Jews don’t believe in the Trinity. We believe in one God, not three

Just as Messianic Jews probably misunderstand some of the things you believe, I think you misunderstand some of the things we believe. We do not in any way believe in three gods. Our God is one, and his name is the Lord (or Yahweh, known to Orthodox Jews as HaShem). He revealed himself to us through his Son, the Messiah, who is the very image and reflection of God, and he touches us and speaks to us by his Spirit. These are deep, spiritual truths. Later theologians labeled this relationship the Trinity—God as a triune One. But the word Trinity is not found anywhere in the New Testament, and it may confuse the issues for you.

Christians and Messianic Jews emphatically believe in one God and only one God. This is expressed clearly in the doctrinal confession signed by Church of England clergy: “There is but one living and true God, everlasting, without body, parts, or passions; of infinite power, wisdom, and goodness; the Maker and Preserver of all things both visible and invisible.”¹

As noted by some contemporary Christian theologians, “One thing Christians are not willing to give up is their full acceptance of the Bible’s teaching that God is one. This is simply not negotiable. It is a fact firmly entrenched in Scripture.”² And again, “The unity of God is, in fact, one great pillar on which the whole Christian faith is built. We do not and cannot deny that God is one.”³ Would any religious Jew have a problem with such statements about the unity of God?

But the God we worship and adore is far greater than anything we can fathom with our natural minds. In Jewish mystical literature he is called the Eyn Sof, the Infinite One (literally, “without end”), and traditional Jewish thought recognizes that there are different aspects to his being. You could say that he is one and he is more than one. Our Lord has many different dimensions!

We can’t put him in a little box and subject him to mathematical analysis.⁴ There are mysteries about the eternal nature of God, as all monotheistic believers would gladly admit, and we in our finitude can hardly describe God in his infinitude. As one Jewish intellectual once said to me, “With our own minds, we know as much about God as a fly does about nuclear science.”⁵

As always, though, the question is, What does the Hebrew Bible say? The opinions of Christians and Jews carry weight only if they agree with the Word of God. So we need to start at the beginning and build our understanding from the foundation up. And remember, the concept of the Trinity came about when followers of Jesus looked at all the pieces of the puzzle and tried to put together the evidence of the Scriptures. We need to look first at that evidence before drawing any kind of conclusion, negative or positive.

The fundamental Jewish confession of faith, called the Shema, is taken from Deuteronomy 6:4. As traditionally understood, it reads, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (we will discuss other possible translations below). Messianic Jews often claim that the Hebrew word for “one” that is used here, ʿechad, actually means a compound unity, while traditional Jews often argue their case as if the word meant an absolute unity.

Actually, ʿechad simply means “one,” exactly like our English word “one.” While it can refer to compound unity (just as our English word can, as in one team, one couple, etc.), it does not specifically refer to compound unity. On the other hand, ʿechad certainly does not refer to the concept of absolute unity, an idea expressed most clearly in the twelfth century by Moses Maimonides, who asserted that the Jewish people must believe that God is yachid, an “only” one.⁶

There is no doubt that this reaction was due to exaggerated, unbiblical, “Christian” beliefs that gave Jews the impression Christians worshiped three gods. Unfortunately, the view of Maimonides is reactionary and also goes beyond what is stated in the Scriptures. In fact, there is not a single verse anywhere in the Bible that clearly or directly states that God is an absolute unity.

What then does the Shema mean? According to the common, traditional understanding—and that is what most Jews are familiar with—the text is declaring emphatically that God is ʿechad. Therefore, we should take a more in-depth look at the biblical usage of this word. According to Genesis 2:24, when a man is united to a woman,the two become “one (ʿechad) flesh,” clearly a compound unity. So also, in Exodus 36:13, God instructs Moses to join the many pieces of the tabernacle together so that it will be “one” (ʿechad; see also Exod. 26:6, 11; 36:18). There are many components but one, unified tabernacle.

The Bible also speaks of Israel being “one nation” (goy ʿechad; see 2 Sam. 7:23; Ezek. 37:22), just as in the Pledge of Allegiance we in America speak of being “one nation under God.” In fact, we state that as “one nation” we are “indivisible.” Yet we number 270 million people! America is one nation made up of millions of people; ancient Israel was one nation made up of hundreds of thousands of people. Each can be described as ʿechad, just as the people who joined together to build the Tower of Babel could be called “one people” (ʿam ʿechad; Gen. 11:6) and the uniting of the Shechemites and Israelites would have made them “one people” (ʿam ʿechad; Gen. 34:16, 22). There can be many aspects to oneness!

More examples from the Hebrew Bible could easily be given,⁷ but the basic point should be clear: To say that Yahweh, the God of Israel, is ʿechad does not tell us anything about his essential nature—whether he is one in one or ten in one. In fact, this really wasn’t an issue at all, since every god was “one.” The problem was that there were so many gods competing for our people’s worship and adoration. This was Israel’s battle, as God warned in the Ten Commandments, and as Moses and Joshua often repeated:

I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.

