Don’t Want To Add

I would ruin it if I did add to it:

To say that Jesus rose from the dead is, among other things, to say that in spite of the fact that his love for us in obedience to his mission led to his death — or in fact because his love led to his death — he is still present to us, really present to us and loving us in his full bodily reality. It is not just that we remember him or imitate him, or that he lives on in a religious tradition. The good news is that he rose from the dead, that he went through real death to a new kind of bodily life with us. So that when we encounter someone who needs us, when we find the hungry and the imprisoned and the homeless, we can really say that here we encounter Christ, not in some metaphorical way, but literally. He personally is with us. The difference between having faith in the literal bodily resurrection of Jesus and not having such faith is, at one level, the difference between really discovering Jesus in the needy and oppressed, and simply thinking that it is a rather beautiful idea. It is the difference between really believing, like Abraham, that God asks the impossible of us, to find life through death, creation through destruction, that God makes the impossible possible for us, and not believing in God — thereby making him just some part of the machinery of our world.
[ HT: ID ]

Is Everything a Nail?

So, an aquantaince shared a PDF written by a certain Charles Dickenson in 2007 titled A Proposed “Paradigm Shift” in Christology. The thrust of the argument is to offer historical Jesus methodology as a way to understand Christology, since all previous methods of understanding Jesus and trinitarian ideas have always had their problems. I think this basic thesis suffers on two points. First, we should be careful to think that we can propositionally, without problems, understand either God, or Jesus (regardless of whether it is the historical Jesus or the Jesus of faith, or even if those distinctions are proper). Second, that a historical methodology is applicable to a resurrected and exalted Jesus. All arguments concerning resurrection aside – everyone is in agreement that a crucified messiah-claimant does not start a Jewish offshoot group. To work based on a method that aims to get behind the proclamation of the early Church is precisely to set aside the Christological question as it has come down to us today. On to pointed reflection, I only aim to talk about the interesting points, not offer a full review, so this is going to be choppy.

It seems to me that making a Christological problem out of the crucifixion of the incarnate Jesus Christ by linking it to the Death of God movements put forth by Nietszche is an incredible non-sequitur. The language borrowed has no bearing whatsoever on the concepts behind the train of thought.

It is true that the conclusions of the early Church created problems – they experience these problems. I would sense that any talk of God that did not create problems to be entirely vacuous, making no claims of interest whatsoever. Let us not suppose any construction of God – as they are all constructions – will be without fault. Rather one ought to recognize that our constructions are mere devices, whether those devices be around another individual you know, or around God. Both constructions are faulty, but they are necessary. The better question is not “are there problems with the construction?”, but “is the construction effective?”. Dickinson answers in the negative, as is fair to do.

I find that the true issue at stake here is a failure to grasp the larger picture of the task of theology, and perhaps the nature of truth and worldview.

…only sharpens the question whether they do not presuppose conceptions of divinity and humanity which must now be abandoned as ultimately mythological.

To claim that the very worldview of the Greek Fathers is mythological, seems to me, to be incorrect. At this point, I wonder if I am in possession of a hammer – and consequently see everything as a nail – because the viewpoint that appears to be presupposed is that our Enlightenment, or even post-Enlightenment, worldview is inherently better than the Greek Fathers worldview. Granted they are both different, but if Naugle’s Worldview is correct, worldviews are neither inherently “better” than another. To resort to calling their view ‘mythological’, while ours is depicted as truer is inherently false based on the very function of ‘worldview’. Let it be known that our own worldview is also mythological – just on different terms and it different ways.

Rather, we ought to recognize (again Naugle) that truth is contextual. The truths of (however much is contained in) the early Church belong to the presuppositions, and questions of the early Church. Their answers that they claimed as truth are for themselves. What one ought to recognize is the referent to which those answers point, what considerations in light of their presuppositions did they make, why, and what could they not do? I find more and more that I am persuaded by this maximalist approach:

Third, there is the principle of what may be infelicitously called
Christological maximalism: every possible importance is to be ascribed to Jesus
that is not inconsistent with the first rules. This last rules, it may be noted,
follows from the central Christian conviction that Jesus Christ is the highest
possible clue (though an often dim and ambiguous one to creaturely and sinful
eyes) within the space-time world of human experience to God, i.e., to what is of
maximal importance. Lindbeck

That is to say, if Christ is the perfect depiction of God to us, and the perfect depiction of us Godward, on what appropriate grounds ought anything be denied him? And surely this is absolutely a referent which both the NT and the Greek Fathers point at. This is not to say, however, that everything we accord him must be perfectly congruous as we shift between each of these perspectives. If there is a consistent mistake made, it is one of harmonization, smoothing out the edges for our own mental well-being. Again, truth is contextual. The perspective approached determines the validity. When bringing together perspectives there is no reason they wouldn’t conflict! This is a very human truth, and we are human. The creation of a pure, clean, objective, rational, and paradox-free truth is a hoax. We do not experience that in our lives lived. Why do we create another world in which we apply this strange principle to?

It is at this point if I wonder I am missing the forest for the trees. Is the de-mythologization program exactly what I’ve pointed out? Going behind the worldview and finding the referent? On one level I think I am saying the same thing. However, whenever I’ve seen it executed, no care is taken to our own presuppositions as being equally mythologized as where we’ve gotten this new piece of data from.

So likewise for us today: the very fact that ancient world-views allowed for and even expected the divine to incarnate itself in a human being, but that we today no longer share those world-views, makes it
more probable for us that ancient stories of such incarnations are products of those world-views than of anything that actually happened.

