Interestingly, that was a clash between a biblical understanding of things and a pagan understanding – and the pagan one was Arianism.
Nope – it’s only irrational, as my brothers the mathematicians would say, to the mathematically challenged; apparently if you know how to do n-dimensional geometry it’s quite simple (for my part, it’s simple enough for anyone with enough experience with things scientific to recognize that for some things the proper operation is addition while for others it is multiplication; if you recognize that then the Trinity is elegantly rational).
Besides which, second-Temple Judaism already had a threefold concept of a single God before Jesus even was born; all the early Christians did was formalize that.
BTW your list is nice but Jesus made it plain that He is God very plainly when He told the Jews that He is greater than the Temple: in first century Judaism, the only thing greater than any temple was the deity whose house it was.
LOL
Someone gave you a list of their fruits, and that list looks pretty darned Christlike.
No, it isn’t – it’s the wrong kind of ancient Hebrew literature (in fact it’s two different kinds of literature at once that has three different meanings at the same time – a masterpiece of writing!).
That lie is tiresome. If you want a translation that gets the sense of the grammar–
In the beginning the Logos was being; and the Logos was being facing God; and God is what the Logos was being.
The “a god” assertion requires mangling the grammar, and thus was correctly noted as a heresy long, long ago. That Satan has managed to resuscitate that heresy in modern times does not change the fact that it mangles the grammar of the text.
We really need an improved text editor; underlining, different text size, and strike-through would be immensely useful!
I say that because the word “alone” doesn’t belong there: it doesn’t come from the text.
Although we are told what the result is when someone is baptized just in the name of Jesus:
Now when the apostles at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent to them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Spirit, for He had not yet fallen on any of them, but they had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.
Reading in the English confuses the issue, though you need to grasp Greek more than just turning Greek words into English ones: when Acts says someone was baptized “in the Name of Jesus”, that phrase means “under the authority of Jesus in the way that He commanded” – it’s just the use of a Greek idiom (though one that carries into English with phrases like “in the name of the King!” or “in the name of the law!”). So when we read, “baptized in the name of Jesus”, we have to ask, “How did Jesus say to be baptized?”
And we find that in Matthew 28 – a passage that appears in every ancient manuscript and against which there isn’t the slightest bit of evidence except speculation.
What was He condemned for – not the trumped-up charge they fed Pilate, but in the Sanhedrin? He was condemned for making Himself equal with God.
So you’re being deceptive… again,.
When you read the Greek from a first-century Jewish perspective the hard part isn’t finding the Jesus proclaimed Himself to be God, it’s that He managed to do it so often without getting hauled away!
It also butchers the grammar.
Arianism was based on bad exegesis and bad philosophy back in the first centuries, and it hasn’t gotten any better; the only difference is that today it’s more deceptive.
And if it actually read “a god”, there wouldn’t have been any Jewish converts left in the church once John’s Gospel got circulated! There was either totally and thoroughly divine, or there was mortal; there was no mix, no “a god”.
No, first you have to forget Greek grammar.
Only if you have a shallow understanding of Greek.
What that clause actually says, is “And GOD is what the Logos was being”. It indicates that all that the Logos was was God, and that nothing about the Logos was not God – so “fully” isn’t a bad translation.
I don’t know why I’m bothering; everything you write has been refuted on this forum before, and the scriptures admonish not to cast pearls before swine.
That applies to most if not all conversations on this forum.
There is a saying along the lines of
If something has failed every time, why try it again?
Some people seem to think that changing the words of explanation will somehow change the understanding or maybe make it true?
We have all very clear ideas about what we believe and why. The idea is to expound them on their own merit rather than claim some sort of superiority or truth that others do not have.
This would appear to be where the discussion about apologetics would overlap.
Where can I read this in scripture? You later said…
Which is it, Vinnie? God incarnate, which is never even hinted at in scripture? Or God’s Son - which is all throughout scripture? It can’t be both. The Son of God cannot possibly be the very God he is the Son of.
Yes, as are we. As God’s firstborn, Jesus is a much closer representation of his and our God than we are.
Jesus is never called the creator of anything in any scripture - except the whip he “created” out of cords. John 1 (and many other scriptures) identifies Jesus as the one through whom God created - not the one who created.
Even Tertullian, the one who first coined the phrase “trinity”, said…
“He who creates is one, and he through whom the thing is created is another.”
Hebrews 1:1-2 lays it out very clearly…
In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us through his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.
The prophets God spoke through in the past were not the authors of the words spoken, but the vessels through whom God conveyed His message to the people. The Son that God spoke through in the latter days was not the author of the message, but the vessel through whom God conveyed His message. Likewise, the one through whom God created is not the one who created.
Look at the bolded “he” in the last line of the scripture I posted above. That pronoun refers back to “God” in the first line. So the one who made the universe is the one identified by the pronoun “he”. That one is God, not Jesus. We are not told what exactly it means that God created all things through Jesus, but the two verses above are enough to know, not only that it was God who created the universe, but also that the “God” who created and “Jesus” are two different entities.
