Crispin F-L

The standard explanations of Jesus' words in Mark 14:61–62 (at his trial) and the reasons for the "blasphemy" charge and death sentence (Bock, A. Y. Collins, J. Marcus, R. Bauckham et al) don't work. For one thing, they are based on a misreading of evidence for an alleged special Jewish sense of βλασφημ- words in Philo. Here's a better explanation, and one with profound implications. academia.edu/180075979/Mark_…

McMaster are hosting a conference on Phil 2:6–11. Feb. 25th, 2027. Call for papers open until 1st December. mcmasterdivinity.ca/events/p…

I now have 2 doctoral students: - Tyler Nunley, based in California, is sorting out the role of a divine image anthropology for Paul's argument in Acts 17. - George Takla, in Cairo, his taking up the challenge to reconsider the relationship between John and Paul. Who wants to join them? There is much work to be done—more than I can handle in my lifetime!

Philippians 2:5-11: CF-L vs NRSVue

Tuning in to Catholic Biblical Association Unbound Book Review of Rebecca Harris' new book on religious experience and divinization in the Dead Sea Scrolls. catholicbiblical.org/meeting…

Sometimes, it’s not kind to be kind.

It’s worth asking your AI a couple of questions: 1. What, in practical terms, does it mean to have a healthy fear of the Lord? 2. What practical steps can you recommend that I take to grow in a healthy fear of the Lord? 3. Should an AI have a fear of the lord? If they should, what does that mean in practice?

That feeling when you finally submit to the editors of the volume the piece you have been working on for 25+ years, that is finally ready for publication: C. Fletcher-Louis, "Israel’s High Priest as Divine Cult Statue: The Principal Arguments for the Case," in God's Body in the Ancient World: Divine Embodiment in the Hebrew Bible, Second Temple Judaism, and Early Christianity (eds. B. E. Wilson, D. L. Forger and L. Irwin; Berlin: De Gruyter/Brill, forthcoming), academia.edu/129028746/Israe…

News from the Rome 2026 Enoch Seminar meeting: Loren Stuckenbruck (world-leading specialist on all things Enoch) is not convinced by Richard Bauckham's recent claim that the Enochic Son of Man sits on his own throne, not Gods, in the Parables of Enoch. There is only one throne in 1 Enoch 37–71, the throne of Glory, upon which the Chosen One Son of Man figure sits.

Should we stop speaking of THE Holy Spirit?! He’s a person. No one talks about THE Crispin Fletcher-Louis. Same goes for Father and Son. At least we could try dropping the article some times and see what it does for our sense of the divine identity, and our relationship with him.

Word from the wise - Logan Williams - "streamlining arguments to their bare minimum and most convincing points is so painful and yet is an act of generosity to the reader"

For once I agree with Bart Ehrman. Really hard to believe John knows and is reliant on the Synoptic gospels (as Mark Goodacre claims). youtu.be/REXnpEy8T_I

In some parts of the Hebrew Bible, monarchy is to politics as the making and worship of idols is to religion.

Fantastic line up of Gloucestershire University Biblical Studies research seminars this spring. DM me if you'd like to attend any.

