The Trinity revisited

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heh, heh...only because I wrote a dissertation on this. Don't ask me about anything else

 

Dr. Grover!

Well, Sir, that was one smokin' exegesis of the kenosis passage from the Greek grammar. I am most definitely not there yet, but I thoroughly enjoyed reading it!

I can add one brief but key point courtesy Bauckham. In his own exegesis of this passage, he points out the fact that vv. 6-9 parallel Isaiah 53:12-13 regarding the suffering Servant, and are juxtaposed with vv. 10-11, which parallel Isaiah 45:22-23, which refer to God's exaltation throughout the earth with the proclaimation of His message. Bauckham is worth quoting at length on this:

Bauckham then takes the argument to another level and asserts that Christ's suffering reveals something to us about God's essential character:

That is precisely the argument I have heard regarding Nestorius; that his "heresy" was more a result of a linguistic misunderstanding than anything else.

Perhaps it was less Cyril's Christology per se as much as using Cyril as a kind of "icon" or mascot for anti-nestorianism.

As I understand it, Nestorius denied the teaching which was attributed to him. I would be pretty surprised if one were to find something along the lines of what you "challenge" about in the Bazaar of Heraclides or anywhere else.

I would be surprised if Athanasius' position was anything like that of Apollinarius, simply because that would imply that Jesus was not-quite-human, which would more or less damage his whole understanding of soteriology. In any case, it wasn't really the question being asked at the time.

I'm a pretty Wesleyan/Arminian-friendly kind of person myself.

 

!

Thanks, although I've a ways to go before my name can legitimately sit in such a post with that of Dr. G.!

Matt

 

Matt

re Cyrillian Christology:

I suppose it is unfair for us to do it if we judge too harshly the church fathers as they attempted to sort out the finer details of The Faith. The reason is ,as Cyril exemplifies, earlier held positions often are changed by the interaction which occurs when any theologian, a modern too, strives to assure the cohesiveness of his several held tenets and to build his (or her) system.

Cyril certainly changed. As that excellent recorder of the history of Christological beliefs, Aloys Grillmeier S.J., in the first vol of his series states, at first Cyril held to the very mia phusis (one nature) doctrine of Apollinarius! It was only when Succensus pointed out to the Bishop that unless Christ had a human soul as well as a human body that His suffering would be too limited that Cyril adopted the two nature position (Christ in Christian Tradition 1: 474,475).

And if you know the history of the Chalcedonian Creeed, you will know that the framers of that rejected Cyril's formula for a moderate Antiochene one instead . While the Alexandrians pushed for mia phusis, the Antiochenes desired to have "duo phuseis. " The framers of the Creed settled on "en duo phusein" (IN two natures)...not "ek" from two natures!

But in regard to the issue of whether I stand condemned by Cyril's anathemas or not, what the good father wrote was, If anyone...shall apply (some Scriptures) to Him as a Man separate from the Word of God, and shall apply others to the only Word of God the Father, on the ground that they are fit to be applied to God, let him be anathema." (from The Council of Ephesus, The Anathemas, found in Ferm's Readings in the History of Christian Thought."

Words are always subject to interpretation, but it IS clear how that anathema was taken by some of Cyril's peers. Theodoret, eg, answers that The Word was not cxhanged into flesh and that God the Word did not sleep or get weary or learn. (see Counter Statements as in Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, Second Series).

Other church fathers reflect Theodoret's sentiment as Tertullian who says the divine nature did not suffer (Against Praxeas) and Gregory of Nyssa who says that God did not suck milk or suffer blows on the face (Against Apollinarius) and Leo who says that each nature ( the nature, now) does what is proper to it (Sermon 54).

That position was common as an apology against those who interpreted passages which limited Christ to manhood ; the apology was that some Scriptures refer to one nature and others to the other!

Athanasius Discourses Against the Arians, 1:13:58), Augustine (On the trinity, 1:7:14), and Ambrose (Of the Christian faith, Books 2,4,5, ) ALL do this same thing when they say that Jo 14:28 refers exclusively to the Lord's humanity. That is, they apply some texts to only one nature which in my view makes them also fall under Cyril's curse.!

