Still wrestling...

The more in-depth I read Henry Corbin, the more clearly I see the dogma of the Church. This isn't a judgment (yet, anyhow). It's simply a fact. I seek to 'believe' the dogma of the Trinity, of the God-man idea, of the Incarnation rather than just 'get' them as one can 'get' these things and yet not believe them.

Just when I think I'm about to go there, I find something else that verifies or corroborates what I believe. The latest of these finds has to do with Isaiah 9:6, a proof-text often used to go beyond just that of proving Jesus to be Messiah but proving that Jesus and, historically speaking, the Messiah, will be divine, nay, will be God. But I know far too well the role of translation so this has never been a big deal to me.

It is often quoted as a proof-text and as I am no Hebrew scholar, I merely let it roll. Well today I dug a bit deeper. I have been reading Michael S. Kogan's brilliant book Opening the Covenant. It threw me right back into the Jewishness of Jesus once again bringing forth my belief that once Christianity left the environs of Jerusalem and went abroad there was no turning back. Once it went beyond the apostles and Paul and entered into a non-Jewish and thoroughly Gentile/pagan educated clergy it was over. It has become a predominantly Greek religion thus uprooting the true Jewishness of the faith. But when these roots are removed it becomes a malleable faith, one that latches itself onto the dominant culture.

In this day and age and for the past several hundred years that dominant culture has been Protestant, European and, most recently, American. This culture has attached itself to the faith of Christianity and has thus been associated, perhaps unjustly, with colonialism. This is changing, however, as the largest growth is coming from South America and Africa and these cultures are changing the Christian landscape. It will be interesting to see the theological impact as well.

Anyhow, as for this book, it is a profound and honest attempt at Jewish-Christian interfaith dialogue, really scrutinizing, to a refreshing degree, Christianity in its roots through a Jewish lens. Chapter 2 of the book tackles 'The Qusetion of the Messiah.' In essence, he takes apart the idea that there is a 'messianic pattern', some normative idea of a Messiah that all Jews of Jesus' day held. Anyone who knows a bit about Jewish history of this period knows that there were a multitude of ideas about the Messiah. There were, in his words, messianisms. To think otherwise is to deny history.

He hits on the major verses used in Christian proof-texting. In my example here I am looking at Isaiah 9:6. The traditional translation is this:

"...his name will be called

Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace."

I wish to look at the 'Mighty God' claim.

Kogan's translation is this:

"...his name will be called

'A wonderful counselor is the Mighty God,

The Everlasting Father.' [He will be a] peaceful prince."

Kogan notes that the name (and it is a name, not a statement of ontology) "does not imply divinity, but rather indicates that the appearance of this child-king is a sign that God has not and will not abandon the Davidic line no matter the failings of [Hezekiah] (and the abomination of his son Manassah)" (42). Placed in its context, there is no declaration of the Messiah being divine.

El is a component of many names, yet these names are not seen as statement of ontology. Here are a few examples:

Daniel – Judged by God or Judgement of God

Ezekiel – God will Strengthen

Ishmael, Ishamael – Heard by God, Named by God, or God Hearkens

Israel – Struggles with God

Joel – Jah is God

Samuel – Name/Heard of God

Not one of these figures was seen to be divine, let alone God. So when Jesus is called, for example, Emmanuel, it is a name not a statement of his nature. 'God with us' does not mean that it is Jesus that is God but that it is in Jesus that God is with us.

Let's break this down a bit further. 'Mighty God' translates the Hebrew gibbor el, el being 'God' and gibbor being 'mighty'.

El is the word most often translated as 'God' in the Hebrew Bible. But this is not the God specific to Israel. This is not YHWH. This is not the LORD. It is the root of the word elohim, the word most often associated with the word 'God', though the word elohim is used of men and of angels (see, for example, Psalm 82:6, which Jesus quotes in John 10:34).

The Hebrew for this passage is Pele-joez-el-gibbor-Abi-ad-sar-shalom. Yet in many passages in the Hebrew Bible, the word el (or elohim) means mighty or powerful and is not a stand alone address for God. For example in Psalm 50:1, mighty God is actually el elohim, el meaning mighty and elohim meaning God.

Pslam 82:1:

"God (elohim) standeth in the congregation of the mighty (el); he judgeth among the gods (elohim)."

Is this an acknowledgment of others gods? Is this a throwback to former times when YHWH was competing amongst a pantheon of gods? It's interesting to me that the word el here is translated as mighty and gives room to believe that other 'gods' might also be among the el in the sense of 'mighty'.

But in Ezekiel 31:11 it is Nebuchadnezzer who is called el, the mighty one. In Ezekiel 32:21 we see both el and gibbor in the same sentence:

"The strong (el) among the mighty (gibbor) shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him..." (KJV)

This speaks not of God but of men.

Gibbor el is frequently translated as 'Mighty God' in various other places in the Hebrew Bible (Isaiah 10:21, Jeremiah 32:18, etc.)

In essence, it comes down to more than tossing out one verse in a particular translation. It comes down to context, both of the passage and of the use of the terms in the greater context of the various places throughout the Hebrew Scriptures which, of course, also means keeping the books in the context of the times in which the passages were written or written about. In other words, there is no one 'messianic pattern' to these texts used as proof. If we study the development of the idea of an individual Messiah rather than a dynastic king back to its Zoroastrian roots up through the Second Temple period we find an amazing diversity in the concept and realize that there is simply no one understanding of the idea of the Messiah.

My point is simply this: proof-texting Isaiah 9:6 to claim that Jesus, or the Messiah, is God is not enough. In fact, standing alone, it doesn't prove anything. It's just a soundbyte. The passage as a whole may be seen as Messianic (or it may simply be referring to the historical person of Hezekiah) but this isn't the same as saying that the Messiah is God.

For if, in this verse, Jesus is God then he is also literally, not figuratively, the Father. And while this may align perfectly well with Oneness (i.e. modalist) theology it is certainly not compatible with Trinitarian theology. So as for Isaiah 9:6, it is at best Messianic. But proof that the Jews of Jesus' day held it to mean the individual in question would be divine, let alone God Himself? That's a tough sell.