> I believe the archives will bear this out: 1) I was not the one who
> brought up the issue of contradictions, rather, 2) two other
list-members
> brought it up. This is how it happened. One list-member, at least
> several times, commented that 1 John has contradictions throughout.
> Another list-member seemed to agree and suggested 1 Jn 2:7-8 as a good
> example. That was when I responded and attempted to show
> non-contradiction because of the two different ways KAINHN was being
> used.
All right, I confess, I will not deny, but confess that I was the
offending party that caused the notorious thread to come up again. I
apologized to Jonathan within a couple days when I noted that it was
putting him in front of the firing line. It took a couple days because
that is the delay I normally have in receiving and reading the digests.
I believe that the original thread had been allowed to die down, and
the statement which kicked it all off again was:
> BTW, Jonathan, it appears to me that verses 7 & 8 of chapter 2
support
> your notes in the past concerning conflicting statements in the book.
> We have to continually fight the tendency to soften these statements
so
> that the points that he is making can continue to have their "shock
> effect." Of course, we note as you have that these statements do not
> make John undecided in the points that he is making.
[The "we" was referring to the translation project that I am a part of.]
But, Paul, I also believe that you and the others that went after
Jonathan's position were more concerned with semantics than you were in
understanding what other people were actually saying. I used
"conflicting statements," Jonathan [at least at times] used
"contradictions," others [of which I think you were one] wanted to use
"paradox." But all of us involved in the the discussion agreed with
the last statement quoted above: that John was not undecided on the
issues.
I note that Carl does not claim that this thread was without merit,
just that it got out of hand. Perhaps a better way to handle issues
where we feel the need to "present the other side" is to ask the
original poster for further insight in his position on that particular
area that we are questioning. I realize that sometimes genuine
differences do occur, but frequently we are all saying the same thing
using different words.
Peace,
Paul
Paul and Dee Zellmer, Jimmy Guingab, Geoffrey Beltran
Ibanag Translation Project
Cabagan, Philippines
zellmer@faith.edu.ph