Let's Get Weird!  🔗 **Source:** [Let's Get Weird!](https://share.snipd.com/episode/79bf67f0-ff50-452e-82c8-c5ae79e2184f) ## Highlights - **Hebrews Reframes Scripture To Elevate Jesus** - Hebrews argues Jesus supersedes prophets and angels by reinterpreting Hebrew Bible passages messianically. - Dan McClellan explains the letter addresses Jewish Christians and repurposes royal texts to elevate Jesus above angelic mediators. Transcript: Dan Beecher So here we are in Hebrews chapter one. It's the first chapter. And we should start by saying, or I'm going to start by asking you, do we know who wrote this? Hebrews? We do not. No. Dan McClellan There have been a variety of propositions. None of them are taken particularly seriously. There are folks out there who think Paul, the apostle, wrote Hebrews. He didn't. That's not really something to be taken seriously. This is not a Pauline epistle? No, no, no, no, no. Some other names that have been thrown out there, Apollos is an early Christian that some people thought. Priscilla or Aquila, this is a couple that's mentioned in the New Testament. Basically, if there's somebody who sounds like they fit the bill and has been mentioned in the New Testament, somebody out there has probably suggested they are the author of the epistle To the Hebrews. But no, we don't really have any idea who wrote the epistle to the Hebrews. Dan Beecher And what Hebrews, which Hebrews are we talking about here? Like all of the epistles are to like, I'm used to epistles going to the people of Corinth, you know what I mean? Or like a city or a place. Like I don't even know who the intended Hebrews are in this case. Dan McClellan Well, here the idea is it's being written to probably Jewish folks, Jewish Christians. It is a lot of the passages that are being interpreted here are being interpreted in kind of a rabbinic-y style. So, but the point is to say that the Christian gospel and Jesus supersede or are greater than what is the Jewish tradition that is being inherited. Dan Beecher Okay. Yeah, that's actually clear once you read it. So that makes a lot of sense. So yeah, it's kind of a letter to people who haven't caught on yet to the fact that Jesus is awesome. You better, you better get with it. Yeah. And it starts with sort of, it almost feels, I will say this now that since we're thinking about it in those terms, it feels defensive. You know what I mean? It feels, it feels like it's like, no, but we, uh, is how it starts. Dan McClellan Yeah. Yeah. And it may be, um, it may be attempting to push back against a Judaizing movement. The idea that followers of Jesus still have to be, you know, fully engaged in the law of Moses and have to be following all these rules, which is something that, you know, we probably see In the Gospel of Matthew. Some folks think we see it in the letter of James. But this is probably coming the last three decades of the first century CE, so somewhere between like 70 and 100 CE. So it's not the last text that's being written, but it's fairly late in the tradition and whether or not this is what kind of moves the needle the most towards a separation between Judaism And Christianity. Now, I don't if there's a strong case to make for that, but it wouldn't be particularly surprising. But yeah, it's trying to convince folks that Jesus is the Messiah. ([Time 0:02:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/c844f2da-05e7-4f4e-b414-c7e73b4ad078)) - **Psalm 2's Son Of God Language Is Royal, Not Trinitarian** - Hebrews quotes Psalm 2's 'You are my son' imagery originally about a Davidic king and enthronement, not a preexistent divine being. - Dan McClellan links ancient royal adoption traditions and Dead Sea Scrolls messianic reinterpretations to New Testament uses. Transcript: Dan Beecher Yeah. I mean, the first thing that we find is in verse 5, it says, for to which of the angels did God ever say, you are my son, today I have begotten you? And I think I can be forgiven for assuming that that was a New Testament reference. Dan McClellan Yeah. Dan Beecher Where is that? What is, you are my son, today I have begotten you? Dan McClellan This is from Psalm 2. Okay. And it's verse 7, which says, if we go look at the psalm in the NRSVUE, it says, I will tell the decree of the Lord, or of Adonai. He said to me, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Ask of me and I will make the nations your heritage and the ends of the earth your possession. You shall break them with a rod of iron and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. And this is talking to the Davidic king. And so the idea really is that the king is the one who is kind of adopted into divinity. It might be an enthronement idea that on the ceremony of the king's enthronement is the event of the adoption of the king by God. There's a wonderful book written by John Collins and