Did the Early Church Believe Jesus Was God?

Bart Ehrman suggests mainstream Judaism permitted angel worship, citing prohibitions and Israel’s persistent struggle with idolatry as evidence of wide spread acceptance for worshipping other deities and divine beings within Hebrew Scripture. However, the narrative of the Old Testament shows time and time again that any time worship was given to another god or divine being it was always a bad thing. The worship of any other divine being than YHWH is a failure. 

This is not saying at the popular level people did not worship other gods’ the scripture themselves tell us that they did. However, the tradition enshrined and the primary characteristics noted about Judaism from outsiders is their sole devotion to their God and aniconism,. Therefore, there had to be enough restraint of the polytheistic temptation for people to notice. 

The narrative of the Old Testament showed how Israel failed to live to the standard of the law and how they suffered because of their failure to worship the Lord their God and Him only (Deuteronomy 6:13-14). Asherah worship, which was the most common god worshiped in ancient Israel outside the worship of YHWH, represents the worship of a rival deity condemned as apostasy, not an accepted form of worship of an exalted being. 

The cultic worship of Jesus is genuinely a innovative step and does not have a precedent in Jewish tradition. If angel worship was a wide spread belief or practice the primary candidate which would have most likely gotten a cult was the Angel of YHWH, yet as Karl Barth observes, the Angel of YHWH achieved no cultic status apart from YHWH's worship or honor. If there was room to extend the scope of worship to a divine elevated being, other than YHWH, then the three angels discussed here would have been a subject of worship, but they were not, because there is no room in Judaism for the veneration which Jesus receives unless Jesus is YHWH. 

James McGrath argues that Jesus fits within the exalted-being category of Judaism. He points to the fact that there was a diversity of beliefs about which literature of the 1st century Jewish writings were authoritative. However, he glosses over in a variety of ways that even with all the diversity of belief, the Torah held upmost authority across all branches of main stream Judaism for its entire history, and the Torah blatantly forbids devotion to any divine being, except YHWH. McGrath acknowledges that Judaism is known for its devotion to one God: however he then argues that most religions had one supreme god therefore, Judaism can have similar flexibility of other religions. McGrath does question what made Judaism devotion to YHWH alone distinctive, but never gives an answer, only asks the question. The closest thing he comes to an answer is Israel’s aniconism,.

It would have taken more than aniconism, for people across a millennium, from different times, places and cultures to note Judaism’s devotion to YHWH alone since Judaism was not the only ancient religion with a restriction on idols and images. This is not saying that Judaism did not believe in the existence of other gods, only that it restricted devotion to one God. The agency model McGrath and Ehrman, albeit with distinct conclusions, propose does not adequately explain why Jesus’ case alone, among several exalted figures with comparably singular moments of divine vindication, crossed into sustained cultic devotion. 

As seen in the section on divine beings, when divine-beings were praised the primary focus moved past the figures themselves to YHWH. The characterization of the Son of Man in 1 Enoch is more similar to how Paul characterizes the Church than of Christ. Paul does not associate intermediary figures with Christ, but with Christians. Paul never speaks of Jesus as the Son of Man, Righteous One, Chosen One or Elect One. However, Paul does speak of the believers as chosen, elect and righteous ones (Rom. 1:17;1:15;8:33;11:7;16:13; Gal. 3:11;1 Thess. 1:4; Col. 3:12).

If the sustained devotion to Jesus is an extension of worship to God then what makes Jesus different from the other exalted being other than the level of praise given to Jesus? There were other times in Israel’s history when the environment was ripe for an exalted figure to receive sustained devotion, but it never happened at the consistency seen with Jesus.

YHWH was not identified by the form He took in the encounters in Hebrew Scripture, but by the message that was given. The Angel of YHWH while a reoccurring and distinct being, was not to be known distinct from YWHW, his identity did not add to or contribute to the reality of YHWH, but the Angel of YHWH was a representation of YHWH’s reality and presence in the human realm.

Jesus’ supremacy is shown in His post-resurrection appearances. The only experiences recorded in the New Testament are not visions which are similar to Old Testament visions like YHWH exalting the Son of Man (Daniel 7; 1 Enoch 48). In these visions the focusThe revelatory experiences recorded are Jesus appearing to His followers.

No matter how glorious the resurrection was, if Jesus is a mere agent of YHWH acting on His behalf, the praise would go to YHWH alone, just like every other exalted-being.

While the forces and factors Hurtado gives are informative to the difference factor which lead the early church to confirm His identity, his conclusion about the identity of Jesus does not account for this monumental leap between Jesus and all other exalted beings. Therefore, the conclusion drawn in this paper is that the earliest Christians worshiped Jesus and reoriented their faith in the one God around Him because Jesus is genuinely unique because He is within the unique identity of YHWH

However, Jesus’ claims to be the Son of Man were not false, this is a genuine part of His identity, but this is not all of His identity: Jesus is the Son of Man and YHWH. What distinguishes Jesus from the Son of Man and any other exalted being in Jewish tradition is that Jesus is not merely someone exalted by YHWH, but is YHWH.

References

 Bart D. Ehrman, How Jesus Became God

Loren T. Stuckenbruck, Angel Veneration and Christology

Christine Hayes, "Judeophobia: Peter Schäfer on the Origins of Anti-Semitism," Jewish Studies Quarterly 6, no. 3 (1999)

Theodore J. Lewis, "Divine Images and Aniconism in Ancient Israel," review of No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context, by Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, Journal of the American Oriental Society 118, no. 1 (January–March 1998)

Karl Barth, Geoffrey William Bromiley, and Thomas F. Torrance, Church Dogmatics: The Doctrine of Creation, Part 3, 3rd ed., vol. 3

 Richard Bauckham, Jesus and the God of Israel: God Crucified and Other Essays on the New Testament’s Christology of Divine Identity

 James F. McGrath, The Only True God : Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context 

Moshe Goshen-Gottstein, “Scriptural Authority: Biblical Authority in Judaism,” in The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman

Tryggve N. D. Mettinger, No Graven Image? Israelite Aniconism in Its Ancient Near Eastern Context, Coniectanea Biblica, Old Testament Series 42