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In my last post, I pointed out that some conservative evangelical Christians (maybe others? These are the ones I know about) claim that Jesus, in the Bible, is actually to be understood as Yahweh. Jesus is not Yahweh, and in this post, I want to explain why.
Again, if someone knows better than I do, let me know. But I’ve never even heard the claim (let alone a discussion of it) until very recently. I wonder if there are any early Christian theologians who have this view. Or even later ones, prior to recent times?
It is not the view of traditional Christian theology, at least as I learned it once upon a time. It was certainly not the view of the earliest Christians and is not a view set forth in the Bible. The Bible, of course, does not have the Trinity, but when Christianity formulated the doctrine of the trinity, the Father was Yahweh, and Christ was his son. At least that’s what Christians who read their Old Testament said.
Of course, the name Yahweh is not found in the NT at all, since it is a Hebrew word, and the NT is written in Greek. The NT does not give God a personal name.
The Father is Yahweh
When Christians wanted to find another divine being in the OT to identify as Christ, they went to passages like Psalm 110: “The LORD said to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.” Based on what I said in my previous post, you can reconstruct who is talking to whom here (notice the first LORD is in caps and the second not): “YHWH said to Adonai….”
In interpreting that passage, Christians asked: who is it that elevated Christ (“our Lord”) to his right hand? Obviously, God the Father. And so, God the Father is YHWH, and the one elevated to his right hand is “the Lord Jesus.” Christians appealed to this verse in reference to Christ a good deal — it is one of the most common OT verses found in the NT, quoted six times (see Matt. 22:4) and referred to more indirectly possibly nine (e.g., Eph. 1:20). These Christians were not seeing Jesus as Yahweh but as his son whom he exalted to his right hand. Yahweh and Jesus.
The Angel of the Lord is Not Yahweh
Christians such as the second century Justin Martyr also found references to the pre-incarnate Christ in Old Testament traditions of the “Angel of the LORD” who was God’s (Yahweh’s) chief representative on earth delivering God’s message with God’s full authority in the stories of the Patriarchs, e.g., in Genesis and Exodus. Who was this mysterious angel? For Christians, he was Christ before he was born of the virgin Mary.
I wonder if the confusion among some evangelicals about the Christian understanding of Christ (when they say he is Yahweh Jesus) is because the “Angel” of the LORD is so fully representative of YHWH himself that he is sometimes called YHWH after he is clearly identified NOT as YHWH but his angel. Why would he be called YHWH if he was YHWH’s messenger? It would be kind of like if a messenger of the king comes to you and orders you to do something, you tell your neighbors that the “king” has told you to do something. Well, actually, his messenger did, but he was so fully representative of the king that his words were the kings.
This happens when the Angel of the LORD speaks to Moses from the burning bush in the famous passage of Exodus 3, as you can see. But the early Christians, so far as I know, were clear on the matter: this was Christ, coming in his pre-incarnate state as God’s chief representative, the Angel of the LORD, who was given such authority that he could be considered as having the full status of the LORD even though he was merely his angel – the view that Christians took of Christ.
Modern Christians: Are Yahweh and Jesus the Same?
Some modern Christians may misinterpret the Christ poem in Philippians 2 this way; I talked about the poem at length a month or so ago on the blog (just do a word search for it). When Christ is exalted after his death, God gives him “the name that is above every name” so that all creation will worship and confess him. That is a reference to Isaiah 45 where Yahweh alone has the name above every name so that all worship and confess to him alone.
Possibly these modern Christians are thinking that Christ therefore must have been given the name YHWH, and therefore he *is* YHWH. But the passage doesn’t seem to mean that. The ultimate LORD of all, YHWH, is the one who *gives* Jesus the name that is above all others. It’s worth noting that in this very passage, when God gives Jesus his “name,” it does not mean that he’s made a name switch for Jesus. On the contrary, the passage says that the name to which everyone will bow in worship and confess is *Jesus*! (Not YHWH): “That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess.” Jesus’ own name is exalted.
