Book Review: How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?

I hope that the preceding studies will have communicated to readers something of the intriguing questions and hotly contested issues that justify and comprise the historical investigation of early devotion to Jesus. It may be somewhat unsettling for some Christians, at least initially, to explore the origins of Christian faith as a subject of historical inquiry. I trust, however, that Christians will see that a historical appreciation of the emergence of devotion to Jesus need not pose a challenge to continuing to revere Jesus as rightful recipient of devotion with God. Indeed, I hope that Christians will welcome any light that can be cast on the faith of their religious forebears from the earliest period of the Christian movement.

Larry W. Hurtado
How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?

The thing that struck me the most as I finished Hurtado's book, was that he never once said point blank, "Jesus is God". In fact, he didn't come to a definite conclusion one way or the other on the matter (barring the above-quoted statement). He simply presented his evidence, discussed why he disagreed with opposing views, and let the reader come to his or her own conclusions. I rather like that.

Hurtado is a scholarly writer but he did "tone down" the chapters of this book, allowing them to be a bit more accessible to the "average reader". The first four chapters were originally presentations he gave as part of the inaugural lectures in the Deichmann Annual Lecture Series at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer-Sheva, Israel (2004). The last four chapters were taken from some of Hurtado's earlier published works. I wouldn't recommend this book for a little light reading before bedtime, but I do recommend it for someone who wants to investigate the history of early devotion to Jesus by his Jewish and Gentile disciples, particularly within the context of 1st century Jewish monotheism.

I very much appreciated Hurtado's attention to the environment, sociology, history, and theology of the Jewish people of 1st century "Roman Judea" and how it became possible for Jews to revere Jesus while not (apparently) violating the Shema (God is One). I also never concluded that Hurtado's evidence resulted in Jesus being co-equal to God in deity...exactly.

The book repeatedly makes use of the term "dinitarianism" (as opposed to "binitarianism", which would be two Gods; God the Father and God the Son) which generally means that God shared or more accurately, that God "delegated" some of His authority and divine nature to the Jewish Messiah, allowing high honors to be afforded Jesus, but only for the glory of God. Hurtado paints a picture of Jesus as a unique being with a position in the spiritual hierarchy unlike any other being. He is worthy of honor and glory, but only as it glorifies the Father. In other words, Jesus doesn't stand alone as an object of devotion and is only acknowledged in reverence as it relates to worshiping the One God.

The biggest problem for this book to solve was not how Gentile converts to the Messianic (early Christian) faith could worship Jesus as God and God (the Father) as God, but how Jews could bend, twist, or mutate ethical monotheism to allow Jesus to be granted "divine honors". The answer is that Jesus was seen as divine, but not actually "God" by the Jewish disciples. He was (and is) a unique entity who was granted a special status by God as Messiah. However, even Hurtado's mountain of evidence in an early occurrence (within the first 30 years of the ascension) of reverent honors being given to Jesus, does not result in the more modern understanding in God is God and Jesus is God too. Although Hurtado didn't say it outright, how we understand the divine nature of Jesus has indeed "mutated" from the original Jewish perspective that existed within Paul's lifetime. The viewpoint of the status of Jesus has changed from what the Jewish apostles saw and taught, to how subsequent generations of Gentile Christians chose to believe in and respond to Jesus. It is more than likely that the Greek pagan "understanding" that a man could be honored as a "god" became a large part of the development of what we now see as the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. It didn't originate, as such, from the first Jewish disciples.

Hurtado spent a great deal of time and effort factoring in Jewish perspectives of Jesus including a point Levertoff and the FFOZ/Vine of David commentary made about how the death of a great tzadik (righteous sage) could atone for the sins of many, including the nation of Israel (Hurtado, pg 21). However, Hurtado (pg 28) did miss that Jews can and do pray in the merit of (in the name of) a great Rebbe all the time, so that isn't an an iron-clad indication of "godhood" as such.

Hurtado did repeat, on a number of occasions (starting on pg 30), that although Jesus was the first sage or Prophet to be afforded a sort of devotion usually associated with God alone, he was not treated as co-equal to God or as another "person" of God or the "Godhead". In fact, the book states (pg 53) that Jesus continually subordinated himself to God the Father (which I consider that aspect of God referred to as Ayn Sof in Kabbalistic thought) and the words of the Master reflect this most clearly:

Jesus gave them this answer: “Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does." -John 5:19

"By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me." -John 5:30

If Jesus made a point to subordinate himself to God and if that's how his early Jewish disciples came to understand him, then it would not violate Jewish monotheism to give honors to Jesus, just as God delegated honors to the Son, and not have it be the worship that is given to God alone. Humanity must exalt God and God only. God exalts the Messiah and gives him a special and unique divine status among all beings in existence. That seems to be the general message I get from reading Hurtado. It isn't the same message I get from Evangelical Christianity that God is God, Jesus is God, and the Holy Spirit is God (and as in other books I've reviewed that have addressed the Christ as deity issue, Hurtado barely mentions God's Spirit and never suggests that it is also God).

It's as if God "shared" something with Jesus that no other being possessed (pg 95). The closest analog we have is Moses, and when we understand that God elevated the name of the Messiah above every name, we see that the merit of Yeshua (Jesus) is the highest form of merit, not unlike (but superior to) praying to and approaching God in the merit of Moses or Abraham, or the patriarchs or the prophets.

