Review of Trent Horn, 20 Answers: Mormonism (San Diego, Calif.: Catholic Answers, 2015) (kindle ed)
Catholic Answers has recently released a volume by Trent Horn, 20 Answers: Mormonism. This is not the first time Catholic Answers has released a volume attacking Mormonism; in 1999, they released two books by Isaiah Bennet, Inside Mormonism and When Mormons Call, both of which were refuted by Barry Bickmore in "A Passion for Faultfinding: The Deconversion of a Former Catholic Priest" (html; pdf). Further, this is not the first time I have interacted with some of Catholic Answers’ apologetic work; see the following interaction with Tim Staples’ Behold your Mother (2014), a defense of the Marian doctrines:
Refuting Tim Staples' attempt to defend the perpetual virginity of Mary
Answering Tim Staples on Patristic Mariology and the Immaculate Conception
In the "About the Author" section" we read that "Trent Horn is an apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers. He specializes in pro-life issues as well as outreach to atheists and agnostics. He holds a master's degree in theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville." Horn has to be commended for being active in the pro-life movement (as I am), and he does seem to understand Catholicism well. He has also engaged in a few public debates, such as one on the historicity of Jesus against Richard Carrier. However, his grasp of biblical exegesis and other topics, including LDS-related issues, is unconvincing. In this review, I will touch upon some issues that demonstrate the many errors and fallacies that permeate this short presentation on “Mormonism.”
The Nature of God and creation:
Under question 3, "What do Mormons believe about God?" Horn writes:
Jer 23:24
John 4:24 and Luke 24:39
Additionally, in an attempt to support creation ex nihilo, Horn writes that:
In question 4, "How do Mormons defend the view that God has a body," Horn writes the following to try to downplay the theological significance of Stephen's vision in Acts 7:55-56:
Horn is engaging in many common exegetical fallacies in trying to downplay the theological significance of Acts 7:55-56 and the LDS doctrine that God the Father is embodied.
Firstly, Psa 91:4 has a different literary genre than Acts 7:55-56; the former is poetry, employing metaphors in describing God; the latter is part of a historical narrative. Horn is comparing apples and oranges.
Let us actually exegete the text in question:
With respect to John 17:3 and like-texts, Horn appeals to that refutes, not supports, his Christology Why? Firstly, one should note that in Trinitarian theology, there is an allowance (albeit, ambiguously) for a distinction between the “persons” of the Godhead (the Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Spirit; the Spirit is not the Father), as modalism would arise if no distinction was permitted between them; however, there is no allowance for a distinction between “God” or any of the divine titles (e.g., Yahweh; Adonai) and the persons, that is, the Father is “God” but so is the Son and Spirit. However, in many key “creedal” texts in the New Testament (e.g., 1 Tim 2:5), there is a distinction, not just between the persons of the Father and the Son, but also between “God” and the Son, which is very non-Trinitarian. This is the case in John 17:3. The Greek reads:
The Logical and Mathematical Problem of Creedal Trinitarianism
One has to understand that traditional Trinitarian theologies which Horn hopes LDS will embrace requirses one to accept a logical and mathematical problem. Consider the following, which are accepted by the Trinitarians:
To put it the above in another way, to help people understand the illogical nature of creedal Trinitarianism (with "x" representing "God"):
For more, see this insightful essay ("Re-vision-ing the Mormon Concept of Deity") by Blake Ostler, a leading LDS scholar who has focused a lot of his work on such issues. For a non-LDS perspective, see Richard Cartwright, "On the Logical Problem of the Trinity."
In endnote no. 21, in commenting on Gen 1:26, Horn shows his ignorance of basic Hebrew when he writes:
In question 11, "Is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a Christian Church?," Horn is guilty yet again of eisegesis when, in attempting to support the Trinity, he writes, "In Matthew 28:19, Jesus says to baptize in the *name* of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, not in the *names* of these persons. This implies that, even though he is three persons, God is still one being."
Just as Christ in this verse comes in his Father's "name" (i.e., authority), so also his followers baptise by the authority of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which is a single authority and power.
Eternal Marriage
In q. 16, "What do Mormons believe about marriage," Horn raises this "objection":
Firstly, it is not just LDS apologists and scholars who disagree with Horn's (and Rome's) interpretation of these passages. As one leading New Testament scholar wrote:
1. Why did the earliest Church Fathers (e.g., Irenaeus) accuse Mary of personal sin in texts such as John 2:4, when Rome teaches that the Immaculate Conception has been a doctrine that has always been a belief in the Church (being part of “apostolic tradition”)? The idea of Mary being "sinless" is a much later development, and even later is her being exempt from original sin. Indeed, her exemption from original sin was a belief the majority of Medieval theologians rejected, as even Ludwig Ott, John Salza, and other Catholic theologians and apologists admit (it would not be dogmatised until 1854 by Pope Pius IX).
2. Why is there no evidence whatsoever, even among patristic authors who held to a strong “corporeal” understanding of “this is my body/blood” in the Last Supper narratives (e.g., Cyprian of Carthage), that Christians worshipped the consecrated Eucharistic host and wine until the second millennium? According to the Council of Trent, it is proper to give “latria” (same veneration/worship reserved for God only) to them.
3. Why is there no evidence whatsoever for the Bodily Assumption of Mary in the opening centuries of Christian history, let alone it being held up as a doctrine of the faith, until several centuries after this (fictional) event? For a full-blown study of the origins of this belief, see Stephen Shoemaker’s Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary's Dormition and Assumption (Oxford: 2003).
4. According to the Second Council of Nicea (AD 787), the veneration of saints and images is not only proper, but part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and yet, why is it that the earliest Christians unanimously rejected the veneration of images, including the same theological presuppositions this council, and modern Catholicism, teaches (e.g., the veneration one gives ultimately goes to the heavenly prototype, not the image per se)?
5. According to Vatican I (1869-70), “Peter = the Rock” has been the unanimous understanding of Matthew 16:16-19, and yet, according to the majority of patristic exegetes of this text, the “rock” in this pericope is understood to be the faith of Peter and/or his confession that Jesus is the Christ. While some Catholics will claim that there is no real distinction between the person of Peter and his faith, a number of fathers (e.g., John Chrysostom) differentiate between the confession and person of Peter. For careful studies of this and similar issues which refute Roman claims to authority, see George Salmon, Infallibility of the Church (1888); Janus (pen name for Ignatius Von Döllinger), The Pope and the Council (1869) and Edward Denny, Papalism (1912). For a recent study, see William Webster, The Matthew 16 Controversy (1996). Such volumes also show what the dogma of papal infallibility is an utter myth (e.g., Honorius; Zosiumus; Vigilius, etc).
6. In Roman Catholic dogma, Mary is a perpetual virgin. If this is the case, how come the authors of the New Testament, when one engages in meaningful exegesis of the biblical texts, operate under the assumption that normal sexual relations took place between Mary and Joseph after the birth of Jesus, and the overwhelming linguistic and exegetical evidence against any other reading of the texts speaking of the “brothers” and “sisters” than uterine siblings? For more, see chapter 3 of Eric D. Svendsen’s 2001 book, Who is My Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism; for a contrast in scholarly and exegetical methodologies, see Tim Staples’book on Mary, Behold your Mother (Catholic Answers, 2014).
7. According to many Catholic apologists, without an infallible decree about the contents of the biblical canon, one cannot be sure of the Bible. If this is the case, does that mean that faithful Catholics were uncertain of the Bible and its contents until 1546 when Trent issued the decree about the canon? Furthermore, if one wishes to appeal to Carthage and other councils, realise that, in Catholic theology, such local councils were not infallible and, additionally, the Tridentine canon list does not match the earlier lists from these late fourth/early fifth century councils (see the New Catholic Encyclopaedia article's discussion of 1 and 2 Esdras in the canon list from Carthage and how it differs from Trent). Also, was Jerome and others (e.g., Cardinal Thomas Cajetan) in apostasy when they rejected the Deutero-canonical (Apocryphal) books as divinely inspired and authoritative?
8. Tim Staples who works with Horn in Catholic Answers, ended his attempted critique of the LDS understanding of the Great Apostasy in his book Nuts and Bolts with the following comment:
Keep in mind that, if this person from 1785 queried a Catholic of his time about what the Gospel of Jesus Christ was, it would not include three dogmas he now must, under pain of anathema, believe to be definitional of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (i.e., the Immaculate Conception [1854]; Papal Infallibility [1870] and the Bodily Assumption of Mary [1950]). Perhaps one could rephrase Staples' question thusly:
Ultimately, the question posed by Staples is just empty rhetoric for those familiar with Roman Catholic theology and history.
One could go on, but one should realise that, when critiquing “Mormonism,” Catholic apologists could never use the same standards, biblically and historically, to examine the LDS faith in comparison to how they defend Catholicism. Furthermore, I have only raised issues that are central, core issues about Rome’s claims to authority, not minor issues like “bad popes” and the like. There has been, sadly, an apostasy, and what Rome teaches dogmatically about Mary, the papacy, the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice, and other things are proofs of her being forever separated from the Church of Jesus Christ and the authority of the apostles. No amount of sophistry from the likes of Trent Horn et al. will ever change this fact.
Robert Boylan
June 30, 2016
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Catholic Answers has recently released a volume by Trent Horn, 20 Answers: Mormonism. This is not the first time Catholic Answers has released a volume attacking Mormonism; in 1999, they released two books by Isaiah Bennet, Inside Mormonism and When Mormons Call, both of which were refuted by Barry Bickmore in "A Passion for Faultfinding: The Deconversion of a Former Catholic Priest" (html; pdf). Further, this is not the first time I have interacted with some of Catholic Answers’ apologetic work; see the following interaction with Tim Staples’ Behold your Mother (2014), a defense of the Marian doctrines:
Refuting Tim Staples' attempt to defend the perpetual virginity of Mary
Answering Tim Staples on Patristic Mariology and the Immaculate Conception
In the "About the Author" section" we read that "Trent Horn is an apologist and speaker for Catholic Answers. He specializes in pro-life issues as well as outreach to atheists and agnostics. He holds a master's degree in theology from Franciscan University of Steubenville." Horn has to be commended for being active in the pro-life movement (as I am), and he does seem to understand Catholicism well. He has also engaged in a few public debates, such as one on the historicity of Jesus against Richard Carrier. However, his grasp of biblical exegesis and other topics, including LDS-related issues, is unconvincing. In this review, I will touch upon some issues that demonstrate the many errors and fallacies that permeate this short presentation on “Mormonism.”
The Nature of God and creation:
Under question 3, "What do Mormons believe about God?" Horn writes:
Catholic believe, on the other hand, that God is an infinite and perfect spirit who is not confined to a physical body. In Jeremiah 23:24 God says, "Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? Do I not fill heaven and earth? . . . In fact, John 4:24 says, "God is spirit," and Jesus makes it clear that in Luke 24:39 that "a spirit has not flesh and bones"
Jer 23:24
Who can hide in secret places to that I cannot see them? says the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? Says the Lord. (Jer 23:24 NRSV)
This verse is often cited by critics of Latter-day Saint theology that holds that (1) God (the Father) is embodied and (2) that God is localized in one place at each moment.
There are a few counters to this claim, not the least is that the divine person speaking may be the premortal Jesus who, at that moment in the economy of salvation, did not gain a body, let alone a glorified, resurrected body, something which the Father received as we learn in the prophet Joseph Smith’s King Follett Discourse. Be that as it may be, a “spirit body” is still localised in one place at a time.
The point of Jeremiah’s statement in the above verse is not the physiological nature of God, but instead, a statement that God’s influence, glory, and power fill the universe and, as we learn in Psa 139:7-12, where God is continually aware of everything in the universe and can communicate with, and travel to, any spot instantaneously:
Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast. If I say "Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light around me become night," even the darkness is not dark to you; the night is as bright as the day, for darkness is as light to you. (NRSV)
Indeed, this fits the context of Yahweh having a close relationship with His covenantal people, as seen in the previous verse:
Am I a God at hand, saith the Lord, and not a God afar off?
The Hebrew term translated as "fill" is מלא and in Jeremiah appears in the Qal form—according to lexicographers, the Qal form of this verb does not have the sense of a person/being filling creation with their own person/being, but instead, of one filling up a container with a liquid (i.e., filling up a container with something other than themselves). Notice the following under the Qal form in Holloday’s Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament:
fill onesf. w. Ex 159; — 4. 2 acc., container & material: fill up with 1K 1824 ; — 5. var.: m¹l®°â ƒ®b¹°¹h her time of service is finished Is 402; m¹l¢° ±al-g®dôt¹yw (river) has over-flowed its banks Jos 315; m¹lê° š®l¹‰îm (fill =) seize the shields Je 5111; m¹l¢° y¹dô l®yhwh = dedicate onesf. to the service of Y. Ex 3229; m¹l¢° l¢b, w. l® & inf., pick up the courage to Ec 811 Est 75.
Brown-Drivers-Briggs connects Yahweh’s “filling” creation with His glory, not his person, and connects Jer 23:24 with related OT passages on this issue (emphasis added):
2. trans. fill, of populating sea and earth Gn 1:22, 1:28, 9:1 )all P(; consecrate מִלְאוּ יֶדְכֶם ליהוה; )lit. fill the hand( Ex 32:29 )cf. infr.(; esp. of glory of י׳ filling tabern. and temple; Ex 40:34, 40:35 )P( 1 K 8:10, 8:11, cf. Is 6:1; v. also Je 23:24, esp. lit. Ez 10:3, 43:5, 44:4, 2 Ch 5:14, 7:1, 7:2
Let us reproduce the texts BDB referenced alongside Jer 23:24 on this issue:
Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud abode thereon and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. (Exo 40:34-35)
And it came to pass, when the priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of the Lord. (1 Kgs 8:10-11)
In the year that king Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train (LXX: glory) filled the temple. (Isa 6:1)
Now the cherubims stood on the right side of the house, when the man went in; and the cloud filled the inner court. (Ezek 10:3)
So the spirit took me up, and brought me into the inner court; and, behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house. (Ezek 43:5)
then brought he me the way of the north gate before the house: and I looked, and, behold, the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord: and I fell upon my face. (Ezek 44:4)
So that the priests could not stand up to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the Lord had filled the house of God. (2 Chron 5:14)
Now when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven, and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices; and the glory of the Lord filled the house. And the priests could not enter into the house of the Lord, because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord's house. (2 Chron 7:1-2)
Therefore, we can see that the theological meaning of Jer 23:24 is not about the physiological nature of God, but instead, an assertion of how the power, glory, and influence of God permeates the universe.
John 4:24 and Luke 24:39
"God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth" (John 4:24 [NRSV])
John 4:24 is one of the most common proof-texts used against the Latter-day Saint belief that God the Father is embodied. However, from the get-go, one must note the irony that most critics who raise this verse are Trinitarians. Why? In this verse, there is a differentiation, not just between the persons of Jesus and the Father, but between Jesus and God (θεος)! Notwithstanding, there are some elements on this verse that are often overlooked by critics.
Firstly, the Greek of this verse is:
πνεῦμα ὁ θεός, καὶ τοὺς προσκυνοῦντας αὐτὸν ἐν πνεύματι καὶ ἀληθείᾳ δεῖ προσκυνεῖν
The phrase, often translated, “God is spirit” is in bold. In Greek grammar, this is a qualitative predicate nominative, which deals with, not composition, but one's qualities. Furthermore, from the context, this refers to man’s worship of God, not the composition of deity. Jesus is addressing a Samaritan, whose theology privileged Mount Gezirim, while the Jews privileged Jerusalem, one of the many disputes between them. Jesus, instead, echoing the universalism of the New Covenant, states that proper worship of God will not be localised in one place. In other words, this verse does not address God's physiological nature--only the means by which men communicate with God. Such must be done spiritually (i.e., spirit to spirit), and must develop a spiritual nature.
Furthermore, taking the absolutist view of this verse to its "logical" conclusion, one would have to state that it is a requirement that men are to shed their physical bodies in order to worship God--if God is only spirit and this passage requires men to worship God "in spirit," then men must worship God only in spirit. Thus, to cite John 4:24 against the teachings of Mormon theology is to claim that men cannot worship God as mortal beings, which is ludicrous. It would also akin to absolutising 1 Cor 15:45, and stating that Christ currently exists in an unembodied spirit, notwithstanding Christ's corporeal ascension (Acts 1:11) and His being depicted as embodied in post-ascension visions of Jesus (e.g., Acts 7:55-56).
A related criticism that has been raised by some opponents (e.g., Craig Blomberg in How Wide the Divide?) is that if God were to possess a physical body, this would make divine omnipresence impossible as God would be rendered "limited" or "finite" by that body. Therefore, God, in LDS theology, could not be omnipresent, something required by this verse. However, Latter-day Saints affirm only that the Father has a body, not that his body has him. The Father is corporeal and infinitely more, and if a spirit can be omnipresent without being physically present, then so can a God who possess a body and a spirit.
