The following is a review of one chapter (ch. 2) of N. J. Morganti, Eternal Life for Latter-day Saints: A Comparison of the Bible’s eternal Life & Mormonism’s Exaltation (Tacoma, Wash.: True Grace Books, 2024). It is an eisegesis-ridden book, and I think this blog post will show that the author cannot exegete the Bible, has a poor grasp of Latter-day Saint theology, and is clueless about biblical scholarship and a host of other topics. His comments will be in red followed by my comments in black.
The Giver
And I
give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man
pluck them out of my hand.
--Jesus of Nazareth (10:28)
(p. 5)
It
is common for Protestants like Morganti to reference this verse to teach a formulation
of eternal security. However, it is eisegesis. When one reads the Johannine corpus
as a whole, a true believer (not a mere superficial believer) can lose
their salvation.
Note that Jesus does not say that He will blot anyone’s name out of the book of life. Many regard this as litotes, a figure of speech in which an affirmative is expressed by negating its opposite. If I say, “It is no big deal,” then I mean, “it is a little deal.” If this is litotes, then what Jesus is saying is that He will exalt the name of the overcomer. Another option, resulting in essentially the same conclusion, is that the term “name” (onoma) does not mean name here but reputation. . . . This does not mean that the believer who fails to persevere is no longer found in the book of life. It means that his “name” (i.e., his exalted reputation) has been blotted out. (Robert N. Wilkin, “Christians Will Be Judged According to their works at the Rewards Judgment, but Not at the Final Judgment,” in Four Views on the Role of Works at the Final Judgment, ed. Alan P. Stanley [Counterpoints: Bible & Theology; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2013], 45)
In their essays responding to Wilkin, Thomas R. Schreiner (Reformed Protestant) and James D. G. Dunn (a leading advocate for the New Perspective on Paul) responded thusly:
Revelation 3:5. Wilkin says that Revelation 3:5, where Jesus threatens to blot out a person’s name from the book of life, refers to their reputation but not their identity. In other words, they will experience eternal life but will not enjoy rewards and privileges granted to those who obeyed. But in Revelation 3:5 John draws on Jesus’ words, “But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven” (Matt. 10:33 NIV). Paul picks up the same saying in 2 Timothy 2:12. The one who denies Jesus will be denied by him. It is not merely the reputation of the person that is denied but the person himself. The text doesn’t say that they will not be given rewards but that Jesus himself will deny them. So too, in Revelation 3:5 being blotted out of the book of life most naturally means that those who defile their garments by pursuing a life of sin will not be in the book of life. (Thomas R. Schreiner. “Response to Robert N. Wilkin,” in Four Views on the Role of Works at the Final Judgment, ed. Alan P. Stanley [Counterpoints: Bible & Theology; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2013], 55-56)
What a contrived interpretation of Rev. 3:5 is offered by Wilkin: to have one’s name blotted out from the book of life “means that this ‘name’ (i.e., his exalted reputation) has been blotted out” (p. 45). But the most obvious (plain sense) reading of the Revelation references is that to have one’s “name (in) the book of life” (3:5), to have one’s “name written in the book of life” (13:8), and to be “found written in the book of life” (20:15) are all alternative ways of saying the same thing, that is, a way of affirming particularly for those suffering for their faith, that they will be vindicated in the final judgment. (James D. G. Dunn, “Response to Robert N. Wilkin,” in Four Views on the Role of Works at the Final Judgment, ed. Alan P. Stanley [Counterpoints: Bible & Theology; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2013], 59 n. 58)
It is common for Protestants to appeal to 1 John 2:19 as it the text teaches that only superficial/false believers ever fall away, never a truly justified person. In a facebook post, Dr. Robert A.J. Gagnon wrote the following against the common claim that 1 John 2:19 teaches all those who fall away were never regenerated believers:
First John 2:19 is the Holy Grail of both the OSAS position and the much better Calvinist POTS position. Back in college days as a new believer over four decades ago, it was also my first go-to verse that I would use to establish "eternal security," the "once-saved-always saved" position.
Even today I would say that it is the best verse that anyone can cite to support such a claim. But the context for the verse ultimately doesn't establish OSAS and POTS views. It cannot overturn the mountain of evidence for the view that Jesus and all the NT writers wanted their audiences to believe that even those who start as genuine believers could finish up not inheriting God's kingdom and not reaping a harvest of eternal life.
After careful study of this text in its context, I now believe that 1 John 2:19 not only does not prove that genuine believers can never fall away but actually provides evidence for the view that genuine believers can fall away -- the exact opposite of the interpretation given to it by proponents of a OSAS or POTS view.
In 2:18b-19 the Elder John states:
"Many antichrists have appeared, from which we know that it is the last hour. They went out from us but they were not from us (i.e., did not belong to us, were not part of us). For if they had been from us, they would have remained with us (till now) -- but (this happened) in order they might be exposed [or: made manifest, revealed, shown, known] (for what they are, namely) that they are all not (i.e., that none of them are) from us." (GET)
These "antichrists" who left John's community are further described as persons "denying that the Christ (Messiah) is Jesus" (2:22). Possibly, as with later gnostics, they viewed "the Christ" as merely inhabiting Jesus' body without any intrinsic connection, where Jesus is just the body-shell of the spirit-being Christ.
On the surface it seems as if John is saying that, had these antichrists been genuine believers, they would never have departed from the true faith: once saved, always saved. As it turns out, this is an overread of 2:19.
The key to a proper understanding of this remark is found five verses later:
"Let (i.e., see to it that) what you heard from the beginning remain (abide, stay) in you. If what you heard from the beginning remains in you, you too will remain in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that he himself promised to us, eternal life." (2:24-25; GET)
Had John intended in 2:19 a "once saved, always saved" or "perseverance of the saints" view, it would be strange for him to exhort his readers to see to it that the gospel message about the earthly Jesus as God's Son remain (abide, stay) in them. He even uses a conditional sentence: They will remain in the Son and receive eternal life only if the gospel that they heard from the beginning likewise remains in them.
For a OSAS or even POTS view, if they had begun as genuine believers, they could never be denied eternal life. No exhortation to remain or conditional clause making eternal life contingent on remaining would be necessary. The very concept of remaining (staying, abiding; Gk. meno) implies that a process had already begun. What is being required is continuance.
There is no question here of his audience being fake believers. Were they fake believers, they would not be exhorted to continue in this condition. Throughout 1 John we find expressions of confidence that their start in the faith was genuine, including in the immediate context:
"And you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you all know (i.e., have knowledge). I have not written to you that you do not know the truth but that you know it.... And the anointing that you received from Him remains in you, and you do not have need for anyone to teach you, but as his anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and not a lie, and just as it taught you, remain in him [or: it]. And now, little children, remain in him, so that if (i.e., when) he is made manifest (is revealed, appears), we may have boldness and not be ashamed away from (i.e., before) him at his coming" (2:20-21, 27-28; GET)
Clearly, then, when he exhorts them to have the gospel remain in them and makes their reception of eternal life contingent upon the same, John is indicating the possibility that they too, while having begun well, could finish badly if they do not hold firmly to the gospel that the earthly Jesus, and not just some spirit-being "Christ," is the Son of God and also "the atonement for our sins" (2:2; 4:10; see also 1:7).