Exodus 20:2–3

Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces.

Exodus 23:24

Do not associate with these nations that remain among you; do not invoke the names of their gods or swear by them. You must not serve them or bow down to them.

Joshua 23:7

The Shema was not addressing philosophical issues such as the absolute or compound unity of God. (Would anyone even be thinking of such a question?⁸) Rather, it was saying to our people Israel that the Lord alone was to be our God—he and no other.

This is exactly what ʿechad means elsewhere in Scripture. Look, for example, at 1 Chronicles 29:1: “Then King David said to the whole assembly: ‘My son Solomon, the one whom God has chosen, is young and inexperienced.’ ” Or as translated more idiomatically in the New Jewish Publication Society Version: “God has chosen my son Solomon alone.” So ʿechad can mean “one” in the sense of “that one alone.”⁹

For this reason, the NJPSV translates Deuteronomy 6:4 as, “Hear, O Israel! The LORD is our God, the LORD alone.” In fact, the footnote in the NJPSV reminds us that this is also the understanding of the revered, medieval commentators Abraham. Ibn Ezra and Rashbam (Rabbi Shmuel Ben Meir).

Therefore, it is not just a later “Christian” argument that Deuteronomy 6:4 does not specifically teach that God is an absolute unity. ¹⁰ In fact, Moshe Weinfeld, a leading Jewish biblical scholar who for technical grammatical reasons translates, “Hear, O Israel! YHWH our God is one YHWH,”¹¹ entitles his discussion of Deuteronomy 6:4–25, “Exclusive Allegiance to YHWH.” The entire thrust of Deuteronomy 6:4 was that the Lord alone was to be Israel’s God.

This is also in harmony with the famous midrash to this passage (see b. Pesahim 56a; Sifre Deuteronomy 31; Genesis Rabbah 98:4), which uses “Israel” to refer to Jacob. The midrash relates that as Jacob neared death, he wanted to reveal to his sons the things to come but found the presence of God had departed from him. He expressed his fear that possibly one of his sons would not remain faithful to the Lord.

His sons all replied to him, “Hear, O Israel [i.e., Israel/Jacob, our father], the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. Just as in your heart there is only One (ʿechad) so also in our hearts there is only One (ʿechad).” To this Jacob replied, “Blessed be his Name, whose glorious kingdom is forever and ever.”¹² Once again, this has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue of God’s essential nature. Rather, it is a profession of faith that the Lord alone—the God of Jacob/Israel—would be the only God of Jacob’s descendants.

This was also the message and call of the prophets:

Do not tremble, do not be afraid.

Did I not proclaim this and foretell it long ago?

You are my witnesses. Is there any God besides me?

No, there is no other Rock; I know not one.

Isaiah 44:8

I am the Lord, and there is no other;

apart from me there is no God.

Isaiah 45:5

For this is what the Lord says—

he who created the heavens,

he is God;

he who fashioned and made the earth,

he founded it;

he did not create it to be empty,

but formed it to be inhabited—

he says:

“I am the Lord,

and there is no other.”

Isaiah 45:18

Turn to me and be saved,

all you ends of the earth;

for I am God, and there is no other.

Isaiah 45:22

Every follower of Jesus fully affirms these words. The Lord alone is our God. (See 3:4 for more on this.) Our only concern is to know what the Lord is like. What do the Scriptures say? He is known by different names in the Bible and is described in different ways. What do these names and descriptions mean? Are there any indications in the Hebrew Scriptures that God is in any sense a “compound unity.” In other words, just as a husband and wife are ʿechad and the Tabernacle with its many parts is ʿechad and a nation with its millions of people is ʿechad, is God complex in his oneness? ¹³

Remember, the issue is not how many gods we worship, three or one. No. There is only one true God! The God of the New Testament is the same as the God of the Hebrew Scriptures. But what is he like? How does he make himself known to us? In what sense is he one? Is it a simple matter of “spiritual mathematics,” or is there mystery involved? The universe is “one,” the ocean is “one,” and God is “one,” but what exactly does this mean?

May be the problem is not really about the nature of God as much as it is about a gut-level, negative reaction to anything “Christian.” Maybe the problem lies with an overemphasis on the often misunderstood—and frequently poorly explained—term Trinity. Perhaps it would help if, for just one moment, we stopped thinking about what Christians believe—since not everything labeled “Christian” is truly Christian or biblical—and pictured instead an old Jewish rabbi unfolding the mysteries of God. Listen to him as he strokes his long, gray beard and says, “I don’t talk to everyone about this. These things are really quite deep. But you seem sincere, so I’ll open up some mystical concepts to you.”

