johntheapostate

The New Testament makes claims for the divinity of Jesus using passages from the Hebrew scripture. In my opinion the textual proof for this claim does not even come close to justifying the concept of the trinity considering the overwhelming preponderance of textual evidence affirming the singular nature of god.

In the book of John the Jews where about to stone Jesus for what they perceived was the claim by Jesus that he was god.

John 10:31-“32 “ Again the Jews picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, I have shown you many great miracles from the Father For which of them do you stone me? We are not stoning you for any of these, replied the Jews, but for blasphemy, because you a mere man, claim to be god.�

If Jesus had indicated that he was in some way god the Jews would have been within their Law to kill him.

Deuteronomy 13:1-5 “ If a prophet, or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, Let us follow other gods (gods you have not known) and let us worship them, you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The Lord your god is testing you to see if you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the Lord your god you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him, and hold fast to him. That prophet or dreamer must be put to death�

If Jesus had not been claiming to be a part of god he had the opportunity to clarify his statements, but instead he makes this statement.

John 10:34-35 “ Jesus answered them, is it not written in your Law I have said you are gods? If he called them gods to whom the word of God came, and the Scriptures cannot be broken, what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own.

I have been accused at times of not interpreting scripture within its context, but here Jesus take that practice to its extreme. He invokes the authority of scripture in his assertion that he held some special relation to god that exceeded that of the persons who had been referred to god in the Hebrew scripture. This passage comes from Psalms and I don’t think that it was considered part of the Law by the Jews anyway.

Psalm 82:1 “ God presides in the great assembly, he gives judgment among the gods�

If one were to read just this passage, it could be interpreted that perhaps the Jewish concept of monotheism could accommodate other gods, but if one reads a little further the nature of these gods become apparent. After berating these gods the chapter closes with this statement.

Psalm 82:6-7 “ I said you are gods, you are all sons of the Most High. But you will die like mere men, you will fall like every other ruler�

It now becomes apparent that this chapter is about human rulers and kings and their refusal to act justly. And it also indicates that at the time Psalms was written a king could hold the title of god or son of God.

This bit of information totally destroys the legitimacy of the proof text which come from the Book of Psalms that are used to bolster the claim that Jesus is also god.

Matthew 22:45 “ While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them, What do you think about the Christ, whose son is he? The son of David, they replied. How is it then that David, speaking by the Spirit, calls him Lord, For he says The Lord said to my Lord. Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. If David called him Lord how can he be his son? No one could say a word in reply, and from that day no one dared to ask him any more questions�

Verses like these are the reason that fundamentalists insist that the Psalms were written by David himself. First Because Jesus said so and second because if they acknowledge that the Psalms were written by others about David then all those instances were it appears that David is addressing a divine entity, simply can be understood as a subject of David addressing the King in language appropriate for the circumstances of a lesser addressing a superior

This is something that liberal Christians should consider. For if they admit (correctly) that to hold to the position that the author of Psalms was David, can not be substantiated considering the internal evidence contained in the text, then they throw out all the proof text supporting his divinity as well. This statement by Jesus which is used as the better part of the claim by Christianity that Jesus was divine depends totally on the assumption that David was the author of the text.

Some would object that the term Lord was reserved only for god. But the Bible contains many instances where the subordinate addressees his superior as lord. Here is a passage were both David and God are addressed as L/lord in the same sentence.

1 Chronicles 21:3 “ But Joab replied, May the Lord multiply his troops a hundred times over. My lord the king, are they not all my lords subjects?�

So if the Psalm was written by a subordinate of David, there is no problem interpreting the passage “ The Lord (god) said to my lord ( the king) Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.� This interpretation is much more plausible and destroys what I consider a rather weak argument to begin with, That the Hebrew scriptures indicate that the Messiah would be a divine figure.

I would like to address some passages from the book of Hebrews which try to impress on the reader the divinity of Christ


Hebrews 1:5 “ For which of the angels did God ever say, You are my Son, today I have become your Father? Or again I will be his Father and he will be my Son�

I have shown that Kings could be referred to as Sons of God and in the context of Psalm 2, it becomes obvious that It was written by a subordinate of David about David and that the author is writing in a manner that reflected the semi divine status that Kings held at the time. A status that the Jews did not hold of kings by the first century.

