Does "Breaking Bread" at Acts 20:7 Refer to a Commemorative Supper?

Dear Nick,

We read the following at the web site

http://www.biu.ac.il/JH/Parasha/eng/emor/gel.html

" . . . the Karaites do not leave their houses on the Sabbath except to go to their synagogues or attend to absolutely essential matters; nor do they carry objects, for they do not acknowledge the concept of an eruv. Breaking bread on the Sabbath is forbidden by them . . . (Ex. 34:21 )." [End of my excerpt from the web site listed above]

If the Jews of the first century generally had this practice of refraining from breaking bread on the Sabbath, then Jewish Christians, living amidst Jewish unbelievers, may have refrained from inviting guests to travel any appreciable distances to each others' homes on a Sabbath day when and where they might have prepared and shared a meal on that day of the week. In the event that they did so refrain, then this would be out of deference to the unbelieving (non-Christian) Jews' sensibilities so as not to stumble them needlessly. `Breaking bread' (having a meal prepared/cooked), as well as inviting fellow Christians into their homes for that meal, could be done on some day other than the Sabbath (e.g., on the first day after the Sabbath), this so that unbelieving Jews might not have (yet another baseless) reason for their being hypercritical of Jewish Christians.

Is it reading too much into the record (that Luke gives us of Paul's movements after his Ephesian ministry) if we think that we see strong evidence in Acts that, beginning with Jewish Christians, a custom soon enough arose among the believers for them not to hold any of their own meetings – that is to say, not to hold meetings peculiarly Christian -- on a Sabbath day in a city where Jews lived, but to hold them on some other day of the week? (I know Seventh Day Adventists would holler "Sacrilege" at the suggestion.) The last record we have of Paul's use of a synagogue was at Ephesus (Acts 19:8). We have no record that Paul used a synagogue at Troas on his return trip to Jerusalem, this despite the fact that a Sabbath had come and gone while he was at Troas (Acts 20:7, 8), and it was not until the next day after the Sabbath before Paul gathered with, evidently, all the disciples to give them a discourse, and "to break bread" with them (for an evening meal, though Paul's prolonged discourse delayed the meal – i.e., delayed that aforementioned meal -- until after midnight; it was after midnight that Paul `broke the [aforementioned] bread and ate food' -- Acts 20:11), and then resumed that discourse that he had begun earlier in the evening (Acts 20:7b, 11b). Also, later, on this return trip to Jerusalem, Paul spent another seven days with disciples (the disciples in Tyre), during which time a Sabbath had to have occurred; however, we do not read that Paul availed himself of a Jewish synagogue in Tyre on a Sabbath. No, but after the seven days – though not necessarily the first day after a Sabbath --, Paul and his traveling companions were with all the Tyrian disciples, and "they all, together with the women and children, conducted [them] as far as outside the city," where, "kneeling down on the beach [they] had prayer" before the Tyrian disciples "returned to their homes" (Acts 21:4-6). Though we have record of a meal that Paul evidently shared with all the disciples in Troas (where the young man Eutychus, who had fallen asleep while seated in a window, fell from that window three stories down to the ground to his death), yet we have no record of a meal – no record of any breaking of bread -- that Paul shared with all the disciples in Tyre.

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Dear Nick,

As an addendum to my earlier post in your thread, I should like to add the following:

It is not necessary to think the unlikely thing that Paul and companions were in the habit of putting out to sea on vessels (cargo boats) operated either by Jews or by Christians. They were simply at the mercy of shipping schedules used by the pagan operators of those vessels, and had to choose one that, on the occasion of Paul's return to Jerusalem, would allow Paul to accomplish as much ministering to the disciples' spiritual needs as possible in a port city, as well as for a scheduled departure that would not unnecessarily delay them on the return voyage. (I don't think that I am moving heaven and earth here, but I am certainly reviewing, I think, the scenario that allowed Paul and fellow travelers themselves to be moved, to be moved expeditiously upon the sea after Paul's ministering to the spiritual needs of the disciples in Troas for the maximum amount of time as might be practically afforded him, while also not offending the religious sensibilities of Sabbath-observing Jews.)

At Troas, Paul and his companions were able to book passage on a cargo boat, one that happened not to be setting sail on a Sabbath, but rather as soon as practically possible after the Sabbath, actually, after daybreak on a Sunday morning (Acts 20:7, 11), if Luke is using a Jewish calendar. Might Paul just as easily have scheduled a Friday evening meal and discourse, or a Saturday meeting, and a meal to follow, during Saturday's daylight hours? If there were no cargo boats scheduled to leave either on a Saturday morning or on a Saturday afternoon, then physically Paul might have done so; he might have felt inducement to so schedule a meeting, but he did not so schedule the fellowship, nor did he board a cargo vessel that might have been available during Sabbath's daylight hours -- and apparently would not have done so even had there been available such a departure date on a Sabbath.  As to scheduling a meeting on the Sabbath, he might have chosen a more relaxed schedule, one affording spiritual fellowship, and for a meal thereafter, by scheduling the events on a Sabbath.  Apparently, though, it was Paul's desire not only to board a cargo boat only after Sabbath, but also for ministering to the spiritual needs of the disciples in Troas only after that Sabbath, too. Those strictures meant a Sunday morning departure, at the earliest, if we are using a Jewish calendar. But the schedule he chose certainly raises the question "Why after Sabbath for those events? Why push so hard up against the daylight hours of the day on which he actually did depart?" Apparently, Paul wanted the shortest, practical interim to transpire between when he would last be with the disciples in Troas for spiritual fellowship, and for his departure in order to continue his journey to Jerusalem. Part of those practical, pragmatic considerations may well have included not only his taking into consideration a practical sailing schedule, but also into consideration the religious sensibilities of Sabbath-observing Jews in Troas so as not to offend them needlessly (cf. 1 Corinthians 9:19-23). Even if so – as appears reasonable to me --, still, owing to the way events actually did transpire, it turned out that there was hardly a practical interim that transpired from after the end of spiritual fellowship, which fellowship did not itself begin until after Sabbath, until departure from Troas.

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Dear Chuck,

I like the way you reason on the sequence of events. So, the earliest that a time to begin the fellowship could have occurred would have been in an hour sufficiently after Saturday sundown, time sufficient enough for allowing Christians in Troas to travel a distance from their homes to a fellow Christian's home after Sabbath, which, for some of them, may well have meant a distance that exceeded the distance of an eruv. In this way, they could make plans to travel to the place for this special meeting with Paul, and, after the meeting, to partake a nourishing meal together with Paul and his traveling companions. All that activity could take place without the Christians needlessly offending Sabbath-observing, unbelieving Jews, who also did not light fires for cooking meals on a Sabbath day out of their allegiance to Mosaic Law.

Your brother,

Al

--- In [a private, Witnesses-only forum],  > chuck*****@***> wrote:
>
> Since they gathered together on the "first day of the
> week", and the new "day" started at sundown, it was
> probably around 6:00 p.m. or so, that they gathered
> together. Some translations even say that they
> gathered together on "Saturday evening". By that time
> of night, they were hungry and ready to eat. Since
> Paul kept them there until past midnight when did they
> eat, if they weren't having a meal together as the
> Scripture suggests by "breaking bread," [then they]
> would have REALLY been hungry by the close of their
> gathering had they not had a meal. It's interesting to
> me how some try to connect this meeting with a
> "weekly" (or even "daily") ceremony of "communion",
> calling it as the footnote in The Catholic Study Bible
> (NAB) "the celebration of the liturgy of the Eucharist..."
> The CEV agrees in their footnote which says: they
> "celebrated the Lord's Supper."
> . . . . It's interesting how some "Christians" grab for
> straws to keep their unscriptural practices afloat.
> (i.e. liturgy of the Eucharist).
>
> Chuck

Can a Sane and Loving Creator Teach Us Absurdities?

 

Can a body present to our sight that which identifies it as being both a sphere and a cube at the very same moment that we are seeing it?  That is illogical, an absurd concept, and if it were so that various Bible writers had recorded that absurd concept as something enunciated by the Creator (Jehovah), then that alone should be sufficient evidence that the Bible contains error -- that it were not a book that presents to human eyes only statements that are true about the Creator.  Because we similarly find trinitarianism to be illogical (an absurd doctrine), then were the Bible to enshrine such an absurd doctrine, that alone should be sufficient reason for us to reject Biblical theology.  It is absurd doctrine that the Supreme Being could be a sane triunity (i.e., could be three real persons coevally subsisting in one Being/Mind); were even the Bible to enshrine such absurd doctrine, then still we could not believe it.  We then should also know that the Bible was not free from error.

