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Friday, 8 March 2024

"The first and the Last" demystified.

 Isa. 44:6 / Rev. 1:17 "First and the Last"

"First and Last"  

Another interesting example of the "title confusion trick" frequently used by anti-Watchtower trinitarians is the use of "First and Last" at Is. 44:6 and Rev. 1:17.

(Actually you might prefer to call this a "description-confusion trick" since Jehovah calls himself Protos kai ego meta tauta - "First and I [am] hereafter" - Septuagint, Is. 44:6; whereas Jesus calls himself ho protos kai ho eskatos - "The First and the last" - somewhat similar descriptions but  much different wording or title.  (Is. 48:12 is sometimes used , but it says in the Septuagint that he is: protos, kai ego eimi eis ton aiona - "first, and I am into the ages.")

Is. 44:6 - "Thus saith Jehovah, ... I am the first and I am the last; and besides me there is no God .... (:8)  Is there a God besides me? ... I know not any." - ASV.

Rev. 1:17 - "... And he laid his right hand upon me, saying, Fear not; I am the first and the last, (:18) and the Living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades." - ASV.

The trinitarian "proof" goes like this: "since only one can be first (and last), and since Jehovah is `first' (and `last') and Jesus  is also `first' (and `last'), then they must both be the same one!"  Therefore, they say, Jesus must be Jehovah!

The answer is, of course, that there can be many who are "first and last."  We must discover, from context, in what sense they are "first and last."

For example, in the Biblical understanding of the meaning of the term "first and last" (or "only"), Adam was "the first and last" human created from the dust of the earth.  But calling him "the first and the last" would certainly not mean he is Jehovah, and it does not mean he is Jesus (although any devious Bible student could find such "evidence" at 1 Cor. 15:45)!

We could certainly call Jesus "The first and the last" because he was the first and last (only) direct creation by Jehovah himself.  The rest of creation from  Jehovah came through Jesus.  But, instead of speculating on the many ways Jesus could be considered the "first and the last" (only), we need to examine the use of "first and last" in context to discover in what sense it probably was intended originally!

Examining Is. 44:6, 8, we see that "first and last" refers to Jehovah being the only person who is the Most High God: "I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God ... I know not any." - compare Is. 43:10; 2 Sam. 7:22; Deut. 4:39.

Now if we examine Rev. 1:17, 18, we can see in what sense "the first and last" (only) is intended there.  Context shows that it is not (as it could have been) in the sense of the only direct creation by the Father, Jehovah, and it is certainly not in the sense of the only true God (John 17:1, 3), but it clearly refers to the resurrection (the dying and then living again) of Jesus!

Notice that the entire context refers to death and living again: Rev. 1:17: 

"I am the first and the last, (:18) and the living one; and I was [or `became'] dead, and behold I am alive for evermore, and I have the keys of death ..." - compare Rev. 2:8 (the only other place Jesus calls himself "the first and the last").
  
Jehovah, the Father, uses the expression at Rev. 22:13 - and makes no reference to dying and living again, apparently intending it as he did at Is. 44:6 - "I am the only God."
So in what sense is Jesus the first and last (only) resurrected person?  Just as  he was the first and last (only) of Jehovah's direct creations (and all other things were created through Jesus), so Jesus was also the first and last (only one) of those resurrected to eternal life who was resurrected directly by the Father (Jehovah) Himself (and all others are to be resurrected through Jesus who now has "the keys of death") - see John 6:39, 40; Acts 3:26; Acts 13:30, 33, 38.

Posted by Elijah Daniels

Heat pumps to the rescue?

 

Ephesians5:5 demystified.

 Eph. 5:5 and "Sharp's Rule"


In an attempt to prove the trinity doctrine, Granville Sharp made up a rule in 1798. It is often called "Sharp's Rule" by trinitarians. It says, in effect, that when two or more words (nouns) in the original Greek New Testament (NT) text are joined by the word "and," they all refer to the same person if the word "the" (the article) comes before the first noun and not before the other noun(s). 

For example, if we saw "the king and _master of the slave" in the Greek text of the Bible, it would always mean, according to Sharp, that only one person was being called both "king" and "master." ("King" and "master" are joined by "and" - - but only "king" has the article 'the" with it.)

