Jewish Roots of the Trinity update

While on holiday I was struck by a visual experience that I felt illustrated powerfully two suggestions this blog has made and is making now, but it caused me to look back at a post I made on 8 May 2017, when I wrote a post that would become one of my more significant and most visited posts: Jewish Roots of the Trinity. I even translated it into French. But I realised as I re-read it that it needed updating, which is what I have now done. I haven't touched the explanation, which I still feel is accurate and is reflecting my longer-term historical perspective on the development of a Triune-God theology. However, the bullets I wrote were not as clear as I had hoped and mingled the various Christian mutations of the Jewish worldview in a way I now found confusing.

The bullets still remain theologically dense - but now I am sitting the Triune Hub idea on three clearer Christian mutations, explorable by work clustered around N. T. Wright for the first mutation on resurrection, Larry Hurtado for the second on Jesus-worship and Dominic Crossan for the third on the Spirit-empowering participative kingdom.

If you can't be bothered to read the changes there, here they are in there (I hope) clearer form, first in English, then in French:

The first-century mutation, the Triune Hub, is making Jewish sense of:

• the Jesus events: death, postmortem encounters and enthronement visions mean the resurrection of God's Messiah and Son, physically absent but envisioned exalted and reigning at a cosmic level: at God's right hand.
• This super-exalted raised Messiah is also a clear instruction to worship God's annointed and continue to "follow" him.
• the unforeseeably early resurrection of Jesus winds the eschatological clock forward and prepares a new eschatological window: outpouring of the Holy Spirit, empowering God's people to advance the inevitably victorious kingdom foreshadowed by Christ's victory over death and evil during the Easter-Passover weekend.

La mutation du premier siècle, Le Moyeux Trinitaire, fait sens pour un juif chrétien de :

• Les évènements de Jésus : mort, rencontres post-mortem et visions d'intronisation doivent signifier la résurrection du Messie et Fils de Dieu, physiquement absent mais perçu en vision comme exalté et comme ayant reçu une autorité ultime et cosmique: à la droite de Dieu.
• Ce Messie "super-exalté" signifie clairement l'instruction divine de louer l'Oint de Dieu et de continuer à le "suivre".
• Cette résurrection précoce et imrévisible de Jésus avance le programme eschatologique et prépare une reconfiguration des propheties des dernniers temps: l'effusion eschatologique de l'Esprit Saint, habilitant Le Peuple de Dieu par le symbole du baptême, d’avancer l’inévitable Royaume victorieux anticipé par la victoire du Christ sur la mort et le mal pendant le week-end de Pâque.

By the way, I took the time to photograph this experience and have begun drafting the post to share with you soon!

Is Jesus' Other Name "Yahweh" for the first century church? Part 1: The Data

FOREWORD

No, we can't affirm that. The grammar doesn't stretch that far, sorry. Today, I'd like to show you the constraints given by the biblical texts in Greek. That is the primary task for Part 1. This sounds like a crushing concession from a Protestant trinitarian standpoint, but it needn't be at all. In fact, taken in perspective, it strengthens the Triune Hub Hypothesis, which I will develop more fully in Part 2. For now, let us be assured that those committed to a form of trinitarianism are just as committed to engaging the biblical data honestly and accurately.

Intro

THIS IS A fascinating question and not the easiest to ask. We remain on a primarily historical quest, which is my burden, which is why I worded the title with some care. Christian apologetics is keen to stress that Yahweh just is Jesus, all part of a task (frequently non-trinitarian) to recognise Jesus as eternally God. There are some problems with approaching Jesus' identity this way, not least that it is driving an eternal perspective, which is all that a lot of people are interested in, bracketing the historical first-century Christian perspective.

Some of my work has been to investigate an apparently overlooked avenue into this question, boringly perhaps, to do with grammar. BUT, if you care about what you mean by saying “Jesus is/is not God”, you might be concerned to know if the grammar around Jesus' Lordship demonstrates deliberate or even programmatic allusion by the New Testament writers to Yahweh, the Israelite “God of gods” and creator of the cosmos.

Anyone new to this issue, let's super-quick recap: the New Testament authors along with at least a good chunk of the first century Church, relied heavily not on the Hebrew versions of the Old Testament scriptures, but rather their Greek translation. Rewind the clock 250 years.

There was a problem in that translation project facing the first Alexandrian translator team with regard to the Hebrew Name of God: Yahweh. Forget about transliterating it, this Name was problematic anyway. The Name had become so holy that it was considered unpronounceable. There is some strong evidence readily available from the team's translation of Leviticus 24:16, manifested here in the NETS literal English translation (plus article bracketing):

Whoever names the name of [the] Lord - by death let him be put to death; let the whole congregation of Israel stone him with stones. Whether a guest or a native, when he names the name, let him die.

That is not what the Hebrew says. Here's a translation of the Hebrew (NIV, with transliteration of Yahweh):

[A]nyone who blasphemes the name of Yahweh is to be put to death. The entire assembly must stone them. Whether foreigner or native-born, when they blaspheme the Name they are to be put to death.

