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b-hebrew - Re: [b-hebrew] Doctorates (PhD or ThD?)

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  • From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk AT qaya.org>
  • To: Kevin Graham <kevlds AT hotmail.com>
  • Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [b-hebrew] Doctorates (PhD or ThD?)
  • Date: Mon, 05 Sep 2005 13:39:11 +0100

On 05/09/2005 12:35, Kevin Graham wrote:

...

I'll give you a perfect example of what I'm talking about. A couple of years ago I was discussing the Gospel of John with a student from Dallas Theological Seminary. He insisted the Bible teaches that God is not anthropomorphic, metaphysically, because John 4:24 demands such an interpretation. I pummeled him with scholarship indicating how anthropomorphism was the norm for the Ancient Jewish understanding of God, and how it passed over to the early Christians. He went further to say that the "rules of Greek grammar" insisted on his interpretation, and he said this was something he learned from his Greek professor at DTS. Now this is something you could only learn at a "Bible college."

I emailed Evangelical Greek authority, Carlton Winbery about this and he pretty much said this was nonsense. The question for God's metaphysics is one for a theologian, and not something that can be conclusively determined through "rules of Greek grammar."


Kevin, this is getting a bit remote from b-hebrew, but I think here you have a case of a student who has misinterpreted what he has studied, and mixed his theology and his Greek. The rule he learned for John 4:24, "God is spirit", is a well recognised rule of Greek grammar, Colwell's Rule. For a discussion of this rule by a faculty member at the same Dallas Theological Seminary (incidentally I think this institution has the rule about graduation which I referred to earlier), very likely the same Greek professor the student referred to, see http://www.bible.org/page.asp?page_id=1812. The rule is somewhat controversial, but it is not "something you could only learn at a "Bible college."" Indeed, it was originally published in JBL: Colwell, E.C., "A Definite Rule of the Use of the Article in the Greek New Testament," JBL 52 (1933) 12-21.

The student's oversimplification was in claiming that it is this rule and this verse which implies that God is not anthropomorphic. The rule may imply that *for the author of John's Gospel* God is not anthropomorphic. (Actually I think this is clear whether or not Colwell's Rule is applied to this particular verse - even without this rule I don't think anyone would actually understand it as "The (Holy) Spirit is God", or "God is the (Holy) Spirit".) A further step has been introduced here which is part of the student's, and the seminary's, theology, that the gospel of John and/or the words of Jesus are inerrant and authoritative - although many might consider that even this theology has been applied over-zealously if used to reinterpret Hebrew Bible passages which appear to suggest human characteristics of God.

--
Peter Kirk
peter AT qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk AT qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/



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