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Bowman vs. Buzzard on the Shema

letter BToday’s letter is “B.”

At Bowman’s blog, Bowman and Buzzard battle about the basic building block of Old Testament belief – that YHWH is but one. But who has the better of this bitter brawl? Will Bowman best Buzzard? Or will Buzzard beat Bowman?

Bowman’s a bit burned, as he feels he’s been a bit abused. But I think it best to leave that issue to our two B’s, and to focus instead on the theological battle between them.

As Bowman agrees that Jesus believed the Shema, Buzzard asks/argues:

How in the world can you affirm that Jesus was a Unitarian monotheist, describing and substantiating the creed of Judaism—how can you affirm that on one hand and then say that you as a follower of Jesus are free not to follow that same creed that Jesus affirmed?

Bowman’s reply, in part:

I never affirmed that Jesus was a Unitarian monotheist. And Buzzard is too smart of a person not to know that. …I never said that Jesus was a Unitarian monotheist. I said that he affirmed the Shema as the first and greatest commandment. I then said that “in that regard” Jesus’ view “was in the mainstream of Judaism.” This statement is true and in no way conceded Buzzard’s claim… that Jesus understood the Shema in the same way that Jews did then or now. …Unitarians misconstrued Jesus’ affirmation of the Shema as an affirmation of Unitarianism. It was not. As I have argued elsewhere, Jesus included himself in the one deity of the Shema when he said, “I and the Father are one” (John 10:30).

Four comments about this.

First, if “unitarian” theology means “anti-trinitarian” theology, then it is obvious that no one before the 4th c. CE was a “unitarian.” But evidently that is not what Sir Anthony means by that phrase or by “unitarary monotheism.” Rather, he means it to be a Christian theology on which the one God YHWH  just is the Father, and no one else. (See the verses he cites in his last comment.) It is the view, roughly, that the one God “is unipersonal,” that is, just is a certain self, person, or intelligent agent.  One might have this view and literally never have heard of trinitarian theology. I would expect Bowman to concede that this is indeed the Jews thought this about their god YHWH. “YHWH,” for them, was a personal name, a designation for a self, the unique god. How else could they understand him? All their prophets, all their scriptures, everywhere portray YHWH as a super duper self, as a god, indeed (at least in the later OT books), the highest, unique god.

Second, Buzzard can be forgiven for thinking that Bowman is conceding, on the page in question, that Jesus believed the Shema was true in the sense then understood by his fellow Jews. If Jesus was “mainstream,” as it were, in holding the Shema to be the first and greatest commandment, then presumably he understands it to mean what his fellow Jews understood it to mean – or so one would assume.  If he only agrees to the same words, that would fall short of agreeing to the same belief (claim, proposition) which is expressed by those words. Here’s the main passage Buzzard has in mind; note that Jesus does nothing to correct his fellow Jew (neither here, nor anywhere in Mark, in my view).

One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one… (Mark 12, NRSV)

Is this argument from silence a knock-down argument? No, but it does have some force; it’s no logical fallacy. Of course Bowman is free to argue that Jesus understood the Shema in a special way. He does so argue, at length.

Third, while Bowman’s book has many arguments to this effect, which I can’t discuss in this post, the shot he take here is surprisingly wild. The context seems to explain the sense in which Jesus and his Father are “one”; the recently popular thing Bowman says above (” included himself in the one deity of the Shema”) was never read into that passage before a few heavyweights began to repeat it about 1 Cor 8. (Bauckham, Wright) As best I can tell, and I’ve thought hard about, that a few heavyweights have used that sort of talk is all that can be said in its favor – it’s a way of talking whose reason for existence seems to be its unclarity!

Fourth, in my view Bowman is correct in saying, contra Sir Anthony, that the Shema is not “a definition of God.” It’s not a definition of any term, word, or concept. It’s doesn’t express any really theoretical account of YHWH. Rather, it’s an assertion of the uniqueness of YHWH. Or at least, that’s how I take it – the way the commentator does whom Bowman cites in the 6th comment on his post. The translation (and so interpretation) of the Shema is tricky. In this 2008 post I discuss the alternatives (caveat emptor – I say some mistaken things about “monotheism” in that post – I’ve gotten clearer on that subject now).  It seems to me that the Shema presupposes that YHWH is a self. Whether it also asserts that he is a self (because it says that he’s a god) will depend on the translation. I guess I think that it doesn’t. I think Sir Anthony disagrees. I suggest that he should concede that it depends on the translation. But OT theology hardly stands or falls with this verse. Delete it completely and nothing is changed, as far as OT theology is concerned. Bowman should concede that the Jewish theology of Jesus’s day was what Buzzard calls “unitary monotheism.”

