The name of Jesus: the ritual centre of the lives of the first Christians

 

This post is about the earliest churches' practice of centring church life around the name of Jesus.

Christians have included Jesus in their devotions from the earliest days of the apostles. These were well developed devotional practices already by the time the apostle Paul was writing his letters.

As Larry Hurtado wrote here (link) about original earliest known Christianity:

“There is a constellation of devotional actions that reflect the striking inclusion of Jesus: the rite of initiation (baptism) performed by invoking Jesus, the common/sacred meal as one where Jesus is the presiding figure, the invocation of Jesus as “Lord” to constitute the worship-gathering, the ritual confession of Jesus as “Lord” as the mark of early Christian identity, the singing of hymns/odes about Jesus as a central feature of early Christian worship, prayer through him and sometimes to him (either singly or jointly with God).”

Hurtado writes about how the earliest church made ritual invocations of a heavenly Jesus: 

“The most common instance seems to have been the corporate acclamation/ invocation by which the corporate worship event was constituted, which involved a “calling upon” Jesus.  Likewise, in early Christian baptism, one called upon Jesus, invoking him over the baptized person.  Indeed, in 1 Cor. 1:2 Paul refers to fellow believers simply as those who everywhere “call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” 

This absolutely makes the name of Jesus central to early Christian ritual. 

Hurtado also notes that “prayers are typically offered with reference to Jesus, e.g., “in his name” and/or “through” him (e.g., Rom. 1:8; 7:25; Col. 3:17; Eph. 5:20).” The centrality of the name of Jesus in early Christian ritual, such as prayer, immediately became part of the Christian DNA. It’s so familiar that it easy to forget it must have been remarkably new to make Jesus’ name a central feature of ritual.

After Jesus' resurrection, baptism is changed from how John the Baptist would have done it. It's done "in the name of Jesus" in the Book of Acts. Jesus is the central name of the earliest Christian ritual life. This apostolic innovation is so ingrained in Christian practice.

As Hurtado says (link) in relation to the early Christians, “the exalted Jesus is their Lord to whom they owe obedience and reverence.” Of course, this is not said or done to de-centre God the Father. Not at all. The centrality of Jesus in Christian life glorifies God the Father. 

There can be no doubt about the central ritual confession “Jesus is Lord” and the ritual invocation of Jesus in “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Romans 10:9-13). 

Paul refers to the common meal as “the Lord’s supper.” Paul makes a comparison with pagan meals in ritual honour of pagan deities. The Lord's supper is sharing in the blood and body of Christ, sharing in the Lord’s table (1 Corinthians 10:14-22). Whatever theology we attached to the bread and wine, it is obvious that Jesus is as central to the ritual as pagan gods are central to theirs.   

Other examples of Jesus’ name being central to invocations are healings and exorcisms “in the name of Jesus” (Acts 3:6; 16:18). Hurtado: “the early Christian practice of invoking Jesus by name means that his name and power were regarded as the power by which they were able to perform these acts.”

Hurtado also reminds us to notice “the high and central place of Jesus in the early Christian circles” as seen in Paul’s letters: “grace and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans 1:7; 1 Corinthians 1:3; 2 Corinthians 1:2). Curiously, these early Christian blessings never feature the word Yahweh or Jehovah.

Hurtado adds that Paul’s letters also typically conclude with a benediction as from Christ, for example:  “The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you” (1 Thessalonians 5:28).” Consider that these words would have been read out in worship settings!

It all adds to the centrality of the name of Jesus in early Christian ritual life.

Consider also blessings such as this: “Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you.”  Note, not “may Yahweh/Jehovah direct you.” It is another of these remarkable New Testament innovations, moving on from the Old Testament's ritual use of Yahweh/Jehovah’s name to the ritual use of Jesus’ name. To a large extent, it is what makes authentic Christian meetings Christian In the formal sense.

Elsewhere, Paul refers to pronouncing judgment on an errant believer “in the name of the Lord Jesus,” and to doing so “with the power of our Lord Jesus” (1 Corinthians 5:3-5). As Hurtado says, “the authority and power of the ritual is ascribed to the risen Jesus.” The resurrected Jesus is so central to this life that he is present in power on earth, notwithstanding his place in heaven. This too is remarkable.

