Monotheism and John 1:1

[A_Nony_Mouse]

In one of his podcasts, Robert M. Price states that the Greek is ambivalent:

(1) There is no definite article.
(2) In some situations, this necessitates supplying an indefinite article in translation.
(3) In the predicate position and nominative case, a definite article can be omitted in Greek while still being meant.
(4) This is in the predicate position and nominative case.
(5) Therefore, neither translation "the Word was God" nor "the Word was a god" captures the full sense of the Greek grammar here, but both are possible when viewed from strictly a grammatical perspective.

At least that's what Price said.

I do not remember the grammar name. There is no definite nor indefinite article. However there is the kind of definite article we can only speak not write. "The Miles Gloriosus? The Thee himself?" If there were something special about that god it would be Ha Theos or in the completely unrelated "hebrew" which has the same situation with articles it would be Ho El or whatever term that author favored. Of course it could be Ho Elohim, thee gods or thee goddesses whatever the non-religious are permitted to make of what it really says.

What are you talking about?

Your (1), there is a definite article. It is the emphatic for of the which in English we pronounce thee. I have come across it in the discussion of another translation where the absence of thee, Ha, before spirit gave it a different meaning than some translator used. I do not remember the details.

I pointed out Hebrew has the same situation using Ho to the same purpose.

I should have added any our of Hebrew readers could get out their bible see if there is a Ho God instead of just god.
The proposed translation 'a god' indicates there is none.

[A_Nony_Mouse]

BTW: I still don't see what anyone thinks this might have to do with monotheism. There is no monotheism in the OT any place.

The first declaration of monotheism is in the Koran. There is no god but god.
I believe in one god is a very far cry from I believe there is only one god. In fact the former believe in is in the sense of faith in or trust in.

[Peter Kirby]

Your (1), there is a definite article.

Yes, right. Obviously. Greek has a definite article. I was speaking of its absence in a particular place in John 1:1. I have clarified.

[A_Nony_Mouse]

Your (1), there is a definite article.

Yes, right. Obviously. Greek has a definite article. I was speaking of its absence in a particular place in John 1:1. I have clarified.

Apologies. Missed the clarification.

[Gorit Maqueda]

Your term "The pre-Nicene New Testament" is a first for me.

This is just Robert M. Price's translation of the New Testament and 27 other texts. The name of Price's book.

Yes, Peter's right. I enjoyed Price's book a lot (it is full of commentaries and provocative footnotes).

IIRC, one of his aims were to present the texts devoid of any traditional interpretation that could make the readers miss important original ideas. I think that, in this case, Price chose the less familiar translation ("a God") because it is both grammatically possible and shocking. This, of course, is speculative (from my part at least).

[spin]

I think it should be stressed here that when the new testament is translated into English, we always find ο θεος ("the god") and its grammatical variations translated as "god", so, by translating the part in Jn 1:1 with "and the word was god", the translators are deliberately choosing beliefs over scholarship. I'm not convinced in the context that it could be "and the word was a god".

[stephan happy huller]

Lim argues Chrysostom anticipated the interpretation the Father is god with definite article, Son without


http://books.google.com/books?id=qZQeQa ... cQ6AEwBDgK

I am not sure this is the correct reading. I think the original question comes down to whether the Logos = Theos. Maybe the Logos was conceived by some as the ish haElohim, the first of two men described as being created in Genesis (as in Philo).

[stephan happy huller]

Interestingly I have hardly done enough research but I don't see as of yet any indication the Arians interpreted John 1:1 in any special way. It makes sense I guess but it is important to be cautious.

[arnoldo]

I dunno about the Arians, but Origen of Alexandria has a lot of interesting commentary on the gJohn.

Thus to find out what is meant by the phrase, "The Word was with God," we have adduced the words used about the prophets, how He came to Hosea, to Isaiah, to Jeremiah, and we have noticed the difference, by no means accidental, between "became" and "was." We have to add that in His coming to the prophets He illuminates the prophets with the light of knowledge, causing them to see things which had been before them, but which they had not understood till then. With God, however, He is God, just because He is with Him. And perhaps it was because he saw some such order in the Logos, that John did not place the clause "The Word was God" before the clause "The Word was with God." The series in which he places his different sentences does not prevent the force of each axiom from being separately and fully seen. One axiom is, "In the beginning was the Word," a second, "The Word was with God," and then comes, "And the Word was God." The arrangement of the sentences might be thought to indicate an order; we have first "In the beginning was the Word," then, "And the Word was with God," and thirdly, "And the Word was God," so that it might be seen that the Word being with God makes Him God.

2. IN WHAT WAY THE LOGOS IS GOD. ERRORS TO BE AVOIDED ON THIS QUESTION.

We next notice John's use of the article in these sentences. He does not write without care in this respect, nor is he unfamiliar with the niceties of the Greek tongue. In some cases he uses the article, and in some he omits it. He adds the article to the Logos, but to the name of God he adds it sometimes only. He uses the article, when the name of God refers to the uncreated cause of all things, and omits it when the Logos is named God. Does the same difference which we observe between God with the article and God without it prevail also between the Logos with it and without it? We must enquire into this. As the God who is over all is God with the article not without it, so "the Logos" is the source of that reason (Logos) which dwells in every reasonable creature; the reason which is in each creature is not, like the former called par excellence The Logos. Now there are many who are sincerely concerned about religion, and who fall here into great perplexity. They are afraid that they may be proclaiming two Gods, and their fear drives them into doctrines which are false and wicked. Either they deny that the Son has a distinct nature of His own besides that of the Father, and make Him whom they call the Son to be God all but the name, or they deny the divinity of the Son, giving Him a separate existence of His own, and making His sphere of essence fall outside that of the Father, so that they are separable from each other. To such persons we have to say that God on the one hand is Very God (Autotheos, God of Himself); and so the Saviour says in His prayer to the Father, "That they may know Thee the only true God; "but that all beyond the Very God is made God by participation in His divinity, and is not to be called simply God (with the article), but rather God (without article). And thus the first-born of all creation, who is the first to be with God, and to attract to Himself divinity, is a being of more exalted rank than the other gods beside Him, of whom God is the God, as it is written, "The God of gods, the Lord, hath spoken and called the earth.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... john2.html

[Gilgamesh]

The issue disappears if one interpretes John as the [many different] christian churches interpreted John for the first hundred years or so of the gospel's existence, namely, as a Gnostic gospel. John does not affirm that Jesus is God; John affirms that Jesus is the first emanation or Aeon of God. That is how Jesus can affirm that He and the Father are one, that whoever sees Him sees the Father, etc. No one important in the first three centuries of the common era claimed the existence of two Gods. Even in the fourth century and beyond, many, many, even today deny the notion of multiple Gods or the Trinity or whatever.