A Simple but Difficult Question for Trinity.

The concept is there though the word may not be. The word 'monotheism' is also missing but the concept is taught in Isaiah 43. The vast majority of Christians are monotheists, though the word is not in the Bible. It's not a case of reading into the bible it's more of a case of concluding from it..For example, the Bible says that no man can see God (Ex 33:20. 1 Tim 6:16), yet God appears before men( Gen 17:1, Ex 6:2-3). A conclusion would be that God consists of more than one 'persons' .In Genesis God repeatedly refers to himself in the plural, also in Isaiah 6:8. A conclusion would be God consists of more than one 'persons' .The Father does not judge anyone yet Jesus judges (John 5). A conclusion would be that Jesus is a distinct 'person' of YHWH but not the Father.And so on and so forth....

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Hi, Legend.

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For example, the Bible says that no man can see God (Ex 33:20. 1 Tim 6:16), yet God appears before men( Gen 17:1, Ex 6:2-3). A conclusion would be that God consists of more than one 'persons' .

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A more reasonable conclusion is that these reflect different writings by different people with different traditions.Another conclusion, more reasonable than the Trinity, is that God can appear in the form of a human, yet cannot be viewed in his true form; this isn't so uncommon in the myths of the eastern Mediterranean region; this is certainly the first conclusion I would come to. "God consisting of more than one 'persons'" is just not something that obviously jumps out of these passages.Interestingly, you left out Jacob seeing God face-to-face: Interesting in that according to this story, Jacob was wrestling with God, and God was losing so badly that he had to dislocate Jacob's hip to escape. Some interesting attributes this god has.-

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In Genesis God repeatedly refers to himself in the plural, also in Isaiah 6:8. A conclusion would be God consists of more than one 'persons' .

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Isaiah 6:8 is rather embarrassing; it clearly describes God as being surrounded by "seraphs"; the "we" in this passage is quite obvious. Now seeing that, it then suggests who the "we" in the first chapters of Genesis might refer to. Again, this would seem to be a much more reasonable conclusion to someone not trying to justify an a priori held belief in the Trinity.You should try to see what the Jews make of these passages. After all, these passages are part of the Jewish scriptures, and yet the Jews don't accept a Trinity.-

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The Father does not judge anyone yet Jesus judges (John 5). A conclusion would be that Jesus is a distinct 'person' of YHWH but not the Father.

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This is even more embarrassing: all this is saying is that God is appointing Jesus as a judge. I certainly do not see even the suggestion of the Trinity here, and I honestly cannot imagine why you would think that this passage is indicative of the Trinity.

Legend,I'm not an Hebrew expert, but I have been considering a different explanation for the "Let us make" phraseology of Genesis (God usually is quoted as saying "I").It could be that since elohim is a plural word (whether the entity it refers to is singular or plural -- for once the word is used to refer to Moses, who is singular) it requires a plural verb; thus, the "Let us make". You must understand, that the words "Let us" are not in the hebrew. In the hebrew, only a form the verb "make" exists (In Gensis 1:26, for example). I'm assuming it is a 1st person plural verb, which the KJV folks turned into "Let us make" because there is hardly another way to do it in English. I'm also guessing the reason that form of the verb was used was because "God" was doing the "saying"...and "God" is elohim...a plural word, whether it refers to a singular or plural entity.Hebrew plurals do not necessarily mean plural objects -- one use of the plural is for emphasis. For example, in hebrew one might say, "That is the cars!" Cars is plural, but it is referring to one car, and it means that is the best of all cars. The construction was, IIRC, called the emphatic plural, but, as I said, I am no expert on Hebrew, just glanced through a Hebrew For Dummies book once years ago.I have however studied 4 languages. I know that it is a mistake to take the understanding of one language to make assumptions about others (how plurals work, for instance). Each language has to be taken on its own.To be sure, this is a guess on my part. A recent idea of mine as to the oddity of the "let us" phrases in Genesis. Until I had this idea (because I noticed that only the word "make" is actually there in Hebrew), I had generally went with the 'we' is referring to God and His company of angels idea as Chiroptera has stated. Or the royal we idea.--Jason

