To whom or to what might we compare Jesus, the “son of God” (Mark 1:1)? In the hunt to discern the meaning and range of early Christian identifications of Jesus as divine, scholars have long compared Jesus with other ancient figures or deities. If, as Deuteronomy 6:4 memorably declares, God is “one,” then how, in a Jewish theological framework, can Jesus also be God? In mathematical terms, one plus one cannot also equal one. Certainly, Jesus is divine in the New Testament (see Phil 2:6; Col 2:9; 1 John 5:20), but in the Jewish and Greco-Roman environs does Jesus’ divinity put him on the same, ontological level as the God of Israel? These are a few of the weighty questions Michael F. Bird sets out to answer in Jesus among the Gods: Early Christology in the Greco-Roman World. In its simplest formulation, Bird argues that “Jesus is a Jewish deity of the Greco-Roman world” (p. 407). While there are sundry ancient comparanda to which one might compare Jesus, the Christian formulation of Jesus’ divinity remains “distinctive and characteristic” (p. 411). Quite impressively, Bird has catalogued and commented upon the principal intermediary figures with whom Jesus is often compared—from the Gnostic demiurge, to angel Christology, to Roman imperial cults.

Bird’s project is built on a careful distinction between functional and ontological divinity. If Jesus is God, then what kind or quality of God is he? “In what sense is Jesus divine and how closely is his divinity related to the divinity of God the Father” (p. 407)? Scholars have repeatedly noted that other intermediary figures in Second Temple Judaism display divine characteristics. In Exodus 7:1, Moses is made “like God to Pharoah.” From an array of evidence, it is plausible to argue that Moses is “a figure possessing divine power and exercising divine agency” (p. 35). The reception history of Moses as an exalted figure confirms such a claim (T. Mos. 1:14; 4Q374 II, 2.6; Philo, Mos. 1.27; Ezek. Trag. 68–82). In some comparative readings, Jesus is like God—just as Moses is like God—in a functional or tiered sense. Jesus is “among the gods” to borrow from the book’s title. Bird, instead, wants to recalibrate the claim that Jesus is God in an ontological sense. While early Christian articulations of Jesus’ divinity are quite varied and diverse (Bird is careful to note this on p. 83), “Christian authors in some instances begin to identify Jesus with the characteristics of absolute deity” (p. 82). According to Bird, Jesus and the God of Israel possess “ontic sameness” in important ways, such as the eternal, unbegotten, or immortal descriptions of absolute divinity one finds in early Christian writings (pp. 82–83).

Reviewed by J. P. O’Connor

Publisher’s page: https://www.baylorpress.com/9781481316750/jesus-among-the-gods/

Michael F. Bird, lecturer in Theology at Ridley College in Melbourne, Australia provides the reader a study of how each of the four evangelists present Jesus as the Messiah of early Israel’s expectation. This is the first study that this reviewer has seen to do a comparative study among the gospels as to Jesus’ messiahship. The author begins with Mark and then proceeds to Matthew, Luke (including Acts), and John, and ending with a discussions of common elements as well as what is distinctive to each gospel account.

Embedded within this study is the contention that the declaration of Jesus as Messiah was from the beginning of the gospel message and not a later ascription by the early church looking at the person of Jesus. This is probably the reason Bird begins with Mark which is considered to be the earliest of the gospel messages. Bird, however, goes back to the Old Testament’s understanding of messiahship and shows how Jesus fits within Israel’s expectation of a coming servant-shepherd king that would deliver them from their exile and which deliverance would draw all other nations to worship the one true God. Mark’s gospel, supposedly the earliest of the four gospels, is addressed to a gentile world. Bird takes the pains of careful biblical study to show how the messiah of Israel’s expectations is also the anointed deliverer (Christos = Messia) of all peoples. He does this without making note of the fact that of the four gospels, Mark is the only one who translates from the Aramaic/Syriac language of the Near East for the benefit of his gentile readers.

Though very detailed, Bird’s study is very readable. Aiding this readability is his use of end-notes rather than foot-notes at the bottom of each page. It is a study for the general reader as well as for the more academic reader interested in a comparative study.

After dealing with Mark’s testimony to Jesus as Messiah (Christ), Bird proceeds to a study of Matthew’s testimony which he maintains was directed to a Jewish audience as is evident by his references to Abraham and to David the king. Bird understands Jesus’ ministry as the fulfillment of the ancient prophetic expectation if a promised Davidic descendant who would deliver Israel from exile as a shepherd-king. Bird recalls both Ezekiel’s and Micah’s prophecies of the shepherd who gathers his scattered flock. He also sees a connection between Balaam’s fourth prophecy recorded in Numbers 24:17; “A Star shall come out of Jacob” and the visit of the Magi who followed a star (Matt. 2:1-12) to Bethlehem and gave gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh to the child Jesus. The Magi represented the goyim (gentiles, Latin) coming to worship the Messiah (Christ) of Israel. Bird went on to substantiate the inter-relatedness between Balaam’s prophecy and the coming of the Magi by indicating the references to a messianic star found in the Jewish extra-biblical targums Levi 1813 and Judah 24:1.