British New Testament Conference, Manchester, 2014. Friday 5 September.

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Jesus’ Divine Self-Consciousness: a Proposal

(Dr C Fletcher-Louis, crispin@whymanity.com)

This is an unusual paper. It attempts to summarise over 200,000 words of a forthcoming book
(volumes 2 and 3 of my Jesus Monotheism). The argument is laid out in a series of propositions
(as also in the book). Each of these could easily justify a seminar paper in its own right. My
aim today is simply to offer you the overall shape of the argument. To help you follow a
dense argument here is a more or less word-for-word handout of what I will say (with plenty
of supporting primary textual data and secondary references that would normally appear in
the footnotes).

Proposition 1: In the originally intended order of creation, humanity is God’s

idol (tselem) and as such is “divine”; in both being and function.

Genesis 1 (verses 26–28) uses the language of ancient Near Easter idolatry and idol making.

On which see:
M. B. Dick, Born in Heaven, Made on Earth: The Making of the Cultic Image in the Ancient Near East (1999)
C. Walker and M. B. Dick, The Induction of the Cult Image in Ancient Mesopotomia: The Mesopotamian Mīs Pî Ritual
(2001).
Z. Bahrani, The Graven Image: Representation in Babylonia and Assyria (2003).
N. H. Walls, Cult image and divine representation in the ancient Near East / edited by Neal H. Walls (2005).
V. A. Hurowitz, “The Mesopotamian God-Image” (2003) and “Materials for Creating Cult Statues,” (2006).

In Akkadian tsalam  ili/ilani  means divine cult image (idol). And In Genesis humanity is the tselem  
elohim—God’s idol. And idol in the ancient world is the deity, it does not merely represent the deity.
So humanity is created  to  be  God’s  manifest  presence  in  the  world:  
“…. Adamic beings are animate icons … the peculiar purpose for their creation is
‘theophanic’.” (S. D. McBride, “Divine Protocol,” (2000) 16).

C1st Jews knew this and so they tell a tale in which Adam is worshipped (before his sin) as
God’s image-idol by the angels (Life of Adam and Eve 12–16 and parrs.).

But
- Adam is not a person.
- Humanity is not the Creator.
- The “divine,” sinless Adam is no threat to God’s unique identity, because he provides
God “with a means of extending his divine presence. The divine image is not
understood as something distinct from the represented god but actually extended the
presence of that god.” (S. L. Herring, Divine Substitution, 2013, 218)
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Prop. 2: Adam, already being in the image and likeness of Yahweh God, as his
idol, should not have considered the offer to become a god equal to the one
true God something worth grasping after (Gen 2–3).

In line with ancient Jewish interpretation and much recent scholarship, Gen 1–3 says that
Adam tragically pursued an independent divine identity; forgetting or ignoring the one he
already had (as God’s image and likeness):
- Already in Gen 2 Adam knows the difference between good and evil (so Sir 17:7, cf. 1QHa
6:11–12; 4Q417 frag. 2 i 17–18 = 4Q418 frags. 43+44+45 i 13–14; 4Q300 frag. 3 2–3; 2  En.  
30:15); between the good trees and the evil one, between the good partner (Eve) and the beastial
ones. Adam and Eve are “wise” (ʿarummim–3:25).
- Adam is already “divine”; he has God’s own breath, a share “in His own deity” (Philo Worse  
86, cf. Creation  144) and is created for divine immortality. (He also continues the creative work
of naming parts of creation and the manner of his creation reiterates the point of Gen 1 that he is
supposed to serve as God’s image-idol).
- Adam is divine as God’s subordinate.
- The serpent offers a faux deification, by which Adam and Eve he will become “like gods” (Gen
3:5: Heb. keʾlohim; Gk. hōs  theoi, Vulg. sicut  dii).
- So Adam and Eve deny who they are and listening to the voice of creation (the serpent and the
tree), they try to grasp an independent, additional divinity.
- In so doing they annhilate their true identity: as God predicted, they die. Sin is both a rebellion
against God and a self-denigration; a loss of being, of divine glory.
- A fall that ancipates the tragedies of Israel and her kings. In particular, it has multiple points of
contact with Solomon’s rise and fall (1 Kgs 1–11). As a new Adam (1 Kgs 3–4) Solomon turns
in on himself and is led astray to self-serving idolatry through his wives (1 Kgs 10–11). So Gen
1–3 has a deeply political purpose as a meditation on the human quest for personal glory; it
says sin is always a denial of our vocation to bear God’s divine presence as his tselem. A
problem that afflicts rulers when they seek an independent divine identity.

