Does Jesus Claim Equality with God?

This Kindle book, The Dark History of the Trinity, is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and it is only 99 cents

See a local listing for this book here 

Claim: On numerous occations Jesus claimed to be equal with God in other ways than assuming the titles of Deity.  Jesus said to the scribes, "That you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins...I say to you [the paralytic], rise, take up your pallet and go home" (Mk 2:10,11).  Jesus had just said to the paralytic, "My son, your sins are forgiven" (v. 5), to which the outraged scribes retorted, "Why does this man speak thus?  It is blasphemy!  Who can forgive sins but God alone?" (v. 7).  Jesus' claim to be able to forgive sins, the scribes
understanding of that calim, and Jesus' healing of the man are all evidence of his authority, and make it clear that Jesus was claiming a power that God alone possessed (Jer. 31:34) 

Jesus solemnly claimed another power that God alone possessed, namely, the power to raise and Judge the dead: "Truly, truly, I say unto you, the hour is coming, and has now come, when the dead will hear the voice of the son of God, and those who hear will live...and come forth, those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the reserrection of judgement" (Jn 5:25, 29).  Jesus removed all doubt of the intentions of his claim when he added, "For as the Father raises the dead and gives life to them, so also the Son give life to whom HE will" (v.21).  According to the OT, however, Jehovah alone is the giver of life (1 Sam 2:6; Deut. 32:39) and can raise men from the dead (Ps 2:7).  Hence, you, in the face of orthodox Jewish belief that
God alone could resurrect the dead, Jesus not only boadly proclaimed his ability to bring the dead back to life but also his ability to Judge them.  The Scriptures, however, reserved for Jehovah the right to Judge men (Joel 3:12; Deut. 32:35). 

  Another way in which Jesus claimed Deity for himself was in his statement in Jn 5:23 that "All men should honor the Son, even as they honor the Father," adding, "He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father."  In this same catagory, Jesus exorted his disciples, "believe in God, believe also in me" (Jn 14:1).  the pretensions of this claim to a monotheistic people were evident.  The Jews knew well that no man should claim honor and belief with God.  They reacted with stones (Jn 5:18)  You must come face to face with this.  Jesus claimed honor with God and belief in himself as on par with the Father.  This is very important in light of the aforementioned OT texts.

Reply: Let me start right off saying that Jesus absolutely NEVER claims equality with God. Why? 

Let us take a look.

Contrast this with, as you rightly stated above, that Jehovah jealously guarded his name and deity. But Jesus said, in the same context that you are trying to use to declare his triunity with the almighty, "I do not seek praise from men." v. 41 NIV But let us take a look at your insistence on using Jn 5:18.  John 5:17-19 says "And for this cause the Jews persecuted Jesus, because he did these things on the sabbath. But Jesus answered them, My Father worketh even until now, and I work. For this cause therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only brake the sabbath, but also called God his own Father, making himself equal with God.

About this scripture the Ryrie Study Bible says, "The Jews were perfectly aware that Jesus was claiming full deity" Was this what Jesus was doing though? Remember, these were the Jews talking, and they were saying that Jesus was equal to God because he was calling God his Father. But in John 8:41,  the Jews said, "we have one Father, God." Were the Jews then, Equal with God also? Exactly how were the Jews "perfectly aware" in this context of anything. They had a few verses prior to this misapplied the Law as for as doing good deeds on the Sabbath. Jesus had said: "it is lawful to do good on the sabbath day". Matt. 12:10-12 In fact, Jesus had few nice words to say about the Jews/Pharisees in toto:

Matt. 15:6 "And ye have made void the word of God because of your tradition. Ye hypocrites, well did Isaiah prophesy of you, saying, This people honoreth me with their lips; But their heart is far from me. But in vain do they worship me, Teaching [as their] doctrines the precepts of men."
Matt. 12:34 "Ye offspring of vipers, how can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh."
Matt. 22:29 "But Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God."
Now I hate to belabor the point, but do the Jews, either then or now, believe in a Trinity? You have to admit that a Jewish view of God differs greatly from your own, so it is puzzling to me why you, or anyone else would use Jewish thought to bolster their claims of a Triune God. Having just read Harris's Jesus as God, why does he not use John 5, John 10 or even John 8  for that matter as proof of Jesus as God. My Thayer's Lexicon says, "Whether Christ is called God must be determined from Jn. i.1; xx.28; 1Jn. v. 20 ; Ro. ix. 5; Tit. ii.13; Heb. i.8 sq., etc,; the matter is still in dispute among theologians."

Claim: JESUS' CLAIMS TO BE THE MESSIAH-GOD.
    The OT Foreshadowings of the Messiah also point to his Deity.  Hence, when Jesus claimed to fulfill the OT messianic
predictions here thereby also claimed the Deity attritbuted to the Messiah in those passages.  For example, the famous Christmas texts from Isa. speaks of the Messiah as the "Mighty God" (9:6).  The psalmist wrote of the Messiah, "Thy throne o God, is for ever and ever" (45:6 quoted in Heb. 1:8).  Psalm 110:1 relates a converstion between the Father and the Son: "Jehovah said unto my Lord (Adonai), sit thou at my right hand."  Jesus applied this passage to himself in Matt 22:43-44.  Isa. the prophet, in a great majestic prophecy, exhorted Israel, "Behold your God" (40:9).  Indeed, the great messianic passage from Dan 7:13, quoted by Jesus at his trial before the high priest, as a text implying the Deity of the massiah.  In Daniel's vision, the Son of Man (Messiah) is also called the "ancient of days" (7:22), a phrase that is used twice in the same passage to describe God the Father (vv. 9,13). When Jesus quoted this passage to the high priest who demanded that Jesus whether or not Jesus was Deity, the high priest left no doubt as to how he interpreted Jesus' claim.  "Are you the Christ [Messiah], the son of the Blessed?" the high priest asked.  "And Jesus said to him, 'I am; and you will see the son of man sitting at the right hand of Power, and coming with the clouds of heaven.'" At this the high priest tore his garment and said, "why do we still need a witness?  You have heard his blasphemy!" (Mk 14:61-64).
    In short, the OT not only predicted the Messiah but also proclaimed him to be God.  And when Jesus claimed to be a fulfullment of the OT messianic passages, he laid claim to possessing the Deity in these passages ascribed to the Messiah.  Jesus removed all doubts of his intentions by his answer before the high priest at his trial.

Reply: First, let us look at Isaiah 9:6. For the sake of time I will let a friend  handle this one: "I don't believe that it can be stated with any conviction that this offers support to trinitarianism, for, Jesus is called 'G-god' in a limited sense, bearing reference to his role as Messiah. This is not just the opinion of [some], but of some fairly reputable  trinitarian scholars. Raymond Brown, the renowned Catholic scholar, said of the "Mighty God" of Isaiah 9:6, "'God' may have been looked on  simply as a royal title and hence applicable to Jesus as the Davidic  Messiah"–(Jesus, God and Man, New York: Macmillan, 1967, p. 24,25).

Interestingly, this verse has not been understood by all trinitarians as a reference to Christ at all, but, rather, to King Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz; or to Hezekiah initially and Christ finally. Note what some  trinitarians from former years have said regarding this account:

"Hezekiah, who was very unlike his father Ahaz. This passage is acknowledged, not only by Christians, but by the Chaldee interpreter, to relate in the same manner, but in a more excellent sense, to the Messiah––(Annotationes ad vetus et  Novum Testamentum, by Hugo Grotius, a Dutch Arminian, 1583-1645).

"In several places of his Expositions and Sermons, he [LUTHER]  maintains that the epithets belong, not to the person of Christ, but to his work and office. He understands [ale; Strongs 410] in the sense of power or ability, citing for his authority Deut. Xxviii. 32, where, as in about four other places, the expression occurs of an action's being or not being "in the power of the hand,"––(Scripture Testimony to the Messiah, Third ed. Lond. 1837, 3 vol., by Dr. J.P. Smith [it should fairly be noted that Dr. Smith disapproves of Luther's rendering])

"The word la [ale] here used is applicable, not only to God, but to angels and men worthy of admiration. Whence it does not appear, that the Deity of Christ can be effectually gathered from this passage."––(apud Sandium, p. 118, SASBOUT [as quoted in Concession, by Wilson])

"The words of Isaiah, Deus fortis, "strong God," have been differently interpreted. It is evident, that the term God is in Hebrew applied figuratively to those who excel – to angels, heroes, and magistrates; and some render it here, not God, but brave or hero."––(apud Sandium, p. 118, Esromus Rudingerus [as  quoted in Concessions, by Wilson])

"It is evident that la [ale] properly denotes strong, powerful, and is used in Ezek. Xxxi. 11, of king
Nebuchadnezzar, who is called... "the mighty one of the heathen."––(Scholia in Vetus Testamentum. Lips. 1828-36, 6 vol, E.F.C. Rosenmuller [Prof. of the Arabic Language at Leipzig; d. 1836])

Moffatt
"For a child has been born to us, a son has been given to us; the royal dignity he wears, and this the title that he bears––"A wonder of a counselor, a divine hero, a father for all time, a peaceful prince!"