Ch. 2 begins and ends with another way in which the believers must "remain": They must continue to keep Jesus' commandments (2:3-17, 29). Indeed, this is a major theme throughout the letter. The author of 1 John repeatedly states that if you ....
walk in darkness,
keep on sinning as a defining feature of your life,
are not keeping God’s commands,
love “the world” with its lusts,
as a way of life do not do what is right,
or hate your brother,
then ...
you have no partnership with Christ,
his atoning blood does not continue to cleanse your sins,
you are from the devil rather than from God,
the truth is not in you,
you do not remain in Christ and God,
you are not in the light,
the love of the Father is not in you,
you have not come to know God,
you remain in death and have not transferred to life,
you do not love God,
and you have no basis for reassuring your heart that you belong to Christ.
You are, in short, a liar.
An essential component of remaining in Christ or God is a transformed life:
"The one who says that he remains in him ought, as that one walked, also himself to walk in this way" (2:6)
"The one who does the will of God remains forever" (2:17b)
"Everyone who remains in him does not keep on sinning" (3:6a)
"The one who keeps his commandments remains in him and he (God) in him" (3:24a)
"If we love one another, God remains in us" (4:12b)
"The one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him" (4:16b)
The author can even say that "everyone who hates his brother ... does not have eternal life remaining in him" (3:15). This destroys the "logical" deductive reasoning that if eternal life is to remain eternal, it cannot be lost. In fact, it can be lost because eternal life is located in the Son, and if one ceases to remain in the Son, so too does eternal life depart from that one.
Right from the beginning of 1 John, the application of the atonement is limited to those who exhibit a transformed life:
“If we say that we have partnership with him and are walking in darkness, we lie and do not have the truth; but if we are walking in the light as he himself is in the light we have partnership with one another and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1:6-7; GET)
In other words, if we say that we are Christians who have already confessed our sins to God and that he has forgiven us, but then we lead our lives under the primary control of sin (walk in darkness), we do not have ongoing partnership with Christ and his atoning death does not continue to apply to us its cleansing effect.
The repeated warnings in 1 John destroy any view of OSAS that treats the transformed life as optional. Without the transformed life, there is no promise of eternal life. The middle term between faith and eternal life is the transformed life.
If it is possible, as John repeatedly indicates, that those who began in Christ or God might not remain (stay, abide) in that condition, then using 2:19 to claim a OSAS or even POTS view becomes untenable. Yet we must still make sense of 2:19 in that larger context.
When John states that by "going out from us" the antichrists show that they "were not from us," and that "if they had been from us, they would have remained with us," he means not that genuine believers can never cease to remain in Christ. That interpretation would contradict the rest of the letter.
Rather, John means that believers who genuinely believe in Christ but subsequently depart from this belief and from a transformed life, show that they were never really genuine believers. In what sense? Not in the sense that they never had a genuine faith but in the sense that in John's definition "genuine (true) believers" means believers who endeavor to remain (continue, stay) in Christ until Christ returns by holding firmly to the gospel and living the transformed life of those in whom Christ is still "walking."
In short, by leaving John's community and changing over to a heretical gospel and a life of sin, these antichrists show not necessarily that they never believed an orthodox gospel and lived a transformed life but rather that they couldn't "remain" (continue, stay, abide) in that condition. Only those who so "remain" in the true faith till Christ returns are truly "from us." If they had truly been "from us" (belonged to us, were part of us), they not only would have begun well; they would have finished well.
All this means that 1 John 2:19, far from providing conclusive proof that once-genuine believers will always "be saved," irrespective of whether they live transformed lives (OSAS), or even will necessarily by God's grace persevere till the end with righteous lives, actually provides proof that once-genuine believers can fall away from the faith and lose "eternal life" by not remaining in the state of redemption that they had "from the beginning."
If one moves outside the Johannine literature, we see that a truly justified believer can lose their salvation. One prime example is that of King David.
Commenting on John 1:1-3, Morganti makes a number of claims. Commenting on John 1:3, he wrote that:
This small introduction in
John’s gospel teaches a few things about Jesus (the Word) already existed in
the beginning. This beginning was before creation since John states in
verse 3 that He made all things. Not only did he make all things but without
Him, nothing was made that was made. (p. 7)
Comments like this only shows how poorly researched this book is, and that the author is clueless about exegesis and scholarship. There is a debate as to the punctuation of John 1:3. As J. N Sanders wrote,
3. All things came into being through him; and without him not a single thing came into being. Virtually all pre-Nicene quotations of this passage, whether made by orthodox or heretical writers (including the Valentinians Ptolemaeus and Theodotus, Tatian, Ireaneus, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Tertullian) end with not a single thing came into being (εγενετο ουδε εν), and usually make this quite explicit by not quoting any further. This means that the following relative clause, which is in being, must be construed as part of the following sentence. It was appended to the previous clause so as to add a qualification to not a single thing—‘without him was not anything made that was made’—in order to prevent verse 3 being interpreted in such a way as to include the Holy Spirit among the things which came into being through the Logos.
John asserts as emphatically as possible the sole agency of the Logos in creation. This recalls not only what is said in the Old Testament and Apocrypha about Logos and Sophia, but, more directly, what is said elsewhere in the New Testament about the part of Christ in creation, cf. 1 Cor. viii. 6, ‘For us there is one God, the Father, from whom are all things and through whom we exist’, Col. i. 16, ‘In him all things were created’, and Heb. i. 2, ‘Through whom also he created the world’. The Hebrews passage comes very near to calling Christ the Logos, for it beings ‘God . . .has in these last days spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.” (J. N. Sanders, A Commentary on the Gospel According to St John, ed. B. A. Mastin [London: Adam & Charles Black, 1968], 70-71)
My friend, Blake Ostler in his article “Out of Nothing: A History of Creation Ex Nihilo in Early Christian Thought” discusses both this text:
[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.
On
John 1:1, the author wrote that:
Jesus was with God
(the Father) in the beginning, btu in case there was any confusion as Jesus’
own deity, John makes sure to note “the Word was God.” Jesus was with God the father
in the beginning, before creation, and He was Himself God. (p. 7)
The difference between “the God” and “a God”
(12) But since the proposition, “In the beginning was the Word,” has been placed first, perhaps it indicates some order; in the same manner, next, “And the Word was with God,” and third, “And the Word was God.” Perhaps he says, “And the Word was with God,” then, “And the Word was God,” that we might understand that the Word has become God because he is “with God.”
(13) John has used the articles in one place and omitted them in another very precisely, and not as though he did not understand the precision of the Greek language. In the case of the Word, he adds the article “the,” but in the case of the noun “God,” he inserts it in one place and omits it in another.
(14) For he adds the article when the noun “God” stands for the uncreated cause of the universe, but he omits it when the Word is referred to as “God.” And as “the God” and “God” differ in these places, so, perhaps, “the Word” and “Word” differ.
(15) For as the God who is over all is “the God” and not simply “God,” so the source of reason in each rational being is “the Word.” That reason which is in each rational being would not properly have the same designation as the first reason, and be said to be “the Word.”
(16) Many people who wish to be pious are troubled because they are afraid that they may proclaim two Gods and, for this reason, they fall into false and impious beliefs. They either deny that the individual nature of the Son is other than that of the Father by confessing him to be God whom they refer to as “Son” in name at least, or they deny the divinity of the Son and make his individual nature and essence as an individual to be different from the Father.