Yes, to you and I. To someone with a theist bias it is more reasonable to conclude that God exists in three 'persons'. It's either that, or a Biblical contradiction (ofcourse we cannot have that ). Agreed. However, the Trinity doctrine is not based or a single, or a small set of verses. It's based on a number of passages in the whole Bibical context (OT and NT). These passages set some constraints and the Trinity is one way of resolving them. Yes, ludicrous as this passage may be it's still another example of man seeing the 'unseeable' God. I accept that a plural reference to God and the angels is possible in Isa 6:8, but not in the Genesis texts: in 1:26 "our image" is explained in 1:27, "in God's image"; in 3:22 "like one of us" refers back to 3:5, "like God". By itself, no it isn't. But, like I said, in the context of a number of passages in both the NT and OT it supports the idea of a Trinity. This passage shows the clear division of responsibilities and order of two of the three 'persons' of the Trinity. what the Jews make of these passages is irrelevant. The Trinity doctrine is derived in the context of both the OT and NT and the Jews don't have that context.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Hello, Literalist.

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Or the royal we idea.

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I thought of that, too. I didn't mention it because I wasn't too sure whether ancient Hebrew made use of this.Another idea I didn't mention is that I have read that there is evidence that the ancient Hebrews were henotheists: they accepted that there were other gods, but only worshipped a single one. That would be consistent with the first commandment, where they were not to have any other god before their main god.

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A more reasonable conclusion is that these reflect different writings by different people with different traditions.

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Yes, to you and I. To someone with a theist bias it is more reasonable to conclude that God exists in three 'persons'.

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Yes, while I was writing my response it did occur to me that the Trinity just might be an attempt to reconcile a not-entirely-coherent collection of writings representing a multitude of not-entirely-consistent traditions.If one starts with the presumption that the Christian Bible is the literal, historical record of Almighty God, given by divine inspiration, then one is going to be encouraged to supply rather creative solutions to the inconsistencies.PS, not only do I like the part about God cheating in order to win a wrestling match, I also like the part where God is deliberately egging on Satan to dump on Job ("Hey, Loser, check out my man Job!") One can imagine this exchange taking place in a bar.

Hi Jason,I'm not a Hebrew expert either. My understanding is that Elohim is plural in form, however,it may refer to a single being. The way to understand which is the case (singular or plural) is to look at the surrounding verbs, adjectives and pronouns, If they are in the singular , then the noun 'elohim' must be understood and translated as singular (God).A good example of this usage is found in Exodus 20:2-3: "I am the LORD thy God [Elohim] which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt . . . Thou shalt have no other gods [Elohim] before me."I don't think that the plural used in Genesis 1 can be inferred to refer to the angels as there is no Biblical reference to the angels involved in the creation.As for the royal "we", there is no occurrence in the Bible -to my knowledge- where a king or monarch is using the royal plural, or even third-person self-reference, so there's no reason to infer this is the case here.The plural references of God are indeed an oddity. The Trinity doctrine is just a way of 'smoothing out' such rough spots.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Yes, I suspect that was how the doctrine came to be developed. That doesn't mean it's illogical or un-Biblical, as some say. yes, it's up there with God being unable to defeat iron chariots! The OT is clearly plain Jewish mythology to be treated no differently than the Norse/Greek /Roman equivalent.

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"In life, you have to face that some days you'll be the pigeon and some days you'll be the statue."

Elohim in Genesis is not really plural. It is a magnification of the noun. That is because the follow verb (for example 'created', was in singular format. This shows that the noun was singular, but magnfied.Another example was when Moses became 'Elohoim' over Arron. It doesn't mean that there were more than one Moses, but rather Moses's position was magnfied.

You have correctly understood my premises. It was my mistake. I apologize you or Trinitarians for misrepresenting your ideas.
I appreciate your input. However, I think most statements Jesus made about himself was probably his nature as the Word, not a man. For example, he said, I am before Abraham was. However, it is also possible, as your argument, that he might have referred himself as a human when he said about love. At any rate, if one God is the ultimate essence of the three Gods. Then, it seems unlikely that there exists true love among the three. I don’t know much about Mormons or JWs.
However, unlike contorversial trinity theory, the fact that Jesus was the Word in flesh seems uncontroversial in the bible.
As long as they don’t deny the uncontroversial biblical fact that Jesus was the Word, or a kind of creator of the world, came in flesh, I think they are O.K.Likewise, as long as Mormons consider Josep Smith as a human like Paul, James, Luther, or Kalvin, they are O.K.I don’t know about their level of confidence in their belief.

