Given that I am a student and adjunct instructor in theology at a Jesuit university, I became aware of the (Roman Catholic) Congregation for Divine Worship’s June directive concerning the liturgical use of the Divine Name in Hebrew (YHVH) back in the Summer. For those who haven’t seen it, I offer you a look:
Christians have been debating this for the last couple of weeks following publication of the directive in Christianity Today, so I thought I’d weigh in. Having learned to vocalize according to the qere reading “Adonai” or “Lord” when studying and reciting Hebrew in my Master of Arts-Old Testament days at TEDS, I have since gone back and forth on the propriety of vocalizing “YaHWeH” in the context of preaching and teaching. Mostly, I have lapsed in and out of the practice depending on the needs of the moment.
Although I am not canonically bound to observe the discipline, I have thought a bit about the matter and have decided that I am prepared to receive Cardinal Arinze’s directive as reflecting a certain wisdom and theologically appropriate deference concerning the practice. As a conversation starter, I’ll simply list some of my reasons:
1. The process of “fencing” the divine name by vocalizing “adonai” (Lord) as a qere (that which is read) circumlocution of the kethib (that which is written) “YHVH” was an act of reverence for the holiness of the divine name. By avoiding its vocalization the name was preserved from abuse. The scholarly consensus is that this practice originated c. 300 BC in several forms and gradually achieved universal observance. This was not superstitious, but an application of the commandment to never make wrongful use of the divine name.
The deep memory of Exile seems to have driven concern for a fastidious observance of the commandments. Numerous texts survive suggesting that the divine name was polluted by idolatrous adumbration. We actually have surviving graffiti from the ante-Christian period reading, “I bless you by Yahweh of Samaria and by his asherah,” and “I bless you by Yahweh of Teiman and by his asherah.” (Cf. Dever, Recent Archaeological Discoveries and Biblical Research, 1993). The ANE practice of naming deities often implied some power to authoritatively summon, and thus to control and coerce. The danger of this is often cited as a reason for the mysterious self-designation of Israel’s God by the elusive nominalizing of the Hebrew “hayah” (“I will be what I will be.”). It is likewise reflected in the patriarchal tradition of Jacob’s request to know the name of the angel-man-God who attacked him and in Adam’s naming the animals as a sign of his dominion. Viewed in this light, Israel’s pre-exilic condition and the syncretic idolatry characterizing it propelled Second Temple and Early Rabbinic resistance to similar threats of syncretism in both the Greek and Roman periods. That this memory was inscribed into liturgical practice vis-a-vis the divine name was actually a development laden with serious theological reflection. It is not too far to say, in fact, that the practice of qere circumlocution of the divine name represents a kind of liturgical-linguistic iconography setting forth the teaching of the Hebrew prophets and the post-exilic writings.
2. But why should we observe the practice as contemporary Christians? To this question I would pose the deeper question of our connection to our older brothers and sisters in the covenant. At the theoretical level, it requires reflection on whether there is a relationship of essential continuity or essential discontinuity between Christianity and Judaism. On the practical level in requires reflection on whether the Church has yet to learn anything of Jesus from Jews.
To the theoretical question, I think that there is good ground to think of the Christian relationship to Judaism as one of essential continuity with important discontinuities rather than the other way around. Certainly this works for anyone reading the New Testament in light of its reflections on the Hebrew Bible and the story of Israel. Saint Paul in particular was quite willing to narrate the story of his Early Christian communities (churches) in a vital continuity with the stories of Adam, Abraham, Moses, etc. The fact that his narration reorients that story around a new climactic moment-the death and resurrection of Israel’s Messiah, Jesus-should not obscure his belief that he was fully faithful to Torah and to the essential vocation of Israel as the instrument of eschatological blessing to all humankind. This continuity works prospectively as well as it does retrospectively, however. Romans 9-11 witnesses to a certain Pauline hope that Israel as Israel-not Israel as incidental, individual Jewish converts-will be saved in the eschaton. While it belongs to the integrity of Christian confession to acknowledge that this will essentially be an eschatological reconciliation to one covenant wherein Jesus as Messiah and Lord, Paul is at great pains-straining at points, even-to announce and defend God’s eschatological fidelity to all the covenants of promise. This fidelity is applicable, as he sloganizes throughout Romans, to Jews and Gentiles alike.
To the practical question, I argue that Judaism presents a continual challenge and opportunity to learn about Jesus. Saint Paul recognizes that Israel qua Israel is heir to the covenants of promise and constitutes the normative canonical steward of the Hebrew Bible/Christian Old Testament. This has resulted historically in the Protestant appeal to Judaism in order to establish the legitimate boundaries of the canon of the Old Testament (as opposed to the LXX-Vulgata tradition containing the Apocrypha/Deuterocanonical books). It has appeared in the Renaissance-Reformation appeal to Medieval Rabbinic exegesis in the Mikra’ot-Gedalot to overturn established Roman Catholic exegesis. It also appears in Benedict XVI’s extended dialogues with Rabbi Jacob Neusner as a norm for his own christological interpretation of the Gospels and his conclusions regarding the historical Jesus. Could it be that faithful observance of this (entirely legitimate) development in Second Temple Jewish theology and liturgical praxis will enhance our own theological reflection likewise? I think that there is good reason to suspect that it might.
3. Beyond these larger considerations, I would cite the mere apostolic precedent of the New Testament in its citation of the Old. These citations are often directly from the LXX, but not always. Whether they are from additional Greek translations of the Hebrew or original to the New Testament authors themselves, there is not a single instance where YHVH is transliterated or rendered in any other way than kurios (=adonai). Note, for example, Jesus’ citation of Isaiah 61:1-2 in Luke 4:18-19. While we may, perhaps, acknowledge that Jesus cited the text in Hebrew and expounded upon it in Aramaic, do we really want to accuse Luke of theological or theo-practical error when he opts to render Isaiah’s ruach adonay YHVH as pneuma kuriou? The same holds true in the next verse where Jesus’ prolamation of Isaiah’s liqroh shenat-ratzon l’YHVH is rendered as eniauton kuriou dekton?
4. Finally, there is simply the governing consideration of the Golden Rule and a general theopraxis of love. While in no way seeking to broaden the narrow way that leads to life, there is something to be said for making the way narrower than it already is. Acknowledging the stumbling stone that is Jesus’ Messianic claim, we ought also to be mindful of the rhetorical stubling boulders proffered by Chrysostom, Luther, the Crusades, and Oberammergau. This legacy of Christian Anti-Judaism leads in a disturbingly direct and straight line to the gas chambers of Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. That fact alone requires Christians to do all that integrity of faith allows to prefer others to ourselves. In the end, nothing is sacrificed by ornamenting the Divine Name with reverential silence. The bearer of the Name remains Lord of the Covenant and King of All Creation regardless. On the other hand, insisting on our Christian liberty despite the weakness of others both overturns the Apostolic command (Cf. 1 Cor 8:12-13) and sublty reduces the Divine Name itself from an icon to an idol.
I agree with using “Lord” instead of pronouncing the tetragrammaton.
It’s interesting that Paul seems to take great pains to avoid using the tetragrammaton, as such, in his writings (albeit in Greek). In addition, “Jesus” is now the name above all names, so we don’t need to use YHWH as such anymore anyway. (Phil. 2:9-11) I think there’s a shift in the economy of salvation here, as with other things.
Sincere question: so why do we get to say “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?” Why do we not show “reverence” for those divine names as well? Why do we get to say “Jesus”? If his is the name above all names, than how much the more is our reverence required there as well? If we must fence the “lesser” name, then mustn’t we also fence the greater name?
Xon,
Thanks for the question. I think that the answer lies particularly in #4 above, but there is also some genuine evidence that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit-at least in the proto-Trinitarian discourse of Saint Paul-was a circumlocution for the divine name. In 1 Cor 8 specifically, the words of the Hebrew Shema are basically reworked to treat one “God” as the Father and “one Lord” as as Jesus Christ.
This passage, by the by, is yet another example of apostolic precedent for the use of kurios (=adonai) to render YHVH.
MJGP+
Michael,
I’m not sure I agree, but the practice of not saying Yahweh is common in the Presbyterian churches down here. The argument, as I recall, is both that Paul does not use the word and that it is confusing to the laity.
My first thought is that we are actually not like Paul in that this recent statement limits the use of YHWH in liturgical services only. It is not prohibiting it from Bible classes, seminaries, and other endeavors. Paul, however, does not give us liturgical-speak in one letter and other speak elsewhere. He simply translates Yahweh into kurios (or Jesus at times, if you agree with the various arguments about “name above every name”) each time he uses it.
