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Old 03-03-2004, 02:59 AM   #1
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Default John 1,1 :

hello all .

somebody me A that John 1,1 was a word of philon of Alexandria, if it is true, or can I say find its in the site of Peter kirby?

Thank you for your assistance.

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Old 03-03-2004, 04:24 AM   #2
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somebody could inform me please ?
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Old 03-03-2004, 04:35 AM   #3
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I have ran across this from comparison, an excerpt taken from The Christ by John Remsburg, Prometheus Books, 1994.

Philo. -- "The Logos is the Son of God" (De Profugis).
John. -- '"This [the Word] is the Son of God" (i, 34).

Philo. -- "The Logos is considered the same as God" (De Somniis).
John. -- "The Word was God" (i, 1).

Philo. -- "He [the Logos] was before all things" (De Leg. Allegor.).
John. -- "The same [the Word] was in the beginning with God" (i, 2).

Philo. -- "The Logos is the agent by whom the world was made" (De Leg. Allegor.).
John. -- "All things were made by him [the Word]" (i, 3).

Philo. -- "The Logos is the light of the world" (De Somniis).
John. -- "The Word was the true light" (i, 9).

Philo. -- "The Logos only can see God" (De Confus. Ling.).
John. -- "No man hath seen God.... He [the Word] hath declared him" (i, 18).

It seems the originator of the ideal was Heraclitus, a 5th BCE Greek philosopher, to which the Catholic Encyclopedia says this about him..

"It is in Heraclitus that the theory of the Logos appears for the first time, and it is doubtless for this reason that, first among the Greek philosophers, Heraclitus was regarded by St. Justin (Apol. I, 46) as a Christian before Christ."

It seems as an apologetic for assimulating the pagan ideal into scripture, they just adopted Heraclitus as a Christian(tm).

Here's a good link about Philo:

http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/p/philo.htm#Doctrine of the Logos in Philo's Writings
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Old 03-03-2004, 04:52 AM   #4
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Thank you very much for your information, therefore it is in the beginning a precept of Heraclitus taken again then by philon ?
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Old 03-03-2004, 11:52 AM   #5
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I'm not clear what you are asking, but from Kirby's site you might look at The Gospel According to John - chapter 7 in Loisy's The Origins of the New Testament (or better yet, consult the original French, as that seems to be your language.)

or The Prologue

Quote:
Greek historical backgrounds: As a philosophical term, "logos" meant the ‘world-soul’, the soul of the universe. This was an all-pervading principle, the rational principle of the universe. It was a creative energy. In one sense, all things came from it; in another, men derived their wisdom from it. These concepts are at least as old as Heraclitus (6th cent. BC): the "logos" is “always existent� and “all things happen through this "logos".�28

Later Hellenistic thought: Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish philosopher of the early 1st century, frequently mentions the "logos" (it appears over 1400 times in his writings), but he is really concerned with his Platonic distinction between this material world and the real, heavenly world of ideas. It was the Stoics who actually developed the concept of "logos". They abandoned Plato’s heavenly archetypes in favor of the thought (closer to Heraclitus) that the Universe is pervaded by "logos", the eternal Reason. They were convinced of the ultimate rationality of the universe, and used the term "logos" to express this conviction. It was the ‘force’ (!) that originated and permeated and directed all things. It was the supreme governing principle of the universe. But the Stoics did not think of the "logos" as personal, nor did they understand it as we would understand God (i.e. as a person to be worshipped).

The Evangelist, then, is using a term that would be widely recognized among the Greeks. But the ‘man in the street’ would not know its precise significance, any more than most of us would understand the terms ‘relativity’ or ‘nuclear fission’. But he would know it meant something very important.
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Old 03-05-2004, 01:38 AM   #6
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thank you louse for the bonds, I prefer the sites english-speaking because the French sites do not push the study of the Bible like the anglophone sites.

a question with the passage, which version of the Bible is most precise, the version of king James or the Bible of Jerusalem?
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Old 03-05-2004, 01:54 AM   #7
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I did not know that!

The KJV suffers from translation that follows tradition, and it is not based on the best texts. Actual textual issues of Jn I would have to look up. I do not know the New Jerusalem Bible. However, you may wish to go to places like BlueLetterBible where you can compare different translations of the Bible. For the NT, you can also try Perseus-Westcott & Hort Greek NT and "click" on the Greek to check the dictionary versions of the Greek. It may not be the most modern Greek NT, but, frankly, good enough!!

--J.D.
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Old 03-05-2004, 02:46 AM   #8
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thank you... indeed the version for King James follows the tradition, I compared John 1,1 with a translation of the new world and this translation say: and the word was 1 God !!!
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Old 03-05-2004, 03:09 AM   #9
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According to the RSV it is "and the word was god."

In the Nestle-Aland Greek it is kai theos en ho logos or "and god was the word" literally.

--J.D.
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Old 03-05-2004, 06:09 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally posted by Doctor X
According to the RSV it is "and the word was god."

In the Nestle-Aland Greek it is kai theos en ho logos or "and god was the word" literally.
It is important to note not only the word order but also that here theos has no article, whereas it has in the previous mention,

a) In the beginning was the word and
b) the word was with the god and
c) god was the word.

As it is clear that the grammatical interest in the sentence is "the word", I would loosely attempt to translate c) as "divine/godly was the word".


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