Would you agree or disagree that based on the Scriptures, that it is either reasonable or unreasonable for Christians to have come to believe in the Trinitarian concept?
i would agree that based on some scripture it is unreasonable. man and god are wholely different things. god cannot be a man, and vice versa, and to worship a man (a created entity) as a god is idolatry.
Fair enough. Then what about Elohim, which is not singular, but used plurally?
elohim, when applied to yahueh, is
never plural. it simply
looks plural, and it's plural case is spelled the same way. grammatically, it is always singular when applied to god, yahueh. all of the verbs used with it are singular.
it's appearance of plurality is more of a hint about the polytheistic culture that surrounds and pre-dates judaism. the word also exists, in singular, in ugaritic, but as the name of a council of many gods.
Are you limiting God's power?
no, i am opperating under the assumption that god is not a fool.
Is incapable of providing for Himself the acceptable sacrifice by becoming both man and God and Spirit simultaneously?
god is said to have (perhaps taking?) a human form throughout the old testament. when he wrestles with jacob in the desert, he is in human form. when he shows moses his body, he is in human form. when he walks through the garden with adam and eve, he is in human form. in many instances, he has forms that are considerably less solid, as a pillar of cloud and fire, or a burning bush. and there is a passage where god provides his own sacrifice.
but to take this as evidence of the trinity is nothing short of absurd. god provides a ram caught in the thickets for abraham, because he takes compassion and does not want abraham to sacrifice his son. this is the kind of passage that carries with it the implication that
god will never make such a demand of anyone. god provides the lamb because
he does not desire human sacrifice, rather a willing heart.
See, there are several verses, some of which I already presented, that unambiguously describe the trinity.
no, there are not. read them more carefully, and separately this time.
It does make sense. Especially when you look at in context with scripture.
i am, and in the context of scripture, it is
utterly abhorent to call any descendant of adam "god." it is what time and time again foreign kings are mocked for by the prophets.
As David said, "there are none that are good, no, not even one."
and you talk to me about context? david is not commenting on the state of all human kind, but the
the transgressions of his country. the implication of the rest of that very verse, "they have all gone aside" is that people have
lost their way, not that they never had it, or could not have it.
clearly, according to the old testament, there are a number of people who are called "perfect" by god. including david. even after he sins in the text. surprise, god is forgiving.
Now, can we fully understand God with or without the Trinity? No, of course not.
according to you, we cannot fully understand the trinity. apparently, we have a better chance of understanding god
without this concept.
All men have been building up Adam, as ben, in Hebrew, means, ”builder.’
ben means "son."
banah means "build" or "builder." in plural, they are spelled the same in hebrew (but the vowels are different). singular case is different, but many cases are similar. i can understand why this would be confusing.
ben-adam means "son of man" literally, but look it up in a dictionary and you'll find "human being" as the definition. it literally means descended from the first human.
In Biblical times, the father’s seed counted towards lineage, not the mother. Even today, tradition maintains that a son or daughter from a marriage typically takes the surname of the father.
not entirely true. if your mother was jewish, and your father a gentile, you are a jew. if your father is jewish and your mother a gentile, you're a goy.
This is precisely why intermarriage was forbidden in Biblical times.
i think you'll find another reason much prominent in the old testament, if you actually look for where it's spelled out. i'll give you hint, i discussed it above, and it starts with an "i"
and ends with a "dolatry."
This was not done out of issues of race, as so many have presupposed.
clearly not, all of israel's neighbours were (and are) semitic.
Even today, a Jewish person is considered either a ”Cohen’ (Priest), or a ”Levy,’ (Levite), according to who is father is.
cohen = levi, for all intents and purposes. while technically, kohanim are a subset of the tribe of levi, they are close to be synonymous today. and actually, kohanim can be identified by their
genes. it's called the kohanim modal haplotype, an irregularity in a single chromosome found only in sons of "y-chromosomal aaron," and uniquely in middle eastern people -- a large percentage of which happen to be named "cohen."
oh, and one south african tribe that identifies itself as jewish.
Many Davidic kings on the throne of Israel had Gentile mothers. Did this make them Gentiles from the Tribe of Judah and the family line of David?
can you document this?
The prophets, Micah and Isaiah, wrote these prophecies some 700 years prior to Jesus’ birth. In these messianic prophecies they describe the Messiah as being eternal.
that is highly, highly debatable. it's definitally not the case in micah, but i do not feel like getting into messianic prophecy here. there are other threads for that.
Aside from this glaring point, since when is a man, any man, referred to as ”Mighty God’ and ”Everlasting Father?’
here's some good ones to search for:
- — - elijah, "god yahu[eh]"
- - jehu, "yahu[eh]"
- ‘ - joab, "yahu[eh] father"
- — - joel, "yahu[eh] god"
- - john, "merciful god"
- — - michael, "like god"
- — - nehemiah, "comforting god"
- - zedekiah, "righteous god"
- — - samuel, "name of god"
want some more? there are tons of names in the hebrew bible (AND the christian bible) that end or start with "el" or "yah." some of them more debatable than others. but these are ones that have meanings close to what you're looking. i skipped a bunch of "eli-" names, too, because those mean "my god" and aren't as obvious.
the thing is that hebrews named, and continue to name their children after god. sometimes qualities of god, or as statements about god. so a name that says "god is with us!" or "god is forever" does not mean the person who has this name is actually god. anymore than jehu or joel was actually god.