Prop. 3 says: The true image-idol of God is reconstituted in Israel, above all in
the high priest (Exod 28), who is “divine” and receives worship as such.
Aaron is dressed as an idol: in multi-coloured, jewel-clad garments (Exod 28, cf. 39:1–30). These (esp.
the hoshen of judgement, the engraved gems, the ephod, robe, golden flower on the turban,
pomegranates and bells) are generically the kind of glorious garments that decorate ancient Near
Eastern idols. These are God’s glorious, light-giving, garments (cf. Ps 104:2).

See esp. Fletcher-Louis, “God’s Image,” (2004); “Priests and Priesthood,” (2013); Carol L Meyers,
Exodus, (2005) 244; William H. Propp, Exodus 19–40, (2006) 526.

So it is not surprising to find texts where the high priest or a high priestly figure is “worshipped” in
ways analogous to the worship of divine cult statues by Israel’s neighbours.

There are 13 texts that illustrate this Proposition.

- At least 5, perhaps 8, describe a priest or priestly figure as the image-idol of God.
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- At least 11 make him the recipient of worship (proskynesis, blessings, song).

i. Exodus 28. (Image-idol of God).

ii. Ezekiel the prophet: Ezekiel “is, in a manner of speaking, the epiphany of Yhwh” (Casey Strine
“Ezekiel’s Image Problem,” (2014), 263), cf. Herring, Divine   Substitution,   176–78, 205–207. (Image-
idol of God).
iii. Hecateus of Abdera: “the Jews … fall to the ground and worship the high priest (πίπτοντας ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν
προσκυνεῖν ... ἀρχιερέα)” in the temple “when he expounds the commandments to them.” (in Diodorus
Siculus XL.5). (Worship).
iv. T. Levi. 17:3 describes an anointed priest whose priesthood was “honored and glorified (τι#ία
καὶ (αρὰ (ᾶσι δοξασθήσετα) by all.” T. Reub. 6:12 Reuben commands his children to
“worship ((ροσκυνήσατε) [Levi’s] seed, because it will die for us in wars visible and invisible,
and will be to you an eternal king.” (Worship).
v. In Ben Sira/Sirach 7:27–31, 49:16–50:21 the high priest receives praise and proskynesis as (i)
Wisdom in human form (cf. Hayward 1996), (ii) A a manifestation of the “the appearance of
the likeness of the glory of Yhwh” seen in Ezek 1:26–28, (iii) As the perfected “image and
likeness of God” of Gen 1:26–28 and Ps 8, (iv) as the one who plays the part of the Creator” (cf.
Klawans, Purity, 62–68). See Fletcher-Louis, “Temple Cosmology of P,” (2004). (Worship)
(Image-idol of God).
vi. Alexander the Great’s prostration to the Jewish high priest in a story best attested in Josephus
Ant. 11:326–338. See Fletcher-Louis “Alexander the Great”. (Worship) (Image-idol of God).
vii. In Song XIII of the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice (4Q405 23 ii) the high priesthood is praised and
identified with the divine glory of Ezek 1:26–28. (Worship) (Image-idol of God?).
viii. 2  Enoch  57 & 64. See Fletcher-Louis, “2 Enoch” (2012). (Worship) (Image-idol of God).
ix. Dan 7:13–14. See Fletcher-Louis, “Dan 7:13” (1997). (Worship) (Image-idol of God?).
x. The Son of Man-Messiah of the Similitudes of Enoch receives praise, blessing and prostration (1
En. 46:5; 48:5; 62:6, 9) as one seated on God’s throne and identified with the Glory of Ezek 1:26–
28. (see Fletcher-Louis, “Similitudes” 2014). (Worship) (Image-idol of God?).
xi. In Josephus War 4:324–325 the high priests receive proskynesis. (Worship).
xii. In 3 Enoch 12–16 the high priestly Enoch-Metatron receives proskynesis as the “lesser Yhwh”
(Worship).
xiii. The Mareh Kohen piyut in the synagogue’s Yom Kippur Avodah service (esp. the Ashkenazi
rite). (For the text and recent translations see e.g. Swartz & Yahalom, Avodah, 344–355; Sachs,
Maḥzor, 900–903). The poem praises the high priest as he is imagined coming out of the sanctu
ary and is likened to/identified with the Glory of God in Ezek 1:26–28. In the same breath, he
is also said to be dressed as Adam was dressed, with glorious garments. (Worship).