Early Christians Did Not Think Jesus Was Yahweh
Then how did YHWH give him a name above *all* others? Surely that would be YHWH’s own name, right? Well, yes and no. He did give him the name, but not in the literal sense of “now you are YHWH” but in the biblical sense, I’ve been describing (“you now have the full authority of YHWH; what you say and do is equal to the authority of YHWH saying and doing it.”). Jesus now, at his exaltation (not before!) is given equal authority as the LORD himself. He now has the highest name/authority, equal with God. But that does not mean he *is* God/YHWH. Being equal is different from being identical.
Another analogy: When someone says to you, “Open up, in the name of the King” or “in the name of the Law” – the “name” means the “authority.” And that must be what it means in Philippians 2 since the literal name is still Jesus, but the authority the name has is now the authority of God Almighty, Yahweh himself.
And so, I simply don’t think it’s right that Christian theology understands Jesus as Yahweh. Well, I guess some Christians do, since that appears to be what they think! I wonder when they started thinking about it….
Dear Bart, the name Jesus was not extraordinary in Israelite history and was common even among early Jewish Christians. So one could ask, which Jesus exactly? Well, that Galilean guy, the Jesus who was given the medal of honor postmortem for his service, i.e. the title as lord and christ of the messianic community, after his valorous death and well-deserved ascension.
Is it possible that the name-title-authority Paul meant was “Christ and Lord” not just the special authority associated with the standard Greek version (Iseous) of the Jewish name Jehoshua?
In fact even in the US today where Jesus is worshipped you can find many Catholic Hispanic guys called Jesus (hesus) and Protestant guys called Joshua. They find no problem with that, however, if you rightly point out from the Tanakh that David was the Firstborn Son Christ of God the Father (Psalm 89:20, 26-27) this is considered as blasphemy, because the title “christ” belongs only to their lord Jesus.
To me, just another apostate, the Christian Trinity is more than three, three, three gods in one. It is intellectual polytheism.
Dr. Ehrman. From what I understand, Jesus is also a great prophet in Islamic theology, but here He is subject to the sovereign god of Allah. If the logic holds that God the Father is Yahweh, then surely the Muslim God Allah must also be Yahweh?
You will not find any of the Church Fathers calling «God the Father» Yahweh. They called the Father an Omnipotent God. They were deeply influenced by Greek philosophy, and they spent much time arguing against this view. But it seems that they accepted Plato’s understanding of the Supreme Sovereign God – a God who in no way had any contact with a world that was imperfect.
“No one knows Fathers except the Son!” said Jesus, but Moses, among many others, knew Yahweh! Moses conversed with and argued against Yahweh, and Yahweh repented and changed his mind. The Jewish God Yahweh was an anthropopathic God – a God with human qualities.
As a non-Christian with a passing, mostly “intellectual” interest, in understanding Christian beliefs, I have to say this whole business of “Who exactly do you worship?” and “What is his name?” and “How many of him exactly are there?” and other basic questions leave me baffled. This seems like such a mish-mash of confused and contradictory (but essential) beliefs that I feel great relief that Christianity has never seemed like an attractive belief system to me. It’s much more like “Uh, when you folks figure some of this basic stuff out, and when you all more or less agree on it, get back to me, ok?”
These posts are fascinating to me. In the circles I grew up in it was definitely much less thoroughly thought out than this – I think you’re giving a lot of people more credit than they deserve for justifying their beliefs. 🙂
Without getting into any nuance I think the evangelicals I grew up with would just say that the Trinity collectively is Yahweh, not just the Father. One being with one name, so that Jesus and the Holy Spirit could also be called Yahweh, but not necessarily on their own. I confirmed this with my wife, who said she would agree with the statement “Jesus is Yahweh,” but only in the context of being a member of the singular Trinitarian God, whose name is Yahweh. And she specified that she’s never thought about it and couldn’t justify it.
This post summarises NT and 2nd century proto-orthodox christologies so well.
“I simply don’t think it’s right that Christian theology understands Jesus as Yahweh. Well, I guess some Christians do, since that appears to be what they think! I wonder when they started thinking it….”
The major Reformers like Calvin wrote about the Trinity and were definitely not ‘Jesus is the person Yahweh’ people.
