Who’s the Heretic?
“All the earth will worship You, and will sing praises to You; they will sing praises to Your name.” Selah. Psalm 66:4 NASB
Worship – Okay, I don’t like to be controversial (at least not too much), but some things just eat at you. I’ve spent a good deal of my academic life investigating the influence of Greek thought in Western culture. I wrote my dissertation about it. I’ve read perhaps a hundred books about it and I’ve written hundreds of exegetical pieces concerning it. What eats away at me is this: Greek philosophy is a fundamental element in Christian dogma, even if most Christians have no idea how dependent their faith really is on Plato, Plotinus and the Greek Church fathers. Most Christians can’t give you any historical, rational or exegetical arguments about what they believe. They believe what they believe because they have inherited those beliefs from others who believed them. This is just as true for ministers as it is for laymen. They know doctrine. They do not know how the doctrine was formed or what premises the doctrine requires. And the worst part is this: those who question the origins or exegesis of these sacred beliefs are considered heretics, even if (as the case may be) the objectors are more accurate in their historical, cultural and exegetical analysis. In the long history of the Western Church, conformity is more important than intellectual integrity.
So I offer some solace to those who are fighting their way through this mire. Here are a few very scholarly men who see more clearly than most.
Nicaea’s legacy had made it obvious that there was now nothing within the Jewish matrix useful for the Christian life.[1]
Christians who accepted this triune God, distributed over three Persons, no longer shared Jehovah with their Jewish forbears [sic] or the Supreme Being with their pagan neighbors, nor could Jews or pagans claim to believe in the same God worshipped by the Christians. Doctrinally, this is the point at which Christianity breaks decisively with its parent faith and with other forms of monotheism.[2]
The philosophy in Christianity is both inert and active. The late Greek metaphysics around which Christian doctrine first developed is Christianity’s inert philosophical skeleton. Even if dehellenizers could succeed in their efforts to remove it, Christianity itself would be unrecognizable without it.[3]
Christianity did not destroy paganism; it adopted it. The Greek mind, dying, came to a transmigrated life in the theology and liturgy of the Church; the Greek language, having reigned for centuries over philosophy, became the vehicle of Christian literature and ritual . . . Other pagan cultures contributed to the syncretist result. From Egypt came the ideas of a divine trinity . . . and the mystic theology that made Neoplatonism and Gnosticism, and obscured the Christian creed . . . Christianity was the last great creation of the ancient pagan world.[4]
Finally, this little comment (echoed in Heschel) about Scripture:
We wonder then if it is wise to begin by assuming, as the Trinitarian must, that the Jews have been grossly misinterpreting their own beloved Scriptures in this central regard, and that they continue to fundamentally misunderstand God’s identity as well as his prescriptions for worshipping him.[5]
Apparently the Psalmist’s version of worship needed Augustine’s revision before it could be “properly” understood.
Topical Index: heretic, dogma, Psalm 66:4
[1] Kegan A. Chandler, The God of Jesus in light of Christian Dogma, p. 264.
[2] Richard Rubenstein, When Jesus Became God: The Epic Fight Over Christ’s Divinity in the Last Days of Rome, p. 209.
[3] Norman Kretzmann, “Reason and Mystery,” Royal Institute of Philosophy Lecture Series, Vol. 25. (1989), pp. 15-39.
[4] Will Durant, The Story of Civilization, Vol. 3: Caesar and Christ, p. 595, 599.
[5] Kegan A. Chandler, The God of Jesus in light of Christian Dogma, p. 269.
Well, there it is again that pesky elephant just wont leave the room.
And it ain’t wearing ballet shoes even if it’s dressed in a tu tu! Did you know that every protestant minister has an elephant gun but they just don’t know that this ELEPHANT is Eternal & they are suffering from myopic tendencies and shake when the truth is around and can’t shoot straight anyway. So …..Most of us get the bullet in stead……
I just find our Father so incredible in bringing out more and more challenges to the unstatus quo of doctrine half baked and not turned over.
In the past few weeks it seems everywhere my eye is led I come across this message from different sources. The shaking is all about to test to see what will stand in these last days.
Blessings to All. FJ
Yesterday and Today’s Word seem like describing the belief system of an orphan. And I am discovering in myself and my family – how much an orphan lives in a substitionary system ,especially substituting the intellect for the heart. If I hang out with my Abba Father why doesn’t my heart and mind burn with His understanding and a greater intimacy ?