And so he begins to tell you about the ten Sefirot, the so-called divine emanations that act as “intermediaries or graded links between the completely spiritual and unknowable Creator and the material sub-lunar world.” When you say, “But doesn’t that contradict our belief in the unity of God?” he replies, “God is an organic whole but with different manifestations of power—just as the life of the soul is one, though manifested variously in the eyes, hands, and other limbs. God and his Sefirot are just like a man and his body: His limbs are many but He is one. Or, to put it another way, think of a tree which has a central trunk and yet many branches. There is unity and there is multiplicity in the tree, in the human body, and in God too. Do you understand?”¹⁴

Now think of this same rabbi saying to you, “Consider that in our Scriptures, God was pictured as enthroned in heaven, yet at the same time he manifested himself in the cloud and the fire over the Tabernacle while also putting his Spirit on his prophets. And all the while the Bible tells us that his glory was filling the universe! Do you see that God’s unity is complex?”

And what if this rabbi began to touch on other mystical concepts of God such as “the mystery of the three” (Aramaic, razaʾ di-telatha), explaining that in the Zohar there are five different expressions relating to various aspects of the threefold nature of the Lord? What would you make of the references to “three heads, three spirits, three forms of revelation, three names, and three shades of interpretation” that relate to the divine nature? The Zohar even asks, “How can these three be one? Are they one only because we call them one? How they are one we can know only by the urging of the Holy Spirit and then even with closed eyes.” ¹⁵ These issues of “the Godhead” are deep!

Through the ages, followers of Jesus have pointed to plural references to God found in the Hebrew Bible as proof of the Trinity. For example, in the very first verse of Genesis, God is called ʾelohim, which is a plural form. Then, in Genesis 1:26, God says, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness.” In a similar way, the Lord says in Genesis 3:22, “The man has now become like one of us,” while in Genesis 11:7 (with reference to the building of the Tower of Babel), he says, “Come, let us go down and confuse their language.” So also Isaiah 6:8 records the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

Does all this indicate that God is a compound unity? The response of the rabbis, as far back as the Talmud (b. Sanhedrin 38b), has been to point out that whenever the plural form is used, it is immediately followed by the singular. So the Scriptures often use a plural noun for God (like ʾelohim) with a singular verb (like baraʾ, “God created” in Gen. 1:1), or, after saying, “Let us make man” (plural) the Bible then says, “So God created” (singular) (Gen. 1:26–27).¹⁶

Whose argument is correct?

Actually, the fact that God is called ʾelohim (translated as “God” when referring to the Lord and as either “god” or “gods” when referring to idols) is not unusual. In the Ancient Near East, it was common to refer to the deity in the compound plural,¹⁷ and when speaking of an owner or master, it was often the rule to speak of him in such terms. To give you just a few examples, Abraham’s servant speaks of his master in the plural in Genesis 24 (ʾadonim, literally, “lords”), Joseph speaks of his master Potiphar in the plural in Genesis 39, and David the king is spoken of as “lords” in 1 Kings 1:11. In Exodus 21, to translate literally and incorrectly, the law speaks of a slave and his masters (ʾadonim, referring to just one master), in Isaiah 19:4, the prophet tells Israel that God will hand them over to a cruel lord (Hebrew, ʾadonim qasheh, a plural noun with a singular adjective), and Isaiah 1:3 tells us that a donkey knows the feeding crib of its masters (baʾalim, referring to just one person; cf. the first half of the verse in which reference is made to an ox’s owner—in the singular).

These examples, which are really very common, show clearly that compound plurals were often used to speak of leaders, owners, masters, or kings. How much more then could similar expressions be used to speak of the Lord, the Master, the King, and the God. To bring this out with my own hyper-literal translation, in Malachi 1:6 God asks, “If I am a Lords where is my honor?” while the psalmist exclaims in Psalm 8:1, 9, “O YHWH, our Lords,” and Deuteronomy 10:17 hails YHWH as “the Gods of gods and the Lords of lords.”

But before you conclude from all this that plural nouns for God have no bearing on the question of his unity, consider this simple truth: Hebrew, along with other Semitic languages, sometimes expressed greatness, supremacy, exaltation, majesty, and fullness by means of compound plural nouns. Plurality could express prominence, ownership, or divinity, all with reference to a single person or single deity. This means that the very concept of “compound unity” or “plurality in unity” was part of the language of the Tanakh. Such concepts would not be foreign to the biblical mind.¹⁸ So while these references to God or Lord in the plural do not in any way prove Trinitarian beliefs, they are certainly in perfect harmony with everything we are trying to say here, namely, that in some way the Lord’s unity is complex.