Indeed, the Bible affirms that, though the Father has a body (e.g., Heb 1:3), His glory, influence and power fills the universe (Jer 23:34). He is continually aware of everything in the universe and can communicate with, and travel to, any spot instantaneously (Psa 139:7-12).
Furthermore, a question that is begged is that “spirit” is immaterial. However, many early Christians believed that “spirit” was material (e.g., Origen, On First Principles, Preface 9 and Tertullian, Against Praxaes, 7), something consistent with LDS theology (D&C 131:7).
Another related verse that is often raised by critics is that of Luke 24:39. However, as with John 4:24, this is another example of eisegesis. What Evangelical critics fail to note is that the converse of the statement is not true. A living physical body most definitely does have a spirit. In fact, it is physically dead without one (James 2:26). A spirit alone does not have a physical body. But if God has a physical body, he also has a spirit. Therefore, even though God is corporeal, it is appropriate to say that God "is spirit" (as in John 4:24), for spirit is the central part of His nature as a corporeal being.
Moreover, it would not be appropriate to say that God is only a spirit based on this verse--here, Christ clearly has a spirit and a physical body. His spirit had just been recombined with His perfected and glorified physical body in the resurrection, a point He took great pains to demonstrate (Luke 24:41-43). He was not, however, "a spirit" in the sense of being only a spirit.
In unique LDS Scripture, we find something similar to John 4:24 echoed in D&C 93:33-35:
For man is spirit, The elements are eternal, and spirit and element, inseparably connected, receive a fullness of joy. And when separated man cannot receive a fullness of joy. The elements are the tabernacle of God; yea, man is the tabernacle of God, even temples; and whatsoever temple is defiled, God shall destroy that temple.
In this pericope, man is said to be “spirit,” though such does not preclude embodiment.
Biblical scholars would also disagree with the common eisegesis of John 4:24. New Testament scholar, C.H. Dodd wrote:
Biblical scholars would also disagree with the common eisegesis of John 4:24. New Testament scholar, C.H. Dodd wrote:
It should be observed that to translate 'God is a spirit' is the most gross perversion of the meaning. 'A spirit' implies one of the class of πνευματα, and as we have seen, there is no trace in the Fourth Gospel of the vulgar conception of a multitude of πνευματα. (C.H. Dodd, The Interpretation of the Fourth Gospel [Cambridge: 1958], 225 n. 1)
On the absurdities of understanding John 4:24 as teaching the ontological nature of God, Origen wrote:
Many writers have made various affirmations about God and His ουσια. Some have said that He is of a corporeal nature, fine and aether-like; some that he is of incorporeal nature; others that He is beyond ουσια in dignity and power. It is therefore worth our while to see whether we have in the Scriptures starting-points (αφορμας) for making any statement about the ουσια of God. Here [1 John i.2] it is said that πνευμα is, as it were, His ουσια. For he said, πνευμα ο θεος. In the Law He is said to be fire, for it is written, ο θεος ημων πυρ καταναλισκον (Deut. iv.24, Heb. xii. 29), and in John to be light, for he says, ο θεος πως εστι, και σκοτια εω αυτω ουκ εστιν ουδεμια (1 John i.5). if we are to take these statements at their face value, without concerning ourselves with anything beyond the verbal expression, it is time for us to say that God is σωμα; but what absurdities would follow if we said so, few realise. (Origen, Commentary on John xiii.21-23, as cited by Dodd, ibid., 225-26).
This is mirrored by the comments of Raymond Brown in his magisterial 2-volume commentary on John's Gospel:
[This verse is] not an essential definition of God, but a description of God's dealing with men; it means that God is Spirit toward men because He gives the Spirit (xiv 16) which begets them anew. There are two other such descriptions in the Johannine writings: "God is light" (1 John i 5), and "God is love" ( 1 John iv 8 ). These too refer to the God who acts; God gives the world His Son, the light of the world (iii 19, viii 12, ix 5) as a sign of His love (iii 16). (The Gospel According to John (i-xii), vol. 29 of the Anchor Bible [Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1966], 167.)
Alan Kerr offered the following comments on John 4:24:
6.6.4 God Is SpiritCommentators generally agree that this statement is not a philosphical proposition but a message about God in his relation to people. Two similar sentences about God in 1 John bear a similar sense: God is light (1:5) and God is love (4:8). It is also generally agreed that ‘Spirit’ here captures the Old Testament nuances of רוח as the life-giving creative power of God. The decisive issue for John is summed up in the stated purpose of the Gospel: ‘These things are written that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you might have life through his name’ (20:31). The goal is life (ζωή), and it is God the Spirit who gives life (6:63). This life is traced back to being born of the πνεῦμα, the life-Giver (3:5). In some way this life is bound up with knowing—knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent (17:3)—that is, knowing the truth.Given this statement—πνεῦμα ὁ θεός—we must interpret ἐν πνεύματι in the light of it. It cannot refer to any spirit, but only to the Spirit that is God. While the primary emphasis of ἐν πνεύματι is on the life-giving and creative power of the worship, there is also a secondary significance intimated by 3:8 where πνεῦμα is the unconfined, uncontrolled and uncomprehended wind/Spirit that blows where it wills. The presence of God who is πνεῦμα is not to be confined to Jerusalem or Gerizim. The true worshipper should therefore not be confined by spatial limitations.
On the other hand, for John the Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus. This emerges most clearly in the pronouncement about the Johannine Paraclete, who extends and communicates the presence of Jesus while Jesus is away. So in Jn 14:18 Jesus can say, ‘I am coming to you,’ and refer directly to the Spirit Paraclete in the previous verses (14:16, 17). C.F.D. Moule succinctly comments on how Christology dominated pneumatology in early pneumatic experience, a comment that aptly sums up the entwinment of the Spirit and Jesus in John: ‘The Spirit is Christified; Christ is Spiritualized.’ So given Johannine pneumatology it would be in order to say that worshipping ‘in Spirit’ would be partially equivalent to worshipping ‘in Jesus’. (Alan Kerr, The Temple of Jesus' Body: The Temple Theme in the Gospel of John [New York: Sheffield Academic Press, 2002], 192-94)
[In] John 1:3 [it] says "not a single thing" was made apart from God, and Colossians 1:16 says, [I]n him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible.
Blake Ostler in his article “Out of Nothing: A History of Creation Ex Nihilo in Early Christian Thought” discusses both this text and a related one (Rom 4:17) which I will quote from:
The view that the “invisible things” are not absolute nothing is also supported by Colossians 1:16-17:
For in him were created all things
in heaven and on earth:
everything visible and everything invisible,
thrones, ruling forces, sovereignties, powers—
all things were created through him and for him.
He exists before all things. (NJB)
In this scripture it seems fairly evident that the “everything invisible” includes things that already exist in heaven, such as thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers. Further, the invisible things are also created by God; yet the fact that they are invisible means only that they are not seen by mortal eyes, not that they do not exist. The reference to invisible things does not address whether they were made out of preexisting matter. However, 2 Corinthians 4:18 states that “the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal” (KJV). It is not difficult to see that Hebrews 11:3 neither expressly mentions creation out of nothing nor implicitly assumes it. The argument that the text must somehow implicitly assume creation of out nothing misinterprets the text and forces it with assumptions that are contrary to the meaning of “invisible things.” If anything, Hebrews 11:3 implicitly assumes creation of the earth out of a preexisting substrate not visible to us.
Romans 4:17. Copan and Craig next cite Romans 4:17 KJV: "even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were (καλοῦντος τὰ μὴ ὄνταὡς ὄντα)." There are two possible translations of Romans 4:17. The majority translation does not entail creation out of nothing: "[Abraham] is our father in the presence of God whom he believed—the God who makes the dead alive and summons the things that do not yet exist as though they already do."[15] Another translation indicates that God "calls into existence the things which do not exist" (New American Bible, NAB). The first translation is preferred for several reasons. First, Keith Norman has pointed out that it is contradictory for God to call to that which does not exist.[16] Second, as Moo stated, "this interpretation fits theimmediate context better than a reference to God's creative power, for it explains the assurance with which God can speak of the 'many nations' that will be descended from Abraham."[17] Thus, the preferred translation merely states that God summons the future reality of the resurrection as if it already existed. This seems to me to be a far better fit with the context.
Third, as Hubler comments: "The verse's 'non-existent' need not be understood in an absolute sense of non-being. μὴ ὄντα (mē onta) refers to the previous non-existence of those things which are now brought into existence. There is no direct reference to the absence or presence of a material cause."[18] In other words, the Greek text suggests the view that God has brought about a thing that did not existas that thing before it was so created. For example, this use of μὴ ὄντα is logically consistent with the proposition that "God called forth the earth when before that the earth did not exist." However, the fact that the earth did not exist as the earth before it was so created does not address the type of material that was used to make it.
Note also that Romans 4:17 uses the negative μή, which refers to merely relative nonbeing and not to absolute nothing, as required by the doctrine of creation ex nihilo. At this point it is important to understand a bit about the ancient concept of matter in the Greek-speaking world and the distinction between relative nonbeing (Greek μὴ ὄντα) and absolute nothing (Greek οὐκ ὄντως). Platonic philosophy—both Neoplatonism and Middle Platonism—posited the existence of an eternal substratum that was material but was nevertheless so removed from the One Ground of Being that it was often said to not have "real" existence. As Jonathan Goldstein observes: "Platonists called pre-existent matter 'the non-existent.'"[19] This relative nonexistence is indicated by the Greek negative μή, meaning "not" or "non-," in conjunction with the word for existence or being.[20] When the early Christian theologians speak of creation that denies that there was any material state prior to creation, however, they use the Greek negation ουκ, meaning "not in any way or mode." As Henry Chadwick explained the usage in Clement's Stromata: "In each case the phrase he employs is ek me ontos not ex ouk ontos; that is to say, it is made not from that which is absolutely non-existent, but from relative non-being or unformed matter, so shadowy and vague that it cannot be said to have the status of 'being', which is imparted to it by the shaping hand of the Creator."[21] Edwin Hatch explained that, for Platonists, "God was regarded as being outside the world. The world was in its origin only potential being (το μὴ ὄν)."[22] He explains more fully:
The [Platonic] dualistic hypothesis assumed a co-existence of matter and God. The assumption was more frequently tacit than explicit. . . . There was a universal belief that beneath the qualities of all existing things lay a substratum or substance on which they were grafted, and which gave to each thing its unity. But the conception of the nature of this substance varied from that of gross and tangible material to that of empty and formless space. . . . It was sometimes conceived as a vast shapeless but plastic mass, to which the Creator gave form, partly by moulding it as a potter moulds clay, partly by combining various elements as a builder combines his materials in the construction of a house.[23]
Aristotle wrote that: "For generation is from non-existence (ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος) into being, and corruption from being back into non-existence (εἰς τὸ μὴ ὄν)."[24] Generation is the act of a new animal being derived from an existing one, or a plant deriving from an existing plant. It is new life from life. He used the phrase from non-existence in a sense of relative nonbeing, where "things" do not yet exist and there is only a formless substratum that has the potential or capacity to receive definite form. This substratum is not absolutely nothing but is not yet a thing. It is "no-thing." Thus, to say that God called to existence that which does not exist, as in Romans 4:17, actually assumes a preexisting substrate that God, by impressing form upon it, organizes into a thing that exists. Copan and Craig simply fail to note this important distinction, and thus their exegesis is critically flawed.
In their book, Copan and Craig cite a number of evangelical scholars who share their theological presuppositions and who opine that this verse refers to creation out of nothing (CON, pp. 75-78). Yet none of these authors provide any analysis or exegesis beyond asserting that the "non-existent" must mean that which does not exist in any sense. For example, Copan and Craig quote James Dunn's commentary on Romans 4:17, which reads in the relevant part: "'As creator he creates without any precondition: he makes alive where there was only death, and he calls into existence where there was nothing at all. Consequently that which has been created, made alive in this way, must be totally dependent on the creator, the life-giver, for its very existence and life'" (NMC, p. 117).[25] However, it is easy to see that the scriptural analogy of God bringing the dead to life in the same way that he creates "things which are not" does not support creatio ex nihilo. Resurrection does not presuppose that the dead do not exist in any way prior to their resurrection, nor does it presuppose that previously they did not have bodies that are reorganized through resurrection. Just as God does not create persons for the first time when he restores them to life through resurrection, so God does not create out of absolute nonbeing.
Moreover, note that Romans 4:17 doesn't expressly address whether things are created out of nothing or from some material substrate. It simply says that God "calls" things into existence that are not. Moreover, such a statement in no way entails or requires creation out of nothing implicitly. If I create a table then I create a table that did not exist before I created it, but it doesn't mean that I create it out of nothing. In this text, the word create is not even used. Rather, what God does is to "call forth" the non-existent. The verb καλέω means to call out loud to something, or to invite.[26] It presupposes something there to be called to or invited. God calls out to the non-existent by his Word, an act described by a verb used elsewhere in Paul's writings (Romans 9:11; 1 Corinthians 12:3; Galatians 5:8; 1 Thessalonians 5:24). Thus, the most natural reading of this text is that the "non-existent" or μὴ ὄντα refers to a preexisting reality that does not yet exist as God calls it to be. Such a reading has nothing to do with creation out of absolute nothing.
John 1:3.Copan and Craig also argue that John 1:3 supports the idea of creation out of nothing (here given in KJV): "All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made" (πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο, καὶ χωρὶς αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν). Copan and Craig assert of this verse: "The implication is that all things (which would include preexistent matter, if that were applicable to the creative process) exist through God's agent, who is the originator of everything" (pp. 117-18). But this verse says nothing about the creation of "preexistent matter." One must assume beforehand that the word create must mean to create ex nihilo in order to arrive at this conclusion, for this verse says only that if something was made, then it was made through the Word. It does not address anything that may not have been made. More important, it does not address how those things were made, its point being through whom the creation was made. Anything that was made was made by Christ. Since the translation one reviews is so critical to interpretation, I will provide another translation: "All things came about through him and without him not one thing came about, which came about."[27] The question in this case is whether the final phrase which came about is part of this verse or the beginning of the next verse. Hubler explains:
The punctuation of [John 1:3] becomes critical to its meaning. Proponents of creatio ex materia could easily qualify the creatures of the Word to that "which came about," excluding matter. Proponents of creatio ex nihilo could place a period after "not one thing came about" and leave "which came about" to the next sentence. The absence of a determinate tradition of punctuation in New Testament [Greek] texts leaves room for both interpretations. Neither does creation by word imply ex nihilo (contra Bultmann) as we have seen in Egypt, Philo, and Midrash Rabba, and even in 2 Peter 3:5, where the word functions to organize pre-cosmic matter.[28]
Of course, the reality of this text is that it does not consciously address the issue of creation ex nihilo at all. It states who accomplished the creation, not how it was done.[29] A person who accepts creation from chaos can easily say that no "thing" came about that is not a result of the Word's bringing it about but agree that there is a chaos in which no "things" exist prior to their creation as such. Copan and Craig hang their hat on the connotations of the word πάντα, meaning "all" in an inclusive sense. They argue that because "all" things that come about are brought about by the Word, there is no possibility of an uncreated reality that has not been brought about by God. However, the final phrase, ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν, translated "nothing made that was made," limits the scope of the creative power to the order of the created and implies that whatever is not made was not made by him. If it is created, he created it; if it is not, then it is not within the scope of "what is made."
Notes for the above:
ed. (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 279, translated the passage: "Even as it is written, 'I have appointed you as the father of many nations' before the God in whom he believed, the one who gives life to the dead and calls those things that are not as though they were."
[17] Moo, Epistle to the Romans, 282, emphasis in original; so also William Sanday and Arthur C. Headlam, The Epistle to the Romans (Edinburgh: Clark, 1977), 113. Further, this view is in line with a Pauline idiom_namely, verb followed by ὡς‚ plus participle (of the same verb or, in certain contexts, its antonym) to compare present reality with what is not a present reality (cf. 1 Corinthians 4:7; 5:3; 7:29, 30 [three times], 31; Colossians 2:20 [similarly, 2 Corinthians 6:9, 10]).
[19] Jonathan A. Goldstein, "The Origins of the Doctrine of Creation Ex Nihilo," Journal of Jewish Studies 35/2 (1984): 127.
[21] Henry Chadwick, Early Christian Thought and the Classical Tradition (Oxford: Clarendon, 1984), 46-47. See Norman, "Ex Nihilo," 300-308.
[24] Aristotle, De Generatione Animalium B5, 741 b 22f, ed. H. J. Drossaart Lulofs (Oxford: Clarendon, 1965), 74f.
[25] Quoted from James D. G. Dunn, Romans 1-8 (Dallas: Word, 1988), 237, omitting emphasis added by Copan and Craig.
[28] Hubler, "Creatio ex Nihilo," 108.
