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Course 8 · Lesson 3.1

One God: the Shema and the Old Testament background

13 minute read

Lessons in this course

Course 8 outline

Module 1: Speaking About God

  1. What systematic theology is and what it can claim
  2. Naming God: analogy, negation and the limits of language
  3. Classical theism defined and compared with alternatives
  4. Beyond the world and present in it: transcendence and immanence

Module 2: The Classical Attributes

  1. Divine simplicity: God is not made of parts
  2. Divine immutability: does God change?
  3. Divine eternity: timeless or everlasting?
  4. Divine omniscience and human freedom

Module 3: The Trinity in Scripture and the Early Church

  1. One God: the Shema and the Old Testament background
  2. Father, Son and Spirit in the New Testament
  3. Early Trinitarian language: Justin, Irenaeus and Tertullian
  4. Two early errors: modalism and subordinationism

Module 4: Arius, Athanasius and Nicaea

  1. What Arius taught and why it spread
  2. The Council of Nicaea in 325 and the word homoousios
  3. The long fight after Nicaea and the role of Athanasius
  4. Constantinople in 381 and the deity of the Holy Spirit

Module 5: The Cappadocians and the Shape of Trinitarian Thought

  1. One ousia, three hypostases: the Cappadocian vocabulary
  2. Basil, Gregory of Nazianzus and Gregory of Nyssa
  3. Augustine and the Western tradition
  4. The filioque and the monarchy of the Father

Module 6: Creation from Nothing

  1. Creation in Scripture
  2. Rivals to creation from nothing: eternal matter and emanation
  3. The doctrine of creation ex nihilo and its development
  4. Creation, the goodness of matter and the Trinity

Module 7: Providence, Sovereignty and Evil

  1. Providence: preservation, concurrence and governance
  2. Divine sovereignty and human freedom across the traditions
  3. The problem of evil: logical and evidential forms
  4. Christian responses: free will, privation and the suffering God
  5. Evaluating the responses and living with what remains unanswered

All courses

Program / Course 8: God, Trinity, and Creation / Lesson 3.1

What you will learn

  • Explain what the Shema says and why it is the foundation of Jewish and Christian monotheism.
  • Describe the Old Testament’s strong language about the uniqueness of the Lord.
  • Identify the texts that Christians later read as hints of plurality in God, and the Jewish and scholarly objections to that reading.
  • Explain what Second Temple Judaism contributed to the setting in which the New Testament arose.

The big idea

The Trinity grows out of Israel’s faith in one God, not away from it. The Old Testament insists that the Lord is one, that there is no other, and that he alone is to be worshiped. It also speaks of God’s Word, Wisdom, Spirit and Angel in ways that later Christians read as pointing toward distinctions within the one God. Jewish readers do not accept that reading, and scholars differ on how far these texts prepare for the New Testament. Understanding the starting point is essential to understanding the Christian claim.

Key terms

Shema
The Hebrew word for hear, and the name of the Jewish confession beginning Hear, O Israel, in Deuteronomy 6:4.
Monotheism
The belief that there is one God only.
Monolatry
Worship of one God without necessarily denying that other gods exist. Some scholars have argued that early Israel was monolatrous before becoming monotheistic.
Elohim
A Hebrew word for God or gods. Its form looks plural but it takes singular verbs when it refers to the God of Israel.
Second Temple Judaism
The Judaism of the period from about 516 BC, when the temple was rebuilt, to AD 70, when the Romans destroyed it.
Wisdom
In Proverbs 8 and later writings, a figure who speaks as present with God at creation. Debated as personification or something more.
Memra
An Aramaic word for word, used in some ancient Jewish translations of the Bible for God’s activity. Scholars debate its meaning.
Septuagint
The ancient Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, used by Greek-speaking Jews and by the early church.

Background

The Shema is found in Deuteronomy 6:4. In the King James Version it reads, Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD. Jews have recited it morning and evening for many centuries, and it is among the first words a child learns. Jesus quotes it when asked about the first commandment (Mark 12:29). The sentence can be translated in several ways, such as the Lord our God, the Lord is one, but all of them affirm that Israel’s God is unique and that Israel owes him undivided loyalty.

The Old Testament goes further in some places. In Isaiah 40 to 48 the Lord says again and again that there is no God besides him (for example Isaiah 45:5), that he alone made the heavens (Isaiah 44:24) and that he will not give his glory to another (Isaiah 42:8). Many scholars hold that these chapters come from the time of the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BC and mark a sharp statement of monotheism. Others hold that the faith was already monotheistic in earlier periods. The history of Israelite religion is debated, but Christians and Jews alike read the final form of the text as asserting one God.

