John's Logos, before being "made flesh" at John 1:14.

[Checkpoint]

. What was he intending to convey?

What Orthodoxy has concluded? (God is a Trinity)

What JWs explain?(The Logos was a god, but not the one true God)

Or something else? (Closer to the normal meaning and usage of "logos")

[1213]

. What was he intending to convey?
...

The Word became flesh, and lived among us. We saw his glory, such glory as of the one and only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.
John 1:14

I understand that means, Word came true and observable in Jesus. Meaning, God's message came to us in Jesus, because it was said through Jesus to people so that they could receive it.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to Checkpoint in post #1]
John was intending to convey that the Word was with God during the creation of the universe, and the Word was an important powerful individual (what "god" means) though not God Almighty. That is why he called the Word "a god." The word "the" in Greek is before "god" in "the Word was with [the] God" but not before "and the Word was [a] god."

[tigger 2]

Logos and Philo

We are told in an article by Dr. Frederick C. Grant of the Union Theological Seminary, New York City,
“Another term found in koine [New Testament] Greek and adopted by the early Christians is Logos (Word), meaning...the divine mediator between God and the world (John 1:1-18) or the divine thought or utterance, by which - or by whom - all things hold together (Colossians 1:17); that is, the One who is God’s agent in the creation and the continued existence of the universe (Hebrews 1:3). Such a term is not entirely philosophical: its real background...is not Stoicism or Stoical Platonism so much as it is the theosophical or ‘mysteriosophical’ theorizing of various religious cults and movements found here and there in the ancient Near East [the most influential and best-known of these being that of the Jewish theosophy of Philo - T2].” - Encyclopedia Americana, 1957, vol. 3, p. 654.

“The outstanding Alexandrian Jew [‘the chief representative of Alexandrian Judaism’ - J. B. Lightfoot’s commentary: Epistle to the Philippians, p. 130] is, of course, Philo Judaeus (20 B.C.-A.D. 50). .... It has been said rightly that the history of Christian philosophy ‘began not with a Christian but a Jew,’ namely Philo of Alexandria.” - p. 35, The Rise of Christianity, W. H. C. Frend (trinitarian), 1985, Fortress Press.
“The idea of a Logos, an immanent reason in the world, is one that meets us under various modifications in many ancient systems of thought, - Indian, Egyptian, Persian. In view of the religious syncretism of the second century, it is barely possible that these extraneous theologies may have exercised some influence on the Fourth Evangelist, but there can be little doubt in regard to the main source from which his Logos doctrine was derived. It had come down to him through Philo, after its final development in Greek philosophy.” - p. 146.

“…. every verse in the Prologue offers striking analogies to corresponding sayings of Philo. We have seen reason to believe that John had acquainted himself directly with the works of the Alexandrian thinker, and consciously derived from them.” - p. 154, The Fourth Gospel, Its purpose and Theology, E. F. Scott, D.D.

“Philo, the famous Jewish philosopher, .... is the most important example of the Hellenized Jews outside Palestine... he believed wholly in the Mosaic scriptures and in one God whose chief mediator with the world is the Logos” - Philo, vol. 5, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1988.

Speaking of theosophy and Philo,
We find that Philo Judaeus was a “Jewish philosopher: b. about 20 B.C.; d. not later than 54 A.D.”
“...his philosophy was thus strictly a theosophy. It rested, as its direct foundation, on the Jewish scriptures as an inspired revelation....”
According to Philo, “Between God and the world there is an intermediate being, the Logos.” And “The Logos is the most universal of all beings except God.”
Philo also (unlike the pagan Greek Stoic philosophers) “gives the Logos the titles of Son of God [John 1:34], paraclete [‘Comforter,’ ‘Advocate,’ ‘Helper’ - 1 John 2:1], and mediator between God and man [1 Tim. 2:5].” - Americana, 1957, v. 21, pp. 766, 767.

Philo also:
“differentiates the Logos from God as his work or image [2 Cor. 4:4].” Philo’s Logos is also “first-born son [Ro. 8:29]....divine [a god - Jn 1:1] but not God, is with God [Jn 1:1], is light [Jn 1:4],...manna [Jn 6:31-51],...and shepherd [Jn 10:11].” - Encyclopaedia Britannica, p. 251, vol. 14, 1968. (Cf. Hastings Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, vol. 8, p. 135.)