First, the issue is that the Jewish world-view in no way whatsoever allowed or expected YHWH to incarnate himself. This is the standard history of religions approach without taking any sensitivity to the context in question. That is the large origins question that needs answering, in Hurtado’s words “How On Earth Did Jesus Become God?” in the first century according to Jews! Furthermore every formulation comes directly out of one’s worldview and resulting experiences. Those experiences recount things that are perceived to have actually happened. I don’t have to understand the reasons behind the east coast blackout during the summer of 2002 I was caught in, but I experience it and it created a formative experience. The incredible interdependence of our society is just a part of my worldview – and it might not be shared by another reader in another time and place, yet that experience does in fact state that something happened.

I have read Wright’s first three volumes, and am a supporter of his approach in general. What I don’t think my acquaintance realizes is what this actually entails. He supposes that such an approach a priori vindicates his own theological stance, before he has even handled the evidence, over and against the orthodox opinion. As for Dickenson’s essay, I am not sure why, in his estimation the third quest should offer him better prospects for a problem-free Christology.

Jesus and the Identity of God

In an effort to further this discussion, I will specifically be lifting my argument and points from my previous paper. I don’t really think it needs re-working. Perhaps the point and argumentation was being lost amidst my own questions that I felt the paper would generate. Here we go:

Paper Excerpts

The purpose of this paper is to introduce a historically, literary, and sociologically sensitive method for approaching the Jewish texts that talk about God.

The main argument goes thus. First, Judaism defined God definitively in two ways; the sovereign one, and the creator. Second, all other pagan claims of deity were fought off on these grounds, as their god is neither sovereign, nor the creator. In most cases their god was declared to be impotent (not non-existent, though it did happen occasionally). Third, Jesus is included in “the identity of God” because he is argued in the texts to be sovereign and involved as creator when Christians faced pagan claims. Jesus is not assaulting the Jewish God to replace him (as a pagan god would be doing). Rather Jesus, with God’s election, is involved in doing
what God does according to the Jewish worldview

The dominance of the distinction between ‘functional’ and ‘ontic’ [ontological] Christology has made it seem unproblematic to say that, for early Christology, Jesus exercises the ‘functions’ of divine lordship without being regarded as ‘ontically’ divine. In fact, such a distinction is highly problematic from the point of view of early Jewish monotheism. For this understanding of the unique divine identity, the unique sovereignty of God was not a mere ‘function’ which God could delegate to someone else. It was one of the key identifying characteristics of the unique divine identity, which distinguished the one God from all other reality. The unique divine sovereignty is a matter of who God is… The distinction commonly made between ‘functional’ and ‘ontic’ Christology has been, broadly, between early Christology in a Jewish context and patristic Christology which applied Greek philosophical categories of divine nature to Christ…. However this is to misconstrue Jewish monotheism in Hellenistic terms as though it were primarily concerned with what divinity is – divine nature – rather than with who YHWH, the unique God, is – divine identity. Bauckham pg 30-1

The modern version of the question is “what metaphysical characteristics must a being possess to rightly be termed ‘god’, or even ‘God’?”. Bauckham is right to show the ancient question is more like “which one of these so-called deities is the real God, or a god?”. That modern question has no relevance when we are talking about our ancient sources. We must treat the source as they come to us, from their own time and culture. To find an answer to our question Bauckham goes to the most likely place to find an answer – the texts in which Second Temple writers are combating pagan god-claims.

To our question, ‘In what did Second Temple Judaism consider the uniqueness of the one God to consist, what distinguished God as unique from all other reality, including being worshipped as gods by Gentiles?’, the answer given again and again, in a wide variety of Second Temple Jewish literature, is that the only true God,
YHWH, the God of Israel, is sole Creator of all things, and sole Ruler of all things. Bauckham pg 9

When the Jewish people needed to qualify who God is to themselves, or to pagans, they repeatedly used the themes of Creation and God’s Sovereignty to back up their claims. Bauckham’s full footnotes on the themes, first of Creation read thus: Isa 40.26, 28; 42.5, 44.24, 45.12, 18; 48.13, 51.16; Neh 9.6; Hos 13.4 LXX, 2 Macc. 1.24; Sir 43.33; Bel 5; Jub 12.3-5; Sib Or 3.20-35; 8.375-76; Sib Or frg 1.5-6; Sib Or frg 3; Sib Or frg 5; 2 En 47.3-4; 66.4; Apoc Ab 7.10; Ps-Sophocles; Jos Asen 12.1-2; T Job 2.3; second of Rulership thus: Dan 4.34-35; Bel 5; Add Esth 13.9-11; 16.18, 21; 3 Macc 2.2-3; 6.2; Wis 12.13; Sir 18.1-3, Sib Or 3.10, 19; Sib Or frg 1.7, 15, 17, 35; 1 En 9.5; 84.3; 2 En 33.7, 2 Bar 54.13 Josephus, A.J. 1.155-6

Bauckham has ceased attempts to find late Jewish parallels for the exaltation and veneration of intermediary figures as precursors for the Christian devotion of Jesus. In his view this approach is a red herring. Jews did venerate intermediary figures and dead heros. There is no clear and agreed upon way, however, to draw a line in the sand regarding devotion to these figures whether human, alive or dead, or angelic figures, as signifying that they are in fact “divine”, whatever that slippery word may mean. Better not to try! Instead take cues from the very writers reacting to social and prophetic situations in the texts. This idea of defining who God is by sovereignty specifically leads us back to the Gospel proclamation of the early Church.

