Path: christian
Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian
From: CASTILLO@nauvax.ucc.nau.edu
Subject: John 1:1, Luke 1:30,34,35, the divinity of Jesus, etc.
Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu

Hullo gang,

I have a couple of questions, and I'll just list them:

1) A friend of mine says that John 1:1  should not include "and the
Word was God." (NIV), but "and the Word was God's"  this changes the
nature of the phrase, and I was wondering if anyone who would know could
talk about this.

2) This same friend says that Luke 1:30,34,35 should not read "angel" but
"angels", plural.  Again, does anyone know for sure?

3) As a new Christian, I am having trouble witnessing to a Muslim.
Can someone give me some answers to any of the following:

a) clear evidence of Jesus as being divine (more than just a prophet);
to me, the resurrection is enough, but not everyone will accept that; is 
there other evidence?

b) what is the clear meaning of "the Son of God"?

c) I think I understand what the Trinity is, but it would be nice if
someone could explain it to me, so that I could explain it to others.  (It
isn't an easy thing to do)

d) At what point was Jesus more than human?  The transfiguration? Resurrection?
the baptism?  Such a concept as being human and divine is a difficult
thing to understand--I think that I do, but I can't seem to explain it to 
anyone else.

Thanks.

In Christ,

Ulysses.
_____
Ulysses Castillo (aka Belgarion)   Trr, lbh zhfg or n irel phevbhf crefba!
Castillo@nauvax.ucc.nau.edu
"And be assured, I am with you always, to the end of Time.", Matt. 28:20

[Neither the UBS 2nd edition nor a 1990 book by Comfort discussing
evidence from recently discovered papayrii show any sign of textual
issues in John 1:1.  There are papyrii as early as 200 that have this
passage.  I suspect there are citations from the church fathers that
are earlier, but I don't have that.

While there have been discussions about the translation of the phrase
"the Word was God", I don't think "the Word was God's" is an
alternative.  The problem is that God appears in a form that does not
have the definite article.  This could mean "the Word was a god", "the
Word was divine", or the "the Word was God".  Most likely, it carried
a range of meanings that can't easily be expressed in English.  This
gets involved in discussions about the Trinity.  Probably that
involvement is not entirely well-conceived.  Whatever he meant, it's
unlikely that John foresaw the details of trinitarian doctrine.  Jesus
is being identified with the creative power of God, that word which he
spoke and light appeared.  However I am not convinced that John was
thinking of the metaphysical details that came later.  This doesn't
mean that I think trinitarian theology is wrong -- I don't -- just
that we should be careful about reading later thought into John.

Again, UBS does not show any variant readings for the passages in
Luke.  Comfort's list of Papyrii doesn't show any that involve this
passage.  There could be some source I don't know about, but I
strongly doubt it.

3)a) The normal arguments from Moslems come from a perspective that
you are going to find it hard to do much about.  They don't accept the
accuracy of the NT.  Thus simply finding NT passages isn't going to be
good enough, since they believe (along with other non-Christians, of
course) that the church read its own views into Jesus.  

There are a number of different traditions in the NT.  They tend to
use different terminology about Jesus.  My claim is that no matter
what sort of critical analysis you want to do with the NT, nowhere
will you find a tradition or source that regards him as simply a
normal rabbi or prophet.  However because of the variety of traditions
represented in the NT, what you will find are lots of different ways
of looking at Christ.  They emphasize different aspects, but I think
in the final analysis they are at least broadly consistent with each
other.

Of course there's no question about John.  If you don't accept John
1:1, consider John 20:28 (Thomas: "My Lord and my God."), and of
course John 18:6 (Jesus is asked whether he is the Messiah.  He says
"I am".  The people fall to the ground.  People who know John's
thought think Jesus' "I am he" actually represents the name of God --
which literally translates "I am", and the invocation of the Name is
what caused them to fall to the ground).  Similarily, consider
Hebrews, much of which is trying to show that Jesus is higher than any
angel, not to mention human.  Or consider Paul, e.g.  Col 1:15ff.  

