Doors to Discovery
© 2020, Stephen Wheeler
One day, my wife and I were reading the Epistle of Jude, one of four books in the Bible containing only one chapter. She was reading aloud from her hardback copy of the Life Application Study Bible-NLT. I was following along from the NIV on my iPod Touch. She got to verse 5, and we both did a double-take when she said the word, Jesus. Here's a photo clip from the same page she was reading (marks in red added by me):
Figure 1
Had she read correctly? Had I heard correctly? Was it Jesus who rescued the nation of Israel from Egypt way back in Old-Testament times? Was it Jesus who went ahead of Israel in a pillar of cloud in Exodus 13:21 and Jesus who looked down from the pillar on the Egyptian army and threw it into confusion in Exodus 14:24? My wife saw the asterisk (*) after the word, Jesus. That was her cue to look at the footnote for verse five. It read: "As in the best manuscripts..." That meant that among the many ancient manuscripts of Jude discovered by archaeologists, the oldest and most reliable ones used the word Jesus.
I looked at my iPod Touch, which was displaying the NIV. Here's what I saw in my Olive Tree Bible app:
Figure 2
The NIV was telling us that it was the Lord who delivered his people out of Egypt. We already knew that Jesus was often called "the Lord" in the New Testament. We also knew that He was directly involved in creating the world (ex. John 1:1-18). We furthermore knew that a number of Bible scholars believed that Jesus made Old-Testament appearances before His incarnation (his flesh-and-blood birth at Bethlehem). However, this was the first time we had seen a direct statement in the text of a verse saying that Jesus (as distinguished from the Father and the Holy Spirit) was directly involved in any event between the creation and the incarnation. Then I saw that little superscripted "3," telling me to look at the text note: "Some early manuscripts Jesus."
I switched my iPod to the ESV Study Bible, and here's what I saw:
Figure 3
Wow! The ESV, a modern translation that emphasizes word-for-word correspondence, also used Jesus. Furthermore, the footnote for verse five stated that this wording reflected the apostolic understanding that the Son of God was indeed active in the world long before His incarnation. What would we find in other translations?
Biblegateway.com is a website that allows one to quickly set up multiple Bible translations side by side. You can set up your columns, choose a translation for each one, and bookmark the result. You can call up the bookmark later to display any passage in multiple translations. I had saved a bookmark which configured Bible Gateway to show the text of the ESV, NIV, NLT, HCSB, and the NET, so I typed in "Jude 1:5" to get:
Figure 4
Try it yourself by clicking this link:
https://classic.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Jude+1%3A5&version=ESV;NIV;NLT;HCSB;NET
Notice that each of these translations use "Jesus" in either the text or the footnote. But why the variation? What else can we learn (without too much work)?
Before I show you what else we can learn, let me mention that the twentieth century witnessed an explosion of new archaeological finds, along with new strategies and technologies for unearthing evidence. Very old manuscripts of books of the Bible were discovered and found to agree quite closely with recent manuscripts. Where changes were found, they were documented and included in the footnotes of modern Bibles. We now know where the few changes occur and approximately when they were made. Evidence for minimal change, along with documentation of each variation, is so compelling that we can say that the Bible is arguably the most reliable ancient document known to humankind.
OK, back to the question of why some ancient manuscripts of Jude 1:5 say "Jesus" and others, "the Lord." If you navigate to the above web page and scroll all the way down to footnote "c" in the NET translation (column 5), you'll find the following. (Don't get bogged down with the Greek words. Just read the paragraph, and you'll get the point):
The reading ᾿Ιησοῦς (Iēsous, “Jesus”) is deemed too hard by several scholars, since it involves the notion of Jesus acting in the early history of the nation Israel ... However, not only does this reading enjoy the strongest support from a variety of early witnesses,... but the plethora of variants demonstrate that scribes were uncomfortable with it, for they seemed to exchange κύριος (kurios, “Lord”) or θεός (theos, “God”) for ᾿Ιησοῦς. As difficult as the reading ᾿Ιησοῦς is, in light of v. 4 and in light of the progress of revelation (Jude being one of the last books in the NT to be composed), it is wholly appropriate. The NA28 text now also reads Ιησοῦς. For defense of this reading, see Philipp Bartholomä, “Did Jesus Save the People out of Egypt: A Re-examination of a Textual Problem in Jude 5, ” NovT 50 (2008): 143-58.
