The Ontological View of Exodus 3:14
Exodus 3:14 is one of the most debated scriptures in all of Jewish and Christian history. A question that immediately arises in connection with this verse is Moses' intent when he records the authorial words of Jehovah God: "I Am That I Am: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I Am hath sent me unto you" (KJV).
Does this verse embody information that would connote God's eternality? Is God (YHWH) delineating His necessary existence (esse a se) in this passage? Does this verse deal with ontological aspects of God, or is there some other point that the writer is trying to convey with the Hebrew phrase EHYEH ASHER EHYEH?
The second century CE, as I have contended elsewhere, was a time when the infiltration of Hellenistic philosophical and religious ideas permeated the church (ecclesia). One idea that filtered into the early Christian community, was the notion of divine impassibility (apatheia). This concept seemed to distort the true nature of God's immutable character.
The idea of divine impassibility might seem as if it accurately defines God's immutability; such a conclusion would be mistaken, however. For while the philosophical idea of divine impassibility apparently sets forth the actual nature of God, it's possible that the concept needs to be re-evaluated for the following reason: YHWH is not an impassible deity. Jehovah is neither strictly comparable to the First Mover of Aristotle nor can He be equated with The Good (The Inexhaustible Ground of all Being) in Plato's Republic or the One in Plotinus' Enneads. To the contrary:
"in their assertion of the freedom of God, the [biblical] prophets emphasized at the same time his involvement with the covenant people in love and wrath. Therefore the Old Testament doctrine of the sovereign freedom of God [cannot] be synonymous with the philosophical doctrine of divine impassibility (APAQEIA)" ((Pelikan, Jaroslav, The Christian Tradition I:52-54).
Impassibility denotes that God is free from the quality of Becoming, and not constrained by the fluidity and vicissitudes concomitant with life in the finite sphere. In contrast, the Hebrew prophets affirmed the presence and might of God in their lives. They affirmed a God who was Living and dynamic--EHYEH ASHER EHYEH. Exodus 3:14 does not flatten this dynamic view of Yahweh. With the aforementioned points in mind, I will now review Exodus 3:14. In the ancient ecclesia, Exodus 3:14 was believed to be the supreme proof of God's Impassibility. The views on this Scripture were divergent, yet there were numerous attempts to exegete this Jewish passage in an ontological manner.
Clement of Alexandria contended that "God is one, and beyond the one and above the monad itself." Hilary exclaims that Exodus 3:14 is "an indication concerning God so exact that it expresses in the terms best adapted to human understanding an unattainable insight into the mystery of the divine nature" (Pelikan, 54). Thomas Aquinas interpreted the account in terms of the Vulgate's wording "Qui est" (He Who Is). But is this view correct? Should Exod. 3:14 be understood in an ontological sense?
While some of the aforementioned Patristic and medieval ideas possibly have some merit, they evidently fail to reveal the complete reality of God. Exodus 3:14 is not an ontological statement of God's Deity. It does not, tell us so much about God's nature (His ONTOS), as it tells us about His purposes or functions with regard to His purposes. I would humbly submit that the phenomenological view of Exod. 3:14 comes much closer to explaining the thornbush account. It espouses the idea that God is the One who will "be" in the sense of carrying out His purposes ("causing to be"). In this exegetical paradigm, what God is to "be" is left unstated. He will become whatsoever He has to become in order to accomplish His purpose.
In Bibliotheca Sacra, Charles Gianotti offers some pertinent criticism regarding the ontological view: he winds up advocating either the phenomenological or the covenantal view:
"This view seems to rest on the Septuagint translation of Exodus 3:14 (EGW EIMI hO WN). On the face of it, the use of eijmi seems to support his view. This view is untenable for a number of reasons. Though the Septuagint is a serviceable translation of the Pentateuch, the Septuagint is not inspired; it is a human translation by Jewish scholars. The primary understanding of Exodus 3:14 should come, rather, from a contextual understanding of the passage as well as from an analysis of the meaning and usage of the Hebrew term hy*h* and its imperfect form hy#h=a# . . . Significantly, most interpreters translate hy#h=a# in Exodus 3:12 as future (i.e.. 'I will be [hy#h=a#] with you'). Yet, two verses later, why should not the same translation suffice?"
Gianotti sums up matters writing:
"One may safely conclude that Exodus 3:14 does not support an 'ontological' or 'existence' view; the name YHWH therefore is not rooted in that view, by virtue of its close relation to Exodus 3:14."
Friday, October 02, 2020
Ontology and Exodus 3:14 (Edited Version of An Earlier Post)
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29 comments:
Good post😁
Old biblical Hebrew is slanted toward the ideas of function rather than form. What it does rather than what it looks like. If Jehovah was trying to convey his being to Moses I think he would have been scratching his head regarding that explanation.
