One Missing Word Changes the Entire Gospel of John

Dan McClellan Hey, everybody. I'm Dan McClellan. And I'm Dan

Dan Beecher Beecher.

Dan McClellan And this is Data Over Dogma, where we increase public access to the academic study of the Bible and religion, and we combat the spread of misinformation about the same. How are things today, Dan?

Dan Beecher Things are good. Things are good. Mm-hmm. I'm excited. We're gonna get into one of history's mysteries- ... today. Uh, and this one's an interesting one. We have touched briefly on this idea, but I, I'm excited to go to dive deep with you. Yeah. I don't 100% know where we're going with this, because- ... this is something that you've been working on, uh, slaving over a cauldron- ... uh, bubbling with interesting things like Philo and, and Origen and whatever and- Yeah ... you know, eye of newt and toe of dog or whatever. So, uh, so maybe we should just dive straight in to, uh, to History's Mysteries. All right. So guide me in. Where, what are we doing? What are we talking about? What, where are we here?

Dan McClellan We're, we're talking about a weird, um, thing that a lot of folks have observed in some of the early Jewish and Christian discussions about God- Okay ... and the use of the Greek word Theos, because we know this, this word means God, and, and ostensibly, early Jewish and Christian authors are all monotheists, and so there can only be one God. But we've got this weird thing where sometimes the word God s- might seem to be referring to somebody else, and in some places, some of these authors write the word God without the definite article. Now, if you don't know biblical Greek, even personal names, most of the time you include the definite article. So when you see in, in your English translation, "And Jesus said to them," in the Greek it would be, "And the Jesus said to them." The definite article is being used most of the time. Now, there are certain syntactical circumstances where you actually don't use the definite article, but in some Greek texts, we have Theos being used without the definite article in other instances where you would normally expect it. And a lot of folks who think the tr- that the Trinity is in the Bible are happy to imagine that this is still referring to the God of Israel. It's just identifying Jesus as the God of Israel, because obviously, that's what the Trinity is, baby. That's- Okay ... that's what the Bible is saying. But we've got a, we got a handful of very interesting commentary from people from before and after the Gospel of John, which is where this is m- most debated- Okay ... who actually directly address what they're doing, and I wanna start with Philo. Philo of Alexandria was born at the end of the first century BCE, died around 50-ish, s- 50, 60 CE, so was alive during the life of Jesus, and he wrote a lot of texts. Way too much. But, uh, he, he wrote- He

Dan Beecher was Jewish, right?

Dan McClellan Uh, he, yes, he was an early Jewish philosopher.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So, um, he, he was incorporating a lot of Stoic and Middle Platonic philosophy into Judaism, kind of, um... I- it's a little bit syncretistic, but basically trying to, to show that Judaism fits within a Greek philosophical worldview. But, uh, he s- he talks a lot about the Logos, and the, uh, and, and this is translated "word" most of the time in English translations. The Word of God, for instance, is in Greek, is Logos Theou. And, um, uh, and when he's, uh, when he's talking about the Logos, he's largely borrowing this framework from Greco-Roman philosophy, 'cause starting with Plato, but also including, uh, Stoicism, they, they had this concept of the Logos as God's rationality. Hmm. And it could be the rationality, uh, that was inside God's head. So, like, you have an idea that's inside your head, but then when y- once you speak it, it is expressed, and it is now outside of you- Okay ... and it is separate from you. And so the Logos can be, can be both things. But there's a part where- And

Dan Beecher when you s- when, when you say that it's like rationality, then it makes sense to me that Logos would be the root word of our logic.

Dan McClellan Yes. Yeah. That's exactly right. So, um, we have, uh, Philo in a text called On Dreams.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Like I said, he wrote about too many things. But he, he's, he's examining a lot of, uh, a lot of different ways that, that God is, is influencing dreams and stuff like that. But there's one part where he's talking about Genesis 31:13, and this is where God... Well, it says that it's the angel of the Lord appears to Jacob, and then in, in verse 13 says, "I am the God of Bethel, where you anointed the altar," and all that kind of stuff. And Philo is quoting the Greek translation, which doesn't say that. It says, "I am the God, uh, that anointed you, uh, or that w- appeared to you in the place of God." Oh, wow. Because Bethel means house of God, and so the Greek translators just thought, "Oh, this is a sentence, not a name." And so Philo's like, "Huh, this is weird. Let's consider whether there are two gods." And, and now I'm quoting from, uh, On Dreams, Book 1, uh, section, starting in section 228. "For we read, 'I am the God that appeared to thee not in my place, but in the place of God, as though it were another's.' What are we to say then? He that is truly God is one, but those, those that are improperly so-called are more than one. Accordingly, the holy word, in the present instance, has indicated him who is truly God by means of the articles." Saying, "I am the God," definite article the, "while it omits the article when mentioning him who is improperly so-called," saying, "Who appeared to thee in the place," not of the God, but simply, "Of God." Here it gives the title of God to his chief logos, his chief word, not from any superstitious nicety in applying names, but with one aim before him, to use words to express facts. And so what, what Philo's basically saying is that you have one entity that is truly in essence God, and then you have other entities that can just be referred to as God without actually being God.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And when the scriptures are referring to those entities as God, even though they're not God, it omits the definite article. And, and there's-

