives at what message the author intended to convey based on their word usage. Earlier, Julian said:

Which was my contention when I read this verse, and I'd like to test the strength of this position based on the Greek text. He also said:

After review, I am unsure of what role that the usage of 'coming' plays into the discussion. Maybe Julian can clarify that for me...

Steven Avery

Ahh, but there's the rub.

We can agree that it is hard to compare our overall theories of the text, since yours involve particular scholarship reconstructions of late meanings and layers of redaction and historical conjectures put into the text. Mine involve the text being written by the apostle John and generally simply meaning what it says, without overlaying a whole mythicist/historicist construction over the letter as an interpretative lens.

The differences there are truly so great that interpretative communication will be almost like trains passing in the night.

However, on basic factual matters, like when you misrepresent the tense of the sentence as a past tense, and then build an argument on your own grammatical error, we could still dialog. Simple to have a discussion, since we have no conceptual disagreement. Scholars can be referenced, translators and folks very accomplished in Greek, Christian, secular, classicists, even mythicists.

I will point out that you simply abandoned that aspect of the discussion as well, and never even offerred a translation of the verses that would match your theories, the most rudimentary part of any attempted "correction" of the text as you offerred.

Why not simply be a mentsch, acknowledge that error about calling the verse a "past tense", adjust your arguments, and then move on ?

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