By Jaco van Zyl
In recent years much attention has
been given to Christological studies ranging from the historical identity of
Jesus to the later post-biblical developments of this central figure in
Christianity. The voices in this search
have indeed been diverse. Published
works on the historical Jesus – who he was and what he taught – have received
attention likened to the notorious development of 19th century
Higher Criticism. Many of these
“discoveries” on the identity of Christ have proven to be edifying for the
Christian believer in that much of what is taught in Scripture and from the
pulpit have been confirmed by historical investigation. A consequence of these much-published
findings has been a renewed search even on the part of the average Church goer
to seek this historical figure and integrate him into their perception of
reality and worship. This search,
however, is not free from challenges.
From, not only the modern “discoveries” of the historical Jesus, but
also an unbiased study of canonical and non-canonical scripture, brought to
light is a picture significantly different from the one traditionally presented
to be the “orthodox” character of the Lord Jesus, as came to be adopted by the
traditional Church and her confessions.
One such
challenge to the “Orthodox” understanding of Christ the most-oft quoted OT text
in the NT, that is Psalm 110:1 (109:1, LXX):
“The
Lord said to my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand,
until I make thine enemies thy footstool.”
“εἶπεν ὁ κύριος
τῷ κυρίῳ μου κάθου ἐκ δεξιῶν μου ἕως ἂν θῶ τοὺς ἐχθρούς σου ὑποπόδιον
τῶν ποδῶν σου”
This Psalm forms the epicentre of the
Kingdom hope and apocalyptic expectations of every Christian. It is no surprise then, that this text is so
often quoted and alluded to in the NT.
From the above text it is clear that one Lord or ho kurios speaks to someone else also called kurios. The potential
confusion in this regard (two referents both called “Lord”) is obvious and
requires some examination. Precisely so,
since the language of this psalm introduces us to two individuals, while the
appellation, kurios, a title mostly
used when referring to Yahweh, is applied to both these individuals.
Since the word kurios has a wide semantic range, including “master,” “[Sovereign]
Lord,” “lord,” etc, and the importance of considering the whole range of
meanings, even the occurrence of the titles in this text, has been well attested to, it will not be
further explored here.
The greatest scholarly consensus is
echoed by the NET Bible commentary on the verse, where it says,
“In this royal psalm the psalmist
announces God’s oracle to the Davidic king. The first part of the oracle
appears in v. 1,
the second in v. 4.
In vv. 2-3
the psalmist addresses the king, while in vv. 5-7 he
appears to address God. My lord.
In the psalm’s original context the speaker is an unidentified prophetic voice
in the royal court. In the course of time the psalm is applied to each
successive king in the dynasty and ultimately to the ideal Davidic king. NT
references to the psalm understand David to be speaking about his “lord,” the
Messiah. (See Matt
22:43-45; Mark
12:36-37; Luke
20:42-44; Acts
2:34-35). The Lord’s invitation to
the Davidic king to sit down at his right hand reflects the
king’s position as the Lord’s vice-regent.
NET Bible Commentary, Ps. 110:1”
Central to this understanding of who
the Lord(s) is/are comes from the distinction made between the two “Lords” as
evidenced in the Hebrew of the Masoretic Text – a distinction not so clearly
seen in the Greek of the LXX:
נְאֻם יְהוָה, לַאדֹנִי--שֵׁב לִימִינִי; עַד-אָשִׁית אֹיְבֶיךָ, הֲדֹם
לְרַגְלֶיךָ
Here the distinction between YHWH and
Adoni is evident. In line with the
Hebrew tradition of the time, the Name, YHWH, was probably not pronounced,
instead the title, Adonai was uttered. Before
considering the significance in the difference between Adonai and Adoni, let’s
see how the distinction is drawn Hebrew:
Adonai: אֲדֹנָי
Adoni: אֲדֹנִי
“Hebrew Adonai exclusively denotes the
God of Israel. It is attested about 450 times in the OT…Adoni [is]
addressed to human beings (Gen. 44:7, Num. 32:25, II Kings 2:19 [etc.]). We
have to assume that the word adonai received its special form to
distinguish it from the secular use of adon [i.e., adoni]. The reason why [God
is addressed] as adonai, [with long vowel] instead of the normal adon, adoni or adonai [with short
vowel] may have been to distinguish Yahweh from other gods and from human
lords” (Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible, p. 531).