Therein lies the need to acknowledge the paradigm colored glasses and understand that we all have much to learn. I really only grow when I stop and ask myself “why do I believe what I believe? I get some shocks too but honestly, just because “everyone” believes it-should I too? Without question? It’s all really so much more simple than the doctrine of the Christian faith would have us believe!
Awesome post Skip. I love the way your mind works 🙂
It’s a curse of my existence. 🙂
Every gift can become a curse when not in balence or right submission to the Spirit. I never cease to wonder at how very effectively Yah uses my very failures and weaknesses to aid and grow others about me. He truly transforms even my dust and ashes into gold for his kingdom so marvolusly.
We’re all heretics, to one religious group or another. We all see through glass darkly, too, don’t we? And we all can be like the prideful pharisee one minute and like the humble publican the next. We speak against the doctrines of another and then later say it is not our beliefs but our practice that matters. We say it is not about being right but about being righteous, and then we fight to be right and prove the other wrong. In the end, He will judge and His judgements are just and true. “Let God be true even if every man is a liar.” [Rom 3:4]
Sadly, I am beginning to see that a lot of the reaction of the (later) church may have only been possible as a reaction to Hellenism within Judaism., too. If we are going to dissect half the elephant, we need to look at the other half.
Also, perhaps we need a better view of the vast areas that actively resisted the creeping paganism of the West; namely the church that was in the East; and, no, not the one based in Constantinople, but the one based in Syria; and India; and the Orient, as well as the very heart of the West, which was the mountain home of the Waldenses, some of whom NEVER bowed the knee to Rome, and out of whom the seeds of the Reformation sprang; and in Northern Africa, where there were hidden holdouts that kept the original Scriptures and the Sabbath until they were persecuted (persuaded) out of it a couple of centuries ago. Not EVERYBODY was corrupted! There have always been a people on this planet who knew better.
Just because there has been a concerted effort to expunge all record of these people for millennia does not mean we should not remember and honor these brave folks who hid, fought, suffered and died in obscurity for the truth. We know that the majority of these true churches, for long centuries, rejected the corrupt councils out of Rome, and many of them fled rather than concede. It was not until Islam was created that most of them – beyond the active reach of the arm of Rome, anyway – were obliterated, but not all of them fell, even then. It was not until the Jesuit order in the 1500’s was formed that the rest of the resistance was taken out, and their records burned. If we are only relying only on what was allowed to remain behind, record-wise, on this side of this vast holocaust, we are going to fail to see the larger truth. I trust very little, myself, of what made it through that corrupt sieve, as a basis for understanding anything, and that goes for Scripture copies, too. (Thank God for the Qumran caves!)
I agree Laurita. More investigation in that direction seems important. And more investigation into the way our ancient forefathers; the ones before Hellenism, Kabbala, and modern Judaisms. How did they understand HaShem?
Thank God for the fourth law of thermodynamics. ” Everything tends toward chaos and disorder unless an out side force, a mitigating power is introduced”. Yesterday I shut the mouth of a proud athiest with that simple law of physics. It applies to the philosophical, psychological and theological realms as well as the realm of science. Yahovah is not an idea . He is a very real change agent applying vast wisdom, power and insight into the affairs of men. This miraculously done through a self imposed systemn of interdependence with his very creation us…what an honor too know and be used by this great God!
Fourth law?
physicsforidiots dot com/physics/thermodynamics/
This is about my speed, John. Thank you!
2nd law (sorry ) entropy= the consistent movement from order to disorder. The description was over simplified as I understand it. Equilibrium only (as physics for idiots suggest) happens when a power is present to resists the tendency of entropy. Things move from order to disorder naturally, (entropy) unless a balancing force or an outside agent interjects a force to stay the progression. “He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together”. Col 1:17. Without his hand nothing would be holding together. It is a physical fact. A little off topic but since he is still holding it all together while most humanity is ignoring, believes lies or are in out right rebellion is a sign of his gracious compassion for the mess we all actually are. He allows the floor to remain to hold up the elephant. That’s mercy…
Amen, amen, amen to all that, Mark.
Join the discussion
We have been studying Quran caves documents and I agree. (THANK HaShem for Quran caves!)
Looks like auto-correct got your “M” in Qumran. Sure you didn’t mean Quran.
Sure did, thanks!
