It may seem wildly off topic for a Web site dedicated to Christianity’s earliest centuries to discuss something that actually became a phenomenon in modern times; most significantly within American Protestant Christianity following the Great Awakenings. The crux of the Christian “born again” phenomenon, however, lies in two New Testament texts, both of which were written by second- or third-generation Christians.
I’ll start by quoting the passages in question. The first is from the gospel of John, the start of a discussion between Jesus and Nicodemus, a Pharisee. The second is from the first of two epistles claimed to have been written by St Peter:
Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Nicodemus said to Him, “How can a man be born when he is old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born, can he?” Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. (Jn 3:3-5)
Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervently love one another from the heart, for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. (1 Pet 1:22-23)
Those authors used this image to convey, metaphorically, the personal and spiritual transformation that took place within followers of Jesus of Nazareth. What’s interesting is that the more famous of these mentions — i.e. in the gospel of John — actually invokes a kind of pun, or double meaning, in Greek, the gospel’s original language. I’ll get to that in a moment.
We know that neither of these works could have been written by Jesus’ own apostles (despite 1 Peter identifying itself as written by St Peter). None of the apostles are known to have been literate, whether in Levantine Jews’ prevailing language Aramaic, or in Greek, the language of both books. What’s more, nothing about their contents indicates they could have been written in Christianity’s first decades.
Both are dated to nearly the same time window, 1 Peter to 80-110 CE and John to 90-120 CE. This means it’s possible that 1 Peter was the first of the two to be written. But their order of composition may not matter, since there’s no indication in either document that its author was aware of the other. In all likelihood they were written in ignorance of each other.
The idea that someone can be “born again,” or reborn, in a spiritual sense was not new to Christianity. It was a feature of many religious and even philosophical traditions in the eastern Mediterranean and the Near East. The mystery religions all centered around the theme of dying and rebirth. Orphic tradition did, as well. It was a component of Egyptian and Mesopotamian mythology, dating back millennia, even in classical times.
Rebirth was also an element of the Baptist movement in Judaism as seen in the career of John the Baptist as well as others during the Second Temple period. Baptizing someone was the ritual enactment of a dying-rebirth scenario (i.e. by “drowning,” then rising up again).
In this context, it seems odd that Nicodemus, the Pharisee who conversed with Jesus about it, would have expressed wonderment about the subject. Rebirth in a spiritual sense ought not have been foreign to him. There’s an explanation for his miscomprehension, though, which I will get to shortly.
This leads us to the double-meaning found in John 3:3, that Jesus explains to Nicodemus later in the chapter. It’s an extremely important and revealing passage.
Before going any further, the nature of this double meaning must be explained. In its original Greek, this verse is:
απεκριθη ο ιησουσ και ειπεν αυτω αμην αμην λεγω σοι εαν μη τισ γεννηθη ανωθεν ου δυναται ιδειν την ßασιλειαν του θεου
Here, the phrase γεννηθη ανωθεν (gennēthē anōthen) is typically translated as “born again.” But there’s a problem with this. The Greek word anōthen doesn’t only mean “again”; it can also mean “from above.” The narrative in John that follows actually explores this double meaning. Nicodemus asks Jesus how a man can be put back in his mother’s womb and delivered a second time — meaning, he interprets it as “born a second time.” Jesus doesn’t exactly spell out his own wordplay, but rather finds another way to express it, when he mentions being born of water and spirit (in v. 5). Clearly he used anōthen as “from above.”
Even after this, Nicodemus (being an idiot as a plot device so the discussion can continue) still doesn’t get it; Jesus’ statement about being “born of spirit” was a rather obvious reference to being born “from above.” The gospel then has Jesus explaining why he’s being cryptic: “If I told you earthly things and you do not believe, how will you believe if I tell you heavenly things?” (v. 12).
The rest of the discourse between Jesus and Nicodemus ambles on from there. But what’s important about it is this double entendre in v. 3. It tells us a great deal about the entirety of the gospel itself. You see, the only language known in that region and era in which one word meant both “again” and “from above” was Greek. That doesn’t hold for Aramaic, or Latin, or Hebrew, or any other language.
The significance of this is: Such a discussion which depends on this double meaning — and includes a character in the dialog (i.e. Nicodemus) who misses it — could only have taken place in Greek. But two Levantine Jews in Jerusalem talking with each other, as Jesus and Nicodemus did, would not have conversed in Greek. Their primary language would have been Aramaic. There’d have been no reason for them to converse in Greek. Bilingualism wasn’t unknown in that time, and it’s possible both knew Greek as a second language, but even in that case, it makes no sense for them to have talked privately in Greek rather than Aramaic.
What also makes no sense is for this particular discussion to have originally taken place in Aramaic but later translated into Greek for inclusion in the gospel. The double entendre at its core would not have been present in Aramaic. Nicodemus’s puzzlement would be totally inexplicable (instead of just being a plot device).
