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From Jewish Messiah to God Incarnate

Dr. James Tabor’s latest blog provides a wealth of information about a subject that Christians have debated for almost 2,000 years now. Regardless of what one’s beliefs about Jesus are, it must be clearly understood that other Christians have held – and do hold -- other beliefs about it. Or, as we like to say, “many different memes have been attached to Yeshua over the centuries.” Dr. Tabor provides a good chronological presentation for that memetic evolution. Below are a few quotes from the blog.

For untold millions of Christians asking the “Lord” for guidance, help, and even salvation is a complex and confusing business. Part of the confusion is that the God of the Hebrew Bible, who mostly goes by the name Yahweh/Yehovah, is referred to as “the LORD.” The problem comes with the New Testament in which Jesus is also commonly referred to as “the Lord.” So far as the Jesus movement goes our earliest evidence for this practice of conflating the name of God–i.e., Yahweh, with that of Jesus–that is, calling them both “Lord” in an interchangeable way, goes back to Paul. Even though Paul clearly distinguished between the “One God, the Father” and the “One Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 8:6). Later Christian devotion to Jesus pales into insignificance anything found in the New Testament. 


Read the complete blog at -- http://jamestabor.com/2014/06/15/praying-to-jesus-from-jewish-messiah-to-god-incarnate/

Comments

  1. boerfarmerAugust 23, 2015 at 8:54 PM

    2 Peter1:1
    2 Peter 1:1

    Simeon Peter, a servant and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal standing with ours by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ:

    I am not familiar with Dr. Tabor other than his Blog, but I doubt very much that Paul dropped his Hebrew view and understanding and adopted a Greek view. The so called scribes who wrote and rewrote most of the New Covenant letters (Scriptures?) decided to join the phrase ...by the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ. By inserting a comma before the word and, if the comma is inserted then we would clearly read There is the Father/God, and his son Jesus Christ, better yet Yeshua the Anointed. In Mat.25: 34 Yeshua tells the chosen ones who have been "blessed by Father" to inherit the Kingdom. So, to me it is obvious that the Son of Man has a father but he is NOT the Father. There are way too many intellectual gymnastics taking place in the Halls of so called Higher Learning. The Hebrews/Jews have lived all their lives with contradictions, but we in our modern and sophisticated world like to have everything clearly in place without any contradictions. The typical Creek mind, looking for wisdom.

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