This predicating of experiences and acts to each nature distinctly is common in Reformed thought (eg Hodge and Grudem) and in Lutheran thought as well (eg Chemnitz).

And that is about all I do too.

I so love thinking such thoughts that my silliness is evident when I feel sorrowful that when I die I no longer need to research and contemplate and interact with the ideas of my theological superiors. For in my next condition I will know as I am known ( 1 Cor 13). All inquiry will be over I wonder? How silly I am to compare the joy of my present study with seeing Him face to face. God forgive me.

Bill

 

I have to ask this...

You all are dealing with the fine points of the Greek NT texts and exactly how to translate these words into modern English.

But isn't there an argument that Jesus and his immediate disciples spoke Aramaic, not Greek? So even the Gospel accounts as received are merely translations of what was actually said?

(By this time, of course, Hebrew itself was not in daily use; that's why the Mishnah is largely written in Aramaic.)

(Aramaic is frustrating, BTW...you're reading along and the words look SO familiar and the grammer makes sense and THEN you realize that you have NO IDEA what it means...)

I understand that there isn't any doubt that Paul wrote his epistles in Greek

 

Nosborne

From my own admittedly narrow perspective the issue is not what language Jesus spoke.

It is not for these reasons:

1) Paul the Apostle who wrote Philippians on which I above comment did not write in Aramaic. We only have textual evidence that he wrote in the common language of most of the civilized world then--koine Greek.

2) Factor into to your evaluation of what I am doing that the beginning of Theological studies for the evangelical is epistemology--ie, what do I think is the source of Truth?

a) The Evangelical thinks that the Words of his Scripture are the source of truth.

b)Therefore, the issue is not what language Jesus spoke, but in what language is the NT originally written. Jesus' Aramaic words are translated into the Greek, by, we Evangelicals think, God's inspiration.

c) Our primary source of info about Christ is the Greek NT. That NT says that Christ said that the Holy Spirit is sent by Christ to lead His apostles into truth. Paul , eg, claims for his own (Greek) words the very authority of Christ.

d) Evangelicals ,as I, measure our doctrines not by any other rule but only by the issue of whether or not our beliefs and our lives conform to the grammatical/historical method of the exegetics of the NT. As I admit above, this is a narrow perspective I admit.

So, the issue of what Jesus said in Aramaic to one such as I is no issue at all because I think the original Greek NT inerrantly renders God's Words both through Christ His apostles.

Then the task becomes to understand that Word. That is what I try to do through a grammatical /historical exegetic of the text and a cohering of those results with basic tenets.


Thanks for your question,

Bill

 

Re: I have to ask this...

Yes, the majority of scholars believe Jesus and His disciples spoke Aramaic. Paul addressed the crowd in Aramaic in Acts 21:40 and 22:2.

A number of scholars--small, very small--believe the original texts were first written in Aramaic.

Conybeare says "The traditions thus collected were first framed in the Aramaic tongue; for Jesus and his first followers, being Galileans, spoke that dialect, and Mark's Greek is so full of Aramaic phrases, names, and idioms as to justify the contention of Wellhausen and other competent Semitic scholars that the documents which he inherited were translations of Aramaic originals; and the same remark holds good of most of the material contained in the non-Marcan source.

Granted most, if not all, of the scholars--Torrey, Zeitlin, Black (to some extent), Howard, Burney, et. al.--are deceased.

The Holy Apostolic Assyrian Catholic Church of the East still proclaims the original manuscripts were first penned in Aramaic.

There is an Aramaic Discussion Board and a site to learn the language online.

There is also www.peshitta.org and www.peshita.net.

For a long time I sided with the thought the original manuscripts were first written in Aramaic since Greek would such an anathama to the Jews, according to Josephus. I think he said the Jews would rather eat swine than learn or speak Greek, or something like that. Josephus said few if any Jews could speak Greek and he could not adequately learn it.

I still contend that Aramaic played a huge part in the writing of Scripture, but must confess it is all simple and pure speculation since no recent scholarship confirms what the other scholars afrementioned stated.