The addition of the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus to the Gospel message adds material to the Gospel message that I, and perhaps we, have not fully grasped yet: “Jesus is Lord”. I am persuaded that there is some subversive play going on with Jesus and Caesar, though the degree is up for debate. Caesar claims to be the ‘lord over all the world’. Paul would seem to say that Caesar is the parody of which Jesus is the reality, Jesus is the real “lord over all the world”. However, it seems there is more. Paul makes this move in the Roman world, but without leaving his Jewish influences. And Bauckham would have us look at the early Christian usage of Ps. 110 based on Jewish exegetical use in light of how they define who God is. We are right to recognize that Ps. 110 is the most referenced OT portion in the NT. The New Testament rests its understanding of who Jesus is based on it’s own interpretation of Ps 110. That interpretation is by definition different than the authorial intent. Of course, the authorial intent is important both in its own right, and as a launching pad for the understandings and interpretations about the Messiah held by Jews during the Second Temple period. Do not mistake for me casting it off, only bringing to the forefront theological points found in the literature.

What then might “Jesus is Lord” mean for defining who God and Jesus are in light of Ps 110? We first have to go to other literature of the second temple period, specifically Enoch, with Bauckham’s argument in mind:

The symbolic function of the unique divine throne is such that, if we find a figure distinguishable from God seated on God’s throne itself, we should see that as one of Judaism’s most potent theological means of including such a figure in the unique divine identity Bauckham pg 165

If God is defined by his sovereignty, and the symbol of that sovereignty is his throne – what does it mean when another is on that throne? It cannot mean that another besides God is sovereign, especially when written by a Jewish writer protesting their pagan rulers. The very fact that they write is a protest against such an idea! Rather the fact that YHWH is God is reinforced, and somehow, includes whoever is on the throne in God’s plan and identity. After all, God is the one who sits on the throne. I find this argument to be falsifiable, sound, and
precise, qualities all good arguments need.

A good example we should all agree with:

All the heavens are your throne forever, and all the earth is your footstool for ever and for ever and ever. For you have made and you rule all things, and nothing is too difficult for you; Wisdom does not escape you, and it does not turn away from your throne, nor from your presence Enoch 84.2-3

Wisdom is depicted on God’s throne with him. Wisdom is intrinsic to who God is, it is of no threat to monotheism. Wisdom is part of the identity of God. Notice that we see both symbols – creation and sovereignty – in this text used to define who God is, and Wisdom as a separate figure is mentioned right there, with no threat to YHWH.

The Son of Man in Enoch is presented on God’s throne:

And the Lord of Spirits placed the Elect one on the throne of glory. And he shall judge all the works of the holy above in the heaven, and in the balance shall their deeds be weighed
Enoch 61:8

And the Lord of Spirits seated him on the throne of His glory, and the spirit of righteousness was poured out upon him, and the word of his mouth slays all the sinners, and all the unrighteous are destroyed from before his face. Enoch 62:2

The Son of Man in Enoch is depicted as the eschatological figure through which judgment will take place. This figure exercising God’s sovereignty is placed, by God, on his throne – indicating, according to Bauckham, that he should be understood to be a part of the identity of God.

What Ezekiel the Tragedian attributes only figuratively to Moses, the Parables of Enoch attribute literally to the Son of Man, though only in the eschatological future. The contrast enables us to see that, in all other portrayals of exalted human and angelic figures, there is no question of participation in the unique divine identity:
they fall unproblematically outside it. They execute God’s will, but they do not participate in the divine sovereignty in the way which sitting on the divine throne signifies. They do not receive worship, which is often refused by them or forbidden. The Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch is the exception that proves the rule. Bauckham pg 171

The Son of Man in Enoch receives worship on the throne as a result of his sovereignty. That worship is not just the respect due a king or authority figure, it is more. The worship is the correct response to God’s throne and sovereignty. I find no fault in Bauckham’s argument, and no fault in its execution on the text in Enoch.

When we look at the proclamation surrounding Jesus we must recognize it is not a metaphor for some earthly truth. He did not reign on any throne during his ministry that would make sense out of any metaphor.

Psalm 110:1, perhaps the most foundational text for the whole configuration, was a novel choice, evidence of the exegetical and theological (the two are inextricable) novelty of the earliest Christian movements. The explanation of its role in early Christology, contrasted with its absence from Second Temple Jewish literature, is
that, for early Christians, it said about Jesus what no other Jews had wished to say about the Messiah or any other figure: that he had been exalted by God to participate now in the cosmic sovereignty unique to the divine identity. Bauckham pg 175

The Christian interpretation of this passage as it relates to understanding the present state of Jesus is stated explicitly elsewhere: “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth”. A passage about being “exalted to the right hand of God” when used to explain the historical event of Jesus’ ascension, combined with other elements, God’s sovereignty, create a strong picture and symbol. The point of that picture and symbol is exactly the same as in Enoch. It seem that the intention of the NT is to present Jesus exercising God’s sovereignty on God’s throne, thereby including him in the divine identity.

No wonder Paul creates a definitive statement about who God is amidst pagan influence in 1Cor 8.6 in light of Jesus’ present eschatological situation participating in God’s divine sovereignty on His throne. What, in light of the Shema, might this mean? If we’ve abandoned the functional and ontic categories, what we must conclude is one, that Jesus is subordinate, and two, one is what one does in the ancient world.

If Jesus receives these qualities then he does not innately hold them himself. That is precisely what the ascension would have us understand. Because of his faithful obedience he is exalted to a heavenly position. Both Hurtado and Bauckham hold that “the name above every name” is God’s name, an exploration we cannot make in this limited space.

