Toto

From Kenneth Humphreys on the JM list:

Why Call Me God?: The Gospel Seen with a Single Eye (or via: amazon.co.uk) by J.H. Hatfield

http://www.whycallmegod.com/

The first chapter can be read at the link above.

mountainman

From perhaps as early as Marcus Aurelius in the mid 2nd century
it is widely known and reported that there was in fact a tremendous
revival in Greek cultural literature which was given its own name
by Philostratus in the 3rd century --- "The Second Sophistic".

The decline of Greek corresponds with the rise of the Christian state
cult and the widespread attention it received from the emperors.
At the end of the 4th century when Jerome was translating the
Vulgate, Epiphanius was compiling his list of major heresies against
the very pure christian state cult religion, and at the top of the list
we find Hellenism. We can be reasonably sure that the philosophers
and academics of the early fourth century following Porphyry, and all
those who were associated with the ancient Greek academy of Plato
as described by Eunapius, Lives of the Philosophers and Sophists
were only just becoming aware that they were inextricably bound in
christian heresy if they continued in their old ways after Nicaea.

sharrock

Just landed through the post box ... this could give me serious brain ache. :constern02:

Presently (chapter 2) the book is describing the system of the Ophites, with the names of the seven archons. All Greek to me

spamandham

For those interested in the book, it's much cheaper to buy it through Amazon uk and have it air mailed than to buy it new through Amazon us.

sharrock

Have read this book and am now working my way back through it.

The author says "For scripture of the Old Testament the immediate source was the CATSS LXX edition prepared by TLG".

The author then says ... "At LXX Gn1:27 God brings into being 'a person'".

I tried to find the CATSS LXX Greek Gn 1:27 and came up with...

και εποιησεν ο θεος τον ανθρωπον κατ' εικονα θεου εποιησεν αυτον αρσεν και θηλυ εποιησεν αυτους

How would this translate ? I think it hinges on ανθρωπον strictly meaning a person, not a man, 'man' being a wilful translation. He echoes Margaret Baker in saying that "the secong god was the creator, the archon that made the world (a gnostic character)".

It is stated that Jesus refers to himself as the 'son of the person'.

sharrock

Found it... I'm in business... http://www.authentic-christianity.org/gn1to4.htm

Toto

"Anthropos" techically means "person of either gender," as opposed to "aner" which always means male person, but there is an ongoing controvery over how it should be translated. There is a collection of articles here and more if you google anthropos aner "gender neutral" translation.

show_no_mercy

While it's ambiguous who Jesus is referring to sometimes when he uses that phrase, assuming that Jesus actually said these things - after the fact Christians have said that Jesus is referring to himself. Though the historical Jesus could have been using that phrase in the same way Daniel did; not referring to himself.

I would read it "son of the human", translating ανθρωπος though. The same phrase "son of the human" is found in the LXX versions of Ezekiel and Daniel, though in Hebrew both Ezekiel and Daniel literally say "son of adam" (in which "adam" means "human" in Hebrew).

Ironically in English, Luke chapter 3 has "son of Adam" describing Jesus' genealogy.

Cege

Christians often believe that the gospels actually quote the exact words of Jesus, but that just isn't true. The "words of Jesus" are not exact quotes, and that's obvious after comparison of the 4 gospels. To emphasize what you said--assuming that Jesus actually said these things--we cannot assume that Jesus said exactly what it attributed to him by modern translations' use of quotation marks.

What we have in the New Testament are various renditions of what Jesus is purported to have said in general, but not in specific.

No matter how various interpretations are "read" by individuals today, they aren't analyzing the exact words Jesus would have spoken because those aren't quoted in the scriptures.