The most difficult tradition is the Synoptic Gospels, i.e.  Matthew,
Mark, and Luke.  In them, Jesus is much more guarded about what he
says.  But here are some passages in Mark that I think envision Jesus
as having a special status: We find that he forgives sins.  The crowd
reacts to this as an implicit claim to a status equal to God (Mk 2:7)
Several passages seem to envision Christians who follow Jesus.
Consider passages like Mk 8:35, where people lose their life for his
sake, and 9:35ff, where people do things in his name.  This doesn't
seem like a kind of honor that you would give a teacher.  The parable
of the wicked tenants (Mk 12:1) implicitly speaks of him as God's
heir.

Thus I think all strains of the tradition see Jesus as have a special
authority from God, and as being in some special sense "God's son".
The question is how closely this is connected with current Christian
theology.  It's common for Christians to insist that "Jesus is God" in
a way that I think is not consistent with the NT.  It suggests that he
is God simply and with no distinction.  Aside from being crazy (it
would imply that Jesus was invisible and immortal, which he was not),
it contradicts Jesus statements that the Father is greater than him,
and things like Jesus praying to God.  But orthodox theology
identifies Jesus with God in a somewhat more indirect fashion.  It
claims, not that Jesus is simply God, but that he is the *incarnation
of* God.

The official definitions speak of Christ as having two natures, God
and human.  The human being is a normal human being, with all of the
normal limitations (except for sin).  Nevertheless, God is united with
this human being in such a way that Christ's death is God's
self-sacrifice.  "In Christ God was reconciling the world to himself"
(2 Cor 5:19).  In all the official doctrinal statements, it is clear
that in Christ there are two distinct things: a normal human life, and
God's very presence.  Christian theology must do justice to both of
them, and not confuse them.  E.g. we do not think of Jesus as a
demi-god, something neither quite human nor quite God, but halfway
between.  Rather, he is a normal human being.  And God -- the real,
God, not some lesser creature -- is fully present in him.
Furthermore, these things shouldn't be thought of as competing, as if
God were present *in spite of* Jesus' humanity.  Rather, it is
precisely Jesus' human life and character that shows us God.  One of
the major themes of John is that God's glory is present precisely in
Jesus' humility.  But it is God present *through a human being*, not
God in his "native" form.  Part of the problem comes when Christians
lose sight of the "indirectness" or "hiddeness" of God's presence in
Jesus.  This is often done with the best of intentions, to fight the
tendency of many people to see Jesus as simply a teacher or prophet.
But it's just as dangerous to go to the other extreme, and lose sight
of his humanity.

b) I think it's misleading to concentrate on the phrase "son of God".
You could call any godly person a "son of God".  "Son of" is a Hebrew
idiom.  Thus the phrase is not in itself a claim for anything
spectacular.  However as it is used in the NT of Jesus, it takes on
special meaning.  But you have to figure out what that meaning is from
other things that are said of him and shown about him.  I've tried to
outline some of them above.

c) I'm sending my standard essays on the Trinity via email.

d) You ask at what point Jesus because "more than human".  Remember
that Jesus never stopped being human.  It's not like some of the Greek
stories, where a hero is turned into a God.  Rather, God was present
specifically in Jesus' humanity and through Jesus' life.  As one early
Christian writer put it, Jesus passed through each stage of human
life, blessing and redeeming it.  If God was not present when Jesus
was a child, then where does that leave children now?  The point of
the incarnation is that God joined us in our human situation.  The
church rightly rejected the concept that God departed from Jesus
before his death, because God could not experience death.  Similarly,
it is wrong to think that God could not experience being a helpless
infant.  In some of the early discussions, this issue was expressed by
the controversy over the claim that Mary is the mother of God.  (This
is actually an over-translation -- the Greek term is better translated
"God-bearer".)  The church insisted on calling her that, meaning that
God was present from the beginning, being born from Mary.

--clh]