Greco-patristic exegesis

I've discussed this before:

https://triablogue.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-greek-fathers.html

but I'd like to make some additional observations:

i) It's not like reading the Greek Fathers is a shortcut to NT exegesis. After all, you have to know Greek to read the Greek Fathers in the original no less than the NT. Indeed, some of the Greek Fathers write in more advanced Greek than the NT. 

ii) In addition, the NT contains a number of Greek words with Hebrew meanings. Greek words used as synonyms for OT theological jargon. In that situation, the words are Greek, but they have connotations that carry over from Hebrew usage. 

Not only is a native command of Greek not advantageous in that situation, but it's downright disadvantageous. It can blind church fathers to what the words mean because they're using the wrong conceptual and linguistic frame of reference. Using their knowledge of extrabiblical Greek. By contrast, even if Greek is a second language for a NT scholar, he may be more sensitive to the fact that the word is a translation of a technical term in the Hebrew OT, and retains the sense of the original Hebrew. 

Greek in Palestine

Pertinent to Ehrman's claim about the rarity of Greek-speaking Palestinian Jews:

http://www.jgrchj.net/volume4/JGRChJ4-3_Poirer.pdf

Scroll down to p110. 

Whoever

This is strikingly confused:

https://www.billmounce.com/monday-with-mounce/does-john-3-16-say-whoever

i) John doesn't say God loves the world. John didn't write in English. We've been conditioned by a traditional rendering, but that's prejudicial.

ii) John says God loves the kosmos. So the question is what kosmos means in Johannine usage. 

iii) Yes, pas is indefinite, but that's not independent of the sentence in which it functions. Pas is qualified by "those who believe". So the combination makes it definite. Not "everyone" in general, but everyone who believes. 

iv) There's a danger that when people read the Greek NT, they're not reading it from a Greek perspective. They're not getting inside the Greek. Rather, they're superimposing their knowledge of an English translation back onto the Greek. Not translating from Greek to English, but substituting English connotations for Greek words. 

It's Greek to me!

This is a follow-up to my previous post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/09/script-or-history.html

Mike Licona said:

I agree with all Johannine scholars that Johannine adaptation is present in his Gospel.

At the risk of stating the obvious, scholarly consensus is unreliable. Bible studies undergo periodic "revolutions" and paradigm-shifts. The scholarly consensus of a former generation may be contradicted and replaced by the scholarly consensus of the up-and-coming generation. By the same token, each generation of OT or NT scholars is trained in the hot new school of criticism. The Bible is filtered through that lens until the method has exhausted itself. Boredom leads to a new school of criticism. 

What matters isn't scholarly opinion, but scholarly argument. What evidence and reasons do scholars provide in support of their conclusions? That's the only relevant consideration.

The foremost Bible scholars are indifferent to consensus. They are independent thinkers who base their conclusions on original research and reflection. Most Bible scholars are followers, not leaders. 

It's not necessary good to be a leader, and it's not necessarily bad to be a follower. Depends on the position. But appeal to consensus is a vacuous, unreliable intellectual shortcut. 

Lydia needs to do is spend years in the text…in their original language.

Does Licona know for a fact that Lydia doesn't read the Greek NT?

While we're on the subject, I daresay most NT scholars only have a workaday knowledge of Greek. The scholars with a truly impressive command of Greek are a subset of the whole, and fall into a few basic categories:

i) There are scholars who are natural linguists. They have a knack for foreign languages. 

ii) Some NT scholars are Classicists by training.

John Lightfoot, F. F. Bruce, and Bruce Metzger are examples of both (i-ii). They could sightread a Greek text from any period or genre. They had memorized huge swaths of Greek.

As a result, although they didn't necessary have an analytical grasp of Greek, they had a natural feeling for the Greek language, due to their fluency, and how large and wide a sample of Greek they carried around in their heads.

iii) Some scholars may lack that particular skill set, but they have a highly analytical knowledge of Greek. Greek grammarians and lexicographers, as well as scholars who take a keen interest in discourse analysis, verbal aspect theory, &c. (e.g. Stanley Porter, Steven Baugh, Buist Fanning, David Mathewson). 

Another example, who straddles categories, is Gordon Fee. I believe he majored in Greek in college. In addition, he's a leading textual critic, which requires him not only to have a fluent command of the Greek NT but the Greek Fathers, since patristic quotations of the Greek NT figure in textual criticism.

By contrast, I think it's safe to say that most NT scholar are not sophisticated Greek scholars. They can get by. Oftentimes, their training is heavy on hermeneutics rather than lexical semantics. 