Sharp invented this rule after he noticed this particular construction (sometimes called a "Sharp's construction") was used with "God" and "Christ" in 5 places in the NT. If he could convince others that his "rule" was true, then they would think there was finally (after 1400 years of a "trinity" tradition) absolute grammatical Bible proof that God and Jesus are the same "person"! 

One of the 5 "proofs" of Jesus' Godhood according to Sharp is found at Eph. 5:5.  

... en th basileia tou cristou kai qeou [symbol font]

"...in the kingdom of the Christ and God" 

Since the first noun ("Christ" here) has the article ("the") with it and the following noun ("God" in this scripture) does not have the article ("the"), then (according to Sharp) God and Christ are the same person!

There are a number of reasons why Sharp's Rule, as applied to these 5 "proofs," is invalid. One important strike against it is the fact that even many respected trinitarian NT grammar experts and translators have rejected it as a valid rule - e.g., see G. B. Winer; J. H. Moulton; C. F. D. Moule; Dr. James Moffatt (see Titus 2:13; and 1 Tim. 5:21); Dr. William Barclay (2 Thess. 1:12); and Roman Catholic scholar Karl Rahner (2 Peter 1:1).

For example, examine the following trinitarian Bible's renderings of these "Sharp's Constructions":

2 Thess. 1:12 - KJV; KJIIV; NASB; NAB (1970); MLB; LB; GNB; RSV; NRSV; NIV.

Eph. 5:5 - KJV; KJIIV; RSV; NRSV; LB; MLB; NIV; NEB; REB; GNB; TEV; NAB (`70,'91).

2 Tim. 4:1 - most trinitarian Bibles.

1 Tim. 6:13 - all trinitarian Bibles.

These many respected Bibles, translated by expert trinitarian New Testament scholars, clearly disregard Sharp's "Rule" at these (and other) places and show two persons being spoken of!

Notice Eph. 5:5, for example. Most trinitarian Bibles translate this example of Sharp's Construction: "in the kingdom of Christ and of God" - KJV; NRSV; RSV; NIV; NEB; REB; NAB; Douay; MLB; LB; GNB; TEV; The Amplified Bible; Third Millenium Bible; New Living Translation; New Century Version; God's Word; Holman Christian Standard Bible; Wesley's New Testament; Phillips; and the Webster Bible. This is not the way it would be translated if the two descriptions were of the same person! (At the very least it would be rendered more literally as "the kingdom of the Christ and God.") Instead it clearly shows two persons!

Also, 1 Tim. 6:13 is translated in trinitarian Bibles as: "before (in the sight or presence of) God ... and before Christ Jesus...". Although Sharp's Rule insists that this should be translated to show that it is speaking of the same person, it obviously is not! Most trinitarian grammar experts simply do not believe Sharp's Rule is a valid absolute rule! Of the many reasons invalidating Sharp's Rule grammatically there are at least two of extreme importance - each of which is conclusive by itself.

(1) Prepositional Constructions (with phrases containing prepositions: "of God;" "in the Lord;" "God of...;" etc.) are known by all NT grammarians to cause uncertainty of article usage. That is, if a prepositional phrase (including genitives) is attached to a word, that word may sometimes have the article ("the") and sometimes not have it -- without changing the intended meaning! (See A. T. Robertson, pp. 780, 790, 791; C. F. D. Moule, p. 117; J. H. Moulton, pp. 175, 179-180; et al.)

This means that the NT writers sometimes wrote, for example, "The God of me" (with article) and "_God of me" (without article) with exactly the same intended meaning. The definite article ("the") was ambiguous in such cases.

Therefore any grammatical rules which depend on the presence or absence of the article in the NT Greek must not use as examples those scriptures which use a prepositional construction attached to a word (noun) in question if they are to be used honestly and properly.

