Yes, yes… of course.
My point was not to take away the co-eternal nature of Jesus. My point was to suggest a steady revision of the stories of Jesus - - which plausibly started with him becoming a Saint (like Elijah and Moses did)… and ultimately ended with him always being God.
What do you mean by Elijah and Moses becoming saints?
The boring answer is this:
Meet St. Moses and St. Elijah
The Latin Church maintains an official list of saints and blesseds known as the Roman Martyrology, and it actually lists some humans from the Old Testament, including Moses and Elijah.
Here is part of the entry for September 4:
On Mount Nebo, in the land of Moab, [was the death of] the holy lawgiver and prophet Moses.
And here is part of the entry for July 20:
On Mount Carmel, [was the departure of] the holy prophet Elijah.
The Roman Martyrology, of course, is in Latin, and the translation offered above is accomodated to standard English usage, which avoids using “Saint” for Moses and Elijah. The Latin original is a bit different. Here is the Latin for these two entries, along with a more word-for-word translation:
In monte Nebo, terræ Moab, sancti Móysis, legislatóris et Prophétæ.
On Mt. Nebo, of the land of Moab, [was the death] of saint Moses, lawgiver and Prophet.
In monte Carmélo sancti Elíæ Prophétæ.
On Mt. Carmel [was the departure] of saint Elijah the Prophet.
[END OF QUOTE]
I presume the Catholic church interprets the two as saints because of the episode of the Transfiguration. But the more interesting question to answer is why were those two chosen as “transfigured/glowing” individuals?
[Footnote 4]
In his treatise On the Life of Moses, Philo writes, “all but deified Moses as Word and King, chosen one of God."
Indeed, in Philo’s description, Moses is himself transfigured on the Sinai mountain-top.” (Williams 2002:24) [ Williams, Stephen, The Transfiguration of Jesus Christ (Part One), Themelios 28.1 (Autumn 2002), 13-25. ]
I see Moses and Elijah as prophets, figures from the Law (Moses), and the Prophets (Elijah). (Nobody from the Writings seems to show up.)
And you are in fine company.
While the Vatican sees them as Saints (because of the Transfiguration?).
And Philo sees Moses as a kind of Saint, or Human Angel, or who knows…
I have good sources for info on the Transfiguration, etc.
Yes
This sounds to me that you are using “before a vowel” to be an one of the "arguments for translating ", not for pronouncing.
So Colwell’s rule says, “A definite predicate nominative has the article when it follows the verb, it does not have the article when it precedes the verb.” So I agree with you that syntax affects the meaning. I am not sure if that is part or all of what you are saying about Colwell’s rule.
I was. But this does not mean the vowel is changing anything. I spelled it out to you very clearly previously. Look at it again, especially the part in bold.
These syntax patterns aren’t necessarily following a certain grammatical rule, but they are typically following a syntax convention. Nothing is being “changed” by anything; writers are not including specific vowels or consonants to “change” the meaning of a word or phrase. These are literary syntax conventions, not grammatical rules.
Yes syntax affects the meaning, and often syntactical patterns are conventions, not grammatical rules. They are typically not even described in any extant ancient, classical, or even medieval grammars. They are artifacts of how the language was used. Colwell’s Rule is a good example.
This article by Michael Heiser settles the question period in my opinion.
Yes, the Bible does say Jesus was God by describing him as ‘riding on the clouds’, a sign of godhead in Old Testament and Ugaritic literature, Caiaphas realised this and saw it as a blasphemy.
‘before a vowel’ has nothing to do with how it should be translated. In the lexicon, before a vowel is referring to pronunciation. It has nothing to do with translation.
Now, since Korvexius seems to be done, I will go on with a few more comments.
Definite predicate nouns do not take the article before the verb in the new testament as Colwell pointed out. As I mentioned above, Smyth (1192) says a predicate noun takes no article and is thus distinguished from the subject.
As Colwell pointed out in reference to his rule, “The opening verse of John’s Gospel contains one of the many passages
where this rule suggests the translation of a predicate as a definite noun. Kai theos nv o logos looks much more like “And the Word was God” than
“And the Word was divine” when viewed with reference to this rule.”
