darstec

The name of god could never be Jesus. Good Hebrews were never to utter the name of their god. Jesus is the same name that appears in the Old Testament as Joshua, the most common male name among the Hebrews. And just look at how many times the name Joshua appears. Pretty darn frequently for a name that was not supposed to be uttered and could get you stoned to death and then hung on a stake. There is a reason they kept referring to a title, namely lord.

What we erroneously call Jesus (or the Joshua of the OT should also be called Jesus) was done so purposely. We have a similar circumstance in the US. We call "everyman" John Doe or John Smith so it stands for anybody. Joan Doe for females.

And coincidentally the most common female name was Mary. Add to that the other most common name, Joseph and we have John Doe, John Smith and Joan Doe all in one family.

Loomis

But what if the Gospels weren’t written by good Hebrews?

What if the authors were getting their Hebrew material from the LXX?

They would have no way of knowing God’s proper name. All they would know is that God’s mysterious name was a reoccurring motif in the Scripture; and a great springboard for writing new material.

Right?

darstec

Right except for one thing. The name Jesus does appear many times in the LXX. So it could not possibly be the name of god especially considering Jesus was the successor of Moses. We know that the Pentateuch was translated by the end of the first century CE by Jewish translators. [We can argue about what we now have was what they had back then, but that is a different topic.] As far as the other books of the OT both Josephus and some early Christian writers say that they hadn't been translated by the end of the first centuries. We see several scholars laying a case that there were at least late second or third century works. The paucity of Greek fragments/texts among the Dead Sea Scrolls would bear that out.

Incidentally god is not a name either, nor is its Greek counterpart 'theos'. In the Greek LXX most of the names and titles of the gods were obliterated by simply writing theos or kurios. It is worse in English, so much so that it appears as though only one god is ever mentioned. Well except to the gods demoted to angels.

You point about the gospels not being written by good Hebrews is well taken. They weren't. And their reference material for OT quotes came from late translations, post first century. But even they knew the name of god could not be uttered and since Jesus was mentioned frequently in the OT, that name could not be a good candidate even for them.

Loomis

I’m aware of all of that.

So what was I wrong about?

darstec

Maybe nothing. It could be I misunderstood your point. I thought you were saying that the gospel writers thought the Old Testament god of the Hebrews went by the name of Jesus in the OT. That is different from saying that some man named Jesus supposedly of the first century CE was thought to be a god. My distinction is about the NAME of the OT god.

Loomis

It’s easy to misunderstand and be misunderstood around here. I don’t have any grand unified theory of anything. And I don’t think that the bible does either.

I don’t think that the gospels confused Jesus with Yahweh, but I do wonder what the author of Romans 10:9 was thinking when he wrote, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved?”

Why was the confession necessary? Was someone denying that Jesus was Lord?

Also look at Deuteronomy 32:8-9 LXX and Psalm 82 LXX. It is easy to conclude that the Lord and the Most High were separate deities (because they were).

Once you can convince your readers that the Lord was a separate deity in those episodes, you have established a great foundation for a mystery Lord; from which you can proceed to write colorful and imaginative stories.

Loomis

How about this: The author of Romans 10 wanted to pretend that Jesus was the Lord in the Old Testament.

He was pretending that the Lord's proper name was a secret, and that the name wasn’t revealed until Jesus died on earth. And the Lord’s name turned out to be Jesus, and that’s why it was important to confess that it was.

Is that okay with you?

darstec

Some serious scholars even debate whether the "lord" Jesus means the same as "lord" god. It may be that lord Jesus was simply conferring adulation like the queen of England is called Her Highness rather than as a way of calling Jesus a god.

And if the Pauls were writing in the second century as were some of the Gnostic authors then indeed there were people who questioned whether Jesus was god as others questioned whether he was human.

I think early Christianity was composed of hundreds of different sects all believing in different things. Once it became a state religion and people were all forced to believe the same thing under shadow of the sword, they started believing (at least in public) similar things. Still there was the frequent "heretic" popping up for the next 1600 years. There was even more conformity while only clerics and royalty were allowed to own bibles.

Then arose Satan called the printing press. :devil1: And all hell broke loose. Christianity had to stop murdering dissenters.

aa5874

After reading Deut. 18.15-22, It does NOT appear that the prophet was expected to have the LORD'S name.

The expected prophet was to be like Moses or the author of Deuteronomy 18.15 & 18. and would speak the WORDS of the LORD not as the LORD.

This is Moses or the author.
De 18:15 - This is the LORD.

De 18:18 - Moses or the author was NOT the LORD.

But, the Pauline writer claimed JESUS was LORD and when he mentioned God and Jesus in the same sentence he did NOT called GOD THE LORD he ALWAYS called Jesus the LORD.

Examine one such passage.

Ro 1:7 - But in the Synoptics Jesus called God the LORD.

Mt 4:7 - In the middle of the 2nd century, Justin claimed Jesus was SECOND to God.

"First Apology" 13 In the mid-2nd century when Justin mentioned God and Jesus in the same sentence GOD was LORD of ALL not Jesus.

First Apology 61
It was WHOEVER talked out of his ass when he claimed he heard from a resurrected dead named Jesus who was Creator of heaven and earth, equal to God, and was given a NAME above every other name in [b]heaven, earth and even under the earth.


If Jesus was just a mere man, Who is talking out their ass here?
PHP 2.9-11 Who pulled this out their ass.? Who wrote this BS in the Epistle?

I don't know who wrote under the name of Paul.

You know?


You may be wrong for the first time.:banghead:

darstec

No. The Paulian authors distinguished god the father from Jesus. Remember one of them claimed his ideas of Jesus came from no man but rather revelation of god the father, and inspiration of writings. We have a tendency to think those epistle writers only meant scripture when they used the generic "writings". I don't think that is valid. I think scholars are reading into the text what is not there.