It seems pretty clear that Scripture attributes Israel's being saved out of Egypt to Jesus, as opposed to either of the other persons of the Trinity. Was the pre-incarnate Christ responsible for any other Old-Testament events? Many Bible scholars believe that He was. Can we easily find potential examples? Let's go back to BibleGateway, one of many websites to provide a concordance feature, allowing us to search the Bible for keywords.
If you type the words, Lord appeared, into the Bible Gateway search window, you'll get about 30 Old-Testament verses that contain both of those words. Results will vary, depending on which Bible translation you're using, and not all verses will speak of God's actual appearance, but most will. Click this link, and you'll see the same verses I saw in the NIV:
https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch=Lord+appeared&version=NIV
As you go through the list, you'll notice that some of these verses speak of the angel of the Lord. Who is this? Let's type "the angel of the Lord" into the search window and see what we get. Be sure to include the quote marks ("). Those quotes ensure that you'll see only verses that contain the exact phrase. If you're using the NIV, you'll get a list of 51 Old-Testament references to the angel of the Lord. Here's what you'll see:
https://www.biblegateway.com/quicksearch/?quicksearch="the+angel+of+the+Lord"&version=NIV
I should mention that word searches in English can sometimes be misleading. In chapter 9 of Fish the Bible!, I explain how to use Strong's numbers to search for terms in the original biblical languages. It's not as hard as you may think, and it doesn't require you to have taken a course in those languages. In our case, we would search for the angel of the Lord using the Strong's number expression, "H4397 H3068" (which corresponds to the Hebrew expression, mal'ak Yehovah). If you were to do such a search, you'd see four additional verses, but otherwise, your list would be identical to the previous English search. We won't go there in this tutorial, but for those who want to see it, you can use this link:
https://www.blueletterbible.org/search/search.cfm?Criteria="H4397+H3068"&t=NASB20#s=s_primary_0_1
Whether you search in English or Hebrew, the first verse mentioned in your list will be Genesis 16:7. Sometimes, the first appearance of a particular phrase or idea in the Bible is accompanied by an especially detailed footnote or commentary. If we look at various study Bibles, we find a variety of footnotes commenting on Genesis 16:7. The entry in the NIV Study Bible gives us an idea of the range of opinions:
NIVSB footnote on Genesis 16:7—The angel of the LORD. Since the angel of the Lord speaks for God in the first person (v. 10) and Hagar is said to name “the LORD who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me’ “ (v. 13), the angel appears to be both distinguished from the Lord (in that he is called “messenger”—the Hebrew for “angel” means “messenger”) and identified with him (see also 48:16). Similar distinction and identification can be found in 19:1, 21; 31:11, 13; Ex 3:2, 4; Jdg 2:1–5; 6:11–12, 14; 13:3, 6, 8–11, 13, 15–17, 20–23; Zec 3:1–6; 12:8. Traditional Christian interpretation has held that this “angel” was a preincarnate manifestation of Christ as God’s Messenger-Servant. It may be, however, that, as the Lord’s personal messenger who represented him and bore his credentials, the angel could speak on behalf of (and so be identified with) the One who sent him (see especially 19:21; cf. 18:2, 22; 19:2). Whether this “angel” was the second person of the Trinity remains therefore uncertain (cf. Lk 2:9 and note).
The above entry in the NIVSB tells us that although seeing the angel of the Lord as a pre-incarnate manifestation of Christ is not a new idea, other interpretations could be possible. We are wise to proceed with caution as we continue the research. For those interested in further reading, here are two sources, freely accessible at blueletterbible.org:
(1) From the Jamieson, Fausset & Brown commentary notes on Colossians 1:15: Click on the link and scroll down to verse 15.
