What Do We Mean by "First-Century Jewish Monotheism"?<1>

L. W. Hurtado

University of Manitoba

Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

I

The nature of first-century Jewish religion is an obviously

important question both for the history of Judaism and for

Christian Origins. In recent years especially, there has been a

lot of attention given to the monotheism of first-century Jewish

religion, especially (but not exclusively) among scholars

discussing the emergence of "high christology" and the reverence

given to Jesus in early Christianity. In my 1988 book, One God,

One Lord: Early Christian Devotion and Ancient Jewish

Monotheism, I urged that first-century Jewish religious

commitment to the uniqueness of God was the crucial context in

which to approach early Christian devotion to Christ. I

emphasized two characteristics of ancient Jewish religiousness:

(1) a remarkable ability to combine a genuine concern for God's

uniqueness together with an interest in other figures of

transcendent attributes described in the most exalted terms,

likening them to God in some cases; and (2) an exhibition of

monotheistic scruples particularly and most distinctively in

cultic/liturgical behavior.

In this paper I wish to return to the question of "ancient

Jewish monotheism," engaging some others who have written on the

subject recently, and offering some further reflections and

additional evidence on the nature of first-century Jewish

religion. I wish to argue that first-century Jewish religion

characteristically exhibited a monotheistic scruple. I also wish

to make the methodological point that our understanding of

ancient Jewish monotheism needs to be inductively formed and

sufficiently sophisticated to take account of the variety,

flexibility and changes in the way it was manifested in the

Greco-Roman world.

II

Before we look at the evidence of ancient Jewish religion, I

want to offer some critical reflections on some recent studies

alluded to above in which the question of Jewish monotheism plays

a major role. There are significant differences distinguishing

them from one another, but for our purposes they can be

classified into two major groups. One group portrays first-

century Jewish religion as monotheistic, and the other group

questions the validity of doing so. I tend to support those who

attribute monotheistic scruples to first-century Jewish religion,

but I think that studies on both sides of the issue reflect the

need for more careful thinking about the data and how we deal

with them.

In his 1982 study Jesus and the Constraints of History, A.

E. Harvey devoted a chapter to "the Constraint of Monotheism."

Harvey's discussion of Jewish monotheism here is, however, in

fact quite limited. I mention his study more on account of the

importance he attached to Jewish monotheism than for the

contribution he made to understanding it. He did address the

honorific language used to describe figures other than God,

insisting, for example, that reference to Moses as "divine"

(theios) in Josephus (e.g., Ant. 3:180; 8:34, 187; 10:35) and

Philo (e.g., VitaMos. 1:158) "is not so much a religious as a

linguistic phenomenon" indicating "the exceptional nature of his

gifts" but never intended or taken as qualifying "in any way the

unique divinity of the Creator of the world".<2>

But for Harvey, Jewish "monotheism" was more a premise than

his subject. Having posited as the controlling influence upon

early Christian thought about Jesus a firm Jewish monotheism

manifested essentially in a refusal to attribute real divinity to

figures other than God, Harvey then sought to use this to

determine what the christological thought of the NT could have

allowed. His stated as his aim "to show that there is no

unambiguous evidence that the constraint of monotheism was

effectively broken by any New Testament writer," insisting that

the NT documents "show no tendency to describe Jesus in terms of

divinity . . ."<3> In Harvey's view, it is not until Ignatius

of Antioch that we have the "first unambiguous instances" of

Jesus being described as divine.

It was not until the new religion had spread well

beyond the confines of its parent Judaism that it

became possible to break the constraint and describe

Jesus as divine . . .<4>

Both in his description of ancient Jewish monotheism and in

his portrayal of the reverence for Christ reflected in the NT

Harvey is subject to criticism. Our interest here, however, is

the former matter. I single out two things in particular about

his view of Jewish monotheism. First, he refers to it

consistently as a "constraint" that might or might not be

"broken," giving the impression of a fixed doctrinal system with

little adaptive capacity. Second, Harvey focuses on conceptual

and linguistic phenomena, giving insufficient attention to the

critical importance of cultic/liturgical practices emphasized by

ancient Jews as boundary-markers that distinguished the true God

from other divine beings, and that set apart right devotion from

its idolatrous counterfeit.

In Maurice Casey's recently published Cadbury lectures we

have another study of the development of NT christology that

employs Jewish monotheism in a manner similar to Harvey's

treatment.<5> As does Harvey, Casey invokes a Jewish monotheism

that limited and restrained reverence for Jesus so long as early

Christianity was dominated by this mindset, making it impossible

for Jesus to have been regarded as divine. In Casey's view,

however, the restraint was effectively (and lamentably) removed

earlier than Harvey thought, within the Johannine community after

70 C.E., when Gentiles came to dominate the community ensuring

that "Jesus was hailed as God," a second deity alongside the God

of the Bible.<6> At the risk of some oversimplification, they

let the Gentiles move into the Johannine community and there went

the neighborhood! Casey's programmatic portrayal of the

development of NT christology requires more attention than I can

give it here.<7> I restrict myself to a few comments about his

references to Jewish monotheism.

As with Harvey, Casey is mainly concerned to offer an

analysis of NT christology, and he postulates a firm Jewish

monotheism primarily as the crucial device which allows him to

determine the possible limits of early Christian reverence for

Jesus so long as the Christian movement was mainly Jewish in

makeup. In other words, as with Harvey, Casey's view of Jewish

monotheism drives his exegesis of NT christological texts.

Postulating a Jewish monotheism with fixed and powerful

restraints, Casey is then able to insist in case after case that

pre-Johannine NT passages that might at first appear to reflect a

reverence for Jesus as divine cannot in fact be taken that way.

It is handy way of doing exegesis, though not always persuasive,

in my view at least.

Casey's discussion of Jewish monotheism is mainly in chapter

six, where he analyzes the place of messianic and intermediary

figures in second Temple Jewish religion, granting that they are

given an "unusually elevated status" in various ancient Jewish

sources, but insisting that it was impossible for any such figure

to be really regarded as divine within Jewish monotheism.<8>

Though he describes the impressive roles given to divine agents

in various Jewish texts, I am not sure that he has adequately

presented the rather flexible ability of ancient Jewish

monotheism to incorporate a plurality in the operation of the

sovereignty of the one God. Like Harvey, he sees the restraining

force of Jewish monotheism manifested primarily in the way God

was conceptually distinguished from other honorific figures, that

is, in the language used to describe God and other figures. But

I am not sure that the rhetorical distinctions were quite as firm

as Casey claims. Also, he gives scant attention to the

importance of cultic practice in understanding Jewish religion.

Further, in consistently posing the question as to whether Jews

or Christians thought of any figure as a second deity fully

distinguished from the God of Israel, he shows a disappointingly

simplistic and wooden grasp of the complexities and possibilities

of ancient Jewish and Christian beliefs.

In several publications J. D. G. Dunn also has invoked

Jewish monotheism as crucial in his effort to analyze early

Christian reverence for Jesus. In a 1982 essay Dunn poses two

main questions: (1) Was pre-Christian Jewish monotheism

"threatened" by beliefs about "heavenly redeemer figures and

intermediary beings"? (2) Did earliest christology constitute a

threat to or departure from Jewish monotheism?<9> Both questions

he essentially answers in the negative, but we are concerned here

primarily with the way he deals with the first question. It is

interesting to note the subtle shifts and developments (of a

positive nature, in my judgment) in his views over the past

decade or so.<10>

Though the general drift of Dunn's analysis is that there

was no significant threat to Jewish monotheism in pre-Christian

Jewish conceptions of redeemer and/or intermediary figures, he

seems to allow for development and change in Jewish traditions of

the Greco-Roman period, implying more than Harvey or Casey a

flexible Jewish monotheism able to stretch and bend a good deal

without breaking.<11> In his 1982 essay he granted potential

threats to Jewish monotheism in the vivid language of

personification of divine attributes (such as Wisdom and Logos),

and, more seriously, in "one strand of esoteric mysticism"

involving a human-like figure, a principal angel and/or patriarch

described as bearing the divine name and/or glory.<12> In the

pre-Christian period the former was "kept under control and would

not have been perceived as a threat" to monotheism.<13> Dunn

initially saw speculations about a second figure like God

becoming a danger to Jewish monotheism in the early second

century,<14> but more recently has emphasized "strains" from

various speculations about principal agent figures becoming

apparent by the end of the first century.<15> His suggestion

that the "high" christology of Hebrews, the Gospel of John and

Revelation may be one strand of a larger number of speculations

about the divine in Jewish groups of the late first century that

distended or threatened monotheism is worth further

consideration.

