Bart D. Ehrman, Daniel B. Wallace, and the Syntax and Meaning of John 1:18

On February 25, 2004, Professor Daniel B. Wallace of Dallas Theological Seminary posted an article online titled, “The Text and Grammar of John 1:18” (link http://bible.org/article/text-and-grammar-john-118 [last accessed October 27, 2011]).

In his online article, Wallace takes issue primarily with a specific syntactical observation and argument made in 1993 by Professor Bart D. Ehrman. Prior to expressing his specific syntactical point in relation to the grammar of John 1:18, Ehrman noted the difficulty for those (presumably Trinitarians [= “orthodox”]) who favor the variant for John 1:18 that has theos (“a god” or “G/god”) instead of huios (“a son” or “S/son”), or no substantive (noun) used at all after the adjective monogenēs (“only-begotten”/“unique”).^[1] Ehrman wrote (with my bracketed words added):

By definition there can be only one [monogenēs]: the word means “unique,” “one of a kind” [and, “only-begotten,” contrary to Ehrman’s acceptance of Dale Moody’s arguments (see discussion in my note 2)]. The problem, of course, is that Jesus can be the unique God only if there is no other God; but for the Fourth Gospel, the Father is God as well. Indeed, even in this passage the [monogenēs] is said to reside in the bosom of the Father. How can the [monogenēs theos], the unique God, stand in such a relationship to (another) God?^[2]

In answer to Ehrman’s last question, see Chapter 2, “‘One God, the Father,’” in my Third Edition of Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, in which the biblical concept of monotheism, inclusive of God the Father and his divine “S/sons,” is explained and defended against the Trinitarian concept of “God.” Here in this article I will concentrate primarily on the syntactical argument presented in Ehrman’s Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, and with which Wallace takes issue in his “Text and Grammar of John 1:18” article.

After Ehrman presents what I have quoted from him above as a problem for those who favor the reading of John 1:18 which uses “G/god” instead of “S/son,” Ehrman refers to a grammatical position favored by those who, though accepting the reading which uses “G/god” after monogenēs (“only-begotten”/“unique”), do not consider it to be a problem since they “understand the adjective [monogenēs] substantively,” with the resulting translation being along the lines of, “the unique one, who is also God, who is in the bosom of the Father.”^[3] By “substantively,” as can be seen also from the sample translation given by Ehrman for those who view monogenēs in this way, Ehrman means that those who accept the reading which calls the Word “G/god” in John 1:18 understand the term preceding theos (namely, monogenēs) to be used as a noun with the meaning, “the unique one.”

This view of monogenēs functioning as a noun^[4] is, according to Ehrman, a “more common expedient for those who opt for” the reading which uses theos (“G/god”) instead of huios (“S/son”) after monogenēs. Though Ehrman sees “something attractive about the proposal,” he concludes, “Nonetheless, the solution [= understanding monogenēs as a noun meaning “unique one” rather than as an adjective qualifying theos as in “unique G/god”] is entirely implausible.”^[5]

Ehrman then gives reasons for his view, the primary one of which (for the purpose of this article’s consideration of the syntactical point taken up by Wallace, in his online article) is stated in this way (with my underlining and bracketed words added):

[A] moment’s reflection shows that the proposed construal is not at all the most natural. It is true that [monogenēs] can elsewhere be used as a substantive (= the unique one, as in v. 14); all adjectives can. But the proponents of this view have failed to consider that it is never used in this way when it is immediately followed by a noun that agrees with it in gender, number, and case. Indeed one must here press the syntactical point: when is an adjective ever used substantivally when it immediately precedes a noun of the same inflection? No Greek reader would construe such a construction as a string of substantives, and no Greek writer would create such an inconcinnity [= unsuitableness in writing]. To the best of my knowledge, no one has cited anything analogous outside of this passage. The result is that taking the term [monogenēs theos] as two substantives standing in apposition makes for a nearly impossible syntax, whereas construing their relationship as adjective-noun [= “unique/only-begotten G/god”] creates an impossible sense.^[6]

The “impossible sense” which Ehrman believes results from “unique/only-begotten G/god” is really due to Ehrman’s lack of recognition for what is biblical monotheism and how the Word can, in fact, truthfully and consistently be “a” or even the “unique/only-begotten god,” in light of biblical and associated literature’s presentation of God’s “sons” as “gods” who serve but who do not rival him, even acting as if they are God because they only do Jah God’s will (see Judges 13:3-22 [compare Judges 6:22-23]; Job 38:7; Psalm 8:5; 82:6; 96:7; 138:1; John 1:1; 5:30; 6:38; 7:16-18; 8:28; 12:48-50; 10:33-36).^[7] However, Ehrman does not understand John 1:18 in the light of these and other, similar texts, and because Ehrman believes “taking the term [monogenēs theos] as two substantives standing in apposition [as in ‘a unique one, G/god’] makes for a nearly impossible syntax,” Ehrman prefers the reading monogenēs huios (“unique Son”).^[8] 

Returning to the “nearly impossible syntax” Ehrman writes about when it comes to those who view monogenēs theos “as a string of substantives” (= “the unique one, who is God/a god”), in his online article (“The Text and Grammar of John 1:18”) Wallace attempts to answer Ehrman’s challenge first by referring to Ehrman’s syntactical argument and then by claiming it “assumes that [monogenēs] cannot normally be substantival [= used as a noun rather than as an adjective modifying another noun], even though it is so used in [John 1:]14—as he [Ehrman] admits.”

Yet, the use of monogenēs in John 1:14 is not the same use we find in John 1:18, namely, to quote Ehrman’s argument, “when it [monogenēs] is immediately followed by a noun that agrees with it in gender, number, and case.” The use of monogenēs in John 1:14 as a substantive (= “the only-begotten/unique one”) thus stands in contrast to the use of the same term in verse 18 where it is not used apart from an immediately following noun with which it is in grammatical agreement. This difference, in fact, cannot help but suggest that there is indeed a different use of the same term in verse 18 (namely, as an adjective modifying the following noun) than there is in verse 14.

John 1:14 is only the first of many non-parallels cited by Wallace in an attempt to refute Ehrman’s syntactical argument about the use of monogenēs in John 1:18. Indeed, after wrongly paralleling the clear substantival use of monogenēs in John 1:14 with Ehrman’s syntactical argument for monogenēs and an immediately following noun in John 1:18, Wallace proceeds to cite eleven (11) examples which he admits (and which can be shown plainly) are “not exactly the same.” Why, then, cite these examples, at all? The reason appears to be to broaden what Wallace hopes will in some sense be seen as a more significant number of exceptions to Ehrman’s point, even if they are “not exactly the same.”

Ehrman’s syntactical argument is clear in light of his question from my quotation of Ehrman above and from Wallace’s quotation of the same, namely, “[W]hen is an adjective ever used substantivally when it immediately precedes a noun of the same inflection?” Yet, Wallace first cites Romans 10:19, which uses prōtos Mōusēs, and where prōtos is not “used as a substantive” (Ehrman), though Wallace claims it “fits into the ‘impossible’ category that Ehrman says does not exist”! In fact, it has nothing to do with the specific syntactical “category” Ehrman objects to, namely, “two substantives standing in apposition,” that is, where one substantive further defines the other (as in Romans 1:1, Paulos doulos, “Paul, a slave”).

Wallace next cites 1 Corinthians 5:10 which he admits is “not exactly a parallel,” but which he then claims is “awfully close.” We are not playing horse shoes, nor are we on a battlefield with hand grenades (thankfully), and so “close” or even “awfully close” does not count for much if anything. It is strange, indeed, for me to find Wallace, one who has made so much out of precise syntactical parallels, such as when it comes to the Granville Sharp rule, would be more precise with his examples, examples which if they include John 1:18 then they would not contain several clear uses of substantives separated by conjunctions, substantives which are not immediately followed by a noun in the same gender, number, and case.^[9]

Next under his “Similar Structural Parallel” category listing, Wallace cites 1 Corinthians 6:9 which again does not parallel Ehrman’s point, nor does Wallace’s citation of 1 Corinthians 9:6, for in neither do we have “two substantives standing in apposition,” where the “adjective [is] used substantivally when it immediately precedes a noun of the same inflection.” Wallace next cites 1 Corinthians 12:29, which does use the pronominal adjective pantes (“all”) several times and where each time it is followed immediately by a substantive in grammatical agreement. But as Wallace also notes here pantes is used in predicate relation (for example, “not all are apostles”) to the immediately following substantives; not one instance in this text has what Ehrman has put forth as part of his syntactical point, namely, “two substantives standing in apposition.”

