Chewing on the Trinity 3
In a previous post, we saw that Yeshua’s use of I am
or egw eimi
was pointing to the phrase before Abraham was
for its significance. What Yeshua says would therefore be better understood as: I am before Abraham was. But what does that mean?
The Trinitarian, as we saw in the debate video, is quick to say this means Yeshua is claiming a divine attribute for his own personal existence: eternality. This whole time while Yeshua has been telling people about how he is bringing about a day in which the word of YHWH will overcome death through himself, he suddenly decides, out of nowhere, to stop talking about that and to declare I have existed forever!
And surely no one can exist forever except God.
It would not need to be said had Trinitarians not been so blind to the problem of their own argument: Yeshua does not say forever, he says before Abraham.
There are trees and monumental structures created by humanity that existed before Abraham or stretch back as far or further in time from now as Yeshua did to the time of Abraham and no one would think to say they are eternal because of it. The angels existed prior to Abraham. Are they YHWH himself? Some patriarchs lived to be almost 1,000 years old according to various manuscripts of Genesis. Are they somehow specially divine because their lives have reached back beyond the limits of what we think of as ordinary human longevity? There is nothing in Yeshua saying I am before Abraham was
that requires the divine attribute of eternal existence. However, since reason doesn’t exclude the possibility of that interpretation, let’s have a look at what the text says and see if the subject of what Yeshua is saying and what the Jews understand him to be saying is anything like that at all or if there is something else going on (there I go again, daring to actually look at what the text says).
Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself? Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God: Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
John 8:52-58, KJV
What is going on? Yeshua is saying that his Father (YHWH) is making him greater/of more honor than their father (Abraham) or all the prophets who came after. What is the essence of that honor/greatness? That Yeshua is eternal? That he existed forever? Is that what the Jews think he means by before Abraham was?
It is clear in the text that the essence of Yeshua’s honor/greatness is that what he says overcomes death. Let’s see it again right there in the text in case you missed it: thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.
That is what Yeshua said to them and that is their problem with him because, obviously, they do not believe it! Abraham and the prophets spoke the word of God and the Jews follow the words that Abraham and the prophets spoke, but Abraham and the prophets all died and all those who follow their words die. So how can Yeshua’s word overcome death unless Yeshua were greater than Abraham and the prophets or carried a message from YHWH greater than they? Yeshua’s audience thinks he must be possessed of the devil and trying to falsely gain some honor or greatness that is not and never can be his.
Yeshua responds by saying that it is not only his Father (YHWH) who honors him, but even their father (Abraham) saw his day and was glad.
What is his day? In the context of everything that has just been said by Yeshua and by the Jews in response to him, it is a day they have never known: a day when the word from YHWH will overcome death. All other days with the word of YHWH ended in death. Abraham died and did not come back. The prophets died and did not come back. But Yeshua is claiming a day in which that end is overthrown. Surely Yeshua will die and not come back and what he says will not be able to bring anyone back either.
They respond by saying You are not yet 50 years old and you have seen Abraham?
But this is not asking Yeshua how far back he exists (and thus does not have to do with eternality
) because they obviously do not believe from the getgo that he could exist far back in time (you are not yet 50
) and there has been nothing Yeshua said in the passage that indicates he was previously talking about being eternally existent. By saying You are not yet 50 years old and you have seen Abraham?
, they are mocking his claim to bring into the world a word from YHWH that can overcome death by pointing out that what he says IS NEW. What he is claiming is not yet 50 years in the earth. But Abraham…boy, he goes WAY back. So how then can Abraham have known what Yeshua is claiming?
The issue is not whether Yeshua existed eternally or not. Nor is the issue whether Yeshua has existed for a very long time. The issue is whether this thing Yeshua is claiming about himself whoever keeps my words will not taste death
is new or whether it precedes him as far back as even Abraham. Yeshua said that Abraham knew of what he was claiming and approved, so that is where the Jews are taking their aim. There is nothing else in the text for them to take aim at—no claim of personal eternal existence, no declaration of I AM via the divine name, no statement that he, himself, is YHWH. What there IS, however, is the bold revelation that if those who follow Yeshua’s words will not taste death, then Yeshua himself, who lives by the very thing he is delivering, will escape death.
By saying I am before Abraham was,
Yeshua not only settles the issue at hand (that his claim isn’t new–it does precede him as far back as Abraham, which validates what he had just previously said about Abraham), but at the same time positively answers what is implicit about the claim: through the word given to him from the Father, Yeshua himself will overcome death. Not even Moses, who gave Israel the Torah From Heaven, escaped death! Frenzied at that claim and that assertion, the Jews pick up stones to put his word to the test. They intend to deliver him to death and thereby show him to be a fraud in what he says.
Unlike the Trinitarian, I do not come away from this text with the message Yeshua must be eternal and God himself.