Jesus is even salvation itself (John 14:6).

Whatever we think of the divinity of Jesus, it is clear that the central name of the authentic New Testament faith, the much repeated name, was Jesus. 

It is beyond doubt that the Lord Jesus Christ, and his name, was a focal point of Christian devotion from the start. The Christian life is about serving Jesus (Romans 14:18). Indeed, “whatever we say or do,” let it be in the name of Jesus (Colossians 3:16). We “sanctify” Jesus as Lord in our hearts (1 Peter 3:15). The name of Jesus is glorified in us (Thessalonians 1:12). And indeed, for Jesus’ sake, Paul “suffered the loss of all things,” in order that he may gain him (Philippians 3:8). 

Prayers to Jesus

The New Testament has prayers to God the Father and prayers to Jesus.

We are taught by Jesus to make requests of him in John 14:14: "If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it."

And in 2 Cor. 12:6-10, Paul remembers his repeated appeals to the heavenly Jesus to relieve him of his “thorn in the flesh," and receiving an answer from the Lord Jesus:

"Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness " Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me."

Here are a couple more examples of prayers directly to Jesus for now:

Acts 7:59: 'And they went on casting stones at Stephen as he made appeal and said: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”' (It was to Jesus that Stephen turned in prayer to receive his spirit.)

In Acts 9, Ananias prays to Jesus in relation to those who call on the name of Jesus: 

Ananias answered, ‘Lord, I have heard from many about this man, how much evil he has done to your saints at Jerusalem. And here he has authority from the chief priests to bind all who call on your name' (ie the name of Jesus).

Acts 26:15: "And I said, “Who art thou, Lord?” And he said,” I am Jesus whom thou persecutest… I have appeared unto thee for this purpose…”

1 Cor 16:22: 'O our Lord, come!' (this is followed immediately by 'May the undeserved kindness of the Lord Jesus be with you', so we know the Lord, to whom this prayer is directed, to be Jesus.)

Praise to Jesus

So, devotions to Jesus are scriptural, and singing to Jesus is commanded. Ephesians 5:19-20 commands us to (amongst other things):

1) sing and make melody in your heart to the Lord Jesus; and

2) give thanks in the name of the Lord Jesus to God the Father.

So we join in with the chorus in Revelation 5:13, where joint honour is given to them: "To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power, for ever and ever!" 

That is in keeping with God's purposes revealed in John 5:23: "that all may honour the Son just as they honour the Father."

It's not for me to frustrate God's purposes! So that verse is implicitly another command: to honour the Son just as we honour the Father. The Bible envisages "every creature ... on earth" joining in. Rev 5:13-14: 

'And every creature that is in heaven and on earth and underneath the earth and on the sea, and all the things in them, I heard saying: “To the One sitting on the throne and to the Lamb be the blessing and the honour and the glory and the might forever and ever.” '

We must conclude that the New Testament includes devotions directly to Jesus. I hope all will one day be able to join in the fulness of the New Testament practice of devotions to Jesus to the glory of his Father.

Some Greek words

This is an opportunity for me to say a little more about what we call 'worship' as a religious service to God. I'll use the headings PROSKUNEO and LATREUO, two Greek words that the Bible uses for 'worship'.

In Matthew 4:10, Jesus tells the devil to both 'proskuneo' to God and 'latreuo' to God alone.

Two powerful words, and the Book of Revelation invests both words with huge weight and religious significance. 

Proskuneo

In Rev 19:9 and 22:9, the angel tells John not to worship him (the Greek word is 'proskuneo'), but only to worship God. (The Greek word can mean 'worship' as it clearly does in this context.)

Matthew 4:10 likewise says 'PROSKUNEO the Lord your God and serve him only'

Note people's responses to Jesus in the same gospel:

Matthew 8:2 'there was a leper who came to him and proskuneo before him' And Jesus receives it without complaint.

