‘The Being that is in a Manner Equal with God’ (Phil. 2:6C): A Self-Transforming, Incarnational, Divine Ontology
This article challenges the consensus that τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ (Phil. 2:6c) means ‘equality with God’ and denotes a status. Linguistic analysis, contextual considerations, and a thorough investigation of an inventory of 149 extant Greek references to divine equality (ἴσος /ἴσα + θεός) show that Phil. 2...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2020
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| In: |
The journal of theological studies
Year: 2020, Volume: 71, Issue: 2, Pages: 581-627 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Bible. Philipperbrief 2,6
/ Exegesis
/ God
/ Christology
/ Ontology
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| IxTheo Classification: | HC New Testament NBC Doctrine of God NBF Christology |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article challenges the consensus that τὸ εἶναι ἴσα θεῷ (Phil. 2:6c) means ‘equality with God’ and denotes a status. Linguistic analysis, contextual considerations, and a thorough investigation of an inventory of 149 extant Greek references to divine equality (ἴσος /ἴσα + θεός) show that Phil. 2:6c means ‘being (that is) in a manner equal with God’. Although it evokes well-known language for the status of rulers who received ‘honours equal to the gods’, it has a distinct, rarely attested, but Homeric syntax (cf. Iliad 5:441-2; 21:315), for which the closest parallel is Homeric Hymns 5, line 214. As such, it denotes a dynamic ontology, a mode of being expressed, or actualized, in Christ’s incarnational self-transformation (vv. 7-8). The words also serve a creative affirmation and subversion of the middle Platonic distinction between ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ (as that was expressed in Plutarch and Philo): Christ exists and acts from ‘being’ (ὑπάρχων … τὸ εἶναι v. 6) and is misperceived in the realm of ‘becoming’ (γενόμενος … γενόμενος vv. 7-8). But, against the Platonists, he has a divine ‘being’ that ‘becomes’. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4607 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: The journal of theological studies
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/jts/flaa096 |