I can no find no evidence that this view of the high priest was a matter of dispute.
Props. 4 & 5 however qualify what “worship’ of a “divine” high priest means.

Prop. 4: The high priest is the “divine” image-idol in the temple-as-Eden and
the temple-as-microcosm; on a cosmic stage.
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The temple is theatre. The high priest is an actor on a cosmic stage. He plays the role of God
in the cult as microcosm and he plays the role originally intended for the image and likeness
of God in a restored Eden.

So, in the worship of the “divine” high priest there is not threat to the uniqueness of Israel’s
God. It no more entails the worship of a second god than Anthony Hopkins’ performance of a
production of Shadowlands in the West End would mean there are two C. S. Lewis’s (one in
the cemetery of Holy Trinity church, Headington, Oxford, and one in London).

Prop. 5: The high priest is an office not a person.

The temple is also sacrament and it works with the unmodern notion that the priest is an
office, not a person.

Within the temple’s liturgical, sacramental, framework, the high priest is not a private,
individual person. He is consituted by:

(a) Purification rituals the other side of which he is “blameless, sinless, perfected” (see Lev
21:10 LXX; Philo Spec. Laws 1:102; Flight 108 and Wis 18:21).
(b) Special clothes that no ordinary Israelite can wear; that say he “belongs to Yhwh”
(Exod 28:36), i.e. not to himself.
(c) A predefined liturgical script that has to be performed to be effective.
(d) God’s choice of the Levites and (the personal disaster that is) Aaron. It cannot be earnt,
won or bought and is effective regardless of the incumbent’s own inner moral state. In
John 11:51–52 Caiaphas can prophesy “not from himself (ἀφ᾿ ἑαυτοῦ),” but because he
is the high priest, even though he does not understand what he says and his own guilt
in the matter.

The high priest’s own personal interests, attributes and aspirations are occluded. He ministers
“in persona christi” (as the anointed one, ha-mashiah) and that, in turn, means he ministers “in
persona Domini” (and also “in persona mundi,” “in persona Israhel,” and “in persona Adam”).

In Ben Sira 50:21 when the high priest utters God’s name the Hebrew says the congregation
fell down “before him”. The “him” is deliberately ambiguous. “He” is the high priest who is
the Most High.

Contrast the king and others, like Moses. We have biographical accounts of Moses and the
lives of some of Israel’s kings (cf. Philo’s Life of Moses); recounting their achievements, their
failures, their flaws and virtues. No one ever thought to write a Life of Aaron. Nor any priest
after him.

