Messiah != Son of God

[rakovsky]

I have a piece about Jesus as Son of God in http://historical-jesus.info/hjes3x.html then "find" on Jesus as the "Son" (of God)

Here it is in the raw (but better presented on my website):
B) Jesus as the "Son" (of God) or having God as his Father appears mainly in Paul's last (authentic) letters (2cCorinthians, Galatians, cPhilippians & Romans, written late 56 to early 57):
2cCo1:3,19,31, Gal1:16,2:20,4:4,6, Ro1:3,4,9,5:10,8:3,29,31,15:6 (altogether fifteen times, within about 11650 words).
Jesus as "Son" or having God as his Father is featured only a few times in Paul's early letters (1Thessalonians, 1Corinthians, 2a&bCorinthians, 2a&bPhilippians & Philemon, written 50 to 56):
1Th1:10, 1Co1:9,15:28 (altogether three times, within about 12430 words)

Remark: as a net result, there are about five times more frequency of occurrences of Jesus, as the "Son" (of God) or having God as his Father, in the later epistles as compared to the earlier ones.

Also, 1Th1:10, 1Co1:4-9 and 1Co15:23-28 are very likely latter interpolations (for justifications, please click on 1Th1:10, 1Co1:4-9 and 1Co15:23-28).
I want to stress the authenticity of the aforementioned passages is contested for many suspicious items, not only because of "Son". And let's say, in '1Thessalonians' and '1Corinthians', Paul was unlikely to mention Jesus as "the Son", because he wrote:
"God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (1Th1:1)
"our God and Father" (1Th1:3)
"our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus" (1Th3:11)
"... our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus ..." (1Th3:13)
"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." (1Co1:3)

Once he is calling Jesus Lord, he is implying divinity. Adonai is a common Jewish buzz word for God.


The NT has lots of these cryptic references to divinity, like how Stephen prays to Jesus.

[outhouse]

This is an interesting bit. In the earliest Christian writings (presumably Paul), 'Christ Jesus' and 'the Son of God' are equated fairly breezily.**

There is the context not being discussed.

Its my opinion the authors, every last one, were selling their theology in every bit of text they wrote as their primary motive.

And they knew the people they were selling it to were already forced to worship a corrupt politician as the "son of god"

So a big YES, it was not the holiest or revered titles they could offer towards the sacrificed Galilean.

[Bernard Muller]

Once he is calling Jesus Lord, he is implying divinity. Adonai is a common Jewish buzz word for God.

"lord" was used also for non divinity (Gal 4:1).
And "Lord" does not have to mean necessarily God, more so in 1 Thessalonians & 1 Corinthians, where Paul made a distinction between God & Lord.
"God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (1Th1:1)
"our God and Father" (1Th1:3)
"our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus" (1Th3:11)
"... our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus ..." (1Th3:13)
"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." (1Co1:3)
"For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many gods and many lords, [for Paul, as it seems here, "lords" are not "gods"]
` yet for us there is one God, the Father ... and one Lord Jesus Christ ..." (1Co8:5-6a)

The Lord Jesus may be a divinity in heaven, but not as God.

Cordially, Bernard

[rakovsky]

Romans 9 says:
"Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised!"

Not sure how much it us worth debating this.
They thought Jesus was divine in the sense of being the Alpha and Omega as it says in Revelation, which Peter K wrote was one of the earliest books in his opinion.

Nowadays I think alot of people are more skeptical of these kinds of ideas so like the J.W.s they tend to prefer to read into the texts as if the ideas of the uniqueness or Supreme Ness of the divinity are not there, like in the Trinitarian sense. Actually, the NT is full of Trinitarian references, but they are often done a bit cryptically.

[rakovsky]

Once he is calling Jesus Lord, he is implying divinity. Adonai is a common Jewish buzz word for God.

"lord" was used also for non divinity (Gal 4:1).

That's how buzzwords work. Sometimes they mean something mundane. Another term for it is dog whistling. The dogs get the whistle, but the humans dont.

Someone who is used to inserting Adonai all over the place when they see Yahweh gets clued in when he hears some person being titled "the Lord", even if Lord can be used in other ways.
It's like the term "working girl" or asking "Do you 'smoke'"? The words can have very different connotations. Same thing with bowing, which implied worship, which was basically only for God alone as in
EVERY KNEE MUST BOW (hint hint)
AND EVERY MOUTH MUST CONFESS JESUS IS ' LORD' (hint hint).

They are cryptic references and buzzwords for the in crowd, and those who want to stay on the outside don't "get it", to use another term with secondary meanings, ie "to understand".

[rakovsky]

And "Lord" does not have to mean necessarily God, more so in 1 Thessalonians & 1 Corinthians, where Paul made a distinction between God & Lord.
"God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (1Th1:1)
"our God and Father" (1Th1:3)
"our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus" (1Th3:11)
"... our God and Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus ..." (1Th3:13)
"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." (1Co1:3)
"For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many gods and many lords, [for Paul, as it seems here, "lords" are not "gods"]
` yet for us there is one God, the Father ... and one Lord Jesus Christ ..." (1Co8:5-6a)

.