Secondly, rendering YHWH “God” really misses the covenant-name of the God of the Hebrews. Passages like, “Who is like you among the gods Yahweh?” come to mind. If we simply render that, “Who is like you among the gods God?” then the idea is rather confused. “God” has a larger semantic domain than Yahweh does. Yahweh also has direct associations with Israel’s God, wherein the Gentile name for God seems to be elohiyn or God the Most High. It seems that we lose much of the redemptive-historical significance without Yahweh.
And third, it seems that to continue to use YHWH could give us cause for more sympathy with the Jews, not less, in that we are constantly reminded that our history is their’s and that our God is their’s. We are the Israel of God, with our great High Priest.
I don’t know why Internet dialog often seems so one-sided – but there is perhaps more to consider that has yet to be mentioned.
First, I’m not sure that it is inappropriate to mention that there are clear parallels between Roman Catholicism and Rabbinic Judaism that are relevant to this issue. The idea of fencing commandments with extrabiblical rules and regulations ought to give us pause when it is clear that our Lord himself condemned the Pharisees and others for just this sort of reasoning. Granted, our Lord was gracious on occasion in how He observed the laws present in His own day in the first century, but He also was not afraid to directly reference and use the Divine Name in John 8:58 in identifying Himself as YHWH when dealing with the very same men that held their own traditions in such high esteem. He spoke ‘as one having authority’ – and clearly went well beyond the fences put in place by the rulers of His own day.
If there is any saving grace to Rabbinic Judaism in this regard, it is the fact that the living traditions of the rabbis were formed over several thousand years and at the hands of a good deal of our Jewish fathers and not at the direction of one mere man. Hearing a dictate from on high regarding this one particular point from a man claiming to act in Christ’s stead on this is sharply different from the Jewish approach to this and other traditions. I believe that alone should give us pause even though in this case the Pontiff is directing Christians to act in accordance with what has become Jewish tradition.
While today and in times past, the Jewish people have lifted the Old Testament and enforcement of its laws to a standard similar to that of Rome’s regard for her tradition, it should be noted that none of this caution regarding the Divine Name actually exists in the Old Testament itself among the people of God in their practices, rituals, musical compositions and the like – the writers of Holy Writ consistently use and refer to the Divine Name as something to be pronounced and lifted up from the rooftops to the nations (see Exodus 33:19; 1 Samuel 20:42; 1 Kings 10:1; 1 Kings 13:2,6; Psalm 20:7; Psalm 96:2; Psalm 102:15; Psalm 135 and many, many more).
While you can point to NT usage of kurios for adonai rather than a transliteration of YHWH where the NT quotes the LXX, there are other considerations here as well that have yet to be brought up. The intentions of the LXX translators may not have been the same as the intentions of the New Testament writers–but it was “the” biblical text of the day and as such its usage was followed. As to why, surely it is too difficult to speculate without understanding that it is pure speculation on anyone’s part to guess an answer except that we know that the LXX was considered a faithful translation of the Hebrew Old Testament. But, the NT (and the gospels) had a specific purpose in being written in Koine Greek in the first place and that undoubtedly had to do with accessibility in the Missionary Church across the ancient world. Would a transliteration of the name of God really be something of relevance in presenting the gospel message to cultures largely out of touch with the finer points of of the Third Commandment as understood by the Jewish people? Perhaps there is some indirect evidence that following the LXX usage of kurios for adonai was implicitly done to avoid offending Jewish brothers who had yet to believe or out of further respect for the Divine Name – but, since no hard evidence exists either way it really amounts to an argument from silence to say that such things really were the case.
Also, Xon’s question is a good one and we must remember that it is the name of Jesus that is above every name and there is no failure of usage of that name by the New Testament in not only describing the person who is our Lord but also in speaking of Him as Lord – in essence equating Him with the one who has the Divine Name of YHWH. The use of kurios is undoubtedly a double-edged sword here–there is no reason why we cannot identify Jesus Christ as our Lord in the same sense (and more) as YHWH was for the covenant people of Israel and yet there is no need to fence the use of His name. We also don’t go around typing “G-d” as present Jewish works do as well. Why not?
A key component of the gospel today is that what the Jews saw in shadow and type we see in reality. Couple that with Jesus and Paul both using the even more intimate term for “Father” — Abba — and I really wonder how it is we think we know better by avoiding use of the names of God that He has given, including YHWH.
The Apostle Paul told us that all things are lawful, but not all things are profitable. I really don’t see any tangible benefit to avoid use of the Divine Name with our Jewish brothers and sisters and there is certainly no real biblical prohibition. The real offense between Christians and Jews is not the use of the Divine Name but the scandal of the person of Jesus Christ–the very one who used the Divine Name of Himself. Not using the Divine Name only further serves to mask and blur the fact that Jesus Christ is YHWH and the one Person and God that our Jewish friends must submit to in order to gain eternal life.
My personal opinion is that this is one more example of the modern Roman hierarchy making it more difficult to understand the gospel and to make that which ought to be plain something other than clear.
Mr. Pahls,
Do you know what the Fathers thought about this issue? Also, was it scandalous for a the individual Jew to “personalize” God by calling Him “Abba”? Finally, the degree of offense that was attributed to vocalizing God’s Name, was it same as the degree of offense attributed to saying that Jews and Gentiles were on equal footing?
Re #4
Also, always rendering YHWH as “Lord” mutes the resonance with words like Hallelujah, etc.
A further comment to what I have posted above, it should be noted that there is no clear evidence either that the use of kurios in the Septuagint was done by the actual ‘Council of Seventy’ that originally translated the Hebrew Old Testament in Greek. It is mere assumption that the usage of kurios as adonai in place of YHWH from 300BC on. In fact, there is manuscript evidence that suggests that the replacement made was actually a Christian one–and that early copies of the LXX have the original Hebrew name for God included directly in them. Later, Christian copies of the LXX insert the term kurios for YHWH.
Why the change on the part of the Christians? An informed guess would be that it has to do with Christians directly linking our Lord to YHWH – a sort of shorthand designed to press upon the readers of the Old Testament the claims of Christ and the fact that He is the incarnation of the covenant God of Israel.
Not exactly politically correct or in tune with modern ecumenical sensibilities that run downward from Rome, but these sorts of things also have to be taken into account if we are going to make sure our view comports with the history of the matter.
Kepha,
Regarding “Abba”, James Barr and others have decisively debunked the notion that early Christian use of Abba was a unique concept for God introduced by Jesus. J. Jeremias once held such a view and later came to regard it as “a piece of inadmissible naivety.”
One of my early mentors on the subject, Waverly Nunnally, wrote a comprehensive dissertation under Ben Zion Wacholder (a Jewish Prof. of Rabbinics and Talmud at Hebrew Union College), entitled “The Fatherhood of God at Qumran” making the larger conceptual point.
Second, the Fathers all seem to have largely followed the practices of the Septuagint and the Apostolic precedent.
Third, I have granted the legitimate discontinuities between Christianity and Judaism in my post above. I’m not sure where your subversive final question gains any traction with regard to my points above. To turn things around, are you protesting your right to scandalize someone unnecessarily out of a sense of moral and theological superiority?
It seems incumbent upon you to demonstrate both that vocalization of the divine name is an essential component of the faith, and that the New Testament writers erroneously abstained from the practice.
And “Mr. Pahls” is my father.
MJGP+
Michael writes:
>>>It seems incumbent upon you to demonstrate both that vocalization of the divine name is an essential component of the faith, and that the New Testament writers erroneously abstained from the practice.
A more difficult thing to do would be to establish, as Steve W. hints at above, that the late vowel-pointing of the Masoretic Hebrew Text as we have it today should lead us to somehow think that it is necessary to see the word “adonai” in place of the tetragrammaton in the Septuagint by use of the word “kurios”.
Given what I have already indicated in the above comments regarding the LXX and the historical record, we must remember that making firm conclusions about the use of a word like kurios is extremely difficult and I believe Steve is on the right track to posit that kurios most certainly identifies Christ with the Divine Name rather than with its later substitute–especially as we see the debates heat up toward the first century and onward regarding the divine nature of Christ. There is certainly nothing more for your argument on this than there would be for his in terms of historical data.
Of course, Michael, you are free to disagree but all your evidence (with the exception of how you read the use of kurios in the New Testament informed by what appears to some as an anachronistic look at the Hebrew Old Testament) is late in nature and depends upon rabbinic commentary, usage, and pointing of the text that postdates the first century in the first place by hundreds of years.