Steven T. Byington
"For we have a child born to us, a son given to us,––and dominion rests on his shoulder, and he is named Wonder-Counselor, Divine Champion, Father Ever, Captain of Peace, for ample dominion and for endless peace"

Revised English Bible
"For a child has been born to us, a son is given to us; he will bear the symbol of dominion on his shoulder, and his title will be: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty Hero, Eternal Father, Prince of Peace."

New Revised Standard Version
"For a child has been born for us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders; and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty god, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." (notice the small "g")

Other translations might be offered, but these should be adequate to show how the words of Isaiah have been understood. It will be noted that Christ is considered a 'divine' or 'mighty hero' or 'champion' in  some cases."

Now on to Ps. 45:6/Heb 1:8. I am always surprised that Trinitarians use this to prop up support for your triune deity. Heb. 1:8 is earlier applied to King Solomon in Ps 45:6. What that means is that Jesus is God insofar as as King Solomon is. I do not remember King Solomon sharing a triune nature/essence/homoousian with anyone. Even the Jews, whom you understand as having a special knowledge of God have translated Ps. 45:6(7) as  "Your divine throne is everlasting;"(JPS) with a c.f. to 1Chron 29:23.

Again, I will let a friend handle the rest:

Hebrews 1:8, as you well know, is a quotation taken from Psalms 45:6. There are two problems with asserting that these verses are calling Jesus *God*, at least in the trinitarian sense.  One problem is the rendering  itself, which is either "Thy throne, O God" (a vocative), or "God is thy throne" (God as subject), or "Thy throne is God" (God as predicate).  In favor of the non-vocative are The Twentieth Century New Testament,Goodspeed, Moffatt, Byington, RSV footnote, NRSV footnote, Alternate rendering offered in the Translator's NT (p 523), NEB footnote, REB, Harkavy, Gerard Wallis, F. Fenton, Andy Gaus (translator of "The Unvarnished NT), Newcome (the Improved Version), Cassirer, and B.F. Wescott (no doubt there are others).  If we accept "God" as either the subject or the predicate, these verses do not call Jesus God.  However, even if we take "God" as a vocative, nothing astonishing need be inferred; certainly nothing comparable to trinitarianism.  Indeed, as B.F. Wescott acknowledged (see his "The Epistle to the Hebrews" ad loc cit), the Psalm is a reference to an earthly King (probably Solomon), so if this verse requires that Jesus be God Almighty, then we have no choice but to conclude that Solomon was also God Almighty.  A far more reasonable understanding of these texts was expressed by Vincent Taylor, as referred to by Raymond Brown --to wit:

                     "Vincent Taylor admits that in v. 8 the expression "O God" is
                     vocative spoken of Jesus, but he says that the author of
                     Hebrews was merely citing the Psalm and using its
                     terminology without any deliberate intention of suggesting
                     that Jesus is God.  It is true that the main point of citing the
                     Psalm was to contrast the Son with angels and to show that the
                     Son enjoys eternal domination, while the angels were but
                     servants.  Therefore in the citation no major point was being
                     made of the fact that the Son can be addressed as God.  Yet
                     we cannot presume that the author did not notice that his
                     citation had this effect.  We can say at least, that the author saw
                     nothing wrong in this address, and we can call upon a similar
                     situation in Heb. 1:10, where the application to the Son of
                     Psalm 102:25-27 has the effect of addressing Jesus as Lord.  Of
                     course, we have no way of knowing what the "O God" of
                     Psalm meant to the author of Hebrews when he applies it to
                     Jesus.  Psalm 45 is a royal Psalm; and on the analogy of the
                     "Mighty God" of Isaiah 9:6, "God" may have been looked on
                     simply as a royal title and hence applicable to Jesus as the
                     Davidic Messiah."--Taken from Jesus, God and Man (New
                     York: Macmillian, 1967, pg 24 & 25.)

                 You may also find George Wesley Buchanan's remarks on these verses
                 interesting, which are found in his "To The Hebrews", part of the superb
                 Anchor Bible series.

Poe and the Bible By C Alphonso Smith 1920

This Kindle book is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and it is only 99 cents or click here

EDGAR ALLAN POE AND THE BIBLE By C Alphonso Smith, Ph.D., LL.D., L.H.D., Head of the Department of English, United States Naval Academy

For a list of all of my disks and digital books click here

In spite of the vast amount of literature that has grown up at home and abroad about the name of Edgar Allan Poe, there has never been published a treatment of his attitude to religion and religious problems. The question is important, not only because Poe is more widely read in foreign lands than any other American writer, but because his stories and poems either leave us in the dark on the great question or hint an attitude of apathy or denial which does not represent Poe's own convictions. As in the case of Hawthorne, one must beware of confusing Poe with his own fictive characters.

There is abundant evidence that, from early childhood when Poe went regularly to church with Mrs. Allan in Richmond, to that last hour when he asked Mrs. Moran from his death bed whether she thought there was any hope for him hereafter, God and the Bible were fundamental and central in his thinking. It is equally evident that, though living in a sceptical age, an age in which science seemed to be weakening the foundations of long cherished beliefs, and being himself an adept in scientific hypothesis and speculative forecast, Poe remained untouched by current forms of unbelief. More than this, he was a positive force in the overthrow of scepticism and in the establishment or reestablishment of faith and hope.

It is hard to understand what Mr. Woodberry means when he records the fact that Mrs. Moran read to the dying poet the fourteenth chapter of St. John's Gospel and adds: "It is the only mention of religion in his entire life." If the mere reading of the Bible to Poe, not by him, be construed as a "mention of religion" in his life, what shall be said of his own familiarity with the Bible, of his keen interest in Biblical research, of his oft-expressed belief in the truth of the Bible or of his final and impassioned defense, in Eureka, of the sovereignty of the God of the Bible?

Poe's intimate knowledge of the Bible might be traced in the many allusions that he makes to Bible history and Bible imagery, but more than mere knowledge is seen in the conscious and vivid imitation of Bible style that he achieves in many of his greatest prose passages. No one could have written Shadow, a Parable, or Silence, a Fable, unless he had so communed with the Old Testament prophets as to catch both the form and the spirit of their utterance. In dignity and elevation of thought, in faultlessness of keeping, in utter simplicity of style and structure, Poe's workmanship in these two selections alone would place him not only among the masters of English prose but among the still smaller number of those whose mastery seems not so much a homage to ancient models as an illumination from the same central sun.

Poe's interest in the discoveries that were beginning to throw new light upon many perplexing problems in the Bible was not the interest of the antiquarian. There was little of the antiquarian in his nature. It was the interest of one who feels an instinctive fellowship with all forms of progressive thought. "I read all the time," says Edison, "on astronomy, chemistry, biology, physics, music, metaphysics, mechanics, and other branches—political economy, electricity, and, in fact, all things that are making for progress in the world." Poe might have said the same. It was the forward movement, the widening horizon, the latent possibilities of a subject that interested Poe, rather than the elemental nature of the subject itself. Landscape gardening, mesmerism, cryptography, metaphysical speculation, the nebular hypothesis, the new science or pseudoscience of aeronautics, the explorations then making in the Pacific Ocean and the South Seas, Maury's additions to marine lore, the latent results of the gold excitement in California, these appealed to Poe not so much in themselves as through the enfolded sense of something greater yet to be. They were open doors rather than reservoirs. They were frontier subjects and out of each of them he wrought literature.

If he did not make literature out of the results of Bible discovery in Oriental lands, he at least left on record his familiarity with the subject and his prompt recognition of the part that such discoveries were destined to play in the interpretation of the Old and the New Testament. Though he did not live to greet any of the discoveries of Sir Henry Rawlinson, "the father of Assyriology," Poe's review of Incidents of Travel in Egypt, Arabia, Petraea, and the Holy Land, by John Lloyd Stephens, the New Jersey lawyer, shows the spirit in which he would have welcomed the work of the great English Orientalist:

"Viewed only as one of a class of writings whose direct tendency is to throw light upon the Book of Books, it has strong claims upon the attention of all who read. While the vast importance of critical and philological research in dissipating the obscurities and determining the exact sense of the Scriptures cannot be too readily conceded, it may be doubted whether the collateral illustration derivable from records of travel be not deserving at least equal consideration. Certainly the evidence thus afforded, exerting an enkindling influence upon the popular imagination, and so taking palpable hold upon the popular understanding, will not fail to become in time a most powerful because easily available instrument in the downfall of unbelief. Infidelity itself has often afforded unwilling and unwitting testimony to the truth. It is surprising to find with what unintentional precision both Gibbon and Volney (among others) have used, for the purpose of description, in their accounts of nations and countries, the identical phraseology employed by the inspired writers when foretelling the most improbable events. In this manner scepticism has been made the root of belief, and the providence of the Deity has been no less remarkable in the extent and nature of the means for bringing to light the evidence of his accomplished word, than in working the accomplishment itself."

