Antiquitopia

In the Life of Adam and Eve , Michael commands all the host of heaven to bow down before the newly created Adam--the very spitting image of God--and yet only Satan abstains, claiming one should only bow before God (Satan, then, becomes the first strict monotheist, or monolatrist). This text may seem to challenge the concepts of monotheism or monolatry, although it may only challenge our MODERN concepts of monotheism rather than ancient standards. At the same time, the Rabbis, in a bit of a later time, clearly found the notion of the angels or the hosts of heaven bowing before Adam troubling. R. Hoshaya said: When the Holy One, blessed be He, created Adam, the ministering angels mistook him and wished to exclaim "Holy" before him. What does this resemble? A king and a governor who sat in a chariot, and his subjects wished to say to the king, "Domine! (Sovereign)!" but they did not know which it was. What did the king do? He pushed the governor out of the chari...

This post completes my discussion of chapter 4 of Bauckham's Jesus and the God of Israel on worship. In it, B relates the discussion of worship of Jesus in terms of obeisance, doxologies, and hymns to ongoing fidelity to monotheism among Christians and christological developments through Chalcedon, as compared to the Alexandrian Christianity of Origen. B argues that the worship of Jesus is not a departure from, but an adherence to, monotheism. He contrasts the exclusive worship of YHWH of Jews to the interreligious tolerance of the Roman world. Even monotheistic-leaning philosophers never denied the legitimacy of existing forms of “popular religion.” “The difference between Jewish and pagan monotheism did not turn on the existence of supernatural beings inferior to the supreme God, but on whether they might be worshipped” (140). Jewish and Christian refusal of other cults made them oddities, especially when Christians worshipped a crucified criminal! Nonetheless, Christians b...

As of this minute, I just finished reading James McGrath's book, The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in its Jewish Context . I need a bit of time to gather my thoughts, but expect a review (probably in a series) soon intermixed with ongoing discussions of Bauckham's Jesus and the God of Israel , which discusses much of the same issues with different results. I will give a few general impressions. James's book is very succinct and perspicacious--a wise man once said, "Brevity is the soul of wit." He directs his book towards non-specialists, so he takes time to explain a great deal that scholars' assume, but I think this is an important exercise for all scholars, since we often forget why we assume what we assume and what we assume as a scholarly community needs continual reassessing. It is quite amazing that even explaining these issues, he gets in detailed exegeses of passages and reviews of entire corpi of literature and even material evidence...

Amazingly, I am going to be able to fit all of my comments on chapter 3 of Bauckham's Jesus and the God of Israel in one post! Follow the labels back to see the earlier posts. Chapter 3 is about “The ‘Most High’ God and the Nature of Early Jewish Monotheism” Of all the chapters I have read, I have found this one to be the most informative. In it B calls for listings and tables of divine names and titles in early Jewish literature to see which are popular and which are not in particular genres and in particular provenances. I think such an extensive study would be most useful indeed! This chapter takes a small step towards this with a study of the term “Most High.” He tries to account for its high frequency, its significance, and how it sheds light on early Jewish monotheism. Of course, to do this he must rehearse defining “monotheism” and “inclusive” versus “exclusive” monotheism. Again, inclusive monotheism, in B’s definition, is when the highest God is...

I would like to draw attention to a post by Mike Koke on many of April DeConick's recent discussions of early Christology as well as referring to my own reviews of Bauckham. In the comment section, there is an extended discussion between myself and Nick Norelli , who has also reviewed Bauckham, on some of the more emotional (annoyed) aspects of my review as well as a nice summation statement by Mike Koke on the whole issue in the comments.

Finally, in what seems to me an appendix in the chapter, albeit not without foreshadowing in terms of “pan biblical theology,” Bauckham exegetes three NT passages’ allusions to the Shema: Rom. 3:28-30; 1 Cor. 8:1-6; and John 10:30. He begins by noting, contra Margaret Barker, that there is no evidence for non-monotheistic forms of pre-exilic Israelite religion to survive into the Second Temple period to be available for early Christians. Early Judaism is “uniformly” monotheistic and NT writers presuppose Jewish monotheism and do not intend to depart from it. The widespread allusions to the Shema in the NT militates against Barker’s point. Outside of the three passages he analyzes, he cites Matt 22:37; Mark 12:21-30, 32, Luke 10:22, Gal. 3:20; 1 Tim 2:5; and James 2:19. So, it appears in all of the corpora of the NT, excepting Revelation. I am fascinated that for the bulk of the chapter on the OT, we barely glimpsed a text, and now in what feels like an appendix, it is all exegesi...