Additionally, I don’t believe it is accurate to say the New Testament abstained from using the Divine Name when we read the Gospel of John and other books. There are too many “I am” statements to throw away including the one I’ve already mentioned by Christ identifying himself directly with YHWH. It is clear that the Jews of our Lord’s day had no doubt as to what He was referring to. It is also clear that when Paul uses “Lord/kurios” he is speaking directly of the covenant God of Israel in reference to Christ and it does not seem he is shy about doing so. The text of the first chapter of the Letter to the Colossians for example shows clear identification of our Lord with YHWH once one is familiar with the underlying Hebrew texts that it echoes. Add to all of this the fact that “Hallelujah” is used four times in Revelation 19 and means literally, “Praise Yahweh” (the last syllable being phonetically obvious as to the origin of the word). Given that this is a transliterated usage of the shortened form of the Divine Name – all this adds up to a more closely aligned usage of the Divine Name than we are being led to believe.
Mr. Pahls,
My questions were not meant to be subversive. They were just questions I had upon reading your entry. Nevertheless, here is my humble response.
1.) In The God of Jesus Christ, Walter Kasper writes the following:
“Along with this christological concentration there is a further distinction: the unparalleled intimacy that attaches to Jesus’ use of ‘Father.’ This becomes clear above in the characteristic word Jesus uses in addressing God: Abba. It is quite certain that in his use of Abba we have the very word of Jesus himself. Otherwise there would be no explaining why we find the Aramaic word even in originally Greek texts of the New Testament (Gal 4.6; Rom 8.15). Evidently the word Abba was a word which the later church regarded as especially important and sacred, being characterisitic of Jesus’ relationship to God. Abba has its origin in the speech of children; it is originally a child’s babble, comparable to ‘papa’ or ‘dada.’ But it was also applied to other esteemed persons with whom one had a confidential relationship (‘Little father’). Consequently, when applied to God Abba expressed a great and even familiar intimacy and personal closeness which every Jew must have regarded as shocking.” (p. 142)
Following Kasper’s thought, the use of Abba by Jesus revealed the inner-life of God, as only Jesus could do this (cf. Matt 11:27). As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states, quoting Tertullian along the way:
“To pray to the Father is to enter into his mystery as he is and as the Son has revealed him to us.
‘The expression God the Father had never been revealed to anyone. When Moses himself asked God who he was, he heard another name. The Father’s name has been revealed to us in the Son, for the name ‘Son’ implies the new nam ‘Father.’
We can invole God as ‘Father’ because he is revealed to us by his Son become man and because his Spirit makes him known to us. The personal relation of the Son to the Father is something that man cannot conceive of nor the angelic powers even dimily see: and yet, the Spirit of the Son grants a participation in that very relation to us who believe that Jesus is the Christ and that we are born of God.” (para. 2779-2780)
For me, all of the above is the context of the word Abba, and I don’t see how it is compatible with first century Judaism. The implications of such usage, like in the claim to Jesus’ eternal sonship, not to mention the scandel of the cross as well, is theologically offensive to Jews.
Now regarding the last point I made about the distinction between Jew and Gentile, I was/am assuming some insights from the New Perspective on Paul, one of which is the understanding that Jewish ethnicity was intimately connected to Jewish soteriology. This problem was such an obstacles that it carried over into the nascent Church. In fact, in the words of Catholic New Testament scholar Fr. Frank Matera, S.J., “To put it anachronistically, the Judaizers or agitators have come to Galatia and have said, ‘In order to become a Christian, you must first become a Jew!'” (cf. Commentary on Galatians, Sacra Pagina, Vol. 9, pp. 28-30) The ethnic self-consciousness of first century Jews was such that, as Dr. Scott Hahn has said in his recorded lectures on Romans (via St. Joseph Communications), the worst thing that one could have said to a first century Jew was that there was no distinction between them and Gentiles.
Without question, the list of “scandels” or things that non-Christians find offensive can go on and on and on.
One last point about the “theological superiority.” I would never say that Christians enjoyed such a thing, quite frankly because it sounds arrogant, and I would not want to come across like that to a Jew. Although, I would have to say that Jesus has, as the quotes above state, opened up to us the inner-life of God via His filial relationship. We are sons in the Son. There are privileges that come with this, and I’m not going to not exercise those sacrificed-for-privileges because they might offend someone. The Messiah Jesus was lifted upon and broken on the world altar, so that I could have direct access to none other than YHWH, and it is in the humility of the faith of His eternal Son that I call upon Him.
P.S. Sorry for any typos. My kids have been tugging on me, and now my wife starring me down, because I promised that we would go to the park.
Kevin,
First, your beef with Rome or with episcopal-conciliar polity in general is beside the point and functions only to radiate more heat than light. The directive itself comes from Cardinal Arinze as prefect of the CDW, not from the pope, and is an exercise of legitimate authority conferred upon him within his own communion’s boundaries. He issued the directive following extensive consultation with theologians, bishops, and experts on Judaism and it is canonically applicable only to churches under his jurisdiction (not to Christians generally, as your post #5 seems to imply). I would argue that he is as warranted in directing the liturgical affairs of his church as you are in directing the liturgical affairs of your own community.
Second, the similitude you trace out between Rome and Rabbinic Judaism is superficial and fairly antiquated in light of the advances in the study of Second Temple Judaism from Davies/Sanders on. Again, this is a red herring and only muddies the issues I address in the post.
Third, the Masoretes simply acted to preserve the dominical pronunciation of Hebrew commended to them. While this is not an airtight indication that Hebrew c. 300 BC or pre-70 AD was pronounced in a precisely identical manner, your positing of an ungoverned discontinuity presses things beyond reasonable limits. The translation of the LXX is itself an exemplar of this stability as is the continuity of pronunciation with Hebrew cognates. There is a fairly impressive consensus behind my association of kurios with adonai and the burden would be yours to decisively overturn it. Raising the question doesn’t prove the opposite.
You also overlooked my notation of the marked differences between the LXX and many NT citations of the OT. The New Testament authors did not uniformly cite the LXX and may have even engaged in translation work themselves, so this tack doesn’t help you much.
Fourth, the fact that Paul and others continued the practice of using kurios as a circumlocution in Gentile contexts would only strengthen my case for its standing theological propriety.
Fifth, the appeal to Philippians 2 as a proof-text for elevating “Jesus” as a “name” (i.e. as a nominal locution) above that of the divine name is fairly specious. Jesus was an unremarkable name as such in Second Temple Judaism and there seems to have been no analogous communal reverence for the name as name in the Early Christian period. The statement in Paul’s context refers to the authority of the “person” Jesus above competing “powers” (Imperial Rome most prominent among them). I don’t (obviously) deny the supremacy of Jesus, but I do deny that the passage in context is about his “name” as a locution.
Sixth, “G-d” in Jewish usage is by no means universal or uniform. Rather, the practice popular and more of a contemporary popular phenomenon. I have lots of Judaica and it appears in no volume on my shelves, for example. It seems to appear mostly as a way for Jews to designate the “G-d” of their own theological heritage as over against the “God” spoken of by Christians or Muslims, etc. The situations do not appear analogous in my estimation.
Seventh:
Hmmm. This sounds suspiciously familiar. If so, I’ll simply note how this statement misrepresents the arguments of both my friend and the article by Bietenhard that he cited. In any case, I don’t see any citation here of educated opinion regarding purported illicit “assumption” and you certainly haven’t argued directly from any MSS evidence that you have on hand. As such, I don’t find this tack persuasive at all. In fact, if the Early Christians acted specifically to excise Hebrew transliterations of the Divine Name from the LXX, wouldn’t that be an argument in favor of its historical and theological propriety?
___________________________________________________________________________________
Kepha,
Kaspar is simply wrong. His book appeared in German in 1982 and was translated by Matt O’Connell in 1984. Barr’s work appeared six years after The God of Jesus Christ in 1988 and Kaspar cites the work of Jeremias that Jeremias later repudiated (Abba, Studien zur neutestamentlichen Theologie und Zeitgeschicte) twice in support of his case. I suspect that even Kaspar would recognize this fact today. He’s a great scholar and an even better ecumenist, but we all make mistakes.
Regarding the rest, I have twice already noted that Christianity makes non-negotiable claims and that these create the real distinctions and discontinuities between Christianity and Judaism. I have also acknowledged with the New Testament that these claims represent an unavoidable stumbling block to Jews. The question to my mind, again, is whether vocalization of the divine name is an integral part of those non-negotiables. Given the fact of apostolic precedent in particular, I would suggest that it is not.
Thanks to you both for the interaction and for sharpening my own reflections here.
MJGP+
Michael writes:
Michael,
I really fail to see the relevance of the above remark to my comments. I didn’t say a word about how I feel about episcopacy and any hostility or beef you picked up was something other than what I indicated in my comments.
Michael continues:
I’m not here to argue the extent of Cardinal Arinze’s authority and I don’t believe my comments impinge on that authority in the slightest. However, given that Rome views herself as the Church, it ought to surprise no one that a classical Protestant might have some disagreement as to the nature and extent of her claims whether presented to us by the current Pope or one of his lieutenants on an issue like this. Given that you feel constrained as an Anglican priest outside the Roman communion to follow the Cardinal’s direction, it at least seems relevant to address this with wider concerns in mind.
