Reading the following I was shocked, and yet perhaps in another respect not so much.  I often wonder why some fail to realize the error in certain arguments, and it is perhaps because they do not listen to the points made against them.  Instead, it would seem as if they sometimes assume they know the counterpoint, assume they know the answer, but really have only created a straw man in their own mind.    Consider the following posted on one Yahoo group by Trinitarian Barry Hofstetter (ellipsis removes the Greek text as he also provided the transliteration):

Now, if John, as the author rendering Jesus semitic language into Greek, had wanted to express, “Before Abraham was born, I existed,” he could have written… PRIN ABRAHAM GENESQAI, EGW HMHN, (Before Abraham was born, I was) which would express much more precisely what the way the JW wants to read the text, and also accord much better with the usual sequence of tenses. Better yet, considering the JW theology that Jesus is the first created being.. PRIN ABRAHAM GENESQAI EGENOMHN, GEGONA, “Before Abraham was born, I came into existence…” These would be perfectly natural and expected ways of  saying it, but that’s not what we get. Instead we get that pesky present tense first person singular, used in an absolute way with no predicate.

I won’t bother to explain the error here, as it is well documented on this site and elsewhere, but being that I know Barry has been presented with the correct meaning, held by JWs and others, it is readily apparent that he simply does not listen.  Not only has he ignored those making the point in discussion, but also the Greek grammars and commentaries that have made the point as well.  One has to wonder if people only paid more attention how quickly many errors could be done away with.

I recently came across a trinitarian argument demanding that Psalm 22 be a Messianic psalm, which it is not. Viewing it as such the trinitarian focused upon one verse:

Psalm 22:10 Upon You I was cast from birth; You have been my God from my mother’s womb.

The argument found Jesus being God in his preexistence by lacking one as his own God, which he only came to have upon becoming a man.  Yet as many Trinitarian commentators recognize, the psalm was not messianic.

To be clear this is not to say that parts of the psalm did not find a messianic application, but finding such in key portions is vastly different than having the entire psalm attributed to the Messiah.  So The Interpreter’s One-Volume Commentary (p. 268):

In this overpowering sense of alienation, shared by Jesus on the cross (Matt. 27:46; Mark 15:34), the psalmist draws comfort from reflection on the history of his people.

The above reference clearly distinguishes between the psalmist to whom the psalm applied and Jesus as one who found a later fulfillment of the specific text.  Such does not indicate that the text originally applied to Jesus or that the entire context related to him (cf. 2Sa. 7:14; Heb. 1:5).

Most unexpectedly I found myself driving yesterday at a time I would normally be in the office.  Having my radio tuned into talk radio, to my surprise Robert Bowman was on The Janet Mefferd Show, discussing the deity of Christ as a person of the Triune God.   Hardly able to pass up the opportunity to call in I found myself the final caller.   I’ve posted the clip from our exchange and included my own comments following the clip.  As the format was strictly one of question and answer I did not get to follow up on the show.

Listen Here

The New Testament authors’ application of Old Testament passage about God or others to Christ is not uncommon.  I discussed this with moderate detail in God and Christ.  When the second edition is complete (this is still some time away) I intend to explore this in greater detail (as with most every topic discussed, along with a host of others not).   One early Jewish text highlighted in the book on a couple of occasions is 11Q13, The Coming of Melchizedek.

As I did not spend any significant time developing the concept of agency or focus on too many extra-biblical passages where others are granted the appellation “g/God” outside of the Bible, a couple of significant portions of 11Q13 deserve mention.  This is especially important for those who have not had the opportunity to read this document and consider the implications of early Jewish interpretation on the outlook the New Testament authors carried in writing about Jesus.  Consider the following, written about the heavenly Melchizedek, whom many scholars identify with Michael the archangel.

“as is written about him in the songs of David, who said: Elohim will stand up in the assem[bly of God,] in the midst of the gods he judges.” 11Q13 2:9-10

This portion of text, highlighted in God and Christ, is significant for demonstrating the acceptable nature of applying passages to certain key individuals when the text had originally referenced God.  Further demonstrated is the allowance of calling certain others God when they were exalted and appointed by the Almighty to be so termed.  Finally, we find God’s ability and willingness to assign certain divine prerogatives to his agents without contradicting the notion of their uniqueness to him.

