“The Religion of the Apostles”: A Book Analysis Series (Part 2)–Yes, Second Temple Judaism Understood God Exist in Multiple Persons…what????

It’s the end of the week, so it’s time for another post in my book analysis series on Stephen De Young’s The Religion of the Apostles. I ended my last post by introducing the initial argument of De Young in his first chapter, namely that far from Christianity “inventing” the idea of a triune God that went against traditional Jewish teaching, the reality was that throughout the Old Testament, as well as within Second Temple Judaism itself, there was a long-held recognition that YHWH, the God of Israel, existed in multiple hypostases, or “persons.” On one hand, human beings cannot look upon YHWH, but on the other hand, throughout the Old Testament, there are passages that tell of actual, mysterious encounters between a number of human beings and YHWH. In all honesty, what I’m about to cover in this post is a topic that I was long-skeptical of. Having grown up in Evangelicalism, it all just sounded too weird to me.

I think I’m starting to come around.

Throughout the rest of his first chapter, De Young discusses a laundry list of examples found in the Old Testament that express in some mysterious way the multiple hypostases of YHWH. Obviously, the best thing would be to read the book for yourself. In what follows, I will simply provide a brief summary of all the examples De Young provides.

The Angel of the Lord/The Messenger of YHWH
First, there are instances when YHWH is identified in some way with the “Angel of Lord,” or more properly, “Messenger of YHWH.”

1. Exodus 3:2: When Moses encounters YHWH/The Messenger of YHWH at the burning bush.
2. Judges 6: When Gideon encounters YHWH/The Messenger of YHWH and is called to be a judge.

In both of these instances, the two names are used interchangeably. On one hand, Moses and Gideon encounter the “Messenger of YHWH,” but on the other hand, we are told that YHWH spoke with them. Now, I was always of the opinion that they had encountered an angel who was acting, as it were, the “royal messenger” of YHWH. Therefore, the angel spoke on behalf of YHWH—what the angel said was what YHWH wanted to convey to Moses and Gideon. De Young, though, stresses that the connection between YHWH and the Messenger of YHWH is more than that.

Then there is the next occurrence:

• Judges 2:1: When the Messenger of YHWH tells the Israelites that He was the one who brought them out of Egypt, but because they disobeyed Him, He would depart and no longer fight for them. Furthermore, we are told that this Messenger of YHWH travelled from Gilgal to Bokim.

So, what are we to make of that? I suppose I always assumed that this figure was some sort of prophet who travelled around Canaan, giving that prophetic word to the Israelites. Again, though, De Young stresses that isn’t what the text is saying. It implies this Messenger of YHWH was the one who brought the Israelites out of Egypt—that would mean YHWH Himself. Still, this Messenger of YHWH had a physical appearance and was able to travel about in Canaan, declaring the He, as YHWH, would no longer fight for them. In short, De Young says that this was an instance of the second hypostasis of the God of Israel.

The Word of YHWH
Second, there are the instances when YHWH is identified with the Word of YHWH.

• Genesis 15:1: We are told that the Word of YHWH came to Abraham, and that Abraham understood that the figure was YHWH.
• I Samuel 3:1-10: We are told that the Word of YHWH came to the boy Samuel, and that YHWH stood next to his bed. Later on, in 3:21, we are told that YHWH continued to appear to Samuel at Shiloh, revealing Himself by His Word.
• Jeremiah 1: The Word of YHWH appeared to Jeremiah and YHWH reached out and touched Jeremiah.

De Young argues that it is instances like these that are in the background of John’s Prologue in John 1:1-18, when he speaks of the Word being with God, being God, and being made flesh (later in Christ). Most scholars argue that John is taking the abstract Greek philosophical concept of the Logos and saying that God’s “universal reason” has been made known in Christ. Although I still think that still can be found John’s Prologue, De Young argues that John is more referring to the actual Old Testament concept of the Word of YHWH as expressed in these passages and claiming that that hypostasis of YHWH in the Old Testament had been made flesh—that Jesus Christ is the incarnation of that Word of YHWH in the Old Testament.

The Wisdom of God
Third, there are instances of when the Old Testament speaks of the Wisdom of God. Or more specifically, of that instance in Proverbs 8:22-30, when Wisdom is personified as YHWH’s “master craftsman” of creation. Here in Proverbs 8, Wisdom is portrayed as a second hypostasis of YHWH, and as John claims in John 1:1-18, that second hypostasis of YHWH is presented as Christ having come in the flesh.