Michael writes:
Not every comment I made was directed to address your argument – and you are welcome to call my view dated but demonstrating the veracity of such a dismissive comment is a completely different matter. Additionally, we shouldn’t pretend that Davies/Sanders, the New Perspective, or other lately formed ideas about Second Temple Judaism is the only valid perspective on the nature of Rabbinic Judaism. Also—who said I was talking about Second Temple Judaism—my point was about Rabbinic Judaism and Roman Catholicism both of which are of late origin and have little to do with modern studies of Second Temple Judaism. Maybe you could provide commentary on my comparison from scholars that actually have something to do with what I said. That might be helpful.
Michael claims:
I don’t doubt that the Masoretes were generally faithful to the traditions handed down to them, but that does not provide conclusive or even affirming evidence that YHWH was always and evermore to be received as Adonai in the translation of the Septuagint (and by implication, that kurios represents adonai rather than the Divine Name). In other words, positing the nature of a text we don’t have from 300BC by reviewing and considering the actions of rabbinic Jews a thousand years later—after Christ and after Judaism had fundamentally changed after the destruction of Jerusalem and the advent of Christianity—isn’t exactly walking on the firmest ground available. And, you want to call my scholarship and opinion dated on some of these matters but really it is your view here that represents the vast majority of the somewhat dated scholarship of the higher critical and other nineteenth century schools, not mine.
Additionally, you have completely ignored and failed to comment on the internal evidence regarding usage of the Divine Name by the people of Israel (that I noted above) that obviously posits a discontinuity that you would seem to want to minimize when reviewing this issue. Instead, like many modern scholars you choose instead to embrace the clear tradition of the Masoretes some six hundred plus years after the birth of Christ. It bears mentioning as well that the Masoretes also worked in an anti-Christian fashion in their translation and commentary and it isn’t out of order to note that sometimes this displayed itself in the very pointing of the biblical text itself. These are relevant facts to your claim that you just haven’t dealt with especially when we consider the claim of the New Testament in matching kurios with YHWH and the Messiah.
Michael continues:
I’m sorry but the more-scholars-agree-with-me argument doesn’t establish or provide proof for your point of view in and of itself. You are the one who must provide demonstration for your point of view, at least on the Internet (after all, you wrote the blog post arguing as you did), and scholarly consensus is no guide to the truth nor does it automatically rebut any claim I’ve made in the above comments. Besides, it’s a bit naïve for someone to assume that my own view carries no scholarly support in contradistinction to your own claim.
Suffice it to say, you’ve provided little more than an outline of an argument in putting forward your opinion and substantiation of your view is lacking at least in this blog post and further comments. I would love to see you provide an actual demonstration of your view, however. I mean, if the case is so strong it should take you all of twenty minutes to type out the uncontroverted truth of the matter!
Michael writes:
I’m sorry, what was this designed to prove in regards to your point of view and how does this have anything at all to do with what I’ve put forward above?
Michael writes:
Where did I say the use of kurios by Paul or others was inappropriate? What we are discussing here is not whether or not kurios is appropriate but whether or not it is inappropriate to use the Divine Name as it existed in its original form (YHWH). As before, you have ignored direct textual evidence. The form either in Greek or as an abbreviated but transliterated tetragrammaton was used in the New Testament (Rev. 19 emphatically) and also by our Lord in John 8. Why is that?
Michael writes:
You can argue with Scripture – the Bible says that His Name is above every name. I seriously doubt that means only that He was more powerful than the Roman Emperor even if N.T. Wright and the entire New Perspective school might disagree. The importance here is not to provide a proof-text for a point I was not making (if you remember, Xon made the original point in asking the question), but instead served to illustrate that the constant occupation of the New Testament writers when addressing this issue and the use of kurios for Jesus was to directly identify Him with the covenant God of the Old Testament. Even if you want to argue that kurios=adonai in the LXX, by indirect reference it still boils down to kurios=YHWH – are we going to pretend that Paul or the other New Testament writers were unaware of the Hebrew text? Obviously, your point that the NT text differs from the LXX in certain places tells us you are aware that this is a very cogent point in regards to this issue.
Michael notes:
I’m sorry your library is so limited. The point I was making was not to claim that there was some sort of Jewish consensus on the matter but that as a rule we address God by His Names. Why this would be so controversial is beyond me.
I wrote:
Michael responds:
And what difference would it make if there were such scholarly references? Here are a couple to chew on (thx to Pastor Jeff Meyers):
Michael finishes:
It really depends. In my view, the reason why they would do such a thing is really at the heart of the matter and not merely whether or not it provides us with an example to change things. I don’t see the Apostle Paul or the other New Testament writers making sweeping wide ecumenical changes or further changes in worship services merely to avoid offending their Jewish neighbors. I do see it as appropriate that kurios replaced the Divine Name to further elucidate and make clear the claims of Christ before the world to Jews and Gentiles. The current Romanist tack here that you’ve outlined obscures that claim to the Jewish people and the use of the Apostles made it clearer. In that vein, I believe there is a substantial difference and one shouldn’t be mistaken for the other.
Kevin,
As per usual, this feels like more of a posturing stand-off than a quest for genuine understanding. You seem to have formed your conclusion already and I have no illusions that you will be converted by anything I write here. I’ll sketch some responses to your latest post, but this will be my last word to you on the subject.
First, I’ll restate that that differences you have with Rome are irrelevant. Even if we were in complete agreement with regard to ecclesiology and Rome, it wouldn’t affect the shape of my argument one way or another. I don’t feel bound by Arinze’s directive (as you assert and the original post explicitly denies), but I do find myself persuaded of its wisdom. Whether it comes from Rome or from the end credits of a Super Mario game, the directive as a proposed practice stands on its own and is persuasive to me on its own merits.
Examples of the vocalization of YHVH in the OT are completely irrelevant to the case I have outlined above. My point is that the practice of qere vocalization of the Name as “Lord” is a legitimate and venerable theological development that occurs after the close of the Hebrew Canon. I am persuaded of the wisdom in continuing this practice as did the Apostles in the NT.
In that light, regarding Jn. 8, Rev. 1, and 21, etc., you rightly perceive the allusion to Ex. 3, but you wrongly regard it as a direct quote. First, the words of Jesus in the NT Gospels are always-already recollected interpretations of the ipsissima verba (very words) of Jesus and even the most conservative scholars acknowledge that we possess only his “true voice” (ipsissima vox, Cf. P. Feinberg “The Meaning of Inerrancy” in Geisler’s Inerrancy, 1979). Thus, the attempt to reconstruct his ipsissima verba in Aramaic (or Hebrew?) is illicit on methodological grounds–especially so when it comes to Johannine documents that originate only in the last decade of the first century. The LXX Greek of Ex. 3:14 is ego eimi ho on. The Lord then orders Moses, “Tell them that ho on has sent you.” Jesus asserts his priority to Abraham and invokes the subject from Ex. 3 (ego eimi), but he leaves the predicate (ho on) to be inferred by the reader of his Gospel. This is a common rhetorical strategy in John’s Gospel. Clearly the Jews in the temple understood the implication (thus the stones), but these are not direct quotes of Exodus and the absence of the predicate actually could be employed to buttress my case. Pick up any of the standard commentaries on John (Brown, Schnackenberg, Keener, etc.) for fuller discussion of this.
Whether we accept the conclusions of the NPP or not, the most substantial challenge to Sanders’ work (Justification and Variegated Nomism, Vol.1) largely accepts his fundamental conclusions with regard to Second Temple Judaism and attempts to advance the discussion beyond them. The big complaint in the essays is that “covenantal nomism” as a concept is too-narrow and that one should really speak of “nomisms” as they appear in their particularity. As I have said of your earlier posts, the mere gesture toward differing perspectives does not suffice as a demonstration of familiarity with their contents or with their specific applicability to this discussion. Your direct association of Roman Catholicism and Rabbinic Judaism is superficial and illicit and on that point everyone agrees–proponents and opponents of the NPP alike.
