Progressive Revelation

February 15, 2021 - 2 Adar 5781

What Is Progressive Revelation?

According to Blue Letter Bible, "The things that God revealed to humanity were not all given at once. His revelation was given in stages." This essay addresses four issues with the concept of progressive revelation. The first is that there are no indications of progressive revelation occurring within the Torah. The second is that progressive relation prevents people from knowing the truth in the present. The third is that the Trinity, a product of progressive revelation, is too similar to polytheism for comfort. The fourth is that once such a claim is made, it is repeatedly claimed by subsequent religions.

Issue 1 - One Does Not Observe Progressive Revelation In The Tanakh

It's easy to believe that progressive relation occurs as one crosses over from the Jewish Scriptures to the Christian Scriptures; this is exactly the argument you would expect somebody to make to authenticate their own scriptures. But progressive revelation indicates that it occurred either gradually or at certain intervals, with the Christian Scriptures being the final stage. That would mean that one would be able to identify progressive revelation occurring within the Tanakh, of which there are no genuinely satisfying examples.

The Blue Letter Bible says that the Tanakh is incomplete because it contains prophecies that remain unfulfilled: "In addition, the Old Testament records predictions that were still to be fulfilled. For example, the Old Testament ends with the promise of the coming of Elijah who will prepare the way for the promised deliverer - the Messiah." The unfulfilled status of the Tanakh's prophecies does not mean that it is flawed, it just means that those events have not occurred yet, and that their occurrence will not be canonized in the Tanakh. This is like saying that a teenager isn't perfect because they haven't reached maturity yet.

Out of a genuine respect for the Jewish Scriptures, the Blue Letter Bible assures us that being incomplete is not synonymous with being less true: "Progressive revelation does not mean to say that the Old Testament is somehow less true than the New Testament. The progress was not from untruth to truth - it was from less information to more full information." While this is a gracious nod to the Tanakh, equating "more" with "more correct" is nevertheless not always true. Sometimes less is more: "Do not add to the word which I command you..." (Deuteronomy 4:2)

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Issue 2 - It Prevents People From Knowing God In The Present

If God seeks people to know Him, why would He keep His true nature from His people and from the entire human race until a relatively late point in history? One explanation provided by Catholic.com relates the advice given to the author by a college professor: "A college professor of mine once said to be leery of someone who tells you everything about himself in the first five minutes you know him. Jesus did not do this, and neither has the Father."

While this may be true of strangers that you meet on the street or in the doctor's office, it isn't true of people with which you have a serious and intimate relationship. Nominally speaking, it's critical to discover the most important aspects of a person before, say, getting married to them. Insofar as the relationship between God and the Jews is like a marriage, it would be critical to have an accurate conception of God's Nature before going to the chuppah, which was Mount Sinai. It would be highly unfortunate to discover ten years into the marriage that your spouse was schizophrenic. Isaiah 55:8 says, "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,' says the Lord." The way human beings do things is not necessarily the way that God does them.

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Issue 3 - The Trinity Is Too Similar to Polytheism

Perhaps God withheld the Trinity from the Jews due to the concern that they would confuse it with polytheism. This is another explanation advanced by Catholic.com: "In the Old Testament God needed to establish monotheism for the Jews to make them stand apart from all the polytheistic religions that abounded. Monotheism was almost unheard of, and if Yahweh had tried announcing that he is three Persons the people of the day might have misunderstood it as Tritheism, which is a heresy."

It does not evince much confidence in the Trinity to suggest that the Jews (or anybody else) would have mistaken it for polytheism. Surely the Jews had enough experience with said transgression, both from observing it all around them in a variety of forms, and from experiencing it first hand, to know the difference between polytheism and genuine monotheism. It is patronizing and insults peoples' intelligence to suggest that "God needed to establish monotheism for the Jews to make them stand apart from all the polytheistic religions" only to invite them into a relationship that was almost just as scandalous. If polytheism is prostitution, the Trinity is an escort service.

This site also argues that today "we have enough trouble trying to get people to believe in the one true God, let alone many. Thus the New Testament was a better time for God to have revealed his true nature, now that the danger of a polytheistic misunderstanding had been eliminated." What this ignores is that while polytheism is arguably not in fashion today, it was abundant in the era in which the New Testament was written and in the places that the Roman Empire occupied. The Trinity found itself in good company during that era and region and didn't overtly conflict with polytheism as Judaism did.

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Issue 4 - When Does Progressive Revelation Stop?

How do we know that progressive revelation has stopped on the Christian Scriptures? While Jews contend with Christians over the impossibility and error of progressive revelation into Christianity, Christians contend with more than one group, namely Muslims and Mormons. While the Muslim claim precedes Mormonism, Mormonism claims to be the correct understanding of Christianity. Each of these groups advances the notion that progressive revelation continued after the Christian Scriptures into their own scriptures; the Book of Mormon or the Q'uran. There is an old joke that Jews like to tell; Why did God create Mormons? So Christians would know how Jews feel.

According to the Mormon site The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, "'The Book of Mormon is another witness of Jesus Christ and confirms the truths found in the Holy Bible. Far from undermining the Bible, the Book of Mormon supports its testimony of Jesus Christ. One passage says that the Book of Mormon “shall establish the truth” of the Bible “and shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world; and that all men must come unto him, or they cannot be saved' (1 Nephi 13:40)."