Amongst modern lay Protestant Trinitarians, I think ‘Jesus just is the person Yahweh’ claims are made because they are told to believe in a formula ‘one God in three Persons’ without much explanation provided, and each makes sense of that formula the best way they can, usually (given their views on personal identity and ignorance of ancient views on representation and agency) by becoming modalists or confused. Tritheism isn’t an open option since, well, there is only ‘one God’. This and not knowing anything about the controversies from which the doctrine arose result in ‘Jesus just is the person Yahweh’.
I am surprised that that people thinking that Jesus is God the father surprises you. It feels like I have heard this all of my life but especially all of my adult life. I would have thought you heard this when you were an evangelical conservative Christian. I would have also thought your students would have mentioned this belief in your classes.
I do not think the Christians that I know distinguish between God, Yahweh, Adonai, LORD, Lord, etc. For them, these are all the same names for one God. And God and Jesus to them are the same.
Is the Jesus/YHWH confusion evidence that perhaps Christianity is evolving? Or DEvolving?
Don’t know! What seems weird today will seem commonplace tomorrow and usually we think we are better than yesterday….
Why do I get the feeling that the early Christians made it up as they went along? First Jesus would have been seen by his disciples as merely a man given a mission from god to prepare people for the impending intervention of god in human history. After his death and perceived resurrection his status kept getting upgraded until he became a pre-existent divine being. Suddenly everybody started thinking oh crap does that mean that we have two gods? Maybe we should have thought out the implications of all this sooner. At least that is my impression based on what you have been teaching us so far.
Dear Bart,
Very informative and well thought out post. For those “some conservative evangelical Christians”, what’s in it for them to “claim that Jesus, in the Bible, is actually to be understood as Yahweh.” I don’t understand where it actually gets them, from a theological stand point. I’d appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks.
I’m not sure I understand your question. But I’m not sure what it gets them either.
Wouldn’t Marcion have loved to hear Yaweh and Christ were the same ? Can you imagine his reaction to calling Jesus the same as the Creator God?!
What are your thoughts on Genesis 19:24 having two Yahweh’s, one in heaven and one on earth? The obvious question is where is the third Yahweh….I have often come across this argument from Trinitarians who claim this is evidence of the Trinity in the old testament.
I don’t believe the verse is normally read that way.
You are most likely overthinking this problem(?) The christians (and quite a few non-believers)simply equate if Jesus and Yahweh are one,then,that means Jesus=Yahweh by default.
Most (do any?)denominations don’t teach Jesus was a pre-existing angel or a human elevated to divine status;he was god incarnate.
Also, I might add this thought is probably based on John’s view of Christ being with Yahweh since the beginning.
Arcane delight, Dr. Ehrman. Two points:
1. As I was taught, the personal unity of Father/Son/Spirit is the perfect unity of their *agreement*. There was never a time when the Father and Son disagreed. There was never a time when the Holy Spirit disagreed with either. So they are “one” in perfect agreement for all past, present, and future. Therefore the three are clearly “one” so that we may *always* speak of them together (MT 28:18-20). We only slip when we insist upon *literalism* and a *materialist* idea of “unity”.
2. Sigmund Freud, raised Jewish, wrote that the utterly ancient prayer, “Sh’ma Yisrael Adonai Eloheinu Adonai Eḥad” was the original Jewish prayer from Moses (c. 1350 BC). It survived intact through piety which shows that Moses called God by the *proper name* “Adonai.” Moses derived this name, wrote Freud, from the Egyptian god, Aton. Whence Yahweh? Yahweh was the monotheistic volcano god of Joshua, whose Zadok (Yahweh) priests struggled for centuries against the Levite (Adonai) priests’ claim to superiority. King David reportedly recognized the Zadok priests over the Levites — now ritual servants.
I’m persuaded by your main argument here. Thanks!
On a side note: How do you yourself decide whether it is ok to pronounce YHWH, as “Yahweh”, out loud in public?
I sometimes feel a cringe, but since I’m not Jewish, I decide to go ahead. I say a lot of things that some Christians find offensive and blasphemous as well, I guess.
I don’t think Christianity, or any religion, has much to do with thinking – at least for the vast majority of its adherents.