[29] There is a major punctuation problem here: Should the relative clause "that was made" go with verse 3 or verse 4? The earliest manuscripts have no punctuation (P 66, 75* A B D and others). Many of the later manuscripts that do have punctuation place it before the phrase, thus putting it with verse 4 (P 75c C D L Ws 050* and a few others). Nestlé-Aland placed the phrase in verse 3 and moved the words to the beginning of verse 4. In a detailed article, K. Aland defended the change. K. Aland, "Eine Untersuchung zu Johannes 1, 3-4: ?ber die Bedeutung eines Punktes," Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 59 (1968): 174-209. He sought to prove that the attribution of ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν to verse 3 began to be carried out in the fourth century in the Greek church. This came out of the Arian controversy and was intended as a safeguard for doctrine. The change was unknown in the West. Aland is probably correct in affirming that the phrase was attached to verse 4 by the Gnostics and the Eastern Church. It was only after the Arians began to use the phrase that it became attached to verse 3. But this does not rule out the possibility that, by moving the words from verse 4 to verse 3, one is restoring the original reading. Understanding the words as part of verse 3 is natural and adds to the emphasis which is built up there, while it also gives a terse, forceful statement in verse 4. On the other hand, taking the phrase ὃ γέγονεν with verse 4 gives a complicated expression. C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John, 2nd ed. (London: SPCK, 1978), 157, says that both ways of understanding verse 4 with ὃ γέγονεν included "are almost impossibly clumsy": "That which came into being—in it the Word was life; That which came into being—in the Word was its life." The following points should be noted in the solution of this problem: (1) John frequently starts sentences with ἐν as verse 4 begins; (2) he repeats frequently ("nothing was created that has been created"); (3) 5:26 and 6:53 both give a sense similar to verse 4 if it is understood without the phrase; (4) it makes far better Johannine sense to say that in the Word was life than to say that the created universe (what was made, ὃ γέγονεν) was life in him. In conclusion, the phrase is best taken with verse 3.
[29] There is a major punctuation problem here: Should the relative clause "that was made" go with verse 3 or verse 4? The earliest manuscripts have no punctuation (P 66, 75* A B D and others). Many of the later manuscripts that do have punctuation place it before the phrase, thus putting it with verse 4 (P 75c C D L Ws 050* and a few others). Nestlé-Aland placed the phrase in verse 3 and moved the words to the beginning of verse 4. In a detailed article, K. Aland defended the change. K. Aland, "Eine Untersuchung zu Johannes 1, 3-4: ?ber die Bedeutung eines Punktes," Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft 59 (1968): 174-209. He sought to prove that the attribution of ἐγένετο οὐδὲ ἕν ὃ γέγονεν to verse 3 began to be carried out in the fourth century in the Greek church. This came out of the Arian controversy and was intended as a safeguard for doctrine. The change was unknown in the West. Aland is probably correct in affirming that the phrase was attached to verse 4 by the Gnostics and the Eastern Church. It was only after the Arians began to use the phrase that it became attached to verse 3. But this does not rule out the possibility that, by moving the words from verse 4 to verse 3, one is restoring the original reading. Understanding the words as part of verse 3 is natural and adds to the emphasis which is built up there, while it also gives a terse, forceful statement in verse 4. On the other hand, taking the phrase ὃ γέγονεν with verse 4 gives a complicated expression. C. K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John, 2nd ed. (London: SPCK, 1978), 157, says that both ways of understanding verse 4 with ὃ γέγονεν included "are almost impossibly clumsy": "That which came into being—in it the Word was life; That which came into being—in the Word was its life." The following points should be noted in the solution of this problem: (1) John frequently starts sentences with ἐν as verse 4 begins; (2) he repeats frequently ("nothing was created that has been created"); (3) 5:26 and 6:53 both give a sense similar to verse 4 if it is understood without the phrase; (4) it makes far better Johannine sense to say that in the Word was life than to say that the created universe (what was made, ὃ γέγονεν) was life in him. In conclusion, the phrase is best taken with verse 3.
In question 4, "How do Mormons defend the view that God has a body," Horn writes the following to try to downplay the theological significance of Stephen's vision in Acts 7:55-56:
Another LDS defense of the idea that God has a physical body like you or I point to Scripture passages that describe God sitting on a throne (Psalm 47:8), having a right hand (Acts 7:55-56), and appearing to human beings in bodily form . . . .But we must be careful when we interpret these verses that use non-literal language in order to communicate a spiritual truth about God. For example, Psalm 91:4 says God "will cover you with his feathers, and under his wings you will find refuge." But this passage teaches us about God's love for us, not his wingspan.
Horn is engaging in many common exegetical fallacies in trying to downplay the theological significance of Acts 7:55-56 and the LDS doctrine that God the Father is embodied.
Firstly, Psa 91:4 has a different literary genre than Acts 7:55-56; the former is poetry, employing metaphors in describing God; the latter is part of a historical narrative. Horn is comparing apples and oranges.
Let us actually exegete the text in question:
But he [Stephen], being full of the Holy Ghost, looked up stedfastly into heaven, and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing on the right hand of God. And said, Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of man standing on the right hand of God. (Acts 7:55-56 [KJV])
It is common for Latter-day Saints to cite Acts 7:55-56 as evidence of (1) that the Father and Son are separate persons and (2) that the Father has a “bodily form.” Point number 1 is something Trinitarians and most others will not dispute, though how one defines a “person” will differ (see the debate between Latin/Creedal and Social Trinitarianism, for instance, on this point). Point no. 2, however, is something most of the broad Christian spectrum will disagree with Latter-day Saints. Some may claim that Stephen only saw the “glory” of God (v.55), but only if one isolates this verse from the proceeding verse that speaks of Jesus being at the “right hand” of God (the Father).
A typical response to LDS usage of this verse as evidence for our theology is that the term, “right hand” can be used in a metaphorical sense. Therefore, they argue, it is being used in a metaphorical sense in this passage. There are a couple of things wrong with this approach, most notably it is the fallacy of undistributed middle—
First premise: Some instances of “right hand” are metaphorical.
Second premise: “Right hand” is used in Acts 7:55-56
Conclusion: Therefore, the use of the term, “right hand” is metaphorical in Acts 7:55-56.
The predicates in both the major and minor premises do not exhaust all the occurrences of this term and would therefore not necessitate such an interpretation in Acts 7:55-56. A more non-dogmatic and accurate conclusion would be that Acts 7:55-56 could have a metaphorical meaning, but such should be said with much caution as the argument for such a meaning is not nearly as simplistic as critics would like it to be.
It is true that the term can be used in a sense of authority (e.g. Biden is Obama’s “right-hand man”). However, to claim that this is how it is to be interpreted in Acts 7:55-56 is eisegesis. This passage is describing what Stephen saw in vision; it is not a metaphorical for the relationship Jesus has with Father vis-à-vis authority. Indeed, what is being described is the spatial-relationship between the Father and the Son. Those who critique the LDS understanding have to ignore the literary genre of this pericope. Furthermore, the author of Acts 7:55-56 is alluding to a Messianic text from the Old Testament, Psa 110:1 (109:1, LXX). The LXX of this verse reads:
τῷ Δαυιδ ψαλμός εἶπεν ὁ κύριος τῷ κυρίῳ μου κάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν μου ἕως ἂν θῶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου ὑποπόδιον τῶν ποδῶν σου
Psalm of David: The Lord said to my lord, sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool (my translation)
Here, the first Lord (in the Hebrew, Yahweh) says to a second lord (adoni in Hebrew, meaning “my lord”) to sit at his right hand. The only meaningful, and exegetically sound interpretation of this verse is that the second lord is sitting at the right-hand of God, and not that he is the “right-hand man” of God (though he does indeed serve as God’s vizier, to be sure).
In Trinitarian theology, there is an allowance (albeit, an ambiguous one) for a distinction between the persons of the Father, Son and Spirit (e.g. the Father is not the Son). However, there is no allowance for a distinction between “God” and any of the persons. However, the Christology of the New Testament tends to distinguish “God” (θεος) from the Son, not simply the “Father” from the Son, as it does here, differentiating between ο θεος (literally, the God) from Jesus. Indeed, the other instances of the New Testament’s use of Psa 110:1 differentiates, not just the persons of the Father and the Son, but θεος and the Son. For instance, consider 1 Cor 15:22-28 and Heb 10:12-13:
For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. But every man in his own order. Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. Then cometh the end when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. For he hath put all things under his feet. But when he saith all things are put under him, it is manifest that he is expected, which did put all things under him. And when all things shall be subdued unto him, then shall the Son also himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that God (θεος) may be all in all. (1 Cor 15:22-28)
But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God (θεος); From henceforth expecting till his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet. (Heb 10:12-13)
In both these pericopes, Psa 110:1 is used, and clearly, a distinction is made between, not just the persons of the Father and the Son (which is accepted, equivocatingly, by Trinitarian theology), but God (θεος) and Jesus, a distinction not tolerated by Trinitarianism, and something one also finds in Acts 7:55-56.
LDS apologist, Jeff Lindsay, provides a good LDS interaction with this pericope and common objections to its use here.
Horn's "arguments" fail on Ats 7:55-56 miserably.
That God the Father is embodied can be seen in Heb 1:3, for instance. A careful, succinct exegesis of this text from the Greek was presented by D. Charles Pyle in his FAIR Conference paper from 1999, "I have said, 'ye are gods': Concepts Conducive to the Early Christian Doctrine of Deification in Patristic Literature and the Underlying Strata of the Greek New Testament Text"
With respect to Psa 91:4 itself, Joseph Fielding McConkie wrote the following in response to Walter Martin who popularised this lame "argument" against LDS claims:
In question 6, "Why do Catholics reject the doctrine of eternal progression," Horn appeals to Isa 43:10 and 44:8 to support strict monotheism. Furthermore, he writes that "Jesus described God as 'the one and only God' (John 5:44) and 'the only true God' (John 17:3). St. Paul describes God as 'the only wise God' (Romans 16:27)."
Horn's "arguments" fail on Ats 7:55-56 miserably.
That God the Father is embodied can be seen in Heb 1:3, for instance. A careful, succinct exegesis of this text from the Greek was presented by D. Charles Pyle in his FAIR Conference paper from 1999, "I have said, 'ye are gods': Concepts Conducive to the Early Christian Doctrine of Deification in Patristic Literature and the Underlying Strata of the Greek New Testament Text"
There is also scripture that can used to potentially support the idea that God could have a physical body. One of these is Hebrews 1:3. Christ could only be the exact representation of the Father if the Father himself possessed a body of some sort. In fact, some who wish to avoid what I feel is the plain meaning of Hebrews 1:3 actually go so far as to separate the natures of Christ or declare that the passage could not possibly infer that the Father is embodied.
Those who criticize this meaning thus, however, do not take into account the fact that there is not one portion of the passage that differentiates between the divine or human nature of Jesus. Secondly, the particle ων on indicates being, i.e., the present state of existence of Jesus from the perspective of the author of Hebrews. It has absolutely nothing to do with only Jesus’ previous state or of only a portion of his supposed dual nature. It only speaks of his total existence as a person.
Further, many grammarians have severely misunderstood the Greek απαυγασμα apaugasma (English: [active] effulgence or radiance; [middle, passive] reflection) in this passage to have the active sense. The Greek kai kai (English: and) is here a coordinating conjunction which combines the first and second parts (the second part being of a passive character) of a parallel couplet. Due to this fact, as much as the Evangelicals wish doggedly to hold to their interpretation, the Greek απαυγασμα aapaugasma should be understood as having a passive sense.
Why? Because the second portion of the couplet indicates that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father’s substantial nature, not that he is synonymous with that nature. Since this passage is a couplet, with the second portion being passive in nature, the first portion must be understood as having a passive sense as well. Thus, Jesus is properly to be seen as he “who is the reflection of the glory (of God) and the exact representation of the substantial nature of him (i.e., the Father).”
In short, the glory of God reflects from Jesus rather than having Jesus as its source, according to the theology of the author of Hebrews. Thusly, Jesus exactly represents God as he exists in all aspects of Jesus’ existence. The passage does not allow differentiation of Jesus’ divine and human natures in relation to God. Quite the opposite is in view here, although I doubt that Evangelicals will wish to agree with my assessment of the passage. Nevertheless, if it is true that Jesus is the exact representation of the Father’s substantial nature in all aspects, the Father must have possession of a physical body. Otherwise, Jesus is not and could not be the exact representation of the Father, for the two would differ. This fact is further strengthened by another pertinent fact: the Father is never said to be bodiless in any place within the text of the Bible. That was for a later generation to develop.
With respect to Psa 91:4 itself, Joseph Fielding McConkie wrote the following in response to Walter Martin who popularised this lame "argument" against LDS claims:
A favorite text used by a leading anti-Mormon spokesman in attacking missionaries for teaching that God is a personal being is the Psalm which states that God will protect his people with “his feathers, and under his wings.” In a mocking tone the question is asked, “Is God a chicken, or some other kind of a bird that he would have feathers and wings?” The line brings a good laugh and young missionaries are not always prepared to respond, though a reading of the text would be more than adequate. Dramatizing the protection one finds in the Lord and by obedience to gospel principles, the Psalmist referred to God as a refuge and fortress. Then to further illustrate his point he wrote: “Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: his truth shall be thy shield and buckler.” (Psalm 91:3-4). The expression is an obvious metaphor. (Joseph Fielding McConkie, Gospel Symbolism [Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1985], 208)
In question 6, "Why do Catholics reject the doctrine of eternal progression," Horn appeals to Isa 43:10 and 44:8 to support strict monotheism. Furthermore, he writes that "Jesus described God as 'the one and only God' (John 5:44) and 'the only true God' (John 17:3). St. Paul describes God as 'the only wise God' (Romans 16:27)."
On the topic of the Isaiah texts, here is my exegesis I presented to Desmond Ferguson, formerly of “Irish Church Mission”:
Isaiah 43:10,11; 44:6, 8 and the "Number of God"
In the Autumn 2005 issue of ICM's The Banner, in an article entitled, "Witnessing to the Mormons," Ferguson claimed that Isaiah 43:10, 11 and 44:6, 8 refuted Latter-day Saint theology, often referred to, in scholarly circles, as monolatry (e.g., Michael Heiser [an Evangelical]), or, as D. Charles Pyle once stated it to be (and I agree with him), "relational monotheism," that states that there are (true) gods in the midst of God (cf. Genesis 20:13 [Hebrew]; Psalms 29 (esp. the Hebrew); 82; Deuteronomy 32:7-9 [Dead Sea Scrolls], etc.). Notwithstanding the popularity of such pericope in literature critical of "Mormonism" and text supportive of the Trinity (e.g., The Forgotten Trinity by James White), and notwithstanding the ironic fact, lost on Ferguson, that taking an absolutist view on these passages results, not in Trinitarian theology, but either Unitarianism or a strand of Modalism, such represents proof-texting of the worst degree. What is more interesting is that, instead of engaging my exegesis of pertinent pericope (e.g,. Deuteronomy 6:4; 32:7-9; the Hebrew of Genesis 20; the Greek of 1 Corinthians 8) and on other issues (such as 2 Timothy 3, as discussed below) two years ago, Ferguson simply obfuscated and ignored all the evidence I presented that refuted his fallacious "arguments," and just obsessed over personalities, revealing that he did not have a clue about the issues at hand. That is revealing of how little he truly knows about (1) "Mormonism" and (2) the Bible.
For Isaiah, the point of his screed against the idols and gods was that of comparing Isaiah's theology with that of both popular Israelite religion (which at the time had groups worshiping Yahweh and Baal alongside an Asherah [KJV: "grove(s)" in the temple in Jerusalem) and that of the Canaanite religion in general.
In Isaiah 43:10-11, we read the following:
*You are my witnesses, declares the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe in me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no Saviour.*
Verse 10 is not a statement of monotheism, but a comparison drawn between Baal and Yahweh. Verse 11 is a comment on the Asherah. Verse 10 doesn't make a whole lot of sense if one interprets such a passage in terms of the strict monotheism expounded by errant writers on this topic.
"Before me"? "After me"? When is before God and when is after God? What about the time in between (which, in Orthodox [i.e., Traditional] Christianity is "always")? Is one willing to assert a "before God" or an "after God"? Clearly, simply suggesting that it talks about being created before God is nothing more than suggesting that something was created before God was created (which is incompatible both with Orthodox Christian and Latter-day Saint theology). But "after God" implies an end to God--not that something was created after God was created. Such a view, of course, is not well thought out. The text does not support such an interpretation. Baal assumed his position as chief among the elohim (Hebrew: Gods) after he defeated Yaam ("Sea"). Later, while he was dead, after a confrontation with Mot ("Death"), there was a succession crisis when `Athar attempted to sit in the throne of Baal (which is discussed in Isaiah 14). In this sense, for Baal, there is both a "before" and a possible "after." But for Yahweh, there is no succession. Yahweh did not overthrow another divinity to become the chief among the elohim. Nor can he be displaced from his throne. There is no denial of the host of elohim in this passage, nor is there any denial of the existence of El (Hebrew: "God") there either. Canaanite theology places Baal was king/god of the gods, but El is the God of the Cosmos. Both exist, and the existence of one does not threaten the existence of the other. Likewise, Israel's chief elohim, Yahweh, does not threaten, nor is threatened by the existence of El.