Adela Collins called King and Messiah as Son of God, which reviews how the king and the Messiah could be conceptualized as the son Of God. And so Psalm 2 is a part of this. It plays into it. But if you're reading this messianically, the Davidic king is long gone. There's no hope of really any return. And so the tradition gets renegotiated. And we're not looking for a human king. We're actually looking for a Messiah who is coming in the Davidic line. ([Time 0:13:03](https://share.snipd.com/snip/2278e490-a3ab-460b-b68e-dd40df87a1d0)) - **Septuagint Variants Let Hebrews Make Angels Worship Jesus** - Hebrews uses the Septuagint readings to turn plural 'gods' or 'sons of God' into angels who must worship the Son. - Dan McClellan shows how translation variants (Deut 32/PS 97) let Hebrews present angels as worshiping Jesus. Transcript: Dan Beecher Of the angels, he says, he makes his angels winds and his servants flames of fire. Dan McClellan Where are these from? Well, so first we have let all God's angels worship him, which is an artifact of the Septuagint's translation of a passage from probably Deuteronomy 32, 43. Now, if you look up Deuteronomy 32, 43 in a Bible today, it's not going to say anything about this. But based on the Septuagint and the Dead Sea Scroll fragment, we know that the Hebrew originally said, worship him all gods. And this actually is something that we find in Psalm 97, 7. It says the exact same thing, worship him, all gods. And I think that Psalm 97.7 is quoting this original version of Deuteronomy 32.43. But when we go into the Septuagint, we have two different versions of the one statement. None of them exactly match. But it has, do obeisance to him, all sons of God, and then, uh, rejoice all the nations with his people. And then it says, and strengthen him, all the angels of God. And yeah, so, so we got gods, which then get reinterpreted as either sons of God or angels of God. And then in Hebrews, they decide to go with the angels and say, let all God's angels worship him. So the son is greater than the angels because the angels have to worship the son. Right. Of course, that's only if you're looking in the Septuagint. If you're looking in the Hebrew, it's just Elohim. Right. And the worship him is not directed at the Messiah. In Deuteronomy 32, 43, it's directed at Adonai, the God of Israel. Dan Beecher This is where it got interesting because for me, because this chapter repeatedly kind of conflates Jesus with God or like continually like kind of, but also speaks about Jesus in very Separate terms. So I can understand like this, this is the first time I've read something and just been like, I can't, like if I were in an argument, if I were imagining an argument between a Trinitarian And a non-Trinitarian, they could both make strong cases from just this chapter, it feels like to me. Yeah. Dan McClellan Yeah. And there are an awful lot of people who think of this chapter as like one of the most, one of the highest Christologies in the whole New Testament. But I mean, it is problematic because if we go back to the Hebrew Bible, it's clearly not talking about any mediator, any son or anything like that. It's just the song of Moses telling all the other gods of the nations to worship Adonai. And when you are reading it in the Septuagint translation, that's kind of lost. And so the author of Hebrews doesn't think that it's talking about that. ([Time 0:23:02](https://share.snipd.com/snip/4dc27561-cb0a-4396-b83c-5138a0529ca0)) - **Psalm 45's 'O God' Address Is A Royal Honorific** - Hebrews cites Psalm 45's royal wedding language calling the king 'God' (Elohim) and reassigns it to the Son, though the original addresses a human king. - McClellan argues Hebrew usage can call humans 'gods' relationally, not equate them with YHWH. Transcript: Dan McClellan Well, I think the point is that this is God talking to Jesus in the second person. And so when it says your throne, oh God, this is the father calling Jesus God. Okay. So this is, Oh wow. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Cause all of these are about what God's saying. Verse five, did God ever say, and again, when he brings, he says of the angels, he says, but of the son, he says, so it's comparing, um, you know, he makes his angels winds and his servants Flames of fire, big whoop of the son. He says, he calls him God. Right. And your throne is forever and ever. And the scepter of righteousness is the scepter of your kingdom. Again, we're in the Psalms. We're in Psalm 45 here. Okay. And here is where you've got to go back to the beginning of Psalm 45. This is a ode for a royal wedding. And the first verse says, my heart overflows with a goodly theme. I address my verses to the king. Okay. My tongue is like the pen of a ready scribe. And then we have in the second person, the psalmist addressing the Davidic king. And