Lined up like that can you sense the huge sense of awe, and maybe even some superstition, around this naming problem? The translation matches perfectly the information we have about the ultra-sanctification of the Name. A solution, found by the first team of Alexandrian translators, was to use a title associated already with Yahweh, “Lord”. Back in March 2017, I wrote an article on the blog entitled The name of [the] LORD, in which I concluded:

Yahweh is the name of the God of Israel.

[anarthrous] Kyrios is the name of the God of Israel.

Anarthrous means without the article. Kyrios means Lord.

Of the two obvious English matches for Greek anarthrous-ness (an English anarthrous scenario, such as “in the case of Michael”, and an English indefinite article, such as “in the event of a drought”), “in the name of a Lord” is clearly never in mind when both the Jewish translators and the later Christians wrote in Greek “ἐν ὀνόματι [τοῦ] κυρίου”.

As I have mentioned over and again, the evidence for an intentional omission of the article before Kyrios when translating the Hebrew Yahweh, especially for the Pentateuch, is overwhelming. Grammatically, this practice brings what would normally appear as a title to be in line with the grammar we would expect for a proper name.

Annoyingly, yet sometimes traceably, there are other instances where the article is dropped in Greek while the meaning of an article is retained. For instance, my research into the Greek expression for “in the beginning”, actually sheds light on a broader Greek practice with the preposition “in”, ἐν. Does that mean that that ἐν is never followed by an article Greek? No, but the interesting point of the “in-the-beginning” work is that some scenarios do provide good consistency. “In the name of” seems to be another good example of consistent article-dropping around ἐν. That means that in koine Greek, people literally went around saying and writing things like “in beginning”, “in name of” and other similar “in” (ἐν) clauses.

Ok, it is time to return to the question of today's post, Is Jesus' Other Name “Yahweh” for the first-century church? To answer this question, we can compare article usage for potentially different referents (albeit intimately connected, related, bound together, etc.): Jesus and Yahweh.

THE DATA: OT (LXX)

There are different degrees of consistency to be identified in the Greek translation of Yahweh*.

1. Within the Pentateuch, approximately 89% percent of the time, Kyrios as a translation for Yahweh is anarthrous, akin to any other personal name.

2. The rest of the Old Testament continues in this vein, but with varying consistency of the grammatical “signature”**.

3. Transversal Greek lexical anarthrous units exist, often with near perfect or actual 100% consistency. This is precisely where our Old Testament survey of translation of "in [the] name of [the] Lord" leads. In other words, there is not a single trace of ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ κυρίου in the Jewish canon. i.e. zero occurrences of “in [the] name of THE Lord”, with seventeen occurrences across the Old Testament of ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου. The distribution of the 17 occurrences of the Hebrew lexical unit, “in Yahweh's Name”, is not particularly evenly spread across the Canon. It first crops up in Joshua, then we have 11 hits in the Israel history books from Samuel through Chronicles, 4 in the Psalms and an occurrence in the prophetic book of Micah. Here is the first one:

Jos 9:9

They answered: ‘Your servants have come from a very distant country because of the fame of the Lord your God.

καὶ εἶπαν ἐκ γῆς μακρόθεν σφόδρα ἥκασιν οἱ παῖδές σου ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου τοῦ θεοῦ σου ἀκηκόαμεν γὰρ τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ καὶ ὅσα ἐποίησεν ἐν Αἰγύπτῳ

The remaining 16 can be found at the end of this post along with some additional references from the Septuagint that tie this grammatical structure to a divine reference.

The message should be clear and unanimous. Since every single Greek Old Testament instance expressing “in Yahweh's name”, is translated ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου, we should expect any deliberate or programmatic Jewish-Christian allusion to Christ’s “Yahweh Name” to be formed in the same way. This is another way of saying that for Jesus's lordship to have instant or natural full divine connotations, we could reasonably expect instances of this Greek idea to follow suit when appropriate.

THE DATA: NT

As it turns out there are 9 New Testament occurrences of in the name of the Lord (ἐν ὀνόματι [τοῦ] κυρίου). Of these 9, 6 form a special indirect group that we will look at separately under the title Mark’s Precedent-setting Usage. Thus only three occurrences of “In the name of the Lord” are directly applied to the Lord Jesus, and all are from within the disputed Pauline corpus. Two of the three are conspicuous in their departure from the firm form we have seen with the “in the name of Yahweh” tradition, by appending the article to κυρίου. Let's start with those, before examining the sole direct NT anarthrous occurrence of Colossians 3:17.

