In Hebrews 1:6 the author says that God commands the angels to worship Jesus, his firstborn son. The command to worship is drawn from the LXX of Deut 32:43 but seems to be blended with Psalm 97:7 (LXX Ps 96:7) and Psalm 89:27 (LXX 88:28). Ellingworth suggests Odes of Solomon 2:43b and 4QDt 32:43b are possible sources as well, although these two texts are probably alluding to the same texts as the author of Hebrews. The phrase “let all the sons of God/angels worship him” is missing in the Hebrew text, so the writer of Hebrews either is following the Greek of Deuteronomy or only has the Psalm in mind.
There are two issues with this verse that need to be addressed that have a bearing on Christology. First, the quote is introduced by a phrase calling Christ the “firstborn of God.” The word “firstborn” could be taken to mean that Jesus was created or generated by God, so that Jesus was similar to God, but not the same substance as God himself. In fact, the Greek word πρωτότοκος (prototokos)does mean “first born,” but it often refers to the legal status as heir rather than birth order.
It is possible for the “first born” to be the literal first born child, but that is not necessarily the case. Jacob can be called the first born, even though he was not the literal first born, because he was the son of the blessing over his older brother. More importantly for the writer of Hebrews, the word πρωτότοκος was applied to David in Psalm 89:27 (LXX 88:28).
The second issue is the command to worship Jesus. In the original context of Psalm 97:7, worshipers of idols are put to shame by the glory of God revealed in creation. Since the idols are worthless, the gods/angels are commanded to worship God. The Hebrew Bible has כָּל־אֱלֹהִֽים, “all the gods,” the Greek of the Psalm has πάντες οἱ ἄγγελοι αὐτοῦ, “all his angels.” It is probably the case that the translator took the “gods” as “sons of God” and translated the phrase “angels,” a similar case is found in Psalm 8.
The important point is what the quote says: all the angels should (now) worship the Son. In this present age, the firstborn son ought to receive the worship that was reserved for God in the previous age. This would create a problem for a monotheistic Jewish thinker – how can Jesus be worshiped as God? God is commanding his angels to worship something other than himself, a violation of his own Law. The shema, after all, says that there is one God. The angels can only worship God himself, so the author of Hebrews is pointing to the fact that the Son is to be worshiped because he is God.
Is this a valid inference from the text of Hebrews? If a reader sets aside their views on the Trinity (either for or against it), does the writer of Hebrews intend to equate Jesus and God in some real way in this verse? What else is there in Hebrews 1 to support this assertion?
In the earliest days, Christianity was entirely Jewish, yet by the end of the first century, the majority of the church was Gentile, and by the end of the second century, only a minority of Christians were converts from Judaism. There is little doubt that a book like Hebrews is Jewish-Christian, given its focus on the Law and its use of the Old Testament. On the other hand, the writings of the second-century apologists are almost entirely Gentile in character, owing to their use of philosophical categories to argue for the truth of Christianity. In a previous post, I surveyed Donald Hagner’s description of Jewish Christianity and Raymond Brown’s four categories of Jewish Christianity. I also looked briefly at Jacob Neusner’s suggestion that Jewish Christianity was a myth. Neusner said, “Judaisms and Christianities never meet anywhere. That is because at no point do Judaism, defined by Torah, and Christianity, defined by the Bible, intersect.” I think they do (go read that earlier post), and the Jewish Christian literature (Especially Hebrews and James) is evidence of that.
But most books are not as easy to categorize as Hebrews or James, so the following several posts will develop a set of criteria to indicate whether a book is more or less representative of Jewish Christianity. I will begin with the Christology of Jewish-Christian literature.
It is often assumed that “high Christology” means a book is “less Jewish” and ought to be dated as late as possible. High Christology holds that Jesus was, in some sense, divine. Low Christology is the belief that Jesus was only a human, or was a human specially appointed by God. The general assumption is that the belief that Jesus is God and part of the Trinity developed over several hundred years, not finally taking shape until the fourth century. There is some truth to this since the claims the gospels make about Jesus could be read either way: Jesus is a human, but he also seems to claim some divine prerogatives which imply he was “more than just a human.”