And,
“Philo describes the Logos in terms which often bear striking resemblance to NT descriptions of Christ .... Philo distinguishes God as the cause by which [and]..., the Logos as that through which (di’ hou),... the cosmos originated” [Jn 1:3; 1 Cor. 8:6] and “even as θεὸς [‘a god’] in a subordinate sense” [Jn 1:1] and one “from which drawing water one may find eternal life instead of death [Jn 4:14].” - A Dictionary of the Bible, p. 135, vol. 3, Hastings, ed., Hendrickson Publ., 1988 printing.

We also see that:
“Philo....made use of it [Logos] on the basis of such passages as Ps. 33:6 to express the means whereby the transcendent God may be the Creator of the universe and the Revealer of himself to Moses and the Patriarchs. .... On the side of biblical exegesis the Logos is identified with the Angel of the Lord...and is described...as High Priest [Heb. 6:20], Captain and Steersman, Advocate (Paraclete) and the son of God.” - p. 703, New Bible Dictionary.

In fact, Philo even said that
“the Logos is the eldest son [first-born or created] of God.” [Ro. 8:29] - The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (trinitarian), p. 639, vol. 3 (also vol. 1, p. 178), 1986, Zondervan.

Trinitarian Dr. H. R. Boer also tells us:
“Philo...put a mediator between God and the world. This mediator he found in the Logos. He is the greater of the powers with which God is surrounded [these ‘powers’, the angels of God, are sometimes called ‘gods’ by Philo, the first Christians, and even in the Bible itself - T2]. In him Philo saw a divine power that is less than God [cf. John 1:1c, AT and Moffatt], standing between God and the world. Through him God has created all things [cf. John 1:3]. Later, this thought played a large role in the attempt of Christian thinkers to explain the relationship of Christ to God.” - A Short History of the Early Church, 1976, p. 12.

“Philo of course conceives of the Logos - which he occasionally calls divine (θεος) [literally, ‘a god’], but never ‘God’ (ὁ θεος) - as the highest angel and as the highest idea at the same time....” - p. 126, John 1, Haenchen, Fortress Press, 1984.

We even find Philo saying: the Divine Logos “has been anointed” [Messiah/Christ means the ‘Anointed One’] and “his father being God, who is likewise Father of all” - p. 69, Philo, vol. 5, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press.

The Encyclopedia Britannica also tells us about Philo’s “Logos”:
“Thus there is close similarity of symbolism between Philo and the fourth evangelist [John], and they move in the same [Jewish] world of thought ....” - p. 251, vol. 14, 1968.

And the trinitarian Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, p. 833, also admits:

“Though it is clear that the author was influenced by the same background of ideas as Philo, his identification of the Logos with the Messiah was entirely new.” – Oxford University Press, 1990. (But, of course, we have seen a connection between one who has been anointed [messiah] and the Logos in the works of Philo described in Philo, vol. 5, quoted above.)

Yes, as we have seen above, a large number of highly distinctive descriptions of the Logos by Philo have also been used by John to describe his Logos: Jesus! These terms are used by Philo alone, not by other trinitarian-proposed sources of John’s Logos concept!
Philo alone took the term “Logos” from the Greek concept and modified it to match Old Testament scriptural concepts (including “Wisdom” - Prov. 8:22-30 and “Word” in Ps 33:6).

“There is evidence, however, especially in Philo, that the form of the Logos was virtually identical in substance with that of Wisdom [in Prov. 8].” - p. 126, John 1, Ernst Haenchen, Fortress Press, 1984.

After discussing all other trinitarian-proposed origins of John’s concept of the Logos (including, of course, those of the Stoics; the OT Wisdom concept; etc.) and rejecting them all, a respected trinitarian work concludes:
“In the question of the origin of the Logos-concept [by John], pre-eminent significance is therefore to be attributed to Hellenistic Judaism [Philo].” - p. 1117, vol. 3, The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, 1986, Zondervan.

