Mormonism

[Sibyl]

Lyons 24000 wrote:
"I never said that. I said that it is commonly accepted among Trinitarians and non-Trinitarians that he was talking to Jesus. The only type of proof I have is from Proverbs where Jesus is talking. And guess what? He's talking about his relationship to YHWH."

Quote:
“Jehovah himself produced me as the beginning of his way, the earliest of his achievements of long ago. From time indefinite I was installed, from the start, from times earlier than the earth. When there were no watery deeps I was brought forth as with labor pains, when there were no springs heavily charged with water. Before the mountains themselves had been settled down, ahead of the hills, I was brought forth as with labor pains, when as yet he had not made the earth and the open spaces and the first part of the dust masses of the productive land. When he prepared the heavens I was there; when he decreed a circle upon the face of the watery deep, when he made firm the cloud masses above, when he caused the fountains of the watery deep to be strong, when he set for the sea his decree that the waters themselves should not pass beyond his order, when he decreed the foundations of the earth, then I came to be beside him as a master worker, and I came to be the one he was specially fond of day by day, I being glad before him all the time, being glad at the productive land of his earth, and the things I was fond of were with the sons of men."-Proverbs 8:22-31

Actually, that's not Jesus talking. At the beginning of Chapter 8, it's stated that it's Wisdom talking. Some Christians say that Wisdom is another personification of the Holy Spirit, others say that it's simply a metaphorical personification, a longer and more poetic thing like one might say "Wisdom says that discretion is the better part of valor". I haven't read of any saying that Wisdom is another name for Jesus.

There was quite a lot of Wisdom Literature around at that time, but probably the only book of it that made it into the Masoretic Hebrew Old Testament was Proverbs. There were a couple more books of it in the Septuagint, which Roman Catholics and Eastern Orthodox still use as their Old Testament (and which was all the Old Testament that any Christians used until Martin Luther), "The Wisdom of Jesus (not our Jesus, but another Joshua) Son of Sirach" and "Wisdom of Solomon". There were still others that didn't get into the Septuagint either.

I do think that Jesus might have been one of the three "men" who visited Abraham (at whom Sarah laughed when they told him she'd have his son), and some others think so too, it's not original with me.

I also have this notion of Eternity, that that's where God lives and always did, and that Time, which God invented, is a special subset of Eternity. In Eternity there's no sequence, no Time, everything exists all at once, and I believe that's where Jesus went at His Ascension, so He was with and part of God and the Holy Spirit throughout Eternity, "after" having been born of Mary on Earth, so that maybe His body (from Mary) became the pattern for Adam (in His image), and also the reason for John 1 statement that He was present at Creation. But _this_ paragraph is a little far out, speculative theology, not orthodox doctrine.

[lyons24000]

If you read that verse it can't be talking about wisdom that the wise possess but something else. If God always was then wisdom was always along with Him and could not have been created.

Perhaps I jumped the gun saying that Trinitarians and non-Trinitarians alike attribute that verse to Jesus Christ. Jehovah's Witnesses sure do and since I had never heard that verse before becoming a Jehovah's Witness I just assumed it was a given. But it goes along with "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation" and "the beginning of the creation by God" saying that he was "brought forth as with labor pains".-Colossions 1:15; Revelation 3:14

So perhaps it's only Jehovah's Witnesses and Christadelphians that believe that.

[Sibyl]

Perhaps I jumped the gun saying that Trinitarians and non-Trinitarians alike attribute that verse to Jesus Christ. Jehovah's Witnesses sure do and since I had never heard that verse before becoming a Jehovah's Witness I just assumed it was a given. But it goes along with "He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation" and "the beginning of the creation by God" saying that he was "brought forth as with labor pains".-Colossions 1:15; Revelation 3:14
So perhaps it's only Jehovah's Witnesses and Christadelphians that believe that.

Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormons (I don't know about Christadelphians) have a lot of unorthodox interpretations, but the Bible is a big, diverse book, and as someone said early in this thread, you can prove almost anything some way, somewhere. Mormons, of course, have even more New Revelation to go to. The RCC does, of course, allow that private Revelations can be valid and true for the individual, but they're very, very slow (like a thousand years slow at times) making people's visions valid for the whole church. And then vocabulary varies enormously from one teaching tradition to another, so that one denomination will vary wildly from the next on what is defined to such words as "soul" or "spirit". And then there are the habits I've gotten in discussing things with Episcopalians. For example, if I use a lower-case "o", orthodoxy, I'm talking about all the Tradition of the Early Church, with, to a lesser extent, RC Tradition and EO Tradition since then, diminishingly as we approach the twentieth century. A capital "O", however, denotes Orthodoxy. I usually try to remember to say "Eastern Orthodoxy" to make it clearer, but don't always succeed.

Anyway, we probably need another thread on "Who is a Christian?" at which EL (I think) hinted, and by which of the several definitions used for that very important word. But that question can be very divisive. On my own "home" List, mostly Anglican, it's a regulation insult that gets thrown, with the liberals telling the conservatives "You're denying the spirit of the Gospel" and the conservatives telling the liberals "You're denying (x) verse or (y) Canon of the Apostolic Church"

I do know one thing, all the Mormons (including my mother-in-law's brother, RLDS) and JWs that I know in my Real World are Good People.