We do see many writings today refer to Jesus' Aramaic. The Presbyterian theologian and scholar Dr. Lloyd Ogilvie, often says "What Jesus was saying in Aramaic was..." Of course this has nothing to do with the written Word.

 

Interesting!

So as far as doctrine goes, what Jesus actually may have said or not said is irrelevant! What matters is the direct revelation contained in the Greek texts?

I understand that Christian faith says that there can be no significant inconsistancy between the two but it does tend to suggest that any evidence about Jesus' life and ministry from outside the NT would be neither necessary nor welcome...

 

I am not by any stretch of the imagination a biblical language scholar. But I have always been bothered by the attempts to convey Semitic thought with the Greek language.

 

Re: Re: I have to ask this...

It is worth noting that there are several references in patristic writings as well to Matthew's Gospel, at least, having had an Aramaic original; one of the earliest of these is the one I'd noted in an earlier post from Papias.

As Jimmy pointed out, the Greek of, say, Mark, is full of Aramaic idioms and phrases; it is very "semitic" Greek.

Why were the Gospels written down in Greek, then? The Gospels, while written from a Jewish context and perspective, were meant for non-Jewish as well as Jewish believers; it is one of those ironies that by the time the Gospels were written down, to be a Christian it was no longer necessary to be Jewish! Josephus aside, acceptance and use of Greek had already been taking place in the Jewish context, as noted by the translation of the Septuagint in Alexandria about 100 years before Messiah, as well as the writings of Philo in which he attempted to synthesize Jewish and Hellenic thought (or alternatively, to express Jewish thought in Hellenic language).

Thus I think it can be said that the Gospels recorded, in part, words which were orignially spoken in Jewish Western Aramaic and sought to express them in Greek, that it would be more widely understood. Of course, I would consider that to have been a decision taken at the leading of the Holy Spirit upon the Gospel writers, and yes, I would also say that there wouldn't be a contradiction between the two. As for "information fabout Jesus from outside the canonical Gospels, the way I would put it is that it would have to be judged by what is written in the Gospels themselves (although there are other reasons as well for which the gnostic and other materials were rejected as such).

Peace,

Matt

 

The Mishnah to some extent and the Gemora to a much greater extent use Greek terms (written, davka, in hebrew script just to keep it interesting).

I had a Rabbi once who mentioned something interesting about the Good Samaritan fable:

Remember that the sequence of people going by was a kohen, a levite, and a samaritan. Now, what my Rabbi thought was interesting was, the usual sequence in the Jewish world would have been: kohen, levite, and israelite. He's right, of course, that set of distinctions is deeply embedded in Jewish society and ritual and more importantly was so embedded at the time.

So, my Rabbi suggests, the story was CHANGED in order to adapt it to the needs of a gentile Church. I found this plausible since the fable makes no Jewish sense as it is. I mean, what Jew cares what some gentile chose to do? There were and are righteous gentiles and unjust Jews...so what? BUT, if the teller is comparing the official Jewish establishment to a modest individual private Jew, well, that's a different matter. Every actor is bound by precisely the same set of moral obligations.

The story becomes an indictment of the Jewish leadership, which it was plainly intended to be.

 

FABLE? Oh! Blasphemy!

 

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1) I do not have Jesus' words in Aramaic.

EG, here is a saying attributed to Jesus,

"Father glorify Me with your presence with the glory I had with you before the world was" (John 17:5)

John was written in Greek not in Aramaic. I do have copies of Greek manuscripts of John from the second century. I do have copies of church Fathers who wrote in Greek from the second century and quoted John from the Greek. But I have no Aramaic John 17:5 that claims to be anything more than a translation from the Greek.

So, an Aramaic John 17:5 has no significance for me as John wrote in Greek.

2) The reason it does not is that Jesus tells His apostles that they will be led into truth and will be His witnesses. This witnessing of the truth that they do is in Greek. They wrote to me (as it were) in Greek not in Aramaic Nosborne.

But if you have convincing evidence to the contrary I'll be happy to review that.