Matthew 9:18 'a leader of the synagogue came in and proskuneo before him' And Jesus receives it without complaint.

Matthew 14:33 'and those in the boat proskuneo him' And Jesus receives it without complaint.

And you'll see the same in...Matthew 15:25, 18:26, 20:20, 28:9, 28:17. This happens too often to pass over lightly.

That is a good basis to consider Matthew 4:10 again:'proskuneo the Lord your God and serve him only'

Now contrast that again with Rev 19:9 and 22:9, the angel tells John not to worship him (the Greek word is 'proskuneo') but to worship God.

Now proskuneo has a wider social application than being applied towards God alone, but we need to bear the above in mind, as we come to the next point.

Latreuo

Let's look further at Matthew 4:10. It says: 'worship (proskune\o) the Lord your God and serve (latreuo) him only'.

Latreuo is the Greek word for sacred service, as done by Jewish priests as acts of worship. (Although it also had a secular meaning to do with civic duties. It wasn't a specifically religious word.)

Here's why that is relevant here. There is a famous connection between Revelation 5 and Daniel 7. 

In Daniel 7:14, when the Son of Man (Jesus) is given authority, glory and power, then... all peoples, nations and men of every language 'worshipped' him. Those people don't merely 'serve' him; this word 'service' means religious sacred service, an act of worship.

In the Greek Septuagint, the word 'worship' in Daniel 7:14 is 'latreuousa' (from 'latreuo'). This is the more specific word for 'sacred service' as given to God. It is clearly given to the Son of Man, Jesus, in Daniel 7:14.

So, 'proskuneo' to God and 'latreuo' to God. Two powerful words, and the Book of Revelation invests both words with huge weight and significance as said.

'Latreuo' occurs, for example, in Revelation 22:3, where 'the throne' is the throne of both God AND the Lamb, one throne. And his servants give sacred service (latreuo) to 'him' (singular). The text reduces God and the Lamb to 'him', one object of sacred service on one throne.

Appendix: proskuneo

This brief appendix is to assist anyone puzzled by the Jehovah's Witnesses' own Bible translation (called the "New World Translation").

Their translation conspicuously evades the word "worship" whenever a scene in the Bible has someone showing proskuneo towards Jesus. 

They are happy to translate it as "worship" when the subject is God or the devil, or demons or idols, or an angel. But as you can see below, they trenchantly avoid referring to worship of Jesus. To get round using the word, they resort to using an obscure 14th century word, "obeisance," towards Jesus. This is so that their members don't contemplate biblical worship towards Jesus. 

Modern parlance for "obeisance" would be something like "bowing low" or "taking the knee" as you might do in front of a chief in submission. (Interestingly, in Islam, the act of bowing and touching the face to the ground is reserved towards God alone, an act or worship.) But "obeisance" is such an obscure and archaic word that even Shakespeare barely used it! Why resort to it?

If you look at the yellow column below, you can see how trenchant this bias is, against worship of Jesus. This table is credited to the CARM website, showing each instance of the New World Translation method of translating proskuneo:

Source: https://carm.org/the-new-world-translation-and-proskuneo-worship

So you can see, if its towards God, the Jehovah's Witnesses will call it "worship." They are happy do to the same if the subject is the devil or idols, etc. But they bias away from "worship" towards Jesus. It is an extraordinary instance of bias where the evidence speaks for itself.

A history of substitutions for the divine name. Part 3: more in the New Testament

 

This is part three of a series. This post will explain why the New Testament has never had the word "Yahweh" in it. That is, why the New Testament has always had the word "Lord" (in whatever language) instead.

A quick recap. Here we can bust some myths. In certain religious circles, a story has been put round that editing the personal name of God (that name is "Yahweh") - editing that name out of the Bible is a wicked thing to do, so some claim. And those people who say it's wicked also tend to think that any religion that uses any Bible with God's name edited out is a bad bad religion. This proposition that it's wicked is pretty easy to test. The obvious way to do it is to ask this question: does the Bible itself already edit out the name of God anywhere in its own pages? That's possible to check because the Bible itself quotes the Bible. That is to say, earlier parts of the Bible get quoted in later parts of the Bible. So if an earlier part of the Bible featured God's name, and it gets quoted in a later part of the Bible, we can track that and see if the name gets edited out or not. If we find that the name does get edited out by original Hebrew authors of the Bible, then we know that the Bible doesn't see that as a wicked thing to do at all. 