Rather, my response is The word of the Lord. The word that conquers death. The word that is LIFE. Yeshua has it?” And then I read along further in the text and see that Yeshua rose from the grave and my reaction is “It is true! Yeshua’s way is life! Life greater than death! So I will believe what Yeshua says and follow him. Praise be to the Lord!
To the Trinitarian, John 8 is telling us something about the philosophical makeup of Yeshua’s being. To me, the non-Trinitarian, John 8 is preaching the gospel message.
Chewing on the Trinity 2
In a previous post, I talked about a debate between a Unitarian and a Trinitarian posted on YouTube where I had a few stunning revelations:
- A Trinitarian can actually make a good argument
- Whatever I am as a non-Trinitarian, I don’t fit very well into the Unitarian camp
- The Trinitarian, for the most part, destroyed the Unitarian’s arguments and won the debate by a landslide
The main reason, I think, for the Unitarian’s defeat was that he was outmatched and out-gunned. The Trinitarian knew his stuff and made good arguments. The Unitarian didn’t know his stuff and was unable to make arguments that worked with and overthrew his opponent’s criticisms.
One thing the Unitarian was on to, which he completely failed to lay out, was the problem with the Trinitarian’s assertion that when Yeshua said I am
(before Abraham) he was using the divine name to declare himself YHWH.
The Unitarian correctly pointed out that the Greek of I am
that Yeshua uses is egw eimi
and that when we look at what the translators of the Septuagint thought represented the divine name, YHWH, in Greek, it is NOT egw eimi,
but o wn.
Since Yeshua does not use the Greek equivalent of the divine name, the Trinitarian argument that Yeshua calls himself YHWH by saying egw eimi
falls flat on its face. The Unitarian should have won the argument. Instead, he let the Trinitarian run right over him by making the ridiculously false claims that egw eimi
actually does represent the name YHWH in Exodus 3 and that we can see this to be so in a passage like Deuteronomy 32:39 where the Greek renders the divine name as egw eimi.
Well, since this isn’t a debate, I have the luxury of actually looking at the verses in question and showing what they do and do not say instead of simply giving a verse reference, reading it in English, and then moving on as if I validated my point. So let’s do that.
First, let’s look at what Greek words the New Testament author(s) felt best represented what Yeshua said when Yeshua said before Abraham was I am.
John 8:58 according to the SBL Greek Text says before Abraham was: εγω ειμι.
In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew, when we turn to Exodus 3:14, we see God say, Say to the Israelites I am ο ων. The I am
part of that is egw eimi,
but if we continue to read the passage, we see that the I am
or egw eimi
is NOT identified as the divine name YHWH. The verse continues, Thus you will say to the children of Israel ο ων has sent me to you. Not egw eimi,
but o wn.
Where the Septuaginat says ο ων has sent me to you, the Hebrew says YHWH has sent me to you,
clearly and unambiguously showing us that ο ων represents the divine name in Greek, not εγω ειμι. Yeshua does not say ο ων, but says another phrase that the Greek Old Testament doesn’t chose to identify with the name YHWH. The Trinitarian argument fails on the plain facts of the text.
So now let’s look at the claim that egw eimi
is being used in the manner of the divine name to identify YHWH in Deuteronomy 32:39.
The Septuagint says See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me.
The Greek for I am he
is εγω ειμι, a common and familiar expression used throughout the Old and New Testaments, but not for the divine name. So the question is whether egw eimi
is being used here to signify the divine name. We can answer that by looking at the Hebrew. Is the divine name used there where the Greek text says egw eimi
? And secondly, is the identification of who is YHWH by use of this expression the purpose and meaning of the text?
Deuteronomy 32:39 says in the Hebrew אני אני הוא, ani ani hu,
which means I, I [am] he.
So what the LXX renders as egw eimi
is not standing in for YHWH
in the Hebrew text. Those two Greek words are standing in for the two Hebrew pronouns I
and he.
Not only has the Trinitarian failed to show that what Yeshua says is to be identified with the divine name, but we see direct evidence in the very verse quoted by the Trinitarian in the video that where he believes this identification to be taking place in the Greek by the phrase egw eimi,
that very identification is absent. It’s nothing but air. And so is another Trinitarian argument that when Yeshua says I am
(egw eimi) he is calling himself YHWH.
But let’s not stop there. Let’s ask the second question. What IS the Deuteronomy text saying? Is the text using egw eimi
to tell us exactly who is YHWH? It that it’s purpose? Or does egw eimi
serve a different purpose? Because if we can understand how egw eimi
IS used as opposed to how it ISN’T, that will tell us something about what Yeshua might actually be saying instead of what Yeshua is not. Let’s look at the text (you will by now notice that I like to pay attention to what the text actually says, which I have continually found be the fatal stroke against most Trinitarian arguments).