Here, in 11 points, is how I propose Genesis 2–3 was originally intended: 1. Genesis 2–3 is a sequel to Genesis 1; part of the prelude to later texts, esp. Genesis 6, 9 and Exodus 25–40. Our chapters explain the incursion of evil into God’s good creation (cf. Gen 6) and the need for a restoration or completion of the creation of the image of God in humanity (cf. Gen 9 and Exod 28, where the high priest is God’s living divine cult statue—his image). 2. Prior to their transgression, the first humans were shown and had some knowledge of the difference between good and evil. This can be seen both in the way Yahweh God shows them that some trees are “good for food” (2:9), but that there is one tree that is, so to speak evil (2:17), and in the human’s ability to partner with God in the search for a good, not a bad, companion (Gen 2:18–24). 3. Before their transgression, the first humans were already “divine,”: see, e.g., what is said about their being made in God’s “image (צלם)” in Genesis 1, from the manner of their formation and conduct, as recipients of God’s own breath (Gen 2:7), their being made for immortality, and their role as partners with God in creation, in managing the garden and naming parts of creation (2:19–20), as God had in 1:5, 8, 10. 4. Before their transgression, the first humans are “divine” in a specific, limited, sense. They are created to be divine in dependence, for their being and conduct, on their creator, as his image and likeness. They are not “gods,” and in everything they are to serve Yahweh God’s interests, not acting for their own self-aggrandizement or separation from their origin and source. 5. They have a job to do and chapter 2 begins a story that, had they been obedient to their maker, would have resulted in the completion of their being made and installed in a house, or temple, as his divine cult statue(s), adorned with the gold and precious that would have come in from the world beyond the garden (2:10–14, cf. Exodus 25–40; 1 Kgs 6–8). 6. The wily serpent offers the woman a faux deification, by which they will become “like gods” knowing good and evil (3:5); a poor substitute for the extraordinary divine identity and knowledge they already have—their disobedience is a tragedy. 7. In succumbing to the shabby alternative to what they already have, the couple deny—or attack—themselves. So, their act of disobedience is suicidal, as God had predicated (Gen 2:17). Their act of disobedience is both an affront to God and a form of self-harm: succumbing to the serpent’s offer entails a denial of, or a forgetting of, the fact they are already created by God to be like him, as his divine cult statue no less, with the knowledge of good and evil already theirs. 8. So, Eighthly, the dramatis personae and the consequences of the couple’s action anticipate the outward forms of idolatry, as those were experienced in Israel’s history and scriptures (cf. esp. the Asherah and Bronze Serpent in 1 Kings 18:4). So, for example, after their disobedience they feel shame, the state that in the Hebrew Bible is predicated for idol worshippers. And, in several ways they become like that to which they have given their worshipful allegiance—the tree and the serpent (cf. 2 Kgs 17:15; Isa 41:24; 44:9; Jer 2:5; Pss 115:4–8; 135:15–18; Hos 9:10). 9. Their transgression and its consequences is a tragedy that anticipates the essential, structural (il)logic of idolatry, as that is described and analysed as a tragedy in other scriptures: see esp. Ezekiel 16:1–22; Exodus 28–34; Isaiah 46; Wisdom of Solomon 15. 10. It is not said, in the Hebrew of Genesis 3:22, that the humans have become “like (Yahweh) God”—something they had been created to be in Genesis 1. Rather, there are three intended possible meanings of the unusual Hebrew הֵן הָאָדָם הָיָה כְּאַחַד מִמֶּנּוּ לָדַעַת טוֹב וָרָע. - In one sense, the human has become “separate from” (מִמֶּנּוּ = “out of, away from us”—cf. LXX, Vulg) the divine partnership that God had originally intended them to be a part of. - Secondly, in a sense the human has become alone in the world by himself (מִמֶּנּוּ = “from, by, himself”—so Symmachus’s Greek translation: ἴδε ὁ Αδὰμ γέγονεν ὁμοῦ ἀφ̓ ἑαυτοῦ, γινώσκειν καλὸν καὶ πονηρόν “Behold, Adam is now in a position to know good and evil all by himself,” Targum Onqelos הָא אָדָם הֲוָה יְחִידַי בְּעַלְמָא מִנֵּהּ לְמִידַע טַב וּבִישׁ “Behold, Adam has become alone in the world by himself, knowing good and evil,” cf. R. Akiva apud Genesis Rabbah 21:5; Mekhilta de R. Ishmael Veyehi Beschalach 7:10). Adam has become an independent, but fearful and insecure, moral arbiter. - Thirdly, in another sense, the human now has a new identity since in several ways he has become like the idolatrous tree (כְּאַחַד מִמֶּנּוּ “as one from it”) and serpent. In all these ways, especially the second and third, he has lost the identity, the being, he had as one who was created to be God’s image and likeness. There has been an ontological loss—a fall—from a divine humanity to a tree-like and serpentine mortal. 11. This all means that in the light of the way events turned out, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil provided a test, which the couple failed. Had they resisted the serpent’s lies, they would have grown in moral understanding and character, grown in the knowledge of the difference between good and evil and how the former should be chosen over the latter. As it is, they now experience (“know” in that sense, cf. Gen 4:1; Ezek 25:14; Isa 47:8) evil with some lingering experience and memory of the “good”.