There are also slight shifts in the way Dunn approaches

Jewish monotheism. In his earlier comments on the significance

of secondary figures in Jewish monotheism, Dunn dwelt entirely on

the descriptions of them and the concepts held about them.<16>

More recently, he has also taken some account of the importance

of cultic practices (worship) as indicators of religious

scruples, both in Jewish and Christian circles.<17>

Over against the view that first-century Jewish religion was

strongly monotheistic, there are recent claims directly to the

contrary by Peter Hayman and Margaret Barker especially.<18>

There are striking similarities in their views, along with

distinguishing features also. Although both could be subjected

to strong criticisms, the claims both advance encompass such a

breadth of material that it is not possible here to offer a

detailed examination. It will have to suffice for this essay to

give some limited critical observations.

Taking as his subject "the pattern of Jewish beliefs about

God from the Exile to the Middle Ages," Peter Hayman states as

his aim "to assess whether or not it is truly monistic."<19>

Hayman claims that down to the Middle Ages Jewish religion

retained a "dualistic pattern" from the ancient Canaanite

background and that "functionally Jews believed in the existence

of two gods."<20> He invokes five things in support of his case:

(1) indications that a doctrine of creation ex nihilo is not

found until well into the Middle Ages; (2) references to the

possibility of mystical unity with God and to ideas of

metamorphosis of human figures (e.g., Enoch) into

heavenly/angelic beings;<21> (3) the prominence of angels in

ancient Jewish texts, and prohibitions against worshipping them;

(4) evidence of Jewish practice of magic involving the invocation

of a variety of heavenly figures (usually named angels) along

with God as sources of magical power; (5) the alleged survival of

a divine consort of Yahweh in post-exilic references to Wisdom

and Logos. Hayman illustrates that ancient Jews were not

unitarians, but it is not clear that his data shows them to be

di-theistic.

Barker gives a book-length case for a somewhat similar point

of view. Ranging over "an enormous amount of material from

ancient Canaan to mediaeval Kabbalah,"<22> Barker's discussion is

certainly provocative. It is also frequently infuriating in its

almost cavalier handling of ancient evidence and modern

scholarship. Her view seems to be that Greco-Roman Jewish

religion included a both monotheistic strain (the heirs of the

Deuteronomistic reformers) and, as a kind of underground

theology, another strain or line of religious tradition which

resisted the reforming, purging efforts of the Deuteronomistic

school and its heirs, and in which there were always two deities.

Unfortunately, the wide range of Barker's discussion results in a

wide range of dubious claims.<23>

Moreover, it is clear that Barker's real aim in alleging a

di-theistic Judaism in the first century is to provide a ready

explanation for the rapid ease with which Jesus was treated as

divine in first-century Christian groups.<24> According to

Barker, Jesus was quickly and easily regarded as divine by Jewish

Christians because they were well accustomed to thinking in terms

of two deities. But I confess to wondering if Barker's sharply

polemical purpose has controlled too much her handling of the

Jewish and Christian evidence.<25> In any case, though Barker's

discussion is longer than Hayman's, it basically elaborates a

very similar position, and I therefore treat their views

together.<26>

I suggest that on both sides of the issue (to varying

degrees among the individual studies) there has been a tendency

to proceed deductively from a priori presumptions of what

monotheism must mean, instead of building up a view inductively

from the evidence of how monotheism actually operated in the

thought and practice of ancient Jews. There seems to be an

implicit agreement on both sides that more than one transcendent

being of any significance complicates or constitutes a weakening

of or threat to monotheism. Those who see first-century Jewish

religion as monotheistic tend, therefore, to downplay the

significance and attributes given by ancient Jews to any

transcendent beings other than God. For these scholars often,

ancient Jewish monotheism must mean that the descriptions of such

beings are largely rhetorical. Though I am convinced regarding

some examples, I am not sure that the descriptions are always

purely rhetoric, as we shall see later in this paper.

Those on the other side of the issue tend to emphasize the

honorific ways in which transcendent beings other than God are

described and the prominent positions they occupy in the

religious conceptions reflected in ancient Jewish texts, alleging

that first-century Jews were not really monotheists after all.

It is clear that ancient Jews were not characteristically monists

or unitarians, but does this mean that they were not monotheists?

That is, on both sides there is a tendency to proceed as if we

can know in advance what "monotheism" must mean, which turns out

to be a very modern, monistic form of monotheism, and can

accordingly evaluate ancient Jewish texts and beliefs as to

whether or how closely they meet an a priori standard of "pure"

monotheism. Interestingly, Hayman disavows any such intention,

but it seems to me that he in fact winds up doing this very

thing.<27>

In place of this rather Aristotelian approach, I urge us to

work more inductively, gathering what "monotheism" is on the

ground, so to speak, from the evidence of what self-professed

monotheists believe and practice. In fact, I suggest that for

historical investigation our policy should be to take people as

monotheistic if that is how they describe themselves, in spite of

what we might be inclined to regard at first as anomalies in

their beliefs. Such "anomalies," I suggest in fact are extremely

valuable data in shaping our understanding of monotheism out of

the actual beliefs of actual people and traditions who describe

themselves in monotheistic language.

Moreover, with a few exceptions, scholars on both sides (but

perhaps especially those who have portrayed ancient Jewish

religion as strongly monotheistic) have tended to give

insufficient allowance to the flexibility and variety in forms of

monotheistic religion. In previous work I have emphasized how

early Christians such as Paul were quite able to refer to their

beliefs in monotheistic language while accommodating devotion to

Christ in terms and actions characteristically deemed appropriate

for God (e.g., 1 Cor. 8:4-6). Though I have not found another

fully analogous example of quite such a robust and programmatic

binitarian monotheistic devotion in first-century Jewish

tradition, with other scholars I have illustrated the sometimes

astonishingly exalted ways divine agents can be described in

Jewish texts which exhibit a strong monotheistic orientation.<28>

In particular, we should note the cases where a principal angel

is given God's name (e.g., Yahoel) and is visually described in

theophanic language, sometimes causing the human who encounters

the angel to confuse the angel initially with God.<29> These

data illustrate the variety and flexibility in ancient Jewish

monotheistic tradition, especially the ability to accommodate

"divine" figures in addition to the God of Israel in the belief

structure and religious outlook.

In addition to variety, we should allow for change and

development. In his proposal that Jewish monotheism may have

undergone some significant changes and developments in the late

first and early second century, whether or not one finds his

proposal persuasive in all specifics, Dunn seems commendably to

allow for a more flexible and dynamic Jewish monotheism than many

other scholars on either side of the debate I have been

surveying.

As a final observation in this section reviewing recent

statements about ancient Jewish monotheism, I wish to criticize

the tendency among scholars to focus on describing concepts and

doctrines, with inadequate attention given to religious

practices, especially cultic and liturgical practices and related

behavior. Thus, for example, scholars argue largely about

whether ancient Jews conceived of more than one figure as divine,

and seek to answer the question almost entirely on the basis of

semantic arguments, without studying adequately how ancient Jews

practiced their faith.