Later on in this review Poe avows his belief in the literal meaning and literal fulfilment of Bible predictions. The italics are of course Poe's:

"We look upon the literalness of the understanding of the Bible predictions as an essential feature in prophecy—conceiving minuteness of detail to have been but a portion of the providential plan of the Deity for bringing more visibly to light, in after-ages, the evidence of the fulfilment of his word. No general meaning attached to a prediction, no general fulfilment of such prediction, could carry, to the reason of mankind, inferences so unquestionable, as its particular and minutely incidental accomplishment. General statements, except in rare instances, are susceptible of misinterpretation or misapplication: details admit no shadow of ambiguity. That, in many striking cases, the words of the prophets have been brought to pass in every particular of a series of minutiae, whose very meaning was unintelligible before the period of fulfilment, is a truth that few are so utterly stubborn as to deny. We mean to say that, in all instances, the most strictly literal interpretation will apply."

He inserts also in the same review his proffered emendation of Isaiah 34:10, quoting the original Hebrew in Hebrew letters. Poe was very proud of this achievement and repeats his newly acquired Oriental lore several times in later years, though one must sympathize with him in his repetitions because the typographical outfit was not again equal to the reproduction of the awesome and erudite Hebrew originals. Of course, he has been called a charlatan and worse for intimating a knowledge of Hebrew which he did not possess. But surely his pride in the matter is pardonable. It was a very small hoax. Dr. Charles Anthon, of New York, had given him in a letter (June 1, 1837) all the information that was needed, and Poe used it, making much of the Hebrew characters that Dr. Anthon had furnished. But Dr. Anthon's letter was in answer to one from Poe, asking whether the emendation was borne out by the Hebrew text. Poe nowhere claims familiarity with Hebrew or even originality in his proffered reading of the text.

Every reader of The Biblical Review knows, or knows of, the eight Bridgewater Treatises, each developing from a different angle "the power, wisdom, and goodness of God as manifested in the creation." The last of these volumes appeared in 1834. Two years later Poe, who was deeply in sympathy with the design of the series, gave in the pages of The Southern Literary Messenger five reasons why these eight volumes would ultimately fail to carry out the high purpose of the testator, reasons that the sequent years have vindicated in every detail. But in 1844, in the pages of the Democratic Review, Poe returns to the subject of the Bridgewater Treatises and makes a distinction that is full of interest and suggestiveness, not only for the teleologist but for the literary craftsman as well. It will be remembered that each of the Bridgewater discussions dealt with the great concept of adaptation, the adaptation of form to function:

"All the Bridgewater Treatises have failed in noticing the great idiosyncrasy in the Divine system of adaptation:—that idiosyncrasy which stamps the adaptation as Divine, in distinction from that which is the work of merely human constructiveness. I speak of the complete mutuality of adaptation. For example:—In human constructions, a particular cause has a particular effect—a particular purpose brings about a particular object; but we see no reciprocity. The effect does not re-act upon the cause—the object does not change relations with the purpose. In Divine constructions, the object is either object Op purpose, as we choose to regard it, while the purpose is either purpose or object; so that we can never (abstractedly, without concretion—without reference to facts of the moment) decide which is which. For secondary example:—In polar climates, the human frame, to maintain its due caloric, requires, for combustion in the stomach, the most highly ammoniac food, such as train oil. Again:—In polar climates the sole food afforded man is the oil of abundant seals and whales. Now, whether is oil at hand because imperatively demanded?—or whether is it the only thing to be obtained? It is impossible to say. There is an absolute reciprocity of adaptation, for which we seek in vain among the works of man.

The Bridgewater tractists may have avoided this point, on account of its apparent tendency to overthrow the idea of cause in general—consequently of a First Cause—of God. But it is more probable that they have failed to perceive what no one preceding them, has, to my knowledge, perceived.

The pleasure which we derive from any exertion of human ingenuity is in the direct ratio of the approach to this species of reciprocity between cause and effect. In the construction of plot, for example, in fictitious literature, we should aim at so arranging the points, or incidents, that we cannot distinctly see, in respect to any one of them, whether that one depends from any one other, or upholds it. In this sense, of course, perfection of plot is unattainable in fact,—because Man is the constructor. The plots of God are perfect. The Universe is a Plot of God."

Poe's belief in the Bible, his aversion to scepticism, and his assurance of the immortality of the soul find frequent assertion in his less known works. He commends the inaugural address of the President of HampdenSidney College because it shows "a vein of that truest of all philosophy, the philosophy of the Christian." He believed that the lines,

Trifles, like straws, upon the surface flow,
He who would search for pearls must dive below,

embodied a false philosophy: "Witness the principles of our divine faith—that moral mechanism by which the simplicity of a child may overbalance the wisdom of a man." In reviewing Zanoni he says: "All that is truly noble in Bulwer's imaginary doctrines of the Rosicrucians is stolen from the pure precepts of our holy religion." Knowledge of nature, says Poe, adds to our knowledge of God, and Macaulay's assertion that theology is not a progressive science is declared to be false and misleading:

"Were the indications we derive from science, of the nature and designs of Deity, and thence, by inference, of man's destiny, —were these indications proof direct, it is then very true that no advance in science could strengthen them; for, as the essayist justly observes, 'nothing can be added to the force of the argument which the mind finds in every beast, bird, and flower;' but, since these indications are rigidly analogical, every step in human knowledge, every astronomical discovery, in especial, throws additional light upon the august subject, by extending the range of analogy. That we know no more, to-day, of the nature of Deity, of its purposes, and thus of man himself, than we did even a dozen years ago, is a proposition disgracefully absurd. 'If Natural Philosophy,' says a greater than Macaulay, 'should continue to be improved in its various branches, the bounds of moral philosophy would be enlarged also.' These words of the prophetic Newton are felt to be true, and will be fulfilled."

It was the scepticism of Lord Bolingbroke which, according to Poe, rendered nearly half of the Viscount's work comparatively worthless:

"The philosophical essays, occupying two of the volumes on our table, are comparatively valueless, and inferior, both in style and matter, to the political tracts. They are deeply imbued with the sceptical opinions of the author, and we should have willingly seen them omitted in this edition, if it were possible to get a complete one, with nearly one half of the author's works left out. Little, therefore, as we value the philosophical works of Bolingbroke, we commend the publishers for not expunging them as too many others have done."

Writing in 1844, Poe says:

"Twenty years ago credulity was the characteristic trait of the mob, incredulity the distinctive feaure of the philosophic; now the case is conversed. The wise are wisely adverse from disbelief. To be sceptical is no longer evidence either of information or of wit."

"No man doubts the immortality of the soul," declares Poe, "yet of all truths this truth of immortality is the most difficult to prove by any mere series of syllogisms." And later: "However well a man may reason on the great topics of God and immortality, he will be forced to admit tacitly in the end that God and immortality are things to be felt rather than demonstrated." There was a time, however, when Poe believed that man's immortality could be proved:

"Indeed, to our own mind, the only irrefutable argument in support of the soul's immortality—or, rather, the only conclusive proof of man's alternate dissolution and rejuvenescence ad infinitum — is to be found in analogies deduced from the modern established theory of the nebular cosmogony. This cosmogony demonstrates that all existing bodies in the universe are formed of a nebular matter, a rare ethereal medium, pervading space; shows the mode and laws of formation, and proves that all things are in a perpetual state of progress; that nothing in nature is perfected."

Not a proof but an indication of immortality, "a forethought of the loveliness to come," "a prescient ecstasy of the beauty beyond the grave," Poe found in poetry:

"He who shall merely sing with whatever rapture, in however harmonious strains, or with however vivid a truth of imitation, of the sights and sounds which greet him in common with all mankind—he, we say, has yet failed to prove his divine title. There is still a longing unsatisfied, which he has been impotent to fulfil. There is still a thirst unquenchable, which to allay he has shown us no crystal springs. This burning thirst belongs to the immortal essence of man's nature. It is equally a consequence and an indication of his perennial life. It is the desire of the moth for the star. It is not the mere appreciation of the beauty before us. It is a wild effort to reach the beauty above. It is a forethought of the loveliness to come. It is a passion to be satiated by no sublunary sights, or sounds, or sentiments, and the soul thus athirst strives to allay its fever in futile efforts at creation. Inspired with a prescient ecstasy of the beauty beyond the grave, it struggles by multiform novelty of combination among the things and thoughts of Time, to anticipate some portion of that loveliness whose very elements, perhaps, appertain solely to Eternity. And the result of such effort, on the part of souls fittingly constitued, is alone what mankind have agreed to denominate Poetry."

