Chapter 10 of James D. G. Dunn's, The Partings of the Ways is "One God, One Lord," and it asks whether or not Paul's writings have yet departed from mainstream Judaism. Dunn's answer is "no." Throughout the chapter he concludes repeatedly that "nothing of what has been covered above seems to have caused any question or concern among Paul's Jewish contemporaries" in relation to the issue of monotheism (170). In a comment reminiscent of Hurtado--while ironically differing from him on the issue--Dunn suggests that "Had Paul's christology been equally, or more contentious [as his understanding of the Jewish Law] at this time for his fellow Jews, we would surely have heard of it from Paul's own letters."
1. Resurrection
The belief of Paul and the earliest Christians that Jesus rose from the dead, that he was exalted to heaven, did not threaten monotheism. A unique and remarkable belief about a person who had just been alive, yes. But squarely within Judaism.
2. Exaltation to divine functions
Here Dunn disagrees with what would become Bauckham's position. The fact that Jesus participates in the judgment is quite remarkable, but it does not threaten Jewish monotheism for Jesus judges as God's representative.
Jesus' resurrection, his ascension, his apotheosis/transformation, these are remarkable things to attribute that someone who was recently alive. But we find Jewish precendents for them. Peter facilitates the giving of the Spirit, and no one thinks he threatens monotheism.
So to extend Dunn, I don't find Bauckham's assumption that Jesus must be included within the divinity because Jesus is on a throne persuasive. I think he fails to demonstrate that this must be the case. He mostly assumes it must be. His valiant attempts to work around Ezekiel the Tragedian and the Parables of Enoch are unpersuasive to me.
3. Jesus as Lord
This sentence sums up Dunn on this issue, and I find it hard to disagree: "Paul in fact calls Jesus 'Lord' as much as a means of distinguishing Jesus from God as of identifying him with God" (250).
"The LORD said to my Lord," says Psalm 110:1. Hebrews 1:6: "Therefore God, his God anointed him." And the timing of the acquiring of the name LORD is at the point of resurrection/exaltation. Bauckham in my opinion largely ignores this dynamic.
4. Jesus as Last Adam
I hink most will agree that Paul's Adam Christology did not impinge on monotheism. However, Dunn tries to make it undo the pre-existence of Christ in the Philippian "hymn." Few will go with him here.
As I've said here before, the Philippian hymn is the one place in Paul's writings that is very difficult not to see an affirmation of Christ's pre-existence. Its uniqueness, in that regard, is suspicious. But Dunn's understanding of the hymn seems problematic--that the form of God is Christ's Adamic state in the image of God, but that unlike Adam Christ did not try to seize equality with God.
Dunn also notes the key passage in the Life of Adam and Eve where God commands the angels to "worship" Adam. Dunn would not see the worship of Jesus in Paul as any more of a departure from Jewish monotheism than this.
5. Jesus as wisdom
Dunn makes an excellent case, I think, in this section that a Jew reading passages like Colossians 1:15ff would hear an implicit comparison of Christ to God's wisdom. The strength of his argument is that he so much as asks us to picture how a Jew with no prior knowledge of Christ would understand such passages. I think he is absolutely right in his answer to this question. However, the retort asks, But these would be individuals who knew a little something about Christ beforehand?
6. Jesus and the Spirit
Dunn here shows the striking way in which Paul glides from virtually equating the Spirit with the risen Christ to distinguishing the two. "Jesus and the Spirit were seen to overlap in function, but not wholly to coincide" (266). This stretches mainstream Jewish categories, but Dunn thinks it still stands within Judaism.
7. Jesus as God
Since Dunn does not think Paul wrote Titus, the only place he really considers as a possible flat out reference to Jesus as God is Romans 9:5. But the punctuation is at issue and Dunn favors as more likely the reading that separates, "God be blessed forever" from Jesus. One's answer here will largely turn on one's assessment of Paul's broader categories.