I suggest that, for ancient Jews, Christians and pagans, the

primary exhibitions of what we would call their religiousness

were in cultic and liturgical behavior, and that Jewish and

Christian monotheistic commitment was exhibited most sharply in

scruples about worship (as I shall argue more extensively later

in this paper). Consequently, if we wish to understand ancient

Jewish and Christian monotheism, if we wish to measure its

intensity, if we wish to know how it operated and what it meant

"on the ground" in the lives of adherents, we should pay

considerable attention to the way their commitment to the

uniqueness of one God was exhibited in their practice with regard

to granting cultic veneration to other beings or figures.

As I have argued in One God, One Lord, and as I shall

reiterate again below, it is precisely with reference to worship

that ancient Jewish religious tradition most clearly

distinguished the unique one God from other beings, even those

described as "divine" and clothed with god-like attributes. And

I add in passing here that this makes the early readiness of

monotheistic Christians to accommodate public cultic veneration

of Jesus the most striking evidence that Christian devotion

quickly constituted a significant innovation in Jewish

exclusivist monotheism.

III

I have suggested for a working principle that we should take

as "monotheism" the religious beliefs and practices of people who

describe themselves as monotheistic. Otherwise, we implicitly

import a definition from the sphere of theological polemics in an

attempt to do historical analysis. Protestants, for example,

might find some forms of Roman Catholic or Orthodox piety

involving the saints and the Virgin problematic forms of

monotheism, and this might constitute a fully valid theological

issue to be explored. But scholars interested in historical

analysis, I suggest, should take the various Protestant, Roman

Catholic and Orthodox traditions as representing varying forms of

Christian monotheism. If we are to avoid a priori definitions

and the imposition of our own theological judgments, we have no

choice but to accept as monotheism the religion of those who

profess to be monotheists, however, much their religion varies

and may seem "complicated" with other beings in addition to the

one God.

With reference to first-century Jewish tradition, then, two

initial questions naturally arise. Did Jews of the period

characteristically profess their religious commitment in

monotheistic terms? What was the monotheistic rhetoric they

used? Fortunately, these are rather easy questions to answer, on

account of the work of several other scholars who have given

quite detailed attention to these matters. I shall, therefore,

restrict my discussion here to a few illustrations of ancient

Jewish monotheistic rhetoric and point the reader to the studies

in question for more full presentations of the evidence.

I note in passing that monotheistic rhetoric, e.g., the use

of heis and monos formulae in references to the divine, can be

found in non-Jewish sources of the Greco-Roman period as well, as

Erik Peterson has shown.<30> But in religious practice, this

pagan "monotheism" amounted to the recognition of all gods as

expressions of one common divine essence or as valid second-order

gods under a (often unknowable) high god, and, as such, as worthy

of worship. This was categorically different from the

exclusivist monotheism of Jews who rejected the worship of beings

other than the one God of the Bible.<31> That is, apparently

"monotheistic" rhetoric may represent quite different conceptions

and may be employed by people with quite different commitments

and patterns of religious behavior. We have here a dramatic

example of the necessity of complimenting a study of religious

rhetoric and concepts with adequate attention to religious

practice in taking the measure of a religion. But, before we

turn to key religious practices of ancient Jews, we may consider

evidence that they did express their faith emphatically in

monotheistic rhetoric.

In a lengthy article from 1955, Samuel Cohon surveyed

references both in ancient Jewish and non-Jewish texts

illustrating Jewish self-affirmation and their identification by

others in clearly monotheistic rhetoric.<32> Of non-Jewish

writers, we may note Tacitus as an example: "the Jews acknowledge

one God only, and conceive of Him by the mind alone,"<33>

reflecting Jewish monotheism and rejection of cult images. Among

non-rabbinic texts of Jewish provenance, Cohon surveys

affirmations of God's uniqueness in Sibylline Oracles (3:11-12,

545-61; cf. 4:27-32; 5:172-76, 493-500), Aristeas (132-38),

Wisdom of Solomon (13-15), and references in Philo (e.g.,

Quest.Gen. 4:8; Vit.Mos. 1:75; Decal. 52-81; Spec.Leg. 1:1-52;

Leg.Alleg. 3:97-99, 436-38) and Josephus (e.g., Ant. 2.12:4;

Apion 2:33ff.).<34>

We may also cite Ralph Marcus' frequently overlooked but

very valuable compilation of theological vocabulary from Jewish

Hellenistic texts (excluding Josephus and with only illustrative

citations from Philo).<35> Marcus' main point was to indicate

the degree to which Greek-speaking Jews maintained traditional

expressions for God and the degree to which they adopted

religious and philosophical vocabulary of Greek literature.

Marcus listed some 470 expressions, attributing about twenty-five

percent as borrowed from Greek literary tradition, the remaining,

overwhelming majority coming from the Greek Bible.<36> Marcus'

summary of the theological themes reflected in these expressions

shows the strongly monotheistic nature of concept of God they

reflect.

God is variously represented as one and unique, as

creator, ruler and king, residing in heaven, all-

powerful, all-seeing, omniscient, as father of Israel,

as savior, as judge, as righteous, terrible, merciful,

benevolent and forbearing.<37>

Marcus left Josephus out of his study because Schlatter had

earlier devoted two publications to an in-depth analysis of

Josephus' language and conception of God, showing Josephus'

indebtedness and fidelity to the Jewish emphases on the

uniqueness and sovereignty of the God of Israel.<38> Schlatter's

studies were supplemented by Shutt in an article investigating

whether Josephus' ways of referring to and describing God "show

any appreciable influence of Greek language and culture."<39>

Though he concedes that Josephus' expressions show the influence

upon him of non-Jewish terms and ideas (e.g., references to

"Fate" and "Fortune"), Shutt concludes that "fundamental

theological principles of Judaism" remained dominant in Josephus'

writings, including the belief in the sovereignty of the God of

Israel over all.<40>

H. J. Wicks conducted a still valuable study covering Jewish

apocryphal and apocalyptic literature of the second-Temple

period, analyzing the language and doctrine of God reflected

therein. He gave persuasive evidence of strong monotheistic

beliefs throughout the period and of a lively religious sense of

God's sovereignty and accessibility.<41>

Surely the most wide-ranging analysis of second-Temple

Jewish monotheistic rhetoric, however, is in the recent

dissertation by Paul Rainbow.<42> Working from a database of 200

passages where he finds monotheistic expressions (including about

twenty-five passages from the NT), Rainbow offers some

sophisticated linguistic analysis of the "ten forms of explicit

monotheistic speech" characteristic of Greco-Roman Jewish

texts.<43> These are: (1) phrases linking a divine title with

adjectives such as "one," "only," sole, alone, etc.; (2) God

pictured as monarch over all; (3) a divine title linked with

"living" and/or "true"; (4) positive confessional formula,

"Yahweh is God" etc.; (5) explicit denials of other gods; (6) the

glory of God not transferrable; (7) God described as without

rival; (8) God referred to as incomparable; (9) scriptural

passages used as expressions of monotheism, e.g., the Shema; (10)

restrictions of worship to the one God.

As the studies I have cited here lay out the data in

considerable detail and can be consulted, it would be tedious to

burden this discussion with a host of additional references to

the primary texts. I submit that the religious rhetoric of

Greco-Roman Jewish texts indicates that Jews saw themselves as

monotheists. If their willingness to include other heavenly

beings in their beliefs may cause problems for modern monistic or

unitarian definitions of monotheism (as Hayman and Barker

complain), the problem is in imposing such definitions. If we

follow the principle I advocate of taking people as monotheists

who proclaim such a commitment, then ancient Jews must be seen as

characteristically monotheists.

