Fw: BEAST OF REVELATION

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Michael Frazier did say:
> 1 Tim 3:16, in the Masoretic Texts (sp?), clearly shows Theos as the
> subject of this sentence written by Paul to Timothy.  Paul clearly 
> stated that this was a mystery - something hidden. 


1) There has never existed a masoretic text of 1 Timothy.

2) The oldest and most reliable NT texts have "he" not "God" there. 
Even the Alexandrinus ms has "he" there in the original reading. It was 
misread for centuries because of a "strikethrough" from the letters on 
the other side of the page. This fact has been known since the 1700s.

You may be trying to refer to Textus Receptus, which indeed has "theos" 
in this verse. I am aware of the fact that American fundamentalists 
have some sort of love affair with the 1611 King James Version, but 
like all love affairs it's built on rosy illusions not facts. 

I take a little bit of offence at your style, Michael. Your opinions 
about the nature of Christ and God are just fine. It's just that either 
we admit it or not, the Bible -- even the NT alone -- is quite 
ambiguous on Christology. It was not even a topic for serious 
discussion in the first century, since questions about essence and 
substance belonged in the world of Greek philosophy not in the oriental 
world view of the Jews.

The NT does reveal a few hints:

* Jesus is the son of man, ie. he is human.

* Jesus is divine. He is not explicitly stated to be divine in the 
period between his birth and his resurrection. This may or may not be 
important.

* Jesus is subject to God the Father during his life on Earth, and 
later.

* In some sense, Christ preexisted his birth as a human.

* There is only One God.

* Many roles attributed to Yahweh alone in the Old Testament is applied 
to Jesus Christ in the NT. 

* Only Yahweh could be worshipped under the law. Jesus Christ is 
clearly worshipped in the NT.

Out of these facts and quote a few others that I have forgotten, many 
people have created different sets of doctrines. All of them are at 
least dangerously close to ignoring or violating some of the other 
"proof texts" in the NT. Different people, Arians, Modalists and 
Trinitarians have been involved in a snowball fight for over 1500 
years, throwing arguments at each other and carefully avoiding any good 
points made by the opposition.

What I say is: take your pick. Considering the *difficulty* of this 
field, a little bit of caution and humbleness is in order. What is 
TRUTH to you may not be to everybody else. There is no proof either 
way, hardly even substantual evidence. Please acknowledge that there 
may be valid counter-arguments to your ideas. Don't say, or imply, that 
some hot eternity awaits those who happen to disagree with you. 
Remember the pharisee who boasted to God about not being like the tax 
collector... 

God may have other standards than us. Also remember that God is far 
beyond any idea, doctrine or vision we may have about Him. Any attempt 
to violently force God into our box-like ideas are presumtuous to the 
extreme.


Cheers,
- Jan
-- 
          http://home.sol.no/jansh/wteng/jwindex.html