John wrote in Greek . So did Paul. So did Peter. So did Luke! I do not have Jesus' Aramaic words. So, I am little interested in Aramaic.



2) What DOES have significance for me is what the Greek of 17:5 means.

So, just for eg:

a) Grammatically I am concerned to know the meaning of the Greek preposition 'para' (with) when, as here, it is used with the dative. Does that preposition used with that case indicate that this pre existent glory exuded unilaterally from the Father as in an eternal begetting or an eternal subordination or not?

b) Lexically I am interested in knowing what "doxa theou" (God's glory) means. Does having that equal having deity?

C) Theologically I need to interface this apparent claim by Jesus of pre existence with what I understand of the historical Christ. Was not Jesus born some 30 years before of Mary? So, how is it that He is said to exist before the worlds?

How can He be born 30 years before if He was before the creation?

Anyone with any savvy at all of Christian theology will see immediately the relevance of this issue with my posts above re my belief in the dual natures of Christ. IMO that is the central doctrine of Christianity.

And, I really think that anyone who tries to understand my perspective will see why Aramaic means nothing to me in connection with John 17:5 and others. But if they cannot see why, then that's OK.

I do not live to convince others.

 

And herein lies the problem. We supposedly have copies of Greek originals but no copies of (if any) Aramaic originals.

Therefore, until academically proven otherwise, we have to concur with the scholarship available and that says the New Testament was originally written in Greek.

It's hard to believe none of the disciples penned in their native tongue, but again, all we have is what we have so we accept than and keep looking, keep digging, keep hoping, etc.

 

Okay, I think I understand...the apostles who were with Jesus apparently wrote in Greek about Jesus' teachings and their observations of him.

Therefore, whether they spoke Greek or Aramaic with Jesus does not matter.

Simplified, to be sure, but basically correct?

 

Thanks for understanding Nosborne. You are correct.

Along with many Evangelicals I hold the autographa of the NT to be the inspired Word of God to me. I consider that inerrant when correctly interpreted.

As it evidently was in Greek, I use the best ,textual research available to me to replicate what seems to be the original wording. ( we do not have the original manuscripts) . There actually are not many really questionable variants among the many witnesses to the NT text which are significant.

IMO no version or translation is inerrant. That does not mean that translations are not valuable or that they are not useful to learn Christian doctrine. I only mean that for me the originals are what are authoritative.

And I use the best exegesis of what likely is the true text (by 'text' I mean what the apostles actually wrote) to guide me in my theological opining. I do value the opinions of creeds and those more scholarly or spiritual than I, but as a Protestant Evangelical I feel required to be guided by my own understandings of the text.

To illustrate this principle of the independency from all ,save Scripture, of my thought, in the last 30 days I've spent many hours with H. Wayne House. Dr. House has a ThD from Concordia and a J.D. from Regent Univ School of Law. He has taught at Dallas Seminary , others too, and is past Pres of the Evangelical Theological Society which consists of thousands of well educated members. He has authored numerous books widely used in accredited schools of instruction. I really feel very blessed to spend so much time with him.

Yet I feel no compulsion to agree with him where our Theology somewhat varies.

On the other hand, I know my great limitations and think that God forgives me for them.

All of this is not to say that that Aramaic has no place at all in Christian research. I'm sure that language is required for doctoral study in our "OT." And it may be too that One or two Gospels were penned by apostles in Aramaic. I just don't know.

Did you know that the NT writers often use the Greek Septuagint when they refer to "Old" Testament texts in preference to the Hebrew?

 

Hi Bill,

Just curious here, what translation of the Bible do you think is the best?

 

I'm sorry Jimmy...I just don't know.

I do like more literal translations as the NAS as opposed to those which attempt more to interpret. You know of the tension that exists between the goal of being literal and that of being informative.

What is your preference?

 

I tend to change my mind periodically. I grew up liking Moffat and the RSV. Then I liked the Amplified Bible and then the Peshitta.

Lately I am seeing how much beauty there is in the KJV but I guess I would have to say that for now I really, really like the NASB.