What about God saying, “Let us make man in our image … The man has become like one of us … Let us go down … Who will go for us?” Do these verses prove the Trinity? Many answers have been given to this question by both Christians and Jews. For example, the Father was speaking to the Son and the Spirit (or to the Son or the Spirit), the Lord was speaking to the angels, he was deliberating with himself, the Hebrew is once again using the so-called majestic plural, and so on. The list of answers is almost endless, and the list of objections to these answers is just as long.¹⁹ So what is a person to believe?

My suggestion again is simple: Recognize that these verses from the Hebrew Scriptures could refer to God’s plurality or diversity within his unity, but other explanations are possible. These verses are certainly in harmony with Trinitarian beliefs and could easily support such beliefs, but they don’t prove them. On the other hand, these verses most definitely do not exclude such beliefs.

At this point, you may think I’m opening the door too wide and being too open-minded to views about God’s compound unity. You may feel that somewhere, somehow there must be a verse in the Hebrew Bible that decisively refutes all this and definitely points to God’s absolute unity. After all, belief in the unity of God is considered to be the foundation of Judaism.²⁰ It is in this context that Zechariah 14:9 is often quoted, taken to mean, at the end of this age, “the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall there be one Lord” (that is, recognized as an absolute unity) “and his name one” (reemphasizing the fact that he is in no way “more than one”). So when it all gets sorted out in the end, everyone will know that God is an absolute unity, not a compound unity or complex unity or tri-unity. Period.²¹

But is that what Zechariah was saying? The word used for “one” in this verse is—you guessed it!—ʿechad, hardly the right word to choose if the prophet wanted to say anything about God’s essential nature and absolute unity. Just look back to Zechariah 11:8, where he uses ʿechad to speak of “one month.” What does that tell us about the essential nature of a month? Does it mean that a month does not have thirty days because it is one?

It is therefore with good reason that the footnote in the New Jewish Publication Society Version to Zechariah 14:9 explains the verse to mean, “the LORD alone shall be worshiped and shall be invoked by His true name.” Exactly. It is a prophecy of all peoples turning to Yahweh, forsaking their idols and false religions and worshiping him alone.²² It tells us nothing about the nature of his oneness. All it says is that he, the one true God, will be worshiped by all. This is exactly what the New Testament teaches.

Consider these well-known passages. When Jesus was asked by a Jewish teacher of the law, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” He replied, “The most important one … is this: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength’ ” (Mark 12:28–30). When he was praying shortly before his crucifixion, he uttered these words: “Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus [the Messiah], whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Yes, Jesus himself taught that his Father was the one and only God!

Peter preached the same message emphatically, and Paul taught it clearly: The one true God, our Father and Creator, appointed his Son, Jesus, to be Messiah and Lord.

First, the words of Peter: “Men of Israel, listen to this: Jesus of Nazareth was a man accredited by God to you by miracles, wonders and signs, which God did among you through him, as you yourselves know.… God has raised this Jesus to life, and we are all witnesses of the fact.… Therefore let all Israel be assured of this: God has made this Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and [Messiah]” (Acts 2:22, 32, 36). Next, the words of Paul: “We know that an idol is nothing at all in the world and that there is no God but one. For even if there are so-called gods, whether in heaven or on earth (as indeed there are many ‘gods’ and many ‘lords’), yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus [the Messiah], through whom all things came and through whom we live” (1 Cor. 8:4–6).²³ “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man [Messiah] Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all men—the testimony given in its proper time” (1 Tim. 2:5–6). And so Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, reporting how everyone had heard “… how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the coming wrath” (1 Thess. 1:9–10).

This is one of the central reasons why God sent his Son into the world, that through Jesus the Messiah people in every nation and land would forsake their idols and dead religious traditions and turn to the living and true God. The New Testament is most definitely monotheistic, and it further clarifies the monotheism of the Hebrew Bible. The only true God is one, and yet his oneness is complex, unique, and beyond human understanding.

Here are some important points for you to consider. We’ll expand on them in answering the next few objections:

• The Hebrew Bible states that no one can see God, and yet at times it says that people saw him. Who was it that they saw?
• The Hebrew Bible speaks of God occasionally manifesting himself on the earth, apparently in human form. Yet, as God, he sits enthroned in the highest heavens. How can both of these things be true?
• The Hebrew Bible sometimes describes the Holy Spirit as a personal being and not just as an impersonal force. Is the Holy Spirit merely a synonym for God, or does the term describe part of his very nature, his own Spirit?
• The Hebrew Bible makes reference to God’s Word as a concrete entity, worthy of praise, sent on divine missions, and active in the world. What is meant by this “Word”? (If you take a good look at the next objection, you’ll learn what the rabbis had to say about “the Word” of the Lord, in Aramaic, his memraʾ).

The rabbis spoke much about the Shekhina, the Divine Presence, corresponding also to the feminine, motherly aspects of God.²⁴ They taught that the Shekhina went into exile with the Jewish people, suffering with “her” children in foreign lands (for more on this, see the next objection). According to this concept, God cannot be “whole” again until his people return from their physical and spiritual wanderings and the Temple is rebuilt. The rabbis based this idea on verses that spoke of God being with his people (corporately or individually) in their trouble, distress, and exile (see Mekhilta deRabbi Yishmael, Massekhta dePiskha, 14).