In the centuries after the exile, Jewish writers developed the idea of the one God in several ways. Some stressed God’s remoteness and spoke of angels as intermediaries. Others, including the author of the Wisdom of Solomon and Philo of Alexandria, spoke of God’s Word and Wisdom in terms that sound personal. These writings are not in the Protestant canon, but the Catholic and Orthodox churches accept the Wisdom of Solomon as Scripture. They show what language was available to the first Christians.

Step-by-step explanation

Step 1: The uniqueness of the Lord

The Old Testament uses several means to show that the Lord is unlike any other. The first commandment forbids having other gods before him (Exodus 20:3). Deuteronomy 4:35 says that the Lord is God and there is none else. The Song of Moses asks who is like the Lord among the gods (Exodus 15:11). Isaiah mocks idols as the work of human hands and asserts that the Lord alone can foretell and bring about the future.

This is not only a statement about numbers. It is a statement about kind. The Lord is not one of a class of divine beings. He is the Creator of all that exists, and nothing is on the same level. The scholar Richard Bauckham calls this the unique divine identity: God is the one who creates all things and rules all things. A being who shares in that identity would be included in God.

Step 2: Hints of plurality

Christian readers have found hints of plurality in certain texts. Genesis 1:26 has God say, let us make man in our image. Genesis 3:22 and 11:7 also use plural forms. Isaiah 6:8 has the Lord ask, who will go for us? Psalm 110:1 has David say, the Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand. Early Christians such as Justin Martyr read these as speech between the Father and the Son.

Jewish interpreters and many modern scholars give other explanations. The plural in Genesis 1:26 has been read as a plural of majesty, as God speaking to his heavenly court of angels, or as a form of self-address. Most scholars of the Hebrew Bible do not hold that the original authors intended a Trinity. Christian scholars usually reply that the texts were not written to teach the Trinity but can be read in its light, after the revelation in Christ, as consistent with it. This is the distinction between what an Old Testament author could have meant and what the whole Bible can come to mean in the church.

Step 3: The Word, Wisdom, Spirit and the Angel

The Old Testament speaks of God acting through his word. By the word of the Lord were the heavens made (Psalm 33:6). It speaks of the Spirit of God moving over the waters (Genesis 1:2) and coming upon prophets and kings. In Proverbs 8:22 to 31 Wisdom says that the Lord possessed her at the beginning and that she was beside him when he made the world. And in several passages the Angel of the Lord appears and speaks as the Lord himself (for example Genesis 16:7 to 13, Exodus 3:2 to 6).

Scholars disagree about these figures. Some regard them as poetic personifications, ways of speaking about God’s activity without any distinct reality. Others, such as Larry Hurtado and Bauckham, argue that these figures show that some Jews were able to think of God’s activity in ways that allowed later belief in Christ as sharing in God’s identity. The Angel of the Lord is a puzzle for any reading, since the text slides between the Angel and the Lord. The church fathers saw here an appearance of the Son. Jewish tradition sees an angelic messenger who bears God’s name.

Step 4: What the New Testament inherits

The first Christians were Jews. They did not cease to believe in one God. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 8:6 that there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, in a sentence that appears to split the words of the Shema between the Father and the Son. A few scholars read this as Paul including Jesus in the Shema. Others read it more cautiously. In either case the New Testament does not announce a second God. It places Jesus within the identity of the one God, which is why the later councils speak of one substance.

Not every Jew of the time accepted this. A few Jewish groups said there were two powers in heaven, and rabbinic writings later condemned this view. Some historians think the earliest Christians drew on such ideas. Others say the evidence is thin. For the student, the key point is that the rise of Christian belief was a debate within Jewish monotheism.

  1. What does it mean to love the Lord with all my heart, soul and might, as the Shema continues?
  2. Why might it matter that the Bible insists on one God so strongly?
  3. When I read Genesis 1:26, what explanation do I find most natural?
  4. What is the difference between what an author meant and what the church later found in a text?
  5. Why would a Jewish reader object to reading the Angel of the Lord as the Son?
  6. What might a Christian learn from the way Jews live the Shema?

Examples

A Jewish morning

An observant Jew recites the Shema each morning and evening, covering the eyes and saying the words slowly. The recitation is a declaration of God’s unity and a pledge of loyalty. A Christian can respect this as the same commandment Jesus called first.

Two readings of Psalm 110:1

Jewish interpreters often read the verse as David addressing the king, or as God addressing a king of David’s line. Jesus asks the Pharisees how David could call his own descendant Lord (Mark 12:35 to 37), and the early church read the psalm as speaking of the risen Christ. Both readings are old.