In verse 11, we get his statement: "apart from me, there is no saviour" (New International Version [NIV]). This is translated as "beside me there is no saviour" in the KJV, and "besides me there is no saviour" in the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). In fact, most translations, including the modern ones, follow the language of the NRSV and the KJV against the NIV. I bring this up as Ferguson uses the NIV, and used such in his atrocious article, and it is popular among Evangelicals outside the KJV-Only movement. The phrase, "besides me" in Isaiah 43-45 is a reference to Asherah--claimed by some as a consort for Yahweh, and claimed by others as a consort for Baal. Asherah was claimed by those who worshipped her as a Saviour--as a deliverer. This is explicitly stated in Jeremiah, when the remaining Jewish aristocracy was fleeing to Egypt following the assassination of Gedaliah. They dragged Jeremiah with them and complained to him in Jeremiah 44:17-19:
*"We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our fathers, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At the time we had plenty of good and were well off and suffered no harm. But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouting out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine."*
The women then added:
*"When we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did not our husbands know that we were making cake like her image and pouring out drink offerings to her?"*
One should compare the above with 2 Kings 22-24, where the Asherah (KJV: "grove(s)") is removed from the temple and the wooden poles depicting her which were on the outside of the First Temple were destroyed by Josiah during the Deuteronomic Reformation. Essentially, Isaiah is claiming that salvation comes from Yahweh alone--not from an Asherah or from Baal.
But there are other interesting things in chapter 43. Yahweh, in verse 3, states that, "For I am Yahweh your elohim." Then, in verse 12, Isaiah explicitly discusses the fact that he is comparing Yahweh to other divinities: "I have revealed and saved and proclaimed--I, and not some foreign gods among you." It should be noted that nowhere does Isaiah ever claim that it is sinful for foreigners to worship other gods. This doesn't appear in the text until the post-exilic portions of Jeremiah (Jeremiah was pieced together by a number of individuals, thus the unusual chronology in the text, among other things) while Deuteronomy 4 seems to suggest that the foreign gods were given to the foreign nations so that they would worship them (cf. Deuteronomy 32:7-9 [the Hebrew verb here is "to inherit," nahal, which differentiates in this passage Yahweh from Elohim, the former who inherited/received, as a patrimony from the latter, Israel]). The notion here is clearly that Yahweh is superior to these foreign gods--independent of the question of whether or not they are real divinities.
This brings us to Isaiah 44. The primary alleged monotheistic proof-text of Isaiah 44 is that of verses 6 and 8:
*This is what the LORD says--Israel's King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and the last; apart from me there is no God . . . Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock [this is the underlying Hebrew word used]; I know not one.*
It should be noted that the NIV misses the chance of some consistency. In verse 6, the "apart from me" is the same as "besides me" of verse 8. This section of Isaiah is essentially a polemic against Asherah worship. I note that some time later, around 622 B.C.E., during Josiah's reform, the Asherah is removed from the temple in Jerusalem. This is described in 2 Kings 23:
*The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the LORD all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. He did away with the pagan priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts. He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the LORD to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes, which were in the temple of the LORD and where women did weaving for Asherah.*
This description relates to what follows verse 8 in Isaiah 44. Here is some more of that chapter:
*The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house. He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it. Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto. He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire: And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god. They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand. And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?*
Did you notice the similarity to Psalm 82:5 here?--
Psalm 82: They know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness;
Isaiah 44: They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.
In any case, we have in Isaiah 44 a description of how the carpenter takes the tree, and creates an image from it. The remainder of the tree is burned as ash (it was a public burning and scattering of the ashes in the Josian destruction of the Asherah in 622 B.C.E.). Here is a description of the people mistakenly worshipping a tree. And then later the specific imagery of the forests and the trees worshipping Yahweh. A polemic against Asherah worship - the castigation of the worship of the tree.
These same issues apply to Isaiah 45. But that chapter starts off with a peculiarity. In the very first verse we read:
*This is what the LORD says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armour, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut*
Here, Cyrus is called the anointed one of Yahweh - his salvific agent, his messiah. Go figure.
The question, though, ultimately is whether or not Isaiah's point of view is similar to that of Psalm 82. Psalm 82 does not deny the existence of other elohim (as noted by scholars such as Robert Alter; Frank Moore Cross jnr.; Margaret Barker; Mark S. Smith; Jeffrey Tigay, etc), nor does it claim that they are not divinities. It simply imputes to them impotence--they cannot save, they are incapable of granting salvation. If this is the case (which is seems to be), then Isaiah is not the great voice of monotheism as many errantly portray the text to be, but, instead, a voice of the supremacy of Yahweh as the only divinity who is capable of doing these things--and only for Israel. Sadly, because of his ignorance of the Bible and biblical scholarship, Ferguson's treatment of such passages reflect a poor grasp of the Bible.
In the Autumn 2005 issue of ICM's The Banner, in an article entitled, "Witnessing to the Mormons," Ferguson claimed that Isaiah 43:10, 11 and 44:6, 8 refuted Latter-day Saint theology, often referred to, in scholarly circles, as monolatry (e.g., Michael Heiser [an Evangelical]), or, as D. Charles Pyle once stated it to be (and I agree with him), "relational monotheism," that states that there are (true) gods in the midst of God (cf. Genesis 20:13 [Hebrew]; Psalms 29 (esp. the Hebrew); 82; Deuteronomy 32:7-9 [Dead Sea Scrolls], etc.). Notwithstanding the popularity of such pericope in literature critical of "Mormonism" and text supportive of the Trinity (e.g., The Forgotten Trinity by James White), and notwithstanding the ironic fact, lost on Ferguson, that taking an absolutist view on these passages results, not in Trinitarian theology, but either Unitarianism or a strand of Modalism, such represents proof-texting of the worst degree. What is more interesting is that, instead of engaging my exegesis of pertinent pericope (e.g,. Deuteronomy 6:4; 32:7-9; the Hebrew of Genesis 20; the Greek of 1 Corinthians 8) and on other issues (such as 2 Timothy 3, as discussed below) two years ago, Ferguson simply obfuscated and ignored all the evidence I presented that refuted his fallacious "arguments," and just obsessed over personalities, revealing that he did not have a clue about the issues at hand. That is revealing of how little he truly knows about (1) "Mormonism" and (2) the Bible.
For Isaiah, the point of his screed against the idols and gods was that of comparing Isaiah's theology with that of both popular Israelite religion (which at the time had groups worshiping Yahweh and Baal alongside an Asherah [KJV: "grove(s)" in the temple in Jerusalem) and that of the Canaanite religion in general.
In Isaiah 43:10-11, we read the following:
*You are my witnesses, declares the LORD, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe in me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. I, even I, am the LORD, and apart from me there is no Saviour.*
Verse 10 is not a statement of monotheism, but a comparison drawn between Baal and Yahweh. Verse 11 is a comment on the Asherah. Verse 10 doesn't make a whole lot of sense if one interprets such a passage in terms of the strict monotheism expounded by errant writers on this topic.
"Before me"? "After me"? When is before God and when is after God? What about the time in between (which, in Orthodox [i.e., Traditional] Christianity is "always")? Is one willing to assert a "before God" or an "after God"? Clearly, simply suggesting that it talks about being created before God is nothing more than suggesting that something was created before God was created (which is incompatible both with Orthodox Christian and Latter-day Saint theology). But "after God" implies an end to God--not that something was created after God was created. Such a view, of course, is not well thought out. The text does not support such an interpretation. Baal assumed his position as chief among the elohim (Hebrew: Gods) after he defeated Yaam ("Sea"). Later, while he was dead, after a confrontation with Mot ("Death"), there was a succession crisis when `Athar attempted to sit in the throne of Baal (which is discussed in Isaiah 14). In this sense, for Baal, there is both a "before" and a possible "after." But for Yahweh, there is no succession. Yahweh did not overthrow another divinity to become the chief among the elohim. Nor can he be displaced from his throne. There is no denial of the host of elohim in this passage, nor is there any denial of the existence of El (Hebrew: "God") there either. Canaanite theology places Baal was king/god of the gods, but El is the God of the Cosmos. Both exist, and the existence of one does not threaten the existence of the other. Likewise, Israel's chief elohim, Yahweh, does not threaten, nor is threatened by the existence of El.
In verse 11, we get his statement: "apart from me, there is no saviour" (New International Version [NIV]). This is translated as "beside me there is no saviour" in the KJV, and "besides me there is no saviour" in the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV). In fact, most translations, including the modern ones, follow the language of the NRSV and the KJV against the NIV. I bring this up as Ferguson uses the NIV, and used such in his atrocious article, and it is popular among Evangelicals outside the KJV-Only movement. The phrase, "besides me" in Isaiah 43-45 is a reference to Asherah--claimed by some as a consort for Yahweh, and claimed by others as a consort for Baal. Asherah was claimed by those who worshipped her as a Saviour--as a deliverer. This is explicitly stated in Jeremiah, when the remaining Jewish aristocracy was fleeing to Egypt following the assassination of Gedaliah. They dragged Jeremiah with them and complained to him in Jeremiah 44:17-19:
*"We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our fathers, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At the time we had plenty of good and were well off and suffered no harm. But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouting out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine."*
The women then added:
*"When we burned incense to the Queen of Heaven and poured out drink offerings to her, did not our husbands know that we were making cake like her image and pouring out drink offerings to her?"*
One should compare the above with 2 Kings 22-24, where the Asherah (KJV: "grove(s)") is removed from the temple and the wooden poles depicting her which were on the outside of the First Temple were destroyed by Josiah during the Deuteronomic Reformation. Essentially, Isaiah is claiming that salvation comes from Yahweh alone--not from an Asherah or from Baal.
But there are other interesting things in chapter 43. Yahweh, in verse 3, states that, "For I am Yahweh your elohim." Then, in verse 12, Isaiah explicitly discusses the fact that he is comparing Yahweh to other divinities: "I have revealed and saved and proclaimed--I, and not some foreign gods among you." It should be noted that nowhere does Isaiah ever claim that it is sinful for foreigners to worship other gods. This doesn't appear in the text until the post-exilic portions of Jeremiah (Jeremiah was pieced together by a number of individuals, thus the unusual chronology in the text, among other things) while Deuteronomy 4 seems to suggest that the foreign gods were given to the foreign nations so that they would worship them (cf. Deuteronomy 32:7-9 [the Hebrew verb here is "to inherit," nahal, which differentiates in this passage Yahweh from Elohim, the former who inherited/received, as a patrimony from the latter, Israel]). The notion here is clearly that Yahweh is superior to these foreign gods--independent of the question of whether or not they are real divinities.
This brings us to Isaiah 44. The primary alleged monotheistic proof-text of Isaiah 44 is that of verses 6 and 8:
*This is what the LORD says--Israel's King and Redeemer, the LORD Almighty: I am the first and the last; apart from me there is no God . . . Do not tremble, do not be afraid. Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago? You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me? No, there is no other Rock [this is the underlying Hebrew word used]; I know not one.*
It should be noted that the NIV misses the chance of some consistency. In verse 6, the "apart from me" is the same as "besides me" of verse 8. This section of Isaiah is essentially a polemic against Asherah worship. I note that some time later, around 622 B.C.E., during Josiah's reform, the Asherah is removed from the temple in Jerusalem. This is described in 2 Kings 23:
*The king ordered Hilkiah the high priest, the priests next in rank and the doorkeepers to remove from the temple of the LORD all the articles made for Baal and Asherah and all the starry hosts. He burned them outside Jerusalem in the fields of the Kidron Valley and took the ashes to Bethel. He did away with the pagan priests appointed by the kings of Judah to burn incense on the high places of the towns of Judah and on those around Jerusalem—those who burned incense to Baal, to the sun and moon, to the constellations and to all the starry hosts. He took the Asherah pole from the temple of the LORD to the Kidron Valley outside Jerusalem and burned it there. He ground it to powder and scattered the dust over the graves of the common people. He also tore down the quarters of the male shrine prostitutes, which were in the temple of the LORD and where women did weaving for Asherah.*
This description relates to what follows verse 8 in Isaiah 44. Here is some more of that chapter:
*The carpenter stretcheth out his rule; he marketh it out with a line; he fitteth it with planes, and he marketh it out with the compass, and maketh it after the figure of a man, according to the beauty of a man; that it may remain in the house. He heweth him down cedars, and taketh the cypress and the oak, which he strengtheneth for himself among the trees of the forest: he planteth an ash, and the rain doth nourish it. Then shall it be for a man to burn: for he will take thereof, and warm himself; yea, he kindleth it, and baketh bread; yea, he maketh a god, and worshippeth it; he maketh it a graven image, and falleth down thereto. He burneth part thereof in the fire; with part thereof he eateth flesh; he roasteth roast, and is satisfied: yea, he warmeth himself, and saith, Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire: And the residue thereof he maketh a god, even his graven image: he falleth down unto it, and worshippeth it, and prayeth unto it, and saith, Deliver me; for thou art my god. They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand. And none considereth in his heart, neither is there knowledge nor understanding to say, I have burned part of it in the fire; yea, also I have baked bread upon the coals thereof; I have roasted flesh, and eaten it: and shall I make the residue thereof an abomination? shall I fall down to the stock of a tree?*
Did you notice the similarity to Psalm 82:5 here?--
Psalm 82: They know nothing, they understand nothing. They walk about in darkness;
Isaiah 44: They have not known nor understood: for he hath shut their eyes, that they cannot see; and their hearts, that they cannot understand.
In any case, we have in Isaiah 44 a description of how the carpenter takes the tree, and creates an image from it. The remainder of the tree is burned as ash (it was a public burning and scattering of the ashes in the Josian destruction of the Asherah in 622 B.C.E.). Here is a description of the people mistakenly worshipping a tree. And then later the specific imagery of the forests and the trees worshipping Yahweh. A polemic against Asherah worship - the castigation of the worship of the tree.
These same issues apply to Isaiah 45. But that chapter starts off with a peculiarity. In the very first verse we read:
*This is what the LORD says to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of to subdue nations before him and to strip kings of their armour, to open doors before him so that gates will not be shut*
Here, Cyrus is called the anointed one of Yahweh - his salvific agent, his messiah. Go figure.
The question, though, ultimately is whether or not Isaiah's point of view is similar to that of Psalm 82. Psalm 82 does not deny the existence of other elohim (as noted by scholars such as Robert Alter; Frank Moore Cross jnr.; Margaret Barker; Mark S. Smith; Jeffrey Tigay, etc), nor does it claim that they are not divinities. It simply imputes to them impotence--they cannot save, they are incapable of granting salvation. If this is the case (which is seems to be), then Isaiah is not the great voice of monotheism as many errantly portray the text to be, but, instead, a voice of the supremacy of Yahweh as the only divinity who is capable of doing these things--and only for Israel. Sadly, because of his ignorance of the Bible and biblical scholarship, Ferguson's treatment of such passages reflect a poor grasp of the Bible.
With respect to John 17:3 and like-texts, Horn appeals to that refutes, not supports, his Christology Why? Firstly, one should note that in Trinitarian theology, there is an allowance (albeit, ambiguously) for a distinction between the “persons” of the Godhead (the Father is not the Son; the Son is not the Spirit; the Spirit is not the Father), as modalism would arise if no distinction was permitted between them; however, there is no allowance for a distinction between “God” or any of the divine titles (e.g., Yahweh; Adonai) and the persons, that is, the Father is “God” but so is the Son and Spirit. However, in many key “creedal” texts in the New Testament (e.g., 1 Tim 2:5), there is a distinction, not just between the persons of the Father and the Son, but also between “God” and the Son, which is very non-Trinitarian. This is the case in John 17:3. The Greek reads:
αὕτη δέ ἐστιν ἡ αἰώνιος ζωὴ ἵνα γινώσκωσιν σὲ τὸν μόνον ἀληθινὸν θεὸν καὶ ὃν ἀπέστειλας Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν.
"Now this is life of the age to come that they may know you the only one who is the true God and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ" (my translation).
The title, τον μονον αληθινον θεον (“the only one who is the true God”), is predicated upon a single person, not a “being” composed of three “persons” (however one wishes to define “person”), and such is predicated upon the singular person of the Father, with Jesus himself distinguishes himself in John 17:3 from “the only true God.” Absolutising this verse, this is a strictly Unitarian verse as only a singular person is within the category of being the “only true God.” However, in Latter-day Saint theology, “God” is a multivalent term, something Trinitarianism cannot allow when speaking of (true) divinities. That this is the Christological model of “Biblical Christianity” can be seen in many places, such as Heb 1:8-9:
But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever; a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated iniquity, therefore, God, even thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness, above thy fellows.