In fact, Rabbi Akiva went as far as saying that, according to the Scriptures, when God redeemed his people, he had, as it were, redeemed himself (ibid.). Some Hasidic Jews, joining the concept of the Shekhina with the mystical concept of the Sefirot, took this one step further. They believed (and still believe) that

the purpose of the performance of the mitzvot [commandments] is to help the Shekhinah to unite with Tiferet [the Sefira of glory or beauty], the male principle. The sins of Israel hinder this union and prevent the “reunification of worlds,” which is a necessary prerequisite for the coming of God’s kingdom.

The hasidim, in accordance with this belief, adopted the formula (much deplored by their opponents), “For the sake of the unification of the Holy One, blessed be He, and his Shekhinah,” which they recited before the performance of mitzvot. ²⁵

For now, according to this Hasidic Jewish view, God is in some kind of “disunity.” And you thought that God’s oneness was such an elementary subject! Why should we try to minimize the mystery?

As we said up front, these are lofty, spiritual concepts. God’s unity or tri-unity isn’t easily understood. In fact, if you ask ten Christians whether they expect to see three different divine persons in heaven—God the Father, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit—you’ll get many different answers. Why? Because God’s tri-unity is not some neatly spelled out doctrine or a trite little teaching to be explained in thirty seconds or less. It’s like asking a Hasidic rabbi, “Is the Shekhina God?” or, “Is the memraʾ (i.e., the Word) God?”, or, “Are the Sefirot God?”²⁶ (I’ve gotten different responses to these kinds of questions too.) These are deep theological and philosophical issues.

Consider these verses from the last book of the New Testament, the Book of Revelation. In Revelation 3:21, Jesus declares that he sat down with the Father on his throne, but what does that mean? According to Revelation 4:2, John, who wrote the Book of Revelation, is caught up in the Spirit and sees “a throne in heaven with someone sitting on it.” It was “the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come” (4:8). Next, John sees “a Lamb [representing Jesus], looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne” (Rev. 5:6). And as the heavenly drama unfolds, John records: “Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and on the sea, and all that is in them, singing: ‘To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!’ ” (Rev. 5:13).

Did you notice those words? “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.” Now pay careful attention. In Revelation 7:9, John sees a multitude “standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb,” and they cry out, “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb” (7:10). The general picture is clear, but the specifics are not as easy to decipher: God sits on his throne, and with him is the Lamb, yet this Lamb is “at the center of the throne” (5:6; 7:17). What exactly does this mean? There is some mystery involved, without doubt.

Then we come to the end of the book, and in a real sense, the end of the story. Revelation 22:1 speaks of “the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb.” Mark those words carefully: the throne of God and of the Lamb. And now look at these astounding verses: “The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city [i.e., the New Jerusalem], and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads” (22:3–4).

What an incredible description! There is one throne for God and the Lamb (not two thrones), and his servants (not their servants) will serve him (not them) and see his face (not their faces). One throne, one God, and one face. This is profound, glorious, monotheistic truth at its best. Our God is complex and unique! And so the angel exhorts John in Revelation 22:9, “Worship God!” not “Worship gods.” Perish the thought. The one God of Abraham and Moses is the one God of Peter and Paul.²⁷

In answering the next few objections, I’ll provide many important insights from the Tanakh, the New Testament Scriptures, and even the Rabbinic writings. We’ll look more closely at the individual pieces of the puzzle. For now, it is sufficient to understand this: The Hebrew Bible nowhere teaches that our Lord, who is the only true God, is an absolute unity, while it does give indications that his unity is complex or compound.

Next we’ll respond to specific questions concerning the deity of Jesus, the meaning of “Son of God,” and the nature of the Holy Spirit. Then you can put all the evidence together for yourself. You’re in for a wonderful surprise.

¹ Cited by A. Lukyn Williams, A Manual of Christian Evidences for Jewish People (New York: Macmillan, 1919), 1:95.

² Jack Cottrell, God the Redeemer (Joplin, Mo.: College Press, 1987), 135.

³ Robert Crossley, cited in ibid., 136.

⁴ According to S. Daniel Breslauer, “The central concept in Jewish theology is monotheism.” However, he immediately adds, “Affirming God’s unity and oneness is more than a numerical claim. Monotheism claims that God is unique, that the divine transcends all experienced pluralities.” See “God: Jewish View,” in A Dictionary of the Jewish-Christian Dialogue, ed. Leon Klenicki and Geoffrey Wigoder (New York: Paulist Press, 1984), 73. For Breslauer’s explanation of Judaism’s problems with the Trinity, see below, n. 14 .

