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The God of Jesus in Light of Christian Dogma
At a very early stage in Church history, influences from the Greco-Roman world forcefully pressed the traditional God of Judaism through a system of pagan philosophy. The theological battles which followed produced serious problems for Christianity, and imperial edicts made accepting philosophical statements about God a matter of life or death. Today, scholars are inviting us to reexamine whether these philosophies played any role in the preaching of the historical Jesus. Could reacquiring the Jewish worldview of the first century help us to better understand Jesus' theology in our own time? Could revisiting Church history show us where we went wrong? In The God of Jesus in Light of Christian Dogma , Chandler embarks on a dynamic investigation of the developmental history of orthodox theology and its impact on popular interpretations of the New Testament. Relayed in two parts, the first provides a panoramic view of Hellenic influence on the early Christian faith, while the second revisits biblical interpretation. Writing for both the dedicated Christian student and the interested public, Chandler boldly appeals to both ancient history and modern scholarship to inform us about the origins of our most sacred traditions, and challenges the reader to contrast those ideas with the words of Jesus.
- GenresChristianity
543 pages, Paperback
Published August 24, 2016
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May 20, 2021
It is difficult to describe what kind of book The God of Jesus really is. With more than 1500 footnotes and 300 bibliographical references, it has the look and feel of an academic book. But it was not published by an university press and the author, though now (2021) a PhD student in religious history, is only secondarily described as "a graduate of SCAD University" (SCAD being the Savannah College of Art and Design), and primarily as the co-founder of an online ministry. Given that the publisher is Restoration Fellowship, a Biblical Unitarian organisation, and that the Preface is by Sir Anthony Buzzard, I suppose the book could best be described as a semi-scholarly work of apologetics building a serious historical and scriptural case for a Unitarian reading of the New Testament and a return of Christianity to such a theology.
The main thesis of the book is summarised on page 160 : « the Trinitarian system was not established until the fourth century, and the associated Christological particulars until the late fifth century CE. Certainly the musings of some… second and third century Christians served to usher in the eventual Trinitarian delineations, being supported by the efforts of the Gnostics and the Neoplatonists, but we cannot ignore the fact that these famous theologians were not devoted Trinitarians, nor were they Trinitarians who were simply having difficulty expressing what they believed. »
In other words, Christianity stopped being « biblical » (or, alternately, to follow the teachings of Jesus) with the very Councils that both Catholics and mainline Protestants agree upon as « ecumenical », binding on the faithful and definitive of the Christian faith, so that it has for centuries centered not on what Jesus actually preached but on « others' words about him » (p248.) Chandler's goal with the book is to free us from what JFK (quoted on p515) called « a prefabricated set of interpretations » and « the clichés of our forebears », so as to enable us to reach the actual historical message of the Gospels, in their true context : « when one refrains from applying the framework of developed Trinitarianism to the Jesus narrative, the rhetorical fire of an erudite, reflective and sternly monotheistic rabbi leaps off the pages to illuminate an upsetting incongruity with modern Christianity » (p307.)
Part I of the book, « The Eclipse » (pp 19-272) is a historical reconstruction of the development of Christian dogma, presented as a pluri-secular train wreck, in which absurd notions were piled up on absurd notions in order to try to make sense of the idea of the Jewish God made man. Chandler's verdict is that the successive deliverances of the hallowed Councils are not « merely difficult to understand but… do not present intelligible ideas at all » (p518.) They were « theological remedies for ailments the biblical faith never had » (p516), obviously making a healthy patient sick.
Part II, « The Recovery » (pp 273-519) builds a Scriptural case for a Unitarian christology, showing that, when read in context and with cultural discernment, the proof-texts adduced by Trinitarians in favour of their theology actually do not support it. Chapters deal with such topics as NT references to the « worship » of Jesus, apparent confirmations for the doctrine of a prexistent Christ or the extremely rich Prologue of John, and the section ends with a 20-page demonstration that the dogma of the divinity of the Holy Spirit contradicts the biblical evidence.