I suggest that there are two major themes or concerns that

seem to come through in this monotheistic rhetoric. I emphasize

these two concerns here because I think that recognizing them

helps us to get inside the rhetoric, so to speak, and also will

help us in understanding better the significance of developments

in Jewish monotheistic rhetoric toward the end of the period we

are concerned with in this essay.<44>

First, there is a concern to assert God's universal

sovereignty. This is reflected with particular frequency in

statements insisting that the one God created everything and

rules over all, even nations that do not acknowledge this God.

Even where spiritual powers of evil are pictured as opposing God,

as is often the case in apocalyptic writings, their opposition is

characteristically described as temporary, ultimately futile.

Satan/Beliel/Mastema figures are rebellious servants of God,

whose attempts to thwart God's will only serve it by exposing the

wicked (who cooperate with evil) and by testing and proving the

righteous (who oppose evil and remain true to God).

Second, there is a concern to assert God's uniqueness, which

is characteristically expressed by contrasting God with the other

deities familiar to ancient Jews in the larger religious

environment. The classic ridicule of other gods and of the

practice of worshipping images in Deutero-Isaiah (e.g., 40:18-20;

41:21-24; 45:20-21; 46:5-7) is echoed in texts of the Hellenistic

and Roman periods (e.g., Wis., 13-15). We may take Philo's

comment in his discussion of the first commandment as

representative of conscientious Jews of his time:

Let us, then, engrave deep in our hearts this as the

first and most sacred of commandments; to acknowledge

and honour one God who is above all, and let the idea

that gods are many never even reach the ears of the man

whose rule of life is to seek for truth in purity and

guilelessness.<45>

It is important to note that this concern for God's

uniqueness also comes to expression in a contrast or distinction

between God and his loyal heavenly retinue, the angels.<46> For

example, angels can be distinguished as created beings from God

who is uncreated. In general, God is distinguished from the

angels rhetorically by emphasizing that he is superior to them

and is their master. Even when we have a principal angel such as

Yahoel who bears the divine name within him and in some sense may

be taken thereby as "divine," as special vehicle of God's

attributes (Apoc.Abr. 10:3-4, 8-17), the angel acts at the

pleasure of God, and is finally a minister of God, an extension

of the sovereignty of the one God.

IV

These two concerns, for God's sovereignty and uniqueness,

are also manifested in the cultic/liturgical and larger

devotional behavior of practicing Jews in the Greco-Roman era.

Indeed, these concerns come to most visible and characteristic

expression in this area of religious practice, and it is here

that Jewish (and Christian) religiousness was most sharply

distinguished from other forms which may also have used

"monotheistic"-sounding rhetoric.<47> In our definition of

first-century Jewish monotheism, I argue, we must go beyond

religious rhetoric and attempts to define theological concepts,

and recognize the importance of religious practice.

We may begin by pointing to an obvious datum about which I

assume there will be no controversy: at least in the Greek and

Roman eras, Jerusalem Temple sacrifice was offered exclusively to

the one God of Israel. In other words, this central Jewish

religious institution by its cultic practice reflects a strongly

monotheistic orientation.<48> For all the lofty ways patriarchs

and angels were described in contemporary Jewish texts, there was

no cultus to them, no evidence of them receiving liturgical

honors in the Temple services.

The Qumran texts show an apparent dissent from the

administration of the Jerusalem Temple, but reflect no different

orientation of religious devotion. The hymns (1QH) are sung to

the one God. The prayers are offered to the one God. The Angel

Liturgy shows an interest in the worship offered by the heavenly

court, with the angels' worship as a pattern and inspiration for

the earthly elect, but the angels are not objects of worship.<49>

As to the nature of synagogue services, though recent

studies caution us about reading too much of later material into

the pre-70 C.E. period and suggest greater variety and

flexibility than was later the case, nevertheless all available

evidence points to synagogue religious devotion focused on the

one God and his Torah.<50> The Nash Papyrus (second century BCE)

gives evidence of the Decalogue and Shema, key traditional

expressions of God's uniqueness, being used for instructional

and/or liturgical purposes.<51> Other texts suggest daily

recitations of the Shema by at least some pious Jews of the

Greco-Roman period, and there are wider indications of the impact

of this classic monotheistic text on the devotional practices of

Jews as shown in the use of tefillin and mezuzot and the custom

of daily prayers (e.g., Josephus, Ant. 4.212).<52>

We have a good deal of material with which to form

impressions of the patterns of Jewish prayer in the second-Temple

period, as Charlesworth and Flusser have shown in helpful

inventories of the evidence.<53> Though the prayers recorded in

the surviving texts may well be more rhetorically sophisticated

than most spontaneous prayers of ordinary Jews of the time, it is

likely that the basic pattern and themes are representative.

Jewish readers were likely expected to see in these literary

prayers only more eloquent expressions of the piety they shared

with the authors.

In his study of the doctrine of God in non-canonical second-

Temple texts, Wicks included special attention to the prayers of

these writings. Somewhat later, N. B. Johnson devoted a

monograph to the prayers in these texts. Both demonstrated that

all the prayers in these writings are offered to the God of

Israel alone. Though angels may serve as bearers of prayers and

as intercessors for humans (e.g., Tob. 12:11-15), God is the

object of prayers by humans and angels alike.<54> As I have

pointed out elsewhere, in those texts where angels figure

prominently in the operation of God's sovereignty, God is the

recipient of worship and the object of the prayers.<55> We may

also note Bauckham's study of apocalyptic passages in which a

human recipient of a revelation initially mistakes for God the

angel who delivers it and starts to offer the being worship, but

is forbidden by the angel to proceed.<56>

In the 1992 meeting of the SBL, Clinton Arnold presented a

study of epigraphical evidence in an effort to determine the

pattern of Jewish piety reflected in it, especially concerned

with the role of angels.<57> He grants that angels "figure

prominently in the belief system" of the Jewish individuals or

circles from which the inscriptions derive, and that angels are

invoked for protection in an apotropaic manner. But he

emphasizes that the evidence does not indicate any organized

devotional pattern in which Jews "gather regularly to adore, pray

to, and worship angels."<58> The inclusion of angels in rabbinic

lists of prohibited objects of worship may be directed in part

against such apotropaic invocations and against Jewish

syncretistic dabbling in magical practices, as Mach suggests.<59>

These prohibitions, however, hardly prove an actual Jewish angel

cultus in operation.<60>

In references to One God, One Lord, several scholars have

demurred from my position that there is no evidence of organized

devotion to angels or other figures among groups of devout Jews.

Andrew Chester has recently alluded to the Life of Adam and Eve

(13-16) and Joseph and Asenath (15:11-12) as possible references

to such practices.<61> But I find neither text persuasive. The

scene in Adam and Eve is surely laden with theological meaning,

specifically the idea that humans are God's most favored

creature, superior to the angels (cf. 1 Cor. 6:3), and that

Satan's hostility to humans is rebellion against God. But this

etiological story of God's demand that the angels acknowledge the

superior honor of the human creature as God's "image" hardly

constitutes evidence that Jews actually offered worship to

Adam.<62> Chester's allusion to Joseph and Asenath, appears to

ignore my observation that the mysterious angel who appears to

Asenath in fact refuses to cooperate with her desire to offer him

worship, which suggests that her request is to be taken as a

misguided pagan response corrected by the angel.<63>

Rainbow has pointed to Pseudo-Philo 13:6 (where God says,

"The feast of Trumpets will be an offering for your watchers") as

a possible hint of angel worship, but this is not the more

plausible way to take the passage, as the translator in the

Charlesworth edition indicates.<64> Moreover, 34:2 makes it

clear that the author regards sacrificing to (disobedient) angels

as a forbidden practice of gentile magicians.<65> Nor is there

in fact any cogent evidence from Philo of prayer or worship being

offered to figures other than God.<66>

In short, the data largely represent faithful Jews

expressing their scruples about worship and prayer to figures

other than God.<67> We may have hints here of a concern that

some Jews were not sufficiently faithful in maintaining a sharp

distinction between the unique God of Israel and other figures,

whether pagan gods or servants of the true God (a concern

explicitly expressed in rabbinic criticism of "two powers"

heretics).<68> We certainly have evidence of faithful Jews

attempting to maintain and strengthen a distinction between their

monotheistic devotional pattern and the polytheistic pattern of

the larger Greco-Roman world. But we hardly have evidence of

Jewish religious groups in which cultic/liturgical devotion to

angels or patriarchs formed part of their open religious

practice.