Hurtado spends an entire chapter analyzing Philippians 2:6-11 as an ancient, honorific hymn acknowledging Jesus, which I wrote about last week. At that time, I drew a comparison between the Kabbalistic concept of Ayn Sof as "the Father" and the Shechinah (Divine Presence) as somehow being manifest as "the Son". If Judaism can see the Ayn Sof, the unobservable, unknowable, ultimate creative force that is God and the Shechinah as the physical, visible, touchable, "experience-able" manifestation of God in our world and not see those two concepts as "two God", then it may be possible to apply the same illustration to God and the Messiah and still have One God.

I'm not saying that Hurtado went this far in his presentation of early Jewish and Gentile devotion to Jesus, but for me, it's the logical extension of what Hurtado has written. Glory and honor is given only to God through the Messiah (pg 137), not for the sake of Jesus alone. That may well satisfy the Jewish requirement of monotheism and still give the ancient (and modern) Jewish disciples the ability to give honor to the Messiah's divine and unique status. The subsequent Gentile believers, not having a Jewish educational and experiential background, very likely "took it too far" (I'm extrapolating from Hurtado's writing now) as evidenced (one example) by the Johannine community being evicted from the synagogue for "blending" God the Father and God the Son (the Jewish Messiah). This probably (my opinion) is because the newly-minted Gentile Christians couldn't "get" how Jews saw God and the Messiah as closely related, but still different and separate. When a Jew says "God is One", then He's One". Subsequent Gentile Christian doctrine made it possible for the One to be two in the eyes of the Jewish Messianics, crossing the line, so to speak, between worshiping God and honoring the Messiah, and worshiping God and Jesus as "co-Gods".

Hurtado goes so far as to refer to Jesus as plenipotentiary, which paints a picture of Jesus as a "person" who has been delegated full authority and power by the source, as God's representative and "ambassador" but not creating Jesus literally as a God. It's like the President granting our nation's ambassador to a foreign country full powers and rights to negotiate a treaty. It doesn't make the ambassador the President, but it does give him/her complete authority to make a treaty as if the ambassador were the President. They are two separate people, each with their own status and position, but certain powers and rights are granted from one to the other.

This probably isn't what some of you wanted to hear, but it's what I get out of Hurtado's book as filtered through my beliefs and my personality. That's what a book review is.

Whatever you may think of my conclusions, I highly recommend Larry Hurtado's How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God? if you want an honest, well considered (especially in his treatment of 1st century Judaism), and thoughtful perspective on how Jesus came to be granted divine honors and worship by his Jewish and Gentile disciples...and how that carries forward to those of us today who call ourselves disciples of the Master.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Chasing Cars

Who, being in the form of God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the form of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

-Philippians 2:6-7 (NIV)

Moreover, it appears that the meaning of "being in the form of God" may have been presumed as apparent and known to the intended readers, for the text does virtually nothing to explain this interesting phrase.

Larry W. Hurtado
Chapter 3: A "Case Study" in Early Christian Devotion to Jesus
How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?

This is probably premature and I'm sure I have no business posting this opinion on the web without a lot more study to back it up, but it's what's on my mind just now, so here it is. As many of you who read this blog regularly know, I'm pursuing, among other things, some sort of understanding of the deity of Jesus. Just how is Jesus God the Son and how is God the Father also God? Is there a way to understand the "mechanism" of this process and particularly, how early in "the church" it became apparent that Jesus was (and is) divine?

I'm not going to render a detailed analysis of these questions but I've been wrestling with a few thoughts lately.

Ever since reading "The Word became a human being and lived with us, and we saw his Sh'khinah, the Sh'khinah of the Father's only Son, full of grace and truth" (John 1:14 from the Complete Jewish Bible translated by David H. Stern) some years ago, I've tried to imagine the connection between the Shechinah (Divine Presence) as it descended upon the Mishkan (Tabernacle) in the desert and the living, breathing, human Messiah:

And he set up the enclosure around the Tabernacle and the altar, and put up the screen for the gate of the enclosure. When Moses had finished the work, the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the Presence of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. Moses could not enter the Tent of Meeting, because the cloud had settled upon it and the Presence of the Lord filled the Tabernacle. When the cloud lifted from the Tabernacle, the Israelites would set out, on their various journeys; but if the cloud did not lift, they would not set out until such time as it did lift. For over the Tabernacle a cloud of the Lord rested by day, and fire would appear in it by night, in the view of all the house of Israel throughout their journeys. -Exodus 40:33-38 (JPS Tanakh)

This passage, and the analogous event in Solomon's Temple (1 Kings 8:10-11), indicates that the Shechinah is not just a cloud of fog and a fancy lights show, but that it is the physical manifestation of God in our world. It isn't the totality of God, however:

Thus says the LORD: "Heaven is my throne,
and the earth is my footstool;
what is the house that you would build for me,
and what is the place of my rest? -Isaiah 66:1

If God can't (or won't) squeeze His total "self" into the Mishkan or Temple, what was in Solomon's Temple and where was the totality of the God of the Universe? Are we talking about two Gods here or different manifestations of God's nature?

Ever since I read Levertoff and the FFOZ/Vine of David commentary on his work, I have been approaching a closer understanding of the Jewish Messiah as, somehow, mystically, metaphysically, a "container" or "expression-in-flesh" of God's Shechinah (which is considered a feminine aspect of the Divine, making things all the more interesting). Looking at the JewishEncyclopedia.com definition under "In the Targumim":

The majestic presence or manifestation of God which has descended to "dwell" among men. Like Memra (= "word"; "logos") and "Yeḳara" (i.e., "Kabod" = "glory"), the term was used by the Rabbis in place of "God" where the anthropomorphic expressions of the Bible were no longer regarded as proper. The word itself is taken from such passages as speak of God dwelling either in the Tabernacle or among the people of Israel...