And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted, Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, and be your protection. See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
Deuteronomy 32:37-39, KJV
So what’s going on here? People are looking to other gods to rescue them and to protect them. But only YHWH can do that for them. The phrase egw eimi,
is being used in a very specific sense. Not to tell us he is
or I am,
but to tell us something about what he is: the one who kills and makes alive, the one who wounds and heals, the one who can be protection or deliver from the enemy’s hand. The Trinitarian has put the emphasis on exactly the wrong part of what egw eimi
is used by the text to tell us. It does not refer to itself, but to something else that was said.
By seeing how egw eimi
is used, we can expect something of its use by Yeshua. Yeshua should be using I am
(egw eimi) to say something else about himself, not to say I AM. If we look at the text, it is obvious what he is: before Abraham was. Before Abraham
is the significance of egw eimi,
not egw eimi
itself. This would be best represented by the English translation I am before Abraham was.
So what does that mean? See part 3: I Am Before Abraham Was.
So I’m not a Trinitarian. I don’t hide that fact. The main reason is because I have never really seen any reason from the scriptures to think in Trinitarian ways. Almost without exception (there are exceptions), virtually every argument I have ever heard in support of the Trinity, I have researched and looked into, and found to be false, baseless, or downright misleading.
But I’m open to this long-established and cherished doctrine. I took an on-line course through Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a well-respected, very conservative school, where the primary emphasis was a defense of the Trinity. I wanted to know from people who know what they’re talking about and who have really looked into this what they thought and why. Lay it all down in front of me so I can see the cards you’re playing with. Unfortunately, I left thinking their game was a fraud.
The best argument I had ever heard for the Trinity was something Francis Schaeffer said (or maybe it was C.S. Lewis? Or a combination of both?). His (their?) point was that there are attributes of YHWH that make no sense unless there is an relationship—particularly love. YHWH is love. And yet how can YHWH be love if there is no one/nothing to love since love is an interchange and if YHWH is only one God or one person, there cannot be an interchange? It would make that attribute of God dependent upon creation or upon something that is less than God. And how can something that is not God define an attribute of God? There must be something or someone in God that allows for the interchange of love. That makes sense. That is a good argument. Not a great argument (it certainly doesn’t require Trinitarianism), but a good one.
So to get to what I really wanted to discuss here… I just finished watching a really informative debate between a Trinitarian and a Unitarian on YouTube. Here is the beginning of that debate (it is in 12 parts).
This is the first time that I have EVER heard a good defense from a Trinitarian (and he even brings up the Schaeffer/Lewis argument…in his own way). I’m not saying it’s a great defense (it has a whole host of problems), but it is a good one. I, of course, align more with the Unitarian perspective (not to be confused with Unitarian Universalist
). Although after watching that video, I think I differ from Unitariansim in a great many respects. But I am very willing to concede that the Trinitarian wipes the floor with his opponent. I often come away from Trinitarian arguments thinking this person has no concept of what the biblical text is or is not saying and is trying to substitute this strange concept into it.
And yet throughout the debate at the link above, I felt like the Unitarian had no concept of Trinitarianism and spent most of his time either trying to understand what his opponent thought (or what Trinitarianism was) and kept going back over his own thoughts without answering the challenges his opponent brought to those thoughts. The Trinitarian makes some good arguments and counter-arguments and they deserve to be answered well in turn.
So as I ponder those arguments and counter-arguments, I was wondering what stood out to you, dear reader? Not only in support of Trinitarianism, but also against it. (Yes, I realize I am asking that you watch the whole thing. And, yes, I realize that I am asking those who probably support one or the other of those positions to try to allow their perspective or bias to be challenged, but I think it is possible.)
Let me get the ball rolling…
One thing that stood out to me as a Unitarian
(so to speak
since I differ from that Unitarian and from that Trinitarian’s experience with other Unitarians) is how so much of the Trinitarian argument rests upon and results from specific theological perspectives without which those arguments would fall apart. One theological perspective it requires (and that I am not so sure—in fact, very doubtful—I follow) is Original Sin. The Trinitarian’s belief in Original Sin (combined with other requisite beliefs), makes Yeshua have to be a certain way in order for his salvation (as that is understood—another specific theological belief) to be genuine or effective. So the Trinitarian perspective is a natural outflow of what the biblical texts say about Yeshua within the confines of the interpreter’s underlying set of theological beliefs. Since, however, I do not share many of those underlying theological beliefs, I am not restricted in my interpretation of scripture to a Trinitarian perspective. The Trinitarian’s argument would have been stronger had he shown why all his underlying theological beliefs are valid. But, of course, there is never enough time in a debate to do something like that (one reason why I generally hate debates).
Perhaps the most lucid argument the Trinitarian made, which is something I’m going to have to chew on for a while, is that if Yeshua was ever able to sin, then is he able to sin now that he stands at the right hand of YHWH? Does Yeshua have the ability to turn away from YHWH either back then, now, or ever? My perspective has been—contrary to the Trinitarian and slightly different from the Unitarian (the Unitarian believes Yeshua had the capacity to sin but was ALWAYS sinless)—that Yeshua could have sinned and that there was a point at which he became sinless. But even if that is so…does that mean Yeshua could ever cease to be sinless? Because if Yeshua can… Well, that opens up a whole can of worms that is pretty yucky to deal with. And it also creates other issues such as free will or choice and how that relates to YHWH (not my will, but your will
). My position is not an easy one. And I certainly don’t have all the answers for it. The Trinitarian argument that says Yeshua was always sinless and never could sin because Yeshua is God himself in his being is a much better or easier road to take since it means the Trinitarian doesn’t have to worry about his eternal fate whereas mine will never be completely and totally certain.