This is an important pericope for many reasons—this is one of only a few places in the New Testament where Jesus has the term "God" (Greek: θεος) predicated upon him (others would include John 20:28 and probably, based on grammar, Titus 2:13 and 2 Pet 1:1], and yet, post-ascension, Jesus is differentiated, not simply from the person of the Father (ambiguously tolerated in Trinitarianism), but a differentiation from God (literally, the God [ο θεος]), something not tolerated in Trinitarianism. This can be further seen in the fact that this is a "Midrash" of Psa 45:6-7, a royal coronation text for the Davidic King, of whom Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment (cf. 2 Sam 7). Both the Hebrew and the Greek LXX predicates "God" upon the king, and yet, there is a God (in the case of Jesus, God the Father) above him. The LXX reads the same as Hebrews; the Hebrew literally reads "elohim, your elohim" (alt. "God, your God" [ אֱלֹהִ֣ים אֱ֭לֹהֶיךָ (elohim eloheyka)].
On the topic of Rom 16:
That the Bible affirms the ontological existence of (true) gods is affirmed in many places. Note, for instance, Deut 32:7-9. The NRSV of this pericope reads:
Remember the days of old, consider the years long past; ask your father and he will inform you, Your elders will tell you. When the Most High gave nations their homes and set the divisions of man, he fixed the boundaries of peoples in relation to Israel's numbers. For the Lord's portion is his people, Jacob his own allotment.
One will note that this differs from the KJV; the Masoretic Text (MT) underlying the KJV OT reads "sons of Adam/Man," while the DSS has the reading "sons of god" or, as ANE scholars understand the term, "gods."
In the second edition of The Jewish Study Bible (Oxford, 2014), we read the following note on page 419:
Most High, or “Elyon,” is a formal title of El, the senior god who presided over the divine council in the Ugaritic literature of ancient Canaan. The reference thus invokes, as do other biblical texts, the Near Eastern convention of a pantheon of gods ruled by the chief deity (Pss. 82:1; 89:6-8). Israelite authors regularly applied El’s title to Israel’s God (Gen. 14:18-22; Num. 24:16; Pss. 46:5; 47:3). [with reference to the variant in the DSS “number of the gods”] makes more sense. Here, the idea is that the chief god allocates the nations to lesser deities in the pantheon. (A post-biblical notion that seventy angels are in charge of the world’s seventy nations echoes this idea.) Almost certainly, the unintelligible reading of the MT represents a “correction” of the original text (whereby God presides over other gods) to make it conform to the later standard of pure monotheism: There are no other gods! The polytheistic imagery of the divine council is also deleted in the Heb at 32:42; 33:2-3, 7.
One final example would be Gen 20:13.Firstly, a short Hebrew lesson. The term אֱלֹהִים is irregular in that, while its form is plural, it can denote either a singular or plural Elohim (“G/god[s]”—not “human judges”) depending on the verb it is coupled with. For instance, in Gen 1:1, it is coupled with a verb in the second person singular, so Elohim is singular; however, there are many instances where it is coupled with a verb in the plural, denoting plural “G/gods” (e.g., Psa 82:6).
In Gen 20:13, the Hebrew reads (followed by my transliteration and translation of the text in red):
וַיְהִ֞י כַּאֲשֶׁ֧ר הִתְע֣וּ אֹתִ֗י אֱלֹהִים֘ מִבֵּ֣ית אָבִי֒ וָאֹמַ֣ר לָ֔הּ זֶ֣ה חַסְדֵּ֔ךְ אֲשֶׁ֥ר תַּעֲשִׂ֖י עִמָּדִ֑י אֶ֤ל כָּל־הַמָּקוֹם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר נָב֣וֹא שָׁ֔מָּה אִמְרִי־לִ֖י אָחִ֥י הֽוּא׃
Wyhy k'sr ht'w 'ty 'lhym mbbyt 'by ...
And it came to pass when (the) Gods caused me to wander from my father's house...
Another way to render the pertinent phrase would be, "And it came to pass when (the) Gods caused me to wander from my father's house . . ."
Not only is this consistent with LDS theology, but also supports the creation story in the Book of Abraham. If it had been the singular 'God', it would have been ht'h 'lhym rather than the plural ht'w 'lhym, consistent with the creation account of the Book of Abraham (Abraham 4:1ff) and LDS theology, though it blows strict forms of monotheism (whether Unitarian or creedal Trinitarian) out of the water. If one want to see the exegetical gymnastics Trinitarians have to engage in to play-down the theological importance of this verse, see this post discussing the NET’s comment on Gen 20:13.
On the topic of Rom 16:
But now is made manifest, and by the scriptures of the prophets, according to the commandment of the everlasting God, made known to all nations for the obedience of faith. (Rom 16:26)
Textual evidence (see below) calls the authenticity of this doxology into question. The oldest textual witnesses do not agree as to the placement or the context, and some very old manuscripts show evidence lack this passage completely. Further, even allowing for it to be authentic, which is doubtful, it does not really address the issue, unless one will read a Unitarian view into such as the person of the Father is called θεος, and it distinguished from the person of the Son (cf. 1 Tim 2:5; John 17:3).
On the textual transmission issue of Rom 16:25-27, a full discussion of this issue can be found on pp. 477-81 of a work I highly recommend (alongside the Tov volume I cited above), New Testament Text and Translation Commentary (Tyndale, 2008) by Philip W. Comfort. Here is what the NET Bible has to say on the issue of the textual integrity (or lack thereof) of this pericope (while they come down on its authenticity, they do a good job at summarising the manuscript evidence):
There is a considerable degree of difference among the MSS regarding the presence and position of the doxology of Rom 16:25-27. Five situations present themselves from the ms tradition. The doxology is found in the ancient witnesses in three separate locations: (1) here after Rom 16:23 (î61 א B C D 81 365 630 1739 2464 al co), (2) after Rom 14:23 (Ψ 0209vid Û), or (3) after Rom 15:33 (î46). The situation is further complicated in that some of the MSS have these verses in two places: (4) after Rom 14:23 and after Rom 16:23 (A P 33 104 2805 pc); or (5) after Rom 14:23 and after Rom 15:33 (1506). The uncertain position of the doxology might suggest that it was added by later scribes. But since the MSS containing the doxology are so early and widespread, it almost certainly belongs in Romans; it is only a question of where. Further, the witnesses that omit the doxology are few: F G 629 Hiermss. (And of these, G has a blank space of several lines large enough for the doxology to belong there.) Only two positions (after chapter Rom 14 only and at the end of the letter only) deserve particular notice because the situation of the MSS showing the doxology in two places dates back to the 5th century. Later copyists, faced with the doxology in two different places in the MSS they knew, may have decided to copy the doxology in both places, since they were unwilling to consciously omit any text. Because the textual disruption of the doxology is so early, TCGNT 472 suggests two possibilities: either (1) that Paul may have sent two different copies of Romans - a copy lacking chapter Rom 16 and a copy with the full text of the epistle as we now have it, or (2) Marcion or some of his followers circulated a shortened form of the epistle that lacked chapters Rom 15 and Rom 16. Those MSS that lacked chapters Rom 15-16 would naturally conclude with some kind of doxology after chapter Rom 14. On the other hand, H. Gamble (The Textual History of the Letter to the Romans [SD], 123–32) argues for the position of the doxology at Rom 14:23, since to put the doxology at Rom 16:25 would violate Paul's normal pattern of a grace-benediction at the close of the letter. Gamble further argues for the inclusion of Rom 16:24, since the MSS that put the doxology after chapter Rom 14 almost always present Rom 16:24 as the letter's closing, whereas most of the MSS that put the doxology at its traditional position drop Rom 16:24, perhaps because it would be redundant before Rom 16:25-27. A decision is difficult, but the weight of external evidence, since it is both early and geographically widespread, suggests that the doxology belongs here after Rom 16:23. For a full discussion, see TCGNT 470–73.
The Logical and Mathematical Problem of Creedal Trinitarianism
One has to understand that traditional Trinitarian theologies which Horn hopes LDS will embrace requirses one to accept a logical and mathematical problem. Consider the following, which are accepted by the Trinitarians:
Jesus = God
Father = God
Spirit = God
Jesus is not the person of the Father; the Father is not the person of the Spirit; the Spirit is not the person of the Son
Numerically, there is only one God
God = Father, Son, and Spirit
To put it the above in another way, to help people understand the illogical nature of creedal Trinitarianism (with "x" representing "God"):
Jesus = x
Father = x
Spirit = x
Numerically, there is only one x
God (x) = Father (x) plus Son (x), plus Spirit (x)
Only by using one definition of "God" when speaking of the tri-une "being" of God and another definition of "God" when predicated upon the persons of the Trinity can one get away from a logical/mathematical impossibility (3 "x"'s equalling 1 "x") or a form of Modalism, where the Father, Son, and Spirit are the same person. The latter is condemned (rightfully) as heresy and antithetical to the biblical texts by Trinitarianism; the former, however, is not allowed, as the various person are said to be numerically identical to the "One God." This is not a "mystery" (something that cannot be understood perfectly, like the atonement of Jesus Christ), but a logical, mathematical, and I argue, a biblical-exegetical impossibility. Only by engaging in logically and linguistically fallacious claims (e.g., the claim that אֶחָד echad "one" in Hebrew means "compound one") can one try (desperately) to get around these and many other problems.
For more, see this insightful essay ("Re-vision-ing the Mormon Concept of Deity") by Blake Ostler, a leading LDS scholar who has focused a lot of his work on such issues. For a non-LDS perspective, see Richard Cartwright, "On the Logical Problem of the Trinity."
In endnote no. 21, in commenting on Gen 1:26, Horn shows his ignorance of basic Hebrew when he writes:
[B]ut this [the plural noun in 1:26 ] does not imply the work of multiple Gods, as the single pronoun is still used in later verses. The words *us* and *our* probably represent the "plural of majesty."
Sometimes, one will hear that the phrase, "let us make" (Heb: נַעֲשֶׂה) in Gen 1:26 is a “royal we” and/or evidence of a plurality of persons within the “being” of the One God. However, even Trinitarian commentators have rejected this antiquated (and rather eisegetical) view. Note the following examples (which could easily be multiplied):
The we of majesty does not exist in Hebrew. (Paul Joüon, A Grammar of Biblical Hebrew [Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 2006], p. 347 n. 7)
In the NET note for Gen 1:26, we read (emphasis added):
The plural form of the verb has been the subject of much discussion through the years, and not surprisingly several suggestions have been put forward. Many Christian theologians interpret it as an early hint of plurality within the Godhead, but this view imposes later trinitarian concepts on the ancient text. Some have suggested the plural verb indicates majesty, but the plural of majesty is not used with verbs. C. Westermann (Genesis, 1:145) argues for a plural of "deliberation" here, but his proposed examples of this use (2Sa 24:14; Isa 6:8) do not actually support his theory. In 2Sa 24:14 David uses the plural as representative of all Israel, and in Isa 6:8 the LORD speaks on behalf of his heavenly court. In its ancient Israelite context the plural is most naturally understood as referring to God and his heavenly court (see 1Ki 22:19-22; Job 1:6-12; Job 2:1-6; Isa 6:1-8). (The most well-known members of this court are God's messengers, or angels. In Gen 3:5 the serpent may refer to this group as "gods/divine beings." See the note on the word "evil" in Gen 3:5.) If this is the case, God invites the heavenly court to participate in the creation of humankind (perhaps in the role of offering praise, see Job 38:7), but he himself is the one who does the actual creative work (v. Gen 1:27). Of course, this view does assume that the members of the heavenly court possess the divine "image" in some way. Since the image is closely associated with rulership, perhaps they share the divine image in that they, together with God and under his royal authority, are the executive authority over the world.
Additionally, it should be noted that competent Old Testament scholars such as Micahel D. Coogan (The Old Testament: A Historical and Literary Introduction to the Hebrew Scriptures [Oxford, 2006], 9) argue that the use of the plural in this verse, as with other instances (Gen 3:22; 11:7) refers to the divine council, that is, the assembly of the gods. Note the following which is representative of current scholarship (which Horn seems ignorant of):
Terminology also shows that gods can organize into groups. They may form a QHL ‘gathering’ (Ps 89:6) or עדה ‘assembly’ (82:1). They may constitute a סוד ‘council’ (e.g., Jer 23:18), or they may muster into a צבא ‘army’ (e.g., Is 24:21). Gods can form a variety of collectives.
All of their designations, though, are referentially compatible. ON the one hand, like the grammatical structure of אלם and בני אלים , gods are plural. They have internal composition, and they may even number in the thousands (Dan 7:10; see also Ps 68:18). Further, if these gods follow the pattern of those in Gen 3:22, they are also a countable plurality an undifferentiated or homogenous group and, altogether, comprise a mass ‘totality’ (e.g., Zec 14:5; Ps 148:2). The many gods can coalesce into unions, assemblies, companies, congregations, or squadrons.
Biblical writers ascribe many attributes to nonforeign gods. Of paramount, and predictable, importance is their divine and God-like nature (e.g., Ps 96:4). They are at least as old as creation (Job 38:4-7), and they are presumed to live forever (Ps 92:6). Divinity renders them immortal. Moreover, they are holy (e.g., 89:6, 8), sovereign (e.g., 136:3), and masculine (see, esp., 1 Kgs 22:21a = 2 Chr 18:20a).
Israel’s gods have other God-like qualities, too. For example, they are awesome (Jdg 13:6), 'good' (1 Sam 29:9), and wise (e.g., Job 15:8). They are especially "considered to be paragons of knowledge and discernment," as the wise woman of Tekoa well knows.
Your servant thought, "Please, the word of my lord the king will act as comfort. For כמלאך האלהים like an angel of God, so is my lord the king--understanding good and evil . . . My lord is as wise as the wisdom of מלאך האלהים an angel of God--knowing everything on earth." (2 Sam 14:17a-ba.20b)
David's wisdom and knowledge are shared only with the gods (see Gen 3:22). (W. Randall Garr, In His Own Image and Likeness: Humanity, Divinity, and Monotheism [Culture & History of the Ancient Near East; Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2003], 66-68)
Further, on Gen 1:26 and divine embodiment, Horn is arguing against a mountain range of scholarship supporting the LDS view, such as:
[T]he Hebrew word for ‘image’ is also employed by P of Seth’s likeness to Adam (Gen 5.3), following a repetition of Genesis 1’s statement that humanity was created in the likeness of God (Gen. 5.1), which further supports the notion that a physical likeness was included in P’s concept. It is also noteworthy that the prophet Ezekiel, who was a priest as well as prophet at a time not to long before P, and whose theology has clear parallels with P’s, similarly speaks of a resemblance between God and the appearance of man. As part of his call vision in Ezek. 1.26, he declares of God, ‘and seated above the likeness of a throne was something that seemed like a human form’ (the word demut, ‘likeness’, is used, as in Gen. 1.26). Accordingly, there are those who see the image as simply a physical one. However, although the physical image may be primary, it is better to suppose that both a physical and spiritual likeness is envisaged, since the Hebrews saw humans as a psycho-physical totality.
The use of selem elsewhere in Genesis and of demut in Ezekiel certainly tells against the view of those scholars who see the divine image in humanity as purely functional in nature, referring to humanity’s domination over the natural world that is mentioned subsequently (Gen. 1.26, 28), an increasingly popular view in recent years. Although the two ideas are closely associated, it is much more likely that humanity’s rule over the world (Gen. 1.26-28) is actually a consequence of its being made in the image of God, not what the image itself meant. (John Day, From Creation to Babel Studies in Genesis 1-11 [London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013], 13-14).
Such conclusions are also supported by vv.21-25:
And God created great whales, and every living creature that moves, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind (לְמִינֵהו): and God saw that it was good. And God blessed the, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day. And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind (לְמִינָהּ), cattle, and creeping thing and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so. And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and everything that creepeth upon the earth after his kind (לְמִינֵהו): and God saw that it was good. (Gen 1:21-25)
According to this pericope, each class of creation is described as having been created "after its kind (alt. species [מִין])." Subsequently, they were assigned a duty--to multiply and replenish the earth. Horses do not look like mice and fish do not look like cats. They were created after their own kind. This is important as plays an important exegetical role vis-a-vis the relationship between God and the physical nature of man in the verses that immediately follow this pericope:
And God said, Let us make man in our image (צֶלֶם), after our likeness (דְּמוּת): and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image (צֶלֶם), in the image (צֶלֶם) of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. (Gen 1:26-28)
As Presbyterian Old Testament scholar, Meredith Kline, wrote:
By setting the image-likeness formula in the context of sonship, Genesis 5:1-3 contradicts the suggestion that the image idea is a matter of representative status rather than of representational likeness or resemblance. For Seth was not Adam's representative, but as Adam's son he did resemble his father. The terminology "in his likeness" serves as the equivalent in human procreation of the phrase "after its kind" which is used for plant and animal reproduction and of course refers to resemblance. (Meredith G. Kline, “Creation in the Image of the Glory-Spirit” Westminister Theological Journal, 39 [1976/77]: note 34)
Kline, on this theme, also comments that "the traditional avoidance of the visible corporeal aspect of man in formulating the imago Dei doctrine (in deference to the noncorporeal, invisible nature of God) has not reckoned adequately with the fact of theophanic revelation and in particular has missed the theophanic referent of the image in the Genesis 1 context" and that "the theophanic Glory was present at the creation and was the specific divine model or referent in view in the creating of man in the image of God."
