As we head into the Fall of 2022, I thought I would embark on another book analysis on Stephen De Young’s The Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century. Even as I write this, I am not yet done with the book, but based on what I’ve read thus far, I know it is deserving my attention…and a number of blog posts.
The Introduction
As the title suggests, the book is about Orthodox Christianity in the first century. Now, for a lot (and I mean A LOT) of scholars, this seems to be a ridiculous endeavor because it is often assumed that the earliest form of Christianity was some sort of “primitive Christianity” that, over the course of the first century “evolved” into something somewhat different. And by the time of the Constantine and the Council of Nicaea in AD 325, the brand of Christianity articulated at that time was worlds away from the original “primitive Christianity” of the early first century.
Different scholars have varying degrees of that assumption. The more extreme degree can be found in the works of scholars like Bart Ehrman, but even throughout most Protestant scholarship, even standard Evangelical scholarship, something like that can be found. If I can put it this way, De Young’s response to that assumption is that it is all hogwash. He argues that not only are the Orthodox doctrines regarding the Trinity and the human-divine natures of Christ not later inventions, not only where they there in the Christian faith from the very beginning, but they actually have their roots in Second Temple Judaism.
To begin his argument, in his introduction De Young focuses on the standard Protestant assumption regarding the Apostle Paul, particularly, the view that he was the key figure that changed everything about the young faith. His “conversion,” of course, was when he encountered the risen Christ on the Damascus Road and changed from a Torah-observant Jew focused on the Law to a Christian who preached about grace and faith in Christ.
Fortunately for me, I had the privilege of studying Paul under (in my opinion) the best Pauline scholar out there, Gordon Fee. And he hammered home the point that that long-held Protestant view of Paul’s “conversion” was wrong. Paul didn’t “convert” to another religion. He realized that Christ was the fulfillment of Judaism. Christ was what everything that the Law and the Prophets was pointing to. Therefore, Paul didn’t abandon Judaism and the Torah. He realized Christ was the fulfillment of Judaism. That being said, what I’m learning in De Young’s book is taking that “rooted in Judaism” understanding to a deeper level.
In particular, De Young argues that Paul’s Damascus Road experience amounted to his prophetic calling, much in the same vein as the prophetic callings of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Even “more particular,” De Young argues that Paul lived at a particular time in Second Temple Judaism when a movement called Merkabah Mysticism was in its early development and very well might have been an adherent to it. It basically was a tradition in which a worshipper meditated on Ezekiel’s vision of YHWH’s throne-chariot in Ezekiel 1 during his prophetic call, in hopes of receiving a vision of his own. In Paul’s case, the vision he receives is of Jesus Christ seated on the throne-chariot of YHWH.
What this means is that from the very beginning of Christianity (remember, Paul’s Damascus Road experience happened probably within three years or less after the death and resurrection of Jesus), there was an understanding that Jesus was understood to be the one sitting on YHWH’s throne, that He was the incarnate God of Israel. De Young further points out that from those first century apostolic times, “Christ’s Ascension into heaven and enthronement were understood within the context of the heavenly ascents and the throne-chariot of God that had already had a place in Second Temple religion and mystical practice” (8). And this is seen in the Orthodox iconographic tradition that depicts Christ enthroned on the four living creatures of Ezekiel’s vision.
Therefore, to summarize what De Young says in his introduction, Paul viewed “the religion he practiced and the gospel he proclaimed after his encounter with Christ as a continuation of that which he had practiced his entire life” (10). Granted, realizing the Jesus Christ was the incarnation of the God of Israel was certainly a shock to Paul—he most certainly wasn’t expecting that! But it wasn’t a “conversion” to a different religion. It was a prophetic calling within that tradition of Merkabah Mysticism.
Chapter 1: Divine Father and Son
I will not be able to get through the entirety of Chapter 1 here, because it is rather long. Nevertheless, I wanted to at least dab our toes in the chapter. I’ll then complete my thoughts on chapter 1 in the next post. What this chapter is about probably lies at the crux of the matter: How the first century Christians viewed Jesus and whether or not their view of Him as “divine” has any roots in the Hebrew Scriptures.
Again, as De Young points out, a general view of many scholars is that although the earliest Christians may have had a vague notion that Christ was divine, it wasn’t until much later (i.e. the Council of Nicaea) that there really was a notion of a “Triune God” consisting of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. After all, Judaism was a purely monotheistic faith, so the notion that Christ (and later the Holy Spirit) could somehow share in the divinity of the God of Israel would have been a foreign idea. Right? Well…
“Not so fast,” De Young says. That’s not entirely true. Rather, he argues that for ancient Israelites and Second Temple Jews alike, there was a belief that the God of Israel existed in multiple hypostases, namely persons. The Greek word here, hypostasis, literally means substance. As De Young proceeds to point out throughout the rest of Chapter 1, there are many instances in the Old Testament where YHWH appears to someone…but it’s not YHWH…but it really is! Simply put, it’s odd and mysterious, but the authors are clear that human beings encountered YHWH in some form, despite the belief that human beings were unable to look directly upon YHWH.
This view that YHWH existed in multiple persons in some way was believed and debated in Second Temple Judaism, and it wasn’t until “the beginning of the second century, in reaction to Christianity, that Judaism declared this previously universal view heresy” (14). Simply put, up until the time of Jesus, Judaism acknowledged that YHWH would appear to human beings occasionally in some kind of personal form, but once Christians claimed that Jesus was the actual incarnation of God, Rabbinic Judaism chucked completely any notion of YHWH appearing in some kind of human form. And, in that sense, the Christian claim of God existing in three persons is actually a crystallization of the earlier understanding reflected in the Old Testament and Second Temple Judaism, whereas the Rabbinic Judaism of more of a “hard monotheism” was a later invention.
Now, at this point I’ll just say that what De Young proceeds to go through in the rest of Chapter 1 is something that I’ve long had my doubts about. A little humorous story is in order…
A Story from My Early Teaching Career
Back in my early days as an English teacher in a small Christian high school in California, I had my seniors write a “hero paper.” After reading Beowulf and analyzing it according to the “hero cycle” made famous by Joseph Campbell, I had them pick any kind of hero they wanted—from a book, movie, or whatever—and analyze that hero according to the hero cycle. Being a Christian school, obviously a few students wanted to do their paper on Jesus. Great, you can certainly do that! Well, one of the steps in the hero cycle is that after receiving his calling, the hero has to perform some kind(s) of heroic actions that prove he is worthy of being a hero. So, I was expecting, this particular student who was writing about Jesus to mention his healings, or his feeding of the 5,000. But this student wrote that one of Jesus’ “heroic acts” was when he gave the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai.
I remember calling up a few of my friends from Regent College and joking how this student really didn’t get the whole “Trinity thing.” One of my friends basically said, “Well Joel, not that your student would know this, but actually in early patristic exegesis of the Old Testament, they claim that it really was the pre-incarnate Jesus.”
Well, I couldn’t believe it. That sounded just weird to this (then still Evangelical) guy who grew up in the Assemblies of God tradition! Really? No way! I mean, sure, Jesus is the second member of the Trinity, and before the incarnation He was “with God” in some way—but the notion that some sort of pre-incarnate Jesus was doing stuff in the Old Testament? Sorry, that just sounded silly to me. And for the longest time it still did.
Well…I’m 52 and I’m starting to “get it.” Care to find out more? Come back for Part 2!