Dan Beecher So they're not the God. They're not the God, they're just God.

Dan McClellan Yeah, and, and, and-

Dan Beecher And that's some- that's somehow a lower place in the-

Dan McClellan Yeah. And, and a way to think of it-

Dan Beecher Mm

Dan McClellan ... is, is to understand God here, it, theos, uh, in the qualita- qualitative sense.

Dan Beecher Okay. Sure.

Dan McClellan So it would be, it would be kind of like, you know, another word for God in, in English coming through different roots is deity.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And you could say there's the Deity and then there's deity.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so so-and-so is not the Deity, so-and-so is just deity. Um, and, and so it, it kind of means divine.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Um, and so, and, and Philo talks about this elsewhere. There's a, there's a part where, uh, he's talking about, um, passage in Genesis where the... he's wondering why God tells somebody to, um, uh, to come up to God, I think it is, and he says, "Why not come up to, to me?" Or something like that. And he says that, uh, it's not proper to re- to ref- uh, to refer to, uh, this entity as, uh, as the God because this is the second God, God's chief logos, God's word.

Dan Beecher Okay. Right.

Dan McClellan So Philo explicitly refers to the word of God as a second god.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so when, when... This is being written less than a century prior to the Gospel of John, and the Gospel of John seems to be relying an awful lot on s- very similar philosophical frameworks. But then we get to, uh, this really interesting discussion in Justin Martyr, and Justin Martyr is-

Dan Beecher Well, we, we should mention the part of the Gospel of John that-

Dan McClellan Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah

Dan Beecher ... that we're, that, that, that we're sort of talking about, which is John 1:1, right?

Dan McClellan Well, John 1:1 is the main one, but there are a few places where you have theos being used without the definite article, where we might expect the definite article if it's referring to the God of Israel. But yes, John 1:1 says, "In the beginning was the word, and the word was pros ton theon," which means with God or, or toward God or next to God. And then it says, "Ke theos en o logos," and theos was the word. And that's traditionally translated, "And the word was God," which would identify the word as the very God of Israel, but there's no definite article there. And in this situation, the syntactical relationship indicates that the word theos is not being used to identify a specific god, but is used in the qualitative sense to mean deity or divine. And so the author could be appealing to something very close to what, what Philo is saying, that the logos-

Dan Beecher And you're saying that, that the author of the Gospel of John came after Philo.

Dan McClellan Yes, yes.

Dan Beecher The, the Gospel was written after, so could've been aware of Philo's writing?

Dan McClellan I, I think almost certainly aware of Philo's writing.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan Because there's, because the, the logos theology that we find in John is, uh, resonates quite a lot with what w- the logos theology that we find in Philo.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan So if it's-

Dan Beecher So wh- so when the author of John excludes that definite article, it's likely an in- an intentional thing that's informed by Philo's, Philo's ideas of that, how that definite article operates.

Dan McClellan I- in, in this particular instance, the, we wouldn't necessarily expect the definite article.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan So it's, it's not definitive there.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But I, I think what the author is doing is, it's using the, the word God with this understanding that there can be the God, and then there can be, uh, thing, uh, entities that are improperly so-called, or, or people who carry the label without being God.

Dan Beecher So, so, so you could say, "And the word was with God, and the word was divine," or-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... "the word was also deity" in some way.

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher But, but not conflate them as the same thing.

Dan McClellan Right. It's not e- it's not equating them.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And, uh, and there's another interesting, uh, occurrence in John 10, where a lot of people will point out that the... Jesus' Jewish opponents understood that he was identifying as the very God of Israel when he says, "I and the Father are one." And they take up rocks to stone him. And in verse 33, and, and Jesus is like, "Ah, for which of my good works are you stoning me?" And they say, "We're not stoning you for your good works. We're stoning you because you being human make yourself God." Now, if you look in an English translation, that's capital G God.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Uh, it makes it sound like they're saying, "You're claiming to be the God of Israel."