Thanks, Dunca. I know we've had the function/form discussion before. I've resisted thinking of "good" in terms of function only, like when it comes to morals or possibly even with trees or humans. But I don't completely deny that function has some role to play in the ancient Hebrew worldview.
The last view you mention has also been seriously posited by scholars: they argue that God intended to let Moses know that his name is unknowable and indefinable. :)
Do you think the "Ego Eimi Ho On" translation in the LXX was an attempt to read "Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh" ontologically? Of course it's not inspired scripture (at least if you're a sola scriptura Christian, and not a Catholic/Orthodox).
I agree that YHWH cannot be thought of as impassible, especially given the biblical data, and the idea that the bible uses anthropomorphisms doesn't help the impassabile cause either, because even if anthropomorphisms are used, you can't make sense of the data without God having some kind of relation with his creation that is reciprocal.
I recently read Sean McDonough's "YHWH at Patmos" (highly recommended), which speaks about the development of thinking around the name.
I think you're right about the interpretation of Exodus 3:14, at least in its original context, and its original purpose, YHWH is the becoming God, the dynamic God who makes things happen.
Do you think YHWH itself has ontological implications? If it is the case that it has some meaning related to God as creator, and if it, in some way, can imply creation ex-nihilo (or something similar, creating purely from will), does not that have ontological implications? I know the society entertains a creator interpretation of YHWH, but what do you think?
Also do you think "ho on, no hein, kai ho erkomenos" (Rev 1:8) is an interpretation of the name? or an interpretation of Exodus 3:14, and do you think it has ontological interpretations?
I have been going back and forth in my head a bit over the years. On the one hand many of the classical arguments for God seem extremely persuasive to me, but those arguments entail at least some classical attributes (simplicity, immutability, incorporality, atemporality), but at the same time the Biblical data portrays a very dynamic God which is at times in conflict with the classical God.
Personally I think one has to find a balance, I think we cannot give up passability, I think that is vital (I'm more and more convinced by the view of love given by Zizek and Badiou as decentering, contingency etc etc, and less to the more common, and even ancient view, that love is a deep affection, or a kind of ordered desire, and the Zizekian/Badiouian view requires passability, nor can we give up the idea that God is, somehow, in time, or his knowledge depends on our choices (I think open theism is the best way to go here, but the Originist idea that God knows eternally, but it's still dependent on our choices, I think that is also Boethius's view), because I think that is ALSO necessary for love (not to mention the biblical data).
But I also don't think we can give up aseity, creatio ex-nihilo, infinity, omniscience and omnipotence. Also, I know the society has written against incorporability (and my inference simplicity) and omniprescence, but I just can't imagine how one can square the former affirmations (aseity, creatio ex nihilo, infinity, omniscience and omnipotence) with a denial of imcoporality and omnipresnce ... but out of respect, all I'll say is that I can't see how it's possible, not that it isn't possible (there are plenty of much brighter people than me who I'm sure could put them together). I read the article you sent about Tertullian's notion of corporality, but I found myself still unsure about how to make sense of it.
(Keep in mind, I don't read Hebrew, I plan on starting on Hebrew next year, I have my greek down to a level where I can read and have a lexicon next to me closed on the table .... :))
I know this is a long long comment, but this is something I'm still trying to wrap my head around this topic, and I may never be able to, which isn't suprising given Psalms 145:3 ... but I'm still gonna try :)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J84zSeKaDkU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51h8ssppxn0
First, thanks to Duncan. I will consider those videos although I'm not one to get worked up about the pronunciation of YHWH. Like the Governing Body says, we don't know the exact pronunciation of the name. We use Jehovah, but that doesn't mean we know the original pronunciation of the Tetra.
As for Exod. 3:14, I'm convinced that Rashi, Rotherham or Witherington have it right when they suggest something like "I will be whosoever I will be" or "I will be who I will be." Compare Exod. 3:12.
Roman, I would suggest Gianotti's article and other writings done by our Greek friend, Pavlos. But I've normally understood the LXX rendering to be an ontological understanding of Exod. 3:14 in Hebrew. It's funny that the LXX gets a lot of things right, even sometimes it's more trustworthy than the MT, but at other times, I believe the LXX does not get the translation correct.
As stated earlier, I tend to agree with Rashi, Rotherham or Witherington about the meaning of YHWH, but I don't think we can be dogmatic. There's a good dissertation which was written by someone at Durham University (I believe) which carefully goes through these issues. What I took from that dissertation was that it's near impossible to say what YHWH means with any certainty, but the phenomenological view has a lot going for it, IMHO.