“And about him he said: Above it return to the heights, God will judge the peoples.” 11Q13 2:10-11

There is no doubt that “God” in the above is Melchizedek.  Not only is he the God judging from Psalm 82:1, but this is something said “about him.”  Most significantly, “God” is here in place of the divine name Jehovah from Psalm 7:7-8.  Either the name is attributed to Melchizdek as God’s exalted agent in judgment, or the substituted “God” carries the term’s traditional meaning and is understood in that way apart from the original reference.  Either interpretation is significant to the Christology presented in the New Testament, for it demonstrates such application without equating Jehovah in the original text with the new referent.

Just as important is the following:

“in truth […] […] it has been turned away from Belial and it […] […] in the judgments of God, as is written about him: Saying to Zion, ‘your God rules’.  [Zi]on is [the congregation of all the sons of justice, those] who establish the covenant, those who avoid walking [on the pa]th of the people.  Your God is [… Melchizedek, who will fr]ee [them] from the hand of Belial.  And as for what he said: You shall blow the hor[n in every] land.”  11Q13 2:21-25

As Thomas could identify Jesus as ‘his God’ (John 20:28), Melchizedek was ‘their God.’  He stood appointed by God over them, he was his agent and so bore the identification.

This one document provides significant insight into the early Jewish mind when contemplating exalted agents and the application of Jehovah’s name, titles and prerogatives to them.  To simply appeal to Old Testament divine name texts in the New Testament with reference to Jesus is not persuasive.  Neither is the display Jesus carrying out God’s unique prerogatives.   As Jesus’ exalted name, position and authority are given to him by God, closely corresponding to early exalted divine agents and not Trinitarian theology.

Along with other encomiums, the author of Hebrew called ‘the land of the promise’ (11:9) ‘a heavenly [one].’  This does not mean it is not on earth any more than the ’shares in [the] heavenly calling’ (3:1) who had ‘tasted the heavenly gift’ were not those who lived on earth.  Indeed, it was the very land on which the patriarchs dwelt as ’strangers and wanderers’ (11:13), but the expression means that it is a divine land which God himself has promised.

The Anchor Bible, “To the Hebrews,” p 192.

Over at http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/ there is a poll up for a debate challenge with Robert Bowman.  Essentially, it is asking non-Trinitarians whom they’d like to see Bowman debate.  Well, funny enough, there is a unitarian  Seventh Day Adventist who shares my name (actually, there are a lot of people with whom I share this name) and has his own website.  Well the confusion seems to be with just who debated Mike Felker from http://www.apologeticfront.com, for in the poll it identifies him as that one.  In reality it was I and the debate can be read at http://www.scripturaltruths.com/articles/ology/debates/jesusgod.   Hopefully the poll administrators over at Reclaiming the Mind will be able to get this corrected shortly.

Update:  It appears the poll has been corrected.

Surprise, surprise…

By decoding the inscription on a 3,000-year-old piece of pottery, an Israeli professor has concluded that parts of the bible were written hundreds of years earlier than suspected.

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/01/08/bible-really-written/

‘Shares in [the] heavenly calling’ were member of the group.  This is another way of saying ‘brothers.’  ‘The heavenly calling’ (kleseos epouraniou) was the same as the ‘calling from God’ (klesis tou theou) (Rom 11:29).[2] A person who was called to segregate himself from the Gentiles and become a covenanter, a member of God’s holy people, joined the community.  This means that one who had been called was one who had been initiated into the sect and had become a brother and holy.  Therefore Paul could say, ‘Those whom he has previously set apart, these also he called, and those whom he called, these also he justified, and those whom he justified, these also he glorified’ (Rom 8:30).

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[2] Contra Montefiore, p. 71, who said this was ‘not primarily in the sense that God calls from heaven, but inasmuch as Christian are called to heaven.”