And yet the counter-point is also a strong one: if Yeshua never could have sinned, if he was never able to do so (the Trinitarian belief), then the word temptation
is pretty much meaningless (though technically, I know, the meaning is probably more like trial
or test
). How can God be tempted? Scripture indeed says it is impossible. And while saying that Yeshua was both 100% man and 100% God enables him to be tempted/tried/tested as a man but not as God solves the problem philosophically, it doesn’t deal with the language and story issue. What does temptation mean? If temptation for Yeshua means temptation in a way that is totally unlike all other temptation experienced by humanity, then what’s the point of the story at all?
Of course, the Trinitarian will answer the point is to show and tell us that Yeshua is God himself in his being and thus cannot be tempted/tested/tried.
But that, to me, avoids the question and cheapens scripture. That is not the way to go about telling us Yeshua is God in his being and cannot be tempted/tested/tried. Rather, that is the way to go about saying Yeshua could be tempted and yet in the end triumphed.
The Trinitarian’s response (at least from those videos) would be that I am trying to hold the word of God to my own judgment. That I am saying if the word of God is going to communicate to me, it has to do so on my terms.
This misses the point, however, because what I am saying is, look, I know something about how stories and literature are written. And I know that there are ways to communicate that make sense of a certain kind of text and ways that don’t.
This is called literary competence.
Like when I read a phone bill, I don’t expect it to tell me the weather because I know from my experience with weather reports and phone bills that they have certain ways of telling me things. So if I read a text and it’s telling me something in the way a phone bill should and would, it should be interpreted as the information of a phone bill and not as a weather report. And yet I ALSO know if someone told me my phone bill is trying to tell me the weather, that such a thing cannot be right because that is not what a phone bill does. I am not trying to tell scripture how it should speak instead of allowing it to say what it does. I am saying, look, this phone bill isn’t a weather report!
So in the temptation
of Yeshua, we have a very clear story being played out in which Yeshua goes through the water, is lead into the wilderness by YHWH for 40 days, is tested/tried/tempted, and then enters the Promised Land. This is very obviously a story that is trying to equate Yeshua with the formation of Israel in the Exodus story. In that story, Israel is lead through the waters and into the wilderness for 40 years where they are tempted/tried/tested by YHWH in a very real sense in which they could fail or they could triumph. And they fail. But Yeshua does not! And through this contrast we see that Yeshua is the foundation of a new and better Israel. The significance of the story and its relation is entirely lost if Yeshua could never have failed and the whole point was to tell us that Yeshua is God himself because he can’t be tempted. The Trinitarian perspective requires one to negate the relevance of the exodus and wilderness story that the gospels are trying to communicate about Yeshua’s mission and position and replaces it with a philosophical concept of Yeshua’s being. In terms of literary competence, that is like saying the phone bill is a weather report. It just ain’t so!
This sort of thing (replacing the relevance of the story with a philosophical concept of Yeshua’s being) seems to be a common thread in Trinitarian arguments. It is ironic that the Trinitarian in the video spends so much time trying to show how the Trinitarian belief is not Platonistic, but the Unitarian’s is, and yet by replacing this fundamental Jewish story and its significance to Yeshua with a philosophical concept about the makeup and character of Yeshua’s being, the Trinitarian does nothing but exchange the shoes of a Judaic perspective and worldview with the shoes of a Hellenistic philosopher. The Gospel of John seems to be ripe for this sort of activity. To be fair, though, I suppose if you believe in Trinitarianism, it would be a natural thing to do. Like Pentecostals who see demonic warfare in all sorts of scriptural passages when there is nothing there to give that impression. To err is to be human. And in that respect, I am no better off than the Trinitarian.
As a male, I find it both a source of frustration and delight that women can think along completely different trajectories at the exact same time. Currently, I am in the delight mode. So I just wanted to take a moment to glory in the feminine mind.
We males think in certain ways about certain things. And in order to change the way we are thinking, we either have to abandon the one way of thinking for the other, or we have to smash another up against it until the winner takes precedence (hey, just because I’m non-violent doesn’t mean my mind works that way!). It is difficult for us to work at a discipline amorphously and it becomes bothersome when hard-fought boundaries are softened or, perhaps, bent into areas they don’t belong according to our classifying, organizing, and compartmentalizing way of thinking. And that is exactly the point at which the female mind shines so radiant.
