Alleged Sources for the Incarnation, part 4.

1 Tim 3:16, Authorized Version: Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in the flesh. This is the most direct POSSIBLE intimation from the Text itself, that Jesus Christ is God become flesh, among men. Let us investigate this verse then. My original study of this came from the Trinity Delusion site. I still consider his, the founder’s efforts impeccable. He claims that modern scholarship has pretty much come to the conclusion that this version is corrupted. But and yet, mainstreamers will cherry pick the KJV in order to consider the Incarnation valid. Other versions in English translation, from that site: He appeared in a body (NIV)

He who was manifested in the flesh (ASV)

He who was revealed in the flesh (NASB)

Who was manifested in the flesh (NAB)

He was manifested in the flesh (RSV)

He was revealed in flesh (NRSV)

Which was manifested in the flesh (Douey-Rheims)

He was revealed in the flesh (NET)

He was manifested in the flesh (ESV)

Who was manifested in the flesh (NAB) https://www.angelfire.com/space/thegospeltruth/TTD/verses/1timothy3_16.html

Although he does not mention the “controversy” which is said (that there is none, in the immediate context at the beginning of this verse), as I did in my last two posts, he does talk about what Paul meant, by “mystery.” Another good point was the likely scribal error, specified and exposed.

For me there would have been not a LITTLE controversy over…a consideration that God LITERALLY came to earth, embodied in FLESH, as a hybrid Godman. There would have been a GREAT controversy. This makes a God on earth with a separate nephesh, mind soul and will, OTHER THAN the God in heaven, whom Jesus called, “the Father.” What would have been…the CONTROVERSY for the true blue Jew?

And without controversy great is the mystery of godliness…

That God never changes, Mal 3:6. That God has the SAME character He always had. That you cannot SWITCH HE’s. OR say that one HE of God is equal in status to ANOTHER HE of God. OR say that God has two wills, that separate will which Jesus himself SAID was the case when he said, “not my will but thine.”

And here I would show the likely SOURCE of this heady and CONTROVERSIAL-to-the-Jew concept, called the Incarnation. In truth, it came from a pagan impetus.

Look up “incarnation of pharoahs in Egyptian religion.” Google it. You will receive this byte of information:

In life, the pharaohs were believed to be incarnations of the deity Horus before in death becoming Osiris, the god of the afterlife. Each new pharaoh was considered to be a new incarnation of Horus.