The point I wish to emphasize is that all these data show

how important cultic/liturgical practice was as an expression of

monotheistic scruples. Jews were quite willing to imagine beings

who bear the divine name within them and can be referred to by

one or more of God's titles (e.g., Yahoel or Melchizedek as

elohim or, later, Metatron as yahweh ha-katon), beings so endowed

with divine attributes as to make it difficult to distinguish

them descriptively from God, beings who are very direct personal

extensions of God's powers and sovereignty. About this, there is

clear evidence. This clothing of servants of God with God's

attributes and even his name will seem "theologically very

confusing" if we go looking for a "strict monotheism" of

relatively modern distinctions of "ontological status" between

God and these figures, and expect such distinctions to be

expressed in terms of "attributes and functions." By such

definitions of the term, Greco-Roman Jews seem to have been quite

ready to accommodate various divine beings.<69> The evidence we

have surveyed here shows that it is in fact in the area of

worship that we find "the decisive criterion" by which Jews

maintained the uniqueness of God over against both idols and

God's own deputies. I may also add that the characteristic

willingness of Greco-Roman Jews to endure the opprobrium of non-

Jews over their refusal to worship the other deities, even to the

point of martyrdom, seems to me to constitute a fairly "strict

monotheism."<70> Their strictness, however, was expressed more

in cultic scruples rather than in a theological monism or the

kind verbal and of conceptual distinctions modern scholars might

more readily appreciate.

To summarize this point, God's sovereignty was imagined as

including many figures, some of them in quite prominent roles.

There was a plurality in the operation of the divine as

characteristically described by ancient Jews. God was

distinguished from other beings most clearly in this: It is

required to offer God worship; it is inappropriate to offer

worship to any other.

V

I propose that Jewish monotheism can be taken as

constituting a distinctive version of the commonly-attested

belief structure described by Nilsson as involving a "high god"

who presides over other deities.<71> The God of Israel presides

over a court of heavenly beings who are likened to him (as is

reflected in, e.g., the OT term for them "sons of God"). In

pagan versions, too, the high god can be described as father and

source of the other divine beings, and as utterly superior to

them.<72> In this sense, Jewish (and Christian) monotheism,

whatever its distinctives, shows its historical links with the

larger religious environment of the ancient world.

There are distinctives of the Jewish version, however, both

in beliefs and, even more emphatically in religious practice. As

Nilsson has shown, in pagan versions often the high god is

posited but not really known. Indeed, in some cases

(particularly in Greek philosophical traditions), it is

emphasized that the high god cannot be known. Accordingly, often

one does not expect to relate directly to the high god or address

this deity directly in worship or petition.<73> In Greco-Roman

Jewish belief, however, the high god is known as the God of

Israel, whose ways and nature are revealed in the Scriptures of

Israel. Also, as the evidence of Jewish prayer and cultic

practice surveyed above shows, Jews characteristically expected,

indeed felt obliged, to address their high God directly in prayer

and worship.

Moreover, in pagan versions, beliefs about a high god were

not characteristically taken as demanding or justifying a cultic

neglect of the other divine beings. In Jewish religious

practice, worship characteristically is restricted to the high

God alone. This is not simply a religious preference; it is

taken as an obligation, and failure to observe this obligation is

idolatry. Philo, for example, urges his readers to avoid

confusing the "satraps" with "the Great King" (Decal. 61-65),

when it comes to worship.

These constitute chief distinctives of the ancient Jewish

understanding of the nature of the divine. In basic structure,

their view of the divine involved a principal deity distinguished

from all other divine/heavenly beings, but characteristically

accompanied by them, a "high-god" or "monarchial" theology not

completely unlike other high-god beliefs of the ancient world.

But in the identification of the high god specifically as the God

revealed in the Bible, and, even more emphatically, in their

characteristic reservation of worship to this one God, their

religion demonstrates what we can call "exclusivist monotheism."

Both in theology and in practice, Greco-Roman Jews demonstrate

concerns for God's supremacy and uniqueness to an intensity and

with a solidarity that seem to go far beyond anything else

previous in the Greco-Roman world.

Quite a lot could be accommodated in Jewish speculations

about God's retinue of heavenly beings, provided that God's

sovereignty and uniqueness were maintained. I think that we may

take it as likely that the glorious beings such as principal

angels who attend God in ancient Jewish apocalyptic and mystical

texts were intended by the authors very much as indicating God's

splendor and majesty, and not as threatening or diminishing God

in any way. The greater and more glorious the high king, the

greater and more glorious his ministers, particularly those

charged with administering his kingdom.

God's sovereignty was expressed and protected by portraying

all spheres of creation and all the heavenly beings, even those

temporarily "disobedient" (Satan/Beliel, demons, fallen angels)

as inferior and subservient to God, ultimately within God's

power. God's uniqueness was characteristically manifested and

protected in religious practice, by directing prayer (especially

in the cultic/liturgical setting) and worship to God alone,

withholding such devotion from any other heavenly being,

including God's closest ministers and agents.

In his study of rabbinic criticisms of "two powers"

heresies, Alan Segal has identified two types of heresies

attacked, and has suggested that one type was Jewish Christian

reverence of Jesus and the other was gnostic speculation about a

Demiurge creator-god.<74> I think Segal is correct, and that the

two developments in question were considered heretical because

they were seen to challenge the two fundamental concerns of

Jewish monotheism. Gnostic speculations attributing the creation

to a divine being other than the high god were likely taken as

constituting a severe diminishing of the universal sovereignty of

God, removing from God's purposes and control the sensory world

and human history. Jewish-Christian reverence of the exalted

Jesus in terms and actions characteristically reserved for God,

as described in One God, One Lord,<75> though it was initially a

"mutation" within Jewish monotheistic tradition, was a

sufficiently distinctive variant form to have been seen by many

non-Christian Jews as compromising the uniqueness of God in the

important sphere of cultic action. Whether there were other

versions of such heresies that developed within the Jewish

monotheistic tradition of the late first or early second century

remains an intriguing but thus far debatable possibility.

The reactions against the known "heresies" the rabbis had in

mind, Jewish Christianity and Gnostic groups, may well have

produced a hardening of rabbinic monotheism in the direction away

from the more inclusive and monarchial monotheism and toward a

more monistic or unitarian character in some rabbinic circles, as

Dunn has suggested. But, as Mach has recently argued, we should

probably also allow for other (e.g., political) factors, in

accounting for rabbinic unease with angel speculations.<76> We

should also recognize that interest in angels, including

principal angels likened to God and closely associated with God,

may have declined in some circles and in some periods, but was

active in some devout Jewish circles after the first century, as

evidenced in 3 Enoch and other texts. There were reactions

against Christian and Gnostic developments, but it is not clear

whether these reactions produced a significantly and widely-

embraced modification of the fundamental shape of Jewish

monotheistic belief and practice. It does seem, however, that

reaction against the Jewish Christian form of binitarian

monotheism, involving devotion to God and to the exalted Christ,

may have had the effect of making any other such programmatic

binitarian development unacceptable thereafter.