I went to Catholic school in the days of the “Baltimore Catechism”. We were clearly taught that Jesus and “God The Father” (no one ever used the name Yahweh) are separate persons but “one in being”. In fact that phrase is in the translation of the Nicene Creed we recited frequently. Obviously this makes no sense from a logical point of view so it seems equally valid to say that Jesus is NOT God the Father because he is a separate “person” or that He is God the Father because they are “one in being” whatever that means. Catholics were also taught that Jesus and The Father have the same “essence and will”, and they share the same omniscience and omnipotence. We were taught that nevertheless, they are not the same person, and also not the Holy Spirit who is also consubstantial with Father and Son. Of course no one can conceive of two separate persons who share the same knowledge and the same “will” are “one in being” but are separate persons. What, after all, defines a “person” if not their conscious knowledge, their will and their substance. Some Christians are bound to be confused.
To me there are much greater mysteries in life to consider. Take for instance the hotdog and the hotdog bun, they are not the same length. One would imagine that if one is made for the other their lengths would be just a little closer to the same. The second problem is the count per package; you get 10 hotdogs in one package, but only 8 buns per package. Truly this is mysterious question that will have to wait until the Soprano after life.
Paul believed there was one lord, jesus christ, who had a name above every name and to which every knee would bow and every tongue confess.
who else did he think he was but yahweh?
He was the son of God who had been given authority (= the name) equal to that of YHWH.
Notice: God *GIVES* him the name. It was God’s to give. Jesus’ Father is Yahweh.
I think Phil 2 should be understand as saying that through Jesus’s desire to not simply grasp equality with God it was necessary for Jesus to empty himself. That as the son and heir the name and title was his birthright – that had he not emptied himself he would have necessarily had equality. Rather he wanted to earn the name and title rather than grasp as his birthright.
So having been obedient to death God bestowed on him the name and title that was his all along.
When Caesar adopts a son as successor he not only becomes the Son of Caesar but also Caesar in his own right. Phil 2 should be understood as saying there are two who are YHWH.
I’m give to understand that in the Pentateuch El is translated as “Theos” and Yahweh is translated as “Kyrios.” Doesn’t Paul call Jesus “Kyrios,” but never “Theos”? And doesn’t he call Jesus’s father “Theos”? Wouldn’t that imply to a reader familiar with the Pentateuch around Paul’s time that the Kyrios is the son of Theos?
Kyrios is normally the trnaslation of Adonai.
That’s compatible with what I said. Isn’t it still the case that the Septuagint translation for Yahweh is “Kyrios “?
Yes, it translates both. So when a Christian calls Jesus Kurios, it does not necessarily mean she is calling him YHWH.
Thank you for the replies!
I can see the reasoning behind your stance. However, “Yahweh” appears thousands of times in the OT, and “Adonai” only hundreds. Regardless, it certainly looks like Paul is trying to distinguish between Theos and Kyrios. God the father is Theos, according to Paul. And Jesus is Kyrios. But in the OT Theos and Kyrios are presented as the same figure.
I suppose it became a big deal when the Visigoths who followed Arien grew in power?
Jesus is not YHWH but is a Son of The Most High form our early sources
YHWH was recognized as the God of the Jews, their malicious teacher and cruel judge, the racist God. Certainly no one who would fit into the philosophical unmoved mover scheme for the whole world. The emperor, a man-God for all, was in turn imposed by the Empire and treated with skepticism.
And so the counter Emperor and counter YHWH was created, the Greek Jesus accused falsely by the Jews and executed by the Romans because the author of the story was a Greek. This was the message for 99% of Christians. Everything else was a battleground for church leaders.
The first organized church reportedly severed its tradition of the LXX as a scripture and treated it as the biography of YHWH. This is from the public reports of the investigators who questioned the accused. The defendants’ version originally accepted by the investigators is lost.
YHWH was restored to the position of supreme God a Jews were accused of stupidity – they screwed everything up and didn’t understand their God. And just such an “innocent” God was credited with Jesus as a son.
Yeshua ben Yoseph (aka Isa ibn Maryam) was an apocalyptic Jew who was continuing the work of John the Baptist to heal the infirm so that they could be present before Yahweh in The Temple. His followers believed he was adopted by Yahweh when he was baptised by John. In the end, he came to believe that his death would be necessary as part of the coming revolution. Whether he believed he was preparing the way for the advent of ‘The Son of Man’, or whether he believed that he would be returned as this Messiah is unclear.