The book had a few flaws. First, I counted at least three dozen typos, which means there are probably more than that (I just found two more in one of the quotes I used in this review, which I corrected.) Second, it bizarrely mixes the most recent scholarship with a lot of XIXth century sources, pre-dating the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library, and up to two centuries of research. Some of the titles are very dubious indeed, though they are a small minority : a Dan Brown-esque bestseller called The Hiram Key, written by two non-historians (« Was Jesus a Freemason ? » is the question that opens the online description) ; Martin Bernal's Black Athena ; a volume titled The Theosophical Path ; and even The Martyrdom of Man (1890) by one William Winwood Reade, which Wikipedia describes as « an outspoken attack on Christian dogma », « a kind of substitute Bible for secularists », which preached Social Darwinism and was recommended by… Sherlock Holmes. Even eighteenth century figures like Thomas Jefferson or Edward Gibbon are given the final word a few times.
A bit more bothersome was Chandler's total rejection of (if not contempt for) anything Pagan. For him, « non-biblical » seems to go hand in hand with « useless, confusing… and detrimental » (p518). Plato in particular is presented in a very negative light : he has a « horde of admirers » ; the Church Fathers had a « mania » for his « religion » (p62), they were « enamored » with him (p66) ; Platonism, which he sees as « ever incompatible » with « the traditional Jewish » worldview, was just an « academic fashion » of patristic times, to be contrasted with the « transcendent moral philosophy of the New Testament » (p67.) Chandler even goes so far as to talk of the « mire of Greek philosophy » (p132.)
However, I am forced to agree with his conclusions, though much of his argumentation was not new to me, as I had already read J. R. Daniel Kirk's A Man Attested by God and a couple of books by Anthony Buzzard; done some rather in-depth research on such titles as « Son of Man » and « Son of God » ; and listened to podcasts or watched videos by Dale Tuggy, « Brother Kel », Bill Schlegel or John Schoenheit. I think the historical and scriptural case against the trinity is conclusive, and is bolstered by an equally definitive philosophical case (as made for instance by Tuggy in his entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.)
I therefore think Unitarians have won the battle over what Jesus actually preached, and should move on to questions that might prove a little bit harder to answer, such as : why should I be drawn to the message of a first century Jew with an « apocalyptic vision of an impending real-world theocracy » (p333) ? Why should I give the Bible a privileged epistemic status over the scriptures of other religions, and not consider it as a product of its time and culture ? Why should I prefer it, say, to Plato's dialogues, Aristotle's treatises or Plotinus's Enneads ? How can I trust it when its canon was defined by the very same Church that has been proved to have corrupted the very message it was supposed to transmit ?
This last question is hardly academic, as the best contenders for the title of genuine disciples of Christ are the Ebionites (as Dominique Bernard's hugely important monograph on the subject makes clear, and Chandler recognises), who both taught the doctrine of « false pericopes » in the Bible and rejected the authority of the Apostle Paul (the canonicity of whose epistles the author never questions.) Chandler also mentions texts that the early Christians seemed to consider canonical (such as Enoch I) but are not part of modern Bibles. So might not the canon itself need redefining ? (After all, the « first » Reformation itself, which Chandler and other Unitarians want to complete, did away with a few books of the Bible, and famously added one adverb to one of the books it did keep.)
Another problem for modern Biblical Unitarians is that they seem to follow a « Sola Scriptura » approach to Christianity. But Jesus himself didn't write a word and didn't bother to define a canon of Scripture. On the contrary, he talked about building a church on the rock of Peter, on which the gates of Hell would not prevail. But that church, by Chandler's own admission, within a few centuries, became the very enemy of the faith Jesus preached. The best example Chandler gives is that in 529 CE, the Christian emperor Justinian « totally banned » the recitation of the Shema, which according to Jesus himself was the greatest commandment (p4.) So where is this supernaturally protected church that Jesus is claimed to have founded ?
