Ep 42: Is Jesus God?

00:00And that's where they came up with what's called the "hypostatic union," where Jesus

00:05is 100% God, but Jesus is 100% human.

00:10How does that work shut up?

00:12It doesn't make a ton of sense.

00:13It makes enough sense that we can threaten people if they don't agree with it.

00:18And so it is that the institution of the church is the only reason that the concept of the

00:22Trinity survived, because without the Roman Empire and all of the might and the coercion

00:28and the force behind it, it would've gone the way of the Dodo long, long ago.

00:32Hey everybody, I'm Dan McClellan.

00:38And I'm Dan Beecher.

00:39And you are listening to the Data Over Dogma podcast where we increase public access to

00:44the academic study of the Bible and religion and combat the spread of misinformation about

00:49the same.

00:50How are things, Dan?

00:51Rockin' and rollin', man.

00:53I think we're delving into one that's going to be a powder keg.

01:01We're getting into the good stuff here.

01:03This is on social media.

01:05This is where I get the most pushback from folks.

01:08Oh really?

01:09Yeah.

01:10Okay.

01:11Guys.

01:12It's surprising.

01:13It's not that it causes the biggest ruckus, but the people who are usually on my side about

01:18a lot of stuff when it comes to this will be like, "Mm, but I'm still right."

01:24All right everybody, prepare to push back.

01:27This is going to be a fun one.

01:29And we'll start with the first one.

01:33Look, I'm going to start us off with an idea.

01:36And it is an idea that is so fundamental to so many Christians like religious cosmology

01:48that, to say otherwise, seems absurd.

01:53And so, before I present that, maybe you should just say your line.

01:59All right, let's see it.

02:02Okay.

02:03He said it.

02:04That means we're diving in.

02:06The monkey has danced.

02:08Dance, monkey.

02:10Here's the idea.

02:13The idea is, so you actually came to me.

02:17When we were discussing.

02:18In the night.

02:19In the night.

02:20Yes.

02:21You came and visited me three times and now I believe in Christmas.

02:28No, what you said was, let's- I thought you were going, "Now I'm digging up gold plates

02:32from a hill," but you took it a different direction.

02:35I went Dickens instead of Joseph Smith, so there we go.

02:40The idea of what you said was, let's talk about the idea of if Jesus is God in the book

02:49of John.

02:51So I took that to me.

02:53When I first thought about that, I was like, "Aha, Jesus is God in all the other books."

02:58And John's the one that's like, "This is crazy outlier that doesn't seem to think Jesus is

03:03God."

03:04And then I looked into it and I went, "Oh, oops, I'm completely wrong.

03:08John's the one."

03:10John is like, "When you look up an article of, is Jesus God?

03:16You're going to get citations to John all the way down."

03:19So I feel like, Dan, you've got a tall order in front of you in telling us how Jesus isn't

03:27God in the book of John.

03:30Yeah.

03:31It's going to be a ride.

03:35It's going to be a ride.

03:36Let's start off with John chapter one, verse one.

03:41We're starting right at the top of John.

03:43As the great poet once said, "N-R-He," or in the beginning, let's start with the beginning

03:50John 1-1, which in Greek is, "N-R-He" in Hologos, in the beginning was the word.

03:56"K-Hologos" seen "prostonte-on."

03:59And the word was, "prostonte-on" means next to with, beside God.

04:04And the word, the "on" there has the definite article tone, which means "the God."

04:09In Greek, you normally, if you're referring to a specific person or thing or place, you

04:16have to include a definite article.

04:17In English, we just have "the."

04:20In Greek, you had a few different ones, but anyway, that is God the Father.

04:26That is the God of Israel.

04:28And then you have the third clause in John 1-1, "K-Hologos."

04:33Which is translated in the K-J-V in most translations, and the word was God.

04:40It does not say that.

04:42What?

04:43It doesn't say that.

04:44I'm even looking at the N-R-S-V.

04:46Yes.

04:47And it still says, "And the word was God."

04:49Yes.

04:50And it doesn't say that.

04:52And it is the, and this is the part that really infuriates people, it is the academic consensus

04:59of Greek-Gramarians that it does not say that.

05:04So even the very same Greek-Gramarians people appeal to insist that Jesus is God will say,

05:11this is not identifying Jesus as the very God of Israel.

05:15And here's why.

05:16There's no definite article here.

05:18The words that else comes before the to-be verb.

05:21This is what's called a copula or an X-Y sentence, where they're equating two things.

05:28And the word God comes before the verb, and the word comes after the verb.

05:34And in this kind of sentence, if there is a noun before the to-be verb, that is either

05:43has already been mentioned in close connection or is well known, and both of those things

05:48are true of God, then it will take the definite article.

05:54So if this were a reference to the God of Israel, it would say, K-Hothos in Hologos, and

06:03it simply does not, and there is no manuscript, that is thought to be anywhere near original.

06:08Okay.

06:09That says that.

06:10So here's what I'm going to do.

06:12I'm going to read the whole thing in English because you've broken up a lot with the Greek.

06:18So the whole thing says, in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the

06:24word was God.

06:25Now, when we say the word, we're not talking about the bird, the bird is not the word in

06:30this case.

06:31No, that doesn't happen until the sixties, I think.

06:33Right.

06:34We're talking about Jesus.

06:36Jesus is the word that we are talking about.

06:38Right.

06:39The word become flesh, right?

06:41Let's get back to that.

06:42So the grammar thing that you just said went completely over my head.

06:48Okay.

06:49So we've got, when it says the word was with God, that means the word was with the God

06:52of Israel.

06:53It was next to or adjacent, was God of Israel adjacent?

06:58Yeah.

06:59Okay.

07:00And the use of the, oh, sin, the final clause, however, is qualitative.

07:03Right.

07:04It's not definite.

07:05So it's not a reference to the God of Israel.

07:07It is a reference to the qualities possessed by deity.