Harner pointed out that predicate nominatives without the article show the quality of a noun. One of the examples he gives of what he means by quality is ‘the word became flesh’ in John 1:14. Flesh is not an adjective, but a noun describing the nature of the word(one of the two natures I might add). Thus the word was God is showing the nature of the word; he was God by nature.
So there are plenty of reasons to take it as a normal noun.
The adjectival use of God that you listed in the lexicon was ‘god country’, ‘gods doors’, etc. I don’t think it is used this way in the NT(other than what you are claiming for John 1:1) but I will have to check that later, I could be wrong.
However, even if you could translate it as an adjective ‘divine’, it would have to be referring to divine in relationship to the God of the bible. In the bible there is only one God. The term is used for others, bad priests is one example. The bible only refers to one true God and it calls three different persons that one God.
You have already been given other examples where Jesus is demonstrated to be yhwh, the God of the Old Testament. Mark 1:2 quotes Malachi where God says he will send a messenger to prepare a way for ME(the God of the OT) and then John the baptist fulfills the prophecy and prepares the way for Jesus. There are a lot of verses like this. One that is especially clear is Zech. 12:10 where the God of the OT, yhwh, says that when he comes back to the earth in judgement, that the people on the earth will look on ME whom they have pierced. John quotes this verse when Jesus is on the cross and says that verse was fulfilled when the Roman soldier pierced Jesus with the spear to make sure he was dead. So John tells us that Jesus is yhwh, the God of the OT who was pierced.
You are wrong on several counts. Firstly you are misapplying Colwell’s Rule. This is a misapplication which has been known for a very long time, and is repeatedly called out by exegetes and grammarians. Here are just a few examples.
“Colwell’s rule has been abused almost from the time it was penned. Most grammarians and exegetes have assumed the converse of Colwell’s rule to be equally true, namely, that anarthrous predicate nominatives which precede the copula will usually be definite. But such is not the case, as Harner and Dixon pointed out.” [1]
“Dixon illustrates the illegitimate application of the converse of Colwell’s rule: “The rule does not say: an anarthrous predicate nominative which precedes the verb is definite. This is the converse of Colwell’s rule and as such is not a valid inference. (From the statement ‘A implies B,’ it is not valid to infer ‘B implies A.’ From the statement ‘Articular nouns are definite,’ it is not valid to infer ‘Definite predicate nominatives are articular.’ Likewise, from the statement ‘Definite predicate nominatives preceding the verb are anarthrous,’ it is not valid to infer ‘Anarthrous predicate nominatives preceding the verb are definite.’),”(pp. 11-12).”, Dixon illustrates the illegitimate application of the converse of Colwell’s rule: “The rule does not say: an anarthrous predicate nominative which precedes the verb is definite. This is the converse of Colwell’s rule and as such is not a valid inference. (From the statement ‘A implies B,’ it is not valid to infer ‘B implies A.’ From the statement ‘Articular nouns are definite,’ it is not valid to infer ‘Definite predicate nominatives are articular.’ Likewise, from the statement ‘Definite predicate nominatives preceding the verb are anarthrous,’ it is not valid to infer ‘Anarthrous predicate nominatives preceding the verb are definite.’),”(pp. 11-12)." [2]
“Beyond even these limitations, however, Colwell’s rule can easily be abused. The fallacy in many popular appeals to Colwell is in thinking the part of his rule that pertains to John 1:1 is based on an examination of all anarthrous predicates that precede copulative verbs. If that were the case, his figure of 87 percent would be impressive. But in fact he only claims to have examined definite anarthrous nouns (as he determines “definiteness”). Recently one of my students, Ed Dewey, used our GRAMCORD facilities to retrieve every anarthrous noun (including definite, indefinite, qualitative, and proper nouns, with a residue of ambiguous entries) that precedes the copulative verbs γίνομαι (ginomai) and εἰμί (eimi) in the Greek New Testament. He discovered that definite nouns and indefinite nouns make up an approximately equal proportion of the entire list. In other words, it is a fallacy to argue, on the basis of the fact that a predicate noun preceding a copulative verb is anarthrous, that it is highly likely to be definite. Statistically this is no more likely than the conclusion it is indefinite.” [3]
“Some have even used Colwell’s rule as a proof that theos “must” be definite even without the article, because it precedes the verb. This is a misuse of Colwell’s rule. Colwell was only examining definite nouns and showed that those definite nouns lack the article when they precede the verb. He didn’t show that every predicate noun preceding the verb must be definite.” [4]
“Colwell’s Rule is often invoked to support the translation of θεός (theos) as definite (“God”) rather than indefinite (“a god”) here. However, Colwell’s Rule merely permits, but does not demand, that a predicate nominative ahead of an equative verb be translated as definite rather than indefinite. Furthermore, Colwell’s Rule did not deal with a third possibility, that the anarthrous predicate noun may have more of a qualitative nuance when placed ahead of the verb.” [5]
DA Carson’s comments are particularly important.