No, this doesn't get any easier and in fact, it gets even more off the beaten path (at least my beaten path). I think the reason the whole "deity" issue is so hard to grasp is that, in Christian circles, we tend to try and understand it all through completely rational, intellectual means, or just abandon all hope of coming to any understanding at all. Engaging in a mystic understanding is pretty tough for most believers to accept.

Now let's compare the Shechinah to another concept, this time from Kabbalah as described at AynSof.com:

Ayn Sof (sometimes transliterated as Ein Sof) refers to the infinite Divine (or G_d). In Hebrew Ayn Sof means "Boundlessness", but is usually translated as "Without End." Often it is referred to as the "Infinite No-Thingness." It should be understood that this does NOT mean that Ayn Sof is "nothing" for It is NOT a THING, but is a "somethingness" that we cannot define in human terms. Ayn Sof, in the Kabbalistic tradition, is the ultimate source of all creation or existence!

Ayn Sof, at least as far as my limited understanding can describe it, is the infinite, invisible, unknowable, non-object object, non-entity entity, ultimate creative force, God (God the Father?).

I hate to reduce these concepts down and make them too simple, but would I be so far out of the ballpark to suggest that there is an infinite, invisible, non-corporeal, God, and then suggest there is some part of Him that He can shrink, humble, extend, and intersect with the created Universe; a part of Him that He can allow us to see, touch and some part of Him with which we can interact? Can I then apply that part of Him with which we can interact, that part we saw in the Tabernacle and in Solomon's Temple to the existence and being of the Messiah?

I don't propose this as an answer but suggest it as a possibility. I'll probably be pursuing this for years. I'm sure I'll write more about this. Yes, I'm an unqualified amateur. I'm like this guy:

You know what I am? I'm a dog chasing cars. I wouldn't know what to do with one if I caught it.
The Joker (played by Heath Ledger)
The Dark Knight (2008)

I'm a dog chasing cars. I'm not sure I'd know what to do with one if I ever caught it, but I just can't help chasing cars.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Who to Believe?

In this New York Times bestseller, leading Bible expert Bart Ehrman skillfully demonstrates that the New Testament is riddled with contradictory views about who Jesus was and the significance of his life. Ehrman reveals that many of the books were written in the names of the apostles by Christians living decades later, and that central Christian doctrines were the inventions of still later theologians. Although this has been the standard and widespread view of scholars for two centuries, most people have never learned of it.

Amazon.com product description of
Jesus Interrupted by Bart Ehrman

In "How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God?" Larry Hurtado investigates the keen devotion to Jesus that emerged with surprising speed after his death. Reverence for Jesus among early Christians, notes Hurtado, included both grand claims about Jesus' significance and a pattern of devotional practices that effectively treated him as divine. Directed at readers across religious lines, this book argues that whatever one makes of such devotion to Jesus, the subject at least deserves serious historical consideration.

Amazon.com product description of
How on Earth Did Jesus Become a God by Larry W. Hurtado

I've just started reading Hurtado's book, but I'm already impressed with both his scholarship and humility. I've already read and reviewed Ehrman's book and although I don't agree with all of his conclusions, he too makes a compelling case. And thereby lies my problem.

I've been turning this issue over in the back of my mind for awhile, but reading Hurtado yesterday forced the issue to the surface, something like an eruption at Old Faithful. It wasn't the only catalyst, but I'll explain the rest in a moment.

I've been reading books written by all of these scholars, theologians, and Bible experts and trying to put everything they're telling me into some kind of framework that makes sense and helps me sort out my faith. The problem is, most of them make a sort of sense and I can see all of their points of view. They're well educated and they know their stuff. The problem is, they don't all agree with each other. The real problem is, I don't operate at anywhere near their level of intelligence or education. How am I supposed to critique and evaluate one view vs. the other? How am I supposed to read all these books and say "this one's right and that one's wrong?"

This isn't just a matter of deciding between Ehrman, a New Testament scholar who is an agnostic and most assuredly doesn't believe in the deity of Jesus, and Hurtado, a Professor of New Testament Language and theology at the University of Edinburgh, who certainly does make a case for the deity of Christ, but all of the other learned teachers who have published their opinions and understandings.

For instance, Hurtado mentions Maurice Casey and his book From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God, which I also reviewed and found convincing, and refutes Casey's conclusions that the church arrived at the decision to "make" Jesus a God centuries after the resurrection and ascension. Hurtado makes a pretty good point about the early adoption of the worship of Jesus, but I either have to take his word for it that Casey is wrong or somehow replicate Hurtado's and Casey's research and see for myself, which is beyond my cognitive and educational abilities.

It's not just the big time experts either. I happened to mention (and I've been mentioning this a lot), that I find Paul Philip Levertoff's perspective on the Gospels to be particularly convincing, largely because Levertoff seems to solve many of my personal problems with the traditional Christian viewpoint on Christ. However, there are other opinions that oppose my personal judgment:

Let us stop to consider what you are arguing here: you are arguing that a first-century Jewish teacher is better understood in the context of eighteenth-century Jewish mysticism from Poland derived primarily from a thirteenth-century work of Jewish mysticism from Spain than in the context of his students' (John) students' (Polycarp) students (Iraneus) ninety years later.

