Did the apostle Paul re-write Jewish monotheism to include Jesus in the "one God"?

What is it about?

Jews believe in one God and express that belief through a statement they call the Shema: "Hear O Israel, the LORD your God, the LORD is one" (Deuteronomy 6:4). Two decades after the crucifixion of Jesus, one of the early Christian writers, Paul, wrote that "for us [that, for Christians], there is one God, the Father ... and one Lord, Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 8:6). Some scholars have claimed that when Paul wrote this statement, he was rewriting the Shema to include Jesus, that is, he was taking a statement that there is one God and making it include two person (Jesus and the Father). If true, then this would show that the Trinity (or something like it) was part of Christian belief from very early on. In this article we disagree with that conclusion on a number of grounds and argue instead that Paul's statement should be read as it reads: that there is one God and that Jesus is someone separate.

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Why is it important?

In recent years there has been a growing number of scholars who have argued that Christians identified Jesus as God fairly early on. Paul's statement in 1 Corinthians 8:6 is just one example that is used to make this argument. Our article responds to this trend in scholarship, arguing that actually the early Christians distinguished Jesus from God. 1 Corinthians 8:6 is a key text for understanding monotheism because it includes the phrase "one God". Determining whether Paul includes Jesus within "one God", or excludes him, has big implications for understanding early Christian monotheism. (This article may also have a implications for modern believers).

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