Aaron-as-office is a response to the failure of kingship where personal interests interfere with
the call to represent God to the world. This was Adam’s failure. He wanted to go solo, to
compete with God, rather than align and submit his interests, values and choices with the one
whose divine image-idol he was created to be. Solomon’s failure too.
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(Today we temper the excesses of our royalty through an elected legislature. In the Bible the
kingship problem is dealt with by the priest-as-office. Israel is a theocracy-through-a-
hierocracy).

He really is “divine” (the priest “is” Yhwh), but, as an office:

(a) the high priest is not “included” in the divine identity. “Inclusion” means a distinct
identity (of a divine “Son” with a “Father”). The priest “manifests” or “expresses” the
divine identity (just as a cult statue manifests a deity).
(b) the high priest is not a separate figure who is worshipped alongside God.

Prop. 6: The high priest is co-creator, in a sacramental ontology.

So, biblical monotheism is deeply iconic (not aniconic). It proclaims the good news that it is
God’s purpose that we share and express his life and identity and “incarnation” is not the
least unbiblical.

All this comes to its fullest expression with the high priest playing the role of the Creator,
reenacting the work of the 7-days of creation. This is clearly laid out Ben Sira/Sirach and is
already present in Priestly portions of the Pentateuch (see Fletcher-Louis, “Cosmology of P”).
Because the temple is more than just theatre—because it is sacrament—in a sense the high
priest is as a Co-creator. The world is established by temple service (Avodah) (m. Aboth 1:2) so,
in part, the high priest and his liturgical duties have a cosmogonic function.

Prop. 7: In accordance with Israel’s Scriptures, the priesthood had a position

of primacy in Second Temple political theology and messianic hope.

There is less enthusiasm for a royal messiah in the C1st than we might expect. But this is
historically unsurprising. In the Pentateuch there is no need for a king; in part because Aaron
is a royal high priest. Some of his garments are a king’s garments.
In antiquity what is true and good is what is old. Sinai precedes Zion. So the Bible says
hierocracy is God’s ideal constitution. And throughout the Second Temple period the nation
was led by priests (a royal priest in Aramaic Levi Document, Ben Sira, Maccabean propaganda).
(See e.g. James VanderKam From Joshua to Caiaphas, (2004)).
Some turned to a diarchic model after the failures of the Hasmoneans; with the king or
“prince” clearly subordinate to the high priest. But no one—and this is of the utmost importance
for our understanding of Jesus—espouses a king who is a priest. That is the model of the old
Canaanite city states, Mesopotamian kings, Hellenistic divine rulers and imperial Rome
where the Caeser is also Pontifex Maximus; the Great Priest (ὁ ἀρχιερεύς). God severely
judges Israel’s kings who leverage the cult for their own purposes (2 Chr 26:16–21, cf.
Josephus Ant. 9:224; 20:266; Heb 7:14).
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Prop. 8: Daniel 7:13 exemplifies the centrality of temple and priesthood in

Second Temple theology and its hope for a new (messianic and royal) high
priest.

The most important text for the hope for a future high priest is Dan 7. I laid out my priestly
reading of Dan 7:13 in 1997. The argument is consolidated by a forthcoming article on the
priestly Son of Man figure in the Similitudes (Fletcher-Louis, “Similitudes” (forthcoming)) and
an article in which I have argued NT texts assume the Son of Man is a priest (Fletcher-Louis,
“Jesus as the High Priestly Messiah: Parts 1 & 2” (2006 & 2007)).
There is much more on this that could be said. But, in brief, the scene is set at the temple.
Daniel’s man figure comes to God with clouds the way the high priest comes to God in the
holy of holies surrounded by clouds of incense on the Day of Atonement. As the true high
priest he has Adamic and angelic characteristics.
I have only changed my mind on one point. There are royal aspects to the “one like a
son of man” which is unsurprising because the high priest is a royal figure: a royal priest
(something quite different from a priest king).

[Prop. 9: Apocalyptic literature reflects the spirituality and cosmology of the

Temple (and Torah) and of the belief that humanity in general, and the
priesthood in particular, is created to be God’s true image-idol.]