(17) Their problem can be resolved in this way. We must say to them that at one time God, with the article, is very God, wherefore also the Savior says in his prayer to the Father, “That they may know you the only true God.” On the other hand, everything besides the very God, which is made God by participation in his divinity, would more properly not be said to be “the God,” but “God.” To be sure, his “firstborn of every creature,” inasmuch as he was the first to be with God and has drawn divinity into himself, is more honored than the other gods beside him (of whom God is God as it is said, “The God of gods, the Lord has spoken, and he has called the earth”). It was by his ministry that they became gods, for he drew from God that they might be deified, sharing ungrudgingly also with them according to his goodness.
(18) The God, therefore, is the true God. The others are gods formed according to him as images of the prototype. But again, the archetypal image of the many images is the Word with the God, who was “in the beginning.” By being “with the God” he always continues to be “God.” But he would not have this if he were not with God, and he would not remain God if he did not continue in unceasing contemplation of the depth of the Father. (Origen, Commentary on the Gospel According to John, Books 1-10 [The Fathers of the Church 80; trans. Ronald E. Heine; Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1989]. Book 2, 98-99)
It should be noted that Latter-day Saints have no issue with the eternality of Jesus in view in John 1:1. To quote one LDS scholar:
In Johannine studies of 1:1, the linking verb ην has drawn a great deal of attention. Keener notes that “For John, the Word was not only ‘from the beginning,’ but ‘in the beginning.’ Many commentators have laid heavy stress on the verb ην: in contrast to many Wisdom texts which declare that Wisdom or Torah was created ‘in the beginning’ or before the creation of the rest of the world. John omits Jesus’ creation and merely declares that he ‘was.’ The verb (ην) may thus suggest the Word’s eternal preexistence” (Keener, The Gospel of John, 1:369). Joseph Smith's point in D&C 93 seems to be something similar. First, note the clear, if not awkward, presence of “was” in D&C 93:8, as if the author went to pains to emphasize the “was” by altering the expected word order of John 1:1, “in the beginning was the word.” If we allow the meaning of the Greek verb ην to be carried over to the “was” of D&C 93:8, it again re-enforces not only a pre-earthly but also an eternal existence for the Word. Note as well D&C 83:29, that “Man was also in the beginning with God.” This repetition of “in the beginning” takes the reader back to verses 7 and 8 and suggests that humanity shared a similar pre-earthly existence as the Word did, by implication “eternal” rather than just “pre-earthly.” (Nicholas J. Frederick, The Bible, Mormon Scripture, and the Rhetoric of Allusivity [Madison: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2016], 125 n. 45)
Even after his resurrection and exaltation, Jesus is dependent upon the Father for his eschatological life (all biblical texts are from the NRSV):
The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God (ζη τω θεω). (Rom 6:10)
For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God (αλλα ζη εκ δυναμεως θεου). For we are weak in him, but in dealing with you we will live with him by the power of God (ἀλλὰ ζήσομεν σὺν αὐτῷ ἐκ δυνάμεως θεοῦ εἰς ὑμᾶς). (2 Cor 13:4)
Compare the following which speaks of Jesus still being subordinate to the Father:
So let no one boast about human leaders. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God (1 Cor 3:21-23)
But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God (κεφαλὴ δὲ τοῦ Χριστοῦ ὁ θεός). (1 Cor 11:3)
Such subordination will continue after the millennium:
For as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. But each in his own order: Christ the first fruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ. Then comes the end, when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father, after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet. The last enemy to be destroyed is death. For "God has put all things in subjection under his feet." But when it says, "All things are put in subjection," it is plain that this does not include the one who put all things in subjection under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to the one who put all things in subjection under him, so that God may be all in all. (1 Cor 15:22-28)
With respect to John 5:18, as Jerome Neyrey notes, contrary to the popular misreading of this text,
the proper statement should be: “God makes Jesus equal to himself.” (see this post for more)
Also, a few verses later, we read
For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son to have life in himself.
This is a strong biblical refutation of Trinitarian Christologies, as it shows that Jesus does not, of himself, have life, but such is granted (εδωκεν, third person indicative aorist active of διδωμι ["to give"]) it from the Father--that is, as with his glory (cf. Heb 1:3), the life Christ has does not originate from Himself but has the Father as its origins. This is further evidence that the Christology of the New Testament is that of subordinationism, a christological theme that permeates even books that are often cited as having a "high" Christology (cf. Heb 3:1).
D. Charles Pyle, in his excellent book, I Have Said Ye are Gods, wrote the following about biblical texts that explicitly teach the Father being the efficient cause of Christ’s existence:
Latter-day revelation states the following about the Lord Jesus Christ and, also, the premortal existence of mankind:
And now, verily I say unto you, I was in the beginning with the Father, and am the Firstborn; And all those who are begotten through me are partakers of the glory of the same, and are the church of the Firstborn. Ye were also in the beginning with the Father; . . . (Doctrine and Covenants 93:21-23 [italics emphasis mine])
Evangelicals, on hearing it, will attack this scripture as invalid because of its very explicit statement that Jesus is the firstborn. They are fond of stating that Christ has been a self-existing, uncreated being from all eternity and, that he thus accordingly cannot have a beginning as an organized intelligence. But does the Bible really teach any such thing as that? It turns out that the Bible actually does not. We find Jesus informing his disciples of the following: “As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me” (John 6:57). The key phrase in this text is “and I live by the Father.” The Greek text underlying that phrase is καγω ζω δια τον πατερα. What is very significant about this phrase is its theological import. The Greek word δια is with the accusative of person and is in the accusative case. What the word in that situation indicates, in the text of the Gospel of John, is the sense of “because.” It is here essentially denotes “the efficient cause” (A Greek English Lexicon of the New Testament and Other Early Christian Literature, 2nd Edition, 181b [emphasis mine]). In other words, the Father herein is stated by Jesus himself to be the efficient cause of the life of Jesus. And if Jesus had an efficient cause, he had to have had some sort of beginning as an intelligent entity. There is no other way around that, in this author’s opinion. Jesus himself taught it! A scholarly theological text averts the following about this:
Cause or Ground. The two principle non-local meanings of dia are “by means of”, “through”, (Lat. Per) and “on account of”, “because of” (Lat. ob and propter). The interrelation of these two senses is evident from the fact that dia with the acc[usative]. may occasionally denote the efficient cause (e.g., Jn. 6:57a, the Father is the source of the Son’s life, as in Jn. 5:26 . . .) (Colin Brown, ed., The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, four vols. [Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House 1986], 3:1183 [brackets mine; italics in original]).
Do the critics even realize what this scripture means for their theologies? Essentially, scholars have admitted that the Father himself is the source or efficient cause of the life that the Son possesses! Do critics of the Church even realize the import of this admission? What it means simply is this: Jesus, in this verse of scripture, plainly states that the Father is the efficient cause, or the originating source, of the Son’s life. Thus, his life’s existence as an organized being is contingent upon the Father’s giving him life. But if Jesus really were a self-existent, non-organized (and hence non-contingent) Being, the Father would not possibly have been the efficient cause of his life, as Jesus himself said the Father is. There is only one conclusion that can be reached (if a person does not maneuver about and so attempt to explain away the plain meaning of this passage), and that is that Jesus’ very life and existence as an organized being is contingent and dependent upon the Father! Thus the Latter-day Saint view of the Son as the firstborn spirit Son of God also is quite well vindicated by this verse, and thus makes clear that his life and deity also are derived from the Father. He did not possess it of himself before the Father gave it to him.
