MHmaryhelena wrote: ↑Thu Mar 28, 2024 1:16 amPeteLeucius Charinus wrote: ↑Wed Mar 27, 2024 11:03 pm
- "For many deceivers are entered into the world,
who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh.
This is a deceiver and an antichrist." (2 John 1:7)
I'm not sure this NT text can be taken both ways. I don't know any Greek - but the wording is strange if the writer was attempting to discredit those who disbelieved a historical gospel Jesus existed.
Another easter.
The writer calls such people (who refuse to say JC came in the flesh) "deceivers and antichrists". That's pretty heavy terms of discreditation. In fact by playing the antichrist card it seems to be that these "deceivers" were to be regarded as the pinnacle of (antichristian) heresy.
But the assertion in 2 John was that these (unnamed) people refused to believe that Jesus came in the flesh.''Jesus Christ is come in the flesh' hardly seems to be an argument one would argue against a historical Jesus.
Like Julius Caesar or Augustus or Seneca or Marcus Aurelius or Faltonia Betitia Proba "came in the flesh"? I see the expression as another way of saying such people were incarnated into (a human body) history. But we're all entitled to our own views. History in many aspects must remain hypothetical.ie a human man born of a human woman. ''come in the flesh', seems to me, to refer to some theological notion of a spirit taking on flesh.