White/Tuggy Debate: Is Jesus Yahweh?
https://youtu.be/UOHfivnaw-g
A review of the above 1st debate by two Catholics that I recommend even though I'm a Protestant
:https://youtu.be/vGVUNkMytGs
John 1 Is Not Trinitarian | Dale Tuggy vs James White LIVE Debate!
https://youtu.be/9rcImr2vwik
Anthony Rogers quotes scholars [most of whom are not Christians] showing how Trinitarian-like views pre-dated Christianity in Second Temple Judaism, during the intertestamental period, and after the advent of Christianity even to the medieval period.
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An objection that Unitarians have about these types of quotes is that they are more friendly to Modalism than to Trinitarianism. Here are some of my responses to that objection:
The quotes are useful for a number of reasons:
1. They refute the claim made by some Unitarians (especially in times past 20 years ago and since before the time of the Reformation) that Judaism has always been monolithic in their understanding and always taught strict monotheism of the kind we find in modern Judaism whereby God is uni-personal without qualification.
2. Even if some of these quotes and views by Jews were more akin to Modalism than Trinitarianism that doesn't mean all of them were more akin to Modalism. But EVEN IF ALL of them were more akin to Modalism, they show how Jews were struggling and grappling with the OT passages that seem to imply plurality and/or fluidity in God. It shows that they were in the process of hammering out a formula of how these things could be, and they tried to do this without the New Testament. Sometimes because the NT didn't yet exist [if they lived BCE/BC], other times because they rejected the NT consciously/intentionally [if they lived during CE/AD].
3. The fact that many of these Jewish views are closer to Modalism shows that they are farther away from Semi-Arianism and Arianism or similar formulations/models.
4. It seems to me that Trinitarianism does best in balancing the oneness of God found in some of these Jewish Modalistic views on the one hand, and on the other hand the proper genuine desire by views like Semi-Arianism and Arianism (and similar views) to affirm the New Testament's teaching of the genuine personal distinctions between the Father and the Son [and the Holy Spirit, though many Unitarians would not consider the HS a distinct person]. Trinitarianism sits comfortably in the middle of Modalism and Semi-Arianism-like views because it takes in ALL of the Biblical evidence that affirms both the real unity of God and the real plurality of God.
5. All the above shows how versions of Humanitarian Unitarianism are ahistorical, aberrant and unlikely correct.
Here are the quotes that Rogers posted on the screen. Note, I'm not sure I always accurately cited the source correctly:
"...it is at least possible to find a clear precedent [in Judaism-AR/Anthony Rogers] of hypostases within the Hebrew Godhead." (Alan Segal, "The Incarnation: The Jewish Milieu," p.116)
"The ideas of Trinity and incarnation, or certainly the germs of those ideas, were already present among Jewish believers well before Jesus came on the scene to incarnate in himself, as it were, those theological notions and take up his messianic calling." (Daniel Boyarkin, "The Jewish Gospels: The Story of the Jewish Christ," p. xiii)
"Although the official rabbinic theology suppressed all talk of the Memra or Logos by naming it the heresy of "Two Powers in heaven," both before the Rabbis and contemporaneously with them there was a A MULTITUDE OF JEWS, in both Palestine and the Diaspora, who held onto this version of monotheistic theology." (Daniel Boyarkin, "The Gospel of the Memra," p. 254)
"There is no doubt that the Christianity of the New Testament and the early church fathers of the first centuries CE adopted Jewish monotheism–however, it was not 'pure' monotheism matured to eternal perfection but rather the 'monotheism' that had developed in the postexilic period in the later canonical literature of the Hebrew Bible and noncanonical writings, the so-called apocrypha and pseudopigrapha. The New Testament took up these traditions that existed in Judaism, and did not reinvent but instead expanded and deeped them. The elevation of Jesus of Nazareth as the first-born before all creation, the God incarnate, Son of God, Son of Man, the Messiah: all these basic Christological premises are not pagan or other kinds of aberrations; they are rooted in Second Temple Judaism, regardless of their specifically Christian character." (Peter Schäfer, "Two Gods in Heaven: Jewish Concepts of God in Antiquity" pp. 4-5)