According to Islamweb.net, "Allah, The Almighty, revealed the Quran to be His last, all-embracing Scripture containing the final manifestation of the Divine Law. This necessitates that it has to be safeguarded from the mischievous hands of men and from all corruption. This protection has been a reality from the time the Quran was revealed until today and will remain so forever." It also says that the "'Islamic Law is lasting, remaining suitable for every place and time, and embracing the goodness of the previous manifestations of the Law. Allah Says (what means): “And We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], the Book in truth, confirming that which preceded it of the Scripture and as a criterion over it.' [Quran 5:48]"

The above explanations sound structurally similar to Christianity's description of the relationship between the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. According to Christianity.com: "The religion of the Old Testament is the embryo of Christianity. The Old Testament is the gospel in the bud. The New Testament is the gospel in full flower. The saints in the Old Testament saw many things through a glass darkly. But they all looked by faith to the same Savior and were led by the same Spirit as ourselves." It also says, "The relation between our Lord's teaching and that of the Old Testament is cleared up by our Lord in one striking sentence. He says, 'Don't think that I came to destroy the law, or the prophets. I didn't come to destroy, but to fulfill' (Matthew 5:17)."

What does the Torah say about this matter? Deuteronomy 4:2 says, "Do not add to the word which I command you, nor diminish from it, to observe the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." While Christians, Muslims, and Mormons all understand this verse as a prohibition of adding to their own own scriptures, Jews see it in its original context of not adding anything to the Torah.

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Conclusion

A religion claiming to have received an updated vision will by definition reject all of its predecessor's objections. It rejects their objections on the grounds they were not the recipients of the new revelation. If they had received the new revelation then they would have no objections to it. This is a circular argument designed to prevent people from analyzing the contents of a prophecy critically.

There is therefore no good way to prevent new religions from forever claiming that they have received a new revelation, but there is a good way to prevent people from believing them. God explicitly inoculated the Jews against this form of deceit in two verses: Deuteronomy 13:1 through 6 and Deuteronomy 18:20: "Now if you say to yourself, 'How will we know the word that the Lord did not speak?' If the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and the thing does not occur and does not come about, that is the thing the Lord did not speak. The prophet has spoken it wantonly; you shall not be afraid of him."

In the latter verse, God legitimizes the Jews' suspicion that a prophet may be lying. This is demonstrated by the fact that He provides them with the criteria for distinguishing between true and false prophets. Claiming to have received prophecy to substantiate prophecy is considered to be an illegitimate means of verification. The only legitimate means of verification is empirical. In contrast to the Jews' complaining and rebelling against God in the desert, He does not see this question as a sign of stubbornness or rebellion, but as a sign of their willingness to follow Him.

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Do I Need Jesus To Talk to God?

A common argument among Christian apologists is that Jesus did not come to destroy the Law (the Torah), but to fulfill it. Their goal with this assertion is to answer a particular Jewish objection, which is that the Torah is eternal. The Christian response is to agree and to emphasize that Jesus didn't do away with the Torah, but that he fulfilled it:

Do not think that I came to do away with or undo the Law [of Moses] or the [writings of the] Prophets; I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. (Matthew 5:17)

Aside from the fact that instructions are followed and not fulfilled, this statement implies an idea that the Torah considers to be incorrect, namely that the Torah is impossible to keep. However, the Torah itself seems to preempt this erroneous conclusion thousands of years in advance by addressing this concern directly:

It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?" Rather,[this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it. (Devarim 30:12-14)

In direct contrast to Jesus' statement that he came "to fulfill" the Torah, God says above that "you," the Jews, "can fulfill it." Their concern seemed to be that receiving and fulfilling the Torah was too distant for them, and therefore impossible. If so, then an intermediary would have been required to do it for them. God assures and consoles them that "[this] thing is very close to you... so that you can fulfill it!"

In other words, the text is saying something that Christians would consider to be utterly radical: God is saying that no intermediary is required to forge a relationship with Him, which would turn Christianity completely on its head. Apparently I can fulfill it, and nobody needs to go up to the heavens or across the sea to get it for me. The Christian Scriptures unequivocally say “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” (John 14:6) which is the literal description of an intermediary. Ultimately, God says that the correct and expected way to relate to Him is with no intermediary, made possible by the fact that I have a direct connection to Him.

To this end Tehillim 145:18 says, "The Lord is near to all who call Him, to all who call Him with sincerity."

Make You Fishers of Men

The Christian Scriptures relate the following story:

While walking by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon (who is called Peter) and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen. And he said to them, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.”

Immediately they left their nets and followed him. And going on from there he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father and followed him. (Matthew 4:18-21)

The following is an excerpt of Pastor Mike Winger's explanation of the above passages:

There is a common belief in Christianity which states the exclusivist worldview of the Pharisees in contrast to the inclusivist worldview of Jesus. This is perhaps best explained as the Pharisaic mindset as one that sought to horde God all to themselves, as it were, and to make admission in the fold of Judaism or observance difficult and elitist for people who were not learned.

