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Author | Topic: Bible Interpretation and History | |||||||||||||||||||||||
jaywill Member (Idle past 2195 days) Posts: 4519 From: VA USA Joined: |
the trinity is a faulty interpretation of hebrew writtings, I think this is broad brush generalization. I recall quite a lot of discussion about the Trinity which made no particular reference to Hebrew writings. There has been so much written on the subject how can you make such a generalization? If you want to say this or that particular treatment of the subject has some faulty intepretation of Hebrew writtings, I could take that statement more seriously.
and renders christianity polytheistic, Some treatments of the subject do amount to three seperate Gods. This is called tritheism. And some treatments on the opposite extreme amount to modalism. As I said before the debates on this are really endless. For centries people have argued and traded accusations and labels. You'll probably find me reluctant to get into a protracted debate with you trying to defend against the label of polytheism. I have one and only one God Who is the Triune God. I think that statement is sufficient to stand. But I doubt that you will be appeased with it. I suspect you will want to prove that I have many gods. But I believe that there is only one God and not three. And to fully explain how God can be three and one is too difficult a task for me to do. I think it is too difficult a task for any human being to do. You will find that I will simply refer you to what the Bible says in many places as the source of my faith.
how is the trinity helpful if it confuses people? To some the existence of God period is confusing. The concept of a Creator or the loving heavenly Father is confusing. Others find incarnation confusing. Others find a perfect and sinless human living of Jesus confusing. Some find that believing that Jesus is more than a mere prophet, is very confusing. Redemption confuses some people. Resurrection confuses some other people. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is a source of confusion to others. The living of the Christian life is very confusing to some other people. The second coming, the kingdom, eternal life, forgivenenss, sanctification, conformation, glorification, the nature and building of the church, etc. are also subjects which some find helpful and others protest as not helpful because they are confusing. As long as your love for Christ is growing and your experience of His grace is encreasing, I would not worry about the confusion of biblical statements difficult to reconcile. I would let the Holy Spirit more and more renew and transform my mind and thinking. Then through maturity of spiritual growth what seems confusing will be a source of praise and peace. This message has been edited by jaywill, 05-04-2006 06:15 PM
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ReverendDG Member (Idle past 4364 days) Posts: 1119 From: Topeka,kansas Joined: |
decided this was not worth it
This message has been edited by ReverendDG, 05-04-2006 09:16 PM
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alhussein Inactive Member |
hi guys
I want you to show me the verses where I can know the trinity from the bible.
OFF TOPIC - Please Do Not Respond to this message or continue in this vein. AdminPD Edited by AdminPD, : Warning
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Doddy Member (Idle past 6163 days) Posts: 563 From: Brisbane, Australia Joined: |
Nowhere is it outright proved (or all churches would believe it) but the closest is 1 John 5:7 (which we might note, is truncated in most version, aside from the KJV)
quote: and Matthew 28:19
quote: Which merely mentions three names, so isn't very precise in informing us about this important 'fact'.
OFF TOPIC - Please Do Not Respond to this message unless you can tie it back to the topic. AdminPD Edited by Doddy, : added that 1 John 5:7 is truncated Edited by AdminPD, : Warning Edited by AdminPD, : Warning "Der Mensch kann was er will; er kann aber nicht wollen was er will." (Man can do what he wills but he cannot will what he wills.) - Arthur Schopenhauer
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Nighttrain Member (Idle past 4247 days) Posts: 1512 From: brisbane,australia Joined: |
Howdy, Brissie Boy.
The Johannine Comma as the 1John verse is called, has been dodgy ever since Erasmus lost his bet and was forced to insert it in a new edition.Quoting Metzger-The Text of the New Testament-p101-'Among the thousands of Greek manuscripts examined since the time of Erasmus, only three others are known to contain this spurious passage. they are Greg.88, a twelfth-century manuscript which had the JC written in the margin by a 17th century hand, Tisch.w110 (16th century),and Greg.629 (14th century).
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macaroniandcheese  Suspended Member (Idle past 4182 days) Posts: 4258 Joined: |
i know this is like months late, but that's what happens when you bump a thread...
In 1 Tim it says there is one God and one Mediator. Since the Mediator is the Son, then the one God he is referring to is the Father. THE LORD is God and Jesus is his Mediator? can you reference the verse (if there is a single verse), cause i'm curious.
