Maybe you have a different translation of Genesis?
My translation doesn't use the word "was" for God in the opening of Genesis...
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My translation doesn't use the word "was" for God in the opening of Genesis...
Weird. The Sahidic to English translation writes: "In the beginning existed the Word, and the Word existed with God, and God was the Word." - it sounds as though it's placing the Word above God.
rational experiences
Veteran Member
Pi O was God stone spirits historically released into the deep emptiness of space, filled it in as gases or spirit in religious science quotes. Water/oxygen involved in light/gas heat burning/evaporation is the spirit on which the spirits as the face of God in space move.
Exactly how it was explained. So pi O is just a natural awareness it was never owned by science.
A human first has to apply an assessment of beliefs about the want of change to pi O....which became PHI...so obviously science tried to put PHI above that of Pi O natural origins, which would have forced a huge UFO radiation mass release originally...to force PHI to exist versus just O pi.
O pi however survived for the spatial vacuum, the void is what saved the Earth O as God.VOID IN THE BIBLE
First of all you have to make correct spiritual self reviews. The human being was standing on the ground/stone of God O the first/origin in creation natural history.
So you male human science self were married to the stone, for if stone did not exist then nor would the bio life. Which you completely ignored as a Satanist.
For all you keep inferring to as origin is the Heavenly gases with bio microbial life...and not the real GOD O stone origin. What you previously were taught, you applied a criminal science action against the origin form....stone.
Your science theme is female, WOMB of space owned the formation of the Heavenly spirit gases is not in any context female IT IS MATH.
So stop lying, which you seemingly cannot get over, the fact that science is a consummate liar.
You talked about space and the void about maths and your science, and it told you what you did.
Jeremiah 19:7 | View whole chapter | See verse in context
And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.
The meaning of which Jesus as the life/attacked and sacrificed came twice.
You are currently in the life process of causing it a THIRD time.
When the ARK alighted on the burning radiation UFO mountain tip theme to convert the Earth God stone mass/crystalline fusion....that situation was nuclear, ground fission. Yet the fission reaction occurred in the mountain as it began to be melted/destroyed.
Never did the presence CLOUD own a nuclear reaction, the stone mass did...what you always lied about, God the stone was owner of the body of nuclear energy. The spirit gases of the atmosphere were converted volcanic first erupted gases and water evaporation/cooling in space, which is not any science reaction.
It was a discussion about God relativity as the Law of the stone O first origin planet and it was stated categorically to never give GOD another name or change God....yet you have.
So how can any organization today in science claim that they are righteous, when they own a self written document that said never ever change planet Earth again?
Exactly how it was explained. So pi O is just a natural awareness it was never owned by science.
A human first has to apply an assessment of beliefs about the want of change to pi O....which became PHI...so obviously science tried to put PHI above that of Pi O natural origins, which would have forced a huge UFO radiation mass release originally...to force PHI to exist versus just O pi.
O pi however survived for the spatial vacuum, the void is what saved the Earth O as God.VOID IN THE BIBLE
First of all you have to make correct spiritual self reviews. The human being was standing on the ground/stone of God O the first/origin in creation natural history.
So you male human science self were married to the stone, for if stone did not exist then nor would the bio life. Which you completely ignored as a Satanist.
For all you keep inferring to as origin is the Heavenly gases with bio microbial life...and not the real GOD O stone origin. What you previously were taught, you applied a criminal science action against the origin form....stone.
Your science theme is female, WOMB of space owned the formation of the Heavenly spirit gases is not in any context female IT IS MATH.
So stop lying, which you seemingly cannot get over, the fact that science is a consummate liar.
You talked about space and the void about maths and your science, and it told you what you did.
Jeremiah 19:7 | View whole chapter | See verse in context
And I will make void the counsel of Judah and Jerusalem in this place; and I will cause them to fall by the sword before their enemies, and by the hands of them that seek their lives: and their carcases will I give to be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth.
The meaning of which Jesus as the life/attacked and sacrificed came twice.
You are currently in the life process of causing it a THIRD time.
When the ARK alighted on the burning radiation UFO mountain tip theme to convert the Earth God stone mass/crystalline fusion....that situation was nuclear, ground fission. Yet the fission reaction occurred in the mountain as it began to be melted/destroyed.
Never did the presence CLOUD own a nuclear reaction, the stone mass did...what you always lied about, God the stone was owner of the body of nuclear energy. The spirit gases of the atmosphere were converted volcanic first erupted gases and water evaporation/cooling in space, which is not any science reaction.
It was a discussion about God relativity as the Law of the stone O first origin planet and it was stated categorically to never give GOD another name or change God....yet you have.
So how can any organization today in science claim that they are righteous, when they own a self written document that said never ever change planet Earth again?
Hi, @Harel13 ! Hope you're staying safe!
When you think about it, the Bible is usually all 66 books, from Genesis to Revelation, right? Would it make sense, then, that somehow God in the Hebrew Scriptures (OT) would be somehow different than in the Greek Scriptures (NT)? Not to me. But we don't have to get into that.
Regarding Jesus' pre-human existence....please read John 17:5, Jesus'prayer to his God & Father. He existed "Before the world was." Pretty awesome!
But then, so were the angels, according to Job 38:4-7.
I found this very informative.....
Highly acclaimed scholar and Catholic priest (aTrinitarian) John Lawrence McKenzie, S.J., in his Dictionary of the Bible, says: “Jn 1:1 should rigorously be translated ‘the word was with the God [= the Father], and the word was a divine being.’”—(Brackets are his. Bold type mine. Published with nihil obstat and imprimatur.) (New York, 1965), p. 317.
