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In this episode I discuss “Socinian”-type readings of John 1 with Carlos from Restoration Fellowship.
First, I explain the common anachronistic misreading of this passage, and then the “Socinian” rival interpretation.
I then lodge several objections against this interpretation.
Along the way we discuss Socinus, the Racovian Catechism, the evolution of my own views, why I don’t believe in Jesus’s pre-existence, problems with two-natures speculations about Jesus, and a textual problem in John 1:13.
Links for this episode:
- John 1:1-14; Revelation 19:13; Proverbs 8:22; 1 John 1:1-3; Hebrews 1:1-14; Colossians 1:15-23; John 14:9-10; John 20:28; 1 Corinthians 8:4-6; Ephesians 4:4-6; Philippians 2:6; John 16:27-28; James 1:17; John 14:9; 2 Corinthians 5:19; Luke 20:4.
- logos
- Sir Anthony Buzzard, “John 1:1 – Fifty Plus English Translations“
- Restoration Fellowship YouTube channel
- Unedited video version: “Dale Tuggy on “Socinian” John 1 interpreation.”
- The Racovian Catechism
- podcast 235 – The Case Against Preexistence
- podcast 289 – “Socinian” approaches to John 1 – Part 2
- podcast 288 – “Socinian” approaches to John 1 – Part 1
- podcast 287 – Dr. Andrew Perry on John 1
- Clarifying Catholic Christologies
- Debate – Dr. Dale Tuggy vs. Chris Date “Is Jesus Human and not Divine?”
- Bill Schlegel: “Some Comments on the recent discussion by Dr. Dale Tuggy and Carlos Xavier on the Socinian view of John’s Prologue“
- This week’s thinking music is “Organanometron (140811 Mix)” by spinningmerkaba.
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Gentlemen:
Thank you for the thoughtful discussion. My first step in Bible reading is to focus first on what texts “say” and not what they “mean.” In order to to do this, one crucial step is to replace each of the pronouns with the nouns to which they refer. In the case of John 1:1-18, it seems to me most of the disagreements are driven by different views concerning the pronouns.
For example, houtos in vs 2 is a demonstrative pronoun which references an antecedent noun. That’s the way demonstrative pronouns work in Greek for most genres including English. For houtos, the only two options are logos and theos both of which are masculine, singular nouns. Thus, this pronoun should be rendered “This” or “The same” and if we include the noun to which it refers, should be rendered “The same logos.” Pronoun by pronoun this should be done and justification given for how one makes these decisions.
In my personal experience, the confidence Trinitarians display regarding the John 1 passage providing “game ending” arguments for the deity of Jesus quickly evaporates if one focuses on discussions about pronouns and rules that govern them. Asking a person to work through and replace all pronouns with their respective nouns with clear justifications exposes presuppositions that are simply not supported by the text. Additionally, most people can grasp the importance of doing so accurately and see why such an exercise is relevant to the debate.
Lover of pronouns,
Dennis
Not anyone from the UU denomination, but I suppose “subordinationists” or whoever else.
A blessed Easter weekend to you all.
Morning gentlemen. Kosmos in John 1 does not mean the world. It means the people, the Jews. This is still the case in modern Greek where kosmos is used interchangeably with anthropoi. In John 1 it is parallel with “his own” and “the darkness”, which refer to the Jews. The Jews are THE people, ho kosmos, and the word is used this way throughout the OT. Likewise in John 3.16 the meaning is that God loved the People in this way, that he sent his beloved son to them to save them.
In John 1.3 the the English word, made, is superfluous. The Greek does not say that all things were “made by him”, but that all things were, or, came to pass by him. Ginomai means: Was, came to pass, occurred, happened. This fits the Socinian reading very well, as the all things are the events of Jesus’ ministry from his baptism onwards.
Hi Roger – I don’t see that in the lexicons as a possible meaning of kosmos.
https://www.biblestudytools.com/lexicons/greek/nas/kosmos.html
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=ko%2Fsmos&la=greek&can=ko%2Fsmos0#lexicon
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.04.0057%3Aentry%3Dko%2Fsmos
Where in the LXX OT do you see the Jews being referred to as the kosmos?
A blessed Holy Saturday. Lexicons must be handled with care, because they often simply copy other lexicons, and they are limited by the theology of their authors, as seen in many, many instances. The exegetical rule is that the meaning of a word must be sought in the usage and context of the literary unit it occurs in. Lexicons are a secondary tool.
The Parallelism is clear in John 1. Parallelism is a common literary device in scripture. For example, the Psalms regularly put two sentences together conceptually like this: First line sets out the premise, and the second echoes it with different words, giving perhaps a new angle or twist.
Bless the Lord O my Soul
Let all that is within me praise his holy name.
In John 1 we see the same method used to parallel light and darkness; and the kosmos and his own.
John 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
John 1:5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.
The darkness is Israel, Jesus is the light. He did not go to the Gentiles, he was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.
John 1:9 That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.
John 1:10 He was in the world, and the world was (made) through Him, and the world did not know Him.
John 1:11 He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him.
Here you can see in a triple construction the light, the kosmos and his own, in a typical OT parallelism.
An OT example is the host of heaven, the ton kosmon tou ouranou, the population/host/army of heaven.
Hope this helps.
Please interview from time to time some Unitarians who aren’t part of the BU movement, as this narrow group all toot the same horn, basically. Interview some Christadelphians or other Unitarians. There have to be some out there, somewhere.
Terry, by other Unitarians are you referring to “subordinationists” or other non-trinitarians who don’t believe the Bible to be their only written authority?
Terry, I’m open to specific suggestions. I did enjoy my recent interview with Christadelphian scholar Andrew Perry. BTW there are some significant differences between various BU folks. Many disagree with, say, Restoration of Fellowship on various issues, e.g. pacifism, spiritual gifts.
Which program was the interview with Andrew Perry? I identify with the Christadelphians in that I reject the existence of a literal devil and demons, and also agree with them about the general misunderstanding of the “Antichrist.” However, I reached my conclusions about the devil/demons not from Christadelphians, but through Lindsey/Priestley/Belsham/Hugh Farmer/John Simpson—all of whom lived long before there were any “Christadelphians.” Unfortunately, I don’t have any specific names in mind as I’m not knowledgeable of today’s scholarly world in any field of religion. One interesting theme might be to interview any Unitarians who are not of the “futurist” school of prophecy. Isaac Newton was a Historicist and his views were quite interesting.
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