Paul has taken over all the words of this Greek version of the Shema, but rearranged them in such a way as to produce an affirmation of both one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. Bauckham pg 101

These verses are the NT Shema. What Paul has done is extremely new. No other Jewish group of the Second Temple period even came close to understanding the Shema in a new way. Most likely because no other group experienced God’s activity in the world through their own leadership figures. There was no theological event for any other group to reflect on which would add new information to their already complex map of symbols, stories, and praxis.

The only possible way to understand Paul as maintaining monotheism is to understand him to be including Jesus in the identity of the one God affirmed in the Shema. But this is, in any case, clear from the fact that the term ‘Lord’ applied here to Jesus as the ‘one Lord’ is taken from the Shema itself. Paul is not adding to the
one God of the Shema, a ‘Lord’ the Shema does not mention. He is identifying Jesus as the ‘Lord’ whom the Shema affirms to be one. In this unprecedented reformulation of the Shema, the unique identity of the one God consists of the one God, the Father, and the one Lord, his Messiah (who is implicitly regarded as the
Son of the Father) .ibid

This is the most damaging claim. However, the fact that Paul has used all of the words of the Greek Shema I cannot disagree with it. There is no question the Shema is in use here. And there is no question that the text equates Jesus with the ‘Lord’ in the text. Bauckham moves further forward:

Of the Jewish ways of characterizing the divine uniqueness, the most unequivocal was by reference to creation. In the uniquely divine role of creating all things, it was, for Jewish monotheism, unthinkable that any being other than God could even assist God (Is 44:24, 4 Ezra 3:4, Josephus, C. Ap. 2.129) But, to Paul’s unparalleled
inclusion of Jesus in the Shema, he adds the equally unparalleled inclusion of Jesus in the creative activity of God. Bauckham pg 102

It is true that there are some non-Jewish Hellenistic parallels to the formulation which relates ‘all things’ (ta panta) to God by a variety of prepositions… The point of such formulae is that they describe God as the cause of all things, indicating the various types of causation (as standardly recognized in ancient philosophy) which are appropriate to God’s relation to the world by means of the various prepositions: i.e. efficient causation (ek), instrumental causation (dia or en), and final causation (eis) Bauckham pg 214

We can, therefore, be confident that Paul’s formulation – ‘from him and through him and to him [are] all things’ – is neither original to Paul nor borrowed directly from non-Jewish sources, but was known to him as a Jewish description precisely of God’s unique relationship to all other reality. That God is the instrumental cause (dia) as well as the agent of efficient cause (ek) of all things well expresses the Jewish monotheistic insistence that God used no one else to carry out his creative work, but accomplished it solely by means of his own Word and/or Wisdom. Bauckham pg 215

When we talk about ‘creation’ we do not need to make such a hard and fast distinction (approaching deism) between Genesis and the New Creation. Jesus in the early Christian experience is the pinnacle example of the New Creation via resurrection, and through the Spirit he administers that New Creation to the rest of the Church. Both creation in Genesis and New Creation fall under this ‘all things’ that Paul references.

In this sense, salvation, as well as creation is envisaged, but in no less cosmic a sense and scope than in the case of creation. This point is missed when, in support of a soteriological rather than a creational reference in 1 Cor 8:6, it is claimed that Paul uses the phrse ta de panta ek tou theou either with reference to God’s creative
work (1 Cor 11:12) or with reference to God’s salvific work (2 Cor. 5:18). In fact, 2 Cor 5:18 refers to God’s work of salvation precisely as new creation (cf. 5:17). There is no evidence that, when Paul says ta panta, he means anything less than Jewish writers normally meant by this phrase: the whole of reality created by God,
all things other than God their Creator. Bauckham pg 216

Paul’s intent in writing then is to show that Jesus is intimately involved in what God is doing at their time (and our time) in history. Jesus is the head of God’s New Creation project. How Paul does this is the interesting part. Jesus is responsible for, at least some, of ‘all things’. What was previously all God’s responsibility, some has fallen to Jesus due to his eschatological role in God’s plan. Jesus is just as responsible for the current state of affairs is in the world as God is. Because Jesus has been exalted to that position of authority and sovereignty. The tougher question is what is Paul’s intention, if any, to talk about Genesis creation and Jesus.
The only text which seems to go definitively in this direction is Hebrews 1:10.

If the prologue of John, read in light of this method, communicates that an intrinsic part of God, the Logos (which is a way to talk theologically about God being active in the world), comes into the world as Jesus, is this not a new way to talk theologically about God being active in the world – only now through Jesus? Moreover, what continuity exists between Jesus and the Logos? I argue that Jesus is extrinsic to God, since he is distinguishable and not eternal. Therefore the continuity cannot be without bounds. The Logos remain unchanged, it remained as a part of God, or God’s character, whereas Jesus was a part of this world, and is now a part of the next world, not transcendent, not eternal(Jesus becomes ‘eternal’ as a result of his resurrection and ascension. Transcendence is merely a semantic point based on resurrection, are all resurrected people depicted as “not of this world”? Surely they have bodies as did Jesus. But again that transcendence would be conferred on him, not innately held). Could it be appropriate to reference Jesus in Genesis creation when we the referent is actually the Logos/Spirit/Wisdom? I would argue against it on the basis of intrinsic versus extrinsic and partial (forward, not backward) continuity.

What ought we make of this new landscape? If the question of ‘Who is God’ is answered by ‘The One who is Creator and Sovereign’ then it seems that Bauckham has a foothold for his argument since Paul uses the appropriate language of both his Jewish and pagan contemporaries to make his points. His work raises the confidence with which we can analyze how Jews in the Second Temple Period defined and defended their God, even if it creates muddier waters while we sort it out.

