Outline
Lecture 5: Ancient Jews Who Were Gods
We have seen that Jews, like pagans, understood that the divine
realm was populated with superhuman beings besides the Lord
God Almighty, that sometimes these divine beings were called
gods, and sometimes these other gods-or even the one God himself-
would appear on earth as humans. In this lecture, we will see that the reverse
was true, as well: Even among Jews, it was believed that humans could be
made into divine beings and that sometimes men were actually called God.
I. The Son of Man
A. One of the most interesting divine figures in ancient Judaism wasknown as “the Son of Man.”
B. We first encounter some version of this figure in the bizarre visionof Daniel 7. Here, the prophet experiences a night vision, in whichhe sees four terrible beasts that emerge out of the sea and wreakhavoc on the earth, destroying peoples and kingdoms. Then, “onelike a Son of Man” arrives from heaven, to whom is given allauthority and power forever.
C. In Daniel’s vision, this “one like a Son of Man” is probably to beunderstood as the nation Israel itself Eventually, it came to bethought of as an angelic being, an individual sent from heaven asthe judge of earth.
D. We see this understanding in a later Jewish text called 1 Enoch,written probably some years before the New Testament. In a sectionof 1 Enoch known as the Similitudes, we find an extensive set ofreflections on the Son of Man, who actually sits on God’s throneand is called the judge of the earth.
E. There were other figures who were thought to have shared thethrone of God in heaven as a kind of second God; the rabbis of laterHuman times talk about Jews who hold such views, in which some kind ofangelic being rules the world along with God.1. Some texts speak about the “two powers in heaven”; thissecond divine being is placed on a level with God himself.
2. This idea is sometimes cited to explain who God is speakingto in Genesis 1:26, when he creates humans by saying: “Let usmake man in our own image.”F.In addition, some Jews considered divine attributes of God to be
divine beings apart from God. The word scholars use for these
divinized attributes of God is hypostases.1. The basic idea here is that certain characteristics of Godcould exist apart from hi1n, but because they are his owncharacteristics, they are, like hi1n, divine.
2. The fact that God is wise means that he has wisdom. Butbecause wisdom is something God “has,” then it is somethingthat also exists apart from him. And because it is God’swisdom, it is divine.
3. Thus, one of the hypostases that some ancient Jews consideredto be a god was Wisdom, as based, for example, on Proverbs 8.
4. Sometimes God’s “Word” was also thought to be divine, asbased on Genesis 1 and as seen in the explanations of the greatJewish philosopher of the 1st century C.E., Philo, who thoughtthat the Word existed apart from God but also was God.
II. Beings as God
A. In addition to all these other divine entities being thought of as God,Jewish texts-even in the Bible-sometimes refer to human beingsas God. This is true, for example, of Moses.1. In the book of Exodus, Moses is said to have functioned as“God” for his brother Aaron (Exodus 4: 16).
2. In the writings of Philo, Moses is not only called the mostperfect man that ever lived, but he is said to have had a divineintellect, to have gradually become divine over the course ofhis life, and at the end, to have been “called the god and king ofthe entire nation.”B. Just as striking, sometimes the king of Israel was called God.1. The roots of this view are in the promise to David in 2 Samuel7:13-16 that his son would also be a Son of God.
2. We have seen that rulers in Egypt were thought of as divinebeings; the same thing was true in some parts of Israel.
3. This is the intimation of Psalm 2:7; the king is “begotten” to bethe Son of God.
4. And more than that, the king is explicitly called “God” inIsaiah 45 and Isaiah 9.C. In none of these instances is Moses, or the king of Israel, or eventhe Son of Man or Wisdom or the Word thought to be the LordGod Almighty himself They are always a second being who isconsidered to be God along with the Lord God.1. This is the matrix within which Jesus lived and died and withinwhich Christianity developed.
2. Christians-very soon after Jesus died-began calling himGod. That did not mean he was the Lord God Almighty, but hewas still, in some sense, God. There was a solid precedent forthis view not just among the polytheistic religions of the timebut also within Judaism.
Suggested Reading
Ehrman, How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation ofa Jewish Preacher from Galilee.