Yet another passage of scripture that is of a great deal of interest in this light in that famous Messianic passage from the book of Micah, which reads:
But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. (Micah 5:2 [italics in original])
The King James Version of the Bible does not really get the meaning of the Hebrew fully across to the reader but some translations do so better than others. In this passage, the key phrase if וּמוֹצָאֹתָ֥יו מִקֶּ֖דֶם מִימֵ֥י עוֹלָֽם, a phrase that more literally may be translated like so: “And his origins are from ancient time, from the days of time immemorial.” Now the word that is translated as “origins” may also refer to birth, family, descent, and so forth. But again, there is that reference to the origin of the Messiah. Many will reject this difficult meaning of “origins” to try to put Jesus’ existence into eternity. Other translators will try hard to avoid that understanding entirely by translating the word as “doings,” and even try to use some other meaning. Anything to avoid the above meaning! But we now have three passages (Micah 5:2; John 5:26; 6:57) that refer to origins and the Father as the efficient cause of Christ’s life.
Another passage that needs a mention here is that found at Hebrews 3:2. A number of translations will translate the key word there as “appointed” rather than literally. Having seen the above, one might understand why that might be the case. The more literal meaning is “made.” Various editions of the King James Version admit to this meaning in a footnote but there are editions that do not. Literally understood, we could understand this passage as being yet another reference to the origin of Jesus Christ as an organized intelligence, being the one “who was faithful to him that made him, as also Moses was faithful in all his house.” (And that makes four). (D. Charles Pyle, 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 Texts (Revised and Supplemented) [North Charleston, N.C.: CreateSpace, 2018], 355-58, emphasis in original)
Mormon leadership’s Doctrine
and Covenants teaches that Jesus has not always held the deity that is
ascribed to him in the Bible. Referencing these same verses in John 1, the
D&C notes,
And I, John,
saw that he received not the fullness at the first, but received grace for
grace; And he received not the fulness at first, but continued from grace to
grace, until he received a fulness; And thus he was called the Son of God
because he received not of the fulness at the first. (Doctrine and Covenants,
93:12-14) (p. 8)
This can also be seen in John 17:11-12:
And now I am no longer in the
world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect
them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are
one. While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given
me. I guarded them, and not one of them was lost except the one destined to be
lost, so that the scripture might be fulfilled. (NRSV)
In the above pericope, using prolepsis (cf. v.22),
Christ speaks of how the Father “gave” him the Father’s name (Yahweh); it was
not something Christ intrinsically possessed until after his exaltation.
Even after his exaltation, the telos of all glory and honour
Christ receives are that of the further glorification of the Father:
That at the name of Jesus every
knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the
earth; And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the
glory of God the Father. (Phil 2:9-10; cf. 1 Cor 15:22-28)
One should also point out the term, sometimes translated as
“exploited” in Phil 2:6 αρπαγμος. Again, this points to something that Jesus
did not have, as its predominant meaning in Koine Greek literature means “to
plunder” or “to steal.” Notice how Louw-Nida define the term in their
work, Greek-English Lexicon Based on Semantic Domains, 2d ed.:
ἁρπάζω ; ἁρπαγμός, οῦ m ; ἁρπαγή,
ῆς f: to forcefully take something away from someone else, often with the
implication of a sudden attack - 'to rob, to carry off, to plunder, to
forcefully seize.' ἁρπάζω: πῶς δύναταί τις εἰσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν οἰκίαν τοῦ ἰσχυροῦ
καὶ τὰ σκεύη αὐτοῦ ἁρπάσαι 'no one can break into a strong man's house and
carry off his belongings' Mt 12.29 . . . ἁρπαγμός, οῦ m: that which is to be
held on to forcibly - 'something to hold by force, something to be forcibly
retained.'
Liddell-Scott, in their Greek
Lexicon (abridged), offers a similar definition of this term:
ἁρπαγμός
ἁρπαγμός, ὁ, (ἁρπάζω) a seizing, booty, a
prize, N.T.
Such a Christology, apart from being one that permeates the entirety of the New
Testament, can also be seen in the revelations of Joseph Smith, such as D&C
93:16-17:
And I, John, bear record that he
received a fullness of the glory of the Father; And he received all power, both
in heaven and on earth, and the glory of the Father was with him, for he dwelt
in him.
This is explicated further in Rev 1:1:
The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John.
Here, Jesus, again after his resurrection, ascension, and exaltation, does not know everything the Father does--the Greek explicitly states that the person of God gives the Revelation to the person of Jesus (Ἀποκάλυψις Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ ἣν ἔδωκεν αὐτῷ ὁ θεὸς – the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ which God gave to him [Jesus]).
Rather than being Almighty
God (Isa 9:5), the Latter-da Saint Church teaches that Jesus is a completely
separate entity (p. 9)
It
might be enough to note that “Almighty God,” a phrase used of a Messianic
figure in Isa 9:6, is also used of human kings. Let me quote from the NET
Bible:
גִּבּוֹר (gibbor) is probably an attributive
adjective ("mighty God"), though one might translate "God is a
warrior" or "God is mighty." Scholars have interpreted this
title is two ways. A number of them have argued that the title portrays the
king as God's representative on the battlefield, whom God empowers in a
supernatural way (see J. H. Hayes and S. A. Irvine, Isaiah, 181–82).
They contend that this sense seems more likely in the original context of the
prophecy. They would suggest that having read the NT, we might in retrospect
interpret this title as indicating the coming king's deity, but it is unlikely
that Isaiah or his audience would have understood the title in such a bold way.
Psa 45:6 addresses the Davidic king as "God"
because he ruled and fought as God's representative on earth. Ancient Near
Eastern art and literature picture gods training kings for battle, bestowing
special weapons, and intervening in battle. According to Egyptian propaganda,
the Hittites described Rameses II as follows: "No man is he who is among
us, It is Seth great-of-strength, Baal in person; Not deeds of man are these
his doings, They are of one who is unique" (See Miriam Lichtheim, Ancient
Egyptian Literature, 2:67). According to proponents of this view, Isa 9:6 probably envisions a similar kind of response when
friends and foes alike look at the Davidic king in full battle regalia. When
the king's enemies oppose him on the battlefield, they are, as it were,
fighting against God himself. The other option is to regard this title as a
reference to God, confronting Isaiah's readers with the divinity of this
promised "child." The use of this same title that clearly refers to
God in a later passage (Isa 10:21) supports this
interpretation. Other passages depict Yahweh as the great God and great warrior
(Deu 10:17; Jer 32:18). Although this
connection of a child who is born with deity is unparalleled in any earlier
biblical texts, Isaiah's use of this title to make this connection represents
Isaiah's attempt (at God's behest) to advance Israel in their understanding of
the ideal Davidic king for whom they long.
Basing
his comments on Col 1:16 (p. 12), the author claims that
The claim that Jesus and
Lucifer are brothers is demonstrably false. Jesus and Lucifer cannot be literal
brothers because:
·
If
Jesus is the eternal uncaused first cause (God), he metaphysically cannot have
a brother.
·
The Bible
states that Jesus created all things.