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26 thoughts on “Bowman vs. Buzzard on the Shema”

  1. Hi,

    Please allow me to correct a couple of errors on the heavenly witnesses.

    1 John 5:7
    For there are three that bear record in heaven,
    the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one.

    > John
    > Just look at how it treats the the word ‘one’ in 1 John 5 v 7 &8 The final word in each verse is ‘hen’, a neuter word, yet in verse 7 the KJV translates it as ‘these three are one’ – while in verse 8 ‘hen’ is translated as ‘these three agree in one’

    “?? ????? ?? ????? (these three are one)”: – verse 7 – heavenly witnesses
    “?? ????? ??? ?? ?? ????? (the three agree in one)” verse 8 – earthly witnesses

    There is no disagreement about this translation, the constructions are quite different, and it is agreed that verse eight is “agree”.

    > John
    > As you probably know, verse 7 was found to be a fraudulent insertion in the Middle Ages.

    This is a common blunder. While I believe the heavenly witnesses is clearly authentic, and there is a gross solecism upon its removal, there are plenty of evidences for the verse. Some from the second, the strong Cyprian reference in the 3rd with allusions in Tertullian, Thousandfold Martyrs and more. And many references in the 4th and 5th century, including hundreds of bishops throughout the Medittteranean region using the verse in their statement of faith in the Council of Carthage, 484 AD, showing that the verse had been long established in the Bibles. Plus the Vulgate Prologue from Jerome shows its early lineage.

    To call it a Middle Ages insertion are simply talking outside their field of knowledge and competence. Those opposed to heavenly witnesses authenticity, whether Trinitarian or non-Trinitarian, should stop spreading totally bogus information.

    Steven Avery

  2. It is entirely evident to me how Bowman’s trinitarian take on the Shema is strained and apologetic. But I also think that nobody here has ever mentioned the point that the fourth century trinitarianism would have never been arrived at, if Christian theologians had not started, almost immediately, toying with the Philonian (viz, an odd mix of Jewish and Platonic) notion of deuteros theos. Thence, subordinationism, which led inevitably to the full fledged (Cappadocian) dogma of the “trinity”.

  3. Dale, thanks.

    It seems to me that to sort of cloud the Shema by variations of translation forgets that thousands of times God is one Self.

    In the Greek of the NT one can well say that the Lord our God is one Lord is just that, rather than one YHWH.

    At all events the echo of the scribe in Mk 12 is purely unitarian as all scholarship knows and Jews know the Shema is unitary monotheism.

    What a relief!

    Worcester on the singular pronouns is very good.

  4. Hi Sir Anthony! Yes, I agree. In its context, the Shema presupposes that YHWH is a single self. And the point about pronouns is a crucial one. The Jews could only have thought that YHWH was a self, a he, a someone – not an It or a They. It would have been a deception had They given OT revelation to the Jews. But God is no deceiver. Hence, he is really a he.

  5. @Anthony Buzzard:

    There’s such a mountain of verses and clues in the New Testament that Jesus was not the One Who rescued the Israelites out of Egypt from statements by Jesus (John 4:22) to juxtaposition to the language that they use.

    For instance, you’ve probably heard them use the equivocating that “God said He’s the only savior here, but Jesus is called the savior here.” They conveniently fail to read where God is talking about being the savior out of Egypt; God is constantly calling Him their only savior out of Egypt, and He’s speaking to the Jews! It falls perfectly in line with the covenant that they entered with Him for Him taking them out of Egypt, and how Moses says that YHWH is their only god, and that there is only One, so to worship only Him and love Him with all their heart.

    So, because of this, some Trinitarians have been led out into the front line in fighting to try and prove that Jesus was the god of the old testament, but have utterly failed. The closest they ever set foot is into “Angel of the LORD” territory, where not even the angel God sent is called their savior, but rather “God” Who sent the angel is still accredited as that Savior. So was it Jesus’ angel, then? It can get pretty hilarious.

