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. [6 HTML pages] 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. [12 HTML pages] 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 — A Lesson in Theological Astronomy 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] 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]

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] Visions of the Divine Council in the Hebrew Bible [New] This is Paul Sumner's 1991 thesis submitted to Pepperdine University, revised slightly in February 2010. A greatly condensed version is found in the next entry. [152 PDF pages] Visions of the Heavenly Council in the Hebrew Bible and New Testament Both the Hebrew Bible and New Testament refer to God and his heavenly court. He is depicted as king sitting on a throne surrounded by beings who form his council and serve as court messengers and his soldiers (army). This vivid symbolic imagery links the HB and NT theologically. In fact, the NT uses the throne room imagery to depict Yeshua's exalted status and relation to God. [1 HTML intro + 13 PDF 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 & the Book of Mormon • Daniel 7:9-14 Allusions in the N.T. • The Word, the Son, Yeshua Was With God • Messiah and the Spirit [PDF] • 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 ["one God"; Greek, mono+theos]. But the word has different meanings to each faith, so we cannot 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. Angels are actuallly "attributes" of God, not independent heavenly beings. And the Messiah (contra Catholic Christianity) is not divine, but merely a man. However, recent studies in pre-Talmudic, pre-Rabbinic Judaism show this definition of monotheism to be a post-biblical — and post-New Testament — innovation. Maimonides's Aristotelian and anti-Christian 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. Daniel 7, Psalm 110, and Ezekiel 9-10 were (among others) three 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). Later non-biblical Jewish documents in the Pseudepigrapha and Dead Sea Scrolls expanded on these biblical texts. Some authors of these documents identified God's vice-regent as a superior angel or an exalted patriarch. Others said he was God's chosen one, messiah, and son. 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 occurred 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. [Top] In the other Tradition, most varieties of Christianity (except for sects and cults) define monotheism in terms of the Trinitarianism expressed in the 4th and 5th century Nicean, Athanasian, and Chalcedonian creeds and in the theological dissertations of the early Church Fathers. 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 explicitly articulate 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.) As doctrinal evolution and crystalization took place in the Church, the Hebrew imagery of God-and-his-Agent was all but rejected because it depicted Yeshua as distinguished from and subordinate to God. To theologians such a view contradicted the settled-upon principles of a co-equal, co-eternal monotheistic, but triune, 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 speculative and evolved doctrine of the Godhead. Early church thinkers even knew their philosophical model of God did not have any explicit support in the New Testament. So over the centuries some Catholic scribes tried to bolster the NT witness to the Trinity model. Certain Greek NT manuscripts were altered 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; see NT versions). Since the 16th century, English Bible translations contain other forms of unbiblical bias meant to promote a trinitarian perspective. (See From Holy Spirit to Holy Ghost.) [Top] So today, both Judaism and Christianity represent, in their official traditions, altered forms of Biblical Monotheism. And not a few leaders of both groups have gone to extremes to defend their positions and, when necessary, deny the plain text of Scripture. Four examples: Some evangelical Protestant leaders now say it is basically heretical to call Jesus "the Son of God." They say Christians must call him "God the Son," in order to give him full honor as a member of the Triune Godhead. Even though "God the Son" isn't a biblical expression, they insist saying anything less demeans his deity. In many Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic circles, the adoration of Mary and her exaltation to the place of Mediatrix is vital to their Christianity. But Marianism can be traced historically to trinitarianism. For in the early centuries when Catholic theology increasingly emphasized Christ's deity, the phenomenon of Mary adoration emerged. By exalting him to the realm of deity distanced him from people, and someone needed to fill his position as mediator. In popular devotion and imagination his mother arose to take his place. (See Mediators in the Tanakh.) Among Pentecostals, focus on and worship of the Holy Ghost as an independent being with a will of his own has led some into what I call Spiritanity. For them, we are now in the Age of the Spirit, who is the successor of Jesus. To be led and indwelt by God the Holy Spirit is their goal. Simply put, their faith is Spirit-centered, and they speak of the Spirit as their shepherd and lord. Paradoxically, the esoteric world of Kabbalah is making a resurgence among secular or non-practicing Jews seeking deeper spirituality. But kabbalistic beliefs lead people into the spirit world of the occult where magic, superstitious use of G-d's name, and deciphering divine secrets through gematria are all employed to lift them to higher mystical planes, to encounter G-d, and to protect them from demons and pagan idolatry. Though Jewish monotheism is the official dogma, Kabbalah's speculations about the sefirot of God have produced a mystic Tri-unity that is worshiped as the "Thrice Holy." This doesn't, however, lead Jews to have interest (much less faith) in Yeshua the Messiah. In other words, 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 the Diaspora traditions. A major principle of this website is to go back in time and dig below the accumulated sediments to enable people to see the progressions of religious thought. This will enable them 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