This “low develops into the high” Christology is evident in the New Testament. For example, Mark’s Gospel is the earliest of the four and does not contain any birth narrative. Jesus is the suffering servant who tries to keep messianic expectations to a minimum. Matthew and Luke include birth stories which expand Jesus’ origins to include a divine miracle (the virgin birth) and the fulfillment of prophecy. John’s Gospel was the last written and describes Jesus as the Word of God who was with God at creation, and is in fact God (John 1:1-3).
The main reason a low Christology is assumed to be “more Jewish” is the importance of monotheism in Second Temple period Judaism. If a Jewish teacher like Jesus announced he was the God of the Hebrew Bible in the flesh, he would have likely been immediately stoned for blasphemy. In Mark 2 Jesus claims to be able to forgive sin and he is accused (at least in thought) of blasphemy.
I had some reservations since Paul (a Jewish Christian) has a remarkably high Christology at a fairly early date (Phil 2:5-11). This particular example is important because it appears that Paul is recalling a well-known tradition, suggesting that this example of “high Christology” is earlier than the letter of Philippians. Martin Hengel, for example, associates high Christology with the early church, commenting that a high Christology “grew entirely out of Jewish soil” and any “pagan influences have been suspected in the origins of Christianity were mediated without exception by Judaism” (“Early Christianity,” 2–3). Richard Bauckham also concluded “the earliest Christology was already the highest Christology” (God Crucified, viii, also see here).
There are examples of Jewish-Christian letters that lack a robust Christology (James barely mentions Jesus). But Hebrews cannot be described as a “low Christology,” but certainly represents Jewish Christianity. How might a writer’s view of who Jesus be influenced by whether they are Jewish or Gentile?
Curtis, Edward M. Interpreting the Wisdom Books: An Exegetical Handbook. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Kregel Academic, 2017. 204 pp. Pb; $21.99. Link to Kregel
This new contribution to Kregel’s Handbooks of Old Testament Exegesis covers four difficult books in the Hebrew Bible: Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs. Curtis contributed a commentary on Ecclesiastes and Song of Songs in the Teach the Text Commentary Series (Baker 2013) and Discovering the Way of Wisdom (with John J. Brugaletta, Kregel, 2004). This handbook joins Gary Smith’s recent Interpreting the Prophetic Books and Richard A. Taylor, Interpreting Apocalyptic Literature to complete the Handbooks on the Old Testament series.
The first section of the book provides definition of wisdom and the nature of poetry. Curtis understands wisdom literature as a kind of general revelation. By carefully observing life this literature draws accurate conclusions about God’s orderly universe. But this literature does not always answer “enigmatic and anomalous experiences,” perhaps generating the speculative wisdom of Job and Ecclesiastes. The unit on poetry is a basic introduction to Hebrew poetry (parallelism and other literary features), but also a very helpful section on interpreting metaphors. Metaphors can be a problem for Bible students who are taught to “read the Bible literally,” but Curtis provides a basic method for teasing out the meaning of a metaphor.
The second section of the book explores the main themes of the four Old Testament wisdom books in canonical order. These short summaries of the books briefly gather the main theological points of the books under a series of headings. One particularly helpful section is on the application of proverbs. He begins with the warning “a proverb on the mouth of a fool is useless” (Prov 26:7) and explains there is a contingent time and place for a proverb to be used and there is a kind of life-skill in knowing that time and place. Although Curtis does not do this in his book, tt is possible to rearrange the wisdom material so the student encounters Proverbs as the “way wisdom works,” and then read Job and Ecclesiastes as “the way wisdom does not work.”
The Song of Songs is the one book of the Hebrew Bible that is difficult to classify. Although it is usually placed with other wisdom books, it is not at all like Proverbs, Job, or Ecclesiastes. Curtis does not defend the inclusion of the Song in a book of Wisdom Literature other than to observe sexual relationships are part of the created order. It is not surprising his comments on the Song focus on “one-flesh relationships” (lifelong monogamous, and by implication heterosexual relationships). He rejects allegorical interpretation for the most part, he does recognize some insights of allegorical interpreters “reflect legitimate applications” of the marriage metaphor in the Old Testament.
With this material in mind, Curtis then offers two chapters on exegetical method applied to the Wisdom books. Although most pastors will not take the time to worry about textual critical issues for the Wisdom books, Curtis has a short section on determining the text for the Hebrew Bible with a few examples drawn from Proverbs and Job. He develops a series of recommendations for interpreting the poetry and metaphors of each of the wisdom books.