I would have to look carefully at Rev. 1:8 again because it's a complex scripture, but I would say it's probably not an ontological description of God. Sorry to be so ambiguous, but I've been reading things over the last few years that have made me rethink previous views. For example, read David Aune on Rev. 1:8 and related verses.
All I will say about the rest of your note, and you said many good things, is that I've had the same question about Jehovah's incorporeality and omnipresence. While the traditional view of omnipresence bothers me at times, at least some of what Aquinas says makes sense concerning omnipresence. However, I want to avoid sowing divisions or running ahead of those taking the lead. Still, it's a question in my mind too.
I think Stanley Grenz and Roger Olsen once wrote a book about 20th century theology: the one thing I remember from that book is how they describe the ongoing tension between divine transcendence and divine immanence (i.e., omnipresence): theologians in the 20th century went back and forth on these concepts. I would love to read that book again, but I no longer have it. Lastly, have you ever read anything by Brian Hebblethwaite? I believe I got the spelling right :)
He writes on the philosophy of religion.
IMO the context of 3:14, of being an explanation that Moses had to pass on to others, especially Pharaoh. It's seems probable that a paraphrase translation would be - you will know me by what I do.
Take for example the description of Noah's ark in Hebrew. It really does not tell us much about the appearance of this vessel . I have not looked at how it is described in the LXX.
I'm still of the mind that we don't know exactly how Exod. 3:14 should be rendered, but Rashi takes this approach:
"And God said unto Moses, 'I shall be what I shall be.' And he said, 'so shall you say to the children of Israel, I shall be has sent me to you.'" And lest there be any lingering doubt, God adds the binding promise: "This is my name for ever and this is my remembrance from generation to generation."
Richard Kearney's translational preference for Exodus 3:14 is stated in this way:
"My ultimate suggestion is that we might do better to reinterpret the Transfiguring God of Exodus 3 neither as 'I who am' nor as 'I who am not' but rather as 'I am who may be'—that is, as the possibility to be, which obviates the extremes of being and non-being. EHYEH ASHER EHYEH might thus be read as signature of the God of the possible, a God who refuses to impose on us or abandon us, traversing the present moment while opening onto an ever-coming future."
Two suggestions of many.
https://www.sefaria.org/Exodus.3.14?lang=bi&with=Rashi&lang2=en
https://biblehub.com/text/exodus/4-12.htm
Exodus 3:14 in the Complete Jewish Bible is:
God said to Moshe, “Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh [I am/will be what I am/will be],” and added, “Here is what to say to the people of Isra’el: ‘Ehyeh [I Am or I Will Be] has sent me to you.’”
The Jewish Study Bible:
And God said to Moses, “Ehyeh-Asher-Ehyeh.”[a] He continued, “Thus shall you say to the Israelites, ‘Ehyeh[b] sent me to you.’”
[a] Meaning of Heb. Uncertain; variously translated: “I Am That I Am”; “I Am Who I Am”; “I Will Be What I Will Be”; etc.
[b] Others, “I Am” or “I Will Be.”
Notice the last Ehyeh was left as a name.
Enter Akkadian. The Semitic Akkadians had a god Ea. He was the god of the Adam-figure Adapa and the god of the Noah-figure Ziusudra.
One person (I cannot find his name) wrote:
Scholars have determined that Ea was vocalized as ‘Eya’. So, when Moses stood before the burning bush and asked the name of the god of the mountain, did “God” really reply `I am who I am’ (Heb. Eyah asher eyah)? This puzzling phrase has long perplexed many theologians here is our simple explanation.
The voice of God simply replied `Eyah asher Eyah’ - `I am (the one) who is called Eyah’ – the name of Ea in its West Semitic (Hebrew) form.
Some Scholars have simply failed to recognize (most often those with strong theological ties) that this is another of those characteristic puns in which the Old Testament abounds. `I am (Eyah) he who is called (asher) Ea (Eyah)’ is a classic biblical play on words.
It also explains God’s apparently nonsensical instruction:
`This is what you are to say to the Israelites, “I am has sent me to you”.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that the above statement makes no sense. The words properly translated are `Eyah has sent me to you’.
(end quote)
I'm just placing this research on the table. It can be rejected. It does sound kind of funny. However, I was wondering about the connection between the Hebrew Ehyeh and the Akkadian Ea before I found that quote.
It's an interesting quote. Thanks Jim. Maybe you've also seen Robert Alter's observations about Exodus 3:14: it might add some insight. Maybe someone here can help with the Akkadian question.