Wallace’s next three ‘similar parallels’ (1 Corinthians 4:24; 2 Corinthians 3:3; Ephesians 5:5) are all not parallel to Ehrman’s argument, as in each example conjunctions again separate the terms. For the same reason, Wallace’s citation of 1 Timothy 1:13 is also invalid. The two other examples cited under Wallace’s “Category 1: Similar Structural Parallels” are more significant, at least for Wallace, since he places asterisks (* and **) next to each one because Wallace believes these “are [among] the clearest examples that invalidate Ehrman’s absolute rule.” Yet, how can that be the case when to invalidate Ehrman’s position we must have examples of adjectives “used substantivally” when they ‘immediately precede a noun of the same inflection’ and where they are “standing in apposition”?

Indeed, the two asterisked examples Wallace here cites (Colossians 1:2 and Hebrews 9:24) are not parallel in critical syntactical areas, for in the latter (Hebrews 9:24) the noun for “Christ” separates hagia (“holy place”) from antitypa (“a type”), and in the former (Colossians 1:2) we not only have a conjunction separating the terms (hagios is separated from pistois adelphois by kai), but in the final part of Wallace’s example we have the very syntactical relationship argued for by Ehrman in relation to John 1:18, “faithful brothers” (pistois adelphois”).

Now I will consider Wallace’s “Category 2: Identical Structural Parallel” examples, of which Wallace’s very first example again fails to parallel “Ehrman’s absolute rule,” namely, John 6:70, where we have a pronominal adjective in heis (“one”) followed by what we can consider a substantival use in the adjective diabolos. Here again the terms are in predicate relation to each other (“one ... is [estin] a slanderer”); they are not “two substantives standing in apposition.” Wallace’s second example is Romans 1:30 (see also the end of verse 29 and verse 31), next to which Wallace again puts an asterisk, meaning he considers it one of the “clearest examples that invalidate Ehrman’s absolute rule.”

But in this example we have a string of plural nouns and adjectives used as nouns. Because they are all plurals, even according to Wallace^[10] we may be (and, in fact, we are) dealing with different groups, even if they are related in some sense, which suggests the nouns and adjectives used here as nouns are, again, not in apposition to each other; rather, they constitute a series of different types of people without one necessarily defining the other as we would have in monogenēs theos if there were “two substantives standing in apposition.” The same is true for Wallace’s citation of 1 Timothy 1:9, which also uses plurals in a similar series of related but different types of people and here, too, as Wallace admits, bebēlois (“profane”) “does not modify” the immediately following term patrolōias (“father-killer”). Rather, it is connected with the preceding plural term, which also does not immediately precede it, but which is separated from and connected to it by a conjunction (kai). Therefore, these texts also do not fit Ehrman’s “absolute rule.”

Wallace’s next example is Galatians 3:9 and it is also asterisked. The Greek is tōi pistōi Abraam, which seems quite naturally to mean “faithful Abraham,” showing an attributive relationship between the noun “Abraham” and the adjective “faithful,” which is precisely what Ehrman’s “rule” would also indicate! Yet, Wallace quotes the NASB and the NRSV translations which render this as, “with Abraham, the believer” and “Abraham who believed,” respectively. Wallace does not object to these two translations, necessarily, writing, “Regardless of how it is translated, here is an adjective wedged between an article and a noun that is functioning substantivally, in apposition to the noun.”

“Regardless of how it is translated”? What if we translate it as I have done, “faithful Abraham”? This would not be “two substantives standing in apposition.” Indeed, here we also have the article preceding the adjective-noun construction and, according to Wallace’s earlier paper on the subject of the relation between adjectives and nouns in anarthrous construction, “With few exceptions, the article, when present, completely solves the problem.”^[11] Why, then, should we not here in Galatians 3:9 have in translation the answer to the very same syntactical question about the relation between adjective and noun? To quote Wallace again, “When the construction is article-adjective-noun ... the adjective is both in attributive position and attributive relation to the noun,” meaning the “attributive adjective modifies, restricts, or qualifies the substantive.”^[12]

In fact, digressing from Wallace’s “Category 2” examples for a moment, if we take from his “Relation of Adjective to Noun” article the “further [method of] validation,” that is, by examining variant readings for our subject text (John 1:18) “to see if the presence of the article in some [manuscripts] might define the relation of adjective to noun,”^[13] we see that apart from the variants involved with what may follow monogenēs, only the presence or absence of the article  immediately before the adjective-noun (monogenēs theos) construction represents a legitimate textual question. If we accept the presence of the article (as in P⁷⁵ [original and by the corrector], A, in the corrected copy of a, and other manuscripts [see references in note 1]) then the question of the adjective’s relation to the noun in John 1:18, similarly, ‘completely solves the problem.’ Even without the article the adjective’s relation to the noun in most constructions is clearly attributive.^[14]

Returning to Wallace’s alleged “Identical Structural Parallels,” he next cites and asterisks Ephesians 2:20. Yet, Wallace writes only that the subject adjective (akrogōniaiou) “seems to be functioning substantivally here,” noting also that “it could possibly be a predicate adjective,” and yet it is either that or an adjective used as a noun, but in either case the predicate part of the clause: The participle form of eimi (ontos, “being”) is used with “Jesus Christ himself” (autou Christou Iēsou) as the subject and akrogōniaiou (“cornerstone”) as the predicate. One thing is for sure, we do not here in Ephesians 2:20 have “two [or even three] substantives standing in apposition,” but used in predicate relation with an expressed form of eimi, similar to what we have in John 6:70.

Next Wallace cites 2 Timothy 3:2 in his “Category 2” (but without an asterisk), though here again we do not have a parallel to Ehrman’s “absolute rule.” Wallace appears to realize this, writing as he does that “it could be said that the adjectives ... refer back to the subject mentioned earlier.” Indeed, the subject of 2 Timothy 3:2 is “men” (hoi anthrōpoi) with the future, indicative, plural form of the verb eimi, and with the terms which then follow the subject as the predicate. So we again have a series of predicate adjectives and nouns, not “two [or more] substantives standing in apposition” in a manner similar to what Ehrman argues for in relation to monogenēs theos in John 1:18. Similarly, in Titus 1:10 polloi (“many”) is the subject, eisin (“are”) is the verb, and the terms following polloi are the predicate nouns and adjectives, “For many are disobedient, meaningless talkers and liars.”

Wallace’s own final two examples (after which he cites several others from the Th.M. thesis of Stratton Ladewig [see my discussion of these examples below]) are asterisked. The first is from 1 Peter 1:1, where we have eklektois parepidēmois, a dative plural, for which there is no apparent reason (and none given by Wallace) to take it as meaning anything but “to chosen refugees,” and so we have yet again another instance of the very syntax and resulting attributive relation and meaning argued for by Ehrman in relation to John 1:18: “chosen” modifies “refugees” as an adjective. Wallace tries to separate the terms into two substantives by placing a comma after first term (= “the elect, sojourners), and yet, again, Wallace offers no reason for viewing the relation between the two as anything but adjective-noun, the most natural way of construing their relationship even according to Wallace.^[15]

Wallace’s last example (apart from those to be considered below from Stratton) is interesting, at least in terms of how Wallace views and explains it. Note what Wallace writes after citing the Greek text of 2 Peter 2:5 and then after translating it as (with all bracketed words original to Wallace, but with my underlining), “did not spare [the world], but [preserved] an eighth, Noah, a preacher of righteousness”:

The adjective “eighth” stands in apposition to Noah; otherwise, if it modified Noah, the force would be “an eighth Noah’ as though there were seven other Noahs!

The Greek ordinal ogdoos (“eighth”) is used idiomatically just as it is in Classical Greek,^[16] not “in apposition” in the regular sense to “Noah,” that is, in the manner which Wallace describes apart from consideration of Greek idioms for numerals, nor does it ‘modify Noah.’ Rather, it refers to the number of people whom God preserved alive, one of whom is Noah. Otherwise, if we translate 2 Peter 2:5 as, “and he [God] did not spare an ancient world but protected an eighth, Noah, a preacher of righteousness,” then it would mean God only protected the eighth, not eight total people, and yet we know the biblical tradition on which 2 Peter here relies indicates it was more than the “eighth” alone whom God protected from the flood.—Genesis 8:18.

Undoubtedly, this is the very reason the sense of ‘eight people’ is found in most translations, but rendered in accordance with the Greek idiom for numerals here used. Consider the following English translations (with my underlining added):

NASB: ... but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others”;

NIV: ... but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others”;

NRSV: ... even though he saved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others”;

NJB: ... he saved only Noah, the preacher of uprightness, along with seven others”;

ESV: ...  but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others.”