  6. “The NT writers are really quite careful at this point. Jesus is not the God of Israel. He is not the Father. He is not YHWH…
    The First Christians did not think of Jesus as to be worshipped in and for himself. He was not to be worshipped as wholly God, or fully identified with God, far less as ‘a god’…Christian monotheism, if it is truly monotheism, has still to assert that only God, only the One God, is to be worshipped…” J.D.G. Dunn, Did the First Christians Worship Jesus? p. 142,146.

  7. My point to Bowman is that historians and many commentators recognize the unitary monotheistic proposition of the Shema. It does not matter how you translate it. YHWH is a Single Self. Particularly as echoed by the Jew who agreed with Jesus, who defines God as a Single Self: “There is no one else beside Him”. It would be absurd to have thousands and thousands of singular personal pronouns for God defining Him as a Single Person and then fail to reflect that in the Shema that summarizes the whole view of God.

    And the word “God” in the NT refers to the Father 1300 times.

  8. Hey!
    There’s something I want to put forward that I haven’t seen people saying, although I haven’t looked too much into it. There’s the whole confusion as to what Moses means by “the LORD our God, the LORD is one”:

    I’ve seen Jewish commentary about how God is so incredibly “one” that no one else is “one” in that way, or something to that effect.
    I’ve seen Trinitarians say that it has to do with God’s one essence, with or without Trinitarian teaching therein (although some have said that it is in there, since there are three mentions of God: two “YHWH”s and one “God”).
    I’ve seen Unitarians say that it means that God is a certain self.

    There is one thing that I haven’t seen, which is actually IN the context: God is one God to be obeyed.

    Deuteronomy 6:4-9 NIV
    Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.

    So, the Trinitarians have said “the Lord our God is one Lord” to suggest that it means He, multiple persons, is an essence. I would say that, sure, God is one God — but what’s the significance? God is one God, so serve only Him; God is one God, so love Him with your all. Isn’t that the reason that Jesus cited it anyway? So He also agrees with the context, having said it was the greatest command.

    For me, a Unitarian, it’s confirmed in the way Jesus speaks about obedience to God’s commands and how they give life. So, I take a different approach, completely discounting the idea of “essence” altogether. The only “essence” I have seen is authority, which would be God’s “essence” in the sense of the “gist” of God, or what He’s all about – what describes Him essentially. I believe this is the idea, since they replaced His name with “Lord”, and constantly called Him “Lord” even in the Masoretic. He is constantly Lord, Most High, God of Gods and Lord of Lords, Almighty, etc.

    The life that we have in God’s commands we have by Jesus, and Jesus says this is by His own words which He speaks from the Father. To me, this further identifies the Father as the only true God essentially. Whatever part Jesus shares “co-equally” (???) with the Father is based upon the Father’s very real love for His beloved Son. If this were not so, we would not be truly loved by God for Jesus’ sake. Furthermore, I’d like to take a big step here and say that, if Jesus is God or acting “as God” on the earth, then His Father did not truly love Him in the sense that Jesus said that He did.

    In Him,
    -Jonathan Jensen

  9. “Why quote dump, when we agree that both OT and NT assert that YHWH is a god, and so, a self?”

    I don’t know what you mean by “quote dump” but you seem to have missed my point.

    Again, the Shema is a creedal statement pointing to BOTH the uniqueness and oneness of YHWH. Jesus and the Rabbi’s remarks after quoting it in Mark 12 attest to those facts as I have pointed.

  10. “P1: Ps. 8 describes the creation of Adam and Eve.
    P2: Heb. 2:6-9 applies the text to Jesus.
    C1: Jesus must be Adam and Eve.”

    Jaco, this is a crucial point you’re making. These fulfilled prophecies are often taken as hints that Jesus really is Yahweh himself. But this ignores that the NT interpreter is re-interpreting and re-applying statements that originally had to do with someone else, someone other than Jesus, in a number of cases, YHWH himself.

