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Interpretation the Trinity is polytheistic

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  • Originally posted by Christian3 View Post

    Christians believe in only one God, period.

    My doctor is a Jew and he told me Jews do not believe Christians believe in three Gods because of the Trinity. He said an orthodox Jew may say that, but told me to stay away from them.
    Exactly! It may be helpful to note that the Trinity doctrine is not to explain everything about God but is to contain all of what is known. So when we observe that Jesus is 100% God and 100% man, we are not explaining how this is possible but only that this best describes what we find in scripture. It is not that we find this point appearing in a verse but that any doctrine short of this will fail to describe all that is said about Christ. Anything short of this denies that which was known from the start. The deniers' views either forget the Shema, miss Christ as part of the Godhead, or lose the relevance of Christ's death on the cross. Someone may find a better way "containing" the details of Christ than saying he is 100%God and 100% man, but this is the best we currently have. (I can envision ways that this is possible. Since God created all things, He can work out results that go far beyond our imagination.)

    Comment


    • Originally posted by mikewhitney View Post

      Exactly! It may be helpful to note that the Trinity doctrine is not to explain everything about God but is to contain all of what is known. So when we observe that Jesus is 100% God and 100% man, we are not explaining how this is possible but only that this best describes what we find in scripture. It is not that we find this point appearing in a verse but that any doctrine short of this will fail to describe all that is said about Christ. Anything short of this denies that which was known from the start. The deniers' views either forget the Shema, miss Christ as part of the Godhead, or lose the relevance of Christ's death on the cross. Someone may find a better way "containing" the details of Christ than saying he is 100%God and 100% man, but this is the best we currently have. (I can envision ways that this is possible. Since God created all things, He can work out results that go far beyond our imagination.)
      I agree.

      Comment


      • [QUOTE=Hypatia_Alexandria;n1198065][QUOTE=Tassman;n1197484]
        Originally posted by Christian3 View Post

        That belief raises all sorts of questions. What died on the cross? A man? A god? Can a god be killed by humans?

        If Jesus was both fully god and fully man how do we explain the "divinely inspired holy writ" of Luke 2.56? If Jesus was a perfect being fully incorporated into the Godhead, he did not need to increase in either stature or wisdom. The account in Luke must therefore be wrong.

        Furthermore, at which times when Jesus was speaking was he flesh, imperfect humanity and at which times was he Christ, God the Son? And how did these mere humans establish when Jesus was speaking as "imperfect humanity" , and when Jesus was speaking as "Christ, God the Son"?

        The subordinationists had a much stronger case and far more scripture to back it up.
        Excellent points.........

        Comment


        • Originally posted by mikewhitney View Post

          Why don't you propose a theory that explains the scriptures that underlie the Trinitarian doctrine? Certainly you have made better sense of scripture or you would not be so certain about your complaint against the Trinitarian doctrine. It is one thing to complain against an idea that you don't like but it is not very intelligent to do this without proposing something better -- and I mean something proposed on the idea that scripture is divinely inspired, not a proposal from a pure atheistic view. (I should note that there are atheistic theologians who study the scriptures, doctrines, and related discussions in a Christian context.)
          There is no “complaint” against the doubled nature of Jesus (i.e. the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union) or the doctrine of the Holy Trinity (i.e. one God, consisting of three coeternal consubstantial persons) other than the fact that these doctrines are logical nonsense. They are convoluted theological attempts to explain how Jesus could be God whilst at the same time maintaining the Judaic necessity of a monotheistic religion.





          “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

          Comment


          • Originally posted by Tassman View Post

            There is no “complaint” against the doubled nature of Jesus (i.e. the doctrine of the Hypostatic Union) or the doctrine of the Holy Trinity (i.e. one God, consisting of three coeternal consubstantial persons) other than the fact that these doctrines are logical nonsense. They are convoluted theological attempts to explain how Jesus could be God whilst at the same time maintaining the Judaic necessity of a monotheistic religion.




            haha. i didn't ask for more opinion on the existing Trinity doctrine. I just noted that you need something better to recommend, or you are not contributing to anything.

