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To: boatbums
“This is what Paul said of Jesus, “And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness: God was manifest in the flesh, justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the Gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory.” (I Tim. 3:16)”

“God was manifest” is a spurious reading that even the Douay Version rightly rejects seeing that the oldest Biblical manuscripts such as Codex Alexandrinus and others as noted below have the correct reading . Codex A shows signs of being tampered with to read “God was manifest” over “He was manifest”.
“In 1 Timothy 3:16 it has textual variant (Greek fonts here) (he was manifested) supported by Sinaiticus, Ephraemi, Boernerianus, 33, 365, 442, 2127...” (wikipedia under Codex Alexandrinus)

When Jesus said to the Jewish religious leaders of His day that he is the I AM, that God is His Father, they knew very well what He was saying and they took up stones to stone Him because, “that thou, being a man, makest thyself God” (John 10:33

But Jesus showed their accusation was false as he said the term “god” could be said of humans, he has said the was “the Son of God”.
“Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world , Thou blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God ?” (John 10:35)

Translating “ego eimi” as “I Am” at John 8:58 makes a mess of the simple statement Jesus made. Good English must pay attention to the tenses and “I Am” doesn't do that.
Jesus said he existed before Abraham existed or came to be so “I am” is simply the wrong tense, it could better be translated as “I was” or “I have been” .
And a number of translations do just that.
Some may see a connection to Ex. 3:14 but the LXX translates the Hebrew as “I am the one” not just “I am”.
Thus even a blind man, formerly blind man, could say of himself, “I am” without claiming to be God or a part thereof. (John 9:9)

545 posted on 07/20/2012 10:43:16 AM PDT by count-your-change (You don't have to be brilliant, not being stupid is enough.)
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To: count-your-change; boatbums

1. On God Manifest in the Flesh – 1 Tim 3:16

I don’t have a lot of time today, so I’ll be brief. Codex Alexandrinus is a compromised witness to the proper translation of 1 Tim 3:16. There are numerous eyewitnesses of the orginal who testify to “theos,” i.e., God, being used, not “hos” or “ho.” The problem, explained in part below, is that in the all-caps originals, “theos” was often abbreviated as Theta-Sigma (TS), and if the manuscript was sufficiently deteriorated, the Theta could end up looking like an Omega (O). The scribes would preempt any possible confusion by ensuring that all such abbreviations had a faint horizontal bar drawn over the top of the TS. But what if both the middle Theta bar and the upper bar had grown even fainter for age of the document? Sometimes, a well-meaning scribe would attempt to retouch the lines. But for the future of manuscript debates, this was not good, because it left the document open to debate as having been tampered with.

Enter Codex Alexandrinus. This document had number in-person examiners who certified that the TS had faint but intact Theta and abbreviation bars, giving “theos.” But apparently, someone well-meaning caretaker of the text has tried to “fix” the Theta, but in the process has, from a critical point of view, voided the value of that manuscript as a witness to the text of 1 Tim 3:16. Inasmuch as the great body of uncompromised textual testimony affirms the TS (”theos”) reading, Codex Alexandrinus provides no credible basis for uprooting that reading, especially when it comes to us third-hand from that beacon of purity known as Wikipedia.

Here is a word from one who has seen the text in question with his own eyes:

“This is very frequent in the oldest MSS., and is continually recurring in the Codex Bexae, and Codex Alexandrinus. If, therefore, the middle stroke of the “Theta”, in “Theos”, happened to be faint, or obliterated, and the dash above not very apparent, both of which I have observed in ancient MSS., then QC, the contraction for “Theos”, God, might be mistaken for “os” which or who; and vice versa. This appears to have been the case in the Codex Alexandrinus, in this passage. To me there is ample reason to believe that the Codex Alexandrinus originally read “Theos”, God, in this place; but the stroke becoming faint by length of time and injudicious handling, of which the MS. in this place has had a large proportion, some person has supplied the place, most reprehensibly, with a thick black line. This has destroyed the evidence of this MS., as now it can neither be quoted pro or con, though it is very likely that the person who supplied the ink line, did it from a conscientious conviction that “Theos” was the original reading of this MS. I examined this MS. about thirty years ago, and this was the conviction that rested then on my mind. I have seen the MS. several times since, and have not changed my opinion. The enemies of the Deity of Christ have been at as much pains to destroy the evidence afforded by the common reading in support of this doctrine as if this text were the only one by which it can be supported; they must be aware that John 1:1, and 14, proclaim the same truth; and that in those verses there is no authority to doubt the genuineness of the reading. We read, therefore, God was manifested in the flesh, and I cannot see what good sense can be taken out of, the GOSPEL was manifested in the flesh; or, the mystery of godliness was manifested in the flesh. After seriously considering this subject in every point of light, I hold with the reading in the commonly received text” (Adam Clarke, Clarke’s Commentary, Vol. 8, ppg.151-152).