Finally, it's silly to complain about people from a different field who comment on Bible studies. Bible studies borrows from outside fields. Consider the work of Robert Alter and Meir Sternberg. Consider how secular literary criticism feeds into biblical hermeneutics, viz. Anthony Thiselton, Stanley Porter, Vern Poythress.

Greek as a second language

A standard objection to the traditional authorship of some NT books is that 1C Palestinian Jews would be unable to write "literary" Greek. One of the ironies of that objection is that NT scholars who raise that objection learned Greek as a second language. They're assessing the literary quality of NT Greek, yet they themselves only learned to read Greek as adults, in college or seminary. They are very late-bloomers in that regard. They didn't even have the benefit of picking up conversational Greek in a bilingual environment when they were young. 

Unitarian body-snatchers

Continuing my response to a hapless unitarian:

https://theologyandjustice.wordpress.com/2017/06/21/hays-non-exegesis-of-john-1034-6-where-is-the-exegesis/

Given that these beings are called gods, and they were called “god” by Yahweh, the word of God came (ἐγένετο—it’s the aorist tense, meaning this happened in the past) to them…

That's a popular misunderstanding of the aorist. 

The aorist-tense form predominates in narrative or when events are spoken of as complete….Although it is often used in contexts where an English past tense (e.g., "he want," "she bought") is required in translation, it is not limited to an English past tense. Sometimes the aorist tense is used to refer to present action, general truisms, or even timeless truths…More important is how the aorist tense-form depicts the event from the standpoint of the speaker or writer as a complete event. Stanley Porter, Jeffrey Reed, & Matthew Porter, Fundamentals of New Testament Greek (Eerdmans, 2010), 38-39.

Evidently, Montero hasn't studied verbal aspect theory. 

In “the father is one” … a phrase that doesn’t come up at all; anytime the Shema is invoked it uses the actual language of the Shema (God and Lord); so you’re speaking hypothetically about something which didn’t happen and thus can’t really be a frame of reference. 

Why can't hypothetical cases furnish a frame of reference?

However even so, the “one” in the phrase “the Father is one” would be the masculine εἷς, and refer not to “unity”, but rather to what it means in the Shema, a Unique personal identity, Yahweh is one, he alone is the God of Israel, that’s what it means. In John 10:30 “one” is the neuter ἕν and refers NOT to unique personal identity but to unity—thus the word doesn’t mean the same thing, it’s in a different form and has a different meaning. So no, it doesn’t evoke the Shema at all, because not one word is the same, and the one word that IS the same is in a different form and has a completely different meaning.

i) Since Deut 6:4 wasn't written in Greek, why does Montero insist that a Greek translation must use a particular synonym for "one"?

ii) Moreover, is he suggesting that εἷς means "unique personal identity"?

Why wouldn’t the Unitarian interpretation provoke that reaction? How many first/second century messianic pretenders died violent deaths? I have the answer, all of them.

Is Montero suggesting they were all executed on a charge of blasphemy? 

You’re assuming by the way that they are saying he makes himself “God” and not “a god” …. There is nothing in the text to warrant that assumption.

Here's a unitarian dilemma. On the one hand, they say the anarthrous construction means "a god" rather than "God". And they say that's not blasphemous because it's is used in the OT for human kings as well as angels. On the other hand, the Jewish establishment accused Jesus of blasphemy, even though, on the unitarian interpretation, that's not blasphemous. 

They ended up killing him for claiming he was the “son of man” (never interpreted in Judaism as being Yahweh), so there are plenty of reasons.

Actually, they convict him of blasphemy for calling himself the "son of God". 

If Jesus said he was from the Father, the unique agent of the Father, and that he was the Christ—and then he was contradicting what the religious leaders said, is it a surprise they wanted to kill him? Is it a surprise that someone who they thought of as a heretic who claimed to be the messiah and speaking on behalf of God would be seen by his enemies as committing blasphemy?

That's quite surprising–indeed, highly incongruous–on unitarian assumptions. On the unitarian interpretation, there's nothing heretical about those messianic claims. So there's this internal contradiction in the unitarian explanation of the Jewish allegation. 

Right but John was written in Greek and it quoted the LXX when it quoted the Hebrew Bible. 

I don’t really understand your point here, why then do the gospel writers constantly use the LXX in regards to scripture quotations? 

Where does Montero come up with that notion? For instance, in his standard commentary on the Greek text, Nolland documents how often Matthew, when quoting the OT, translates straight from the Hebrew text, producing translations that are independent of the LXX. Cf. J. Nolland, The Gospel of Matthew (Eerdmans, 2005), 29-33.

Likewise, Keener says:

John's eclectic use of Hebrew and LXX text-types suggests either knowledge of Hebrew or a memorized, strongly Palestinian tradition. C. Keener, The Gospel of John (Hendrickson, 2003), 1:173.