Dunn also addresses Hurtado's argument that the cultic devotion to Jesus in Paul already marks a significant mutation of Jewish monotheism. Dunn does recognize its significance: "These are indeed remarkable and we should not allow our familiarity with them to dull the astonishing character of such language spoken of one who had so recently lived on earth" (269).
But Dunn considers such imagery "a development only begun." In other words, it would lead eventually to something beyond Jewish monotheism. Just not yet in Paul. The hymns Hurtado cites are about Christ rather than to Christ. And despite invocations of Jesus, prayer is more often in Paul to God through Christ.
I might close by saying that I think it is a mistake to assume that the Christian understanding of Christ's divinity stands or falls on the interpretation of Paul. I think people like Bauckham, Hurtado, Wright, Witherington, etc. find themselves strongly driven to see as much of a later Christology in Paul as they can make the evidence fit without soiling their academic conscience. They are good Protestants.
But Roman Catholic scholars often have exactly the same impulse, it seems to me. Can't we have as much faith that God was unfolding these things in the early church as much as we Christians have faith that the New Testament unfolds things not yet on the Old Testament page?
Just a thought...
With some regret I need to move on from Dunn's Partings. I may only do one or two more chapters in Hurtado's Lord Jesus Christ as well for now. Too many things to write these next couple of months...
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5 comments:
On the enthronement issue, particularly looking at the Similitudes of Enoch and Ezekiel the Tragedian's "Exagoge": while one may look at it one way and say that, because of these texts, the enthronement of Jesus does not threaten monotheism; others have gone the other way, particularly more recent research that suggests that ancient Judaism was not so monotheistic (the research that figures like Bauckham and Hurtado disagree with--although it does not really threaten the latter's thesis, in my opinion; I know Paula Frederiksen is on the other side, saying Jews were not so monotheistic), saying that these Jewish texts demonstrate that monotheism was not so widespread in ancient Judaism by divinizing Adam and Moses.
The enthronement issue is also important in the so-called "Two Powers" heresy among the Rabbis--only God supposedly sits in heaven while lesser beings stand (or bow), and when R. Elisha b. Abuya (Aher) saw Metatron sitting in heaven, he wondered if, indeed, there were two powers in heaven. After this, all of Aher's merit is erased and Metatron himself is humiliated, suffering whipping.
I don't think the enthronement threatens monotheism either. At the same time, I have not been convinced that Adam is divinized per se, and although I don't fully think Bauckham has made his case with Ezekiel, I don't see it as a complete departure from monotheism. And I'm content to let the two powers heresy be later than the bulk of the NT.
I tend to think things are a bit messier. I used to think that post-exile all Jews were monotheistic, but the more I read the primary texts, the less I believe the secondary ones.
Some Jews were clearly purely monotheistic (as in 2nd Isaiah), some were not (there is some epigraphic evidence of Jews offering prayers up to Pan in a grotto for a safe journey--need to check where), and, I have a feeling, most were in the middle, saying there was one powerful God on top (their God) and lots of lesser gods (which, today, we call angels, but were often called "gods" (elim) in antiquity). Everyone recognizes this middle space, but the difference between someone like Bauckham and Frederiksen, say, is often just a matter of emphasis (which shows I think the difference between monotheism and polytheism is not a very bit step).
For enthronement, it depends what you think the purpose of enthronement of figures like Moses, Adam, and Enoch were. They are exaltations, to be sure, but exalted to what status? They seem to be associated with some sort of transformation--is it angelification? Deification? And, really, what is an angel but a lesser divine being? Some of these lesser beings are "messengers" (malachim) but many are called "gods" (elim, elohim, or el). They seem to participate in some way in divinity, but there is always a recognition of the highest God upon whom they all depend. Is this really monotheism? Or sort of an exclusivist polytheistic monolatry? Exclusivist b/c they don't meld with other systems, or think other people's gods are demons or perhaps some of these lesser divine beings that serve the high god (divine courtiers, in a way). Polytheistic b/c all these beings are clearly called gods in some way (the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice is a perfect example of this, but many of the Qumran finds fit into this--and don't trust translations on this issue). We often translate the word "god" as "angel," but this seems to me to be an anachronistic, more modern, predilection. If the ancient Jews were comfortable calling these beings "gods," then I think we should as well in our historical discussions of at least the texts that do. Monolatry because only one of them, the highest one, is worshiped, and even worshiped by the "gods." In a sense, being the "God of gods." So, really, Hurtado's basic thesis on worship stands (that the worship of Jesus as LORD was highly innovative), but things are a bit messier--the evidence for monotheism is not nearly as widespread or as clear as figures like Bauckham make it (I know Bauckham places a lot of weight on things being "creatures" but this seems to read the texts through the Arian crisis). Really, outside of one passage in Isaiah and a particular interpretation of the Sh'ma, there isn't much.