"It may be said that the Jewish mystics recovered the mythical dimension of a biblical motif regarding the appearance of God in the guise of the highest of angels, called 'angel of the Lord'...,'angel of God'..., or 'angel of the Presence"...which sometimes appeared in the form of a man. Evidence for the continuity of the exegetical tradition of an exalted angel that is in effect the manifestation of God is to be found in a wide variety of later sources." (Elliot R. Wolfson, "Through A Speculum That Shines," p. 225)
"In a tradition from the Sar-Torah material of the Hekhalot texts...Metatron is described as 'Metatron, Lord God of Israel, God of the heavens and the Earth.' In the Book of Illumination written by the first known Kabbalist in Castile, R. Ya'acov ben Ya'acov ha-Koken, Metatron is called...logos." (Daniel Abrams, "The Boundaries of Divine Ontology: The Inclusion and Exclusion of Metatron in the Godhead," Harvard Theological Review, 87:3 July 1994, ISSN 0017-8160, p. 296, fn17)
"This approach to the pardes account in general and the role of Metatron in particular can be found in the works of some kabbalists, beginning in the early thirteenth century. Although it may seem that we are reading a rabbinic text through the lenses of the kabbalistic worldview, the understanding of the continuous or organic being of the divine, which extends from the simple unity of the godhead to a hypostatic manifestation, predates much of the Talmud." (Daniel Abrams, "The Boundaries of Divine Ontology: The Inclusion and Exclusion of Metatron in the Godhead," Harvard Theological Review, 87:3 July 1994, ISSN 0017-8160, p. 296-297)
"In the passage from Nahmanides' Commentary to the Torah discussed by Pines, Nahmanides explicitly takes issue with Maimonides (and with the tenth-century sage Sa‘adia Ga’on by inference), and seeks to characterize the fundamental difference between his tradition and Maimonides' Aristotelian worldview. The difference centers around the inclusion or exclusion of the divine manifestation within the godhead. Nahmanides posits an organic or continuous relationship between God's being and that of the angel–that is, they are both immanent in the same divine substance." (Daniel Abrams, "The Boundaries of Divine Ontology: The Inclusion and Exclusion of Metatron in the Godhead," Harvard Theological Review, 87:3 July 1994, ISSN 0017-8160, p. 297)
"There can be little doubt however that early Jewish theologoumena related to such a [hypostatic, supernal] son existed, as the books dealing with Enoch - in particular the Ethiopian one - and Philo's views...concerning the Logos as Son or firstborn convincingly demonstrate, and likewise there can be little doubt that they informed the main developments in a great variety of the nascent Christologies. In the course of time, due to the ascent in Christianity of both the centrality and cruciality of sonship understood in diverse forms of incarnation, it seems that Jewish authors belonging to rabbinic circles attenuated and in some cases even obliterated the role of sons as cosmic mediators. Nevertheless, some of these earlier traditions apparently survived in traditional Jewish writings that were subsequently transmitted by rabbinic Judaism. Yet there is no reason to assume that only the literary corpora adopted by rabbinic Judaism mediated the late antiquity views of theophoric sonship to the more extensive corpora written in the Middles Ages, or that sonship survived only in the written documents..." (Moshe Idel, "Ben: Sonship and Jewish Mysticism," pp. 49-50)
"In some instances, the Messiah has been conceived also as the representative of the divine into this world. The very fact that the phrase meshiyah YHWH recurs in the sources shows a special connection between him and God. This nexus could sometimes be stronger and richer, as it later became in Christian theology, in the ecstatic Kabbalah and Sabbateanism, or, less evidently, in some other cases in Jewish sources, though such a view is found also in the rabbinic literature, where the Messiah is described as one of the three entities designated by the Tetragrammaton." (Moshe Idel, "Messianic Mystics," p. 41)