At the moment, I am reading a short little book called The New Historicism by Gina Hens-Piazza. I knew I was in for a treat the moment I began reading. Here is a biblical criticism which defies normal boundaries between practices and threatens to unite seemingly disparate and differentiated concepts. At least, that is the male reaction. And it is humorous to read that she experienced that reaction as well when she first stumbled into the field. Although, perhaps first
and stumbled
don’t do her justice. She did, after all, spend a great deal of time previous to this book working in Rhetorical Criticism, ANOTHER discipline that moves freely between usually oppositional methods, concepts, and practices.
The past several centuries of modern biblical study were ruled and presided over by men and their male ways of thinking. And, suddenly, in the fourth quarter of the 20st Century (at least for biblical studies), women have stormed into the arena and upset the balance of the whole system. What wonderfully masculine terms and concepts balance
and system
are. And yet what a wonderful turn of events to have the feminine mind finally released from the male structures (another good masculine term) that governed her. In a way, it is alarming. The male can seem to think that the ship on which he has sailed so long on such a proud journey is suddenly under attack. And by unseen assailants! But that is exactly what we men need. If the male can only work within and withstand the forms that male minds present him, what good is he? The rocking and perhaps overturning of our boats is what enables us to build better ships with which to sail and conquer the seas of our discovery. For too long we have considered women unable to lend a hand either to critical scholastic or religious and theological peregrinations, and it has only been to the frustration of our own goals: the acquisition and employment of truer and better knowledge. It is a glory of the woman that she thinks different than the man, just as it is a glory of the man that he thinks differently than the woman. Together, we may serve as checks and balances to our own self-serving interests and perspectives. Together, the sum of two different dimensions of sight can become three-dimensional. I am pleased that such progress is being made in the house of academia, but disheartened that the house of God is lagging so far behind. Not until scripture is taught and interpreted in our churches by as many women as men will a truly holistic picture of what us religious folk call the word of God
be open and available to all. Hey, yo, sista! Bring it!
Behold, beloved reader, I admonish and advise you, if you seek God with all your heart, and do not wish to be deceived; depend not upon men and their doctrine, no matter however old, holy and excellent they may be esteemed; for the divines, both ancient and modern are opposed to each other; but put your trust, alone in Christ and his word, in the sure instruction and practice of his holy apostles, and you will through the grace of God, be perfectly safe from all false doctrines and the power of the devil; and may walk with a free and pious mind before God.
As a Mennonite, I think Menno Simons had some very important—nay, necessary things to say. And while I appreciate the way Menno focuses faith around the words and ways of Yeshua, including the praxis of the apostles and disciples of the early church, I am deeply concerned with his reliance upon Sola Scriptura evident in the phrase above. Whom among us will say, looking at history, that he spoke truly? That after people turned away from outside instruction and sought wisdom, understanding, doctrine, and faith simply and solely through reading the scriptures, that this caused false doctrines to fall away and that it led to better and clearer understanding? Dear reader, whether you are a follower of Yeshua or otherwise, can you honestly say that the mass of Protestants in the world today have found more common ground and drawn closer together in common truth on account of their free
reading of biblical texts than otherwise? Has not Menno’s sincere belief in the illumination provided by scriptural reading birthed a myriad of conflicting interpretations, gave rise to multitudes of contrasting beliefs, splintered those who would follow Yeshua into a plethora of factions, spawned hordes of mystery sects and end-time cults, and cast a great many into what seems to be impenetrable darkness?
One of Menno’s favorite words to describe scripture is plain.
The plain meaning. The plain reading. The plain understanding. What is stated plainly. We Anabaptists like to use the word plain,
but what we mean is a turning away/separation from worldly things like materialism, fashion, luxury, hedonism, or dependence on tyrannical and oppressive systems that take away our self-governance or endanger the outworking of our faith by making it subservient to other interests and powers. For Menno, however, plain
was how one approached or understood scripture. Truth was available to all if only we would turn away from the hardness of our hearts, listen, and accept what scripture says. One could take one of Anabaptism’s fundamental criticisms as an opposing example:
Remember also how the early writers contended about infant baptism. Had it been apostolic, and found in the gospel, why should they have thus wrangled?
If such were a true criteria, it would invalidate a great many things Menno himself took to be self-evident. As an example, for some time, the number of Christians who believed in Arianism may actually have been greater than those who believed in Trinitarianism. It took an ecclesiastical debate, whose conclusion was backed up by the excommunication and banishment of any Christian who believed differently through the power of the Emperor, in order to make Trinitarianism the orthodox and valid scriptural interpretation for the church. Trinitarianism is no more contained in scripture or defined by the apostles than infant baptism. Yet Menno would hardly abandon the first.