07:12So the word was God-like or God-like God-like God, well, it's tricky because I've said

07:19the best translation would probably be the word was deity.

07:24Oh.

07:25And so the idea being the word was divine or the word was, and this is still within the

07:31realm of plausibility, the word was a God.

07:34Right.

07:35Now a lot of people, that's how the new world translation renders it and a lot of people

07:41really don't like that translation and I am among them.

07:44But the idea is not Jesus is the God of Israel.

07:47The idea is the qualities that define deity, Jesus has those qualities.

07:52So more than just being divine, the qualities of a God.

07:59Which would be, I would argue, would be what means to be divine.

08:04But there's a, and so Daniel Wallace, who is a, who's very well-known, Greek gramarian

08:10and is a Christian scholar, he has pointed out this has to be qualitative.

08:18It is not a definite.

08:20But then he goes on to argue, here's how it's still Trinitarian, argues that Jesus is not

08:28the God of Israel, Jesus is the second person of the Trinity.

08:33And so it's not that Jesus encapsulates all that God is, it's that Jesus is another person

08:40of the Trinity, which is an argument that requires the logic of the Trinity, the notion

08:46of consubstantiality, the notion that God exhausts the category of deity, that you can

08:52have no deity apart from God.

08:54These are all assumptions that would develop between the 2nd and the 5th century CE as

08:58the Trinity developed.

08:59Okay, but calm down because we're going to get to that later in the show.

09:02Yeah, we're going to get to that later in the show.

09:05But these assumptions, consubstantiality, these other things, did not exist when the

09:10Gospel of John was written.

09:12The author of the Gospel of John, using this word qualitatively as they are demonstrably

09:17doing, could not have been trying to say that Jesus was the second person of the Trinity

09:23because no such concept existed at the time.

09:27What the author of the Gospel of John is saying is that Jesus was deity, Jesus was divine.

09:33They're trying to get close to saying that Jesus was God without saying Jesus was God

09:39because in this time period, Jesus had some kind of very special relationship to God that

09:46they hadn't really figured out how to articulate yet.

09:49They didn't understand it.

09:50It was still in kind of the realm of rhetoric.

09:53It had not yet been systematized.

09:56It had not yet been rationalized and they had not come to an agreement on what exactly

10:01the nature of Jesus' relationship to God was.

10:05Is there a sense in it?

10:09And I don't want any Christians to be offended by this comparison, but in Greek times, there

10:18are plenty of examples of a deity father, a godfather, having a half mortal child.

10:28And then it becoming a demigod, a being with God qualities that is not a full God or whatever.

10:40Is there any hint of that in this or is that just not even referenced?

10:45Not really because, well, John is very well versed in Greek philosophy.

10:53He's not very concerned with Greek mythology.

10:56So the concept of God here is not a Zeus concept.

11:00It is more like a platonic stoic concept, which is relevant because they had these ideas

11:07about the word is the idea of the word of God and John is a little closer to the idea

11:14of the spoken word, something that is a part of me that comes out of me, that is an extension

11:21of my agency and my will and things like that, but is also semi-autonomous is out there.

11:28So there's a notion called emanation theology that the logos of the word is an emanation

11:33from God.

11:34And this is more common in later centuries as well, but we see something kind of similar

11:40in Phylo, a Jewish author from the beginning of the first century CE, who also talks about

11:49the logos as an extension of God, but also refers to the logos as a second God.

11:58And so the, the relationship of John's theology to the Greek world is closer to Greek philosophical

12:08contemplation than it is to Greek mythology, but it's, this is not to say that John is

12:13just stealing things from the Greco-Roman world, it is what we have here is Greco-Roman period

12:22Judaism, which is both founded on Judaism while also accommodating Greco-Roman thought.

12:33So it's, it's a combination of both kind of moving forward, trying to figure out how

12:36we're going to think about these things.

12:39And John's going to move from the beginning with kind of a more vague idea of Jesus,

12:46Jesus's relationship with God to a clearer expression of Jesus's relationship with God,

12:52but it doesn't come from the narrator and it doesn't come from Jesus comes from a third

12:56party.

12:57And so let's move on.

13:01Let's stay, but I want, I mean, I'm going to stay in chapter one because just 18 verses

13:07down in verse 18, it says, no one has ever seen God.

13:12It is only the son himself God, who is close to the father's heart and who has made him

13:20known.

13:21Yeah.

13:22So this is your favorite translation or the one that you often, that you often turn to.

13:26This is the NRSV.

13:27Whoop.

13:28He says himself God.

13:31Yeah.

13:32What?

13:33I have blown your mind.

13:35Well, I'm, I'm looking at the NRSV unless I need to look at the updated edition.

13:40I'm in, I'm in the NRSV updated.

13:42Yeah.

13:43Oh, it's, that's the update.

13:44They changed that.

13:45All right.

13:46Hang on a minute.

13:47I'm about to get real upset.

13:48Oh, okay.

13:49Yeah.

13:50This is.

13:51Oh, so, so if I go to the NRSV, so this was up until last year, this is how the NRSV

14:00read.

14:01Okay.

14:02No one has ever seen God.

14:03He's God, the son who is close to the father's heart, who has made him known.

14:07Now this, now this is outright nonsensical too, because here's the problem.

14:14This passage has a variant reading in the manuscripts and it either reads, monogonisse

14:22huios, which would be the traditionally only begotten son, but would really mean unique

14:29or only son.

14:32And then there's another tradition that reads monogonisse thetos, so only or unique God.

14:40So it's either one or the other.

14:41And what the NRSV seems to be trying to do is split the difference and say, let's include

14:46both of them.

14:47Let's shoot right between them.

14:49Yeah.

14:51And it's complex because the difference between these two in the earliest periods of the transmission

14:57of New Testament manuscripts would be the difference of a single letter, because they

15:01use what are called nomenesakura, sacred names, holy names.

15:06So divine names and divine titles were abbreviated.