But it is in Eureka that Poe recorded his deepest convictions about God and the world to come. For seven years at least the main conception of this work had absorbed Poe as no other constructive thought had ever absorbed him before. He seemed consciously in the grip not of a marginal truth but of a central and star-pointing truth. "What I here propound," he writes in his brief preface, "is true:—therefore it cannot die:—or if by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will 'rise again to the Life Everlasting.'" Virginia's death with its long but foreseen approach had thrown him starkly back upon the problem of life here and its expansion or extinction hereafter. The companionship that he needed in these tense hours of composition was now furnished by Mrs. Clemm. "When he was composing Eureka," she wrote, "we used to walk up and down the garden, his arm around me, mine around him, until I was so tired I could not walk. He would stop every few minutes and explain his ideas to me, and ask if I understood him."

Eureka is more than a demonstration that Poe's intellect and imagination were functioning at their maximum during those lonesome latter years; it reveals that, above all the doubt and darkness and decay that seem to glimmer through his poems and stories, there shone at last the clear light of an abiding conviction that

God's in his heaven—
All's right with the world.

Two passages must suffice. The echo of the first seems heard in a line of Tennyson's In Memoriam,

One God, one law, one element.

Poe writes:

"That Nature and the God of Nature are distinct, no thinking being can long doubt. By the former we imply merely the laws of the latter. But with the very idea of God, omnipotent, omniscient, we entertain, also, the idea of the infallibility of his laws. With Him there being neither Past nor Future—with Him all being Now—do we not insult him in supposing his laws so contrived as not to provide for every possible contingency?— or, rather, what idea can we have of any possible contingency, except that it is at once a result and a manifestation of his laws? He who, divesting himself of prejudice, shall have the rare courage to think absolutely for himself, cannot fail to arrive, in the end, at the condensation of lawn into Law—cannot fail of reaching the conclusion that each law of Nature is dependent at all points upon all other laws, and that all are but consequences of one primary exercise of the Divine Volition. Such is the principle of the Cosmogony which, with all necessary deference, I here venture to suggest and to maintain."

Just as Tennyson asked that Crossing the Bar be placed last in all editions of his poems, so Poe might well have asked that the close of Eureka, his swan song, be viewed as the terminus of all that he had thought or dreamed or hoped or suffered. If "Nevermore" seem at times the refrain of all of his singing, "Evermore" was the note on which he closed; if despair seem the companion of his more solitary moods, it was only that faith and hope might abide with him at the end; if death seem to loom too large and menacing in his visions, it was over and beyond its vanishing rim that he saw rise the beckoning and unclouded life:

"These creatures (animate and inanimate) are all, too, more or less conscious Intelligences; conscious, first, of a proper identity; conscious, secondly and by faint indeterminate glimpses, of an identity with the Divine Being of whom we speak—of an identity with God. Of the two classes of consciousness, fancy that the former will grow weaker, the latter stronger, during the long succession of ages which must elapse before these myriads of individual Intelligences become blended—when the bright stars become blended—into One. Think that the sense of individual identity will be gradually merged in the general consciousness— that Man, for example, ceasing imperceptibly to feel himself Man, will at length attain that awfully triumphant epoch when he shall recognize his existence as that of Jehovah. In the meantime bear in mind that all is Life—Life—Life within Life —the less within the greater, and all within the Spirit Divine."

Summing up, may we not say that Poe's work will enter upon a still wider stage of influence when it is regarded, not as allurement to doubt and despair, but as an outcry against them? Is it not unjust to call him the poet laureate of death and decay in the sense in which we call Shelley the poet laureate of love, Wordsworth of nature, Tennyson of trust, or Browning of resolute faith? Poe did not love death; he did not celebrate the charms of doubt or of darkness or of separation. He abhorred them. The desolate lover in The Raven does not acquiesce in "Nevermore." It flouts and belies every instinct and intuition of his heart. And in every poem and story of Poe's over which blackness seems to brood, there is the unmistakable note of spiritual protest; there is the evidence of a nature so attuned to love and light, to beauty and harmony, that denial of them or separation from them is a veritable death-in-life. Poe fathomed darkness but climbed to the light; he became the world's spokesman for those dwelling within the shadow, but his feet were already upon the upward slope. Out of it all he emerged victor, not victim.

When I remember that Poe resented the charge of pantheism as keenly as that of atheism, when I recall that he ended his career as thinker and prophet with the chant, "All is Life—Life—Life within Life—the less within the greater, and all within the Spirit Divine" the sunlight seems to fall upon "the misty mid region of Weir," even "the ghoul-haunted woodland of Weir;" and Edgar Allan Poe seems no longer our only autumnal genius, heralding an early winter, but the genius of winter itself, a late winter, with spring already at its heart.

Annapolis, Maryland.

For a list of all of my disks and digital books click here

Young Woman or Virgin? - Almah at Isaiah 7:14

Young Woman or Virgin? - Almah at Isaiah 7:14 

Jews complain that Almah at Isaiah 7:14 should be translated as "young woman" and Trad-Catholics (Douay-Rheims Onlyists) demand that it should be translated "virgin." A video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7QG1wALhUDk complains that the Catholic New American Bible translates this word as "young woman (video at 4:40 mark)." However, I am looking at my New American Bible, the same red edition as pictured in the video and it clearly states "virgin" in the text. I later checked an older edition of the NAB when I got home, but it also reads "virgin" at this text. What the video is referring to is the NABRE (New American Bible-Revised Edition 2011) not the classic New American Bible that has been around in one form or another since 1970.

From a Jewish Website: In Isaiah 7:14 the Hebrew states "hinei ha'almah harah veyoledet ben" "behold (hineih) the young woman (ha - the almah- young woman) is pregnant (harah) and shall give birth (ve-and yoledet-shall give birth) to a son (ben)". The Christians translate this as "behold a virgin shall give birth." They have made two mistakes (probably deliberate) in the one verse. They mistranslate "ha" as "a" instead of "the". They mistranslate "almah" as "virgin", when in fact the Hebrew word for virgin is "betulah".

Reply: The great Hebrew grammarian, William Gesenius, stated:

"Peculiar to Hebrew is the employment of the article to denote a single person or thing (primarily one which is as yet unknown, and therefore not capable of being defined) as being present to the mind under given circumstances. In such cases in English the indefinite article is used" [Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, § 126q].

In this section Gesenius listed many examples including the "'almah" of Isaiah 7:14. Though Gesenius did not support the virgin birth, he nevertheless supported the use of the indefinite article in an English translation of this passage. In other words, according to the grammar and the context, the identity of the "'almah" was unknown to the participants of the story and to the prophet's audience. I personally think the verse works with or without a definite article.

The word ALMAH is never used in the Bible where it necessarily means anything other than virgin. The word occurs seven times in the Hebrew Bible:
Gen 24:43--where the word refers to the virgin Rebekah.
Exod 2:8--where the word refers to Moses' sister Miriam. She was obviously a virgin at the time Moses was born?
Psa 68:25--where the word refers to the female musicians in the procession escorting the king. There is no reason to question the virginity of these young women?
Song 1:3; 6:8--where the word refers to the attendants of Solomon's queens and concubines. There is no reason to question the virginity of these choice young women either.
I especially like how the Bible uses the 2 terms BETULAH and ALMAH:
Genesis 24:16 "The maiden ["na'arah"] was very beautiful, a virgin ["bethulah"]; whom no man had known." NJPS
In this verse Rebekah is referred to as a "bethulah", but the text adds the qualifying clause "no man had known her." Such a qualifying clause would be unnecessary if "bethulah" unambiguously meant "virgin." Later in the same story, Rebekah is referred to as an "'almah" (vs. 43) without any qualifying clause.

Interestingly, the Septuagint (LXX), a Greek translation made by Jews before Christ used the word PARTHENOS here, the same word used for "Virgin" in the New Testament.

Justin Martyr on the Logos and the Trinity Doctrine By Alvan Lamson 1865

This Kindle book, The Dark History of the Trinity, is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and it is only 99 cents

See a local listing for this book here

Justin Martyr on the Logos and the Trinity Doctrine By Alvan Lamson 1865

We proceed now to speak of the theology of Justin; and, first, of what occupies a prominent, we may say the most prominent, place in it, — his doctrine of the Logos, or divine nature of Christ, as it has been since called. The topic is one of special importance to those who would understand the theology of the Fathers, or would know what support the doctrine of the Trinity really derives from the writings of early Christian antiquity. It is a topic which, on proceeding to the inquiry how far the general belief of the Christian Church in later times is sanctioned by the authority of these writings, presents itself at the very threshold, and one on which it is desirable that we should obtain precise ideas; since, without them, the writings of the subsequent Fathers will present a labyrinth which it will not be easy to thread. But having once settled the meaning of Justin's terms, and the real purport of his opinions, we shall find some gleam of light to guide us on our way. These considerations must constitute our apology for the length of some of the discussions introduced in this and some subsequent chapters. We are aware, that, to the general reader, discussions of this sort must necessarily be somewhat dry; as is the whole subject, in fact, of the historical development of the Trinity, to which they belong. But they who would understand the theology of the Fathers have no very smooth road to travel.

