![\"letter](\"http:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/letter-B-e1439389627183.jpg\")
Today’s letter is “B.”<\/p>\nToday’s letter is “B.”<\/p>\n
At Bowman’s blog<\/a>, Bowman and Buzzard battle<\/a><\/strong> about the basic building block of Old Testament belief – that YHWH is but one<\/a>. But who has the better of this bitter brawl? Will Bowman best Buzzard? Or will Buzzard beat Bowman?<\/p>\n 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<\/em> battle<\/strong>\u00a0between them.<\/p>\n As Bowman agrees that Jesus believed the Shema<\/em><\/strong>, Buzzard asks\/argues:<\/p>\n How in the world can you affirm that Jesus was a Unitarian monotheist<\/strong>, describing and substantiating the creed of Judaism\u2014how 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?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Bowman’s reply, in part:<\/p>\n 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<\/strong> as the first and greatest commandment. I then said that \u201cin that regard\u201d Jesus\u2019 view \u201cwas in the mainstream of Judaism.\u201d This statement is true and in no way conceded Buzzard\u2019s claim… that Jesus understood the Shema in the same way that Jews did then or now. …Unitarians misconstrued Jesus\u2019 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, \u201cI and the Father are one\u201d (John 10:30).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Four comments about this<\/strong>.<\/p>\n First, if “unitarian”<\/strong> theology means “anti-trinitarian” theology, then it is obvious that no one before the 4th c. CE\u00a0was a “unitarian.” But evidently that is not what\u00a0Sir Anthony means by that phrase or by “unitarary monotheism.” Rather, he means it to be a Christian theology on which the one God YHWH \u00a0just is the Father<\/strong>, and no one else. (See the verses he cites in his last comment<\/a>.) It is the view, roughly, that the one God “is unipersonal,” that is, just is a certain self<\/strong>, person, or intelligent agent. \u00a0One might have this view and literally never have heard of trinitarian theology. I would expect Bowman to concede<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n Second, Buzzard can be forgiven for thinking that Bowman is conceding<\/strong>, on the page in question, that Jesus believed the Shema<\/em> was true in the sense then understood by his fellow Jews<\/em>. 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<\/em>. \u00a0If he only agrees to the same words<\/em>, that would fall short of agreeing to the same belief<\/em> (claim, proposition) which is expressed by those words. Here’s the main passage Buzzard has in mind; note that Jesus does nothing to correct<\/strong> his fellow Jew (neither here, nor anywhere in Mark<\/a>, in my view).<\/p>\n One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, \u201cWhich commandment is the first of all?\u201d Jesus answered, \u201cThe first is, \u2018Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one… (Mark 12, NRSV)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Is this argument from silence a knock-down argument? No, but it does have some<\/em> force; it’s no logical fallacy. Of course Bowman is free to argue<\/strong> that Jesus understood the Shema<\/em> in a special way. He does so argue, at length<\/a>.<\/p>\n Third, while Bowman’s\u00a0book has many arguments to this effect, which I can’t discuss in this post, the shot he take here is surprisingly wild<\/strong>. The context seems to explain the sense<\/a> in which Jesus and his Father are “one”<\/strong>; the recently popular thing Bowman says above (”\u00a0included 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<\/a>. (Bauckham, Wright) As best I can tell, and I’ve thought hard about<\/a>, that a few heavyweights have used\u00a0that sort of talk is all<\/em> that can be said in its favor – it’s a way of talking whose reason for existence seems to be its unclarity!<\/p>\n Fourth, in my view Bowman is correct in saying, contra\u00a0Sir Anthony, that\u00a0the Shema<\/em> is not “a definition of God.”<\/strong> 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<\/a> on his post. The translation (and so interpretation) of the Shema<\/em> is tricky. In this 2008 post<\/a> I discuss the alternatives (caveat emptor – I say some mistaken things about “monotheism” in that post – I’ve gotten clearer on that subject now). \u00a0It seems to me that the Shema<\/em> presupposes<\/em><\/strong> that YHWH is a self. Whether it also asserts<\/em><\/strong> 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<\/strong> 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<\/strong> that the Jewish theology of Jesus’s day was what Buzzard calls “unitary monotheism.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Today’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… Read More »Bowman vs. Buzzard on the Shema<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6402,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[21,16,58,54,14,38,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bible","category-books","category-creeds","category-debates","category-history","category-monotheism","category-unitarianism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6389"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36047,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6389\/revisions\/36047"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6402"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/trinities.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}