    So, “every knee will bow to YHWH” says Isaiah. And Paul in Phil 2 says every knee will bow to Jesus. So, he’s hinting that Jesus is YHWH, right? No! Paul’s clear about who YHWH is – he’s the Father. And Jesus is the mediator between us and that one. Paul has no need for hinting; his teachings, difficult though they can be, are explicit. In general, NT authors don’t hint. (Revelation, being an apocalyptic book, is different here.) The apostles are straight about about their claims – no secrets, no gnosis. It is all upfront, on the table. There is no conspiracy theory that should be invented here, about what the *really* are saying. This hint-hunting exegesis of the NT, with its love of allusions, echos, and aromas, has got to go. The OT contains multiply fulfilled prophecies, foreshadowings, and more. But in the NT, God’s plan *has been revealed*.

  11. “But this is obfuscating a simple creedal statement.”

    No, it isn’t. Not every single sentence makes all the points we want to make. These fine distinctions are our friends, not our enemies.

    Why quote dump, when we agree that both OT and NT assert that YHWH is a god, and so, a self?

  12. Dale,

    Yes, I understand the difference some point to based on translations: “uniqueness” vs. singularity [a Self, Individual, etc.]. But this is obfuscating a simple creedal statement. Since the “assertion” both Jesus and his fellow Jewish teacher come to in Mar 12.29-31, that YHWH is a Single Self, is not based on whatever “translation” you adopt.

    Note that BOTH things are true: YHWH is “unique” and numerically 1:

    “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth by saying that He is one [eis estin, 1 Person] and there is no other besides Him [Unique]…
    When Jesus saw that he had answered intelligently, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the kingdom of God’.” vv.31, 34.

    Hence, Buzzard [Jesus Not Trinitarian, p. 88]:

    “Bishop N.T. Wright says that Paul in 1 Corinthians 8:6 “adapts the Shema itself, placing Jesus within it.”56 If so, he thus changed the meaning of the Shema, to the horror of Jews and one would hope of Christians. But Paul has done nothing of the sort. He is strictly a Jewish monotheist. “To us there is one God, the Father and no other God besides Him.” That is precisely what the Jewish scribe had echoed back to Jesus, agreeing with Jesus on the unitary creed of Israel. Paul repeats the same view of God as a single Person: “There is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Messiah Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5). “God is one person” (Gal. 3:20). God is in the Greek eis, one, masculine, i.e. one person, just as Jesus is the one seed, the one (eis) person who is the seed (Gal. 3:16), and the one (eis) teacher of the faithful (Matt. 23:8).”

  13. “It seems to me that the Shema presupposes that YHWH is a self. Whether it also asserts that he is a self (because it says that he’s a god) will depend on the translation.”

    Doesn’t it also depend on the 10s of thousands of times the YHWH of the Shema is referred to in personal, singular pronouns?

    1. “Doesn’t it also depend on the 10s of thousands of times the YHWH of the Shema is referred to in personal, singular pronouns?”

      No – you’re ignoring the point about presupposing vs. asserting, and the point about translation. If it is to be translated “Our god Yahweh is the only Yahweh”, what it is asserting is: YHWH is unique. But yes, it does presuppose that he’s a god – it uses “our god” to clarify who is being talked about – YHMH, our god, that is, is unique. (That’s not the same as asserting: YHWH is a god, YHWH is our god, and YHWH is unique. Do you see the difference?)

      Here’s another translation, from TEV: “The LORD, our God, is the only God.” This asserts YHWH to be the only god, and so, to be a god. On this translation, which I’m supposing is not the best, it is implying that he’s a self (because he’s a god).

  14. One of the points confirming that Jesus’ claim to oneness with the Father is functional is implicit in Jesus’ response to the Jews. As I pointed out on my blog (click my name for the whole post), Jesus does NOT respond by saying “do you say to me…`You blaspheme,’ because I said, I am one with the Father?”; rather, he says, “do you say to me…`You blaspheme,’ because I said, I am God’s Son?”

    Oneness isn’t even mentioned in Jesus’ reply, showing that the point of focus was his messianic sonship. Jesus had called God his Father 4 times, and when he said “I and the Father are one” he was asserting that God fully endorsed his messianic claim.

    J.C. O’Neill has offered some unconvincing proposals during his life as a scholar, but there’s one insight that he offered seems quite compelling to me in light of the evidence: In the Jewish tradition of the time it was understood that God would reveal/identify his Messiah. Thus, a self claim to messiahship would be blasphemous, because that would be overstepping his authority. Jesus could act with the full authority of God as his Messiah, but the Jews may very well have felt that he shouldn’t do so until God identified him as such.