All Biblical doctrines cannot be other than logically coherent, else we then have sufficient evidence that the Bible was not authored by a Creator who loves us. A loving Creator cannot teach us things that are logically incoherent. Apart from Biblical revelation, we know that a Supreme Being lives, that He is our Creator. We also know that He is a loving Creator, and that, too, is knowledge that we should still possess even were there no Bible. So, if, through the course of time, a Bible might have come along that would teach us absurdities, then were we to know it not to be a book authored by our loving Creator.

British Courts Are Urged against Us by Apostates . . .

. . . but will they win the argument against us in courts? (Some individuals in Great Britain who have apostatized from the faith make the baseless assertion that The Watchtower has slandered them individually, and caused them hurt by its statement that apostates should be avoided because they are mentally diseased and are a threat to any of us who might unwisely choose to give ear to their teachings. That description of apostates, however, is found in the Bible at 1 Timothy 6:3, 4.)

Brilliant lawyers can help to expose to honest-hearted onlookers the wickedness of those jurists who oppose; however, that brilliance in our lawyers will not carry any weight with how wicked jurists, who are bent on persecuting us, will necessarily respond if left to their own devices. The trump card, however, as respects that response is Jehovah's, for He can confuse the counsels of the wicked (Psalm 55:9; 57:3; 2 Samuel 15:31), and that just at the moment when they are poised to render judgment against us. We may compare here (see Acts 23:6-11) Paul's God-inspired brilliance against a murderous Sanhedrin in defending himself, which had little to do with countering the "evidence" that wicked witnesses were poised to urge against Paul before that kangaroo court. No, but the brilliance of Paul's maneuver lay in his perceiving how the Sanhedrin could be divided for its collapsing into chaos, collapsing into a riot from which Paul was rescued by military intervention.

But then again it may not be Jehovah's will to intervene, this no matter how brilliant our arguments. In that case, who among us would presume to counsel Jehovah as to what He should have done (cf. Romans 11:34)? Nor need we ever to second guess the wisdom and righteousness of our arguments against wicked opposers. It may well be Jehovah's will not to intervene, this so that wicked men go from wickedness to more wickedness, which may serve not only to show that the wicked jurists are themselves worthy of judgment, but serve also to increase thanksgiving to Jehovah's name on the part of honest-hearted onlookers who are moved to take sides with Jehovah.

If Jehovah allows the issue to come to a boil in a British court of law, then He may allow a verdict against us. On the other hand, He may choose not to allow the case to go against us; He could make a court case to go in our favor. Either way, it would boil down to what Jehovah is pleased to allow or to disallow, which need have very little or nothing to do with how most unbelievers perceive the arguments of our attorneys. Our prayer is that regardless of the weapons that men unjustly (immorally) form against us, Jehovah allow us and empower us to keep speaking His word with all boldness.

We trust that no servant of God wished that he could have been in Stephen's place before the Sanhedrin, thinking to himself, "I have figured out a sure-fire way that would have resulted in my exoneration had I been in Stephen's place, because I know how I would have exposed my accusers as liars -- as the murderous slanderers -- that they are, this to the chagrin both of them and of the court who would have been giving ear to them against me." No, no man could have had a better way to lay open to view the wickedness of Stephen's murderous accusers and judges than the way Stephen did it, for his was a God-given defense. But the wisdom and righteousness of his defense was, from merely an unenlightened human point of view, seemingly to no avail, for Jehovah chose not to intervene in Stephen's case. In Paul's case, however, Jehovah was not willing to leave to wicked judges and conspirators the future of the work that Paul ought not to be thwarted in accomplishing, for indeed Jehovah had already purposed that Paul should survive the machinations of his wicked opposers who had, at that time, determined to do away with him (see Acts 23:11).

Let us, then, not become anxious and excited in the face of what apostates allege against us, thinking to ourselves that our lawyers must, by their own educated wits, play the determinative role as to the extent of what may or may not befall the organization should responsible brothers be made liable to answer in court baseless, God-condemned charges levied against them. Jehovah will help them with their defense so that it will not be lacking for its wisdom and righteousness (Mark 13:11). Still, it may be Jehovah's will to allow wicked men to pronounce judgment against them. So what? We will continue to pray for them, and that Jehovah keep on granting His earthly organization opportunity and power to keep speaking His word with all boldness. We want Jehovah to read in our own heart what is our chief concern. And He will. And He will also act in harmony with our prayers, for it is already in Bible prophecy as to what will befall Jehovah's earthly organization in the near future, and it will not please our enemies when they are forced to see it, when they are forced to realize just how decisively and finally Jehovah defends His people against them, against the ones persecuting (see Revelation 6:15-17).

What Constantine Brought to the Nicene Council

Pier Franco Beatrice, as a professor in the department of Early Christian Literature at the University of Padua, Italy, wrote an article titled The Word "homoousios" from Hellenism to Christianity, Church History (June 1, 2002). In it we read the following excerpts I present in bolded text below.

"Neither before nor during Constantine's time is there any evidence of a normal, well-established Christian use of the term homoousios in its strictly Trinitarian meaning. Having once excluded any relationship of the Nicene homoousios with Christian tradition, it becomes legitimate to propose a new explanation . . ."

And so that is what Beatrice proceeded to do in his article. But before I go into any of that, I would like to comment on something Beatrice has written as respects Constantine himself. On page 13 of my printout of Beatrice's article, he has this to say about Constantine:

"Constantine's involvement with the theological traditions of Egyptian paganism is again confirmed by a disconcerting document, the letter to the Church of Nicomedia written just a few months after the [Nicene] council. After having claimed that the Christ, who is Lord, God, and Savior, is at the same time Father and Son, he adds that Christ is called Father as he eternally begets his Aion, and that he is called the Will of the Father. Aion is also the name of the Son of the virgin Kore, whose birth was celebrated in the Egyptian ritual mentioned by Epiphanius. It is also interesting to note that in the Hermetic tradition Aion (Lat. Aeternitas) always accompanies God as his eternal offspring and is the perfect image . . . of God. Moreover, for Constantine the Son is the consubstantial Will of the Father, the creator and administrator of the universe, the guide to immortality. The notion of the creative will . . . of God is, for example, found again in the Poimandres and in the Asclepius."

Constantine's meaning for the word homoousios was not like that which Athanasius, in post-Nicene years, came to champion. No, but it was Hermetic. Says Beatrice:

"In Constantine's view homoousios was a pregnant technical term, with its own precise, traditional Hermetic meaning. In his thought the word homoousios did not contradict the distinction of two divine ousiai [(substances, hypostases)], precisely because it was the heritage of the ancient Egyptian theology and of the revelation of Hermes Trismegistus, and had therefore nothing to do with the Sabellian or monarchian identification -- theology of the one hypostasis. Hermetism forms the conceptual background of the emperor's theology."

Imagine the consternation of the anti-Arian bishops, who, not only at Nicaea, according to Eusebius, but also on another occasion, too, had to hear words that, as we deduce, were inspired by Constantine's own stripe of Neoplatonism, a philosophical theology received from his attachment to Hermeticism. His Hermeticism got reinforcement from the Christ-subordinating cleric Lactantius, and from another of his favorite advisers, the Neoplatonist philosopher Sopater of Nicomedia. So, Constantine's philosophy was not that Platonism as filtered through the mind either of Ossius or of Athanasius. Writes Beatrice:

"Constantine enunciated his "philosophy" in a more extensive way [ -- than did he at Nicaea -- ] in the so-called Speech to the Assembly of the Saints . . . Constantine praises Plato for having said many true things about God: (Plato) describes the one who is above being, rightly so doing, and subordinated to this one also a second [(god)], and distinguished the two beings numerically, the perfection of both being one, but the substance of the second receiving its subsistence from the first. For the first God is the Demiurge and governor, being clearly above the universe, while the other, in obedience to his mandates, brings back to him the cause of the constitution of the universe."

Beatrice easily defeats the thought that the Oration to the Saints as we have it is not a true record of what Constantine said.

In the Oration to the Saints, Constantine (falsely) claims that Plato was an exponent of orthodox theology that he (Constantine) claims that he had accepted; however, Constantine had actually come to accept  Egyptian Hermeticism, the same theology that had informed the Gnostic (Valentinian) heretics' theology. He was probably aping the teaching of Lucius Lactantius, a professed Christian and confidant of Constantine. Lactantius' theology was heavily imbued with Hermeticism via its first tractate Poimandres. Lactantius says that "Plato spoke about the first god and the second god," and he says that Plato was himself a disciple of Hermeticism. Hermeticism envisioned a transcendent God, yet describable in terms that suit a material nature for its transcendent, supreme being. This high god was called "the Nous of the Supreme," and "Poimandres," which is to say that Divine Mind shepherds the noblest men. This Nous generated a second god (the Son, the Logos).