it starts in verse two, you are the most handsome of men. And in the Hebrew, this is b'nei adam. This is the children of humanity. This is, you are the most handsome human. Right. So this is not about any divine Messiah. Grace is poured upon your lips. Therefore, God has blessed you forever. Gird your sword on your thigh, O mighty one, in your glory and majesty. In your majesty, ride on victoriously for the cause of truth and to defend the right. Let your right hand teach you dread deeds. Your arrows are sharp in the heart of the king's enemies. The peoples fall under you. Your throne, O God, endures forever and ever. Here the psalmist is addressing the king and in the vocative case calls the king God. Oh God. Interesting. And so it's just Elohim. And this is not to say that the king is the very God of Israel, but to recognize the divine nature of the king because of his position. This is a relational deity, not necessarily. And, you know, you have this elsewhere. You have this in Exodus 7-1 where God tells Moses, I will make you a god to Pharaoh. And you have other examples of that. Even in John chapter 10, when the people accuse Jesus of blaspheming because even though he's a human, he makes himself divine. Jesus says, hey, your own scriptures say humans can be gods. Look at Psalm 82, where it says you are gods. If the humans to whom the word of God came can be called gods, you can't get on my case for saying I'm the son of God. So you have examples of humans being referred to using divine terms, which is what's going on here. And then in verse seven, you love righteousness and hate wickedness. Therefore, God, your God, anointed you with the oil of gladness beyond your companions. And there are ways to reinterpret this. Like your throne, oh God, endures forever and ever. You could say your divine throne, your throne is of God and it will endure forever and ever. And then you've got therefore God, your God. You know, that could be apposition. Therefore, the guy of their God, that is to say your God, or it could be using the vocative again and saying, therefore, you God, the God of you, that God up there, the other God has anointed Dan Beecher You. You are the subordinate God to another God. Of thing. By the way, I should just clarify one phrase that I didn't necessarily understand. You said this is to a Davidic king. Does that mean just a king in the line of David? Dan McClellan Yeah, I think the idea in the Psalms here is that this is talking about a king in the line of David. This would have been written well after David was alive. But the idea is that David's, because David's rule is divinely appointed and approved and everything like that, everyone who's coming in that line is a part of the same thing, which Is why it doesn't explicitly name it as only David, but probably any king who's operating within that line. Or if it's written in the exilic period, or at least after the Davidic line was broken, it could be just kind of fantasizing about a Davidic line. But yeah, so when it says, of the Son, he says, your throne, O God, is forever and ever, that's a reinterpretation. Right. And the passage did not refer to the king as the very God of Israel. And so we don't really need to read the author's quotation of the Septuagint's version of this as identifying Jesus as the very God of Israel either. ([Time 0:27:40](https://share.snipd.com/snip/f985067e-9cf9-43b5-98bd-b4f0ac8b8786)) - **Translation Shifts Let Creation Language Be Attributed To The Son** - Hebrews repurposes Psalm 102 where the psalmist speaks to God, but Greek translators altered wording so later readers could read it as God addressing another figure. - McClellan notes Septuagint misreadings enable Hebrews to attribute creation language to the Son. Transcript: Dan McClellan And this is from Psalm 102. I'll just read what we've got here, where it's starting in verse 24, says, Oh my God, I say, do not take me away at the midpoint of my life, who, you whose years endure throughout all generations. Long ago, you laid the foundation of the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you endure. They will all wear out like a garment. You change them like clothing and they pass away, but you are the same and your years have no end. Dan Beecher So this is a psalmist speaking to Adonai himself. Yes. Dan McClellan In the Psalms, this is definitely the psalmist speaking to God. Now, let me see if the word for Lord there is, because in Hebrews it says, in the beginning, Lord, you founded the earth. And Psalm 102 doesn't say, okay, so in the ancient Greek translation, it includes kiri, it includes Lord. That's not in the Hebrew. Interesting. It just says, long ago, you laid the foundation of the earth. Where is that? Yeah. Lufanim, in the before times, the earth you established. So we have Kiri, which is the vocative of Lord. And so this