“Almost immediately many scholars (especially of a more conservative stripe) misunderstood Colwell’s Rule. They saw the benefit of the rule for affirming the deity Christ in John 1:1. But what they thought Colwell was articulating was actually the converse of the rule, not the rule itself. That is, they thought that the rule was: An anarthrous predicate nominative that precedes the verb is usually definite. That is not the rule, nor can it be implied from the rule.” [6]
“Bruce Metzger summarizes: “As regards Jn 1, Colwell’s research casts the most serious doubts on the correctness of translations as ‘and the Logos was divine’ (Moffant, Strachan), ‘and the Word was divine’ (Goodspeed), and (worst of all), ‘and the Word was a god’ (…New World Translation).” Actually, Colwell’s rule does not address this issue at all.” [7]
After those comments, Carson adds in a footnote “We will contend later that, in fact, Moffat’s, Strachan’s, and Goodspeed’s translations are (1) not to be lumped in with the New World Translation, and (2) this is probably the most satisfactory translation of the passage.” [8]
Carson also points out (as I have already shown myself), that parsing the noun as definite results in a serious theological contradiction within the Trinity, because it results in Modalism. He says this.
You then go on to cite Harner.
I am not sure if you realize or not, but what you are quoting actually contradicts your own previous claim. Harner’s study corrected the false conclusions drawn from Colwell’s research. Whereas you claim that the noun is definite, Harner argued that it was not definite, and was in fact qualitative (adjectival). Carson explains Harner’s conclusions thus.
Carson says “In sum, Colwell’s rule proves nothing about definiteness. It is not for grammar per se, but for textual criticism”. [11] His conclusion on John 1:1c is this.
This is not a surprise, since grammarians overwhelmingly understand the noun to be qualitative here, and overwhelmingly prefer the translation “and the word was divine”. [13] Carson prefers “and the Word was God” because he says he thinks it’s better to translate it as emphasizing the deity of Christ and then explain this does not mean Jesus was the Father, than to translate it as “divine” and give the impression that Jesus might not be actually God.
Leaving aside the debatable claim that the Bible “calls three different persons that one God”, do you not realize what you are acknowledging when you make that statement? You are acknowledging that the Bible does not describe the one true God, as being three persons. This would have been absolutely trivial to do, yet the Bible never does this. The Trinity is a derived doctrine, formed through syllogistic reasoning, and reaching a conclusion which the Bible simply never declares.
The apostles could have gone around telling people “Ok you know God, and how the Bible always refers to God as one person, “He”, “Him”, “His” “I’”, “Me”, “Mine”, and all the verbs used for God are singular, well actually we’ve found out that’s all wrong, God is three persons!”. Strangely, they missed a great opportunity to make this totally clear. So you’re left with a doctrine you patch together from this verse and that verse, combining Scripture to reach conclusions which the Bible never presents.
This leads Trinitarians to a position where they have to look at some of Jesus’ statements about himself, and say “Well Jesus didn’t know who he was” or “Well Jesus wasn’t the final authority as far as the apostles were concerned, God was their final authority”.
You are so used to drawing these conclusions you cannot even see what is wrong with them at a fundamental level. In the Bible, Yahweh is one person, not three. If Jesus is Yahweh, then the Father cannot be Yahweh and neither can the Holy Spirit (have you ever wondered why the Holy Spirit doesn’t have a name, if the Holy Spirit is a person?). Leaving aside the fact that you’re trying to tell me God died (!), you cannot show me that the way you are interpreting these passages is the way the New Testament writers interpreted them. Why do they not come right out and say “So what I am saying is, Jesus is Yahweh”? Instead they use the standard language of agency, describing Christ as a uniquely appointed divine agent. John himself finishes his own gospel with the words “these [things] are recorded so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name”. Then Trinitarians come along and tell me “Of course what John really meant to say was that these things are recorded so that we may believe Jesus is the Christ, God the Son”.
