Biblical Hebrew Forum

[dano AT ott.net]

I don't know if this has been a thread in recent discussion.

But I have noticed an "attempt" to explain the differences between 
El and Yah, the plurality in Genesis 1:26, etc.

I am going to post some "trinitarian" information concerning the OT 
and was hoping to get some response as to its "validity".

This is not information that I have written, but accumulated.

The Teachings of The Targums

        When the Jews returned from Babylonian captivity 450 years 
before the birth of Jesus, they had adopted Aramaic as their native 
language. Although it is a dialect of ancient Hebrew, Aramaic is 
about as different from it as modern Italian is from its classical 
Latin ancestor. Consequently, during the first and early second 
centuries A.D., Aramaic translations of the Hebrew Old Testament 
were made.
        

        These translations, called Targums, were The Living Bibles of 
their day, an interpretive paraphrase of Scripture. They help us see 
how these first-century Jews understood their Old Testament.
        One of the striking things these Targums show is that first-
century Jews had come to understand the phrase "the Word of 
God" as referring to a divine entity within God Himself, yet 
distinguishable at times from God. J.W. Etheridge, in the 
introduction to his translations of the Targums of Onkelos and 
Jonathan, has given us a number of examples of this Jewish 
understanding of the term, "the Word" (Aramaic: Memra).
        In Genesis 18:1, where the Hebrew Bible says Yahweh 
(Jehovah) appeared to Abraham, the Targum says, "The Word of 
the Lord appeared to Abraham." Further on, where the Hebrew 
reports "Yahweh rained down upon Sodom and upon
 Gomorrah brimstone and fire from Yahweh out of heaven," the Targum states 
that "the Word of the Lord sent down upon them sulphur and fire from the 
presence of the Lord out of heaven." (Genesis 19:24)
        In Genesis 16, when Hagar sees "the Angel of the Lord," the Targum 
says she saw "the Word of the Lord." After seeing this "Word" (Memra) she 
says, "Here has been revealed the glory of the Shekineh of the Lord." Then, 
acc
ording to the Jerusalem Targum, "Hagar returned thanks and prayed in the name 
of the Word of the Lord, who had appeared to her." Thus the Word not only is 
regarded as the presence of deity, but is in some manner personall
y distinguishable from the Lord. 
        In Genesis 28:20 the Targum of Onkelos paraphrases Jacob's vow, "If 
God will be with me... then Yahweh will be my God" with the words, "If the 
Word of the Lord will be my help... the Word of the Lord shall be my God." Ag
ain, the Angel of Yahweh who spoke to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14) 
is designated by the Jerusalem Targum as "the Word of the Lord."
        The distinct personality of this Divine Word is seen pointedly in 
Jonathan's Targum of Isaiah 63:7-10. There, where the Hebrew text speaks of 
Yahweh being their Savior, the Targum reads, "the Word (Memra) was their Redee
mer." (vs. 8) When the Israelites continued to disobey, then "His Word 
(Memra) became their enemy, and fought against them" -- an action ascribed to 
Yahweh in the Hebrew text. Again in Isaiah 45:22 the Targum of Jonathan 
exhorts, "Look unto My Word and be saved." 
        While this personalizing of the Word was being expressed in Palestine 
in the Targums of Jesus' day, Philo, an Egyptian Jew and contemporary of 
Jesus, was expressing similar thoughts in even more distinct words. In his es
say "On the Creation," Philo states that man was not made in the image of 
some creature, but in the image of God's own uncreated Word. He wrote: "for 
the Creator, we know, employed for its making no pattern taken from amo
ng created things, but solely, as I have said, His own Word."
        Philo continues: "Man was made a likeness and imitation of the Word, 
when the Divine Breath was breathed into his face. ("On the Creation," 
XLVIII: 139, Loeb Edition I, pp. 110-111)