Ephesians 5:20

[B]e filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Jesus-God distinctions and unity in the epistle to the Ephesians are among the strongest of the New Testament, containing some striking phraseology rarely repeated in church contexts today (such as “The God of our Lord Jesus” in 1:3 and 1:17 or “the kingdom of Christ and of God” in 5:5). For our purposes, it is important to note that the distinction between God and Lord is placed right at the offset of the epistle:

1:2 Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

It is an obvious point but it is worth remembering here: from a Jewish perspective, including the hellenized viewpoint represented in the Septuagint, God had in no way a monopoly over the title “Lord”. A less obvious point but one that I have laboured to make clear is that Yahweh is never, ever described as “our Yahweh” or “our Lord” in its translated Greek form. So it is in this wonderfully trinitarian context of 5:19-20 that we neither expect nor find an unusually anarthrous kyrios, it naturally reads: ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ Κυρίου ἡμῶν.

2 Thessalonians 3:6

In the name of the Lord [ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ Κυρίου] Jesus Christ, we command you, brothers and sisters, to keep away from every believer who is idle and disruptive and does not live according to the teaching you received from us.

As with the previous passage examined in Ephesians, and indeed it could be described as the classic Pauline-style opener, 2 Thessalonians opens with the traditional God/Lord distinctions and unity: Paul, Silas and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Colossians 3:17, The Single Allusion?

And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of [the] Lord Jesus [ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου Ἰησοῦ], giving thanks to God the Father through him.  (NIVUK)

For Christian apologetics wanting to build a case around Jesus' divine lordship (and also quite what they mean by “divine lordship”), this is surely the place to start. At least here, from a grammatical and textual critical perspective we are looking at an impressive state of overlap between Yahweh and Jesus. As we saw repeatedly, even insistently, this is exactly how you would want to express “in Yahweh's Name”. However, without wanting to put a dampener on Christ exaltation strategies, we have some important constraints then need to be laid out.

We are asking the question what did the first century church believe about the relationship between Yahweh and Jesus via this question of the name. The nuance often subtly glossed via the expression “the Pauline author”, should not been neglected here because even a very Pauline text that has been re edited recomposed recompiled re whatever soon after Paul's time could push the perspective into the 2nd century.

Secondly, we need to be aware that during the second and third centuries scribal changes were at work in this text as copies and copies of copies were transcribed for the flourishing church. For an English reader, the textual issue I'm referring to here becomes quickly apparent simply by comparing, for example, a King James Version to a more modern critical version, such as the NET or the NIV translations. Scribal changes between “God” and “Lord” within this chapter alone were multiple. Why that might have occurred is a subject for another day, although I have no doubts whatsoever that the first-century Christian mutations of Jewish belief lie at the heart of such corruptions. The point is though that for one generation to leave matters unresolved for a second generation does not for a second mean that the original author found himself randomly wavering between “God” and “Lord”.

Thirdly, even if we granted that the “ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου Ἰησοῦ” of Colossians 3:17 was written by a first-century author, it is difficult for me at least to build too much off from a single occurrence, hardly representing a significant stage of development for the first-century church. It is also not easy to deduce the likelihood of the article had the author not opted for including the name Ἰησοῦ - would he have thus included the article as with the other New Testament occurrences we have seen?

For first-century Greek-speaking Christian writers, it would seem sufficiently extraordinary to so programmatically include Christ alongside God in theological discourse and devotion that this matter may have appeared quite secondary. Ephesians 5:20 and 2 Thessalonians 3:6 are indeed active witnesses of texts from a similar period that actually had not yet alined Christ’s Lordship language with the Septuagint’s established grammar for Yahweh.

And that’s almost it for the New Testament’s reluctance to make this significant grammatical step. Before wrapping up, however, we need to trace Mark’s precedent-setting citation of Ps. 118:26.

Mark's Precedent-setting Usage

The six remaining occurrences we need to account for trace their ancestry from Mark 11:9 and its derivatives, where Mark cites Psalm 118 v26 to frame Jesus' triumphal entry:

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD. From the house of the Lord we bless you. (NIVUK)

Due to established literary dependence between at least the synoptic gospels, and a remarkable recollection also from John, we can place GMark’s citation in its full citation “family”:

Since I am an adherent to the strengths of the “Matthean Posteriority Hypothesis”, my summary of this family ancestry can be summarised briefly as follows.

●       Mark wrote the triumphal entry scene (featuring a single donkey, by the way!), citing the Psalm.

●       Luke follows suit in 19:38, including the firm union of the distinct entities Yahweh and “the king”.

●       Luke innovates in 13:35 to anticipate the later scene with this same popular citation, where he has the threatening situation presented to Jesus, tying together Herod, Jerusalem and Jesus’ own death.

●       Matthew follows both Mark and Luke in 21:9 and 23:39.

●       As per Mark Goodacre’s nuanced description of the Mark-John relationship, John also recalls the perfect aptness of the Psalm precedented by Mark’s usage in his account.

Put simply, the reason this group is bracketed is that on face value it simply explicitly refers to two individuals: the authoriser and the authorised***.

CONCLUSION

From a majority of the first-century proto-orthodox Christian perspective, Yahweh is God is the Father, with a rather stunning inclusion within most of the theological discourse of Jesus Christ as “our Kyrios”, through whom God’s lordship is mediated and to whom it was conferred. Typical anarthrous Kyrios usage for Yahweh translations are not in force.