Montero is overgeneralizing about use of the LXX in the Gospels. 

Everything attributed to Jesus you claim necessitates him being Yahweh in the flesh was also attributed to figures in the OT. Hebrews talks about how Moses took Israel out of Egypt, countless passages in the OT say that it was only Yahweh who took them out of Egypt—does that mean Moses is Yahweh? No. The OT says salvation only comes from Yahweh, yet it calls various kings and judges saviors of Israel, are they Yahweh? Common now.

Here's another central dilemma for unitarians. On the one hand, they vehemently deny that Jesus is Yahweh. On the other hand, when the NT repeatedly attributes Yahwistic claims to Jesus, they say that's possible because an agent can act on Yahweh's behalf. Ironically, their creaturely Jesus becomes interchangeable with Yahweh because there's nothing left to distinguish Jesus from Yahweh. Everything the OT says about Yahweh to set him apart from false gods is transferrable to Jesus. If a creature can always step into Yahweh's shoes, then there's nothing uniquely divine about Yahweh. Let's take a few examples:

i) Yahweh is the Creator of the world

This is one of the defining features of OT theism that differentiates the true God from false gods. The foundational text is Gen 1, yet Jn 1 identifies Jesus as the Creator God of Genesis.

Another striking example is Ps 102, which depicts the God of Israel as the eternal, preexistent Creator of the world. Yet Heb 1:10-12 identifies the Son as the Creator God of Ps 102. 

ii) Yahweh is the eschatological judge

This is another defining feature of OT theism that differentiates the true God from false gods. Jer 17:10 is a good example. Not only does that describe Yahweh's role as the eschatological judge, but what qualifies Yahweh to exercise that prerogative is his omniscience. 

Yet Rev 2:23 ascribes this passage to Jesus. Not only does Jesus assume the role of eschatological judge, but he can discharge that role because he enjoys the divine attribute of omniscience.

iii) Yahweh is the first and last

That occurs in a locus classicus of OT monotheism (Isa 41:4; 44:6, & 48:12). That's a distinction which demarcates the true God from false gods. Yet that's applied to Jesus in Rev 22:13.

iv) Obeisance proper to Yahweh

In a locus classicus of OT monotheism, Isa 45:23 describes the obeisance due to Yahweh alone. Yet that's applied to Jesus in Phil 2:9-11. 

v) Vision of Yahweh

Isa 6:1-5 describes Isaiah's overwhelming vision of Yahweh's incomparable holiness and glory. Yet Jn 12:41 says Isaiah actually saw the Son on that occasion. 

vi) The Shema 

Deut 6:4 is the fundamental creed of OT monotheism. Yet 1 Cor 8:6 is a binary Shema making the Father "God" of the Shema and Jesus "Lord" of the Shema. 

Unitarianism is like Invasion of the Body-Snatchers, where Jesus replicates everything that makes God God. He is said to be a creature, yet he's a duplicate of God. 

Jesus is distinguished from Yahweh, Yahweh acts THROUGH Jesus, not vice-versa

Once again, appealing to agency to salvage unitarianism is self-defeating. In that event, Yahweh is not the Creator of the world. At best God made one creature, and the first creature made everything else. Yahweh is not the eschatological judge. That's delegated to a creature. Yahweh is not the recipient of unique obeisance. That's reassigned to a creature. And so on and so forth. Unitarianism strips Yahweh of everything that makes him Yahweh. A creature co-ops every Yahwistic role, attribute, and prerogative.  

So those to “whom the word of God came” are called gods, does that mean that the readers of the prologue are called gods? 

John's readers aren't characters in Ps 82, so that's a non sequitur. 

Also the “distinction” between Yahweh and the other gods of Psalms 82 is that the other gods die … Jesus died, if that was Jesus’s point then that’s a very contradictory point.

On the mythopoetic interpretation, the gods in Ps 82 don't actually die since they don't actually exist. That's a satirical fiction.

Blasphemy and Jesus

The unitarian attempted another response:

https://theologyandjustice.wordpress.com/2017/06/19/what-on-earth-is-jesus-saying-in-john-1034-36/

I don’t really understand your point here, why then do the gospel writers constantly use the LXX in regards to scripture quotations? 

Montero keeps swinging and missing. Jesus isn't quoting the Shema in Jn 10:30. Go back and read what I actually said. Try responding to that for a change.

Did John NOT know that Jesus was referring to the Shema? If he didn’t then what are we even talking about? 

Indeed, what is Montero even talking about? 

If he did why didn’t he give some indication in the text that this is what Jesus was referring to? He certainly could have used the masculine form of “one”, he could have given some clues in the text. Jesus could have actually used words (other than one) that actually referred to the Shema.

Which tendentiously assumes there is no such indication. 