This is the third installment on chapter 2; there is one more to come. To see what I have written before, just follow the "Richard Bauckham" or "Jesus and the God of Israel" tags back. In this part, Bauckham turns to canonical criticism. Note that we have not engaged any passage of any length in this chapter since Deuteronomy! B claims that, contra MacDonald, not everyone who perceives monotheism in ancient documents is influenced by the Enlightenment. He suggests that Second Temple and NT scholars are more immune. I disagree: they too have a tendency toward Enlightenment universalizing categories and, too, often employ evolutionary or progressivist models. Nonetheless, he still, I think wisely, keeps to his language of “exclusive Yahwism.” Shifting from pre-exilic Israelite historical models and their usage for current theology, he shifts lenses to canonical criticism. This criticism does not engage with what a text might have originally meant, but how it...

Continuing in Chapter 2 (to see earlier posts, just hit the "Richard Bauckham" or the "Jesus and the God of Israel" tags), Bauckham turns to historical models and their applicability to modern theology for the biblical theologian. In the next section, Bauckham discusses the problem of how a biblical theologian to construct a theology of the old testament while allowing historical “facts” could have been different than the bible’s own narrative? I appreciate his recognition of a possible divergence here, and the archaeological evidence indicates such a divergence in ancient Israelite practice. I find this section difficult to evaluate, since I am not a theologian, but as a historian, I’ll give it my best try. For example, I could never ask, “Could YHWH really be as the Old Testament portrays him if, historically, even the claim of exclusive Yahwism has merely been projected back through fictionalized history after the exile all the way to Moses?” (71). I am more...

I just turned in a chapter of my dissertation for critique, am about to take a break in a few days, so am using the next few days to catch up on my review of Bauckham (I have also picked up McGrath's book, so expect a post or two on that soon as well). To see my reading of his introduction and first chapter, just click on the tags that say "Richard Bauckham" or "Jesus and the God of Israel" to take you back. Now we turn to chapter two, which, again, will take a few postings. Chapter 1 was about 60 pages and this one is about 40. Chapter 3, thank god, is only about 20. And he is starting to become repetitive, so I do not need to rehearse everything he does. So, in short, I am hoping my readings will become shorter (or the posts per chapter fewer). Chapter 2 is called "Biblical Theology and the Problems of Monotheism" As the title indicates, this is the most explicitly theologically patent chapter. Current theological applications of historical an...

I just received in the mail a copy of James McGrath's new book, The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context , sent to me from the University of Illinois Press. Given that I have been reading and reviewing Bauckham's book on a very similar subject, I probably should give some time to this work as well. I would like to thank James for keeping this book short! Something I am not very good about in my own writing. Text, notes, bibliography, and index are all only 155 pp. Only 104 pages of text! So, it looks like a much quicker read that Bauckham. I'm sure most of you read McGrath's blog already and are quite up-to-date about this book. But I will just point out its general layout and leave reading and reviewing to a future time when I have more time. His first chapter focuses on the issue of method and scholarly study of ancient Jewish and Christian perspectives on the divine. It seems at first glancing that he lays out a typology of monothe...

I have finally reached the final segment in my review of Bauckham's first chapter of Jesus and the God of Israel . Only seven chapters to go....this is going to take forever to finish. You can catch my riveting earlier segments here: Introduction Chapter 1A (Monotheism) Chapter 1B (Monotheistic Christology) Chapter 1C (God Crucified) Bauckham ends this chapter charting some consistencies and novelties from second temple Judaism to NT Christology as well as “evaluating” later theological traditions in light of his discoveries. Bauckham finds considerable consistency in the characterization of God in terms of God being creator and sovereign, characteristics that distinguish God from all other reality (in my opinion, the true key to Bauckham’s “monotheism”). Bauckham recognizes that this is a minimal portrayal; other characteristics flesh out the character of God in God’s relationship to all creation and his relationship to Israel—such as God’s more particular interactions with ...

This is the third part of my reading of Bauckham's first chapter of Jesus and the God of Israel. I have one more part on Bauckham's assessment of continuities and novelties between the NT and Second Temple literature. You can see my earlier posts as following: Introduction Chapter 1A (monotheism) Chapter 1B (christological monotheism) For this week, however, we will discuss the theme of “God Crucified and Divine Identity Revealed in Jesus" I must say at the outset that this has been the most interesting part of Bauckham's analysis thus far--perhaps because this is where he finally gets into the textual nitty gritty and generally avoids the over-generalizing that is so prevalent throughout the rest of the chapter. The next move in Bauckham’s argument is the shift from thinking of a preexistent Christ to the earthly Jesus and the repercussions of a suffering Jesus who shares in the unique divine identity. In this section he asserts that all NT Christology is high C...