15:11And frequently what it was was the first and the last letter of the word.

15:14So Jesus Christ, if you saw Jesus's name, it's iota eta, sigma, omicron, epsilon, sigma.

15:22And so you would just have the iota and the sigma is and they would be brought together.

15:27And then there would be a little line over the top of them indicating this is an abbreviation

15:32for something.

15:33And so that's one, that's one of the nomenesakura.

15:36So this phrase monogonisse thetos or huios would be reduced to just a couple of letters.

15:46And so the difference would be between a theta and an epsilon.

15:51Those aren't letters that are easily confused, but in this whole title, it would come down

15:56to one letter.

15:57So it would not be surprising for that to get mixed up.

16:01Now monogonisse thetos would be the only time that phrase ever occurs anywhere.

16:09John uses monogonisse huios several times throughout the gospel of John.

16:15And so that would be if we're going by consistency, if we're going by what the author uses

16:21is elsewhere, it would have to be unique son.

16:25Now there's a principle of textual criticism that they call lectio difficillior or the more

16:32difficult reading.

16:34And the principle there is that usually, not always, but usually a change is implemented

16:41where someone tries to make a reading simpler.

16:44It is rare that the change goes from a simple reading to a more difficult reading.

16:50And so the argument goes, well, monogonisse thetos is would be the more difficult reading

16:58since it doesn't agree with anything else.

17:01Therefore that must be the earlier reading.

17:04Now there are two problems with this.

17:07And one is that all that helps you figure out is between new two manuscripts, which manuscript

17:13likely has the earlier reading that does not necessarily mean that was the original reading,

17:17because that's requiring, requiring we accept that the author actually said the only God.

17:24Jesus is the only God here, which would conflict with the entire rest of the gospel of John.

17:32And the other problem is when we're getting into the Christological controversies, monogonisse

17:38thetos would be the more useful reading for a lot of Christians.

17:44And so it is no longer, I don't think Lechdeodifacilior is in play in third, fourth century CE.

17:53And so there are a handful of different arguments, but basically it's not settled.

17:59What is supposed to be here?

18:00And so John 1 18, I don't think any, but I don't think you can appeal to that as proof

18:05that John calls Jesus God.

18:07There's a very, because, because original, like the earliest texts that we have disagree

18:14with each other on what it says.

18:16Yeah.

18:17And I think the earliest one says, the earliest one that we have, it's been a while since

18:25I've looked at this.

18:26So I don't know which one is earliest, but yeah, in short, when we go look at the earliest

18:31manuscripts that we have, I think one of them may say that also and a couple others say

18:37we also, and ultimately we also becomes the one that everybody settles on, but there's

18:43an argument to make that, that that also was original.

18:46And so Bruce Metzger publishes book back in the 70s, textual commentary on the Greek New

18:52Testament, and basically he's going through all of the main textual issues, textual problems.

19:04And the entry on here says, oh, yeah, I like to do a difficiliren, says that Theos is probably

19:11earlier than weos, but then there's the editors of the volume have a little note saying this

19:17is not likely because this would require the author actually have written this and that's

19:23just doesn't make any sense.

19:25And so it's debated, it's controversial.

19:29If someone is dogmatically defending the deity of Christ in the deity of Christ in the sense

19:35of the Trinity, then they're going to be like, Oh, that makes more sense.

19:38Yeah, yeah, I agree.

19:40And if somebody is not committed to that, then the weos reading is going to make more

19:44sense.

19:46And so I think the weos reading obviously makes more sense because I am not dogmatically

19:51committed to defending the notion that Jesus is God.

19:56No, although if after this episode, people will accuse you of being dogmatically defending

20:02the opposite position.

20:04Yeah, because yeah, well, I get accused of that no matter what, yeah, all right, I'm moving

20:15on.

20:16Let's go to chapter eight of John, right down at the bottom of chapter eight, verse 58.

20:23It says, Jesus said to them very, very, very truly, I tell you, before Abraham was I am.

20:32I am.

20:33Yeah, this one's fun because this is because I am we recognize from, from the, the Hebrew

20:39Bible as being a reference to a name for God, right?

20:43Kinda.

20:44Yeah, a name for God.

20:47They're levels to this, but let's start with I am.

20:50I am is something that we find there are two different groups of seven.

20:55I am statements in the gospel of John.

20:57And in Greek, this is ego, e me.

21:00Now the thing about ego, e me is, is this is a loaded phrase.

21:04This is a coded reference to God's name, but it's not actually God's name.

21:11This is a reference to a statement in Exodus three, 14, which in the Hebrew, Moses asked

21:16God, who should I say, sent me and God says in Hebrew, echia, share, echia, I will be what

21:24I will be where I am, what I am.

21:26Tell them, echia sent you.

21:28Tell them I am sent you.

21:30Now in the, in the Greek translation, the Septuagint, I am what I am is actually translated

21:36into a sentence, egg way me ho own, I am the one who is, or I am the being one.

21:43And then you say, again, tell them, egg way me, I am sent you, but egg way me is also the

21:48way that another Hebrew phrase is rendered in other parts of the Bible, specifically

21:53Deutero Isaiah, but Deuteronomy, I think has it as well.

21:57Where God says I am he, there are a bunch of places where, Oh, the part though, the one

22:02who can do this, the one who can do that, tell them I am he or something like that.

22:06And that is any who in Hebrew, but that also gets translated into Greek in the Septuagint

22:11as egg way me.

22:13So we've taken these two different kind of divine self identifications and use the same

22:18Greek phrase to render them.

22:20And so this is now pregnant with imports for regarding the divine name, even though neither

22:26of them is actually Adonai and neither of them is the tetragrammaton, but it's a coded reference

22:32to that.

22:33So John has Jesus saying, I am I am the good shepherd, I am the door, I am the vine, the

22:39true vine, all this kind of stuff, and that's egg we meet each time.