In keeping with your earlier post on the Temple, I think monotheism was a development of exile, and something that some exiles tried to impose with widely varying degrees of success on the Judahites who remained. But something which slowly, very slowly, began to creep in to larger belief and practice and became normative (but never really complete even to this day--it is very hard to think that Kabbalah is monotheistic).
Returning to these texts and considering that ancient Judaism is not one thing or does not have one position, but is multiplex, Adam's divinization would depend upon the interpretation of Gen. 1, in which God made the human in his own image--thus he would be worshiped by the angels since he is the very image of God. I would need to check, but I think the word there is the same as "idol." The story is highly ironic, in my opinion, because in it Satan is the most stringent monotheist, the only one avoiding worship of an "idol" or image--nothing should be worshiped but God alone. It is almost as if monotheism and idolatry-avoidance is on the fallen side. I sometimes wonder if this text was almost meant to be comedic, at the very least it would be parody or even polemics--perhaps against the Priestly legislators? Perhaps, in that sense, it does not threaten monotheism, but threatens the ordinances against idolatry (in the sense of using images in order to worship the one God).
Ezekiel's Exagoge is trickier because it is a dream sequence, and any interpretation must take that into account. But, if this was actually staged, it would be quite an image to see Moses portrayed with divine (or at least divine-like) attributes on stage--it would be quite a statement. But one wonders if it is a theological statement, a political statement, or a cultural statement--sort of the whole culture wars going on in Alexandria about who originated high culture (with Jews vying with Moses as superior to Egyptian claims, and against Greeks by saying Moses taught Orpheus, etc.)--or if it is all three in some way.
Overall, ancient Jewish texts appear to leave a lot more room for interpretation of the divine world than we used to think. Perhaps monotheism would have been an imposed norm, but there are always blurry points, fuzzy edges, and so on--and these texts may represent them.
And, sure, we'll leave "two powers" for a later time, since it probably developed partly (or largely) as a response to Christianity anyway, but it is probably responding in some way to how Jesus' enthronement was understood (or how the Rabbis perceived that Christians understood Jesus' enthronement).
Again, much of this seems to me to be merely a matter of emphasis, but translating elim as "angels" seems to be an act of subterfuge to me. There are clearly three classes of beings, with humans and the high God being two of them. The question is the lesser divine beings. Ancient texts call them gods, so I think we should honor that, even if that is not OUR theology today. That only one God was worshiped (the high one) is still extraordinarily important, however. But that is not evidence for monotheism. That is evidence for monolatry. Clear evidence for monotheism is there, but not as clear or widespread as is commonly assumed.
I do welcome disagreement on this issue, since that is, I think, the best way to arrive at truth--"As iron sharpens iron, so one mind sharpens another" (Prov. 27:17).
I agree with most of what you say here. Finding a clear way to categorize all the different elements of the equation and trying not to impose later issues is very difficult! I have long felt tied in knots. I consider my post today a personal triumph of categorization... one knot beginning to loosen.
Thanks, Ken. Your most recent post, especially, is very clear. I have moved this discussion to the forefront on my blog, basically saying much of the same thing, but bringing in a bit more evidence than I could in a comment.
But now I must quit blogging and get some of my work done!
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