Regarding my estimation of either your scholarship or your opinions, I haven’t seen a real presentation of either in this thread. I intend no offense, but you haven’t interacted with what I have cited as representative of a consensus position on the use of adonai as a circumlocution of YHVH except to raise hypothetical objections rooted only in the possibility of dissent from persons you do not name. You only belatedly imported stuff from Jeff’s site–the “friend” I spoke of above (I knew it sounded familiar). Presumably you followed the thread on his first post today and the detailed interaction between us, but maybe not. For the record, I am familiar with the Bietenhard article that he (and now you) have cited from the NIDNT. As I wrote to him and implied in my post above, the citation in context is more subtle than your claim for it suggests and actually buttresses my case rather than undermining it. Given the fact that Jeff only posted this stuff yesterday, I kind of doubt that you digested the whole article in context, but you should know that even Bietenhard notes the evidence for circumlocution of the divine name in some of the earliest MSS of the Hebrew Bible that we possess (namely the DSS). The Targumim dating from the Second Century BC also witness to the practice, by the way. The fact that it was not uniform in the late forth century BC but standardized over time is no argument against the current consensus that kurios is a translated circumlocution for the Divine Name.
Raising the hypothetical possibility that the Masoretes were unfaithful to Hebrew pronunciation in the pre-Christian era is no argument that they were. If you don’t accept the notion that adonai was a standardized qere vocalization of YHVH and that this is reflected in the kurios of the LXX, the NT, and other Early Christian literature, it is your burden to provide an alternative proposal, not mine. I am certainly solicitous of correction where I am in error, but you haven’t begun to make that case.
Interested parties can reference the entirely respectful and friendly interaction between Jeff and me here, by the way.
Regarding my confusion at your use of Rabbinic Judaism vs. Second Temple Judaism, I am simply following a fairly established tack in assuming the overlap. If you have it in mind that Rabbinic Judaism is something entirely different, originating de novo only after AD 70, you should be informed of how incorrect this is. While the Mishnah only began to be codified after the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple, the conversations and debates contained therein date from well before in the oral halachah traditions. This is true as well of the Tannatic Midrash which codifies homiletic agaddot originating before the common era. So I don’t recognize what appears to be your hard distinction between the two.
Finally, I don’t assume the burden to answer just any ethereal difference in order to assert anything specifically. This is especially true in a blog discussion. Given my education and the fact I do teach on these subjects as an adjunct prof. at SLU, I guess I am content to assert my own considered opinion after having digested the scholarship. I’m not infallible, but I am informed.
As I said, this will be my last word to you on the subject. I have spent too much time on this already. Intelligent readers can decide for themselves whether I am on firm ground.
MJGP+
Michael et alia,
I’m not sure what this is even about. All the go-around about the LXX and ancient usage seems to miss the most essential questions.
Is Cardinal Arinze’s rationale for mandating the discontinuance of pronouncing “Yahweh” in liturgy the same as Michael’s? Whatever the merits of Michael’s argument(s) might or might not be, I for one would be interested in knowing what Arinze’s rationale is, since Michael doesn’t give it. It might just be a bit of liturgical decorum finally prevailing amidst the confusion of post-Paul VI Roman practices: for Western Christians “Yahweh” is, after all an odd affectation, unhallowed by long usage (except in vernacular Protestant liturgy and hymnody in the form “Jehovah”), and is in any case an uncertain reconstruction of the pronunciation. I always thought it sounded grating and affected in Roman liturgy.
But with regard to the point Kevin and Kepha make: it is sounder than one might think. Although “Joshua” was indeed a common name, that is not to the point here at all. Paul is in fact saying that “Jesus” is the theophanic Name now: as Yahweh had been before. The doctors of the Byzantine communion, following Gregory of Nyssa and others, have long held that “Yahweh” indicates the Word before His coming as Jesus, and a number of reformed catholic doctors too held that the ancient theophanies were the Word, not the Father as such; on such a reading, Yahweh was the Name of the Word in Israel, the Lord of Hosts- certainly so on the Byzantine reading, plausibly so on certain Reform ones. We forget this now, but that kind of reading was commonplace as late as the 19th c. Presuming Paul to be saying that Jesus is the final fullness of those theophanies (“for that Rock was Christ”), then the names of Jesus and Yahweh are convertible. It would thus be bizarre for Christians to not pronounce “Yahweh” on principle, even the principle of kindness, if we claim that “Jesus” means the same thing, and more fully, and yet openly pronounce “Jesus”. If Yahweh is not the name of the Father, but of the Word in His ancient manifestation, then to refrain from pronouncing it now on account of the ineffability of its reference would be to suggest a strange split within the Word, and would thus appear to violate the indubitable principle regarding the inseparability of the Word and Lord Jesus as given in the second part of Dominus Iesus; a document which has greater authority in the Roman order of things than Arinze’s does.
But given early Christian doxology the point holds in any case, whatever one thinks of Byzantine or certain old evangelical catholic readings of the precise Trinitarian character of the ancient theophanies. Consider this apt quote from Dupont, cited in Leopold Sabourin’s wonderful study “The Names and Titles of Jesus”: “…Jesus…received the ‘Name above every other name’, the proper Name of God, an ineffable Name, as the Being of God is incomprehensible. In prolonging Jewish liturgical usage which substituted the title ‘Lord’ for the sacred tetragram, thereby making it a revelation of the ineffable Name, we see the Christians giving the Risen Jesus the title ‘Lord’ and attaching the same meaning to it.” (Sabourin, pp 260-261).
We might have good reasons not to pronounce “Yahweh” in public lectio: the novelty and affectation of the practice, for one. But given the Christian claims about Jesus, if Arinze’s rationale is the same as Michael’s, it seems at least an empty gesture, however well-intentioned, since we *do* in effect pronounce it, every time we proclaim “Jesus”. And it might possibly even be a dangerous one, if it leads Christians to habits of mind which violate the principle given in Dominus Iesus.
peace
P
Peter,
This is a helpful rejoinder and worthy of some consideration. I will share a couple of preliminary impressions.
You are largely making a dogmatic theological argument while I am making an exegetical and historical theological argument. The trinitarian reflections of Gregory, etc. are terribly important but it must be acknowledged that they are developmental readings of the Old Testament in light of much later theological concerns. Thus your perspective is synchronic while mine is diachronic. Hence the rationale for my approach.
If one starts with the question of whether the vocalization of the Divine Name is so integral to the deposit of faith that the Christian Gospel is compromised without it, my narration of the exegetical-historical traces is a fairly decisive demonstration that it is not. If it is not (as you seem prepared to grant), than the Pauline counsel that we not scandalize others in the exercise of selfish freedom would seem to apply. This is something Paul himself demonstrated specifically toward the Jews as Jews in the case of his decision to circumcise Timothy, by the way.
On the identification of YHVH with Jesus, etc., I’ll stand by my reading of Philippians 2 in context. Beyond that I think that St. Paul’s rephrasing of the Shema as he does in 1 Cor. 8 is a better indication of how the naming of God moves from Judaism into the NT and Early Christianity. YHWH does not equate with the pre-incarnate “Son” as the several theophanic manifestation, but with “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit”. Here the external activity of the Blessed Trinity is undivided.
Now this does seem integral to the Gospel as the dominical baptismal formula makes clear. If the naming of “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit” were offensive to Jews, we would certainly have to chalk this up to the proper distinctions and discontinuities between the Christianity and Judaism. This is not the case, however.
Beyond this, I will let you Google search the backstory on Arinze’s directive on your own. Suffice to say that it is intended to function in continuity with Nostra Aetate and with Dominus Iesus as a clarification of Nostra Aetate.
Blessings and Peace
MJGP+
Michael,
I am sorry that I’m not the type to ascend the sacred mountain in order to consult some oracle of wisdom on this or other matters in some quest for understanding. I prefer to wrestle with the gods before bowing my knee to what they might have to say about a particular issue. But, that’s just me.
I’m happy that Peter has weighed in once again and now I can remember that, yes, I’m not half crazy for the pastoral and other concerns that I’ve brought to this issue but that there are legitimate items that deserve discussion and consideration besides your point of view. I don’t claim to be right on all of what I’ve put forward either but I do appreciate the courtesy of being heard as if we really were brothers in these matters instead of believing that there is some class or other distinction between us that makes your voice considerably more rational than mine sufficient to “inform” me of things instead of discussing them.
I do not relish the predilection we both seem to have in being so fierce in dealing with each other but professorships and the opinion of scholars who have been blindly trusted too long in our faith communities make me less patient of views that might be offered here or elsewhere–at least when they’re offered without the demonstration required to make an informed skeptic like me see the wisdom plainly. So, I will continue to ask the hard questions and take a line that is less than orthodox in certain academic circles. I know that can make my presence bothersome at times but a claim to gracious or irenic discussion can’t really ensue without some level of noticeable difference and toleration of those with other points of view–no matter how incredulous they may seem to be to us.
That having been said, I thank you for the interaction and perhaps in the future we can take it just a bit easier on each other.
Michael,
I’ve gone ahead and done a little looking to get the background for the ruling. It’s hard to tell what principle is actually being invoked: my guess seems to have been right, that part of what is going is liturgical policing- and in a good direction, I think. There are also ecumenical considerations.
