I’ve framed what might be the most famous passage from the Christian New Testament; for those who don’t know, it’s from the opening paragraph in the last anonymous gospel to be invented in a Roman dialect, which we now know as the Gospel of John.
Here it is repeated:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God
This notion of “the Word”… well, it’s not to be found in any earlier-written books of the Bible… and it’s directly lifted from Philo of Alexandria’s thoughts, which are themselves a synthesis of ancient Greek and ancient Judean theology… I double-checked my understanding of this with ChatGPT (which was not the source of this understanding for me, I’ve just used it as a valuable double-checking mechanism) which you can view, if you’re interested, here:
A chat with ChatGPT
Today I’d like to ask any believing Christians how they think that an anonymous author from thousands of years ago could know such things about any “beginning”…
Is it more likely that the anonymous author of “John” was reworking existing Greco-Jewish mythology to fit within the context of an emerging Romanized religion, or that they were inspired by Lord Yahweh to relay true facts about reality?
And a thought to take away: isn’t it telling that Philo of Alexandria (who was born before Jesus of Nazareth would have been, if He were a real boy, and who died after Jesus of Nazareth would have, had He been a real boy) believed in the Word, the first-born son of Yahweh, a pre-existent agent of creation, AND that Philo identified this Word with the [supposed] first high priest of the second temple, the Anointed Yehoshua (Jesus Christ)? To my mind, it’s far more likely that the Jesus of Nazareth character was loosely based on this theological tradition (via Paul’s drivellings, which were themselves directly inspired by Philo’s writings, as is especially evident in Paul’s letter to the Romans) rather than being loosely based on some “historical Jesus” (as so many secular scholars seem to think).