Wallace has not fully considered the use of ogdoos in 2 Peter 2:5, and he has not provided one single exception to “Ehrman’s absolute rule” as expressed by Ehrman in relation to John 1:18. This leaves only the three examples Wallace cites near the end of his “The Text and Grammar of John 1:18” from the Th.M. thesis of Dallas Theological Seminary doctoral student Stratton Ladewig, namely, Luke 14:13, 18:11, and Acts 2:5.

Wallace offers no comment on any of these examples in his article. But in Luke 14:13 we do not have “two [or more] substantives standing in apposition.” Rather, we have another series of plural substantives, not in apposition, but listed for specific, different, but related groups, “the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,” unless we are going to believe all of these are persons having the same handicaps. This is not indicated by the text or by common sense for each term when it comes to the types of people in view here, that is, those who might be invited among all those suffering from different ailments or disabilities.

We have the same situation in Luke 18:11, where there is another listing of plural substantives, not in apposition, but listed for specific, different, but related groups of “other men” (hoi loipoi tōn anthrōpōn), namely, those who are “greedy, dishonest, adulterers.” Also listed after these plural terms is the specific “tax collector” (ho telōnēs) praying to God in comparison to the Pharisee who is here praying self-righteously. Otherwise, we would have to argue the “greedy” people mentioned here are also all “adulterers.”

The final example in Acts 2:5 appears once again clearly to involve attributive terms in an adjective-noun-adjective syntactical relation (Ioudaioi andres eulabeis), “devout Jewish men,” similar to Mark 12:42 (mia chēra ptōchē), “one poor widow.”^[17] And so Wallace and Stratton have failed to provide even one clear counter-example which invalidates Ehrman’s syntactical argument about what must otherwise be considered a highly likely attributive relationship between monogenēs and theos in John 1:18.

Wallace concludes his “Text and Grammar of John 1:18” article by claiming that Ehrman, apart from his “absolute rule,” provides sufficient contextual indicators to show that monogenēs is, in fact, “functioning substantivally” in John 1:18, namely, by Ehrman’s admission/belief that 1) it is “unthinkable that the Word could become the unique God,” and 2) Ehrman’s acceptance of the use of monogenēs as a substantive in John 1:14.

Quite the contrary on both points, indicating a separate, “unique” or “only-begotten G/god” in John 1:18 is the only way to maintain consistency with the theology of John 1:1 and with the theology of the rest of the biblical tradition concerning the “one God” and his divine “S/sons” (see my note 7). 

The use of monogenēs in John 1:14, where it is not “immediately followed by a noun that agrees with it in gender, number, and case,” in comparison with monogenēs in John 1:18 where it is “immediately followed by a noun that agrees with it in gender, number, and case,” strongly suggests based the best available syntactical and contextual evidence that monogenēs is in the latter case used as an adjective modifying the noun theos, the best-attested and arguable textual variant, with the resulting translation and meaning, “an/the only-begotten/unique G/god” who came to show us and to thereby also make known “one God, the Father.”—John 1:18; 14:24; 8:54; John 20:17; 1 Corinthians 8:6.

NOTES

[1] For a listing of some of the primary variant readings for this part of John 1:18, see pages 334-335 of my Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended: An Answer to Scholars and Critics, Third Edition (Murrieta, CA: Elihu Books, 2009). See also the listing of variants in Reuben Swanson, New Testament Greek Manuscripts: John (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), page 8.

[2] Bart D. Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture: The Effect of Early Christological Controversies on the Text of the New Testament (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), page 80. For more on the meaning of monogenēs as “only-begotten,” see my Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, Third Edition, pages 335-345. In my discussion of the meaning of monogenēs I primarily address the arguments of Gerard Pendrick, “ΜΟΝΟΓΕΝΗΣ,” NTS 41 (1995), pages 587-600, whose study is far more recent and extensive in its discussion than that of Dale Moody (“God the Only Son: The Translation of John 316 in the Revised Standard Version,” Journal of Biblical Literature 72.4 [December, 1953], pages 213-219). Moody’s arguments against the meaning of “only-begotten” for monogenēs, which Ehrman finds ‘convincing’ on “the grounds of etymology and usage (Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, page 112, note 164), are referenced and considered in relevant part in an article which for some reason Ehrman does not reference or discuss anywhere in his discussion of this text, namely, the article by John V. Dahms, “The Johannine Use of  Monogenēs Reconsidered,” New Testament Studies 29 (1983), pages 222-232, in which Dahms concludes after a fairly thorough review of the evidence:

Apart from the few references discussed above, every occurrence of our term [monogenēs] with respect to persons is in a context in which the idea of descent is either implied or is appropriate. Such phrases as ‘monogenēs brother’ are notably non-existent. ... It seems clear that monogenēs, when used of persons, was always understood to include the idea of generation. This understanding did not have its beginning at the time of the Arian controversy. [Dahms, “The Johannine Use of Monogenēs Reconsidered,” pages 227, 228.]

The lack of citation or even of any reference to Dahms’ article by Ehrman is made more curious by the fact that Ehrman does cite a 1985 article which is more in line with his view from the very same journal in which Dahm’s 1983 article appeared, namely, the article by D.A. Fennema, “John 1.18: ‘God the Only Son,’” New Testament Studies 31 (1985), pages 124-135 (see the citations and discussion of Fennema’s article in Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, page 112, notes 157, 159, 168, and note 170 on pages 112-113). Equally if not more strange is the fact that Fennema, though writing in the very same journal as Dahms, and two years after Dahms’ article on the very same subject, nowhere discusses or even references Dahms’ article!

[3] Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, page 81.

[4] When we speak today about “adjectives” and about them functioning as nouns, it must be remembered that this is not exactly how ancient Greeks understood or viewed such terms. See A.T. Robertson, A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1934), pages 270-271, and 650, on which page (650) Robertson writes:

There is no absolute line of cleavage between substantive and adjective either in form or sense. The Alexandrian grammarians had no special treatment of the adjective. ... Indeed it is not difficult to conceive the time when there was no distinct adjective. The substantive would be used in apposition as in English, brother man, church member. Cf. the common use of titles also like doctor, president, governor, etc. This attributive use of the substantive is not a peculiarity of any language, but belongs to Hebrew, Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, English, etc. It is out of this use of the substantive that the adjective as a separate part of speech developed. The adjective is not therefore a mere variation of the genitive, though, like the genitive, it is descriptive. The term noun [onoma] is used to cover both substantive and adjective, but many substantives continue to be used in a descriptive or adjectival sense and many adjectives in a substantival sense. The term adjective covers words of one, two or three genders, and indeed includes numerals and some of the pronouns also.

Therefore, when in 1984 Wallace wrote:

The grammar by Dionysius Thrax, dating to ca. 100 B.C., has a section on the noun as well as a paragraph on the article, but nothing on the adjective or its relation to the noun. Neither does Apollonius Dyscolus, whose grammar is dated ca. A.D. 150, deal specifically with the adjective’s relation to the noun. [Daniel B. Wallace, “The Relation of Adjective to Noun in Anarthrous Constructions in the New Testament,” Novum Testamentum 26.2 (1984), page 1146.]

this should not be surprising, nor should it be considered unusual for these early grammarians not to have specifically commented on the “adjective” as such or “its relation to the noun.”  

[5] Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, page 81.

[6] Ehrman, The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, page 81.

[7] Again, see Chapter 2, “‘One God, the Father,’” in my Third Edition of Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, for an extensive discussion and defense of the biblical concept of monotheism which openly and often presents “one God, the Father” who has many divine “S/sons” who are also “G/gods” because they serve and represent only him and his will to others, rather than rival and oppose him as Satan and others have done to set themselves up as different “G/gods.”