While I think you can make a case that the unique perspectives of a Chasidic Jewish scholar who lived less than 100 years ago might say more about the ancient Jewish teachings of Jesus than Gentiles who lived much closer to the time of Christ, I'm hardly an expert and after all, I can be wrong. The young man who made this comment on one of my recent blog posts is intelligent and certainly better educated in both Christian and Jewish theologies than I am. In trying to understand, explain, and defend my evolving comprehension of who Jesus is and what he taught, I'm barely able to keep my head above water.

How do people do it? How do people seem so completely sure of what they believe, not just in general, but down to the most minute details?

I do have one answer. I noticed something when I was reading Hurtado's book. I bought a used copy from Amazon and the book has various highlights and underlines (apparently made by the original owner of the book) pointing out specific parts of the text. So far, I've noticed that the passages treated thus all support the deity of Jesus and the idea that worship of Jesus as God occurred almost immediately after the ascension and certainly within the first 30 years after the ascension of the Jewish Messiah to the right hand of God the Father.

I think people read books that support the positions they already hold. I previously made the point that I thought Bowman's and Komoszewski's book Putting Jesus in His Place seemed specifically written for an audience that already believed the book's central assumptions (and the book is written as a teaching aid for Bible studies to present the conclusions of the authors).

I suppose only reading books that support your already held beliefs works in a sense, but what about people like me who are trying to get a wider perspective? Are we just supposed to take an expert's or a group of experts' word that they are right and everyone else is wrong? Which expert or experts are we supposed to believe? On what basis do we choose to believe one scholar and not the other? I want to be a good "Berean", but apparently they were a lot smarter than I am.

I can see agnostics and atheists believing Ehrman because his viewpoint supports their own. I can see evangelical Christians believing Bowman and Komoszewski because the points they make in their book support the evangelical view of Jesus. I can see more scholarly Christians who support the deity of Christ going for Hurtado's book because that's what he presents. I can see people like me, who need to believe that Christianity isn't totally and completely divorced from a Jewish conceptualization (Jewish Messiah teaching Jewish disciples, revealing mysteries in a Jewish mystic context in first century Judea...seems like there ought to be a Jewish interpretation being employed to me) gravitating toward people like Levertoff, who see the Gospels as closely mapping to Chasidic mystical teachings.

But are we supposed to make these sort of conclusions based on what seems or feels right to us? Is there nothing objective to our understanding of God? In the final analysis, are we just letting our personalities determine what is right and what is wrong as far as how we understand our faith in Jesus?

If anyone's got an answer to these questions, I'm all ears.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Book Review: Putting Jesus in His Place

The case for the deity of Christ does not rest on a few proof-texts. The popular notion that some fourth-century Christians decided to impose on the church a belief in Jesus as God and wrenched isolated Bible verses from their contexts to support their agenda is a gross misrepresentation of the facts. The framers of the orthodox doctrines of the Incarnation and the Trinity did have an agenda, but it was not to replace a merely human Jesus with a divine Christ. Their agenda was to safeguard the New Testament's clear teaching of the deity of the Lord Jesus Christ in a way that did equal justice to three other clear teachings of the Bible: there is only one God; Jesus is the Son and not the Father; Jesus is also a human being. In this book, we have touched at various places on the biblical evidence for these three teachings, while our focus throughout has remained on establishing the truth of the deity of Christ.

from the conclusion of Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ
Authors: Robert Bowman and J. Ed Komoszewski
Format: Paperback, 392 pages
Publisher: Kregel Publications (August 31, 2007)
ISBN-10: 0825429838
ISBN-13: 978-0825429835

Before you begin reading this book review, I want to tell you that it's somewhat controversial. Questioning the deity of Jesus can be a very difficult thing for people to read about or talk about. I don't pull any punches in this review. That's one of the reasons I created this blog; to question assumptions and ask hard questions. I just thought you should know this before proceeding.

Bowman's and Komoszewski's book has exactly one purpose: to prove, from the New Testament text, that Jesus is God the Son, one part of the Trinity, and that his followers and disciples were aware of this during his earthly existence and especially very shortly afterward, as Peter, Paul, and the other disciples were spreading the Good News throughout the Greek-speaking nations.

Do they prove their case? In fact they do, but there are a couple of caveats:

The authors prove their case if you are already convinced of the deity of Christ without reservation, and are looking for an in-depth analysis of the proof-texts in the New Testament (the book is written so it could be used in a Bible class on this topic, as well as a reference).

The authors prove their case if you believe in the total inerrancy of the entire Bible as we have it today, and believe that the New Testament we can purchase in any bookstore and online, was indeed written by the individuals who are commonly attributed to be the authors (Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Paul, Peter...).

If you have no doubts and particularly no serious doubts regarding the deity of Christ, and you believe the Bible and specifically the New Testament, contains no ambiguities, contradictions, inconsistencies, believe that all content in the NT is the original content, was not erroneously copied by later scribes and translators, and no content was added, removed, or changed in the decades or centuries subsequent to their original authorship, then I think Bowman and Komoszewski have a strong case.

But that's saying a lot.