* Within the scope of relevant Greek cases, which as far as I can tell are the nominative and the genitive.

** There is a serious dearth of work in this area. A rigorous study of the entire Septuagint Canon needs to be undertaken and checked. I myself have attempted Psalms and Ezekiel including some comparative analysis of article behaviour around Adonai.

*** That is not to say that I think that Mark has not powerfully innovated a divine lordship entrusting/transferral right back in Mk 1:3 via his citation of Isaiah.

For other relevant posts, please see:

·

●     The name of [the] LORD

●       Why this research matters

●       Rattrappage sur la traduction du Nom Saint et Personnel et Retour à la Trinité

●     My six-part series on the Greek wording for “in the beginning”

●     A case for development of my position on earlier-is-better: the Divine Name

●       Kyrios (aka the LORD) in the Psalms: results

●       Lord Jesus Christ, S2 Part 3: Jesus as Lord or Jesus as LORD?

●       Lord Jesus Christ, S2 Part 4: Jesus as Lord or Jesus as LORD? (part 2)

The remaining 16 occurrences within the Septuagint of ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου

1Sa 17:45

David said to the Philistine, ‘You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the Lord Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.

καὶ εἰπεν Δαυιδ πρὸς τὸν ἀλλόφυλον σὺ ἔρχῃ πρός με ἐν ῥομφαίᾳ καὶ ἐν δόρατι καὶ ἐν ἀσπίδι κἀγὼ πορεύομαι πρὸς σὲ ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου σαβαωθ θεοῦ παρατάξεως Ισραηλ ἣν ὠνείδισας σήμερον

1Sa 20:42

Jonathan said to David, ‘Go in peace, for we have sworn friendship with each other in the name of the Lord, saying, “The Lord is witness between you and me, and between your descendants and my descendants for ever.” ’

καὶ εἶπεν Ιωναθαν πορεύου εἰς εἰρήνην καὶ ὡς ὀμωμόκαμεν ἡμεῖς ἀμφότεροι ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου λέγοντες κύριος ἔσται μάρτυς ἀνὰ μέσον ἐμοῦ καὶ σοῦ καὶ ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ σπέρματός μου καὶ ἀνὰ μέσον τοῦ σπέρματός σου ἕως αἰῶνος καὶ ἀνέστη Δαυιδ καὶ ἀπῆλθεν καὶ Ιωναθαν εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὴν πόλιν

2Sa 6:18

After he had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord Almighty.

From <https://www.bible.com/bible/113/2SA.6.NIVUK>

καὶ συνετέλεσεν Δαυιδ συναναφέρων τὰς ὁλοκαυτώσεις καὶ τὰς εἰρηνικὰς καὶ εὐλόγησεν τὸν λαὸν ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου τῶν δυνάμεων

1Ki 8:44??

When your people go to war against their enemies, wherever you send them, and when they pray to the Lord towards the city you have chosen and the temple I have built for your Name

NETS:

Nets translation of 1 Kings 8:44

For your people will go out to Battle against their enemies, by a way that you shall turn them, and they will pray in the name of the Lord by Way of the city, which you have chosen to be in it, and the house that I have built for your name

ὅτι ἐξελεύσεται ὁ λαός σου εἰς πόλεμον ἐπὶ τοὺς ἐχθροὺς αὐτοῦ ἐν ὁδῷ ᾗ ἐπιστρέψεις αὐτούς καὶ προσεύξονται ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου ὁδὸν τῆς πόλεως ἧς ἐξελέξω ἐν αὐτῇ καὶ τοῦ οἴκου οὗ ᾠκοδόμησα τῷ ὀνόματί σου

1Ki 18:24

Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire – he is God.’

καὶ βοᾶτε ἐν ὀνόματι θεῶν ὑμῶν καὶ ἐγὼ ἐπικαλέσομαι ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου τοῦ θεοῦ μου καὶ ἔσται ὁ θεός ὃς ἐὰν ἐπακούσῃ ἐν πυρί οὗτος θεός καὶ ἀπεκρίθησαν πᾶς ὁ λαὸς καὶ εἶπον καλὸν τὸ ῥῆμα ὃ ἐλάλησας

1Ki 18:32

With the stones he built an altar in the name of theLord, and he dug a trench round it large enough to hold two seahs18:32 That is, probably about 11 kilograms of seed.

καὶ ᾠκοδόμησεν τοὺς λίθους ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου καὶ ἰάσατο τὸ θυσιαστήριον τὸ κατεσκαμμένον καὶ ἐποίησεν θααλα χωροῦσαν δύο μετρητὰς σπέρματος κυκλόθεν τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου

1Ki 22:16

The king said to him, ‘How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?’

καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ βασιλεύς ποσάκις ἐγὼ ὁρκίζω σε ὅπως λαλήσῃς πρός με ἀλήθειαν ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου

2Ki 2:24!