The points to be settled are, in what sense Justin used the term "Logos," as applied to Jesus; what were the nature and rank assigned him by this early Father; and whence his peculiar views were derived. The great similarity between his doctrine of the Logos and that taught by Philo and the Alexandrian Platonists, is not denied. They, however, who ascribe a scriptural origin to the doctrine of the Trinity, contend that "the substance of Justin's idea of the Logos rests on a purely scriptural and Christian foundation" though they are compelled to admit that this idea was modified, and received its scientific form, through the influence of the "Alexandrian and Philonic theosophy." The early Fathers, says Semisch, from whom the expressions just, used are taken, "only poured the contents of the Scriptures into a Philonian vessel: they viewed the biblical passages through a Philonian medium. The matter of their idea of the Logos is essentially scriptural; but its construction betrays a Philonian ground-plan. Thus it is with Justin." To this statement we cannot assent. We believe, and trust that we shall be able to show, that, for the original and distinctive features of the doctrine of the Logos, as held by the learned Fathers of the second and third centuries, we must look, not to the Jewish Scriptures, nor to the teachings of Jesus and his Apostles, but to Philo and the Alexandrian Platonists. In consistency with this view, we maintain that the doctrine of the Trinity was of gradual and comparatively late formation; that it had its origin in a source entirely foreign from that of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures; that it grew up, and was ingrafted on Christianity, through the hands of the Platonizing Fathers; that in the time of Justin, and long after, the distinct nature and inferiority of the Son were universally taught; and that only the first shadowy outline of the Trinity had then become visible.

On the subject of the Logos, Justin has expressed himself much at length; and, though he is occasionally somewhat obscure and mystical, a careful examination of the several terms and illustrations he employs leaves little doubt as to his real meaning. His system presents one or two great and prominent features, which we can hardly fail to seize, and which will serve as the basis of our future reasonings. Before we proceed to our citations, however, we must request our readers to bear in mind, that both Jews and Heathens constantly alleged the humble origin and ignominious death of Jesus as a reproach on Christianity. Other sects borrowed lustre from the names of their founders; but the "new superstition," as it was called, which now began widely to diffuse itself, was derived, as it was urged, from an obscure individual, who perished as a malefactor, with every mark of ignominy. This stigma Paul had disregarded: he gloried in what was "to the Jews a stumbling-block, and to the Greeks foolishness." But the Christians of Justin's time occupied a different position; and whether or not the learned defenders of Christianity, in what they taught of the preexistent Logos, and the great stress they laid on the miraculous birth, were, as has been maintained, influenced, consciously or unconsciously, by a desire to wipe off the reproach of the cross, certain it is, their doctrines had a tendency this way. Both the Jewish and the Heathen objections were, to a certain extent, met by the doctrine of the Logos.

Let us see what Justin says of the Logos. In his second Apology he speaks of the "Son" as the "Logos, that, before created things, was with God, and begotten, when, through him, he [God] in the beginning created and adorned all things." The meaning is, that he was converted into a real being, having a separate personal subsistence, at the time God, using him as his instrument, was about to proceed to the work of creation. That this is the meaning is obvious from the use of the term "when" (we use Otto's text): he was begotten of God "when through him he created and embellished all things,"—language which makes the two acts almost simultaneous, the one taking place immediately before the other. The doctrine of the "eternal generation" of the Son is excluded: this was no doctrine of Justin. The attribute, like all the divine attributes, was eternal; but it became hypostatized, or converted into a real person, in time; that is, just before the creation of the world. Justin elsewhere, as we shall presently see, speaks of the Son as the "beginning" of God's "ways to his works."

Again: Justin says, "In the beginning" (or, as Otto understands it, "As the beginning"), "before all creatures, God begat of himself a certain rational power, which, by the Holy Spirit, is also called the Glory of the Lord, — now Son, now Wisdom, now Angel, now God, now Lord, and Logos (reason, wisdom, or speech); and by himself is called Chief Captain (Captain of the host, Josh. v. 14), when in the form of man he appears to Joshua, the son of Nun: for all these appellations he has, because he ministers to the will of the Father, and, by the volition of the Father, was begotten." [Dial, cum Tryph., c. 61, Otto. "In," or "As the beginning," or God so making a beginning, this being the first act of creation. See Otto's note.] To explain this process of generation, Justin takes the examples of human speech and of fire. "For, in uttering speech" (logos), he says, "we beget speech; yet not by abscission, so that the speech (logos) that is in us," or power of speech, or reason whence speech proceeds, "is by this act diminished." So, too, he adds, "One torch is lighted from another, without diminishing that from which it is lighted; but the latter remaining unaltered, that which is lighted from it exists and appears, without lessening that whence it was lighted." These are intended to be illustrations of the mode in which the Son is produced from the Father. In confirmation of his views, Justin quotes from the Septuagint version the passage in Proverbs, in which Wisdom, by which he supposes is meant the Son, is represented as saying, "The Lord created me the beginning of his ways to his works: before the ages he founded me; in the beginning, before he made the earth or the abyss, before the hills, he begat me." [Prov. viii. 22-36: "The Lord created me the beginning of his ways," etc. So Origen and Tertullian, as well as Justin, understood the passage. See Otto, in he., notes 1 and 12. Tertullian (Adv. Hermog., c. 8) saye expressly, "There was a time when the Son was not."] This Wisdom Justin regarded as God's offspring, produced as above described; and him, this first of his productions, he supposes God to address, when he says (Gen. i. 26), "Let us make man in our own image." [Dial., pp. 158, 159; Thirlby, pp. 266, 268; Otto, c. 62.]

Language similar to the above occurs in the first Apology, with an additional observation worthy of notice. Christ is "the first-born of God, and that reason [logos, ambiguous in the original, meaning either reason or speech, word] of which the whole human race partakes; and those who have lived according to reason are Christians, though esteemed atheists. Such among the Greeks were Socrates and Heraclitus, and others like them; and, among the Barbarians, Abraham, Ananias, Azarias, Misael, Elias, and many others." So, in the second Apology, we are told that Socrates "knew Christ in part; for he is that reason (logos) which is in all": and whatever was well said or done by philosophers and legislators is to be attributed to the Logos in part shared by them. He calls it the "insown" or "implanted" logos, or reason; of the seed of which all possess some portion. These and other equivalent expressions occur more than once. They seem intended to refer to a principle different from the ordinary faculty of reason in man; that is, to a peculiarly existing

Logos, or reason, which has in its nature something divine, being derived immediately from God. This Logos was Christ, who afterwards became flesh. It guided Abraham and the patriarchs; inspired the prophets: and the seed of it being implanted, as just said, in every mind, all, as well illiterate as philosophers, who in former ages obeyed its impulse, were partakers of Christ, the Son of God; and might therefore be called Christians, and, as such, were entitled to salvation. The Gentile philosophers and legislators, knowing the Logos only in part, fell into error; but Christ is the "whole Logos," which Christians possess, and are therefore more enlightened.

That Justin believed this divine principle of reason to be converted into a real being, the following passage, among numerous others, plainly and expressly shows. We give the passage, which in the original is exceedingly prolix, in an epitomized form, but without injury, we believe, to the sense. There are, he says, some who suppose that the Son is only a virtue or energy of the Father, emitted as occasion requires, and then again recalled: as, for example, when it comes to announce the commands of the Father, and is therefore called a messenger; or when it bears the Father's discourse to men, and is then called Logos. They, as he observes, think that the Son is inseparable from the Father, as the light of the sun on the earth is inseparable from the sun which is in the heaTens, and is withdrawn with it at its setting. But from these, he tells us, he differs. Angels have a separate and permanent existence: so this virtue, which the prophetic spirit calls God and Angel, is not, as the light of the sun, to be distinguished from the Father in name only, but is something numerically different; that is, it is not the Father under another name, but a real being, wholly distinct from him.

Justin frequently draws comparisons and illustrations from the Heathen mythology. The following, in which Mercury is introduced, presents a coincidence of language a little remarkable: "When we say that Jesus Christ, our teacher, was the Logos, the first progeny of God, born without commixtion; that he was crucified, and died, and arose, and ascended into heaven, — we affirm nothing different from what is said by you of the sons of Jove, and nothing new. You know how many sons your esteemed writers attribute to him. There is Mercury, the interpreting logos, and teacher of all; Aesculapius," and the rest; between whom and Jesus, Justin proceeds to draw a parallel.

Again: speaking of the generation of the Son, he says, "When we call him the Logos of God, born of him in a peculiar manner, and out of the course of ordinary births, we speak a common language with you, who call Mercury the angelic logos from God." The meaning seems to be: "We speak of a true and real person, so born, as we have «aid, whom we call Logos (speech): a term you apply to Mercury."

