The right hand of God.

[Secret Alias]

Morton Smith brings up another interesting point which points to an altered existing text of Mark:

In canonical Mk. the title "son of David" first appears in 10.47 (the Bartimaeus story) and is difficult to explain there. People had not been saying that Jesus was the Messiah (Mk. 6.i4f; 8.28). Only Peter had guessed it (8.29) ; and he and the others who heard him had been warned to keep it secret (8.30). How, then, did the title indicative of this secret get into the mouth of the beggar Bartimaeus, outside Jericho (10:47)? This question was asked by Ebeling (Messiasgeheimnis 92) with the confidence that it would be historically insoluble. The longer text does not supply a historical solution, but it does present a sequence of facts from which historical imagination can create an understandable sequence of events. For between Peter's confession and Bartimaeus' appeal it puts first the use of the title by one of the women of a family with which Jesus was intimate (Jn. 1 1.5) and then a visit by this woman to Jericho, where (or before which) she had some sort of difference with Jesus such that he did not "receive" or "welcome" her and her companions.

[Giuseppe]

Morton Smith brings up another interesting point which points to an altered existing text of Mark:

In canonical Mk. the title "son of David" first appears in 10.47 (the Bartimaeus story) and is difficult to explain there. People had not been saying that Jesus was the Messiah (Mk. 6.i4f; 8.28). Only Peter had guessed it (8.29) ; and he and the others who heard him had been warned to keep it secret (8.30). How, then, did the title indicative of this secret get into the mouth of the beggar Bartimaeus, outside Jericho (10:47)?

Here I see as this Morton is very ignorant: Bartimaeus did recognize the davidic Jesus when he listened that "Jesus Nazarene" was there of passage.

[Secret Alias]

Yes of course compared to you Smith was an ignoramus. But no one can possibly be as smart as the learned Giuseppe.

[andrewcriddle]

Morton Smith brings up another interesting point which points to an altered existing text of Mark:

In canonical Mk. the title "son of David" first appears in 10.47 (the Bartimaeus story) and is difficult to explain there. People had not been saying that Jesus was the Messiah (Mk. 6.i4f; 8.28). Only Peter had guessed it (8.29) ; and he and the others who heard him had been warned to keep it secret (8.30). How, then, did the title indicative of this secret get into the mouth of the beggar Bartimaeus, outside Jericho (10:47)? This question was asked by Ebeling (Messiasgeheimnis 92) with the confidence that it would be historically insoluble. The longer text does not supply a historical solution, but it does present a sequence of facts from which historical imagination can create an understandable sequence of events. For between Peter's confession and Bartimaeus' appeal it puts first the use of the title by one of the women of a family with which Jesus was intimate (Jn. 1 1.5) and then a visit by this woman to Jericho, where (or before which) she had some sort of difference with Jesus such that he did not "receive" or "welcome" her and her companions.

An alternative is that "son of David" as used by Bartimaeus refers to Jesus as another Solomon the legendary healer.
See for example Mark meaning and message (I think this explanation goes back to Meier.)

Andrew Criddle

[Secret Alias]

Another interesting feature of the argument from Adamantius is that he is plainly wrong. Ek (how) in Hebrew is plainly used in the example from Deuteronomy as an emphatic interrogative "how!" exactly as the heretic would have meant it. It is as if the argument FOR the heretics was ignorantly transposed to Adamantius by a later Greek editor.

How? אֵיךְ, אֵיכָה; בַּמָּה (by what? Gen. 15:8); how not? אֵיךְ לֹא, 2 S. 1:5 אֵיךְ יָדַעְתָּ כִּי־מֵת שׁ׳ how dost thou know that Saul is dead? 2 S. 1:14 how not? Deu. 18:21, Jud. 20:3, 1 K. 12:6, 2 K. 17:28, Ru. 3:18. These particles are used in remonstrance, Gen. 26:9, Jer. 2:23; repudiation or refusal, Gen. 39:9; 44:8, 34, Jos. 9:7; the expression of hopelessness, &c., Is. 20:6. The form איכה how! usually raises the elegy, Is. 1:21, Lam. 2:1; 4:1; but also איך, 2 S. 1:19, 25, 27.

[Ben C. Smith]

My assumption has long been that the phrase "the right hand of God" in the NT was ever an allusion to Psalm 110.1. The fact, however, that it is by far more commonly expressed as "the right hand of God" rather than as "the right hand of the Lord" has me questioning this assumption. It may simply be a generic reference to the cultural background to Psalm 110.1 itself.

I think Bernard is right to call attention to Psalm 80.17:

17 Let Your hand be upon the man of Your right hand, upon the son of man whom You made strong for Yourself.

The right hand is the place of honor. (My name in Hebrew means "son of the right hand," or honored son.) Bathsheba receives this honor from her son Solomon in 1 Kings 2.19:

19 So Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah. And the king arose to meet her, bowed before her, and sat on his throne; then he had a throne set for the king’s mother, and she sat on his right.

The Ugaritic texts know of this customary place of honor. The Palace of Ba'al, 4 column 5, lines 106-110:

Afterwards Kothar-and-Khasis did arrive;
they did set an ox before him,
a falling too in front of him;
they made ready a seat and he was seated
on the right hand of mightiest Baal,
while [the gods] did eat and drink.