John wrote his gospel, presumably, to be understood by people. Had Jesus referred to the Shema in verse 30 and John wanted people to know it, he would have done something to let people know; he didn’t.

Based on what? A unitarian standard of comparison? 

Some readers do see an allusion to the Shema (e.g. Bauckham, Köstenberger).

I’m not disregarding the historical setting, what evidence is there that the Shema would be associated with the term “me and the Father”? I’m also not disregarding the fact that John wrote his gospel to be understood by people who read Greek and knew the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible.

As you said, Jesus didn’t speak in Greek, we don’t’ know the exact wording he used, all we know is what John wrote down for us, and John wasn’t an idiot, if Jesus referred to the Shema John would have made that clear in the text somehow, he didn’t.

i) John must be an idiot if he doesn't express himself to Montero's satisfaction. 

ii) Montero's objection is based on a distinction that, at best, only works in Greek, yet he's forced to admit that the original conversation didn't take place in Greek. 

Unless of course you just think anyone any form of the word “one” is used it’s a reference to the Shema, which I don’t think you do.

Try considering how words are used in context. 

Of course there isn’t just one LXX, but do you have ANY example of the Shema being written in Greek using ἕν? It can be in the New Testament as well … go ahead and show me, maybe I missed one.

Since I don't grant how Montero has framed the issue, that's a specious challenge. 

Now this is confusing. Ok, let’s break this down, The Shema refers to one individual, yes, (by the way the masculine form can also be used for abstract concepts For example 1 Thess. 5:11, εἷς τὸν ἕνα, refers to a corporate group…

i) That's an idiomatic phrase. It doesn't follow that if you detach a word from an idiomatic phrase, that it will perform the same function.

ii) Moreover, Montero is equivocating: εἷς τὸν ἕνα differentiates one individual from another ("one on one", "one to one") whereas Jn 10:30 combines two individuals. So it's not "corporate" in the same sense. 

and the feminine μία also often refers to concepts) but that’s the point? 

Of course, the feminine gender would be unsuitable in denoting male referents (father, son, Jesus). 

Now if Jesus changed it to the neuter to express and abstract idea, such as him and the father are one in some way (similar to the way the apostles are to be one in John 17), then we are no longer dealing with the Shema at all, the word “one” doesn’t mean the same thing—So then where is the connection to the Shema?

It reformulates the Shema like Paul's reformulates the Shema in 1 Cor 8:6. 

So what? A reference to the Shema is still a reference, in John 10:30 there was no context where the Shema should come up. 

The context is who Jesus is. If Jesus is Yahweh Incarnate, then that's quite germane to the context. We see similar debates in Jn 5 and Jn 8.

The Fourth Gospel records disputes between Jesus and Jewish opponents regarding his nature and mission. This is just one case in point. 

(the Shema isn’t a messianic verse)…

The Shema is germane to the nature of messiah. 

so if the language used by Jesus is a reference to the Shema (it isn’t), then why shouldn’t John 17 be?

Different context.

Montero then appeals to 17:11, but that segregates the Father and Son, on the one hand, from Christians, on the other. So it's not interchangeable.

How do you know? Blasphemy is not just “calling yourself Yahweh”, in fact I don’t think you can find precedent for that anywhere … 

Is Montero operating with the simplistic notion that blasphemy requires the speaker to explicitly call himself "Yahweh"? Is that the source of his confusion?

In the Gospels, the Jewish opponents of Jesus accuse him of blasphemy for exercising divine prerogatives or using divine appellations. That's tantamount to claiming to be Yahweh.

At the trial of Jesus, his accusers regard "son of God" as a divine title. And since they think Jesus is merely human, they regard the ascription of that title to Jesus as blasphemous (cf. Mt 26:63-65; Mk 14:61-64; Lk 22:67-71; Jn 19:7). That's not a Trinitarian understanding of the title, but a Jewish understanding of the title. 

It's not synonymous with the plural form, as a designation for angels, or a corporate, adoptive metaphor for Israel. 

There is NO indication that they are using Θεός (without the article mind you, had John wanted to make it clear that they were referring to Yahweh surely he would have included the article, especially given Jesus’s response) as a synonym for Yahweh. 

This is one of Montero's chronic confusions. He acts as though the only way to claim to be God is to use a proper name for God. He suffers from a mental block, as if a speaker can't imply that he's Yahweh by using divine titles or exercising divine prerogatives. 

Just because they say it’s Blasphemy doesn’t necessarily mean that at all, the charge could refer to any number of things.

The Jesus opponents of Jesus are clear on what they mean. They infer that he's "making himself God". Equivalent to "making himself equal with God" (5:18). 