VI

We may summarize this discussion of first-century Jewish

monotheism in the following points.

(1) Definitions of monotheism must be formed on the basis of

the beliefs and practices of those who describe themselves in

monotheistic terms. This means that there will likely be

varieties within and among monotheistic traditions, and that it

is inappropriate for historical purposes to impose one definition

or to use one definition as a standard of "strict" or "pure"

monotheism in a facile manner.

(2) "First-century Jewish monotheism" represents the

religious commitment to the universal sovereignty and uniqueness

of the one God of Israel, a commitment widely expressed in

religious rhetoric of Jewish texts of the entire second-Temple

period and reflected also in the NT.

(3) This commitment to the one God of Israel accommodated a

large retinue of heavenly beings distinguished from God more in

degree than kind as to their attributes, some of these beings

portrayed as in fact sharing quite directly in God's powers and

even his name. The monotheism of ancient Jews was thus

characteristically "monarchial" and may be seen as a significant

adaptation of the "high god" belief structure of the ancient

world. Among God's entourage, there is often a particular

principal agent or vizier, who can be likened to God in

appearance, name and attributes/functions. This too was not

apparently seen as a problem, for the principal agent was not

characteristically given cultic devotion. Early Christian cultic

devotion to Christ alongside God, though indebted conceptually to

pre-Christian Jewish traditions of principal agent figures,

apparently represents an extraordinary adaptation of Jewish

monotheistic tradition.<77> In their own eyes, early Christians

offered cultic devotion to Christ in obedience to the one God and

saw their binitarian devotion as legitimate, indeed, required.

As, however, rabbinic authorities sought to consolidate Judaism

in the post-70 C.E. period, they succeeded more effectively in

identifying the Jewish-Christian binitarian adaptation as an

unacceptable form of Jewish monotheistic tradition.

(5) There are distinguishing features of Greco-Roman Jewish

monotheism, over against the more prevalent religious structures

of the ancient world. There are theological distinctives: The

high god has in fact revealed himself in Scripture, is known and

can be characterized, and can and must be approached quite

directly in prayer and worship. There are additional important

distinctives in scruples about religious practice: Worship is

restricted to the one God and it is forbidden to offer devotion

to other beings, even God's own glorious angelic ministers.

First-century Jewish monotheism was, thus, an exclusivist,

monarchial view of God, manifested particuarly in "orthopraxy" in

cultic/liturgical matters.

<1> I gratefully acknowledge a research grant from the Social

Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

<2> A. E. Harvey, Jesus and the Constraints of History

(Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1982), 157.

<3> Ibid.

<4> Ibid.

<5> P. M. Casey, From Jewish Prophet to Gentile God: The

Origins and Development of New Testament Christology (Louisville:

Westminster Press/John Knox Press; Cambridge: James Clarke &

Co., 1991).

<6> Ibid., 36. And see, e.g., 138, 144, 156.

<7> For a critique, see J. D. G. Dunn, "The Making of

Christology--Evolution or Unfolding?" in the forthcoming

Festschrift for I. H. Marshall edited by M. M. B. Turner. I

limit myself here to observing that Casey's attempt to explain

the development of christology purely on the basis of the

changing social makeup of early Christianity rests too heavily

upon two dubious notions. (1) He assumes that Gentiles

Christians were automatically less concerned about monotheistic

commitment, an assumption Casey could have avoided by studying

the literature of second-century Gentile Christians, who often

seem more concerned about monotheism than christology. See,

e.g., Joseph Lortz, "Das Christentum als Monotheismus in den

Apologien des zweiten Jahrhunderts," in Beitrge zur Geschichte

Festgabe Albert Ehrhard, ed. A. M. Koeniger (Bonn: Kurt

Schroeder, 1922), 301-27. (2) His claim that a Gentile-dominated

new religious movement would have had to deify its

identification-figure (in this case, Jesus) in order to provide

sufficient cohesiveness for itself, is refuted by the example of

Islam, which felt no need to deify its central revealer-figure,

yet quickly acquired a quite adequate cohesion!

<8> Ibid., 85.

<9> J. D. G. Dunn, "Was Christianity a Monotheistic Faith from

the Beginning?" SJT 35(1982), 303-36. The two questions are

posed on p. 307.

<10> See J. D. G. Dunn, Christology in the Making: An Inquiry

into the Origins of the Doctrine of the Incarnation (London:

SCM; Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1980); id., "Foreword to

the Second Edition," Christology in the Making (2nd ed.; London:

SCM, 1989), where Dunn explicitly indicates how his views have

been shaped in the years since 1980. And see also id., The

Significance for the Character of Christianity (London: SCM,

1991), esp. chaps. 9-11.

<11> E.g., Dunn, "Was Christianity a Monotheistic Faith," 321-

22.

<12> Cf. ibid., 322; id., "Foreword," xxiv, xxviii-xxix.

<13> Dunn, "Was Christianity a Monotheistic Faith," 322.

<14> Ibid.

<15> Dunn, "Foreword," xxviii-xxix. See also Dunn, Partings,

223-25 and 228, where he locates problematic developments in

Jewish monotheism from mystical and apocalyptic groups within the

period 70-132 C.E. Dunn takes the rabbinic criticisms of "two

powers" heretics as evidence that such developments were

perceived as unacceptable "strains" in monotheism.

<16> This emphasis is evident in Christology in the Making

(1980) and in his 1982 essay, "Was Christianity a Monotheistic

Faith."

<17> See Dunn, Partings, 219-20, where he notes that the "clear

and uninhibited worship of the Lamb" in Revelation 5 represents a

significant abandonment of typical monotheistic "inhibitions"

and, along with the theophanic portrayal of Christ in the visions

of Revelation, shows that the "constraints of monotheism

previously observed were being challenged". In chapter 10 of

Partings (204-6), Dunn interacts with my argument that such

cultic veneration of Jesus was the decisive Christian innovation

in Jewish monotheistic religion, granting that the worship of

Jesus was significant but questioning whether it developed as

early and as quickly as I have suggested. Cf. L. W. Hurtado, One

God, One Lord, esp. chap. 5 (93-124). Though I agree that there

was likely growth in the intensity of cultic/liturgical devotion

offered to Jesus in the early Christian groups, I think that the

initial steps in the cultic veneration of Jesus were more

significant than Dunn appears to grant, and more rapidly

constituted a significant innovation in Jewish monotheistic

practice. In a critique of Casey, Dunn affirms my emphasis on

the early origins of devotion to Christ as important ("The Making

of Christology: Evolution or Unfolding?" forthcoming in the

Festschrift for I. H. Marshall edited by Max Turner).

<18> Peter Hayman, "Monotheism--A Misused Word in Jewish

Studies?" JJS 42(1991), 1-15; Margaret Barker, The Great Angel:

A Study of Israel's Second God (London: SPCK, 1992).

<19> Hayman, 2.

<20> Ibid., 14.

<21> This is emphasized also by C. R. A. Morray-Jones,

"Transformational Mysticism in the Apocalyptic-Merkabah

Tradition," JJS 43(1992), 1-31; id., "The Body of Glory: Shiur

Qomah and Transformational Mysticism in the Epistle to the

Ephesians," unpublished paper presented at the 1992 meeting of

the SBL Consultation on Mediator Figures in Greco-Roman Jewish

and Christian Religion. I am grateful for his discussions but

not always persuaded by his attempts to push for very early

dating of the traditions and by the inferences in the direction

of di-theism he sometimes draws from the evidence.

<22> Barker, xiii.

<23> I have expressed some more specific criticisms in a brief

review of Barker's book in Theology 96(July/August 1993), 319-20.