Prop. 10. All four Gospels present a plausibly historical account of a Jewish
Jesus with a self-consciously unique, incarnational divine identity

The Gospels think Jesus has a pre-existent, incarnational self-understanding (see work of
Bauckham, Gathercole, K. Rowe et al). The principal Synoptic texts are:

(i) The storm and sea crossing stories.

(ii) The transfiguration.
(iii) The “I have come” with a purpose sayings (Mark 1:24; 2:17; Luke 12:49; Matt 5:17;
8:29; 10:34–35; Mark 10:45; Luke 19:10).
(iv) The Son given “all things,” revealing the Father (Luke 10:21–22 & Matt 11:25–27)
(v) Jesus speaks as the Shekinah from God’s winged chariot (Luke 13:33 & Matt 23:37)
(vi) Matthew’s Immanuel, Yhwh-Kyrios theophany language and proskynesis to Jesus.
(vii) Luke’s use carefully structured use of (ho) kyrios.
(viii) The blasphemy texts (Mark 2:10; Mark 14:62–64).

There are no texts (not even Matt 4:1–11; Luke 4:1–13; Mark 10:17–22) that count against this
view. And it is a plausible Christology for these thoroughly Jewish texts because:

(a) We can now dispense with the assumption that as Jewish texts the Gospels could not
have this Christology.
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(b) The gospels say that Jesus thinks he has the divine glory that Adam lost: e.g. Baptism-
Temptation stories; Luke 10:17–22.
(c) There is plenty of evidence that Jesus of the gospels thinks of himself as Israel’s true
eschatological high priest and therefore “divine” on that count. (See preliminary studies in
Fletcher-Louis “Sacral Son of Man” (2001) & “High Priestly Messiah,” (2006 & 2007)
and compare on both John and the Synoptics: H. Bond, Caiaphas, esp. 133–40 and
“Robe”; Kerr, Gospel of John, esp. 14–19, 332–335, 351–368; Barker, “Temple Imagery in
Philo”; N. Perrin, Jesus the Temple; B. Pitre, “New Priesthood,” 70–82; H. Attridge,
“High Priestly Prayer”). The key Synoptic material is:
a. Jesus forgiving sins. Compare Aaron taking away/forgiving sins in Exod 28:36–
38 (and the priestly Enoch in 2 En. 64:5). This is both a theological challenge:
Jesus does what only God and God’s living image-idol can do. And it is a
political challenge: Jesus mediates outside of the temple what only a priest, with
sacrifices, in the temple can mediate.
b. Jesus’ contagious healing holiness (Mark 1:40–45; 5:24–34, 35–43, cf. Exod 30:29–30;
44:19; Wis 18:20–25).
c. Jesus working on the Sabbath; something only priests can (and must) do in the
temple: Mark 2:23–28; 3:1–6; John 5:17.
d. Jesus as the pre-existent “Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24, cf Aaron in Ps 106:16; Num
16:7; Ben Sira/Sir 45:6).
e. The Transfiguration (of Jesus garments).
f. The Son of Man title.
g. Jesus’ claim to fulfil Ps 110:1 (in combination with Dan 7:13); a text that describes
one who is both king and priest (v. 4).
h. His celibacy (cf. esp. Qumran priestly celibacy).
i. His identification with historic Israel and the representatives of her faith (Adam, Jacob,
Joseph, Moses, David, Solomon, Elijah-Elisha …, cf. Ben Sir 44–50).
(d) The Gospel writers (incl. Matthew and prob. also John) respect the distinction between
the Jesus of history and the Jesus of “Christological monotheism”.
a. Jesus does not proclaim himself a divine agent of creation (contrast 1 Cor 8:6;
Col 1:16; John 1:3; Heb 1:2).
b. Jesus uses the strange expression “Son of Man” where Yhwh-Kyrios is the
Church’s preferred language.
c. Christ devotion does not take place during the ministry, even though Jesus
speaks and acts as “God-incarnate”.