[1] James L. Boyer, “The Classification of Infinitives: A Statistical Study”, Grace Theological Journal 6 (1985), 106.
[2] James L. Boyer, “The Classification of Infinitives: A Statistical Study”, Grace Theological Journal 6 (1985), 106.
[3] D. A. Carson, Exegetical Fallacies (2nd ed.; Carlisle, U.K.; Grand Rapids, MI: Paternoster; Baker Books, 1996), 83–84.
[4] John H. Fish III, “God the Son”, Emmaus Journal 12, no. 1 (2003): 33–34.
[5] Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible (Biblical Studies Press, 2005).
[6] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Harper Collins, 1996), 257.
[7] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Harper Collins, 1996), 257-258.
[8] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Harper Collins, 1996), 258.
[9] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Harper Collins, 1996), 268.
[10] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Harper Collins, 1996), 259.
[11] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Harper Collins, 1996), 262.
[12] Daniel B. Wallace, Greek Grammar Beyond the Basics: An Exegetical Syntax of the New Testament (Harper Collins, 1996), 269.
[13] “It is interesting to note that although the grammarians mainly opt for interpreting theos as “divine”, this is not favoured by theologians in their commentaries.”, Jan Van der Watt and Chrys C. Caragounis, “A Grammatical Analysis of John 1,1,” Filologia Neotestamentaria 21 (2008): 117; “A fourth option is to translate theos as “divine” (an adjective). This option seems to enjoy the majority vote of the grammarians as became clear in 2.3 but not of the commentators (like Barrett, Carson, Bultmann, Schnackenburg, Wilckens, etc. against Keener and Haenchen who seem to favour the qualitative interpretation).”, Jan Van der Watt and Chrys C. Caragounis, “A Grammatical Analysis of John 1,1,” Filologia Neotestamentaria 21 (2008): 133-134.
Oh yes, I am done. I have two comments that provide my latest arguments and I do not think that they will be answered. @Reggie_O_Donoghue also pointed to a link from Michael Heiser that clearly shows another demonstration of Jesus as God in the NT:
What's Ugaritic Got to Do with Anything?
So I’ll let this stand on its own. My other arguments will remain their own force.
Bear in mind that I am having to read several entire books which you’ve cited in this discussion in order to see if your claims about them are true (and I don’t think you have read them, just as you hadn’t read Boyarin), so I’m taking a while to respond. But I’m writing as I read, so don’t worry you will see a response.
At least now we’ve seen that there is in fact no statement from Hurtado saying that Jesus revealed himself as God to his disciples after his resurrection.
But it doesn’t. In fact Heiser himself acknowledges that during the Second Temple Period Jewish commentators speculated that this figure in Daniel 7 was Gabriel, or Michael. Other Second Temple Period candidates were Abraham, or Moses, or another patriarchal figure, such as Enoch (1 Enoch 71:14). Do you really think this meant that those Jews believed Abraham or Moses or Enoch was actually God, or had become God?
Again, others believed the one like the son of man was “the holy ones” (God’s chosen people), or Israel as a nation. None of the intertestamental commentators decided this was actually Yahweh, and Heiser doesn’t even claim they did. In Daniel we find a figure who is described as “one like a son of man”, in other words “a figure like a human being”. In Daniel 7, there is no title “the Son of Man”.
It is for this reason that some Second Temple Period commentators read this as referring to a privileged human (reading “like a son of man” in the sense of “just another human being”), and others read it as referring to an angel (reading “like a son of man” in the sense of “similar in appearance to a human being but actually an angel”).
Consequently, the claim that when Jesus says he would come on the clouds, there is no established historical precedent for anyone understanding him to be claiming he was Yahweh (contrary to what Heiser heavily implies without actually saying). On the contrary, Jesus not only refers to himself as “the son of Man” (a human being), but says that he would be “on the right hand of Power”, a circumlocution for saying he would be on the right hand of God. Jesus thus differentiates himself from God.
