I hope you don't mind me letting myself in. I'm Paul. We've never met. I sometimes read religiousdebate, and was intrigued by your post there. What has really amazed me is the lack of response from people calling themselves Christians. Like myself. Then again, I was working on a post calling into question a triune godhead in Christianity based on my very limited knowledge (compared to your own) of the Bible, so I'm not certain many Christians would consider me one of their own. If you'll bear with me and not brush off my relatively ignorant ramblings, I'd like to try to share some thoughts about this post to which I'm adding a comment, and the other one as well.
Will have to investigate why the author felt verse 2 was necessary after verse 1.
It has been explained to me that traditional Jewish poetry is often, although not always, written in pairs of lines. When written this way, the second line of the pair usually either reinforces the first, or provides a contrast to it. There is at least one Jewish scholar (of the Messianic variety: David H. Stern) that translates parts of John 1 as a poem, although it is not one verse per line.
You may already know this next tidbit, but I'll risk retelling you old news because I think it is relevant: the first few lines of the book of John are remarkably similar to a passage in Proverbs, beginning in chapter 8, verse 22.
I hope this helps in some way. And thanks for hearing me out. I hope I wasn't too much of a bother. I'll show myself to the door. Should the wind blow this way again and I find the door unlocked, I may stop back by in the future.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2003-09-02 08:06 pm (UTC)I hope you don't mind me letting myself in. I'm Paul. We've never met. I sometimes read
Will have to investigate why the author felt verse 2 was necessary after verse 1.
It has been explained to me that traditional Jewish poetry is often, although not always, written in pairs of lines. When written this way, the second line of the pair usually either reinforces the first, or provides a contrast to it. There is at least one Jewish scholar (of the Messianic variety: David H. Stern) that translates parts of John 1 as a poem, although it is not one verse per line.
You may already know this next tidbit, but I'll risk retelling you old news because I think it is relevant: the first few lines of the book of John are remarkably similar to a passage in Proverbs, beginning in chapter 8, verse 22.
I hope this helps in some way. And thanks for hearing me out. I hope I wasn't too much of a bother. I'll show myself to the door. Should the wind blow this way again and I find the door unlocked, I may stop back by in the future.
Sincerely,
Paul Ott