"...earlier systems [of Judaism] resorted to the myth of the Messiah as savior and redeemer of Israel, a supernatural figure...even a God-man facing the crucial historical questions of Israel's life and resolving them: the Christ as king of the world, of the ages, of death itself." (Jacob Neusner, "Judaism and the Messiahs At the Turn of the Christian Era," p. 275)
"We shall find four basic messianic paradigms (king, priests, prophet, and heavenly messiah), and they were not equally widespread. (Admittedly, the "heavenly messiah" paradigm is somewhat different from the others, since it is not defined by function, and can overlap with the other paradigms.)" (John J. Collins, "The Scepter and the Star," p. 18)
"There were other paradigms of messianism besides the Davidic one, and some elements of these were found to be applicable to the Christian messiah...We shall find, also, texts that envisage exaltation and enthronement in heaven and texts that apply certain attributes of divinity to a messianic figure." (John J. Collins, "The Scepter and the Star," p. 19-20)
MEMRA (= "Ma'amar" or "Dibbur," "Logos"):
"The Word," in the sense of the creative or directive word or speech of God manifesting His power in the world of matter or mind; a term used especially in the Targum as a substitute for "the Lord" when an anthropomorphic expression is to be avoided.By: Kaufmann Kohler
—Biblical Data:
In Scripture "the word of the Lord" commonly denotes the speech addressed to patriarch or prophet (Gen. xv. 1; Num. xii. 6, xxiii. 5; I Sam. iii. 21; Amos v. 1-8); but frequently it denotes also the creative word: "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made" (Ps. xxxiii. 6; comp. "For He spake, and it was done"; "He sendeth his word, and melteth them [the ice]"; "Fire and hail; snow, and vapors; stormy wind fulfilling his word"; Ps. xxxiii. 9, cxlvii. 18, cxlviii. 8). In this sense it is said, "For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven" (Ps. cxix. 89). "The Word," heard and announced by the prophet, often became, in the conception of the seer, an efficacious power apart from God, as was the angel or messenger of God: "The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel" (Isa. ix. 7 [A. V. 8], lv. 11); "He sent his word, and healed them" (Ps. cvii. 20); and comp. "his word runneth very swiftly" (Ps. cxlvii. 15).
Personification of the Word.
—In Apocryphal and Rabbinical Literature: While in the Book of Jubilees, xii. 22, the word of God is sent through the angel to Abraham, in other cases it becomes more and more a personified agency: "By the word of God exist His works" (Ecclus. [Sirach] xlii. 15); "The Holy One, blessed be He, created the world by the 'Ma'amar'" (Mek., Beshallaḥ, 10, with reference to Ps. xxxiii. 6). Quite frequent is the expression, especially in the liturgy, "Thou who hast made the universe with Thy word and ordained man through Thy wisdom to rule over the creatures made by Thee" (Wisdom ix. 1; comp. "Who by Thy words causest the evenings to bring darkness, who openest the gates of the sky by Thy wisdom"; . . . "who by His speech created the heavens, and by the breath of His mouth all their hosts"; through whose "words all things were created"; see Singer's "Daily Prayer-Book," pp. 96, 290, 292). So also in IV Esdras vi. 38 ("Lord, Thou spakest on the first day of Creation: 'Let there be heaven and earth,' and Thy word hath accomplished the work"). "Thy word, O Lord, healeth all things" (Wisdom xvi. 12); "Thy word preserveth them that put their trust in Thee" (l.c. xvi. 26). Especially strong is the personification of the word in Wisdom xviii. 15: "Thine Almighty Word leaped down from heaven out of Thy royal throne as a fierce man of war." The Mishnah, with reference to the ten passages in Genesis (ch. i.) beginning with "And God said," speaks of the ten "ma'amarot" (= "speeches") by which the world was created (Abot v. 1; comp. Gen. R. iv. 2: "The upper heavens are held in suspense by the creative Ma'amar"). Out of every speech ["dibbur"] which emanated from God an angel was created (Ḥag. 14a). "The Word ["dibbur"] called none but Moses" (Lev. R. i. 4, 5). "The Word ["dibbur"] went forth from the right hand of God and made a circuit around the camp of Israel" (Cant. R. i. 13).
