Reply to Mike’s Comment

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Mike, who’s doing a master’s in linguistics and has a BA in Greek, posted this comment on my post about Nick Norelli’s “I am God” post: “For one your description of the dependent clauses of verse 40 is methodologically flawed. Dependent clauses are not created from simple sentences. Whether you’ve studies linguistics, I do not know, but that sort of “deep structure” for such grammatical constructions has been rejected by the vast majority of linguists – even the one who first proposed them (i.e. Chomsky – cf. most recently The Minimalist Program theory). Dependent clauses always function differently that independent clauses. At a discourse level, they function as offline material, not online.” As usual, all “you”s here are directed towards Mike.

Mike: it was easy for you to claim that my description is “methodologically flawed” but I sensed you found it hard to prove and support such claim. Here’s why:

1. Although you didn’t mention it, you are probably referring to Transformational Grammar (TG) which arose from Noam Chomsky’s original work which has deep and surface structures, and that his most current theory now is called Minimalist Program, which you mentioned. Yes, a lot of linguists has offerred competing grammar frameworks and grammar theories of how to interpret and understand the structure of languages, like (1) generative grammar, (2) dependency grammar, (3) cognitive grammar, (4) stochastic grammar and (5) functional grammar. Generative grammar itself includes TG, GPSG, LFG & CG with Minimalist program (MP) as a subtype of TG. Each of them has their own specific and different methodologies and terms in explaining generation, movement, transformation, phrasal structures, etc., if ever they have any comparable treatment of such at all or have terms and concepts that are common at all. Your rebuttal is vague because you failed to mention which ones of these grammar theories is more scientific and acceptable to you, if there is any or if you do not believe in any of them. Let me restate the weakness of your counterclaim: “methodologically flawed”, but under what grammar framework or theory? Please remember, any dependent clause generation theory developed under one of those framework can be described as flawed using a competing grammar theory or framework due to lack of consensus among theoretical linguists. So here’s your homework: specify which grammar framework and whose version you subscribe to and show me how from that framework my description is methodologically flawed. Show me what restrictions there are, if any, in combining simple sentences into one complex sentence through subordination in such framework. But if you really are keen on disproving my description, try using RRG (role and reference grammar), since it has a more universal theoretical foundation (thus sounder, leaner, more flexible and has more explanatory power) than generative grammar theories or framework, particularly Chomskyan grammar theories or TG. RRG has not been fully extended or researched on some areas of linguistic theory though so if you want, you can try to supplement it with a modified LFG (lexical functional grammar) or TG. And from that I will respond to you point by point.
2. You thought that my description is based on “deep structure”, and that since it is based on “deep structure that has been rejected by the vast majority”, then my description is flawed. But I did not say that my description is based on “deep structure”, I was just couching my description of sentential structures in terms that are accessible. Therefore, my description is not flawed in the manner of “Transformational Grammar’s deep structure is flawed” according to your understanding. The force of my argument that Jesus said he is a man is based on simultaneous recognition that (a) in structure, “a man” is an adjective verbless dependent clause from a copula verb embedded in an independent clause, or an appositive phrase attached to an independent clause “You seek to kill me”, and (b) in origin, this dependent clause was made from a simple sentence (or independent clause) “I am a man” which is of the copulative sentence type (aka copula-type sentence). [The appositive phrase "a man" can be treated as a verbless clause of the copula-type verb without a subordinator. This kind of analysis of course cannot be applied with phrases that are not clausal/sentential arguments or modifiers in a larger syntactic unit.] And that is independent of any grammar theory, such that it can be restated under different grammar theories. I agree with you that dependent clauses function differently than independent clauses, whether on a conceptual level (semantic, pragmatic, cognitive, discourse, etc) or morphosyntactic level. But that confirms very much the structure part and never disallow the origin part.
3. You said that “that sort of ‘deep structure’ for such grammatical constructions has been rejected by a majority of linguists”. Yet you failed to cite and quote any published article, book or journal by even one linguist of any grammar theory that corroborates your claim that majority of linguists rejected constructing dependent clauses from simple sentences, so your claim in effect is vacuous, without any real substance. What you need to do to strengthen your arguments is to provide a proper citation of a linguist under a defined grammar framework and quote and explain what that linguist said, in relation to the impossibility of combining simple sentences through subordination. Unless you do so, my view of your counterclaim is that it is just disagreeing for the sake of disagreeing.