In part one, we saw the original Hebrew text of Chronicles being a biblical authority for this. It takes passages from the books of Samuel and Kings and sometimes edits out the divine name (hence, the substitution of the divine name by another word). One can go to even older authorities, such as the psalms. Same thing: some psalms copy material from an earlier psalm but edit out the divine name. One arrives at the same result. The harmless substitutions that one finds there will not have gone unnoticed among well-informed Jewish people in the ancient world who regarded the divine name as very holy. 

Also, in the time of Jesus, there was a religious taboo about saying the full four-letter name YHWH (Yahweh) unauthorised. There was no taboo against saying abbreviated versions such as the -Yah in Hallelu-Yah, or the -iah in Isaiah, as that would be completely impracticable. Such was the case in Jewish life in the first century. (If they didn’t say the full divine name out loud, the reason isn’t that it was unimportant to them, but rather that it was especially holy to them.) 

These substitution tools were well known and are used innovatively in the New Testament. Why? To reveal things about Jesus. So, after setting the scene in so many ways, we come to more of the New Testament writings for what they reveal.

Key background

Want to know where something comes from? When something started? If you go to a bookshop and pick up a Bible, you will probably see a striking translators' preference in the Old Testament section. Where you might expect to see YHWH (Yahweh), you typically see "LORD" instead. LORD in capital letters. Turn to the New Testament, and you only see "Lord" in lower-case letters. So what's up with that? Simply, in the Old Testament, it is representing the divine name YHWH with capital letters as LORD. That's fine because it's a way of knowing LORD as meaning YHWH.

But the New Testament never had the full Hebrew divine name YHWH in it. So, New Testament translators never write "LORD". No YHWH, no LORD. You see "Lord" in the New Testament, but that's to represent a Greek word: Kurios.

So, LORD = YHWH (Old Testament - Hebrew)

Lord = Kurios (New Testament - Greek)

Obviously, this does result in Bibles in bookshops that say "LORD" a lot, but rarely have the name "YHWH" (Yahweh) anywhere on the page. (Not all Bibles, but many. Choice is out there.) 

This post will explain why the New Testament has never had YHWH/LORD. That is, why the New Testament has always had Kurios/Lord. So let's start with the opening book of the New Testament: Matthew's Gospel. What happens here is that there are places where Matthew renders his Greek versions of some Old Testament scriptures. And where the Old Testament Scriptures have Yahweh, you don't see Matthew writing Yahweh or LORD. You see Matthew writing "Lord" (Kurios) instead.

Matthew's Gospel

On the right, you can see where the Old Testament (the Hebrew Scriptures) says Yahweh. On the left, you can see that Matthew's Gospel changes it into "the Lord". And in the middle, you can see that some versions of the Septuagint (the LXX) also say "the Lord." All of these are correct. It shows the time-honoured tradition of changing "Yahweh" to "the Lord":

Source: adapted from https://www.kalvesmaki.com/LXX/NTChart.htm 

The influence of the Septuagint on the New Testament

In part 1, we learned about the Septuagint.

Recap: what influenced the New Testament writers, such as we see here, to prefer "Lord"? Basically, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, a big influence on them. And it is what we call the Septuagint translation (or the LXX). In part 1, we saw that there were various ways of conveying the divine name in different versions of the LXX. The versions that are an obvious influence on the New Testament are the ones that say "Lord" instead of Yahweh.

This would be in the second half of the first century. We can ignore the ‘oldest’ manuscripts of the LXX for the purpose of this question, as the oldest ones won’t be the ones handled by the writers of the New Testament. They weren’t in a museum of oldest copies. It is highly likely that more recently made copies would be their working copies. 