⁵ Similar to this is the statement of Charles Spurgeon, one of the most dynamic preachers of the nineteenth century: “As well might a gnat seek to drink in the ocean, as a finite creature to comprehend the Eternal God.”

⁶ Gerald Sigal, The Jew and the Christian Missionary: A Jewish Response to Missionary Christianity (Hoboken, N.J.: Ktav, 1981), 126–27, cites verses such as Exod. 9:7; 2 Sam. 13:30; 17:12, 22; Eccles. 4:8, all of which, he claims, use ʿechad in the sense of “absolute one.” So, e.g., when 2 Samuel 13:30 states, “Absalom has slain all the king’s sons, and there is not one of them left,” Sigal finds support for his contention that, “the word ‘one’ used in these verses means an absolute one and is synonymous with the word yaḥid, ‘the only one,’ ‘alone.’ ” To the contrary, as already stated, ʿechad simply means “one” just as our English word means “one,” with nothing further implied, being the simple and logical word to use (in either English or Hebrew) in any of Sigal’s examples. In fact, it is quite easy to expose the fallacious nature of Sigal’s argument. To apply his logic to the English language, we could deduce from the sentence, “All the other couples left, and just one couple remained,” that the remaining couple was an absolute unity! Also, it can be argued, that Ecclesiasties 4:8, “There is one, and he has not a second; yea, he has neither son nor brother,” which Sigal finds to be of “special interest,” actually militates against his position, since ʿechad here requires two further modifying clauses to indicate that it was speaking of only one individual. But the worst is still to come. Without telling us how he knows this, Sigal states, “It is in this sense [i.e., “the only one, alone”], with even greater refinement, that ʿechad is used in Deuteronomy 6:4: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One.’ Here, ʿechad is used as a single, absolute, unqualified one.” Says who? How does Sigal know that ʿechad has that meaning here—and “with even greater refinement”—and not that of compound unity? This is a classic example of circular reasoning: reading one’s doctrine into the text and then pointing to that text to prove the doctrine!

⁷ See, e.g., these additional examples: Genesis 1:5 (evening and morning make up one day, here meaning the first day); Genesis 1:9 (all the waters of the earth are gathered to one place); Genesis 41:25–26 (Pharaoh’s two dreams are actually one); Exodus 24:3 (all the people answered with one voice).

⁸ Cf. the comments of the contemporary Jewish biblical scholar Moshe Weinfeld to Deuteronomy 6:4–25 (Deuteronomy 1–11, Anchor Bible [New York: Doubleday, 1991], 328–57). On the meaning of ʿechad in Deuteronomy 6:4, he notes, “the connotation of ‘one’ here is not solely unity but also aloneness” (337), with reference to 1 Chronicles 29:1 (“the word ‘one [ʿechad]’ implies exclusiveness”), also commenting that in ancient Near Eastern and Greek literature, “oneness in reference to a god involves aloneness” (338). In Ugaritic (a sister language to biblical Hebrew), ʿhd can be used to mean alone; cf., e.g., KTU 1.4:VI:49, with ʿhdy (“I alone”); see also the usage of ahadun/wahidun in the Koran (6:19, with the formula, “Say: He is a unique/only [wahidun] God,” repeated frequently in the Koran) and note especially Sura 112:1 (cf. also 39:4 and elsewhere), “Say: He is Allah, the One!” (this is the rendering of Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, The Meaning of the Glorious Koran [New York: Mentor, n.d.], 454); Rudi Paret’s German translation (Der Koran: Übersetzung von Rudi Paret [Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1980], 439), has, “Sag: Er ist Gott, ein Einziger” (i.e., “Say: He is God, an Only One” which is then explained in the rest of the Sura: He doesn’t beget; he wasn’t begotten; and there is no one comparable to him.) The translation of Abdullah Yusuf Ali reads, “He is God, the One and Only” (The Meaning of the Glorious Qur’an [Cairo: Dar Al-Kitab Al-Masri, n.d.], 1807), which is identical to the rendering of Deuteronomy 6:4 in The Complete ArtScroll Siddur, translated with an anthologized commentary by Rabbi Nosson Scherman (Brooklyn: Mesorah, 1987), 91, “Hear O Israel: HASHEM is our God, HASHEM, the One and Only.” For further discussion of Israelite monotheism (and/or monolatry) in its ancient Near Eastern context, see Michael L. Brown, Israel’s Divine Healer, Studies in Old Testament Biblical Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 67–78.