            Comment


            • Originally posted by mikewhitney View Post

              . i didn't ask for more opinion on the existing Trinity doctrine. I just noted that you need something better to recommend, or you are not contributing to anything.
              What you asked for doesn't exist. "The scriptures that underlie the Trinitarian doctrine" were never thought to be references to a Trinitarian deity (and STILL aren't by the Jews). There is NO verse from the Hebrew Bible that explicitly teaches the Trinity nor the related doctrine of the 'double-nature' of Christ. All we have are cherry-picked referenced from scripture that supposedly support the theological notion of Jesus as god - a bit tricky when you adhere to a monotheistic religion. .
              “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

              Comment


              • Originally posted by Tassman View Post

                What you asked for doesn't exist. "The scriptures that underlie the Trinitarian doctrine" were never thought to be references to a Trinitarian deity (and STILL aren't by the Jews). There is NO verse from the Hebrew Bible that explicitly teaches the Trinity nor the related doctrine of the 'double-nature' of Christ. All we have are cherry-picked referenced from scripture that supposedly support the theological notion of Jesus as god - a bit tricky when you adhere to a monotheistic religion. .
                The problem is not whether the Tanakh "explicitly" teaches the nature of God as Trinitarian. The problem is that Christians use ancient polytheistic descriptions from the Pentateuch to justify the Trinity that evolved from the ancient Canaanite/Ugarat polytheistic beliefs found in their cuneiform writings including the names of Gods.
                Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                go with the flow the river knows . . .

                Frank

                I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                Comment


                • Originally posted by Tassman View Post

                  What you asked for doesn't exist. "The scriptures that underlie the Trinitarian doctrine" were never thought to be references to a Trinitarian deity (and STILL aren't by the Jews). There is NO verse from the Hebrew Bible that explicitly teaches the Trinity nor the related doctrine of the 'double-nature' of Christ. All we have are cherry-picked referenced from scripture that supposedly support the theological notion of Jesus as god - a bit tricky when you adhere to a monotheistic religion. .
                  This is an interesting and complicated topic and I suggest Larry Hurtado's blog. It is free. The general topics are to the right. If you click on Christian Origins there is a piece on the 'Trinity' and he then gives a link to his contribution to the book referenced. Below is a relevant except[pt:

                  "Of course, we should not ascribe the later developed doctrine of the Trinity to NT writers (not because they rejected such a doctrine, but because the philosophical questions and categories had not arisen among them in their time). But it is clear that the theological developments that led to the doctrine of the Trinity were to some significant degree prompted and even made unavoidable by the dyadic (God and Jesus) devotional pattern and the triadic (God, Jesus and Spirit) shape of discourse about God that we see amply attested in the NT texts."

                  I agree that there are no Hebrew explicit texts that teach the trinity but as Hurtado notes there are some 75 references to the Spirit in the OT and 275 in the NT. I believe I get your point about cherry-picking but it seems that the earliest communities following Jesus, post 'Resurrection,' were sincerely trying to understand and articulate their experience of this man they had known and searched their scriptures for guidance.

                  It is interesting that Huratdo refers to a 'mutation' or innovation in the Christian understanding of monotheistic Judaism but such mutations seem legitimate in that the disciples were trying to 'account' for their experience of Jesus.

                  Hurtado is one of the best and it is a useful blog.

                  Comment


                  • Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post

                    The problem is not whether the Tanakh "explicitly" teaches the nature of God as Trinitarian. The problem is that Christians use ancient polytheistic descriptions from the Pentateuch to justify the Trinity that evolved from the ancient Canaanite/Ugarat polytheistic beliefs found in their cuneiform writings including the names of Gods.
                    I am interested, do you have a source or source to share on this issue?

                    I ask, in part. because. given the Hurtado reference above. I am not seeing a use of ancient polytheistic descriptions. What I am seeing is the many references to the word and spirit of God in the Hebrew scriptures and the sincere effort of the 'Christians' to deal with their experience of Jesus.
                    Last edited by thormas; 10-21-2020, 06:33 AM.