Cordially, Bernard

Paul is not actually distinguishing them with this term, since eg. he would also call the Father Lord, even though he doesn't in that phrase.
Plus in 1 Cor 8 he continues about Lord Jesus
" one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live."
That was the same phrase he used for God the Father in the same chapter.
See also the quote I gave from rom. 9 v. 5 where he calls the Messiah God.

[spin]

Interesting article on whether the son of man in Daniel is a divine Messiah:
https://inaspaciousplace.wordpress.com/ ... #more-7277

You were supposed to acknowledge your error regarding "son of man" (the usual conservative ignoring of the actual text of Daniel: one like a son of man) or try to defend it, not just shift tack citing a semi-contentless article. (I don't know why Boyarin is out with the pixies here, but Schaefer briefly states where the evidence leads.)

[spin]

Romans 9 says:
"Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised!"

Jeez, I have to thank Rakovsky for leading me to another hopelessly tendentious christian translation that should be in your list of indicators of crap translations. I'd say "dishonest" if I thought the translator was deliberately trying to mislead readers, but I think it is more shoehorning the text into christian presuppositions. Here's a literal translation of the parts of Rom 9:5—

(οι πατερες εκ ων) (the fathers from whom) ο χριστος the Christ το κατα σαρκα according to the flesh ο ων επι παντων who is over all θεος ευλογητος εις τους αιωνας God blessed for ever

The last line is Greek working differently from English. We'd use a subordinate clause, "who God blessed forever." The Greek instead uses a verbal form as a noun, still with the subject "God" and tacks the whole nominalized sentence on. We might try "blessed by God forever". God is the one doing the blessing and the Christ is the one blessed. However, the trinitarian Christian oblivious to the fact that Paul is not trinitarian (or even binitarian) happily reorganizes the sentence to make the messiah God. This is amazing doctrinal manipulation of the text. It shows just how easily faith clouds judgment even of those who are supposed to be supplying the best tools for the faithful to use. Instead, they are letting their readers down.

Add Rom 9:5 to your list. If the translation equates the messiah with God you know its a crap translation.

[rakovsky]

Romans 9 says:
"Theirs are the patriarchs, and from them is traced the human ancestry of the Messiah, who is God over all, forever praised!"

Jeez, I have to thank Rakovsky for leading me to another hopelessly tendentious christian translation that should be in your list of indicators of crap translations. I'd say "dishonest" if I thought the translator was deliberately trying to mislead readers, but I think it is more shoehorning the text into christian presuppositions. Here's a literal translation of the parts of Rom 9:5—

...
Looks like a lot of discussion on this, depending how the phrases are broken up:

(οι πατερες εκ ων) (the fathers from whom) ο χριστος the Christ το κατα σαρκα according to the flesh ο ων επι παντων θεος who is over all God ευλογητος εις τους αιωνας blessed for ever

Can the last line be read as, "blessed forever" when the Greek uses a verbal form blessed as a noun, with the word "God" belonging to the previous phrase "who is over all God"? We might try "blessed forever" where Christ is over all God and Christ is blessed?

but if Paul wanted to say He is God, wouldn't he use the phrase word order differently in Greek as as "according to the flesh, who is God over all"?

[rakovsky]

. However, the trinitarian Christian oblivious to the fact that Paul is not trinitarian (or even binitarian) happily reorganizes the sentence to make the messiah God.

Trinitarian or Binitarian would mean they are both God.

Paul does not think Jesus is just a normal human, but a being who existed before his human birth, so at least you are stuck with Arianism:

1 Corinthians 8:6, "Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him."
1 Corinthians 10:4, "And all drank the same spiritual drink, for they were drinking from a spiritual rock which followed them; and the rock was Christ."
1 Corinthians 15:47, "The first man is from the earth, earthy; the second man is from heaven."
2 Corinthians 8:9, "For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich."

But then Paul says Jesus made the world, something that God did by himself:
"Yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him; and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him." (1 Cor. 8:6).
Isaiah 44:24 says, "Thus says the LORD, your Redeemer, and the one who formed you from the womb, “I, the LORD, am the maker of all things, Stretching out the heavens by Myself And spreading out the earth all alone."

Paul's writings are full of these kinds of cryptic references to Christ as God, use of the title Lord being a good example.

Another example :
Colossians 1:15-17 has Jesus as "first-born of every creature. For in him were all things created . . . he is before all and by him all things consist."

So Jesus was born before any creature and he makes everything exist. That means he is the Creator of all, the Pantocrator. Someone who is on the inside and gets it knows what that means, Jesus is God, Because God made the world and keeps everything existing.