Dead Sea Scrolls
Southwestern Journal of Theology
Volume 53, No. 1 – Fall 2010
Managing Editor: Malcolm B. Yarnell III
By Richard Bauckham. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2008. 285 pages. Paperback, $34.00.
This volume consists of eight essays exploring monotheism in Second Temple Judaism and early Christianity. The first essay, “God Crucified,” was published ten years before this volume as a single work that explores the precedence of Jewish monotheism in connection with the Christology of the early church. Here, God Crucified further serves as the crucial thesis upon which the other seven essays coalesce.
Bauckham lays out two main approaches to understanding Jewish monotheism. One angle of approach posits that “Second Temple Judaism was characterized by a ‘strict’ monotheism that made it impossible to attribute real divinity to any figure other than the one God” (2). The strictness of monotheism inevitably leads to the unlikelihood of a Christ-figure having any divinity, hence dismissing the possibility of the New Testament texts speaking of Christ’s divinity. The second angle of approach is contingent on revisionist interpretations of the Second Temple period, which, as Bauckham sees it, “in one way or another deny its strictly monotheistic character” (2). This second view looks for a precedent of early Christian Christology in the intermediary figures, which are not completely divine, but have certain characteristics (e.g. angels, special humans, etc.).
Bauckham’s thesis is that a “high Christology was possible within a Jewish monotheistic context, not by applying to Jesus a Jewish category of semi-divine intermediary status, but by identifying Jesus directly with the one God of Israel, including Jesus in the unique identity of this one God” (3). Bauckham proceeds with this thesis by establishing Jewish monotheism in God’s unique identity, which shapes the life of the Jews in their adherence to his law and the worship of him that ensues. Bauckham provides evidence to show that the period of Second Temple Judaism is “self-consciously monotheistic” (5). In the discussion of intermediary figures like Michael the Archangel, which fall into two categories—angelic figures and exalted patriarchs, Bauckham observes that they are still subordinate to God and do not participate in his rule, despite their significant positions (15).
In the subsequent section, Bauckham posits that New Testament Christology is the highest possible Christology, as opposed to developmental gradations of Christology from low to high: “the inclusion of Jesus in the unique divine identity was central to the faith of the early church even before any of the New Testament writings were written” (19). The worship and exaltation of Christ place him over all things, an expression common in the rhetoric of Jewish monotheism (23). Jesus is the crucified God, in whom his identity is revealed. The Christian readings of Isaiah 40–55 and Psalm 110:1 reflect his nature: “Here God is seen to be God in his radical self-giving, descending to the most abject human condition and, in that human obedience, humiliation, suffering and death, being no less truly God that he is in his cosmic rule and glory on the heavenly throne” (50). The early church has carried on this tradition in its worship of Christ.
Bauckham’s other essays are further explorations of the discussions that have arisen from God Crucified. “Biblical Theology and the Problems of Monotheism” fields the challenges of a monotheistic view in biblical studies, and arrives at monotheism being “a claim about the God who defines himself by his covenant with Israel and the particular name YHWH that cannot be abstracted from his particular identity in his history with Israel” (81). “The ‘Most High’ God and the Nature of Early Jewish Monotheism” seeks to trace the usage of the designation “Most High” in Deuteronomy 32:8–9 as well as other early Jewish literature, along with temple cult practices. In “The Worship of Jesus in Early Christianity,” Bauckham sees how the act of Christian worship is a continuation of Jewish monotheistic faith, not a break from it. “The Throne of God and the Worship of Jesus” finds the centrality of Scripture in the late Second Temple period to provide a connection to the uniqueness of the God of Israel and the exclusive worship rendered unto him. The imagery of the throne of God continues on to Jesus, who is worshiped and included as the one God of Israel.
“Paul’s Christology in Divine Reality” looks at the ways in which Paul uses specific YHWH passages in connection to Christ. Kurios, commonly known to be a reverential title for Christ, is also the Greek divine name found in the Septuagint for the Tetragrammaton. Another article, “The Divinity of Jesus in the Letter to the Hebrews,” also examines Christology in the attribution of Melchizedek the high priest to Christ.
The last essay, “God’s Self-Identification with the Godforsaken: Exegesis and Theology,” is an exegesis of Jesus’ cry from the cross in their proper Gospel contexts (Mark 15:39, Matt 27:46). The words, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” underscore the “godforsakenness” of Jesus. Mark brings it to a dramatic climax that conveys the abandonment and suffering, which Jesus efficaciously experienced for all of humanity.
The series of essays presented here in this volume enters into various discussions on the topic of high Christology, from the precedence of Jewish monotheism to the divine language attributed to Christ by Paul and the Gospel writers. Bauckham takes the position that early Christology is high Christology, and offers a variety of perspectives that develop into a larger theological framework. Many of these papers have been published elsewhere either in full form or at least in some parts. They are what he calls “working papers” to a volume, which he had promised earlier in the first publication of God Crucified (xi). What can be appreciated in these papers is his earnest effort to weave together and synthesize the ongoing scholarly discussions concerning early Christology.