“The lengthening of the ā on Adonai [the
Lord God] may be traced to the concern of the Masoretes to mark the word as
sacred by a small external sign” (Theological Dictionary of the OT,
“Adon,” p. 63 and Theological Dictionary of the NT, III, 1060ff. n.109).
“The form ‘to my lord,’ l’adoni, is
never used in the OT as a divine reference…the generally accepted fact that the
masoretic pointing distinguishes divine references (adonai) from
human references (adoni)” (Wigram, The Englishman’s Hebrew and
Chaldee Concordance of the OT, p. 22) (Herbert Bateman, “Psalm 110:1 and
the NT,” Bibliothecra Sacra, Oct.-Dec., 1992, p. 438).
This distinction in form and meaning has been a
source of both triumph and embarrassment.
This is the most powerful and popular text used by Unitarian apologists,
especially since prominent Trinitarian scholars have admitted to its
significance – one tied closely to the distinction between the two referents.
The discomfort around this text is
seen, for instance, in the following comments by Trinitarian apologist, Sam
Shamoun, echoing the sentiments of another apologist, Dr. James White. After quoting Psalm 16:2[15:2, LXX] and 35:23[34:23,
LXX] he says,
This now leaves the
unitarians in the horns of a dilemma. They will either have to admit that Adonai
can be rendered as kyrious mou, which means that their argument
concerning the Greek of Psalm 110:1 flounders and is without merit since it
doesn’t establish their contention that the Hebrew originally read Adoni.
Or they will have to acknowledge that the Masoretes were mistaken since Psalms
16:2 and 35:23 should have been Adoni, not Adonai. But then this
would prove that the Hebrew Bible does use Adoni for Yahweh, thereby
refuting the unitarian assertion that Adoni is never used for the true God!
(http://www.answering-islam.org/authors/shamoun/binity_shema2.html)
What their argument amounts to is
this: no vowel pointings were present in
the Christian and pre-Christian Hebrew text.
ADNY in the Hebrew could be Adonai or Adoni. In fact, since Ps. 16:2 and 35:23 both have
Adonai translated “my Lord” in the LXX,
the ADNY could just as well have come from Adonai, not the royal, non-divine
Adoni, which would, as can be seen from their rebuttal, have rendered the
recipient of the oracle non-divine.
Their conclusion? The first
referent is Adonai or Yahweh, as well as the recipient of the oracle is Adonai.
See, if we only had the Greek, we
probably could reason like this, with some difficulty as we shall see; but we
don’t have only the Greek. We have
several LXX fragments from pre-Christian and Christian times which look
surprisingly different from the LXXs of later periods. We also have the paraphrases or Targums,
which shed invaluable light on the ancient understanding of the text. We also have the NT and the various contexts
this text is used in.
But let’s pull the Trinitarian
argument apart somewhat and see where White et al. fall short. It will come as no surprise that their
argument is indeed marginal and desperate – even from among their own ranks.
- The first crack in
the Trinitarian argument is one from logic:
First premise: Some texts have Adonai translated as “my
Lord” in the LXX.
Second premise: Psalm 110:1 has the translated “my Lord” in
its text
Conclusion: Psalm 110:1 has Adonai in its original
rendering
To those familiar with formal logic,
the fallacy will be evident: fallacy of
Undistributed Middle term. Simply put,
meaning that the predicates in both the major and minor premises (“my Lord”
translation) does not exhaust all the occurrences of this translation and would
therefore not necessitate its occurrence also in Ps. 110:1 as if it did. A more non-dogmatic and accurate conclusion
would be that Psalm 110:1 could have
Adonai in its original rendering. But
again, this should also be said with much caution as the argument for such a
conclusion is not nearly as simplistic.
So, their first error is a logical one.