Jesus flatly agrees with who the Jewish people understood God to be. Therefore any further development on that idea must remain within the Jewish worldview (not a hellenistic one). And if the Parables of Enoch are any
indication a human individual partaking uniquely in God’s eschatological plan can, in some ways, be seen as participating in the identity of God (in the Jewish worldview). Again, if the Parable of Enoch is the closest parallel, we have we seem to have surpassed it in the NT. That surpassing can be understood as Jesus’ fundamental necessity to Christianity, which at the time of the authors is still a Jewish sect. Jesus’ centrality is intrinsic to Christianity, or “Judaism according to Jesus”.

Understanding Jesus’ role in creation is based on the kerygma of the Church: “Jesus is Lord”. Second Temple Judaism defined God through sovereignty as well, and if Jesus is sovereign, then we have to address that. However, our modern view of “all things” does not correspond well with the ancient view. The ancient view is more nuanced and holistic – it addresses the ongoing maintenance and activity in the world (which Jesus is unquestionably involved in via the Spirit) – it does not only refer to Genesis creation, but both Genesis creation, New creation, and everything in between. Therefore, if Jesus is added to the identity of God (that is not the
only person involved) and Jesus is included in the present ordering of the world, he need not be involved with Genesis creation, as God took care of that. I am not persuaded, based on the texts which follow the Jewish pattern of using creation and sovereignty, of any backwards projection of Jesus beyond his birth. Only Heb 1:10 seems to reference Genesis creation with respect to Jesus, and that is up for debate.

End Paper

Blog Excerpts

1. I’m not sure whether Paul expands the Shema (McGrath) or places the identity of Jesus within the Shema (Dunn) in 1 Cor 8.6. However, I am growingly inclined to the latter over against the former for the following reasons.

2. Exegetically, in 1 Cor 8.6, one could take the “one God” / “one Lord” pairing either as adding “one Lord” to the “one God” of the Shema,” or, in a short of midrash explaining the Shema by locating the identity of God Most High in both the Father and Jesus. A decision is quite difficult on this matter. In fact, for me, what tips the scale in favor a Jesus sharing in the identity of God Most High is not any one exegetical argument, but evidence from outside of the immediate context.

3. What I mean is this: It is often easier to judge one’s actions than his or her thoughts. The former is easier to see. In the same way, it is easier to see the contours of Paul’s Christology by looking at the contours of Pauline Christianity. When I look at the marks of Christianity in the ancient world, I am compelled to believe that the earliest Christians (Paul included) treated Jesus in much the same way they treated God Most High. For example, they prayed to Jesus (”called” on his name), celebrated a modified passover regularly that was centered about Christ, they attempted to do great works in his “name,” etc. Of course, it may objected that this is not “worship” in the sense of sacrificial worship. Perhaps, but it is certainly devotion to Jesus as an expression of their loyalty to God Most High. In this way, to show devotion to Jesus was to express loyalty to “the one who sent him.”

4. The interesting thing about devotion to Jesus is that it was perceived by later paganism as worship (Lucian Peregrinus 13; Celsus ap. Or. Cels. 8.12, 14, 15; Porph. ap. Aug. civ. Dei 19:23; cf. Mart. Pol. 17:2). For example, the Martyrdom of Polycarp 17.3 reads:

τοῦτον μὲν γὰρ υἱὸν ὄντα τοῦ θεοῦ προσκυνοῦμεν, τοὺς δὲ μάρτυρας ὡς μαθητὰς καὶ μιμητὰς τοῦ κυρίου ἀγαπῶμεν ἀξίως ἕνεκεν εὐνοίας ἀνυπερβλήτου τῆς εἰς τὸν ἴδιον βασιλέα καὶ διδάσκαλον· ὧν γένοιτο καὶ ἡμᾶς συγκοινωνούς τε καὶ συμμαθητὰς γενέσθαι


For this one, who is the Son of God, we worship, but the martyrs we love as disciples and imitators of the Lord, as they deserve, on account of their matchless devotion to their own King and Teacher. May we also become their partners and fellow-disciples!

Now, it might be objected that one would need to nuance the meaning of προσκυνέω here and elsewhere. However, whether it merely refers obeisance or is itself a mark of attributing some sort of divinity to the object of devotion, it would seem to me that the context of these acts make clear that whatever the specific act was, it would be seen as a violation of the Shema unless the identity of Jesus was indistinguishable from the identity of God Most High.

from: http://mwhitenton.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/how-exactly-did-paul-think-of-jesus-paul-and-monotheism-2/

If there is one key weakness to Bauckham’s work, it is his failure to take the time to clarify in detail what exactly “divine identity” means. At times, it becomes clear that Bauckham’s usage of this terminology is far from self-explanatory, and that the phrase does not seem to use “identity” in the way it usually is in English. One common place to encounter it nowadays is of course in referring to identity theft. Bauckham’s references to more than one person sharing the “divine identity”, and even to an identity that the Son shares with the Father, seems at times to be at odds with the terminology itself (see e.g. pp.3-4, 236, 263, 265). This does not necessarily mean that Bauckham should use other terminology, but it does suggest that more attention needs to be paid to clarifying the meaning of “identity” as he uses it, before we can hope to have this terminology clarify texts from ancient Judaism and Christianity (see p.154 for a helpful discussion of the concept, one which is nevertheless much too brief to justify the concept as the foundation for all that precedes and follows in the book). McGrath

If God is willing to share this arguably most unique facet of the divine identity [ed. the divine name YHWH], what does this suggest about Bauckham’s assumption that anyone who is at any point included in the divine identity must, by implication, have eternally been part of that identity?
.ibid

This is also an objection I share and made explicit in the last paragraph of my paper where I argued against backward continuity.

