Jesus and the Shema

The most important prayer in all of Jewish life from its conception down to today is the Shema of Deuteronomy 6 which begins in verse 4 with “Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one.”

This was the central prayer of Judaism in the time of Jesus and Paul and the defining statement of Jewish monotheism. Yahweh was the one and only god. He is the creator god. There is no other gods except him. In the world of paganism, this was what defined Jewish worship and was their central theological point.

Now when we come to Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians 8, he is addressing the issue of whether or not Christians should eat food that has been sacrificed to idols. To make his point, he references the Shema in verse 6a: “for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him.” His point is twofold.

First, because there is only one God (Yahweh), don’t worry about such pagan sacrifices because there are no gods to be sacrificed to.

Second, because God is the Creator, what he created was good and all food is good to eat.

But in making his point with reference to the Shema in verse 6a, he immediately follows it with 6b: “and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.”

Let’s put this together now:

“For us there is but one God, the Father, from whom are all things and we exist for Him, and one Lord, Jesus Christ, by whom are all things, and we exist through Him.”

This is the most amazing and earth shattering statement anyone could make. Paul has put Jesus into the Shema, the supreme Jewish prayer, and equated him with God the Father (Yahweh). This is a reformulated Shema to include Jesus within the Godhead.

As I researched this passage, I found many scholars argue that verse 6 may not even been original to Paul but may be an early Christian confession that Paul is citing to make his point.

The odd thing though is that Paul is not having to argue this concept at all. In his letters, he is arguing about food, circumcision, Torah, and inclusiveness, but just 20 years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, Paul (and the rest of the New Testament writers) don’t have to argue to either Gentile or Jewish Christians that Jesus was the embodiment of the Israelite god, Yahweh. This is a statement of fact that everyone seems to agree upon and from which other issues either spring or by which issues are answered.

Two points to be made from this:

First, the idea that Christians (including Jewish Christians) only recognized the divinity of Jesus centuries later with a succession of ecumenical councils does not hold water. Indeed, the first church councils were formed in order to affirm Jesus’ humanity, not his divinity.

Second, this early recognition of Jesus as embodying their creator god, Yahweh, by Jewish Christians lends additional historical evidence to his resurrection. Without the resurrection it’s historically implausible that a group of Jews who knew better would say to themselves, “You know that guy who the Romans crucified in the most shameful way possible? I think that that guy was our creator god. Let’s include him in the Shema.”