[Prop. 11: In so-called “Christological monotheism” Jesus’ identity includes a

truly human and therefore divine identity

Acts 17:16–34; Phil 2:6–11 and Rom 1–8 all confirm Propositions 1–3 and show that
theological anthropology provided both a negative and a positive conceptual framework for
Paul’s “Christological monotheism.” For Paul Jesus answers humanity’s plight and fulfills
God’s original intention that humanity should bear his divine presence and rule in creation as his
representatives.]
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Prop. 12. In the first instance, the worship of the Lord Jesus Christ is best
explained as a response to the conviction that he was Israel’s true
eschatological high priest, the true image-idol of God.

We might have suspected this from:

- Luke 24:50–53 (where Jesus is first worshipped by the disciples as he ascends to
heaven giving the two-handed blessing that was the prerogative of the priest
according to Lev 9:22 (cf. Ben Sira/Sir 50:20 and m. Tamid 7:2).

We can now understand why:

- Christ devotion begins after his resurrection, but before his full exaltation and
ascension to God’s right hand, in Matt 28:9, 17; Luke 24:50–53 (proskynesis) and Luke
24:47 (forgivenss of sins for repentence “in his name”): this is because the resurrection
confirmed for the disciples’ Jesus’ claim to be the true eschatological high priest (Daniel’s Son
of Man and the priest-king of Ps 110). The disicples reasoned: this messiah has been
resurrected then he is indeed Yhwh-Kyrios.
- Christ is an agent of creation in “Christological monotheism”; this flows from his
identity as the true high priest. See Prop. 6.
- Christ is said to be sinless (Rom 8:3; 2 Cor 5:19, 21; Heb 4:15; 1 Pet 2:22; 1 John 3:5, cf.
Phil 2:6–8). See esp. Prop. 5.

And on careful inspection we find that priestly language, categories and a high priestly script
partly explains the classic “Christological monotheism” texts:
- Phil 2:6–11.
- Col 1:15–20.
- 1 Cor 8:6.

Prop. 13. There is a lack of proper recognition and response to Jesus in the
Gospels because his self-understanding as Israel’s priestly king is puzzling
and seems to disregard the God-given boundaries of the office.

But how is it possible that Jesus spoke and acted this way and it does not precipitate a
response in the Gospels? This is not hard to explain.

(a) The most Jesus could reasonably claim to be, by virtue of natural credentials, is a royal
messiah, Elijah-like healer and prophet. It would be an absurdity for Jesus to claim to
be the true high priest.
(b) Indeed, it would be a blasphemy. It would mean that Jesus was “exalting himself” (as
the king is warned not to do in Deut 17:20), “taking the honour for himself (ἑαυτῷ)”
(Heb 5:4), with a flagrant disregard for God’s own constitution (revealed through
Moses).
(c) It would be a double absurdity if Jesus now claimed that he was Israel’s true high
priest outside the boundaries of the office (with no appeal to anointed clothing, rites of
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purification and the sacramental ontology and cosmology of the temple). To speak and
act as the true high priest ex persona not ex cathedra would be to subordinate the divine
identity, power and authority of the office to his own person. Has Jesus not read Moses?!
(d) Does he not know that sacral kingship is a pagan model? If he were to adopt it he
would be “making himself (ἑαυτὸν) equal to God” (John 5:18, cf. Phil 2:6; 2 Thess 2:3–4;
Josephus Ant. 18:256; 19:4). It would be the authorities’ God-ordained duty to punish
him lest he lead the people astray (Deut 13).