2. There is no 2 today. Maybe later. Your “I AM” analysis is messed up too. But later. Miles to go before I rest ….

Peace,

SR


549 posted on 07/20/2012 2:59:58 PM PDT by Springfield Reformer (Winston Churchill: No Peace Till Victory!)
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To: count-your-change; Springfield Reformer
But Jesus showed their accusation was false as he said the term “god” could be said of humans, he has said the was “the Son of God”. “Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world , Thou blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God ?” (John 10:35)

I see that SR has addressed the first objection you posited, so I'll go on to the next.

Yes, Jesus DID say to the ones incensed enough at him to stone him for claiming to be God that Scripture used the word "gods" to describe humans and he said he was the "Son of God". But don't stop at verse 33, finish the dialog:

“We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.” Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I have said you are “gods”’? If he called them ‘gods,’ to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be set aside — what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father.” Again they tried to seize him, but he escaped their grasp.

So, far from reasoning with them about the word god not being "all that", he infuriated them more by repeating that he was talking about Almighty God, the Creator, and representing Him in the flesh. Their fury over blasphemy was not extinguished.

As to the name "I AM", you must know that this is the personal name Almighty God gave to Moses. Exodus 3:13-14 says:

Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I am who I am. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I am has sent me to you.’”

Apparently, Almighty God had no problem with "good English tenses". Revelation 1:8 uses the same sense, "I am the Alpha and the Omega," says the Lord God, "who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." The personal name for the Almighty means "the self-existent one". The same Hebrew word is use for, or sounds the same as LORD. Exodus 6:3 has the LORD saying, "I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name the LORD I did not make myself known to them. Just as a side note, that's why we know He is not called "Allah". His name is I AM, the tetragrammaton is JHVH or YHWH and it is where we get the proper name of Almighty God as Jehovah or Yahweh.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible says this about it:

    I am that I am - That is, "I am what I am." The words express absolute, and therefore unchanging and eternal Being. The name, which Moses was thus commissioned to use, was at once new and old; old in its connection with previous revelations; new in its full interpretation, and in its bearing upon the covenant of which Moses was the destined mediator.

Gill's says:

    And God said unto Moses, I am that I am,.... This signifies the real being of God, his self-existence, and that he is the Being of beings; as also it denotes his eternity and immutability, and his constancy and faithfulness in fulfilling his promises, for it includes all time, past, present, and to come; and the sense is, not only I am what I am at present, but I am what I have been, and I am what I shall be, and shall be what I am. The Platonists and Pythagoreans seem to have borrowed their from hence, which expresses with them the eternal and invariable Being; and so the Septuagint version here is : it is said (z), that the temple of Minerva at Sais, a city of Egypt, had this inscription on it,"I am all that exists, is, and shall be.''And on the temple of Apollo at Delphos was written the contraction of "I am" (a). Our Lord seems to refer to this name, John 8:58, and indeed is the person that now appeared; and the words may be rendered, "I shall be what I shall be" (b) the incarnate God, God manifest in the flesh:

    thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you; or as the Targum of Jonathan has it,"I am he that is, and that shall be.''This is the name Ehjeh, or Jehovah, Moses is empowered to make use of, and to declare, as the name of the Great God by whom he was sent; and which might serve both to encourage him, and strengthen the faith of the Israelites, that they should be delivered by him.

Wesley's notes says:

    3:14 And God said - Two names God would now be known by. A name that speaks what he is in himself, I am that I am - This explains his name Jehovah, and signifies, 1st, That he is self - existent; he has his being of himself, and has no dependence upon any other. And being self - existent he cannot but be self - sufficient, and therefore all - sufficient, and the inexhaustible fountain of being and bliss. 2dly, That he is eternal and unchangeable, always the same, yesterday to - day, and for ever: he will be what he will be, and what he is. 3dly. That he is faithful and true to all his promises, unchangeable in his word as well as in his nature, and not a man that he should lie. Let Israel know this, I am hath sent me unto you. A name that speaks what he is to his people. Lest that name I am should puzzle them, he is farther directed to make use of another name of God, more familiar.

Matthew Henry's Commentary says:

    3:11-15 Formerly Moses thought himself able to deliver Israel, and set himself to the work too hastily. Now, when the fittest person on earth for it, he knows his own weakness. This was the effect of more knowledge of God and of himself. Formerly, self-confidence mingled with strong faith and great zeal, now sinful distrust of God crept in under the garb of humility; so defective are the strongest graces and the best duties of the most eminent saints. But all objections are answered in, Certainly I will be with thee. That is enough. Two names God would now be known by. A name that denotes what he is in himself, I AM THAT I AM. This explains his name Jehovah, and signifies, 1. That he is self-existent: he has his being of himself. 2. That he is eternal and unchangeable, and always the same, yesterday, to-day, and for ever. 3. That he is incomprehensible; we cannot by searching find him out: this name checks all bold and curious inquiries concerning God. 4. That he is faithful and true to all his promises, unchangeable in his word as well as in his nature; let Israel know this, I AM hath sent me unto you. I am, and there is none else besides me. All else have their being from God, and are wholly dependent upon him. Also, here is a name that denotes what God is to his people. The Lord God of your fathers sent me unto you. Moses must revive among them the religion of their fathers, which was almost lost; and then they might expect the speedy performance of the promises made unto their fathers.