But if you examine the 5 trinitarian "proofs" above, you will see that they all use such prepositional constructions: "of us" in (a) Titus 2:13 and (b) 2 Peter 1:1 is a "prepositional" genitive, and even "savior" itself is a genitive in both scriptures and literally means "of savior;" "Lord" in (c) 2 Thess. 1:12 is a genitive and literally means "of Lord" (as rendered in the Modern Language Bible; Living Bible; Good News Bible; Douay Version; New American Bible [1970 ed.]; and Barclay's Daily Study Bible); "Christ" in (d)1 Tim. 5:21 is a genitive and literally means "of Christ" (as in the Good News Bible [& TEV]; New American Standard Bible; Modern Language Bible; Revised Standard Version; and New Revised Standard Version); and "God" in (e) Eph. 5:5 is a genitive and literally means "of God" (as in the King James Version; Revised Standard Version; New Revised Standard Version; Living Bible; New English Bible; Revised English Bible; Modern Language Bible; New American Bible (1970 & 1991); Douay Version; New International Version; Good News Bible; and Phillips translation).

Therefore all 5 Sharp's "proofs" are invalid on the basis of prepositional constructions alone!

(2) New Testament scholars, including noted trinitarian NT grammar experts, point out that the use of proper names ("John," "Moses," "Jesus," etc.) also causes uncertain article usage in NT Greek. (A. T. Robertson, Grammar, p. 791, and Word Pictures, p. 46, Vol. iv; C. F. D. Moule, p. 115; J. H. Moulton [Turner], Vol. 3, pp. 165-167; et. al.)
So not only did the NT Bible writers sometimes use the article and sometimes not use the article with the very same intended meaning with the very same proper name (e.g. "the James" and "James"), but even when a proper name is used as an appositive it also causes irregular article usage with the other associated nouns. - Robertson, pp. 760, 791.

For example, when "Jesus" and "Christ" are in apposition to each other ("Jesus Christ" or "Christ Jesus"), they are nearly always (96% of the time - see SHARP study paper) written without the definite article in the writings of Paul regardless of "Sharp's rule" or any other grammatical/syntactical consideration!

If we examine the first 4 of the 5 "proofs" above, we see that the proper name "Jesus" is used as an appositive with the word in question in each case! In other words, "Christ Jesus" is the appositive for "savior" in Titus 2:13. This means sometimes "savior" will have "the" with it in such a situation and sometimes it won't (with no change in meaning). "Jesus Christ" is the appositive for "savior" in 2 Peter 1:1, and article usage (or non-usage) with "savior" in the original NT Greek in such circumstances is virtually meaningless. "Jesus Christ" is in apposition to (an appositive for) "Lord" in 2 Thess. 1:12. And "Jesus" is in apposition (at least) to "Christ" in 1 Tim. 5:21. These examples, therefore, are completely invalid as evidence for Jesus being God even if there were actually some validity to Sharp's "Rule" with proper examples! And the 5th example, Eph. 5:5, is incredibly poor in context alone. Even noted trinitarian scholar A.T. Robertson has to admit that the 'evidence' of Eph. 5:5 is doubtful - Word Pictures, Vol. 14, pp. 46 and 543. No objective person could accept it alone as real evidence of Jesus' Godhood!

Some PREPOSITIONAL examples found in NT Greek:

"The God of Abraham and _God of Isaac and _God of Jacob" - Luke 20:37.

"The God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob" - Matt. 22:32.

"James, _slave of God and _Lord Jesus Christ" - James 1:1

"By command of _God savior of us and _Christ Jesus" - 1 Tim. 1:1.

"I am the root and the offspring of David" - Rev. 22:16.

Some PROPER NAME examples found in NT Greek:

"having seen _Peter and _John" (no articles) - Acts 3:3.

"holding fast ... the Peter and the John" (both articles) - Acts 3:11.

"beholding the outspokenness of the Peter and _John" (Sharp's) - Acts 4:13.

"But the Peter and _John" (Sharp's construction) - Acts 4:19.

So we see the Bible writer who is recognized as the most knowledgeable in NT Greek (Luke) showing the great ambiguity of article usage with proper names. If we did not exclude proper names as valid examples, we would have to agree that either Luke believed Peter and John were the same person or that he was completely unaware of Sharp's Rule (or any first century equivalent)!

