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TRANSLATION AND EXEGESIS OF BIBLICAL GREEK

Eli Kittim

Ἡ μετάφρασις τῶν Ἑβδομήκοντα (Septuagint)

In the Septuagint’s version of Isa. 33.10, YHWH uses the Greek word *ἀναστήσομαι* (a derivative of the term *ἀνίστημι*, which means to ‘make to stand up’ or to ‘raise up’, but often meaning to ‘rise from the dead’) as a reference to His personal *resurrection*, which is then followed by His ascension (ὑψωθήσομαι) and exaltation (δοξασθήσομαι)

νῦν ἀναστήσομαι λέγει κύριος νῦν δοξασθήσομαι νῦν ὑψωθήσομαι (Isa. 33.10 LXX)

Translation

Now I will arise, says the Lord, now I will lift myself up; now I will be exalted (NRSV)

Compare the Greek terms *ἀναστῇ* (Isa. 2.19 LXX), *ἀναστήσεται* (Dan. 12.1 LXX), and *ἀναστήσονται* (Dan. 12.2 LXX), all of which refer to an eschatological *resurrection* from the dead!

The Trinity in the Hebrew Bible

By Author Eli Kittim

Despite the misleading objections of Judaism and Islam to the Christian concept of the Trinity, there is compelling evidence that a multiplicity of divine persons exists in the Hebrew Bible, as we find in Prov. 30.3-4, Gen. 35.1-7, as well as in Gen. 31.10-13, in which the Angel of the Lord is identified as God, no less! Note also the multi-personal God in Eccles. 12:1 (YLT):

“Remember also thy Creators in days of thy youth.”

Similarly, there are 2 YHWHs in Genesis 19.24 in the Hebrew text:

“Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven.”

There are actually 2 persons called YHWH in the above verse. One YHWH is on the earth, standing nearby Sodom and Gomorrah. The other YHWH is in the heavens. It is reminiscent of the two Lords in Psalm 110.1:

“The LORD says to my Lord: ‘Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.' “

In another mysterious passage, the creator of heaven and earth is speaking and surprisingly ends his speech by saying, “the Lord God has sent me." Isaiah 48.12--16 reads:

“Listen to me, O Jacob,  and Israel, whom I called: I am He; I am the first,  and I am the last. My hand laid the foundation of the earth,  and my right hand spread out the heavens;

when I summon them,  they stand at attention.

Assemble, all of you, and hear!  Who among them has declared these things?

The Lord loves him;  he shall perform his purpose on Babylon,  and his arm shall be against the Chaldeans.

I, even I, have spoken and called him,  I have brought him, and he will prosper in his way.

Draw near to me, hear this!  From the beginning I have not spoken in secret,  from the time it came to be I have been there.

And now the Lord God has sent me and his spirit.”

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While critics of the Triune God use Deut. 6:4 (The Shema) as a declaration of monotheism, this verse may also refer to a plurality of divine persons within the singular Godhead. The verse essentially reads:

Hear Israel, Yahweh Elohenu Yahweh is one.

It Mentions God 3 times and then declares that he [is] one (echad). Besides mentioning God 3 times, the verse also uses the plural form ĕ·lō·hê·nū to suggest numerically more than one person. It’s tantamount to saying, Israel, pay attention to my declaration about our God: one plus one plus one equals one (or 3 in 1)! Or, Yahweh, Elohenu, Yahweh = One (monotheism)! Elohenu is a noun - masculine plural construct - first person common plural.

Moreover, notice that Yahweh is not called qadosh (singular for ‘holy’) but qə·ḏō·šîm (plural) in Joshua 24.19 as well as in Prov. 9.10:

“The commencement of wisdom is the fear of Jehovah, And a knowledge of the Holy Ones is understanding.”

Hence the plurality in the meaning of the Hebrew term for God, which is “Elohim" (Gen. 1.1), not to mention the multiplicity of divine persons in Gen. 1.26, "Let US make man in OUR image" (emphasis added).