22:44And so here we have before Abraham was, and most translations have before Abraham was

22:49comma, I am.

22:51And then they get mad at him and cast stones at him.

22:55And so there are two grounds on which people argue that this is identifying Jesus as God.

23:01The first is Jesus saying, I am is like Jesus saying, I am God.

23:08Now it's not that it is Jesus kind of winking at them saying, look at me using this coded

23:15reference to the divine name, and then they get upset at him.

23:21And I've argued, I argue in in my book that the divine name was a communicable vehicle

23:29of divine agency.

23:31This is how you activated or enlivened the standing stone, the divine image was by writing

23:38the divine name on it and provided the materials were right, provided the authority was right

23:43when you impose the divine name that charged the the material media with the divine presence,

23:51which allowed the material media to presence the deity manifest the presence, the power,

23:58the authority of the deity.

24:00And so in Greco-Roman period Judaism, we begin to see figures popping up in stories that

24:06are angels that are exalted humans, that are figures who are not God, but have God's name.

24:14And so are allowed to do the things that only God is supposed to do.

24:17And this starts in the Hebrew Bible with the angel of the Lord, where we have these stories

24:23like when God appears to Moses in Exodus three, verse two says it's the angel of God.

24:30But in verse five, the angel says, I am the God of your father, the God of Isaac, the

24:35God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, originally that story was about God themselves visiting

24:39Moses and somebody scribbled in Malach before Adonai to kind of obscure God's presence.

24:47No, no, no.

24:48It was kind of an angel.

24:49It was kind of God.

24:50And so we've got this tradition of an angel that's going around saying I am God, but is

24:54not God.

24:55And so in Exodus 23, God says, look, I'm sending an angel before you to guide you on the way.

25:01We'll take him off, don't disobey him because he does not have to forgive your sins because

25:08my name is in him.

25:10And I argue that this is a way to rationalize what's going on with this angel who's going

25:15around saying I am God.

25:16They can say that because my name is in him.

25:20They are the authorized possessor or bearer of my name.

25:24And we see this in the Greco-Roman period.

25:26There's an angel named Yahuel who tells Abraham in the apocalypse of Abraham, I'm able to

25:32do all these things by virtue of the divine name which dwells in me.

25:37And then we have Meditron who is confused for Adonai, somebody, there's a verse where

25:43somebody says, hey, that says that's Adonai and the rabbi says, no, no, that's just Meditron.

25:49But Meditron has God's name.

25:52And so the text can refer to Meditron as God.

25:56And then we have the Son of Man and the Anachic tradition talks about being endowed with the

26:03divine name before the creation of the earth.

26:05And this is why all the world will bow down and worship the Son of Man.

26:11And so there's a tradition already in place whereby somebody is the authorized possessor

26:18or bearer of the divine name.

26:20And because of that, they're allowed to do what only God is supposed to be able to do.

26:25They're allowed to assert identification with God.

26:28And so my argument is that by giving this little wink and saying, Eggo, we me, if you

26:34guys know what I mean, Jesus is saying, guess who's the possessor of the divine name?

26:41Guess who is the authorized bearer?

26:44And this is a claim to a type of deity.

26:47This is a claim to being this exalted human or this name bearing angel.

26:54And this is akin to saying I'm divine, which is a type of blasphemy.

27:01And so a lot of people will say they wouldn't have tried to stone him for any other reason,

27:06but claiming to be God, but blasphemy includes so many more things than just claiming to

27:11be God.

27:12Right.

27:13Yes.

27:14That makes sense to me.

27:15I'm glad it makes sense to you.

27:17It doesn't seem to compute for an awful lot of folks.

27:21But yeah, just, you know, just saying, hey, God sucks that that would be a type of blasphemy.

27:28Any kind of trying to denigrate, demean or lower God or even just God's name is a form

27:35of blasphemy.

27:36Well, and he's saying this to a group of rabbis, right?

27:39He's saying this to a group of is that what it is?

27:43It's a group.

27:44Well, John tends to kind of reduce all of the different groups to just the Jews.

27:49The Jews.

27:50Because John is the most anti-Semitic of the gospels and tends to be pretty, tends to

27:58speak pretty demeaningly about the Jews.

28:04So yes, it says, and then the Jews said to him, you are not yet 50 years old.

28:09And have you seen Abraham?

28:11And that's when he says, before Abraham was, I am, in the Greek, because before Abraham

28:23was, I am, when you have the past tense of was and then the present tense of am, is it

28:30basically the same in the Greek?

28:33It is very, very similar.

28:35Makes it stand out in that way that you know the phrase, I am, isn't just a reference to

28:40the past, but is a, is a reference to something greater or something different?

28:45That's, that's what the consensus view is, is that this is just grammatically unusual

28:50enough to be a queue to this, there's something more going on here, wink, wink.

28:56Yeah.

28:57However, there are some folks who will argue that the I am could be, could mean I was and

29:03continue to be.

29:05Okay.

29:06And so there is an argument to make for that.

29:07I don't think it's particularly strong.

29:10It's certainly a minority view among grammarians, but, but yeah, I would argue that it is, it

29:17is unusual enough in Greek to be kind of like English where they're like, and going on there.

29:23Okay.

29:24And what's going on there is, is Jesus is saying, hey, guess who got the divine name?

29:27Yeah.

29:28Wasn't you.

29:29And then they picked up stones and he had to hide and run away.

29:33Right.

29:34Okay.

29:35I'm going to move on.

29:36This is a two chapter, what am I in chapter 10?

29:40Yeah.

29:41Chapter 10 chapter 10 verse 30 says very clearly, the father and I are one case closed, you

29:52lose.

29:53Yeah.

29:54So, um, this is something that people like to appeal to to show that God and Jesus are

30:02one.

30:03The question though is what does it mean to be one because there, you can conceive of

30:09a lot of different ways that two different people could be one.