—In the Targum: In the Targum the Memra figures constantly as the manifestation of the divinepower, or as God's messenger in place of God Himself, wherever the predicate is not in conformity with the dignity or the spirituality of the Deity.
Instead of the Scriptural "You have not believed in the Lord," Targ. Deut. i. 32 has "You have not believed in the word of the Lord"; instead of "I shall require it [vengeance] from him," Targ. Deut. xviii. 19 has "My word shall require it." "The Memra," instead of "the Lord," is "the consuming fire" (Targ. Deut. ix. 3; comp. Targ. Isa. xxx. 27). The Memra "plagued the people" (Targ. Yer. to Ex. xxxii. 35). "The Memra smote him" (II Sam. vi. 7; comp. Targ. I Kings xviii. 24; Hos. xiii. 14; et al.). Not "God," but "the Memra," is met with in Targ. Ex. xix. 17 (Targ. Yer. "the Shekinah"; comp. Targ. Ex. xxv. 22: "I will order My Memra to be there"). "I will cover thee with My Memra," instead of "My hand" (Targ. Ex. xxxiii. 22). Instead of "My soul," "My Memra shall reject you" (Targ. Lev. xxvi. 30; comp. Isa. i. 14, xlii. 1; Jer. vi. 8; Ezek. xxiii. 18). "The voice of the Memra," instead of "God," is heard (Gen. iii. 8; Deut. iv. 33, 36; v. 21; Isa. vi. 8; et al.). Where Moses says, "I stood between the Lord and you" (Deut. v. 5), the Targum has, "between the Memra of the Lord and you"; and the "sign between Me and you" becomes a "sign between My Memra and you" (Ex. xxxi. 13, 17; comp. Lev. xxvi. 46; Gen. ix. 12; xvii. 2, 7, 10; Ezek. xx. 12). Instead of God, the Memra comes to Abimelek (Gen. xx. 3), and to Balaam (Num. xxiii. 4). His Memra aids and accompanies Israel, performing wonders for them (Targ. Num. xxiii. 21; Deut. i. 30, xxxiii. 3; Targ. Isa. lxiii. 14; Jer. xxxi. 1; Hos. ix. 10 [comp. xi. 3, "the messenger-angel"]). The Memra goes before Cyrus (Isa. xlv. 12). The Lord swears by His Memra (Gen. xxi. 23, xxii. 16, xxiv. 3; Ex. xxxii. 13; Num. xiv. 30; Isa. xlv. 23; Ezek. xx. 5; et al.). It is His Memra that repents (Targ. Gen. vi. 6, viii. 21; I Sam. xv. 11, 35). Not His "hand," but His "Memra has laid the foundation of the earth" (Targ. Isa. xlviii. 13); for His Memra's or Name's sake does He act (l.c. xlviii. 11; II Kings xix. 34). Through the Memra God turns to His people (Targ. Lev. xxvi. 90; II Kings xiii. 23), becomes the shield of Abraham (Gen. xv. 1), and is with Moses (Ex. iii. 12; iv. 12, 15) and with Israel (Targ. Yer. to Num. x. 35, 36; Isa. lxiii. 14). It is the Memra, not God Himself, against whom man offends (Ex. xvi. 8; Num. xiv. 5; I Kings viii. 50; II Kings xix. 28; Isa. i. 2, 16; xlv. 3, 20; Hos. v. 7, vi. 7; Targ. Yer. to Lev. v. 21, vi. 2; Deut. v. 11); through His Memra Israel shall be justified (Targ. Isa. xlv. 25); with the Memra Israel stands in communion (Targ. Josh. xxii. 24, 27); in the Memra man puts his trust (Targ. Gen. xv. 6; Targ. Yer. to Ex. xiv. 31; Jer. xxxix. 18, xlix. 11).