Fredriksen, From Jesus to Christ.
Hengel, The Son of God.
Hurtado, Lord Jesus Christ.
Hurtado, One God One Lord.
Sanders, Judaism Practice and Belief 63 BCE-66 CE.
Segal, Two Powers in Heaven.
Tobin, “Logos.”
Vermes, Jesus the Jew.
Questions to Consider
1. Try to explain to your next-door neighbor, who knows nothing about
religion, how a Jewish hypostasis works-both what it is and how it can
be imagined to be God.
2. What strikes you as most peculiar about the fact that some humans in
Judaism, such as the Jewish king, could be called “God”?
Transcript -- Lecture 5
We have seen that Jews, like pagans, understood that the divine realm was
populated with superhuman beings besides the Lord God Almighty. That
sometimes these divine beings were called gods. And sometimes these other
gods, or even the one God himself would appear on earth as a human. In this
lecture, we’ll see that the reverse was true as well. Even among Jews, it was
believed that humans could be made into divine beings, and that sometimes
men were actually called God.
To segue into this discussion, I need to begin by returning to the idea that
within Judaism, other beings besides the one true God could also be called
God, and considered, in some sense, to be God. I begin with one of the most
interesting divine figures in ancient Judaism, known as the Son of Man. We
first encounter some such figure in the bizarre vision of Daniel 7, where the
prophet sees in a night vision four terrible beasts that come up out of the sea
and wreak havoc on the earth.
Daniel describes this vision by saying that it’s at night, and that he is having
a vision that’s been given to him from above. And as he looks, he sees that
the sea is being stirred up, and one after the other, a beast comes up out of
the sea. These are terrible beasts, horrible beasts. They wreak havoc all over
the earth, destroying peoples and kingdoms. They occur sequentially, so that
one beast follows another.
Finally, as he’s looking, he sees that something is taking place in heaven.
Thrones are set out in the heavenly realm, and the Great One-God himself
the Ancient of Days-is seated on a throne. And before him there comes
one called “one like a Son of Man.” This one like a Son of Man arrives in
power from heaven, and to him is given all the dominion and glory over all
the earth.
What is this vision all about? Well, as often happens in Jewish apocalyptic
texts, the person who has the vision-the seer-doesn’t understand what’s
happening. But somebody next to him, an angelic being, interprets it for him.
And in this case, the angelic interpreter tells Daniel that what has happened
is he’s seen that there are going to be four kingdoms that arrive on the earth
one after the other. Each of these beasts represents a different kingdom.
These beasts don’t come from heaven. They come from the sea, the realm of
chaos. To each of these beasts is given authority and power to wreak havoc
on the earth, and they do so.
But then, he sees this one like a Son of Man. The contrast is between the
beasts who come from the sea and this one like a Son of Man who comes
from the heavenly realm. In other words, this is a divine figure. But just as
each one of the beasts represents a kingdom that’s going to take over the
world, so too, the one like a Son of Man is going to be a kingdom. So who is
this one like a Son of Man to whom will be the kingdom and dominion and
power forever and ever? In Daniel’s own vision, this one like a Son of Man
is almost certainly to be understood as the nation Israel itself
Daniel, allegedly living III the 6th century BCE, is being shown that there’s
going to be a sequence of world dominators--kingdoms that take over
his part of the world one after the other. These will be horrible kingdoms
that persecute the people of Israel. But at the time of the end of the fourth
kingdom, Israel itself will be given the power and the authority over the
earth, so that Israel will then reign supreme.
Eventually, it came to be thought that this one like a Son of Man was not
simply the nation of Israel it was actually an individual who represented
Israel-an individual thought to come from heaven itself as the judge of the
earth. We see this understanding of the Son of Man being an individual who
will be the judge of the earth III a Jewish text written much later-the text
called 1 Enoch that we saw in a previous lecture.
As we’ve seen, 1 Enoch was written some years before the New Testament.
The portion I’m interested in now is the portion called the Similitudes.
We’ve already looked at chapters 1-36, “The Book of the Watchers.” Now
we look at the Similitudes, which were written at a different time, probably
during the 1st century of the common era-in other words, possibly during
the days of Jesus.