What I am beginning to discover, Laurita, is that there is a whole realm of early 2nd temple Jewish literature BCE that has been ignored by Judaism and Christianity (including past and modern day polemicists). It may be that our knee jerk reactions to Judaism or Christianity CE maybe a reaction to a reaction. Could it be that the Gnostics were picking up on something that we missed (or the early church and Judaism ignored)? We laugh at Gnosticism for its supra-human imagination of multiple divine beings only to find out that there really may have been (and currently is) a real Divine Council after all (although without all the emulations). Maybe Hellenism, Judaism, and Christianity was a movement away from such speculative notions. Maybe modern materialism is the logical progressive end-game of the Watchers. Maybe Enoch is really a description of divine realities that will soon be unleashed on a slumbering planet. At least Yeshua thought so…”as in the day so Noah…”.
GOD’S DIRECT CHANNEL TO US ALL
If it is the Holy Spirit’s task to guide believers into all truth,
as Yeshua said He would, then our task is to receive all truth
in our spirits as He reveals it to us. See EPH 1:17-21
Who are we listening to?
It is the Spirit that unifies the body of Messiah, and the kingdom of Yahovah. His patience and graciousness toward our vanity pride and ignorance is astounding. That he continues to bless and care for so many that miss interpret and simply deny the truth of who he is and what he has called his people to be is beyond comprehension. Truly he is a God full of mercy, loving kindness abounding in grace while yet not compromising his truth. What a mystery, and what a privelge to actually have eyes to see and a mind to discern his truth that we might better appreciate his great love and mercy toward those who deny it…
Intellectual integrity, interesting word usage.i would assume that Skip would claim his academia credentials as he frequently does as well as quoting others. Since when does intellect trump anything in the bible. IMHO it seems like a slow conversion to Judaism as they put a high priority on intellectualism and have no use for the indwelling ruach and certainly not Yahoshua that’s all they have is intellect to discern scripture and they use it to a high art form they can make can make mince meat of you if you don’t know your scriptures. Skip do you believe that what we call the new testament is some Christian counterfeit and the book of Hebrews is made up. Believe it or not have have no animosity towards Skip ,I think he is one of the finest in helping the needy .That’s why I support him for what he does not for what he believes. Making paradigm shifts has been necessary, but let’s not paradigm shift so much nothing is understandable.
Hi Pam. Thanks for the support for the good things. But let me challenge you a bit on this. I don’t believe intellectual integrity trumps Scripture. In fact, I think that a personal, rational God would insure that His words to us make sense, even if that “sense” must be determined as a function of the meanings to the original audiences. I agree that every religion that uses the Bible is subject to intellectual manipulation and application but often this is the product of long traditions, which can also be unpacked and viewed historically. I do not believe the New Testament is counterfeit in any way, although I think it is quite obvious that a good deal of the text has been interpreted according to preconceived paradigms, and those paradigms often do not arise from the text.
Now just a comment on the “work of the Holy Spirit.” It is quite common in religious circles to claim that all we really need is the leading of the Spirit to understand God’s word, as if this were the solution to all intellectual problems. The Scriptures do suggest that God is active in assisting men to understand Him. But this approach leads to some very dangerous conclusions, as you will no doubt admit when you consider the number of men who have claimed all kinds of things based on “God told me” epistemology. So it seems prudent not to adopt the “Spirit only” view, especially since that view allows the individual to interpret the text any way the person wishes. No, what is required in the hard work of intellectual investigation coupled with prayer and COMMUNITY, for it is the believing community, complete with dissenters, who keep the whole on track. Remove objectors only at peril to all. It seems to me that we are EXPECTED to dig deeply into what we believe, and that includes questioning all the sources and the ideas and asking over and over, “Where did that idea come from?”
I agree Christianity spiritualizes everything but judaism de-spiritualizes everything. If I believed holy spirit only (which I don’t) or some holy spirit osmosis than I wouldn’t need to study but there has to be a balance between the two .
On a lighter note, i still support you financially so I put my money where my mouth is even if we don’t agree.
And I greatly appreciate it, and so do the children in Jakarta
I hear you. Although I don’t find the Judaism despiritualizes everything. The orthodox Jews I know are very concerned about the spirit and have a deep relationship with God in spite of their intellectual investigation. Perhaps you’ve not met the right people. 🙂
Coincidentally, on Larry Hurtado’s blog today, Dr. Hurtado posted something of relevance here. He recently published a piece, and following is his own distillation of its contents in his preface to it:
You can find his blog post here:
Larryhurtado dot wordpress dot com/2018/02/05/group-identity-expressions-in-earliest-christian-circles/
Love the content. Appreciate you devotion and dedication.