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/jfb/Col/Col_001.cfm
You will find these words in the above link: « Even before His incarnation He was the image of the invisible God, as the Word (Joh 1:1-3) by whom God created the worlds, and by whom God appeared to the patriarchs. Thus His essential character as always "the image of God," (1) before the incarnation, (2) in the days of His flesh, and (3) now in His glorified state, is, I think, contemplated here by the verb "is." »
(2) Text of an address by David Hocking on The Angel of the Lord—Here's the link:
https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/hocking_david/christology/christology03.cfm
I hope never to offer any tutorial that teaches skills while failing to provide any practical application in the real world. Therefore, before wrapping up, it's good to ask questions like, "So what? Why bother researching pre-incarnate manifestations of Christ in the Bible? What difference does it make?" Well, here we go:
Application (tool #10)
(1) Resolving apparent contradictions in Scripture
Scripture repeatedly affirms the invisibility of God (ex. Exodus 33:20, John 1:18, 1Timothy 1:17, 6:16, 1John 4:12). However, as we have seen in our word searches, there are numerous occasions where the Lord appeared to people in the Old Testament. Applying the truths of John 1:18 (Christ making the Father known) and Colossians 1:15 (Christ being the visible image of the invisible God) to the Old-Testament resolves these issues. A case in point is Exodus 33:7-23. In verse 11, Scripture tells us that the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. Then, in verse 20, Moses is told, "you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live." Viewing verse 11 as Moses speaking face to face with the pre-incarnate Christ and verse 20 as Moses not being allowed to see the Father's face resolves the apparent contradiction.
(2) Sharing biblical truths with others
Sometimes, when we point to passages about the eternal existence of Christ (ex. John 1:1-18), people from other religious traditions will ask us for Old-Testament examples.
(3) A better understanding of the Trinity
While non-believers often object to the Trinity, even many believers are hard-pressed to articulate it. The Trinity becomes easier to see, understand, and articulate when we are alert to the work of Its three Persons in the Old Testament.
(4) Caution: When speaking of pre-incarnate manifestations of Christ, we must take care not to minimize the importance of the Incarnation. Only in the Incarnation did the Word become flesh. Only through the death and resurrection of the man, Jesus Christ, do we have any hope of salvation. The manifestations of Christ in the Old Testament were manifestations only, not incarnations. To fail to be clear about this undermines the Bible's teaching on salvation.
Many commentators prefer to use the term theophany to refer to God's appearances in the Old Testament without specifying any particular person of the Trinity. The purpose of this tutorial is not to tell anyone what to believe but to show how we can use the tools of Bible interpretation to explore complex subjects in depth. More could be said, but I'll draw this tutorial to a close with a brief review of how we've used the tools. Please refer to my website's resources page for further information on the abbreviated names of the resources cited: NLT, NIV, ESV, HCSB, NET, OliveTree, BibleGateway, LASB, ESVSB, NIVSB, BlueLetter.
Tool #2 Translations: We compared how the NLT, NIV, ESV, HCSB, and NET translations rendered the reading of Jude 1:5. Sometimes, we used physical Bibles, other times, OliveTree, and still other times, BibleGateway to examine this verse.
Tool #3 Footnotes and Commentaries: We read Scripture text notes for Jude 1:5 using BibleGateway. We examined footnotes in the LASB, ESVSB, and NIVSB study Bibles. We used BlueLetter to do some extra reading on "the angel of the Lord."
Tool #5 Whole-Bible Context: We used the concordance feature of BibleGateway to find Old-Testament occurrences for Lord appeared and "the angel of the Lord."
Tool #9 Word Study: We used BlueLetter to see a sneak preview of how one could search for words in the original languages of the Bible without ever having taken a course in those languages.
Tool #10 Application: We looked at practical uses for this research in our current world.