Wisdom in Proverbs

When Proverbs 8 shows Wisdom beside God before the world began, a modern reader may take this as a literary device. The early Christians, including the author of Colossians, applied similar language to Christ, saying that all things were made through him (Colossians 1:16).

Different perspectives

Jewish

Judaism holds God’s absolute unity and rejects any plurality in God. Maimonides listed the unity of God among the thirteen principles of faith. Jewish readers explain the plural verbs and the Angel of the Lord in other ways, and they do not accept the Christian reading of the Old Testament as pointing to the Trinity.

Catholic

Catholic teaching holds that the Old Testament teaches the unity of God and contains hints and preparations of the Trinity, which become clear in the New Testament. The Catechism speaks of the Old Testament as a preparation. Catholics accept that the human authors did not teach the Trinity as such.

Orthodox

Orthodox tradition reads the Old Testament in the light of Christ and teaches that the Trinity was already revealed in figures like the three visitors to Abraham at Mamre (Genesis 18), which is the subject of the icon of the Trinity by Andrei Rublev. Other fathers took the visitors to be the Lord with two angels.

Protestant

Reformation Protestants usually find the Trinity in the Old Testament in hints and divine titles. Calvin was more cautious than some predecessors about reading the Trinity into particular texts, and he said that the plural in Genesis 1:26 is better used as a confirmation than a proof. Modern Protestant scholars tend to separate what the original authors meant from later Christian use.

Critical scholarship

Many historians of religion hold that Israelite religion developed over time from a worship of the Lord among other gods to strict monotheism. Others hold that it was monotheistic earlier. Scholars of both sorts agree that by the first century AD, Jews understood the Shema to teach one God alone.

Why it matters

A student who skips this background may think the Trinity was invented by councils to fit philosophy, or may think it was always plainly in the Old Testament. Neither is accurate. The doctrine grew out of a particular faith in the one God of Israel, and the first Christians believed they were interpreting that faith correctly. Knowing the starting point shows why the later arguments were so intense and why the Jewish objection is a serious one.

Common misunderstandings

Misunderstanding: The Old Testament teaches the Trinity plainly.

Correction: Almost no scholar holds this, and the church fathers did not say so either. The Old Testament teaches the unity of God. Christians believe the Trinity is revealed fully in the New Testament and that earlier texts can be read as consistent with it.

Misunderstanding: Jews worship a different God from Christians.

Correction: Christianity holds that it worships the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The disagreement is about who Jesus is and what God has done in him, not about whether the God of the Hebrew Bible is the Creator.

Misunderstanding: The plural form Elohim proves the Trinity.

Correction: Most scholars, including most Christian ones, say it does not. Elohim is a plural of majesty or abstraction used with singular verbs. The argument from Elohim is no longer made by careful writers.

Misunderstanding: Early Israel was always strictly monotheistic.

Correction: This is debated. Some scholars see development from worship of one God among others to denial that others exist. The question does not affect the church’s reading of the finished Scripture, but a student should know it is disputed.

Knowledge check

What does the Shema say and why is it important?

Deuteronomy 6:4 calls Israel to hear that the Lord is God and the Lord is one. It is the central confession of Jewish faith, recited daily, and Jesus cited it as the first commandment. It sets the unity of God as the base on which any later Christian doctrine of the Trinity must be built.

Name two texts that Christians have read as hints of plurality in God and one reason scholars hesitate.

Examples are Genesis 1:26, where God says let us make man, and Psalm 110:1, where the Lord speaks to my Lord. Scholars hesitate because the plural can be read as a plural of majesty or as speech to the heavenly court, and the original authors probably did not have the Trinity in mind.

What was Second Temple Judaism and why does it matter here?

It is the Judaism of the period from the rebuilding of the temple around 516 BC to its destruction in AD 70. It matters because the first Christians lived in it and used its language of Word, Wisdom and Spirit to speak about Jesus without leaving belief in one God.

How does 1 Corinthians 8:6 relate to the Shema?

Paul writes that there is one God, the Father, and one Lord, Jesus Christ. Many scholars see him dividing the words of the Shema between the Father and the Son, so that Jesus is included in the identity of the one God. Others read the verse more cautiously, but the passage is central to the discussion.

Think it through

  1. What would be lost, for Jews and for Christians, if the Shema were weakened?
  2. How do you decide between what a text meant to its first readers and what a later community finds in it?
  3. Why might a person find the Old Testament’s strictness about idols relevant today?

Independent assignment

Reading the Shema

In your own notebook, write about 400 words. Copy out Deuteronomy 6:4 to 9 and list the commands that follow it. Then read Mark 12:28 to 34 and note how Jesus uses the Shema. End with a paragraph on how the unity of God shapes the way a person loves God and neighbor. Do not send this to anyone.

Further study