Respected Church historian Cairns (trinitarian) also tells us:
“Multitudes were later mentioned as becoming a part of the Church (Acts 5:14). It is rather interesting that many of these were Hellenistic Jews (Acts 6:1)” - p. 60, Christianity Through The Centuries, Zondervan, 1977.

So there were many Hellenistic Jews who had become Christians and were, therefore, very familiar with Philo’s Logos at the time John wrote his Gospel.
In fact, we are told at Acts 6:7, 9 that there were Alexandrian Jews in Jerusalem when Stephen was martyred. And Acts 18:24 tells us that even Apollos was an Alexandrian.

And the Universal Standard Encyclopedia, p. 6596, vol. 18, 1954 ed., tells us that “[Philo is] considered the greatest Jewish philosopher of his age.” And, “To Philo the divinity of the Jewish law was the basis and test of all true philosophy.”

Even the famed Hastings’ Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics tells us that John must be referring to Philo’s conception of the Logos:
“It is clear from the tone of the Prologue [John 1:1-18] that Philo’s conception of the Logos, or something akin to it, was already familiar to those for whom the Evangelist [John] wrote. No explanation of the word Logos is given [anywhere in the entire Gospel]; and almost every verse in this Prologue might be paralleled from Philo [and only Philo].” - p. 136, vol. 8.

And the trinitarian The Illustrated Bible Dictionary, Inter-Varsity Press, Tyndale House Publishers, 1980, says
“Only the Philonic Logos-teaching [Philo’s teaching of the Logos] provides a clear theological scheme in which the Word possesses a like unity with God and a like distinction from him, and in which both creative and sustaining activity in the universe and revelatory activity towards man is ascribed to it. Further, the necessarily unique concept of incarnation is nevertheless a proper development of the identification of Philo’s [and only Philo’s] Logos with the Ideal Man [Jesus].” - vol. 2, p. 909 (also see the New Bible Dictionary, pp. 703-704, 2nd ed.).

“... in the cosmology explicit in the Prologue [verses 1:1-18 of the Gospel of John] and elsewhere there is evidently close kinship to the Philonic allegory.” - p. 934, New Bible Dictionary (trinitarian), 2nd ed., Tyndale House Publ. (trinitarian), 1984.

I don’t intend to accuse the Apostle John of actually adopting part of Philo’s theosophy, but if he were making a comparison between Christ and a popularly understood Hellenistic concept of the word Logos at that time, he would have used the popular Logos concept of Philo, the Jewish theosophist who at least based his theosophy “as its direct foundation on the Jewish scriptures as an inspired revelation.”

As The Expositor’s Greek Testament tells us in its introduction to the Gospel of John: “The idea of the Logos was a Jewish-Alexandrian idea, and that the author sought to attach his Gospel to this idea is unquestionable…. But the term and the idea of the Logos are used by the author to introduce his subject to the Greek readers. As Harnack says: ‘The prologue [John 1:1 - John 1:18] is not the key to the understanding of the Gospel, but it is rather intended to prepare the Hellenistic reader for its perusal’.” - p. 671, Volume One.

And if John were writing to a group of the “many ... Hellenistic Jews” who had become a part of the Church (or who were at least interested in Christianity), there would be no need to explain the Logos concept which they were already very familiar with from Philo’s Hellenistic Judaism. (The lack of any explanation of his Logos concept by John has been troubling to many students of the Prologue of the Gospel of John.) And that concept is that the Logos (although the second highest power in the universe, the Son of God, the Mediator between God and Man, the one through whom God created all things) is an intermediate entity who is not the Most High God but is called ‘a god’! See John 1:1.

[tigger 2]

The Encyclopedia Britannica sums it up pretty well:
“The Logos which having been in the beginning, and with God, and divine [‘a god’], had entered human life and history as the Word ‘made flesh!’ .... But the identification of Jesus with the Logos was not tantamount to recognizing him as ‘God.’ Neither the ‘Word of God’ in Hebrew nomenclature nor the Logos in Greek speculation was ‘God’ though it was definitely ‘divine’ [‘a god’].” - Encyclopedia Britannica, 14th ed., vol. 13, p.25.