And while there is certainly truth to the concept that Pharisaic Judaism before and after the time of the Second Temple placed a high value on level of education and erudition in understanding and observing Jewish Law, it is equally true that their approach was much more accepting that most Christians would like to admit. Christian attitudes generally tend to ignore indications of wide-spread inclusivist approaches among these very Pharisees. Challenging these notions would imply that Jesus was more like the Pharisees than most Christians would like to accept.

For example, the very first passage in the Pirke Avos (Ethics of the Fathers) opens with the the following:

Moses received the Torah from Sinai and gave it over to Joshua. Joshua gave it over to the Elders, the Elders to the Prophets, and the Prophets gave it over to the Men of the Great Assembly. They [the Men of the Great Assembly] would always say these three things (1:1):

• Be cautious in judgement.
• Establish many pupils.
• And make a safety fence around the Torah.

It is noteworthy that a text's opening statement usually sets the tone for the rest of the content. This is certainly true with the opening of the Pirke Avos, and the majority of its statements are taught within the context of the active creation of tight-knit, intimately connected, and charismatic students.

Another aspect of this approach is summarized by the following:

Yossei the son of Yoezer of Tzreidah, and Yossei the son of Yochanan of Jerusalem, received the tradition from them. Yossei the son of Yoezer of Tzreidah would say: Let your home be a meeting place for the wise; dust yourself in the soil of their feet, and drink thirstily of their words. (1:4)

We see here an emphasis on opening one's home as an informal and impromptu communal center for rabbi's to gather and teach crowds of people. This verse paints a starkly different picture than the one described in Christian thought regarding the elitist nature of the Pharisees.

Verse 5 goes on to say, "Yossei the son of Yochanan of Jerusalem would say: Let your home be wide open, and let the poor be members of your household," (1:5) as well challenging the notion that the Pharisees sought to rub shoulders with wealthy, powerful people.

Among the maxims found in this work are the following:

• ... judge every man to the side of merit. (1:6)
• When the litigants stand before you, consider them both guilty; and when they leave your courtroom, having accepted the judgement, regard them as equally righteous. (1:8)
• Hillel would say: Be of the disciples of Aaron—a lover of peace, a pursuer of peace, one who loves the creatures and draws them close to Torah. (1:12)
• Shammai would say: Make your Torah study a permanent fixture of your life. Say little and do much. And receive every man with a pleasant countenance. (1:15)

One finds numerous examples of this mindset throughout the entire corpus of the Pirke Avos, but the above are just a few notable examples.

Regarding the assertion that the rabbi's lorded their Torah knowledge over the heads of the unlearned, "Rabban Yochanan the son of Zakkai received the tradition from Hillel and Shammai. He would say: If you have learned much Torah, do not take credit for yourself---it is for this that you have been formed." (2:8)

To this end "Rabbi Tzaddok would say: 'Do not make the Torah a crown to magnify yourself with, or a spade with which to dig.' So would Hillel say: 'one who make personal use of the crown of Torah shall perish. Hence, one who benefits himself from the words of Torah, removes his life from the world.'" (4:5)

A general parable about judging people was brought down by Rabbi Meir, who said, "Look not at the vessel, but at what it contains. There are new vessels that are filled with old wine, and old vessels that do not even contain new wine." (4:21)

When reading through the statements made in the Pirke Avos one is able to conclude that the spirit of Jesus' teachings seem to mirror that which is found within this body of text. Further, one can even conclude that Jesus own teachings were influenced by it, or even that he believed in it to the extent that he sought to emulate it on his own.

Does Genesis 18 Mention the Trinity? Part 2

There is another issue in Genesis 18 that prevents us from believing that it is a reference to God in the form of an angel. That is the word "and," which is used in different ways in the text of the Torah. What we often see in the verses is that the word "and," which is "ve" (ו) in Hebrew, is used first as an introduction to a particular set of events, and then switches to being used as subsequent steps in a sequence. The first place that we see this in the Torah is at the very beginning (no pun intended) in Genesis:

In the beginning of God's creation of the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was astonishingly empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water. (Genesis 1:1-2)

We see here that the word "ve," which I said means "and" in Hebrew, is translated as "Now the earth was..." It is translated this way because it introduces to us a set of events, and if you check the Hebrew you will see that it is in fact the word "ve," which is a word written as one letter, the letter "vav. (ו)" The second and third instances of this word in verses 1-2 are translated as "and," but they are describing the next steps in the sequence, they are describing "Now the earth was astonishingly empty" and what was already occurring at this stage in time.

Immediately following this the word "and" kicks into "subsequent steps" gear and begins describing what happens after verses 1 and 2 in chronological order:

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good, and God separated between the light and between the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night, and it was evening and it was morning, one day. (Genesis 1:3-5)

We see above that the word "and," the same word "ve," introduces each next step in the sequence:

And God said... and there was light... and God saw the light... and God separated... And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night... and it was evening... and it was morning..."

This usage of the word "and" continues for the majority of the entire chapter.