Interestingly, Kline (correctly) rejects the idea that Gen 1:26 is evidence of a plurality of persons within the "one God" (a later reading that desperately tries to read the Trinity back into the Old Testament). On Gen 1:26 in the same article, he wrote:
In Genesis 1:26 it is the plural form of the creative fiat that links the creation of man in the image of God to the Spirit-Glory of Genesis 1:2. The Glory-cloud curtains the heavenly enthronement of God in the midst of the judicial council of his celestial hosts. Here is the explanation of the “let us” and the “our image” in the Creator’s decree to make man. He was addressing himself to the angelic council of elders, taking them into his deliberative counsel.
This understanding of the first-person-plural fiat is supported by the fact that consistently where this usage occurs in divine speech it is in the context of the heavenly councilor at least of heavenly beings. Especially pertinent for Genesis 1:26 is the nearby instance in Genesis 3:22, a declaration concerned again with man’s image-likeness to God: “Man has become like one of us to know good and evil.” The cherubim mentioned in verse 24 were evidently being addressed. In the cases where God determines to descend and enter into judgment with a city like Babel or Sodom, and a plural form (like “Let us go down”) alternates with a singular, [30] the explanation of the plural is at hand in the angelic figures who accompany the Angel of the Lord on his judicial mission. [31] When, in Isaiah’s call experience, the Lord, enthroned in the Glory-cloud of his temple, asks, “Whom shall I send and who will go for us?” (Isa. 6:8), the plural is again readily accounted for by the seraphim attendants at the throne or (if the seraphim are to be distinguished from the heavenly elders, as are the winged creatures of the throne in Revelation 4) by the divine council, which in any case belongs to the scene. (A similar use of the first person plural is characteristic of address in the assembly of the gods as described in Canaanite texts of the Mosaic age.)
Such conclusions are strongly consistent with Latter-day Saint theology.
Jesus and Satan as "brothers"
It is unfortunate that Horn repeats the comment about Jesus being the spirit brother of Satan (as with the rest of us) without discussing the LDS understanding of this, especially as it is biblical.
In Job 1:6, we read the following:
Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.
In this text, Satan is presented as being among the “Sons of God” (בני האלהים) This can be seen in the verb יצב (to take [their] stand/position”) and that Satan is said to be in their “midst,” that is, he belongs among their ranks, clearly demonstrating that the theology of Job holds to a “Satan” who has real, ontological existence, in contradistinction to some Christadelphian interpretation of the "Satan" texts in Job. When one examines the phrase, “among them” (KJV), one finds that the Hebrew is a phrase consisting of the prefixed preposition (בְּ) meaning “in/among” and (תָּוֶךְ). When one examines the other instances of this phrase in the Hebrew Bible, it denotes someone being a member of a group, not independent thereof (e.g., Exo 28:33; Lev 17:8, 10, 13; Num 1:47; 5:3; 15:26, 29, etc.); indeed, commentators such as David J.A. Clines states that the phrase regularly denotes membership of the group in question (See Clines, Job 1-20 [Word Biblical Commentary, 1989], 19). The bare term תָּוֶךְ also denotes membership, not independence, of the group in question (cf. Gen 23:10; 40:20; 2 Kgs 4:13).
Furthermore, the "Satan" in Job 1:6, in Hebrew, is not just the bare term (שָׂטָן), meaning an "adversary," which, in and of itself, can denote anyone who opposes another, whether divine or not (e.g., the angel of the Lord is referred to as an adversary or שָׂטָן in Num 22:22), but is coupled with the definite article (השטן), “the satan,” which denotes the supernatural tempter (cf. Zech 3:2); one should compare this with similar Greek locutions in the LXX and NT such as such as ο σατανας (Sirach 21:27; Matt 12:26; Mark 3:26; 4:15; Luke 10:18; 11:18; 13:16; 22:31; John 13:27; Acts 5:3; 26:18; Rom 16:20; 1 cor 5:5; 7:5; 2 Cor 2:11; 11:14; 1 Thess 2:18; 2 Thess 2:9; 1 Tim 1:20; 5:15; Rev 2:9, 13, 24; 3:9; 12:9; 20:2, 7); ο διαβολος (Matt 4:1,5,8,11; 13:39; 25:41; Luke 4:2,3,6,13; 8:12; John 8:44; 13:2; Acts 10:38; Eph 4:27; 6:11; 1 Tim 3:6, 7; 2 Tim 2:26; Heb 2:14; James 4:7; 1 John 3:8, 10; Jude 1:9; Rev 2:10; 12:12; 20:10) and ο πειραζω (Matt 4:3; 1 Thess 3:5), all denoting the external, supernatural tempter in most of Christian theologies (some small groups denying a supernatural Satan notwithstanding).
This is significant at it shows the biblical basis for the LDS belief we are all brothers and sisters.
In Latter-day Saint Christology Christ has existed for all eternity; many critics claim that LDS theology is reflective of Arianism or some other Christology, but that is a non sequitur. D&C 93:21 and other texts affirm that Christ has existed eternally. Notice the “high Christology” of the following two passages from uniquely LDS scriptural texts (more could be reproduced):
And Amulek said unto him: Yea, he [Christ] is the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth, and all things which in them are; he is the beginning and the end, the first and the last. (Alma 11:39)
I am Alpha and Omega, Christ the Lord, yea, even I am he, the beginning and the end, the Redeemer of the world. (D&C 19:1)
In LDS theology, properly stated (and not the caricature one finds in works such as The God Makers and other presentations thereof) states we all pre-existed as the spirit sons and daughters of God. In that sense, we are all brothers/sisters of Jesus. However, Job 1:6 proves, unless one is a Christadelphian or some other similar group, “the Satan” is one of the “sons of God,” that is, a member of the heavenly court, one of whom was Yahweh. Note Deut 32:7-9 from the NRSV, reflecting the Qumran reading (see the discussion above on Deut 32:7-9 [DSS] and its theolgoical implications):
Remember the days of old, consider the years long past; ask your father, and he will inform you; your elders, and they will tell you. When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods; the Lord's own portion was his people, Jacob his allotted share.
While much more could be said, it should be noted that, as with so many beliefs, it is Latter-day Saint theology, not Horn's Roman Catholic theology, that is supported by biblical exegesis.
For a fuller discussion of LDS Christology, something that is given superficial discussion in Horn's book, see, for instance, my paper, "Latter-day Saints have chosen the true, biblical Jesus."
Theosis and the Bible
Theosis and the Bible
Note one of the glorious promises to those who endure in Rev 3:9, 21 (this is Christ Himself speaking through John):
Behold, I will make them of the synagogue of Satan, which say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie; behold, I will make them to come and worship before thy feet, and to know that I have loved thee . . . To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne.
In 3:21, believers are promised to sit down on Christ’s throne, which is the Father's very own throne! Interestingly, Christ sitting down on the throne of the Father is cited as prima facie evidence of his being numerically identical to the “one God” (see the works of Richard Bauckham on “divine identity” on this issue), and yet, believers are promised the very same thing! This is in agreement with John 17:22 in that we will all share the same glory and be one with Christ and God just as they are one. Sitting in it does not indicate, contra Robert M. Bowman, Richard Bauckham, et al, ontological identification with God (cf. Testament of Job 32:2-9, where Job is promised to sit on God’s throne, something that is common in the literature of Second Temple Judaism and other works within the Jewish pseudepigrapha and elsewhere).
As for Rev 3:9, believers are promised that they will be the future recipients of προσκυνέω. While some may try to downplay the significance of this term, in all other instances where it is used in the book of Revelation it denotes religious worship (Rev 4:10; 5:14; 7:11; 9:20; 11:1, 16; 13:4, 8, 12, 15; 14:7, 9, 11; 15:4; 16:2; 19:4, 10, 20; 20:4; 22:8, 9). Only by engaging in special pleading and question begging can one claim it does not carry religious significance in Rev 3:9 (cf. my discussion on whether Jesus receives λατρευω in the New Testament).
To add to the discussion, here is the exegesis provided by New Testament scholar, Jürgen Roloff, on these important verses:
[3:9] With the same words that are in 2:9, the claim of the Jews to be the assembly (synagōgē) of God and the people of God's is rejected as false. Because they rejected Jesus as bringer of God's salvation, in truth they subordinated themselves to the dominion of God's adversary. Israel's heritage and claim are completely transferred to the Christian community. To it, therefore, also belongs the promise, originally made to Israel, that at the end time of the Gentiles will enter the city of God and subjugate themselves to the people of God (Isa. 60:14 and elsewhere). Indeed, among those who then come will be the unbelieving Jews, who will realize that Jesus loved them and that means he chose them; (cf. Isa. 42:1) and made them into the people of God. When mention is made of "bowing down" before the feet of the church, this assumes full participation of the church in the kingdom of Christ and sitting with him on his throne (v. 21) . . . [3:21] The final word about overcoming in the series of letters has particular importance. It summarizes in conclusion the central promise of salvation, which is the promises heretofore was sounded several times with variations and modifications, by using another Synoptic expression of Jesus (Luke 22:30b; Matt 19:28 [Q?]: to those who overcome is promised here participation in Jesus' heavenly kingdom. Thus, just as Jesus sits on his throne (cf. 5:6) beside God as equal ruler on the basis of his having overcome and thereby shares his dominion, so also will those who have overcome for his sake receive a place in his messianic rule (cf. 20:6) with unlimited communion, and even equality, with him. (Jürgen Roloff, Revelation [Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1993], 61, 65-66)
This is yet another area where Latter-day Saint theology and practice is more commensurate with “biblical Christianity” and not the theologies of our Roman Catholic opponents.
Does Matthew 28:19 support the Trinity?
Firstly, there is no mention or hint of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost , as a whole and/or individually, being numerically identical to the “one God.” That is something that must be read into this verse (eisegesis). Verse 18 should be the verse that controls the exegetical possibilities one can derive from this baptismal formula, as Jesus, even after the ascension and his exaltation by the Father (cf. Phil 2:5-11), states that "All power is given unto me in heaven and earth," showing it was not intrinsically His prior to such (clearly supporting a form of subordinationist Christology). One should also see John 20:17 and the Christology of the Epistle to the Hebrews, including Heb 1:8-9, where there is a God above Jesus, notwithstanding his exalted state.
Secondly, notwithstanding the apologists’ use of “name” (ονομα) being singular, this poses no problem for Latter-day Saint theology. “Name” in the Old and New Testaments often meant one’s “title” (as in Isa 9:6) and/or the power and authority one possessed./acted under. Consider, just as one of many examples, John 5:43, a saying of Jesus Himself:
I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.
Just as Christ in this verse comes in his Father's "name" (i.e., authority), so also his followers baptise by the authority of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, which is a single authority and power.
A related passage would be John 17:26:
And I have declared unto them thy name, and I will declare it; that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them (cf. 2 Sam 8:13; Isa 55:13; Jer 13:11 Ezek 22:5; Rev 3:2).
Richard Hopkins, in his book, Biblical Mormonism (Horizon, 1994), offered an alternative approach to this verse, viz. that the singular form of the word "name" is correctly used to shorten the passage from "in the name of the Father, and in the name of the Son, and in the name of the Holy Ghost." Hopkins further argued that, if the plural form were used, it would signify that the passage had been shorted from "in the names of the Father, and in the names of the Son, and in the names of the Holy Ghost." Therefore, the use of the singular is proper where each person is designated in the phrase has His own name (Hopkins, p. 79). While I don't accept this interpretation, it is not an impossible reading of the evidence.
Taking a prima facie and even secunda facie reading of this verse, it clearly presents the Father, Son, and Spirit as three separate persons in the normative understanding of that term, not the later post-biblical theories about the distinction between the persons of the Tri-une God. If anything, this would support, not creedal Trinitarianism, but Social Trinitarianism, which allows for the Father, Son, and Spirit to be three separate persons in the proper meaning of the term, with their own centre of consciousness, as advanced by the likes of Richard Swinburne. For a book-length treatment on the issue of “person” in Trinitarian circles, see Persons: Human and Divine (Oxford University Press, 2007), eds. Peter Van Inwagen and Dean Zimmerman.
It should also be noted that, since the beginning of the Church, Latter-day Saint baptism is performed using the same formula; note D&C 20:73:
The person who is called of God and has authority from Jesus Christ to baptise, shall go down into the water with the person who has presented himself or herself for baptism, and shall say, calling him or her by name: Having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, I baptise you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
This is the same formula I was baptised under. Furthermore, such a phrase appears in the current (1985) LDS hymnal, such as “Arise, O God, and Shine,” with the final stanza reading (emphasis added):
To God, the only wise. The one immortal King, let hallelujahs rise from ev'ry living thing: let all that breathe, on ev'ry coast, praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Many Trinitarian apologists are much more cautious about using the baptismal formula as positive evidence for the Trinity, in contrast to Shamoun, Gill, Robert Bowman, Ron Rhodes, and others. JP Holding, a critic of the LDS faith, writes:
I would begin by noting that our own study of the Trinity makes absolutely no use of Matthew 28:19. This verse is not particularly useful for Trinitarian defense as it theoretically could support any view -- modalism, even tritheism, could be permitted from this verse, for it only lists the members of the Triune Godhead with absolutely no explanation as to their exact relationship.
Verse 18 would indicate that the Father is in a functionally superior relationship to the Son, but that says nothing about an ontological relationship; though one may justly argue that it is very unlikely (but not impossible) that all three would be named together if there were not an ontological equality, lest God's glory somehow be compromised.
None of the earliest commentators on this verse (e.g., Tertullian; Ignatius of Antioch; Origen) ever used the verse to support the concept of metaphysical “oneness” of the Father, Son, and Spirit; such is a later development in the Christian interpretative tradition.
While other important points could be raised, I will discuss just one more--in reality, the Trinitarian apologists who appeal to Matt 28:19 are guilty of question begging. Simply because a verse or pericope has the three persons of the Godhead together, that is definitive “proof” of their co-equality, co-eternality, and all other elements required for creedal Trinitarianism. However, triads appear all throughout the New Testament, and yet, there is often an explication of one of the members being superior to the other two, showing that a triad, in and of itself, is insufficient to cite for evidence of co-equality.
For instance, in 1 Cor 13:13, we read:
And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.
Just because faith, hope, and love (KJV: charity) are in a triadic proximity to one another, similar to the Father, Son, and Spirit in Matt 28:19, such does not prove ontological equality since one of these is said to be the greatest; this should, at the very least, force one to be very cautious to present this verse as positive evidence of Trinitarian theology.
If one wishes to absolutise Matt 28:19, within a Trinitarian hermeneutic, such would cause all sorts of problems with one's exegesis and theology. Note 1 John 5:8:
One would have to conclude, based on the interpretive framework many Trinitarian apologists employ, that this shows that the Trinity is composed of Spirit, water, and blood. In reality, in this verse, and in Matt 28:19, there is no triune being/entity in view here.
If one wishes to absolutise Matt 28:19, within a Trinitarian hermeneutic, such would cause all sorts of problems with one's exegesis and theology. Note 1 John 5:8:
There are three that testify: the Spirit and the Water and the blood, and these three agree (NRSV).
One would have to conclude, based on the interpretive framework many Trinitarian apologists employ, that this shows that the Trinity is composed of Spirit, water, and blood. In reality, in this verse, and in Matt 28:19, there is no triune being/entity in view here.
Indeed, the early Christians, such as Tertullian, used triadic language, but when one examines the totality of their writings, they did not hold to modern Trinitarian theology and thought. In the case of Tertullian, we find that he did not believe Jesus eternally pre-existed and that "spirit" was material, a rejection of "divine simplicity," a necessary element in later Trinitarian theologies.
Recently, one Evangelical apologist for the Trinity, in an interview on Dale Tuggy's "Trinities podcast" (see here) has argued that being baptised into the name of “x” presupposes the “divinity” (understood within the Trinitarian understanding of such a concept) of “x.” However, this is greatly flawed. For instance, in 1 Cor 10:2, the Israelites were baptised into Moses:
And were all baptised unto Moses (εις τον Μωυσην) in the cloud and in the sea.
Another problem with the argument of Bowman and other Trinitarians who claim that the triadic expression in Matt 28:19 is proof (whether implicit or explicit) of creedal/Latin Trinitarianism is that it makes nonsense of other triadic verses. Notice the following locution that is common in the Bible, “God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob.” Does that mean that mean that the “God” of Abraham is a different divine person from the God of Isaac, who is a different person from the God of Jacob? Or that Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are three persons who share the same “divine being”? Such leads to all types of interpretive and theological nonsense!