As for equating him with God…. the Gospel of John was written a long time after his death, and conflating his status had more to do with incorporating Greco-Roman philosophy into Christianity than anything Jesus professed.
As someone who came from a very conservative church, I think I can shed some light. We did not equate Jesus with God, but rather the (pre-existent) Son of God as a separate being. We did recognize the problem of Jesus being the ‘Son of God’ in some places and then in the Gospel of John being equated to God. But we just figured that’s now really what John meant, because both could not be true.
More recently in this church, and I think many other conservative congregations, Jesus began to be equated with God. If you only know the KJV bible, then there is no possibility of equating Jesus and Yahweh because you never heard of Yahweh. However, if you think Jesus is God, and you just found out that the Hebrew name for God is really Yahweh, then you see how Jesus became Yahweh. But you have to have a tradition where the God of the Old Testament is the God of the New Testament as well. Thus it is simple name substitution with no other significance.
I think that equating Jesus with YHWH has been around for a while, but I suspect that it’s becoming increasingly popular now because so many of the once-popular “Trinity Proof Texts” and arguments have been placed in the circular file (1 John 5:7; 1 Tim. 3:16; the notion that the ancient Jews were strict monotheists, so that an application of a term for “God” to someone must either be a reference to the true God, or it must be understood hyperbolically, etc.). Since orthodox Christians are reluctant to part with the post-biblical doctrine, some have simply shifted focus and developed new arguments, e.g. a “Christology of Divine Identity” (Bauckham), or a focus on OT texts that had the Divine Name being applied to Jesus (Capes), which some assume must mean that the NT writers meant to identify Jesus as YHWH.
The doctrine shapes exegesis as much if not more than it emerges from it.
~Sean
Well, as “recently” as 2015 you debated this very topic (1:18 into the video) with a Justin Bass. A very memorable debate since the first question in the Q&A was not directed to either one of you, but to a woman in the audience… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CTgig9F782s
Bart – what do you make of John 8:58, where Jesus is quoted as saying “before Abraham was, I Am.” The phrase “I Am” seems an obvious reference to Yahweh, and the passage can certainly be read as Jesus inferring that he is identified with “I Am.” Perhaps the quotation (probably like much of John) is inauthentic, and perhaps it is a later interpolation from a time when Jesus’ divinity had become commonly accepted by Christians. But it needs to be explained.
Yes, he is claining the name/authority of God.
Bart: Gordon Fee, in his book, “Jesus the Lord According to Paul the Apostle,” argues that Paul’s use of “Lord” to refer to Jesus goes back to the subsitution of Kyrios in the Septuagint for Yahweh. So, it seems to be an example of an Evangelical scholar, in some sense, seeing Jesus as Yahweh. I’m curious if you have any thoughts on his theory.
I’m not sure if he’s saying he thinks jesus actually was Yahweh or that he was being equated with him. Big dif.
From my Jewish outsider’s perspective, I’ve always identified our Yahweh (though, having grown up under the pronunciation prohibition, I don’t actually myself think of him by that name) with the Muslim’s Allah, and Christianity’s God the Father. I know that proves nothing, but it just seems logical that way and gives the three faiths a true common kernel. I have to agree with Bart that literally identifying Jesus with Yahweh just feels wrong in every way: historically, theologically, and aesthetically. (But then, I’m not a fan of the Trinity concept to begin with. I think it’s an unfortunate add-on from outside the original faith community and as alien to Jesus’s own beliefs as I believe Kabbalah to be alien to authentic Judaism.)
“Of course the name Yahweh is not found in the NT at all, since it is a Hebrew word and the NT is written in Greek. The NT does not give God a personal name.”
was it (the name yhwh)forgotten when the nt was being written?
the replacement for “yhwh” is “hashem,” how do we know that “yhwh” was not a replacement in the hebrew text?
The NT is written in Greek and so the authors did not use Hebrew words. They almost certainly didn’t know Hebrew anyway.
the earliest stuff which pre-dates the hebrew torah are translations, right?
it is said that y.h.v.h is replaced by names such as kyrios, adonai….
how do we know with certainty that the earliest of earliest texts had the letters y.h.v.h?
