Biblical Hebrew Forum

[peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG]

Well, I was not trying to make Theophilus an orthodox Trinitarian 
(anachronism? not by John Ronning's explanation) Christian. I am just 
suggesting that on this particular issue his interpretation matches 
the later "orthodox" one, thus disproving any suggestions that that 
was an invention of Athanasius or others in the fourth century.

I admit to not knowing much about this Theophilus. But I do know that 
in the 2nd century there was a gnostic movement with a partially 
Christian basis. Does Theophilus fit in there? If so, that would 
explain his thinking. First Paul says Jesus=firstborn, and John says 
Jesus=logos. The next generation (by simple mathematics!) makes 
firstborn=logos (is there any evidence of this in the earliest 
post-biblical Christian writers, the "Apostolic Fathers", does anyone 
know?). Then the gnostics want to move to a more spiritualised 
teaching, and so they keep firstborn=logos but reject the equation 
with a particular man Jesus. Now how this ties up with Philo I don't 
know. Maybe not at all. But then I am far from an expert here.

Peter Kirk


______________________________ Reply Separator 
_________________________________
Subject: Re[4]: Translations and Arian Bias
Author:  mc2499 AT mclink.it at internet
Date:    01/04/1999 22:35


At 20.58 01/04/99 -0500, peter_kirk AT SIL.ORG wrote:
>Well, maybe they knew the tradition of Philo, but maybe they just knew 
>John (who called Jesus Christ the Logos) and Paul (who called Jesus 
>Christ the firstborn - actually John or his followers did also, 
>Revelation 1:5) and put two and two together. For that matter, they 
>could have derived their understanding directly from Proverbs 8:22ff. 
>Also, I am not sure that you can call texts which are probably 
>derivative from Colossians and a century or so later part of its 
>cultural context. But thank you for showing that the "orthodox" 
>Christian view of the firstborn was clearly understood in the second 
>century.

I showed no such thing, for it is very hard to bring such texts into a 
notion of orthodoxy. None of the "Christian" texts I mention acknowledges 
either Jesus or the Christ -- in fact Theophilus gives us an etymology for 
"Christian" as directly derived from the notion of anointing, missing out 
on a grand occasion for making the Jesus Christ connection.

I did attempt to show that there is a clear Middle Platonic tradition 
shared by Philo, Theophilus, Athenagoras, and Col 1:15-17. Such a 
tradition, with its consistent usage of first-born and related terms, 
should make it clear that there is no logic for the special pleading that 
some people are making for the anomalous translation used in Col 1:15, 
given the latter's similarity with those other texts.

The Proverbs 8 material is quite interesting, for Philo shows no knowledge 
of it -- as far as I can tell -- and, as you point out, it does in some way 
belong in the same tradition. Philo, writing in Alexandria and perhaps 
without Hebrew, may only have had the pentateuch and (some of) the psalms. 
The major problem in an analysis of Proverbs in the wider context of 
Mediterranean thought is that of dating (again). Is the personification of 
wisdom an independent development or does it partake in the tradition that 
comes from Heraclitus through Plato and onward to Posidonius, the Stoa and 
Philo? Dating could help to clarify.

As to the Johannine Logos poem, Theophilus knows it, but gives away nothing 
to suggest that he knew the gospel. This suggests an independent life for 
that poem.


Ian


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