Seeing the Lord's Glory: Kyriocentric Visions and the Dilemma of Early Christology

9. Three Movements that Marginalized Visions of the Anthropic Form of the Lord

9 Three Movements that Marginalized Visions of the Anthropic Form of the Lord The scenario we have reconstructed depends on one major conjecture: that Jesus and his disciples were among those groups of first-century Jews who celebrated visions of the Lord of glory. We have tested this conjecture in a variety of ways, but there is still one outstanding problem that needs to be addressed. The problem is best formulated in terms of a paradox. On the one hand, the Old Testament speaks of YHWH appearing and being seen in anthropic (humanlike) form, and the New Testament identifies this very Lord as Jesus. On the other hand, Christians tend to think of the God of Israel as having been invisible prior to the incarnation and view the Lord Jesus as hidden throughout the history of Old Testament Israel.1 Old Testament descriptions of the anthropic form are usually classed as “anthropomorphisms” and are taken to be figures of speech rather than literal encounters.2 How could this be? This paradox raises the following question. If we have outgrown anthropomorphic language, is it not likely that the founders of our faith also eschewed such primitive, archaic ideas? Or, to turn the question around, if our conjecture is valid, the early disciples did in fact believe that the Lord appeared to them in anthropic form, and such appearances were the main impetus for early Christology, how is it possible that the performance of such visions became such an embarrassment to the church? Our task in this chapter will be to review some of the opinions that early Christians held about the relation of the incarnation to the Old Testament theophanies.3 I will try to show that early Christian leaders altered their views of these theophanies in various ways in order to commend their beliefs to gentile 265 audiences and to protect them against the challenges of hostile parties like the Gnostics and the Arians (though earlier traditions were also preserved). For convenience, I shall describe this re-envisioning process in three overlapping movements: 1. Stressing the uniqueness and novelty of the incarnation (largely against Judaism and Judaizers in a gentile context) 2. Playing down concrete aspects of Old Testament theophanies (against Gnostics and Manicheans) 3. Re-visioning the Logos as invisible and immutable (against Eunomian Arians and Anthropomorphites) Much of this material has been covered by other scholars, so there is no need for extensive detail here.4 Our main task will be to document the historical transition from the performance of biblical and apocalyptic visions within the bounds of early Judaism to a distinct religion with very little in common with Judaism. This analysis is intended to be descriptive rather than evaluative. Some readers may well mourn the loss of early performative Christology and its fractal growth. Others, however, may have little patience for such informal, experiential ways of doing theology. If it is true that the Lord of the disciples was capable of taking on different appearances and speaking with various voices, it must at least be allowed that faith in that Lord could continue to take on new forms as new challenges arose. Movement 1: The Incarnation was Unprecedented (Contra Judaism and Gentile Judaizers) In chapter 4, I argued that the unprecedented nature of the Lord-Jesus identification was a case of “fortuitous uniqueness.” The two principal portraits of Jesus—as Jewish holy man and as coming Lord—were common enough in the history of Judaism, particularly in pietist circles. The circumstances that led to the superposition of these portraits were also common: the violent death of the holy man, and the manifestation of the Lord in a new form or with a new name. What made the Christian gospel unique was the coincidence of these circumstances and the superposition of the two portraits, which led to novel understandings of Old Testament ideas like Son of God and Messiah (discussed in ch. 7). If such a coincidence ever occurred at any other time in the history of Judaism, the message of the performers involved must have been lost or perhaps suppressed. 266 | Seeing the Lord's Glory In spite of the fact that this uniqueness was coincidental (historically speaking), a number of early church leaders and teachers stressed the uniqueness of Jesus in sharp contrast to the alleged barrenness of non-Christian Judaism. Here we shall look at some examples in the New Testament, some...