Loading...This is my second and final post on the “Christ-poem” of Philippians 2. Many years ago when I talked about the poem, a reader (who apparently knew Greek!) objected that the poetic lines I suggested don’t actually work.
Below I’ll give his question and my response. But then I’ll move on to an even more important issue: how the poem understands who Christ was before he became human and after his resurrection. If Christ was divine before the incarnation, how could he be made more divine afterward?
First, the question I received about whether this is some kind of poem. Or rather, the objection that was raised?
This ‘rhythmic structure’ just does not work in Greek. The first ‘stanza’ with three ‘lines’:
Who, although he was in the form of God
Did not regard equality with God
Something to be grasped after;
In Greek the ‘third line’ is only one word and it appears in the middle of the ‘second line’, after only the first word of the so-called second line. There are a few different views of the structure, but they all must be based on the Greek text.
My response was this:
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This one for me, of limited comprehension has hit hard.
Hi Bart!
One question! The 10. in verse, is Jesus ‘ name the nomina sacra?
No, the “nomina sacra” refers to a group of 15 words (or so) that were abbreviated by later scribes, most of them connectred with God. So, the words, God, Christ, Spirit, cross, etc — they were abbreviated in manuscripts by most scribes because they occurred so frequently there was little reason to write them out. The “name” is probably the name Lord. Jesus became the Lord (Kurios) of all at that point.
Dr. Ehrman, I was reflecting on your view that Paul may have thought of Jesus as an angelic being before his incarnation. Could the so-called “Christ Poem” in Philippians 2:6–11 serve as support for this? Especially when considered alongside Galatians 4:14, where Paul says the Galatians received him “as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus.”
The poem’s depiction of Christ as being in the “form of God” and then humbling himself seems to resonate with Jewish traditions of angelic mediators who descend in service to God. Do you think this reflects an early belief that Jesus was a kind of exalted angelic figure?
Also, are there examples in the Old Testament where exalted or divine-sounding language is used about angels, perhaps suggesting a precedent for how early Christians could view an angelic figure as sharing in God’s glory or form?
Yes, I think Phil. 2 does presuppose Christ as an angel before becoming hguman. And yes, in the OT “angels” and the “angel of the Lord” are also God himself in places.
Is the “Christ Poem” of Philippians Really a Poem? : Yes, it looks to have been written in simple language unlike a detailed wordy philosophy book.
What Did Jesus Really Become “Equal” With God? : εν αρχη. Genesis 1:1 LXX.
The primary verbs (be, do, have) have mystical meanings caused by evolving states of consciousness and meditations.
ὃς ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων
Who being in the form of God,
(null copula /ειμι, )
ὑπάρχων I think that’s a verbal/participle/noun and appositive or predicate nominative of ος the relative pronoun.
Who in the form of God, the Beginning (Genesis 1:1) Who = The Beginning
τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ,
the being equal with God
το ειναι looks like a Infinitive verb/verbal/noun
(Nueter noun Infinitive) The Being, The Exist(er) equal with/to God.
I think it means he was The Beginning (first two words in Genesis 1:1 LXX) εν αρχη (Dative of Instrument by which all was created from).
Do vs 9-11 really say that God has exalted Jesus to the same level as himself or rather that Jesus has been exalted above every other created thing? (Since naming is part of creation, “a name above every other name”.) A sort of Emperor’s regent, perhaps, given the prerogatives of the Emperor without being the Emperor. The final constituent phrase in v11, “to the glory of God the Father” , sounds like God retains some sort of unique status since the exaltation of Jesus is for God’s glory.
It’s because of the clear use of the passage in Isaiah that it is clear that Jesus has been exalted to God’s own level.
So, it is clear that Christ has attained a certain equality with God. However, and I would like your opinion here doctor, to be equal with God in some sense is not the same as the trinitarian assertion that Jesus is himself God. In my view, you can’t be equal with God if you are God; self- equality does not exist. However, I understand that in the trinitarian economy equality exists between the person’s father, son, and spirit. Do you think this is something my fellow Trinitarians are grasping at to try and prove that Jesus is himself God when there’s a distinction between Jesus and the god that he is equal with? I think it’s a blunder, but they’re getting away with it. Also, one more question even though this poem has Jesus exalted highly enough to attain a quality with God this is temporary according to 1 Corinthians 15 where he says Jesus will be made subject to God.
THat’s right — if Christ is exalted to the level of God then he is not co-equal with God from all eternity. Paul did not have a trinitarian view.