·
If the
Devil was created, Jesus created him, thus making it impossible to be his
brother. (p. 11)
Danish biblical scholar Kirsten Nielsen offered the following comments about Satan in Job 1 and how Satan is a member of the “sons of God”:
The scene in heaven concerns jealousy between brothers and its consequences. The father in the Book of Job is not an earthly father but Yahweh himself. We are told that one day his sons came and stood before the patriarch in heaven, and among them came Satan also. In Job 1:6 the sons are called sons of God. But this is often not interpreted as a figurative expression representing a father-son relationship between Yahweh and sons of God; the use of the word ben is understood in the same way as that in which ben may refer to a single individual within a species in the context of other nouns . . . In his commentary on the dialogue between Yahweh and Satan, a lone scholar, Francis I. Andersen (F.I. Andersen, Job: An Introduction and Commentary [TOTC; Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1976], p. 85), has drawn attention to the very free-and-easy tone that Satan uses towards Yahweh. There are no formalities, no court etiquette using ‘my Lord!’ and ‘your servant’, but a straightforward, intimate relationship. Andersen concludes from this observation that we again have evidence that Satan does not belong to the circle of Yahweh’s respectful servants. But he is wrong here, because if it is not the heavenly council that meets in the prologue to the Book of Job but a rather and his sons, then the familiar form of speech is not offensive but a natural part of the relationship between a father and his eldest son. (Kirsten Nielsen, Satan the Prodigal Son? A Family Problem in the Bible [The Biblical Seminar 50; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998], 83, 88)
The Andersen commentary, referenced above, has this to say about Job 1:11:
The Satan suggests a test to prove his point. His language is abrupt; he commands God with imperative verbs: literally, ‘But now, you just extend your hand and damage all his property.’ The next clause begins with ‘im, ‘if’; literally, ‘if to your face (i.e., openly, defiantly) he will bless (i.e., curse—see commentary on 1:5) you.’ It is the consequence, not the condition. Hence the conjunction is probably interrogative, and so assertive because the question is rhetorical: ‘Won’t he curse you?’ That is, ‘He is sure to curse you.’ This conjunction is also used to state the condition of a vow with an oath, which becomes an auto-imprecation: ‘I’ll be damned if he doesn’t curse you to your face!’ The vernacular Hebrew, rendered literally in the AV, gives a flavour of mocking familiarity to the Satan’s insolent speech. Like Goethe’s Mephistopheles, he despises everything decent. With vulgar manners he refuses to use the conventional courtesies of court etiquette which avoided the personal pronouns by addressing a superior as ‘my lord’ instead of ‘you’ and using the deferential ‘your slave’ instead of ‘I’. The Satan’s ‘thou’ is thus insulting. (Francis I. Andersen, Job: An Introduction and Commentary [Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press, 1976], 85)
Further support for this comes from Psa 109:6 which reads:
Appoint a wicked man over him, and let an accuser (Heb: שָׂטָן "Satan") stand at his right hand. (1995 NASB)
Commenting on this verse and theology thereof, Mitchell Dahood wrote:
the Evil one . . . Satan. The identification of rāšā’ and śāṭān is a long-standing puzzler, but a measure of coherence can be won if vss. 6-7 are seen as referring to judgment after death and vss. 8-19 as invoking terrestrial misfortunes upon the unprincipled judge. In three biblical texts Satan appears as a superhuman celestial figure whose role is that of prosecutor. 1 Chron xxi 1 states, wayya’amōd śāṭān ‘al yiśrā’ēl, “and let Satan stand at his right hand.” In Zech iii 1-2, the celestial being who challenges the fitness of Joshua ben Jozadeak to function as the high priest is called “the Satan,” and is described as weśāṭān ya’amōd ‘al yemīnō, “standing on his right hand to accuse him,” language similar to the psalmist’s. In the prose monologue to the Book of Job (i-ii), Satan is depicted as one of the benē ‘ēlīm, a member of the divine entourage, who impugns the integrity of Job. These descriptions warrant, then, the interpretation of the Evil One and Satan as one personage who will serve as the prosecutor at the trial of the psalmist’s adversary before the divine judge after death.
If this analysis proves correct, the widely held view that the designation of Satan as the Evil One is a development of the intertestamental period will need to be reexamined. (Mitchell Dahood, The Psalms 101-150 [AB 17A; Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1970], 101-2, emphasis in bold added)
Some may ask about Ezek 28, which is touted as a "proof-text" against such a tenet of LDS theology. According to pp.100-101 of this anti-LDS book:
[T]he creation language of [Psa 32:6, LXX] maintains the passive construction found in the Hebrew. It reads:τῷ λόγῳ τοῦ κυρίου οἱ οὐρανοὶ ἐστερεώθησαν καὶ τῷ πνεύματι τοῦ στόματος αὐτοῦ πᾶσα ἡ δύναμις αὐτῶν.
By the word of the Lord the heavens were made firm and by the breath of his mouth all their power. (Ps 32:6 LXX)This passive construction is analogous to the language of the Colossian hymn where Christ’s role in creation is depicted through the use of passive verbs. Though Christ is the subject of the passage as a whole, in Col 1:16 the subject of the sentence is “everything in the heavens and on the earth.” Christ’s involvement in their creation is presented though the use of εν with the dative so that all things were created “in him.”ὅτι ἐν αὐτῷ ἐκτίσθη τὰ πάντα ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς . . τὰ πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ καὶ εἰς αὐτὸν ἔκτισται
For in him everything in the heavens and upon the earth were created . . . All things were created through him and for him. (Col 1:16)Just as in Ps 33 (32 LXX) where the word of the Lord does not create, but is the means by which God created, so in the Colossian hymn Christ does not create, but is presented as the one in whom, through whom, and for whom God created all things. (Matthew E. Gordley, The Colossian Hymn in Context [Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2007], 61-62 [square brackets my own for clarification]).
The view that the “invisible things” are not absolute nothing is also supported by Colossians 1:16–17:
This passage teaches us the extent of the reconciliation made by Christ, namely, that it extends itself over the whole creation. Therefore, the fallen angels must also necessarily have their share in it, for they do incontestably belong to the invisible things created by Christ, and consequently to all things, or the things in heaven reconciled by him. And though it is true that through sin are separated from God, nevertheless all the rest of the creatures partake of and are benefited by it. It affords for instance, matter of much joy to the holy angels, when by virtue of this reconciliation, the apostatized creatures are convened to God, and thereby anew received into the communion and friendship of these holy spirits (Luke 13:10; 1 Pet. 1:12; Heb. 12:22). It will also be by the energy of this reconciliation, that in time to come the curse which through sin was brought upon the creation, and has mixed itself with it (Gen. 3:17; Rom. 8:20-22), will be certainly removed from all the rest of the creatures. (George Klein Nicolai, The Everlasting Gospel [Apophasis, 2018], 125)
8. In Col 1:19, we read: "For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him." Two aorists are used in this verse (ευδοκησεν [thought/pleased] and κατοικησαι [dwell]; cf. Col 2:9). If we go along with the trinitarian view, then at what point in time was God the Son filled with God's fullness, and was he God before this happened in their view? As we have seen in our discussion of Phil 2:5-11, such is consistent with LDS theology, but at odds-end with Trinitarian theology.
But another situation is the occurrence of the
singular verbs that correlate with the Greek phrase τα παντα here.