The book was written with the assumptions I listed above. The authors are already convinced of their point and, as instructors at Fuller Theological Seminary and Dallas Theological Seminary respectively, support the basic tenets of those institutions relative to the inerrancy of the Bible. This is the first book addressing the New Testament and the deity of Jesus I've read that so strongly assumes these positions. My previous readings (though limited to only three other books so far) all provide supporting evidence that many of the NT texts were written later than their assumed dates, and not by the authors attributed to them. Further, the authors I've read, as well as a larger body of NT scholars, believe that the Gospel of John, may have been specifically written and/or edited by a group of Gentile Christians, popularly known as the Johannine Community, who may have developed the documents attributed to the Apostle John with a strong pro-deity bias that likely wasn't found among Christ's original Jewish disciples. This could have resulted in Gentiles supporting Christ's deity being removed from the Jewish/Christian synagogue, as well as being one of the issues that contributed to the larger Gentile/Jewish schism in the early church. There are also questions about the authenticity of some of Paul's letters as well as Peter's missives which further erodes documented support of the deity of Jesus.

Note: The books I've previously read on this topic are When Jesus Became God by Richard E. Rubenstein, Jesus, Interrupted by Bart D. Ehrman, and From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God by Maurice Casey.

I can't comment much further along this line, at least in a truly scholarly fashion, because I am merely a lay person without the educational background in theology and New Testament studies to be able to give a more educated opinion on the matter. But I have to consider some things.

According to Bowman and Komoszewski, John's Gospel is the only one that mentions that Jesus is God more than once and, if you factor out the Gospels and Epistles that NT scholars consider to be questionable, then a lot of this book's source material supporting Christ's deity goes away.

The trick is, it doesn't all go away, at least for that particular reason. However, all of the efforts the authors make at jiggling the translation of Greek to English in the Gospel of John for example, becomes perhaps more effort than it's worth.

Another area that I found difficult, was the book's proposal that either Jesus must be God or he had to be an ordinary human being. One of the book's assumptions was that, in order to be the Messiah, Jesus had to be God. This is really peculiar, since Judaism doesn't have that assumption and, as far as I know, it never did have that belief. While the authors extensively quote from the Old Testament as part of supporting their arguments, they don't make much of an attempt to see their position from the point of view of Christ's primary audience: 1st Century Jews, nor do they look at the Old Testament sources from a Hebraic perspective. The overall lens by which they view the Bible and by which they expect their readers to examine their book, is an Evangelical Christian lens. This isn't to say that they were completely unmindful of the affect of Jewish monotheism relative to declaring Jesus as God, but the authors state that the New Testament writers had to take care in how they documented Christ's deity in order not to offend Jewish monotheists!

Critics of the doctrine of deity of Jesus often ask why, if Jesus is God, the New Testament does not refer to him more often as God. The answer is twofold. First, the New Testament writers were generally very careful to avoid making statements that would have implied that Jesus was the Father. While affirming Jesus' divine status in many ways, they maintained a clear distinction between the persons of the Father and the Son. Since they commonly applied the name "God" to the Father, they tended not to use that name for Jesus except in ways that did not confuse the two persons.

I'll say more on this in a bit, but here's the critical part I want to present:

The second reason is that the theological and religious roots of the New Testament were deeply monotheistic, and its authors sought to affirm Jesus' deity in ways that people would not perceive as undermining their Jewish monotheistic heritage.

Bowman and Komoszewski refer to R.T. France's The Worship of Jesus: A Neglected Factor in Christological Debate in forming this opinion. France calls any mention of the deity of Jesus from a 1st century Jew's perspective "shocking language" and further states that the "wonder is not that the NT so seldom describes Jesus as God, but that in such a milieu it does so at all."

This is an extremely disturbing statement to me, but not for the reasons the authors might think. It seems like, if the deity of the Jewish Messiah is a natural and logical part of Jesus being the Jewish Messiah, first, there would be a much greater indication of this in Old Testament sources (as well as the Talmud, which the authors ignore), and that it would be more natural and likely for monotheistic Jews to understand and accept that the Messiah, in order to be the Messiah, must also be God. Additionally, from their first point, if the authors thought it would be confusing to try and distinguish between God the Father and God the Son (not much is mentioned about God the Holy Spirit in this book) for 1st and 2nd century Christians who were so much closer to the original people and events that surrounded Jesus, what about those of us living in the 21st century?

I mentioned before that the authors assume that Christ could only be either an ordinary man or that he had to be God, but they do not consider the possibility that the Messiah could be a unique and divine being, with many supernatural attributes, but still not literally be God. The authors cite (and dismiss) arguments based on how Wisdom is personified in the Tanakh (Old Testament), but they ignore the Jewish concept of a pre-existent and personified "Torah" that is the source of Creation (the "Word became flesh", if you'll forgive the Johannine quote), and yet Jews don't consider the Torah to be God, even though it was with Him and is thought of as the mechanism by which the universe was created.

Again, I lack the scholarly credentials to fully analyze and critique this book in more detail and further, space doesn't allow me to do a point-by-point review of each area where the authors cite support for Christ's Godhood, but I think the book's evidence is far from a "slam dunk" as far as unequivocally establishing Jesus as God.

I'm not saying that it's impossible and, as I previously stated, there are points in the book that I cannot speak to that are used to support Christ's deity. The very best and fairest statement I can make, based on my reading of Bowman and Komoszewski, as well as my previous ventures into NT material, is to say "the jury is still out".

I know this means that I must fly in the face of virtually all of Christianity as well as most of the Messianic world, and certainly the vast majority of reviewers on Amazon (as well as individual Christian reviewers) will disagree with me (though not 100% of them), but given the extreme biases presented by the authors, both in terms of their personal belief structure, their backgrounds, and their view of Biblical inerrancy, the credibility of their overall case is somewhat doubtful.