30:11I mean, it talks about how a man will leave his father and mother and cling on to his

30:17wife and they will be one flesh and like not literally, but, uh, so we've got to ask the

30:24question of what does it mean to be one, luckily when it comes to this podcast, you and I are

30:29one.

30:30Um, in a lot of different ways, except for probably the ways you're thinking of, uh, and

30:36here you are as a reference to the listener, uh, or viewer, um, and or both.

30:42Um, so luckily we, we have some, we have a clue here in John 10, uh, because at the end

30:50of, uh, John 10 38, uh, Jesus says the father is in me and I in him.

30:57You know, so this, this seems to be a reference to how they're one.

31:00He's in me.

31:01I'm in him.

31:02Um, this is, this is a oneness that, uh, needs further exploration.

31:09Luckily, we get further exploration, exploration and explanation in John 17, the intercessory

31:16prayer.

31:17Uh, we have three different spots in the intercessory prayer where Jesus is praying

31:23for his followers.

31:27And he says, uh, in verse 11 in the middle of it, I'll start off.

31:31Where's the NRSV?

31:32Okay.

31:33Holy father, protect them in your name that you have given me, wink, wink your name that

31:41you have given me.

31:42So Jesus here is claiming to have the divine name so that they may be one as we are one.

31:51Ah, and then a little further down, I think we're looking at, uh, 21, yes, that they may

32:00all be one as you father are in me and I am in you.

32:06May they also be in us.

32:08So chapter 10 is not talking about a unique kind of oneness, cause at the end, Jesus explains

32:14I'm in him.

32:15He's in me.

32:16And now here in chapter 17, Jesus is praying that his followers be one with Jesus and God,

32:23just like Jesus and God are one.

32:25And here we actually go back to the same idea.

32:28They may be in us, um, I and you, uh, you are in me.

32:32They may also be in us.

32:35So whatever oneness Jesus is talking about in John 10 30 is the exact same kind of oneness,

32:40Jesus prays his followers will achieve with each other and with Jesus and God.

32:48And we have it again, uh, in verse 22, the glory that you have given me and this is something

32:54that people also will point out.

32:55They'll say, well, um, Isaiah says my, my glory, I do not give to any other.

33:01So obviously if Jesus has God's glory, that's cause Jesus is God.

33:04No, Jesus says you gave me your glory so that they may be one.

33:10Because we are one, I in them.

33:13So now Jesus is not just in God, God, Jesus is also in his followers and you and me that

33:19they may be completely one.

33:21So the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them, even as you have loved

33:24me.

33:25So, so unless it's everybody in everybody, it is one big, we're not going to worry about

33:31what one big thing it is, but, um, Jesus is, or at least the gospel, the author of the

33:39gospel of John is explaining what this one, this means and it is a unity.

33:44It is a connection.

33:45It is not one being, it is not one substance.

33:51That is a much later development.

33:52Well, and even earlier in that same chapter in chapter 17, verse three, uh, Jesus explicitly

33:59says, and this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ,

34:06whom you have sent.

34:07Right.

34:08Which seems to be a really strong distinction between these two entities, because one thing

34:15he doesn't say is that they may know you the other guy that is part of the one true God

34:21of which I am also a part, um, just as the only true, you're the only true God.

34:27Yeah.

34:28I'm not, I'm not a part of this, um, and, uh, and back in, in chapter 10, uh, the, it says

34:36they, they try to stone him again and people will argue, ah, ah, there's the stoning.

34:40That means that Jesus was claiming to be God.

34:41No, it just means they thought he committed blasphemy and saying I, God and me are one,

34:47even a kind of unity type of one that would still be considered blasphemy.

34:52And they says, well, for, for which of my good works are you distoning me brethren?

34:57And um, they said not for good work, but for blasphemy because, and I'm going to read from

35:03the NRSV because you, though only a human being are making yourself God.

35:08Now, so a lot of people understand this to be the author suggesting that the Jewish folks

35:15correctly understood Jesus to be identifying himself as God.

35:19And that's wrong again, again, it does seem to say that, Dan.

35:25It seems to say that because you're reading a poor English translation, because if you

35:29look in the Greek, you are once again, missing the definite article and we have some parallelism

35:34going on here, you being man, being human, it's anthropos, there's no definite article.

35:41So it's not saying you being the human it, you being human as in qualitative having the,

35:47the qualities of, of a human make yourself the own, which again does not have the definite

35:54article.

35:55And the parallel would suggest that you being human make yourself divine.

36:01And otherwise you having the qualities of a human are trying to insist that you actually

36:06have the qualities of a deity.

36:08And so it is not identifying Jesus, not saying Jesus trying to make himself the very God of

36:13Israel, but just divine.

36:15And Jesus's response verifies that because Jesus quotes Psalm 82, well, hey guys, your

36:23scripture says you are God's every one of your gods and sons of the most high.

36:30If he called those people gods, then why are you getting upset with me for saying I'm

36:35the son of God?

36:36If they if they understood Jesus to be saying I'm the God of Israel, his response would

36:41be a complete straw man.

36:44It would not be addressing their claim.

36:47If they are accusing Jesus of making himself a God divine, then his response is perfectly

36:53on target because they're saying you're saying you're a God and he says the scriptures say

36:58humans are gods.

37:01So I'm off the hook because so humans can be gods.

37:05And so you've got nothing on me.

37:08And so the, the argument that Jesus makes is entirely fallacious.

37:13If we understand John 10, 33 to be saying Jesus is making himself the very God of Israel.

37:20He's not doing any such thing whatsoever.

37:24All right, you know, the last thing that I had was, was from chapter 20 verse 28.

37:35It's doubting Thomas finally no longer doubting and saying, and Thomas answered him.

37:43My Lord and my God.

37:45Yes.

37:47And we don't have a lot of time for this one.

37:48So let's, let's just power through it quick.

37:51Yeah.

37:52So, so basically this is an adaptation of the Shema and also Paul talks about kind of expands

37:58the Shema talks about one Lord and one God.