The Similitudes provide us with extensive reflections on this figure known as
the Son of Man. In 1 Enoch, the Son of Man is not the nation of Israel. The
Son of Man is actually a divine being. The Son of Man, we’re told, has been
given a name even before the creation of the sun and the moon, before the
creation of the stars. We’re told that all the earth will fall down to worship
this Son of Man.
Before the creation, this Son of Man was God’s chosen one who has been
concealed in the presence of God Himself And at the end, this Son of Man
will be the elect one who sits on God’s throne. Then he will judge all the
works of the holy ones. This Son of Man will never pass away or perish. He
will remove the kings and mighty ones from their thrones.
In other words, the Son of Man in 1 Enoch is elevated to God’s own status.
And he functions as the divine being who carries out God’s judgment on the
earth. But who is this Son of Man? We find the answer to that near the end of
the Similitudes, in chapters 70 and 71. The Son of Man is identified, in fact,
as the author, Enoch, who speaks in the first person.
If you remember, Enoch was this man who was taken up to heaven without
dying in the book of Genesis. And now he’s being transformed into this
supernatural being, this superior being, this divine being, this one like a Son
of Man, who now is called the Son of Man. Enoch says, “I saw countless
angels.” He’s up in the heavenly realm now that he’s been transported up
to God’s throne room. “I saw countless angels-100,000 times 100,000. 10
million times 10 million. With them is the antecedent of time.” That’s God.
With them is God. “His head is white and pure like wool. And his garment
is indescribable. I fell on my face and my spirit was transformed.” Then
we’re told,
An angel came to me and greeted me and said, “You, oh Son of
Man, art born in righteousness. And upon you righteousness has
dwelt. The righteousness of the antecedent of time will not forsake
you. Everyone that will come to exist and walk shall follow your
path, since righteousness never forsakes you.”
Enoch-the man, Enoch-has not only been taken up into God’s realm, he
has been made the Son of Man who will be the judge of the earth. I stress
this point because even within Judaism, it wasn’t unheard of that a human
being could become a divine being.
There were other figures who were thought to have shared the very throne
of God in heaven as a kind of second God in Judaism. The rabbis of later
times talked about Jews who held such views in which some kind of angelic
being rules the world along with God. Now, this may seem nonsensical
to people who think that Judaism is strictly monotheistic. But there was a
strain of Judaism that insisted that, in fact, there was some kind of secondary
divinity ruling the world with God himself Some of these texts talk about
this second divinity as another power. And so they speak of the “two powers
in heaven”-the two powers in heaven, where this second divine being is
placed on the level with God himself as the Son of Man is done in 1 Enoch.
Sometimes the idea that there is this second God is used to explain difficult
passages of scripture. For example, at the very beginning--in Genesis 1-
God is creating the world, and he decides to create humankind. And God
says in Genesis 1:26, “Let us make man in our own image.” But wait a
second. If there’s only one God, to whom is God speaking “let us make man
in our own image”?
Well, for later Christians, of course, this was God speaking to the other two
members of the Trinity-God speaking to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. But
not in Jewish circles. In one strain of Jewish thought, God is speaking to the
second person-the second divinity, the second god-“Let us make man in
our own image.”
Or another complicated text-Exodus 24:9-10. This is when Moses is being
given the law on Mount Sinai. We’re told that Moses and the other elders of
the Israelites have gone up onto the mountain, and we’re told that there, they
see God sitting on his throne. That’s Exodus 24:9-10. But a few chapters
later, according to Exodus 33:10, we’re told that no one could see God and
remain alive. The rabbis who tried to explain how this could be-since the
elders had not died, but anyone who sees God will die-explained it by
saying that this God they saw on the throne was in fact the second god--the
second power in heaven-not the one Almighty Sovereign God.