* * * * *


So, although we can find such constructions as "the king and master of the slave" where the first noun (with the definite article, `the') is the same person as the second noun (without the definite article), there is no grammatical reason that this must always be so. Such constructions as "the boy and girl" and "the President and Vice President" (found in Amendment XX [as ratified in 1933] of the Constitution of the United States of America), which refer to more than one individual, are just as grammatically correct in both English and NT Greek.

Posted by Elijah Daniels

The fossil record continues to be a hostile witness re: the Darwinian narrative?

 Fossil Friday: Direct Fossil Ancestors of Living Species?


This Fossil Friday we look into a question that relates to two previous posts about gradual species-to-species transitions (Bechly 2019) and chronospecies (Bechly 2024). It is the often posed obvious question of whether there are any known fossil species that are believed to be the direct ancestors of living species, thus not just cousins on side branches of the stem group but actual stem species on the stem lineage.

Given that there are millions of living species and each of them must have had numerous successive ancestral species in their stem lineage, we might expect to find a lot of examples in the technical literature. However, actually there are only very few cases, where such direct ancestor-descendant relationships have been proposed. All these cases are only weakly supported and not uncontroversial. They are generally restricted to groups with a rich Plio-Pleistocene fossil record.

A Few Assumed Examples

Among the few examples for mammalian species would be the extinct European canids Canis etruscus (featured above) and Canis mosbachensis as assumed ancestors of modern wolves (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution_of_the_wolf), or the extinct Bison antiquus and Bison occidentalis as assumed ancestors of the modern American bison (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bison#Evolution_and_genetic_history), or the extinct Elephas hysudricus as ancestor of the modern Asian elephant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_elephant#Evolution). Another example might be the steppe mammoth Mammuthus trogontherii as ancestor of the woolly mammoth Mammuthus primigenius (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Woolly_mammoth#Evolution), which only went extinct about 4,000 years ago on Wrangel Island and thus may count as modern species. Some paleoanthropologists suggested that the Eurasian archaic human Homo heidelbergensis was via Homo steinheimensis the direct ancestor of Neanderthals, and the African archaic human Homo rhodesiensis could be the direct ancestor of later Homo sapiens in north-eastern Africa, but this is quite controversial, as is the valid taxonomic status of these fossil human species themselves.

More examples for assumed direct ancestors of living species are found in Pliocene and Pleistocene marine protists among the foraminiferans and radiolarians (see Prothero & Lazarus 1980 and Lazarus 1983), mainly because we have a long-lasting undisturbed microfossil record of these unicellular organisms in deep sea sediments. But of course, this raises the fuzzy question of chronospecies (Bechly 2024) and whether we are only seeing microevolution within a species rather than speciation (which arguably could be an arbitrary distinction)

Slim Evidence

Overall, it looks like the evidence for direct fossil ancestors is extremely slim to say the least. Why is that? Of course, one possibility would be that common descent is wrong, but even young earth creationists affirm that speciation does occur and that wolves or bisons had ancestral species respectively. So, could there be another explanation?

Indeed, there are two general problems concerning the recognition of direct ancestors in the fossil record:

1.) Even though the fossil record is pretty complete on the macroevolutionary level of higher taxa (family and above), the fossil record will always be highly incomplete on the lower taxonomic levels because it was estimated that less than 1% of all species were preserved as fossils (not to speak of having been discovered). This seems to make it very unlikely to find exactly the direct ancestor of a particular living species. However, renowned expert Mike Foote (1996) estimated the probability of ancestors in the fossil record and found the probability to find ancestor-descendant pairs not negligible and likely underestimated.

2.) There is a general methodological impossibility to diagnose a direct ancestor species based on morphological characters, because all of its primitive characters are shared with other stem group representatives and outgroup taxa, while all of its derived characters are inherited by its descendant species. There is no diagnostic character that would label an ancestor as such. We should expect an ancestor to lack any autapomorphies that would indicate its position on a side branch, but given the incomplete preservation of fossils we can never know if such characters were just not preserved or even have not been preservable at all (e.g., soft tissue, genetic, behavioral, physiological characters). The only theoretical case where a stem species could possess a unique diagnostic character, would be the esoteric case when it developed a derived trait that then immediately got lost in the descendent species. However I don’t know of a single example, and such a case would also not be empirically distinguishable from a side branch autapomorphy. So overall, fossil ancestors can in principle not be recognized as such based on their characters. Therefore, there can always only be plausibility arguments, based on a continuous preservation and certain criteria such as occurrence older but in the same region as the descendant species (Prothero & Lazarus 1980).