Bro Foster, I've read brother Pavlos's work on the name :), he does great work, and I agree, from what I've read it's not an accurate translation. I haven't read anything by Brian Hebblethwaite ... is there anything you suggest for me to read? I know he gave Gifford Lectures. I found that Book by Grenz and Olsen ... this is very helpful ... I'm gonna buy this. I feel like I have a decent grasp on Ante-Nicene Theological concepts, a little bit of the Post-Nicene, and as we get into the middle ages and modern era my knoweldge grows dimmer and dimmer, although I have in the past read on Aquinas, and more recently Scotus (on your suggestion). Give me a couple years and I'll be able to speak more intelligently on 20th century theology :).
Bro Montero, I thought you mkight like these works by Hebblethwaite:
https://www.amazon.com/Philosophical-Theology-Christian-Doctrine-Hebblethwaite/dp/0631211527
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005PUWVES/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i1
Hope you also enjoy Grenz and Olsen: at least, it gives you an overview of discussions that occupied 20th century theology. You're doing well with the different periods of theology. I've found that it's pretty difficult to master all of the periods.
"The name Ea is allegedly Hurrian in origin while others [5][6] claim that his name 'Ea' is possibly of Semitic origin and may be a derivation from the West-Semitic root *hyy meaning "life" in this case used for "spring", "running water"."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enki#cite_note-5
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aya_(goddess)
Thanks Duncan, I read that too. Regarding the Hurrians, https://www.ancient.eu/Hurrians/
Neat stuff!
Just a few thoughts before going to bed. I use the vocalization Jehovah instead of hiding God's name behind four consonants. It's a form of the name that has been used widely for centuries in the Western world. Not one person I have met, who objects to using the name Jehovah because it's probably not the exact pronounciation, objects to using the name Jesus, in spite of the fact that we know for certain that Jesus in English *phonetically* has very little or no resemblance to the name in Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek (Yehoshua', Yoshua', Yeshu', Iesous or Iosué). They were all Trinitarians, so they believe that Jesus is as divine and omnipotent and eternal as God the Father, so Jesus’ name should be as sacred. To me, there's an inconsistency there. We also know for certain that with time, the pronounciation of words, including names, change, in all languages, so how God's name was originally pronounced would still only be a matter of how it sounded just then. (For example, 'Ya'aqob' – that is, Jacob – loses two syllables and becomes in spoken English the one-syllable James. Not even the English 'God' and 'Jesus' were pronounced a thousand years ago in England as they are today.) If Jesus is OK for today's theologians to use, certainly Jehovah should be.
It’s been said before by others: What Jehovah said in Exodus 3:14 must have made some sense to Moses and the Israelites; otherwise it would have created even more confusion than just saying that he was Abraham's, Isaac's and Jacob's God. ‘Ehyeh (immak)’ in the meaning "I will prove to be (with you)" is used in Exodus 3:12, just a couple of sentences earlier, so there’s a natural connection there. ‘Ehyeh (immak)’ is what Jehovah uses in his promise to Jacob to be with him, protect him and not abandon him. (Gen. 28:15) And the same verb form Jehovah uses later when assuring Joshua: "Just as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will neither desert you nor abandon you." (Joshua 1:5) So that’s a theme not limited to Ex. 3:14.
The Israelites lived in a culture where each and everything belonged to the domain of a specific god (for fertility, for the Nile, for the Sun and so on), whose power was limited to that domain. But Jehovah had no such limitations, in the eyes of the author of Exodus. In such a context, I think the words ‘ehyeh asher ehyeh’ would be understood as "I will be(come) whosoever I want to be(come)" – and, specifically, “I will be with you”.
Possibly one reason for why it appears so difficult to translate 'ehyeh' as "I will be(come)" is how this verse early in church history became tied to the Trinitarian interpretation of the so-called “I AM statements” of Jesus in the gospel of John; 'I AM' (Greek: 'ego eimi') being interpreted as Jesus' way of saying that he was Jehovah, referring to Ex. 3:14. But Jesus didn't speak in Greek to his audience, it was in Aramaic or Hebrew, and it's unlikely he's quoting from the Septuagint just there. It wouldn't make any grammatical sense.
P. S. Not even Luther translated 'ehyeh' as 'I am' in Ex. 3:14 in his German translation of the Bible. He used the future tense, like Aquila and Theodotion did in their Greek translations of the Torah.