Of course, Morton Smith had sketched a case for a survival of

pre-Exilic "syncretistic" Israelite religion into the post-Exilic

period, but he seems to have thought that it had essentially

waned by the first century C.E., except for possible traces in

Jewish magical materials (Smith, Palestinian Parties and Politics

that Shaped the Old Testament [London: SCM, 1987 reprint of the

1971 edition], esp. chap. 4. A good deal of recent scholarly

study of pre-exilic Israelite religion concludes that it was not

monotheistic in that period but became so only after the exile.

See, e.g., Mark S. Smith, The Early History of God.

<24> Barker, 1-3.

<25> Barker refers to a "hidden agenda" and "an alliance between

Jewish and Protestant scholars" whose purpose is "to emphasize

the humanness of Jesus and to show that his 'divinity' was a

later development and an unfortunate one at that," which she sets

out to refute (p. 1). Hayman says, "The fact that functionally

Jews believed in the existence of two gods explains the speed

with which Christianity developed so fast in the first century

towards the divinization of Jesus" (14), but does not have the

same stridently polemical tone and his discussion does seem so

driven by this view.

<26> In this limited survey, I have not dealt with the

suggestion of Christopher Rowland that in second-Temple Jewish

tradition there had developed a speculation about a bifurcation

of the divine involving God and his personified glory. Fossum

seems to take a somewhat similar view. Traditions about the

divine glory (and the divine name) are certainly important, but I

do not find Rowland's or Fossum's case for a bifurcation of God

convincing. See my discussion of their views in One God, One

Lord, 85-90. On the divine glory, see now esp. Carey C. Newman,

Paul's Glory-Christology: Tradition and Rhetoric (NovTSup, 69;

Leiden: Brill, 1992).

<27> Early in his essay Hayman says, "I do not intend to proceed

here by setting up a model definition of monotheism and then

assessing the Jewish tradition against this yardstick." But then

he proceeds to do exactly this in my judgment, in imposing such

things as a doctrine of creatio ex nihilo as a requirement of

true monotheism (3-4), and in making the question turn on whether

ancient Jews were "truly monistic" (2).

<28> Hurtado, One God, One Lord, passim.

<29> Ibid., chap. 4. See R. Bauckham's study of this motif of

confusing angels with God: "The Worship of Jesus in apocalyptic

Christianity," NTS 27(1980-81), 322-41.

<30> Erik A. G. Peterson, Heis Theos: Epigraphische,

(FRLANT, 24; Gttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1926). Morton

Smith has drawn attention to the same sort of honorific rhetoric,

exalting one deity above all others and even calling one deity

the "only" god, across the ancient period of the Near East in

"The Common Theology of the Ancient Near East," JBL 71(1952),

135-47.

<31> See, e.g., my brief discussion of the question and

references to other literature in One God, One Lord, 129-30;

Yehoshua Amir, "Die Begegnung des biblischen und des

philosophischen Monotheismus als Grundthema des jdischen

Hellenismus," Evangelische Theologie 38(1978), 2-19; id., "Der

jdische Eingottglaube als Stein des Anstoaes in der

hellenistisch-rmischen Welt," Jahrbuch fur biblische Theologie

2(1987), 58-75. See also Erik Peterson's discussion of the

interaction between pagan, Jewish and Christian forms of

monotheistic conceptions and political ideas in the ancient

world, in Der Monotheismus als politisches Problem: Ein Beitrag

(Leipzig: Jakob Hegner, 1935). For a general introduction to

pagan and Jewish conceptions of the divine, see R. M. Grant, Gods

and the One God (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1986).

<32> Samuel S. Cohon, "The Unity of God: A Study in Hellenistic

and Rabbinic Theology," HUCA 26(1955), 425-79.

<33> Tacitus, Histories 5.3, cited in Cohon, 429.

<34> Ibid., esp. 428-38.

<35> Ralph Marcus, "Divine Names and Attributes in Hellenistic

Jewish Literature," Proceedings of the American Academy for

Jewish Research 1931-32, 43-120.

<36> Ibid., esp. 47-48.

<37> Ibid., 48.

<38> Adolf Schlatter, Wie sprach Josephus von Gott? (BFCT, 1/14;

Gtersloh: Bertelsmann, 1910); id., Die Theologie des Judentums

nach dem Bericht des Josefus (BFCT, 2/26; Gtersloh:

Bertelsmann, 1932).

<39> R. J. H. Shutt, "The Concept of God in the works of Flavius

Josephus," JJS 31(1980), 171-87. The quotation is from p. 172.

<40> Ibid., 185-86.

<41> Henry J. Wicks, The Doctrine of God in the Jewish

Apocryphal and Apocalyptic Literature (London: Hunter &

Longhurst, 1915).

<42> Paul A. Rainbow, "Monotheism and Christology in 1

Corinthians 8:4-6," (Oxford, D.Phil. diss., 1987). See also id.,

"Jewish Monotheism as the Matrix for New Testament Christology:

A Review Article," NovT 33(1991), 78-91, esp. 81-83 for an

abbreviated citation of evidence from his dissertation.

<43> Ibid., esp. chap. 4. The 200 passages are listed in

Appendix 1 (228-86). They include some from the OT and NT, but

are mainly drawn from extra-canonical Jewish documents, with only

token citations of Philo and Josephus.

<44> For a recent discussion of Jewish monotheistic commitment,

see E. P. Sanders, Judaism: Practice and Belief 63 BCE--66 CE

(London: SCM; Philadelphia: Trinity Press International, 1992),

esp. 241-51.

<45> Philo, Decal., 65. On Philo, see now Folker Siegert,

verzehrendes Feuer" (WUNT, 46; Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1988),

who offers a fresh study of a less well used text from Philo. In

line 57 of the text, Philo describes the God of Israel as the

basis of all existence ("autos monos estin").

<46> See now Michael Mach, Entwicklungsstadien des jdischen

Engelglaubens in vorrabinischer Zeit (TSAJ, 34; Tbingen: Mohr-

Siebeck, 1992) for an analysis of material from biblical texts

through Josephus and other Greco-Roman evidence. I have not yet

had a chance to examine Saul M. Olyan's, A Thousand Thousands

(TSAJ, 36; Tbingen: Mohr-Siebeck, 1993), in which he emphasizes

the Jewish creative exegetical use of the OT as a source for

naming and ranking of God's angelic entourage.

<47> This point is made persuasively by Amir, "Die Begegnung,"

(note 31 above). "In diesem Sinne mchte ich die Monolatrie

nicht nur, wie blich, als eine Vorstufe, sondern geradezu als

den eignentlichen religsen Kern des biblischen Monotheismus

bezeichnen" (4). On Jewish devotional practice in general, see

now E. P. Sanders, esp. 195-209. Older studies include Adolf

Buchler, Types of Jewish-Palestinian Piety from 70 B.C.E. to 70

C.E.: The Ancient Pious Men (Jews College Publications, 8;

London: Jews College, 1922), whose rather uncritical handling of

rabbinic traditions will now be questioned, but whose study is

still worth noting, esp. for his discussion of the piety of the

Psalms of Solomon (128-95). Schlatter, Die Theologie des

Judentums nach dem Bericht des Josefus, includes a lengthy

chapter on "Die Frommigkeit" reflected in Josephus (96-158).

<48> As I have elsewhere pointed out, whatever the pattern of

cultic devotion at Elephantine, the material is hardly

characteristic of the Jewish population of the Greco-Roman period

and is in any case too early to be of direct relevance. See my

One God, One Lord, 144 n. 83.

<49> Carol Newsom, Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice: A Critical

Edition (HSS, 27; Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985). And see my

comments and references to additional literature in One God, One

Lord, 84-85.

<50> For a helpful review of recent scholarship on the early

synagogue service, see now Paul Bradshaw, The Search for the

Origins of Christian Worship (London: SPCK, 1992), 1-29.