is not a substitution for the Tetragrammaton. This is just saying Lord in the secular sense, which the psalmist seems to be treating as a reference to to the very God of Israel. And let me see if... I said my God... Okay, so... Yeah, it looks like the Septuagint. So in the Hebrew, it says, oh my God, I say, do not take me away at the midpoint of my life. And in Hebrew, that is Omar Eli. And Eli means my God. But if you don't have the vowels right there, you could understand that to be saying, he said to me, like the consonants there are identical. He said to me versus my God, I say, or something like that. And I'm looking at the Septuagint of Psalm 101, 25, and it looks like it says, He answered him in the ways, tell me the paucity of my days, do not take me away at the midpoint of my days. Verse 25. Yeah, it doesn't mention God in the ancient Greek. And so we, and in fact, it does have the me, which suggests that the Greek translator has misunderstood Eli to mean to me or something like that. So God has been removed from the original Psalm and we're reinterpreting this as a reference to somebody else who, yeah, was founded the earth and the heavens are the work of your hands. ([Time 0:35:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7c48ba55-e4c8-4165-aa4f-816cd3e44705)) - **Psalm 110 Is The New Testament's Key Messianic Prooftext** - Psalm 110's 'Sit at my right hand' originally addresses a Davidic lord; Hebrews reads it messianically to portray the Son's exaltation above angels. - McClellan highlights Psalm 110 is the most-quoted OT verse in the New Testament and pivotal for messianic claims. Transcript: Dan McClellan And then verse 13, and to which of the angels has he ever said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet? And now we're going back to the Psalms, specifically Psalm 110, the most quoted Hebrew Bible passage in the entire New Testament. This is God speaking to David, only because you have in the Greek translation, it's the Kyrios saying to my Kyrios. To be a substitution for the Tetragrammaton, then it's kind of squishy. Which one of these is God, which one is not. But yeah, this is understood as God speaking to Jesus as Lord, or the Messiah as Lord. The reality is that the my Lord in Hebrew is kind of just a secular way to refer to the king. The psalmist is saying God spoke to my Lord, meaning the king, and said, sit at my right hand until I make your enemies a footstool for your feet. And then in the Hebrew, it goes on. The Lord sends out from Zion your mighty scepter. Rule in the midst of your foes. Um, And so this is just talking about, again, a Davidic king, and it's just been plucked from its context, divested of that royal context, and shellacked with a more messianic interpretation That allows the author of Hebrews to say, yeah, this is talking about the sun. ([Time 0:39:32](https://share.snipd.com/snip/7e69a0ac-6263-4e43-b7b1-c3fe5f6e59cc)) - **Hermas Sees Rhoda In The Tiber And Is Reproached** - The Shepherd of Hermas opens with Hermas seeing his former mistress Rhoda emerging from the Tiber and feeling illicit desire, leading to a vision of reproach and repentance. - Dan McClellan describes the woman as a symbol of the church aged by communal sin and later rejuvenated through repentance. Transcript: Dan McClellan And, and you mentioned that he was sold into slavery. It starts off, the one who raised me sold me to a certain Rhoda at Rome. And so we can, we can say a few things about this. The one who raised me, he doesn't say my parents. And what's probably going on here is that this Hermas was probably an orphan or left out for exposure or something like that. And so they would have initially been raised by somebody who probably would have treated them as an enslaved person. Dan Beecher I was going to say, yeah, born, it sounded, I just assumed that he was born into slavery. Dan McClellan Yeah. And it was probably, I think most scholars would say if we had to choose, we would probably say he was orphaned or exposed or something like that. Somebody picked him up and said, cool, got a kid. Free kid. And then um if if they did not use Hermas as slave labor when he was growing up they sold him as slave labor and then and then it goes on to say many years later I became reacquainted with her And began to love her as a sister and so many years later makes it sound like she must have either manumitted him or sold him off again and somehow he got free and then suddenly runs back Into her or something yeah and feels this um sisterly love uh for for rhoda sisterly until one sentence later yeah And then after some time, so we're skipping ahead a lot. After some time, as she was bathing in the river Tiber, I saw her, gave her my hand and brought her out of the river. Seeing her beauty, I thought in my heart, how happy I would be if I had such a wife, both in regard