Although I believe he is correct to identify God’s ultimate role as creator and sovereign as key facets of the “unique divine identity”, Bauckham’s attempts to deny that God shares these prerogatives with others fails to do justice to the evidence. .ibid

I think Bauckham contends they are shared with others – and precisely that specific sharing of creation and sovereignity is what includes one in the identity of God; thus allowing worship, being seated on the divine throne, etc, as we find in the case of the Parables of Enoch and Jesus

Bauckham seems to be right to claim that there is a distinctiveness about early Christianity’s exalted portrayal of Jesus (p.231). But he is unwilling to entertain seriously the possibility that it is a difference of degree rather than kind. Believing that Jesus is not merely the Anointed One but the one through whom God will reconcile all things to himself, and believing that their salvation had been accomplished during their own time, it is not surprising that the earliest Christians depicted Jesus as God’s superlative agent, claiming that Jesus does everything that any divine agent has ever done and more. But ultimately, if we are talking about New Testament times, monotheism is preserved not by including Jesus fully within God’s identity (although eventually Christianity would indeed do just that), but by ultimately subordinating Jesus as God’s agent to God (and to God alone). Thus in the Gospel of John, Jesus is the Word of God made flesh, the one who has been given the divine name before the creation of the world; but he still does only what he sees his Father do, and calls his Father “the only true God”. In Paul, Jesus is exalted to the highest possible rank and given the name above all names; but this is still done “to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:6-11), and in the end God is said to not be among the “all things” subjected to the Son, who in the end hands over the kingdom to the Father, so that “God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15) .ibid

I agree with this, however, argue that this mention of degree and kind would need to be defined specifically by each author to make a better judgment. As I said before, there does not appear to be a definitive line within the literature as to the worship offered to God but not other figures (sacrifice is the leading candidate, but is unable to be tested based on the NT evidence).

I hope this specifically highlights the issues at hand, the evidence, arguments for, as well as arguments against. Go at it.

Theofighting

As a result of my Dallas paper there has been a huge discussion (which I’ve jokingly termed “theofighting”). And it seems that at almost every turn the point is being lost. I felt that the more important part of the paper, that I hoped people would be forced to deal with, was that a method sensitive to historical, social, and literary forms was being used. I come from a fundamentalist background where none of these sensitivities are given consideration largely because they are entirely unknown. Hard to do something you know nothing about. This is meant to be more of a re-cap of the situation with the hope of a launching off point for more fruitful discussion.

So let me re-cap my position for the sake of clarity. I wrote an appendix, in which I tried to present the crux of the method that I find to be incredibly fruitful. You can find it here. And in a post titled “He Gets It I wrote the following:

This is what is going on when we read a Scriptural text. The infusion of theological meaning into a cultural situation in order to present God’s take on the matter. Professors should ask their students to do this and show them the parallels with the texts they are reading. The students are doing exactly what the ancient peoples did. The only that remains to be discussed are the roles of prophet, revelation, and inspiration – but none detract from the basic principle of understanding religious texts.

Update

He gets it too

Check out a post titled “Fallible Criteria” to see some comments about the traditional criteria used by the historical-critical method.

Disclaimer: I ask that anyone who wishes to chime in on these topics read these posts and their links before doing so. In order to have fruitful discussion this topic will be moderated so that we stay on topic. Rhetoric and debating tactics will not be tolerated. Understanding the issues at hand is the prime focus. If that is not your interest, do not comment

More On Method

The painstaking creation of a method which will be sensitive to the context of a text in all it’s historical, social, and literary requires lots of effort. If we are to be true to our calling to find our what is really going on in a text, in a historical situation so that those who in fact waked, talked, lived, breathed, and had faith in that situation are not silenced, we must do this. We cannot expect them to write for us. We cannot expect them to talk like us. We must immerse ourselves in their world as fully as possible. We cannot set up our own conclusions to which those writers must arrive. We must define a method, we must gather evidence, we must apply the method evenly, and we must live by the conclusions of that method. To argue that the conclusions are untenable is not allowed. One can only argue that the method is wrong, that we are lacking evidence, or that we are applying the method unjustly.

For me this is entirely fresh ground. I came from a fundamentalist community in which the method was practically non-existent. The method was to use our own frames of reference, with a literal reading of the texts. This is going to get your some strange results. The “defense” of our belief against others was often “your conclusions do not make sense with the Scriptures”. When you deconstruct that statement it really means, “your conclusions do not make sense with the conclusions I have already arrived at about the Scripture”. Since no one of us stands authoritatively outside the Scriptures. One always stands in relation to the Scriptures. It is the hermaneutical circle at work. I grant that the hermaneutical circle will always have an influence. However, we must cannot use it to defend a method. We can only use the circle within a method. We must recognize when our dialogue partners are using a different method. We must suspend our own belief in our method, and try theirs on for size, to see through their lens. Only then will we actually see what they are truly saying.

That is what I ask on the issue concerning Bauckham’s Jesus and the God of Israel

The Issue at Hand

The issue is, I feel, appropriately framed and outline in my Dallas paper. I hope that those who might have already read it, in light of more discussion with me take the time to read it again. I feel the issue, and the time spent on it, demands that we treat each other with respect by studying the material before engaging in discussion. There has since been more discussion on the very same topic:

1. http://mwhitenton.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/paul-and-monotheism/
2. http://mwhitenton.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/how-exactly-did-paul-think-of-jesus-paul-and-monotheism-2/
3. http://exploringourmatrix.blogspot.com/2009/08/review-of-richard-bauckham-jesus-and.html

WIth this, I hope you read the paper closely, and the blog entries in order to properly participate in the discussion.

