Philippians 2:6 and other New Testament texts could also be in dialogue with texts such as one of the Nag Hammadi texts in which the Monad extrudes Sophia, who in turn to be like the Monad makes a god who creates the world and whom the Jews worship.

Luke has Jesus saying to Paul on the road to Damascus, “It hurts you to kick against the goads,” a well-known quotation from Euripides’ Bacchae, in which a new god from the East advances on Greece where he and his followers are persecuted but ultimately prevail.

So the New Testament narrative(s) may be read in light, not only of existing Hebrew narratives, but of existing hellenstic narratives.