Dr. Ehrman—Have you read Richard Bauckham’s book–Jesus and the God of Israel, especially his chapter on Pau’s Christology of Divine Identity? I f so, you would know it would be IDOLATRY to worship any being that is created——–no matter how exalted that being is. It would be a violation of the first commandment. To worship ANY CREATED BEING–EVEN JESUS AS THE HIGHEST AND GREATEST ANGEL created by Yahweh
would still be blasphemy to an orthodox Palestinian jew living in first century Israel. Ontologically only the God of israel is without beginning or end. Even the God of Israel cannot make a created being into an uncreated being. If Paul did not believe that Jesus did not share the same “uncreated–ness” as the Father, then it would be idolatry for Paul and the very earliest JEWIISH CHRISTIANS TO WORSHIP jESUS
I would encourage you to read.-JESUS AND THE GOD ISRAEL as well as David Capes book–The Divine Christ–Paul, The Lord Jesus and the scriptures of Israel
Yes, of course I know Bauckham’s work.
Well, in Greek terminology, it isn’t a poem, because it isn’t metrical. In classical Greece, poetry was defined as “words with meter” and this passage has no meter that I can discern. (Greek meter was quantitative and followed very regular rules —there was no equivalent of “free verse.”) A non-metrical passage, no matter how evocative and powerful, is by definition prose and not poetry in Greek literature. But this may well be a transposition of Hebrew poetic form into Greek. If so, it’s still the case that no-one brought up in Greek culture would identify this as poetry, but those brought up with knowledge of Hebrew poetry might.
Yup, it obviously doesn’t scan, but it is set up in strophes. So it’s poetic in that sense, and I suppose in ways it’s like some, but not most, Hebrew poetry (which more often works in synonymous or antithetical couplets, though there are plenty of options involving development). But it could not have been composed in Hebrew. So maybe but it’s a Greek composition by someone influenced by the Septuagint? What would we call it, then, if not a poem? (I.e., it’s not prose as we think of prose, because it’s rhythmic and in strophes; it’s not “Greek” poetry because it doesn’t scan; but it’s written in Greek).
Greek prose often is very rhythmic, though in Greek terminology the term “strophe” applies only to choral odes. This particular passage is set up in balanced, matching phrases, which I think is what you mean by “strophe.” In Greek, that’s a common feature of some forms of rhetoric, and I think this piece would probably be categorized as a prose hymn, a recognized form of epideictic rhetoric.
The Gettysburg Address is a useful comparandum, I think. It is certainly “poetic”, and highly rhythmic, and carefully structured with balanced phrases and frequent uses of repetition, alliteration, and so on; but we all recognize that it is, in fact, prose — even though parts of the Gettysburg Address almost DO scan metrically (NOW we are en | GAGED in a |GREAT ci vil | WAR), we never call it a poem. I’d call it — and the Phil. passage under discussion — “rhythmic prose.”
OK, consider me convinced.
In the poem, who is doing the intending? Who decided there would be an incarnation, the pre-existent angelic being or Yahweh himself? In the first part, seems it was the angel’s decision to humble himself and come down to earth as a human. But at the end, it wasn’t his decision after all: He was being obedient to Yahweh by dying on the cross, and Yahweh rewarded him for that by exalting him. Or maybe there was a combination of intentions?
The implication of the passage is that it was Christ’s initiative.
What about Oneness Pentecostals, Unitarians and others who insist Philippians 2 is not talking about a pre-incarnate Christ becoming incarnate, but is only talking about something he did after being born? Are we quite sure that “being in the form of god did not think it robbery to be equal with god” is talking about a mindset Jesus had before he was born? Are we quite sure that “emptied himself” (kenosis) means “came from heaven to earth”? I find such issues purely academic since no Christian can make a prima facie case that Paul is a theological authority in the first place. But because Paul wished to evangelize pagans, he had every motive and opportunity to describe Jesus in ways 1st century pagans would naturally expect of any “god”. The trouble is that it’s hard to believe 1st century people would have taken the stories about Zeus seriously. Hesiod was entertainment, not authoritative “history”. So if Paul was attempting a copycat savior job, he would likely also intend his Jesus-statements to have less to do with historical reality and more to do with provoking discussions about speculative philosophy.
I don’t think that reading can be right, if you look at it quite closely.
Are the Christ Poem and the Prologue of John related? Does the former inform the latter?
They move along similar lines, but are very different indeed. John would never say that Christ was exalted to an even higher status after his resurrectoin.