If John’s intended audience for his Gospel were primarily of Jewish background, we could properly assume his Logos concept was one that was well known in the Jewish world (Philo’s Logos). Some trinitarians (for obvious reasons) insist that John was writing primarily to non-Jewish pagans, but the very language and ideas used in the Gospel of John show that the writer was writing primarily to those of Jewish background. Those unfamiliar with Jewish customs, ideas, and language would have been confused:

“Features of John which suggest more convincingly a Jewish and even Palestinian background are its language, its echoes of rabbinic ideas and methods of argument, and its parallels in thought and language with the recently discovered documents of the [Jewish] Qumran community”! - The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, vol. 2, p. 942, by the trinitarian Abingdon Press, 1962.

(The Trinitarian New Bible Dictionary, second ed., 1984, also tells us that for the writer of the Gospel of John “a Jewish audience is probably in mind” and, “it is an attractive hypothesis that he wrote especially for the Jews of the Diaspora and proselytes in Hellenistic synagogues. .... the view that the Gospel was written primarily to convert the thoughtful Gentile ... is unlikely.” - p. 607.)

This brings us to the fact that John would have likely been writing to those Jews in the largest and most influential area of Hellenistic Judaism in the known world at that time: Egypt (particularly Alexandria and the many synagogues influenced by it).

It is significant that:
“The existence of John’s Gospel is attested in Egypt before AD 150 [probably 100 – 125 AD] by the Rylands Papyrus 457 [p52], the earliest known fragment of a NT MS.” – p. 610, New Bible Dictionary, Second Edition, Tyndale House Publ., 1984.

“The apparent lack of knowledge of John in Asia gives weight to the claims of Alexandria: here John was certainly used very early by the Gnostics (cf. also the papyri), the climate of thought (Hellenistic Judaism) could be regarded as suitable, and the general remoteness of Alexandria would explain the Gospel’s slow circulation.” – p. 611.

This respected trinitarian Bible dictionary, therefore, admits that the writings of John were found very early in Egypt and only slowly crept outward to other congregations around the Mediterranean. This strongly indicates that Alexandria (or, possibly, another Egyptian synagogue) received the original of John’s Gospel. The Hellenistic Jews most familiar with the Logos of Philo were the very ones John wrote his Gospel to originally.

To further verify this we have the evidence of the earliest manuscripts of John ever found.
The Complete Text of the Earliest New Testament Manuscripts lists the fragments of 11 separate manuscripts as all the very earliest MSS known of the Gospel of John. They include the earliest of all, p52, which is now dated to 100 – 125 AD, which is very soon after the original was written!

The others are 0162; p5; p22; p28; p39; p45; p66; p75; p90; p95. (We also find the very earliest MS of 1 John, p9, was also found in Egypt.)
Out of all 11 of these manuscripts (or 12 if we include p9), only two (p80 and p95) were from unknown locations (in museum, discoverer and original location unknown). All of the others were from Egypt! – Philip Comfort and David Barrett, Baker Books, 1999.

Yes, John wrote his Gospel to Hellenistic Jews in Egypt who had to be well aware of the Logos concept of Philo of Alexandria, and who would be using that concept themselves! Therefore, when John wrote them his Gospel account, there was no need to explain what was meant by “Logos,” the Word. They already knew, and it was Philo’s Logos.

And Philo wrote that the Logos was theos (“a god”), but not ho theos (“God”)!

For my complete study of this subject, see:
http://examiningthetrinity.blogspot.com ... -word.html

[myth-one.com]

. What was he intending to convey?

What Orthodoxy has concluded? (God is a Trinity)

What JWs explain?(The Logos was a god, but not the one true God)

Or something else? (Closer to the normal meaning and usage of "logos")

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

So the Word is a God and apparently involved with Godly construction projects – as everything ever created was created by the Word. One thing which the Word created initially was the earth and its environment:

In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

The Word was excellent in everything He did, always creating everything “very good.”

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good.

Upon completion of the earth, God assigned a host of angels to care for and maintain the earth. Certain characteristics were needed by these caretakers to perform their jobs. God’s creations last a long time, so these caretakers needed longevity. Also, unforeseen things might occur in the universe which affect the earth and its environments. So they needed the freedom to evaluate all possible responses to these situations and independently choose the best response to maintain the earth in its very good state.

Thus they were created to live forever and with freedom to make independent choices.