From the extracts above given, it is evident, that, although Justin employs the term "Logos" in different senses, the primary meaning he usually attributes to it, when used with reference to God, is reason, considered as an attribute of the Father; and that, by the generation of the Son, he understood the conversion of this attribute into a real person. The Logos, which afterwards became flesh, originally existed in God as his reason, or perhaps his wisdom or energy. Having so existed from eternity, it was, a little before the creation of the world, voluntarily begotten, thrown out, or emitted, by the Father, or proceeded from him; for these terms are used indiscriminately to express the generation of the Son, or the process by which what before was a quality acquired a distinct personal subsistence. That such was the doctrine of Justin, and of the ante-Nicene Fathers generally, concerning the generation of the Son, the whole strain of their writings affords abundant evidence. They supposed, we repeat, that the logos, or reason, which once constituted an attribute of the Father, was at length converted into a real being, and that this was done by a voluntary act of the Father. To this process they applied the term "generation," and sometimes "emission" or "prolation"; nor do they appear originally to have objected to that of "creation."
[Trypho is allowed, without contradiction, to speak of Christ as "made by God" (Dial, cum Tryph., c. 64). Tatian calls him the "first-begotten work of the Father," ERGON PRWTOTOKON TOU PATROS (Orat. ad Graec., c. 5).

For much more information go to
 The Trinity Doctrine & Christology - Over 320 Books on the on TWO DVDroms

metatron3@gmail.com

The Firstborn of All Creation and the hOTI Clause

I maintain that Colossians 1:15 is a partitive genitive which makes Christ the "firstborn" of creation a part of that creation. However, Helyer in "Arius Revisited," JETS Mar. 1998, states that this option is excluded by virtue of the hoti clause of v. 16 and the pro panta of v. 17, which he thinks excludes Christ from the realm of created things.

Does the hoti clause of v. 16 and the pro panta of v. 17 clearly exclude Christ from the realm of created things?

The clause at verse 16 says, hOTI EN AUTWi EKTISQH TA PANTA, which Barclay's NT renders, "For he is the agent by whom all things were created."
The 21st Century NT has "It was he that formed all other things in heaven...all came into existence as a result of him and by means of him."
The reason the above Bibles have a different view of this is because Helyer has ignored the passivity of the verbs involved.
The verb EKTISQH ("were created") is passive, hence the subject and object are reversed from the active voice. The "him" of AUTWi cannot be the subject because it is part of an adverbial phrase headed by the preposition EN ["by means of']. Thus, the TA PANTA ["all things"] was created by an unnamed EN, the PRWTOTOKOS. Who created all things EN ["by means of"] Christ?
In verses 12 and 13 the Father is the subject, and in v. 13, it is the Father who has delivered us. In v. 14, the Father is still the subject while the Son is the intermediate agent identified by the EN clause (EN hWi). Verse 15 concentrates on the indirect agent of v. 14, that the indirect agent is EIKWN ["image"] and PRWTOTOKOS ["firstborn"], and in verse 16, the Son is indirect agent again because of the EN AUTWi ["for he is the agent by whom" Barclay].

The conclusion is that the Father is creator and he creates "EN", or "by means of" the Son. Passive verbs and prepositions are used in those verses also in Hebrews 1:2 and John 1:3, and describe Jesus as an intermediate agent.

The concept of *time* is prominent in Col 1:15 - 18 with temporal words like PRWTOTOKOS ( a temporal word), ARXH (v. 18) and that he is PRO (before) TA PANTA (v.17). It was the Father's purpose (v.18) that the Son be prominent (PRWTEUWN) in all things because of being temporally first, as Paul's use of language shows.

Also ignored is the use of EK, or lack of, in regards to Jesus.

E. Lohse, "A Commentary on the Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon", (The Hermeneia Series) p. 50, note 125 says: "It should be noted that EN (in), DIA (through), and EIS (for) are used, but not EK (from). 'From whom are all things' ( EX hOU TA PANTA) is said of God in 1 Corinthians 8:6. He is and remains the creator, but the pre-existent Christ is the mediator of creation."

The Son is never called "creator", but he is what Robertson calls "the intermediate agent" According to Robertson (Grammar p. 820) the source (direct agent) is most commonly expressed by the Greek preposition hUPO ("by"), and sometimes by APO ("from") and EK ("out of"). The intermediate agent is often identified by DIA ("through"). Matthew 1:22 points this out nicely: "All this took place because what was spoken [aorist passive participle] by [ hUPO] the Lord through [DIA] the prophet must be fulfilled [aorist passive subjunctive]." Here "the Lord" is the source and "the prophet" is the intermediate agent. In John 1:3 we read " Through (DIA) him all things were made." In Colossians 1:16 we read: "For by (EN) him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by (DIA) him and for (EIS) him. " Please note that the verbs are passive and note the use of prepositions. In the verse we find the preposition EN ("in," "by means of"). This preposition governs AUTW ("him," in the dative case). Most of the 74 occurrences in the NT of EN AUTWi in the dative case are locative, that is, they refer to something or someone being in some place. Only one of the examples points to a source. In the last part of verse 16 we find the preposition DIA which governs AUTOU in the genitive case. This is the typical marking of an intermediate agent, so this must be the proper way to view the Son in this context. God is the source of the passive verbs which speak about creation, and that the Son is the intermediate agent? In Colossians 1:12 "the Father" is mentioned, and he is active through verse 20. This is seen in verse 19 where God is the implied subject for the verb, and it is particularly evident in verse 20, because here both the source (God) and the intermediate agent (Jesus) are mentioned. It is said that the reconciliation is "through" (DIA) Jesus and "to" (EIS) God. The same thought is expressed in verse 22. The implied source (grammatical subject) of the active verb "reconciled" is "God." The intermediate agent is Jesus, for it is said that reconciliation occurred "by means of" (EN) his fleshly body and "through" (DIA) his death.

Even Robert H Countess, though no friend of the NWT, had the following interesting remarks:

"Even though Liddell-Scott state that the radical sense of DIA is 'through' there can be produced  instances where the genitive appears to be causal and the accusative to signify agency. In general this writer would observe that the so-called causal uses of DIA seem to be inextricably linked  with agency (i.e. 'by' or 'through').
For example, one lexicon cites as causal John 1:3-DI AUTOU EGENETO. [cf. Col. 1:16-TA PANTA DI AUTOU KAI EIS AUTON EKTISTAI.] God apparently worked *through* the Son in creating all things and, therefore, the Son Himself in some sense *caused* or created. Another example given is Acts 3:18- O DE QEOS A PROKATHGGEILEN DIA STOMATOS PANTWN TWN PROFHTWN. Here the mouth of all the prophets is the channel or medium *through which* God announced beforehand the sufferings of Christ. The prophets indeed *caused* the message to be proclaimed but only inasmuch as their mouths had been selected as channels or media for the divine communication." THANK GOD FOR THE GENITIVE, Robert H. Countess, p. 118, JETS, Spring 1969

It is interesting that even Countess has to concede that Christ is the agent of creation, and, as a parallel, uses Acts 3:18, denoting a separate body/being as agent.

All of this works well with Proverbs 8:22-30, where we have the created angel Wisdom/Jesus, helping his creator in the creation of the earth, standing beside him as a "master workman."

This Kindle book, The Dark History of the Trinity, is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and it is only 99 cents

See a local listing for this book here

Is the Personified Wisdom (Jesus) Eternal?

This Kindle book, The Dark History of the Trinity, is now available on Amazon by clicking here...and it is only 99 cents

See a local listing for this book here

From a Website: Ecclesiasticus 1:1-4 All wisdom cometh from the Lord, and is with him for ever. The sand of the sea, and the drops of the rain, And the days of eternity who shall number? The height of the heaven and the breadth of the earth And the deep and wisdom, who shall search them out? Wisdom hath been created before all things, And the understanding of prudence from everlasting.
The book of Ecclesiasticus was written by Jesus the son of Sirach in about 100 B.C. It describes Wisdom as having been "created before all things," as being "from everlasting" and as comparable to "the days of eternity." In this we are in harmony with the Trinitarian view of Jesus as created or generated by the Father eternally, that is, finding his source in the Father and having no existence apart from Him, yet also having existed eternally as God does.  

Reply: There are several problems with the above. One, Wisdom is not said to be "from everlasting," in Ecclesiasticus, that statement was reserved for Prudence. This is also something we see in the Pseudepigrapha. In a note on the Hellenistic Synagogal Prayers, Edited by James H. Charlesworth, he states,

"Special attention is given to Wisdom (sophia). Wisdom is personified and represented as the instrument of creation (3:19; 4:7, 38; 12:36). Wisdom is not eternal, however, since God is her father (4:38) and creator (5:3)."

The Prayers cross-reference Prov 8:22.
Two, even if it was, AIWN(ios)(a)(ion) here does not always mean "everlasting." It actually means "age," or "a long time."
This is can be borne out by considering how other versions treat this. The Revised English Bible has at verse 4, "Wisdom was first of all created things, intelligent purpose has existed from the beginning." The New Jerusalem Bible has, "Wisdom was created before everything, prudent understanding from remotest ages." The website is echoing the same sentiment as Robert Bowman in his Why You Should Believe in the Trinity, p. 61:

"Thus [Proverbs] 8:23 says, 'From everlasting I was established...' (NASB); the phrase from everlasting is the same phrase used of God in Psalm 90:2, where the JW's recognize that God is being described as having no beginning."

