Dear Friends,

This is my fourth post of direct commentary on How Jesus Became God, by Bart Ehrman. Check here for my introductory comments.

Today’s post in a nutshell: If I may be so bold, Ehrman’s analysis collapses like a house of cards.

Open series outline: Going for the jugular

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What does this have to do with the Jesus question, you ask? Well, Ehrman’s endgame is to show that “Jesus is God” meant something very different to the earliest Christians than what it meant to later Christians. So, he first assaults the Jewish concept of deity itself.

Buckle up!

Opinions disguised as direct readings 

In Ehrman’s own words:

“This commandment, as stated, presupposes that there are other gods. But none of them is to be worshiped ahead of, or instead of, the God of Israel. As it came to be interpreted, the commandment also meant that none of these other gods was to be worshiped alongside of or even after the God of Israel. But that does not mean the other gods don’t exist. They simply are not to be worshiped.”

First of all, notice that he confusingly labels HIS interpretation with the two words “as stated“:

“This commandment, as stated, presupposes that there are other gods. But none of them is to be worshiped ahead of, or instead of, the God of Israel.”

After sneaking in his own opinion under the guise of a direct reading, he then tells us how the verse was later “interpreted”:

“As it came to be interpreted, the commandment also meant that none of these other gods was to be worshiped alongside of or even after the God of Israel.”

See the shell game he’s playing? His view is the “as stated” reading, while the views of others are just interpretations.

Let’s be real and admit we’re both giving our interpretations, shall we? And then we can try to see which one holds up better under scrutiny.

Is God going to melt like wax?

Let’s start with the phrase “before me”. This has at least two well-established meanings…

1. In my presence
2. At an earlier time or at a higher priority than me

…but Ehrman seems completely ignorant of the first one. To wit, let’s apply Ehrman’s logic to Psalm 97:5…and I’m going to use his preferred translation (NRSV) to try to drive my point home:

[Psalm 97:5 NRSV] The mountains melt like wax BEFORE the Lord, before the Lord of all the earth.

Without any justification, Ehrman used Meaning #2 when interpreting the first of the 10 commandments. So, let’s do the same thing with Psalm 97:5:

Psalm 97:5, using Ehrman’s logic, means that the mountains will melt like wax, and after that God will melt like wax.

Stating your interpretation and then defending it. Is that too much to ask?

So, what do we do with Exodus 20:3? I think we should admit that if you just look at the one verse, BOTH meanings of “before me” are interpretations. Justification is needed regardless of which one you choose!

I contend Meaning #1 should be used for Exodus 20:3…

[Exo 20:3 KJV] 3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me. means to not have other gods in God’s presence (and since God is everywhere, you shouldn’t have other gods period!).

…and my justification is in the next two verses (the closer your justification is to the verse you are exegeting, the stronger your justification is):

[Exo 20:4-5 KJV] 4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness [of any thing] that [is] in heaven above, or that [is] in the earth beneath, or that [is] in the water under the earth: 5 THOU SHALT NOT BOW DOWN THYSELF TO THEM, nor serve them: for I the LORD thy God [am] a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth [generation] of them that hate me;

See the all caps? That should clear up any confusion about what “before me” means in verse 3. It says not to bow down to or serve any image or likeness, without any qualifiers.

And if that is still not direct enough, see what you think of this one (from the same book, Exodus):

[Exo 34:14 KJV] 14 For THOU SHALT WORSHIP NO OTHER GOD: for the LORD, whose name [is] Jealous, [is] a jealous God:

So, I don’t think the correct interpretation is difficult to discern here. And yet, Ehrman simply says that verse 3 “came to be interpreted” to mean that other gods could not be worshiped at all. He makes it seem more or less arbitrary, and so I’m calling him out on it.

It all comes down to this

There’s an even deeper problem with Ehrman’s analysis, though. Before we even discuss who is to be worshiped or not, we need to discuss who IS.

Again, Ehrman provides zero justification for his interpretation on this question. He just advances the most literal possible reading of Exodus 20:3:

[Exo 20:3 NRSV] you shall have no other gods before me. means that, on some physical and/or spiritual plane of reality, other gods are actually alive.

So: does Exodus 20:3 presuppose, as Ehrman claims, that other gods literally exist? Does Exodus 20:3 clash with the monotheism of Isaiah, as Ehrman claims?

No, because if I tell my boys “pick up your army men”, that does NOT presuppose that living, breathing members of the 75th Ranger Regiment are scattered on the floor!

Ehrman’s arguments work…if you really want them to

The fact that Ehrman doesn’t devote a single sentence to the idea that God might be speaking figuratively here (God is speaking about idol statues (as mentioned in the next verse!) that get treated as gods, not literal living gods) is severely underwhelming to me. I remember reading the Habermas and Licona book about the resurrection, written from a Christian perspective, and being amazed at how many naturalistic objections they addressed. They even addressed the objection that Jesus was an alien!

So, I find Ehrman’s argumentation in this section very weak; it artificially injects ambiguity and confusion into the text.

I close with the first verse of the Shema (1), the most important prayer in Judaism. Notice how it advances monotheism (and by implication, the worship of only one God, since it’s dumb to worship something that doesn’t exist :-)):

[Deu 6:4 KJV] 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God [is] one LORD:

Is that clear enough?

God bless, and thanks for reading!

TFOTF

Links:

1: The Shema on Wikipedia