We can be reasonably confident that by the middle of the first century AD, copies of the LXX with κυριος (Kurios) existed, right when they needed to be for the New Testament writers working with them. The New Testament itself is evidence for that. We sometimes see a match between copies of the LXX and copies of the New Testament, such that the latter is quoting the former. It just lines up that way. 

The New Testament authors didn’t write down “Yahweh.” But that doesn’t mean they didn’t have the divine name in front of them when they read the Septuagint. Or sometimes it may have had the Greek abbreviation of the name, ιαω - ΙΑΩ in capitals (pronounced Iao). We don’t actually know, but they could have. Although it’s mostly assumed that their copies of the Septuagint had κυριος (Kurios), it’s just possible that they also saw copies with ιαω. But they didn’t write ιαω themselves. They wrote κυριος. That means they were not using any of the standard ways of representing the divine name except κυριος, a substitute word.

Why did they do this, we may ask? Why did they go all the way in substituting the divine name?

It suggests a particular direction. We have seen such a trajectory goes back to Jesus and the gospels. But as we saw in part one, it starts back further, in the Old Testament books of Chronicles and Psalms. Harmless substitutions for the divine name are abundant there. But a great caution about speaking the divine name also happened, closer to the time of Jesus. 

And the first Christians did something new. 

The main reason why the divine name Yahweh is rarely found in most Christian Bibles has to do with the intentions of the original authors of the New Testament. 

They were very innovative in how they used the word "Lord" where you might expect to see the word "Yahweh." 

The New Testament authors didn't use "Lord" to hide something, they did it to reveal something. 

To show us something about Jesus. 

This passage famously does it. An Old Testament verse about Yahweh becomes a New Testament verse about the Lord Jesus:

OT - “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of YAHWEH shall be delivered” (Joel 2:32)

 

NT - “And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” (Acts 2:21)

It means the Lord Jesus. 

The New Testament authors combine the identities of Yahweh and Jesus. It's there on the page. This is what using "Lord" enables the New Testament authors to do. There are many occasions of this happening in the Bible. I've posted a small sample of them here.

There is more to come on this.

A history of substitutions for the divine name. Part 2: Jesus using substitutes

 

The last post showed the Hebrew tradition of using alternatives and substitutes instead of using the divine name Yahweh. This noble biblical tradition goes back to the psalms and the books of Chronicles.

The next part of the story brings us to what Jesus did. It is eye-opening.

Jesus and the shema

 

Here is a good test case for how the shema prayer was used by ordinary Jews. The shema in Deuteronomy goes “Hear O Israel, YHWH our God, YHWH is one.” 

And we have texts of the shema from around the turn of the era (BC/AD) containing the divine name YHWH (e.g. the Nash papyrus, and Phylacteries at Qumran). But Philo tells us the name was not normally spoken aloud in that era. It is therefore difficult to see that ordinary Jews were saying YHWH when they said the shema. So, another word was used in Philo’s era (which of course was also Jesus’ era). That word was probably Adonai. That is, it went something like “Hear O Israel, Adonai our God, Adonai is one.”[10]  

 

So what words did Jesus use when he said the shema? Now, Mark 12:29 is a written record, representing what was said aloud by Jesus. And we know that his words elicited approval from the Jewish scribe (Mark 12:32), not scandal. So as the Jews were happy with what words they heard, what did they actually hear? Presumably not the divine name. Did Jesus say Adonai instead? Probably, because no-one took offence at the word he used. In the Greek text of Mark's Gospel, it's not the divine name either: it's represented as Kurios.

 

Jesus and the Lord’s prayer

 

Jesus' words are striking in that the word Yahweh is never quoted as coming from his lips. Whatever we might like to infer about it, it is never quoted.

 

Even in the example of all examples, the model prayer which Jesus taught to his disciples, it addresses God not as Yahweh but as "our Father" (Matt. 6:9; see also Luke 11:2). It actually says, “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.” Notably, it doesn’t say “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name Yahweh.” There is no instruction that disciples should use the divine name here. It is thus implied that God has a name without actually pronouncing it. Everyone is happy it seems. Jesus gave us the finest example of how to address God as "Father," not using the divine name it seems. (Yes, I know that 'name' here also has a wider meaning of God's reputation.)