The problem here is that God is Creator in regards to everlasting [olam] (Isaiah 40:28).
Everlasting/olam is used twice at Ps 90:2, whereas, elsewhere it is used only once for created beings. It is used of the forefathers (Joshua 24:2) and the prophets (Jer 28:8). The NASB tells us how the olam here should be used, if Bowman would only have completed the verse:
"From the beginning, from the earliest times of the earth." NASB
Other versions of Proverbs 8:23 bear out the limitations in regards to olam where created beings are concerned:
"From of old" New American Bible
"I was formed in earliest times." Revised English Bible
"Ages ago" NRSV
"I was made in the very beginning." TEV
"In times long past" NEB etc
Three, it is an oxymoron to say something is created, but has existed from all time. We have no Biblical parallel to compare this phenomenal contradiction with. Also ignored is the connection with Wisdom/Sophia and the connection with angels.
Former Priest and author, Tom Harpur writes that Jewish wisdom literature at the time of Christ spoke of the descent and ascent of Wisdom:

"..it is possible to say that the hypostasized Wisdom of late Jewish writing 'is an anonymous heavenly redeemer figure' very similar to those in both Greco-Roman and Christian thought. At the same time, Jewish theologizing about angels also made use of the descending and ascending pattern for figures of redemption. In Isaiah 63 it was the 'angel of [God's] presence' who 'saved' the Israelites-and 'in his love and pity...redeemed them.' Dozens of similar instances can be found throughout the Old Testament. Talbert also cites numerous instances in extra-Biblical writings in which archangels descend in human form. Some of the language used of these angelic redeemers is actually paralleled in the fourth Gospel: in the Testament of Abraham, for example, the archangel comes down and tells the patriarch 'everything which he has heard from the Most High,' while in another work an archangel, the 'firstborn of every creature,' descends to earth and 'tabernacles' among men. In all these writings there is the taking of bodily form, the successful struggle with evil, and the final ascent of the heavenly being. Moreover, in some cases the angel and Wisdom traditions merge with each other and with the concepts of the Logos  and the first-born son...the themes of pre-existence, descent and glorious ascent are found in Philippians 2:6-10, and those of descent and exaltation in Romans 1:3-4, while in Galatians 4:4 there is a clear reference to Christ as an angel: 'You have received me as an angel of God, even as Christ Jesus.'In teaching about Christ as pre-existent, 'the image of the invisible God, the first-born of every creature [by whom] all things were created' (Col. 1:15), clearly Paul is describing not the historical Jesus whose profile we can discern, however dimly, in the Gospels, but with a figure cast in the Wisdom literature speculation-that is, with a mythological construct."

For Christ's Sake, pp. 108, 109
 
The mythological construct is in accord with the website's acknowledgement that cultures also had their Wisdom traditions, and the Jews have borrowed this language (as they have with the words hades and tartarus) and made it their own.
 
The Dictionary of Demons and Deities states, under Wisdom:

"Philosophers such as the author of the Book of Wisdom took great care not to lose the mythological connection which made for good literature, and also attracted those who adopted a view of the divine world which retained its plurality while placing Israel's God at the top. Christians were no doubt indebted to a two-deity system which reckoned with a major god with whom a minor, mediating deity was associated. The minor deity could be identified as Yahweh (with El Elyon  being the high god; Deut 32:8, 9 with note in BHS), as the Son of Man (Dan 7:13, 14) or as the archangel Michael (Dan 12:1). The old mythological tradition and the two-deity system helped early Christians in their attempt to define the nature and function of Christ."

Even the suggestion that Wisdom is merely God's attribute does not provide a means of escape.
Scholar Frances Young observes in talking of Wisdom,

"Interestingly enough, some of the names of those concretely envisaged beings, the archangels, suggest the personification of divine attributes; Gabriel - might of God, Phanuel - face of God."

From Two Roots or a Tangled Mass-The Myth of God Incarnate

In a review of *Angelomorphic Christology: Antecedents and Early Evidence*, by Gieschen, the following comments are made:

"Gieschen's conclusions are (1) that angelomorphic traditions "were profoundly employed in earliest extant expressions of Christology," (2) that Angel of the Lord traditions in particular were very important in contributing to the linking of angelomorphic figures intimately identified with YHWH (i.e., the Angel, the Glory, the Name, the Word, Wisdom) to the fleshly Jesus who had ascended and was now enthroned," (3) that early Christians combined various antecedent traditions in formulating their Christology, and (4) that traditions about the invisibility of God were important contributors to the development of angelomorphic traditions and to early Christology. Overall, Gieschen contends that angelomorphic traditions "were some of the oldest and most significant traditions that inspired the Christology which we now find in early Christian literature, including the New Testament." Indeed, Gieschen holds that "the central root" from which various early christological traditions developed (e.g., Wisdom/Spirit/Name/Glory/Son of Man/Image/Anthropos Christologies) is "the angelomorphic tradition in which the Angel of the Lord is God appearing in the form of a man.""
http://www.bookreviews.org/Reviews/9004108408.html

Metzger makes an interesting point:

"The dividing line between Wisdom the woman and God can grow hazy. Without the introductory verses to Proverbs 1:22-33 one might easily assume that the speaker is not Wisdom but God! Theologians have observed that Wisdom functions as a mediator between God and humanity...Wisdom's mediating role may have answered a spiritual need earlier fulfilled by the king (see Ps. 72:1; 1 Kings 8:22-53)." Oxford Companion to the Bible, (under Wisdom)

That Wisdom often looks indistinguishable from God is also echoed in other works that find it hard to tell between God's angel and God Himself. But the language of this use of agency is quite common.
A.R. Johnson in a monograph entitled The One and the Many in the Israelite Conception of God, states the following regarding this form of speech:

"In Hebrew thought a patriarch’s personality extended through his entire household to his wives, his sons and their wives, his daughters, servants in his household and even in some sense his property. The "one" personality was present in the "many" who were with him. In a specialized sense when the patriarch’s as lord of his household deputized his trusted servant as his malak (i.e. his messenger or angel) the man was endowed with the authority and resources of his lord to represent him fully and transact business in his name. In Semitic thought this messenger-representative was conceived of as being personally-and in his very words-the presence of the sender" (Christology and The Angel of the LORD by John Cunningham).

Consider the following few examples:
An angel spoke out of the bush, yet it was God speaking through the angel. In this same event, God gave Moses the law and specifically the Ten Commandments. It says in Exodus 20:1-17:
"I am Jehovah thy God, who brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. Thou shalt have no other gods before me." ASV
But,  it was actually God speaking through the angel. Stephen again verifies this in Acts 7:53:
"You received the law as transmitted by angels, but you did not observe it." NAB
The law was given to Moses through the angels. As a matter of fact, the whole episode on Mount Sanai was God speaking through the angels. Act 7:38 states:
"This is he that was in the church in the wilderness with the angel that spake to him in the Mount Sinai, and with our fathers: who received living oracles to give unto us." ASV
In  Deuteronomy 29:1-6 we have Moses is speaking to Israel, but then, he is speaking in the first person as God.

"These are the words of the covenant which Jehovah commanded Moses to make with the children of Israel in the land of Moab, besides the covenant which he made with them in Horeb. And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, Ye have seen all that Jehovah did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; the great trials which thine eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders: but Jehovah hath not given you a heart to know, and eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day. And I have led you forty years in the wilderness: your clothes are not waxed old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxed old upon thy foot. Ye have not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink; that ye may know that I am Jehovah your God."

These verses start off with Moses speaking as himself and ends with Moses speaking as God in the first person. But it is God speaking through Moses to Israel. There are many examples in the Bible of this custom of speech.

"The main point of the Jewish law of agency is expressed in the dictum, "A person's agent is regarded as the person himself." Therefore any act committed by a duly appointed agent is regarded as having been committed by the principle." The Encyclopedia of the Jewish Religion, R.J.Z. Werblowski and Geoffrey Wigoder

The idea is that God gives His authority to His representatives. This idea is pivotal in the understanding of Jesus because Jesus will be God’s representative par excellence, and Jesus will speak on behalf of God. To illustrate the point of God giving His authority to His representatives, take note of the following:

"Behold, I send an angel before thee, to keep thee by the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared. Take ye heed before him, and hearken unto his voice; provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgression: for my name is in him. ["He is my representative" NLT; "My power is around him" Fenton; "My authority rests in him" REB; "I am giving him complete authority" CEV]
But if thou shalt indeed hearken unto his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries." (Exodus 23:20-22 ASV).

