The Divine Christ: Paul, the Lord Jesus, and the Scriptures of Israel by David B. Capes (review)

Capes adds another contribution to the emerging scholarly consensus that holds that the earliest Christology was already the highest Christology. The Divine Christ is a solid piece of scholarship that will complement other current publications on early Christology and devotion to Jesus.

Capes explores Paul’s use of the kyrios predicate in reference to YHWH texts in the Hebrew Scriptures. Although Paul sometimes refers to YHWH texts with God the Father in mind, he quotes and alludes to these texts and applies them directly to Jesus. The conclusion is that Paul and other Christ followers understood Jesus as fully divine. Commenting on Paul’s use of kyrios in Philippians 2:5–11, for instance, Capes maintains that “God exalts and bestows on the humbled, crucified Jesus the name above all names (likely ‘Lord’/kyrios/YHWH). Universal acclamation of Jesus is expressed in language taken directly from Isa. 45—the most stridently monotheistic passage in the Hebrew Scriptures. The acclamation ‘Jesus Christ is Lord’ associates Jesus directly with the divine name” (p. 11; cf. pp. 51 and 187).

After discerning some clear patterns in English translations of the various Aramaic, Greek, and Hebrew words that refer to the divine name in the scriptures, Capes summarizes the central twentieth-century debate on earliest Christian understandings of kyrios (pp. 21–46). Today most biblical scholars and historians distance themselves from the claim that Paul borrowed the term kyrios from Greco-Roman religions; rather, it originated within a Judeo-Christian matrix.

Next, Capes discusses key issues surrounding Paul’s use of kyrios (pp. 47–84). The evidence indicates that Paul applied the term to both God the Father and Jesus (pp. 85–150). The implications are wide-illuminating for the study of Christian origins; the earliest Christian communities most likely believed in the divinity of Jesus: “Paul does not impose a high Christology on his churches. Rather, he demonstrates it is the common currency of the Jesus movement, which began among Jewish monotheists living in Judah and Galilee” (p. xvi).

Paul situated Jesus the Lord with the church in the same way that YHWH was related to Israel (p. 155). What causal factors brought this remarkable belief into being? Paul’s transformative experience of the Lord (cf. 1 Cor. 9:1, 15:8) inspired him to reread the scriptures and interpret them anew. “If this is true,” Capes writes, “then it would be only a natural step for Paul to identify Christ as the embodiment of YHWH texts and apply them readily to Christ” (p. 171).

The Divine Christ is an excellent text for understanding some of the most important debates in biblical studies. Readers will benefit from the author’s mastery of the textual issues, historiographical reconstructions, and pertinent secondary literature for understanding the meaning of the Lord Jesus. This book is highly recommended for scholars of Christology. It will also remind intelligent laypersons of the radical change that took place when the earliest believers began to call upon the name of the Lord.