{"id":18761,"date":"2023-11-30T00:40:52","date_gmt":"2023-11-30T07:40:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/?p=18761"},"modified":"2023-11-30T18:28:09","modified_gmt":"2023-12-01T01:28:09","slug":"book-review-of-the-monotheizing-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/kermitzarleyblog\/2023\/11\/book-review-of-the-monotheizing-process\/","title":{"rendered":"Book Review of “The Monotheizing Process”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a>James A. Sanders was professor emeritus at Claremont School of Theology in Pasadena, California, when he died in 2020 at the age of 92. He perhaps was known academically mostly for his work as a textual critic of the Old Testament, but especially his early work with the Dead Sea Scrolls, namely the Psalm Scroll of Cave 11, and his early publications about the DSS.<\/p>\n

Professor Sanders was born in Memphis, Tennessee. He achieved his PhD at Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio, under the supervision of the renown Jewish scholar Samuel Sandmel. Sanders then taught at prestigious schools such as Union Theological Seminary and Columbia University, both in New York City. He taught twenty-one years at Claremont until his official retirement there in 1997. He then taught for many years at Bloy House of The Episcopal Theological Seminary at Claremont.<\/p>\n

James A. Sanders\u2019s last book seems to have been The Monotheizing Process: Its Origins and Development<\/em><\/a>. It was published in 2014 by my publisher Wipf and Stock Publishers in Eugene, Oregon, Although only 100 pages, it is endorsed by eminent Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann of Columbia Theological Seminary, Georgia. He states, \u201cNo one has thought as well and as long, as imaginatively and helpfully about canon as has Jim Sanders.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is what this book is about\u2013how early religious communities conceived of oral tradition and Bible manuscripts as canon that had been passed down to them. Sanders calls this \u201ca monotheizing process.\u201d He also applies it to dialogue between the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He explains more acutely (p. 7), \u201cTo monotheize is to confess that the One God of All is beyond human ability to define or describe.\u201d Sanders obviously was not a systematic theologian.<\/p>\n

My interest in this book is that Sanders constantly refers to YHWH\u2013the God of the Bible whose name is usually pronounced \u201cYahweh\u201d\u2013as \u201cthe One God of All.\u201d Sanders therefore teaches a strict monotheism for normative Judaism and that both Judaism and Islam worship the same God. But Sanders questions if post-apostolic Christianity can be categorized as monotheistic due to its doctrine of the Trinity and therefore that Jesus is God, which latter Sanders repeatedly refutes biblically. Yet Sanders is sound in Christian faith by believing Jesus is the promised Messiah whom God raised from the dead.<\/p>\n

I wrote a book, The Restitution: Biblical Proof Jesus Is Not God<\/em><\/a>, which is in agreement with Sanders on this topic. In fact, many of Sander\u2019s statements affirm much of my book. Rather than provide a thorough review of Sanders\u2019s book, I will now quote several of its texts that address the identity of God and Jesus, with a bare few other texts added:<\/p>\n