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As for the distinction of the third person of the Trinity, namely, the Holy Spirit, besides 2 Sam. 23.2-3, read Isaiah 63.10-11:

“But they rebelled and grieved his holy spirit; therefore he became their enemy; he himself fought against them. Then they remembered the days of old, of Moses his servant. Where is the one who brought them up out of the sea with the shepherds of his flock? Where is the one who put within them his Holy Spirit . . . ?”

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Conclusion

Thus, the above-mentioned verses in the Hebrew Scriptures clearly support the theological concept of a multi-personal God——that is to say, a plurality of persons within the singular Godhead, otherwise known as the Trinity, which comprises three persons but one being: One God, yet three coeternal, consubstantial persons (hypostases). These three persons are said to be distinct, yet are nevertheless one "substance, essence or nature" (homoousios).

In other words, the Hebrew Scriptures further substantiate the theological notion of the triune God.

The Two Powers of the Godhead Were Part of Judaism During the Time of Jesus

Eli Kittim (Goodreads Author)

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Metatron and Jesus

The early Jewish concept of “Metatron”——(He who is said to be above the angels, either consubstantial with the Ancient of days or perhaps a manifestation of his very being) as referenced by Medieval Rabbinic scholars and also found in the Babylonian Talmud and 3 Enoch——is very similar to the messianic figure of Jesus Christ in the New Testament (NT) and is suggestive of two powers in the Godhead, an idea also attested by Philo of Alexandria (see “Confusion of Tongues" pp. 62-63 and pp. 146-47; “On Dreams" 1.215). The notion of the two powers in Heaven in early Jewish thinking has recently attracted the attention of both Christian and Jewish scholarship. Peter Schafer, the noted religious studies scholar, has written extensively on this subject emphasizing that, according to Jewish writings, Metatron was seen as a lesser yhwh and was prevalent in Jewish thought in the first century, and thus helped Christianity to chalk up that designation to Jesus.

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The Two Powers in Heaven in the Hebrew Bible

The two powers of the Godhead or the plurality in the Godhead is certainly suggested in Hebrew scripture where there seem to be two Yahwehs, one visible, the other invisible, and they often participate in the same scenes together. In fact, according to Alan F. Segal’s book “Two powers in Heaven,” “the idea of the 2nd power was not considered heretical until the 2nd century CE.” Alan Segal was a Jewish man and professor of Jewish and Talmudic literature. So, the concept of the two powers of the Godhead was part of Judaism at the time of Jesus and only became a heresy sometime around 100 CE. Scholars suggest it was probably due to an attempt on the part of Judaism to oppose Christianity that they suddenly decided to consider it heretical. Naturally, this second YHWH was seen as Jesus by the NT authors.

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There are 2 YHWHs in the Old Testament (OT)

The divine plurality was not a huge problem at that time because there was already a belief in two powers in Jewish thought. There are, for example, two Yhwhs in Gen. 19.24. You can also see this idea in Gen. 22.11-12; Exod. 3.2, 4; 23.20-21; Deut. 12.5, 11. In Amos 4.11, God speaks in the first person and then curiously refers to God in the 3d person. In Judg. 2.1-4, the angel of YHWH is using first person language and speaks as if he’s God who has made a covenant with Israel. Astoundingly, in Gen. 31.10-13, the angel of God reveals himself as the God of Bethel. How could he be both the angel of God and God himself at one and the same time unless we’re talking about two different persons? Similarly, in Judg. 6.11-16, the passage begins with the angel of YHWH who said x y and z but ends with YHWH who said x y and z. In other words, as the angel of YHWH begins to speak he is then identified with YHWH himself speaking in the first person.

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YHWH revealed as the Word of the Lord

Further examples are found in 1 Samuel 3.1, 7-8, 10, 19-21. In 1 Samuel 3.21, for instance, we are told that the LORD (YHWH) revealed himself by/as the word of the Lord. This has profound theological implications. It clearly suggests that the Logos in Jn 1.1 (“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God”) is neither a new idea nor a Christian invention but rather a conceptual derivation from Jewish theology that is contained within the OT itself. Similarly, in Jeremiah 1.4-7, Jeremiah says that “the word of the Lord came to me saying,” such and such, and then he refers to him as YHWH, but in v. 9 “the word of the Lord” that had come to him appears to be embodied because an actual hand reaches out and touches Jeremiah’s mouth, suggestive of the embodied word of God.