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan But I don't think that's what's going on, because in the Greek, there should be a definite article there, and there's not.

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan And so I think, and y- there are a lot of later manuscripts that add the definite article, because they're like, "Huh, why doesn't it have a definite ar- it should have a definite article. Put a definite article in there." But without the article, if we keep Philo's statement in mind- The author of John could be representing the Jewish foes of Jesus as understanding Jesus to be claiming to be not necessarily the God of Israel, but at least divine.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan Much like the Logos. And, and I think there's some parallelism going on here, too, because the word anthropos, which means human, also does not have a definite article. And so, um, I mean, just the s- the symmetry of the accusation-

Dan Beecher Hmm

Dan McClellan ... is you are human, and that's a qualitative, uh, statement, and you're making yourself divine, also a qualitative statement.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan So it would be, it would be, uh, more parallel that way. And Jesus' response is, "Nuh-uh. Look at Psalm 82 where the scripture says, 'You are gods,' talking to humans." It's very clearly not saying you are the God of Israel, just that-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... you're, you're divinities. You're gods. And, and so Jesus' defense makes no sense if we understand this passage to be talking about the accusation that Jesus is claiming to be the very God of Israel.

Dan Beecher Right.

Dan McClellan And so, uh, there are a handful of instances in the Gospel of John where we have this, uh, use of theos without the definite article that, in light of Philo's statement, probably indicates an intentional reference to the Logos as divine, not as the very God of Israel.

Dan Beecher All right. Interesting.

Dan McClellan And then, and then you might say, "Well, pfft, that was so much later than Philo. John's not doing that." But we find, uh, very similar statements or discussions in even later authors, as late as the third century CE. But I wanna, I wanna stop first at, in Justin Martyr, who's writing around 150 CE. So right around the dead center of the second century CE. And Justin is actually talking to, uh, this is a text called, uh, Dialogue with Trypho, and it's, it's this dialectic back and forth between Justin and a Jewish thinker, and Justin is just trying to prove Christianity true from the Jewish scriptures. But he says in this, uh, in this one section, "I shall attempt to prove my assertion. Namely, that there exists and is mentioned in scripture another God and Lord under the creator of all things who is also called an angel." And we have multiple references to Jesus as the Logos, the angel, and another God. And, uh, a, a little bit down, he says, "Then if I could not prove to you from the scriptures that one of these three," and he's talking about Genesis 18 where the three entities appear to Abraham. "If I could not prove to you from the scriptures that one of these three is God, and yet is termed an angel," because as stated above, he delivered the messages of God, the creator of all, to whomsoever God desires, and on and on and on. So he, he's talking about how there's a, a being that is not God that is referred to as God.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Then he says, "Let us return to the scriptures and I shall try to convince you that he who is said to have appeared to Abraham, Jacob, and Moses is called God." Now, all these times Jesus has been referred to as God, Justin Martyr has omitted the definite article.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan And, and he says, um, "He who is said to have appeared to Abraham, Jacob, and Moses and is called God is distinct from God the creator. Distinct, that is, in number, but not in mind." And the word in Greek, gnōmē, which is translated here mind, is like will, intent.

Dan Beecher Hmm.

Dan McClellan It doesn't mean, it doesn't mean substance or essence, it just means in, in intent or in will. So Justin Martyr is doing the same thing that Philo explains.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan Using the word God without the definite article to refer to the word of God, to the Logos, whom Justin understands to be Jesus. And then I, I think one of the most illuminating references comes from Origen of Alexandria. So this is a writer, uh, a, a theologian, and al- um, who's in Alexandria in the early third century CE, and is, uh, talking about John 1:1. And he says, um, "John has used the articles in one place and omitted them in another very precisely, and not as though he did not understand the precision of the Greek language. In the case of the word, he adds the article the, but in the case of the noun God, he inserts it in one place and omits it in another, for he adds the article when the noun God stands for the uncreated cause of the universe, but he omits it when the word is referred to as God. And as the God and God differ in these places, so perhaps the word and word differ." And he goes on to talk about, for, like, three pages, about what it means for, uh, God and the word to be referred to as the God versus just God, and the word versus just word. So even as late as the third, this is like 220, 230 CE. This is almost 200 years after Philo is writing. We have multiple authors who are, who are either mimicking what Philo is talking about or are quite explicitly addressing what John is talking about as reflecting Philo's idea that this is, there's a distinction to be made here between ho theos, the God, and just theos, God.

