“God’s ultimate self-disclosure, the person of his own Son”

Orthodoxy from the time of Christ

Continuing with a discussion I am having at Green Baggins with a writer named CD-Host:

CD-Host 206:

Carson’s argument that you quote is that John’s Logos can’t be a reference to Philo’s Logos even though both represent an ideal man because Philo’s Logos never became incarnate.

Carson is arguing that John was fully aware that he used the word, while knowing full well that he intended to co-opt it and affix the Old Testament meaning to it.

But of course that is precisely the entire point of the Johanne prologue that the Logos became flesh and dwelt among us. That’s seems to be precisely what the Johanne community is claiming as their unique contribution.

You’re making an assumption here, and that would be Bauer’s “thesis” about multiple origins and multiple Christianities. It seems as if you’re failing to take into account the work of Hurtado and others who do take the time to peg “orthodox Christianity” to a singular event, and then to trace it chronologically through the first century. In fact, one of the key contentions that Kostenberger and Kruger make in their work “The Heresy of Orthodoxy” is that Bauer and his followers seem to have failed to take into account the whole first century. Certainly, in the second century, Christianity was in multiple locations, and its adherents were influenced by multiple kinds of influence. But that does not exclude that orthodoxy of the first century, and that orthodoxy in the first century is the downfall of Bauer.

So I don’t see how that doesn’t prove derivation. It shows development from Philo, but that is to be expected. Philo is preaching Hellenistic Judaism, John is preaching some form of Christianity.

Again, some early Christians may have had sensibilities that were influenced by Philo, but that does not exclude the “singular event” of the Resurrection that Hurtado writes about.

Kostenberger and Kruger describe this in their work “The Heresy of Orthodoxy”. In the midst of the second century heresies (and other heterodox influences) … :

One may trace a central orthodox doctrine, such as the deity of Christ, back in history in order to establish which group originated first and which one deviated from the other. Larry W. Hurtado, professor of New Testament Language, Literature, and theology at the university of Edinburgh, masterfully does this in his work Lord Jesus Christ: Devotion to Jesus in Earliest Christianity. In essence, Hurtado demonstrates the swiftness with which monotheistic, Jewish Christians revered Jesus as Lord. This early “Christ devotion,” which entailed belief in Jesus’ divinity, was amazing especially in light of the Jewish monotheistic belief that was deeply ingrained in Jewish identity, worship, and culture. The revolutionary nature of the confession of Jesus as Lord and God, especially in such chronological proximity to Jesus’ life, cannot be overstated. The study of early Christian worship of Jesus thus further confirms that heresy formed later than, and was parasitic to, orthodoxy….

Hurtado’s study of early Christian belief in the deity of Christ begins with Paul’s writings (limited to the “undisputed Pauline Epistles”) because they were written prior to other New Testament documents.

A common date for Jesus’s resurrection is 33 AD. Paul wrote letters to various churches between 40 and 60 AD. Whether or not Hurtado believes that Paul’s “disputed” letters are authentically Paul’s is irrelevant. By focusing on only the “undisputed” letters, Hurtado is able to cull

On another side of the “orthodoxy” coin, I’ll say that writers like R.T. France (in his commentary on Mark), Richard Bauckham, and Martin Hengel trace “orthodox” doctrine to Peter and his eyewitness accounts of Jesus’s life. In fact, it is possible to trace Paul’s conversion to within a year of Jesus’s resurrection. There is not much space at all here between the life of Jesus Christ and “orthodoxy”.

Again, I’ve relied on writers like Torrance and Cullmann to trace some of the initial heterodoxies in the writings of 1 Clement and some of the other Apostolic Fathers.

Kostenberger and Kruger note the progression of various heresies through the period we are talking about:

AD 40s-60s: Paul writes letters to various churches; orthodoxy is pervasive and mainstream; churches are organized around a central message; undeveloped heresies begin to emerge.

AD 60s-90s: the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament are written and continue to propagate the orthodoxy that preceded them; orthodoxy continues to be pervasive and mainstream; heresies are still undeveloped.

AD 90s-130s: the New Testament writers pass from the scene; the apostolic fathers emerge and continue to propagate the orthodoxy that preceded them; orthodoxy is still pervasive and mainstream; heresies begin to organize but remain relatively undeveloped.

AD 130s-200s: the apostolic fathers die out; subsequent Christian writers continue to propagate the orthodoxy that preceded them; orthodoxy is still pervasive and mainstream, but various forms of heresy are found; these heresies, however, remain subsidiary to orthodoxy and remain largely variegated.

AD 200s-300s: orthodoxy is solidified in the creeds, but various forms of heresy continue to rear their head; orthodoxy, however, remains pervasive and mainstream.

Consider these more extended explanations:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/05/weakness-of-living-voice-in-2nd-century.html
http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2012/06/kruger-vs-ratzinger-4-four-different.html

Just because Philo was writing during that period, and just because some Christians may have been influenced by his thoughts and writings, doesn’t mean that there is any kind of “derivation” at all.

So I’m basically not finding the argument all that convincing. To argue that John’s Logos had no connection with Plato we would want to see a much stronger conflict that just whether it was incarnate. A good example of what we would want to see is something like morality. The Good for Judaism is tied to ceremonial cleanliness , while Plato’s notion of the Good is tied back ultimately to Happiness. That’s a separate derivation and that’s the sort of thing you would want to see.

So I don’t find Carson’s argument convincing.

Aside from the fact that you got Carson’s argument wrong. Neither Carson nor the others I cited say “John’s Logos had no connection with Plato”. But John is most highly, most radically influenced by the notion that Christ (as God) is “God’s ultimate self-disclosure, the person of his own Son” (and this is the conclusion of Carson’s argument, which I cited in 194).

I would disagree with the tie between Wisdom personified, Torah and salvation in the old testament. I don’t see that at all. I see his comment as a huge jump.

There is no need to cement this “tie” because John’s primary referent, again, “God’s Word”, is directly tied to “God’s ultimate self-disclosure, the person of his own Son”. That was the overriding orthodoxy that John had in mind as he used this Greek word and concept.

[regarding “Wisdom personified”] Once you assert the evidence there are two possibilities:

There is actually that third possibility, which you fail to acknowledge, that of “the swiftness [and overwhelming depth of conviction] with which monotheistic, Jewish Christians revered Jesus as Lord.”