Now, Hermeticism used the term homoousios ("same substance"), and it was used by the Gnostic Manichaeans, by certain Christian modalists in Libya, by Paul of Samosata, by Lactantius, and then by Constantine. It was, however, a term condemned by the Council of Antioch in 268 C.E. The problem facing the bishops convened by Constantine at Nicaea in 325 C.E. was how they might go along with Constantine's insistence on use of the Hermetic term homoousios, but to do so without their seeming to have capitulated either to Gnosticism, modalism, or Hermeticism. The solution was that the bishops could have each his own definition of the term in accordance with his own theological predilection. So, by word magic the word was pressed into service in a way that was foreign to Constantine's usage; the bishops, however, could yet say that the word was not intended to present a material concept for God, not a theology that had God's substance as something that was divisible or diminishable, but whose substance was wholly intellectual, spiritual. The one thing that pleased the bishops at Nicaea was that the term allowed them to stand ostensibly with Constantine in his primary concern, which was to force an end to disunity in the Church by ridding the clerics of the dissenters Arius and company, because it was known that Arius would not consent that homoousios should ever find any kind of currency in orthodoxy. The term was subsequently dropped in creeds adopted shortly after the deaths of Constantine and Eusebius of Caesarea. It reentered orthodoxy when Emperor Theodosius in 380 C.E. demanded usage of the term by all professing Christianity.

Those professing a non-modalistic Christology prior to Nicaea had an essentially subordinationist Christology for their presentation of the Logos/Son. This Christology was thrown into chaos by the Council of Nicaea until there eventually emerged a Christology built on the word magic of the so-called Cappodocian "Fathers," which gave Christendom a trinitarian consensus, yet without a consensus among all Christendom's theologians as respects the historical nature of Jesus of Nazareth.

Why John 1:1c Calls the Word "a god"

Given the grammar that we have at 1:1c, we may say that the only thing that can rule out “a god” would be a theology that has it that there are no real, begotten (created) gods. Contravention of such a theology is found at John 1:1b (the Word was with God, the Father), and John 1:18 θεὸν οὐδεὶς ἑώρακεν πώποτε· μονογενὴς θεὸς ὁ ὢν εἰς τὸν κόλπον τοῦ πατρὸς ἐκεῖνος ἐξηγήσατο. There at John 1:18 we learn that the Word is a god, the only god directly created/begotten by the Father; hence, he is called “an only-begotten god.” Only Jehovah God the Father is the unoriginate, unbegotten God. All other divine but created beings (superhuman creatures, angels) are gods, too (compare the Hebrew text at Psalm 8:5 with its Greek translation endorsed by the Scriptures at Hebrews 8:5); however, they are not gods directly created by the Father, but were gods/angels brought into existence by the Son, the Word, acting as the Father’s mediating agent for their creation. In fact, all anointed Christians who go to heaven will become sharers in divine nature (2 Peter 1:4 ἵνα διὰ τούτων γένησθε θείας κοινωνοὶ φύσεως); therefore, they will become gods, too. (Compare Romans 8:29; 1 Corinthians 15:49; Philippians 3:20, 21; Hebrews 1:3a.)

In the New Testament, the Greek word θεὸς, or the Greek phrase ὁ θεὸς, almost always refers to Jehovah, the only true God (of Universal Sovereignty; John 17:3), and this distinguishes Him from Jesus Christ because Jesus Christ is not the only true God of Universal Sovereignty, but was sent forth by the only true God, “the Father of all persons” (Ephesians 4:6). Jehovah God is the God and Father of Jesus Christ (2 Corinthians 1:3; John 8:54). In those cases, the Greek word θεὸς, or the Greek phrase ὁ θεὸς, does not refer to the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 8:6).

Why, then, does John’s Gospel at 1:1 emphasize the Word’s godship, that the Word really was a god, a divine being? The apostle John’s Gospel account is unusual in that towards the end of the first century John was inspired to write things about Jesus Christ that would help Christians to combat a brand of apostasy (Docetism) that had it that Jesus was an agency in God that was manifested by God to human sight, as was true for the “dove” (holy spirit) that John the Baptist saw coming down to rest upon Jesus when he was baptized in the Jordan River (John 1:32). The Docetists said that Jesus was never a real being; however, John’s Gospel shows that the Word was not an agency in the Father’s being, but was already with God (the Father) as a god for the start of all those things that were to come into existence through the Word (in his role as the Father’s mediating agent) for their creation, and that this one (the Word) became flesh (John 1:14 Καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο), which was something that cannot be sensibly said about any agency in God’s beingness. The Word did not merely appear on earth as though he were like a creature of flesh, but the Word really was a god who became flesh; the Word became a real man, the man Jesus.

Should We Pray to God that He Strengthen the Angels to Remain Faithful?

Should we pray in behalf of the faithful angels that Jehovah strengthen them to remain faithful? There is no Biblical precedent for such, and there is no argument in our publications for such prayers to be made.

The tree of life in the Garden was not a supernatural tree. What ever kind of fruit-bearing tree it was, it had approximately the life-span that other trees of its kind had. Therefore, within the life-span of that tree that bore edible fruit, Jehovah expected the perfect man Adam to have qualified himself for grant from Jehovah to eat of that tree's fruit in order to signify that He had given the man the right to everlasting life. The man disqualified himself; so, Jehovah had to block approach to that tree so that the man might not get to it and eat of it and thereby have to live to time indefinite (forever).

The angels aware of the events in the Garden were already far older than Adam, but Jehovah apparently had yet to make irreversible grant of everlasting life to ALL of the angels. That Satan and, later on, some more angels besides Satan made themselves into devils is evidence of God's wisdom in His not having previously made the pronouncement 'I grant all my heavenly sons the right to everlasting life.' (Really, though, was it ever Jehovah's intention to make formal pronouncement someday to the effect that He has come to know that all His faithful angels are beyond temptation to rebel against Him, and that He acknowledges their right to everlasting life? There will be more on this below.

One day (at the end of Christ's 1000-year rule), men will be perfected, and will become children of God, just as many of them as will pass the final test. Such ones will be justified -- given the right -- to everlasting life.

Whether Jehovah, since Satan's rebellion, or since Noah's day, has ever declared of certain faithful angels besides His only-begotten Son that He has found them to be beyond temptation to rebellion, and has accordingly pronounced His acknowledgment of their right to everlasting life, or whether such pronouncement(s) will eventually prove to be the case for all faithful angels, is an arguable matter. Aside from the matter of formal decrees/pronouncements, however, consider this question: If Jehovah has already satisfied Himself that all His faithful, heavenly sons have attained to an unbreakable integrity in themselves, then would it not be pointless to pray for them to remain faithful -- just as pointless as it would be were we now to pray that Jesus be strengthened to endure, to remain faithful?

Jehovah has confidence and trust in His angelic sons. He did not have to appoint at least two if not more cherubs to guard against possibility that Adam might try to get to the tree of life and reach out his hand and take some of its fruit and eat it and thereby live forever. Jehovah, by His holy spirit alone, could have guarded against way to the tree of life; however, was not such use of those angels a wonderful way for Jehovah to tell His sons that He trusted them with His own reputation? Do we not have argument, then, that Jehovah must have looked into the "hearts" of some angels standing beside the tree of life and found that they were already beyond temptation to conspire and rebel against Him? I like to think that is a reasonable conclusion, as also that Jehovah had already seen as much in very many others of His heavenly sons, too. Whether He made in Heaven any formal pronouncements as to what He was finding, or whether He was waiting or is still waiting for the right time to do so -- or whether He thinks it is something that need never be formally pronounced -- is maybe something about which we will learn more in the new world, if not before by someone who presents better argumentation than that which informs this post.

One thing we do know. The death that is experienced by a superhuman person as a superhuman person is the second death, and so the demons have only themselves to blame for the judgment of second death that will eventually claim them. The death they experience cannot be attributed to any imperfection in them for which they had no choice in the matter, for their sin is due to another thing, namely, their deliberate, willfully wicked choice to rebel against Jehovah. The judgment against them is second death, but we will make more comment on that below.

