Toto

Chili digression split off here

No Robots

According to Judith Lieu, 1 John 4 cannot be an attack on deniers of Christ's physicality:

The only valid confession, here ascribed to the spirit which is of God, is of 'Jesus Christ [as] the one who has come in flesh' (4:2). It is not an affirmation that he came in the flesh as against some other form of his coming, for this would require a different grammatical construction in the Greek. It is an acknowledgement of the one who can be so entitled; its reverse (4:3) is simply to fail to confess Jesus. (It would require either a 'that' (Greek hoti) clause or an accusative and infinitive, a construction which is read by Codex Vaticanus (B) here in an obvious attempt to clarify the issue.)

—The Theology of the Johannine Epistles (or via: amazon.co.uk) by Judith M. Lieu, p. 75

aa5874

Hoogram or holographic, docetism is a belief system that surrounds mythical or non-historical events, just like events surrounding angelic beings.

Amaleq13

Or it is a belief system that attempts to reconcile the human appearance of the central figure of their faith with the notion that humanity is inherently flawed.

jakejonesiv

Hi No Robots,

Thanks for the quote! Lets put up the whole thing, including footnote 89, because it is an interesting view point.

Considering that 1 John 1:1-4 is commonly seen to be an ANTI-DOCETIC or anti-separationist text (e.g. Bart Ehrmann), Judith Lieu’s requirement and your conclusion are a bit rash. At best, we can consider her interpretation as one possibility among several.

But is it a good alternative? As far as I can see, we may as well throw en sarki in the bit bucket. Dr. Lieu does not account for the confessional importance en sarki. Those who have the spirit of God
confess that Jesus Christ has come “in flesh”. Commonly, the entire phrase “Jesus Christ come in the flesh” is considered the object of “confess.” I presume that Dr. Lieu considers the verb omologei as taking a double accusative of object and complement. But even if that is so, why would that rule out an anti-docetic or anti-separatist interpretation? Am I missing something? In am hardly an expert at this, so if someone could clarify, I would appreciate it.

Whichever reading is adopted for 4:3, the antichrist’s denial is a rejection of Jesus’ manifestation in flesh.

Jake Jones IV

No Robots

Not according to Lieu, who says "(4:3) is simply to fail to confess Jesus." This finding is based on the grammatical structure of 4:2, as explained in the note.

jakejonesiv

It is apparently the word "Jesus" by itself that gave the antichrist party the most trouble. The distinction between Jesus Christ, Christ and Jesus could trip up a separatist heretic. Who knows what a Doceticist would make of the confession? Those "heretics" were tricky and could parse words better than a modern day politician. That is why the alternate reading of "loosen" is of significance. It signifies a loosening of the association of Jesus and Christ, even to opposed entities.

But according to Dr. Lieu, the trouble makers were merely unbelievers.

So, I don't find Dr. Lieu's interpretation to be compelling, much less ruling out all alternatives.

Jake Jones IV

P.S. before I forget, the designations of heretics and orthodox are "after the fact" designations. At the time, the proto-orthodox were may have been just as innovative, if not more so, than the presumed heretics. They were all making it up as they went. ymmv.

No Robots

I'm not surprised.

ynquirer

Forgive me, I haven't read Dr. Lieu's book, and I can only know of it through your comments. There is something I must be missing.

If ho mê homologei ton iêsoun christon means "to fail to confess Jesus [Christ] - period," then en sarki elêluthota is part of the sentence ek tou theou ouk estin kai touto estin to tou antichristou, so compounding en sarki elêluthota ek tou theou ouk estin kai touto estin to tou antichristou, which I find the utmost difficult to translate a single sentence.

A quick translation would perhaps be "[every spirit that fails to confess Jesus Christ] is not come from God in the flesh, and therefore it is of the Antichrist." While in the standard translations not confessing Jesus Christ to come in the flesh would be the cause of losing contact with God and throwing one's lot with the Antichrist, in this new translation not confessing Jesus to be the Christ would be the token of a spirit that does not come from God - and therefore is a creature of the Antichrist?

Such a translation would cast Gnostic overtones over 1 John. Is that what Dr. Lieu means?

If the answer is in the affirmative, my only grammatical comment would be that apo seems more suitable a preposition to convey such meaning than ek, which usually does better as a partitive - even a partitive would not be impossible within a Gnostic context, though a remarkably dualistic one.

In reference to the substance, such meaning I would expect to find in, say, an eleventh-century Cathar text, hardly in a second-century epistle. But - who knows?

No Robots

ynquirer: Sorry, you have moved far out of my depth. I was just trying to show that in one scholar's estimation, 2John 4 could not be regarded as an attack on deniers of Christ's physical existence.