Therefore, my description or analysis withstood your criticism, and until you are able to overcome the weaknesses of your counter-claims, it will stand. Don’t worry whether I am a trained linguist or not, just throw off those technical stuffs and jargons and I will wade myself through them. You would know anyway if I understand those technical stuff by the sensibleness of my replies.

Onto the second paragraph of your comment where you said: “Secondly, Paul, quite clearly, believes that Jesus is God – evidenced from his regular use of κυριος throughout his letters – he regularly aligns OT passages that refer to YHWH and puts Jesus in that position. If you have’t read, Pauline Christology by Gordon Fee, then you need to.” It seems your not sure at all that Paul believe Jesus is God, you modified “clearly” with “quite”. But before I answer your comment, let’s have a short digress.

I didn’t mention it in my earlier post to Nick, but a true prophet does not exceed what YHWH said (Deuteronomy 18:20-22, Jeremiah 23:28-32). Jesus, being a true prophet (Matthew 21:9-11, 46; Luke 4:21-24, 7:14-17, 24:19, John 6:14-15) foretold by YHWH through Moses who is himself a prophet (Deuteronomy 18:15-19, Acts 3:20-23), followed the words of YHWH by declaring YHWH as the only true God. Had Jesus declared a different God, he would not be a true prophet. I’ve already given ample proofs in my reply to Nick establishing what Jesus teaches, so I will not mention it anymore here. How about proof of being a true disciple of Jesus? In the same way, Jesus said that those who are his sheeps listen to his words, believes in him and follow him (John 10:26-27) and a true disciple remains in his words and they will come to know the truth (John 8:31-32). Now, lets use this test with Paul. Did he or did he not say that Jesus is a man? Did he wrote Jesus is God instead? Which one did he wrote explicitly? Before we answer that, I need to point out to you that if what Paul said is different than what Jesus said, he has not remained in Jesus words, thus he is not a true disciple and has not known the truth. If he did say Jesus is a man and that the Father is the only God, then he is a true follower of Christ, a true Christian, not a pseudo-Christian like trinitarians. So which one is it?

According to the writer of Acts, Paul is a disciple (Acts 9:26-27; 20:7). So Apostle Paul must have taught and written the same as what Jesus also taught and spoke. That is confirmed by the Bible as Apostle Paul himself wrote verbatim and unequivocally, that “to us” (that includes him), “there is one God, the Father…and one Lord (kurios), Jesus Christ…” (I Corinthians 08:4-7) and that Jesus is a man (1 Timothy 1:1-2; 2:3-5). So no, Apostle Paul didn’t clearly believe Jesus is God. Instead, he believes Jesus is a man and that the Father is the only God. See how everything connects and how there are no contradictions in the Bible, properly interpreted. Your claim about Paul’s beliefs is against what Paul himself explicitly wrote, a contradiction between you and Paul. On my part, it is not difficult to decide and choose whom to believe, and to know whether you are saved or not. It is safe to say then that your understanding of Paul’s belief that Jesus is God is, “very clearly and more than quite clearly”, just an extrapolation, and worse, a misrepresentation of Paul’s actual views and my views are not.

It’s clear to me now that you failed to totally engage my arguments, as you touched only about dependent clauses, never said a word about my stance that Jesus corrected those Jews, and redirected your comments instead to Apostle Paul’s supposed belief, which is a different topic. I would like to point out to you that if you fail to disprove my claim that Jesus corrected the Jews about their understanding that he is equal with God or is a God, then you have shattered all Trinitarian claims that Jesus is God. Why? Because these very verses are Jesus actual words about himself. All other people whom you will cite or any verse that you will quote where it is not Jesus who is talking or writing about himself, even if it can be proven that they indeed recognized Jesus as God, are just ascribing to Jesus things that Jesus did not said himself. These citations then are weaker and can be shown to be a rebellion againt Jesus. Even Paul said that if he, in any one of his epistles or in the Acts, or any other apostle proclaim a different good news, then he should not be believed, even if that verse can be proven to be not a forgery (Galatians 1:6-9). You and those other authors of books that you have cited are therefore not to be believed (Deuteronomy 13:1-3), calamity will befall you and them (Deuteronomy 13:4-5, Jeremiah 14:14-16, Ezekiel 13:6-10) and YHWH will require an account from those who did not believe Jesus (Deuteronomy 18:18-19), and that includes you.

