Yes, the writer of Matt used the passage. He quote mined the OT to add 'fleshing out' details to Mark. Even then he does not however suggest the passage is referring to a prehuman eternal origin. He says the King/Ruler would go forth from the ancient clan of Ephrathah of Bethlehem of 'days of old'.
Do JWs believe Jesus is an angel?
by slimboyfat 152 Replies latest watchtower beliefs
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vienne
Neither English nor Hebrew grammar sustains your view. The verse reads: "out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times.” The antecedent of "whose origins" is not Ephrathah but "One who." The Complete Hebrew Bible with Commentary translates it this way: "And you, Bethlehem Ephrathah-you should have been the lowest of the clans of Judah-from you [he] shall emerge for Me, to be a ruler over Israel; and his origin is from of old, from days of yore." This and similar translations demonstrate that the antecedent of "whose origins" is the one who emerges to be ruler.
J. P. Lange's (Commentary on the Minor Prophets) translation also makes the grammar clear: "... shall come forth for me he that is to be ruler in Israel whose goings forth..."
Genesis 48:7 shows Ephrathah to be a place name and in the parenthesis names it as an older name for Bethlehem. The rendering of "clans" is literally thousands. Some, Lange for instance, see this as meaning "districts" rather than meaning genetically related as a clan. Others see this as military districts. That's irrelevant here, since the grammar does not support your contention.
We should note, too, that Christ goes forth at God's command: "Out of thee shall he come forth unto me, that shall be the ruler in Israel." Christ rules at God's express will. As such he is God's representative, but not God himself. The verse does not say, "I will come and rule Israel" or imply anything like that.
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vienne
Those who rely on John 1:1 to prove the trinity should explain why it says the Word was God instead of "the word is god."
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aqwsed12345
@vienne
You claim that "olam" cannot refer to eternity in Micah 5:2, only to a distant past. However, "olam" is indeed often used in Scripture to refer to an eternal or indefinite period beyond human understanding. For instance, Psalm 90:2 uses "olam" to describe God’s eternal existence ("from everlasting to everlasting"). Therefore, the claim that "olam" only refers to distant past in Micah 5:2 is flawed.
You suggest that "origin" in Micah 5:2 implies a temporal beginning, and therefore the Messiah must have been created at some point. Precisely, Trinitarian theology also affirms that the Son has origin from the Father, but it does not mean "ex nihilo" creation or coming into being at a point in time.
The New Testament frequently speaks of Jesus as existing before creation. For example, John 8:58 (“Before Abraham was, I am”) identifies Jesus not as a created being but as existing before time, echoing the divine name "I AM" (YHWH) from Exodus 3:14.
The phrase "goings forth" does not necessarily denote a temporal beginning. For instance, Psalm 93:2 describes God’s throne as "established from of old," using similar language without implying a point of creation.
The New Testament sees Micah 5:2 as a prophecy about Jesus. Matthew 2:6 directly connects this verse to Christ’s birth, indicating that the ruler who comes from Bethlehem is the Messiah. Other passages, such as John 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:15-20, emphasize that Jesus is not merely a representative of God but shares fully in the divine nature. Colossians calls Jesus "the image of the invisible God," meaning He perfectly reveals the nature of God because He is God.
The claim that Jesus rules by God’s authority but isn’t God misses the New Testament's theological message. Philippians 2:6-11 explicitly teaches that Jesus, though He "was in the form of God," humbled Himself to become human and is now exalted with a name above every name. This shows that Christ has both the authority and identity of God, not merely as a subordinate being but as God Himself.
In the original Greek, the phrase "the Word was God" (καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος) is clear and unambiguous. The word order emphasizes the deity of the Word (Jesus), and the lack of a definite article before "God" does not imply a lesser god but underscores that the Word shares the same nature as God. It directly supports the doctrine of the Trinity, showing that the Word is fully divine. John 1:1 also highlights the eternal existence of the Word: "In the beginning was the Word." This emphasizes the Word's preexistence before creation, not as a created being but as eternally existing alongside God.
The argument that John 1:1 says "the Word was God" instead of "the Word is God" is easily addressed by understanding the nature of biblical narrative. John's Gospel begins with a timeless truth about Jesus' pre-existence before creation. The use of "was" emphasizes the eternality of the Word and His role in creation. John's purpose was to highlight the Logos’ (Word’s) divinity from the beginning, making "was" appropriate to convey the eternal nature of the Word in relation to time.
If John had said "is" instead of "was," the focus would shift to a present state without fully capturing the eternal existence of the Word before creation. This also supports the Trinitarian understanding that Jesus, as the Logos, is eternal, sharing the divine essence with the Father.
Furthermore, John's Gospel continues to affirm the present deity of Christ throughout the text (e.g., John 8:58, "before Abraham was, I AM"), emphasizing both His past and present divinity. Thus, "was" in John 1:1 doesn't negate the ongoing divine nature of Christ but emphasizes His eternal existence.