Because there’s no evidence that in earliest recorded times (the dates of the writings themselves) the name was avoided or unpronounced, even though it was later, and the earliest mss all have it.
Dr. Ehrman, with respect to the question when Christians started to equate Jesus and Yahweh, it may be of some interest that this is part of the theology of both the LDS Church and the Seventh-day Adventist World Church. At least in the case of the LDS Church, the belief can be traced to its early beginnings. As Joseph Smith often borrowed his ideas from other Christian sources, this seems to date the belief back to before 1830.
Thanks!
As a non-scholar, the chain of logic seems clear to me: certain Christians believe scripture is the Word of God. Scripture includes John’s Gospel. John’s Gospel says “I [Jesus of Nazareth, the Christ] and the father [Yahweh] are one.”
I think such Christians err on the first leg of this logic, but surely this is the basis for their belief that Jesus is Yahweh.
Being ONE (unified/equal) is not the same as being IDENTICAL.
Bart,
In fact the New Testament DOES use the name of Yahweh. Since the NT authors used the Septuagint for their resource, we need to look at the name of Yahweh in the Septuagint Ex3.14 – wherein it is clearly explicated –
καὶ εἶπεν ὁ θεὸς πρὸς Μωυσῆν ἐγώ εἰμι ὁ ὤν καὶ εἶπεν οὕτως ἐρεῗς τοῗς υἱοῗς Ισραηλ ὁ ὢν ἀπέσταλκέν με πρὸς ὑμᾶς
The NAME is ὁ ὤν.
To confirm that at least one NT author identified ὁ ὤν as the name and USED it – not once but several times one simply opens to Rev1.4 – and then 1.8 and at least another instance or two.
Ἰωάνης ταῖς ἑπτὰ ἐκκλησίαις ταῖς ἐν τῇ Ἀσίᾳ· χάρις ὑμῖν καὶ εἰρήνη ἀπὸ ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος, καὶ ἀπὸ τῶν ἑπτὰ Πνευμάτων ἃ ἐνώπιον τοῦ θρόνου αὐτοῦ,
The careful reader will note that this one is uniquely called ὁ Παντοκράτωρ in Rev1.8 Ἐγώ εἰμι τὸ Ἄλφα καὶ τὸ Ὦ, λέγει Κύριος ὁ Θεός, ὁ ὢν καὶ ὁ ἦν καὶ ὁ ἐρχόμενος, ὁ Παντοκράτωρ.
AND will note that Jesus is NEVER called ὁ Παντοκράτωρ.
To Finish the Above
LAST but NOT least – this brings us back to an earlier discussion in which I asserted that Jesus is NOT self-identifying with the God of Israel by the use of εγω ειμι in Jn8.58 – despite the Jewish uproar. The author KNOWs that εγω ειμι is not the name of Yahweh is clearly identified in the Rev passages – but rather simply a standard equative with an implied predicate nominative (cf Jn9.9 for a parallel example by the blind man). Jesus never claimed to be God in any sense – and in Jn8.40 clearly identifies Himself as a MAN.
Hope this helps,
Greg
Petrejo, sorry to disappoint you, but the whole premise of your Freud question is mistaken, because Freud was wrong. The word “Adonai” [“Lord”] does not appear in the text of the Sh’ma, it’s just *read* that way because of the custom of not pronouncing the Tetragrammaton.
The Hebrew text of the prayer — “.שְׁמַע, יִשְׂרָאֵל: יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ, יְהוָה אֶחָד.” — is written with “Yahweh.” יְהוָה = Yahweh. Therefore, Moses did not, in this case, refer to God by a title, but by his proper name, the Tetragrammaton. (Nor was the god of that name only introduced later by Joshua.) Whether Freud was nevertheless right about a connection between the Hebrew word for Lord, “Adonai,” and the Egyptian god, Aton, I don’t know, but I doubt it.
I was wondering when Christians included the Holy Spirit as a third person of Yahweh? As far as I understand Judaism sees the Holy Spirit (ie. “wind from God” in Genesis 1:2) as simply God. Since God is one it was merely Yahweh himself moving over the waters, not another person of Yahweh.
They never did. Yahweh was one person, the Father. The Spirit was separate from him, as a different person, as you say.