You don’t know that it is a synonym for “Yahweh”, you’d have to argue for it. I don’t know why you write off, a priori, the idea that Jesus is setting himself up as “a god” and that, to them, is blasphemy.

Montero himself doesn't think it would be blasphemous to use "god" in a lesser sense.

The “word of God” also came to heavenly beings, that’s what Psalms 82 IS, it’s God’s word to these heavenly beings.

Within the parabolic scene in Ps 82. But that's a literary device. Ps 82 is the word of God to Israel. The Psalms are addressed to Israel. 

Yahweh isn't literally speaking to the nonexistent heathen deities. That's a theatrical depiction. Addressing an imaginary audience or interlocutor. 

So let’s break down your argument … When talking about verse 30 you insist that we have to think about the text as Jesus talking to his interlockers (which gets you out of the obvious linguistic problems with your claim about the Shema) … Now you are saying Jesus, in response to a charge, is referring to something which his interlockers never could have possibly heard of, the prologue to John, which was written decades after this encounter? So basically Jesus was talking complete gibberish, it was nonsense. So his argument was “if you read the prologue of a Book that will be written decades later about my life you’ll read that I am the Logos, so I made the divine beings talked about in Psalms 82” …. Where are you getting any of that in the text?

Montero is conflating two different things. The readers should remember the Prologue when they hear 10:35. The Prologue provides an interpretive grid for readers, by giving them advance notice regarding the nature of what will unfold in the course of the narrative. 

By contrast, figures within the historical narrative must discover the truth of the Prologue through the words and deeds of Jesus. 

I don’t reject prophesy, they refer to the historical kings as well as the future messiah … But a typology only works if there is some similarity between the type and anti-type in function or form or something like that. These passages refer to the historical kings in their role as agents of God, subservient and obedient creatures of God … If that isn’t the same reference to Jesus then what is the point of that typology? It wouldn’t make any sense to use those references for Jesus if Jesus was Yahweh in the flesh.

To the contrary, typology operates on the principle that the antitype is superior to the type. Like the relationship between shadow and sunlight. 

The Father/son succession is your point, but when it comes to “God’s Son” in the old testament, that isn’t how it’s used, it isn’t used for succession at all, no angels called “Sons of God” are spoken of as succeeding Yahweh, no Kings are either, nor is the nation of Israel; that isn’t how the term is used. 

Montero still hasn't figured out what I'm saying. He's obsessed with the occurrence of certain words. But that confuses words with concepts. 

"Father" and "son" don't have to be used in royal succession narratives or motifs. That's a given. As a rule, a prince is a son of the king. A father/son relation is already implicit in a king/prince relation. Moreover, kings and princes are typically the same kind of beings. 

It is used for people who rule oh behalf of God though, but that isn’t the same thing as succession.

i) Once again, Montero is befuddled. To begin with, I'm not discussing literal succession, but a theological metaphor. 

ii) In both OT and NT theology, you have the motif of a messianic figure who ascends to the throne of God, as coregent.  

How is “sonship” a divine title in the same way Yahweh is divine? It IS divine in the sense that the son is called “mighty god”, but it isn’t divine in the same that he is in the same camp as Yahweh; since this whole thing is accomplished by Yahweh himself (the giving of the son and the growing of his authority)—so no, it isn’t “divine” in the same way Yahweh is divine.

Many unitarians lack critical sympathy. That's the intellectual ability to assume the opposing viewpoint for the sake of argument, then assess the consistency of the opposing viewpoint on its own terms. Instead, unitarians raise objections that recast the issue in unitarian terms. 

But in Trinitarian, Incarnational theology, it is not inconsistent for the Son Incarnate to "grow in authority". That's not about the intrinsic authority of the Son qua Son, but the Son in union with a human nature, fulfilling the role of Adamic and Davidic kingship. 

Ok, here is the problem; Questioning whether or not he is the messiah is merely a question about whether or not his identity includes the position of Messiah. The question was not “are you the Messiah, oh and what else are you?” It was only about his messiahship. Had Jesus responded, “I am God”, or “I am a human”, or “I am an angel”, or “I am an extraterrestrial alien”, he would not have been answering the questions; all of those would be answers to a question about his true identity, but not answers to the actual question at hand. The question is related to his identity, at least part of his identity, but it is not a question about his “true identity” in the broad sense, it was a question about his identity as Messiah.”

Montero suffers from this blinkered notion of what's messianic. But the question at issue is the nature of the messiah. What does that category stand for? What are the characteristics of the messiah? 

Ok first of all, it isn’t a semantic fallacy. The concept of messiah (separate from the etymological or idiomatic meaning of the word) still includes the idea of the messiah being anointed by Yahweh for a special purpose.