That said, every author who writes on this (or any) subject has a bias, a personal belief structure, and a background, so perhaps Bowman's and Komoszewski's book is also no less credible than some of the others I've read. In that case, how can I ever be convinced one way or the other on the deity issue? For that matter, how can anyone?

My only answer right now, is that I'll continue to read, to search, and to learn.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

Righteous Atonement

The Christian belief that Jesus Christ is God incarnate has been around so long that many people familiar with Christianity do not realize just how astonishing such a claim was and still is. Jesus was very much a real human being. He grew up in a dusty village as the son of a carpenter. He lived during a time of political turmoil for his people. He experienced the full range of human emotions, from unbridled joy to deep sorrow. He had friends and enemies. He perspired and got tired; he slept and awoke; he got hungry and thirsty; he bled and he died. Indeed, by some measures, he was not a particularly remarkable man. He led no army, held no political office, wrote no books, had no wife or children, left no estate, and never traveled even a hundred miles from his home. Yet billions of people during the past two millennia all over the world have worshiped him as their Lord and their God. How did that happen?

from Chapter 1: All Glory, Laud, and Honor
Putting Jesus in His Place: The Case for the Deity of Christ

I've recently been exploring the topic of Christianity's origin, how we got the Bible we have today, and particularly the issue of Christ's deity (or lack thereof). I've already read books by New Testament scholar Bart Ehrman and Bible scholar Maurice Casey and I'm about 100 pages into Bowman's and Komoszewski's book. I'll write a full review when I'm finished, but I'll tell you up front that the book admits to making some fairly sweeping assumptions, such as the belief that the Bible we have today is correct in every aspect and 100% reliable as a source of theological and historic information (which is in conflict with a number of other NT scholars, including the aforementioned Ehrman and Casey).

I wasn't going to mention the Bowman and Komoszewski book, but I read the following last Shabbat and it got me thinking.

Rav Aharon Kotler, zt”l, explains how, when Hashem treats his tzaddikim with strict justice, He is feared and exalted and praised. “Our sages teach that—like Yom Kippur—the death of the righteous atones for sins. It follows that just as Yom Kippur does not atone without teshuvah, the same is true regarding the death of tzaddikim. But where do we find that one does teshuvah when tzaddikim die?

“The answer can be found on Zevachim 115. There we find that the verse ' — Hashem is Awesome from Your Mikdash,’ can be read instead as — from Your holy ones. The gemara learns from this that when Hashem punishes tzaddikim, He is feared, exalted, and praised. This means that people are catalyzed into doing teshuvah when Hashem’s stern justice is manifest in the world.

“Just as during the ten days of teshuvah the verse states '— Seek Hashem when He is to be found,’ when tzaddikim leave the world and are eulogized properly, this inspires people to do teshuvah as well. It is easier to do teshuvah during aseres yemei teshuvah precisely because during this time middas hadin (justice) is revealed in the world. When tzaddikim pass away, the eulogies cause distress and easily arouse us to teshuvah. This time is auspicious from on high and it is easier to do teshuvah than at other times.

“This explains why a heavenly echo proclaimed that all who had attended Rebbi’s funeral merited olam haba. They all merited olam haba since during that holy time they all became complete ba’alei teshuvah!

From Daf Yomi Digest
Shabbos, March 5, 2011
Zevachim 115
Stories off the Daf
Seek Hashem When He is to be found

Interestingly enough, Casey's book referenced this concept as well and it's not something you hear in Christian circles. I started wondering, if it's so obvious that Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah, must be literally God in order to fulfill the role of Messiah, why don't we see this concept more clearly in the Tanakh (Old Testament) or Talmud? In fact, Judaism is very specific that the Messiah will not be God and, for the most part, will be an ordinary human being.

I suppose that you could argue that, after the dramatic schism between Gentile Christianity and Judaism in the first few centuries of the Common Era, both movements amended their teachings and authoritative documents to make sure that both faiths appeared as unalike as possible, despite the Jewish origins of Christianity. That would mean, from a Jewish point of view, that anything in their authoritative documentation that might even hint at the Messiah being a Deity would be deleted or re-interpreted to make sure that Godhood was not part of the Messiah's resume.

On the other hand, what if it never was? What if the reason the Jewish people in modern times don't believe the Messiah will be God is because Jews never expected him to be God? What does that mean about the Messiah and his death? Could the crucifixion of Christ still have any meaning in the eyes of a Jew?

Given the reference I quoted from Zevachim 115, I'd have to say "yes". I'm not making a final decision on the matter of Yeshua's deity just yet, but I would like to suggest that the Messiah could be a unique and even a supernatural being, without absolutely having to share co-identity with God the Father.

Jesus answered, ‘If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, he of whom you say, “He is our God”, though you do not know him. But I know him; if I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you. But I do know him and I keep his word. Your ancestor Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day; he saw it and was glad.’ Then the Jews said to him, ‘You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?’ Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was, I am.’ So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple. -John 8:54-59

Without getting into the issues some NT scholars have with John's Gospel, I want to take a look at what Jesus said, how his audience interpreted his statement, and why they were ready to stone him to death. Jesus made a claim that he was God, not necessarily that he was the Messiah. Claiming that you're literally God, to a group of people as strongly monotheistic as the Jewish people, especially in that place and at that time, was an outrageous thing to do. If Jesus had claimed to be the Messiah, they might have believed him, disbelieved him, ignored him, or laughed at him, but the Jews listening to him wouldn't have tried to kill him. "Messiahs" have come and gone throughout Jewish history, and one more man claiming to be the (or a) Messiah, particularly in Roman-occupied Israel, wouldn't seem too unusual.