Forgive me but for further clarification how’d the first Christians see the person of the Holy Spirit in reference to Jesus and Yahweh, ie. how would the “chain of command” work? If Jesus has been exalted above all and now has full authority/equality with Yahweh is the Holy Spirit essentially an OT angel of Yahweh? Yahweh’s subordinate before the risen Jesus supplanted the Spirit in importance?
My sense is that the earliest Christians saw Jesus as pre-existent divine being who was subordinate to God, who was then elevated to an equal level of authority with God at the resurrection, and that the Spirit was a kind of manifestation of God here on earth rather than a different “person.” But it’s very hard to know.
My sense was that exaltation implicitly meant Jesus was seen as a normal human (without pre-existence) who for sheer righteousness Yahweh decided to resurrect and adopt, and the “son of God” would soon return as the “son of man” to inaugurate the end of the world.
It may be impossible to say but I imagine the apostles couldn’t’ve believed Jesus had pre-existence until much later. Would Christians have already been saying Jesus had pre-existence by the time of Paul’s persecution/conversion? And would the apostles have believed in Jesus’ pre-existence by the time Paul first met them in Jerusalem; even James, Jesus’ own brother?
Paul appears to believe in Christ’s pre-existence (that’s pretty clear, I think, in Phil. 2:6-8); whether the disciples of Jesus did, at that point, we can’t say. I suspect not.
Mormons teach Jesus is Yahweh (Jehovah) and God the Father is Elohim. There was a time when they taught Adam was God the Father incarnate, also, but Mormons who teach that now risk getting kicked out.
Prof Ehrman,
Q1. Contextually, who is being referenced as Lord in Psalm 110?
n1. Please, there are lots of Hebrew names transliterated/ translated into Greek by the NT writers and eventually make their way into English. My construction is that writers of the NT employed the Septuagint that was premised on this trail: Hebrew substitution of YHWH with Adonai TO Greek rendition of Kyrios (Adonai in Hebrew) in the Septuagint TO English rendition of LORD/ Lord.
Q2. In the case of YHWH, will I be right in my construction in n1? If not, can you kindly clarify, please?
Thank you.
THe first Lord is (literally) Yahweh, the second is the king (adonai).. If I’m understanding your note correctly, yes. the Septuagint rendered both YHWH and Adonai as “kurios.”
Prof Ehrman,
Please, when and why do Jews use Hashem in reference to YHWH?
Thank you
Ha shem means “the name.” So it’s the name that may not be pronounced.
I was watching the debate you had with James white and you two were discussing P 72 and you made the point that it had “the earliest attestation of”, unfortunately, I could not make out the rest because it was in Latin or another, could you please tell me what you said so I can research it? Thank you
I’m afraid I don’t remember! And for the life of me I can’t figure out what it might have been. The manuscript does contain a number of non-canonical texts.
Prof Ehrman,
Q1. Please, what is the reason behind why Jews substituting the tetragramaton with Adonai/ Ha Shem? (THE WHY)
Q2. How long ago is this tradition? (THE WHEN)
Thank you
1 The name was too holy to pronounce, so they had to put something in its place; 2 I’m not sure when that happened.
Bart, with regard to when Jews stopped pronouncing the Tetragrammaton MyJewishLearning.com says:
“God’s name was almost certainly pronounced in early times, but by the third century BCE the consonants were regarded as so sacred that they were never articulated.”
Britannica.com says:
“After the Babylonian Exile (6th century BCE), and especially from the 3rd century BCE on, Jews ceased to use the name Yahweh for two reasons. As Judaism became a universal rather than merely a local religion, the more common Hebrew noun Elohim (plural in form but understood in the singular), meaning ‘God,’ tended to replace Yahweh to demonstrate the universal sovereignty of Israel’s God over all others. At the same time, the divine name was increasingly regarded as too sacred to be uttered…”
Thanks!
The Jewish Virtual Library has interesting further details of the history and practices, some of which is surprising:
Nothing in the Torah prohibits a person from pronouncing the Name of God. Indeed, it is evident from scripture that God’s Name was pronounced routinely. Many common Hebrew names contain “Yah” or “Yahu,” part of God’s four-letter Name. The Name was pronounced as part of daily services in the Temple.