Lest a Trinitarian read the phrase, “God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob” as somehow evidence of the Trinity (three divine persons in the one God), Jesus is distinguished from this triadic phrase, not included in it (or “the divine identity” to use Richard Bauckham’s term); notice the following verse:
The God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, the God of our fathers, hath glorified his Son Jesus; whom ye delivered up, and denied him in the presence of Pilate, when he was determined to let him go. (Acts 3:13)
In this verse, Jesus is distinguished, not just from the person of the Father (tolerated, albeit ambiguously, by Trinitarians), but God, which is unacceptable in Trinitarian theology.
While much more could be said, Matt 28:19 is clearly not evidence of Trinitarianism; if anything, it is evidence of Horn's lack of exegetical abilities.
Horn on the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham
Horn's comments about the Book of Mormon are woefully inadequate to be taken seriously by informed Latter-day Saints. In question 12, "What is the Book of Mormon," he attempts to provide the evidences cited in favour of its authenticity, but ignores evidences including the use of a pre-exilic source of the David-Goliath narrative; the Arabian Peninsula geography of the Book of Mormon; the onomasticon of the Book of Mormon, and many other elements that belie the thesis that it was fabricated by Joseph Smith, much of which has been discussed for decades by LDS scholars and apologists so Horn has no excuse for this omission.. Furthermore, in an attempt to answer away the witnesses to the Book of Mormon, Horn, in q. 12, "Why don't Catholics accept the arguments made on behalf of the Book of Mormon?" attempts to dismiss the experience of the Three Witnesses as visionary (something Richard Lloyd Anderson has long refuted against the likes of Grant Palmer and Dan Vogel) and that the Eight Witnesses "[stand] in sharp contrast to the witnesses of the risen Jesus" as they would leave the Church. However, in spite of their disagreements with Joseph Smith (as well as Brigham Young), all the witnesses affirmed the reality of the plates, going to their grave affirming such. John Whitmer, for instance, while having left the Church, affirmed the truth of the Book of Mormon and his experience with the gold plates. See, for instance, Ronald E. Romig, Eighth Witness: The Biography of John Whitmer (2014). In the case of David Whitmer, although he would later reject Joseph Smith as a fallen prophet, in his 1887 monograph, An Address to All Believers in Christ, he affirmed the reality of Moroni and the gold plates, and even ensured that he would have his testimony engraved on his tombstone when he passed away in 1888.
For those who wish to read a meaningful discussion of the Three and Eight Witnesses, see Richard Lloyd Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Deseret Book, 1981).
Many of his alleged "anachronisms" and arguments against the Book of Mormon have long been answered, too (q. 14: "What are some reasons that Catholics do not accept the authenticity of the Book of Mormon?). Horn should have displayed some intellectual integrity and interact with LDS responses thereto, such as FairMormon's discussion here. The same applies for q. 15, "What is the Book of Abraham" (click here); I will also note that, as with Charles Larson and other critics, Horn ignores the large body of ancient texts supporting the non-biblical elements in the narrative of the Book of Abraham (click here for Jeff Lindsay's summary of Tvedtnes, Hauglid, and Gee, comps. Traditions about the Early Life of Abraham [Provo, UT.: FARMS, 2001]). To show how weak his case is, however, I will focus on two areas.
Trent Horn vs. “And it came to pass”
The corresponding note (no. 52) for this argument reads, in part:
Firstly, comparing the entire King James Bible with the Book of Mormon is a false comparison, as the New Testament is written in Greek; it would be fairer to compare the Old Testament with the Book ok of Mormon.
Secondly, the phrase translated as "it came to pass" is וַיְהִי (e.g. Gen 4:3). This word is made of the conjunction וַ and the Qal imperfect conjugation of the verb היה, “to be.” This particular combined form changes the tense of the conjugation, putting it in the simple past. A literal translation would be “and it was,” “and it became,” or “and it happened.” The word is virtually exclusive to narrative, where it is very common in the Hebrew Bible, occurring 1204 times. The KJV only translates the phrase “and it came to pass” 727 times, as it can get rather repetitive translated the same way repeatedly within the same verse. It uses a number of other phrase in substitution. The Hebrew Bible has roughly 22,500 verses of Hebrew in it, giving the phrase a frequency of about 5.4%.
The Hebrew Bible has much greater frequencies of non-narrative verse. A seminal article by Francis I. Anderson and A. Dean Forbes (Francis I. Anderson and A. Dean Forbes, “Prose Participle” Counts of the Hebrew Bible in Carol L. Meyers and M. O’Connor, The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David Noel Freedman in Celebration of his Sixtieth Birthday [Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1983], 165-83) presents a statistical analysis of prose v. poetry in the Hebrew Bible. It points out that the Hebrew Bible contains 900 chapters written Hebrew. It breaks down the text according to frequency of a combination of particles virtually exclusive to prose. Chapters with less than 5% frequency for the particles are purely poetic. 10-20% frequency marks mixed poetry and prose. This is where prophetic literature falls, for the most part. Over 20% marks pure prose, or historical narrative, where the word in question occurs by far with the most frequency.
Horn also recommends the reader to pursue Thomas Finley’s essay in The New Mormon Challenge (Zondervan, 2002). Finley’s essay, however, was cogently responded to by LDS scholars:
Kevin L. Barney, A More Responsible Critique (html; pdf)
John A. Tvedtnes and Matthew P. Roper, One Small Step (html; pdf)
In raising this time-worn canard against the Book of Mormon, Horn has only demonstrated his inability to engage in scholarly research on the Book of Mormon; not that the Book of Mormon is not a translation of an ancient document. Furthermore, the “argument” is actually evidence in favour of the Book of Mormon being a translation of an ancient text.
(much of the material for this section is based on the work of Daniel McClellan here)
Horn vs "loan-shifting
Horn mocks the concept of "loan-shifting," something that is well-established, his ignorant comments notwithstanding (see, for e.g., Umberto Eco, Kant and the Platypus), with the following comment:
While it is possible, in the barest sense of the term, that these items [alleged anachronisms] . . . [are] modern words [that] refer to completely different things (such as when Europeans used the term "water horse" to describe a hippopotamus), it's more likely that these anachronisms are evidence of Smith's lack of knowledge of ancient America.
Matthew Roper, in his view of Answering Mormon Scholars by the Tanners, “Unanswered Mormon Scholars" (html; pdf) answered the Tanners (and also Horn et al.) on this issue, with the following:
Notes for the Above
Horn on the Book of Mormon and Book of Abraham
Horn's comments about the Book of Mormon are woefully inadequate to be taken seriously by informed Latter-day Saints. In question 12, "What is the Book of Mormon," he attempts to provide the evidences cited in favour of its authenticity, but ignores evidences including the use of a pre-exilic source of the David-Goliath narrative; the Arabian Peninsula geography of the Book of Mormon; the onomasticon of the Book of Mormon, and many other elements that belie the thesis that it was fabricated by Joseph Smith, much of which has been discussed for decades by LDS scholars and apologists so Horn has no excuse for this omission.. Furthermore, in an attempt to answer away the witnesses to the Book of Mormon, Horn, in q. 12, "Why don't Catholics accept the arguments made on behalf of the Book of Mormon?" attempts to dismiss the experience of the Three Witnesses as visionary (something Richard Lloyd Anderson has long refuted against the likes of Grant Palmer and Dan Vogel) and that the Eight Witnesses "[stand] in sharp contrast to the witnesses of the risen Jesus" as they would leave the Church. However, in spite of their disagreements with Joseph Smith (as well as Brigham Young), all the witnesses affirmed the reality of the plates, going to their grave affirming such. John Whitmer, for instance, while having left the Church, affirmed the truth of the Book of Mormon and his experience with the gold plates. See, for instance, Ronald E. Romig, Eighth Witness: The Biography of John Whitmer (2014). In the case of David Whitmer, although he would later reject Joseph Smith as a fallen prophet, in his 1887 monograph, An Address to All Believers in Christ, he affirmed the reality of Moroni and the gold plates, and even ensured that he would have his testimony engraved on his tombstone when he passed away in 1888.
For those who wish to read a meaningful discussion of the Three and Eight Witnesses, see Richard Lloyd Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Deseret Book, 1981).
Many of his alleged "anachronisms" and arguments against the Book of Mormon have long been answered, too (q. 14: "What are some reasons that Catholics do not accept the authenticity of the Book of Mormon?). Horn should have displayed some intellectual integrity and interact with LDS responses thereto, such as FairMormon's discussion here. The same applies for q. 15, "What is the Book of Abraham" (click here); I will also note that, as with Charles Larson and other critics, Horn ignores the large body of ancient texts supporting the non-biblical elements in the narrative of the Book of Abraham (click here for Jeff Lindsay's summary of Tvedtnes, Hauglid, and Gee, comps. Traditions about the Early Life of Abraham [Provo, UT.: FARMS, 2001]). To show how weak his case is, however, I will focus on two areas.
Trent Horn vs. “And it came to pass”
[T]he text of the Book of Mormon bears many of the earmarks of an improvised dictation, especially the repetition of the phrase "it came to pass," which is used nearly 1,500 times.
The corresponding note (no. 52) for this argument reads, in part:
Keep in mind the same phrase is used less than five hundred times in the King James Bible, which is five times longer than the Book of Mormon.
Firstly, comparing the entire King James Bible with the Book of Mormon is a false comparison, as the New Testament is written in Greek; it would be fairer to compare the Old Testament with the Book ok of Mormon.
Secondly, the phrase translated as "it came to pass" is וַיְהִי (e.g. Gen 4:3). This word is made of the conjunction וַ and the Qal imperfect conjugation of the verb היה, “to be.” This particular combined form changes the tense of the conjugation, putting it in the simple past. A literal translation would be “and it was,” “and it became,” or “and it happened.” The word is virtually exclusive to narrative, where it is very common in the Hebrew Bible, occurring 1204 times. The KJV only translates the phrase “and it came to pass” 727 times, as it can get rather repetitive translated the same way repeatedly within the same verse. It uses a number of other phrase in substitution. The Hebrew Bible has roughly 22,500 verses of Hebrew in it, giving the phrase a frequency of about 5.4%.
The phrase “and it came to pass” appears 1297 times in the Book of Mormon. There are almost 6,600 verses in the Book of Mormon, which gives the phrase a frequency of 19.7%. The discrepancy in frequency is clear and that ends the story for the Scripture Project, but there’s much more to it. As stated above, the word ויהי appears virtually exclusively in narrative in the Hebrew Bible. It very rarely occurs in poetry, prophetic literature, or law. The Book of Mormon is almost exclusively narrative, and, chapter for chapter, contains much more narrative than the Bible. There are about a dozen verses of poetry scattered around it and a few hundred verses of exclusively prophetic material. If we remove 500 verses from the Book of Mormon to account for non-narrative, we get a frequency of about 21.3%. The Book of Mormon, however, does not employ the substituting phrases that the English translations of the Hebrew Bible do.
392 chapters fall below 10%, meaning the word in question rarely if ever appears. To illustrate this, 40 of the 66 chapters of Isaiah have a frequency of less than 7%, but the word ויהי appears in none of them. It only appears 11 times in the other 26 chapters. The word appears 4 times total in the 150 chapters of the book of Psalms, which rises above 10% 11 times. The Wisdom books (Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Job, Proverbs, Song of Solomon) have a frequency of 0.28% for the word ויהי. The 386 chapters between 10-20% are a mixture of poetry and prose, which means the word will occur sporadically. This is primarily the major and minor prophets and large chunks of the Torah, in which the verses with the word ויהי have a frequency of around 3 to 4%. The chapters over 20% (122) are most likely to have the word. These are the historical books, which make up about a third of the Hebrew Bible. The segments of pure narrative and genealogy in these books have the same frequency of the word ויהי as the narrative and genealogy in the Book of Mormon.
When the literary genre is taken into account, the frequency of the word ויהי in the Hebrew Bible is roughly the same as in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon was putatively written in a language which is referred to as a reformed Egyptian. It is described as a mixture of Jewish and Egyptian languages. Many recent philological discoveries show that it was not uncommon for Northwest Semitic grammar and syntax to be combined with Egyptian scripts (e.g., Charles F. Nims and Richard C. Steiner, "A Paganized Version of Psalm 20:2-6 from the Aramaic Text in Demotic Script," Journal of the American Oriental Society vol. 103 no. 1 [Jan. - Mar., 1983], pp. 261-74).
Joseph Smith was not at all trying too hard. If anything, this shows that the Book of Mormon is more closely related to Semitic literary conventions than to English, and blows Trent Horn's misinformed comments out of the water.
Kevin L. Barney, A More Responsible Critique (html; pdf)
John A. Tvedtnes and Matthew P. Roper, One Small Step (html; pdf)
In raising this time-worn canard against the Book of Mormon, Horn has only demonstrated his inability to engage in scholarly research on the Book of Mormon; not that the Book of Mormon is not a translation of an ancient document. Furthermore, the “argument” is actually evidence in favour of the Book of Mormon being a translation of an ancient text.
(much of the material for this section is based on the work of Daniel McClellan here)
Horn vs "loan-shifting
Horn mocks the concept of "loan-shifting," something that is well-established, his ignorant comments notwithstanding (see, for e.g., Umberto Eco, Kant and the Platypus), with the following comment:
While it is possible, in the barest sense of the term, that these items [alleged anachronisms] . . . [are] modern words [that] refer to completely different things (such as when Europeans used the term "water horse" to describe a hippopotamus), it's more likely that these anachronisms are evidence of Smith's lack of knowledge of ancient America.
Matthew Roper, in his view of Answering Mormon Scholars by the Tanners, “Unanswered Mormon Scholars" (html; pdf) answered the Tanners (and also Horn et al.) on this issue, with the following:
Naming Animals In a section entitled “Horses Are Deer?” the Tanners ridicule the idea that the names of animals mentioned in the Book of Mormon text could possibly refer to anything other than their modern scientific classifications (pp. 109-14). They dismiss John Sorenson’s approach to the animal question as “a desperate attempt to explain away a serious problem” (p. 109). The Tanners’ criticisms reveal an unawareness of the wide disagreement among biblical scholars about the definitions of many of the animal names mentioned in the Hebrew text of the Bible itself. “The identification of the animals in the Bible has given rise to divergent views, some contending that it is possible to identify them in a few cases only. Others, however, hold that this can be done in most instances.”111 According to Edward R. Hope, “In the Old Testament it is extremely difficult to decide with any certainty the animals (or birds) referred to by their Hebrew names. In some cases the range of suggestions is staggering.”112 How do biblical scholars and translators deal with this problem? One method has been to follow precedent of tradition. “The problem with this approach,” Hope notes, “is that it sometimes introduces into the text animals which were not found in Biblical times in the ancient middle east, as far as we know.”113 A second approach consists in associating the animal with the meaning of the Hebrew root for that name. While this can sometimes be helpful it can also be problematic since many animal names are often derived from the sound the animal makes rather than from a description of what it looks like or what it does.114 In yet another recent approach,
one would start from animals known to have lived in the area and period as evidenced from the archaeological findings. Then a Hebrew name would be associated with an appropriate animal, bearing in mind the known habitat, characteristics and behaviour of the animal chosen. Another important factor in making the choice would be the relative “prominence” the animal was likely to have had.115
While none of these approaches has proved entirely satisfactory in regard to the Bible, they have been and continue to be used by scholars as a reasonable approach to a difficult scriptural question.
The approaches of these scholars to the animal question in the Bible are similar to those suggested by John Sorenson in reference to the Book of Mormon.116 Although there are other possibilities, Book of Mormon scribes may have applied Old World terms to New World species for which they had no Old World equivalent. This difficulty is often a concern for zoologists and historians who wish to evaluate literary sources from other cultures. According to Lawrence Kiddle,
The adoption of a new domestic animal into one’s own culture causes a linguistic problem of what name to give the newcomer. Four solutions to the problem are common:
1. to give the animal a descriptive name (loan creation);
2. to give the animal the name of a familiar animal which the receiving speakers believe it resembles (loanshift or loan extension);
3. to combine the foreign name of the animal with a native term that indicates its origin or some other characteristic (loanblend); or,
4. to adopt, frequently in a distorted form, the foreign name of the animal (loanword).117
Kiddle notes that “The first two naming procedures are hard to study because they require an intimate knowledge of the receiving languages in order to comprehend the thought processes of their speakers.”118 This is, of course, extremely relevant in the case of Book of Mormon animal names, which may have similar complexities, since the book purports to be a document translated from another language and deals in part with Old World cultures encountering New World cultures for the first time. What, for example, would Nephi have called a Mesoamerican tapir if he had encountered one? Could he have called it a horse? The tapir is considered by zoologists to be a kind of horse in unevolved form.119 Although the Central American tapir, the largest of the New World species, can weigh up to 300 kilos,120 it can move rather quickly at a gallop and can jump vertical fences or walls by rising on its hind legs and leaping up.121 Zoologist Hans Krieg notes, “Whenever I saw a tapir, it reminded me of an animal similar to a horse or a donkey. The movements as well as the shape of the animal, especially the high neck with the small brush mane, even the expression on the face is much more like a horse’s.”122 The tapir can also be domesticated quite easily if captured when young.123 Young tapirs who have lost their mothers are easily tamed and can be fed from a bowl. They like to be petted and will often let children ride on their backs.124 When the Spanish arrived in the Yucatan, the Maya called European horses and donkeys tzimin, meaning “tapir,” because, according to one early observer, “they say they resemble them greatly.”125 After the spread of horses, tapir were still called tzimin-kaax, which means literally “forest horse.”126 Some observers have felt that the tapir more accurately resembles an ass. In fact, among many native Americans today, the tapir is called anteburro, which means “once an ass.”127 In Brazil some farmers have actually used the tapir to pull ploughs, suggesting potential as a draft animal.128 So tapirs could certainly have been used in ways similar to horses.