[8] See Ehrman’s conclusion and his resulting understanding of John 1:18 on page 82 of The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture. Yet, as I have shown (see the reference in my note 7) there is nothing “impossible” at all about the sense conveyed in “unique/only-begotten G/god” in a biblical context, particularly in John’s writings in light of John 1:1, which presents two beings who are distinct from each other in terms of theos, not in “persons of theos.” Further, there are numerous reasons to accept theos rather than huios as the correct reading of John 1:18, not the least of which are given by one of the very sources referenced by Ehrman, namely, F.J.A Hort’s 1876 book Two Dissertations, in which Hort writes in part as follows in defense of the reading monogenēs theos:

[Monogenēs theos] is an unique phrase, unlikely to be suggested to a scribe by anything lying on the surface of the context, or by any other passage of Scripture. ...  The always questionable suggestion of dogmatic alteration is peculiarly out of place here. ... Once more, assuming [monogenēs theos] to have obtained a footing in [manuscripts], we cannot suppose that it would gain ground from [ho monogenēs huios (“unique”/“only-begotten S/son”] in transcription, unless we trust modern analogies more than actual evidence. ... The only other possible explanation is pure accident. ... Thus, on grounds of documentary evidence and probabilities of transcription alike, we are irresistibly led to conclude that [monogenēs theos] was the original from which [ho monogenēs huios] and [ho monogenēs] proceeded. More than this no evidence from without can establish: but in a text so amply attested as that of the New Testament we rightly conclude that the most original of extant readings was likewise that of the author himself, unless on full consideration it appears to involve a kind and degree of difficulty such as analogy forbids us to recognise as morally compatible with the author’s intention, or some other peculiar ground of suspicion presents itself. ... It is as inconceivable that [theos] should have been supplied to complete [ho monogenēs] in the second century, with the further omission of the article, as that [ho monogenēs huios] should have been altered to [monogenēs theos]. Nor is the case improved by supporting accidental errors arising out of similarities of letters ... It would be an extraordinary coincidence either that both slips of the pen should take place at the same transcription, though separated by [monogenēs]; or that two corruptions of the same clause should take place at different times, yet both before the earliest attested text of the New Testament. [F.J.A Hort, Two Dissertations (Cambridge and London: Macmillan and Co., 1876), pages 8-12.]

Hort wrote the above without knowing that even earlier (in fact, the earliest) witnesses to this text, P⁶⁶ and P⁷⁵ (discovered in the mid-20^th century), contain the readings monogenēs theos and ho monogenēs theos, respectively. Remarkably, Ehrman (The Orthodox Corruption of Scripture, page 79) considers these findings of little to no consequence, believing them to be nothing more than what “we already knew” (emphasis Ehrman’s) “must have been preserved in early Greek manuscripts of Alexandria—even before we had access to any of them”!

[9] Compare the following from Wallace, Granville Sharp’s Canon and Its Kin: Semantics and Significance, ed., D.A. Carson, Studies in Biblical Greek, vol. 14 (New York: Peter Lang, 2009), page 282 (with my underlining added):

History is filled with biting ironies. The debate over Sharp’s rule in the past two centuries has revealed one of them. Virtually no statement of the rule with the specific requirements of personal, singular, non-proper nouns, has been made in any major work since the latest edition of Middleton’s Doctrine of the Greek Article in 1841. ... Friend and foe alike have unwittingly abused the canon, with the result that the TSKS construction in dozens of NT passages has been misunderstood.

Yet, Wallace does not hesitate to provide examples which do not conform to the “specific requirements” laid down by Ehrman. A further, true irony is the fact that while Wallace makes so much out of precise syntactical parallels to Sharp’s rule in his writings, he nonetheless fails to consider the very real syntactical differences in most of the christologically significant New Testament texts, as noted in part in my most recent work on the same subject as follows:

[O]f the 79 non-variant examples listed by Wallace in his 2009 publication only 31 appear comparable to me in their use of an indisputable proper name (“Jesus”) in the second position, or in their use of nouns as quasi proper names (“Lord,” “Christ”), or in their use of both a proper name and a quasi proper noun together as compound titles or fixed expressions (such “Christ Jesus,” “Lord Jesus Christ,” and “Savior Jesus Christ”). ... The texts which are most comparable to disputed texts (such as Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1) include Matthew 12:26; Luke 20:37; John 20:17; Romans 15:6; 1 Corinthians 15:24; 2 Corinthians 1:3 ; 1:21; 11:31; Galatians 1:4; Ephesians 1:3; 5:20; Philippians 4:20; Colossians 1:3; 2:2; 3:17; 1 Thessalonians 1:3; 3:11; 3:13; 1 Timothy 6:13; 6:15; Hebrews 12:2; James 1:27; 3:9; 1 Peter 1:3; 2 Peter 1:11; 2:20; 3:2; 3:18; Jude 4; Revelation 1:6. ... the differences between these texts and those listed by Wallace in his appendix are obvious, foremost of which is the fact that many of the christologically significant NT texts often have the proper name “Jesus” included in the expression. This makes the question of whether the personal noun (“Savior”) is semantically restricted by the proper name with which it is associated rather moot, as it is unlikely that a first-century CE and following reader would have failed to connect the proper name “Jesus” with “Savior” in both Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1. [“Another Exception to Granville Sharp’s Canon and Its Kin: A Further Response to Dan Wallace (With an Appendix),” Elihu Online Papers 2 (July 26, 2010 [rev. January 30, 2012]), page 21, including note 52.]

For more on this and on the Granville Sharp rule in general, and particularly in response to Wallace’s writings, see my forthcoming, The "Sharpest Rule": A Review and Restatement of Greek’s Most Tragic Rule.

[10] Compare Wallace’s remarks in his article, “The Semantic Range of the Article-Noun-KAI´-Noun Plural Construction in the New Testament,” Grace Theological Journal 4.1 (spring, 1983), page 66, “[T]he very nature of a plural construction demands that several other questions be asked if we are to see with precision its semantic range (i.e., since the plural construction deals with groups, there may be other possibilities besides absolute distinction and absolute identity).”

[11] Wallace, “The Relation of Adjective to Noun in Anarthrous Constructions in the New Testament,” page 128.

[12] Wallace, “The Relation of Adjective to Noun in Anarthrous Constructions in the New Testament,” pages 128, 135.

[13] Wallace, “The Relation of Adjective to Noun in Anarthrous Constructions in the New Testament,” pages 136, note 22. Similarly, on page 133 of his article Wallace writes about comparing “every possible predicate adjective” in several critical NT texts “in order to see if the position of an article in some manuscripts might help to interpret the adjective’s relation to the noun.”

[14] Indeed, Wallace (“The Relation of Adjective to Noun in Anarthrous Constructions in the New Testament,” 152) found “882 attributive relation” in “adjective-noun” constructions, including examples where “the adjective was separated from the substantive by an intervening word” (Wallace cites Revelation 3:8, mikran echeis dynamin [“you have a little power”], where the verb separates the adjective and the noun but does not change the attributive relation).

[15] See note 14. See also Wallace, “The Relation of Adjective to Noun in Anarthrous Constructions in the New Testament,” page 153, who concludes, “Thus in constructions in non-equative clauses/phrases involving one adjective and one substantive we have seen primarily attributive relations, though there were a number of questionable cases and even more definitely predicate relations.” Wallace’s view of the “questionable cases” and the “predicate relations” are also open to further question.

[16] Which is why in F. Blass and A. Debrunner, A Greek Grammar of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, Robert W. Funk, ed., trans. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), page 134, under sec. 248(5), we read (with underlining added), “Noah with seven others ... 2 P 2:5 is good classical.” See also the entry for ogdoos in the Third Edition (BDAG) of A Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, F.W. Danker, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000), page 689, in which after citing 2 Peter 2:5 as (with underlining added), “he preserved Noah as a preacher of righteousness, with seven others (lit. ‘as the eighth’),” BDAG explains this idiom with reference to the writings of Thucydides, Plutarch, Pseudo-Apollodorus, and also 2 Maccabees 5:27, the last of which refers literally to “Judas Maccabees” as the “tenth,” but idiomatically the sense is “with nine others” (compare the translation in Brenton’s English translation [online here]). Robertson (A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, page 672) calls this “The Inclusive Ordinal,” citing 2 Peter 2:5 as an example.

[17] Compare Wallace, “The Relation of Adjective to Noun in Anarthrous Constructions in the New Testament,” pages 154-155, who found “more than forty instances” of this construction which “displayed attributive relations,” concluding, “Thus in anarthrous constructions in non-equative clauses/phrases involving one substantive and two or more adjectives we have seen primarily attributive relations, though there were some questionable and definitely predicate relations as well as constructions in which one adjective was attributive and one was predicate.” The NRS (“devout Jews”), the NIV (“God-fearing Jews”), and the NJB (“devout men”) all express a similar attributive relation and meaning. The NASB (“Jews ..., devout men”) expresses a meaning similar to that preferred by Wallace in his “The Text and Grammar of John 1:18” article.

Dr. James White and the Assumptions of Trinitarianism Revisited

Some thirteen (13) years ago I published the First Edition of Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended: An Answer to Scholars and Critics (Elihu Books, 1998). Shortly thereafter, Dr. James White published a book review titled, “A Summary Critique: Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended” (Christian Research Journal, volume 21, number 2), in which he claims in large letters crossing the entire page 49 of his article, “Throughout his work, Stafford assumes Unitarianism is true in order to disprove Trinitarianism.”