Highly acclaimed scholar and Catholic priest (aTrinitarian) John Lawrence McKenzie, S.J., in his Dictionary of the Bible, says: “Jn 1:1 should rigorously be translated ‘the word was with the God [= the Father], and the word was a divine being.’”—(Brackets are his. Bold type mine. Published with nihil obstat and imprimatur.) (New York, 1965), p. 317.
Probably best that we don't.
That's exactly where my question stems from. As the NT is attempting to correlate itself with the Tanach, it made me wonder about this issue. It didn't seem to add up.
One (well, okay, I) wonders why this couldn't have been the opening phrase...
It is a somewhat bizarre or rather singular rendering of the Greek (although I like how the translator has apparently understood that "was" is imperfect tense past continuous, such that it means the Word simply existed/exists already in the beginning without being created or coming to be (egeneto)).
I don't read it as placing the Word over God, though, merely as an attempt by the Sahidic translator to emphasis the synonymous identity of one with the other as a single God (i.e. with the implication of their being one Being, although the word ousia (essence/being) is not explicitly used in the text).
Edit:
I know that's the point, but I look at it this way: all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. God is the Word, but is the Word God? (or, in the first translation I used, The Word is God, but is God the Word?) The author, in either translation, doesn't make that clear, at least not in this verse.
Fair point!
What the author does seem to be doing rather strongly in the prologue is drawing a line between the Word and God that don't egeneto (come into being), and thus are placed on the same "side" of eternal timelessness/constancy, and everything else that comes into being through the Word.
It's why I think he used the past continuous tense, to emphasise activity in the past always and neverending.
So, there is an implied Creator/creature line in the text and the Word is placed firmly on the left side of that equation.
If I may ask, how do you think the opening line should have been worded for better clarity?
As a side note: throughout the text of the gospel, the en (was God) in the first line is picked up as ego eimi in the absolute form without predicate and placed in the mouth of Jesus, such as in phrases like, "Before Abraham was, I am (ego eimi)" (John 8:58) which seem intended to mimick how the LXX alludes to the tetragrammaton: “I AM' [ego eimi] who comforts you” (Isa. 51:12 LXX), as God's self-referential of His uniqueness.
The Septuagint translates ehyeh asher ehyeh of Exodus 3:14a into Greek as “ego eimi ho on”.
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As implied with the "with" though, the author appears to want to keep both a sense of distinction between God and His Word, whilst also having his cake and eating it by implying that they are one and the same (reality? essence? isness? The author doesn't specifically articulate).
So, this tension might be reflected in his word choice.
cataway
Well-Known Member
it seems you are tiring to understand a contradiction in a less than stellar bible . oh it starts out Ok .then in English, some thing is missing to make it acceptable and logical . It really nothing more than something called a indefinite article . with the indefinite it reads ; "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was A god."John opens up with: "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God."
I don't quite understand this. Clearly the author of the book is trying to parallel this with the opening of Genesis "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." However, Genesis opens up with stating that first time itself began/came into being - i.e. there was a beginning ("In the beginning"). Next, the verse makes mention of God. Where did God come from? That's not stated, but as God was already there at the beginning and we don't know where He came from, it's inferred that He was there before the beginning.
In John, however, things appear to be different:
First there's a beginning - much like in Genesis ("In the beginning") - but then says "was the Word" - as I understand, "was" is a word that denotes coming into existence - that is, the Word came into being after time began. Yet then we are told "...and the Word was God." - if in Genesis we are made to infer that God was before time began, and here the Word was - came into being - after time began, how then can the Word be God? And how then can it be said in the next verse "He was with God in the beginning."? One entity was pre-time and the other post-time.
I hope this makes sense...
It's the NIV. Not all Bibles were lucky enough to have been made by the JWs...
So would you answer the first part of the question by saying that the Word was in fact, created after time began?
The NIV is arguably one of the worse translations out there, as far as Christian Bibles go; I refused to use it even as a Christian. You'd be better off using the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) - this one even correctly translates 'almah' in Isaiah 7.It's the NIV. Not all Bibles were lucky enough to have been made by the JWs...
ETA: The NRSV does use some gender inclusive language and this can be offputting for some. The RSV (Revised Standard Version) is still a good enough option in this case, imo.
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Thanks. It turns out that the NRSV version of the opening of John is the same as the NIV, though.
Agreed, NIV is terrible.
They translate Psalm 22:16 as "pierced" even though the Greek word in the LXX means "dug" and the Masoretic renders it "like a lion", which tells you everything you need to know about their translation ethos.
The NRSV, on the other hand, was an ecumenical translation by Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox and (one) Jewish scholar.
It's likely they are mostly all the same in G-John 1:1.
To be fair to them, their John translation isn't that bad or inaccurate.
But please don't rely upon them if you ever read Paul's letters (and as stated, their Tanakh translation falls well below professional standards).
Indeed. The NIV I remember being called the Non-Inspired Version and that still comes to mind
I used the NRSV even after I became a Noahide for a little bit while waiting on having the money to buy a Jewish Bible.
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And there is absolutely no justification for 'dome' in Genesis in the NRSV...! Firmament or expanse are so much better and widely known.
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Apart from the Jehovah's Witness translation (which is variable for theological reasons specific to their church), there isn't really a whole lot you can do with John 1:1 as the Greek is actually really simple (the subtext is profound / complicated but the actual syntactical structure of the sentence isn't).
So, that would explain why even a poor translation like the NIV renders it much the same as the other professional translations. You'd have to really suck at Koine Greek to translate it in a wildly different way IMHO.