This is to be expected since this often is taken as a collective plural. Here
we need to discuss and give further consideration not the cosmological meaning
of this pertinent Greek phrase. One such definition is “the universe.” There
are several passages where this phrase has such a meaning. A number of these
are listed in Greek-English Lexicons. Some of such passages are as follows:
Romans 11:36; 1 Corinthians 8:6; Ephesians 1:10; 3:9; Hebrews 1:3; 2:20 (the
longer reading of Revelation 4:11 also is found in the same list). But this
meaning parallels that sometimes in the Greek τα παντα (from
which English gets its word cosmos) that is seen in Acts 17:24. In
such usage it refers to the material or observable universe as a whole. So it
is with the Greek phrase κοσμος.
To this list, based on textual and other evidence, the author feels that the
passage at Colossians 1:16-20 should be added. (The following are also reasons
why I think it would be so understood in Colossians 1:15-20.)
For instance, in the text of verse 20 Paul was not writing that
literally everything was to be reconciled to God, including all evil angels and
those who refuse to know Christ. Rather, he was arguing that God was
reconciling the material universe to himself. To understand τα παντα in verse 20 in any
other way is to introduce considerable confusion. We must take it
either to mean that literally everything will be reconciled to
God through Christ, or to mean that the material universe is to be reconciled
to God through the Christ (with the exception of certain other individuals,
such as evil angels, reprobates, etc.). This latter meaning and understanding makes
far more sense in relation to the entire teaching of the Bible, which also
states that the Devil himself definitely will not be reconciled to God
(compare, for instance, Revelation 20:10).
This further is solidified by giving consideration to how Greek
readers and hearers would have understood the above Colossians passage in
question, in hearing it read. The Greek dialect in which the Greek New
Testament is written was the common street language of the day in most
provinces of the Roman Empire. The cultural understanding underlying these
words also should be resorted to if we are to understand the cosmological sense
that the Greeks would see in this scripture passage. How would the ancient Greeks
have understood the meaning of the phrase, or its constituent words? How would
people in general have understood the meaning of the words all
things in a cosmological sense? The philosophers said that “The first
cause of everything is Zeus and also all things form Zeus.”
(Greek: αρχη απαντων Ζευς τε και εκ Διος παντα [from Aelius Aristides]) Yet, what else do
we know about Zeus, the god of the Greeks? We also know that he not only had a
father, named Kronos, who also had a father named Ouranos, but he also had a
number of brothers and sisters who coexisted with him. And yet Zeus was known
to the Greeks as “the father of gods and men.” (“Then terribly thundered
the father of gods and men form on high” [Homer, Iliad 20.56-57])
This cosmological background of the words most likely is that Greeks would have
had in mind and understood upon hearing that τα παντα was created by Christ.
In its cosmological meaning, usage, and also background, as well
as the fuller contexts of this passage (as well as of other passages) the text
here refers to the material or the observable universe, as a whole, rather than
speaking literally of each and every single thing including all
the individual elements used in the universe’s organization. It becomes a case
of missing the entire forest for the trees to accept the latter meaning. But it
cannot be used to attack the LDS doctrine of creation using matter or element.
If we did take this passage hyperliterally, merely at its face value, to
address in its meaning each and every single thing, then the same
has to be done with verse 20 of this passage. That would make little to no
sense in light of the Bible, when taken as a whole. The same words occur
in the same overall unit of thought, so it is extremely unlikely
that Paul suddenly would thus switch the meaning on his readers in this
selfsame sentence like that without some sort of clarification. An English
translation that takes into consideration all of the above could be rendered
similarly to what follows:
Who is the image of the invisible
God, the firstborn of all creation: For by means of him the universe was
created, the things in the heavens and the things upon the earth, the things
visible and the things invisible, whether thrones or dominions, whether
principalities or powers: the universe through him and for him was created: and
he is before all else, and by him the universe is constituted, and he is the
head of the body of the Church: he who is the beginning, the firstborn from the
dead, that in all he might be preeminent; for it seemed good to God that
in him should all the fulness dwell, and through him to reconcile the universe
to Himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross; through him,
whether the things upon the earth or things in the heavens.
The translation is consistent, true to the meaning of the Greek
text, and eliminates potential pitfalls in understanding. But in any case,
the above passage in the Bible is not of as great utility as
the critics long have thought was the situation. It does not even address the
LDS doctrine of the creation! With all of the passages that have the
cosmological meaning the situation is similar, so long as we all keep context
and underlying meaning in mind while reading. None of those passages address
the situation either. None use the Greek word that in texts more absolutely
means everything, or the whole, neither απας nor any of its forms. But
even that word can have its own inherently limited meaning in
some passages where it is found. (D. Charles Pyle, 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
(Revised and Supplemented) [North Charleston, S.C.: CreateSpace, 2018],
333-37)
. . . in Colossians 1:16 the root word is κτιζω, and its most ancient usage
means I fabricate, or, I organize, or, I
colonize, or, I found a city or a colony.
It is the action of a process of organization. Assuming that angels
are referred to here (and that is not yet a given herein), did the writer
intend to convey the thought that Jesus created all the angels from scratch, or
rather that he organized the angels into ranks and orders? The
actual meanings of the Greek words in Colossians 1:16 herein rendered “thrones,
dominions, principalities and powers,” due to the lack of
the article, are abstractive (this also is conducive to the idea of organizing
orders or ranks of angels), rather than absolute
(which would refer to the beings). It only is by metonymy (the
substitution of the name of an attribute for the thing meant) that most
everyone else (excepting some scholars and some few of the early Christian
writers) assumed that these classes of beings actually were certain types of
angels. But does this passage refer to angels at all? If it actually did, then
why did it not specifically name angels at all? If it actually did, then why
did it not specially name angels as being among the creations of Jesus? Again,
let there be called to mind the distinct absence in Colossians 1:16 of the
mention of angels as being created by Christ, as well as the fact that both
Paul and Peter (in other places in scripture cited above) make mention of
principalities and powers, with the addition of the angels as a separate class.
Was this a simple oversight of a sort on the part of Paul? Or, was it
deliberate? Paul himself elsewhere lists angels and those titles as separated
classes. Colossians 1:16 mentions things in heaven and in earth but also does
not differentiate or specify.
So then, are the principalities and so forth, earthly things and
not heavenly, or vice versa? Or, do they dwell in both the realms
of heaven and earth? Or, are thrones and dominions paralleled with visible
things, and principalities and powers paralleled with invisible things? Or, are
they names of offices only? Which really is the case here? It also is worth
noting, in relation to the above line of questioning, that “it is disputed
whether the authorities esp[ecially] in the Pauline
literature, . . . are supernatural powers . . .” . (Exegetical Dictionary of
the New Testament, 2:11) Origen casts doubt upon this as well. While
discussing these terms within another context, he writes concerning them, that:
“Throne” is not a species of
living being, nor “dominion,” nor “principality,” nor “power”; these are names
of the businesses to which those clothed with the names have been appointed;
the subjects themselves are nothing but men, but the subject has some to be a
throne, or a dominion, or a principality, or a power. (Origen’s Commentary
on John II.17)
Indeed, if these subjects only are men, as Origen suggested—and he
would have recognized that those Greek terms actually are abstractive—then,
even if we took the passage the most literal way possible, it could be set down
as a correct view in the most literal of meanings, for the creation of man on
earth indeed was by means of Christ Jesus. If so, it does not make any contact
against the teachings of the LDS Christian faith, and critics still cannot use
this as a weapon against LDS views and doctrines on the creation, or even in
correlation with the critics’ ideation that this verse somehow argues
against the LDS idea that Lucifer is related to all
mankind, and to Christ. (Ibid., 344-46)
The author tries to make much out of the use of αορατος (invisible/unseen) in Col 1:16 (p. 12). Commenting on the term αορατος (“unseen”/”invisible”) as used in texts such as Col 1:15, Andrew Malone, himself a Trinitarian, wrote the following:
Finally,
we read the following abuse of Deut 6:4:
The Giver of eternal life
can only be the one who has power over life and death, who made life in the
first place: God. Scripture teaches that there is only One True God (Deut 6:4).