YHWH’s authority resides in this angel. The angel is God’s representative and thus has the authority of God, but the angel is not God. If we apply this concept to our understanding of Jesus, then this will provide some clarification. Jesus represents God on earth and will thus speak for God and have His authority to forgive sins and to judge. "For I spake not from myself; but the Father that sent me, he hath given me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak." (John 12:49).
"and he gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is a son of man." (John 5:27).
"And Jesus came to them and spake unto them, saying, All authority hath been given unto me in heaven and on earth." (Matthew 28:18)
"Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ" (Revelation 12:10).
" But that ye may know that the Son of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins...when the multitudes saw it, they were afraid, and glorified God, who had given such authority unto men."(Matthew 9:6-8).
Jesus is representing God to the people. He is speaking on behalf of God. He is God's Word.
This is not a new concept, Moses said exactly this about the future Messiah in Deuteronomy 18:18:

"I will raise them up a prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee; and I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him."

He is God's word, like others were before him. Under "word" in the Harper Collins Bible Dictionary:

"Prophets hear and speak what the Lord has spoken to them (Isa. 1:2; 6:8-10), for they are primarily recipients and transmitters of the word of the Lord (Jer. 1:2). The NT...usage can be seen as a development of the OT.

Under Word in McKenzie's Bible Dictionary:

"The word of God in the OT refers most frequently to the word of the prophet."

Interestingly, Metzger's comments above make mention of 1 Kings 8, which states,

"But will God in very deed dwell on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house that I have builded!" ASV

Jehovah far transcends containment by anything he has created. The destructive power that results from gazing at God (Ex 33:20) is echoed at 3 Enoch 3 22B:5, 6:

"What does YHWH, the God of Israel, the glorious king, do? The great God, mighty in power, covers his face...otherwise the heaven of Arabot would burst open in the middle, because of the glorious brilliance, beautiful brightness, lovely splendor, and radiant praises of the appearance of the Holy One, blessed be he."

We cannot see God, and as a loving result, he is invisible to us. (1 Tim 1:17; John 1:18; Col 1:15)
So he sends a lesser Jehovah, Jesus Christ, whom we can see, just as he has sent his angels in the past.
When we again, through the view of angelic agency, consider the Wisdom literature and the Pseudepigrapha, we are given an insight long ignored:

Wisdom 10:18 "She brought them over the Red Sea, and led them through deep waters" RSV

Compare:

Exodus 14:19 "Then the angel of God who went before the host of Israel moved and went behind them; and the pillar of cloud moved from before them and stood behind them." See also Num 20:16 RSV
Ex 23:20,21 "Behold, I send an angel before you, to guard you on the way and to bring you to the place which I have prepared. Give heed to him and hearken to his voice, do not rebel against him, for he will not pardon your transgression; for my name is in him. [Compare 3 Enoch 12:5]

Wisdom 10:19 "but she [Wisdom] drowned their enemies,and cast them up from the depth of the sea."
Compare:
Rev 7:1 "After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow on earth or sea or against any tree."

Wisdom 10:13 "When a righteous man was sold, wisdom did not desert him, but delivered him from sin. She descended with him into the dungeon."

Compare:

Daniel 3:25 "He answered, "But I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods...Nebuchadnez'zar said, 'Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed'nego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set at nought the king's command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.'"
Dan 6:22 "Then Daniel said to the king, 'O king, live for ever! My God sent his angel and shut the lions' mouths, and they have not hurt me, because I was found blameless before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no wrong.'"

“Then wisdom went out to dwell with the children of the people, but she found no dwelling-place. So wisdom returned to her place and she settled permanently among the angels.” 1 Enoch 42:1, 2

Compare:

"So the Logos (Word) became flesh and dwelt among us." (John 1:14)

Even when discussing Philo, many have realized that his writings on Wisdom/Logos can be best understood with an angelology in view.

In her "Logos and Its Function in the Writings of Philo of Alexandria: Greek Interpretation of Hebrew Thought and Foundations of Christianity: Part One," Marian Hillar writes:

"The Angel of the Lord, Revealer of God:
Philo describes the Logos as the revealer of God symbolized in the Scripture (Gen. 31:13; 16:8; etc) by an angel of the Lord (Somn. 1.228-239; Cher. 1-3). The Logos is the first-born and the eldest and chief of the angels.
Intermediary Power:
The fundamental doctrine propounded by Philo is that of Logos as an intermediary power, a messenger and mediator between God and the world.
And the father who created the universe has given to his archangel and most ancient Logos a pre-eminent gift, to stand on the confines of both, and separate that which had been created from the Creator. And this same Logos is continually a suppliant to the immortal God on behalf of the mortal race, which is exposed to affliction and misery; and is also the ambassador, sent by the Ruler of all, to the subject race. And the Logos rejoices.... saying "And I stood in the midst, between the Lord and you" (Num. 16:48); neither being uncreated as God, nor yet created as you, but being in the midst between these two extremities, like a hostage, as it were, to both parties (Her. 205-206)."

From the Newman Reader — Works of John Henry Newman:

"Philo, as far as I know, ascribed no 'condescension' to his Logos, for he considered him a creature, or, at least, an emanation, as well as his companion Angel. He speaks of him as a second God (vid. Euseb. Præp. Ev. vii. 13, p. 323, ed. 1688); as an Archangel between God and man, neither increate nor a creature, an intercessor with God, a messenger from Him (Quis hæres, p. 509), as the first-born Son, His Viceroy (de Agricult. p. 195), the created idea or plan, the [kosmos noetos] on which the visible world was made (de Opif. mund. p. 5, Quis hæres, p. 512). There is nothing then in him which needs explanation when he speaks of the Almighty and His two ministering attendants; but if a writer such as Irenæus uses language of a like character, he must be interpreted, not by Philo, but by other statements of his own and by the doctrine of his brother theologians. Indeed, when closely inspected, the doubtful language of this great Father explains itself."
http://www.newmanreader.org/works/tracts/arianism/section10.html

From A Dictionary of Angels, by Gustav Davidson:

"In Enoch II, 33, wisdom is hypostasized. God orders wisdom, on the 6th day of Creation, 'to make man of seven substances.' In Reider, The Book Of Wisdom, wisdom is the 'assessor on God's throne,' the instrument or divine agent (i.e. angel) 'by which all things were created.' [Cf. the Logos of Philo.] According to the Catholic Encyclopedia, 'Angel,' the term 'angel of the Lord' finds a 'counterpart in the personification of wisdom in the Sapiential books, and in at least one passage (Zachariah 3:1) it seems to stand for that Son of Man whom Daniel (Daniel 7:13) saw brought before the Ancient of Days." p. 312,

The belief that Michael the Archangel was the same as the Word/Wisdom, was carried over by Philo of Judea who, ‘identified the Logos with the archangel Michael.’ (Formation of Christian Dogma, Professor Martin Werner, page 133)
 
"The counterpart of this is afforded by an identification of Christ with the archangel Michael, an identification which is made in the Shepherd of Hermas. ... According to the early Christian writing Of The Threefold Fruits, Christ, as one of the seven archangels of God, was created ‘from fire’ and exalted to the status of ‘Son.’" (Formation of Christian Dogma, Professor Martin Werner, page 135)

FIRST OXFORD LECTURE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF CHRISTOLOGY
by Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis:

"1. Most discussion of the LOGOS has, understandably focused on Philo. I don't want to get embroiled in the highly sophisticated world of Philo, except to say that there is a steadily increasing body of opinion that, in actual fact his ideas are very Jewish in origin if not in expression. His use of LOGOS/LOGOI language is best understood as an adaptation to a Hellenistic idiom of the peculiarly Jewish language of angels.
Long before Philo, Greek speaking Jews had used Logos language as an alternative to Angel of LORD. As Jarl Fossum has pointed out, a key passage in this respect in Ezekiel the Tragedian's Exagoge 96-99. In this passage Moses' encounter with the burning bush is retold and where the biblical account (Exodus 3) has the Angel of the LORD in the bush, Ezekiel has a divine Logos. Logos language, then, is Angel of the Lord language, (cf. also Wisdom of Solomon 18:15f, reworking 1Chron 21:16.
2. Similarly, though Wisdom has had her own independent history within Israelite culture, she has already been identified with the Angel of the LORD long before early Christianity. This is clear from Sirach 24:4 where Wisdom takes up the position of the Angel of the LORD in the cloud of Exodus 14:19 and Wisdom of Solomon 9:1-2, 18:15-16 where Wisdom, Logos and Angel of the Lord are equated.
Wisdom and Logos, then, both point to the importance of angelic categories as the common denominator in Jewish mediatorial speculation."

"In the 19th century the Berlin Old Testament student, who was also editor of a church newspaper and an ecclesiastical politician, Ernest Wilhelm Hengstenberg, in his many-volumed work on the Christology of the Old Testament, concentrated upon the Early Christian identification of Christ with the angelic figures of the Old Testament, particularly the archangel Michael." (Formation of Christian Dogma, Professor Martin Werner, page 137)

"In the Primitive Christian era there was no sign of any kind of Trinitarian problem or controversy, such as later produced violent conflicts in the Church. The reason for this undoubtedly lay in the fact that, for Primitive Christianity, Christ was . . . a being of the high celestial angel-world, who was created and chosen by God for the task of bringing in, at the end of the ages, . . . the Kingdom of God." The Formation of Christian Dogma, pages 122, 125.