He turned round, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys.

καὶ ἐξένευσεν ὀπίσω αὐτῶν καὶ εἶδεν αὐτὰ καὶ κατηράσατο αὐτοῖς ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου καὶ ἰδοὺ ἐξῆλθον δύο ἄρκοι ἐκ τοῦ δρυμοῦ καὶ ἀνέρρηξαν ἐξ αὐτῶν τεσσαράκοντα καὶ δύο παῖδας

1Ch 16:2

After David had finished sacrificing the burnt offerings and fellowship offerings, he blessed the people in the name of the Lord.

καὶ συνετέλεσεν Δαυιδ ἀναφέρων ὁλοκαυτώματα καὶ σωτηρίου καὶ εὐλόγησεν τὸν λαὸν ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου

1Ch 21:19

So David went up in obedience to the word that Gad had spoken in the name of the Lord.

καὶ ἀνέβη Δαυιδ κατὰ τὸν λόγον Γαδ ὃν ἐλάλησεν ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου

2Ch 18:15

The king said to him, ‘How many times must I make you swear to tell me nothing but the truth in the name of the Lord?’

καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ βασιλεύς ποσάκις ὁρκίζω σε ἵνα μὴ λαλήσῃς πρός με πλὴν ἀλήθειαν ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου

Psa 20:7

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,

but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.

οὗτοι ἐν ἅρμασιν καὶ οὗτοι ἐν ἵπποις ἡμεῖς δὲ ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου θεοῦ ἡμῶν μεγαλυνθησόμεθα

Psa 118:26

Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

From the house of the Lord we bless you.

εὐλογημένος ὁ ἐρχόμενος ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου εὐλογήκαμεν ὑμᾶς ἐξ οἴκου κυρίου

Psa 124:8

Our help is in the name of the Lord,

the Maker of heaven and earth.

ἡ βοήθεια ἡμῶν ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου τοῦ ποιήσαντος τὸν οὐρανὸν καὶ τὴν γῆν

Psa 129:8

May those who pass by not say to them,

‘The blessing of the Lord be on you;

we bless you in the name of the Lord.’

καὶ οὐκ εἶπαν οἱ παράγοντες εὐλογία κυρίου ἐφ᾽ ὑμᾶς εὐλογήκαμεν ὑμᾶς ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου

Mic 4:5

All the nations may walk

in the name of their gods,

but we will walk in the name of the Lord

our God for ever and ever.

ὅτι πάντες οἱ λαοὶ πορεύσονται ἕκαστος τὴν ὁδὸν αὐτοῦ ἡμεῖς δὲ πορευσόμεθα ἐν ὀνόματι κυρίου θεοῦ ἡμῶν εἰς τὸν αἰῶνα καὶ ἐπέκεινα

The following references do not contain the exact same expression but rather affirm the divine status of such a grammatical structure.

1Ki 18:25

Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.’

καὶ εἶπεν Ηλιου τοῖς προφήταις τῆς αἰσχύνης ἐκλέξασθε ἑαυτοῖς τὸν μόσχον τὸν ἕνα καὶ ποιήσατε πρῶτοι ὅτι πολλοὶ ὑμεῖς καὶ ἐπικαλέσασθε ἐν ὀνόματι θεοῦ ὑμῶν καὶ πῦρ μὴ ἐπιθῆτε

1Ki 18:26

Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. ‘Baal, answer us!’ they shouted. But there was no response; no-one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.

καὶ ἔλαβον τὸν μόσχον καὶ ἐποίησαν καὶ ἐπεκαλοῦντο ἐν ὀνόματι τοῦ Βααλ ἐκ πρωίθεν ἕως μεσημβρίας καὶ εἶπον ἐπάκουσον ἡμῶν ὁ Βααλ ἐπάκουσον ἡμῶν καὶ οὐκ ἦν φωνὴ καὶ οὐκ ἦν ἀκρόασις καὶ διέτρεχον ἐπὶ τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου οὗ ἐποίησαν

This is a rather curious occurrence that includes the definite article before Baal.

2Ki 5:11

But Naaman went away angry and said, ‘I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy.

καὶ ἐθυμώθη Ναιμαν καὶ ἀπῆλθεν καὶ εἶπεν ἰδοὺ δὴ ἔλεγον ὅτι ἐξελεύσεται πρός με καὶ στήσεται καὶ ἐπικαλέσεται ἐν ὀνόματι θεοῦ αὐτοῦ καὶ ἐπιθήσει τὴν χεῖρα αὐτοῦ ἐπὶ τὸν τόπον καὶ ἀποσυνάξει τὸ λεπρόν

 Note how in this reference the translator dispensed with the repetition of the Lord his God; Call on the name of his God was sufficient.

Ezr 5:1

Then the prophets Haggai and Zechariah son of Iddo prophesied concerning the Jews who were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel who was over them.