It appears as if you’ve missed Heiser’s point. The figure of Daniel 7 was the center of the ‘two powers in heaven’ theology. The High Priest didn’t think Jesus called Himself Gabriel when He said to be riding on the clouds of heaven, this was a clear reference to the two powers in heaven. Heiser connects this to the Ugaritic phrase which heavily impacted the OT which gave Baal the title of the ‘Rider of the Clouds’. Thus, Jesus proclaiming to be the rider of the clouds (which is assigned to God Himself in the OT, Heiser references Isaiah 19:1; Deuteronomy 33:26; Psalm 68:33; 104:3 for example) combined with the significance of the two powers in heaven theology tracing to Daniel 7 was, in Heiser’s words from that article;
By quoting this passage, Jesus was making an overt, unmistakable claim to be deity—he in fact was the one who rides on the clouds. That this is no exaggerated interpretation is evident from Caiaphas’ reaction:
65 Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy.” (ESV)
The statement is only blasphemous if one is claiming to be the rider on the clouds. That idea may have been acceptable to Jews at the time, but it was simply intolerable that this man Jesus of Nazareth would claim to be the incarnation of the second power. What most of us might think is an odd answer, or even a deliberate deflection of Caiaphas’ demand, is the exact opposite. Jesus could not have been more blunt. He was the “second deity” of Daniel 7.
So this is a claim to being the second deity of Daniel 7 (the title ‘son of man’ does not imply mere humanity as you state), rather than being an angel or something (which would not have received an accusation of death on blasphemy by the High Priest). This can be combined with Jesus’ self-referent title of being the Son of Man who will eschatologically return in the future to judge the world (or something of this sort). This, all taken together is as Heiser says, is unmistakable.
You also say that “At least now we’ve seen that there is in fact no statement from Hurtado saying that Jesus revealed himself as God to his disciples after his resurrection.” This is kind of pretty loaded, since I specifically demonstrated that Hurtado says God revealed Jesus’ divinity, not Jesus Himself, and that this is clearly demonstrable from the NT such as where, as Hurtado says, the phrase “call on the name of Yahweh” is applied to Jesus, transformed in the NT to “call on the name of Jesus Christ”. Hurtado thinks all of this.
Which books have I not read that I’ve cited earlier? Richard Hays book is the only one that I remember citing earlier, and I’ve definitely read that one. I haven’t read Andrew Loke’s book, but Hurtado and Loke themselves had an exchange regarding Loke’s contention, that Jesus claimed to be God and Loke has expressed himself quite clearly.
I will recommend to discontinue the debate here until you’ve posted your full response. I have two large comments that are waiting for a reply.
That’s silly. Do you have any suggestions? But we are told to not grieve the Holy Spirit of God.
My quote was from Colwell himself. Colwell said, “The opening verse of John’s Gospel contains one of the many passages where this rule suggests the translation of a predicate as a definite noun. Kai theos nv o logos looks much more like “And the Word was God” than “And the Word was divine” when viewed with reference to this rule.”” So the fact that the article is not there does not mean it has to be indefinite, it could be definite. As Colwell says, “Definite predicate nouns which precede the verb usually lack the article”. I agree that the converse is not necessarily true.
I would need to read this study to see what I think.
This is what Harner deals with. He points out that theos may be qualitative. However, he does not see that as necessarily contradicting definiteness. He says, “we have seen that anarthrous predicate nouns preceding the verb may be primarily qualitative in force yet may also have some connotation of definiteness. The categories of qualitativeness and definiteness, that is, are not mutually exclusive, …”
Harner quotes Vawter and says he must mean that the word is divine in the same sense that o theos is divine which is what Harner also thinks the passage is saying.
I think the Greek grammar fits the trinity well in the passage, avoiding modalism and Arianism. However, as I said, even if it were to be rendered ‘divine’, it would mean divine in the biblical sense and there is only one true God in the Bible.
When you say “Yahweh is one person, not three”, you are assuming your conclusion. As I said, the Bible says there is one God and calls three different persons that one God. Yhwh says they will look on ME whom they have pierced and then John says this verse refers to Jesus when he is pierced. In Malachi, yhwh says the messenger will go before ME, and then John the Baptist goes before Jesus. There are many other similar passages and the conclusion is obvious. The bible also calls the Holy Spirit ‘he’ and equates him with God when telling what happened to Ananias and Sapphira.