In 1999 I responded to Dr. White’s “Summary Critique” of my First Edition of Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended. In 2000 I published the Second Edition of Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, in which I addressed numerous sections of Dr. White’s 1998 book, The Forgotten Trinity: Recovering the Heart of Christian Belief (Bethany). In my Second Edition, Chapter 2, there is a subheading, “Who is assuming what, and why,” in which I further addressed some of the assumptions of Trinitarian concepts by Dr. White when it comes to the interpretation of biblical texts (this section is now “More on who is assuming what, and why,” on pages 148-151 of my Third Edition [2009]).

Then in 2002 I published Three Dissertations on the Teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses (Elihu Books). On pages 155-163 of the Third Dissertation I further discussed some of the erroneous assumptions and wrongful concept-substitutions commonly made in association with grammatical analyses of New Testament and other texts by Trinitarians, including by Dr. White and by Professor Daniel B. Wallace, on whom Dr. White often relies. Finally, in 2003 I agreed to publicly debate both Robert M. Bowman, Jr. and later in that same year Dr. White. See Is Jesus God? Examining the Biblical Evidence, a debate between Greg Stafford and Robert M. Bowman, Jr. (La Mirada, CA), and Jesus Christ: God or a god? A debate between Greg Stafford and Dr. James White (Tampa, Florida).

Several years later, in late 2006 through early 2007, I returned from a period of searching and learning more about what to believe after having left off from working with the Watchtower Society’s organization and from their forms of ministry. After several years’ separation from such activity, I began reconsidering how I could best begin to form beliefs based on the best available reasons or evidence, and then learn about and possibly begin to practice the resulting beliefs. At some point here, I began to write more about what I had come to believe in association with and apart from the Watchtower Society.

The result was a newer version of the Elihu Books site which allowed me to post articles and ‘chat’ in a back-and-forth, message-posting manner through what is now known as the Elihu Books Chat with Us! or Elihu Books Online Chat page. [AUTHOR'S NOTE for January 13, 2012: The Elihu Books Chat with Us! page is now a more complete discussion board, which you can review here.] For much of this early site work, I owe thanks to Aurel Enea, and then also later on in similar ways to David Barron. During this same time or, more specifically, on March 28 and on April 1, 2007, I received two inquires about the status of audio links on the Elihu Books web site for my 2003 debate with Dr. White. The links were at one time active for the debate’s audio feed but during this time in early 2007 they were not active due to ongoing changes to the Elihu Books site. However, during this time the entire 2003 Tampa, Florida debate was still available (as it still is today) on DVD and through other media available from either Elihu Books or Alpha and Omega Ministries (Dr. White’s organization [www.aomin.org]).

Therefore, on April 10, 2007, I replied on the Elihu Chat to the two pending inquires about the audio links. I explained that the Elihu site was undergoing revision and that if the two people who had inquired about the audio debate links did not have the DVD, then they could get it and that if they could not afford it I would send copies to them. At or around this same time Dr. White began posting a series of entries on his aomin.org’s Blog concerning certain parts of our 2003 debate, the very debate whose audio links were being discussed at that time on the Elihu Chat.

In addition to questions about 2006 email communications presented in my “Response to Dr. James White, Part One” (listed below), White’s 2007 Blog series focused on two issues raised by White during his cross-examination of me during our 2003 debate, namely: 1) the “glory” ‘seen’ by Isaiah according to John 12:41, and 2) whether it is impossible for God to become a man in the light of the Greek participles labon (“took on”) and genomenos (“came to be”/“came into being”) used in Philippians 2:7.

In the earlier, 2006/2007 Elihu Books Blog and Chat I provided 2 of 4 intended responses to Dr. White’s 2007 aomin.org Blogs, that is, those of his Blogs which relate to me or to my expressed views. These have been made into PDFs with relevant material and new introductions explaining their origin and some history given the changes subsequently made to the Elihu Books site, including changes to the Elihu Blog and Chat. I have made these PDFs of Parts One and Two available since Dr. White’s 2007 Blogs are still online and because others have since cited or relied on my original Part Two in discussions of Isaiah and John 12:41:

1.     Response to Dr. James White, Part One: Introducing the Issues;

2.     Response to Dr. James White, Part Two: “He Saw His Glory, and He Spoke About Him.”

These two parts were essentially completed as given above and in relation to other earlier Elihu Books Blog and Chat materials between January-May and April-June, 2007, in response to Dr. White’s Blog for January-April, 2007. [December 21, 2011, AUTHOR'S NOTE: For further and more recent discussion of the meaning of John 12:41, see my Elihu Online Papers 4, The “Glory” ‘Seen’ by Isaiah According to John 12:41 (November 20, 2011)]. Also intended as Parts Three and Four were discussions related to the content of my 2003 debate involving White’s questioning me over Philippians 2:7 and related concepts (= my intended Part Three), and then some further discussion of related or similar difficulties which had come up during this time involving offers from both Dr. Robert Morey and Dr. White to debate me formally, in public (= my intended Part Four).

My Addendum from my Response to Dr. James White, Part One: Introducing the Issues and the related material in the main text of that article make plain some of the problems I encountered after being approached by a member of Dr. White’s staff. As for the similar but different problems involved with Dr. Morey, this involved Morey’s initial challenge, my taking up that challenge, followed by Morey’s abandonment of any kind of meaningful response. The audio of this show can be heard here: Dr. Robert Morey v. Greg Stafford, September 27, 2006, The Narrow Mind. My responses to the challenge Morey made to me during this show can be read here, listed just as they are in the Elihu Books Topical Index under “R – Robert Morey: Foreknowledge and ‘Freewill: Stafford Response”:

Robert Morey: Foreknowledge and "Freewill": Stafford Response_1 ;

Robert Morey: Foreknowledge and "Freewill": Stafford Response_2 ;

Robert Morey: Foreknowledge and "Freewill": Stafford Response_3 ;

Robert Morey: Foreknowledge and "Freewill": Stafford Response_4 ;

Robert Morey: Foreknowledge and "Freewill": Stafford Response_5 .

Morey’s responses to my responses to his September 27, 2006, challenge to me are still pending, or they simply will never arrive. If they do, if Dr. Morey ever intends to make good on his own challenge and offer to debate me over the above listed responses to his issues, then he ‘has a lot of reading and writing to do,’ as is clear from the above and from our September 27, 2006, discussion. In fact, those are words similar to what Morey said to me, and which I have fulfilled for some time.

The above information and items regarding Morey, together with my Addendum to my Part One and the related main-text material regarding Dr. White, explain the substance of my intended Part Four as it relates to these 2006/2007 email, Blog, and Chat discussions regarding my possibly debating both Dr. White and Dr. Morey (for White, for the second time) sometime in the future.

Moving back from my “intended Part Four” involving some of the pre-debate behavior of both Dr. White and Dr. Morey from 2006/2007, and coming now to my “intended Part Three,” Part Three was to involve my presentation and subsequent review of the “complete transcription of what I gave in response to White during our 2003 debate,” that is, in response to White’s assertions from his Blog April 12, 2007, “A Test for Your Listening Skills – Part III,” where White writes (with my underlining added):

It is vital, in examining the argumentation of Jehovah's Witnesses, Oneness Pentecostals, and Muslims, to recognize the presuppositional nature of their commitment to unitarianism. They rarely defend it, they simply assume it. Here Stafford admits that it is a starting place in his theology that if one is God, one cannot be man. He begins by precluding the possibility of the Incarnation, seen in Philippians 2:5-11 or John 1:14. If you begin with your conclusion, you will always be arguing in circles, and this becomes the operative factor in his interpretational methodology. Though Stafford is far more polished in his presentation than your regular Witness, or Oneness Pentecostal, or Muslim, take the time to examine their materials: you will find the exact same foundational assumption. Paul could not actually be saying Jesus became a servant, because that just isn’t possible.

Here is where we again get further into “who is assuming what, and why,” and in this case Dr. White is claiming I admit, “as a starting place” in my theology, “that if one is God, one cannot be man.” White further writes, “[Stafford] begins by precluding the possibility of the Incarnation, seen in Philippians 2:5-11 or John 1:14.” But, in fact, what I clearly did do both during our 2003 debate and in my writings to that point concerning White and the assumptions of Trinitarianism is not assume “Incarnation” (Trinitarian) theology. Rather, I looked (and I still do look) to the meaning(s) arguable from the best available evidence, evidence which includes New Testament texts such as John 1:14 and Philippians 2:5-11.