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by Tassman View Post

                      What you asked for doesn't exist. "The scriptures that underlie the Trinitarian doctrine" were never thought to be references to a Trinitarian deity (and STILL aren't by the Jews). There is NO verse from the Hebrew Bible that explicitly teaches the Trinity nor the related doctrine of the 'double-nature' of Christ. All we have are cherry-picked referenced from scripture that supposedly support the theological notion of Jesus as god - a bit tricky when you adhere to a monotheistic religion. .
                      I don't understand your point. We have 27 books in the New Testament plus the Old Testament. These have to be related together. So, I was asking for your "merging" of ideas about the Messiah that give a better picture of those pieces than the Trinity. Certainly you can do this to explain the relationship of all these pieces in a better fashion than the Trinity. Anything short of this is a failure to back up your rejection. It is easy to complain about doctrines that exist but it is hard to find a comprehensive alternative theory.

                      Comment


                      • Originally posted by thormas View Post

                        I am interested, do you have a source or source to share on this issue?

                        I ask, in part. because. given the Hurtado reference above. I am not seeing a use of ancient polytheistic descriptions. What I am seeing is the many references to the word and spirit of God in the Hebrew scriptures and the sincere effort of the 'Christians' to deal with their experience of Jesus.

                        The following is an interesting source to begin discussion.

                        Source: https://elwynshebrewbiblepage.weebly.com/polytheism-was-the-norm.html



                        The Hebrew Bible: through the lens of the Babylonian exile

                        © Copyright Original Source

                        Source: https://elwynshebrewbiblepage.weebly.com/polytheism-was-the-norm.html



                        Embellished with its post-Exilic reconstruction, the Hebrew Bible states that the religion of Israel and Judah was always monotheism, but, as previously noted, this is not the case. Abraham Kuenen, in his seminal work referenced below and published in 1869-1870, says that:

                        (t)he religion of Israel was initially polytheism. During the 8th century, the majority of the people still acknowledged many deities and, moreover, worshipped them. During the 7th century and until the beginning of the Babylonian captivity (586BC), this situation did not change. So Jeremiah could say: “as the number of your cities, are your Gods, O Judah!”[1]. This polytheism cannot be taken exception to as a later thing crept into it; on the contrary, everything suggests its originality[2].

                        The Kings of Israel and Judah worshipped other gods, and this was the norm. The God of the Jews evolved gradually from the Canaanite El, who was in all likelihood the God of Abraham. The Israelite religion was therefore polytheistic in accordance with general Canaanite beliefs and practices. In Ancient Israel and Judah, there was competition between different priests, but those who worshipped Yahweh composed the Hebrew Bible and this was the genesis of the one-god idea. The formative period of Israelite monotheism occurred in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, two centuries before the cult reformation, which started under King Josiah just before the exile and achieved its apotheosis per medium of the Babylonian-Persian diaspora.

                        According to Dijkstra[3], there is a distinction between what may be described as the early Yahwism of Moses and the popular religion in Israel. Belief in a personal God, the God of Abraham, the God of the ancestor(s) which is dormant in the traditions inherent in the primeval stories and the cycles of the patriarchs in Greece, finally emerged (retrospectively) under Moses. Under the name YHWH, this God of the patriarchs concluded a covenant with Israel of which Moses was the mediator.

                        But, as Julius Wellhausen points out[4], this view of an original Mosaic Yahwism, with a Torah at the beginning covering and regulating the whole range of Israelite religious life, is a canvas laid over the selection of religious and historical traditions composed and revised by the redactors of the Pentateuch and Prophets. Where multiplicity and pluriformity initially existed, the Babylonian diaspora created ultimate unity: one God, one People, one Faith and one Cult. Belief in one God, one cult and one sanctuary in Jerusalem later became the norm for Israel’s religious life and history, and as a matter of course the accounts of idolatry and polytheism could be written and interpreted as deviation from this norm. This perspective is particularly evident in the Former Prophets (the books of Joshua to Kings, also called the Deuteronomistic History) who interpreted the Exile as a punishment from God because the people worshipped idols.