 

If Jesus really wanted the full name to be pronounced out loud, this is the moment of all moments when the name would have to be used – in prayer instruction. It doesn’t happen. That's right. It doesn't happen.

 

This I think is the main thing - this was the most famous of all moments when Jesus was being asked specifically how one should pray, and Jesus directed them to do something precisely other than pronouncing the divine name. That was the opportunity. Would some prefer to pray “Yahweh in heaven, hallowed be your name”? If so, they should think on why Jesus commanded them to pray differently and led by example: "our Father." Not once, even in Jesus' long prayer in John 17, does Jesus use the word Yahweh, but often uses the word "Father" (John 17:1,11,21,24,25).

 

Jesus practiced what he preached and prayed to “Abba, Father”. To speak of God as Father was already accepted in Jewish circles, and Jesus taught his disciples to pray that way. So Jesus does the best thing in that community, teaching a way of addressing God - as Father - maybe acknowledging God has a name but not pronouncing it. A matchless model for ministering in a sensitive situation.

In summary, when Jesus taught His disciples how to pray, he taught them specifically to address God as "Our Father," and in John 17, Jesus does not appeal to anyone but "Righteous Father" (v 25). In the New Testament, for practical purposes, Father is the "name" of God for believers, those who by the Spirit cry out, "Abba, Father!" (Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6)

 

Jesus often criticises "traditions of men," and particularly the ones to which he objected were traditions that were burdens on people (Matt 15:1-6; Mark 7:1-13). He mentioned the ones that bothered him (to do with Korban and Sabbath). He left off his list of objections the tradition of caution as to the divine name. This is noteworthy. He didn't list that as a problematic human tradition.

 

In the turbulent world of first century Jews, the century of Philo and Josephus, such an act as openly pronouncing the full divine name Yahweh would hardly go unnoticed. The reaction of the sensitive Jewish community would have been a story worth recording. The gospels provide places where this would naturally fit, such as Jesus' objections to traditions. It doesn’t happen anywhere.

 

Jesus doesn’t criticise anyone’s traditions about the name and no-one criticises his. Silence is all. The divine name simply doesn’t appear on his lips or theirs, anywhere in the Christian Greek scriptures.

 

 

Jesus and his alternatives

 

Note also how in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son (Lk. 15:21), Jesus has the son saying, “I have sinned against heaven…” - using the word “heaven” as an alternative to the divine name.

 

Note also how Jesus uses “The One” as a substitute in Matthew 23:19.

 

Note also Jesus’ statement in Matthew 26:64 about the Son of man “sitting at the right hand of Power.” Jesus is clearly using the word “power” as an alternative to the divine name, given that he is taking his words here from Psalm 110:1. So, Jesus used Psalm 110:1, which says: “The utterance of Jehovah to my Lord is: Sit at my right hand”. Jesus used "the Power" as a circumlocution. 

 

Jesus there was on trial for his supposed offences the night before his execution. Consider the febrile scene. A string of allegations was brought up against Jesus by the Jewish authorities: such as prophesying against the temple; or claiming to be a king. But no accusation of misusing the divine name? Interesting. So, uttering the divine name is one charge they had no cause to bring against him. They presumably never heard him use it. That is telling.

 

Jesus wasn’t wrong to use a substitute for the name of God, surely. So there in Matthew 26:64 (cf Mark 14:62), Jesus takes these words and says: “sitting at the right hand of …” So how did Jesus end that phrase? 

 

Following the OT, Jesus could naturally have said “sitting at the right hand of Jehovah”. 

 

But Jesus used a substitute instead of the divine name. He used "Power" instead. Sitting at the right have of Power. What Jesus said was “sitting at the right hand of Power”. Why do you think Jesus used a substitute for the divine name? Was Jesus wrong to do so?

 

Jesus commanded us to address God as “Father”, not “Jehovah” (Matthew 6:9), at the same time explicitly acknowledging the existence of a “name” that is nowhere pronounced in any of these examples.