What White refuses to accept is that my beliefs are not assumed “as a starting place in [my] theology” (or in my “interpretational methodology”) apart from good reasons which establish those beliefs. White simply ignores the reasons at times in ways that make it seem like there are none. This is exactly what he did in his “Summary Critique” of my First Edition (1998), and he has continued to do these same things since in these ways, as shown here from our 2003 debate and then also again in our subsequent 2007 Blog and Chat articles and related discussions.

Indeed, consider the section of our 2003 debate which represents the transcribed part which I intended to include in my earlier Part Three response to White’s April 12, 2007, “A Test for Your Listening Skills – Part III.” The following is from hour one, minute thirty-four, and second fifty-six (1:34:56) to hour one, minute thirty-seven, second fifteen (1:37:15) of my 2003 debate with Dr. White, during White’s cross-examination of me (with my underlining added):

White:                In ... uh ... In your book Three Dissertations on the Teachings

            of Jehovah’s Witnesses, page 216, you write:

            (WHITE THEN QUOTES STAFFORD’S THREE DISSERTATIONS PAGE 216)

Also, to truly take on the weaknesses and limitations of humanity, Christ would had to have given up that which would have prevented him from really owning such human limitations, namely, his divine nature, intrinsic to which are attributes that cannot coexist with the intrinsic attributes of human nature. And therein lies the great fallacy of the Trinitarian incarnation. 

White:                Is that a correct citation?

Stafford:            Yes.

White:                Two questions based on that. First, is it truly your position

            that Yahweh is incapable of the act of Incarnation in the

            Trinitarian sense, specifically, this act resulting in one person             with two natures? And secondly, would not the historic,

            Trinitarian exegesis of the text which sees the participles

            “labon” and “genomenos” as circumstantial modals answer the very             objection you have raised regarding the voluntary self-                       humiliation and limitation of the Incarnate Son who is eternally             co-equal with the Father?

Stafford:            I am not certain whether or not it is possible for Jehovah to

            “take on” or become a part of the Incarnation in the classic                  Trinitarian sense. That would be my answer to the first question.             My answer to the second question ... um ... I’m not sure what the             point is that you are making with respect to the Greek ... um ...             words you used.

White:                Have you ever examined the fact that the participles “labon” and

            “genomenos” explain how it is that the ‘emptying’ took place?

Stafford:            Oh, I see what you are saying ... uh ... I don’t ... I don’t

            think that’s a problem. The fact that Christ “emptied himself” by

            ‘taking the form of a man’ makes the same point: If you are a man

            you are not God. Therefore, you are devoid of that which makes

            you God, thus a man.

White:                But isn’t that just going back to what I just asked, and that is that seemingly it is your assumption that God is incapable of doing this. What if God could? Wouldn’t your response be circular?

Stafford:     No, because God is not man. Therefore, if he becomes man he is ... you can’t have ... It would, based on my knowledge of the Scriptures and understanding of theology and metaphysics, if one becomes a man that one is no longer God. If one becomes God that one is no longer a man. They are two different categories of being.

White:            So from your perspective then it is a given that God cannot be Incarnate. Hence he cannot both be God and man. That is a fundamental presupposition of your understanding?

Stafford:            Based on my limited knowledge of metaphysics and theology, yes.

(After my answer, Dr. White moved on to a different question and one not directly related to this part of the subject.)

From the above transcription we can see Dr. White ignores my reasons and instead persists in trying to get me to accept that my beliefs are “circular,” simply because I do not accept his view as possible because of what I believe and because of the stated reasons for why I believe what I believe. In fact, even in my 2003 response I conceded, “I am not certain whether or not it is possible.” Ultimately, therefore, I simply have different beliefs than Dr. White, but this is because of what I consider and have presented in arguments as good or better reasons than what Dr. White presented to me in 2003, and what he has presented to me and to others since then. If my beliefs are true (as I believe them to be), then outside of a concession of possibility for the limited sake of theoretical discussion, White’s belief in Trinitarian, Incarnation theology (namely, that God did become a man “in the classic Trinitarian sense”) is impossible.

I say this not as my “starting place” but as the point to which I have come in my studies. As you can see from what I underlined in the above transcription, twice in my responses to Dr. White I expressly pointed to the reasons why I believe what I do about Philippians 2:7, and whether God can become a man and still remain fully God, or whether a man can become God and still remain fully man. My stated reasons were: 1) “my knowledge of the Scriptures and understanding of theology and metaphysics,” and 2) “my limited knowledge of metaphysics and theology.”

Whether White’s beliefs are possible under some theoretical condition is really a separate question since granting that something you do not believe is possible to be possible does nothing to truly answer the question, and so it certainly provides no basis for belief, either. For example, I do not believe in the real possibility of the unintelligent evolution of life apart from an already-existing, intentionally intelligent Creator, whose life is clear to me from all that we can and that we have observed in our present and fossilized life here in this earth. However, I might use the Francis Crick analogy as a means of demonstrating this impossibility, for even this analogy gives a chance not only to what Crick already otherwise assumed is true for the sake of his analogy, namely, the existence of both “a hurricane” and trash on a “junkyard,” in association with which Crick then reportedly acknowledged concerning the unintentional evolution of the DNA helix:

You would be more likely to assemble a fully functioning and flying jumbo jet by passing a hurricane through a junk yard than you would be to assemble the DNA molecule by chance. In any kind of primeval soup in 5 or 600 million years, it’s just not possible [as quoted in the article, “Computing the Cost of Minimalism” (last accessed August 4, 2011)].

Whether these odds are fair or accurate for anyone to use in any credible argument for the formation, the origin, or for the eternality of life is open to further consideration. But my point here in relation to life and then also in relation to what Dr. White asked me about God and man, is that I might grant the possibility that something could theoretically be true all the while believing differently, or oppositely, and for what I am willing to present and to argue for intelligently as the best available reasons.

If you ask White, it is not for good reasons but because I already believe something apart from any good reasons at all that I believe what I do and, then what I do, is simply use my assumed beliefs as facts to help me understand everything else. Yet, not only have I and can I show that I do not do this, even in the very places in my writings and in my debates where White says I do these things, I will further argue, and I have for some time argued, that this is what Trinitarians often do. Hence, there is real irony in how Dr. White and others have attempted to try and “turn the tables on me,” in this way.

The same is true when it comes to other theoretical possibilities, including Trinitarian Incarnation theology, which though possible through some kind of theorizing is really not possible as a biblical doctrine in view of what we can show is taught throughout the New Testament and in other related biblical texts. What we read in early Christian, New Testament texts such as Philippians 2:5-9 speaks directly against what White wants me to admit is “possible”!

Therefore, anything but cloaking or “veiling” the Jesus of the Trinity rather than allowing Jesus of the New Testament to “empty himself” of the “form of a god/God’s form” and to be the one who “took on the form of a servant/a man” is rejected by Trinitarians, if it means anything like what I believe or what we read from others like G. Braumann:

It is said of this divine mode of existence that Christ existed in it in the past (hyparchōn, being, v. 6). It refers to his pre-existence prior to the incarnation. en morphē theou characterizes, therefore, his existence before his earthly life, but not his existence in that earthly life. For he emptied himself (heauton ekenōsen, v. 7) taking the “form of a servant” (morphēn doulou). This form replaces the “form of God.” It is not to be thought of like clothing put over the previous form or as an addition to the pre-existing form. Christ’s mode of being was essentially changed. [G. Braumann, “morphē,” in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, vol. 1, Colin Brown, ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1975), page 706.

This I had cited in my discussion of this text in both my First (page 75) and Second (page 197-198) Editions of Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended. Yet, instead of asking me more about what he already knows in large part, namely, my theological and metaphysical reasons for believing God cannot become a man and how these reasons may relate more specifically to Philippians 2:7, in 2003 White questioned me about my alleged “assumption that God is incapable of” becoming a man! Indeed, White further asked me, “What if God could? Wouldn’t your [= Stafford’s] response be circular?”

As I answered, “No.” How could my response to White have been “circular” in this case if my reasons are not my assumption “as a starting place” that White’s Trinitarian views are impossible but, rather, that White’s Trinitarian view is impossible “based on my knowledge of the Scriptures and understanding of theology and metaphysics”?

Bringing the above section of my 2003 debate with Dr. White forward to White’s April 12, 2007, Blog, “A Test for Your Listening Skills – Part III,” Dr. White references, quotes from, and relies in large part on what he wrote in his online paper, “Beyond the Veil of Eternity: The Importance of Philippians 2:5-11 in Theology and Apologetics,” Christian Research Journal 223 (available online here).