What Menno overlooked (and what many other Modernists continue to overlook) is the part that one’s own perception, culture, time, experience, language, world-views, etc, play in the formation of meaning. We are, in a very real sense, prisoners of culture and history. Plain
the scriptures may have been to a Palestinian Jew in the First Century. Plain
they are no longer—either to a Radical Dutch Reformer or to us. It is a fanciful delusion, I think, to say that YHWH will bypass our own cultural, historical, and mental structures of thinking and understanding in order to reveal divine truth to us. If that were the case—if YHWH did reveal truth to us which came from outside our own perceptive lens, how could we possibly know it unless we changed and warped it to make it subservient to that lens? The way to true understanding does not come by denying the existence and influence of one’s perceptive lens, but by allowing new ways of thinking and understanding (at least to us) to change our lens. If we want to understand what texts written by Jews in Palestine in the First Century meant, we need to think like a First Century Palestinian Jew. And that will, by no means, involve turning away from outside instruction to simply and naively read the text and see it as we see it.
This is, indeed, a disparagement of Sola Scriptura. Apart from the traditions and doctrines of humanity, no divine meaning or understanding can exist. It may sound pious to say you have rejected worthless human traditions in order to follow, unadulterated, only that which is revealed in the biblical texts, but all you have really done is replaced one human tradition or doctrine with another and pretended to eliminate it from consideration. While I respect Menno on account of many significant insights and the fruits of a faith that was real, I must at the same time gainsay the naively impressionistic method he advocated. It does not befit the one who calls themself a child of YHWH or follower of Yeshua to take scripture so lightly as to think it requires nothing from us other than an honest and open heart in order to yield up its treasures.
I recently attended a church meeting in which a biblical professor and Christian believer gave a lecture intending to address several issues that we (and many other churches) are currently struggling with. One of the main arguments that this professor presented was that there really is no such thing as outer defilement. Defilement only comes from within. This was based primarily on a pericope concerning hand washing in Mark, especially chapter 7, verse 15, where Yeshua says there is nothing outside a person that defiles, but what comes out of them. I have two objections to this, which follow below.
First, Yeshua does not seem to me to be a Greek Stoic or Hellenistic philosopher elucidating moral verities or stating absolute truths. I think Yeshua was a Jew from an Israelite community. As a Jew and not a Hellenistic philosopher, his words should not be taken as an absolute truism meaning literally nothing outside a person defiles because defilement only comes from within. Rather, Yeshua is probably speaking within and according to the ancient Judaic concept of water purification. This concept is, roughly, that when you have purifying water, which is flowing or running (sometimes called living
) and a defiled person or object, the defiled person or object does not contaminate the pure water by coming in contact with it. Rather, the defiled person or object is cleansed when it comes in contact with purifying water. The thing that makes water purifying, and thus not susceptible to outside defilement, is the fact that it is running or connected to a some great source beyond it. So, for instance, if you have a bucket of pure water and something defiled falls into it, the water becomes defiled (Lev 11:33). But if you pour the pure water out of the bucket onto something defiled, the defilement does not travel up the stream of water into the bucket and defile the source from whence it came. Instead, the defiled thing is cleansed. I believe this is the particular conception and idea that Yeshua had in mind when he said nothing outside defiles. Instead of meaning that there is literally nothing outside a person that can defile them, Yeshua was saying that he and his disciples were conduits of living
water. As such, when defilement touched them, they cleansed it instead of becoming defiled by it. If, however, they were to corrupt themselves and cease to be conduits of living water, they could certainly be contaminated by outside defilement. So it wasn’t as if outer defilement suddenly ceased to exist, and it wasn’t that outer, physical defilement was an outdated or silly religious belief replaced by the higher or better inner, spiritual focus of Yeshua and Christianity. It was that Yeshua had drunk of a Source, offered that Source to his disciples, and they became springs of living water that cleansed others instead of being defiled by them.
Second, when a Jew wanted to cleanse or purify themselves of defilement, whether inwardly or outwardly, they would enter a place where there was running water and submerge themselves within it. This is exactly what Yeshua did when he was baptised in the Jordan river and his actions would communicate to every Jew who saw him that he was purifying himself from defilement. If Yeshua was not purifying himself from defilement, then what was he doing performing a ritual that meant that to everyone around him and in the culture in which he existed? Unless we are willing to say Yeshua was deceiving both us and them or participated in the baptism ritual for no reason, we must say that he was cleansing himself from defilement. And if so, where was that defilement? If Yeshua was sinless, he had no inner defilement to be cleansed of. If Yeshua was without sin, he was inwardly pure. He could not, therefore, be repenting and cleansing himself of inner defilement. That only leaves outer defilement. But if Yeshua is pure inwardly and is cleansing himself of outward defilement, it proves that his words in Mark cannot mean, literally or Hellenistically, that nothing outside a person defiles. How then could it be that Yeshua, who is a conduit of living water in Mark 7, would be outwardly defiled at his baptism? Simple enough. He hadn’t yet been connected to the Source of the living water. This happened after he was baptised and the Spirit descended upon him. Only after Yeshua was cleansed of his outer defilement could he be fully joined to YHWH and offer those who were defiled a drink from his cleansing cup.