The true believers seem to have fast become a persecuted minority in Christendom. Chandler says there were Nazarenes (whom he equates with the Ebionites) right up to the council of Nicea ; he mentions « the Bonosians in Spain and Southern Gaul » who « were active from sometime before 431 CE all the way through the seventh century » (pp210-1) ; then Felix of Urgell (who died in 818) ; and he even speculates that Michael Servetus (1511-1553) himself may have been influenced by a continuous tradition leading up to the XVIth century. But even if one could establish such an underground current of genuine Christian monotheism from Jesus to, say, the Socinians (after which the movement becomes much more firmly established), this is hardly the resounding apologetic argument that the two millenia of institutional continuity of the Catholic Church provides for that denomination.
Additionally, if Jesus is not God incarnate, there remains the question of the source of his teaching. What makes the parables and other sayings of this particular first century rabbi « the word of God », other than the say-so of his disciples ? If he was not an incarnate omniscient being, where did he get his teaching from ? Was he just a particularly brilliant student of the Torah ? Did he learn some of his stuff from women, as James F. McGrath claims in a recently published book ? Did he have special communications from God ? And if so, what makes them more trustworthy than Muhammad's alleged messages from the archangel Gabriel ?
Finally, since much of Biblical Unitarianism consists, to a large extent, in re-Judaising Jesus, and reading him as a faithful Second Temple Jew, there remains the question of his actual moral teaching, especially if Ebionite doubt is cast on the authority of Paul's pronouncements on the Law. Maurice Casey has cured me of the idea that Jesus had thrown away the injunctions of the Law, by showing that his halakhah fell within the bounds of acceptable divergence of opinion within the Judaism of his time. So how much of the Law is still binding on Christians ? Chandler mentions an interesting 1975 study by one Severino Pancaro on The Law in the Fourth Gospel, which I intend to have a look at, and I have already purchased a couple of books by Thomas Kazen, who seems to have very interesting things to say on that topic. But I'm not sure the question has been seriously examined in unitarian circles.
To sum up, biblical unitarians have done an excellent job of arguing that what they preach (at least theologically, christologically and eschatologically speaking, leaving aside ethics for the moment) is what Jesus preached. The next question they should address is « but is it true ? », knowing that much of the traditional apologetics will have to be scrapped (as this is a « new » Jesus) and that Jews have very good arguments against even a human Jesus as their Messiah (among them the fact that his promised millenium failed to materialise.)
The main thesis of the book is summarised on page 160 : « the Trinitarian system was not established until the fourth century, and the associated Christological particulars until the late fifth century CE. Certainly the musings of some… second and third century Christians served to usher in the eventual Trinitarian delineations, being supported by the efforts of the Gnostics and the Neoplatonists, but we cannot ignore the fact that these famous theologians were not devoted Trinitarians, nor were they Trinitarians who were simply having difficulty expressing what they believed. »
In other words, Christianity stopped being « biblical » (or, alternately, to follow the teachings of Jesus) with the very Councils that both Catholics and mainline Protestants agree upon as « ecumenical », binding on the faithful and definitive of the Christian faith, so that it has for centuries centered not on what Jesus actually preached but on « others' words about him » (p248.) Chandler's goal with the book is to free us from what JFK (quoted on p515) called « a prefabricated set of interpretations » and « the clichés of our forebears », so as to enable us to reach the actual historical message of the Gospels, in their true context : « when one refrains from applying the framework of developed Trinitarianism to the Jesus narrative, the rhetorical fire of an erudite, reflective and sternly monotheistic rabbi leaps off the pages to illuminate an upsetting incongruity with modern Christianity » (p307.)
Part I of the book, « The Eclipse » (pp 19-272) is a historical reconstruction of the development of Christian dogma, presented as a pluri-secular train wreck, in which absurd notions were piled up on absurd notions in order to try to make sense of the idea of the Jewish God made man. Chandler's verdict is that the successive deliverances of the hallowed Councils are not « merely difficult to understand but… do not present intelligible ideas at all » (p518.) They were « theological remedies for ailments the biblical faith never had » (p516), obviously making a healthy patient sick.