This usage of the word "and" appears to be the same one in Genesis 18:1-2 when the angels visit Abraham:

Now the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent when the day was hot. And he lifted his eyes and saw, and behold, three men were standing beside him, and he saw and he ran toward them from the entrance of the tent, and he prostrated himself to the ground. (Genesis 18:1-2)

We first have the word "ve" being translated as "Now" to introduce the set of events. For the record, this occurs again in Genesis 18:11 when the chapter introduces a new set of events separate from 18:1-10:

Now Abraham and Sarah were old, coming on in years; Sarah had ceased to have the way of the women. (Genesis 18:11)

Back to verses 1 and 2, we see that every instance of "and" is the next step in the sequence (except for the first, which introduces the set of events and doubles as the first event):

---

1. Introduction/Event 1: Now the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent when the day was hot.
2. Event 2: And he lifted his eyes…
3. Event 3: and saw…
4. Event 4: and behold, three men were standing beside him…
5. Event 5: and he saw…
6. Event 6: and he ran toward them from the entrance of the tent…
7. Event 7: and he prostrated himself to the ground.

---

There are two issues with the claim that the angel was God.

The first is the unnatural way, according to the belief that one of the angels was God, that the Torah reports that they were "standing beside him." The first verse says, "Now the Lord appeared to him..." If one of the angels in Event 4 was God in the form of a man, it should not have said, "three men were standing beside him," it should have said, "The Lord and two angels were standing beside him." The reason for this is that Event 1 says only that God appeared to him, but made no references to the angels. However, all appear to him together, which either means that all three appeared in Event 1 (even though the angels aren't mentioned), or that all three angels appeared to Abraham in Event 4 and that the Lord that appeared to him in Event 1 is not one of the angels!

Further, Event 4 says, "three men were standing beside him," not the three men, indicating that these men were altogether different ones than any of the beings that appeared in Event 1. For example, if I say "the eggs are cold," you know which eggs I'm referring to because you have already seen them, or I've already made reference to them. But if say "eggs are cold" you don't know which eggs I'm referring to.

If the angel was God in the form of a man the verse should have read something like the following:

"Now the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and accompanying him were two angels, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent when the day was hot. And he lifted his eyes and saw the three men were standing beside him, and he saw and he ran toward them from the entrance of the tent, and he prostrated himself to the ground."

More simply put, the word "and" in Event 4 indicates that something new happened, which is that the three men suddenly appeared to him in addition to God's appearing to him in Event 1.

Secondly, in Event 5 we get what seems like an incomplete thought, "and he saw." What did he see? His very next action was running towards the angels. Rashi explains according to the plain reading of the text that he saw that they were standing in one place away from him, i.e., that they were not coming any closer to him. He therefore runs toward them.

Further, we said that events 2 through 7 describe Event 1. However, we see that Abraham was in different locations in Event 1 and Event 6; in Event 1 he is "at the entrance of his tent," and in Event 6 he is away from the entrance of his tent near the angels, to whom he had to run given that they were standing some distance away. Event 6 can only be a description of Event 1 if it gives us more information about Event 1, but not if it contradicts Event 1. Take Genesis 1:1-2, which explain how the earth was "astonishingly empty."

In the beginning of God's creation of the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was astonishingly empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water. (Genesis 1:1-2)

If the verses said, "Now the earth was astonishingly empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the people were building a tower," we would know that it was not really astonishingly empty. In this case verse 2 contradicts verse 1, indicating that the people built a tower after the earth had been astonishingly empty. And this is exactly the relationship between Event 1 and Event 6 in Genesis 18. When the Torah says that Abraham "ran toward them from the entrance of the tent," he did so only (a few steps) after God appeared to him at the entrance of the tent, indicating that neither of the angels or men were incarnations of God.

Does Judges 13 Mention the Trinity?

And an angel of the Lord appeared to the woman, and said to her, "Behold now, you are barren, and have not borne; and you shall conceive and bear a son. (Judges 13:1)

Some Christians claim that this angel was as well an incarnation of God according to the following verse:

And Manoah said to his wife, "We shall surely die, because we have seen God." (Judges 13:22)

However, this overlooks two major points. The first point is the one that we have been discussing until now, which is that the Torah often refers to visions of angels as visions of God. The second point is explicitly in all of the verses in this chapter preceding verse 22 (the phrase "an angel of God" appears ten times), all of which repeatedly refer to this being as "an angel of God." In addition, several of these verses explicitly distinguish between God and the angel:

And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came again to the woman, and she was sitting in the field, and Manoah her husband was not with her. (Genesis 13:9)

And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, "Let us take you in now, and prepare for you a kid goat." And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, "If you take me in I will not eat of your bread, and if you will make a burnt-offering, you must offer it to the Lord;" For Manoah did not know that he was an angel of the Lord. (Genesis 13:15-16)

Some Christians argue, however, that Manoach and his wife only thought that it was an angel, but it was really God. Further, the only reason that the angel continues to accept being referred to as the angel of God is to avoid causing Manoach and his wife to mistakenly commit "idolatry in their hearts" by offering a sacrifice to an angel, which is the reason that it tells them to offer the sacrifice to God.

