This is old ground. We have already learned – via Christian scholarship – the Trinity is not in the Old Testament. Sadly, some neo-Trinitarian Christians insist the trinity is in the Old Testament.
We showed Keith Thompson a clip where the Christian scholar William Lane Craig confirmed the Trinity is not in the Old Testament yet this zealot proclaimed Dr Craig was “wrong”.
You Decide – a Christian fundamentalist Vs Scholarship
Who do you want to believe; a young Christian zealot on the internet or scholarly authority?
Well, alongside William Lane Craig, Dr Laurence Brown and Harper Collins’ Encyclopaedia we have Bart Ehrman and James White to also tell us the trinity is not present in the Old Testament – the former mocks the argumentations of the neo-Trinitarian Christians who wrongly claim the Trinity is present in the Old Testament.
Dr James White on the Trinity
James White, as an evangelical Christian apologist from Alpha and Omega Ministries, believes the Trinity is revealed after the Old Testament but before the New Testament is written:
One of the most important truths to grasp about the Bible’s revelation of the Trinity is that the truth of the Trinity is revealed primarily in acts of God — specifically, in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ and in the coming of the Holy Spirit to indwell the church. The greatest proof that God is Triune is found in the ministry, death, burial, and resurrection of the Son of God and in the coming of the Spirit. These events took place between the writing of the Old and New Testaments. The Old Testament contains predictions and glimpses of what comes into clear view only in the ministry of Christ recorded in the New Testament. In the same way the Trinity is revealed before the writing of the New Testament so that is written by Trinitarians for Trinitarians. [Loving the Trinity by James R. White, Christian Research Center]
Dr Laurence Brown on the Trinity
Dr Laurence Brown does not believe the Trinity is in either the Old or New Testament
Rabbi Tovia Singer on the Trinity
To represent those who follow the Hebrew Bible (i.e. Jews) we can refer to Rabbi Tovia Singer who does not see any Trinity in the Old Testament.
Dr William Lane Craig on the Trinity
Dr Craig is a renowned Christian apologist and scholar, who upon reading the Old Testament, does not see any Trinity therein.
Professor Bart Ehrman on the Trinity
Professor Bart Ehrman mocks the manner at which some Christians promote the idea there is a trinity in the Old Testament. Ehrman does teach us the absence of the Trinity in the Bible has troubled Christian theologians for centuries. In fact, Ehrman teaches us there is no trinity in the ENTIRE Bible and the only reference to the trinity was the 1 John 5:7-8 forgery. Daniel B. Wallace writes:
The Trinitarian formula (known as the Comma Johanneum) made its way into the third edition of Erasmus’ Greek NT (1522) because of pressure from the Catholic Church. After his first edition appeared (1516), there arose such a furor over the absence of the Comma that Erasmus needed to defend himself. He argued that he did not put in the Comma because he found no Greek manuscripts that included it. Once one was produced (codex 61, written by one Roy or Froy at Oxford in c. 1520), Erasmus apparently felt obliged to include the reading. He became aware of this manuscript sometime between May of 1520 and September of 1521. In his annotations to his third edition he does not protest the rendering now in his text, as though it were made to order; but he does defend himself from the charge of indolence, noting that he had taken care to find whatever manuscripts he could for the production of his Greek New Testament. In the final analysis, Erasmus probably altered the text because of politico-theologico-economic concerns: he did not want his reputation ruined, nor his Novum Instrumentum to go unsold [The Textual Problem in 1 John 5:7-8 by Daniel Wallace]
Conclusion
We could present more evidence against the claims of the Christian zealot (Keith Truth) but it would simply be a case of striking the carcass and I am beginning to worry that Keith will continue going against logic and scholarship regardless of the evidence against him.
The fact remains, the Trinity is not in the Old Testament according to honest scholarship and logical reading of the Old Testament. Sir Anthony Buzzard teaches there are 12000 accounts of 'God' in the Bible yet none of them mention a tri-unity.
Perhaps the real reason why we are seeing a Trinitarian fundamentalists absurdly claiming to possess “air tight” arguments for the Trinity being present in the Old Testament is due to the recognition of the confusion surrounding the Trinity:
For many Christians, the Trinity is an abstract principle, a confusing and difficult doctrine that they believe, although they are not really sure why in their most honest moments [Loving the Trinity, James R White, Christian Research Center]
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12 comments:
No trinity in bible
The list of OT scholars who disagree with Yahya and his ragtag assortment of dissenters is quite long. Keith already proved this. Yahya is hoping Keith won't see this and refute him again. That is why you can be sure when you come back to this blog you will not find my comment because Yahya will delete it just like he does everything else he doesn't like and/or can't answer. :)
Snowman here is what Renowed Jewish Scholar (NOT CHRISTIAN) says about the Trinity and the divinity of Christ.
I wish us to see that Christ too—the divine Messiah—is a Jew. Christology, or the early ideas about Christ, is also a Jewish discourse and not—until much later—an anti-Jewish discourse at all. Many Israelites at the time of Jesus were expecting a Messiah who would be divine and come to earth in the form of a human. Thus the basic underlying thoughts from which both the Trinity and the incarnation grew are there in the very world into which Jesus was born and in which he was first written about in the Gospels of Mark and John.