Here is how the author of Hebrews abuses the difference of opinion of the status of kings that had developed from the time when Psalms was written until the time Hebrews was written. Here the author quotes Psalm 45:6-7

Hebrews 1:8-9 “ But about the Son he says Your throne oh God will last forever and ever, and righteousness will be the scepter of your kingdom. You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, Therefore God, your God has set you above your companions�

This Quote is almost correct but there is one difference. In Psalms it is a scepter of justice rather than righteousness which is referred to. I am not certain why the author replaced justice with righteousness, perhaps justice was to closely associated with the Law for the authors taste�

Again the author assumes that it is David who wrote the Psalm in reference to some future divine Messiah. In the case we can exclude this theory on the internal evidence of the Psalm itself.

Psalm 45:1 “ My heart is stirred by a noble theme as I recite my verses for the king, my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer�

In the first verse the author is identified as someone other than the king.

The author of Hebrews then assumes that the phrase God your God is meant to be understood as one divinity addressing another when in fact it can just as easily be understood as the author of this Psalm emphasizing that god Davids god has set David above his companions. And even if the Psalmist had intended David to be addressed as god, I have shown that this was not impossible at the time the Psalms were written.

If one reads the rest of the Psalm it become clear that is about David rather than by David. The rest of the Psalm is mostly concerned about the sexual interest the king has for women and to state the promise that sons would take the places of their fathers to perpetuate his memory forever.

At any rate with the preponderance of scripture indicating that god was a single entity, I think that most Jews in the first century would have found the concept of the trinity hard to justify.

johntheapostate

I thought that this post which I used in the " Was Paul a liar?" thread would also be applicable here, as it illustrates the singular nature of god as depicted by the author/s of the book of Isaiah. Here it is.

Philippians 2:5-11 Paul attempt to show that although Jesus had humbled himself to die as a man on the cross, he was by nature an equal of god.

“ Your attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ: Who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.�

Here Paul shows that although Jesus was the equal of god he had not selfishly held on to that status but had willingly become human to sacrifice himself on the cross.

“ Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him a name that is above every name�

Paul shows that Jesus regains his stature

“That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father�

This verse is a rip- off of Isaiah 45:23 and with the context surrounding it Paul appears to be on very shaky ground.

Isaiah 45:21-25 “ Was it not I the Lord? And there is no God apart from me a righteous God and a Savior, there is none but me.

Turn to me and be saved all you ends of the earth, for I am God and there is no other. By myself I have sworn, my mouth has uttered in all integrity a word that will not be revoked.

Before me every knee shall bow, by me every tongue will swear They will say off me, In the Lord alone are righteousness and strength. All who have raged against him will come to him and be put to shame.

Did Paul consciously rip-off the text of Isaiah and insert Jesus in the place of god, knowing full well that in the context of the verse the author had gone to great lengths to emphasize the singularity of god and that there was no credible justifications for contorting the meaning of one on some concept of the trinity which can not in honesty be extracted from the text and was foreign to the Jews and had not been formulated by the Christian church at the time Paul wrote his letter at any rate.

It is interesting that contained in the chapters surrounding this verse there is a determined effort by its author to emphasize the singularity of god. Here are some others that I found in the vicinity.

Isaiah 42:8 “ I am the Lord, that is my name. I will not give my glory to another�

Isaiah 43:10-11" Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I even I am the Lord and apart from me there is no savior�

Isaiah 44:6" I am the first and I am the last, apart from me there is no God�

Isaiah 44:24 “ I am the Lord who has made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself.�

Isaiah 46:4 “ To whom will you compare me or count me equal?�

Isaiah 46:9 “ I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me.

Isaiah 48:11 “ For my own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another�

Isaiah 48:12 “ Listen to me O Jacob, Israel who I have called, I am he, I am the first and the last�



There is no other place in the Hebrew scriptures that contains as many passages affirming the singular nature of god as the section of Isaiah from which Paul plagiarized.

Kosh

1 * 0 == 3 * 0 == 0

1 imaginary God or 3? What's the difference? :devil3:

Vorkosigan

John, the "death on the cross" reference in the hymn in Phil 2 is held to be an interpolation by most scholars. it breaks up the meter of the passage.

The rest of your post is great. Why do you think Paul is cross-referencing the texts in isaiah that point to One God?


Vorkosigan

johntheapostate

I cant think of any reason other than he liked the way it sounded and in his little deranged mind he had already fused Jesus into his god concept. Surely no Jew that would be familiar with Isaiah and had any respect for an orthodox interpretation would have let it slide.

The liberties that Paul takes with Jewish scripture leads me to believe that he had very few scripturally literate Jews as converts and that the bulk of his Jewish followers were scripturally illiterate. I think finding any particular piece of scripture would have been difficult for the average reader back then as it was contained in large rolls that were not divided into the chapter, verse format. Also just getting a copy of the scripture would have been much more difficult back then. I think that Paul just relied on the ignorance that the average believer had.

