Title: A Beneficial Death
The content focused on the “bulls of Bashan” and the conquest of Bashan (Psalm 68 in Ephesians 4). The relationship of the two powers (two Yahwehs) teaching to the Spirit in the New Testament was also view. For an example of how the Spirit is described / blurred with either (or both) of the two Yahwehs, see my notes on this website under Chapters 16-18. See below for further comments on how New Testament writers re-purposed the two Yahwehs to articulate a Trinitarian theology.
Bibliography included in the book
John Kaltner, “Psalm 22: 17b: Second Guessing ‘The Old Guess’,” Journal of Biblical Literature (1998): 503-506
Brent A. Strawn, “Psalm 22: 17b: More Guessing,” Journal of Biblical Literature (2000): 439-451
Kristin M. Swenson, “Psalm 22: 17: Circling around the Problem Again,” Journal of Biblical Literature 123, no. 4 (2004): 637-648
Elmer H. Dyck, “Harmon (Place),” The Anchor Yale Bible Dictionary (ed. David Noel Freedman; New York: Doubleday, 1992)
Hans M. Barstad, The Religious Polemics of Amos: Studies in the Preaching of Amos (Vetus Testamentum, Supplement 34; E. J. Brill, 1984)
J. Williams, “A Further Suggestion about Amos 4:1-3,” Vetus Testamentum 29 (1979):206-211.
Additional Bibliography
W. Hall Harris III, “The Ascent and Descent of Christ in Ephesians 4: 9-10,” Bibliotheca Sacra 151, no. 602 (1994): 198-214
W. Hall Harris III. The Descent of Christ: Ephesians 4: 7-11 and Traditional Hebrew Imagery (Arbeiten Zur Literatur Und Geschichte Des Hellenistischen Judentums 32; E. J. Brill, 1996)
Timothy G. Gombis, “Cosmic lordship and divine gift-giving: Psalm 68 in Ephesians 4: 8,” Novum Testamentum 47:4 (2005): 367-380
del Olmo G. Lete, “Bashan,” Dictionary of Deities and Demons in the Bible (ed. Karel van der Toorn, Bob Becking, and Pieter W. van der Horst; Leiden; Boston; Köln; Grand Rapids, MI; Cambridge: Brill; Eerdmans, 1999)
Phillip Bethancourt, “Christ the Warrior King: A Biblical, Historical, and Theological Analysis of the Divine Warrior Theme in Christology” (PhD dissertation, Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2011)
Elna Mouton, “‘Ascended far above all the heavens’: Rhetorical functioning of Psalm 68: 18 in Ephesians 4: 8-10?” HTS Theological Studies 70:1 (2014): 01-09
Eilat Mazar, “Archaeological Evidence for the” Cows of Bashan” who are in the Mountains of Samaria’,” Rëuben R. Hecht, a tribute; studies in honor of his seventieth birthday (Jerusalem: Koren, 1979): 151-156
In regard to re-purposing the two Yahwehs theology with respect to the Holy Spirit, I wrote:
“Jesus is the second Yahweh, the embodied Yahweh of the Old Testament. But Jesus is not the “Father” Yahweh. He therefore is but isn’t Yahweh. It’s the same with the Spirit. The Spirit is Yahweh, and so he is Jesus as well, but not incarnate or embodied. The Spirit is but isn’t Jesus, just as Jesus is but isn’t Yahweh the Father. The same sort of “two Yahwehs” idea from the Old Testament is found in the New Testament with respect to Jesus and the Spirit.”
To illustrate:
I referenced the following New Testament passages in the discussion:
Acts 16:6 And they traveled through the Phrygian and Galatian region, having been prevented by the Holy Spirit from speaking the message in Asia. 7 And when they came to Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, and the Spirit of Jesus did not permit them.
Romans 8:9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this person does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
Philippians 1: 19 for I know that this will turn out to me for deliverance through your prayer and the support of the Spirit of Jesus Christ . . .
Galatians 4:4 But when the fullness of time came, God sent out his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 in order that he might redeem those under the law, in order that we might receive the adoption. 6 And because you are sons, God sent out the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying out, “Abba! (Father!)” . . .
1 Peter 1:10 Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace meant for you sought and made careful inquiry, 11 investigating for what person or which time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he testified beforehand to the sufferings with reference to Christ and the glories after these things . . .
The point is that, as the New Testament writers assigned the epithets, relevant passages, and imagery associated with the second Yahweh to Jesus, thus interchanging him with the Father, when they further interchange the Spirit and Jesus, the result is a triune Godhead.