More from Renowed Jewish Scholar (NOT CHRISTIAN)
There is also growing recognition that the Gospels themselves and even the letters of Paul are part and parcel of the religion of the People of Israel in the first century A.D. What is less recognized is to what extent the ideas surrounding what we call Christology, the story of Jesus as the divine-human Messiah, were also part (if not parcel) of Jewish diversity at this time.
Boyarin, Daniel (2012-03-20). The Jewish Gospels (Kindle Locations 486-488). New Press, The. Kindle Edition.
More
"The theology of the Gospels, far from being a radical innovation within Israelite religious tradition, is a highly conservative return to the very most ancient moments within that tradition, moments that had been largely suppressed in the meantime—but not entirely."
"The reasons that many Jews came to believe that Jesus was divine was because they were already expecting that the Messiah/Christ would be a god-man."
All this from the worlds foremost Jewish Scholar who is not a Christian.
You can now delete the comments
Radical moderate , you quoted Daniel Boyarin , i want to bring into ur attention that a lot of scholars have critiqued him on that book of his .
Read the review by the eminent scholar, Peter Schafer which is devastating to the book of Boyarin. Also follows scholar Larry Hurtado , who too criticized Boyarin for his rather superfluous arguments .
Coming onto your claim of a devine messaih ...
” ‘Messiah’, or ‘Christ’, does not mean ‘the/a divine one’. It is very misleading to use the words as shorthand for the divine name or being of Jesus (“Jesus’ Self-Understanding”).
SOURCE : N.T. Wright, The Meaning of Jesus, 40.
JESUS
LARRY HURTADO ON BOYARINS BOOK AND SCHAFER'S REVIEW .
" Schafer’s review seems to me very well informed, and his rather devastating critique of Boyarin’s book “dead on”. Indeed, his criticisms match those that I formed in reading some of Boyarin’s previous publications. On the one hand, he seems strangely unaware that much of what is valid in them has been around, and articulated more fully and accurately, in previous publications. On the other hand, he rather boldly (Schafer uses the term “wildly”) posits claims that are not only idiosyncratic but are rather easily rebutted.
In a book published originally way back in 1988, I reviewed in depth the evidence of the richness and diversity of ancient Jewish traditions about “principal agent” figures, such as the archangel Michael, and biblical figures such as Moses and Enoch, and also the rich personification of “Wisdom” and Philo’s intriguing development of the “Logos”. What I’ve read of Boyarin’s treatment of these matters seems to me, I am bound to judge, either derivative (with insufficient acknowledgement of this) or . . . well, plainly wrong. Lest someone think that this judgement reflects some sort of confessional bias (coming from me), Schafer’s extended review shows instead that it is simply what the great majority of informed scholars would say.
As Schafer observes, historical analysis of Roman-era Jewish tradition has corrected in important ways some earlier simplistic views. For example, it is clear that interest in these “principal agent” figures, which could include descriptions of them as in some ways sharing in some divine attributes, provided what we may regard as resources on which earliest Jewish Christians drew in framing their understanding of Jesus’ exalted place vis-a-vis God. And at its earliest stages what became “Christianity” was a striking movement within the diversity of the Jewish religious matrix in which it appeared.
But, as Schafer also judges, there were innovations as well that marked out the Jewish-Christian movement from that Matrix, or at least distinguished it. It doesn’t help to downplay or ignore them in the interest of emphasizing (rightly) the very Jewish character of earliest Christianity. In my view, the most notable innovation (to judge from the evidence of the Jewish tradition of the time) was the inclusion of the figure of the exalted/resurrected Jesus in the devotional life of believers, especially notably in their corporate worship, as a rightful recipient of devotion along with God.
JESUS
Lol @ the anon Christian who called James white ragtag. Lol. They will call him scholar when he agrees with them but call him ragtag when he disagrees. Ur scholars admit trinity is not there. Stop being dummy
Thanks for the quotes Jesus
James wasn't referred to as "ragtag". Yahya's assortment was.
From Minoria:
1.From what I know the OT doesn't have the Trinity,but the OT doesn't have HELL and HEAVEN either.
2.MOSES,according to the OT,never heard of any heaven or hell.
3.Hundreds of years later came belief in a RESURRECTION of the dead,in the OT.We have GRADUAL REVELATION.
ABOUT THE TRINITY IN THE NT
I know a few Unitarians,they are few(I think only 100,000 members in the US),a very moral people,but they are technically wrong saying the Trinity is not in the NT.
In MATTHEW 28 Jesus tells his disciples to go to the world and baptize in the NAME of:
The FATHER
The SON
And the HOLY SPIRIT
In Judaism baptism/immersion in water was when a person publicly wanted the world to know he had repented he would be immersed in water.
He was telling all he had asked GOD to forgive him,that was why he was immersed in the NAME of GOD,not of MOSES,ABRAHAM,DAVID,SOLOMON or even the Messiah.
To immerse in water or baptize somebody in anybody's name except God's title of God(or at least the title of Father) was to elevate Moses,Abraham,David to the level of God,said,in effect,Moses is God,for example.
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