RickD wrote:Please don't confuse me. You're starting to sound like that other guy who doesn't believe Jesus is the Christ.
Maybe if you got the confidence up to beat your wife she'd be more willing to explain it to you.
But then again, what chance do we have? We can't even decide how a sentence ought to be punctuated. We might be paddleless in the proverbial creek.
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Philip wrote:Seriously, Jac, are their many such passages that you find so unclear - or any that might have tremendous significance, per the uncertainty?
Actually, yes. The nuance here is what we mean by "tremendous significance." Does the signifance relate to the truth of any particular doctrine, as if without a clear resolution some core truth is suddenly without support? No, not one. But there are a lot of passages--and I do mean a lot--where how you read these sorts of things effects the main point you think the author is making. Just take this one as an example. If we take the normal reading "apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. In Him was life . . ." you have this natural break between the sentences and you might even allow some space for the possibilit of some things just being there by necessity and therefore not necessarily made by through Christ. That latter point isn't a necessary conclusion to draw, but the reading might allow for that (the same way the first person plural language in Gen 1 allows for a Trinitarian reading). More important, though, would be the natural break. Verse 4 would say, "In Him was life . . ." so that you have this clear break in subject matter. Vv 1-3 relate Jesus as being God and specifically to His role in the creation of all things. Then, v4ff would switch subjects from Jesus as Creator to Jesus as Life Giver. And that's a perfectly legitimate reading, and the theology is easy to follow. Good theology! But suppose you take the other reading. Now there doesn't seem to be any room to see a shift in the subject matter. Vv 1-3 still talk about Jesus as Creator, but now the things which "came into being" are equated with "life." So it seems now you either have to say that John is narrowing his perspective to one aspect of "that which came into being" (i.e., life)--and that doesn't seem to me to be a tenable option--or else to see a connection between "life" and
everything that came into existence. What's doubly interesting in this view is verse 6 starts with the same word we've been talking about at the end of verse 3! (Pull up the verse on BlueLetterBible and you can see it for yourself.) So given all this, it would seem actually that John isn't merely talking about Jesus as Creator in the first three verses, but rather really hightening Jesus' (God's) sovereignty over every single aspect of existence. On this view, we might paraphrase 1:3-6a to say,
- Everything comes about through Jesus; indeed, nothing comes about without Him. And what comes about in Him is Life. That life is the light of men. It shines in the darkness [and death] of this world; indeed, this dark world doesn't see or understand that light or life. Now one of the things that came about [through Christ] was a man named John . . .
Suppose that's right. I think that's significant. Does it change any major doctrines? No. But it does give a different flavor, if you will, to the text. I'm not saying that view is right. I'm undecided. I am saying, though, it is significant. And, yes, there are lots and lots and lots of passages like that. None of that means that you can't read your English Bibles and understand what it is saying. I mean, even if the suggested paraphase is right, the traditional translations still get 98% of that idea, and the other 2% can still be seen if you look closely enough. And that even more if you read enough translations where you are aware of the problem of translation.
When I went through the book of Philippians this way in seminary, almost all of the class every single week was discussions like this. We'd consider the various possible semantic classifications and what the implications of each would be. It was really fun. But, again, I emphasize that as common as these problems are, not one of them has anything to say about foundational Christian doctrine. More than anything, it's a matter of nuance, detail, and clarity on this or that point. Not unimportant and it is worth studying and forming and opinion on. But nothing that people should use to conclude that their English Bibles are trustworthy (unless you have a Message Bible. That's one is untrustworthy. Just get rid of it.
)
Can you order from a menu in less than a half hour? What if your wife expresses herself ambiguously - what, do you just go by tone (usually a certainty)? 
Do you conjugate Greek to fall asleep at night? 