On the other hand, an itinerant carpenter turned Prophet, claiming to literally be God, was not only unique, it was a heinous blasphemy which carried the death penalty. If Jesus had meant to tell the crowd that he was the Messiah (and even that seems odd, given how he warned Peter not to tell anyone about it in Mark 8:29-30), he most likely would have used scripture and metaphor that the Jews around him would have associated with the Messiah, rather than outright claiming equality with God.

I'm saying all of this because the Jews in Yeshua's day (as well as today), didn't expect the Messiah to be God and likely didn't interpret the Master's (supposed) claim to be God to be equal to a claim of being the Messiah. In Christianity, we miss this because the belief in Jesus's deity is so ingrained in the church, that we don't consider how such claims would have been received within the lived context of Christ in the early 1st Century. The Messiah would be expected, but God in living flesh, not so much.

We do see, based on Zevachim 115 though, that the death of a righteous man was believed to atone for the sins of the nation. This somewhat counters one of the Jewish arguments against Jesus being the Messiah based on God's abhorrence of human sacrifice. If we consider that a righteous man's death and the sincere repentance of the witnesses, results in the atonement of sins, how much more meaning can we attach to the death of the most righteous man to have ever walked the earth; the Messiah Yeshua, God's lamb, who takes away the sins of the world?

‘Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me; yet, not my will but yours be done. -Luke 22:42

Then Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.’ -Luke 23:34

Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ Having said this, he breathed his last. -Luke 23:46

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark.

An Old Dog Looking for a New Book

To answer the title question effectively requires more than the citing of a few texts; we must first acknowledge that the way to the answer is more difficult than it appears and recognize that the answer may be less straightforward than many would like. The author raises some fascinating yet vexing questions: What is worship? Is the fact that worship is offered to God (or a god) what defines him (or her) as "G/god?" What does the act of worship actually involve? The conviction that God exalted Jesus to his right hand obviously is central to Christian recognition of the divine status of Jesus. But what did that mean for the first Christians as they sought to reconcile God's status and that of the human Jesus? Perhaps the worship of Jesus was not an alternative to worship of God but another way of worshiping God. The questions are challenging but readers are ably guided by James Dunn, one of the world's top New Testament scholars.

From the product description of:
Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?

I'm getting towards the end of A Complete Idiot's Guide to the Talmud (which is really good, by the way) and am in search of my next book to read. I suppose I've got enough books around the house to choose from, but some of the comments from my recent blog post The Deity Problem piqued my interest. A number of books specifically on the topic of the deity of the Jewish Messiah were suggested. The question is, can I "trust" them?

I don't mean "trust" in that Christian scholars would deliberately lie to people in their books about the evidence supporting Jesus being God (what else would they say?), but "trust" in the sense that, already having reached a conclusion long before they ever did a bit of research, can I really know that their conclusions on "the deity issue" will be completely unbiased and based only on the Biblical record? Also, since these writers are considered "New Testament" experts and scholars, will they even take the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings (the Old Testament, which makes up the first two-thirds of the Bible) into consideration?

The authors could have saved themselves a lot of writing by just inserting one small sentence on a single page of their books saying, "Jesus is God", and that would be the end of it. The world of Christianity (at least as far as I know) universally agrees that Jesus is God; end of story. No ifs, ands, or buts. No questions asked (at least out loud where others might hear them).

Since Christianity takes the matter of Jesus being God on faith (and pretty much for granted), what's the point of research, evidence, discussion and so forth? Why not just accept that Jesus is God (somehow) and let sleeping dogs (or old dogs like me) lie?

Frankly, if the deity of Christ is a settled matter in the church, I really don't know why any scholars, researchers, and other men of letters (none of the authors are women, so I can safely say that last bit) even write such texts? It certainly isn't as an evangelizing tool, since most non-Christians won't read these books and even if they did, a non-believer is unlikely to be convinced that Jesus is Lord and Savior from an academic work.

All that said, I still find myself pondering a number of titles and wondering if I should lay down my hard earned cash to purchase one or more of these books. Here's the short list:

• Jesus and the God of Israel by Richard Bauckham
• Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? by James D. G. Dunn
• How on Earth Did Jesus Become God by Larry W. Hurtado

All three books have good reviews at Amazon, but all of the favorable reviewers are Christians. I did find a poor review of one of the books, but the reviewer wasn't a Christian (see a pattern?). All of the authors are considered very well educated men in their field and have excellent reputations as New Testament scholars. All of their books were written for an audience that doesn't need to be convinced of the deity of Jesus since the audience has already arrived at the desired conclusion defined by the authors.

With all of that bias going on, what can I hope to learn except something like, "Yep, Jesus is God"...?

This dilemma has a parallel in another idea I had recently (but one that I'll probably have to give up) been considering. I've been thinking about taking some Bible or Religious classes, either online or through one of the schools in my area. However, the schools, being Christian schools and based on specific denominations, will carry the biases and theologies of those organizations. The only thing I'll "learn" is how a particular sub-set of Christianity understands the Bible.

For instance, Northwest Nazarene University has a very good reputation, at least locally, in a number of academic areas. They offer different religous programs as well, but when looking at the summary of some of the classes involved, they are very much biased towards how Nazarenes look at the Bible. This isn't exactly a shock, but I attended a Nazarene church for a number of years back when I first became a believer and sadly, they didn't leave a very good impression on me.