- Hermeneutically: Ps. 16:2 and 35:23 truly parallels for 110:1?
"I said to the Lord, Thou art my Lord
(kyrios mou); for thou has no need of my goodness." 15:2 LXX
“Awake, O Lord (kyrie), and attend to my
judgment, even to my cause, my God and my Lord (ho theos mou
kai ho kyrios mou).” Psalm 34:23 LXX
At a
superficial glance, merely taking these psalms at word-level and ignoring the
textual environment above world-level, we could also, like the mentioned
authors, arrive at the rather reductionistic conclusion. True, in the MT we have Adonai, not Adoni,
occurring in these texts. The LXX has ho
kurios mou as its translation of ADNY. Apart
from the possibility of reading ADNY as Adoni instead of Adonai and translating
it accordingly, reading these psalms and allowing the text as a whole to impart
meaning, we find that, apart from the similarities in expression (ho kurios mou),
the supposed parallel to 110:1 disappears when we note that the one addressed
in Psalm 16:2 and 35:23 as “my Lord” is a single referent. The only speakers in these psalms are Yahweh
and David. In Psalm 110:1, however,
David speaks about Yahweh and another
Lord giving us the “my Lord” appellation addressing someone other than Yahweh. There is thus no parallel in this regard, and
a false analogy is thus drawn.
- What do the LXX
fragments and the
The earliest fragments of the LXX, dating
from before the Christian era well into the Christian era are
fragments containing the Tetragram. Consider, for examples, the following four Greek OT fragments:
1)
P. Fouad 266b
(Göttingen 848), which has been dated from the third to the first centuries
BCE.
2)
The Scroll of the
Minor Prophets (8HevXIIgr [Göttingen 943] Hand A and B), which is dated to
between 50 BC and 50 CE.
3)
A fragment of
Leviticus from Qumran cave 4 (4QLXXLevb
[Göttingen 802]) that is dated to around the first century BCE. It contains the
form Iaw where the Hebrew text uses the Tetragram.
4)
The final Greek OT
fragment that falls within our timeline and that preserves
a
divine-name-containing text is P. Oxy 3522, which is dated to the early part of
the first century CE. It contains Job 42:11-12 and it also uses an archaic
Hebrew form of the divine name in the midst of a Greek text.
The only LXX fragments having the Tetragram
replaced date from the late second century.
The Qumran Psalms Scroll, dated between 30
and 50 CE also contains the 110th psalm. (Show picture and acknowledgment) As can be seen here, the Tetragram is written
in distinct Paleo-Hebrew characters. In
the Qumran Psalms Scroll the distinction between YHWH and ADNY is thus clearly
made in the 110th psalm.
Taken parallel to each other – the LXX
with, say, the Qumran Scroll of Psalms – we can assume with high probability
that the earlier LXX copies probably retained the Tetragram in the case of the
first referent while giving an equivalent rendering to the second
referent. What about the Hebrew
text? It has ADNY in the place of the
second referent – not the Tetragram.
From the oldest and best mss then, we see a distinction between the
first referent, Yahweh, and the second “Lord.”
- What do the Targums reveal?
The clearest
evidence as to the second referent’s non-divine, yet royal status, comes from
the Paraphrases or Targums. Here is how
some of them render the Psalm:
The Lord said in his decree to make me
lord of all Israel
Another Targum: The Lord
spoke by his decree to give me the dominion in exchange for
sitting in study of Torah. “Wait
at my right hand until I make your enemies a prop for your feet.”
Another Targum: The Lord
said in his decree to appoint me ruler over Israel
In this oracle, reference
to a recipient’s non-divine, royal status cannot be brought into question
here. The LORD, Yahweh, is speaking to a
royal recipient of His oracle. This
royal status is ultimately applied to the antitypical Davidic King, namely the
Messiah.
Before going over
to the NT evidence, I’d like to make something clear: Trinitarians allow a distinction between the
different “Persons” of the “Godhead.” In
other words, in the Trinitarian godhead, the Father is different from the Son
is different from the Spirit. This
distinction in “Persons” is indeed allowed.