Mediatorship.
Like the Shekinah (comp. Targ. Num. xxiii. 21), the Memra is accordingly the manifestation of God. "The Memra brings Israel nigh unto God and sits on His throne receiving the prayers of Israel" (Targ. Yer. to Deut. iv. 7). It shielded Noah from the flood (Targ. Yer. to Gen. vii. 16) and brought about the dispersion of the seventy nations (l.c. xi. 8); it is the guardian of Jacob (Gen. xxviii. 20-21, xxxv. 3) and of Israel (Targ. Yer. to Ex. xii. 23, 29); it works all the wonders in Egypt (l.c. xiii. 8, xiv. 25); hardens the heart of Pharaoh (l.c. xiii. 15); goes before Israel in the wilderness (Targ. Yer. to Ex. xx. 1); blesses Israel (Targ. Yer. to Num. xxiii. 8); battles for the people (Targ. Josh. iii. 7, x. 14, xxiii. 3). As in ruling over the destiny of man the Memra is the agent of God (Targ. Yer. to Num. xxvii. 16), so also is it in the creation of the earth (Isa. xlv. 12) and in the execution of justice (Targ. Yer. to Num. xxxiii. 4). So, in the future, shall the Memra be the comforter (Targ. Isa. lxvi. 13): "My Shekinah I shall put among you, My Memra shall be unto you for a redeeming deity, and you shall be unto My Name a holy people" (Targ. Yer. to Lev. xxii. 12). "My Memra shall be unto you like a good plowman who takes off the yoke from the shoulder of the oxen"; "the Memra will roar to gather the exiled" (Targ. Hos. xi. 5, 10). The Memra is "the witness" (Targ. Yer. xxix. 23); it will be to Israel like a father (l.c. xxxi. 9) and "will rejoice over them to do them good" (l.c. xxxii. 41). "In the Memra the redemption will be found" (Targ. Zech. xii. 5). "The holy Word" was the subject of the hymns of Job (Test. of Job, xii. 3, ed. Kohler).
The Logos.
It is difficult to say how far the rabbinical concept of the Memra, which is used now as a parallel to the divine Wisdom and again as a parallel to the Shekinah, had come under the influence of the Greek term "Logos," which denotes both word and reason, and, perhaps owing to Egyptian mythological notions, assumed in the philosophical system of Heraclitos, of Plato, and of the Stoa the metaphysical meaning of world-constructive and world-permeating intelligence (see Reizenstein, "Zwei Religionsgeschichtliche Fragen," 1901, pp. 83-111; comp. Aall, "Der Logos," and the Logos literature given by Schürer, "Gesch." i. 3, 542-544). The Memra as a cosmic power furnished Philo the corner-stone upon which he built his peculiar semi-Jewish philosophy. Philo's "divine thought," "the image" and "first-born son" of God, "the archpriest," "intercessor," and "paraclete" of humanity, the "arch type of man" (see Philo), paved the way for the Christian conceptions of the Incarnation ("the Word become flesh") and the Trinity. The Word which "the unoriginated Father created in His own likeness as a manifestation of His own power" appears in the Gnostic system of Marcus (Irenæus, "Adversus Hæreses," i. 14). In the ancient Church liturgy, adopted from the Synagogue, it is especially interesting to notice how often the term "Logos," in the sense of "the Word by which God made the world, or made His Law or Himself known to man," was changed into "Christ" (see "Apostolic Constitutions," vii. 25-26, 34-38, et al.). Possibly on account of the Christian dogma, rabbinic theology, outside of the Targum literature, made little use of the term "Memra." See Logos.
Bibliography:
- Bousset, Die Religion des Judenthums im Neutestamentlichen Zeitalter, 1903, p. 341;
- Weber, Jüdische Theologie, 1897, pp. 180-184.
