Jaywill wrote:
quote:
As I said before the debates on this are really endless. For centries people have argued and traded accusations and labels.
Right. The idea that 3=1 has never made sense, though it has been a useful tool.
Basically, there is a lot of evidence that after Jesus, many different Christianities sprang up. Some considered Jesus God, some the OT God God, some said there were dozens of Gods, some said Jesus was human and not God (Ebionites, etc.), some said Jesus was God not human (Gnostics, others). Most claimed to have traceable apostolic succession to Jesus, most had “sacred scripture” that supported their form of Chrisitianity, and most called all other Christianities “heresy”. To win these battles, the Roman church had to both call the Ebionites (who said Jesus was human, not God), and had to simultaneously call the Gnostics (who said Jesus was God not human) wrong. To to this, they came up the self-contradictory view that Jesus was both, and that he and God were the same God but also distinct persons. Plus, the OT says over and over that there is only one God, so to claim ancient roots (needed in the roman world for any religion to be respectable), one has to say there is only one god. With the holy spirit in there, this is where we get the view of the trinity.
The Roman church deveoloped the trinity idea between the years of 150 and 300 CE - this allowed them to fight the other Christianities. Look at that Nicene Creed - it’s practically a line by line refutation of the other Churches you aren’t supposed to join. It seems pretty irrelevant today (since nearly all Christians agree with every line), but back then it was like reciting something like this:
*There is one Pope over the Christian Church, in the Vatican
*Traditions that aren’t in the Bible, such as the Rosary, are holy
*Saints are holy and good, and can be asked in prayer to intercede for us
T*here is one baptism for remission of sins, which can be done on infants
Etc.
These are things that Christians today disagree on. The Nicene creed was a list of statements that many Christians of the day disagreed with, and thereby the Nicene Creed helped the Roman church eradicate competing Christianities.
That’s why the trinity isn’t mentioned in the Bible, which is made up of books all written by 150. That’s also why the Gospels contain so many things that contradict the trinity (like the baptism and conversations between Jesus & the Father - is God supposed to be just talking to himself there?).
This class explains the development of the trinity well. I highly recommend it, and it isn’t expensive ($35 for cassette - that’s like less than dinner & a movie for two). It is by a world expert on early Christianity.
The Great Courses
Sure, there was a large gap when just about no theologians disagreed with the trinity. There was a lot of disagreement about the trinity before around 300 CE, and this has sprung up again since around 1850 to today. That gap doesn’t mean that rejecting the trinity is some new idea - it’s older than the book of 1Timothy.
The lack of biblical support for the trinity is why newer Christian churches are rejecting the traditional trinity. That includes the Pentecostals, the Mormons, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, etc.
The few proposed instances of the trinity in the OT don’t stand up to examination. Here are some actual examples that are often used by Christians (****):
****Genesis Chapter 1 : God says “let US create man . .”
“US” is plural - so that must mean the trinity!! Or, it could mean 2, or 5, or 8 or 1032 or a royal “me” or be a vestigial organ from an earlier copied story . .. Hardly evidence of the trinity.
****Isaiah chapter 6:
And one said in a loud voice to another, Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of armies: all the earth is full of his glory.
“Holy” is used three times! It must mean the trinity is true! Oh, but our oldest copy of Isaiah only says “holy, holy” (2 holies), and even with holy holy holy, that hardly has to mean the trinity. If I say you are a cool, cool guy, I’m not saying you are two people.
****But there are vague references to Jesus in the OT, like in Judges, when moses holds up his arms, he looks like a cross - which has to be referring to Jesus!
You’ve got to be kidding - just holding up one’s arms doesn’t make it a reference to Jesus, and certainly doesn’t prove the trinity. The old testament doesn’t talk about Jesus - that’s why most ancient Jews rejected Christianity. They knew their scripture. Christianity had to grow among the non-jews, which it did.
In the of a million words that make up the Bible, you’d think that if any of the dozens of writers of the Bible thought the trinity existed, then some phrase like “God is composed of three beings, the father, son, and holy ghost - these three are one god.” wouldn’t be too much trouble to write. That was only 17 words, and what could be more important than God’s nature?
But no. instead we get entire stories copied word for word twice that go on for pages, or pages and pages of geneologies of people who are never again mentioned, or stories about ancient beauty pageants. I guess all those were more important than the trinity.
Instead, try reading the books of the bible as separate books. Many of them describe different religions. For instance, if you read the OT and let it speak for itself (and not try to cram the books of the new testament into it), you will see it describes a world without a Hell and without a devil. Sure the OT mentions Satan, but he a member of God’s court, a servant of God - until the NT, when he became a power on his own. Hell is a concept borrowed from Zoroastrianism that isn’t incorporated until the new testament. Or compare the Jesus of Mark with the Jesus of John - they are two different Jesuses.
Have a fun weekend, I'll be back next week.
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