Throughout both these methodological chapters, Curtis offers a detailed and annotated bibliography of resources needed for interpreting wisdom literature. Some of these are generic Hebrew Bible tools: a good lexicon, for example, is a necessary took regardless of the genre. Other bibliographies target Wisdom literature, such as a list of recommended commentaries. An appendix prepared by Austen M. Dutton suggests a number of electronic resources, from free on-line resources to professional (and expensive) Bible Software such as BibleWorks, Accordance and Logos.
The final section of the book is a guide to proclaiming Wisdom literature. Of all of the volumes of the Handbook of Old Testament Exegesis, the various genre of wisdom literature are challenging for preaching and teaching. Curtis offers some specific guidance using Proverbs 2 and Job 28 as examples. Following this model, he gives a series of suggestions for how to preach the four books. For example, with respect to Proverbs, the “proclamation should reflect the big picture and recurrent themes” (159). It would be confusing to preach through the whole book of Proverbs “verse-by-verse” the way someone might move through Galatians. There is simply no sustained argument from verse to verse! In his final chapter in the book, Curtis gives several case studies. These provide a simple sermon outlines and illustrations to serve as examples of what could be done for a particular text.
Conclusion. Curtis says “Proclamation should do justice to Qoheleth’s tensions” (161). Although he makes this comment with respect to Ecclesiastes, it really does apply to the whole of the wisdom literature. Although the attraction of wisdom books is the often clear-cut and simple observations on how to live a successful life, there are frustrating, unanswered questions. If you raise up your child in the way they should go, why do they sometimes stray from that way, despite the claim of Proverbs 22:6? It seems as though there is always an assumed “most of the time” for any given proverbs. For this reason, Proverbs and the rest of the Wisdom literature is often better discussed than proclaimed.
Nevertheless, as with the other contributions to this series, this handbook for the Wisdom books succeeds in its goal of providing students of Old Testament wisdom with the tools for teaching and preaching this difficult material in the Hebrew Bible. This would make a good textbook for a college or seminary class on the Prophets, especially in more conservative circles.
NB: Thanks to Kregel Books for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.
Bird, Michael F. Jesus The Eternal Son: Answering Adoptionist Christology. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2017. xv + 155 pages; Pb. $18. Link to Eerdmans
This new monograph from Michael Bird is the result of a discussion held at the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint forum at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary in 2016 entitled “How Did Jesus Become God?” featuring Bird and Barth Ehrman. The seminar discussed Ehrman’s How Jesus Became God (Harper One, 2015) and Bird’s recently edited collection of essays entitled How God Became Jesus (Zondervan, 2015). Larry W. Hurtado, Jennifer Wright Knust, Simon Gathercole and Dale Martin also participated in this conference.
As Bird explains in the Preface, in his preparation for this conference he became aware much of what is said about adoptionist Christology is incorrect. It is simply assumed the most primitive Christology was adoptionist and scholars tended to reference John Knox or James Dunn rather than examine the evidence. This book calls that quasi consensus into question (9). Bird argues in this book that although there was Christological diversity in the early church, adoptionism was a second-century phenomenon. As Bird says, it is not correct to speak of a single, monolithic Christology of the early church, but it is equally problematic to speak of a wide variety of competing Christologies proportionally distributed across the early church (5).
After a short chapter describing what he means by both Christology and adoptionism, Bird examines two passages most often used as evidence for adoptionism (chapter 2). First, Romans 1:3-4 is one of the earliest statements often taken as evidence for adoptionist Christology, especially if these verses are a pre-Pauline creedal formula. Ehrman claims these verses say Jesus was (according to the flesh) the Davidic Messiah, then he was declared to be the exalted Son of God (14). Bird points out both titles “Son of David” and “Son of God” were messianic titles in Second Temple Jewish literature. There is no evidence the phrase “Son of God” was ever used in Jewish literature for a human who lived a meritorious life and was given divinity after a bodily resurrection (20). For Bird, Romans 1:34 claims the resurrection is the transition from Jesus’s messianic and earthy mode to a display of his divine sonship and heavenly position (23).