I look forward to any further thoughts you wish to share. In the meanwhile, some thoughts in reply to your response here.
I do grant that vocalization of the tetragrammaton is not so integral to the deposit of faith that the Gospel is compromised without it. But- I also think that the name “Jesus” is, now, economically speaking, the equivalent of vocalization of the tetragrammaton: as the quote from Dupont on early Christian usage suggests. That is, Christians do not now vocalize the ancient tetragrammaton, but this is because there is a new name of invocation, whose substance is the same. Leaving the ancient name unpronounced need not mean that it was always properly unpronounceable (the antiquity and propriety of that fencing really are debatable), but rather, that the Name is now pronounceable as Jesus. I understand and passionately sympathize with the ecumenical concerns involved, but as I said, if that’s the motive, the gesture is empty and perhaps even a little condescending: for saying “Jesus is ‘Lord’ ” makes a shocking claim, in effect the same as vocalizing the tetragrammaton, and anyone can see this at once. And although you make a subtle point about Jesus leaving the predicate to be inferred in his assertion of priority to Abraham, yet the fact that it sounded in his hearer’s heads, rather than directly from his mouth, makes little difference, for it still amounts to something like a vocalization: it was certainly not a substitution such as “Adonai” or “Kyrios”.
Arinze himself, now that I’ve looked at the directive, seems to hint in the direction of what I’m arguing here: suppressing “Yahweh” in lectio in fact leaves “Jesus” as the only functional Name, and Arinze really only appeals to the historical fact of the tetragrammaton’s having been unpronounced as such by Christians as warrant for his ruling: he does not suggest it is intrinsically privileged in a way that “Jesus” is not, and thus on the whole I see now that he seems to be reinforcing Dominus Iesus, and not unwittingly subverting it, as I had first thought he might be, and as indeed he would be, were the warrant for his ruling a theological one about “YHWH” being privileged in a way “Jesus” is not.
On the identification of the OT theophanies: a tradition which runs from Gregory of Nyssa to Hengstenberg should not be lightly dismissed: and in any case, I think that to say that YHWH indifferently indicates the Trinity, glosses over the very real diversity of Biblical names of God. You might as well say that “Ruach” means the Trinity indifferently. For the ancient Fathers, the very diversity of the names you would seem to be willing to gloss over, was the chief argument for God’s triunity: and if the early Christian fathers weren’t enough to make the point, Philo very clearly shows that the names are not indifferently convertible. An understanding of the whole economy of salvation depends on the distinction of the names; this is a commonplace of biblical theology; but I think you would grant this in principle.
I really do look forward to any further thoughts you have: this is a very interesting question, and I thank you for calling attention to it here (I confess I do not regularly read Christianity Today!).
peace to you and yours,
P
Should we swear (solemnly, of course) by Jesus’ name rather than “God”? It’s always seemed funny to me that God seemed to want people to swear by his YHWH name, see, e.g., Deut 6:13, (which, I guess, gets us back into the debate about when pronouncing it became off-limits) but that we just say “God.” I wonder what the history of it is — there’s also the possibility of saying “in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” which is used in the marriage service in the BCP.
Although this might seem irrelevant, I note that liturgies often include solemn oaths and vows.
“Veni, Domine Iesu.”
Jordan
Woops, blew my cover. Oh, well. =)
Perhaps I’m taking all of this too lightly, but I think a mountain is being made of a molehill. In reading the directive, the impression I have is that this is a matter of liturgical practice in the Roman Church and has nothing to do with whether the use of the Tetragrammaton is allowable in general. Thus, this directive comes from the Congregation for Divine Worship and not Pope Benedict XVI’s former home at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
All I see here is a continuation of the current pope’s policy of reigning in departures from Catholic liturgical norms. There is nothing here that disallows translations that use the Divine Name from approval as a Catholic Bible for general use. It would only require that it must be altered for the translation to be used in the liturgy.
Such a directive does not costitute a doctrinal position but only a matter of ecclesial discipline or custom. It is akin to the setting of the date to celebrate feast days or any other liturgical norms or rubrics in order to have the Roman rite share a common practice as much as possible.
Albert,
As you’ll notice, that has been my sense of what is going on as well.
peace
P
Without wishing to fall headlong into restorationism, I suspect that an ecclesiology grounded in the apostolic kerygma would find such questions far afield in the pressing work of the ministry. Of course, one’s conception of the church will shape the level of his interest in questions of this sort, but my impression of the history the NT attests indicates that the actual ecclesial issues are elsewhere.
In the main, I suppose I can agree with my good brother Andrew here if all we were ever discussing was the minute details of the process of the composition and use of the LXX among the Hebrews and early Christians (a topic I find interesting as a history/theology nut and not as one to focus on as if the world’s existence depended on it), but the topic plays to more important questions and is perhaps noteworthy for a few reasons which have yet to be considered fully.
For one thing, I do believe Michael has a good point in wanting to graciously deal with our Jewish brothers as much as possible even if we may disagree on this particular issue of the Divine Name and its use within the Roman Communion. For too long, the Church has ignored its older straying brother and anything we can do to make it easier for the Jews to accept their own Messiah and covenant God in Christ – by all means let us go forward in making such bridges possible. Was it not the Apostle Paul who said he would suffer hell and death for the sake of his brothers were it to make their salvation possible? Michael’s intent here is admirable and noteworthy and the Church should very much follow suit in imitating the Apostles as best we can.
Secondly, the use and identity of God’s Name among His people is extremely important – there is perhaps nothing more important for the identity of a people to identify with and remember their own history as well as the God that guided them over the centuries. Otherwise, what is the point of the Scriptures at all in providing the history of God’s people to us? So knowledge of and use of God’s Name in these discussions points to that history and the importance of God’s work among His people. If this were not true, I daresay Peter’s words at Pentecost would have been different regarding promises God doubly swore of His own Name in fulfilling, the New Testament would not have bothered alluding to the Old Testament on almost every page, and Paul and other New Testament writers would not have taken such pains to identify the Messiah Jesus Christ with the covenant God of Israel.
I do stick by my assertion that Rome’s effort to exclude usage of the old Divine Name in their services does result in helping to hide what ought to be plain – and so here if I am right – the clear and distinct trumpeting sound of the gospel is at stake.
While I agree that this can seem in our own day like a petty and unimportant discussion, we must remember our own history and the same things were said about other controversies–such as the inner details of the Trinity or the nature of Christ–as well that in turn played out to be very important throughout the life and history of the church long after the disputants were dispatched to their heavenly home.
So, to mention Philippians 2 once again, the action of God in placing the Name of Jesus above every name was important enough to make it into the canon but more–important enough to resound eternally through the heavens that Jesus Christ is King of Kings and Lord of Lords.
So, there is no need to write a book on one blog post and we ought to remain true to the larger concerns of the gospel in our world today, but ‘there is a time and season for everything under the sun’. No less true for something like this – instead of dismissing this sort of discussion, it may be better for us to weigh what has already been said.
Andrew, et.al.,
I appreciate the general concern to return to the first principles of the Gospel and I also acknowledge that I did not present the thread with that specific perspective in mind. That said, I do think that there is something to be said here that touches on the Church and her mission to the world. I also appreciate Kevin’s tacit acknowledgment of that fact, not in the least.
One of the things that I will be presenting to my students next Monday will be the Pauline theme of the Church as a laboratory of the world’s possibility. The basic point is how the Church, as embodied witness to the death and resurrection of Jesus, sets forth in the present world a sign of the world that is to come. For Paul this necessitated an entire epistle (Romans) detailing the manner in which the advent of Messiah did not falsify the covenant fidelity of God (his righteousness) or invalidate his eternal promises of Israel as Israel. Why was this so? Because he had a constellation of communities at Rome comprised of Jewish-Christians on one hand, Gentile Christians on the other, and they did not get along or recognize one another as reconciled in the Gospel.
Now I grant that this concern might not predominate in the minds of many modern American Christians who have no regular interaction with Jewish persons, but I was a youth pastor on the north shore of Chicago a decade or so back and knew kids with grandparents who still bore the tattooed numbers on their arms. To this day, my daughter has a Jewish friend who has inherited deep suspicions that her Christian friends don’t think she has the right to exist.
Ultimately, the world will know that Messiah has come by the way we embody the love, forgiveness, and mutual forbearance characterizing the world which is to come. Part of that embodiment is the mournful remembrance of our sins and the ordering of our communal living according to principles of love and hospitality to the other. By this we set forth in the world the love of him who first loved us.
Blessings and peace.
MJGP+
Peter,
I had only waded through the first ten or so comments before I posted my own, so I missed yours until afterwards. I obviously do agree.
Is Jesus really the Name above every NAME?