                        No trace of a strict Torah in Joshua or the period of the Judges [5]


                        The Pentateuch creates a picture of Israel living in concentric circles around the Torah and cult in a central sanctuary (in the desert, the tabernacle) with Moses, the Lawgiver and Aaron, the High priest. However, as soon as the stories of Sinai and the desert are left behind and the history of Israel in the Promised Land begins, the picture changes. In the book of Joshua, no trace is found of the well-organised cult of the Tabernacle by which all prescriptions and rituals were neatly established in the desert, and in the Middle Ages of Israel - the period of the Judges - the Israelites do almost everything that was forbidden in the Torah: Gideon made an Ephod; the Danites built a new sanctuary for YHWH in which they set up Micah’s statute of YHWH and established a cult under the guidance of a Levite priest Jonathan; Samuel, David and Solomon built altars and offered sacrifices in a number of sanctuaries spread all over the country, consulted spirits of the dead, or received divine messages in dreams, as if it were not written in the Law of Moses that there should be only one central place of worship for YHWH’s veneration and as if such forms of veneration were not prohibited [6]. In this early period, ancient Israelite religion still exhibited a varied and confusing picture. Here YHWH was not only an outsider, a newcomer, a new deity and divine being in the religion of a new people, but also the focus of ancient religious ideas and convictions, a belief grafted on the ancient conservative stem of Canaanite religiosity and elements of pre-Israelite family religion.

                        © Copyright Original Source



                        Glendower: I can call spirits from the vasty deep.
                        Hotspur: Why, so can I, or so can any man;
                        But will they come when you do call for them? Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part 1, Act III:

                        go with the flow the river knows . . .

                        Frank

                        I do not know, therefore everything is in pencil.

                        Comment


                        • Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post

                          The following is an interesting source to begin discussion.

                          Source: https://elwynshebrewbiblepage.weebly.com/polytheism-was-the-norm.html



                          The Hebrew Bible: through the lens of the Babylonian exile

                          © Copyright Original Source

                          Source: https://elwynshebrewbiblepage.weebly.com/polytheism-was-the-norm.html



                          Embellished with its post-Exilic reconstruction, the Hebrew Bible states that the religion of Israel and Judah was always monotheism, but, as previously noted, this is not the case. Abraham Kuenen, in his seminal work referenced below and published in 1869-1870, says that:

                          (t)he religion of Israel was initially polytheism. During the 8th century, the majority of the people still acknowledged many deities and, moreover, worshipped them. During the 7th century and until the beginning of the Babylonian captivity (586BC), this situation did not change. So Jeremiah could say: “as the number of your cities, are your Gods, O Judah!”[1]. This polytheism cannot be taken exception to as a later thing crept into it; on the contrary, everything suggests its originality[2].

                          The Kings of Israel and Judah worshipped other gods, and this was the norm. The God of the Jews evolved gradually from the Canaanite El, who was in all likelihood the God of Abraham. The Israelite religion was therefore polytheistic in accordance with general Canaanite beliefs and practices. In Ancient Israel and Judah, there was competition between different priests, but those who worshipped Yahweh composed the Hebrew Bible and this was the genesis of the one-god idea. The formative period of Israelite monotheism occurred in the 8th and 7th centuries BCE, two centuries before the cult reformation, which started under King Josiah just before the exile and achieved its apotheosis per medium of the Babylonian-Persian diaspora.

                          According to Dijkstra[3], there is a distinction between what may be described as the early Yahwism of Moses and the popular religion in Israel. Belief in a personal God, the God of Abraham, the God of the ancestor(s) which is dormant in the traditions inherent in the primeval stories and the cycles of the patriarchs in Greece, finally emerged (retrospectively) under Moses. Under the name YHWH, this God of the patriarchs concluded a covenant with Israel of which Moses was the mediator.

                          But, as Julius Wellhausen points out[4], this view of an original Mosaic Yahwism, with a Torah at the beginning covering and regulating the whole range of Israelite religious life, is a canvas laid over the selection of religious and historical traditions composed and revised by the redactors of the Pentateuch and Prophets. Where multiplicity and pluriformity initially existed, the Babylonian diaspora created ultimate unity: one God, one People, one Faith and one Cult. Belief in one God, one cult and one sanctuary in Jerusalem later became the norm for Israel’s religious life and history, and as a matter of course the accounts of idolatry and polytheism could be written and interpreted as deviation from this norm. This perspective is particularly evident in the Former Prophets (the books of Joshua to Kings, also called the Deuteronomistic History) who interpreted the Exile as a punishment from God because the people worshipped idols.