καὶ ἐπροφήτευσεν Αγγαιος ὁ προφήτης καὶ Ζαχαριας ὁ τοῦ Αδδω προφητείαν ἐπὶ τοὺς Ιουδαίους τοὺς ἐν Ιουδα καὶ Ιερουσαλημ ἐν ὀνόματι θεοῦ Ισραηλ ἐπ᾽ αὐτούς

Psa 20:5

May we shout for joy over your victory

and lift up our banners in the name of our God.

May the Lord grant all your requests.

ἀγαλλιασόμεθα ἐν τῷ σωτηρίῳ σου καὶ ἐν ὀνόματι θεοῦ ἡμῶν μεγαλυνθησόμεθα πληρώσαι κύριος πάντα τὰ αἰτήματά σου

Jdg 18:29

They named it Dan after their ancestor Dan

καὶ ἐκάλεσαν τὸ ὄνομα τῆς πόλεως Δαν ἐν ὀνόματι Δαν πατρὸς αὐτῶν ὃς ἐτέχθη τῷ Ισραηλ καὶ Ουλαμαις τὸ ὄνομα τῆς πόλεως τὸ πρότερον

Fatscript Podcast Episode 8: Joel

Totally chuffed to co-host today with my brother, Josh! Remember, my book chapter is out! Check it out here.  Did you like the transition music? Check out the whole song here and even download it for free! Thanks for listening!

Lord Jesus Christ, Part 15: Triune Hub Gleanings?

HURTADO'S POWERFUL STRUCTURE functions well not only in chapter 1 but also as a way in which to organise the historical data that aligns with his thesis of consistent Jesus worship in early Christianity for the rest of his book, Lord Jesus Christ. It seems to have enough flexibility to allow for the diversity of various strands of "successful" Christianity while ensuring that the model is sufficiently broad by insisting that the various factors he identifies are all covered as we move between location and time.

As a reminder: I am not just doing a critical series for the sake of doing a series. I have a thesis of my own. It is not yet as sophisticated or robust as Hurtado's, but it is definitely out of the starting blocks. It is my conviction that study of key works like LJC will help me form the case I want to make for a first-century form of Jewish-Christian trinitarianism that does not require the Triune God idea of post-381 Christianity (when a Roman-sponsored Church Council ruled in favour of the notion of "consubstantiality" of the Persons: Father, Son and Spirit) but rather provides a better platform for speculation about its historical occurrence via hermeneutics theory. So before we continue with the book Lord Jesus C, how might I follow Hurtado's fourfold structure, and where should I depart from it?

1. Monotheism

This constraining force prevented Jesus from supplanting the Father or a simple apotheisis of Christ as an additional God. All of what has already been said is 100% relevant for the Triune Hub hypothesis. But is the Holy Spirit ever at risk of apotheisis? You might think not, but check out this "unsuccessful" Gnostic movement in the early second century:

"Whoever blasphemes against the Father, it will be forgiven him.
And whoever blasphemes against the Son, it will be forgiven him.
But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit,
it will not be forgiven him, neither on earth nor in heaven." (Gospel of Thomas 44:1-3)

(Gnostic trinitarianism provides an interesting early case of the problem of a triune Hub, but one in which "some are more equal than others", to borrow from George Orwell's famous line in Nineteen Eighty-Four. In this case, it is the Holy Spirit, even though it is considered possible to blaspheme (and somehow get away with it) against the Father and the Son. In other cases, especially in the fourth-century, the theological equilibrium is under threat by subordinationist proponents, who may simply be trying to follow through with authoritative texts with seemingly obvious interpretations like "the Father is greater than I", John 14:28. If the Son is lesser in glory and greatness than the Father, then it is also therefore legitimate to reserve a still lesser place of glory and greatness to the Spirit.)

2. Jesus

Well, this is going to sound heretical, but I think my case is going to be clearest by emphasising and focusing on the John-Jesus distinctions that the gospel writers are at pains themselves to emphasise. So if I were to adopt such a subheading it would likely either need to be "Jesus and John" or "John and Jesus" or possibly isolating John into his own subheading. This contrast does not only propel Jesus more to the centre but the Spirit also, who is the fundamental differentiator between Jesus and John when it comes to baptism.

The points that Hurtado makes of the impact of Jesus' ministry as forcefully polarising his followers and opponents should be maintained, albeit adapted for my purposes, which are to see Jesus moving rapidly toward sharing the centre of the Jewish faith with God, via resurrection, enthronement etc.

3. Religious Experiences

As I already pointed out in my two posts here and here, there is ample scope within such a structure to furnish the trinitarian framework for these experiences.

4. Religious Environment

Since the clearest ideas of trinitarianism that emerge in a late first-century Jewish context follow on organically from the extraordinary events and changes that allowed Christianity's initial emergence from within Judaism in the 30s, I feel inclined to move a section such as this to the beginning. In addition to some of the comments and observations already made on the religious environment here, a summary of Tom Wright's presentation of the resurrection, Larry Hurtado's presentation of Jesus-worship and John Dominic Crossan's presentation of the collaborative kingdom may be appropriate as painting the backdrop of mutations out of which the trinitarian mutation follows, in which the Messiah is ushered into the divine centre and the Spirit is heralded out of the Father into God's now-multiethnic people in this new eschatological timeframe.

