1 John 5:7 Since the 1500s this passage has been widely viewed as an interpolation in the NT text by early Catholic scribes. This article contains a chart of how modern English and several other translations handle the verse. Also included are comments on its history and explanations why most modern Bible editors do not include it. [8 HTML pages] [Updated] Early Christian Creeds This document contains introductory notes and texts for the following creeds: Apostles' Creed, Creed of Caesarea, Creed of Nicea, Constantinopolitan Creed, Athanasian Creed, and salient portions of the Creed of Chalcedon. Theological evolution is evident. [4 HTML pages] “Elohim” in Biblical Context The Hebrew word "Elohim" has been mined for its secrets for centuries. Its plural ending "-im" suggests to some a plurality within the Godhead. What is often missing in such interpretations is a thorough study of the word within the biblical contexts. This article looks at those contexts in depth and examines the other words for "God." This is a very detailed study. [Now 2 linked HTML documents] The Genesis Plurals Three times in Genesis God speaks using first person plural pronouns ("us" and "our"). This phenomenon occurs elsewhere only in Isaiah 6 and 41. How are these passages to be explained, from within the Bible itself? [7 HTML pages] John 20:28—"My Lord and my God" The confession of Thomas in John 20:28 has long been viewed as a central text in affirming the deity of Yeshua. This study examines his statement in the light of other confessions of faith in the Gospel of John and elsewhere in the NT, and concludes that what Thomas said is not the whole story that either John or the other NT writers want their hearer/readers to know about the Messiah and Son of God. [8 HTML pages] Old Models vs Biblical Priorities The Bible doesn't change its rock solid stance in spite of being remodelled, reinterpreted, even revised, by later generations. [6 HTML pages] The OMG (God of Western Culture) The Bible is a confrontational collection of anti-pluralistic, anti-syncretistic affirmations about the God of ancient Israel and of the New Testament. The pop culture God of our time, the OMG, is simply another deity in the pantheon created by humans as their alternative to the biblical God. [2 HTML pages]

The Shema is Not All Deuteronomy 6:4 (the "Shema: Hear, O Israel") is expanded by Yeshua to include the fuller revelation about God found in Psalm 110:1. [3 HTML pages] The Two Lords (of Psalm 110:1) There are two Hebrew words translated "Lord." Psalm 110:1 contains both of them. This one verse opens a window into Messianic theology and prophecy, and forms a major link between Hebrew Scripture and the New Testament. This verse is the most quoted by Yeshua and his Jewish disciples. [6 HTML pages] They Knew Who He Was (How Kosher Was the Witness of Unclean Spirits to Yeshua of Nazareth?) The NT contains some striking testimonies about Yeshua. This text list compares them to testimonies from his disciples and from God. [2 HTML pages] To God, Through Messiah In the NT, the repeated pattern of spiritual progression is toward God through the Messiah Yeshua. This mirrors the Tanakh pattern of approaching God at the Mishkan (Tabernacle) in the person of the High Priest. [2 HTML pages] Worship in the N.T. (Following Hebrew Bible Maps) This detailed study examines "objects" of worship. That is, it looks at whom the first Jewish believers prayed to and worshiped. Worship reveals a person's underlying beliefs and concepts about God. The NT evidence is compared with worship patterns in the Hebrew Bible, and it demands reexamination of historical Christian practice and thought. [1 HTML + 16 PDF pages] Related Text Lists • 1 John 5:7 and the Book of Mormon • Daniel 7:9-14 Allusions in the N.T. • Messiah and the Spirit [PDF] • Messiah Was With God • Psalm 110:1 in the N.T. (Quotations & Allusions) • Salutations & Benedictions in the N.T.

This portal has foundation articles on monotheism, the oneness of God, and the divinity of the Messiah. Each study attempts to recover emphases and terminology in the biblical texts. This is done to distinguish the Hebrew Bible and New Testament from traditional monotheistic views articulated by Judaism and Christianity. This is not an easy region to navigate. What you find is that Judaism and Christianity offer two competing maps of the same “country.” Neither one, however, provides a totally accurate depiction of what you encounter when actually trekking the “country” of Scripture yourself. Judaism and Christianity, as we know them today, are Diaspora religions. They developed outside Israel, away from where the original biblical events took place and the divine revelations occurred. Both religions have evolved, partly in response to each other. And neither of them depends solely on their Scriptures for authority in teaching and observance. Both have bodies of interpretation and authoritative precedence upon which they draw to define themselves. [Top] Both faiths affirm belief in Monotheism [Greek: mono+theos, “one God”]. But the word has different meanings to each faith, so we musn’t assume “monotheism” is a coin with universal value. The word itself was coined in 1660 and was imposed upon the field of biblical studies by Enlightenment scholars. In Modern Judaism monotheism refers to a form of exclusive unitarianism articulated primarily by Maimonides in the Middle Ages and upheld since by most branches of Judaism. In his attempts to interpret biblical teachings about God in light of the philosophy of Aristotle, Maimonides rejected the anthropomorphic language and imagery of the Bible. As such, he said there is only one supernatural being, God himself. Other gods, demons, or spirits mentioned in the Tanakh are figments of human imagination. He said angels are actuallly “attributes” of God, not independent heavenly beings. And the Messiah (contra Catholic Christianity) is not divine, but merely a man. Recent studies in pre-Talmudic, pre-Rabbinic