Note in particular White’s introductory and conclusive comments, which also caption a quotation from page 630 of Daniel B. Wallace’s Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1996):

Daniel B. Wallace, an eminent Greek scholar, sees both terms “taking” and “being made” as the means by which the “being made nothing” is accomplished.^[viii]

The biggest difficulty with seeing labwn (taking) as means is that emptying is normally an act of subtraction, not addition. But the imagery should not be made to walk on all fours. As an early hymn, it would be expected to have a certain poetic license….The Philippians were told not to puff themselves up with “empty glory,” because Christ was an example of one who emptied his glory. If this connection is intentional, then the Carmen Christi has the following force:

 Do not elevate yourselves on empty glory, but follow the example of Christ, who, though already elevated (on God’s level), emptied his glory by veiling it in humanity.^[ix]

So the means of the kenosis is the addition of a human nature, the veiling of the divine in the creaturely. This is important to understand, for many interpret Paul to mean that Christ abandons the “form of God” rather than seeing this as an addition of the human nature to the eternal divine nature that was Christ’s. It is this addition that “veils” the form of God.  While there are certainly many who see this passage teaching that Christ did indeed lay aside the “form of God,” the words of Paul do not present such a concept. 

^[viii] That is, the syntactical function of these two participles is circumstantial modal.

^[ix] Wallace, 630.

 

Here we have a clear example of reading assumptions apart from the best available reasons back into an ancient text, not only from the point of subsequent commentary and interpretation by White, but also in interpretation and in translation on some expressive level by Professor Wallace.

White and Wallace, being Trinitarians, cannot have Jesus ever ceasing to be “God” in terms of his essential nature. This means that while Jesus can “take on” something else he can only do so if it does not take away from what he is already or, in the case of Philippians 2:7, Jesus cannot “empty himself” of the “form of God” or of what it means to be “God” essentially in order to “become a man,” and yet to “become a man” that is what he would have to do if that “man” is “the last Adam” (1 Corinthians 15:45). Indeed, in addition to 1 Corinthians 15:45-57 what is said in 1 Corinthians 15:20-28 is also in large part contained in what we read in Philippians 2:5-11.

I do not read a theology which can be dated and shown to have come about hundreds of years later back into the New Testament writings of the first century CE. Rather, I read the New Testament and related literature and other credibly verifiable events or likely events from various peoples and from many sources which have to date proven reliable when it comes to what has occurred or existed during, before, and after the first century CE. These include also, and in large part, the Old Testament and other, similar writings and inscriptions from various times and peoples which have survived and been tested over time. In evidence of this, and in direct contrast to what I can show is often done in Trinitarianism, I will here point to my prior and most current writings, particularly Chapter 2 from my Third Edition (2009) of Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, where it concerns this very question of different assumptions about the meaning of ancient, biblical and other literature’s use of terms for “G-god.” 

My writings on other subjects, such as my EOP 1, “Advanced ‘Earth Conditions’ Corrections to Miller’s 1953 Hypothesis and Its Likely Indications,” (July 4, 2010), on the subject of intentionally intelligent, eternal life also show this is true in other areas of my argumentation and subsequent belief, and in this field of study I have also at times argued openly but based on good reasons against those who are otherwise accepted as experts. Indeed, there are times when I can and, I believe, when I have shown that some experts have done or are presently doing in certain scientific fields of study the very same or similar thing(s) many Trinitarians have done or continue to do in theology today: Assuming beliefs and/or the basis(es) for them in many cases where the assumed (= non-good-reason-based) beliefs are critical to the overall understanding they express, conclude, and/or strongly maintain. Whether and certainly before the same is said about me, more must be considered and presented than what Dr. White has put forth, to date, for it only really clearly shows to this point that he is ignoring the reasons that I have repeatedly put forth, to date, often in ways which further reveal his own Trinitarian assumptions.

To deny this, that is, to deny they are assuming their beliefs and/or the reasons for them (often or all the while claiming that I do these very things), many Trinitarians like White and Wallace equivocate on or come up with a new or different (certainly later) meaning or understanding for the expression, “empty himself” in Philippians 2:7. This they do, by first adding “glory” to the act of ‘emptying’ and then by interpreting “taking on the form of a servant” (and “becoming a man”) as the means by which the glory of the heavenly Jesus is ‘veiled,’ but not ‘emptied,’ or at least not in the ‘normal means of an act of subtraction rather than by addition,’ to use Wallace’s language.

Yet, when it comes to the regular use and meaning of the Greek verb keno’ō, from which we get kenosis as it is used in Philippians 2:7, this has not been hidden from Martin, Bowman, White, or from Wallace; they simply do not accept the following view which I do accept in large part and for good reasons (with my underlining and bracketed words added):

[Keno’o] “To make empty, a. “to deprive of content or possession” ... In the NT sense a. is used only in Phil. 2:6f. of Christ ... Here sense b. “he negated himself, deprived himself of his worth, denied himself” ... is ruled out by the resultant weak tautology of [etapeinosen heauton, “he lowered himself”]. We are rather to supply [tou einai isa theō, “this equality” or “this likeness to a god/God”] as an omitted object, and we thus have the equivalent of [en morphē theou huparchōn, “though he was existing in the form of a god/God” (or ‘a divine form’)]. There is no suggestion of a temptation of the Pre-existent to aspire beyond His existing state. What is meant is that the heavenly Christ did not selfishly exploit His divine form and mode of being ..., but by his own decision emptied Himself of it or laid it by, taking the form of a servant by becoming a man. The subject of [ekenōsen, “he emptied”] is not the incarnate but the pre-existent Lord. There is a strong sense of the unity of His person. The essence [“of His person”] remains, the mode of being changes – a genuine sacrifice. Docetism [= the belief that Jesus only seemed to have a human body] is excluded. The best commentary is to be found in [2 Corinthians 8:9]: [eptōcheusen plousios ōn], “he became a beggar even though (of himself, and up to this point) he was rich.” [Albrecht Oepke, “Keno’ō,” in TDNT 3, G. Kittel, ed., G.W. Bromiley, trans. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1965), page 661.]

Because of what Oepke writes here overall, I have added “of His person” in brackets after Oepke’s use of “essence” in light of what “remains” after Jesus’ preexistent “mode of being changes,” since those are the words used in immediate relation to “The essence,” as well as in light of the expressed acceptance that the ‘change’ came only to Jesus’ “mode of being.”

Because of this change in “mode of being,” Wallace considers this the “biggest difficulty” involved with “taking on” when understood in this way in Philippians 2:7, for it would then involve not addition only (that is, the ‘taking on’ of a second, human nature/form) but, rather subtraction of the form/nature in which Jesus already existed, namely, that of “a god/God.” To quote Braumann (from earlier in this Blog), who is in obvious agreement with Oepke and with me in terms of how to present in words the meaning of the text (but with my underlining added), “This form [the ‘form of a servant’ Jesus ‘took on’] replaces the ‘form of God.’”

Yet, what Braumann and Oepke write about and what I also believe for the same and for other reasons can be shown to be correct according to the best available reasons, I believe I can show, as opposed to other positions like Trinitarian Incarnation theology which makes use of all sorts of assumed concepts and meanings by wrongly associating them with the biblical writings and even with other, related texts.

In making clear this last point, consider respected Trinitarian Professor Ralph P. Martin. Originally published in 1963, Martin wrote a book about Philippians 2:5-11 under the title, Carmen Christi, which was later published as A Hymn of Christ: Philippians 2:5-11 in Recent Interpretation and in the Setting of Early Christian Worship (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997).

On page 1 of his Introduction, Martin quotes Lightfoot’s translation of Pliny the Younger’s Letters 10.96. Pliny was a Roman official who lived from 61 to about 112 CE, and an apparent adviser to then-Emperor Trajan. For more on Pliny the Younger see, “Ancient Rome – Pliny the Younger,” on Classical Literature (link: http://www.ancient-literature.com/rome_pliny.html, as of August 1, 2011)]. Of his Letters, those writing for the Classical Literature site and concerning this period and Pliny’s person and his Letters have noted:

The “Epistulae” [“Letters”] are a unique testimony of Roman administrative history and everyday life in the 1st Century CE, incorporating a wealth of detail on Pliny's life at his country villas, as well as his progression though the sequential order of public offices followed by aspiring politicians in ancient Rome. Especially noteworthy are two letters in which he describes the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 CE and the death of his uncle and mentor, Pliny the Elder (“Epistulae VI.16” and “Epistulae VI.20”), and one in which he asks the Emperor Trajan for instructions regarding official policy concerning Christians (“Epistulae X.96”), considered the earliest external account of Christian worship [from “Ancient Rome – Pliny the Younger,” on the site Classical Literature (link: http://www.ancient-literature.com/rome_pliny.html, as of August 1, 2011)].

