Smoodock's Blog

“In the beginning was the Word, AND THE WORD WAS WITH GOD…” (John 1:1). This means that the Word was alongside of or near God. Whatever or whoever the Word is, it or he was already existing alongside God before the beginning (of time or our history). The word translated with (alongside) is pros (G4314) in the Greek and governs the accusative case. In John 1:1 it means with God, as in Matthew 13:56 where the Greek word indicates that Jesus’ brothers and sisters were with the people of Nazareth.

Pros may also indicate direction as in Matthew 3:5 where all Judea was going out to (toward) John the Baptist. In fact, it is translated toward God in Acts 24:16 where Paul says that he seeks to have no offence toward God. In Romans 4:2 it is translated before, indicating that Abraham had no place to glory in his works before (facing toward) God.

I cannot perceive how a thought or a plan could be conceived as being with God in the sense that it is alongside him or before him or showing direction toward him. The Biblical Unitarian (BU hereafter) position tries to make its point that the Word is not a living being by showing that earlier English Bibles referred to the Word by using the neuter pronoun “it,”

In 1525, the pronoun associated with logos was translated “it” and not “he” by William Tyndale, who provided the translation that formed the basis for the KJV. Although approximately 90 percent of Tyndale’s work was preserved in the KJV, his use of the neuter for logos was changed to “he.” The Wycliffe translation of 1380, the Cranmer Bible of 1539 and the Geneva Bible of 1557 also translated the pronoun associated with logos as “it.”[1]

If I refer to God as “he” does this mean that he is masculine and that women were never created in the image of God? If we refer to God as “he,” does this mean that we look like him? Does he have two feet and ten toes? Does the male anatomy perfectly resemble God, but the female anatomy falls short? What would be the proof text that God is a male? If both male and female genders were created to reflect the image of God (Genesis 1:27), wouldn’t it be more accurate to refer to him as It? I suggest that we refer to God as “he,” simply because it does not sound appropriate to refer to his Majesty as It. The pronoun it doesn’t sound respectful. However, technically speaking, the pronoun it really isn’t disrespectful at all. Nevertheless, it is the limitation of our own language that presents us with the difficulty. It is both challenging and impossible to find appropriate words to use to describe our God in every respect. Our best words fall short. Our clearest expressions do not convey the whole truth.

I believe this argument for the BU position is a bit lame. I also suspect that they knew it would be, since they countered their own point by interjecting an argument for personification of the Word, presumably in case the argument that earlier English Bibles’ reference to the Word by using the neuter gender wasn’t strong enough,

But even if the pronoun associated with logos could legitimately be translated “he,” this could be readily explained by the use of personification, and does not necessitate a literal person called “the logos.” As we have already seen, the use of personification of logos puts the logos concept squarely in what is called the wisdom literature of Judaism, wherein personification of concepts is a common figure.[2]

Of course, if we are allowed to indiscriminately personify whatever we wish, we could make almost any argument concerning the Bible sound good. The Gnostics are quite handy at removing nearly all literal content in the New Testament. Nevertheless, even if we try to personify the Word, the BU argument does not make sense in John 1:1. The personification would still mean that it existed before “the beginning.” This, of course, is impossible. A plan cannot exist before it is conceived.

The personification argument doesn’t work for other reasons, as well. For example, it would be odd for John to begin his Gospel with a personification of the Word and then make the Word flesh and blood. We would go from the parable to the literal without any explanation whatsoever. If this could be true, it should have other examples in God’s word to which we might compare the first eighteen verses of John in order to draw a more perfect understanding. This, of course, does not occur and the BU position is left with another interpretation without Scriptural support.

Concerning the traditional understanding, we are on solid ground, because wisdom literature is very clearly what it claims to be. The Song of Solomon contains personifications that would allude to the relationship of Christ and Israel and/or the Church. Proverbs is very clear as to what sort of literature it is as well,

Proverbs 1:1-6 KJV  The proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel;  (2)  To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;  (3)  To receive the instruction of wisdom, justice, and judgment, and equity;  (4)  To give subtlety to the simple, to the young man knowledge and discretion.  (5)  A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels:  (6)  To understand a proverb, and the interpretation; the words of the wise, and their dark sayings. (emphasis mine)

Clearly, this is wisdom literature. The book of John never claims to be such. It is an account of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It begins by showing from where Jesus had come. John claimed that Jesus was the Word, but how would the Jews understand John’s terms? Certainly Hellenism was a philosophy contemporaneous with John’s Gospel, and Philo, a Jew who embraced Hellenism, had his own ideas concerning the logos. However, would Hellenism be what the Jews in Palestine embraced? I don’t believe so. It was the Jews embracement of Hellenism that brought about the desecration of the Temple by Antiochus Epiphanies and the revolt of the Maccabees. Therefore, John’s logos would not refer to a Hellenistic concept. How then would the Palestinian Jews perceive what John was saying?

The Jewish Targums were paraphrases or Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Bible. Many of these Targums used the phrase Word of the Lord when there appeared to be more than one LORD in the text or when the LORD had to be viewed in an anthropomorphic context. These Targums were read every Sabbath after the Hebrew text was read in the synagogues in Judea and Galilee. Clearly, there is just cause in the legitimate literature of ancient Palestine to show that John was referring to the One whom the Jews had always called their God. There are references in Jewish literature concerning the Angel of the LORD as one set apart who received worship from Israel and was called by the name of God (YHWH). These figures were not personifications, but real cases in Jewish history where they perceived God visiting them. Jacob referred to the Angel of the LORD as Almighty God, and in the Targum literature Abraham is seen to have spoken to and made a covenant with the Word of the LORD. Yet in the original Hebrew, the same Scripture refers to the LORD himself. All this evidence in Scripture substantiates the viewpoint of traditional Christianity. The BU point of view lacks the support of Scripture, as a foundation for its case to make Jesus into the plan of God before his human birth.

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[1] One God & One Lord “Reconsidering the Cornerstone of the Christian Faith;” Part 3; Chapter 9 – By Mark H. Graeser, John A. Lynn and John W. Schoenheit (http://biblicalunitarian.com/html) .

[2] Ibid.

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