Part II, « The Recovery » (pp 273-519) builds a Scriptural case for a Unitarian christology, showing that, when read in context and with cultural discernment, the proof-texts adduced by Trinitarians in favour of their theology actually do not support it. Chapters deal with such topics as NT references to the « worship » of Jesus, apparent confirmations for the doctrine of a prexistent Christ or the extremely rich Prologue of John, and the section ends with a 20-page demonstration that the dogma of the divinity of the Holy Spirit contradicts the biblical evidence.
The book had a few flaws. First, I counted at least three dozen typos, which means there are probably more than that (I just found two more in one of the quotes I used in this review, which I corrected.) Second, it bizarrely mixes the most recent scholarship with a lot of XIXth century sources, pre-dating the discoveries of the Dead Sea Scrolls and the Nag Hammadi library, and up to two centuries of research. Some of the titles are very dubious indeed, though they are a small minority : a Dan Brown-esque bestseller called The Hiram Key, written by two non-historians (« Was Jesus a Freemason ? » is the question that opens the online description) ; Martin Bernal's Black Athena ; a volume titled The Theosophical Path ; and even The Martyrdom of Man (1890) by one William Winwood Reade, which Wikipedia describes as « an outspoken attack on Christian dogma », « a kind of substitute Bible for secularists », which preached Social Darwinism and was recommended by… Sherlock Holmes. Even eighteenth century figures like Thomas Jefferson or Edward Gibbon are given the final word a few times.
A bit more bothersome was Chandler's total rejection of (if not contempt for) anything Pagan. For him, « non-biblical » seems to go hand in hand with « useless, confusing… and detrimental » (p518). Plato in particular is presented in a very negative light : he has a « horde of admirers » ; the Church Fathers had a « mania » for his « religion » (p62), they were « enamored » with him (p66) ; Platonism, which he sees as « ever incompatible » with « the traditional Jewish » worldview, was just an « academic fashion » of patristic times, to be contrasted with the « transcendent moral philosophy of the New Testament » (p67.) Chandler even goes so far as to talk of the « mire of Greek philosophy » (p132.)
However, I am forced to agree with his conclusions, though much of his argumentation was not new to me, as I had already read J. R. Daniel Kirk's A Man Attested by God and a couple of books by Anthony Buzzard; done some rather in-depth research on such titles as « Son of Man » and « Son of God » ; and listened to podcasts or watched videos by Dale Tuggy, « Brother Kel », Bill Schlegel or John Schoenheit. I think the historical and scriptural case against the trinity is conclusive, and is bolstered by an equally definitive philosophical case (as made for instance by Tuggy in his entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.)
I therefore think Unitarians have won the battle over what Jesus actually preached, and should move on to questions that might prove a little bit harder to answer, such as : why should I be drawn to the message of a first century Jew with an « apocalyptic vision of an impending real-world theocracy » (p333) ? Why should I give the Bible a privileged epistemic status over the scriptures of other religions, and not consider it as a product of its time and culture ? Why should I prefer it, say, to Plato's dialogues, Aristotle's treatises or Plotinus's Enneads ? How can I trust it when its canon was defined by the very same Church that has been proved to have corrupted the very message it was supposed to transmit ?
This last question is hardly academic, as the best contenders for the title of genuine disciples of Christ are the Ebionites (as Dominique Bernard's hugely important monograph on the subject makes clear, and Chandler recognises), who both taught the doctrine of « false pericopes » in the Bible and rejected the authority of the Apostle Paul (the canonicity of whose epistles the author never questions.) Chandler also mentions texts that the early Christians seemed to consider canonical (such as Enoch I) but are not part of modern Bibles. So might not the canon itself need redefining ? (After all, the « first » Reformation itself, which Chandler and other Unitarians want to complete, did away with a few books of the Bible, and famously added one adverb to one of the books it did keep.)
Another problem for modern Biblical Unitarians is that they seem to follow a « Sola Scriptura » approach to Christianity. But Jesus himself didn't write a word and didn't bother to define a canon of Scripture. On the contrary, he talked about building a church on the rock of Peter, on which the gates of Hell would not prevail. But that church, by Chandler's own admission, within a few centuries, became the very enemy of the faith Jesus preached. The best example Chandler gives is that in 529 CE, the Christian emperor Justinian « totally banned » the recitation of the Shema, which according to Jesus himself was the greatest commandment (p4.) So where is this supernaturally protected church that Jesus is claimed to have founded ?
