Wednesday, December 14, 2022

Daniel B. Glover on Some of the Problems of Richard Bauckham's "Divine Identity" Theory

  

Bauckham’s paradigm is problematic, however. First, Bauckham’s own approach to divine identity is itself inconsistent. In his discussion of Mark’s depiction of Jesus as divine, his three criteria factor little in the discussion. Bauckham speaks of the transfiguration as “a revelation of Jesus in the glory of his messianic rule.” (Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel, 264) But as Kirk points out, “in that scene there is neither application of the divine name, nor affirmation of a place in creation or rule over the cosmos, nor does Jesus receive worship.” (Kirk, Man Attested by God, 18). I believe Bauckham’s conclusion that the transfiguration in some way displays Jesus’s divine glory is right but his divine identity paradigm does not account for Jesus’s divinity in Mark.

 

Second, Bauckham’s paradigm is incapable of accounting for an abundance of Jewish sources that depict exalted human beings. Bauckham’s inability to explain the data is manifest in his discussion of the Enochic similitudes. He claims that the depiction of the eschatological Son of Man “is one exception which proves the rule.” (Jesus and the God of Israel, 16) But if Enoch’s Son of Man beaks the rule so blatantly, why should we follow Bauckham’s exegesis of other exalted figures, such as the Moses of Philo or Ezekiel the Tragedian or the picture of Melchizedek in 11QMelch (11Q13) II, 1-23 and Heb. 7:1-3? Indeed, his exegesis of the depictions of these and other exalted figures strains credulity. Bauckham’s divine identity paradigm is, thus, a brilliant theological solution to the problem of Jewish-Christian continuity in Christological debate, but it is not good historical description. (Daniel B. Glover, Patters of Deification in the Acts of the Apostles [Wissenschaftliche Untersuchungen Zum Neuen Testament 2. Reihe 576; Tūbingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2022], 64)

 

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