” Most Christians would rather die than think – in fact they do” – Bertrand Russell
Great quote. Also demonstrates what the “outside” world thinks of simple-minded faith. There is no need for that, is there?
Many Christian writers do sometimes ask good questions, but unfortunately their paradigm prevents them from exploring out of the box answers. In Fit Bodies Fat Minds, Os Guinness asks:
” Why Evangelicals don’t think and What to do about It?
” Anti-intellectualism is to discount the importance of truth and the life of the mind”
Unfortunately all of his answers are Rome-based:
superficial or bad theology
a lack of a serious apology for the faith
the lack of a generally accepted, constructive public philosophy
the lack of an serious magazine
an evangelical university …. .and so forth
Just a little repeat. Hashem made it easy, He give us written instructions. Yeshua told the scribes when asked about the greatest Commandment. LOVE the Lord your G-d with ALL your heart, soul, strength, and mind. The second is like it (1st commandment) to LOVE your brothers (and sisters) as you love yourself, from these two hang the laws (Torah) and the Prophets. IF we do just these two we can’t help but do the other “Laws”. MAN, made things hard, because WE like to argue over who’s right. We could get into a Loooooong discussion on that subject. Pam, Hebrews has been shown to have had words struck through and words added. There are scholars who do comparison study of the old documents that show this is true. Cruise the internet, you can find studies that will guide you to other studies that are done by scholars who are doing the studies because they itch for the answers to the questions. Skip knows of several of these besides himself.
Sorry for this being so long.
Shalom Aleichem
David, I would be interested in your sources for your assertions that Hebrews has been edited. Don’t post specific Youtube links, as Mr. Administrator will take them down. Names of authors or works, or titles of Youtube videos are fine.
I find it extremely noteworthy that Skip has never interacted with rabbinical scholar Alan F. Segal’s major work, Two Powers in Heaven, nor Michael Heiser’s 2004 dissertation which suggests that the original model for the two powers idea was the role of the vice-regent of the divine council. “For the orthodox Israelite, Yahweh was both sovereign and vice-regent–occupying both “slots” as it were at the head of the divine council. The binitarian portrayal of Yahweh in the Hebrew Bible was motivated by this belief. The ancient Israelite knew two Yahwehs–one invisible, a spirit, the other visible, often in human form.” (drmsh.com/the-naked-bible/two-powers-in-heaven/) The Jews often speculated about this “second” visible form. It wasn’t considered a violation of monotheism even before the first century CE. If it wasn’t then, why is now?
I guess you didn’t read my review of Heiser’s book. Perhaps you should. I actually had some conversation with him in Tacoma last year. As for Segal, you’re right. I haven’t read his work. Thanks for introducing me to it. I haven’t had time to read everything yet, but eternity is just around the corner.
Skip, I am a homeschooling mama of 4 young children, which means, I have very little time for myself, yet alone to study and fully understand what you write about 🙂 .I read some of your articles, talk with friends and dialogue about these things, and yet, I find it very difficult to break down a lot of what you write about into bite size chunks, that I can understand and really grasp. I am newbie when it comes to understanding Torah and Hebrew, but desire to. Any suggestions?
Hi Paula, my suggestion is keep it up. Your on the right track, as your mind is renewed by the washing of the pure, undefiled word it will come clearer and clear to you. Just sayin….
HI Paula. I have found that Michael Heiser (on the Trinitarian side) and Anthony Buzzard (on the anti-Trinitarian side) have an extensive Youtube presence (or you can go directly to their respective websites: The Naked Bible Podcast, and Restoration Fellowship). This will give you a good sampling of both sides of the debate. What you can be certain of however, is that both sides are celebrated here and we often love spirited discussion. And, we all love Yeshua! Take your time; ingest as much as you can between changing diapers; and keep your eye on the prize of the high calling of God! Blessings.
I’ve read all the TW articles that reference Heiser’s name. None of them addresses the issue of “The Status and Role of the Vice-Regent” [they merely reference the notion of a “divine council”]. I apologize for the oversight on my part. Please direct me to a link where you have reviewed this matter.