The true believers seem to have fast become a persecuted minority in Christendom. Chandler says there were Nazarenes (whom he equates with the Ebionites) right up to the council of Nicea ; he mentions « the Bonosians in Spain and Southern Gaul » who « were active from sometime before 431 CE all the way through the seventh century » (pp210-1) ; then Felix of Urgell (who died in 818) ; and he even speculates that Michael Servetus (1511-1553) himself may have been influenced by a continuous tradition leading up to the XVIth century. But even if one could establish such an underground current of genuine Christian monotheism from Jesus to, say, the Socinians (after which the movement becomes much more firmly established), this is hardly the resounding apologetic argument that the two millenia of institutional continuity of the Catholic Church provides for that denomination.
Additionally, if Jesus is not God incarnate, there remains the question of the source of his teaching. What makes the parables and other sayings of this particular first century rabbi « the word of God », other than the say-so of his disciples ? If he was not an incarnate omniscient being, where did he get his teaching from ? Was he just a particularly brilliant student of the Torah ? Did he learn some of his stuff from women, as James F. McGrath claims in a recently published book ? Did he have special communications from God ? And if so, what makes them more trustworthy than Muhammad's alleged messages from the archangel Gabriel ?
Finally, since much of Biblical Unitarianism consists, to a large extent, in re-Judaising Jesus, and reading him as a faithful Second Temple Jew, there remains the question of his actual moral teaching, especially if Ebionite doubt is cast on the authority of Paul's pronouncements on the Law. Maurice Casey has cured me of the idea that Jesus had thrown away the injunctions of the Law, by showing that his halakhah fell within the bounds of acceptable divergence of opinion within the Judaism of his time. So how much of the Law is still binding on Christians ? Chandler mentions an interesting 1975 study by one Severino Pancaro on The Law in the Fourth Gospel, which I intend to have a look at, and I have already purchased a couple of books by Thomas Kazen, who seems to have very interesting things to say on that topic. But I'm not sure the question has been seriously examined in unitarian circles.
To sum up, biblical unitarians have done an excellent job of arguing that what they preach (at least theologically, christologically and eschatologically speaking, leaving aside ethics for the moment) is what Jesus preached. The next question they should address is « but is it true ? », knowing that much of the traditional apologetics will have to be scrapped (as this is a « new » Jesus) and that Jews have very good arguments against even a human Jesus as their Messiah (among them the fact that his promised millenium failed to materialise.)
April 2, 2017
“The Trinity is not the God of Jesus.” So writes Kegan A. Chandler in his polemical work, “The God of Jesus in Light of Christian Dogma”.
I have read quite a few books on the theory of the Trinity, and if I were to recommend only one, I would recommend this one.
Anyone who has spent much time inspecting the theory of the Trinity will know that the literature pertinent to the conversation is vast — spanning many cultures, places, and times.
Chandler aptly engages this large topic by examining relevant sources and thinking from within and without the Bible, including second temple Jewish texts, Hermetica, and Greek historians and thinkers like Herodotus, Heraclitus, and Plato; and early Roman Church writers such as Justin Martyr, Turtullian, Arius, Athanasius, Eusebius of Caesarea, Photinus, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Augustine, to name a few.
Even at 519 pages The God of Jesus in Light of Christian Dogma is still only a handbook in the face of all the available literature, but a great and comprehensive handbook nonetheless.
One thing that makes Chandler’s book unique among much other available literature on the theory of the Trinity is that instead of beginning his investigation from hotly debated interpretations of various Trinitarian proof texts, Chandler inspects the historical evidence to follow the Trinity doctrine as it developed in the early centuries of the common era. He lays out bare its narrative in plain language, and outlines the way that the many interpretations of the doctrine of God evolved from being conducted in the Jewish categories shared by Jesus and the Apostles to being conducted in the Greek categories of Platonic syncretists and Gnostics. Chandler also reveals the theological damage and confusion that necessarily ensued when these early platonizing and gnostically inspired Church fathers went about creating creeds and interpreting the scriptures outside the bounds of their Jewish mother lens.