First, though, what more can we say about the angel that visited Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane in order to strengthen Jesus? Even a perfect human can be comforted so that he might thereby be helped to endure in his organism that which, absent that comfort, could the more easily mean temporary unconsciousness or paralysis for him. We ought not to reason that we can make reference to the fact that an angel visited Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane as basis for the argument “Jesus was strengthened against possibility that he might compromise his integrity in what was to befall him in the next few hours; therefore, if the perfect man Jesus needed to receive strength against possibility that he might make moral compromise (do a sin), then why not pray that the perfect angels receive strength to the same end, too?” What is wrong with that argument?

Jesus was sorely troubled -- stunned and deeply grieved even unto death -- because he knew he was soon to be front and center as a lightning rod for attracting the nation's rulers' unjust condemnation of himself on basis of false charges that he had blasphemed Jehovah. That grief in Jesus betokened neither predisposition nor temptation to moral or spiritual failure/unfaithfulness in him; nevertheless, Jesus' grief in the garden (Mark 14:32-36) had to be addressed so that he would not lose too much strength in his organism, but retain enough strength critical for his maintaining consciousness and speech until death.

The angel's visit to Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane reassured Jesus that his Father was already taking steps -- beginning in the night that He sent the aforementioned angel to Jesus while he was yet so sorely troubled in the garden -- to help His Son to endure in his organism ill treatment, this so that he might not collapse too soon before his being lifted up on the torture stake. We do not, therefore, conclude that the angel's visit was out of concern either in the angels or in the Father that Jesus, unless he received strength from a visit by an angel, might not keep integrity, might not remain faithful.

So, for reiteration -- and for more, related things that I argue we should keep in mind when considering answer to the question ”Should we pray in behalf of the angels, that they remain faithful?” -- consider the following:

(1) Adam was never to be granted immortality; however, he stood in line to have been declared worthy of everlasting life, and would have been so declared had he passed the test, and then Jehovah would have signified as much for Adam by letting him eat of the tree of life. Adam failed his test. Still, even as a sinful creature, Adam could have lived forever had Jehovah not taken the steps necessary to prevent Adam from getting hold of fruit from the tree of life -- Genesis 3:21-24.

(2) Having the right to everlasting life does not mean that the owner of that right has ceased to be a free moral agent. It was because he freely chose to become so disciplined in righteousness that it has become psychologically impossible for him to rebel that is the basis for his acquiring the right to everlasting life.

(3) The angels are free moral agents. Only one of their number would ever come to have immortality, namely, Michael the archangel. Obviously, Jehovah had satisfied himself that Michael had so disciplined himself in righteousness that he had come to be beyond possibility of rebellion against Jehovah. Jehovah had the utmost confidence that His Son would not rebel even should he become a human subject to the machinations of Satan, and facing a certain and excruciatingly painful death. Jehovah knew that His Son would come to remember and appreciate the training he had previously received in Heaven before the flesh-taking event in Mary's womb. And so it happened: the man Jesus the Nazarene was anointed with holy spirit in the Jordan River, and the Heavens were opened up to him. Jesus, though in a reduced personhood -- having a personhood less than the angels' --, came to know within himself that he loved his Father with the same love that he had for his Father before ever he had become a human, and so it seems reasonable to say that Jesus accordingly knew that he would never rebel against his Father. Certainly, though, there came a point in time when Jehovah could infallibly conclude that His Son would never rebel, and accordingly deserved the name Michael, because if ever rebellion were to break out among Jehovah’s rational creatures, then Michael must have a leading role in the vindication of Jehovah’s sovereignty. He got that trust placed in him by his Father obviously well before Jehovah created mankind, and certainly long before He gave His Son immortality.

The question becomes this: did Jehovah know as much about some of the other of His angelic sons -- that some more of His sons had also come to be beyond possibility of rebellion against Jehovah? Obviously, we cannot say that before Jehovah created man, He had come to know as much for all His angelic sons, because many of them did rebel after man’s creation, beginning with the one identified as Satan the Devil. We avoid confusing the issue if we do not harbor the thought that only those who receive immortality are beyond possibility of rebellion; we ought not to reason that if one is not immortal, then he is not beyond possibility of rebellion, and if not beyond possibility of rebellion, then we should pray in his behalf, including in behalf of the not-immortal (mortal) angels. The fact of the matter, though, is that immortality doesn't necessarily come about as a reward for a free moral agent who has made good on his ability to so discipline himself that he comes to be beyond rebellion. Did not Adam once stand to exemplify as much (i.e., stand to exemplify that one can discipline himself so as to come to be beyond possibility of rebellion), and that he would have if he had kept on listening to his heavenly Father? In that event, Jehovah would have signified as much by letting Adam eat of the tree of life so that ever after that event, Jehovah would never have concerned Himself in the least as to whether Adam might yet prove unfaithful some day, and yet still have to live forever, even though he still would not have been immortal, for immortality is a thing Adam would never have received . . . "no matter what." Only Jehovah, Jesus, and the 144,000 in Heaven have immortality; nobody else will ever have it. Do we not rightly conclude, then, that there will be many rational creatures granted the right to irreversibly everlasting life by virtue of Jehovah's ability to know when a servant of His has freely chosen to discipline himself so as finally to be beyond possibility of rebellion? How many of the angels are there who have already so disciplined themselves? Does it not stand to reason that some, if not most or even all of His angelic sons presently in the Heavenly court, have so disciplined themselves in Jehovah’s righteousness that they have come to be beyond rebellion so that they, too, will by no means be harmed by the second death? If the argument stands, then is it not pointless to pray in their (the angels’) behalf that they be strengthened against moral compromise?

Imperfect humans as imperfect humans can so discipline themselves in Jehovah's righteousness as finally to be beyond possibility of rebellion against Jehovah. There are thousands who have done so by now, and these thousands have got the final sealing so that they have been "grant[ed] to eat of the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God" -- which symbolizes that Jehovah has the utmost confidence in His bestowing immortality upon them so that they will have to live forever, for they "will by no means be harmed by the second death"; they have immortality. By the time the great tribulation breaks out, Jehovah will have finished the final sealing of the earthly remnant of the 144,000, and then when they die, they, too, will share in the first resurrection, and eat of the tree of life in the paradise of God. As imperfect humans who had come to be beyond possibility of rebellion against Jehovah, and then as spirit creatures in Heaven, those of the 144,000 have ever had and always will retain free moral agency.

Do Humans and Chimpanzees Have a Common Ancestor?

Dear brothers,

More evidence of the shoddiness that informs the scientistic [sic] worldview may be seen in the much-touted similarity between the chimpanzee genome and the human genome. The "similarity" is science fiction, if we can believe the Nature arrticle and what seem to me to be legitimate inferences that we may make based on the article.

A few excerpts from a Nature article debunk the so-called similarity. Yes, the quotes from the Nature article are quotes I have lifted from a "Creationist" venue that referenced the Nature article, but that no more binds us to accept the YEC "science" than do our quotations from trinitarian scholars bind us to accept their trinitarian theology.

The bolded and/or relatively larger letters in the text in the main body of the material below are my editotrial touches.

Yb.

Al

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New Chromosome Research Undermines Human-Chimp Similarity Claims

by Jeffrey Tompkins, PhD. and Brian Thomas, M.S. *

A recent high-profile article in the journal Nature released the results of a study with implications that shocked the scientific community because they contradict long-held claims of human-chimp DNA similarity.1 A previous Acts & Facts article showed that much of the research surrounding the often touted claims of 98 percent (or higher) DNA similarity between chimps and humans has been based on flawed and biased research.2 The problem is that the similarity has been uncertain because no one has performed an unbiased and comprehensive DNA similarity study until now. And the results are not good news for the story of human evolution.

One of the main deficiencies with the original chimpanzee genome sequence published in 20053 was that it was a draft sequence and only represented a 3.6-fold random coverage of the 21 chimpanzee autosomes, and a 1.8-fold redundancy of the X and Y sex chromosomes. In a draft coverage, very small fragments of the genome are sequenced in millions of individual reactions using high-throughput robotics equipment. This produces individual sequence fragments of about 500 to 1,200 bases in length. Based on overlapping reads, these individual sequences are assembled into contiguous clusters of sequence called sequencing contigs. In the case of a chimpanzee, an organism with a genome size of about 3 billion bases, a 3.6-fold coverage means that approximately 10.8 billion bases of DNA were sequenced (3.6 x 3.0). The result is a data set consisting of thousands of random sequencing contigs, or islands of contiguous sequence that need to be oriented and placed in position on their respective chromosomes.