Second, Acts 2:36 (along with 5:31 and 13:33) claim that “God made Jesus both Lord and Messiah.” Since speeches in Luke-Acts reflect Luke’s theological agenda, it is at least possible these speeches by Peter and Paul intend to present the exaltation of Jesus as the divinization of Jesus. Bird counters this by showing Luke’s theology assumes Jesus was the messiah and Lord from the beginning (Luke 2:11). Bird cites Kavin Rowe to defend the change in Acts 2:36 is not ontological but epistemological. For both Romans 1:3-4 and Acts 2:36 there is no beginning to divine sonship implied because divine sonship is presupposed as a part of his messianic identity (29).
Bird devotes two chapters to the Christology of the Gospel of Mark. As the earliest Gospel, it is often assumed the book has an underdeveloped Christology and the baptism is clearly adoptionist: Jesus goes into the water a human, and comes out the Son of God (34). Barth Ehrman considers this as an innovation in Mark’s gospel; Jesus is adopted at the baptism rather than the resurrection. Mark’s gospel is also considered by some to have been influenced by Greco-Roman culture so that the baptism is deification similar to deified Hellenistic heroes or emperors. Bird surveys how the Greco-Roman world presented these defied figures and concludes ascriptions of divinity “were not primarily about essence but honor, status and power” (41). These people were deified because they had provided some benefit to the people and were worshiped because they were perceived as continuing to be a benefit. In the Hellenistic world the idea a human could become a god was doubted, even if there was some cultural benefit from perpetuating the imperial cult. Both Jews and Christians rejected the idea of human deification, although Judaism developed used angels or exalted humans as intermediaries between God and man. But these angelic creatures are never exalted quite to the same level as Yahweh nor were they recipients of cultic worship (59). With respect to parallels between Mark’s Jesus and the divine men in the Hellenistic world, Bird suggests everyone read Sandmel’s article on parallelomania (JBL 81 (1962). Certainly Mark needs to be read within the context of both Greco-Roman and Jewish worlds, but parallel texts “create endless possibilities” and need to be used with clear criterion in order to avoid seeing things which just are not there (108).
Turning to the details of Mark’s Gospel, Bird interacts at length with Michael Peppard, The Son of God in the Roman World (Oxford, 2011). Peppard argued the term “son of god” in the imperial cult was a major influence on early presentations of Jesus (67). For Bird, Peppard does not take seriously Mark’s key images for Jesus are drawn from the Hebrew Bible, especially in the story of Jesus’s baptism, the key adoption text in Mark. Psalm 2, Genesis 22 and Isaiah 42:1 provide Mark with his material: the Davidic king, the submissive son and the Isaianic servant. In addition, Mark’s use of Lord for Jesus connects Jesus to the Shema. It is Jesus who is the Lord, and it is the Lord Jesus who is initiating a new exodus (91).
Bird deals more briefly with three other issues in the Gospel of Mark. First, in Mark 2 Jesus claims to forgive sin. This is not the function of a priest in Judaism, only God has the prerogative to pronounce sins forgiven. Second, calming the storm (Mark 4:25-41) and walking in the water (Mark 6:45-52) are “theophanic episodes” which reveal Jesus as the God who controls the chaos of the seas (94). Third, in Mark 14:61-62 Jesus claims to be the son of Man from Daniel 7:13 who is invited by God himself to sit on his right hand (Ps 110:1). This blending of texts strongly suggests Jesus is the co-enthroned one who will be Lord of all creation (101).
Since the first four chapters of this book argue there are no adoptionist texts in the New Testament, Bird devotes his fifth chapter to explaining how adoptionism developed in the second century. Even here he questions adoptionism in Shepherd of Hermes (which he calls complicated and even incoherent, p. 111) and the Ebionites (which he calls a “poor man’s Christology, 112). Bird agrees with Bauckham’s assessment that the Ebionites were Jewish believers who were uncomfortable with some of the Christological claims being made about Jesus, and defaulted to a possession Christology (Jesus was taken over by God at the baptism). Bird thinks the first writer who can be described as an adoptionist is Theodotus of Byzantium (about 190 CE). Even here, Bird hedges since there appears to have been some mixture among his followers.
In his brief concluding chapter, Bird makes the point the New Testament is not adoptionist, but rather focuses on the enthronement of the Davidic Messiah to heavenly glory. This conclusion favors a Christology developed out of the Hebrew Bible over one influenced by the Greco-Roman world. Modern adoptionism erodes the atonement since a created being cannot redeem another created being (128) and runs the risk of a merit-based theology (129).
