Amaleq13

Isn't this an example of special pleading?

spin

My statement "And there are very many other examples of a verbless clause where you would expect the verb "to be" in English" must be seen in the light that the finite verb exists. "[M]any other" clearly indicates that there were examples where it was not the case.

Look at this:
This is an appalling citation, which leaves out what the fragment is referring to, ie "is with". With such gross misrepresentation by omission there seems little hope of communication. If this is not the case, look at the first half of the sentence you hacked apart.

It is clear that you re not approaching the issue with the desire to understand how Hebrew was used, but to justify a translation into Hebrew of the nt. I pointed out the first three examples of verbless clauses (specifically with complements that were not noun complements -- check my examples) at the beginning of Genesis I found, remembering that what is sought after is the non-appearance of a word, which is a little less easy to spot than the appearance of something.

You didn't seem to understand my comments about wyhy (though I should have specified for you that I meant verse initial examples not joined with a maqqeph -- to help you stick to the general situation and not fall over minor issues). "And it came to pass" is the general translation followed by another clause. Noting the grammatical use of the form wyhy in the initial position, we find Gen 7:17, "It came to pass that the flood (was) 40 days on the earth." They usually don't translate it that way, though it is inconsistent -- with, for example, 8:6 "And it came to pass at the end of 40 days that Noah...", or any of the myria which follow.

Sheshbazzar

Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar
...as an unbeliever you are in no position to decide, or to declare what "counts" or "don't count" in the interpretation of any of the words of Holy writ, written by believers for interpretation by believers.
Interesting question, your rabbi is accounted as having authority to make declarative statements as to what words or phrases "count" or "don't count" within the sacred text according to his personal choices and interpretations, whereas my position is that every word counts, and requires no resort to special pleading.
In this case I am not the one seeking any special privilege of interpretation, or claiming any special privilege of interpretation, only resisting bogus claims to that privilege by non-believing 'rabbi's'.
I pointed out previously that spin was being less than forthcoming in his treatment of the subject, in selectively presenting only verses that at first glance would appear to support his contentions, and omitting to present a balanced view as to how and where the Scriptures do employ the "ha'yah" verb.

spin

I cannot help your lack of acquaintance with the Hebrew text. I have attempted to narrow the focus in my last post, so as to cut out the undergrowth which is of little relevance. The attempted slur of "selectively presenting", when I chose the first examples I came across in a casual search at the beginning of Genesis, merely shows a lack of understanding of the problem at hand, for example that you could assume that I might indicate that there were only verbless clauses where in English one finds the verb "to be". This is a problem of your creating, improbable for someone with an acquaintance with the Hebrew text. Of course the verb hyh exists. My comment needed to be read in that context: many sentences where you would find the verb to be in English are verbless in Hebrew.

Just as a quick count, of the times the word "are" appears in Genesis 93 have no Hebrew equivalent, 20 have a verb behind them. There are just too many in the singular for me to retain in a casual count.


spin

Sheshbazzar

OK spin you don't like the way in which I cited your words, but looking over all that you had previously posted in this thread I was unable to locate where you had written as you had claimed;
Point and problem is, spin, that you DID NOT, and HAD NOT previously posted any words to the effect that "it was relatively infrequent", if I am in error on this, please present your original statement that you had posted previous to my protesting of your omission because,

"looking over all that you had previously posted in this thread I was unable to locate where you had written as you had claimed;" so thus had to select a quotation from your previous posts that came closest to your claim.

spin

So you misrepresented me by ripping something so out of context that you put words in my mouth.

You simply didn't understand what you cited:

This says nothing about all examples of expected verb to be are verbless clauses. It indicates that non-verbless examples are in the minority.


spin

Sheshbazzar

Cute dodge spin,
May I remind you of the context of your statement?
Originally Posted by Sheshbazzar
"Neither being the translator of, nor compositor of the Hebrew NT that I use and quote from, I do note that in that edition the second clause does prefix the verb, as "v'ha'dabar ha'yah..." agreeing with my covictions, I detect no reasonable reason to cross out that "ha'yah".

I made a direct quotation from my Hebrew New Testament which you attempted to parry with; And you then proceeded to supply as 'examples' verses that appeared to support your contention.
But if what you are saying here is true, THEN YOU MUST HAVE KNOWN AT THE TIME YOU WERE POSTING, that although in a "minority" there were indeed many many examples to be found within the Hebrew text of The Scririptures (TaNaKa) that DO employ the verb in the exact same fashion as I was quoting from my Hebrew NT, and thus DID in fact "reflect Hebrew usage."
Sorry pal, but you can't have it both ways.
Either you knew that you were purposely selectively quoting, and that my quotation DID in fact "reflect Hebrew usage", and that your statement and implication to the effect that it did not, was false.
Or you honestly didn't know what you were talking about.
You make up your mind, were you just being a little less than honest with your treatment of the subject? choosing to ignore all of the evidence that didn't agree with your opinion?
Or just honestly didn't know what you were talking about?

ichabod crane

I tend to agree with you here. The problem is that Heiser is wedded to the orthodox view that the Israelites were always monotheistic. But I still think the paper is excellent; its arguments for the divine council in various passages is very convincing (I think).

Regarding John 1:1, on thinking about it more I think the problem with the Trinitarian interpretation is not so much related to the meaning of the verb en, but to equivocation about the meaning of the word theos. That is, in the phrase "the Word was with God", they take "God" (i.e. theon, accusative sg of theos) to mean the personal hypostasis of the Father. But then when it says "the Word was God", they suddenly take theos to mean "the divine nature", or "one who possesses the divine nature". They can't take the second theos to mean the Father, because that would be an explicit denial of Trinitarian theology (i.e. the Word was the Father). But they have to take it that way earlier on, since it seems pretty meaningless to say that the Word was with his own nature.