In the 2005 chimpanzee genome project and resulting Nature journal publication, the sequence contigs4 were not assembled and oriented based on a map of the chimpanzee genome, but rather on a map of the human genome. Given the fact that the chimpanzee genome is at least 10 percent larger5 overall than the human genome, this method of assembly was not only biased toward an evolutionary presupposition of human-chimp similarity, but was also inherently flawed.

The title of the recent journal article accurately sums up the research findings: "Chimpanzee and Human Y Chromosomes are Remarkably Divergent in Structure and Gene Content." Before getting into the details of their results, it is important to understand that for the first time, the chimpanzee DNA sequence for a chromosome was assembled and oriented based on a Y chromosome map/framework built for chimpanzee and not human. As a result, the chimpanzee DNA sequence could then be more accurately compared to the human Y chromosome because it was standing on its own merit.

The Y chromosome is found only in males and contains many genes that specify male features, as well as genetic and regulatory information that is expressed throughout the whole body. Because of the recent outcome comparing the chimp and human Y chromosomes in a more objective assessment, it is possible that major discrepancies will be revealed among the other chromosomes that are claimed to be so similar.

From a large-scale perspective, the human and chimp Y chromosomes were constructed entirely differently. On the human Y chromosome, there were found four major categories of DNA sequence that occupy specific regions. One can think of this in terms of geography. Just as a continent like Europe is divided into countries because of different people groups, so are chromosomes with different categories of DNA sequence.

Not only were the locations of DNA categories completely different between human and chimp, but so were their proportions. One sequence class, or category containing DNA with a characteristic sequence, within the chimpanzee Y chromosome had less than 10 percent similarity with the same class in the human Y chromosome, and vice versa. Another large class shared only half the similarities of the other species, and vice versa. One differed by as much as 3.3-fold (330 percent), and a class specific to human "has no counterpart in the chimpanzee MSY [male-specific Y chromosome]."1

As far as looking at specific genes, the chimp and human Y chromosomes had a dramatic difference in gene content of 53 percent. In other words, the chimp was lacking approximately half of the genes found on a human Y chromosome. Because genes occur in families or similarity categories, the researchers also sought to determine if there was any difference in actual gene categories. They found a shocking 33 percent difference. The human Y chromosome contains a third more gene categories--entirely different classes of genes--compared to chimps.

Under evolutionary assumptions of long and gradual genetic changes, the Y chromosome structures, layouts, genes, and other sequences should be much the same in both species, given the relatively short--according to the evolutionary timeline--six-million-year time span since chimpanzees and humans supposedly diverged from a common ancestor. Instead, the differences between the Y chromosomes are marked. R. Scott Hawley, a genetics researcher at the Stowers Institute in Kansas City who wasn't involved in the research, told the Associated Press, "That result is astounding."6

Because virtually every structural aspect of the human and chimp Y chromosomes was different, it was hard to arrive at an overall similarity estimate between the two. The researchers did postulate an overall 70 percent similarity, which did not take into account size differences or structural arrangement differences. This was done by concluding that only 70 percent of the chimp sequence could be aligned with the human sequence--not taking into account differences within the alignments.

In other words, 70 percent was a conservative estimate, especially when considering that 50 percent of the human genes were missing from the chimp, and that the regions that did have some similarity were located in completely different patterns. When all aspects of non-similarity--sequence categories, genes, gene families, and gene position--are taken into account, it is safe to say that the overall similarity was lower than 70 percent. The Nature article expressed the discrepancy between this data and standard evolutionary interpretations in a rather intriguing way: "Indeed, at 6 million years of separation, the difference in MSY gene content in chimpanzee and human is more comparable to the difference in autosomal gene content in chicken and human, at 310 million years of separation."1

So, the human Y chromosome looks just as different from a chimp as the other human chromosomes do from a chicken. And to explain where all these differences between humans and chimps came from, believers in big-picture evolution are forced to invent stories of major chromosomal rearrangements and rapid generation of vast amounts of many new genes, along with accompanying regulatory DNA.

However, since each respective Y chromosome appears fully integrated and interdependently stable with its host organism, the most logical inference from the Y chromosome data is that humans and chimpanzees were each specially created as distinct creatures.

References

1.Hughes, J.F. et al. 2010. Chimpanzee and human Y chromosomes are remarkably divergent in structure gene content. Nature. 463 (7280): 536-539.
2.Tomkins, J.P. 2009. Human-chimp similarities: common ancestries or flawed research? Acts & Facts. 38 (6): 12.
3.The Chimpanzee Sequencing and Analysis Consortium. 2005. Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome. Nature. 437 (7055): 69-87.
4.For the sequencing technology in use at the time, a typical DNA sequence read used four different types of DNA clone substrates and had individual read lengths from between 200 to 1,000 high-quality DNA bases. Because of repetitive blocks of sequence, these are difficult to computationally assemble into long contiguous blocks of sequence without a map or framework to orient the repetitive DNA sequence lengths.
5.Statistics on sequencing and mapping of the chimp genome are difficult to pin down even though the mapping and sequencing were largely completed by 2006. A report describing the massive effort to produce a more accurate view of the chimpanzee genome has not yet been published.
6.Borenstein, S. Men More Evolved? Y Chromosome Study Stirs Debate. Associated Press, January 13, 2010.

Did God Experiment with His Creations?

God is not an experimenter. An experimenter has to face the fact that he might never get what he wants, and that if he gets what he wants, it might be through trial and error whereby he is learning what needs to be improved if he is ever to get what he wants.

God doesn't experiment. Why should He ever have to do that? He is the God of Economy, not a God of Disorder, not a God of Chaos (1 Cor. 14:33). The very existence of the kind of physical universe we have shows us that it was created in so finely a tuned manner precisely for the support of everlasting life in the physical universe. From the beginning of His creation of it, He must have made it without a roll of the dice, but rather in the most mathematically precise manner, with a laserlike focus on what He wanted to do with it, which was to place in it humans having everlasting life as the capstone of His physical creations. God Jehovah, our Creator, acts according to the way He has figured it out beforehand. "Jehovah of armies" implies that Jehovah has masterful organizational abilities for ordering things both in the spiritual and in the physical realms.

Isaiah 14:23 states: "Jehovah of armies has sworn, saying, "Surely just as I have figured, so it must occur.""

Consider also Jehovah's motivation for becoming the Creator of the physical universe: love! He created because of His love -- for the love He knew His rational creatures would come to see was at the core of His very being, and that they should love God in return, worshiping Him, and even themselves showing love to others. God is love. God's love does not comport with the thought that God was at any time experimenting with any part of the physical universe. He, as a God of Economy, carried out His purpose with a laserlike, rigorous focus on the most mathematically precise, "surefire" way for Him to accomplish what He purposed to accomplish -- all of it accomplished according to the way He had figured it all out beforehand (cf. Isaiah 14:23).

Genesis "Kind" and "Genus"

A friend (N______) asked me what I thought about an evolutionist's question that was put to N______. That question and some of my comments follow:

>so horses and asses and zebras are really all the same species?<

Taxonomists give a definition for the inclusion of the three groupings you enumerated (horses, asses, and zebras) not as groupings belonging to one species, but as a genus, the only extant genus of the "horse family" Equidae. The genus Equus (horses, asses, donkeys, zebras) seems to me to correspond pretty closely to a Genesis "kind." But it does not follow that every "genus" as currently delineated by taxonomists need correlate to a Genesis kind. How God defines a kind and how self-serving, evolutionistsic taxonomists define a genus will not always overlay, and taxonomists are always revising their classifications depending on how paleontologists re-read the fossil evidence for solution to some phylogenetic issue they have bumped up against from DNA data supplied by molecular biologists.

Genesis states that God created the kinds, but how many different exemplars, which taxonomists would call "different species," were originally created within that kind is not stated, is it? How many exemplars of a man-defined genus (say the Equus, for example) were brought on board the ark? I don't know. Were they all necessarily interfertile? Not necessarily. Were all exemplars of a man-defined genus represented on board the ark? Apparently not, as may be seen from the fossil record. Were any exemplars of one Genesis kind interfertile with any exemplars of another Genesis kind? Certainly not.