                          No trace of a strict Torah in Joshua or the period of the Judges [5]


                          The Pentateuch creates a picture of Israel living in concentric circles around the Torah and cult in a central sanctuary (in the desert, the tabernacle) with Moses, the Lawgiver and Aaron, the High priest. However, as soon as the stories of Sinai and the desert are left behind and the history of Israel in the Promised Land begins, the picture changes. In the book of Joshua, no trace is found of the well-organised cult of the Tabernacle by which all prescriptions and rituals were neatly established in the desert, and in the Middle Ages of Israel - the period of the Judges - the Israelites do almost everything that was forbidden in the Torah: Gideon made an Ephod; the Danites built a new sanctuary for YHWH in which they set up Micah’s statute of YHWH and established a cult under the guidance of a Levite priest Jonathan; Samuel, David and Solomon built altars and offered sacrifices in a number of sanctuaries spread all over the country, consulted spirits of the dead, or received divine messages in dreams, as if it were not written in the Law of Moses that there should be only one central place of worship for YHWH’s veneration and as if such forms of veneration were not prohibited [6]. In this early period, ancient Israelite religion still exhibited a varied and confusing picture. Here YHWH was not only an outsider, a newcomer, a new deity and divine being in the religion of a new people, but also the focus of ancient religious ideas and convictions, a belief grafted on the ancient conservative stem of Canaanite religiosity and elements of pre-Israelite family religion.

                          © Copyright Original Source


                          Thanks will read.

                          Comment


                          • Originally posted by mikewhitney View Post

                            I don't understand your point. We have 27 books in the New Testament plus the Old Testament. These have to be related together. So, I was asking for your "merging" of ideas about the Messiah that give a better picture of those pieces than the Trinity. Certainly you can do this to explain the relationship of all these pieces in a better fashion than the Trinity. .
                            “Those pieces” were not found in the Hebrew bible throughout the whole of Jewish history until the followers of Jesus wanted him to be considered divine, i.e. God. Only then was Old Testament scripture combed in an attempt to justify this notion and the end results are the logically tortuous doctrines of the Holy Trinity and the Hypostatic Union. So improbable were they that they took several centuries of arcane, often violent, debate to be accepted as the official doctrine of the church.

                            “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                            Comment


                            • Originally posted by shunyadragon View Post

                              The problem is not whether the Tanakh "explicitly" teaches the nature of God as Trinitarian. The problem is that Christians use ancient polytheistic descriptions from the Pentateuch to justify the Trinity that evolved from the ancient Canaanite/Ugarat polytheistic beliefs found in their cuneiform writings including the names of Gods.
                              Yes, the early Christians used whatever they could find in Hebrew scripture to justify a ‘three in one God’ – including ancient polytheistic descriptions from the Pentateuch. There is a very good account of these ancient polytheistic descriptions in Robert Wright’s brilliant book, “The Evolution of God.”
                              Last edited by Tassman; 10-21-2020, 11:50 PM.
                              “He felt that his whole life was a kind of dream and he sometimes wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it.” - Douglas Adams.

                              Comment


                              • Originally posted by Tassman View Post

                                Yes, the early Christians used whatever they could find in Hebrew scripture to justify a ‘three in one God’ – including ancient polytheistic descriptions from the Pentateuch. There is a very good account of these ancient polytheistic descriptions in Robert Wright’s brilliant book, “The Evolution of God.”
                                First, Thanks for the recommendation, I already found it on Amazon.

                                And the early monotheism of Judaism did 'recognize' that there were other gods but not sure what you mean by polytheistic descriptions specifically in Jewish or Christian understandings of God.

                                Also I do agree that the early communities of Christians did turn to their scriptures to somehow get a handle and better understand their Jesus - however I don't see this as justification (at least in the negative sense). They had known Jesus, they had their experience of the 'resurrection' and, again, it seems that they were trying to understand and explain.............most specifically about his messiahship.

                                If polytheistic refers to mention of the spirit or word of God, I have never seem them as 'other gods' within Judaism but rather descriptions or stories of their God in relationship to and with them.

                                So until I get the book and until I read the article presented earlier, any explanation of what you see as polytheistic descriptions used by Christians?
                                Last edited by thormas; 10-22-2020, 05:53 AM.

                                Comment

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