 

Using substitutes and alternatives for the divine name is a scriptural practice. Yes, even Jesus does it.

 

We ought to consider whether Jesus said "Adonai," or the Greek "Kurios", for "Lord" instead of the divine name. Not considering this would be unserious. 

In the Greek New Testament, you frequently see Jesus saying Kurios in Greek, where he could have said Adonai in Hebrew, or Mārā (מָרָא) in Aramaic (or Kurios in Greek!). These would all be more or less equivalent. You have to consider seriously that this is a fair representation of him. It is difficult to resist the conclusion that Jesus said Adonai in Hebrew, or Mārā in Aramaic, or Kurios in Greek, rather than the divine name Yahweh. (Note the absence in the gospels of any raised eyebrows from Jews. He evidently didn't bandy about the word Yahweh outside its prescribed limits.)

 

Note also Jesus’ occasional grammatical use of the divine passive. For example, beatitudes such as "blessed are those who mourn" are in the passive voice. God is not named in it. It doesn't say "Yahweh blesses..." It keeps it the other way round: "Blessed are those..."

 

 

Jesus and oaths

 

In a time of holy substitutions, ordinary Jewish people taking oaths could be left wondering which substitutes for the divine name to use (to make their oaths binding). Jesus spoke into that question.

 

A bit of background: Exodus 20:7 is sometimes cited as creating an expectation that the divine name would be pronounced when saying oaths. Then, later, substitutes had been used in oaths instead. It was a subject of some debate for rabbis.  

 

Coming to Jesus, the obvious place to see an application would be in Matthew 5:33-37, in Jesus' teaching about oaths. It might be a place where Jesus could encourage people to say “Yahweh” in oaths, but… not so. He just wants "yes" and "no" instead.

 

Here Jesus clamps down on oaths so strongly that he does not want people to even use substitutes for the divine name precisely because God is still the referent when substitutes are used. Jesus makes it clear in what he says in Matthew 23:21-22: 

"And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it."

 

Even here, Jesus doesn't say Yahweh. He says "him who dwells" and "him who sits"! That's what we call circumlocutions.

 

To Jesus, there is little difference between using substitutes and using the divine name itself in oaths because both refer to their God. That is, Jesus indicates that even if one replaces the word Yahweh with a term further removed, such as ‘heaven’, it still refers to God as intended, and God is still invoked. So, the only acceptable approach is to stick to your "yes" and "no" and leave it that, Jesus says.

 

By clamping down on usage even of substitutes in oaths, the risk of misusing either the divine name or its alternatives by oath-breaking is avoided. And so the warning in Exodus 20:7 is satisfied simply by that. [14] So we know which way Jesus is leaning here. For Jesus here, avoiding use of the name is precisely not misuse of the name. Avoiding use is not misuse here.

 

Jesus could have used his teaching on oaths to make sure the divine name is pronounced. He did the opposite in every way.

 

 

Jesus and the Isaiah scroll

 

We come to Luke 4:17-18, where a scroll of Isaiah's words is handed to Jesus to read:

 

“So the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed him, and he opened the scroll and found the place where it was written: The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he anointed me to declare good news to the poor…”

 

As we know, we can’t automatically assume that this scroll had the divine name written on it. Part one of this series of posts covered that. 

Let's assume anyway that the scroll was written in Hebrew, and not in Aramaic or Greek. This scroll may have featured dots, or YHWH, or the Greek abbreviation Iao (Greek ιαω, or ΙΑΩ in capitals), or a blank space where the name would fit, as we have seen. 

 

We don’t know whether or not any particular reader speaking in Hebrew on that day, holding that particular scroll, would choose to say out loud Yahweh or Adonai or something else. (Although an educated guess based on all we have learned suggests a substitute would be used.) What we do know is that we have the story in Greek only, and in this gospel, Jesus uses a substitute here, the Greek word Kurios. If the gospel author thought Jesus had said Yahweh, then the gospel author could have represented this in his Greek text as ιαω. But the author didn't - the gospel author wrote Kurios (Greek κυριος). Which could imply that the gospel author thought that Jesus had said Adonai. This would be pretty significant. Here is Jesus definitely reciting scripture and the gospel definitely portrays him using a substitute, not saying Yahweh. You see the pattern of substitutes? They are all over the place when you start noticing them, and Jesus is no different. 