Like most contributions to the ongoing discussion of early Christology, this book will probably not convince adoptionists. However, Bird does successfully challenge the assertion the earliest Christology was adoptionist by carefully examining several Pauline texts and the Gospel of Mark and providing a compelling non-adoptionist interpretation of these texts.
NB: Thanks to Eerdmans for kindly providing me with a review copy of this book. This did not influence my thoughts regarding the work.
Norelli, Nick. Christology in Review: A Layman’s Take on Books about Christology. Lulu, 2017. 149pp.; Pb.; $10.84. Link to Lulu
This small book collects twenty book reviews written by blogger Nick Norelli on the topic of Christology. Norelli has been blogging at Rightly Dividing the Word of Truth since July of 2006. He offers a short introduction to his journey from AOL chatrooms in 1997 to regularly reviewing books on his blog. He credits Chris Tilling’s detailed review of Gordon Fee’s Pauline Christology as encouraging him to focus on seriously reviewing books.
Christology in Review includes reviews of the following books no particular order.
Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel
Casey, From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God
J. & A. Y. Collins, King and Messiah as Son of God
D. G. Dunn, Did the First Christians Worship Jesus?
D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God
Endo, Creation and Christology
Fatehi, The Spirit’s Relation to the Risen Lord in Paul
Grindheim, Christology in the Synoptic Gospels
Grindheim, God’s Equal
W. Hurtado, One God, One Lord
H. I. Lee, From Messiah to Preexistent Son
McDonough, Christ as Creator
F. McGrath, The Only True God
Nicholason, Dynamic Oneness
C. O’Neill, Who Did Jesus Think He Was?
A. Pizzuto, A Cosmic Leap of Faith
Stuckenbruck and North, Early Christian & Jewish Monotheism
H. Talbert, The Development of Christology During the First Hundred Years
Tilling, Paul’s Divine Christology
Warrington, Discovering Jesus in the New Testament
The first review is Bauckham’s 2008 work. The oldest reviewed book is Maurice Casey’s From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God was published in 1991 and the latest is Bart Ehrman, How Jesus Became God from 2014. I would have expected the inclusion of the Michael Bird edited response to Ehrman (How God Became Jesus, published almost simultaneously in 2014). Norelli does mention the volume in his review but does not include a review.
The reviews are arranged alphabetically by author and vary in terms of length and depth of interaction. For example, his review of McGrath, The Only True God is a seventeen page review article with 34 footnotes. His review of Richard Bauckham’s Jesus and the God of Israel runs about 14 pages. However, his Grindheim’s Christology in the Synoptic Gospels is only two pages. Some of the books reviewed are from the very best in scholarship (Fatehi, The Spirit’s Relation to the Risen Lord in Paul in the WUNT series), others are written to a more popular audience (Ehrman, How Jesus Became God).
Although he styles himself as a layperson, Norelli offers trenchant critiques in many of his reviews and is not at all shy about expressing disagreement with the scholars he is reviewing. For example, he makes several critical arguments against James McGrath. McGrath called the review “a very detailed and, from my perspective, very fair and useful review” of his book The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context. In his response, McGrath said “There have been more positive reviews that did not leave me feeling as satisfied with the level of engagement as Nick’s did.”
His review of Bart Ehrman’s How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee is more scathing. Norelli says “if you have read one of Ehrman’s popular books, you’ve pretty much read them all” (p. 55), especially his frequent digs against his former Christian faith.
This collection is useful for anyone wanting a quick sample of the dozens of books published on Christology in the last 20 years. Norelli has done a service by collecting these reviews in an inexpensive single volume.
It is possible for the “first born” to be the literal first born child, but that is not necessarily the case. Jacob can be called the first born, even though he was not the literal first born, because he was the son of the blessing over his older brother. More importantly for the writer of Hebrews, the word πρωτότοκος was applied to David in Psalm 89:27 (LXX 88:28).
It is often assumed that “high Christology” means a book is “less Jewish” and ought to be dated as late as possible. High Christology holds that Jesus was, in some sense, divine. Low Christology is the belief that Jesus was only a human, or was a human specially appointed by God. The general assumption is that the belief that Jesus is God and part of the Trinity developed over several hundred years, not finally taking shape until the fourth century. There is some truth to this since the claims the gospels make about Jesus could be read either way: Jesus is a human, but he also seems to claim some divine prerogatives which imply he was “more than just a human.”