I didn’t miss his point. I responded directly to his argument, pointing out that he provides no evidence for its key claims, and pointing out that there is evidence against them.
I know that is what he is claiming. I pointed out he didn’t provide evidence for it.
I know that is what he is claiming. I pointed out he didn’t provide evidence for it.
I know that is what he is claiming. I pointed out he didn’t provide evidence for it. As I said, he makes a connection but does not provide evidence that the Hebrew recipients of the text made this connection. Remember he claims that the Hebrews were polytheists who invented Yahweh by mashing a few gods together (El and Baal), and that they then later split up Baal from Yahweh again (as a second god), renaming Baal “the son of man”. To say that this is not the scholarly consensus is something of an understatement.
I know that is what he is claiming. I pointed out he didn’t provide evidence for it. Citing a string of verses and claiming “They mean X” isn’t evidence.
You haven’t addressed the points I made.
In Daniel there is no title “the son of man”; the phrase is “one like a son of man”
There is no evidence in the Hebrew Bible that “son of man” was understood to mean “God”. Ezekiel is referred to repeatedly by God as “son of man”, do you you think God was calling Ezekiel “God”?
“The phrase son of man occurs ninety-three times in the book of Ezekiel. It simply means “human one,” and distinguishes the prophet from the nonhuman beings that are present in the world of his vision.”, Biblical Studies Press, The NET Bible First Edition; Bible. English. NET Bible.; The NET Bible (Biblical Studies Press, 2005).
Heiser provides no evidence that “one like the son of man” was understood to be God in the Second Temple Period. In contrast, there is clear evidence that it “one like the son of man” was understood to be an archangel, or a glorified human patriarch (Adam, Moses, Elijah, Enoch), or the holy ones of God, or a personification of Israel. Hurtado himself says “there is no indication of any duality in the worship practice of 2nd temple Jews”.
Heiser provides no evidence that the High Priest viewed Jesus’ claim to be “the son of man” to be blasphemous. The fact that Jesus had used this phrase throughout his ministry without exciting any outrage or hostility, and without anyone interpreting him as saying “I am God”, is strong evidence against Heiser’s claim. The overwhelming number of scholars believe Jesus is not presented as God at all in the Synoptics.
Heiser provides no evidence that the High Priest viewed Jesus’ reference to coming in the clouds as blasphemous. The fact that Second Temple Period Jews had already referred to human patriarchs such as Adam, Moses, Elijah, and Enoch as the one who would come in the clouds, is evidence that they did not feel it was blasphemous for a human to be the one coming in the clouds, and that they did not believe the one coming in the clouds was God.
It isn’t loaded. You made the specific claim that “Hurtado, for example, thinks that Jesus actually proclaimed He is God during the resurrection”. When pressed, you acknowledged that he does not actually think that. It really is important to represent people correctly, especially when we’re appealing to them in support of our own claims.
You have repeatedly claimed that Hurtado argues the New Testament is binitarian in the sense of teaching that God is two persons. But Hurtado never argues this. You seem to think that the reason Hurtado moved away from the term “binitarian” is because people kept thinking he was speaking of bitheism. This is false. He moved away from the term precisely because people (like you), kept thinking he was saying the New Testament teaches God is two persons.
That was the point of the exchange between Witherington and Hurtado that I quoted earlier. Witherington noted that Hurtado never describes the New Testament as speaking of Jesus as part of God’s identity, or of God as two persons, and pressed him to explain why. Hurtado says that he objects to that terminology because it’s the language of later doctrinal development, not the language of the New Testament teaching itself. He acknowledges that there’s a way of getting from what the New Testament teaches to the later positions of binitarianism and Trinitarianism, but he denies that the New Testament speaks in the ontological categories those beliefs require. Hurtado speaks of the divinity of Christ as relational and functional and not ontological. This is what has convinced me that you have not read Hurtado’s books, and you’re making false assumptions about what he believes, when you read his blog posts.
In addition to this, the fact that you keep citing and quoting Hurtado while being completely oblivious of what he is actually saying, is evidence to me that you have not read any of his books. I stand ready to be corrected on that point, and on any of the books I just listed.
Why is it silly to ask why an actual person doesn’t have an actual name? Do people call you your name, or do they just refer to you as “the human”?
Yes, and?
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