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« on: January 14, 2013, 12:46:06 PM »
When filmmaker Mel Gibson prepared his script for his film “The Passion of the Christ,†he must have found the Pshitta’s82 translation of Paraclete as “Paraqlayta†problematic for obvious reasons. It would have been awkward for an Aramaic-speaking Jesus, in the midst of a discourse with his Jewish disciples, to use a recognizable Greek word with a Semitic twist. He rather opted for the translation as it occurs in the Syriac lectionaries used by the Assyrian churches in Iraq, also known as the Ancient Apostolic Church of the East. In these texts, the word for Paraclete is rendered “Munahma,†which according to author Karen Armstrong, may be equivalent to the Arabic Ahmad, and certainly sounds as if they are derived from a common root. Therefore, the scene as it occurs in the film has “Jesus†say, “Do not be afraid, the Helper (Munahma) will come, who speaks the truth about God (Allah).†Nineteenth century Scottish orientalist William Muir, who once said that Islam is the “only undisguised and formidable antagonist of Christianity,†claimed in his book “The Life of Mahomet†that there were Arabic translations of the Gospel of John from the eighth and ninth centuries CE that translated Paraclete as “Ahmad,†albeit erroneously according to Muir.
In John 16:7, Jesus makes it clear that the coming of the Paraclete is directly contingent upon his (Jesus’) departure: “á¼á½°Î½ Î³á½°Ï Î¼á½´ ἀπέλθω ὠπαÏάκλητος οá½Îº á¼Î»Îµá½»ÏƒÎµÏ„αι Ï€Ïὸς ὑμᾶς†(For if I do not go, the Paraclete will not come unto you). This is interesting because the orthodox has consistently told us that the Paraclete and the Holy Spirit are one and the same. But if the Paraclete and the Holy Spirit is essentially the same person, are we then to suppose that Jesus and his disciples were completely devoid of him? The Gospel of Luke tells us that the Holy Spirit was with Elizabeth (1:41), John the Baptist (1:15), Zacharias (1:67), as well as with Simeon (2:25). All of these people chronologically predated Jesus Christ, yet the latter says clearly in John that the Paraclete had not yet arrived.
The Synod at Constantinople in 381 CE testifies to the fact that the early Christian church also found the Johannine readings about the Paraclete problematic and thus attempted to better define his nature and function. The most crucial verdict arrived at by the bishops of the Council was undoubtedly the judgment that the Holy Spirit was co-equal, co-eternal, and co-substantial with the Father and Son and therefore fully God, the third person of a triune deity. The old Nicene Creed hammered out over fifty years earlier was revised and the Niceo Constantinopolitan Creed was born. The bishops proposed a creative solution to the problem of the apparent incongruities between the Holy Spirit and the Paraclete of the Fourth Gospel. The Cappadocian Fathers, representing the orthodox findings, concluded that the Holy Spirit possesses the divine attribute of pre-eternality, meaning that he eternally proceeds from the Father (and scandalously from the Son as well [filioque] in the Western churches), but is also sent to the earth at certain times in history. In other words, the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds but is also economically sent.
Therefore, when Jesus speaks of the Paraclete coming after his departure, he is simply referring to the coming of the Spirit to the physical world in temporal terms, and just as the Son was eternally begotten by God before the creation of time and matter, yet economically sent into the world over two thousand years ago, the Holy Spirit also pre-existed and was sent, not once, but many times into the world. This solution, however, still fails to adequately account for the presence of the Holy Spirit before and during the ministry of Christ. When Jesus made the conditional statement recorded by John in 16:7, the Paraclete was clearly not with him on earth yet apparently accompanied his cousin John the Baptist and his mother Elizabeth. This also creates a major problem when trying to reconcile the Augustinian orthodox notion that the presence of the Son necessitates the presence of the Father and Holy Spirit and that all three persons are inseparable in their actions. The intercommunion of the three persons “guarantees the involvement (of all three).â€
The theological gymnastics of the early orthodox, as well as the vastly diverse opinions regarding the nature of Christ during the first four centuries of the Common Era, demonstrate the obvious and painful truth that the deficiencies lie in the scriptures themselves. There are over 5,500 manuscripts of the New Testament in Greek, from credit-card sized John Ryland’s papyrus number 52 (P52) to the vast ×01, but no two of these manuscripts are identical. John Mill’s 1707 CE attempt at an eclectic text of the Greek New Testament led him to state in his primitive apparatus that he found over 30,000 differences in the one hundred or so manuscripts that he had at this disposal. The irreconcilable Christologies of the synoptic evangelists coupled with John’s Logos simply render it impossible to arrive at a coherent and consistent profession of Christian faith. Even a theologian as early as Origen of Alexandria (d. 254 CE) once complained:
“The differences among the manuscripts have become great, either through the negligence of some copyists or through the perverse audacity of others; they either neglect to check over what they have transcribed, or, in the process of checking, they make additions or deletions as they please†(emphasis mine).
Consider also Origen’s Pagan opponent, Celsus, and Dionysius, the orthodox bishop of Corinth (d. circa 171 CE) who said respectively: “Some believers, as though from a drinking bout, go so far as to oppose themselves and alter the original text of the gospel three or four or several times over, and they change its character to enable them to deny difficulties in the face of criticism.†“When my fellow-Christians invited me to write to them I did so. These the devil’s apostles have filled with tares, taking away some things and adding others. For them the woe is reserved. Small wonder then if some have dared to tamper even with the word of the Lord himself, when they have conspired to mutilate my own humble efforts.â€
John 16:13 reads: ὅταν δὲ ἔλθῃ á¼ÎºÎµá¿–νος τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς ἀληθείας á½Î´Î·Î³á½µÏƒÎµÎ¹ ὑμᾶς εἰς πάσαν τῆν ἀληθείαν Î¿á½ Î³á½°Ï Î»Î±Î»á½µÏƒÎµÎ¹ ἀφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ ἀλλ᾽ ὅσα ἂν ἀκούσῃ λαλήσει καὶ Ï„á½° á¼Ïχόμενα ἀναγγελεῖ ὑμῖν “However when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, [that] shall he speak: and he will show you things to come.â€
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. I would of course have to refuse for my heart is filled with the love of the one and only God, who cares and loves me so much that He personally has assured me of direct access to Him, when ever and wherever I choose. I come to Him walking He says and He will come running, I ask and He promises to answer, I repent and He promises forgiveness. All this and all He asks in return is I live my life here in the healthiest way possible and fulfill my duty towards my family, neighbors, community and ensure that my behavior including what I say and do is a source of benefit to them and not Harm. He admonished me against taking for a conscience other than He, be it science, my culture, emotions, desire... for that would amount to ascribing partners unto Hm or shirk. How can I not heed such a warning from one who has shown me so much love and care? How can I steep so low as to worship that which is of human creation or a figment of imagination and not honor the invitation of The Mighty, The Just, The Beneficent, The Merciful?