However, there are two issues with this as well. Manoach did not say that he intended to offer the goat to the angel as a sacrifice, but rather believing that it was a human being, like Abraham he offered to prepare food for him. Secondly, if the angel was really God, and God sought to reveal Himself as a Trinity, it would have simply said, "No, I am God in the form of an angel, so you may prepare the sacrifice to Me." For some odd reason God chose to keep his true Nature as a Trinity hidden, which is why I say that the apparent references to the Trinity in the Torah are implicit and not explicit, as Christians claim them to be.

They in fact are not references of any kind. Instead, Christians sought to find references in the Tanakh to the Trinity in order to authenticate and bolster their claims against its plain reading.

Instead, the Torah says exactly what it should have said if it was an angel, which is, "No, offer the sacrifice to God," i.e., not to me.

Does Genesis 18 Mention the Trinity? Part 1

The question of whether Genesis 18 refers to the Trinity is based on an analysis of the following verses:

• Now the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent when the day was hot. And he lifted his eyes and saw, and behold, three men were standing beside him, and he saw and he ran toward them from the entrance of the tent, and he prostrated himself to the ground. (Genesis 18:1-2)
  
  
• And he said, "I will surely return to you at this time next year, and behold, your wife Sarah will have a son." And Sarah heard from the entrance of the tent, and it was behind him. (Genesis 18:10)
  
  
• Is anything hidden from the Lord? At the appointed time, I will return to you, at this time next year and Sarah will have a son." (Genesis 18:14)
  
  
• And the Lord remembered Sarah as He had said, and the Lord did to Sarah as He had spoken. (Genesis 21:1)

The context of Genesis 18:1-2 is right after Abraham performed his own circumcision, and right before God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Three angels visit Abraham at this point, one of which tells him that Sarah will become pregnant at the same time next year. Some Christians claim that this particular angel was an incarnation of God (as the Second Person in the Trinity). They make this claim because of something interesting that this angel says - "I will surely return to you at this time next year, and behold, your wife Sarah will have a son." The angel speaks of returning in the first person (I will surely return to you, not the angel will surely return to you...), indicating that this angel is in fact an incarnation of God.

There are, however, a few issues with this, perhaps the main one being that God often has angels speaking in His Name when He seeks to relate some important information. See the following examples:

• And the angel of the Lord said to her, "I will greatly multiply your seed, and it will not be counted for abundance." (Genesis 16:10)
  
  
• And he said to him, "Behold I have favored you also as regards this matter, that I will not overturn the city that you have mentioned. (Genesis 19:21)
  
  
• And he said, "Do not stretch forth your hand to the lad, nor do the slightest thing to him, for now I know that you are a God fearing man, and you did not withhold your son, your only one, from Me." (Genesis 22:12)

In the first example the angel promises something that it does not possess the power to perform (I will greatly multiply your seed), and we must therefore understand that the angel is speaking as an emissary of God and not that the angel is God Himself. This verse is a reference to the angel telling Hagar that she will give birth to Ishmael.

In the second example the angel responds to Lot's plea (19:20) and agrees not to destroy the small city to which Lot plans to escape to. In this verse the angel speaks of destroying the city in the first person, yet we see that when it came to destroying the city that it was destroyed by God:

And the Lord caused to rain down upon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone and fire, from the Lord, from heaven. (Genesis 19:24)

Now, even if we accept that the angel speaking in 18:10 and 18:14 was God, it cannot be that the angel speaking in 19:24 was also God, because both of these angels appeared to Abraham together. In other words, even if we accept the notion that God incarnated Himself we cannot accept the notion that He incarnated Himself as two different and simultaneous incarnations of the Second Person in the Trinity that appeared to Abraham together (along with a third angel).

As a brief tangent, some Christians point to the fact that 19:24 mentions "the Lord" twice. "And the Lord caused to rain... from the Lord..." This is taken to be a reference to two different Persons of the Trinity, the first of which "caused to rain down upon Sodom and Gomorrah," but which was sent "from the Lord, from heaven," which is a separate Person of the Trinity, who remained in Heaven while this was occurring. This indicates that the first "the Lord" refers to the Person that descended to earth, while the second one remained in Heaven while this was occurring.

What this overlooks is the simple reading of the verse, which simply speaks of God in the third person, which is a much plainer reading of the text. For example, it is possible, although a bit awkward, to say, "Daniel went to the store and Daniel bought eggs" while fully intending to speak about the one-and-only Daniel. It would be a much greater stretch of the imagination, "straining out a gnat," to describe this sentence as grammatically referring to two different aspects of Daniel, the first of which went to the store, and the second of which bought the eggs, yet ultimately both of which did each because Daniel exists in two different forms, each of which is him.

In the third example the angel says, "and you did not withhold your son, your only one, from Me." It is evident that Abraham was not intending on sacrificing Isaac to an angel, which as well makes it clear that the angel was speaking as an emissary of God. And just in case we have any doubt as to the identity of this angelic speaker, see the preceding verse:

And an angel of God called to him from heaven and said, "Abraham! Abraham!" And he said, "Here I am." (Genesis 22:11)

This verse explicitly tells us that this was an angel of God, not God in the form of an angel. If we are free to interpret "angel of God" as an implicit reference to "God in the form of an angel" then words cease to convey any inherent meaning in the first place. If "cat" means "dog," and if every time I say "cat" you assume that I'm referring to a "dog," then assigning meaning to words is useless.