<51> See W. F. Albright, "A Biblical Fragment of the Maccabean

Age: The Nash Papyrus," JBL 56(1937), 145-76.

<52> See Sanders, 196-97, for further discussion and for

additional references.

<53> James H. Charlesworth, "A Prolegomena to a New Study of the

Jewish Background of the Hymns and Prayers in the New Testament,"

JJS 33(1982), 265-85; id., "Jewish Hymns, Odes, and Prayers (ca.

167 B.C.E.--135 C.E.)," in R. A. Kraft & G. W. E. Nickelsburg,

eds., Early Judaism and its Modern Interpreters (Atlanta:

Scholars Press, 1986), 411-36. See also David Flusser, "Psalms,

Hymns and Prayers," in M. E. Stone, ed., Jewish Writings of the

Second Temple Period (Assen: Van Gorcum; Philadelphia: Fortress

Press, 1984), 551-77.

<54> Wicks, esp. 122-29; N. B. Johnson, Prayer in the Apocrypha

and Pseudepigrapha: A Study of the Jewish Concept of God (SBLMS,

2; Philadelphia: Society of Biblical Literature, 1948). In

light of the renewed interest in extra-canonical texts in recent

decades, the availability of fresh translations, analyses and

studies of them, and the increase in available materials since

Wicks and Johnson (e.g., the Qumran texts), it is high time for a

fresh and full-scale analysis of the prayers in Jewish second-

Temple writings. Agneta Enermalm-Ogawa, Un langage de priere

Maccabes (ConBib, NT 17; Uppsala: Almquist & Wiksell, 1987),

studies the prayers in 1-2 Maccabees, arguing that they witness

early developments in synagogue prayers.

<55> One God, One Lord, esp. 24-27.

<56> Bauckham, "The Worship of Jesus," (n. 29 above). The key

texts are Apoc.Zeph. 6:15; Ascen.Isa. 7:21-22; Rev. 19:10; 22:8-9.

<57> Clinton E. Arnold, "Mediator Figures in Asia Minor:

Epigraphic Evidence," unpublished paper presented at the SBL

Consultation on Jewish and Christian Mediator Figures in Greco-

Roman Antiquity, San Francisco, November 1992.

<58> Ibid., 21. See also his conclusions, 26-27.

<59> Mach, 291-300.

<60> See my discussion of these prohibitions in One God, One

Lord, 31-32. Whatever one makes of the rabbinic passages, their

late date makes them questionable evidence for first-century

Jewish religion.

<61> Andrew Chester, "Jewish Messianic Expectations and

Mediatorial Figures and Pauline Christology," in Paulus und das

antike Judentum, eds. M. Hengel, U. Heckel (WUNT, 58; Tübingen:

Mohr-Siebeck, 1991), 17-89, esp. 64. Chester does not give the

exact passages but I presume these are the ones which he

intended.

<62> Cf. David Steenberg, "The Worship of Adam and Christ as the

Image of God," JSNT 39(1990), 77-93. Steenberg proposes that the

idea of Adam being/bearing the image of God could have been taken

as justifying worship of Adam, but admits that there is no

evidence that Jews reached this conclusion and actually practiced

such devotion to Adam.

<63> See One God, One Lord, 81, 84.

<64> Rainbow, "Jewish Monotheism as the Matrix," 83. Cf.

Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2:321 n. "e", at

Pseudo-Philo 13:6.

<65> The Midianite magician works miracles by the aid of fallen

angels "for he had been sacrificing to them for a long time"

(Pseudo-Philo 34:2). This tells us how the author explained the

feats of gentile magicians but is hardly evidence of a Jewish

devotion to angels!

<66> Cf. F. Gerald Downing's curious claim that in de Somn.

1.163-64 "Philo clearly takes [Abraham's appeal in Gen. 28:21] as

'prayer', addressed to the Word . . ." has no basis in this

passage (cf. "Ontological Asymmetry in Philo and Christological

Realism in Paul, Hebrews and John," JTS 41[1990],440 n. 28). The

Logos is not even mentioned here. Philo takes Abraham as

requesting God to be to him "bestower of kindness" and not merely

"ruler". Philo's deliberately rhetorical invocation of the

"Sacred Guide" (hierophanta) in de Somn. 164 is not addressed to

the Logos, but may allude to Moses in his role as great teacher

of true religion who works through his sacred writings.

Downing's citation of de Abr. 127 and Gig. 54 are likewise

puzzling. Neither in fact offers any historical evidence for

worship directed to any being but God. Philo merely makes

distinctions between inferior and superior understandings of the

nature of God, and, in somewhat elitist sounding language, claims

that few of humankind achieve a higher perception of God.

<67> Sanders (245-46) discusses Josephus' reference to Essene

prayer practices connected with the rising sun (War 2:128, 148),

concluding that "the Essenes really offered prayer to the sun".

Solar symbolism was certainly widespread in both non-Jewish and

Jewish religion, but I doubt that Josephus is to be taken as

Sanders does. But cf. Marc Philonenko, "Priere au soleil et

liturgie anglique," in La littrature intertestamentaire,

Colloque de Strasbour (17-19 Octobre 1983) "Bibliotheque des

centres e'tude suprieures spcialiss" (Paris: Presses

universitaires de France, 1985), 221-28 (I thank W. Horbury for

this reference). On Christian appropriation of solar symbolism,

see the classic study by Franz J. Dlger, Sol Salutis: Gebet und

Ostung in Gebet und Liturgie (Münster: Aschendorffschen

Verlagbuchhandlung, 1925). On the use of solar images (and other

motifs) in ancient Jewish synagogues, see Elias Bickerman,

"Symbolism in the Dura Synagogue," in Studies in Jewish and

Christian History: Part Three (Leiden: Brill, 1986), 225-44

(critical of Goodenough's interpretation); and now Rachel

Hachlili, Ancient Jewish Art and Archaeology in the Land of

Israel (Handbuch der Orientalistik; Leiden: Brill, 1988).

<68> See Alan F. Segal, Two Powers in Heaven: Early Rabbinic

Reports about Christianity and Gnosticism (SJLA, 25; Leiden:

Brill, 1977).

<69> Part of the problem in estimating what Jews made of

heavenly beings other than God "ontologically" is that scholars

tend to employ distinctions and assumptions formed by Christian

theological/philosophical tradition. For a helpful critique of

such anachronism and an illustration of the much wider and more

complex semantic field represented by "divine" and "god" in

ancient Greek, see S. R. F. Price, "Gods and Emperors: The Greek

Language of the Roman Imperial Cult," Journal of Hellenic Studies

104 (1984), 79-95.

<70> In this paragraph, I lift phrasing from Chester, 64-65,

whose otherwise very helpful essay shows here a failure to

appreciate these points adequately.

<71> M. P. Nilsson, "The High God and the Mediator," HTR

56(1963), 101-20.

<72> Smith, "The Common Theology of the Ancient Near East,"

shows that such conceptions and rhetoric are quite old and

widespread.

<73> Nilsson, 110-11, 115-16.

<74> Segal, Two Powers in Heaven (see n. 68 above).

<75> One God, One Lord, esp. chap. 5, "The Early Christian

Mutation."

<76> Mach, esp. 300-32.

<77> Rainbow ("Jewish Monotheism as the Matrix," 88 n. 22) seems

to me to overestimate the ease with which cultic devotion to a

divine agent figure could be seen as logical and acceptable in

the Greco-Roman Jewish tradition. The arrival of a hoped-for

figure would not so readily produce cultic devotion to him.

Rainbow's larger problem lying behind his argument is the view

that there can in fact be no such thing as religious innovation,

a notion falsified by the history of religions (cf. Rainbow,

"Jewish Monotheism as the Matrix," 86-87).

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