In addition, there were some Jews who considered divine attributes of God
to be divine beings apart from God. The word scholars use for these divine
attributes of God that become gods themselves-the word scholars use
for this is hypostases. Now, I tell my students that they should never use a
simple English word when there’s some foreign word--such as a Latin word
or a Greek word-that serves just as well. Scholars love to use words that
are complicated instead of words that are easy. But there are times when the
complicated word is just about the only word that makes sense, and that’s the
case with this word, hypostasis. It’s very hard to describe what a hypostasis
is, because we don’t have any other word for it. A hypostasis is a kind of
personification of a divine attribute. So when you speak of a hypostasis,
you’re talking about a divine attribute that is understood to have become a
person itself.
We have difficulty understanding this concept today. But the basic idea is
that there are certain characteristics of God that could not exist apart from
him. Yet, since they’re his own characteristics, they are, like him, God. And
so, for example, God is wise. But since God is wise, that means that he
has Wisdom. Wisdom is something he has. But if Wisdom is something he
has, then it’s something that also exists apart from him. So it’s some other
entity. But since it’s God’s Wisdom, it is also divine. This, then, would be
a hypostasis. Wisdom came to be thought of by some Jews as a kind of
secondary god. God was a god of Wisdom, and Wisdom itself is understood
to be separate from God, and also God. We find this already in the Bible, at
least hints of it, in a very important passage in the book of Proverbs.
Proverbs 8, we read about Wisdom. And it appears that Wisdom is not
only God’s being wise, it’s actually a being that exists apart from God. So
Proverbs 8:22 and following says, “The Lord created me at the beginning
of his work.” This is Wisdom speaking. “The Lord created me at the
beginning of his work, the first of his acts of long ago. Ages ago, I was set
up at the first, before the beginning of the earth.” So Wisdom was created
before the world was. “Before the mountains had been shaped. Before the
hills I was brought forth. When God established the heavens, I was there.
When he drew a circle on the face of the deep, then I was beside him like a
master worker, rejoicing in his inhabited world and delighting in the human
race.” Wisdom is understood to have been created by God, and then to have
been an assistant with God in the creation of the world. Wisdom, then, is a
hypostasis-a personalized characteristic of God.
Sometimes God’s word was thought to be divine, as based on Genesis 1.
In other words, the Word of God, like the Wisdom of God, could be seen
as a hypostasis of God. How does God create the world? Well, in Genesis
1, when God starts creating the world, he begins by saying, “Let there be
light.” And we’re told there was light. And God saw that it was good. He
creates light by speaking a word. That means a word is something that God
has. But it’s separate from God because it can exist apart from him. Once
you speak your words, they’re no longer a part of you; they’re out there--
but they’re your words-so, too, with the words of God. God speaks a word.
The word exists apart from him, but it’s also God. This idea of the word
being a divine hypostasis can be found in Jewish authors from around the
time of the 1st century.
There was a 1st-century philosopher in Alexandria, Egypt--a very famous
author whose name was Philo. Philo was a very interesting person, because
his thought was not what you would think of as traditional Jewish thought.
Philo believed that the word of God existed apart from God, but that it was
also himself as God.
Logos is a concept rich with philosophical meaning in Hellenistic
philosophies, both Stoicism and Platonism-that is, philosophies connected
with the great Greek philosopher Plato. For Philo, logos is a hypostasis
based partly on his understanding of Genesis 1. Philo indicates that the logos
is the highest of all beings. Humans are created in the likeness of the logos,
because the logos is actually the image of God. More than that, the logos is
the name of God. It is the first born son of God. Philo says that God’s chief
logos is called God. And so the idea here is that God speaks his word, and
this word-this logos-is, in fact, God himself And since the logos is God,
and since God is also God, Philo occasionally will speak of two gods. This
is a Jewish monotheist speaking, saying that there are two gods-God and
his logos. Sometimes Philo calls logos the second God. When God manifests
himself to humans, according to Philo--for example, as the Angel of the
Lord-that is the logos who’s appearing to people.
In addition to all these other divine entities being thought of as God, there
are Jewish texts even in the Bible that sometimes refer to human beings as
God. This comes as a complete surprise to many readers of the Bible, but it’s
absolutely true. Sometimes human beings in the Bible-the Hebrew Bible-
are called God. This is true, for example, of Moses.