You and I agree that it's fine to vocalize God's revealed name as "Jehovah." I only use YHWH when I'm discussing matters within a scholarly context or when referring to the name as it occurs in the Bible. Like I said, there's no big disagreement between you and me, and you make many fine points. But respectfully, I personally don't look at the use of YHWH as hiding the divine name behind consonants. YHWH is a transliteration of what we find in the Bible: "Jehovah" tries to render the quadrilateral name of God. As the WT literature states, we don't know the exact pronunciation of God's name, but we use Jehovah because that name has been commonly used in English Bibles and by some theologians/scholars. In other word, Jehovah is a familiar term and it may just be correct, but we just don't know. But regardless of whether we know the exact pronunciation or not, I regularly use "Jehovah" in meetings, when witnessing to others, including the public ministry and Bible studies. The main point (IMHO) is recognizing that God has a personal name used almost 7,000 times in the Tanakh.
Thanks for your input.
Couple questions.
Does honor and worship mean the same thing? Many point to John 5:23 "That all men should honour the Son, even as they honour the Father. He that honoureth not the Son honoureth not the Father which hath sent him."
They say since we are to honor the Son as even as we honor the Father this means we must worship the son even as we worship the Father.
Another question is about John 12:41. Many people bring this up to try and prove Jesus is Yehovah. They say since John said Isaiah saw his glory the one he saw was Yehovah at Isaiah 6:1. Therefore Jesus is Yehovah. How would you reason with someone on this?
No, honor and worship do not mean the same thing. See Matthew 15:4-8; John 12:26. The verse says "honor," not worship.
For the "just as" language," I have used John 17:20-23.
I don't agree with his theology or his presuppotions, but a guy named Trinity Delusion has produced a refutation for John 12:41. One of the best replies IMO is also Greg Stafford's answer to the verse.
Also for information on John 12:41, see https://www.christianmonotheism.com/php/media_center/media_displayer.php?chosen=tags&mode=tags&data=6
Use John 12:41 as a search term.
I came across a article that said this:
"The Septuagint Bible was well known amongst the 1st century Christian writers and when you look at Exodus 3:14 you quickly see that this Bible completely destroys the John 8:58/Exodus 3:14 connection.*
The words in the Septuagint (LXX) is not simply ego eimi, it is ego eimi ho on (EGW EIMI hO WN)...I am THE BEING. In other words, the words in the Septuagint focus on THE BEING, not the "I am." The "I am' is simply used to identify THE BEING. The silliness of focusing on the "I am" is akin to me saying "here is the President" and then having everyone settling their attention on the words "here is."
The Septuagint’s rendering of Exodus 3:14 has "And God spoke to Moses, saying, I am THE BEING; and He said, Thus you shall say to the children of Israel: THE BEING has sent me to you."
The words "ho on" do appear in the Gospel of John, but it is never used in reference to Jesus. It is even used in John's prologue at verse 18.
John also wrote the Book of Revelation, and ho on appears five times (Revelation 1:4, 8; 4:8; 11:17; 16:5). In each instance, it is used in reference to God, not Jesus.
The only way anyone could connect Exodus 3:14 and John 8:58 would require a bad or devious translation of both Scriptures. Sadly, many Bibles are willing to deliver that deception."
Some guy in a Facebook group claims o ων (hO WN) is used for Jesus Christ as God at Mark 14:61 and Romans 9:5 which connects him to Exodus 3:14. What are your thoughts on this?
WH Text for Mark 14:61: ὁ δὲ ἐσιώπα καὶ οὐκ ἀπεκρίνατο οὐδέν. πάλιν ὁ ἀρχιερεὺς ἐπηρώτα αὐτὸν καὶ λέγει αὐτῷ Σὺ εἶ ὁ χριστὸς ὁ υἱὸς τοῦ εὐλογητοῦ
I didn't check other Greek versions, but I don't see hO WN in this verse.
hO WN possibly applies to Christ in Romans 9:5, but I think not. It's a controversial passage.
But see John 1:18 about the only-begotten god or son.
This guy says "in mark 14:61 it says in genetic ευλογητός that is God almighty. In 2 cor.11,31 there is ο ων as Θεός God and also the word ευλογητός so i ask can in context we use the words ο ων and God Θεός in context and mean not God?"
This shows how much people like to twist things: Christ is not called hO WN in Mark 14:61, so the guy now points to ευλογητός, which refers to the Blessed One, who is not the Son, but rather God the Father (Jehovah). Christ is not the Blessed One.
Did he say anything about John 1:18 which has hO WN applied to the Son of God?
hO WN has to be combined with words like "God" in order to have that meaning. The words themselves could mean something else if used in a different context. We have to examine how the word is being used in particular contexts.
There also is no ο ων in 2 Corinthians 13:11 or ευλογητός.
Have your acquaintance also read Meyer's NT commentary and what he writes about Romans 9:5. Interesting words coming from a Trinitarian.
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