If any man has uttered the [Most] Venerable Name even though frivolously, or as a result of shock or for any other reason whatsoever, while reading the Book or blessing, he shall be dismissed and shall return to the Council of the Community no more.
The Community Rule, 1QS, 6:27-7:2
It is ironic that the Dead Sea sect, which held such high regard for Torah and the Prophets, should go so far as to exclude and banish all who would utter the Most Venerable Name
even though the very texts that defined who they were and around which they ordered their entire lives speak the Name with almost reckless abandon. Had Moses or Isaiah lived in their day, the Dead Sea sect would have ostracised them for blasphemy whilst quoting from their texts as the foundation of their existence. As it stands, however, it is likely that the Dead Sea sect’s strict, non-biblical tradition will be satisfied, since it is probably the case that no one knows how the tetragrammaton was originally pronounced—assuming, of course, that it is the tetragrammaton that was meant. The name revealed to Moses in Exodus is actually אהיה אשׁר אהיה. Whatever the name may or may not be, however, misses the point anyway because in the ancient world, the meaning of one’s name didn’t have much to do with the sounds of consonants and vowels, but referred to a person’s character, being, and role in society. A deity’s name
often referred specifically to their creative force and power and giving things names served to take part in the process of creation. That is why many ancient near eastern creation accounts–including Genesis–refer to the gods as giving form and existence to matter and being by naming them. When Adam named
the animals, this wasn’t significant because he was calling them something vocally, but because he was ordaining what they were and in a very real sense defining their existence. Perhaps the most ironic thing about not speaking the name of YHWH is that, in terms of the ancient world, to fail to speak the name of a deity is to deny that god’s existence. Surely that is the greater blasphemy. Then again, one could always be on the safe side and just say Jehovah.
Rethink Afghanistan: Christianity and the Global War on Terror
featuring Jake Diliberto and Glen Stassen
Thursday, Oct 22, 7:00-9:00 PM, Fuller Theological Seminary, Travis Auditorium
In light of the recent escalation of the US presence in Afghanistan, and the 8th year anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan, the conversation has often evaded Christians. What are we supposed to think about the global war in light of our faith?
Jake is a Fuller student, and a decorated marine veteran of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Africa. His is a unique story of transformation from a maker of violence to a just-peace peacemaker. He now questions US military policy and the US presence in the Middle East. Jake has testified before congress, and is the founder of Veterans for Rethink Afghanistan,
an organization which has mobilized 20 million peace
activists. Come to hear his story, and why we need to rethink Afghanistan.
Peace and Justice Advocates will show a portion of the poignant documentary created by Rethink Afghanistan. Fuller’s Christian Ethics Professor Dr. Glen Stassen will offer a theological and ethical reflection on the situation.
It is always exciting to stand among a group of Christians who are seriously seeking a way to achieve a good end through nonviolent means instead of supporting violence as a means to that end or even simply accepting it as a necessary evil. More often than not, I stand alone. Even Anabaptists and Mennonites like myself (we who are the historical Peace Church of Protestantism) are divided on the issue. There are large numbers of Anabaptists who have chosen to follow Luther’s two kingdom
dichotomy in which YHWH has willed two different kingdoms to exist side-by-side (the church and the world), providentially ordaining that one should operate one way (do no violence or evil = the church) and one the other (do violence and what would be considered evil of a Christian in order to maintain justice and peace = the world).
On the other hand, even among a group of Christians seeking an end to war and violence like the one meeting this Thursday in Pasadena, there will be some who are there for reasons that I do not share, like, for instance, because they are leftist, liberal Democrats who are pushing their political party’s propaganda and/or agenda, or because they have false notions of social, religious, and political realities, or even, perhaps, because they are stirred more by emotions, guilt, and even false guilt, than they are by reason. Last time I attended one of these meetings, it seemed to me that frightening statistics concerning the escalation in major international terrorist attacks were being fallaciously shoehorned into a polemic against the U.S.’s support and use of torture instead of acknowledging the many other things that have contributed significantly to the dumbfounding rise in terrorist violence that we have seen in the West over the past decade. Hopefully, those attending the meeting this time around will be more willing to struggle with the truths of the matter and not what those in the group wish those truths would be.
The separation of personal from social salvation made it possible for Bible-believing slave traders to conduct daily devotions on ships carrying human cargo like cattle.
Dale Brown, Biblical Pacifism: A Peace Church Perspective, p. 141
As a Mennonite, I really resonate with the message of this quote. It reminds me that the gospel message can be narrowed down into something that is only inner, personal, and individual, at which point it tends to focus on a kind of salvation from or out of the world, forgetting that the gospel is also about salvation within or for the world. We reclaim this aspect of the gospel when we remember that Yeshua’s salvation was social just as much as it was personal. That he didn’t come only to save us from our sins, from our guilt, or from the influence of sin in our lives, but to free those who were captives to physical and social ills or evils, to bring healing and restoration to heart, mind, and body, and to challenge and overthrow authorities, powers, and structures through self-sacrifice, peace, love, mercy, and by returning evil with good. The Christ who died on a cross for our sins is the same Christ who said the greatest among us will be the servant of all, who told us to give what we had to the poor, who said whatever we did (or by contrast did not do) to the very least of those among us is what we did (or did not do) to him, who reached out to bring healing, restoration, and redemption to those on the boundaries of or even outside the accepted order: women, children, immigrants, untouchables, national and ethnic enemies. YHWH is at work reconciling not just ourselves, but all creation, to himself through Yeshua.