to beauty and manner. I wanted only this, nothing more. Now, I mentioned to you before we started recording, I have seen Nutria swimming around in the Tiber. I would not trust a person coming out of the Tiber River. Certainly wouldn't be like, here, take my hand. I might throw. The Tiber was nicer back then. I'm sure it was somewhat nicer, but, but they, they still had, you know, they, they still, uh, occasionally threw, uh, you know, dug somebody up and burned their corpse and threw them In the Tiber. That, just kidding. That's from centuries after that. But, um, yeah, it is a, uh, that's a, that's a questionable river in my, in my experience. Dan does not trust the Tiber. But yeah, he's walking along and he's like, what's this? A naked lady? Oh, it's Rhoda, my former master. And then someone I loved in a sisterly manner who suddenly I have a certain kind of feeling for. Yeah. A few feet below my head. Anyway, on. Dan Beecher I mean, yeah, the version that I was that I've been looking at is slightly different than yours. But yeah, it is interesting because the wording that I see is I would be he thinks to himself, I would be a happy man if I could but get a wife as handsome and good as she is. Yes. Which seems to me as purely innocuous a thought as a human being can have seeing a beautiful woman nakedly emerging from a river. That feels like as pure of a thought as you can have or as non-sexual a thought as you can have. Dan McClellan What it makes me think of is, wow, that sure is a pretty lady down there. I wonder if she dates one of the Yankees. Dan Beecher I don't know that reference. You don't know that reference? No. Oh, I got it. Oh, you got it now? Is it Chris Farley? Yeah, it's Chris Farley. Okay. Anyway, but it is not an innocuous thought. No. That he had. It turns out it's a highly problematic thought. Turns out he is in trouble about this thought. Dan McClellan Yeah. Dan Beecher And we obviously don't have time to go through this whole book. No. It is a very long book. But yeah, he has a vision. Yes. Uh, do you want to just quickly explain what the vision is? Dan McClellan And yeah, so he, he gets, he gets sleepy and he's like, you know what? I got to confess my sins. So he's praying and he has a vision heaven opened. And I saw that woman upon whom I had set my heart greeting me from heaven with, Hello, Hermas. Looking up at her, I said, Lady, what are you doing here? But she answered, I was taken up in order to reproach you for your sins before the Lord. I said to her, Will you now reproach me? No, she said, but listen to what I am about to say to you. The God who dwells in the heavens and created what is from what is not and increased and multiplied it for the sake of God's holy church is angry with you because you sinned against me so He's like uh what are you talking about i've always been real nice to you what do you mean yeah and then um it's laughing she said to me the evil desire arose in your heart do you not think It is an evil thing if an evil desire arises in the heart of a just man, it is a sin, a great one. Uh, so, so basically he did wrong in Jones and for, um, for, uh, her Tiber water drenched form. Um, and she's there, she has been taken up and, um, is, is there to call him to repentance. And he's, yeah, he gets chewed out a little bit. And we have this interesting, then suddenly the lady's really old. And now what it is, and here the lady is kind of representative of the body of the church, the church community, and where the sins that have beset the church community have aged the woman. And then later on, she's rejuvenated because there is repentance that is going on. ([Time 0:52:17](https://share.snipd.com/snip/67eb091b-8cff-4667-a87c-0aa0591ee07a)) - **Shepherd Of Hermas Teaches Repentance Without Naming Jesus** - The Shepherd introduces a shepherd figure (an angel of repentance) who delivers 12 commandments focused on faith, almsgiving, and communal purity. - McClellan notes the book never names Jesus or Christ yet functions as moral instruction and community formation. Transcript: Dan McClellan And the shepherd might be symbolic of Jesus. But here's something interesting. The name Jesus and the title Christ are never mentioned once anywhere in the entire text. But we do have this angel of repentance who is like a shepherd, who basically delivers to Hermas the commandments, which take up the content of the second book. And these commandments are commandments about faith in God, avoiding evil speaking, giving alms in simplicity. You have, basically, we're getting back to the rules for the church, kind of similar to when we talked about the Didache, where there were a bunch of rules that, you know, the apostle Can stay two days, but on the third day, that means he's a bad dude and you got to get him out of there. And there's an interesting one that is actually the