And the cultural matrix extends well beyond the Levant and the Fertile Crescent, as we see in Callimachus, Hymn 2 (to Apollo), lines 28-29:

Apollo will honour the choir, since it sings according to his heart; for Apollo hath power, for that he sitteth on the right hand of Zeus.

Aristides cites the venerable poet Pindar in Oratio in Minervam:

Πίνδαρος δ' αὖ φησι δεξιὰν κατὰ χεῖρα τοῦ πατρὸς αὐτὴν καθεζομένην τὰς ἐντολὰς τοῖς θεοῖς ἀποδέχεσθαι. ἀγγέλου μὲν γάρ ἐστι μείζων, ἥ γε τῶν ἀγγέλων ἄλλοις ἄλλα ἐπιτάττει πρώτη παρὰ τοῦ πατρὸς παραλαμβάνουσα, ἀντ' ἐξηγητοῦ τινος οὖσα τοῖς θεοῖς....

And again Pindar says that she [Athena], seated at the right hand of her father, receives his decrees for the gods. For she is greater than an angel/messenger, she who enjoins the others among the angels/messengers after first having accepted them from her father, being as instead of an interpreter to the gods....

None of these ought to come as a surprise, since I feel certain that we all already knew the right hand was the place of distinction. But this deep cultural instinct does call into question my former assumption that Psalm 110.1 lay behind all of the NT references to this motif.

Ben.

[Secret Alias]

But surely you are discounting or not considering the DELIBERATE effort of a later reformer to make Lord and God equivalents. Consider the Patristic discussion of the statement (I think in John) where Jesus is identified as 'Lord and God' of someone (I think Thomas). It is time to consider the idea that Lord and God originally referenced two different concepts or being but then a deliberate effort made them names of the same being or thing.

Another example is our reading of Jacob's song after seeing the stairway or ladder of heaven and Philo's (and Clement's). Philo apparently sees

וְהָיָה יְהוָה לִי לֵאלֹהִים

as Jacob confessing he has adopted a new power (i.e. switching his allegiance or veneration from Lord to God). I can't see that in Hebrew. But there you go.

[rakovsky]

This thread is inspired by another one that I posted a while ago: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2397.

Psalm 110.1 (LXX 109.1) reads:

Yahweh [יְהוָ֨ה, ὁ κύριος] says to my Lord [לַֽאדֹנִ֗י, τῷ κυρίῳ μου]: “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”

This text is quoted or alluded to many times in the NT, but I find it interesting that, while the quotations follow it pretty well, the allusions almost never use the circumlocution "Lord" for Yahweh; instead, it is almost always "God".

A direct quotation may be found in Matthew 22.44 = Mark 12.36 = Luke 20.42; here "the Lord" is used, just as we find in the LXX. Acts 2.34 is another direct quote using "the Lord".

On the thread linked to above, we discussed Matthew 26.64 = Mark 14.62 = Luke 22.69, in which a different circumlocution is used: "the right hand of Power". Another interesting circumlocution is found in the epistle to the Hebrews; 1.3 uses "the right hand of Majesty", while 8.1 has "the right hand of the throne of the Majesty". Finally, Revelation 5.1, 7 has "the right hand of him seated upon the throne"; referring back to 4.8, 11, we find that this figure is called the "Lord God Almighty" or our "Lord and God".

But more common either than direct quotations with "Lord" or than different circumlocutions like Majesty or Power is the simple term, "right hand of God". This expression, or a variant of it, can be found in Mark 16.19; Acts 2.33; 5.31; 7.55-56; Romans 8.34; Ephesians 1.20 (refer back to 1.17); Colossians 3.1; Hebrews 1.13 (refer back to 1.5); 10.12; 12.2 (right hand of the throne of God); and 1 Peter 3.22.

The stats are as follows, counting synoptic parallels as multiple instances in parentheses but as single instances outside of them:

Direct quotations with "Lord": 2 (4).
Allusions with a circumlocution besides "Lord" or "God": 5 (7).
Allusions with "God": 11 (11).

I conservatively counted the two instances from Revelation 5 in that middle category ("him who sat on the throne"), but they could also reasonably be placed in that last category (that figure is "Lord" and "God").

There are no otherwise direct quotations of the entire verse (or at least most of it) which substitute anything in for "the Lord": when our authors quote the verse, they quote it. Acts 2.33-34 is intriguing in this regard: the passage is first paraphrased with "God", but then quoted with "the Lord"! But, when they are not quoting it, they seem to prefer "God" to "the Lord" by a fairly wide margin. Why? Is it possible that this is a measure taken to distinguish God the Father from Jesus, who is himself commonly called Lord? Or do you think there is some other explanation?

Ben.

My guess is that what happened was that they understood the whole issue with the circumlocution.
So in quoting the verse, they said Lord, as per the tradition and circumlocution. But they understood that Lord/Adonai was meant as God, so they used it that way.

And then you can get into the Trinitarian issue where they thought the Father was God and he brought Jesus who was also God to his right hand. Like "God the Father says to God the Son sit at my right hand".
The idea that Jesus is God is kept a bit cryptic in the NT.