It is no mistatement that Jesus is also referred as:

Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. (Hebrews 13:8)

569 posted on 07/21/2012 5:42:49 PM PDT by boatbums (God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.)
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To: count-your-change; boatbums
1. On “Ye are gods.”

Boatbums said:

“When Jesus said to the Jewish religious leaders of His day that he is the I AM, that God is His Father, they knew very well what He was saying and they took up stones to stone Him because, “that thou, being a man, makest thyself God” (John 10:33)”

You said:

“But Jesus showed their accusation was false as he said the term “god” could be said of humans, he has said the was “the Son of God”. “Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world , Thou blasphemest because I said I am the Son of God ?” (John 10:35) “

Technically, you are incorrect to say Jesus proved their accusation false. He did no such thing. Read again. He simply outlawyers them, which, as a lawyer myself, I can really appreciate.

First, note that there are two similar but separate events here. The John 10 episode was not in response to the I AM statement, but to this statement:

John 10:30 I and my Father are one.

The other event occurs in John 8:58, and brings another accusation he is claiming to be God, but in that situation he simply escapes. See John 8:59.

But if you read both of these carefully, he never denied the charge that he was claiming to be God. He simply evaded their desire to kill him. In John 8, he escaped physically, but in John 10 he escaped legally.

Indeed, search the Scriptures, and you will find he never once said, “I am not God,” or “I am a fellow creature, just like you,” or “I am an angel,” etc. Not one denial of the charge.

What then is he up to in John 10 when he refers to the “gods” of Psalm 82:6?

Consider what has happened. They have accused him of what, under their law, they regarded as a capitol offence, carrying a penalty of death by stoning, for making himself out to be God.

He elects not to escape physically this time, so what are his possible defenses to this accusation? Under the law, you can defend by denying the facts, or you can admit the facts and defend using just the letter of the law, which would be a perfectly ironic way for Jesus to defeat his legalistic opponents. Here, Jesus does not deny the charge. Instead, he denies that their law makes such a claim punishable if the claim is proven true.

Then he sets up this wonderful contrast between derived and innate deity. On the one hand, the Jews are precluded from condemning him because, as he points out, if even the wicked judges of Israel in Psalm 82 were immune to a charge of blasphemy when called gods, because they actually had derivative authority from God, how much more immune would a true Son of God be, whose authority was not derived, but innate as the unique Son of God, as demonstrated by both his good works and his miraculous power?

So when he tells them this, then reminds them that “the Scripture cannot be broken,” he is shoving it their face that they have no way to win a blasphemy case against him unless they can prove his claim to deity is false, which he and they both know can’t be done, given who he really is.

2. On Ego Eimi

You also said:

“Translating “ego eimi” as “I Am” at John 8:58 makes a mess of the simple statement Jesus made. Good English must pay attention to the tenses and “I Am” doesn't do that. Jesus said he existed before Abraham existed or came to be so “I am” is simply the wrong tense, it could better be translated as “I was” or “I have been” . And a number of translations do just that.”

Well, the problem you have there is that the tense conflict really is present in the Greek, and that is the single most striking thing about this passage, and it is central to understanding why it caused his Jewish listeners to again think he was claiming to be God.

In translation, when you encounter something unusual in the original, you have two choices. You can hide it behind an unfaithful translation, or you can be faithful to what was actually said. If we assume, and I do, that these words are God-breathed, I can think of absolutely nothing that would justify trying to hide what the writer obviously wrote. To do so would be to fight God Himself.

Therefore, I believe it is wrong to try to recast “ego eimi” as anything other than the indisputable present active indicative verb that it is in this passage. The proper translation really is, “before Abraham came to be, I am.” If Jesus had wished to say “I was,” there were much better options in the Greek for saying exactly that.

Consult any standard conjugation chart for eimi, and you will find the first person singular present indicative, “I am,” is eimi, exactly the word found in the “ego eimi” of John 8:58:

πρὶν Ἀβραὰμ γενέσθαι, ἐγὼ εἰμι.