A Very Hard Task

Because of such problems, Professor Willi Hennig, the founder of phylogenetic systematics (cladistics), recognized that finding and demonstrating direct ancestors would be a very hard task. British paleontologist Colin Patterson even “viewed cladistics as a corrective to the deeply problematic practice of identifying individual fossils as direct ancestors of more recent groups” (Nelson 2000 quoted in Quinn 2017). Therefore, modern paleobiologists generally do not even look for ancestor-descendant relationships but only for sister group relationships in terms of more recent common descent.

So, even if Darwinism were true, we would not expect to find a lot of direct fossil ancestors of living species. But on the other hand, there is certainly no positive support for Darwinism from such elusive ancestors either. I would consider this to be a draw.

References

Less simple than ever?

 Walking Cells and Other Surprises Among Protists — An Evolutionary Challenge


The world of protists is expanding at a fast clip. New eukaryotic microbes are being discovered, some with little or no known connection to identified species. Taxonomists are not sure how to classify them. Some are even willing to create new phyla, supergroups, or kingdoms to house them. Three commentators in Current Biology expressed the surprise:

Probably more scientists study sparrows than all the free-living microbial eukaryotes (protists) combined. This is quite unfortunate, not because the former are unworthy, but because the latter not only contribute substantially to planetary health, but they also represent the majority of functional and evolutionary eukaryotic diversity on Earth. This fact usually comes as a surprise to people studying macroscopic eukaryotes, yet the diversity of protists is bound to grow even further, as implied by the fact that 50% of eukaryotic genes expressed in the ocean do not have any match in public databases and/or lack any reliable phylogenetic affiliation. 

Let’s examine two new species identified recently. Imagine protists that walk on legs like bugs, or paddle with arms. How do they do it? Where did they come from? And must the commentators beg the question of evolution in the phrase “evolutionary eukaryotic diversity” instead of just describing “eukaryotic diversity”? These two protists possess only distant morphological similarities to other members of their taxa, so imagining a phylogeny between them seems strained. For now, behold and wonder!

Meteora sporadica: The Paddling Hunter

This creature is so weird, you have to watch it in motion to believe it. The cell body is slightly elongated, and from the major axis two long filaments extend twice its body length forward and backward. This is the axis along which it glides with cilia. But now, picture “arms” extending out to the sides that paddle back and forth, one sweeping forward while the opposite arm sweeps backward.

It’s rare to find the word “incredible” in a formal scientific paper’s title, but Eglit et al., writing in the same issue of Current Biology, must have been astonished when they announced this creature as “a protist with incredible cell architecture.” 

“Kingdom-level” branches are being added to the tree of eukaryotes at a rate approaching one per year, with no signs of slowing down. Some are completely new discoveries, whereas others are morphologically unusual protists that were previously described but lacked molecular data. For example, Hemimastigophora are predatory protists with two rows of flagella that were known since the 19th century but proved to represent a new deep-branching eukaryote lineage when phylogenomic analyses were conducted. Meteora sporadica is a protist with a unique morphology; cells glide over substrates along a long axis of anterior and posterior projections while a pair of lateral “arms” swing back and forth, a motility system without any obvious parallels.

For those without access to the paper with its videos of this protist, the only YouTube video I could find is a short one with very loud music, so you might want to quiet your device before viewing this otherwise good look at M. sporadica in action. 

This creature’s motility suggests more complexity under the hood. The authors say it has the most gene-rich mitochondrial genome among protists. The “arms” that swing back and forth are made of bundles of microtubules, which grow from unique subnuclear microtubule organizing centers (MTOCs) that are unlike the more familiar axonemes of cilia. Surprisingly, this protist can move without the “arms” but gets along faster with them. 

Bumps are visible along the lateral arms; what are those? They are called extrusomes. These granules can move up and down along the arms and can be “fired” at bacterial prey. Once it surrounds the target, the extrusome delivers the bacterial burrito to a food vacuole where it is phagocytosed (digested).