In light of my comments above, the early Gnostic threats identifiable already in the contexts into which 1 John, in particular, is written, might require repeating as a shaping force. 1 John combats this famously by insisting on the physicality of Jesus rather than an equal balance between Father, Son & Spirit, and I don't find its pneumatology particularly clear, to be honest (regardless of 1 Jn 3:24, e.g. see 1 Jn 4:2). This case of 1 John raises an interesting point about first-century trinitarianism I need to think more about.

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I'm still not certain I would maintain the four factors per se, although it is tempting to adapt them for my purposes. My issue is when to lay them out. It certainly couldn't be in Part 1 of my manuscript, which will focus on my initial investigation and its inadequacies (as a reflection of some of the inadequacies of the various explanations for the Trinity currently on offer).

Since my book does not attempt a historically parcelled defence of the factors in the way we will see Hurtado proceeds, it may instead serve as a conclusion section to my presentation chapter for the Triune Hub model, which could provide a launchpad for further historical research into the early centuries of the church à la Hurtado, while preceding my other important offering, which is to fold in the hermeneutical circle principle to look as a more satisfactory explanation for the Hub-to-God transition.

Unsuccessful Mutations

"Unwrapping" my digital birthday gift of Larry Hurtado's most substantial work on early Christian devotion to Christ, I searched for his use of "mutation" as a way to understand how Christianity grew in the first century from within Judaism. Of course, I know what his thesis is in general terms, but it is important to understand in more detail the evidence arising out of first-century sources for how Jesus was reverenced religiously and from the offset.

A couple of initial surprises. One of the practices in modern evangelical church of confusing Jesus and the Father was apparently a first-century struggle as well in some areas. I've yet to cover Hurtado's development there.

Secondly, very intriguingly, Hurtado also uses mutation language to describe unsuccessful early forms of Christian thought and practice. In responding to (and grilling) scholar Burton Mack, Hurtado points out that Mack's Jesus had to be a Jesus closely associated with a Sayings Jesus, such as the one found in the Gospel of Thomas. And that brand of Christianity didn't make it.

A question instantly popped into my mind: why? What can we identify about Christianity streams that were successful? As usual, I referred back to my Triune Hub model, which builds on three major developments within successful Judeo-Christianity that mainstream scholars have described as mutations (the combination of these three (along with other data) points to the mutation of faith itself into a trinitarian shape). Let's state them again:

1. The future hope of restoration of judgement and salvation has tangibly begun in the resurrection of the Messiah - nobody saw that coming.

2. Jesus is worshipped alongside God (Hurtado - although I might suggest that Jesus mediates worship back to the Father) - nobody saw the ascension of the Messiah coming.

3. The collaborative/participative kingdom mutation - nobody expected God's people to be directly involved and empowered to achieve God's Divine Cleanup of the world.

Not only do these three central mutations seem to require some kind of trinitarian articulation to faith (in place of "unitarian"), but they might provide the response to unsuccessful mutations. The Sayings Jesus seems to fail on 2 or 3 of these counts, the docetic Jesus on at least the resurrection count I would think, the Marcian Jesus rejects the notion of mutation entirely (i.e. rejects Judaism). The later Arian and subordinationist Jesuses were also unsuccessful but were seated on a couple of centuries of successful mutations. This probably indicates why they may not have denied any of the above.

But this is where it gets really interesting. Unlike some Christian apologetics that may try to squash these three centuries of debates into a small and even contemporary timeframe, we need to see the subordinationist movement as very close indeed to orthodoxy. All the really whacky stuff had already been done away with. In the fourth century we are not asking "was Jesus a man" or "did the resurrection matter". Successful Christianity acknowledged the mutations and had, by and large, left Judaism by now by virtue not least of its trinitarian shape. The question was now to decide how Christ and the Holy Spirit integrate the hub of Christian religious thought and activity. The question is ontological. But my recent discovery via Paul Ricoeur is that the question may not be ultimately ontological (I have yet to decide), but is certainly not uniquely ontological. 

What I am proposing is that because the church zoomed in further on their trinitarian faith, because there was a strong sense of loyalty to the biblical texts (the canonisation of which was in some interaction with the doctrine), which assert that "the Father is greater than I", a paradox ensued. Was the Father really greater than the Son? By bringing in Platonic thought, metaphysics and ontology into the discussion, a platonic-metaphysical-ontological answer to this question was necessary that would not upset the balanced trinitarian faith inherited from the earliest mutations described above, yet would still satisfy the loyalty issue.

An Arian or subordinationist view, despite the negative characterisations we receive from successful Christian historians, could still have rejoiced in the resurrection of the Christ as an anticipation of their own future bodily resurrection, could still have worshipped Jesus religiously and still be acting to lovingly advance God and Christ's Kingdom. But by asserting, for the first time perhaps from within this successful adaptation framework, that one aspect may be lesser or greater than another, may have just been too upsetting to the foundational Triune Hub mutation.