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The OT YHWH embodied in human form

In Daniel 7.13 “a human being coming with the clouds of heaven” is mentioned even though traditionally it is said to be God who rides the clouds (cf. Deut. 33.26; Ps. 68.32-33; 104.1-3; Isa. 19.1). Thus, we have a visible, embodied, incarnate God as well as an invisible God at one and the same time! We all thought that the cloud-rider was Yahweh. That’s correct. But now we find another person, a human being who takes on the qualities and attributes of Yahweh. In fact, the Matthean Jesus quotes this very passage during his purported trial (26.63-65) when Caiphas inquires to know who he really is. According to Alan Segal’s book, Daniel 7 is describing “a heavenly enthronement scene involving two divine manifestations, ‘the son of man’ and then Ancient of Days’ . . . it may easily be describing two separate, divine figures.”

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Jesus is unique amongst the heavenly host

While it is true that the Tanach presents other so-called “sons of God” who are not human (e.g. Job 1-2; Ps. 82.1, 6), Jesus is distinguished from them in that he is clearly identified with Yahweh per se. The NT itself makes this point in various ways. One way that the NT distinguishes Jesus from the other sons of God, which the Septuagint often translates as angels (Deut. 32.8 LXX), is through the Greek term monogenēs, a term that is translated in English as “Only Begotten.” Etymologically, this term is a combination of monos (“only”) and gene (“type” or “kind”). In other words, one of a kind. There are none like him. It means he’s “unique.” It does not have anything to do with the concepts of “begetting” or “beginning.” Hebrews 11.17 is the proof-text which clarifies this point because Isaac is also referenced there as the monogenes of Abraham. But we know that Isaac was not the only begotten son of Abraham. Ergo, it means that Isaac is unique.

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Summary:

Thus the “Only begotten” language refers to uniqueness, not to a “point of origin” or to a beginning. Given that Yahweh is unique and that Jesus is identified with him, this term stresses an intimate relationship between the two. The NT affirms a divine plurality and specifically Christ’s ontological link with Yahweh. In fact, Jude 1.5 suggests that it was Jesus himself who led the people out of Egypt!

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What about the Spirit and the Trinity?

The Holy Spirit becomes distinct as a separate entity already in the OT, as when it is said that the people rebelled not against the angel of the Lord but against “his Holy Spirit.” It’s noteworthy that later the text alludes to God “who brought them out of the sea” and “put in the midst of them his Holy Spirit” (Isaiah 63.10, 11). But wasn’t the angel of the Lord put in the midst of them, according to other passages? Well, yes. But there’s more to the story. Psalm 78.40-41 is a parallel passage. The words “rebelled” and “grieved” in Ps 78 are the same Hebrew words used in the Isaian passage. The Isaian passage says that the people rebelled and grieved “his Holy Spirit” whereas Ps 78 says that “they rebelled against him [God] and grieved him in the desert.” Verse 41 goes on to say that “They tested God again and again and provoked the Holy One of Israel.” The comparison of the two passages aligns or conflates the Holy Spirit with God and yet shows a distinction between them. In fact, Ps. 78.41 says that they tempted God and the Holy One of Israel. This is a case where two divine powers are mentioned in the same scene while one figure that we’re familiar with is clearly absent, to wit, the angel of the Lord. A third element is thus added to the two-power structure of the Godhead, namely, the Holy Spirit or the Holy One of Israel, according to the parallel passage. That’s “three-thinking” language. Accordingly, the NT authors knew their Hebrew Scriptures extraordinarily well. They were very familiar with its thematic material. So, they’re not inventing new concepts. They’re actually borrowing their ideas from the OT.