Fallible Criteria

Michael Barber is Singing about the criteria most often used by historians, and I am finding a lot of truth in what he says. At the moment I am reading through a critique of NT Wright’s Jesus and the Victory of God. And I just finished Michael Borg’s critique of Wright, which is basically a whole different set of presuppositions about how to do history. And they are all fair.

In discussing the parable of the Vineyard and its historicity, Michael shares the most common points for which this parable is assigned to the construction by the later Church, and not Jesus:

1. That the “the son” is rejected and killed would seem to point to a post-Easter setting.
2. The implications of the parable are that Jesus is the son of the vineyard, i.e., the Son of God. This is also said to most likely reflect the theology of the early church.
3. In the parable the judgment on the tenants comes only after the “son” is killed. This highlights the unique importance of Jesus and thus also seems to point towards the early community’s view.
4. The destruction that comes as a result suggests a setting after the destruction of Jerusalem.
5. The son is depicted as the final climax, being sent only after other messengers have been killed. This is said to make little sense―why would a father send his son into such a situation? The language is only explicable if one sees Jesus as the climax of salvation history―as the one who comes after all the prophets, a view most see as more likely the product of the early church than Jesus himself.
6. The image of the vineyard being handed over to others is said to point to a period after the “parting of the ways”—i.e., to some belief that God has rejected Israel in favor of the Church.

He goes on to answer those specific points, so if you are interested in those, please jump on over there for them. However, I wanted to step back, since this is exactly what Borg’s take on the situation is. He cannot, based on the probability, assign certain things as going back to Jesus. There is an inherent problem here.

The basic logic works as Michael has described, sayings are attributed to the early Church based on their proclamation of it. However, no one disputes whether or not the early Church said Jesus was the Son of God. Therefore, whether Jesus said it or not, there is always a reason, and it is a very good reason, to expect an at best even, often a higher probability of the Church saying it. If we are making decisions based on probability we are going to have a problem. Because Jesus could never have said anything the Church did say, according to this method. It is always better to err on the side of caution saying the “The Church put that in the Scripture, it did not come from the mouth of Jesus”.

Of course I am not saying anything new here, NT Wright went on about exactly these fallible historical criteria in his book. The strange issue is that no one is talking about the validity of his own criteria, specifically the criterion of similarity and dissimilarity – which would seem to do a much better job of highlighting whether or not Jesus did, or did not say something historically. Simply put, if the words are similar to Judaism, yet suggest a difference in interpretation, while at the same time being similar to the later Church, while being either never fully carried out/implemented or simply dropped to the extent spoken of, there is a high probability it was spoken by Jesus, rather than created by the Church. It would seem to me that this method would do far better justice to the evidence. With the other method you have, at best, a coin-flip: “It really could have been either one”, and at worst “That is exactly what the Church said, therefore I have no confidence Jesus said it”. It boils down to this. One would expect some continuity between Judaism and Jesus, and Jesus and the Church. If Jesus really did not say anything the Church proclaimed he said – well you really do have a big historical problem on your hands. How in the wide-world did the Church come to be? (And there are serious people working on this problem: “How did the Church come to exist given that miracles do not occur, Jesus never claimed to be the messiah, and was not resurrected”). That historical problem, I would think, should scare historians rather than a small chance of a false-positive that Jesus did not in fact say something we think he did.

Jesus and the God of Israel

I just finished Bauckham’s newest last night. Coming from my tradition, this is a hard book to swallow. However, I must give his central thesis a good look. It uses the appropriate hermanuetical method – basing the method of “How to define who god is” on Second Temple Judaism. In the face of paganism and idolatry, the writers of the time period used certain literary techniques, and exegetical motifs to show the world that YHWH was, is, and will be the one true God. Bauckham’s thesis when applied to the writings of the New Testament shows that Jesus is “brought into the identity of God”.

There is much in the book that I don’t find entirely convincing, and there is a serious point of contention between being a part of the ‘identity of God’ intrinsically and/or extrinsically (I tend to think he starts to flip flop without any argumentation concerning Jesus). But, again, his main point, in my view stands up. And this is a serious argument that I need to take into consideration. So serious that I’m writing a paper on this book (along with Hurtado’s “How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?”) for the Dallas conference. I’m sure it will be hard for them to swallow.

I hope that the paper will not put people off, but rather allow dialogue to take place. It is a serious argument that cannot be hand-waved away.

What’s the Deal With Resurrection?

I really have seven hundred places I could start, but this is closest to the main point I want to talk about:

This true meaning has remained hidden because the Church has trivialised it and the world has rubbished it. The Church has turned Jesus’s Resurrection into a “happy ending” after the dark and messy story of Good Friday, often scaling it down so that “resurrection” becomes a fancy way of saying “He went to Heaven”. Easter then means: “There really is life after death”…

Now, suddenly, the real meaning of Easter comes into view, as well as the real reason why it has been trivialised and sidelined. Easter is about a new creation that has already begun. God is remaking His world, challenging all the other powers that think that is their job. The rich, wise order of creation and its glorious, abundant beauty are reaffirmed on the other side of the thing that always threatens justice and beauty – death. Christianity’s critics have always sneered that nothing has changed. But everything has. The world is a different place.
NT Wright in Times Online

I will be the first to admit that resurrection scares the be-Jesus out of me. I do not, for one second, admit to understand what all the implications are. But I am left with certain facts. Jesus was raised bodily, not to live as he formerly lived, but to live a much more real, full, whole, holy, glorified existence. The existence Paul says we “we will be like him”. He was raised in the middle of history, far before anyone expected the resurrection to happen. After all – the only category anyone in the first century had was that “this must be the end – we just witnessed resurrection”. So, don’t be surprised when that is exactly the attitude they hold about their time.