What is not allowed, however, is the distinction or difference between
“God” and the “Persons” of the “Godhead.”
In other words, when I read the OT, and I find a text that says, “Thus
saith Yahweh,” Yahweh refers to all three, Father, Son and Holy Ghost. There is
therefore, according to classical post-biblical Trinitarianism, no difference
between God and the Son or God and the Father or God and the Spirit. All are fully God, one and the same Yahweh,
with no difference between the “Person” and “God.”
·
Now keep that in mind as we go over to the NT
evidence:
Read with me 1
Corinthians 15:21, 23, 24, 27, 28
For since through a
man there is death, through a man also, there is a resurrection of the dead.
(Anselm has trouble here) But each one
in his own rank: Christ a First-fruit; afterwards,
those who are Christ’s at his appearing.
Then, the end, when he (Christ) shall give up the Kingdom to the God and
Father; when he (Christ) shall have abrogated all government and all authority
and power. For he (God) has subjected
all things under his (Jesus’) feet. But
when he says that all things are subjected it is manifest that He (God) is
excepted, who has subjected all things to him (Jesus). And when he shall have subdued all things to
him then the son himself will be subject to Him (God) who subdued all things to
him, that God may be all in all.
Hebrews 10:12, 13: "But he, having
offered on enduring sacrifice on behalf of sins, sat down at the right hand of
God; henceforth waiting till his enemies may be placed underneath his feet."
Here Psalm 110:1 is
used clearly marking a distinction between, not Father and Son (as
Trinitarianism equivocatingly accept), but God – Yahweh – and Jesus, the
Son. Thus, a distinction is drawn
between Yahweh and someone else, Jesus (a distinction not recognized or
tolerated by Trinitarianism). This is
NOT presented to us in Trinitarian terms (distinction between Father and Son),
but in Monotheistic terms (between Yahweh God and Jesus) – something
Trinitarianism cannot afford.
·
Finally, theologically
It is an axiom to
reversibly or interchangeably refer to Yahweh as Adonai. Yahweh is Adonai, Adonai is Yahweh. This is a given. There is no Adonai besides Yahweh:
Isa
45:6 That they may know from the rising of the sun, and from the west, that
[there is] none beside me. I [am] the LORD, (Adonai/Yahweh) and [there is] none
else.
Isa
45:18 For thus saith the LORD that created the heavens; God himself that formed
the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he
formed it to be inhabited: I [am] the LORD; (Adonai/Yahweh) and [there is] none
else.
But
here in Ps. 110:1, Trinitarians like James White
argue that Yahweh (Adonai), speaks to someone else who is also Adonai. However they want to look at it, this is
troublesome even to the Trinitarian theology:
If Yahweh is 3-in-1 God, speaking to another Adonai could have one add
between 1 and 3 to the existing 3, leaving us with between 4 and 6 Persons in one
God. If, however, adding the second Adonai
to the first does give Trinitarians 3 Persons in one God, then Yahweh is 2, and
after all not 3 Persons, is He (or should I say they)?
Conclusion:
However we look at it, having one Adonai Yahweh speak to another Adonai
in the exact same sentence would have one add to the already existing
Adonai. One does end up with at least 2
Adonai’s something horrifying to the inspired Jew of ancient times, even the
Jewish translators of the LXX who were undoubtedly non-Trinitarian. The Biblical monotheistic model is simple and
free from sophistry and requires no anachronistic superimpositions of later
theological developments onto the biblical text. The one who received the promised kingship,
lordship and authority was, according to 1 Corinthians 15:21, a man, Adam’s
equivalent. He received it as the royal
type of Messiah – David, even Solomon – was understood to receive it. This, according to Acts 3:13, was bestowed
upon him by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob – Adonai Yahweh – who made him
(Jesus) both Lord and Christ. While
during all this time and even after his final hand-over to Adonai Elohim, the
highly exalted Lord Jesus would still have Yahweh as God over him, according to
2 Corinthians 1:4. So that Adonai Yahweh, be and remain the most High, the
Almighty even of Christ, until all eternity!
No comments:
Post a Comment