{"id":39146,"date":"2017-06-17T07:03:40","date_gmt":"2017-06-17T11:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/?p=39146"},"modified":"2017-06-19T12:54:28","modified_gmt":"2017-06-19T16:54:28","slug":"reading-john-10-with-axe-grinding-and-without","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/reading-john-10-with-axe-grinding-and-without\/","title":{"rendered":"reading John 10: with axe-grinding and without"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"With axe-grinding: Steve Hays<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

In v36, Jesus uses \u201cson of God\u201d as a synonym for \u201cGod\u201d in v33. They accuse him of making himself \u201cGod\u201d. Yet, in v36, he translates their allegation as equivalent to the accusation that he\u2019s the \u201cSon of God\u201d. So he himself uses \u201cGod\u201d and \u201cSon of God\u201d as interchangeable labels in that context.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That wouldn’t make a lot of sense, would it, using “Son of God” to mean “God”?<\/p>\n

Without axe-grinding: Roman Montero<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

No he doesn\u2019t use \u201cSon of God\u201d as a synonym for \u201cGod\u201d, he uses it to mean \u201cson of God\u201d. \u201cSon of God\u201d is never used in any Jewish literature to refer to YHWH. It is used to refer to Kings and to lesser Deities (later understood as angels). So their charge was either completely confused (which would make sense for John’s portrayal of the Jewish enemies of Jesus, they were often confused) or they thought calling oneself a \u201cson of God\u201d in the sense of a lesser deity was blasphemy.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unlike many a latter-day reader, John never confuses together God and his Son.<\/p>\n

No one has ever seen God<\/strong>. It is the only Son<\/strong>, who is close to the Father\u2019s heart, who has made him known. (John 1:18, NRSV, alternate translation)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

One was seen, in the ordinary way, while the other was not. (1 John 1:1-3)<\/p>\n

My analysis of Jesus’s argument is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Update: In Hay’s mind, people only “attempt” to reply<\/strong> to his convincing diatribes. He replies here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Roman comes back here<\/a>. In part,<\/p>\n

…messiah means \u201canointed one\u201d and the assumption is that he is anointed by God<\/strong>, to do God\u2019s will. God doesn\u2019t need to be anointed by anyone. Also there is no precedent on Judaism for a messiah who is Yahweh himself.<\/p>\n

…The most quoted scriptures in relation to Christ in the NT are psalms 110:1 where Jesus is the non-Yahweh \u201clord\u201d, and Daniel 7:13-14 where Jesus is the non-Yahweh \u201cson of man\u201d. Both those scriptures, used countless of times for Christ, exclude the possibility of him being Yahweh.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Those are obvious, and obviously salient facts about the texts.<\/p>\n

Hays delivers his typical off-the-cuff, over-long, and over-aggressive reply here<\/a>. In part,<\/p>\n

\n
Montero doesn’t bother to explain how Dan 7 excludes the possibility that messiah is Yahweh<\/strong>.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
\"\"Gee, let’s see if that needs explaining. In the scene, Yahweh is the one on the throne. Then a one like a son of a man (so, not Yahweh) comes to Yahweh, and is given “authority, glory and sovereign power<\/span>.” (Daniel 7:14) The reader is to understand that this couldn’t be Yahweh, since he already has those things, and could not lack them, given that there is a creation to be sovereign and authoritative over!<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
So, no, it doesn’t need explaining<\/strong>. Hays has a poor sense of what is obvious vs. what is speculative.Basically, what he thinks is the first, and what you think is the second. \ud83d\ude42<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n
\"\"What you have to realize about him<\/strong> is that he’ll affirm or deny seemingly anything in order to defend his confused, pet speculations about Jesus and God, which he assumes to be orthodox. He simply demands that any text be read as consistent with these. So he affirms that Jesus and God are numerically one, and yet grants that they differ. So he simply denies that it is impossible for a single being to be and<\/em> not be the same way at the same time – which is about as ridiculous as a claim can be. He’s as it were jumped the theological shark. And when this is pointed out, he’ll just abuse and stomp up an ineffectual cloud of philosophical dust<\/a>. But he’s unable to avail himself of the various Christian philosophers’ solutions. In his mind, his view is simply proof-textable, and the longer you go on being unimpressed by his exegesis and arguments, the more it shows that you’re just a stupid, incompetent jerk. He’s got a bad case of the old odium theologicum<\/em><\/a>.<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“Son of God” as a synonym for “God”?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39147,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[37,21,15,6,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39146","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-apologetics","category-bible","category-christology","category-complaints","category-linkage"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39146"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39159,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39146\/revisions\/39159"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39147"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}