OFF TOPIC - Please Do Not Respond to this message unless you can tie it back to the topic. AdminPD Edited by brennakimi, : No reason given. Edited by AdminPD, : Warning
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Nighttrain Member (Idle past 4247 days) Posts: 1512 From: brisbane,australia Joined: |
ABE: finally getting it right. The JC is 'in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. And there are three that bear witness in earth.' Bridging verses 7-8. (KJV)Sorry, folks.
Edited by Nighttrain, : No reason given.
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Equinox Member (Idle past 5396 days) Posts: 329 From: Michigan Joined: |
Jaywill wrote:
quote: 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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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3851 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
Equinox: The Roman church deveoloped the trinity idea between the years of 150 and 300 CE - this allowed them to fight the other Christianities. Yes, and you could even say the idea resulted from such fights. By the time the Trinitarian creed was advanced church authorities had already tied the mselves to conflicting positions. The Gnostics and others said Christ was truly God. It followed that, as such, he could only appear to be be human. Something omnipresent, omnipotent and immortal cannot at the same time be localized, vulnerable and mortal. Yeshua of Nazareth was thus a kind of apparition, a sort of holographic interface with creation by the Deity broadcasting the image. In response the authorities took the position that, no, Christ really existed in the flesh. He was fully human. The Arians agreed. They said Christ was fully human. From that they understood all declarations of his divinity and 'Son of God' status to refer to the level of godliness he manifested. His example showed that a person could live so righteously that God would grant them divine status. To elevate Christ to the level of God was to take one's reverence of Christ past the point of idolatry. In response the authorities took the position that, no, Christ was eternal and divine before he was even born. He was fully God. Once they worked themselves into that bind, the authorities were obliged to defend the logic of the positions they had taken. The Trinitarian doctrine offered a structure for defending conflicting points of view. The sticking point for all the early Christianities was really monotheism. Had they not inherited monotheism as an imperative no problem would have existed. Christians were obligated by their Jewish origins and Hebrew canon to uphold the idea of one God even as they revered Christ. How then was one to understand the relationship of Yeshua of Nazareth to his God? I'm glad to see you noting that the Gnostics and the Arians were devout Christians. They were indeed. And they took their monotheism seriously. Their teachings represented good-faith efforts to resolve a dilemma they had inherited from the Christians who came before them. ___ Edited by Archer Opterix, : subtitle. Edited by Archer Opterix, : corrected misspelling. Archer All species are transitional.
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Equinox Member (Idle past 5396 days) Posts: 329 From: Michigan Joined: |
Archer wrote:
quote: Thanks for the great post. One minor spelling correction is the Arians, who were named Arians due to the fact that a prominant member was named Arius. They are not to be confused with the Aryans - that's a whole other can of worms. Have a great day- -Equinox
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Archer Opteryx Member (Idle past 3851 days) Posts: 1811 From: East Asia Joined: |
Equinox: One minor spelling correction is the Arians, who were named Arians due to the fact that a prominant member was named Arius. They are not to be confused with the Aryans - that's a whole other can of worms. Indeed it is. No confusion with Aryan worms. Just bad memory on my part concerning the correct spelling of Arius's name. I looked it up after posting. Latin spelling--duh. I should have known. Thanks for catching that, EQ. I've edited the post. ___ Edited by Archer Opterix, : html. Edited by Archer Opterix, : brev.
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Rascaduanok Junior Member (Idle past 5521 days) Posts: 21 From: Save Warp Joined: |
Keeping to the Buddhist theme, considering the resurrection and the fact that Jesus purportedly died for everyone’s sins, can we not consider him more of a Boddhisatva?
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truthlover Member (Idle past 4313 days) Posts: 1548 From: Selmer, TN Joined: |
Can I correct your post a bit. I'm pretty familiar with the Arian controversy, as it's the background to the very interesting fact that pretty much all the modern churches that quote the Apostle's creed (the modern version of the Nicene Creed) don't believe it, at least not as it was originally agreed upon. (Reference is Eusebius' letter explaining the thought of Constantine and the council upon the creed, which was an adjustment to Caesarea's, Eusebius' church, rule of faith, as quoted in Socrates' Ecclesiastical History.)