(p. 14)
No, the Shema is not strictly monotheistic. This is refuted
by the earliest strata of the text of Deuteronomy (32:7-9, 43 [see below]);
further, according to biblical scholars such as Michael Coogan, this
commandment, and the Shema implicitly recognises the ontological existence of
other gods (cf. Gen 20:13). As in a marriage, one of the primary analogs for
the covenant, Israel was to be faithful, like a wife to her husband. When the
prophets condemn the Israelites for having worshiped other gods in violation of
this commandment, the metaphors of marital and political fidelity are often
invoked, sometimes graphically (e.g., Ezek 16:23-24; 23:2-12; Jer 2:23-25;
3:1-10). Yahweh is a jealous husband (e.g., Exo 34:14) and the worship of other
gods, or making alliances with foreign powers, provokes his rage (Michael D.
Coogan, The Old Testament: A historical and literary introduction to the
Hebrew Scriptures [New York: Oxford University Press, 2006], 176, 116).
Note the following representative quotations on Deut 6:4
that support this reading:
The Decalogue’s wording does not deny the
existence of “other gods”; it merely directs Israelites to have no relationship
with them. The Shema’s language is obscure: What does it mean to say that “the
LORD is one”? According to some modern scholars, this line merely asserts that
the God of Israel does not subdivide into local manifestations in the way many
ancient Near Eastern deities did. In Mesopotamia there was a goddess Ishtar of
Nineveh, an Ishtar of Arbela, and an Ishtar of Carchemish; in Canaan, there
were dozens of local Baal-Hadads; but, the Shema tells us, the LORD, the God of
Israel, exists only in a single manifestation. Even if one rejects this
interpretation of Deuteronomy 6:4, understanding it instead to mean “The LORD
is our God, the LORD alone,” this verse may teach not that no other gods exist,
but that they are not Israel’s deity. Further, in the Hebrew original the
Shema, like the Decalogue, speaks not of “the LORD” but of “Yhwh,” which is the
personal name of the God of Israel. The use of a name to refer to this deity
suggests that there may be other deities out there; names are necessary when we
talk about a particular member of a larger class. In allowing for the
possibility that additional heavenly beings exist, these two verses are not
alone. The Hebrew Bible often refers to heavenly creatures other than Yhwh,
calling them “gods” (Genesis 6:2; Psalms 29:1, 82:6, 86:8, 89:7; Job 1:6),
“angels” (Numbers 20:16; 2 Samuel 24:16; 1 Kings 13:18; Zechariah 1:11-12;
Psalm 78:49; Job 33:23), and “the council of holy ones” (Psalm 89:6-8).
(Benjamin D. Dommer, “Monotheism,” in The Hebrew Bible: A Critical
Companion, ed. John Barton [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016],
239-40)
Deut 6:4 is one of the most extensively
discussed lines of the Hebrew Bible. While most interpreters agree that the
first line of the Shema’ Israel is not monotheistic statement, the meaning of
the word אחד in Deut 6:4 remains controversial. In our opinion, Deut 6:4 should
be translated as “Hear, O Israel The Lord is our God, the Lord alone.” J. Tigay
describes the henotheistic intent of אחד as follows: “this is not a declaration
of monotheism . . . though other peoples worship various beings and things they
consider divine . . . Israel is to recognize YHVH alone” (Deuteronomy [The JPS
Torah Commentary; Philadelphian and Jerusalem: Jewish Publication Society,
1996], 76). While early inscriptions from Kuntillet ‘Ajrud could suggest that
Deut 6:4 argued originally against multiple local version of YHWH such as יהוה
תימן (“YHWH of Teman”) and יהוה שמרן (“YHWH of Samaria), it needs to be
emphasized that these local forms of YHWH are attested only in relatively few
early inscriptions. It seems more probable that Deut 6:4 argues in a positive
way against Israelite polytheism, which is criticized by many Deuteronomistic
texts. Deut 6:4 would thus be a monolatric statement that emphasizes Israel’s
exclusive relationship with God while not denying the existence of other
deities. (Esther Eshel, Hanan Eshel, and Armin Lange, "'Hear, O Israel' in
Gold An Ancient Amulet from Halbturn in Austria," Journal of Ancient
Judaism 1 [2010]: 44-45)
. . . in its Deuteronomic context, Deut 6:4 is
not a monotheistic statement that denies the existence of other gods. Rather,
it is an acknowledgment that although there may be rival claimants for Israel’s
allegiance, YHWH is the King of Israel, unique, incomparable, the one and only.
Although the word אחד is never again predicated of YHWH in Deuteronomy, this
interpretation fits the context of the imminent crossing of the Jordan: the
question at that moment is not how many gods exists but whether or not the
people will remain loyal to YHWH or be seduced by the gods of the Land they are
about to enter. This was also the question posed by the Deuteronomic author in
the latter Israelites in exile. (Lori Ann Robinson Baron, "The Shema in
John's Gospel Against its Backgrounds in Second Temple Judaism," PhD
diss., Duke University, 2015, 38-39)
While Deut 6:4-9 was a text that affirmed
loyalty to YHWH only, Jewish belief in God’s uniqueness was also able to
accommodate belief in intermediary beings. (Ibid., 123)
In 1 Kings 8:22-53, a prayer in dedication of
the Temple, Solomon reiterates some of the themes of Shema: “YHWH, God of
Israel, there is no God like you in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping
covenant and steadfast love for your servants who walk before you with all
their heart” (1 Kings 8:23/2 Chron 6:14; emphasis added; cf. 1 Kings 8:60; Deut
4:39; 5:10; 33:29). According to this speech, the Exile is the result of
Israel’s sin (1 Ki 8:46; cf. 44-53), but YHWH will have mercy upon Israel “if
they repent with all their heart and soul” (ובכל-נפשׁם בכל-לבבם; 8:48/2 Chron
6:38; emphasis added). This language recalls the demand for wholehearted
loyalty of the Shema and summarizes the renewal of the covenant, which is at
the core of Deuteronomy. Moreover, Solomon prays that the Temple will be a
witness to the nations: “so that all the peoples of the earth may know your
name and fear you, as do your people Israel” (1 Kings 8:43; cf. Deut 6:4-8).
This theme will be central to the use of the Shema in Ezekiel’s oracles of
restoration and in John 17.
In Solomon’s blessing of the assembly
(8:54-66), he proclaims the essence of the Shema again: “YHWH is God: there is
no other” (8:60) and pleads with the people to incline their hearts to YHWH and
keep YHWH’s commandments (8:58, 61; cf. 11:2). The language of the heart and
love is also evoked in the recounting of Solomon’s errors; his marriage to
foreign wives “turned away his heart after other gods; and his heart was not
true to YHWH his God” (11:4). Instead, “Solomon clung to these in love” (11:2)
and “did not completely follow YHWH” (11:6). Thus in 1 Kings, the themes of
Deut 6:4-5 reflect the language of the Deuteronomic covenant. An analysis of
two verses of 2 Kings corroborates the influence of Deut 6:4-5 on this
material.