 

But what text of Isaiah was Jesus actually reciting? The quote from Isaiah, which is in the Greek language in Luke's gospel, generally reflects the text of the Greek Septuagint, while in part agreeing with the content of the later Hebrew Masoretic Text against the Septuagint. and in part differing from both the Septuagint and the Masoretic Text. And finally, Jesus adds a line from Isaiah 58:6 into his quote. We can’t really insist that this scroll had Yahweh on it, given all that variety. But even if it did, the gospel author tells the story as if Jesus used a substitute. And that's the only direct evidence we have to go on in this case.

Name theology

Jesus as incarnate name

 

In John’s gospel, Jesus talks about "making the Name known". What did he mean?

Reading coded mentions about “the Name” literally as “the personal name” would be shallow readings. If Jesus meant it that way, it would sound patronising to the disciples. They could have answered him, “Tell us something we don’t know, Jesus. We’re Jews. We all know it.” But "Name" here means so much more than advertising the word. (If you've ever heard Jehovah's Witnesses talk about it, they claim that this passage means that Jesus publicised (especially out loud) the personal name Jehovah. But it would seem odd that Jesus would need to "make known" the Name YHWH to devout Jews in any era. It had always been known.)

 

Something notable is going on here, regarding the Name, something closely related to the essential theme of Jesus' prayer in John 17, right where the Name motif is found. It is a profoundly Jewish thing. In Jewish writing, “the Name” was like a code-word representing the divine presence. John writes in chapter 17 that Jesus “manifests the Name,” tying in with what John wrote in chapter 1:18 – that Jesus reveals God. John’s use of “the Name” is one of his ways of affirming God’s presence on earth, the divine Word made flesh (John 1:1, 14). Jesus is the Name made flesh. This is very Johannine theology. I’m capitalising Name deliberately in this context.

 

There is Old Testament background to this.

 

In Deuteronomy, “the Name” is present with his people. This Name-presence then gets centralised on Jerusalem and the Temple. The temple is "the place where you promised to put your Name, so that you may hear the prayer your servant offers toward this place" (2 Chronicles 6:20; 1 Kings 8:29).

 

And Solomon called the Temple "the house I have built for your Name" (cf. 2 Chronicles 6:34, 38). 

 

Elsewhere on this theme, we find Isaiah 30:27 “the Name of Yahweh comes from afar… his breath is like a rushing torrent…”.

 

It then gets de-centralised again in Jesus.

 

In John’s gospel, Jesus identifies himself as the temple in whom is embodied the presence of God. For in the Temple, God’s Name has a home (1 Chronicles 23:26, 2 Chronicles 7:16, John 2:19-21, cf Revelation 21:22). Jesus’ body is the temple in which God has made a home for his Name, a temple which makes the Name manifest, makes the name known, in the person of Jesus. (That the Temple is a place in which God dwells, Jesus makes explicit in Matthew 23:19-21.)

 

 

That's all for now on Jesus' use of substitutes for the divine name. In the next post, I’ll say more about what else the New Testament authors do, how they were really quite innovative, while drawing on the tradition of substitutes that goes back to Chronicles. 

 

Footnotes

(continued from part one) 

[10] Stephen M. Wylen. The Jews in the Time of Jesus: An Introduction. pg 86. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shema_Yisrael  and https://www.scribd.com/document/78096694/Troyer-Names-of-God

[11] The Sages: The World and Wisdom of the Rabbis on the Talmud. Harvard University Press; 3rd edition (September 1987), 126-131.

[12] FF Bruce "Name" in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology.

[13] You can find this FF Bruce quote at https://www.christian-thinktank.com/trin03ex.html

[14] For more on this, see an interesting Mennonite article here: http://www.goshen.edu/facultypubs/Oaths.html