38:01Thomas is referring to Jesus as God, but here notice is not the narrator.

38:07It's not Jesus.

38:08It's somebody else recognizing that Jesus is manifesting the presence of God, which is

38:13precisely what divine images do.

38:15So you can refer to a divine image as the God.

38:19This is, and, and the divine image, if it is sentient, can refer to itself as the God.

38:24Go back to Exodus three.

38:27It's the angel of the Lord who then says, I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham,

38:31the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.

38:33So, so Thomas saying my Lord and my God is appealing to this idea that Jesus is functioning

38:43like a divine image.

38:45Jesus as the authorized bearer of the divine name is bearing the presence of God is manifesting

38:50the presence of God and could even go so far as to identify as God.

38:54But again, there's still some squishiness here because Jesus is not saying I am God.

38:59Jesus is allowing a follower to say that.

39:03So there is still a little bit of distance between what's going on and Jesus actually

39:09explicitly identifying as God.

39:11So the Trinitarian concept of God is a very different concept from what we have in the

39:16Gospel of John, even though it gets right up next to it, it is not, it does not have the

39:22philosophical frameworks available to it yet to assert Jesus is God the way the Trinitarians

39:28would later determine.

39:30Well, since you've been saying it, Dan, let's go on to our next segment because the next

39:37thing is the Trinity.

39:40What does that mean?

39:43So Dan, yes, we've got this concept of the Trinity.

39:47You keep referring to it.

39:49What is it?

39:50What are we talking about?

39:51Why is it?

39:52Why?

39:53Why have we, I mean, it's not in the Bible itself, right?

39:57We don't have, we don't have the word Trinity, we don't have any word or even any concept

40:01presented that is like what is now believed and understood, believed as and understood

40:07to be the Trinity.

40:09Right.

40:10My, my argument is that the conceptual package of the Trinity, the framework of the Trinity

40:16develops between the 2nd and the 5th centuries CE.

40:20We get our, our, our most, our kind of main articulation of the doctrine of the Trinity

40:25at the Council of Nicaea and 325 CE.

40:29And that is where there is a debate over whether or not Jesus, whether or not there

40:35was a time when Jesus didn't exist and whether or not Jesus is subordinate to the father

40:40or equal to the father and areas is basically defeated.

40:46And we sign the, the Nicene Creed, which argues that this concept for this concept of concept

40:52sensuality, and this is the first time that Christians actually assert this notion of

41:00concept sensuality as a whole.

41:02The idea being that the Trinity is comprises three different persons within the one being

41:12that is God.

41:14And we'll get in a little more detail about that in a moment, but the whole reason this

41:19develops is because we've got this New Testament that seems to be treating Jesus as having

41:25some kind of special relationship with God, but also seems to be distinguishing Jesus

41:29from God.

41:30And we just finished talking about the gospel of John, which is coming really, really close

41:34to saying Jesus is God without actually having Jesus come out and say it.

41:39But then now that the New Testament has come together, we now have to consider all these

41:45other texts, all Paul's texts.

41:46We got to look at the gospel of Mark.

41:48We got to look at all these other texts.

41:49And we've got to create a unifying framework that makes all of them work together.

41:56So how can Jesus be all of these things at the same time?

42:01And we've got to come up with a framework that is philosophically defensible to the

42:07Greco-Roman intelligentsia.

42:09Because in this time period, a group of Christians, the, the educated Christians, we now refer

42:17to them as apologists are trying to kind of spread the gospel among the more educated

42:25Greco-Roman populations.

42:27And they need to make it palatable to folks who are educated in middle and then later

42:34neo-platonic thought in stoicism, in Pythagoreanism, in Epicureanism.

42:40And there's kind of this, there are a bunch of different ways people are going about trying

42:44to intellectualize the gospel, which requires this unifying framework.

42:49So we have people talking about, well, Jesus seems to be God, but let's figure out how.

42:56And in the previous segment, I mentioned that Philo identifies the logos as a second God.

43:02We also have Justin Martyr, one of the early apologists who's writing right in the middle

43:07of the second century CE, right around 150 CE, who also refers to Jesus as the logos, as

43:14another God.

43:16And so in the earliest periods, we're still kind of trying to figure out how to make this

43:22work and we're using a bunch of different ideas.

43:25By the end of the second century, we've got this, this word trinity, but we're not exactly

43:30sure how to fill it out.

43:32It's a little kid in a big, oversized suit coat, it's not, he's not able to walk without

43:39tripping over himself yet.

43:42And so what happens is we just have a bunch of people in texts that they're writing where

43:47they're engaging in this kind of dialectic back and forth with imaginary opponents.

43:52Sometimes they're real opponents, but usually it's imaginary opponents, or they're at least

43:58representing the arguments of real opponents, but probably not in perfectly accurate ways.

44:03Right.

44:04Trying to consolidate all these things and trying to use Greco-Roman philosophical frameworks

44:09to make it all fit together.

44:11And the main principles we have are, well, we got these three people.

44:16We got God, we got Jesus, and we got the Holy Ghost.

44:19Now the Holy Ghost is kind of an outlier and afterthought.

44:22This is just somebody, it's like, don't forget the Holy Ghost.

44:24And so people are like, oh, okay, the Holy Ghost too.

44:28Yeah, we may have to do a show about the Holy Ghost because I am very confused about who

44:33and or what that is.

44:36And it's different from text to text, exactly what the Holy Ghost is, but yeah, I think

44:40that would be, that would be a fun show to do.

44:44And so some of the things that develop our concerns for, well, one, how many gods are

44:51there, and pretty quickly it's like, well, we can only recognize one highest God.

44:59And so, you know, we can recognize demons and we can recognize angels and all of these

45:05things, but we don't want to call them gods.

45:09They are subordinate, they are contingent, so they don't deserve that title.