source of some of the opposition to the canonization of the shepherd of Hermas, because there were some early church fathers who Treated the shepherd as a wicked book, as an adulterous book, Because there is instructions for a Christian husband who has divorced his wife because of adultery, if she's committed Adultery and he's divorced her, it instructs him to reconcile and forgive her and remarry her if she repents. And this is at odds with the ethics of many of the Christians of this time period who said, no, that's the end of the story. That's the one thing that merits divorce is adultery. And so to take back an adulterous wife is to advocate for adultery. And so this is one of the reasons that there were some Christians who condemned the Shepherd of Hermas is because it advocated for forgiving a repentant, formerly adulterous woman. ([Time 1:00:10](https://share.snipd.com/snip/1d71d59f-5e9b-46be-a949-652c7da71d59)) - **Hermas' Forgiveness Of Adulterous Spouses Sparked Opposition** - One reason Hermas was controversial: it advises reconciling and remarrying an adulterous wife if she repents, clashing with stricter early Christian stances. - Dan McClellan cites this as a major factor in some fathers rejecting its canonicity. Transcript: Dan McClellan And this is at odds with the ethics of many of the Christians of this time period who said, no, that's the end of the story. That's the one thing that merits divorce is adultery. And so to take back an adulterous wife is to advocate for adultery. And so this is one of the reasons that there were some Christians who condemned the Shepherd of Hermas is because it advocated for forgiving a repentant, formerly adulterous woman. ([Time 1:01:52](https://share.snipd.com/snip/fbd0c4da-60d3-4bca-b0d5-1772ffaaa623)) - **Buy Afflicted Souls Means Charity Not Anti-Slavery** - Hermas urges using wealth for charity: 'buy afflicted souls' likely means freeing prisoners or aiding widows and orphans, not condemning slavery. - McClellan argues early Christian practice shows charity and visiting the imprisoned, not manumission programs, is the intended ethic. Transcript: Dan McClellan And it says instead of- Hoard it like a dragon. Yeah, like a troll under a bridge. That's right. You got to hoard that stuff. Well, what the first similitude says is, instead of lands, therefore buy afflicted souls, according as each one is able, and visit widows and orphans, and do not overlook them, and Spend your wealth and all your preparations which you receive from the Lord upon such lands and houses. Now, the question here is, what does that mean, buy afflicted souls? Yeah. Dan Beecher There's an argument that— It's an especially weird construction from a book that starts out with slavery. Like a book that starts out with, I was sold to someone. Yeah. It feels like a weird metaphor to say, go out and buy souls. Dan McClellan Well, and, and the author never says that was a bad thing. Right. The author was just like, yeah, the one who raised me sold me. And then a little while later, you know, she did it for me big time. Yeah, it's odd. Enslaved folks to manumit them, which would sound like a condemnation of the practice of buying, selling, and owning other human beings, enslavement. I don't think that's what's going on here. Yeah, that's not how I interpreted the idea. Yeah. There are a couple interpretations that I think would come first. Because there is no practice known from early Christianity of purchasing enslaved folks, even just enslaved Christians, in order to free them. As far as we know, that never happened. There were folks who would go around and pay fines in order to free people from prison. Oh, interesting. So kind of more in the vein of, I was imprisoned and you visited me, kind of the true religion of James. The idea of buying afflicted souls would mean to pay to free imprisoned souls. So that's one thing that it could be about. Another thing is that it could be just a poetic way to refer to general charity because immediately after it says visit widows and orphans. And orphans and widows are kind of your standard symbols of the poor and the needy. These were the canaries in the coal mine of social justice. And so the idea may just be, hey, if you've got wealth, instead of buying up land, go spend it on helping the poor and the needy and the widows and the orphans and the foreigners and the oppressed. Yeah. Dan Beecher I mean, when I read that phrase, that afflicted souls phrase, to my mind, what it meant was you're buying them out of their affliction. You know what I mean? Go pay for them to no longer be afflicted. You have the means to help them. Dan McClellan And I think that's probably the best reading, or at least the intended sense that's probably sitting closest to the surface. ([Time 1:03:13](https://share.snipd.com/snip/e5411040-1e90-4e1e-9164-0b572437a893))