The Anchor Bible, “To the Hebrews,” p 55.

Every community has its own language, a way to affirm itself and demarcate insiders from outsiders. It is as true in high school cliques as in religious groups, and though it’s hard to fault people for simply being people in the latter case it is harder to swallow, especially when the jargon is clothed in personal piety (or superiority). The illegitimacy of it all is underscored by some concluding reflection in Bill Mounce’s brief discussion of emphatic pronouns in the Matthean makarisms. He writes (on his own site and Koinoniablog.net, 12/14/2009):

Notice that it does not say, “Blessed are those who have had a conversion experience, for theirs is the kingdom.” In fact, Jesus later says that many who claim to have done great things for him are in fact strangers (Matt 7:23). What will you do with this?

My suggestion is to first of all confirm that I correctly understand the emphatic use of αυτος. (I am.) Secondly, ask yourself if your theology can handle this. If you have been following my blog for very long, you have probably gleaned that I am moderately reformed. But what I most try to be is biblical, and the Bible says that God shows mercy only to those who have shown it themselves. That the only people who will be filled are those who hunger and thirst for [His] righteousness. That the only ones who will inherit the kingdom are those who are poor in spirit and have been persecuted for that fact.

Talk of this kind is often met with angry blog comments, but the fact of the matter is that this is what the Greek text says. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs, and theirs alone, is the kingdom of God.”

If a person’s theology can’t handle that, then their theology is simply wrong. How does the emphatic αυτος fit your theology?

Why expect angry comments? I think the same exegetical theological point could be made in a way to avoid them, but Mounce is not clothing his insight in the right context, in the story that his moderately to myopically Reformed readers find self-affirming. I’m truly curious why this is so, since I don’t think Mounce’s rather broad theological point comes, straightforwardly, from this particular text. Indeed, he may be putting too much weight on this pericope, to say nothing of the pronoun.

James Dunn addresses the language game of saved-ness thus:

It would be a mistake to take any one of Paul’s metaphors and to exalt it into some primary or normative status so that all the others must be fitted into its mould. Something like this has indeed happened with the metaphor of justification in classic Protestant theology. In popular evangelism it has happened with the metaphors of salvation and new birth. In such cases there is an obvious danger. The danger is that the event of new beginning in faith comes to be conceptualized as of necessity following a particular pattern, the same for everyone. Equally dangerous is the assumption often made that the same language or imagery must always be used, that experience of individuals must conform to the language which describes it. Instead of diversity of experience and imagery there can be pressure to reduplicate both pattern and jargon, in effect to mass reproduce believers according to a standard formula. No so with Paul. For him the crucial transition was a many-sided event, and not necessarily the same for any two people. And it required a whole vocabulary of words and metaphors to bring out the richness of its character and the diversity of individual cases.—James D. G. Dunn, The Theology of Paul the Apostle, 332

Torah is greater than the priesthood or sovereignty, for sovereignty is
acquired with thirty virtues, the priesthood with twenty-four, and
Torah is acquired with forty-eight qualities. These are: study,
listening, verbalizing, comprehension of the heart, awe, fear,
humility, joy, purity, serving the sages, companionship with one’s
contemporaries, debating with one’s students, tranquility, study of the
scriptures, study of the Mishnah, minimizing engagement in business,
minimizing socialization, minimizing pleasure, minimizing sleep,
minimizing talk, minimizing gaiety, slowness to anger, good
heartedness, faith in the sages, acceptance of suffering, knowing one’s
place, satisfaction with one’s lot, qualifying one’s words, not taking
credit for oneself, likableness, love of G-d, love of humanity, love of
charity, love of justice, love of rebuke, fleeing from honor, lack of
arrogance in learning, reluctance to hand down rulings, participating
in the burden of one’s fellow, judging him to the side of merit,
correcting him, bringing him to a peaceful resolution [of his
disputes], deliberation in study, asking and answering, listening and
illuminating, learning in order to teach, learning in order to observe,
wising one’s teacher, exactness in conveying a teaching, and saying
something in the name of its speaker.