But the Jesus of the Gospels believes that he has God and Scripture on his side:
- his healings and their manner confirms his priestly self-consciousness.
- At the transfiguration he is both priestly (with transfigured garments) and also God’s
royal “son”)
- even the demons recognise he is both a royal figure (Mark 5:7 “Son of the Most High”
and a priestly figure (Mark 1:24 “Holy One of God”)
- And Scripture does provide one passage to justify his messianic identity; and it
precedes Sinai. Ps 110 describes one who is a priest-king …

So, during his ministry, Jesus undertakes a carefully worked out PR strategy that is designed:
(a) to introduce his radically new vision of Israel’s constitution to his disciples slowly, not
all at once lest he loose them.
(b) to give him a public stage in Jerusalem where he will make, with the greatest possible
impact at the centre of the nation’s current power structures, his claim to be Israel’s
priest-king after the order of Melchizedek.

That means, in particular, careful PR management of his Son of Man self-claim:

- Jesus usually speaks of the SM as if he is somebody else.
- In the order in which they are delivered, the SM sayings have a progressively clearer
connection to Dan 7:13 (not clear: Mark 2:10, 28; pretty clear: Mark 8:38; crystal clear:
Mark 13:26, 14:62).
- Jesus avoids SM talk when he is with the authorities.
- The self-claim only becomes really obvious at the final show down (14:62); when its
full theological and political implications draw upon him their inevitable consequences.

Some of the disiciples got it, especially towards the end. James and John’s request—can we sit
at your left and right “when you come in your glory” (Mark 10:37) implies a “divine” view of
Jesus’ true identity. So when they arrive in Jerusalem with the crowds, the way the Synoptics
tell it, we should assume that an inner core of the disciples believe that Jesus is far more than
just a royal messiah.
And so we wonder why they are not already, in private at least, confessing and worshipping
him in the way that they would do after his death.
For two reasons this is understandable:
1. In C1st Judaism worship takes place in the temple, not outside (or in synagogues).
2. If the disciples came to the conclusion during Jesus ministry that he would soon sit in
divine glory, as both king and priest, they would also assume that he would be properly
installed to that office in Jerusalem (cf. Mark 10:37). He cannot “make himself” the
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nation’s priest-king. He will not treat equality with God a thing to be seized. (He is not
Caesar).

Prop. 14. The divine identity of Jesus is a matter of his own deeds and his
peculiar life as Israel’s priestly king. So, on analogy to the identity of the
pagan divine ruler, he is a person and God is now two (“Jesus monotheism”).

The OT has a unitarian “christological monotheism” in which the high priest, a Messiah
(anointed one, “christos”) expresses, manifests, the divine identity.

The NT form of “christological monotheism” is “binitarian”. The one God (of the Shema) is
“one God the Father” and “one Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 8:6). How has the OT monotheism
mutated?

The reworked Shema in 1 Cor 8:6 and related texts (Phil 2:6–11) presumes the life of Jesus as it
is described in the Gospels; a narrative, a biographical, that has forced a splitting of the
internal structure of the unique divine identity.

We should read the Gospels in the light of Props. 1–9 this way:
- Jesus has no liturgical theatre or stage. Though being the one clothed in divine glory and
the rightful star of the sanctury-as-heaven stage, he strips himself of his costume,
taking the outward appearance of an ordinary man, and is found wandering the towns
and villages of Israel. He has left the theatre. It is as if Anthony Hopkins really does
believe he is (another) C.S. Lewis.
- Jesus is not an office, but the creative power and divine identity of the office is poured
out into an “ordinary” life that has its own narrative, as a “son” living in
interpendence with the divine “Father”. This man is Yhwh-Kyrios in his royal person.
- So his story is told in a kind of encomiastic biography that focuses on his historical person.
- His identity is revealed in deeds of power (e.g. Luke 10:13; 19:37; 24:19; Acts 2:22; 10:38),
saving benefactions (cf. Acts 10:38) and a peculiar character (or virtues) that mean his life
is generically like that of the Hellenistic divine Ruler or true Emperor (cf. Acts 10:36–
38). His is a Canaanite kind of a kingship—after the order of Melchizedek.
- All of the above is true of Jesus the true priest. So Yhwh-Kyrios is now manifest in this
person: LJC is the Yhwh-Kyrios of the high priest’s office writ large across a personal
biography.