I will not devote time about Trinitarian misconceptions about Apostle Paul’s writings here as this post’s topic is originally about the validity of arguing the deity or humanity of Jesus from finding him saying the exact words “I am a God” or “I am a man”. As for your contention that Apostle Paul regularly aligns OT passages that refer to YHWH and puts Jesus in that position, there is an answer to that without resorting to believing that Jesus is God. Even if the answer is already in my head, I will not answer in this post but will wait until you have replied and provided a more substantial rebuttal that my description of combining simple sentences into a complex sentence through subordination is methodologically flawed. I will give you time to do some reading of the Bible. Who knows, you might find it yourself and in that way, you will cherish the fact that its you who discovered it.

Mike, I’ve read some of your blogs. It’s good that you have a strong interest in biblical hermeneutics and in translation. Keep the motivation up. My parting words: Since you love to read books, don’t just feed your mind with books that agree with your current stance. Read books that directly contradict your stance and evaluate the merits of their arguments. This way, whatever belief you settle in, you will have firmer conviction. But most of all and hopefully, may you stumble on the truth. Lastly, give the Bible a weighter value than those books which try to explain it but in fact undermines it, these will lead you astray. I pray that may you be set free from blindness which Satan has shrouded this world. Cheers.

I will be going on a 3 week holiday to Southeast Asia from tomorrow, so I can only reply to comments after I come back.

Reply to Nick Norelli’s “I am God” Post

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This post is for Nick Norelli who stated that “Of course Jesus never used the exact words: “I am God” (ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ θεός) but why should that be evidence that he never claimed deity? Many people who use this argument might be interested to learn that Jesus also never spoke the words “I am a man” (ἐγώ εἰμι ἄνθρωπός) either. Would we assume from the lack of such a specific statement that Jesus was not a man? Of course not, so why assume such from the lack of the other statement? ….Yet he didn’t use the exact phrase “I am a man” (ἐγώ εἰμι ἄνθρωπός). The point of this post is that if his not using the exact words “I am God” is enough to conclude that he is not God, then the same can be said about his being a man.” Instead of posting another comment in his blog like I did before, I decided to put forward a full rebuttal here. Any “you” here is addressed to Nick and others who are thinking in the same way as he.

Well, I still maintain that Jesus said he is a man. If you examine closely what Jesus said in John 8:40 (“Ye seek to kill me—a man who hath spoken to you the truth I heard from God”), it is a complex sentence, which can be broken into 4 simple sentences: (1) “Ye seek to kill me”, (2) “I am a man”, (3) “I hath spoken to you the truth”, (4) “I heard the truth from God”. It would be very awkward, immature and unnatural to say it as “Ye seek to kill me and I am a man and I hath spoken to you the truth and I heard the truth from God” or even “Ye seek to kill me. I am a man. I hath spoken to you the truth. I heard the truth from God” in contrast with what was written.

Jesus subordinated the 3 other sentences by making them dependent clauses. The 1st sentence was the main or independent clause, the second sentence is a noun clause in the form of an apposition or an adjective clause modifying the direct object of the 1st, the 3rd sentence as an adjective clause modifying the complement of the 2nd sentence or the direct object of the 1st sentence, and the 4th sentence as an adjective clause modifying the indirect object of the 3rd sentence. Dependent clauses are either preceded by relative pronouns or conjunctions or can be without them and the counterpart in the dependent clause of the part of the sentence they modify is omitted. Yes the exact phrase is not there, but only because it was subordinated. So yes, he did say he is a man, essentially.

The point of my comment is that it can be shown that Jesus did say he is a man (“me, a man”) but it can never be shown that he said he is a God, either in an independent clause (“I am a God” or “We is/are a God”) or in a dependent clause (“me, a God” or “us, a God”) or other formulations. So the assertion that he is a man because he said he is a man and that he is not a God because he did not say he is a God is both valid and true; to assert that he is a God even if he never said he is a God but instead said he is a man would be distorting the scriptures, and you know the penalty for that.

