"You Must Be Born Again"

[Raf]

I was reading one of Bart Ehrman's books and he made an interesting point about the verse in John 3 where Jesus tells Nicodemus "you must be born again."

The word "again" is anothen, and can mean "from above" or "from the beginning (that is, again)."

Because of the double-meaning, Nicodemus is confused and asks if he can return to his mother's womb. Jesus clarifies it for him.

According to Ehrman, this conversation could not have taken place as described, and Ehrman gives a compelling reason for it: The conversation relies on the ambiguous meaning of a Greek word -- anothen -- which can be taken one of two ways. The problem, of course, is that our characters are not speaking in Greek. They're speaking in Aramaic. And in Aramaic, there is no word you can place there that carries the same ambiguity.

Thus, this was a story written in Greek, best understood in Greek, and highly unlikely to be an account of an actual conversation that took place in Aramaic.

Curious to know what others think.

[Steve Lortz]

I find the gospel of John curiouser and curiouser...

Luke wrote two volumes, and so was able to split his presentation of material into pre- and post-resurrection development. John had to retroject post-resurrection material back into his gospel account. I think that's why there is so much more theological exposition in John than in some of the other gospels.

I'm inclined to think that being "born again" originally referred to being raised in the resurrection, but Paul and John insisted that we were already "born again" when we became Christians...

Just some food for thought...

Love,

Steve

[WordWolf]

What do I think?

First of all,

I think I wouldn't take Bart Ehrlich too seriously unless I was looking for

excuses to give up being a Christian. The man's view about the resurrection

is that it didn't happen and was fictional, and that's just to start with.

I consider people far too quick to consider a matter to ONLY reflect their

point of view and close a matter before actually reviewing things. In his

case, far too quick to conclude something is a problem with the text, and

never a problem in his understanding of what's going on.

Second of all,

I think the view towards what's happening isn't taking into account what

happens. Human nature has not changed in 2000 years. People hear what they

want to hear and ignore or alter the rest.

("Abraham looked to my day and saw it." "How dare you say you saw Abraham?")

That is now, and that was then as well.

Nicodemus didn't quibble over a word, he quibbled over a concept-

that of a man his age, a grown man, being born.

I looked this over in English, Greek, and Aramaic, and the same point existed

no matter where I looked.

New King James Version John 3:3-4

"3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

4 Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?”

NIV John 3:3-4

3 Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.”

4 “How can someone be born when they are old?” Nicodemus asked. “Surely they cannot enter a second time into their mother’s womb to be born!”

NASB John 3:3-4

3 Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”

4 Nicodemus *said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?”

Nicodemus, in each case, objected PRIMARILY to "a man being born when he is old."

When discussing how that supposedly would work,

he constructed (the Straw Man Fallacy is not a recent invention) a ridiculous

scenario so he could object to it.

For a man to be born when he is old, a man would have to re-enter his mother's womb to

be born a second time. How silly. So, Nicodemus can blithely dismiss Jesus' saying

since it's obviously nonsense, and he can go home and forget the whole thing.

==================================

According to Nicodemus' thinking, what was the word (phrase?) Jesus used with "born"

there? Was it "again", "from above", or something else?

Nicodemus DIDN'T LISTEN. Nicodemus heard "man born" and flipped out on that.

Whatever else Jesus said was irrelevant.

I'll demonstrate. I'll swap in a placeholder, nonsense word and Nicodemus' objection

sounds just as sensible and just as silly.

John 3:3-4 KJV (with nonsense word) 3 Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born splunge,

he cannot see the kingdom of God.

4 Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his mother's womb, and be born?

In that exchange, the meaning of the word "splunge" is irrelevant to Nicodemus' concerns,

because he's objecting to a man being born.

The same would apply with the gender-neutral examples of "one" in the versions above,

but in 2014 it lacks the same impact, so I used the KJV in an example because the "man"

is closer to what Nicodemus was hearing and thinking.

(If you really need me to, I can do the same with the other versions, but you can

do it yourself in your head easily enough.)

[Raf]

Good answer, and well put. At least, the second half was. The first part, about Ehrman, was irrelevant to the point. It was ad hominem. If you're going to challenge Ehrman, challenge what he says, not who he is. The rest of your post hit the mark, though.