And it was ordained that a man should salute his fellow with [the use of] the Name [of God]; for it is written, And, Behold, Boaz came from Bethlehem, and said unto the reapers, The Lord be with you.
And they answered him, The Lord bless thee.
(Ruth 2:4) And it is written, The Lord is with thee, thou mighty man of valour.
(Judges 6:12)
m. Berakoth 9:5, scripture references added
Later Jewish tradition holds that the name of YHWH is ineffable and therefore offers various other substitutes in its place such as Adonai (meaning My Lord
) or Ha Shem (literally meaning The Name
). In fact, the very texts that underly the Hebrew Bible or Old Testament do not give us the correct pronunciation, substituting instead the vowels for words like Adonai or Elohim (which can make things complicated and difficult for translations that refuse to use the Tetragrammaton). All this, however, is a very late concept and practice in ancient Israel. Throughout most of their history, Israelites were quite open and willing to speak the actual name of YHWH as this quote from the Mishnah attests. In fact, when we read the actual Hebrew texts, we see that the name itself was spoken quite frequently. The psalms themselves, which were used liturgically by the priests and people in the Temple and synagogues, made use of the name extensively. What the actual pronunciation of the name is, however, may be lost to us. A general consensus of scholarship makes the name to be pronounced Yahweh.
However, this is mere conjecture based primarily on an assumption of the linguistic root of the name and its supposed form for which we have no evidence.
And it is written, It is time to work for the Lord: they have made void thy Law (Psa 119:126). R. Nathan says: They have made void thy Law because it was a time to work for the Lord.
m. Berakoth 9:5, scripture references added
This is a fun quote because it puts things into better perspective. Some people can focus almost entirely on the problem of breaking Torah or can make the avoidance of breaking Torah a primary concern. But this was only one concern of ancient Israelites. Sometimes, it was necessary to break Torah in order to do what YHWH wanted or required! For instance, an incredible event occurs in the Chronicler’s history of Israel in which the people return to YHWH with their whole hearts after having turned away for so long. They threw down the altars, cleansed their city of idolatry and evil, then determined to re-instigate the ceremony of Passover, which had not been kept in a long time. Unfortunately, they are unable to keep it on the day (or its alternate) commanded by Torah. Additionally, they are forced to break other portions of Torah related to cleanliness and purification. Great multitudes, including four of the twelve tribes, take the Passover defiled in disobedience to the direct commandments of YHWH. Despite doing the rituals defiled and unclean and on a day forbidden to its practice, YHWH forgave Israel, returned to her, and blessed her. Instead of celebrating for one week, the people extended Passover to two weeks and it became one of the most celebrated Passovers in Israel’s history. (See 2 Chronicles 30:17-20, 23, 26-27)
The tension between keeping Torah because that’s what YHWH wanted or required and breaking Torah in order to meed the wants or requirements of YHWH is something the Jews struggled with throughout their history. To give a realistic example of this tension: what do you do if you have been commanded by YHWH to keep the Sabbath by doing no work, it is the Sabbath, you are worshiping in the Temple, and hordes of gentiles come swarming down over Jerusalem ready to slaughter everyone? If you fight, then you break the Sabbath that YHWH commanded you to keep. If you don’t fight, then you are slaughtered, the holy Temple that YHWH commanded to keep clean and holy is defiled and becomes an abomination, and the daily sacrifices that were commanded by YHWH to be kept by you are no longer offered. It’s not an easy question to answer. Various Israelites themselves came up with different answers throughout their history.
The answer Yeshua gave is that the Sabbath was made for humanity–humanity wasn’t made for the Sabbath (Mark 2:27), meaning the Sabbath is supposed to serve humanity, not the other way around. If the Sabbath ceases to serve humanity, then there is nothing wrong with breaking it. Indeed, it is better to break it! It might even be a sin to NOT break Sabbath! If Sabbath cease to serve humanity, to then turn around and serve the Sabbath would be to make it into an idol. So it is with the rest of Torah. Torah is not absolute and universal. It is not meant to be kept regardless of anything. On the contrary, it was Israel’s relationship with YHWH that made Torah significant. Destroy or change that relationship and Torah ceases to be much of anything.
The Mishnaic Musings are a periodic series of posts where I reflect on one thing or another in the compendium of the Oral Law (the Mishnah) as I read through it for the first time. Quoted portions are taken from Hebert Danby’s eminent single-volume edition, The Mishnah, published by Oxford University Press.