Does Montero mean he thinks God must literally anoint the messiah with oil? "Messiah" is just a label. A placeholder. What it means to be the messiah is determined by multiple lines of evidence in the OT. There's an unfolding messianic expectation.  Emerging messianic motifs, embodied in a single individual, viz. second Adam, second David, second Solomon, prince, priest, conqueror, the coming of Yahweh. 

Second, If Jesus had a different concept of the messiah than his listeners did he would have made it clear, or there would be some indication.

Depends on the context. His accusers are right about what he's claiming to be. Where they err is to deny what he claims to be. Indeed, Montero's objection backfires, for if his accusers misinterpret his claims, Jesus often fails to correct them–leaving the impression that their charges were true. 

Not really, can you give an example of a concept of the Messiah that identifies the Messiah as Yahweh outside the New Testament in Judaism?

Does Montero think NT Messianic Judaism is deficient? 

Not really, since the Word was the agent of creation, not the greator, thus the use of the term διά. 

If the Word is the agent of creation rather than the Father, then the Word is the actual Creator. Yet the OT repeatedly views the act of making the world as something that differentiates the true God from false gods. 

This is a direct reference to the Logos theology of Philo and Platonism. Both of which have the Logos as the agent of creation.

No, it's a direct reference to creation by the spoken word of God in Gen 1. The creation account represents divine speech as  having creative power. Jn 1 is riffing off of that depiction. 

Right, it’s identifying God, the God, Yahweh. The second θεὸς designates the type of being that the logos is, but it is not the same being as the God that the logos is with.

It would be extremely misleading and counterproductive for the narrator to use θεὸς twice in the very same sentence, back-to-back, if the referent in the second occurrence is categorically different and inferior to the referent in the first occurrence.  

Why could the Philonic Logos never become incarnate? Where are you getting that from?

The whole point of that framework is to create a series of buffers. God can't create the world directly because contact with matter would be contaminating or unworthy of divine dignity. So that must be delegated to a Demiurge. And the Demiurge is an intermediate figure, above the world but below God.  

It’s actually not a concept alien to Biblical theism, because both the Pauline epistles and John use διά in reference to Jesus’s relationship to creation, things are created διά him.

This is one of the dilemmas for unitarians. When you point to how, according to the NT, Jesus embodies divine attributes, performs divine actions, and wields divine prerogatives, unitarians respond by saying that's just a creature acting on God's behalf, in his stead. As a result, Yahweh has no unique attributes, actions, or prerogatives. These are all transferred to messiah. Everything the OT says to distinguish God from mundane agents is delegated to messiah. 

Philo wrote a lot for non-Jews (much like Josephus), which is why he used platonic language (as did John).

Philo wrote for elite Gentiles in Alexandria, in sophisticated philosophical Greek. John's audience is far lower on the pecking order. 

He approaches Yahweh, and receives things from Yahweh, which kind of excludes him from being Yahweh.

i) Once again, this illustrates the chronic inability of unitarians to engage the Trinitarian position on its own terms. They act as though depictions that are inconsistent with a unitarian paradigm falsify the Trinitarian paradigm. 

ii) To begin with, passages like Dan 7 resort to anthropomorphic depictions, where heaven is like a throne room with a humanoid king and humanoid courtiers. If you take that literally, then the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man are physically separate individuals. 

But if we make allowance for picture language, that's consistent with Trinitarian theology. Yahweh Incarnate, in the person of the Son, appears before Yahweh, in the person of the Father. 

God is not a physical being. He doesn't occupy space and time. Trinitarian distinctions don't entail physical or spatial separation. 

iii) There's a distinction between the eternal status of the Son, and the evolving status of the Son as he condescends to assume a human nature, and play the role of a crown prince who will be enthroned after completing his mission. 

Unitarians don't believe that, but the immediate problem is that unitarians typically fail to understand the position they presume to critique. As such, their objections always miss the target.  

On God, gods, and God's son

This is a sequel to my prior post:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/06/i-and-father-are-one.html

Unitarian apologist Roman Montero has attempted to rehabilitate his original response to me:

https://theologyandjustice.wordpress.com/2017/06/17/but-what-does-it-mean-and-whats-the-response/

It actually is explicitly whether or not Jesus is the Christ in verse 24 they say “if you are the messiah tell us plainly.” They didn’t ask for his identity they asked whether or not he was the messiah.

False dichotomy. Questioning whether he's the messiah is a question about his true identity. 