Christ is called God very, very early, even in NT writings (we can debate why and what was meant, but we can't debate that he's called God). Ignatius, in letters that are not at question, refers to Christ as God. The letter of Pliny the elder (I don't know the date) says that the Christians used to sing hymns to Christ as God. Justin Martyr, around AD 150, has some very, very thorough explanations of his view of Christ as God. In the end, though, Tertullian has a summation of Christ as God around AD 200 (Against Praxeas) that is excellent, and it explains the usage found in the NT, in Justin's writings, and in everything else seen in the early fathers extremely well. I say all that, because when you get to Nicea and to Eusebius' letter as quoted in Socrates' history (not the philosopher Socrates), Eusebius' letter lines exactly up with what Tertullian and Justin said as well as with the Nicene Creed. Sorry this is a little long. It's very, very interesting to me, and I'm setting up my comment about Arius. Nicea did not end a fight over the Trinity; it heated it up. Arius really started the fight, but here's why it was a fight. Before Nicea, the early churches (non-gnostic) regularly quoted passages like Prov 8:22, saying that Christ was created. They did not distinguish between his being born and being created. You'll find all through the writings of the fathers statements that Christ "the Word" had an inexplicable, incomprehensible birth in the beginning. "The Word," which was part of God, was birthed by God from out of himself. They really liked to quote Ps 45:1, "My heart has emitted a good word," as a proof text. Okay, I said all that to say that what Arius said was that this birth was a real beginning for Christ. Orthodox believers--those who would agree with Tertullian, Origen, Athenagoras, and pretty much all the fathers who speak on the matter--would have said that the Word existed before his birth, but was inside of God rather than "emitted." (Tertullian explains all this thoroughly, but so do Justin, Athenagors, and Origen, who added some twist on "eternal" so that there was no beginning.) Orthodox believers (please excuse my terminology, I just mean those who agree with the writers I'm mentioning) really didn't care much about Arius's adjustment. They didn't agree, but it didn't matter much. Bishop Hosius, for example, a respected bishop from Spain, wrote a letter telling all parties involved to just drop it. They didn't drop it, however, because the real problem is that there were always a lot of modalist believers in the "orthodox" church. Such believers did not distinguish between "persons in the Godhead." They believed that the Father is Jesus is the Holy Spirit. There's only one person. Arius's bishop, Alexander, was more modalist than orthodox. He was really, really irritated with Arius's view, and bad blood developed between them. Alexander had power, as bishop, so Arius took his argument to the market place, creating jingles to be sung by children. (This is all very embarrassing, as I would consider myself as belonging to the lineage of these "orthodox" churches.) Alexander got people on his side, and Arius got people on his side. However, the "orthodox" view was really in between the two. After Nicea, you can tell from Eusebius's letter that he's scared that the modalist side, Alexander's side, may have won out too much. He is very apologetic about the Nicean decision, and he explains in a very defensive way to his congregation why he agreed with it. (As a result, and also because there was an Arian named Eusebius from Nicodemia, he is often labelled an Arian or accused of having Arian tendencies, when in fact he is extremely "orthodox.") However, the Nicene creed is really very orthodox, and agrees quite nicely with Tertullian's view, and that of the other apologists. There is one God, it says, and that one God is the Father. That one God has a Son, who was begotten of his own substance (this wording is found way back in Athenagoras around AD 170, so it's not new). Thus, the Son was made from "God stuff," the "divine matter," rather than from "mere matter" like everything else, including the angels. Since the Son is made from "God stuff," then he is "God from God, light from light, very God from very God." All very typically "orthodox," except that they now backed off from using the word created, because that helped Arius too much. Nicea made only that one small change from the "orthodox" view. In the end, though, there was another group, that Tertullian said always constituted the majority of the believers (because they were ignorant and uneducated, he said). That was the modalists, and there was a lot of them, and they opposed the Arians most strongly. They had to be appeased. As I said, the battle only heated up after Nicea, with the emperors getting involved, appointing Arian or anti-Arian bishops depending on his current view. Eventually, the "orthodox" and the modalists got mixed together, thanks to the immense charisma of Athanasius, the leader of the "Niceans." By the latter half of the 4th century, three or four decades after Nicea, the "orthodox" view was lost. It merged into the modalist view and disappeared. The modalist view lost most of its appeal, too, because now the orthodox/modalist mixture was good enough for them. In that one, there is one God, but the one God is not the Father with a Son that is his divine Word. The one God was now the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together, three in one. All that should be obvious. After all, the first words of the Nicene Creed are "We believe in one God, the Father." That is not the belief of modern believers who quote that creed. They "believe in one God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." That happened during the fourth century. It was a fight between leaders of the orthodox/catholic churches (not Roman churches, as there was no Roman church except in Rome at that time; Nicea appointed four patriarchs, not one, and they appointed four, because there were none before that.) It was not the leaders of anything using a doctrine to maintain their power. Conspiracy theories are always popular, because we humans tend to think that way. That whole story of Arius looks like natural evolution, not any sort of purposeful anything. The apologists who led the fight against the other Christianities from 150 to 300 (that Equinox mentioned) didn't need a specific Trinity doctrine to disagree with the other Christianities. It seems strange to me equinox said that, because he's read a lot of those things. The disagreements on who Christ was were plenty great enough without the apologists having to invent something to fight with the Valentinians, Marcians, etc. In fact, I really object to the suggestion that there was a development. Justin, Tertullian, Origen, and Athenagoras have very little difference between them (except Justin's rather bold wording and Origen's eternal begetting), and there is absolutely no difference between Tertullian's descriptions of the Trinity and Eusebius' letter about the Nicene creed. Those are so similar and use such similar texts, you'd think Eusebius was trained by Tertullian, and since he had read him, maybe he was. Athenagoras, too, though explains the Trinity pretty thoroughly and in exact accordance with Nicea, all the way down to explaining the issue concerning the substance of God, the "material" God is made of, and Athenagoras is from over a century before Nicea. Again, I'm sorry this is so long, but it's one of my favorite subjects.