The Son of Man
Fourth, there is the instance in Daniel 7, where Daniel sees “one like the Son of Man” coming on the clouds of heaven to the throne of YHWH to be given all authority over the nations. Full exegesis of Daniel 7 is beyond the scope of this post, but essentially, the scene in Daniel 7 is that of four beasts (representing various human kingdoms), and eventually a “little horn” on the fourth beast that wages war against the “saints” (God’s people, the Jews). Then in 7:13-14, Daniel sees a vision of “one like the Son of Man” coming on the clouds of heaven.

De Young makes two key points about this figure. First is the fact that he is identified as one “like the Son of Man”—namely Adam—thus emphasizing it is a human person. Second is the fact that this figure is riding on the clouds of heaven—throughout the ancient Near East, this symbolism represents a deity. Therefore, this figure of “one like the Son of Man” is presented, on one hand, as a human person, but on the other hand, as a deity. The fact he is then given authority by the Ancient of Days over all dominions of the earth further underscores this point.

Not surprisingly, Jesus Himself alludes to this Son of Man figure of Daniel 7 when He is before Caiaphas the high priest in Mark 14. When Caiaphas asks Jesus if He is the Messiah, Jesus responds, not just with “I am,” but also with an allusion from here in Daniel 7: “You will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven.” He’s claiming to be that figure, one who was obviously human, but also God. And that is why Caiaphas charged Jesus with blasphemy. Claiming to be the Messiah wasn’t blasphemy (many men claimed that in the first century) but claiming to be the God of Israel was—even claiming to be the second hypostasis of God.

The Body of God
This opens the door for De Young to emphasize a major difference between first century Christianity and the later Rabbinic Judaism that came to define post-AD 70 Judaism. De Young begins by noting that one feature in today’s Orthodox Jewish synagogue service is the hymn sung near its dismissal that declares, “God does not have a body.” This hymn was added in the fourth or fifth century AD as a direct response to Christianity’s claim that Jesus is the incarnation of God.

For the most part, people today just assume that Judaism has always held this view that “God does not have a body.” But De Young points out that a simple reading of the Old Testament shows that simply was not always the case. Take, for example Genesis 18, when Abraham shows hospitality to three visitors who turn out in some way to be God. Abraham has a meal prepared and they all eat together. Now, the text eventually identifies these three visitors as YHWH and two angels. Still, within Orthodox Christianity, these three visitors are seen as an icon of the Holy Trinity. Regardless of that, though, the fact remains that the text tells us that YHWH shared a meal with Abraham, and hence was in some kind of bodily form.

We see this again in Genesis 32:24, when Jacob wrestles with a certain man all night, and later realizes that this “man” was God. Indeed, Jacob says that he has seen God “face to face.” Finally, we have Exodus 33, where Moses speaks “face to face” with YHWH. When Moses asks to see YHWH’s glory, YHWH’s tells Him that no one can see His face and live. But then YHWH’s “passes by” Moses and, protecting him with His hand, allows Moses to catch a glimpse of His back.

Put all of these instances together, De Young argues that Jews in the Second Temple period came to the conclusion that there were two hypostases of YHWH—one was able to appear bodily to humans, and one was unseeable. This is how they accounted for all the curious passages that I’ve briefly summarizes here concerning the Messenger of YHWH, the Word of YHWH, the Wisdom of God,and the Son of Man. Hence, the idea that God existed in multiple hypostases was not a Christian invention. It was already there in the Old Testament Judaism.

And therefore, as De Young says, “The unitarian monotheism of Rabbinic Judaism, not the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, was the innovation in the centuries after Christ” (34). In fact, it was Rabbinic Judaism that “cut off huge swathes of the belief and practice of the Second Temple period in order to create a deliberately non-Christian religion that relied on a pared-down reading of the Hebrew Scriptures” (35). Indeed, a number of early Christian Fathers in the 2^nd-3^rd centuries like Justin Martyr, Basil the Great, and Origen all spoke about how Jewish teaching at that time “still held that God had a body or a form” (34).

***

I, for one, did not realize a lot of that. I always tended to think of attempts to “read Jesus” back into passages like the ones mentioned here to be wishful thinking. I still think attempts to “read Jesus of Nazareth” back into those passages to be wrong. But I am starting to realize that if I believe the doctrine of the Trinity is right (and I do), and if I believe that Jesus is the incarnation of the Word of God and the second member of the Trinity (and I do), then I need to take more seriously the reality that yes, God the Son (albeit in pre-incarnate form), as a second hypostasis of the God of Israel, was indeed active in the life of Old Testament Israel. Yes, that second hypostasis later became incarnate in in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, but it wasn’t like God the Father was saying in Genesis 1, for example, “Hey Jesus, let’s go make human beings.” The second member of the Trinity was there from the beginning, but not yet known as or incarnated in the person of Jesus of Nazareth yet. I hope that makes sense—it’s hard to articulate!

In any case, there’s a little more to go in chapter one, but that will have to wait for the next post.