Is Worshiping Jesus Idolatry?

January 29 2021 - 16 Shevat 5781

The Prohibition of Idolatry in the Ten Commandments

The information that God gave us about Him was designed to teach us how to relate to Him correctly. Take a careful look at Shemos (Exodus) 20:4-5: "You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness which is in the heavens above, which is on the earth below, or which is in the water beneath the earth. You shall neither prostrate yourself before them nor worship them."

Let me ask a question: does this mean that if I wanted to worship an element of nature, that would I be permitted to? The verse only prohibits me from making a graven image, but I did not make trees, for example, so perhaps this verse permits me to worship trees. Do we stick to a tight and literal reading of God's instructions, or do we try to use them to see things from His perspective, in-as-much as that is possible?

The same can be applied to human beings, who "are on the earth below." The clear reason for this prohibition is that God cannot be fathomed, and associating God with his creation is seen by God Himself as the very worst thing that a human being can do. I don't resolve the conflict by saying that God decided to take on the form of a man, because it violates the end goal of this prohibition.

Putting Words in God's Mouth

It is possible that people had put words in God's mouth by writing texts in which God became a man.

Perhaps this is what Devarim (Deuteronomy) 13 and 18 are alluding to:

Devarim 13:1-4:

Everything I command you that you shall be careful to do it. You shall neither add to it, nor subtract from it. If there will arise among you a prophet, or a dreamer of a dream, and he gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder of which he spoke to you happens, [and he] says, "Let us go after other gods which you have not known, and let us worship them," you shall not heed the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of a dream; for the Lord, your God, is testing you, to know whether you really love the Lord, your God, with all your heart and with all your soul.

Devarim 18:20-22:

But the prophet who intentionally speaks a word in My name, which I did not command him to speak, or who speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die. Now if you say to yourself, "How will we know the word that the Lord did not speak?" If the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and the thing does not occur and does not come about, that is the thing the Lord did not speak. The prophet has spoken it wantonly; you shall not be afraid of him.

Christians Reject Idolatry

The interesting thing about this is all is that Christians understand what idolatry is. According to the What Christians Want To Know website, an "idol is anything that gets between us and God, and it is whatever we worship more than God or instead of God." Christians offer this correct definition of idolatry without realizing that this is exactly what they are doing with Jesus! They resolve the contradiction by saying that Jesus is God, but when they look at him they see a human being with a human face and a human figure. This prevents them from understanding the full glory of God because they begin to identify and empathize with God as a human being with human experiences (see Point 2 in Why Do Jews Reject the Trinity?). They have committed idolatry in their hearts and minds by limiting God to the experiences of a human being. They turn to Christian Scripture to support their view, such as Philippians 2:5-8:

Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus, who, being in the form of God, did not consider it robbery to be equal with God, but made Himself of no reputation, taking the form of a bondservant, and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.

Whatever perceived benefits the Trinity offers people by bringing God (literally) closer to them, it sacrifices in understanding His true nature, which in turn has the adverse effect of distancing them from Him. To use a metaphor, it seems to bring Him an inch closer while pushing Him a mile away.

Conclusion

What is most interesting, and quite scary, is that Christians place a greater emphasis on their relationship with "the Son" than with "the Father." The central focal point of their relationship with God is experienced through Jesus and not through "the Father." This indicates that they have resigned "the Father" a lofty, remote, and inaccessible state and rely on the Son to get them there. While the standard formulation of the Trinity explains that the Persons in the Godhead are equal to each other, it clearly seems that "the Father" is assigned a superior position to "the Son" in that He is distant, and can only be reached through a medium. If the Son had not become flesh, would he too have been too distant to reach? (see Point 1 in Why Do Jews Reject the Trinity?)

The point is that there are many different ways to do something wrong, and there are only a few ways to do something right, and praying to a figure of a human being is wrong.

How We Know that the Trinity is Not in the Torah?

September 7, 2020 - 18 Elul 5780

Introduction

The first and most basic answer is that God did not explicitly reveal the Trinity in the Torah.

What Christians claim to be God's explicit revelation of the Trinity in the Torah are in fact implicit references to what they assume to be explicit revelations. There is a difference between the words "explicit" and "implicit." God explicitly tells the Jews that His Nature is Unified. He explicitly tells them that He expects them to keep His commandments, and explicitly tells them what will happen if they do not. He does not explicitly tell them that He is a Trinity. When God wants to make something understood clearly and imminently He explains it in an explicit fashion so as to remove any possibility of doubt of what He is referring to. He does not leave it up to conjecture or interpolation. This does not mean that the Torah is low on mystery or enigmatic passages, for any student of the Tanakh knows it contains many. Instead, those passages tend to be found in association with particular details related to narratives and not when describing His true Nature, or His expectations of the Jews or humanity.

The question becomes, if God wanted to reveal Himself as a Trinity why did all Jews up until the first century fail to realize that God had revealed Himself as such?

Some Christians like to make the claim that appearances of particular angels throughout the Torah are in fact appearances of the Second Person in the Trinity before he manifested himself as Jesus. Some common examples are Genesis 18 (and 21) in which three angels visit Abraham's tent, and another is Judges 13, each of which will be examined independently.