Like all other eukaryotes, M. sporadica is equipped with organelles: a nucleus, mitochondria, longitudinal bundles of microtubules, and molecular motors like dyneins to animate the microtubules. Of course, it also contains all the machinery for metabolism, mitosis, DNA storage, transcription, and translation, in addition to motility. This is no simple animal. 

Euplotes, a Microbial Cockroach

Seen from the side, this protist looks like a cockroach or pill bug scooting along the floor, but it is much tinier. Insects have legs made of cells. This protist is a single cell. How can it sprout legs and walk? Take a look at it under the microscope on this YouTube video (again, the music contributes little). The side view at 1:08 shows its resemblance to a walking bug. Investigators Laeverenz-Schlogelhofer and Wan, writing in the same issue of Current Biology, are amazed at the uncanny similarity to animal behavior on a vastly different scale.

Diverse animal species exhibit highly stereotyped behavioral actions and locomotor sequences as they explore their natural environments. In many such cases, the neural basis of behavior is well established, where dedicated neural circuitry contributes to the initiation and regulation of certain response sequences. At the microscopic scale, single-celled eukaryotes (protists) also exhibit remarkably complex behaviors and yet are completely devoid of nervous systems. Here, to address the question of how single cells control behavior, we study locomotor patterning in the exemplary hypotrich ciliate Euplotes, a highly polarized cell, which actuates a large number of leg-like appendages called cirri (each a bundle of ∼25–50 cilia) to swim in fluids or walk on surfaces.

The paper describes the coordination between the cirri (sing. cirrus) when the protist moves. There are 10 frontoventral cirri and 5 transverse cirri arranged in an asymmetrical pattern, plus 4 caudal cirri at the tail end. “Distinct cirri are involved in generating distinct gaits,” the authors observe. Each cirrus moves with a power stroke and recovery stroke, like a swimmer. The cilia that line our airways move in a similar fashion, but in Euplotes they stroke in large bundles. Like other ciliates, these protists are well equipped with numerous other individual cilia that control the movement of food to their vacuoles. “These organisms are among the most morphologically complex and differentiated groups of ciliates,” remark Laeverenz-Schlogelhofer and Wan.

The authors identified three stereotypical movements performed by Euplotes with their cirri: the swim, the forward walk, and the sidestep reaction (SSR). The first two strategies allow the protist to move forward. The SSR allows it to quickly back up and turn. While swimming, the asymmetrical pattern of cirri makes it rotate in a helical fashion. But while walking on a surface (like the cover slip of a microscope slide), it scoots along like a cockroach. The authors notice the functional purpose of cirri when they describe them as “compound leg-like structures comprising many cilia.”

In higher animals, movement is powered by muscles in response to neural signals. The “legs” of these microbes are electrically powered. Specifically, calcium ions flowing through channels in the membrane create cycles of polarization and depolarization about every half second. A slight delayed response shows the cirri decelerating during depolarization and speeding up during polarization. Overall, though, the motion is fairly uniform and rapid. High speed videography allowed the researchers to monitor the actions in slow motion; otherwise the pauses would hardly be noticeable.

Implications

It’s exciting to ponder that the world is filled with examples of cellular motility beyond the iconic bacterial flagellum — and we probably don’t know even half of what exists. While ciliates such as Vorticella, Stentor, and Paramecium have been well known since Van Leeuwenhoek wrote about the “wee beasties” that he saw “very prettily a-moving” under his crude microscopes, many more remain to be identified. These two examples were found in shallow marine sediments. Some of the newly discovered microbes are common in our own backyards, in soil or puddles. The fact that many of them show no clear phylogenetic connection with other microbes, and may contain unique morphological structures, poses a severe challenge to Darwinism. The more isolated diversity, the weaker the argument for common ancestry. 

We intuitively appreciate the form and function of legs in Euplotes and arms in Meteora even though they are profoundly smaller than ours. A “leg” on Euplotes differs in size by six orders of magnitude from the leg of Brachiosaurus, yet both perform the function of motility. Each limb’s design, further, is suited for its habitat and for the physical forces required. The more unique purposeful motion is discovered, the more the evidence that the biosphere has been engineered for action.