is, the old pompous word confuses and hides the true meaning: the only son of his father, He is the only son of the Father, born by the Father Himself, nothing unusual. Here is just one question: how would a mortal person who wrote the Prologue know about the family circumstances of God Himself? Moreover, to dare to tell these God’s family details in a completely earthly way, describing the relationship between fathers and children? From this point of view, such statements look like unscientific fantasy: why would God reveal his family secrets to mere mortals? Thus, it turns out that from the Teachings of Jesus here there is only, for the first time, the definition of God: not just an impersonal collective name for the Jewish names of God, but by the name revealed to us by Jesus. It is this line that most vividly indicates the late editing of the text dating back to the beginning of the theological battles waged by the “Orthodox” with the “Gnostics” from the second century.
Let’s proceed.
“15 John testifies of Him, and, exclaiming, says: This was the One about whom I said that He who followed me stood in front of me, because he was before me.”
Where did he say, to whom did he say and when? —Well, in the following story about the visit of John by the Pharisees. The author of the Prologue reveals himself: he first read the Gospel of John, and then wrote the prologue to it. That is, he put the cart in front of the horse.
“16 And from His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace,” – of whose fullness, Jesus fullness? What is meant by fullness? In the church teaching there is the concept of the Fullness of the Holy Spirit, which the Church possesses, But “grace upon grace” draws more attention. That is, it turns out, you can add a little more Spirit to the Spirit of God, strengthen God, multiply Him, increase Him? Since God is the Spirit, then either he is present in all his Fullness or not at all, the Spirit is not divided into parts. But, in any case, this is the subject of theological controversy much later than the supposed time of the writing of the gospel at the end of the first century.
“17 for the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came about through Jesus Christ "– ah!, that’s the point: after all, some implicit, but certainly saving part of grace, it turns out, was contained in the Jewish Law given by Moses, and Jesus added to it his grace-truth, and then the graceful grace happened: the Old Testament merged with the New one. On this basis, today an idea is being carried out and a new, revolutionary idea is being put forward about the equal salvation capability of the New and Old Testaments: for Christians, Salvation is in Jesus, and for the Jews – in the Torah..
To the obvious absurdity of this multi-storey religious structure, it remains – for “fullness” – to add that, according to modern scientific views, biblical heroes, including the above-mentioned Moses and the Jewish ancestral god Yahweh-Jehovah himself, are fictional heroes, and the entire biblical history of the Jewish people – a collection of folk tales and, of course, a fantasy. As for “through Jesus Christ,” the very attachment: Christ = Mashiach = King of the Jews, which is expected by the Jews according to the biblical OT-prophecies, to the Name of Jesus, reveals that the author of the Prologue a Messianic Jew.
“18 No one has seen God at any time; The only begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He has revealed "– and how can this true statement be combined with all the previous? And how can this be Jehovah, whom so many had seen already: Adam and Eve, Abraham with Sarah, and Moses (from behind) and even Elijah the prophet, and who appeared to many biblical characters from behind, from the front, or even sideways, and even in the form of pillars and other horror stories, and more than once arranged personal beatings with or without reason. And again, editorial interference in the text: “the Only Begotten, who is in the bosom of the Father”– all this, I dare to insist, is a reflection of much later theological disputes that theologically, have never been completely resolved. And the victors, the “Orthodox” (church orthodox) prevailed only exclusively by “police” measures – as always. “I am the Father in the bosom” is lost in translation, hinting both at Jehovah and at the “pregnancy” of God with his Son. But in fact ὁ κόλπος πατήρ literally means “the one who is on the father’s chest”, that is, simply “beloved.” “He revealed”: ἐκεῖνος – he who; ἐξηγέομαι – to tell, show. So, in sum: “No one has ever seen God; the only beloved son told about Him”.
Whoever the author of the Prologue was, he was definitely not a disciple of Jesus.
John Chapter 1, continued
Well, let us pass, however, to ev. John from verse 19, what do we see? Priests and Pharisees came to John from Jerusalem to find out who he is. So what? He announced to them that he was not Christ (Messiah-Messiah-Anointed-King of the Jews), neither Elijah, nor a prophet – but who are you? Voice of One Crying in the Wilderness: Correct God’s Ways – Like Isaiah the Prophet[37]said. About Isaiah and his sophisticated prophecies suddenly recalls the one who appeared from the wilderness, where he was, according to Luke, from infancy (Luke 1.80: “80 But the baby grew and became strong in spirit, and was in the deserts until the day of his appearance to Israel” – this is all about him), overgrown with wild hair and never washed in life, a prophet, a savage, illiterate.
Does God need to clear the road?
And then – a question to him from the sent priests and Pharisees: why do you baptize?
From the point of view of the Jews, the question is meaningless and insane – what kind of baptism by washing with water from a river “for the remission of sins”? Sin is forgiven only by a bloody life-for-life sacrifice and nothing else. If they were sent to John, it was only for the purpose of arrest, trial and execution for blasphemy: “who can forgive sins, except God?”
Further, John elaborates before the Pharisees about “going in front” to baptize with the Spirit – who would listen to him. But the most interesting is yet to come. “28 This took place at Bethabar near Jordan, where John baptized” – in the ancient codes it is written in Bethany [38], and later converted to “Bethavar”, that is, “river crossing or ferry” – let’s remember this. Bethany is located three kilometers from Jerusalem, and thirty to fifty kilometers from Jordan, so John could hardly baptize “in Jordan” in Bethany, and therefore pious editors in later lists transported the obviously impossible Bethany to some faceless “ferry” (through Jordan, of course), which must have been on the Jewish side somewhere opposite Jerusalem, in the Jericho area – in general, no matter, geography is not a master’s science, and the authors of the Gospel are clearly at odds with it. This is followed by a whole speech, addressed to an unknown person, very pathetic: when the Jewish inspectors left, literally the next day, John suddenly sees Jesus (walking towards him) and speaks about Him to someone undefined,: “Behold the Lamb of God.”
“29 The next day John saw Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God who takes on himself the sin of the world.
29 – firstly, he sees Jesus coming to him and immediately recognizes in Him the one who was predicted to him – but how? Second, in what sense is he the lamb that takes away the sins of the world? Only in one way: the lamb was slaughtered and burned in the Jewish ritual sacrifice “for the atonement of sins”, and it turns out that Jesus was by his Father-God intended “for the atonement of sins” as a sacrifice to Himself? Whatever Heavenly Father, sounds like Ivan the Terrible, killing his own son. And thirdly, it is strange to hear about the Jewish sacrifice from exactly the