The question is, is it more plausible to suppose that "John" had in mind a shift from hypostasis to nature, in the terms of later Trinitarian theology, or that he was using theos qualitatively to assert that "the Word was divine". I actually have now been convinced of the latter. A known Greek grammatical explanation seems more likely to me than imposing later philosophical distinctions on the text which don't arise from it.

So thanks guys, you've persuaded me. As an aside, I don't see why this is necessarily fatal to Trinitarian theology anyway. It doesn't support it, but neither does it refute it. A Trinitarian could say "the Word was divine". It just depends on what you mean by "divine". Indeed, this translation seems to fit particularly well with the Eastern view of the Trinity, since it avoids taking "God" as referring to the divine nature per se, which Easterners don't like (they tend to emphasize "God" as referring to the person of the Father). But in any case, there seem to be three options on a simplified view:

(a) It could mean by divine sharing the same divine nature as the Father in the same way as the Father does - the Trinitarian explanation, which involves making subtle distinctions about nature and person. This view seems to put heavy emphasis on the "three Os" definition of divinity (if it's not omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, then it's not God). Hence the assertion that the Word is divine is taken to mean that the Word is a three-O type of being. Of course, there is a divine "substance", but it has to be necessarily connected to the three-Os. However, it is *highly* questionable whether that is what "John" had in mind here by the term theos.

(b) It could mean by divine sharing the same divine nature or essence as the Father but being nonetheless distinct from him and lesser than him. That is, it could mean that the Word is an emanation of the Father. In this case, being "divine" has to do with sharing the same "substance" as the Father, and the possession of this substance is not necessarily connected to the three-Os. Indeed, the three-Os may not be particularly important on this kind of view, and be attributed to the Father mainly due to his unboundedness.

(c) It could mean divine in the sense of being an entirely distinct deity. In this case, it is equivalent to the translation "the Word was a god". This is supported by the whole divine council thing, and also, interestingly, by John 10:35-36, if this is talking about the divine council, as Heiser argues that it is. So the JWs are not as silly as you might think (at least on this point). It would also fit with the textual variant "the only begotten God" in 1:18.

(b) and (c) are not mutually exclusive, in that an emanated being may be spoken of as "divine" in an absolute monistic sense, but also as "a god".

However, as well as having advantages, option (c) has some fairly serious problems. That is, the person of Jesus in John is too closely identified with God the Father/OT Yahweh to be viewed as completely distinct. For instance, Thomas's cry "my Lord and my God" (20:28) indicates, I think, that we are supposed to recognize the presence of absolute Yahweh deity in Jesus. Jesus' claim that "before Abraham was, I am" (8:58), and the portrayel of the Word as showing the very nature of the Father, also tend to exclude option (c), at least as a pure option (without option (b) also). But all of these statements are perfectly consistent with option (b), the emanationist one; they do not necessarily support orthodoxy. Option (b) is just generally not considered in debates on the issue. I can think of no statement in John that explicitly supports orthodoxy against emanationism, and at least one that is difficult for it: "the Father is greater than I" (14:28). Yes, I've heard of kenotic theory. No, I don't think it is likely that "John" had.

In summary, given the rest of John with its heavily docetic flavour, and the context of 1st century Hellenistic Judaism, as spin has argued in relation to the Philonic background of the passage, I think option 2, the emanationist one, is most likely. It seems to fit all the texts best. But the issue certainly can't be decided by appeal to John 1:1 alone.

A correction to my previous post: I said that this link http://www.bcbsr.com/greek/gsubs.html that someone posted about the absence of the article was incomplete. In fact, it had the grammatical feature that I described, but it was listed under a different heading in section D, not under the "absence of the article" heading, and hence I missed it. So along with E20, E21 and E22 as possibilities for John 1:1, D19 also needs to be considered. That was the point I was making. My faith in Wallace is restored.

Sorry for the length of this post. I'm thinking out loud. Also I think I have rehashed a couple of people's points - sorry!

ichabod crane

Regarding Peter Kirby's post on theos in the nominative sg without the definite article, two points:

(a) In the version of the UBS GNT on my laptop, theos does have the article in James 2:19; this could be a textual variant, but I don't have my printed UBS GNT with me to check. So there may only be five occurrences.

(b) Of these, only one, 2 Thess 2:4, might be using the word theos adjectively. The ending of the verse could well be translated as "displaying himself as being divine", rather than "displaying himself as being God". That would fit the context.

But so far as I can see, 2 Thess 2:4 is the only possible instance in the NT where theos is used adjectively. Is this true? I have had a look at the LXX but there are well over 1000 occurrences of theos in the nominative sg, and I can't go through them all now. At a glance, most of them have the article, and when they don't, there is usually an obvious reason.

Can we come up with a more convincing example? And why would you use theos as an adjective when you could use theios? Although that only occurs in Acts 17:29. Maybe it wasn't in common parlance?

I'm not saying this disproves the adjective theory, I think it is probably correct. But it would be nice if we didn't have to argue just from analogy with other nouns.

Loomis

Sorry I missed this post earlier. Let me toss in something that might remedy the “serious problem.�

Are you familiar with the idea that in some circles Yahweh was believed to be one of El’s seventy sons? The “poster child� for this argument is Deuteronomy 32:7-9.

If so, then what if GJohn shared that same view?

Because if he did, then the idea that Jesus was Yahweh incarnate, and still not “God the Father� (who in this case would be El) is not a contradiction.

Am I making sense?

Do you understand my question?

I am not suggesting that this idea was widespread.