1. Genesis 18 - Point 1
2. Genesis 18 - Point 2
3. Judges 13

Where is Satan?

July 23, 2020 - 2 Av 5780

Introduction

Did Satan rebel against God and was he expelled from Heaven? If so, where is he now and what is he doing? Some people think that he went down to Georgia and pursued a career in music.

Simply put, the Torah’s view of Satan is as an angel. And as all angels are created without free will, Satan as well has no free will and can literally not rebel against God.

Now I know that if you are a Christian reading this what I just said goes directly against what Christianity teaches, and there is a good possibility that you want to consider me a Godless heretic and leave this blog for good.

If so, please hear me out briefly before doing that, and if you still want to high-track it out of here after that you are certainly free to.

Let me start by saying that I am a Jew (Orthodox) who believes in God, His Goodness, and Omnipotence, and believe in the infallibility of the Bible. Of course I believe that the Bible to be just the Old Testament, but let’s set that aside for a moment because if you are Christian then you and I have this book in common.

What Are Angels According to Judaism?

Let me as well start with a very basic and simple concept that according to Judaism, angels are a type of being with no free will. In modern terms we can think of them as computer programs each designed to do a very specific function or set of functions. It is imperative that they function according to the task assigned to them, which is why it is also imperative that they have no free will. Contrast this to human beings, who bring out unspeakable damage through the free will that God has granted us.

In other words, let use an example of the angel responsible for, say, rain. Rain is a program necessary for the flourishing of living things on earth. If the angel of rain had the potential to refuse its programming, there would be no rain, or the rain would not fall in its time or according to the rules that God has designed it with.

Technically speaking, the angel known as “Satan,” in Jewish thought, is no different. The only difference between Satan and all other angels is perhaps the scope of his job. His task is the ever-important task of tempting human beings with sin. This task is of utmost importance because the existence of free will rests upon it. Free will is of utmost importance because it is the very method by which human beings move themselves closer or further away from God. Such movement has to be left completely up to the human being doing the moving so that his destiny fully belongs to him, for the better or the worst. Therefore, just as the angel of rain cannot be given the ability to refuse its post, the same must be true of Satan.

Before proceeding let us use a known Jewish parable to explain the role of Satan in God’s Dominion. A king wanted to test the loyalty that his son had to him. He sent a prostitute to seduce his son and told her to do the very best that she could to succeed. If she succeeded, he assured her that no harm would come to her because he wanted to test his son’s morality. This is, simply put, the role of Satan.

Biblical Evidence for Satan's Rebellion

Now that we have explained the role of angels and Satan in logical or theological terms, let us look to the Bible for actual evidence regarding this topic.

In the beginning of Genesis we see three main characters (aside from God). We have Adam, Eve, and the Snake (which is an embodiment of Satan). In Chapter 3 of Genesis Adam, Eve, and the Snake each receive a punishment for a particular sin that they committed:

1. The Snake tempted Eve - punishment: to crawl on its belly and enmity between itself and human beings.
2. Eve ate the fruit and gave it to her husband - punishment: painful childbirth.
3. Adam ate the fruit - punishment: needing to toil for a living.

The very next thing that occurs was the expulsion from Eden, which is Heaven, and we should note that only Adam and Eve are driven from Heaven, as it says, “Now the Lord God said, ‘Behold man has become like one of us, having the ability of knowing good and evil, and now, lest he stretch forth his hand and take also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever.’ And the Lord God sent him out of the Garden of Eden, to till the soil, whence he had been taken.” (Genesis 3:22-23)

If we read the verses above carefully we will note that the expulsion of Man (Adam and Eve) from the Garden applied only to Adam and Eve – the Snake is not mentioned anywhere as having been expelled. The reason for the expulsion is provided as well, “lest he stretch forth his hand and take also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever.” This indicates two things about the Snake:

1. God was apparently not concerned that he would eat from the Tree of Life, indicating that he lacked the free will to do so (unlike Adam and Eve).
2. The Tree of Life would have made Adam and Eve immortal, and our assumption about Satan is that he was immortal and therefore had no reason to eat from that tree.

In other words, three characters committed a sin, three characters are punished, but only two are expelled from the Garden!

So if we are to assume that Satan was expelled from Heaven, and our only common book as Jews and Christians is the Old Testament, we would need to find a source from that book telling us that God expelled Satan from Heaven. The only other book in the Old Testament dealing extensively with Satan is the Book of Job.

Near the beginning of the Book of Job we see the following:

Now the day came about, and the angels of God came to stand beside the Lord, and the Adversary (Satan), too, came among them. (Job 1:6)

Job is already telling us that Satan is in Heaven at this point. The story continues:

The Lord said to the Adversary, "Where are you coming from?" And the Adversary answered the Lord and said, "From going to and fro on the earth and from walking in it." (Job 1:7)

It seems from this verse that Satan could come and leave as he wished. This seems to indicate that this is so because he was coming and going in order to fulfill his responsibilities. The story continues with Satan saying to God:

“'But now, stretch forth Your hand and touch all that he has, will he not blaspheme You to Your face?’” Now the Lord said to the Adversary, ‘Behold, all that he has is in your hands; only upon him do not stretch forth your hand.’ Now the Adversary left the presence of the Lord.” (Job 1:11)

The verse above is very important for two reasons. The first reason is that it indicates Satan’s powerlessness. When he asks God to test Job, he makes it clear that only God has the power to bring anything into fruition, and that he (Satan) has none – “stretch forth Your hand…”

The second reason is that Satan has to receive permission from God before he can do anything. Both of these verses indicate the Torah view, the Jewish view, which is that Satan has no power of his own and is under the dominion of God.