I think your opponent, N_______, is trying to position himself for asking you what he hopes will be embarrassing questions for us who accept the Noachian Flood account in the Bible as history. If he has not seen the reasonableness of any of your replies to date, it is extremely unlikely that he will in the future as respects anything you may say. I don't have patience with persons of that sort. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Yb,
Al

On the Correct Noun Classification for the Predicate in John1:1c

Because the unarticulated predicate QEOS at John 1:1c is a count (singular), common, concrete noun, then the context of the Greek text will determine if an English noun used in the translation should be articulated, and, if so, which article the predicate will take, whether definite or indefinite. The context disallows that we take the predicate in 1:1c to be definite, for QEOS in 1:1c is “with TON QEON” (“the God,” “the [true] God”), and cannot be hO QEOS. The anarthrous predicate QEOS in 2 Corinthians 1:21, however, is a common, count (singular), definite, concrete noun; nonetheless, there would not have been a change in meaning for that predicate even had it been modified by a definite article in the Greek text hO [estin} CRIMAS hHMAS QEOS; (“he who . . . anointed us is God”), because the anarthrous QEOS is here apparently the semantic equivalent of “Jehovah.” We cannot hold that we should ignore context in order that we might insist, “It is the syntax of the predicate at 2 Corinthians 1:21 that makes us choose between either 1) an indefinite QEOS (“a god”), on the one hand, or 2) a syntactically effected transformation of QEOS from a count noun into purely the semantic equivalent of an adjective, namely, “divine,” on the other hand.” Both semantics numbered as 1) and 2) in this paragraph are wrong per context for translation of QEOS at 2 Corinthians 1:21; it is the context for QEOS in that text that makes us look for the identity of the one who a) guarantees the Corinthian believers their fellowship with Christ and b) anoints them. He is identified as “God” in the preceding verse.

If a translator wrongfully asserts that the indefinite article “a” cannot grammatically belong in English translation as modification for the predicate in John 1:1c because of the syntax in John 1:1c, then it follows that consistent application of his criterion will result in his selecting for English translation some English noun for the predicate, one that will not logically take an indefinite articulation for the noun he will use as the predicate in the translation, this for expressing the theology that the translator thinks is in the context of 1:1c. Such a translator has limited himself to three classifications of nouns from which he might select: 1) a noun that is a personal name; 2) a noun that is a common, non-count, concrete noun; or 3) a noun that is a common, non-count, abstract noun. Each of the three alternatives is anti-Scriptural, and two would, if he would use either one of them, make him guilty of an absurd translation as well. Some translators seem to have it that the predicate in John 1:1c might still be rendered “God,” but somehow we should understand that it has a purely qualitative meaning. Does not their argument amount to something else they might have asserted, namely, that the adjective QEIOS (“divine”) equally as well might have been in the Greek text for the predicate, this so that literal English translation at 1:1c would then have read as 
“. . . and the Logos was divine”?

Well, such a translation "divine" for the predicate noun happens to present the truth about the Logos’ nature, because the Logos is a divine being, a god. Many of us who are not trinitarians, however, object to the translation principle employed for the selection of “divine,” and object to the anti-Scriptural restriction that only one being qualifies for the description “divine.” But if we think that syntax for a predicate Greek noun that is a common, count (singular), concrete noun can have such a semantically transformative effect upon it, then we have mistakenly made a translation principle, one that makes for some semantic effects that context does not demand we make, and may in fact disallow. For example, at John 3:29, will we translate NUMFIOS ESTIN as “. . . is bridegroom-ish / bridegroom-ly”? Will we have John 4:19 as “. . . are prophetical”? John 8:44a as “. . . was murderous”? John 8:44b as “. . . is false”? John 9:8 as “. . . was beggarly”? John 9:17 as “. . . is prophetical”? John 10:2 as “. . . is thievish and brigand-ish”? John 10:13 as “. . . is wage-motivated”? John 12:6 as “. . . was thievish”? John 18:37a, b as “. . . are kingly/royal”? At James 4:14, “appearing for a little while” is modification for the predicate ATMIS (“mist”) and is not modification for the implied subject “you”; therefore, the predicate cannot be thought to have become syntactically transformed into a semantic properly expressible by an adjective, so that in translation we should read “misty”; no, but ATMIS must keep its count-noun status in translation so that we read “a mist”: “. . . for you are a mist appearing for a little while.” At James 5:17, hOMOIOPAQHS hHMIN ("of like passions to us" NW) is a phrase modifying the precopulative, anarthrous predicate ANQRWPOS in the English translation of the Greek sentence "Elijah was a man with feelings like ours"(NW). It would not be properly translated if we were to make the translation to read "Elijah was manly, of feelings like ours." ANQRWPOS is a common, count (singular), concrete noun, and is at James 5:17 a count noun predicate that must be translated by use of a count noun so that it can thereby accept its modification by the phrase "with feelings like ours."  We see in the Greek text at Galatians 4:1 hO KLHRONOMOS NHPIOS ESTIN  (". . . the heir is a babe"); the predicate is here not with a pejorative semantic, which, were such discernible in the context, we might then have given the predicate noun its implied adjectival modification, such as in a paraphrastic translation like ". . . the heir is a childish person, someone immature in his thinking."

Were we to grant that syntax alone signals a semantically transformative effect on QEOS at John 1:1c, this so that it is not even grammatically possible for that predicate to have, in English translation, the modification made by an indefinite article, then we would have tightened the restriction of alternatives even further, for then there are only two other semantic alternatives that might be used in English for rendering the Greek predicate noun in John 1:1c where we see that the predicate is used non-metaphorically. Such translation alternatives for the predicate noun would then be made by nouns that cannot make use of the indefinite article in English translation. We will show next how these restrictions are so.

For English translation -- and for preservation therein of the new semantic that supposedly resulted when an anarthrous predicate QEOS was paired with the singular, personalistic subject (the Logos) --, one translation procedure that needs exploring is for us to see what semantic is presented when the translation text in 1:1c is given the common, non-count, abstract noun “godship.” (In Greek, “godship” is QEOTHS.) We will analyze this below. It is, however, the only semantic effect the trinitarian translator has left himself, this for a meaning that does not necessarily admit to the possible existence of a plural number of gods/divine beings – but more about that below. First, though, we will explore whether or not use in translation of a common, count (singular), abstract noun comports logically with the restriction that accurate translation cannot signal the existence of divine beings, gods.

When the translator avers, ‘It is grammatically impossible to employ any indefinite articulation in any English translation at John 1:1c,' then he has also shut the door on any semantic that might have been available through use of a common, count (singular), abstract noun – whatever that might have been --, this inasmuch as a common, count (singular), abstract noun can grammatically take either the indefinite or definite articles in an English translation for such a noun. At 1:1c, however, such a noun would require an impersonal Logos for the subject; it would assert that the Logos is an impersonal agency in God’s being. Indeed, then, per his "lights," what noun classifications are left that Trinitarian translator for his rendering an English translation of 1:1c that does not contradict his Trinitarianism? He should see that he would be left with asserting theologically wrongfully

1) that QEOS is, at 1:1c, with the semantic of a common, non-count, concrete noun (common, we say, and functions as such when it does not, per context, function as the semantic equivalent of a personal name, for in the case that it should function as the semantic equivalent of a personal name, then it would not have the semantic of a common noun, and then should always be written in English translation with an initial capital “G”); also non-count, we say, for where there is a noun of the classification that we have in view now, for then that noun is neither singular nor plural in number, but is non-count; (N.B. We recognize that it is nonsensical to speak, for example, of “a clothing,” or to speak of “clothings.” Likewise, then, it is nonsensical to speak of “a God” for translation of QEOS when the common, count, concrete noun QEOS is, per context, truthfully seen to have the semantic of a personal name; in those instances, QEOS cannot be written in English translation as “a God” because we cannot factually speak of “a Jehovah.” We can imagine that in certain contexts -- for example, those in which personal names, which are non-count nouns and are usually used in a non-count sense, may be used in a counterfactual manner. A counterfactual context would allow us to write in English a personal name with a count, indefinite sense, such that it would require that an indefinite article be used for good English translation, as in “Such a Moses might have done what the Moses of God’s Word never did do”); concrete noun, we say, for when the noun has reference to something ‘out there,’ an ontologically existing thing;

or else to assert (again theologically wrongfully):

2) that QEOS is here with the semantic of a common, non-count, abstract noun.