2 Kings 23 describes Josiah’s reading of the
book of the Law that had been found in the Temple, followed by his reform of
the Judean religion. The essence of this reform is Josiah’s commitment to the
covenant: “to follow YHWH, keeping his commandments, his decrees, and his
statutes, with all his heart and soul” (2 Kings 23:3/2 Chron 34:32; emphasis
added). The language of oneness is absent, but the passage goes on to describe
Josiah’s thoroughgoing destruction of idols in the Land, implying that the uniqueness
of YHWH is of utmost concern. The curses of Deuteronomy will be incurred by
abandoning YHWH and worshiping other gods (2 Kings 22:16-17; 23:19). The writer
eulogizes Josiah, declaring that “[b]efore him there was no king like him, who
turned to YHWH with all his heart, with all his soul, and with all his might,
according to the law of Moses; nor did any like him arise after him” (בכל־לבבו
ובכל־נפשׁו ובכל־מאדו; 23:25). This is the only threefold repetition of the
terms of Deut 6:5 outside of that passage, suggesting Josiah’s singular loyalty
to YHWH and the covenant. This passage also makes explicit the connection
between wholehearted commitment to YHWH and adherence to the Law of Moses.
Finally, this encomium of Josiah’s contains an implicit critique of the rest of
Israel’s kings; Deut 6:4-5 is used as a standard by which both Israel and its
kings are judged. Here, the reader is warned not to hold out any hope that
future kings will live up to the same standard. (Ibid., 62-65)
Many modern readers regard the Shema as an
assertion of monotheism, a view that is anachronistic. In the context of
ancient Israelite religion, it served as a public proclamation of exclusive
loyalty to YHWH as the sole Lord of Israel . . . the v. makes not a
quantitative argument (about the number of deities) but a qualitative one,
about the nature of the relationship between God and Israel. Almost certainly,
the original force of the v., as the medieval Jewish exegetes [noted], was to
demand that Israel show exclusive loyalty to our God, YHWH--but not thereby to
deny the existence of other gods. In this way, it assumes the same perspective
as the first commandment of the Decalogue, which, by prohibiting the worship of
other gods, presupposes their existence. (The Jewish Study Bible [2d
ed.; New York: Oxford University Press, 2014], 361)
The Hebrew in the DSS reads בני אלוהים instead of MT
בְּנֵי יִשְׂרָאֵל (sons of Israel) (cf. LXX: ἀγγέλων θεοῦ angels of God). V. 43
(NRSV) reads "Praise, O heavens, his people, worship him, all you gods! .
. ." DSS reads כל אלהים and assumes the ontological existence of these
"G/gods" in both passages (excised by later scribes).
The following is representative of the scholarship on this
particular issue:
The Hebrew of the Masoretic text of Deut
32:8-9, which is paralleled by the Samarian Pentateuch, Targum, Peshitta, and
Latin Vulgate, reads as follows:
When the Most High (El Elyon) gave the nations
their inheritance and divided the sons of man, he established the boundaries of
the nations, according to the number of the sons of Israel. For the portion of
YHWH is his people, Jacob his inheritance. (MT Deut 32:8-9)
Manuscripts of the Greek translation of
Deuteronomy, by contrast, are almost unanimous in reading “angels of God” in
place of “sons of Israel.” This variant seemed puzzling until the discovery of
the Dead Sea Scrolls yielded Hebrew copies of Deuteronomy preserving yet
another reading. The versions of Deut 32:8b in 4QDeutj and 4QDeutq read bene
elohim or bene El for bene Israel, raising the possibility that “sons of God”
was the earliest recoverable reading, which Hebrew tradents later changed to
bene Israel and which Greek tradents rendered as angeloi theou (“angels of
God”), whether in the course of translation or in an inner-Greek shift akin to
that in LXX Gen 6:2.
What is most plausibly reconstructed as the
oldest known reading of Deut 32:8 also finds some counterpart in the version of
Deut 32:43 preserved in 4QDeutq—also with partial parallels in LXX Deuteronomy.
Where MT Deuteronomy reads “Nations, acclaim his people, for he vindicates the
blood of his servants” for the first part of the verse (32:43a), 4QDeutq has
“Rejoice, O heavens, with him, and worship him, all elohim, for he vindicates
the blood of his sons.” In the Greek, one finds a combination of the two. In
the part corresponding to the above-quoted portions of 4QDeutq, moreover, there
is an internal variation again around what is rendered here as elohim: Codex
Alexandrinus and several miniscules read “all sons of God” (cf. “sons of God”
in Codex Vaticanus), while a number of other manuscripts have “all angels”
instead.
The evidence surrounding Deut 32:43, then,
cautions us against assuming that the “sons of God” of Deut 32:8 were already
more angel than deity. It is possible that both may have meant something more
akin to what later tradents seem to fear—or at least encompassed this possible
meaning in a deployment of deliberate ambiguity akin to the examples noted
above. In the case of Deut 32:43, the version of 4QDeutq elevates Israel’s God
by depicting Him as the one who is worshipped by other divine beings, while in
the case of Deut 32:8, the appeal to other divine beings functions to underline
YHWH’s exclusive fidelity to Israel. Although the tradition that culminates in
the MT negates both options entirely, they were clearly still part of the
textual tradition surrounding Deuteronomy well into the Second Temple period.
(Annette Yoshiko Reed, i [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020], 75-76)
A former lecturer of mine (who helped produce the BHQ on
Deuteronomy) wrote:
Deuteronomy 32:8
The Song of Moses in Deut. 32:8 contains a
scribal intervention, the aim of which was to render this poetic description of
Israel’s coming into being as the Lord’s special people in a more theologically
acceptable way. The verse speaks of the Most High organizing the division of
peoples within their various territories, fixing their boundaries “according to
the number of the sons of Israel” (= M). A different form of v. 8b, “according
to the number of the sons of God,” occurs in Qumran (4QDeutj). This is also the
reading of a section of the Greek tradition: “sons of God.” M’s reading, “sons
of Israel,” is generally accepted as a later theological correction, a textual
intervention aimed at avoiding any possible hint of polytheism or suggestion
that the Lord was simply one of the lesser gods in a pantheon presided over by
“the Most High.” Only JPS follows M—“He fixed the boundaries of peoples in
relation to Israel’s numbers”—without further comment. By contrast, the
remaining three modern translations adopt the reading of 4QDeutj and G, in
varying formulations. NRSV renders it as “the number of the gods,” REB has “the
number of the sons of God,” and NABRE reads “the number of the divine beings.”
All three include a footnote explaining the origin of their preferred reading.
(Carmel McCarthy, “Textual Criticism and Biblical Translation,” in The
Hebrew Bible: A Critical Companion, ed. John Barton [Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2016], 551-52)
Conclusion
It
should be obvious that the author is clueless about exegesis, theology, and “Mormonism.”
I think this review of the multitudinous problems with this one chapter shows
that Evangelical Protestants remain blissfully unaware of LDS scholarship and
apologetics, as well as biblical scholarship, that soundly refutes their
claims. This book is not a tool to have informed discussions with Latter-day Saints;
instead, it is just “boundary maintenance” aimed to dupe misinformed Protestants.