These aspects of the gospel story place internal mathematical pressure on the identity of the
“One” God in a way that explains the conceptual origins of the belief that now a messiah is
“included” within the divine identity as a distinct person (persona or face).

In the light of this story, the one God is now two.

The NT form of “christological monotheism” is best now labeled “Jesus monotheism”.

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Prop. 15: The NT offers a plausible explanation of the origins and shape of NT
Christology: an historical Jesus who claimed to be the incarnation of a distinct person
within the eternal divine identity; whose resurrection served as confirmation of this self
claim.

All of Prop. 10 and 13 makes sense not just in the world of the gospels, but for the historical
Jesus.

It makes perfect sense, for example, given all that we now know about the impact of the Emperor
cult on first century Palestine, that Jesus himself knew that his messianic self understanding
both sounds and, in a sense actually is, somewhat “pagan”. This should be obvious from:
(i) The plain logic of his deeds and words in relation to the meaning of Scripture and
the Jewish critique of Ruler Cult (Ben Sira 50; 1–4 Maccabees, Similitudes of Enoch,
Philo, and so on).
(ii) the way he apparently chose to have a christological chat with the disciples—about
the son of God and the Son of Man—at Caesarea Philippi (Mark 8:27–38) a cultic site
for Emperor worship.
(iii) The way he is accused, in John 5:18, of a pagan attempt to seize equality with God.

If the Jesus monotheism of 1 Cor 8:6; Phil 2:6–11 (and the like) presumes the Jesus narrative of
the Gospels (= Prop. 14), then the “simplest” explanation for the Christology of Gospels is the
historical Jesus himself.

One effect of Propositions 1–14 is to exclude the possibility that the “high Christology” of the
gospels comes from the faith already arrived at by some other means (and to which 1 Cor 8:6;
Phil 2:6–11 then testify). (Contrast Bultmann, Hurtado and others).

So, I offer you a new landscape. We have rapidly scaled a conceptual mountain and in the
land before us there is new opportunty; to consider afresh what it might mean, for all the
discrete issues and questions that arise from the historical Jesus data (Jesus and the temple,
Jesus and Torah, Jesus and the parables, and so on), that it is not thoroughgoing eschatology
(Schweitzer) that governs Jesus’ life and message; it is thoroughgoing incarnational monotheism.

All sorts of new possibilities now open up. I close with just one case study:
It is usual to say that Jesus’ pre-existence in some NT texts is a matter of tidy theology (so e.g.
Bauckham). But I propose it is inextricable from other aspects of Jesus’ own aims, actions and
self-perception.

A. there are texts were Jesus’ priestly identity is tied to his sense of pre-existence. He “has come”
as “the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24) and the Father “consecrated” and “sent him into
the world” (John 10:36, cf. also Mark 10:45; John 3:13; 6:62).
B. Jesus nowhere enters into a priestly office or function in his earthly life or ministry (contrast
Levi in T. Levi 3–8 and Jub. 31–32; Enoch in 2 En. 22:8–10).
C. We have seen that in speaking and acting as a priest-king he sets himself against his
people, their institutions, their reading of Scripture, and that he draws onto himself the
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accusation that he is a pagan deceiver. Might it be that the kind of messianic self-
consciousness that can so calmly and firmly transcend his people, their judgements
and the normative Scriptural hermeneutic of his age makes excellent sense if that
contingent, temporal, self-consciousness is grounded in a pre-existent identity and
epistemolgy (texts A)? Might it be, in other words, that we need a pre-existent Jesus to
make sense of Jesus as an historically believable human being?

This kind of thought sequence, I have found, now crops up time and again when I reflect on
the Jesus of the gospels and the Jesus of history from within the new paradigm.

It invites the conclusion that, in the end, Jesus’ monotheism was Jesus monotheism.
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