Additionally, your point that Jesus never corrected them is plainly untrue. You said “The fact remains that Jesus’ audience thought he claimed to be God enough to want to kill him for making himself equal with God (Jo. 5:18) and stone him for blasphemy (Jo. 10:33). They must have had some basis for doing so, even if Jesus didn’t use a specific phrase that some people argue he must have to claim deity…..Also, their understanding was quite correct, which is why Jesus never corrected them.” The whole story can be read from John 5:1 to 10:42. The Jews were persecuting him because he instructed the sick man to pick up his cot and walk on a sabbath (John 5:16), thus to them a violation of the 4th of the 10 commandments. YHWH made the Sabbath holy and Israel should also keep it holy (Exodus 20:8,11), no one should go out of his place (Exodus 16:29) or work during the Sabbath (Exodus 20:10-11) and any man defiling it by working is to be put to death (Exodus 31:14-16). When the Jews confronted him, they all the more wanted to kill him because he is calling God “my Father” which to them is “making himself equal with God” (John 5:18). It’s a commandment that anyone who blasphemes God is to be put to death (Leviticus 24:15-16), so to the Jews who misunderstood him, he is guilty right away, deserving a sentence equal to a double death penalty. But he is not blaspheming as he is not making himself equal with God. He corrected them by explaining that by himself, he can’t do anything and he was sent (John 5:19-23, 30; he who sends is greater than he who was sent – John 13:16), those who will not believe him will have their judgment (John 5:24-29), there are others that bear witness about him and to the truth (John 5:31-47) , called once more God “my Father” (John 5:43) with no recorded response by the Jews, and afterwards he left. Later he was saying “my Father” in reference to God again and there were no more objections because Jesus has already justified why he is calling God his Father. He pointed out that its the Father who is the God (John 6:27) . In another encounter with the Jews, he said they wanted to kill him because his words finds no place with them (John 8:37). And he called God again “my Father”(John 8:38), and to avoid a repeat that he could be misunderstood as making himself equal with the Father, he said he is a man, a man who is telling the truth (John 8:40).

Before the stoning incident, they themselves called God their Father as well (John 8:41-42). Yet in another encounter with Jews, when Jesus called God “my Father” and said that he and his Father are one (John 10:30), they tried to stone him because of blasphemy for, according to them, he is making himself a God although he is a man (John 10:33). Yet again Jesus corrected them, saying that in the same way that others are called “gods” by the scriptures, he is also since he is the sanctified Son of God (John 10:34-36). If you look at that part of the scriptures cited by Jesus, they are called “gods” because they are Sons of God (Psalms 82:1-2,6). Now, if you use that to believe that Jesus is a God, you should take it back as you are also making these others God(s) as well. Yet he never said “I am a God” or “They are Gods” but that it is the Father who is the only true God (John 17:1-3). Why? because he knows the truth, he keeps telling the Jews of it (John 7:16-18), its very plain in their sight yet they do not believe him because God’s words have no place in them. And I would suppose you also know why the Jews thought he is making himself a God when he said he and the Father are one, because it is the same verse used by Trinitarians to prove that Jesus is God, thoughts which are very similar to that of the Jews. If you notice, the Jews allegation has changed, from “making himself equal with God” to “you make yourself a God”, from equality to identity, for apart from calling God his Father, he also said they are one. This is another misunderstood saying of Jesus, for the oneness that he meant here between him and the Father, without adding words to the Bible, is not about Godness or diety, but about the function of protecting the sheeps. Jesus said “no one will snatch them out of my hand”, in the same way that “no one can snatch them out of the hand of the Father” (John 10:28-29). Thus they are one in not allowing anyone to snatch the sheep out, of protecting them. And these verses are right before the verse where Jesus said he and the Father are one, thus he is making a conclusion.

If you read from John 5:1 to 10:42 and you do not understand what he meant, then you are in the same position as the Jews and Muslims who think that God cannot have a son who is a man, unless the son is claiming equality with God (or is making himself a God) or is blaspheming God. Pay special attention to John 10:25-27 and read John 12:47-50 and Matthew 13:13-15. So please go over every line of my arguments and check if your Greek Bible confirms it. And heed Jesus when he said not to judge by appearance (John 7:24). Now hopefully this is the kind of apologetics that you might like. But more importantly, may God have mercy on you to see the truth in what Jesus said and renounce this false belief. You may post your comment anytime you like. Cheers.

PS: To a commenter named Drew who said “Anyone who is looking for Jesus to say “I am God” has no sense of metaphor along these lines which is prevalent in his revelatory activity among the disciples” is joking and does not know the Bible at all. Anyone who publish, translate or interpret (teach, preach or study) the Bible must not add to it, especially a metaphor that contradicts what is written. We must reject fables (1 Timothy 4:7; other versions use either myths, tales, fiction, legends, or stories; choose whichever is most acceptable to you) and those unlearned and unstable who distort those hard to understand things are sowing their own destruction (2 Peter 3:16).