Judaism, however, show the Maimonidean definition of monotheism to be a post-biblical — and post-New Testament — innovation. His Aristotelian and anti-Catholic model is not what all Jews always everywhere held to be true. The biblical and historical evidence shows that previous generations of Jews not only believed in other supra-human, supernatural beings, they also believed that a heavenly co-ruler sat at God’s right hand as his prince, vice-regent, and governor. This one stood as mediating priest between Him and humanity. [Top] Daniel 7, Psalm 110, and Ezekiel 9-10 were (among other) biblical sources for this idea. In the Alexandrian Greek Bible (the Septuagint, LXX), one passage states explicitly that the “Lord” (Grk, kurios) who sits next to God had been begotten by God in heaven before the dawn of time (Ps 110:3 =109:3 LXX). Another text calls the Messiah “the messenger of the Great Council” (megales boules angelos, Isa 9:5 LXX). Later non-biblical Jewish texts in the Pseudepigrapha and Dead Sea Scrolls expanded on these biblical texts. These documents identified God’s vice-regent as a superior angel or an exalted patriarch. Others said he was God’s Chosen, Messiah, and Son. For example, “The Messianic Rule” (1Q28a) from Qumran has the line “when God begets the Messiah,” and “The Aramaic Apocalypse” (4Q246) has the line “The son of God he shall be called, and son of the Most High he shall be surnamed.” [See The Heavenly Council and “Messianic” Texts at Qumran. Eventually, this imagery of heaven’s court — God and Someone else — became anathema in Rabbinic Judaism (e.g. m. Sanhedrin 4:5; b. Sanhedrin 38a–38b). Rejection of the imagery increased especially after the rabbis had encounters with Yeshua’s Jewish disciples. The rabbis vigorously fought against what they called a doctrine of “Two Powers” in heaven. And their spiritual successors among the Orthodox still do to this day. In other words, Jewish Monotheism today is neither Biblical nor Jewish — if we compare it with Scripture. [Top] In the other Tradition, most varieties of Christianity (except for sects) define monotheism in terms of the Trinitarian model summarized in the 4th and 5th century Nicean, Athanasian, and Chalcedonian creeds and in the writings of the early Church Fathers and, of course, modern theologians. Elements of their theoretical model of the Godhead were taken from the New Testament and processed through a grid of Greek philosophy, primarily Neo-Platonism. In contrast, the NT does not overtly express the doctrine of the Trinity. Instead, its doctrine of God is built upon the Hebrew imagery of God and his heavenly Vice-regent (Psalm 110:1 is a key verse in the NT). Significantly, what later rabbis condemned as heresy in the teaching of Yeshua’s disciples is belief in “two powers” — not three — which reflects what the NT actually portrays. (See the overall pattern in Worship in the N.T.) Basically, New Testament “monotheism” consists of “the only true God” (John 17:3) and his Lord, the Messiah Yeshua, and their shared “Spirit,” which denotes their presence, power, and divine nature. The phrase “one God” occurs rarely in the NT (1 Cor 8:6; Eph 4:6; 1 Tim 2:5), and it always denotes the Father of Yeshua, not a compound unity of three divine essences who make up “God.” Yeshua himself referred to his Father as “the only true God” (John 17:3). Later theologians ignored such verses and redefined the phrase. The NT affirms that “God was in Messiah reconciling the world to himself” (2 Cor 5:19), and that Yeshua manifested the presence of YHVH on earth (Rom 10:12-14). And like all sons of a father, he mirrored his Father and could, thus, be called “God” (John 1:1-2). But, in my opinion, there remains a solid line of distinction between God (the Father) and Yeshua, his Son, Lord, Messiah, and Prince. A thorough reading of the NT shows this to be true. [Top] As doctrinal evolution took place in the Church, the Hebrew imagery of God-and-his-Lord was essentially discarded because it depicted Yeshua as distinguished from and thus subordinate to God. To theologians such a view of the Son contradicted their settled-upon principles of a co-equal, co-eternal monotheistic, but triadic, Godhead. One reason for Christianity’s traditional antinomian bias toward the Hebrew Bible/Old Testament has been its relative silence in supporting the Church’s doctrine of the Godhead. Church thinkers even knew their philosophical model of God did not have any explicit support in the New Testament. So in the early centuries some scribes tried to bolster the NT witness to the Trinity model. They altered their Greek NT manuscripts in order to give theologians proof-texts they needed for their doctrinal disputes (some major ones include John 1:18, 1 Timothy 3:16, 1 John 5:7, etc.; see NT versions). Since the Middle Ages, English Bible translations introduced other forms of bias meant to promote a trinitarian perspective. (See From Holy Spirit to Holy Ghost.) [Top] Hopefully my point is now clearer that Monotheism isn’t so simple a topic to discuss, as though everyone knows (and agrees on) what the word means. It’s evident that if we want to grasp the Bible’s own teachings about God, we should study the Bible itself, trying not to read it through the contradictory lenses of Diaspora Jewish and Christian traditions. This website advocates going back in time and digging below the accumulated sediments to enable people to see the progressions of religious thought. This will enable us to distinguish What Is from What Was, and to discern what is actually in the Country from what others say is there. That is why I am not committed to, nor do I uphold, either Judaism’s or Christianity’s traditional, orthodox definitions of monotheism. I am committed to the revelations about God in both the Hebrew Bible and New Testament and to the divinity of the Messiah, as taught in the NT. • Paul Sumner [Top] Directory | Site Map | Explanation Hebrew-Greek Transliteration [PDF] hebrew-streams.org