Christianity still relies on the scriptural ignorance of its adherents. I initially started reading the Bible to confirm if what I had been taught could actually be supported by scripture. It only took a couple of days to realize that it certainly was no creation of divine inspiration. But the average Christian hardly opens his Bible once a year and never with a critical eye. I studied it with the same mindset that I would have if I was a juror deciding the fate of a person convicted of murder.

I pronounce that the Bible is guilty of perjury and forming a belief system based on the testimony in its text is ill advised.

If hell actually existed and the Hebrew scripture was the word of god I think that all Christians would spend eternity with the worst form of idolaters

Anat

johntheapostate, in Psalms 82:1 the word 'elohim' can also mean 'judges' as it is translated here
"God standeth in the congregation of God; in the midst of the judges He judgeth:"

There are instances in the Torah that use 'elohim' in this meaning. It's not that kings were called gods, but that the same word could mean God, gods and judges.

johntheapostate

I was not aware of that. Live and learn. I guess the point still remains the same. That there is no justification for Jesus to invoke the Hebrew scripture to justify his claim of divine stature. I guess the people who translated the text in my Bible were not aware of this fact, or they felt they had no option but to capitalize the word God in the pertinent passages to conform to how the New Testament had interpreted them.

Would the scripturally literate Jews during the time Jesus is said to have been active in Judea really have been completely stumped by the "logic" of Jesus as is claimed in the book of Matthew or was its author relying on the ignorance of his readers.

Loomis

Gosh, maybe I’m just crazy, but it looks to me like Psalm 82 is “undoing� what Deuteronomy 32:8-9 “does.�

Deuteronomy 32:8-9 tells how El Elyon (the most high god of the Aramean pantheon) divided up humanity into nations and assigned each of his sons to govern them. It’s a political maneuver to assimilate Yahweh (the Arabian desert god of armies) into Elism by portraying Yahweh as one of El’s 70 sons - in this case the elohim of Jacob.

It looks to me like the assimilation failed because Psalm 82 has El changing his mind and “canceling� his assignments. He gets pissed off at his sons and reclaims total governorship. He then condemns his sons to mortality for screwing up.

The god at Deuteronomy 13:1-5 is Yahweh. It instructs the citizens of Jacob to obey their elohim and to ignore the elohim of adjacent nations (for example – Chemosh the elohim of Moab).

The authors of the New Testament appear to be oblivious the fact that El and Yahweh were two separate gods. :rolling:

Sheshbazzar

Loomis is making an unsupportable assertion here, and attempting to "read into the text" his own interpretations.
There is absolutely no evidence to be found either within the Scriptures or in the field of Archeology that conclusively proves that the name "Yah" or "Yahweh" is not at least as ancient as the terms "el" and "elohim" and "El Elyon".
Indeed the record of Scripture has Eve being the very first person recorded to directly speak the full form of the Name 'Yahweh" in Gen. 4:1, and the Scriptures always present Yahweh as being The El Elyon, the Most High EL.
The intent of Deuteronomy 32:8-9 is consistent with Yahweh's promises to Abraham, to Issac, and to Jacob, to make their seed, the nation of Israel His Own special chosen people, out of all the nations.

"Blessed is the nation whose Elohim is Yahweh,
and the people whom He has chosen for His own inheritance." Psalm 33:12
Of course they were oblivious, because there was no such "fact",
Because The One and Only "Almighty El" was YAH Yahweh, and YAH Yahweh was The One and Only "Almighty El".

If it were possible to speak with these men, the question that would most certainly be asked by them is "Do you believe The Scriptures?"
And what would you answer? "I believe in the half a dozen verses out of all the Books that I can twist to my own interpretation, to prove that there is more than One Almighty El?"

The Scriptures have much to say about Yahweh Elohim's eternal existence.

rlogan

Couldn't agree more.

I have posted occasionally a scholarly piece that estimated literacy at 3% or less in Judea at the time. Only a fraction of that would have been in posession of scripture. Combine this with your second observation:


Yes, with over 90% literacy and stupendous numbers of bibles given away free, even. That this is true can then give us some idea of what must have been true at less than 3% literacy and only wealthy people or institutions having scrolls then.

Jesus was manufactured from the Hebrew Bible, but in a pretty slipshod way. Then, as now, one can do as a preacher does. A quote mine here and a quote mine there: a sermon is put together. It may bear only the most superficial relation to the passages upon inspection -

But who actually goes home from Church to check up and see if the preacher took the passages in the right context? Pffft. Nobody does that. Back then, nobody even could.