Either assertion for 1:1c is unscriptural and anti-Scriptural. Number 1 above, where we consider if it is possible to have at 1:1c the common, count (singular), concrete noun QEOS with the semantic of a personal name (namely, “Jehovah”), must be seen as anti-Scriptural at 1:1c because it is not true to say “The Logos is Jehovah”; rather, the Logos is with Jehovah, with “the God,” 1:1b), the One who elsewhere is identified in the Prologue (1:1-18) as “the Father”; cf. John 8:54 “It is my Father who glorifies me, he who you say is your God.” Number 2 above is also unscriptural, and because it is also illogical to declare for the person of the Logos “The Logos is godhood, godship,” then that declaration is also anti-Scriptural. Historic (Scriptural) usage of QEOS plainly has it as a concrete noun, having the same concreteness or ontological reality as we recognize for a shoe, a cloth, a person, a dog, etc. If, however, a translator were mistakenly to take QEOS at John 1:1c for a non-count reference to that which is non-literal, not an ontological reality, then by definition that is his taking it to be a non-count, abstract noun reference. And then it follows that that translator thinks to himself that he is justified in his refusal to use the indefinite article for modifying his English translation of QEOS in that passage. Is he proceeding in a way that presents us with a logically possible metaphysic? No, for then he should be guilty of the logical fallacy of the reification of the abstract, the misplaced concretion.

Poetic license can allow a hunter to hold up a killed duck and say, “This duck is meat on our dinner table.”  “Meat” is a non-count, concrete noun used here as a metaphorical predicate for a subject that is a being.  There will be nothing on the table that will give the percept of a (dead) duck qua (dead) duck, and a real duck is more than the part taken from it in order that that part should be literal meat on a dinner table.  Illogical thought need not intrude so as to prevent those at the table from coming to know reasonably what kind of meat is on the table; logical analysis, if available/possible, cannot prevent -- but rather can help to cause -- accurate cognition that what is present on the table is meat taken from a duck, a part of a killed duck, which part, I should like to think, has been cooked. The hunter's use of the predicate “meat,” though, was reference to the duck that was killed, this so that part or parts of it may be eaten in a meal. But the (dead) duck qua (dead) duck – the feathered corpse of a duck -- is not identical to the meat that will be taken from the duck and placed on the table.  In the event, the meat on the table is just an edible part of the duck, which part the hunter had earlier predicted should, as a part, become in time a percept on a dinner table; until such should transpire, the hunter may reference the duck metaphorically by use of the predicate "meat" as though the predicate noun had made real identification of the whole duck as a whole duck. He has used "meat" to stand in for the whole, this even though the whole (dead) duck as a whole (dead) duck will not become literally present as an ontological reality on his dinner table. (And neither should we be pleased to see a dead duck as a dead duck – the feathered corpse of a duck – on the table before us.)  Likewise, then, we cannot conclude that the apostle John used a predicate QEOS at John 1:1c as though it might function as a predicative non-count, concrete noun for naming only part of what the Logos is, as though QEOS might there refer predicatively not to what the Logos really is in the entirety of his being, but merely serve as predication for identifying only part of what the Logos is.  Indeed, then, to what might QEOS here have pointed us so that we should see only an uncountable yet ontologically existing part of the Logos to which 1:1c might have invited our consideration?  And yet that is the question we should have to ask ourselves were we to agree that QEOS, as an unarticulated, pre-verbal predicate, does no more than to name not a countable, concrete part of a person -- that it somehow names an uncountable yet concrete part of the Logos, that the predicate has somehow taken on the semantic of a non-count, concrete noun, a classification of nouns in which we find the following examples: "clothing,” “butter,” “footwear,” “gold,” “meat,” and “water,” but, of course, never “a/the person.”  There is no Greek syntax that transforms the semantic that a certain count, concrete noun may have in the Greek text into a different semantic that is carried either

1) by a certain non-count, concrete noun used in sensible, English translation, where context – context here as our knowledge of the world – must also comport with a meaning that is in compliance with the predicate's ontology, which would then be indicated as something that is discontinuous, granular, made of discrete but similar units, as is true for sand and furniture; or goes for indicating that the referent’s ontology is a continuous, seamless substance, as is true for water, wine, air, etc.); or

2) by a non-count, abstract noun.

Now, we may refer to a plural number of jackets -- "jackets" is a count (plural), concrete noun -- as some articles of clothing. ("Clothing" is a non-count, concrete noun.) We may also refer to the jackets as clothes. (E.g., “See the clothes piled up over there – those three jackets? Please take those articles of clothing with you when you go.”) There is merely a semantic difference – not an ontological difference – declared in the ways we can collectively refer to them. It is part of the meaning of “clothing,” “sand” and “furniture” that those words denote discrete units. We have implied no ontological distinction that must, in context of the example sentences given immediately above in this paragraph, be recognized as existing between the things referenced by the words “jackets,” “clothing,” and “clothes.” The three words are being used literally. So, there may be ontological entities–note the plural number! -- that are not ontologically dissimilar, this so that they may be named (i.e., logically subsumed under a certain given reference) by a plural, count, concrete noun (e.g., shoes, clothes) or by a non-count, concrete noun that connotes discrete units (e.g., footwear, clothing). It is not syntax, though, that is able to make a common, non-count, concrete noun (e.g., “footwear”) able to range over a plural number of metaphysically indistinguishable units each one individually nameable in turn by one and the same count (singular) , concrete noun (e.g., “shoe”) or collectively with the plural, count noun (e.g., “shoes”). For John 1:1c to support trinitarianism, we should have to have different vocabulary and new theology at that place. Trinitarians aver for 1:1c a use of QEOS supposedly semantically equivalent to a non-count, concrete noun that has as part of its meaning that which somehow -- O Absurdity, Trinity is thy name! -- may yet non-metaphorically connote a plural number of entities where each entity is defined as a really distinguishable (!) person. And where we have a plural number of persons, we may see a basis whereby some of them may meet requirements necessary for membership in a certain class god [sic] composed of those persons.

We may be interested to examine the doctrine of Trinity philosophically, because a few Trinitarians, like the one who who asserted "God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit are one class in that the Three of Them are all God and Lord Themselves" (See http:www.bible-knowledge.com/trinity-god-jesus-holy-spirit) believe that there is a class capable of having three God persons Themselves (!) (the Father (apparently), Jesus, and the Holy Spirit) as members in a class that the author of the quote left unnamed here, but that they belong to this class because "[they] are all [of them] God," but not 'they are all of them Gods.' What, though, might have prevented the author of the quote from naming the class to which he refers 'the class God'?  

Will we really be epistemologically justified should we hold that the statement "There is the class God" is statement that comports with the terms that define Trinitarianism"? No, the class God cannot logically obtain under all the terms that constitute Trinitarianism as popularly imagined. This is so because one of the things that cuts against their presentation for a class God is the imagination that there really is a plural number of Almighty persons  (God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit) -- that each person supposedly owns, as the assertion goes, the selfsame set of those attributes necessary to our defining an Almighty, God person; each putative God person's identity is established on the basis that his personhood is informed with the selfsame attributes as the attributes informing the other two persons. The theology enunciated by the author of the quote given in the previous paragraph is this: 'There really are three persons in that class having one member, the class God, so that no instantiation of the class is a God, but rather is God!' Supposedly, then, instancing the class God yields to view the one and only member, God.  But the theory of class logic actually disallows that the class God might also have in it any real persons, but that the class God devolves to definition that there is in the class the one and only set of properties qua set of properties that is brought to view by our power of abstraction for listing each attribute/property in the set. "God" in Trinitarianism logically devolves to the position that "God" is a noun that does not have any person(s) for its referent; however, nowhere in all of holy Scripture do we find such a use for "God"; nowhere in all of holy Scripture is there a use of "God" that, until formulation of the doctrine of Trinity, had remained a mysterious use of the word in Scripture. 

We must not hold that there is no set of attributes that really is essential to what constitutes/informs the identity/ontology of some real person, but that set cannot be the selfsame set of attributes that supposedly ranges across a plural number of real persons in their ownership of it. Each real person has his own identity/ontology/nature, uniquely his own set of attributes. Mind, for example, is an attribute/property of personhood, but the selfsame mind cannot belong to more than one person.

Now, if there is a class that might have in it members who, we conclude, are equally competent in their attributes/ontology -- we conclude that they are without beginning and are immortal, that each one is equally able to send forth from himself whatever measure of power is needed for accomplishing whatever he wants (e.g., each one capable of being a creator of worlds and living creatures), each one absolutely just and holy --, then there is nothing more needed which might prevent us from declaring that the class we are considering has a plurality of members in it, that this is the class God, and that any instantiation of that class is a God. Such a conclusion is anti-Scriptural. 