Jewish roots of the Trinity

As readers of my blog may have noticed, I can appear difficult to pin down on my views on the Trinity. That isn't because I enjoy that status - the reason is that my view simply doesn't fit any of the categories that I am currently aware of, and I continue to tweak it.

I see that we must make a distinction between two historical components or phases: a first century Judeo-Christian "mutation" and a late fourth-century Hellenistic preservation of the first-century mutation. Both are hermeneutic effects, but work differently.

In the New Testament, Father, Son and Spirit dominate. Never before in Jewish thought had focussed religious reflection ever been expressed in such a way, but that is the plain and evidential reality that we find in these first Christian texts (including early non-canonical texts, like the Didache).

The title of this post now needs some word of explanation. What I am about to grossly over-simplify is a Jewish threefold centre of their religious worldview and discourse. It is not a Hellenistic product (even if Tuggy is correct to assert an influence of divine triads over the development of Christian Trinitarianism, I would argue that this influence would be underscoring a pattern that we see already evidenced in the texts that we both agree are authoritative). However, it is also false to affirm that the second Hellenistic phase has also occurred, namely that God is triune. First, faith mutates into having a trinitarian structure. Secondly, the God concept mutates into having a trinitarian internal structure but in conformity with the faith mutation stage. 

What is going on in the first phase? The religious space typically accorded by the Jews to Yahweh alone, that hub, centre, core or whatever other synonyms you might prefer, had come to be shared with those other Two (my favoured term is "hub" because, in addition to centricity, it also carries the idea of movement of dependent elements around that hub). 

The first-century mutation, the Triune Hub, is making Jewish sense of:

• the Jesus events: death, postmortem encounters and enthronement visions mean the resurrection of God's Messiah and Son, physically absent but envisioned exalted and reigning at a cosmic level: at God's right hand.
• This super-exalted raised Messiah is also a clear instruction to worship God's annointed and continue to "follow" him.
• the unforeseeably early resurrection of Jesus winds the eschatological clock forward and prepares a new eschatological window: outpouring of the Spirit, empowering God's people symbolised through baptism to advance the inevitably victorious kingdom foreshadowed by Christ's victory over death and evil during the Easter-Passover weekend.

Between the two trinitarian mutation phases, there was a lot of heated debate within the church, particularly over Christ's exalted status as the movement rapidly outgrows its Jewish roots and moves wholesale into the Roman empire. This too is unwittingly hermeneutical, because while debating subordinationism, for example, and trying to understand quite what Christ meant when he said "the Father is greater than I", another threat was lurking in the shadows. By asserting an unnuanced interpretation of that statement, the Jewish root idea of tri-centric religious discourse was under threat, along with the movement hosting the discussion. If the church were to admit that one really was greater than another, then that lesser one would also begin a potentially slippery slide further and further from the divine centre space. This would throw the whole delicately balanced mutation out of whack. At some point, the words trias and later trinitas were introduced to help establish the hub with a referring term, even though God himself remained graciously one of those three.

When eventually events required some sort of resolution to this fourth-century crisis, it is the response to the subordinationists that wins the day. Orthodoxy - if we may personify it - subconsciously realised the inherent paradox of the Sirmium Council, which both affirmed the central task of forever preserving the Trinity and that one of those three really was lesser. Those two views are not compatible. Since it was indeed essential that the Trinity be forever preserved (or perhaps practiced would have been more faithful still to the New Testament texts), it could not be that one Trinity member was greater than another, where "greatness" carried symbolism of not just greatness or glory per se, but centricity.

So it is an over-simplification from the Unitarian minority report to insist that God is one, God is one, God is one, until suddenly a great theological switch is thrown to now insist that God is three in the late 300s. It's an impossible picture and one that would be far too destabilising for the church. No, you have to start earlier than the New Testament and affirm that God was identical to the space he occupied at the hub of the Jewish faith. Secondly, the faith unpredictably evolves to feature three somethings at the hub of the faith - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thirdly, the space is again reconciled with the being of God, comprising now three hypostases. So while the Unitarian will seek to show the drastic error of saying God was simply one and became three much later on, that person misses the organic nature of the development I am arguing for and the threefold centre of the faith they cherish. The number "three" can be seen as a threat to Unitarians, so they do not tend to focus on the possibility of such an early threefold hub. Perhaps they too, like Trinitarians, confuse trinitarian faith with trinitarian God. What both camps thus ignore is that the first and fourth-century churches share a triune hub. 

The fourth and fifth-century creeds, as ontological in focus as they might appear, should be seen to carry purpose, and that purpose is to guard - fiercely - the triune Hub rooted in the Jewish first-century church, by means of the philosophical tools available at the time. Those tools happen to be metaphysical and appear to be straight up fact claims, but they are loaded with the deeper purpose given at Sirmium.