The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context (2009 McGrath), book

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The Only True God: Early Christian Monotheism in Its Jewish Context (2009) is a book by James F. McGrath.

Abstract

In an attempt to nuance our current understanding of the notion of Jewish monotheism, McGrath argues that "monotheism in early Judaism and Christianity meant something other than what it means to many today" and that it was the result of a "complex historical process, wherein many new issues have regularly appeared, and new definitions have been formulated to deal with the new issues" (96). While early Jews did possess a fervent, almost fanatical, adherence to the worship of the only God Most High, the one true God, the literature from this period also attests to a certain blurriness between God and creation that is not fully acknowledged or appreciated. God often shared his agency with other divine beings. Accordingly, these other beings are not only depicted with divine language but they also enact divine functions. They can sit on God's throne or bear God's name without compromising early Judaism's notion of monotheism.

Belief in Jesus, like these other divine intermediary figures, did not compromise the Jewish notion of "monotheism" during this time period. Even the claims of the Gospel of John, which explicitly and unequivocally names Jesus as "God (Theos)", does not create a radical shift in early Jewish monotheism. Since "the boundary between God and creation in first-century Judaism was more like a river than a wall" Jesus easily fit within this system (57). Just as Philo can speak of a second God, it is permissible to describe Jesus as a second God. Both Philo and John demonstrate that within the confines of early Judaism "belief in one God who is above all is compatible with belief in a second figure who reveals and represents God" (58). Jesus like Philo's logos is always subordinated to the Father throughout the New Testament. Consequently, it is only in the second and third centuries CE, when the early Church Fathers and the early Rabbis began to define and delineate sharper boundaries between the divine and human realms that Judaism and Christianity can be clearly seen as separating one from the other. ~Deborah Forger

Editions and translations

Published in Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2009.

Table of contents

• 1. Monotheism and method: an introduction to the study of early Jewish and Christian thought about God
• 2. Worship and the question of Jewish monotheism in the Greco-Roman era
• 3. Monotheism and the letters attributed to Paul
• 4. Monotheism and the Gospel of John
• 5. Monotheism and worship in the Book of Revelation
• 6. Two powers heresy: rethinking (and redating) the parting of ways between Jewish and Christian monotheism
• Conclusion

External links

• Google Books (partial text)