  15. Note Bowman’s logic:

    P1: Deut. 32:29 refers to the One God of Israel
    P2: Jesus applied Deut. 32:29 to himself
    C1: Jesus must be the One God of Israel.

    So, following this logic, one should conclude as follows:

    P1: Hos. 11:1 refers to Israel as the one called out of Egypt
    P2: Matthew applied this text to Jesus in Matt. 2:15
    C1: Jesus must be the nation Israel.

    Or,

    P1: Ps. 8 describes the creation of Adam and Eve.
    P2: Heb. 2:6-9 applies the text to Jesus.
    C1: Jesus must be Adam and Eve.

    Finally:

    P1: Ps. 2:9 refers to the Messianic King who would judge worldly leaders
    P2: Rev. 2:27 applies the text to the victorious Christian
    C1: The victorious Christian must be the Messianic King who would judge worldly leaders.

    How convincing.

  16. From a cognitive linguistics perspective Bowman is clearly in error. Implicit concepts are conveyed in language. One determines inductively what those concepts are by what is explicitly stated and what is omitted in language. From that a description can be given. Once described, modern expressions/words can be found or invented to convey the ancient concept as representatively as possible. As shown by Buzzard, Robinson, Dunn, and others, as well as disinterested anthropologists, a modern description (etic word) for the ancient understanding of the concept of Yahweh is without question that Yahweh was a singular self and one person (in the normative sense of the word). Nothing Jesus said or did was anything new. Jesus’ correcting the Jews of his time was not a correction of divinely-revealed Judaism. This “correction” or “progressive revelation” Evangelical apologists love to resort to is a kind of wild card they use to fill in whatever they want to as necessary corrections to theological gaps present in Judaism. Such special pleading liberties have been taken by various denominations to push for a cherished doctrine. So Bowman resorts to texts which somehow fill in these gaps, and the same old Trinitarian prooftexting continues. He says:

    “(1) If one removes Jesus’ self-reference in the verse, I think most people would see an allusion to the Shema. That is, if Jesus had said, “The Father is one,” the Shema would be a natural allusion.”

    False. The monotheistic confessional chant in Greek says “O Kurios eis estin,” where “eis” is the masculine singular. In 10:30, Jesus says “ego kai o Pater en semen,” where “en” is the neuter singular. It is unthinkable that something as spontaneous and engrained as confessional language would have been changed if the writer intended to convey exactly what the confession affirmed.

    “(2) The Jews perceived Jesus’ statement as a blasphemous claim to be God (vv. 31-33). This doesn’t make sense if Jesus was claiming only to be committed to God’s purpose or that he was doing God’s will. It makes perfect sense if Jesus was alluding to the Shema and including himself in it. ”

    Not necessarily. From a redactional perspective the writer could have presented the Jews’ reaction for another reason too. A rebellious son presumptuously and illegitimately claiming the authority of a respected figure would have evoked a similar reaction. James McGrath and others have demonstrated convincingly how this could be a natural understanding of the text. The anarthrous “God” and Jesus’ response in defence shows that it was neither his intention nor the Jews’ correct understanding that he self-identified as the One True God of the Shema.

    “(3) Immediately prior to making this statement, Jesus had applied to himself the words of another exclusive monotheistic statement from Deuteronomy.”

    And what Jesus did is nothing strange at all, since the agent is as good as the one represented. As the faithful human shepherd to whom Almighty God has given the disciples one would really hope that they would not be snatched out of Jesus’ hand. Jesus does Yahweh-things because of his imitating God, following God’s initiative, is constantly open to God’s word incarnating in him, obeying God perfectly and being given authority by God.

    Bowman hasn’t improved on any of the same old Trinitarian interpretations of a unitary text from an ancient unitary culture. You have to be ignorant of modern disinterested scholarship and you have to be fully devoted to cherished doctrine to resort to the kind of desperation seen by Evangelical apologists. Nothing new.