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A Trinitarian narrative in OT theology

By way of illustration, Ezek. 8 introduces “a form that had the appearance of a man” (v. 1), and then goes on to describe this figure in v. 2, which is suggestive of God sitting on his throne in Ezek. ch. 1. But here God appears in human form. Ezekiel says that “He put out the form of a hand” by which he grabbed his hair (v. 3). But who actually lifted him up? Ezekiel says, “and the Spirit lifted me up between earth and heaven (v. 3). The text then reverts to speaking about God in the 3rd person (v. 5) and also in the first person in verse 6.

So, in this passage we have God himself speaking, but we also have an embodied God in human form (akin to the figure in Ezek. ch. 1) as well as the “Spirit” acting as an independent agent and yet as part of the Godhead. This must have been extremely confusing to the early rabbinical scholars who probably couldn't make heads or tails of these passages. To the NT authors, who were also guided by divine revelations, these passages were obviously trinitarian in nature. Thus, there appears to be a theological correspondance between the *OT-God* (comprising the two YHWHs and the Spirit) and the *NT-God* (consisting of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). These divine modes were certainly prevalent in OT theology concerning the Two (and possibly Three) Powers in the Godhead.

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Conclusion

The Jewish Bible clearly suggests a plurality in the Godhead (i.e. Yahweh as two figures).

The so-called “Name” of God is yet another reference to Yahweh and this “Name” is said to be in the Angel of Yahweh as well. Ergo, we cannot escape the semantic trajectory of OT theology, namely, the running narrative that the Angel is YHWH in human form, or the visible manifestation of Yahweh. What is more, the so-called “Word of the Lord” appears to be an embodiment of YHWH. In fact, the theology of the Jewish Bible depicts the second Yahweh figure as physically embodied in human form. And, as already mentioned, the theology of first-century Judaism already contained the notion that Yahweh is present in two persons, often in the same scene.

God is Called by a Gentile Name

By Award-Winning Author Eli Kittim

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This paper is partially excerpted from a section by the same name in chapter 6 of my book, “The Little Book of Revelation.” In hindsight, we all know that the Biblical God is said to enlighten the world through progressive revelations (e.g. from the Old Testament [OT] to the New Testament [NT]). This fundamentally implies that the *meaning* of the name of God (YHWH) was originally incomprehensible until the arrival of the NT.

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The Greek NT: A Clue to the Meaning of the Divine Name

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Why was the NT written in Greek? Why are there more epistles written to Greek communities than any other? Why are most NT books written in Greece? Why do the NT authors quote predominantly from the Greek OT? Why doesn’t Jesus *reveal* the divine “I AM” as the aleph and the Tav in the language of the Hebrews?

Is it because the name of God has something to do with the Greek NT? Surprisingly, the answer is yes!

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YHWH: I AM THAT I AM

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God did not fully reveal himself to Moses (Exod. 3.14) except as “I Am that I Am.” The full revelation came later with Jesus. This expression is conventionally rendered as “Yahweh,” which is construed as “Lord.” But since there’s nothing akin to the letter “w” in the Hebrew alphabet, the variant “Yahveh”——pronounced as yah-va——may be furnished instead. Among the orthodox sects of the Judaic tradition, the religious adherents are strictly forbidden from vocalizing or even pronouncing the divine name. Even the Tetragrammaton “YHVH” is not allowed to be uttered. Hebrew was originally a consonantal language. Vowels and cantillation marks were added to the Bible by the Masoretes between the 7th and 10th centuries ce. Therefore, to call God Yahweh is a rough approximation. We don’t really know the actual name or what it signifies. But through Biblical and linguistic studies we can propose a scholarly theory.

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The Divine “I AM” Is Revealed in the NT as “ALPHA & OMEGA”

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Since the Divine “name” (i.e. the divine “I AM”) was ultimately revealed in the NT through the first and last letters of the Greek writing system (“I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end” Rev. 22.13), then it must therefore be known by a Gentile name. The Alpha and the Omega constitute “the beginning and the end” of the Greek alphabet. In other words, the Demiurge (Heb. 1.2) explicitly identifies himself with the language of the Greeks. No wonder why the NT was written in Greek and not in Hebrew. That’s precisely why we are told “how God First concerned Himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for his name” (Acts 15.14):

“And with this the words of the Prophets agree, just as it is written, . . . ‘THE GENTILES WHO ARE CALLED BY MY NAME’ “ (Acts 15.15-17).