Notes for the Above
111 Jehuda Feliks, “Animals of the Bible and the Talmud,” Encyclopaedia Judaica (Jerusalem: Keter, 1972), 3:19.
112 Edward R. Hope, “Animals in the Old Testament: Anybody’s Guess?” Bible Translator 42/1 (January 1991): 128.
117 Lawrence B. Kiddle, “Spanish and Portuguese Cattle Terms in Amerindian Languages,” in Italic and Romance: Linguistic Studies in Honor of Ernst Pulgram, ed. Herbert J. Izzo (Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1980), 273. A possible example of the adoption of a loanword may be Moroni’s reference to Jaredite “cureloms and cumoms” during the reign of the Jaredite king Emer (Ether 9:19).
118 Ibid., 273-4. “It should be mentioned that at this early period, before the newcomers became better acquainted with the resources of the ‘Indies,’ many European terms were applied to things which had no exact counterpart in the Old World.” H. B. Nicholson, “Montezuma’s Zoo,” Pacific Discovery 8/4 (July-August 1955): 5.
119 Hans Frädrich and Erich Thenius, “Tapirs,” in Grzimek’s Animal Life Encyclopedia, ed. Bernard Grzimek (New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1972), 20; cf. Carlos Navarrete, “El Hombre danta en una pintura de la costa de Chiapas: una aportación a la iconografía del Preclásico Superior,” in Homenaje a Roman Pina Chan (Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Instituto de Investigaciones Antropológicas, 1987), 229-64.
Eternal Marriage
The primary objection to this view is found in Mark 12:25 (and the corresponding passages in Matthew 22 and Luke 20). In these passages Jesus is speaking with the Sadducees, who denied the resurrection of the body. They posed a dilemma to Jesus about a woman who was consecutively married to seven men who all died in her lifetime. They ask Jesus, "Whose wife will she be in the resurrection?" Christ answers that "in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven." The Church teaches that this means marriage does not continue in the next life, when we will be like angels, who do not engage in sexual relationships. LDS apologists, on the other hand, say that Jesus meant only that after death Christians do not *get* married. However, marriages that take place before death can continue on into the next life. But this doesn't answer the Sadducee's question: To whom was the woman married in the resurrection? Mormons are forced to say, "None of them, because this woman apparently wasn't properly sealed in the temple to any of the men." But there is no hint of this reply in Jesus' answer. The Sadducees mistakenly think that the resurrected life is a mere continuation of the earthly life, when it is really a glorified fulfillment of this life. Instead of focusing on procreation we will be focused on adoration, eternally worshipping the one true God.
Firstly, it is not just LDS apologists and scholars who disagree with Horn's (and Rome's) interpretation of these passages. As one leading New Testament scholar wrote:
Jesus’ response, which begins at v.24, suggests that the Sadducees are ignorant of both the content of the Hebrew Scriptures and the power of God. Jesus stresses that in the age to come, people will neither marry nor be given in marriage. Notice what Jesus does not say. He does not say there will be no marriage in the age to come. The use of terms γαμουσιν and γαμαζονται is important, for these terms refer to the gender-specific roles played in early Jewish society by the man and the woman in the process of getting married. The men, being the initiators of the process in such a strongly patriarchal culture, “marry,” while the women are “given in marriage” by their father or another older family member. Thus Mark has Jesus saying that no new marriages will be initiated in the eschatological state. This is surely not the same as claiming that all existing marriages will disappear in the eschatological state (see, for example, Tertullian, On Monogamy 10, who specifically denies that God will separate in the next life those whom he has joined together in a holy union in this one). Jesus, then, could seem to be arguing against a specific view held by the Sadducees about the continuity between this life and the life to come, a view involving the ongoing practice of levirate marriage.
I would suggest that Luke’s expansion of his Markan source at Luke 20:36 understands quite well the rift of the discussion. In the eschatological state we have resurrected beings who are no longer able to die. Levirate marriage existed precisely because of the reality of death. When death ceases to happen, the rationale for levirate marriage falls to the ground as well. When Jesus saying in v.25b that people will be like the angels in heaven in the life to come, he does not mean they will live a sexless identity (early Jews did not think angels were sexless in any case; cf. Gen. 6:1-4! [Though there is, interestingly, evidence that some early Jews believed that angels didn’t marry—see 1 Enoch 15:7. There was furthermore the belief that the dead became angels after the resurrection [cf. 1 Enoch 51:4; 104:4; Bar. 51:9-10]. On the discontinuity of this world and the world to come [including the assertion that there will be no begetting], see B. Ber. 17a), but rather that they will be like angels in that they are unable to die. Thus the question of the Sadducees is inappropriate to the condition of the eschatological state. I would suggest that Jesus, like other early Jews, likely distinguished between normal marriage and levirate marriage. In Mark 10 Jesus grounded normal marriage in the creation order, not in the order of the fall, which is the case with levirate marriage (instituted because of death and childlessness and the need to preserve the family name and line). Thus Jesus is intending to deny about the eschatological state “that there will be any natural relation out of which the difficulty of the Sadducees could arise.” (Ben Witherington, The Gospel of Mark: A Socio-Rhetorical Commentary [Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2001], 328-29)
As Witherington realises, the issue of whether there will be marital bonds in the hereafter is not negated by this event in the Synoptics. Furthermore, Horn's superficial analysis of the LDS "response" only shows his ignorance of, not just LDS theology, but also scholarship and apologetics.
“[Neither] marry” is [οὔτε] γαμοῦσιν, the present indicative active of the verb “to marry” (γαμεω). “Given in marriage” is γαμιζονται, again, the present indicative active of the verb γαμιζω “to give in marriage.” Jesus is not speaking of there being no marriage bonds in the hereafter, but that, in the age to come, there will be no performances or marriage. One’s opportunity to be married is something that can only take place on this side of eternity, to borrow the common phraseology. Matt 22:30 is, therefore, addressing the act of being married; nothing is said, for or against, marriages performed in this age continuing into the hereafter.
As Kevin Barney wrote in a blog post addressing this topic:
If Matthew had wanted to report that Christ had said in effect “Neither are they now in a married state (because of previously performed weddings),” the Greek in which he wrote would have let him say so unambiguously. He would have used a perfect tense [gegamēkasin] or a participial form [gamēsas] of the verb. He did not, so that cannot be what he meant. Jesus said nothing about the married state of those who are in heaven. By using the present indicative form of the verb, Matthew reports Jesus as saying in effect “In the resurrection, there are no marriages performed.” Jesus goes on to compare those in the resurrection to the angels of God, for unlike mortals they will never die and, according to Jewish tradition, they do not need to eat. The key point is that, contrary to the misconceptions of the Sadducees, life in the resurrection will be different in many ways from life in mortality. (Jesus then goes on to make an additional argument in favor of the resurrection in the following verses.)
The potential continuation of the marriage state in the hereafter for those married in mortality is consistent with another statement of Jesus, as recorded in Matt. 19:6: “Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”
Conclusion and some Questions for Trent Horn
Much more would be said, but it is clear that Horn's work on The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is, to put things nicely, superficial and facile. For instance, in an attempt to try to convert LDS to Roman Catholicism, he suggests a Catholic to ask this question, followed by his comments:
"Why should I believe that Jesus came to Earth to establish a Church, only to have it die right after he left, and then waited 1,800 years to reestablish it? What's wrong with believing that Jesus got it right the first time and the Church he founded still exists?"
The continual existence of Christ's Church also explains one of the key sources of Mormon doctrine--the Bible. If Mormons deny that the Catholic Church of the third and fourth centuries had apostolic authority, they can't accept the Church's pronouncement of the canon of Scripture, the list of books that belong in the Bible. If they do accept the canon of Scripture, they should accept the authority of the Church that established the canon.
There are many problems with this claim, not the least is that, even in Catholic theology, Rome, Hippo and Carthage were local councils; the first infallible decree about the canon, according to Rome herself, was in April 1545, during the Council of Trent. That is why many Catholic scholars, such as Cajetan, rejected the "Deutero-Canonical" books (the Apocrypha) as canonical literature.
Furthermore, the canon lists from Rome, Carthage, and Hippo are not the same as the one Trent dogmatised, as the books of Esdras in the canon lists of Rome, Carthage, and Hippo is longer than the canon list in Trent:
In the lists of the Old Testament which include the Apocryphal books, an element of confusion is caused by the Apocryphal 'Ezra,' our First Book of Esdras. In the LXX Version, the Old Latin, and the Syriac, this Apocryphal Greek Book was placed, out of regard probably for chronology, before the Hebrew Ezra, and was called the First of Ezra...while our Ezra and Nehemiah appeared as one book, with the title of the Second of Ezra. In his translation of the Vulgate, Jerome did not recognize the Canonicity of the Apocryphal Books. He translated the Hebrew Ezra (our Ezra and Nehemiah) as one book with the title of Ezra; but he acquiesced in the division of the Canonical Ezra into two books, for he speaks of the Apocryphal books as the third and fourth of Ezra...In the Vulgate, accordingly, Ezra and Nehemiah were called the First and Second of Ezra; the Apocryphal Greek Ezra was called the Third of Ezra; the Apocalyptic work, the Fourth of Ezra...The influence of the Vulgate caused the names applied in the books in that version to be generally adopted in the West. At the Council of Trent, Ezra and Nehemiah are called 'the first book of Ezra and the second of Ezra which is called Nehemiah.'88
These references make it clear that the Septuagint version of 1 and 2 Esdras was different from the one decreed by Trent. The New Catholic Encyclopedia (quoted above) states that for the first five centuries many fathers of the Church regarded 1 Esdras of the Septuagint to be canonical because they followed the Septuagint. Jerome was the first to separate Ezra and Nehemiah into separate books and to assign the title of I Esdras to Ezra and 2 Esdras to Nehemiah in order to conform to the Hebrew canon. The Septuagint version of 1 Esdras is quoted, for example, by Justin Martyr, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius, Athanasius, Gregory of Nazianzus, Ephrem Syrus, Basil the Great, Chrysostom, Cyprian, Ambrose, Theophilus of Antioch, Dionysius of Alexandria, Augustine and Prosper of Aquaitaine.89 Augustine quoted from the book of III Esdras (I Esdras in the Septuagint) in his work The City of God.90 Thus, when the Council of Carthage gave its list of canonical books for the Old Testament it followed the Septuagint translation. In referring to Esdras as comprising two books they were referring to I and II Esdras of the Septuagint. And when Carthage sent these decrees to Rome for confirmation, it was these books which were confirmed as canonical. Innocent I affirmed this in his letter to Exuperius91 and they were later included in the decrees of Popes Gelasius and Hormisdas. B.F. Westcott confirms these facts:
The enlarged canon of Augustine, which was, as it will be seen, wholly unsupported by any Greek authority, was adopted at the Council of Carthage (A.D. 397?), though with a reservation (Can. 47, De confirmando ist Canone transmarine ecclesia consulatur), and afterwards published in the decretals which bear the name of Innocent, Damasus, and Gelasius…and it recurs in many later writers.92
This contradicts the decree passed by Trent which followed Jerome in assigning I and II Esdras to the canonical Hebrew books of Ezra and Nehemiah respectively. Therefore, Trent declared uncanonical what the Council of Carthage and the bishops of Rome, in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries, declared to be canonical. Clearly, then, Carthage did not authoritatively establish the canon for the Church universally. (source)
For a scholarly and historically accurate discussion about the canon, see, for instance, Lee Martin McDonald, The Biblical Canon: Its Origin, Transmission, and Authority (Baker Academic, 2006).
As for Horn, here are some questions I pose to him and other Roman Catholic apologists:
2. Why is there no evidence whatsoever, even among patristic authors who held to a strong “corporeal” understanding of “this is my body/blood” in the Last Supper narratives (e.g., Cyprian of Carthage), that Christians worshipped the consecrated Eucharistic host and wine until the second millennium? According to the Council of Trent, it is proper to give “latria” (same veneration/worship reserved for God only) to them.
3. Why is there no evidence whatsoever for the Bodily Assumption of Mary in the opening centuries of Christian history, let alone it being held up as a doctrine of the faith, until several centuries after this (fictional) event? For a full-blown study of the origins of this belief, see Stephen Shoemaker’s Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary's Dormition and Assumption (Oxford: 2003).
4. According to the Second Council of Nicea (AD 787), the veneration of saints and images is not only proper, but part of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and yet, why is it that the earliest Christians unanimously rejected the veneration of images, including the same theological presuppositions this council, and modern Catholicism, teaches (e.g., the veneration one gives ultimately goes to the heavenly prototype, not the image per se)?
5. According to Vatican I (1869-70), “Peter = the Rock” has been the unanimous understanding of Matthew 16:16-19, and yet, according to the majority of patristic exegetes of this text, the “rock” in this pericope is understood to be the faith of Peter and/or his confession that Jesus is the Christ. While some Catholics will claim that there is no real distinction between the person of Peter and his faith, a number of fathers (e.g., John Chrysostom) differentiate between the confession and person of Peter. For careful studies of this and similar issues which refute Roman claims to authority, see George Salmon, Infallibility of the Church (1888); Janus (pen name for Ignatius Von Döllinger), The Pope and the Council (1869) and Edward Denny, Papalism (1912). For a recent study, see William Webster, The Matthew 16 Controversy (1996). Such volumes also show what the dogma of papal infallibility is an utter myth (e.g., Honorius; Zosiumus; Vigilius, etc).
6. In Roman Catholic dogma, Mary is a perpetual virgin. If this is the case, how come the authors of the New Testament, when one engages in meaningful exegesis of the biblical texts, operate under the assumption that normal sexual relations took place between Mary and Joseph after the birth of Jesus, and the overwhelming linguistic and exegetical evidence against any other reading of the texts speaking of the “brothers” and “sisters” than uterine siblings? For more, see chapter 3 of Eric D. Svendsen’s 2001 book, Who is My Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism; for a contrast in scholarly and exegetical methodologies, see Tim Staples’book on Mary, Behold your Mother (Catholic Answers, 2014).
7. According to many Catholic apologists, without an infallible decree about the contents of the biblical canon, one cannot be sure of the Bible. If this is the case, does that mean that faithful Catholics were uncertain of the Bible and its contents until 1546 when Trent issued the decree about the canon? Furthermore, if one wishes to appeal to Carthage and other councils, realise that, in Catholic theology, such local councils were not infallible and, additionally, the Tridentine canon list does not match the earlier lists from these late fourth/early fifth century councils (see the New Catholic Encyclopaedia article's discussion of 1 and 2 Esdras in the canon list from Carthage and how it differs from Trent). Also, was Jerome and others (e.g., Cardinal Thomas Cajetan) in apostasy when they rejected the Deutero-canonical (Apocryphal) books as divinely inspired and authoritative?
One way to know is to ask another simple question: What if you were living in, let’s say, 1785, and you were to read this very passage from St. Matthew. You could know that Jesus would never lead you to a “church” with no one who could speak for him. In obedience to Jesus, where would you go? The LDS did not exist yet. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. He would never lead us astray or command us to follow error. If the true church did not exist on this earth for 1,800 years, then Jesus misguided millions into obeying an error-filled church with no apostolic authority. That would be unthinkable.
Keep in mind that, if this person from 1785 queried a Catholic of his time about what the Gospel of Jesus Christ was, it would not include three dogmas he now must, under pain of anathema, believe to be definitional of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (i.e., the Immaculate Conception [1854]; Papal Infallibility [1870] and the Bodily Assumption of Mary [1950]). Perhaps one could rephrase Staples' question thusly:
"If Rome is the true Church, then it misguided countless millions into obeying an incomplete Gospel in 1785. That would be unthinkable."
Ultimately, the question posed by Staples is just empty rhetoric for those familiar with Roman Catholic theology and history.
One could go on, but one should realise that, when critiquing “Mormonism,” Catholic apologists could never use the same standards, biblically and historically, to examine the LDS faith in comparison to how they defend Catholicism. Furthermore, I have only raised issues that are central, core issues about Rome’s claims to authority, not minor issues like “bad popes” and the like. There has been, sadly, an apostasy, and what Rome teaches dogmatically about Mary, the papacy, the Mass as a propitiatory sacrifice, and other things are proofs of her being forever separated from the Church of Jesus Christ and the authority of the apostles. No amount of sophistry from the likes of Trent Horn et al. will ever change this fact.
Robert Boylan
June 30, 2016
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