  17. What Bowman and other theology-motivated apologists are doing is redefining concepts. They ignore explicit language and the concepts expressed by the language. So singularity in reference, anthropomorphisms and visions are consistently ignored or downplayed. Once they’ve done that, they proceed to redefining confirmed concepts. EL/ELOHIM was a universal concept in the ANE. When singular, it referred to Someone singular, much like when we refer to someone in singular terms. This is indisputable, and historians and anthropologists have shown this with virtually no exception. BUT Bowman and his fellow crusaders NEED a fuzzier concept of EL/ELOHIM so as to achieve internal plurality within the El/Elohim of Israel. It is simply not there. It is nevertheless a very bold attempt to turn disinterested scholarly consensus on its head. The scholarly world, I’m afraid, are not holding their breath. It is also a fascinating display of cognitive dissonance.

  18. “so simple that the simplest mind can grasp it”

    Yeah, this is typical for New Testament teaching. Feet on the ground.

    Scholars – and I speak generally here, not about Mr. Bowman – have many motivations to find mysteries in those texts…

  19. Hi Pierre:

    The reason Bowman handles John 10:30 the way he does is simple: He’s interpreting the account according to the presupposition of Trinitarianism. He seems to read the Bible more as an apologist than as a critical theologian. Other Trinitarians would agree that this verse is about unity of will, purpose, and love, e.g.:

    In his popular Daily Study Bible, William Barclay provides an nice discussion of this verse. His comments below are taken from his commentary as found on The Bible Library CD-ROM (ad loc cit):

    “Now we come to the supreme claim. ‘I and the Father are one,’ said Jesus. What did he mean?…If we go to the Bible itself for the interpretation, we find that it is in fact so simple that the simplest mind can grasp it. Let us turn to the seventeenth chapter of John’s gospel, which tells of the prayer of Jesus for his followers before he went to his death: ‘Holy Father, keep them in thy name, which thou hast given me, that they may be one, even as we are one’ (Jn.17:11). Jesus conceived of the unity of Christian with Christian as the same as his unity with God. In the same passage he goes on: ‘I do not pray for these only, but also for those who believe in me through their word, that they may all be one; even as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. The glory which thou hast given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one.'” (Jn.17:20-22).

    In the conservative Tyndale New Testament Commentary on John, page 136, R.V.G. Tasker says:

    “One translates the Greek neuter hen. This verse was much quoted in the Aryan [sic] controversy by the orthodox in support of the doctrine that Christ was of one substance with the Father. The expression seems however mainly to imply that the Father and the Son are united in will and purpose. Jesus prays in xvii. II that His followers may all be one (hen), i.e. united in purpose, as He and His Father are united.”

    ~Sean

  20. Hi Pierre
    You touch on a very interesting matter!
    The Septuagint is sometimes unreliable when translating from the Tanakh.
    Consider Hebrews 1 verse 8 -12 versus Psalm 102 verses 24 and 24

    The footnote to the NAB Bible states
    “it is important for the authors Christology , that in verses 10-12 , an OT passage addressed TO GOD is re-addressed to Christ”

    The Septuagint is not always reliable.

    For that matter, neither is the KJV Bible.

    Just look at how it treats the the word ‘one’ in 1 John 5 v 7 &8

    The final word in each verse is ‘hen’, a neuter word, yet in verse 7 the KJV translates it as ‘these three are one’ – while in verse 8 ‘hen’ is translated as ‘these three agree in one’

    As you probably know, verse 7 was found to be a fraudulent insertion in the Middle Ages.

    So, referring to your comment regarding John 10 v 30, ‘hen’ a neuter word, is used.
    This word alwayts signifies ‘ oneness in purpose’ or ‘one in agreement.
    See 1 Corinthians 3v8 “the one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose’ (hen)
    See Philippians 2 v2 “united in faith with a single purpose (hen)”

    The scriptures always use “heis” – a counting number to signify the oneness of God. It is masculine.
    Consider “in the stadium there is only one runner (heis) who wins the race. ‘ 1 Corinthians 9 v 24.

    Trinitarians will go to any lengths to protect their ‘unique selling proposition’ – that their Messiah isn’t just any ordinary prophet / messiah – according to their thinking He is God himself.!!
    This gave Christianity its initial ‘boost’ in the the early days – but it will become more and more like an ‘albatross’ as we move deeper into the ‘information age”

    God Bless
    John

  21. Why is that Bowman use the neuter singular “ one “ in Jn 10:30 to implicate ontological identity, when the Shema in the Greek Septuagint in Deut 6:4 has a masculine singular for “one”. How do we explain this distinction?

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