Clearly, the exchange between Jesus and Nicodemus can only have been an invention of the gospel’s author, whose primary language was Greek, not Aramaic, and whose audience was also Greek-speaking. There’s no other explanation for its content.
That the fourth gospel was written by a native Greek-speaking (and writing) author for a native Greek-speaking (and reading/hearing) community matters, because it shows the direction this particular Jesus movement had gone in, over the decades between Jesus’ reported career and the time it was penned (likely not before 90 CE).
There are many traditional Hellenic influences in the gospel of John, not the least of which is the Logos Hymn which opens it (i.e. ch. 1 v. 1-18). The Greek term λογος (logos) was rich with meaning in Hellenic philosophy. It dated back to Heraclitus who first used it around the turn of the 6th century BCE to refer to the discussion of ideas. Later philosophers had their own takes on it. Aristotle, for example, used it to mean reasoning or logic, or the process of reasoning (i.e. argumentation). According to other philosophers and schools of Hellenic thought, Logos was said to have been involved in the creation of the world, of life, and/or of humanity.
In this Hellenic context, equating Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ, with the divine Logos makes a great deal of sense. In fact, the dialog between Jesus and Nicodemus isn’t unlike a large number of other philosophically-oriented dialogs that had been written over the preceding centuries, in which banter between a teacher and a student is used as a framework or backdrop to explain philosophical ideas.
As is made clear in his discussion with Nicodemus, who ostensibly never got his point — but (wink wink) we, the gospel’s readers, do — Jesus had meant gennethe anothen to mean “born from above,” not “born again.”
Modern “born again” Christians make the same mistake the character of Nicodemus does (again, merely as a plot device in furtherance of the point the author makes through the voice of Jesus) by using John 3:3 to promote being “born again.” What they should do with it is to talk about being “born from above,” which is a very different semantic usage in English yet is still true to the original Greek, and which plainly had been the point.
I’ve said a lot about John 3 but nothing yet about the 1 Peter passage. Here we have something different. As it turns out, the original Greek of 1 Pet 1:23 isn’t the same as in John 3:3:
αναγεγεννημενοι ουκ εκ σπορασ fθαρτησ αλλα αfθαρτου δια λογου ζωντοσ θεου και μενοντοσ εισ τον αιωνα
Here, the word translated as “born again” is αναγεγεννημενοι (anagegennēmenoi), which means “born again,” and only that. There’s no double entendre or wordplay to dance around and use as fuel for more discussion. It’s immediately followed by what amounts to an explanation for it as a metaphor:
… for you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring word of God. For “All flesh is like grass, and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever.” (1 Pet 1:23-25a)
Note, v. 24-25a is an edited quotation of Isaiah 40:6-8. The point is clear that “born again” as used here is not to be taken literally, it’s a metaphor for something else. The Isaiah quotation is used to bolster that and further explain it. “All flesh” is doomed to “wither,” so the believer is saved by being reborn spiritually rather than in the flesh.
For those who take the term “born again” as literally as modern “born again” Christians do, this passage simply won’t work. As it turns out, they rarely use 1 Pet 1 as proof of their doctrine. For this reason, it gets little attention.
In early Christianity following when these books were written, “born again” was generally taken as a reference to baptism. It still is viewed that way in many sects, including Roman Catholicism, Anglicanism, nearly all Orthodox churches, and a lot of Protestant churches (e.g. Lutheranism).
It’s only in modern times, with the advent of evangelical Christianity, that the phrase has acquired added baggage. For Pentecostalists and some other evangelicals, it refers to being “baptized in the Holy Spirit” which is totally separate from water baptism.
Evangelical Christians who talk about being “born again” treat it as a special and distinct event that takes place in a believer’s life. Among Pentecostalists, as noted, it’s treated virtually as its own sacrament. That the phrase “born again” is found in modern English translations of the New Testament, however, doesn’t really support this approach.
Within the New Testament, we see the phrase is used as a metaphor for the spiritual transformation that takes place in the believer. It’s a result or consequence of one’s faith, not a rite to be achieved, on its own.
Furthermore, when “born again” Christians tell other sorts of Christians they can’t have been “born again” except in the manner they envision it, they’re wrong. Those other sorts of Christians most certainly have been “born again,” according to their own sect’s understanding of the term. To claim otherwise is arrogance of the highest sort.
As is so often the case, modern Christians take what early Christians came up with — within the context of the world in which they lived — and apply their own anachronistic spin to it, using their deep reliance on English (or other modern vernacular) translations of scripture to justify doing so. This leads them to claim scriptural support for their notions, when in fact scripture, as it had been written c. 1,900 years ago, doesn’t support them at all.
Quotations from the New Testament taken from the (NASB) New American Standard Bible, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation.
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