The Mishnah confirms that there was no prohibition against pronouncing The Name in ancient times. In fact, the Mishnah recommends using God’s Name as a routine greeting to a fellow Jew. Berakhot 9:5. However, by the time of the Talmud [c. 300-500 CE], it was the custom to use substitute Names for God.
… interesting post. But all too literal. Not impressed with your comments like “not normally read that way”… what does that mean? Normal means following the great prophet Cecil B. deMille……. this is not good. But reality.
I mean normally read by experts, who, after all, have spent their lives studying such things, not people who take a glance and make a guess.
Revelation 5: 2
They sang with all their might: “Worthy is the Lamb, who has been slain, to receive power, wealth and wisdom, strength and honor, glory and praise!”
Dr. E, you’ve spoken about this before, i just don’t know where, but 1 Corinthians 10:9… something to the effect of do not put Christ or as a the variant reads the Lord or even God to the test like the Israelites did and were destroyed by serpents… major textural variant here, possibly equating Christ with the LORD of Numbers 21. Ive TRIED in vain to figure out from my apparatus which manuscripts said Lord and which said Christ. Can you help me out with this one, and if you don’t mind, which is the preferred reading in your estimation?
Seems to me, Christ, is the more difficult text, anachronistic… but that didn’t stop Paul from referencing the midrashic tradition of the rolling rock drinking fountain and equating that with Christ in v. 4… anyway… help please 🙂 thank you 🙂
Do you read Greek? The apparatus is pretty clear here I think: “Christ” is found in P46, D F G, and a number of other witnesses Greek, Latin, patristic, and so on. My view is that it’s an attempt to put Christ back into the Old Testament as a divine being.
My bad Dr. E. I am LEARNING greek… i would hardly say i read it, but i am diligently learning. Remember i bombed out of an mDiv 20 years ago… As to the apparatus, man i just didn’t understand the symbols etc. i see now “txt p46 D F G” etc. i was just a little taken back by the fact that apparently Sinaticus, and Vaticanus both use “kurion” (the direct object/accusative) and I didn’t look far enough into it to see what “txt” meant lol. Thank you for helping me with that. Curiously, Alexandrinus uses “Theon”.
For clarification, you do feel the proper reading is “Christon”? I lean that way, especially now that i realize P46 is a witness, but also because in my estimation, it does complicate the reading, again superimposing Christ into the OT.
LAST QUESTION: Could this be seen as Paul referring to Christ and YHWH of Numbers 21 in an interchangeable way? This is presuming Paul did read Hebrew of course. Undoubtedly the LXX simply used some declension of kurios in that OT passage.
And I want to apologize about this question in advance. But while we are talking technical Greek, along the lines of Jesus being God, John 1:1. The anarthrous theos… why is it anarthrous? I’m so sorry I even asked, because I feel dumb.
Because the articular subject automatically makes the anarthrous predicate definite. It’s called “Colwell’s Rule.”
Just the opposite. I think Christon was an alteration of the text in order to show that Christ was already a divine being in OT times.
Ok last Greek question I promise… for now lol. I have heard that the New Testament writers frequently used poor grammar, For example using the dative form of a noun as a direct object etc. Could it be that John chapter 1 verse one is just really bad grammar?
There’s no theoretical problem for that, but the grammar isn’t bad. If you do want some bad grammar, read *Revelation* 1!!
Was Jesus’ adoption by Yahweh moved from the resurrection back to his baptism in Mark (and earlier in Matthew and Luke) to explain his ability to produce miracles? As in he was given the powers of Yahweh at his baptism?
Did Mark see Jesus as an ordinary human adopted by Yahweh because of his righteousness, or was the tradition of Jesus being some sort of preexistent being already established?
1. Yes, probably, in my view. 2. I think Mark is basing his view on the idea that Jesus was a human in every way, adopted by God to have supernatural powers and then made a divine being at the resurrection.
Regarding the first verse of Psalm 110: in the original Hebrew text, the first instance of the word Lord is ‘Adonai,’ which is only used when speaking of God. The second instance is ‘adoni,’ which is primarily used when speaking of a human being (usually a person of authority, such as a king — although Sarah used the word ‘adoni’ to refer to Abraham, in Genesis 18:12).