⁹ For further linguistic support for this position, see A. B. Ehrlich, Mikra Ki-Pheshuto (New York: Ktav, 1969), 1:322, with reference to Joshua 22:20 (speaking of Achan): “He was not the only one [Hebrew, ʿechad] who died for his sin.” Ehrlich, who was a brilliant Hebrew scholar, explained the usage of ʿechad in Deuteronomy 6:4 with reference to “other gods that were not the god of Israel,” noting that the intent of the verse is not “to say to you that the Lord is an absolute unity in himself, since in those days, every god was an absolute unity and there was no division in their unity, and our forefathers who received the Torah had no doubt for themselves concerning the matter that their God was an absolute unity.” See further the comments of the Jewish biblical scholar Jeffrey H. Tigay, Deuteronomy, The JPS Torah Commentary (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 1996), 76, to Deuteronomy 6:4: “This is not a declaration of monotheism, meaning that there is only one God. That point was made in 4:35 and 39, which state that ‘YHVH alone is God.’… This understanding of the Shema as describing a relationship with God, rather than His nature, has the support of Zechariah 14:9.”

¹⁰ It is worth repeating here that even if someone wanted to argue that the emphasis in the Shema is that the Lord our God is ʿechad (in the sense of “one” and not “alone”), we have seen clearly that this would still tell us nothing about his essential nature (absolute unity vs. compound unity vs. tri-unity, etc.). When Jesus quotes the words of the Shema (see below), he also says, “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Mark 12:29), meaning that the Lord is our one and only God. But, in context, Jesus was certainly not entering into a discussion here about the essential nature of his heavenly Father!

¹¹ Weinfeld, Deuteronomy 1–11, 330, 337–38. This declaration could also mean that there is only one YHWH as opposed to the many different “Baals,” who were worshiped throughout the ancient Near Eastern world (baʾal means “lord” in the sense of “master”), such as Baal Hadad, Baal Berit, Baal Peor, Baal Zebub. But there was only Yahweh! See further J. C. De Moor and M. J. Mulder, “baʾal,” in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, ed. H.-J. Fabry and H. Ringgren, trans. John T. Willis (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985), 2:181–200; Judith M. Hadley, “Baal: Theology,” in The New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis, ed. Willem Van-Gemeren (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1997; henceforth cited as NIDOTTE), 4:422–28.

¹² This is the Rabbinic explanation of how the people of Israel became worthy of reciting the Shema. The alleged response of Jacob, barukh shem kavod malkhuto leʾolam vaʾed, is, of course, the refrain that follows the Shema in the traditional liturgy.

¹³ As we have emphasized above, even if the common, traditional interpretation of the Shema is followed stating that the Lord is “one,” the question still remains, “What does the word ‘one’ (ʿechad) mean?”

¹⁴ These quotes are taken almost verbatim from Simon Herman, “Sefirot,” in The Encyclopedia of Hasidism, ed. Tzvi M. Rabinowicz (Northvale, N.J.: Aronson, 1996), 436–37. According to Breslauer, however, “The great heresy feared by the mystics … is ‘cutting off the roots,’ separating these attributes from the hidden divine source and giving them an independent status. Their divine aspect lies in their identification with God’s secret unity, not in their clear distinctive and individual manifestations … Jews, emphasizing the paradox of monotheism, have refused to give independent status to God’s attributes of Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. They find in Christian claims of a Trinity just the ‘cutting off of the roots’ which Judaism defines as heresy” (“God: Jewish View,” 74, 76). A better way to understand Christian views of the Trinity, however, would be to speak of the total interrelatedness and essential oneness—with clear distinctions—of the tree (including its roots, trunk, and branches). As expressed by Christian theologian Jack Cotrell, “The traditional trinitarian view is that God is one in nature/essence/being/substance.” As to God being three in one, Cottrell explains, “when we say that God is three persons in one essence, we are saying that he is three centers of consciousness sharing one divine essence” (God the Redeemer, 154, 159). For a useful study, see Millard J. Erickson, God in Three Persons (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1995).

¹⁵ Quoted in Risto Santala, The Messiah in the Old Testament in the Light of the Rabbinical Writings, trans. William Kinnaird (Jerusalem: Keren Ahvah Meshihit, 1992), 121.

¹⁶ Still, the Talmud asks, what is the significance of these plural forms? Part of the answer given is that “the Holy One, blessed be He, does nothing without first consulting His household above” with reference to Daniel 4:17. For translation of this text (b. Sanhedrin 38b) and related texts, see H. N. Bilalik and Y. H. Ravnitzky, eds., The Book of Legends: Sefer Ha-Aggadah, trans. W. G. Braude (New York: Schocken, 1992), 517–21 (here, 519–20, #124).

¹⁷ See, e.g., 2 Kings 1:3, where Baal Zebub is called “the god [Hebrew, ʾelohim] of Ekron.” Note that in the Akkadian dialect attested in Tell El-Amarna, Egypt, the Pharaoh, who was considered divine, is literally called “my gods”; cf. also Rykle Borger, Assyrisch-babylonische Zeichenliste, Ergänzungsheft zur 1. Auflage (AOAT 33) (Kevelaer/Neukirchen-Vluyn: Butzon & Bercker/Neukirchener, 1981), 417, who cites evidence that the Sumero-Akkadian plural form dingir-meš (meaning “gods”) can also have a singular meaning.