But it does preclude it for all intents and purposes since messiah means “anointed one” and the assumption is that he is anointed by God, to do God’s will. God doesn’t need to be anointed by anyone. 

i) That commits a semantic fallacy. The conceptual meaning of "messiah" is a different issue from the etymological or idiomatic meaning of the word "messiah". The concept of messiahship isn't confined to occurrences of the word "messiah". Rather, that's a theological construct based on many OT motifs. For instance, many "messianic prophecies" don't use the word "messiah". But they contribute to the overall concept of messiahship. 

ii) Moreover, the concept of messiahship will vary according to the speaker. The Jewish opponents of Christ may have a different idea of messiahship than Jesus or NT writers. They may fail to recognize the messianic significance of certain OT motifs or oracles.

Also there is no precedent on Judaism for a messiah who is Yahweh himself.

Begs the question.

Whatever word Jesus used in Aramaic is irrelevant, John wrote the gospel of John and had he intended his readers to recall the Shema he would have used words that actually reflected the Shema. 

That commits a genre confusion. If the writing in question was an epistle, then that observation would have some purchase, but in historical accounts, it is necessary to distinguish between the audience within the narrative and the audience for the book. The statements of Jesus in Jn 10 (and elsewhere) aren't directed at the audience for John's Gospel. Montero is confusing the reception history of the Gospel with the historical incident that John records. In the narrative, the Jewish opponents of Jesus constitute the original audience for this exchange. 

It's deeply confused for Montero to say Jn 10:30 wouldn't trigger an association with the Shema because the narrator doesn't use the wording of the LXX. For the frame of reference is the audience Jesus is addressing at that particular time and place, and not a reader outside that setting. 

Montero is making the same blunder as people who discern sacramental references in Jn 3 & Jn 6. They disregard the historical setting for those statements, and act as though Jesus is speaking directly to a later reader who's conditioned by subsequent developments in church history. 

John used the LXX (as did all the NT writers and early Church) if he wanted to evoke he shema he would have actually done so.

NT writers frequently deviate from the LXX. 

Why couldn’t John have used the masculine form, had he wanted to cite the Shema there’s no reason he wouldn’t have.

Jesus isn't quoting the Shema. Rather, Jesus is alluding to the Shema, but incorporating himself into the Shema. He reformulates the Shema. 

The Bible typically uses the masculine gender when referring to God. But due to a shift from singular to plural in Jn 10:30, it's natural to use the neuter gender instead since one function of the neuter gender is to express abstract ideas. Deut 6:4 refers to a concrete individual whereas two individuals as one ("I and the Father are one") conveys an abstract concept. 

If you look at 24-29, Jesus never actually uses “son of God” as a title in that conversation. So they aren’t reacting to “son of God” as a title.

There's a cumulative reaction to Jesus. They've been on his case for some time. The allegation that he "makes himself God" isn't based on any particular word or phrase, but a range of words deeds and by Christ. 

Also there is no reason we should favor a capital G God over a small g god, since θεόν is without the article.

They accuse him of blasphemy. So they're using "God" as a synonym for "Yahweh".

They were wrong because there are plenty of beings in the Bible called gods.

They rightly sense that he's not describing himself in that lesser sense. 

(had the Jews been claiming that Jesus was calling himself Yahweh citing psalms 82 would make no sense, since those beings are call gods in the lesser non-Yahweh sense), so him being called god or a god is not blasphemy. 

It makes sense as an a fortiori argument. 

Also he didn’t call himself god or a god, but rather God’s son and is thus NOT making himself a god.

They didn't accuse him of making himself "a god". So his accusers are using "God" as a synonym for "Yahweh". 

The same noun can have different meanings, viz. abstract noun, concrete noun, common noun, proper noun. I've discussed that before.

Where did he make the equivalence between God and gods son, they accusing him of making himself god (or a god).

Once more, they didn't accuse him of making himself "a god". So his accusers are using "God" as a synonym for "Yahweh".

he replied that he called himself Gods son, it was a reply to the charge.

Actually, he did more than that. In v35, he mentions those whom the "word of God" came. Now if the "gods" in Ps 82 refer to human Jewish judges, the "word of God" would have reference to God's verbal revelations to Israel. 

However, many scholars think it's either a sarcastic reference to heathen deities or else a reference to angels. But what event involving the "word of God" would correspond to that identification? On that identification, this is probably a flashback to the Prologue, where the divine Logos is the Creator God of Genesis. He made the angels. 

Let me ask you though, in your exegesis, what is Jesus’s actual reply? How does it answer the charge? What was the point of citing psalms 82?

I already explained that. Follow the bouncing ball. 