You dismiss reliance on "Catholic councils" and later theological developments, arguing that they aren't scriptural. However, the doctrine of the Trinity emerges directly from the biblical text, as the early church councils were clarifying what was already implicitly believed based on Scripture.
The claim that Micah 5:2 refers to Jesus as having a temporal origin is mistaken. Scripture, when taken in its entirety, reveals that Jesus, the Messiah, is eternal, sharing fully in the divine nature with the Father and the Holy Spirit. Micah 5:2, far from supporting a created Jesus, aligns with the New Testament portrayal of the Messiah as eternally existent, divine, and co-equal with the Father.
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peacefulpete
You, and many others, are reading into the text. The point of the author's statement is to repeat the mantra that a ruler would be from the ancient line of Ephratahites from Bethlehem. It is that simple. His 'goings forth' ancestry/origins went back to the 'days of old'.
It would make no sense to a 5th century writer to say the Ruler would be from the Ephratahite's lineage and then say he was from long long before them. Grammatically it only flows with a straightforward reading without Christian coloring. I haven't seen any examples of pre-Christians interpreting the passage that way, but it is possible as we have shown there were many novel readings of the OT regarding 'agency' of God in the 2nd temple period.
This is a great example of chicken of egg questions regarding evolving theology. Did an aberrant interpretation/reading lead to a new doctrine or was the doctrine formulated through other influences and then proof texts sought?
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slimboyfat
peacefulpete, I read Richard Carrier’s books when they came out as I was interested in mythicism for a while. (Narkissos on this forum had mythicist leanings and he led me part way down that path.) Carrier’s books are pretty dismal. Have you read them? The one on Bayes theory was convoluted and unconvincing that this is a viable method for doing history. Neverhelss, I got the sequel ‘On the Historicity’ too, when it was published, to much fanfare. On the positive side it covers a lots of material and sources, but it’s hard going and not very rewarding. The best explanation for why Jesus had brothers running around in the first century, for example, is quite simply that Jesus was a real person who had siblings. Carrier works incredibly hard to offer other explanations but they are pretty farfetched. Robert Price and Earl Doherty are better authors on mythicism. Price’s The Incredible Shrinking Son of Man is an entertaining read - he can make any topic entertaining, but he has a fetish for outlandish theories too. I’ve got a book by Dennis R. McDonald and he makes a good case for some of the gospel stories being based on Greek epics, but this doesn’t show there was no Jesus at all. Bill Darlison is a British mythicist who makes some interesting arguments. I know Bill a little through the Unitarians and he certainly has interesting things to say. Ultimately, other scholars I respect, such as Mark Goodacre and James McGrath, have offered effective responses to Carrier that can be found online. Mythicism remains incredibly fringe among scholars and Carrier has not made a dent on that. (It was a liberal British NT scholar who likened it to flat earth to me in conversation.) If anything, Carrier’s turgid prose, vindictive debating style, and putrid personality (reminds me of LE) has set the ‘cause of mythicism’ back, if anything.
The most readable of Carrier’s books is the one with the silly title Jesus from Outer Space. For what it’s worth, in that book Carrier argues for an original Christian Jesus that’s strikingly similar to JW theology, although I wouldn’t quote him on that because scholars don’t take him seriously, and it’s not the result of original research, he is just offering a colourful summary of other scholars on early Christology.
The evidence is amply secure that the original story the Christians taught was that Jesus was God's supreme archangel, eternal high priest of God's celestial temple, his firstborn creation and adopted son, viceroy of the universe, and the original superbeing who carried out all of God's other acts of creation and that he ruled the resulting cosmos on God's behalf. A being whom Philo reveals Jews already believed in.
Richard Carrier, Jesus From Outer Space (2020), page 32.
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peacefulpete
Well, ok,. The Bayesian theorem is an interesting approach, it actually makes a great deal of sense to apply it in a case like this when we have only 'balance of evidence' to guide us. Years ago I illustrated the illogic of simply assuming historicity when reading an internally plausible narrative. Goldilocks and the three bears (an English tale). It could be argued that the story has a historical 'core' because about 1000 years ago there were bears in the English countryside, bears have been observed eating porridge and little precocious girls can be destructive. No one does however, because the fantastic elements negate any meaningful argument for historicity. Bayesian theorem takes the likelihood of each element into consideration. The likelihood of bears in the countryside was at one time good (100%), the likelihood that they could talk is 0. Times the two and you have the odds of the story being historical in any meaningful way. In the case of the Jesus stories Carrier, unlike most scholars, takes the story at face value and assesses the likelihood of historicity. Most scholars, like Goodacre, begin with the assumption that the story is an embellishment of an ordinary man. I agree with Carrier that this is a mistake. If we are being asked the odds for the one-time existence of a man who was killed for religious disruption, the odds would pretty darn good. That is what is dominating scholarship.