45:14And so pretty quickly they decided, well, because Judaism is well known as kind of the

45:20only one God religion.

45:22And this is one God rhetoric, this is not monotheism as we understand it today.

45:29We should find a way to make Jesus and God one God, whether it's through this emanation

45:34idea, whether it's through some other concept.

45:37And we get this, this bishop in Alexandria named Arias, who is looking at the New Testament

45:45and says it's very clear that Jesus is subordinate to God and that Jesus is a creation of God.

45:50Which means that there was a time when Jesus didn't exist and then God created Jesus.

45:57And this was actually pretty standard in the third century CE, but by the fourth century

46:05CE, we're exalting Jesus more and more.

46:09And so it begins to become problematic to say Jesus, there was a time when Jesus didn't

46:14exist and that Jesus is subordinate because one of the main two features of deity is one

46:21that it is eternal, it has always existed.

46:24And two, that there is no change, there is no hierarchy, there is no alteration in deity.

46:30It is always the same and it can never change.

46:33And so it was undermining the attempt to make the gospel palatable to Greco-Roman intelligentsia.

46:43If their concept was flatly contradicting the received wisdom of Greek philosophy.

46:51And so by the beginning of the fourth century, that's a problem.

46:54We call the Council of Nicaea.

46:56We get a bunch of bishops together.

46:57There are different accounts of how many bishops were there.

47:01But in short, Arias and a couple of his buddies are in the minority.

47:07They get overruled, they get slapped around, literally this is where St. Nicholas is supposed

47:12to have slapped Arias.

47:14We'll set a clause called down.

47:19We're given out gifts and punching heretics and we're all out of gifts.

47:24So there's an account that suggests that Constantine, who is the Roman emperor who has convened

47:33the Council of Nicaea, basically he wants his kids to stop fighting.

47:36So he's calling a family meeting and he's just like, I don't care what you figure it

47:40out.

47:41Sorry, you mentioned the guys, who were the guys that Nicholas slapped Arias and what

47:50was Arias's position?

47:52He was the one saying that one, Jesus was subordinate to God the father and two, there

47:57was a time when Jesus did not exist.

48:00And up until around the beginning of the fourth century CE, pretty much everybody would have

48:06agreed with him to one degree or another.

48:10And now it was becoming increasingly problematic.

48:12So the majority of bishops were like, no, no, they're, they're the same.

48:17And you get the hammering out of this concept of homosios, which is translated as consubstantiality.

48:26Basically the idea is they are equal and co-eternal because they are all of the same substance.

48:35And so you can't divide the substance, but you also can't confuse the persons.

48:41And so when we think of a person today, we think of a being who also has a psychological

48:47unity, a single psychological identity.

48:50And what they did was basically divide the idea of the psychological identity and the

48:54being and say, now that they're different and one is subordinate, or maybe not subordinate,

49:01it's a bad word, but one is internal to the other.

49:06We can have multiple psychological identities inhabiting the one being, the one's substantial

49:14being.

49:16And so this was a philosophical way of making this all work.

49:23And it was literally Imperial might that kept it together because Constantine then said,

49:31okay, everybody sign on the dotted line or you get exiled.

49:35And there's a story that one of the bishops came up and really quickly added a little

49:39Iota to make it homo oisios, which would be of like substance rather than the same substance.

49:49And then, you know, banished.

49:51And so you can't just you can't just sneak in a letter.

49:53Yeah.

49:54We all know.

49:56They tried no, there's no, we don't know if Santa Claus punched him too, but but areas

50:03get.

50:04We know.

50:05He punched him, but areas gets exiled and and this becomes the Nicene Creed.

50:11And then we have another controversy that pops up that is settled a century later in

50:16the council of Calcedon.

50:18And that controversy was, okay, Jesus is God, but Jesus was also a human.

50:25How's that work?

50:26Is it 50 50?

50:28And that's where they came up with what's called the hypostatic union, where Jesus is

50:33100% God, but Jesus is 100% human.

50:38How does that work shut up?

50:40Yeah.

50:41It's, it's a mystery.

50:43We're not, it's, it just is the way it is.

50:45And what you see in these arguments is basically we just need to make it work.

50:51And so we just need to come up with an argument that is plausible enough that everybody can

50:57be like, yeah, I can get on board with that.

51:00Okay.

51:01Then get on board with it.

51:02Sign right here.

51:03Okay.

51:04Anybody you see saying anything else, you report them to us.

51:06We're going to exile them and we're going to use the empire to enforce this new philosophical

51:12framework doesn't make a ton of sense.

51:14It makes enough sense that we can threaten people if they don't agree with it.

51:19And so it is that the institution of the church is the only reason that the concept of the

51:23Trinity survived because without the Roman Empire and all of the might and the coercion

51:29and the force behind it, it would have gone the way of the dodo long, long ago.

51:34I'm just, you know, one of the questions that comes up for me is did that era Greco-Roman

51:42period?

51:44Did everything have to be more solid?

51:48Did they not have figurative ideas?

51:52Because it seems like, you know, in our first segment, we're talking about John, you know,

51:58in John, we're talking about Jesus using figurative ideas or, you know, ideas of I am God in the

52:05way that like God is me and you all could be God and like, we're all, you know, we're

52:10all going to be part of God or we're going to be in God and God's going to be in us.

52:14And like, he's using language that makes perfect sense to me if we're thinking figuratively.

52:21Yeah.

52:22And there's no reason why we can't think figuratively about it.

52:25It makes sense.

52:26Like throughout the Bible, there's figurative language all the time.

52:30Yeah.

52:31Did something get more literal in the, in the fourth century or something?

52:36So what happened is the church became part of a powerful institution that had oversight

52:42over the entire population and suddenly the ideas that resonated with different groups

52:49and everybody just kind of was drawn to the group or the idea that resonated with them.