Philippians and Ephesians appear to make it clear that YHWH has elevated Jesus’ Name, that YHWH has done so for His, that is YHWH’s glory.
It would appear that Jesus is The NAME leading to the ultimate glorification of God as Triunity, not as Jesus as the God-Man.
Hence the name of God as Trinuity would appear not to have been eclipsed or replaced by that of Jesus.
I have read some toughst from AA van Ruler who refers to Jesus as a sort of Divine Intermezzo leading to the ultimate triumph of YHWH.
What think ye?
Too much counting angels on the head of a pin….?
Hans,
This accords fairly well with my exegetical perspective on Philippians 2. I’m not persuaded by either the proof-texting of some nor of the anachronous reading of later, dogmatic-theological readings back on to the biblical text.
I do think that (to borrow Bishop Wright’s language) that Jesus is the victory of God. On that Paul would agree even according to his own narrative-theological scheme.
MJGP+
Michael,
If you attend to Philonian studies and to the researches of recent Second-Temple scholars (C Fletcher-Louis, M Barker, C Gieschen et alia), you’ll see that the old patristic reading, and its Reformation and modern continuance, is hardly an anachronistic “reading back in”: the elements of it were there before the birth of Lord Jesus. Whether it is wholly right is an open question; but you cannot settle the question by simply claiming it is anachronistic eisegesis, because its antiquity is, in fact, indubitable.
Hans,
I myself am a close reader of Van Ruler, and take much from him. But before you make the appeal to the notion of the intermezzo, you need to ask yourself whether you’re not in fact begging the question by defining YHWH as the proper name of the Trinity as such.
peace
P
I did not read all of the comments so maybe this has been brought up before:
The divine name is unpronounceable. It is not Yaweh any more than it is Jehovah or Lord (that’s an overstatement, but you’ll get my point). It always throws me off to sing or pray to “Jehovah” or “Yaweh” because our arrival at these pronunciations is based on the assumption that we are somehow saying the *real* name which is foolish. The attempt seems misguided, as if we should stop using the Anglo “Jesus” and start using Yoshuah or some other such ‘acurate’ rendering. The fact is, no one knows how Hebrew or Aramaic *sounded* in the 1st century (to say nothing of the fact that it probably sounded very different over the many centuries and regional dialects in which the name of God has been written and uttered). And that is what we are ultimately talking about, sounds. If the discussion takes on the dimensions of meaning then there is a conversation to be had. I can see the advantages of Yaweh over Lord if Lord is defined in a sterile way by hearers or if the fact that is a rendering of a *personal* covenanted God to his people. But switching to Yaweh won’t mitigate against that problem necessarily. It is a problem that has to be addressed head-on.
Thank you for your thoughts Peter, I have read very little Van Ruler and read more about him than by him in any event.
I suppose that the question I have does relate to the Name of GOD.
Sometimes it seems that people are claiming that the new name of the Trinity is “Jesus”.
The emphasis on Jesus, the claims that creation only makes sense because of Jesus, that Jesus is Creator, Redeemer and Ruler etc seem to suggest that Jesus is the name of the Triune God from now on.
However, it seems that the Philippians and Ephesians acciount of the primacy of Jesus’ name rather supports the view that GOD the Father remains somehow paramount.
I know that this would be poor trinitarian thinking, hence my usage of YHWH to refer to the Trinity.
Any reading suggestions for me…..?
Jedidiah, how do we know that the name of God is unpronouncable?
I agree that the pronunciation used by say, Moses or Aaron when they used the name is unknowable.
I do not see that “original” pronunciation is of any great moment however.
The claim you make is something different of course, that God’s NAME is not able to be pronounced.
Where does that belief come from? It can not simply be the lack of vowels in YHWH of course.
Just curious,
Thank you,
Hans,
There is a kind of Christocentrism which skirts the fact that Jesus came as he did because of sin, came to restore the integrity of creation, and which makes of redemption a kind of distinct second creation better than the first for being somehow monophysitized: as if original creation were simply a means to a meta-creation, the order of redemption considered as a positive reality in its own right and better than the first, rather than a name for the divine rectification of the original creation. Van Ruler was a very strong critic of this tendency, and I think that on the whole he was right. I was not asserting that Paul considers “Jesus” to be the name of the Trinity: rather, I was saying that a venerable school of opinion in the church holds that YHWH indicates the Word, especially economically, and that Jesus was thus YHWH in the form of man; this view would say that “Name above all names” would mean that YHWH=Jesus now, not Trinity=Jesus. The view that YHWH means Word, held by such as Gregory of Nyssa, was not, to my knowledge, held by Van Ruler, though I think it would not be incompatible prima facie with his teaching overall; however, I don’t know that for certain.
peace
P
Hans,
Yes, it is because there are no vowels. And any attempt to pronounce the consonants is nothing more than philological guessing. Certainly we can guess that Jehovah is a worse guess than Yaweh but we still don’t know.
My thought was simply that it is a foolish quest to pronounce those consonants as opposed to the word “LORD.” As long as there is no lexical difference being imported to the word, a problem preaching can address, I don’t see what the big bother is all about. We do have the vowels for Jesus’ Greek name and we don’t care to conform our English to the closest archaic pronunciation possible (which would still be a best guess wrapped up in philological wranglings). Why do it for the Ancient divine name? In other words, what’s wrong with LORD? That was all I was trying to say.
Vowels Schmowels. The original text came without them as far as we know yet the Israelites had no problem both pronouncing and using the name of God in their own day and hundreds if not a thousand years after Moses first penned it in the Pentateuch.
Exact pronunciation is unimportant to us especially since we identify YHWH with the name of our Lord Jesus. And yes, of course we use the English language in doing so–Babel was by design and until our Lord reverses its effects we’ll continue to have issues like this but it shouldn’t hurt our ability to do what the Lord requires of us…or have we forgotten…’whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved’.
I think I am being misunderstood.
I only wanted to point out that you can say “Yaweh” all you want in worship (in my opinion) but it doesn’t make any difference if you say “LORD” if we are pastorally careful in the way we talk about who the LORD is. The push to use YHWH or the old misguided use of Jehovah seems to rest on some sort of desire to get back to the real name that is, as I put it, a foolish and impossible quest.
Peter,
First, I’ll stand by my conclusion that your reading of later Trinitarian Christology back on to the specific Pauline text we have been discussing is illicit.
I am familiar in a limited way with the authors you cite, but your recourse to Philo studies overlooks the broader question of whether the Philo himself is applicable to either the way the Hebrew Bible reads itself or the to way Saint Paul reads it.
Given that Paul really lacks a logos Christology in the first place (something more appropriate to John or the author of Hebrews), it is quite a stretch to associate him with the Hellenized amalgam attempted by Philo. Such a move would have been quite foreign to the thinking of a Shammite and the reading of Philippians 2 itself requires no recourse to this line to be intelligible.
Also, the linkage of the logos with either YHWH or the theophanies of the Hebrew Bible in a general way is not the same thing as linking them to the logos-become-flesh as John’s Gospel presents him. In other words, Philo’s project of linking the OT to a categories in Hellenism (used by Hereclitus, Parmenides, etc.) is not the incarnate logos of John.
As I argued above, Paul certainly believed that the resurrection of Jesus was the victory of YHWH and the vindication of YHWH’s righteous fidelity to the covenants of promise. When Paul imagines a New Testament equivalent to the divine name, however, his recourse is to associate Father, Son, (and in one passage) Spirit.
In 1 Corinthians 8, he takes the Greek edition of the Shema and applies “one God” to Father and “Lord” to Jesus Christ. In Galatians he narrates the story of God’s fidelity to Israel as applicable in a relationship of continuity with his own Gentile churches by speaking of the “Father” sending the “Son” and then sending the “Spirit” who enables the Galatian Christians to say “Abba” in continuity with Jesus.
To summarize: as regards Philippians 2 specifically, Paul is NOT equating Jesus with YHWH in a several manner. Rather, in continuity with the entirety of his manner of speaking throughout the epistles, he is noting the eschatological supremacy of Jesus over all earthly powers as revealed in his resurrection.
Although, I have not footnoted this with citations of the various commentators, I am sure that this will be borne out should anyone care to follow things up.
Blessings,
MJGP+
Michael,
Well, we disagree. You are certainly on shaky ground with Philo: the whole trend of the best Second Temple studies now shows that Philo (and the early Fathers who echo him extremely closely: what you say of him is what you say of them, in significant measure) is hardly engaged in a Hellenizing amalgam, but is rather expressing very old Israelite religion in Greek language. Although his terms are Greek, their content is Hebrew; and Philo, like the early Fathers (cf St Justin), thought that what was true and useful in Greek wisdom was from God. The new developments in Second Temple studies are radical and extremely important, and no one can afford to remain uninformed of them. Again, you need to be very careful here, because what you say of Philo will have a great deal to do with what you say of the early Fathers, up through the Cappadocians.