According to the portion of Pliny’s letter quoted by Martin from Lightfoot and found on page 1 of Martin’s Introduction, Pliny wrote the following to Trajan about how to deal with those claiming to be Christians:

They asserted that this was the sum and substance of their fault or their error; namely, that they were in the habit of meeting before dawn on a stated day and singing alternately to Christ as to a god, and that they bound themselves by an oath, not to the commission of any wicked dead, but that they would abstain from theft and robbery and adultery, that they would not break their word, and that they would not withhold a deposit when reclaimed. This done, it was their practice, so they said, to separate, and then to meet together again for a meal, which however was of the ordinary kind and quite harmless.

Compare also the translation of Pliny’s Letters 10.96 in its larger context as presented on the VRoma Project site, which uses the 1915 Loeb Classical Library edition (and also, “a god”). For more on the letter’s significance, see here.

However, though Martin quotes Lightfoot accurately where Lightfoot uses “a god” in representing how Pliny viewed the Christians’ view of Jesus of Nazareth (A Hymn of Christ, Introduction, page 1), several pages later (Introduction, page 7, note 5) Martin changes Pliny’s reference from “to Christ as to a god” to “a composition directed to Christ as God”! The only meaning or understanding Martin could here intend for Pliny, by changing Pliny’s view of how he understood the Christians’ view of the Christ from as “a god” to “as God,” is according to his view of “God,” namely, “the Trinity.” Here though, instead of assuming it for his interpretation of New Testament or other biblical texts, Martin does it also for others, and here for Pliny the Younger.

This is precisely what Bowman, White, and Wallace have done, though in Martin’s case he does it with a non-Christian, making the assumptions inherent in all Trinitarian theology clearer by association with his “interpretational methodology” (to use White’s description), since in the case of the New Testament Trinitarians claim it as part of the ground of contention over what to believe. But Pliny was not a Trinitarian! This is clear from any extended reading of his Letters 10.96.

In spite of this, by 1982 Martin had not only made a complete substitution between Pliny’s “a god” and his Trinitarian understanding of “God,” but his assumption of Trinitarianism is what allowed him to transfer his belief about “God” to Pliny’s Roman, non-Christian, intended “a god” meaning!

Note the following from Martin’s essay, “Some Reflections on New Testament Hymns” in Christ the Lord: Studies in Christology presented to Donald Guthrie (Downers Grove, IL: Inter-Varsity Press, 1982), page 49 (with underlining added):

Hymnology and Christology thus merged in the worship of one Lord, soon to be hailed after the close of the New Testament canon as worthy of hymns ‘as to God’ (Pliny’s report of the Bithynian Christians at Sunday worship, AD 112).

The above change to “Pliny’s report” is simply incredible, particularly when you realize further that Martin’s reference in his note to the above paragraph takes the reader to Martin’s note 21 on his page 44, which note merely refers his readers back to the introductory pages of his Carmen Christi/A Hymn of Christ book, which we just considered!

Now that is a “circular” argument Dr. White would be proud of if he had seen it. But though White and Wallace and Bowman (and Martin) do with Paul and with other biblical writers exactly what Martin does also with Pliny’s use of “a god,” Martin’s example involving Pliny is more powerful to use in showing what is happening elsewhere when it comes to actual biblical texts. Indeed, no one can dispute that Pliny the Younger would have used the sense of “a god” according to Roman tradition. This is particularly evident since part of the very reason Pliny is writing about the Christians is to confirm they do not invoke “the Gods,” their Roman Gods, and the Christians did not ‘offer adoration, with wine and frankincense’ to the “image” of Trajan, which Pliny says he “had ordered to be brought for that purpose, together with those of the Gods”! 

See Pliny’s entire Letter 10.96 to Trajan. So Pliny could not ever be made to rightly say through commentary or by translation of his “report” that the Christians of his day sang to Christ “as God” or “as to God.” But in denying even this to the obvious meaning intended by a non-Christian writer, that is, according to Pliny’s words to Trajan about Pliny’s view of Jesus among Christians, Martin shows what is happening also with biblical texts in the hands of Trinitarians in large part.

Assuming rather than arguing for that which is used in the argument is where this kind of assuming breaks the argument down, often because there are no good reasons to hold it up in the first place; such assuming does not lift up and it does not enlighten, no matter how enlightened one may be. Whether enlightened or not, as noted earlier, Professor Wallace offers us the following understanding (Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, page 630) of Philippians 2:7 which is picked up and used by White in his April 12, 2007, Blog, “A Test for Your Listening Skills – Part III,” and in his online paper, “Beyond the Veil of Eternity,” (available online here), and as quoted and discussed earlier in this Blog:

Do not elevate yourselves on empty glory, but follow the example of Christ, who, though already elevated (on God’s level), emptied his glory by veiling it in humanity.

In harmony with the above understanding, and in perfect harmony with Martin, Bowman, and White when it comes to assuming Trinitarianism for Pliny or for Paul, Wallace (Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics, page 635, note 56) writes, “If one denies that Christ was truly God, one must also deny that he was truly a servant (note [morphēn doulou verse 7]).”

But this is true only if one assumes (as does Wallace) that “truly God” should not rather be “truly a god” for, indeed, only then do we have the kind of parallel argument which can stand the comparative test Wallace puts on it, namely, “If one denies that Christ was [truly a god], one must also deny that he was truly a servant (note [morphēn doulou verse 7]).” Trinitarians must first ask why they do not use the commonly understood and regularly used meaning for such terms rather than take “as a starting place” in their “interpretational methodology” Trinitarian Incarnation theology in their use of “God.”

Wallace has here fallen into a similar kind of assumptive trap that Bowman fell into much earlier concerning the uses of “God” and “a man” in 1 Timothy 2:5. Note what I wrote in this regard in both my 1998 and 2000, First and Second Editions of Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, pages 79-80 and 202, respectively, but here quoting only from my Second Edition, page 202:

       Jesus as mediator between "God and men." Commenting on Jehovah’s Witnesses’ use of 1 Timothy 2:5 against the Trinity doctrine, Bowman [Why You Should Believe in the Trinity: An Answer to Jehovah's Witnesses (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1989), page 73] states: "1 Timothy 2:5 says that Jesus is the ‘one mediator between God and men’ (NWT), and from this statement the JW booklet concludes that Jesus cannot be God, because ‘by definition a mediator is someone separate from those who need mediation’ (p. 16). But by this reasoning Jesus cannot be a man, either; yet this very text says that he is ‘a man’!" A more complete quotation of 1 Timothy 2:5 will prove illuminating: "For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (NIV, emphasis added).

       The point of the "JW booklet" [Should You Believe in the Trinity? (Brooklyn: Watchtower Bible and Tract Society, 1989)] is that Jesus cannot be the one for whom he mediates. Who is that? It is not simply "God," but the one God. Bowman substitutes the specific reference to the Father as the "one God" with the less descriptive title, "God." He states that by our alleged reasoning "Jesus cannot be a man either." However, if we take notice of the second and third words emphasized in the above quote from 1 Timothy 2:5 ("men" and "man"), we can see that the proper conclusion is Jesus cannot be the "men" (those for whom he mediates), but he was "a man"; nor can he be the "one God," but he can be and is "a god."

Though they each assume Trinitarianism “as a starting place” in their interpretation and even in their translations of the biblical text and some other early writings which speak about Christian beliefs (Pliny, by Martin), they would all likely (and Dr. White would for sure) have you believe that I am assuming what to believe and what not to believe “as a starting place,” without any evidence.

Yet, what I actually do and what I can and will show I do, is use what I believe after thorough review are the best available reasons. I then use and continue with these as my “starting place” for understanding the New Testament and other biblical writings. Who is really doing what, and why, is for each one of us to decide, hopefully according to good reasons, and not because of what we assume is true in spite of the best available evidence.

For more on the meaning of Philippians 2:5-9 and other related texts, see my Jehovah’s Witnesses Defended, Third Edition (2009), page 214, and my Three Dissertations on the Teachings of Jehovah’s Witnesses (Murrieta, CA: Elihu Books, 2002), note 5, pages 213-216, as well as my answer to the question, “What is your understanding of Philippians 2:5-9, and why does the NWT read so differently from versions like the NASB?” in “Upon the Lampstand,” December 15, 2007 (revised May 4, 2010), pages 1-8.