        In his work on Noah, Philo again expresses the teaching that man is 
made by "the First Cause" (that is, God) in the image of "the Eternal Word:" 
"Our great Moses likened the fashion of the reasonable soul to no created t
hing, but averred it to be a genuine coinage of that dread Spirit, the Divine 
and Invisible One, signed and impressed by the seal of God, the stamp of 
which is the Eternal Word."
        He continues: "...man has been made after the Image of God (Genesis 
1:27), not however after the image of anything created... man's soul having 
been made after the image of the Archetype, the Word of the First Cause." ("
Noah's Work as a Planter," I:11-20, Loeb III, pp. 222-223)
        Thus, the eternal Word is in some sense distinguishable from God, and 
yet at the same time is, like God, uncreated, rational and the bearer of the 
divine image. This comes very close to the teaching of the New Testament 
that the Word was distinguishable from God, and yet was God. As John 1:1 
expresses it, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and 
the Word was God." It also appears similar to Paul's teaching that the 
Son is "the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15); and the writer of 
Hebrews statement that the Son "is the exact representation of His being." 
(Hebrews 1:3) 
        Philo, however, goes further. He says that God is the king and 
shepherd of all creation, but rules and controls it through his eternally 
existing Word, whom Philo calls God's "First-born Son."
        His "hallowed flock" of created things God directs by his divine 
laws, setting over it His true Word and first-born son, who shall take upon 
Him its government like some viceroy of a great king. ("On Husbandry," I:51, L
oeb III, pp. 134-135)
        Philo has God expressing Himself in this manner: "I alone... 
sustained the Universe to rest firm and sure upon the Mighty Word, who is My 
viceroy." ("On Dreams," I:241, Loeb V, pp. 424-425)
        Therefore this eternal Word, God's first-born Son, is the upholder of 
the whole creation, "the everlasting Word of the eternal God is the very sure 
and staunch prop of the Whole. He it is, who extending Himself from the 
midst to its utmost bounds... keeps up through all its length Nature's 
unvanquished course, combining and compacting all its parts. For the Father 
who begat Him constituted His Word such a Bond of the Universe as nothing 
can break." ("Noah's Work as a Planter," I:8-9, Loeb III, pp. 216-217) 
        This reflects the same thought that Paul expressed about the Son as 
being the one "in whom all things hold together." (Colossians 1:17) It also 
reminds also reminds us of Hebrews 1:3, which depicts the Son as "sustaining
 all things by his powerful Word."
        Philo continues his discussion of the Word by maintaining that to 
those incapable of seeing the supreme cause, God Himself, He appears to them 
in the form of His Angel, the Word: "For just as those who are unable to see 
the sun itself, see the gleam of the parahelion and take it for the sun, and 
take the halo round the moon for that luminary itself, so some regard the 
image of God, His Angel, the Word, as His very self." ("On Dreams," I:
239, Loeb V, pp. 422-423) 


        This sounds very similar to the teaching that the Son is "the 
radiance (or outshining) of God's glory" (Hebrews 1:3), the only part of 
God's nature that people are allowed to see. This is true because "no one has 
ever se
en God," but "the only begotten God... He has made Him known." (John 1:18) 
Thus, Jesus, the Son, can say, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." 
(John 14:9) 
        Philo further explained that God, being light, is "the archetype of 
every other light." As such He is "prior to and high above every archetype." 
Thus He holds the position of "a model of a model," that is, He is the mode
l for His Word, which Word becomes the model for creation. The 
Word, therefore, contains all the qualities of God. As Philo 
expressed it, "the model or pattern was the Word which contained 
all His fullness -- light, in fact." 
        ("On Dreams," I:75, Loeb V, pp. 336-337) Paul expressed a 
similar thought when he wrote that in the Son all God's fullness 
dwells. (Colossians 1:19; 2:9)
        To Philo, therefore, the Word of God is the eternal, uncreated 
Word containing all the fullness of God and bearing His image. 
That divine image which the Word bears is the image in which man 
was created. The Word is further the sustainer, upholder and ruler 
of the world, carrying on the governing of all things, as God's 
viceroy, and containing all God's fullness.
        While the Word is not a created thing and carries on all the 
functions of God, Philo is clear that there are not two gods -- 
although he does not attempt to explain how this can be. Philo's 
teaching is, therefore, very close to the biblical doctrine of the 
Trinity. Philo reached his conclusions without the aid of the New 
Testament and certainly without deriving his ideas from pagan 
notions of deity. The Old Testament teaching that the Angel of 
Yahweh is really the presence of Yahweh Himself seems to have 
strongly influenced Philo's ideas. 
        To relegate the doctrine of the Trinity, therefore, to a fourth-
century adaptation of paganism is to ignore the conclusions that 
several Jewish theologians and teachers had reached four 
centuries earlier, from God's revelations given to Israel before the 
time of the coming of Christ. At the very time that the Word was 
becoming flesh (John 1:1, 14), Jewish writers were already 
beginning to see that God's Word could in some way be 
distinguished from God the Father Himself, yet have all the fullness 
of God contained in Him.




Pastor Dan Oglesby
Community Revival Center Church
Where God is Alive and Moving by His Spirit
Ottawa, Kansas
http://www.crcc-oca.org