Let us now take another, closer look at Trinitarians' translation of John 1:1c ". . . and the Word was God." Now our examination of it will incorporate besides personalism a linguist's point of view. What do we find? There is no discrete entity that can be named X (i.e., logically and literally can be subsumed with other entities under a certain given reference X) where X is a predicative, non-count, concrete noun supposedly able to range equally over a plural number of literal (concrete), ontologically dissimilar entities when that dissimilarity (absence of certain commonly shared characteristics) for the entities necessarily has the effect of denying a common functionality that each entity in a collection of the entities should otherwise have to participate in order to qualify for the name X. “Sand” is a non-count, concrete noun that is applicable as a label for collectively naming the billions of pieces (grains) of sand, just because each discrete grain of sand does have pretty much the same function as any other grain of sand, and for that reason does not invite us to focus on dissimilarities. True, a grain of sand may have come from an ontologically dissimilar existent as compared to the next grain of sand: a grain of sand may not be informed with the same chemistry, and for that reason it might not have the same coloration, size, and shape identical to the next grain of sand; however, all grains of sand in a certain collection of them may have essentially the same function (e.g., each grain of sand in a certain collection of them equally participates in the formation of a sandy beach that the collection, as a whole, makes) arising out of enough similarities so that they may be  collectively referenced by "sand" despite properties that may just non-necessarily, from the perspective of their function, happen to individuate them from any other grain of sand. Even so, we still see that which suffices for our definition of sand. When, however, we speak of those rational beings who are human beings, we are not speaking of a mind that is identical for each human person, for each human person's mind is a unique mind in a world of human minds, each human mind being grounded in an organism (brain tissue) that is uniquely owned by a rational being. Any rational being that is a free moral agent is, in fact, an irreducible substance of being (a unique person). It is nonsensical, absurd, to refer predicatively either to a single, rational being's (e.g., God's) ontological substance of being or to that owned by any other rational being in a group of rational beings (e.g., the group comprised of gods and humans) by a non-count, concrete noun (see more about this in the next paragraph) that, by word magic, is declared to range equally over any number of persons qua persons -- where the focus is on what justification there is for each existent's identity as a person, on what justification there is for that entity's inclusion in, say, the class Person. And that justification would have to be that each numerically distinguishable entity (instantiation of the class Person) belongs to the class Person if the entity has unique ownership of its rational mind featuring that which goes to the core of personhood, namely, free will; then an entity definable as a person in a world of persons cannot possibly have mind that is identical to another person's mind. Really, then, by virtue of a numerically distinguishable entity's identity as a person are we unsurprisingly saying that each person actually is necessarily, in his own being, uniquely in possession of just his own mind with its free will so that the mind in view here has no instances of its being owned by other members in the class Person. Again, no mind is in any instance a substance of being that is indistinguishably owned, that is to say, no mind can be owned by more than one person. There are a plural number of persons because each rational entity per force owns a mind featuring free will, and moreover that mind he owns is a mind that must be uniquely his own; every rational entity exercising free will is a person, just one person, one rational being owning free will. 

It is not proper to say in English “Gabriel is spirit,” for that sentence would mean that "Gabriel" is a proper name for all the properties that the spiritual kind of body can have. "Gabriel is a spirit," and "God is a spirit" -- indeed, God is the spirit par excellence -- is correct, logical reference to the subjects Gabriel and God in English, though in Greek PNEUMA [ESTIN] hO QEOS should require us to recall what we believe about the heavenly realm in order that we should know better than to write in translation “God is spirit.” The sentence “God, Gabriel, Michael are spirit” has the meaning that "God," "Gabriel," and "Michael" are but proper names (or, in the case of "God" here, semantically equivalent to a proper name) for subjects (ostensibly persons) in the sentence that has the predicate "spirit" as a common noun reference to the selfsame thing. In this English sentence, however, no predicate has been given that really might have made reference to any one of the three subjects' respective set of properties, a set of properties uniquely owned by himself alone, each set having essential and necessary dissimilarities from the other sets in order for the subjects really to be presented logically in the sentence as a group of three persons. Certainly no person qua person can be predicatively labeled in English by the use of "spirit" where use of the word is as a non-count, concrete noun, for that would be absurd, metaphysically nonsensical. "God is spirit" is not correct English translation for PNEUMA ESTIN QEOS, nor correct translation for QEOS ESTIN PNEUMA; rather, "God is a spirit" is correct English translation where "a spirit" uses "spirit" as a concrete, count noun: it presents the semantic in the original Greek sentence here, provided that the context of the Greek sentence also uses QEOS as reference to the Supreme Being, the Almighty God.

Furthermore, there is no entity by itself –- that is to say, no entity considered singly -- that can be named, or literally identified, by reference made by a predicative, non-count, abstract noun. For example, the non-count, abstract nouns “godship” and “humanity” cannot be used for literal, non-metaphorical predicative identification for their respective subjects if those subjects are each of them a rational being. Those predicative, non-count, abstract nouns name no referents that are literal percepts; those nouns do not name things that are ‘out there.’ Trinitarians, in their effort to avoid modalism at John 1:1c, assert a thing about the syntax for John 1:1c that logically devolves to an absurdity, a reification of the abstract, the misplaced concretion. The rational being who is the Logos cannot, then, be literally identical to what we name by the word “godship,” that is to say, the being/person Logos is not godship. Moreover, we cannot Scripturally use the word “godship” to name a set of properties that belongs only to the Almighty God, for “godship” has for its meaning something that is an abstraction for collective reference to a number of properties that, as a bare minimum number of properties, happens to be essential, as Reality has it, to a plural number of rational beings who are gods, and among whom we find the gods Jehovah (the Almighty god), Gabriel, and the Logos (Michael). (Yes, there actually exists the class god!) So, the Logos owns a set of properties that is essential to any person who is a real god, and the Scriptures do reveal the existence of a spiritual realm that has gods – note the plural! -- at home in it. As an amplified paraphrase for John 1:1c, we could translate it as “. . . and the Logos is an owner of godship, is divine.” So, “the Logos” is not just another name that we give all that abstraction we may rightly make and label “godship”; rather, “the Logos” names a real god, a divine being, not an abstraction. Again, the Logos is not godship, but is a god.

The Granville Sharp Rule, Timaeus 28C, and Titus 2:13

In Platonism, God, the One, could not be entirely comprehensible to finite minds, but a few of his qualities may be presented to finite minds under the figure of "Maker" and "Demiurge." It is a matter of scholarly debate as to whether or not subsequent idealists came to see "Father" and "Maker" / Logos as separate entities. Did Philo?

In any event, the term "Father" and perhaps even the term "The Father" could have functioned as the semantic equivalent of a personal name. The same thing goes for "God" and "the Great God." Apparently, Ethan Allen did not see any grammatical issues when he said, "In the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress." Of course, he wasn't alive as a Greek linguist in Antiquity, but were the quote I used from him an accurate translation of koine Greek, still it should not reflect conformity to Sharp's Rule -- nor would it be an exception to Sharp's Rule -- inasmuch as the first term is a proper (personal) name, and the second term is also a proper name, and is articulated; moreover, the second term is not semantically singular.

I used Ethan Allen purely for illustrating that a user of his native language will reflect cultural bias for idioms that make good sense to his countrymen, but may seem strange to those not versed in his culture. (Bible writers did not use the terms "Great Jehovah" and "Gracious Jehovah" as personal-name references, but our own literature has made use of those expressions in that way, which are not anti-Scriptural, even though ancient Jews may have found such personal-name references unusual if not puzzling since there would have been no cause to use such expressions as a polemic against pagan idolatry, though there was just that very reason for using expressions like "Almighty God" and "the (true) God" for identifying only Jehovah as the Almighty God, the only true God of Universal Sovereignty.)

Titus 2:13 is no exception to Sharp's Rule as enunciated by proponents (e.g., Dan Wallace) of it in its present form, though Sharp's Rule -- if there really is a legitimate Sharp's Rule, which "legitimacy" is dubious -- would nevertheless not function here to identify Jehovah God as the great god even if one entity (one being/person) is being referenced. Jesus Christ is a great god, a "mighty god," the "only-begotten god." There is nothing unscriptural nor anti-Scriptural in such a statement. Moreover, "The Great God" may have functioned in Antiquity as a personal name; if so, then even proponents of Sharp's Rule should see that they ought not to apply to it for establishing reference to one entity at Titus 2:13.

So, whereas Plato might not have used PATERA as a proper, personal name (see Timaeus 28c), and may have had reference to just one entity, would subsequent generations of Greek-speaking peoples have used Plato's expression to the same effect? Or might they have had something in mind other than what Plato had in mind? Again, it is a matter of scholarly debate as to whether or not subsequent idealists came to see "Father" and "Maker"/Logos as separate entities. Did Philo? We know that the apostle John wrote "the God" and "Logos" as references to two different entities (persons/bengs): Jehovah God and the Logos (Jehovah's only-begotten Son).