So, what else are we to deduce, other than, that the Messiah is God incarnate?
this actually somewhat ironic, because there isn't a whole lot said in the bible about the messiah, because
the tradition didn't even start until after the exile. that's pretty late in terms of old testament chronology. that's right at the end of kings, or after. the traditional view (and the biblical one mind you) present a great phophet-king, someone like moses. he will be given great power by god, but he will be a human being. in fact, he will be a son of david.
this is a great contradiction, btw, for anyone noticing how far we're strayed from the topic. if being the messiah is partially defined by being a son of david, how can god (who is not the son of david) or the son of god (who is not the son of david) be the messiah?
I mean, really, is belief in the Trinity so unfounded to you?
yes. it's purely, and simply dogma. it might be the most apologetic way to read certain contradictory elements, but "it's both and we're too stupid to understand" is NOT a good answer. the parts about strict, strict monotheism
cannot possibly combine with worship of more than one entity. and pretending that 3=1 is not the solution to this.
Each gospel adds to it its own special element. Matthew presents Jesus as the Mashiac and appeals to the Jewishness of it all. Mark appeals to the Power of Christ, appealing to Him as the "the Lion from the Tribe of Judah." Luke focuses on the humanity of Jesus and how He has borne our afflictions. John presents Jesus as the eternal Lord and Saviour. All of them, divinely inspired, present the same Jesus in all His forms.
perhaps they are genuinely four different points of view.
There is nothing gnostic about it. Read the gnostic gospels and vastly different they are textually than any of the actual gospels. There is no comparison.
john is vastly different than the other gospels. and the stuff jesus walks around saying has very gnostic tendencies. it's not a gnostic gospel itself, but i have a suspicion it was written to attract gnostic tastes.
Well, you're certainly entitled to that opinion. I have thus far backed up my claims with Scripture.
you have back it up by combining texts willy-nilly, with little to no regard for the separate traditions they represent. my conjecture that the concept of the trinity comes from combining of texts is actually
demonstrated in full by
your argument. break the texts into groups, and no one set says
all of what you want it to say.
If you want to undermine the concept of the trinity, you are going to have to do it using the Scriptures, otherwise you are just supplying your personal opinion
yes, it's my personal opinion that god absolutely rules out worshipping anything made in his image, any human being, or anything else besides him and him alone? it is my opinion that a mortal being, a "son of man" is the exact opposite of god within the contexts of the hebrew bible?
i
have used scripture, i just haven't especially thrown it at you in bible-thumping manner. i have used a fair portion of my own understanding of the text, the textual context, and the socio-political and religious context. i have used a few years of study about the structure and history and contents of the bible.
it's simply not what you think it is. at some point, you just have to accept that certain things are contradictory, and that "god" and "not god" contradict. otherwise, you are simply saying that you do not believe in the rules of logic, and that god is irrational.
Of those of more poetic prose, we have The 150 Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Songs of Solomon.
those are poetry, not poetic prose.
also, the three major prophets (isaiah, jeremiah, ezekiel) are largely poetry, interspersed with prose (usually taken from other books) for context. most of the minor prophets are the same way. i suppose i shouldn't have said that isaiah is entirely poetry, there's a lot of prose in it too.
But what exactly are you referring to about a parallel verse?
well, here's an example. let's look at a passage from isaiah that supports my point.
quote:
Isaiah 45:4-8:
For the sake of Jacob My servant,
and Israel Mine elect,
I have called thee by thy name,
I have surnamed thee,
though thou hast not known Me.
I am the LORD, and there is none else,
beside Me there is no God;
I have girded thee, though thou hast not known Me;
That they may know from the rising of the sun,
and from the west,
that there is none beside Me;
I am the LORD; and there is none else;
I form the light, and create darkness;
I make peace, and create evil;
I am the LORD, that doeth all these things.
Drop down, ye heavens, from above,
and let the skies pour down righteousness;
let the earth open, that they may bring forth salvation,
and let her cause righteousness to spring up together;
I the LORD have created it.
do i have to point out the structure?
it goes: A-A-B-B-C. D-D-C. E-E-D-D. F-F-G. H-H-I-I-G. it's like rhyme structure in english, except instead of rhymin, it works by reptition of concept, generally with synonyms. sometimes with antonyms. this one is a bit more complex, as it has recurring elements that repeat at the end of certain groups -- but generally, things are found in pairs. this is a standard hebrew poetic device. look for it
anywhere in the bible, and you will find it.
Edited by arachnophilia, : typos
) is a fool`s errand. If believers would own up to the fact instead of pretending they have autograph text, we might make some progress in finding if there are kernels of truth in the Book. Instead we have entrenched positions defending interpretations instead of admitting 'we don`t really know'.
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