52:55You now had a powerful social institution that needed to harmonize things and needed everything

53:01to work together in order to be able to establish boundaries and in order to be able to say,

53:07this one's in, this one's out because boundary maintenance becomes monumentally important

53:13in this, in the circumstance like that, where you are, there's a very strong in group and

53:19you are opposed to the out group and you want to make sure that you know who is who.

53:26And so it had to be systematized.

53:28It all has to be reduced to something that, that we can draw lines around in a very simple

53:37binary way.

53:38And so yeah, that's exactly what happened is initially you had your mark in folks who

53:44were like, yeah, Jesus is really human like and Jesus doing this and that and, and you

53:49know, the messianic secret, yeah.

53:51And then you had your Luke's and then you had your Matthews who were the Judaizers who

53:56was like, the law of Moses, man, yeah, we got to keep it.

53:59And, and you had your johns who were their own little group of people and everybody was

54:06just happy doing their own thing.

54:08But when you all bring it, when you bring them all together and you say, this is now

54:11one book, we need then and there's a social institution that is has authority over all

54:21the people who are associated with this one book, suddenly they're not going to allow

54:25them to operate, you know, function in their own little corners of this thing.

54:30We need to bring it all together.

54:31We need unity.

54:32And that's precisely what Constantine was doing is saying there's too much disunity.

54:37I don't care how you fix it, just fix it.

54:40And so that is imposing that unifying framework, which results in, well, Greek philosophical

54:48ideas are going to be the most efficient and effective means of doing this.

54:53It's come up with Greek philosophical ideas that are going to allow us to say all the

54:57texts fit together.

55:01And here's what they are all, they're all pointing in the same direction.

55:05And here's the thing that they're pointing at and don't ask how it works because we're

55:09just going to exile you.

55:12And so it is, it is institutional pressure, imperialism, that is the reason that the Trinity

55:19survived in the way it has, but, and the thing that a lot of people refuse to acknowledge

55:25is the Trinity is the result of that systemization, that unifying framework prior to the unifying

55:33framework, when the texts were written, there was no Trinity because no one was forced to

55:39try to reduce it to a single conceptual framework.

55:43Everyone was allowed to let it work, whatever way resonated with them.

55:48So the author of John had no concept of Jesus as God in anything remotely approximating

55:54the way the Trinity would later shake out, which is why I just, you can't say that Jesus

56:01is God in the gospel of John, at least in no way, shape, or form like the way you say

56:07Jesus is God in the Trinity.

56:09Yeah.

56:10You know, as an outsider, as a non-believer in this, I look at it and I just don't see

56:15the problem, you know, I feel like God, I feel like Jesus invoking God or like you like to

56:22say, you know, sort of housing God's name or, you know, housing God's authority in himself

56:31seems plenty to me.

56:32Like this can be a being that has divinity, you know, sort of instilled in him by virtue

56:40of his authority, his title, his, his, his sort of provenance, but like it doesn't feel

56:47problematic to me looking at it for it to be, for him not to be God himself.

56:57Yeah.

56:58You know what I mean?

56:59It feels actually more problematic for him to be God, like that feels wildly problematic.

57:04You've created so many more problems than you've solved.

57:11That's probably exactly how it happened is you had a lot of people are like, oh yeah,

57:15that's totally intuitive.

57:16I get it.

57:17And then somebody was like, yeah, doesn't work for me.

57:20But then once you have the two of them as part of the same institution and the institutions

57:24like agree, then you got to, you got to figure out a way to, to agree, which always, which

57:31has one of two ways of working, one part one defeats the other, or you create a new third

57:38thing that tries to reconcile the two.

57:41And that's what happened.

57:42We created the new third thing, which was the Trinity and Greek philosophy was the way

57:50and it was also, they were also arguing with the philosophers and the Gnostics and others.

57:56And this is how a lot of the doctrines of earlier early Christianity developed was Greek

58:00philosophers, philosophers were like, the resurrection, but flesh can't be eternal, flesh

58:08is changing, flesh is, or it can't be divine, flesh is, it's co-eternal.

58:15The material world has always been there, but it's not divine.

58:19Why would you even want back a body that, that decomposed, that was lost at sea, that

58:24maybe was eaten by an animal and pass through its digestive system?

58:28Why would you want that body back?

58:29They were like, this is weird, guys, what are you doing?

58:32And they had to be like, well, okay, no, all the material world is contingent upon God.

58:42God created it out of nothing.

58:44Yeah, that's what happened.

58:47And then they came up with an argument that was like, okay, that's different, that's new.

58:51I see where you're going.

58:52I want to sign up for your newsletter.

58:55And so the idea of creation out of nothing was an invention of the late second century

59:00CE.

59:01In fact, we can say it was between 170 and 180 CE that we created, the doctrine of creation

59:09out of nothing in order to respond to criticisms from Greek philosophy.

59:14And so the doctrines of Christianity develop out of trying to reconcile everything that's

59:22going on under this social institution while also trying to make it sound defensible to

59:28the broader intellectual world, which is deeply entrenched in Greek philosophy.

59:33Wow.

59:34All right.

59:35Finally, I think this is a good note to end on.

59:39What's your favorite Trinity metaphor?

59:43We got the shamrock.

59:45We got the states of water.

59:47I like that one.

59:48Have you heard that one?

59:50You can solve liquid gas.

59:53That's the, that's modalism.

59:54That's the heresy of modalism.

59:58There's the, the three headed dog.

60:01That's a, that's a, that's enough.

60:03Sir, I forget what movie it was.

60:07Shoot.

60:08I forget what movie it is, but there's, there's a movie where somebody is kind of going to,

60:14to chat with a priest, but it's kind of being annoying to him.

60:18And he's like, is the Trinity, like, is it like Rice Krispies with crackle and pop?

60:25And the priest is like, what do you want?

60:28I like, okay, we're sticking with snap crackle and pop.

60:33That's it for this week's show.

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61:04That's it for us.

61:05Thanks so much for listening.

61:06We'll see you again next week.

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