Before Abraham came to be I am

Note: Some have speculated that eimi should be understood as past tense even though it is present tense because a perfect (past tense of completed action) is not available for this verb, eimi being defective. However, the normal contextual cues required for such a usage are not present in this text, and the bulk of modern translations honestly reflect the two contrasting tenses as found in the text:

King James,
New King James,
New American Standard Bible,
New International Version,
Philips Modern English,
Revised Standard Version,
Today's English Version,
Jerusalem Bible,
New English Bible,
American Standard Version,
New American Bible,
Douay,
Young's Literal Translation,
Berkeley Version,
Norlie's Simplified New Testament,
New Testament in Modern English (Montgomery),
New Testament in Modern Speech (Weymouth),
Wuest's Expanded Translation,
Amplified New Testament,
New Testament (Swann),
Aldine Bible,
Four Gospels (C. C. Torrey),
Confraternity Version,
Four Gospels (Rieu),
New Testament (Knox),
Concordant Literal New Testament,
Anchor Bible,
Rotherham,
Holy Bible in Modern English (Fenton),
Bible in BASIC English,
Better Version (Estes),
Sacred Writings (A. Campbell),
New Easy-to-Read Version,
New Testament for the New World.

Furthermore, there was an even better solution available that was not used. Why not use the same verb as used for Abraham? After all, genesthai (“came to be”) is from the root ginomai (“come to be”) and Jesus could have easily matched “Abraham came to be” by continuing to use ginomai, conjugating it as “gegona,” “I came to be,” which would be the truth if he were indeed a created being.

For an Arian this would seem to be the perfect and expected solution, because it still gives Jesus first-in-time priority over Abraham, but avoids “confusing” the listeners into thinking he is claiming to be eternal in the same sense as God is, which shocking impression was certainly created when he used “eimi” instead.

However, unfortunately for the Arian theory, the mismatch of the two verbs is present right there in the text for all the world to see. John, and really Jesus, intended it to be the attention-getting contrast that it plainly is.

But why? Clearly, at a minimum, Jesus is calling attention to the fact that Abraham did come into being at a point in the past, and if he had wished to say of Himself that he came into being before Abraham, there was, as we have pointed out, no shortage of ways to say exactly that.

But he didn’t do that. By positioning his present tense against Abraham’s past tense, He intentionally presented the idea that he stands above and outside the human experience of time. In short, he is declaring his eternal nature. As the Jews who heard this knew, no one but The Eternal God could ever be worthy of such a title, and so they sought to kill him. In this sense he appears to be associating himself with El-Olam, the Everlasting God, as used in several places:

Gen 21:33 And Abraham planted a grove in Beersheba, and called there on the name of the LORD, the everlasting God.

See also Ps. 90:1-3, 93:2; Isa. 26:4

3. On Eyeh Asher Eyeh

Now there is a rather technical argument that his proclamation here also resonated with his Jewish listeners as literally paralleling the I AM declaration used in Exodus 3:14. While I believe that to be true, a full discussion of that is probably not beneficial if we cannot get past basic issues like the normal usage of eimi.

In short form, as you pointed out, the Hebrew of Exodus transliterates to “Eyeh Asher Eyeh.” The exact meaning of this has been the subject of much debate, which I will not reproduce here, except to say that the translators of the Septuagint apparently did not buy the future tense argument, because they translated it into the Greek as

ego eimi ho on

I am the being

Which apparently appears in contracted form in Isaiah in several places. For one example:

Isaiah 41:4 Who hath wrought and done it, calling the generations from the beginning? I the LORD, the first, and with the last; I am he.

…where the Septuagint uses the “ego eimi” for the expression, “I am,” as also in Isaiah 43:10 and 46:4.

Now at first one could think this was nothing special. After all, the man born blind whom Jesus healed had used “ego eimi” without a predicate, i.e., without a noun or pronoun spelled out after the “am.” However, in such cases where a predicate is implied by context, one may be supplied, hence “I am he,” because the predicate is implied by him answering the question “are you him?”

But where no predicate is supplied, it was the rule from the classical period forward that “eimi” without a predicate, either actual or implied, was an assertion of existence. Such was the case, for example, when Jesus responded to the angry crowd by contrasting his own timeless existence relative to Abraham’s emergent existence.

This sense of ego eimi corresponds perfectly to other passages which convey Christ as a timeless being, without beginning or end, such as

John 1:1 “In the beginning was the word,”

i.e., the word was already in existence when everything began.

Heb 13:8 Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.

Which statement could never be made of a created being, for whom there would be some “yesterday” when he didn’t exist, and so NOT the same as today or tomorrow, and who could not be the same for all eternity future, as all God’s created beings, being finite, must necessarily learn and grow and change, all the more so at the high end than the low end.

The sobering conclusion of all this is that Thomas was absolutely right to respond as he did to the risen Jesus:

John 20:28 And Thomas answered and said unto him, My Lord and my God.

Peace,

SR

576 posted on 07/22/2012 2:21:18 AM PDT by Springfield Reformer (Winston Churchill: No Peace Till Victory!)
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