Dan Beecher I guess one of the questions that that, that that Origen quote bri- brings up for me, uh, is- Is, was the author of the Gospel of John a good writer? Like, was he, was he a careful and good writer? Because if so, then yeah, it stands to reason that these would be conscious choices that the, that this writer is making.

Dan McClellan Yeah. I-

Dan Beecher If they, if they are, uh, you know, expert in the language, then it makes sense to say that these were conscious decisions.

Dan McClellan Yeah. The author of the Gospel of John is generally treated as a competent writer. Cer- certainly not the, the most flowery prose that has ever prose-d, but, uh, but is, is definitely not a, a clumsy or an uncareful writer. Now, in terms of editing, that's another story. Uh, as we've talked about with Hugo Mendes. But, um, but in terms of the Greek, yeah, I think the author is considered competent. And, and I wanna read one more portion from Origen.

Dan Beecher Oh, okay.

Dan McClellan He, he says, "The God, therefore, is the true God. The others are gods formed according to him as images of the prototype. But again, the archity- archetypal image of the many images is the Word with the God who was in the beginning. By being with the God, he always continues to be God."

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Without the definite article. So-

Dan Beecher Right

Dan McClellan ... so very clearly Origen is, is, has either noticed what Philo is doing and n- and noticed that John is doing the same thing, or has just noticed this pattern in John independent of Philo and is arriving at a very similar conclusion. I happen to think he probably is aware of, of Philo and, and is saying, "Hey, that's, that's a framework for understanding what the author of the Gospel is John- of John is doing." But Origen was also, uh, probably the quintessential proto-Trinitarian who thought-

Dan Beecher Mm

Dan McClellan ... that, that, um, Jesus was God. So we- I think what- what's happening is, is this is a discussion about this vestige of the way earlier authors are, are talking about the Word as distinct from God, and, and Origen is noticing it, even though, uh, he's already developing a, a far more, um, sophisticated Trinitarian philosophy. Even though I think he was a bit of a sort- subordinationist and, and thought that the Word in Jesus was less than.

Dan Beecher Mm.

Dan McClellan Um, even if there, there are some scholars who argue that he was no subordinationist and was one of the first true Trinitarians. But that remains to be seen, in my opinion.

Dan Beecher Well, and it points out that, you know, as we discuss the, the Trinity and whatever, and we've, we've talked about the Trinity idea before, it, it was a later innovation. It was not like... It developed over a long time after all of this was written, after, after all of the-

Dan McClellan Yeah

Dan Beecher ... the, the books of the New Testament were written.

Dan McClellan Yeah. And, and even after Justin Martyr, 'cause I think he's, he, he says multiple times the Word is another God.

Dan Beecher Yeah.

Dan McClellan So yeah, you don't have the, "No, no, it's very God from very God," um, quite yet.

Dan Beecher Yeah. Interesting. There you go. I, you know-

Dan McClellan Mm-hmm

Dan Beecher ... I like it when we do a little bit of, uh, a little bit of grammatical geek-out-ery. I, uh, I enjoy those, those moments. The, I think that's a lot of fun. Uh-

Dan McClellan I think so too

Dan Beecher ... if you, so okay, I, I wanna hear the, the, uh, the DMV, the Dan McClellan translation of John 1:1. How would you, how would you do it?

Dan McClellan So for an academic audience, I would say, "And the Word was deity."

Dan Beecher Okay.

Dan McClellan But I, that would require, um, translating theos as deity in the other places as well, "And the word was with the deity, and the word was deity." I think that would be most precise.

Dan Beecher Mm-hmm.

Dan McClellan But deity is a, is a pretty cumbersome word for a lot of people. So for, uh, the general public, I would translate it divine.

Dan Beecher Okay. Okay. So, "And the Word was with God, and the Word was divine."

Dan McClellan Yeah.

Dan Beecher Okay. Interesting. Well, there you have it, friends. Uh, if you would like to become a part of making this show happen every week, every, uh, episode, you can go to our Patreon over on patreon.com/dataoverdogma. Sign up there. Give us a little bit of money. You get access to an early and ad-free version of every episode. You can get access to the, the after party with bonus content every week, and you can make our hearts swell with joy, and that's always nice. Uh, thanks so much to Roger Goudy for editing the show. Thanks to JJ for being our producer, and we'll talk to you all next time.

Dan McClellan Bye, everybody.