What a groundbreaking statement that is! This quote affords crystal clear evidence that the Deity’s name is not derived from Hebraic but rather Gentile sources. The Tanach (Hebrew Bible) states an identical motif:

“All the Gentiles. . . are called by My name” (Amos 9.12).

God explicitly identifies himself with the language of the Greeks: “ ‘I am the Alpha and the Omega,’ says the Lord God” (Rev. 1.8), and immediately thereafter this *Greek-theme* carries forward into the next verse in which John the Revelator is on *Greek* soil, “on the island called Patmos BECAUSE of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus” (Rev. 1.9 emphasis added). Hence why the NT is written in *Greek,* to reflect the Greek Jesus (Ιησούς). By the way, God is never called Yahweh in the NT: he’s called Lord (kurios). Similarly, Jesus is never called Yehoshua or Yeshua, as the Christian Hebrew Roots movement would have us believe!

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The Semantic Implications of Yahva: Phonetic and Grammatical Considerations

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If my theory is correct, we must find indications of a Greek linguistic element within the original name of God (i.e. “Yahva”) as it was previously disclosed to Moses. Indeed we do! In the Hebrew language, the term “Yavan” represents the Greeks (Josephus “Antiquities” I, 6). So, it’s not difficult to see how the phonetic and grammatical mystery of God’s name——Yahveh, pronounced as Yah-va——can clearly be solved by attributing its derivation to the Hebrew term “Ya-van,” which refers to the Greeks. Upon further inspection, the Hebrew names for both God and Greece (Yahva/Yavan) are virtually indistinguishable from one another, both grammatically and phonetically! Hence why it may have been kept as a secret and untranslatable under the consonantal name of God (“YV”), which, with the addition of vowels, not only points to “YaVan,” the Hebrew name for Greece, but also anticipates the arrival of the Greek NT!

There’s further evidence for a connection between the Greek & Hebrew names of God. In a few rare Septuagint manuscripts, the Tetragrammaton is actually translated as “IAO” (aka Greek Trigrammaton). That is to say, the divine name Yahva is rendered into Koine Greek as Ιαω (see e.g. Lev. 4.27 of Septuagint [LXX] manuscript 4Q120). This fragment is derived from the Dead Sea Scrolls, found at Qumran, and dated to the 1st century bce. Interestingly enough, the name IAO seemingly represents the Ancient Greeks (aka IAONIANS), the earliest literary records of whom are found in Homer (Gk. Ἰάονες; iāones) and also in the work of Hesiod (Gk. Ἰάων; iāōn). Nearly all Bible scholars concur that the Hebrew name Yavan represents the Iaonians; that is, Yavan is Ion (Ionia i.e. “Greece”). Further independent attestations come from the Patristic writings on the Tetragrammaton. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia (1910) & B.D. Eerdmans: Diodorus Siculus (1st century BCE) refers to the name of God by writing Ἰαῶ (Iao); Irenaeus (d. c. 202) reports that the Valentinians use Ἰαῶ (Iao); Origen of Alexandria (d. c. 254) employs Ἰαώ (Iao). Theodoret of Cyrus (393 – c. 458) writes Ἰαώ (Iao); he also reports that the Samaritans say Ἰαβέ or Ἰαβαί (both pronounced at that time */ja'vε/). Hence the secret name of God in both the Septuagint & the Hebrew Bible seemingly represents Greece!

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Conclusion: The NT Ascribes the Name of God to Greek Sources

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The final revelation of the name of God is made known in the NT (Ἐγώ εἰμι τὸ Ἄλφα καὶ τὸ Ὦ), and it clearly points to Greek sources. In hindsight, we can trace this Greek name back to the Divine “I am” in Exodus 3.14, as I have shown.

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