Additionally, the lack of biographical elements in Paul and other early writings (e.g. Hebrews) strongly suggest those to be secondary. And as I said, far too often what is pinned as historical elements are actually OT allusions. I argued with Tim Callahan over diner a dozen years ago or so about this. He saw the 'Nazareth' element as a evidence of historicity because he deemed it an embarrassment that no writer would include unless forced to. That is ignoring the way the author used the "Nazareth' element, he used it because he thought it was from the OT. Thats's another evidence that these story details are secondary, (As it happens, Nazareth probably didn't exist as a village yet and the likely word the writers had heard from tradition was Nazarene).
BTW, Carrier does rely to Goodacre: Mark Goodacre on the Historicity of Jesus's Execution • Richard Carrier Blogs
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slimboyfat
aqwsed12345, you write:
Peter Schäfer's Two Gods in Heaven highlights a distinct idea in some strands of Jewish thought, but this concept cannot be directly applied to early Christian understanding of Jesus.
Yes, Shäfer argues there is a direct link between the subordinate god in Judaism and Jesus in Christianity:
The proximity of binitarian ideas of pre-Christian ancient Judaism to thoughts and images as encountered in the New Testament is obvious. This is not merely a matter of parallels, much less equations, but rather of the fundamental insight that Second Temple Judaism prepared the stock on which the New Testament could draw, The fact that this, apart from many other themes, also applies to the notion of a "second" God next to the "first" God is an insight that is only slowly beginning to gain acceptance.
Peter Schâfer, Two Gods in Heaven: Jewish Concepts of God in Antiquity (2020), page 135 and 136
Later, you write:
the New Testament never presents Jesus as a mere intermediary or lesser god.
Yes, Jesus is always presented as distinct and subordinate to God in the NT.
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aqwsed12345
@slimboyfat
The argument based on Peter Schäfer's Two Gods in Heaven references Jewish thought suggesting a subordinate divine figure, but this idea is not a direct precursor to NT Christology. Schäfer indicates that Second Temple Judaism provided a conceptual foundation for later Christian theology. However, Alan F. Segal's Two Powers in Heaven traces this notion to rabbinic discussions of early Jewish-Christian and gnostic beliefs, making it speculative to assert that the NT Christology derives directly from this concept. Additionally, Philo’s Logos differs from John’s, showing diverse interpretations of divine intermediaries. All this is a mere assertion that the NT Christology originates from this, rather it is esoteric Jewish speculation that tried to explain the plurality of God in the Old Testament.
The "Two Powers in Heaven" concept highlights that some early Jewish traditions that acknowledged a secondary divine figure, which some scholars argue contributed to later Christian theology, particularly regarding the status of Jesus. However, key differences exist. This Jewish notion was often more about an intermediary or vice-regent figure, such as angels or the Logos of Philo, rather than a fully divine being like Jesus in Christian theology.
Alan F. Segal’s Two Powers in Heaven connects the idea to early Jewish responses to Christian beliefs, but it doesn't directly equate to Trinitarianism. Larry Hurtado and Richard Bauckham have demonstrated that Jesus' role in Christian worship—being directly worshiped as divine—represents a significant evolution beyond earlier Jewish traditions. Thus, while there are parallels, the New Testament presents Jesus as distinct, even surpassing these intermediary figures.
In short, while the Two Powers theory shares conceptual similarities, it is not a direct precursor to the Christian understanding of the Trinity, which includes Jesus as fully divine and co-equal with God, something absent in earlier Jewish thought.
In pure monotheism there is no place for such a partially divine demiurge, one is either fully God or not at all. Violation of this principle already means monolatristic henotheism, of which there were traces in the First Temple era OT books, but following the prophets, especially Isaiah, this was already clarified in the Second Temple era, there is only Yahweh, and there are no other gods at all.
Regarding the claim that "Jesus is always distinct and subordinate to God in the NT," it holds when considering Christ's humanity, since the man Christ is indeed distinct and subordinate to God, who said He isn't? But why are you figthing an imaginary Trinitarian theology that does not acknowledge the Son's human nature as well? Yet, NT texts, especially in John, clearly present Jesus as fully divine, part of the Godhead, which exceeds the scope of a subordinate (ontologically inferior to the Father) or intermediary being. Therefore, the notion of subordination requires nuanced understanding of Christ's dual nature in the NT context.
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peacefulpete
Things get reduced to semantics quickly when this topic has arisen over the centuries. What slimboy seems resistant to is the idea that the second power theology, to use as a shorthand label, included concepts like "Glory" and "presence/ Shekinah of God. There is no actual second person intended but a word/title served as agency in human and earthly affairs. It/he/she was a stand-in for God.
Aqwsed seems resistant to the idea that there is anything resembling equivalence with pre Christian use of expressions of agency, like great Angel, that emphasis subservience.
It is not surprising Christians similarly described their Christ in terms of both subservient and as his stand-in.