Anthony F. Buzzard, a leading proponent of Socinian Christology, wrote the following:
The so-called “preexistence” of Jesus in John refers to his “existence” in the Plan of God. The Church has been plagued by the introduction of non-biblical language. There is a perfectly good word for “real” preexistence in the Greek language (prouparchon). It is very significant that it appears nowhere in Scripture with reference to Jesus, but it does in the writings of Greek Church Fathers of the second century. These Greek commentators on Scripture failed to understand the Hebrew categories of thought in which the New Testament is written. (Anthony F. Buzzard and Charles F. Hunting, The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity’s Self-Inflicted Wound [Lanham, Md.: International Scholars Publications, 1998], 165-66, emphasis in bold added)
While it is true that προϋπάρχω ("to exist before") is not used of the nature of Christ's pre-existence in the Greek New Testament, Buzzard is obfuscating with respect to the meaning of this term. Note how προϋπάρχω is used in the New Testament:
And the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together: for before (προϋπῆρχον) they were at enmity between themselves. (Luke 23:12)
But there was a certain man, called Simon, which before time (προϋπῆρχεν) in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one. (Acts 8:9)
In the LXX, it appears once in the book of Job:
And it is written that he will rise again with those the Lord raises up. (17b) This man is interpreted from the Syriac book as living in the land of Ausitis, on the borders of Idumea and Arabia, and previously (προϋπῆρχεν) his name was Iobab . . . (Job 42:17, NETS)
This should be compared with following from the pseudepigrapha:
This is translated from the Syrian scroll. He earlier (προϋπῆρχεν) lived under the name of Jobab, settling in the land of Uz, along the boundaries of Idumea and Arabia. (Aristeas the Exegete 2:2)
In all three instances of the term in the LXX and Greek NT, it is not used of one preexisting their conception, but a past event in their mortal lives.