On Paul: I don’t share your disbelief of Paul’s authorship of Hebrews. But even setting Hebrews aside, unless you wish to deny that Paul was the author of 1 Corinthians (10:4), you will still have to deal with his identification of the ancient theophanies with Christ. And remember, the identification of Christ and YHWH is the more or less official position of the whole Eastern Church and the early Fathers; and your ecclesiology compels you to grant that much greater weight than mine does. It strikes me that your view is the one which anachronistically reads back modern dogmatic suppositions into the text; the scholars I would rely on are not making dogmatic arguments, but rather historical ones.
For the barest beginnings, you might want to more closely engage with the authors I mentioned earlier; but also, Barry Blackburn’s work on the “theios aner” in Mark is easily available online and has very useful material in the section on “assimilation of Jesus to YHWH”; he draws on Segal’s still very useful “Two Powers in Heaven”. There is a wealth of scholarly literature on this topic now. Charles Gieschen, earlier mentioned (and a Missouri Synod pastor) is excellent, and so is Jarl Fossum. A close reading of any of these writers will prove very rewarding.
peace
P
Peter,
As I said, I am familiar with the material you cite. I’m not sure that you and I are that far apart on Philo. I agree that he is working as a Jew with a thorough background in the Judaism of Alexandria, but he was attempting to articulate that faith in categories intelligible to Hellenisms of his own time and place. As such he was certainly working toward a Hellenized Judaism and would be at the other end of the Jewish spectrum from Paul and the larger Shammite tradition with which the better reconstructions associate him. In any case, I’m fairly well within the mainstream on both these questions. Others can decide whether this is so. I would simply gesture to a reading of Philo himself and to the writings of David Runia on Philo’s relevance to Judaism, Christianity, and Philosophy.
On Hebrews, I won’t touch your position of Pauline authorship. I’ll respect your scruples on the matter, but I’m with the rest of the world (99.9% of Evangelicals inclusive) on a completely different planet here. As you say, this would yield a strikingly different portrait of Paul.
On 1 Corinthians 10, I have been over this ground a good bit with my students in the last couple of weeks. Suffice to say, I don’t think Paul is doing “typology” in the Fairbairn/Goppelt sense of the term. Even his use of the term typos in Galatians isn’t applicable on this older measure. Rather, he is engaged in a narrative re-telling of the history of Israel in light of a new climactic moment and I’ll acknowledge my debt to Hays, +Wright, and Witherington, etc. here. For Paul, the narration of the story of Israel has a parabolic reversal of expectations and the new climactic moment not only alters the subsequent telos/eschatos (as someone like Vos would argue), but also alters the prior narrative. My example to students was to liken Paul’s story of Israel to the experience of an M. Night Shyamalan film. Anyway, finding Jesus in the “rock” wasn’t the christologizing of a theophany (which wasn’t a theophany in the Hebrew Bible, despite the tradition of the “rock” following the Israelites), but the narrative collapsing of the seemingly divergent experience of Israel and the Gentile churches of Paul. He does this everywhere and the phenomenon doesn’t require the Alexandrian reading you might want to ascribe. This is simply to take the post-Davies/Sanders consensus on Paul on its greatest strength.
The point here, over and again, is not whether there was a Hebrew doctrine of “two powers in heaven” (extant but overplayed by Christians, I think), but whether that feature of Jewish thought was operative in PAUL and necessary to a sufficient understanding of PHILIPPIANS 2 in particular. I answer in the negative on both, but even granting the former doesn’t make a case for the latter.
MJGP+
I completely agree that 99% of modern Evangelicals are on another planet than the tradition. I wouldn’t think that this would be too much of a compliment though.
The author of the Hebrews makes the same argument for justification by faith in chapter 11 that the author of Romans makes in chapter 4. They both cite Habakkuk. They are both concerned with the end of Israel, temple and all, and the dawning of the new age.
The author of the Hebrews was in Italy, wishing to be restored. He was with Timothy, and planned to travel with him.
Also, Paul references that the law was given by angels and that New Covenant believers are in a place of prominence over angels. If Paul didn’t write Hebrews, he could have, since the theologies are the same.
In deference to Michael, the strongest argument in my view for the non-Pauline authorship is in fact the actual text. The original Greek is significantly (read: way) different than the rest of the letters of Paul and that really should be taken into account more than perhaps any other argument for the non-Pauline authorship, at least in my view.
Also, I don’t think Michael was endorsing the view of 99.9% of evangelicals but instead evangelical scholars which is a decidedly different group of people. :)
I don’t think this has any real bearing on Peter’s view, though, and there’s a whole lot more to wade through on both sides to really get to the bottom of the matter (if that’s possible).
Yeah, the more important point is whether Paul and “the author of the Hebrews” had the same theology, to which I say, they’d sure better!
I’ve been away so much I’m late on commenting on this. But a couple of notes.
1. In Exodus 15, “The Lord is a warrior! The Lord is His name!” is absurd. His “name” is not the title “Lord.” At least in this place and those like it, we need to read and sing Yahweh or Jehovah (and since Yahweh seems to have won out in English, I’d go with that).
2. Here is something brief that I wrote in Biblical Horizons No. 171, offered here as grist for the mill:
“Lord” or “Yahweh”?
by James B. Jordan
In Daniel 2:20, we read that Daniel said, “May the name of The God be praised.” That name is Yahweh. But that Name is never used in the Aramaic parts of the Old Testament or in the Greek New Testament. There is no justification for thinking this is because of superstition, a fear of “taking the name Yahweh in vain.” Rather, the name Yahweh is peculiar for the Jews, and occurs only in Hebrew. It is not used directly in the Oikumene language, whether Aramaic or later Greek. Note in this regard Ezra 5:1, which is in Aramaic: “the name of the God of Israel.”
For the Jews, God is peculiarly “Yahweh”; in the Oikumene, He is “God Most High,” “Holy God,” “the Living God,” “the Lord,” etc. The fact that “Yahweh” is not used in the New Testament is not a sign to us that we as Christians reject it in our Bibles, and should translate it as Lord, as is commonly done. The distinction between Jew and Oikumene came to an end in ad 70, and with it the rule “to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” The Church, as transfigured heir of both, should use “Yahweh” where it appears in the Hebrew parts of the Bible, and the other expressions where they occur in the Aramaic and Greek parts of the Bible.
[Along these lines, it is sometimes observed that since Matthew speaks of the “kingdom of heaven” while the other gospels use “kingdom of God,” Matthew is using a circumlocution (a roundabout way of speaking) to avoid giving offense to his Jewish audience. Nonsense! Matthew has no problem writing “God” and does so in many places. Matthew uses “kingdom of heaven” and “heavenly Father,” etc., for a theological reason: He stresses the location of the center of the new kingdom. Matthew stresses the kingdom as new environment. Mark and Luke stress the Person who is King of that new kingdom, and write “kingdom of God.” But even Matthew, when he wants to emphasize the King, writes “kingdom of God” (as in Matthew 21:31, 43).]
Some of the Jews of Jesus’ day may have been superstitious and afraid to say “Yahweh” for fear of inadvertently breaking the command of the Third Word of the Decalogue. But the writers of the Bible, inspired by the Spirit, were certainly not caught up in any such superstitions. The name “Yahweh” was not part of the theological language God had given for the Oikumene, and so when they wrote in the Oikumene languages they did not use it.
We do not live in the Oikumene, and are not bound to use the theological language God gave for the Oikumene. We are not Hebrews-Israelites-Jews either, and are not bound to stick with Hebrew for theological and churchly discourse. The gift of languages means that God authorizes the translation of the Bible into all languages out of the Hebrew and out of the Oikumene Aramaic and Greek. A good translation, and good worship, will translate the Aramaic “Aramaically,” the Greek “Hellenically,” and the Hebrew “Hebraically.” Good translation and good worship will observe the differences. Good translation and good worship will, accordingly, use “Yahweh” or perhaps “Jehovah” for the Name when it appears in the original Hebrew text.
On the Pauline authorship of Hebrews, the Church has camped on 2 Peter 3 as evidence for this. Personally, I have yet to find any good reply to it. Peter writes to the circumcision (Gal. 2). He mentions a letter from Paul to his same audience, in which there are things hard to understand (cp. Heb. 5). He says that this Pauline letter is “scripture,” so it is included in our “NT.” So, what is this letter if it is not Hebrews?
Beyond this, I suggest that anyone wanting to take the matter up should read over John Owen’s discussion in his introduction to his commentary. Modern scholarship just ignores all this, from what I can see. I think the church’s tradition is sound here.