How then was one to understand the relationship of Yeshua of Nazareth to his God? They got over their strict monotheism pretty handily. Justin says there's two Gods, one begotten and one unbegotten, and Tertullian questions Praxeas' math, saying that in John 1, if there's a God and there's a Word that's with God and who is divine, then anyone who can add can count two in that passage. They didn't sweat the use of the word two, even while they said that the Father was the one God. Tertullian had a great explanation of why that was. He said that people call a sunbeam the sun when it's shining in the window, but if they talk about the sun and the sunbeam at the same time, then they "immediately remove the name of sun from the mere beam, so it is with the Word and God." He explains that the Word is worthy of the title God, but if you are talking about God and his Word, then you no longer refer to the Word as God, but as Lord. This fits really well with what Paul wrote, and Tertullian said his description was how the apostles taught the churches and their elders verbally.
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Nighttrain Member (Idle past 4247 days) Posts: 1512 From: brisbane,australia Joined: |
Hi, TL, when quoting early Church fathers, have you any idea of what exists today in the originals, or are we just using quotes by others such as Eusebius. IOW, copies of copies are all that is extant.
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Equinox Member (Idle past 5396 days) Posts: 329 From: Michigan Joined: |
TL wrote:
The letter of Pliny the elder (I don't know the date) says that the Christians used to sing hymns to Christ as God. Correction of one letter. Pliny said they worshipped Christ as a God (note the "a"). That’s not surprising the world at the time, where people saw gods all over, in emperors, in great heros, in the kitchen, in rivers, etc, and is very different from saying Christ is THE one God of everything. They may well have thought that, but Pliny’s letter gives us no information about that.
The apologists who led the fight against the other Christianities from 150 to 300 (that Equinox mentioned) didn't need a specific Trinity doctrine to disagree with the other Christianities. It seems strange to me equinox said that, because he's read a lot of those things. The disagreements on who Christ was were plenty great enough without the apologists having to invent something to fight with the Valentinians, Marcians, etc. TL, this was an interesting and enjoyable post to read. I’ve also found much of what you write about here, and agree pretty much. Yes, they did have plenty disagree with, but one more piece of ammunition (another point of disagreement) can come in handy at the time. You mentioned that we may disagree on this history - we may a bit, but not much. One thing that is easy to overlook, and is probably a source of some of why it seems we might disagree, is the sheer span of time we are talking about. From Jesus to the Arian controversy is 300 years or so- wow, that’s like talking about the time from the Ming dynasty to now. Things were different at different times. Your discussion fits very well into the 3rd and 4th centuries, after many of the other Christianities were either extinct or much less significant. My “competing and very diverse Christianities” describes more the time in the first and second centuries. With mostly just the writings of the PO from then, that time may look more PO than it was. Thanks for the read, and have a good day- -Equinox P. S. Our overall agreement is easier to see if contrasted with other views. For instance, we both know that it is a very common belief among Christians that the trinity wasn’t “developed” at all, not during the Arian controversy, nor prior to that, but instead goes back not just to Jesus, but to Moses and even to the beginning of time. Now THAT is a view that shows our different view here to be splitting hairs! Edited by Equinox, : added p.s.
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