Now we can ask ourselves, “When did the Book of Job occur?” If we are trying to pinpoint the exact point in time when God expelled Satan from Heaven, it would have to have occurred sometime after the Book of Job. According to Chabad.org:

Although there is no clear consensus as to who he was or when he lived, the dominant view places Job’s birth at the time of the Jewish descent into Egypt and his passing at the time of the Exodus, making for an extraordinarily long lifespan—210 years.² This opinion seems to be in harmony with the Talmudic teaching that Job was, in fact, one of three royal advisors to the Egyptian Pharaoh who deliberated over the plot to murder all the male Jewish newborns. Upon learning of the proposal, Job was indifferent and did not protest the decree, and it was because of his inaction that G‑d later brought immense suffering upon him.³

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Footnote 2: Seder Olam Raba (ch. 3). See Chaim Milikowsky, Seder Olam, Critical Edition, vol. II p. 60.

Footnote 3: Sotah 11a. According to the Zohar (vol. II, p. 33a) Job advised Pharaoh to confiscate the Jewish wealth and then enslave them. In response, G‑d visited the very same predicament upon Job himself.

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The view among Christian sources seems as well to be that Job lived in the Patriarchal period (see TruthWatchers and ApologeticsPress).

If so, and if Satan was really expelled from Heaven, it would have happened sometime after the Exodus from Egypt.

According to BibleSprout, Ezekiel 28:12-19 describes the “first passage relating to Satan’s fall is found in Ezekiel 28:12-19 where Ezekiel describes the creation and judgment of a vile and vicious non-human creature whose name we find out later to be Lucifer”:

"Son of man, raise a lamentation over the king of Tyre and say to him, So said the Lord God: You are the one who engraves images, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. In Eden, the garden of God you were; every precious stone was [set in] your covering; ruby, topaz, diamond, chrysolite, onyx, and jasper, sapphire, carbuncle, and crystal and gold; the work of your drums and your orifices is in you; on the day of your creation they were established. You were a cherub of great measure, that covers, and I gave that to you; you were on the mount of the sanctuary of God: you walked among stones of fire. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created until wrongdoing was found in you. Because of the multitude of your commerce, they filled you with violence and you sinned, and I shall cast you as profane from the mountain of God, and I shall destroy you, O covering cherub, from among the stones of fire. Your heart became haughty because of your beauty; you destroyed your wisdom with your brightness; I have cast you upon the ground; I have set you before kings to gaze upon you. Because of the multitude of your iniquities, with the wrongdoing of your commerce, you profaned your sanctity, and I shall bring forth fire out of your midst-it will consume you, and I shall make you ashes on the ground before the eyes of all who see you. All who know you among the peoples will wonder over you; you shall be a terror, and you shall be no more, ever."

As well according to BibleSprout, “The second passage relating to Satan’s fall is found in Isaiah 14:12-14 where the prophet Isaiah presents the origin and fall of Satan:”

How have you fallen from heaven, the morning star? You have been cut down to earth, You who cast lots on nations. And you said to yourself, 'To the heavens will I ascend, above God's stars will I raise my throne, and I will sit on the mount of the assembly, in the farthest end of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will liken myself to the Most High.' (Isaiah 14:12-14)

According to the Jewish understanding this is a reference to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.

It is important to note that the Christian Bible speaks about the fall of Satan in several places (Luke 10:18; II Peter 2:4; Jude 6; Revelation 12:4), but it is important to understand that just because the Christian Bible follows the Jewish Bible does not mean that Christians believe Satan fell at the time that those books were being written. Instead, the Christian belief is that Satan rebelled against God at some very early point in history, such as in Genesis, but was recorded in the Christian Bible. For more information about a Christian attempt to identify when Satan was expelled from Heaven, see When Were Satan and His Angels Cast out of Heaven?

Conclusion

Perhaps the best question to close this with is whether or not an angel that has been expelled from Heaven has the ability to perform its duties away from the dominion of God? We know for a fact that Satan tempts humanity to this day, which indicates that he is still doing his task. However, Christianity’s stance that Satan tempts humanity is done against God’s wishes, while according to Judaism he does so at God’s behest. This difference amounts to a significant theological difference. In the Jewish view everything that exists is under God’s dominion, even evil, while in the Christian view the source of evil is considered to be an aberration of God’s Will that has to be defeated. This calls into question God’s abilities and is at the very center of two very different world views.

"Dominion and fear are with Him; He makes peace in His heights." (Job 25:2)

 (איוב כה:ב) הַמְשֵׁ֣ל וָפַ֣חַד עִמּ֑וֹ עֹשֶׂ֥ה שָׁ֜ל֗וֹם בִּמְרוֹמָֽיו