Resurrection “meant” (in the secondary sense – its implications if you will – beyond the referent that “someone who was dead, coming to bodily life”) that God’s new creation has started. Reading any of the OT passages about resurrection, either the concrete referent of raising to life, or the metaphor about a return from exile (ala Ez 37), and you will find something about a new creation. Those are the facts that I am forced to deal with in my Christian life, and the same ones that the Church at large is forced to deal with.

That very new creation theology, I’ve found is terribly lacking in the greater Church today. The power of resurrection has been sucked out of the word. Not least because the majority of people who are practicing, preaching, and teaching Christianity are now the powerful. They are now the status-quo, the empire. And Jesus challenges the status-quo. If you don’t think resurrection, the new-creation, is a massive challenge:

… is to miss the point, to cut the nerve of the social, cultural and political critique. Death is the ultimate weapon of the tyrant; resurrection does not make a covenant with death, it overthrows it. The resurrection, in the full Jewish and early Christian sense, is the ultimate affirmation that creation matters, that embodied human beings matter. That is why resurrection has always had an inescapable political meaning; that is why the Saducees in the first century, and the Enlightenment in our own day, have opposed it so strongly. No tyrant is threatened by Jesus going to heaven, leaving his body in a tomb. No governments face the authentic Christian challenge when the church’s social preaching tries to base itself on Jesus’ teaching, detached from the central and energizing fact of his resurrection (or when, for that matter, the resurrection is affirmed simply as an example of a supernatural ‘happy ending’ which guarantees post-mortem bliss).

Saying ‘Jesus has been raised from the dead’ proved to be self-involving in that it gained its meaning within this counter-imperial worldview. The Sadducees were right to regard the doctrine of resurrection, and especially, its announcement in relation to Jesus, as political dynamite.
NT Wright, Resurrection of the Son of God, pg 730-1

If you think you’ve got resurrection down pat, think again.

Shane Claiborne at Park St Church

Last night we saw Shane Claiborne (of the Simple Way, and Irresistible Revolution as well as Jesus for President) at Park St Church in Boston. The man is certainly a storyteller. He has chosen to do things most people think is crazy. He is a fantastic encouragement that anyone can do this. Around ten years ago he started a community on Potter St in Philadelphia. They opened a community garden, and housed Christians. They got increasingly involved with the neighbors and children around them. They set aside (tithe) money to help the community with whatever needs were current. They’ve made a huge impact and given Christians a good name there.

A lot of what I’ve been reading recently and thinking about personally was affirmed in his talk. For a while I’ve been distressed at the Church’s largely personal and individualized gospel. Not only was it ignoring the larger Kingdom context of Jesus’ preaching and the Jewish hope – whatever it did retain about that was for the most part off in the future. I’m being forced to reconsider the amount of inaugurated eschatology that I do believe in – that God’s power, through the spirit, is causing the age to come to break into this age prematurely. Shane calls what they do there “practicing resurrection”.

One of the most profound insights I had was a single word that Shane used in his talk: “patterns”. I use the word found in Paul’s epistles ‘institutions’, but that word is unable to effectively communicate it to people today. The patterns of the world is the way to communicate that very same idea, and Shane turned me on to it. To talk about the Church, and being the Church, we cannot conform to the patterns of the world. In nearly all cases the patterns of the world are built to negate so much of God wants done. Therefore to be complicit with those patterns, to encourage them, enforce them, support them – through action, or theology – is to be anti-Gospel. Why? Because Jesus did not conform to the patterns of this world, he broke them at every turn to glorify God and redeem His creation. His very death being salvific instead of the destruction of hope is a perfect example. This is the very beginning of the theology that lies behind Christian justice movements. Unfortunately this theology is hardly ever taught in churches.

Jesus and Power

At community group tonight we were looking over the passage in Mark 1:

They went into Capernaum; and immediately on the Sabbath He entered the synagogue and {began} to teach. They were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as {one} having authority, and not as the scribes. Just then there was a man in their synagogue with an unclean spirit; and he cried out, saying, “What business do we have with each other, Jesus of Nazareth? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are–the Holy One of God!” And Jesus rebuked him, saying, “Be quiet, and come out of him!” Throwing him into convulsions, the unclean spirit cried out with a loud voice and came out of him. They were all amazed, so that they debated among themselves, saying, “What is this? A new teaching with authority! He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.”

And we got to talking about power and authority. One of the questions that we were asked is what would it look like if the Church acted with this authority. And another question that is always there week in and week out is how does this inform our faith and actions. We always leave that question to be pondered, without a definitive discussion on it.

Power was one of the big conclusions I talked about in my first paper on atonement. Jesus, as a figure in Mark’s story, is incredibly powerful. He is teaching with authority, and backing it up with his spiritual authority to heal and cast out demons. The surprising thing to me is not that Jesus is acting with authority or has authority – but rather how he uses that authority.

In reading through NT Wright’s historical work (starting the third volume now), along with others like Scot McKnight, Ben Witherington, and David Daube it seems plain that both John the Baptist and Jesus are specifically critiquing the way power is used. Jesus is not like King Herod trying to prove his greatness and worthiness while ruthlessly killing his brothers or the people. Or the Pharisees, laying down un-carriable burdens. Or the Shammites willing to die, to kill, and to sacrifice the lives of the Jewish people to stand up and fight against Rome. Or the priests, hopelessly intertwined in compromise with their pagan overlords. No, Jesus is doing something very different with the authority and power of God.

What would the Church look like with that authority?

Jesus at the Center

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