¹⁸ There are other interesting examples, e.g., the word for “face” is the plural form panim; the word for compassion is the plural form rahamim (from a root related to “womb”); for discussion of these plural forms, see Gesenius’ Hebrew Grammar, ed. and enlarged by E. Kautzsch, trans. A. E. Cowley (Oxford: Clarendon, 1910), 463, sec. 145.3.

¹⁹ For summaries of recent scholarly discussion, see the Genesis commentaries of Gordon Wenham, Victor P. Hamilton, Claus Westermann, and Nahum Sarna.

²⁰ Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs, trans. Israel Abrahams (Cambridge: Harvard, 1987), 26, refers to the Talmudic view that “the belief in One God is the principle creed, and whoever negates it is called kofer baʾIqqar [one who denies the primary principle of the faith].” According to Aryeh Kaplan, The Real Messiah? A Jewish Response to Missionaries (New York: Orthodox Union/National Conference of Synagogue Youth, 1985), 21, “Christianity negates the fundamentals of Jewish faith, and one who accepts it rejects the very essence of Judaism. Even if he continues to keep all the rituals, it is the same as if he abandoned Judaism completely. The Talmud teaches us, ‘Whoever accepts idolatry, denies the entire Torah.’ ”

²¹ Aryeh Kaplan states, “Worship of any three-part god by a Jew is nothing less than a form of idolatry … The three-part God of Christianity is not the G-d of Judaism. Therefore, in the Jewish view, Christianity may very well be a variation of idolatry” (The Real Messiah?, 15). Our present discussion has exposed the erroneous nature of Kaplan’s statement, in particular his notion of a “three-part god.”

²² A similar prophecy is found in Zephaniah 3:9: “For then I will make the peoples of pure speech, so that they all invoke the Lord by name and serve him with one accord” (NJPSV) (shechem ʿechad, literally, one shoulder).

²³ According to New Testament scholar Murray Harris, Jesus as God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1992), 294–95, 1 Corinthians 8:5–6 could well be Paul’s reformulation of the Shema (note especially the phrase eis kyrios, one Lord, in the light of the Septuagint’s rendering of Deut. 6:4). He notes tellingly, “It would seem that Paul never relinquished his inherited Jewish monotheism but reformulated it so as to include Christ within the Godhead. In light of other monotheistic statements scattered throughout the NT, it is safe to assume that no NT writer regarded the surrender of monotheism as the corollary of belief in the essential deity of Christ” (295). See also the observations of Israeli scholar Pinchas Lapide in idem and Jurgen Moltmann, Jewish Monotheism and Christian Trinitarian Doctrine, trans. Leonard Swidler (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1981), 39, cited in Harris, n. 77. For additional monotheistic statements by Paul in the New Testament, see Romans 3:30; Ephesians 4:6.

²⁴ For a useful compilation of Rabbinic sources, see Urbach, The Sages, 37–65, “The Shekhinah—The Presence of God in the World”; see further the classic article of G. F. Moore, “Intermediaries in Jewish Theology—Memra, Shekinah, Metatron,” Harvard Theological Review 15 (1922): 41–85, with recent strictures, however, from Margaret Barker in her important—and controversial—study The Great Angel: A Study of Israel’s Second God (London: SPCK, 1992), 134–61; note also Michael E. Lodahl, Shekhinah/Spirit: Divine Presence in Jewish and Christian Religion (New York: Paulist Press, 1995).

²⁵ David Goldstein, “Shekhinah,” Encyclopedia of Hasidism, 455.

²⁶ Murray Harris also notes the difficulties in understanding that arise simply because of the English language. For example, if I ask a Christian, “Is Jesus God?” does that mean, “Is he the Trinity?” or, “Is he the same as the Father?” or, “Is he Yahweh?” or, “Is he the Second Person of the Trinity?” What if I ask instead, “Is Jesus divine?” Are these two different questions, or have I simply clarified the question? This is similar to asking, “Is the Shekhina divine?” instead of, “Is the Shekhina God?” It is possible that a rabbi would say yes to the first question and no to the second. Again, this is not as simple as some people would want us to think. In mystical Jewish circles, one thinks of the designation R. Isaac Luria as “the divine Rabbi Isaac” (haʾelohi rabbi yishaq), clearly meaning “God-like” and indicating the semantic range of the Hebrew words ʿelohim and ʿelohi.

²⁷ I am indebted to Professor Harris for pointing out the significance of Revelation 22:1–4 to me.

Brown, M. L. (2000). Answering Jewish objections to Jesus, Volume 2: Theological objections (3). Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Books.

Jews don’t believe in the Trinity. We believe in one God, not three