maklelan wrote:I disagree that there is a real conflict in these two propositions. First, Judaism in the Greco-Roman period can be called monotheistic, but some qualification is necessary. It was monotheistic in the sense that it accepted a single high god, but it acknowledged a coterie of other divine beings that were objects in the literature of prayer and sometimes even worship (proskynesis). The Son of Man figure from Daniel and Enoch, for instance, is said to receive worship several times in Enoch and even in the Old Greek of Daniel. Angels are prayed to frequently in apocalyptic literature, and early Jewish and Christian literature seems preoccupied in some places with stemming the tide of their worship. In Qumran's 4Q246 the "people of God" will receive worship from the nations (cf. Rev 3:9). All these things within Judaism really make Christ's divinity a non-issue in the earliest literature. It's not until John that we first see attempts to align his identity in some sense with God's, and that's the first place where the concern is with his relationship with God rather than his claims to be the Son of God. That he was simply considered divine would not have raised an eyebrow among the vast majority of Jews during this time period.
Actually, I think we are both wrong. All of those points you raised are valid, but completely irrelevant in terms of the 3rd and 4th centuries CE when the debates were taking place. I was wrong to point to the 1st century as being a time when Jews were completely monotheistic. The debates took place in a time period when Judaism was strictly monotheistic, and the Old Testament was seen as completely supporting that proposition.
In any case the debate was an attempt to connect the three divine persons in the New Testament with Jewish monotheism. See Jaroslav Pelikan, The Emergence of the Catholic Tradition, chapter 4 for a more detailed analysis of the question.
maklelan wrote:I disagree. There were a number of issues addressed in the christological debates
I'm not talking about Christological debates, I'm talking about Trinitarian debates.
maklelan wrote:but I don't see any of them as primarily or even partially concerned with preserving Jewish heritage.
Jaroslav Pelikan, Chapter 4, "The Mystery of the Trinity wrote:The climax of the doctrinal development of the early church was the dogma of the Trinity. In this dogma the church vindicated the monotheism that had been at issue in its conflicts with Judaism, and it came to terms with the concept of the Logos, over which it had disputed with paganism
I'm going to have to follow him on this one.
maklelan wrote:Pretty much all of them have only to do with Christ's nature and relationship to God and the Spirit, and as far as I am aware, they all arose within exclusively Christian circles and addressed exclusively Christian concerns. For instance, one of the earliest questions was whether or not Jesus was divine. The arguments involve the Gnostics, the Ebionites, the Arians, the Docetists, and others, and they always had to do with how Christ was described in the New Testament. Then you have the question of the person of Jesus. How did his divine nature and his human nature coexist? This revolves around philosophical questions first raised by Christian apologists in the second century. Another concern (the main one addressed at Nicea) addressed the generation of Jesus. Was he begotten somewhere in time, or was he "eternally begotten"? Again, this is a philosophical question that again arose from the speculation of apologists. There's also the Filioque question and the one of subordination.
I have no idea why you are bringin up the filioque question, as is centuries remove from all of this. As for the other stuff, there is an ontological component to the debate. I see the ontology as being motivated by the hermeneutical issue of interpreting the New Testament and the Old Testament together. So while I know what the arguments involved, I'm focusing on a particular motivation for the arguments.
maklelan wrote:I don't think this is unique or original to Mormonism. This is actually a great description of the Patristic approach to Judaism. For the early Christians, Judaism was a carnal and base precursor to Christianity, which existed as a more pure and spiritual fulfillment of the latter. You find the seeds of this in Paul's notion that the law is a schoolmaster that leads to Christ, and that it is full of types and shadows that point to Christ. The Jews are those who do not yet see the true meaning of the scriptures. Justin Martyr, for instance, repeatedly scolded Trypho for not knowing the true meaning of his own scriptures. This is what gave rise to the prominence of allegory in Alexandrian exegesis (and even for a time in Antiochene exegesis). Origen said that the Old Testament was only old for those who read it literally. For Christians, who read it according to its true sense, it was another New Testament. He said that to read it without allegory was to make it a book too full of absurdities, contradictions, and matters too base for the spiritually minded. He also compared Judaism to the children's milk and the weak man's vegetables, and Christianity to the solid food of Christ's athletes. This perspective was standard fare from the second to the fourth centuries (too many people don't recognize Origen's deep and lasting contributions to Christian exegesis and theology).
Yes, the Mormon approach is unique and original. I am unaware of any Christian who has argued that God gave Abraham the higher law, gave Moses the higher law, had the law rejected, then gave them a "lower law" and then had Jesus give the "higher law", which is the Mormon position. The Mormon position sees the Mosaic law as inferior at the time it was given, meaning the Jews were always living below their potential, because they rejected the full gospel.
The Christian position is that God gave Moses the law and the law was good. There is no Jewish rejection of the gospel at the time of Moses. The gospel preached by Jesus is then seen as somehow going beyond the law. This has lead to shameful Christian supercessionist persecution. Both Mormons and Christians see themselves as in some way improving on the Mosaic law, but they get there by very different means, and that's the point I was making.
maklelan wrote:It seems to me you're arguing that strict monotheism begins with Moses, and if that's the case then I have to emphatically disagree.
I'm not arguing that. I'm simply pointing out that you find henoetheism in Genesis, I haven't said anything about Israelite or Judahite worship after Genesis but before the destruction of the second temple (taking my above clarification into account). And since the LDS church tries to go back as early as possible, it necessarily finds henotheism and runs with it.
maklelan wrote:Aristotle Smith wrote:I also think this attempt to get back to the earliest forms of worship in the Bible is also what lead to polygamy, since Genesis tends to have the most positive outlook on polygamy in the entire Bible.
Interesting idea.
Thanks.