See where I'm coming from? What makes it worse, is most of the reading I've done (though not all of it) in relation to religion and faith over the past ten years or so, has either been from "Messianic" or Jewish source material. I suppose I'm just as biased as the Christian books and schools I'm considering but since the Messianic world is going to become an unavailable option for me in a few months, I have to consider alternatives.

Reading a book won't kill me and it's a lot less expensive and time consuming than enrolling in a university class. With that in mind, if you had to choose one of the books in the list above, which one would you pick and why?

The comments section is now open. Let me know what you think.

Thanks.

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark...

The Deity Problem

According to Jewish sources, the Messiah will be born of human parents and possess normal physical attributes like other people. He will not be a demi-god, nor will he possess supernatural qualities.

The Messiah must be descended on his father’s side from King David (see Genesis 49:10 and Isaiah 11:1). According to the Christian claim that Jesus was the product of a virgin birth, he had no father—and thus could not have possibly fulfilled the messianic requirement of being descended on his father’s side from King David!

from Why Don't Jews Believe in Jesus
SimpleToRemember.com

I believe that Deity of Moshiach is the most doctrine if not right there with the most important doctrine in Scripture! I think that many in the Messianic movement are denying the Deity of Yeshua is because they want to be accepted really bad by the Orthadox community (non believers). Now I would really want to be accepted by the Orthadox community also but are we to do that at the expense of denying the Deity of Yeshua? That's a compromise that can't be made, at least for me!

Anonymous comment from
What Our Leaders Believe: The Kinzer Edition
On the Kineti L'Tziyon blog

The "deity of Yeshua (Jesus)" issue has come up again in the Messianic blogosphere and it remains an interesting discussion. You might be thinking that "this is a no-brainer" and "of course Jesus is God", but it's not that clear cut. Let me explain.

There is a general "collision" between Messianic Judaism (MJ) and the rest of Judaism in relation to the identity and capacities of the Messiah. Of course, there's also this "conflict" between Judaism and Christianity, but Christians (for the most part) aren't trying to say that they are part of the larger Jewish community and have a direct affiliation with normative Judaism and Israel. Messianic Judaism is very much based on those propositions.

Messianic Judaism, at least in it's desire, is a "Judaism" in the same manner as the Reform, Conservative, and Orthodox branches of Judaism. In general, they have a cultural and religious view that matches the other Judaisms (and I'm being very simplistic here since their are major differences between the Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform movements, but they are still all considered "valid" Judaisms), accept the same identity markers and authorities (such as the authoritative rulings of the sages as recorded in the Talmud and other works), and strive to be internally consistent with larger Israel in all ways.

That is, except for the Messiah, and here is where we encounter dissonance. With that in mind, what do (non-Messianic) Jews believe about Jesus being God?

Who died on the cross? Was it Jesus-the-god, or was it Jesus-the-human? If it was Jesus-the-god, Jews don't believe that God can die. If it was Jesus-the-human, then all Christians have in the death of Jesus was a human death, a human sacrifice. Jews believe that God hates the very idea of human sacrifice.
from Jews believe that God hates human sacrifices

It is the hallmark of pagan, idolatrous faiths, to confuse God with human beings, either that God becomes human, or that humans become God. In Biblical history, one sees this confusion with Pharaoh, and with Haman (boo, hiss!), as well as with Antiochus, the Assyrian King against whom the Maccabbees rebelled. Furthermore, as one example, in Hosea 11:9 God tell (sic) us, "For I am God and not a man."
from Jews believe that God is God, and humans are humans

Within mainstream Judaism, all observant Jews (to the best of my knowledge) do not expect the Messiah to be God and in fact, they expect him to be fully and completely human and born of a human mother and father. They certainly don't believe that Jesus was the Messiah and they absolutely don't believe that Jesus was/is God.

Now what about Messianic Judaism? Again, to the best of my knowledge, the vast, vast majority of individual Messianic Jews and Messianic Jewish organizations do believe that Jesus (Yeshua) was/is God.

Back in September, I wrote a blog post on the Trinity which elicited a number of interesting comments, but not the explosion of outrage I expected. Based on those responses, I believe there is room for discussion and exploration of the issue of Yeshua's deity in the Messianic community and how this diverges from mainstream Jewish thought. This matter is probably one of the few concepts in MJ that cannot rely on the Talmud or the opinions of the Jewish sages for support, since traditional Jewish authorities do not believe that Yeshua was the Messiah and do not believe he could be God.

In other words, this is just about the only point of theology where Messianic Jews must rely entirely on traditional Christian thought to define the Messiah's identity and role.

Messianic Judaism is the only "Judaism" which openly acknowledges that Jesus is the Messiah, born of a virgin, crucified dead and buried, raised on the third day, and who sits at the right hand of God the Father.

Very Christian.

All other Judaisms are still waiting for the Messiah to come (for the first time) and when he does, they believe he won't be God. Of all the issues in the Messianic movement, at least as conceived of and lived out by organizations such as the Messianic Jewish Theological Institute (MJTI), this is the one that puts Messianic Judaism squarely at odds with mainstream, normative Judaism. The barrier this creates is often downplayed in the Messianic blogsphere, but it's the only area where, when MJ says "We're a Judaism just like all other Judaisms", the most likely response from the other Judaisms will be "No, you're not. You're Christians."

The road is long and often, we travel in the dark...