One caretaker was designated as the ruler over the entire earth and the other caretakers reported to him. This earthly ruler was the archangel Lucifer who became known as the devil or Satan after his rebellion. How can we know that Lucifer was the earthly ruler? In the book of Luke, when Satan tempted Jesus for forty days in the desert, Satan offered Jesus power over all the kingdoms of the earth:

And the devil, taking him up into a high mountain, showed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whosoever I will I give it. If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.

Things are now set up perfectly on the newly created earth. So God then commanded these caretakers to maintain and refurbish the earth forever. Ahhhh . . ., serenity.

But only a short 4.54 billion years later, the second verse in the Bible describes the earth as formless, empty, and void! What happened? The ruler of the earth is Lucifer, and he decided sometime between the first two verses of the Bible to rebel against God. The ultimate results of his rebellion and rule are the conditions of chaos described on the earth in verse two:

How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!... For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God... I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.

Sin and rebellion against the commandments of God produced the chaos described in verse two.

These rebellious caretakers will need to be replaced after God seizes control of the earth back from Satan. In the original creation the caretakers were created with spiritual bodies which live forever. In the recreation God did not create more spiritual beings and risk being stuck with more rebels for eternity. He created a mortal being called man a little lower than the angels:

What is man, that thou art mindful of him?... For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels,

God made a covenant between Him and mankind. The wages of sin will cause death. To gain everlasting life one must always obey God. This covenant would remove sinful humans from being earthly caretakers as those who sinned would simply die. But there was a fault in this original covenant because every human who had ever been born had sinned! Thus it produced no everlasting caretakers to replace the rebellious angels.

The Covenant was written as an everlasting covenant, so it could not simply be scrapped and replaced. What to do?

<========================================>

This set the stage for the “Word made flesh.”

The spiritual bodied Godly being called The Word was born on the earth as a human into a Jewish family. This meant that He was a party to the Covenant between God and the nation of Israel.

He lived a sinless human life and has an inheritance of everlasting spiritual bodied life awaiting Him under that covenant. But He will not accept His inheritance under that covenant, but offer it as a gift to those humans who believe in Him as their Savior. Thus Christians become heirs unto everlasting life under the New Testament Covenant:

For if by one man's offence death reigned by one; much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ.

Since by one man (Adam) sin had entered all mankind, and by sin death hath abounded; then it is also fair and just that the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, also abound unto many.

So the Word made flesh was a real event. A spiritual immortal godly being was made flesh as a human temporarily for the purpose of fixing the fault in the original testament between God and mankind.

[Wootah]

[Replying to tigger 2 in post #5]

It seems in this post and the one before your argument is: that Philo wrote about the logos and John based his writing on that.

How do you know John isn't correcting Philo and saying that in a Christian context the logos was God. It seems just as likely is my point. I did find it interesting, I didn't know about Philo.

Second, much of the OT is actually rewrites of history from the Jewish perspective as opposed to the pagan perspective. Dr Michael Heiser has given me that understanding. I do think that the Bible sets the record straight and we should not make the Bible agree with outside sources.

We all have to grapple with the basic intended meaning of the Bible and in this case John. If you keep denigrating Jesus to be less than God then you have too many things that don't make sense. In the beginning really becomes, some time after the beginning, the Word was with God means basically nothing, just two people standing side by side. The word was a god, means nothing, we are all gods. All things were made through him is wrong, all things are made by God, and without him not anything was made is a lie, without God not anything is made.

I think this is why your blog and writings try so hard to strain out a gnat, while swallowing a camel.

In your hand is a book that was about God and is now about not God, according to you.

[onewithhim]

[Replying to tigger 2 in post #5]

It seems in this post and the one before your argument is: that Philo wrote about the logos and John based his writing on that.

How do you know John isn't correcting Philo and saying that in a Christian context the logos was God. It seems just as likely is my point. I did find it interesting, I didn't know about Philo.

John was trying to distinguish between THE God (Almighty, the Most High) and the Word who was a mighty, important person, called "A god" in the Greek reader's mind. A "god" just meant that---an important, powerful individual. In those times ANY high-stationed, important powerful person was referred to as "a god." But usually not God Almighty, and John wanted to distinguish between God and the Word.