[WordWolf]

Good answer, and well put. At least, the second half was. The first part, about Ehrman, was irrelevant to the point. It was ad hominem.

You asked what I thought.

"Curious to know what others think."

Excuse the heck out of me if you don't like what I think.

If you wanted me to confine my response exclusively to the point,

you might have phrased your request in a less open-ended fashion.

If you're going to challenge Ehrman, challenge what he says, not who he is. The rest of your post hit the mark, though.

I'm glad you noticed that when I challenged what Ehrman said, I hit the mark.

I'm sure some people might have dismissed what I said for their own reasons,

but I really think I had a legitimate point and would have said so whether or

not I said it or even agreed with it.

[Raf]

I didn't say I don't like what you think about Ehrman. I said it's irrelevant. My question was what you thought of his point. Please advise if I need to address you as a Sheliak when asking future questions. :)

[waysider]

Purely as a matter of clarification, the original poster was asking if Ehrman had a valid point in observing that the conversation may not have actually taken place at all, rendering meta discussion of its contents a moot point. Is that correct?

[WordWolf]

Purely as a matter of clarification, the original poster was asking if Ehrman had a valid point in observing that the conversation may not have actually taken place at all, rendering meta discussion of its contents a moot point. Is that correct?

If I understand how we got to this thread,

Ehrman read the account, and the "anothen doesn't mean 'again', it means 'from above'" thing,

realized that was in Greek when this conversation would have been in an Aramaic dialect

(or whatever language he thought but not Greek), and concluded that the misunderstanding

of Nicodemus was due to misunderstanding a word that had more than one meaning.

Taking that as a conclusion and a given, he further concluded that the conversation

could not have happened, since the confusion would have been dependent upon it being

written in Greek, which would have meant the conversation couldn't have pre-dated

Greek versions of the Gospels, which would mean the account wasn't in any original,

which would mean it was made-up.

The original poster read that, and wanted to know what we thought about all that,

presumably, specifically if we thought he was correct or incorrect, and why

in either case.

My response was to show that the original conclusion was premature, and that there's a

much simpler explanation than Ehrman thought, and that it wasn't dependent upon any

definitions of words.

Maybe during the week, I'll go grab my books again and check if "anothen" should be

translated "again" AT ALL- my thinking until now was that it never should have been

and should have been "from above" all along. IIRC, I studied that out in 1989 and

came to that conclusion.

[JumpinJive]

...The man's view about the resurrection is that it didn't happen and was fictional, and that's just to start with...

I don't think that's the case, WW. He has said repeatedly that miracles, including the resurrection, are not historically provable. They may or may not have happened but believing they did is a theological proposition, not an historical one.

I wish this stuff was historically provable. It would resolve a lot of issues.

-JJ

[Steve Lortz]

Since the time of Schleiermacher in the early 1800s, liberal protestant theology has held that miracles were scientifically impossible, because of Newtonian determinism. Therefore, every account of a miracle in the New Testament, including the resurrection of Jesus Christ, had to be a myth invented by the early Church.

The revolution in science prompted by quantum mechanics in the early 1900s restored the scientific possibility that miracles actually happen, but liberal protestant theology has not yet caught up with this possibility.

Ehrman can reject the miraculous from his understanding of the Bible if he wants to, but he no longer has a scientific reason for doing so.

I looked up anothen in my copy of Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon. It says, "Adverb of place from above, from heaven... of time, from the beginning..." Liddell & Scott give no indication that anothen can be translated "again."

Just my $.02 worth...

Love,

Steve

[dabobbada]

Well,

Here we go again, on this corner, we well be building the church of the Holy Splunge,

And on that corner, the First Church of the Sacred Sheliak. :o/>

;)/> :P/> :lol:/>

[Ham]

I remember (kinda) being born once. Can't remember the previous times. Do I really have to go through that again? Oh well..

[RachelYsrael]

Here's another point of view for your consideration.

[WordWolf]

That may indeed be another point of view,

but it doesn't seem to address the initial question at all.

(I'm not watching more than an hour just to confirm that.)

[Ham]

Any Friend of Ralph, I would take seriously..

Edited June 19, 2014 by Ham