Right but in these cases, in the OT, Gods son is always referring to a human son or an angelic son or Israel as a nation, a ontologically lesser entity than Yahweh. Psalms 2 was to David, 2 Samuel 7:14 and 1 chronicles 27:6 refer to Solomon. Genesis 6:2-4, Job 1:6; 38:4-7 and Psalms 89:6 refer to angels. Exodus 4:22-23 refers to Israel, and so on and so forth.

i) To begin with, does Montero reject messianic prophecy? Does he think these passages only refer to historical kings of Israel? 

ii) In addition, Montero misses the point. The identification isn't confined to the use of the word "father" or "son", but related concepts of king and prince in royal succession. At the level of human analogies, the king/prince relation is typically a father/son relation. So there's that specific equivalence, in that particular context. A prince/son who succeeds the king/father. 

Montero suffers from an atomistic approach, where he's fixated on isolated words rather than Biblical concepts, motifs, and evolving theological constructs in progressive revelation. 

So yes it can mean a “divine” son, in the sense that created angelic creatures are “divine”, but there is an infinite gap between that “divine” and the kind of divinity that applies to Yahweh.

Not how I'm using the term. 

I don’t know what you mean by “truly divine”. Do you mean figures that can be rightly called divine? In that case sure, angels and humans are “truly” divine, do you mean divine in the sense that Yahweh is divine?

"Divine" in the same sense that Yahweh is divine. 

The thing is this is you equivocating. Define “divine” and then stick to it. 

Montero is a Johnny-come-lately to this discussion. I've defined my terminology on many occasions in multiple exchanges with Dale Tuggy. 

If “sons of God” is a divine title, and by divine you mean something that can include human kings and angels, then yeah, sure it’s a divine title; but that doesn’t get you a millimeter closer to a trinitarian Christology. 

Notice that Montero is imputing his examples and interpretations to me, then accusing me of "equivocation". His accusation is muddleheaded. I don't grant his frame of reference or his interpretations. 

If you mean divine in the sense of only referring to Yahweh, then no, it’s never used as a divine title.

"Sonship" is used as a divine title in Isa 9:6, and it's frequently used as a divine title in the NT.

Again, you need to define deity, in one sense so is Satan, so are angels and so on. In another sense only Yahweh is.

Deity as in Yahweh. Deity as in possessing incommunicable divine attributes or incommunicable divine prerogatives. 

Except it doesn’t say the Word was with the Father, it says the Word was with “God” 

I'm sorry, but that's obtuse. You need to interpret the designations in light of the Prologue as a whole, where the narrator alternates between the "Father" and "God" as a synonymous proper name for the Father. 

and the Word was deity. And Deity can be used of angels as well.

Montero is oblivious to context. Jn 1:1-5 is a studied allusion to the creation account in Gen 1. The Word was deity in the same sense that the Creator God in Gen 1 was deity. That's the frame of reference. 

But the Word was not τὸν θεόν, it was θεὸς. Now you’re right that it implies Deity, but again, it’s not the same kind of Deity as the God who he is with.

Once again, that's confused. In Jn 1:1, the second clause uses the articular rather than anarthrous construction because one function of the Greek definite article is to denote a proper name, and the narrator is using "God" in the second clause as a proper name for the Father. 

By the way he prologue is paralleling Philo’s logos theology. For Philo the logos is a secondary, created being through whome the god Yahweh creates. So John doesn’t identity Jesus as he creator, but the one through whome all things are created; echoing Philo’s language. Whether or not John drew from Philo or Plato himself or was simply using common language is besides the point, he point is John knew how his prologue would be read by his intended audience (non Jewish Christians).

i) The Philonic Logos could never become Incarnate, pace the Johannine Logos (Jn 1:14).

ii) In addition, that involves a Platonized Judaism which denies that God creates directly. There must be intermediaries between God and the world. So the Philonic Logos is a Demiurge to shield the transcendence of God. But that's moves in a conceptual world quite alien to Biblical theism. 

iii) Assuming that "non-Jewish Christians" are John's intended audience, there's no reason to think they'd be familiar with Philonic Judaism, or take an interest in Philonic Judaism. At best, that would only resonate with some Diaspora Jews. 

Why wouldn’t he include himself in divine beings such as angels or the “sons of god” of Job and Psalms?

He's not including himself, but contrasting himself. Does Montero not know what an a fortiori argument is? 

The most quoted scriptures in relation to Christ in the NT are psalms 110:1 where Jesus is the non-Yahweh “lord”, and Daniel 7:13-14 where Jesus is the non-Yahweh “son of man”. Both those scriptures, used countless of times for Christ, exclude the possibility of him being Yahweh.

I recently discussed Ps 110:

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-lord-said-to-my-lord.html

Montero doesn't bother to explain how Dan 7 excludes the possibility that messiah is Yahweh. 

Yeah, but there is nothing distinguishing the way they are “one”. In fact Jesus makes it clear that they are “one” in the same way Jesus and the Father are “one”; 

Where does Jn 17 say that? 

Isn’t John 17 talking about them using the same language as John 10:30?

Different context.