come true.
As part of our investigation into the origin of the Gospel texts, let us proceed to chapter 1 of ev. John.
It is important to understand that – and this is acknowledged by all biblical scholars – the Prologue is not part of Gospel from John, but only precedes him – the gospel itself begins with the 19th verse.
That is, verses 1 to 18 are not what Jesus said and taught, are not his teachings and the Good News or a story about him and his gospel – but represent a certain philosophical doctrine of God, worked out among the disciples and followers, presumably, John the Evangelist circle. It is their collective idea of the God whom Jesus preached, and of Himself as the Son of this God.
And what are these ideas? Unfortunately, here we meet as many as three levels or heaps of Jewish, Gnostic and finally Hellenic wisdom.
Let’s analyze.
Chapter 1, verses 1—2: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 It was in the beginning with God.”
At the beginning of what? God is without beginning. This means that His Word is without beginning. Here, obviously, the beginning means the biblical creation of the world: “1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was formless and empty, and darkness was over the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the water” – what was before, and what God was BEFORE the act of creation, the Bible is silent about it, but in the act of creation this god is Ellohim, (Gods). The plural for word “God” (El) – what does it mean? Apparently, the pagan “Pantheon” of gods, which the Jewish Bible (this is the official scientific name of Old Testament) and earlier sources mention time and again. And in John 1.1, what God is this? In the Greek original, Θεός, that is, just God, but in Hebrew this “just God” Θεός = אֱלֹהִים, that is, all the same Ellohim (Gods)! There is clearly a return to the biblical version of the Creation.
Therefore, it is about the same Jewish gods again: either Ellohim (Gods) from the first chapter of the book of Genesis, or Yahweh from the second chapter.
Simply put, the penetration of Judaism elements is detected – first, but not at all last. Whoever was the author of this verse of the prologue, he is a Jew by faith, this is obvious.
Next begins the manipulation of the concept of Word. If God Himself is the Word, then how can He have the Word – he has Himself or what?
We find the answer in William Barclay’s work, he is professor of theology at the University of Glasgow. From his book Commentaries on John: “For over a hundred years before the birth of Christ, the Hebrew language was forgotten. The Old Testament was written in Hebrew, but the Jews, with the exception of scholars, no longer knew it. Therefore, the Old Testament had to be translated into Aramaic so that people could understand it. These translations were called ‘Targumi’. Targumi were created in an era when people were filled with the thought of the transcendence of God and could only think that God was very distant and completely incomprehensible (the idea of the transcendence of the mono-God was borrowed by post-captive Judaism from Zoroastrianism during the Babylonian Captivity of the Jewish people – auth.) And therefore, the people who were engaged in the preparation of Targumi were afraid that human thoughts, feelings and actions would be attributed to God. In other words, they made every effort to avoid, when it comes to God, Yahvist anthropomorphism (humanization).”
That is why the authors of the targums began to replace the “too human-like” God everywhere in the text of the Tanakh with the WORD of God, as His creative power. Which turned out to be very consonant with the idea of the divine Logos (Word), which created the world and governs it, which was prevalent in Greek-speaking philosophy for over four hundred years, starting with Heraclitus. And although the Jews themselves by the time when Jesus lived had long abandoned both the Targums, returning to Hebrew, and from God’s Word, as from a heresy that was planted in Judaism by Philo of Alexandria, this very idea turned out to be very useful for the evangelist, who sought to substantiate the Divinity of Jesus for recently pagan Christians: “You have thought, written and dreamed for centuries about the divine Logos. Jesus is this Logos who descended to the earth”, ” The Word became flesh”, – the author of the Prologue told about Jesus to the former Greek-pagans Hellenic-Christians what they understood.
All this wisdom is a mixture of Jewish religious and Hellenic philosophical ideas in the name of the Teachings of Jesus “to pass more easily” so that new converts do not choke on what is “for the Jews it is a temptation, for the Hellenes it is madness.” This is the usual propaganda of religious innovation.
Let’s read on.
3—5 “Everything through Him began to be, and without Him nothing began to be that began to be. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” This is philosophical poetry, on which hundreds of books have been written. But God is still the same – Jewish one.
“6 There was a man sent from God; his name is John. 7 He came for a testimony, to testify of the Light, so that all might believe through him. 8 He was not a light, but was sent to testify of the Light. 9 There was a true light that enlightens every person who comes into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own did not accept him. 12 But to those who accepted him, believing in his name, he gave authority to be children of God, 13 who neither of blood, nor of the desire of the flesh, nor of the desire of a husband, but of God they were born. 14 And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth; and we have seen His glory, the glory as of the Only Begotten of the Father”
From which God? All the same, from the Jewish Yahweh, (in Judaism of Jesus’ times the difference sin interpretations was already explained by the fact that the God in the Bible is the same, only the names are different). And here suddenly the Light appears, which is: true – in what sense? Light is matter, now we know this, but the evangelist did not. And therefore he gets confused in the matter: he speaks of light sometimes as the actual light, sometimes – light in a figurative sense, and the light is starting to assume the mystical meaning of divine origins. If we mean the “light of reason”, then those who come into the world will not reach the reason to soon, and it is mainly those around them that enlighten them. Let us recall the “Mowgli” found in India – it remained a beast, since the “light of reason” did not touch him outside of human society, in the absence of human communication. If, however, Light is the Creative Power of God (“the world began to be through Him”), then there are already two Creative Powers, and even three, or even four: besides the Word and Light, there is also Spirit and Wisdom mentioned elsewhere. But the key to this is simple – all this is a reference to the secret knowledge of the Gnostic doctrine. That is, in addition to the religious Jew and the Hellenic philosopher, the Gnostic also had a hand in the Prologue. Then “he came to his own and his own did not accept him” – a return to Judaism, his own – these are God’s chosen Jews, who else? “And to those who accepted” – here is the beginning of the “theology of replacement” developed and preached by Paul: the Jews killed the Messiah in the person of Jesus, and therefore Jehovah’s Choice passed to those who believed that Jesus is the very Messiah, the Anointed One, the King Jewish.
“He gave the power to be children of God, who… were born of God” – and only here is the speech of Jesus about the Beginning from Above, about the Son of God of all who believed in the Heavenly Father and His Son