In the book of Exodus, Moses is actually said to function as God. This is in
Exodus 4. Moses is being told to go tell the pharaoh to let my people go. The
children of Israel are enslaved in Egypt, and Moses is said to go set them
free by speaking with pharaoh. And Moses objects that he doesn’t speak very
well. And so God says that he can take his brother Aaron with him. And that
way, Aaron will speak for him. And God says, “Aaron indeed shall speak for
you to the people. He shall serve as a mouth for you, and you shall serve as
God for him.” You will serve as God for him.
In the writings of Philo, Moses is called the most perfect human that ever
existed. He’s said to have had a divine intellect, to have gradually become
divine over the course of his life. At the end, Moses is said to have been the
God and king of the entire nation. That Moses would be the heir of the entire
world. That at Moses’ death, “Having given up and left behind all mortal
kinds, Moses was changed into the divine.”
Here we have a case where a human being is thought to have become God.
Just as striking-or arguably, even more striking-the king of Israel was
sometimes called God. The king of Israel, who everybody knew, of course,
was a human being-and yet, in the Hebrew Bible, sometimes the king of
Israel is called a divine being.
The first hint of this comes to us in the promise made to King David in 2
Samuel 7:14. In 2 Samuel, David has indicated-he’s the king of Israel-
that he wants to build a permanent dwelling place for God. He wants to build
a temple for God. And God tells them that he’s not going to allow him to
build a temple for him, but his own son, David’s son, will build a temple
for him.
And this is what he says. This is what God said. “The Lord declares to you
that the Lord will make you a house.” He’ll make a house out of David,
in which case meaning, he’s going to make a dynasty. “When your days
are fulfilled, and you lie down with your ancestors, I will raise up your
offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I’ll establish
his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name,” so he’ll do it, not David,
“and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.”
And then the key verse, 7:14. God says, “I will be a father to him, and he
shall be a son to me.” The son of David, who’ll be the king, will be called the
Son of God.
We have seen that rulers in Egypt were thought of as divine beings. So too in
parts of Israel. This is the intimation of Psalm 227, a psalm that indicates that
the king-the king of Israel-is understood to have been begotten to be the
Son of God. It’s a famous passage, and one worth reading.
The psalmist says, “I will tell of the decree of the Lord. God said to me,
‘You are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me, and I will make the
nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall
break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”
The king of Israel, during his coronation ceremony, is declared not only to be
the king, he’s declared to be one who has been begotten by God, so that God
has become his father. More than that, in passages in the Hebrew Bible, the
king is explicitly called God. One such passage is Psalm 45.
In Psalm 45, we have this very interesting text, where it says, “Your
throne, oh God, endures forever and ever.” And you wonder, well, who is
this God that he’s speaking to? “Your throne, oh God, endures forever and
ever. Your royal scepter is a scepter of equity. You love righteousness and
hate wickedness. Therefore God, your God, has anointed you with the oil
of gladness.”
This person is being called God, and he’s been anointed by God. In other
words, this is a human being. Who were the human beings anointed by God
in the Hebrew Bible? They were the Jewish kings. The Jewish kings were
called the anointed ones of God. And here, the Jewish king is said himself
to be God.
Another passage says something similar. This passage is familiar to people
because of their knowledge of Handel’s Messiah. Isaiah 9:62 “For a child has
been born to us. A son has been given us.” Now, what is this referring to? It
appears to be the birth of a future king. “Authority rests upon his shoulders,
and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace. His authority shall grow continually. There shall be endless
peace for the throne of David and his kingdom.”
This is talking about somebody who is going to inherit the throne of David.
In other words, it is a king of Israel. And this king of Israel is called Mighty
God, Everlasting Father. In none of these instances is Moses, or the king
of Israel, or even the Son of Man, or wisdom, or the word thought to be
the Lord God Almighty himself In every instance, these represent a second
being who, along with the Lord God, is considered to be God.
It cannot be stressed enough that this is the matrix within which Jesus lived
and died, and within which Christianity occurred and appeared. Christians,
very soon after Jesus died, began calling him God. That did not mean he
was the Lord God Almighty, but he was still in some sense God. There was
a very solid precedent for this view, not just among the polytheistic religions
of the time, but also within Judaism.