Hello. Leteralist. Thanks for you input.
Below are my suggestions.All came into being through the Word (or logos) John 1:3.And the Word became flesh (John 1: 14).The Word in flesh = Jesus.Therefore, it is clear that the Word in the flesh was Jesus.Now the question here is who exactly was the word? Who exactly was in the flesh?Trinitarians said it was not the Father but Jesus (God existing as a form of Jesus).
You said it was the Father.
I said it was not the Father but Jesus.A difference between Trinitarian’s point of view and my point of view is that Trinitarians think both the Father and Jesus is YHWH, but I think only Jesus is YHWH.A difference between your point and my point is that you think the Father was in the flesh, but I think the Father was not in the flesh, but Jesus, separate entity from the Father, was in the flesh.When the bible is literally interpreted, I cannot negate your statements. I cannot speak publicly that your statement are incorrect. As I told you before, the interpretation lies in the eyes of the beholder.For example, the bible says (Jonh:14: 9), “he that has seen me has seen the Father.We could interpret this sentence more literally “because the Father is physically in Jesus or Jesus is the Father, they actually see the Father if they see Jesus.Or we could interpret this sentence figuratively, “because the Father loves Jesus, it is like the Father resides inside Jesus in his mind though he is not actually and physically in Jesus.The Father loves Jesus like himself, and the Father consider Jesus as himself, and we can consider Jesus as the Father, figuratively, because the Father love Jesus and consider Jesus like himself, and it is like they do see the Father if they see Jesus although they don’t actually see the Father.It seems dependent on how they interpret the bible, more figuratively or less figuratively and more literally or less literally. I used the word, deity, to describe some divine and holy being, not the God you probably have in mind (the very original creator of the whole world). I meant both Jesus and the Father are divine or holy beings.Bible says humans are gods. So the term, God, in the bible doesn’t specifically refer to God in your mind (the very original creator).
The meaning of God is unclear in the Bible.Below are some examples.Exodus 7:1 So the LORD said to Moses: "See, I have made you as God to Pharaoh."Psalm 82:6 "I have said, You are gods; and all of you are children of the most High."John 10:34-36 "Is it not written in your law, "I said, 'You are gods?"When there are two persons, James and Michael, both are humans. Here, the term, human, refers to some creature of humanness, not a particularly exiting one human.Similarly,Jesus is God, the Father is also God, but the term, God, may not refer to a particularly exiting one God, the very original creator, as Trinitarians believe, but the God may refer to some creatures of the original Creator-given, the Father-given holiness. So God may be some classification or category that belongs to divine beings.Humans can also be called gods as bible says.I think, the Father was the origin of all creatures and of all things, even the spirit and Jesus (bible says Jesus came out from the Father but not vice versa. Likewise, Bible says HS coming out from the Father but not vice versa).In conclusion, I cannot oppose you, using the objective data or uncontroversial objective bible scripts. It is just my feeling that as I once said above, there should be more than one entity in order for true love to exist and that’s why I interpret the Father and Jesus as ultimately separate beings.When it comes to Mathew 28:19 and Acts 2:38, when they are literally interpreted, I think you are correct.You theory suggest that the name of the father, Jesus, and HS are the same. The Father, Jesus and HS might be one ultimately the same being, and your theory would be better fit the scripts than my theory.However, ther is some possibility that the scripts have been deliberately altered.For example, they say Eusebius in the early church cited Matt 28:19 many times in his writings, but he always cited the verse differently from the current bible.They say he cited Matt 28:19, and wrote the following sentence down, “Go ye and make disciples of all the nations in my name,,.
He didn’t mention or cite “the name of Jesus, of the Father, and of HS, but stated the verse as “My Name.”They say There is some possibility that the original scripts of Matt 28:19 was "in my name" in stead of the name of the three beings.This message has been edited by dh26, 09-20-2005 10:02 PM