In our present time of global engagement, it is more urgent than ever that Christians be rooted in a Biblical understanding of the one uni-personal God of Israel, and his only begotten human Son. If Christians fail to understand this foundational truth, which even Jesus himself taught was the first and most important of God’s commandments (quoting the Hebrew Shema in Mark 12:29), then their gospel will prove dull in the eyes of those who already have a sound theology of a monotheistic God — as has been seen over the many centuries since the Nicene, Constantinopolitan, and Chalcedonian creeds.
Who God is is common ground. (Acts 17:23)
Jesus speaking in John 17:3 says, “this is life eternal, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” Jesus’ own words say that people can know, and as a matter of life or death, ought to know, who God is—not that he is somehow mysteriously unknowable as many of the Church fathers declared.
Everyone who calls himself a Christian would do well to read this book.
It is instructive and cogently argued. I hope that Kegan Chandler’s work shines the light of truth on the dim places in people’s minds where they are unsure about the doctrine of God. For those who may not fully understand but do desire to know who God is, and who Jesus is, this book will teach, illuminate, and satisfy.
I have read quite a few books on the theory of the Trinity, and if I were to recommend only one, I would recommend this one.
Anyone who has spent much time inspecting the theory of the Trinity will know that the literature pertinent to the conversation is vast — spanning many cultures, places, and times.
Chandler aptly engages this large topic by examining relevant sources and thinking from within and without the Bible, including second temple Jewish texts, Hermetica, and Greek historians and thinkers like Herodotus, Heraclitus, and Plato; and early Roman Church writers such as Justin Martyr, Turtullian, Arius, Athanasius, Eusebius of Caesarea, Photinus, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Augustine, to name a few.
Even at 519 pages The God of Jesus in Light of Christian Dogma is still only a handbook in the face of all the available literature, but a great and comprehensive handbook nonetheless.
One thing that makes Chandler’s book unique among much other available literature on the theory of the Trinity is that instead of beginning his investigation from hotly debated interpretations of various Trinitarian proof texts, Chandler inspects the historical evidence to follow the Trinity doctrine as it developed in the early centuries of the common era. He lays out bare its narrative in plain language, and outlines the way that the many interpretations of the doctrine of God evolved from being conducted in the Jewish categories shared by Jesus and the Apostles to being conducted in the Greek categories of Platonic syncretists and Gnostics. Chandler also reveals the theological damage and confusion that necessarily ensued when these early platonizing and gnostically inspired Church fathers went about creating creeds and interpreting the scriptures outside the bounds of their Jewish mother lens.
In our present time of global engagement, it is more urgent than ever that Christians be rooted in a Biblical understanding of the one uni-personal God of Israel, and his only begotten human Son. If Christians fail to understand this foundational truth, which even Jesus himself taught was the first and most important of God’s commandments (quoting the Hebrew Shema in Mark 12:29), then their gospel will prove dull in the eyes of those who already have a sound theology of a monotheistic God — as has been seen over the many centuries since the Nicene, Constantinopolitan, and Chalcedonian creeds.
Who God is is common ground. (Acts 17:23)
Jesus speaking in John 17:3 says, “this is life eternal, that they may know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.” Jesus’ own words say that people can know, and as a matter of life or death, ought to know, who God is—not that he is somehow mysteriously unknowable as many of the Church fathers declared.
Everyone who calls himself a Christian would do well to read this book.
It is instructive and cogently argued. I hope that Kegan Chandler’s work shines the light of truth on the dim places in people’s minds where they are unsure about the doctrine of God. For those who may not fully understand but do desire to know who God is, and who Jesus is, this book will teach, illuminate, and satisfy.
June 10, 2024
Too frequent typos aside, this scholarly work offers a lot to contemplate and arms the reader with more than sufficient evidence to assure them of the perfect-manhood of Jesus, and ammunition to successfully argue his sonship vs. the unbilbical doctrine of deity.
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