The Greek word refers to bowing down to pay homage. When the bowing is done towards a man or an angel, English translators mostly use “bowed down before him”. When it comes to Jesus, they like to use “worship”, but the word doesn’t inherently mean “God worship”. The Hebrew equivalent works the same way, and causes a little conundrum in 1 Chronicles 29:20…
King James Bible
And David said to all the congregation, Now bless the LORD your God. And all the congregation blessed the LORD God of their fathers, and bowed down their heads, and worshipped the LORD, and the king.
It seems right that they “worshiped” Yahweh, but not so much King David, right? Yet it is the same word applied to both. That’s why most more recent translations say…
Anyway, that God’s other angels will bow before God’s firstborn angel to show obeisance doesn’t indicate that these angels are worshiping Jesus as if he is their God any more than the congregation bowing before Yahweh and David meant they were worshiping David as their God.
No scripture gives the role of Creator to Jesus. And passages like Phil 2 further support the overall Biblical teaching that the Most High Creator of heaven and earth sent one of His many servants down from heaven to be born of a woman and to do His will on earth.
Yes – a Redeemer has to be a close relative to both parties for reconciliation and redemption to happen. If it wasn’t God who walked the paths of Galilee and Palestine, then we have no Redeemer.
The first one is, but the second is from God. But it has to be read in the context of God’s “heavenly council” of lesser “gods”. He isn’t saying that man had become like God, but by the lesser beings of heaven.
Examining statements like this in the context of God’s heavenly council points to a difficulty the ancient Hebrews had and that hasn’t really gotten better: they needed an additional word for YHWH-Elohim because putting Him in the same category as other “gods” was a false equivalent, but they didn’t have another word to use. The best they could do is use singular verbs with the plural “elohim” for YHWH-Elohim and plural verbs for the other variety, but that still implied too much commonality.
Solid point! The attempt to make ancient Israel polytheist fails in Genesis, Exodus, and onward. They were at worst henotheist, but that still misses the polemical point of Genesis 1 that all the things the nations around Israel considered to be gods were created by YHWH-Elohim as tools! and it still also misses the point of the name “YHWH”, which tells Moses that only the God of Israel exists in and of Himself – and when you put those two together, it’s plain that the all the “gods” around were just what the later prophets re-emphasized: no different than sticks and stones (which didn’t deny they existed, just that they were made things with no greater status than a pebble or a twig).
Absolutely. Even though in second Temple Judaism there was a recognition of three powers in heaven all who were YHWH, they were adamant that this was just one God.
I’d replace “largely” with “rabidly” – due to the prophets’ exposition of the Torah, there was no doubt in the minds of second Temple Jews that there was YHWH-Elohim on the one hand, and things created by Him on the other – period. That was already clear in the first Genesis Creation account, but it took a millennium for it to really get through to the national consciousness.
[Personally I think the breaking point was the Exile; by all the definitions of the ANE at the time, the Exile meant that YHWH had been defeated, but the prophets insisted that was not the case, that YHWH-Elohim was just using those other nations as tools – He was still in charge. That view demotes all other claimants to deity to the status of pretenders at best.]
The scriptures are listed, and so you can read as much surrounding context as you wish. Go ahead and read around Psalm 8:5 and show from the context that David referring to angels as gods wasn’t really David referring to angels as gods.
Here’s another… you are free to consider as much surrounding context as you wish.
Exodus 12:12… On that same night I will pass through Egypt and strike down every firstborn of both people and animals, and I will bring judgment on all the gods of Egypt. I am the LORD.
Yahweh used the plural for another nation’s gods in the verse above, and many other times.
Your recent posts make me think that you don’t actually believe the Bible, and consider much of it to be man-made oral tradition. If that is the case, why would you bother entering this discussion at all?
According to what? The man-made oral tradition known as the Bible? By the way, Jesus is said in scripture to be both “begotten/born” and “created”. They are synonymous anyway. To “beget” someone is to “create” a life that didn’t previously exist.
John 17… 1After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed:
“Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
I don’t believe it the way you do, but that does not mean I reject it. Your view seems to be shallow and literal.
Psalm 78
My people, hear my teaching;
listen to the words of my mouth.
2 I will open my mouth with a parable;
I will utter hidden things, things from of old—
3 things we have heard and known,
Scripture is not to be taken lightly or without due thought and consideration.
I’ve brought up their reaction already. I’ve asked why the charge of claiming to be God Himself wasn’t leveled against Jesus during his trial. What is your answer to that?
I haven’t gotten to Jerry’s explanation yet as I’m reading through the responses, but please go ahead and give your own answer.
As for your ramblings on historical presents, you are inaccurate. From Greek expert Professor Jason BeDuhn…
“The majority of translations recognize these idiomatic uses of ‘I am’, and properly integrate the words into the context of the passages where they appear. Yet when it comes to 8:58, they suddenly forget how to translate. All the translations except the LB and NWT also ignore the true relation between the verbs of the sentence and produce a sentence that makes no sense in English. These changes in the meaning of the Greek and in the normal procedure for translation point to a bias that has interfered with the work of the translators. No one listening to Jesus, and no one reading John in his own time would have picked up on a divine self-identification in the mere expression ‘I am’, which, if you think about it, is just about the most common pronoun-verb combination in any language. The NWT understands the relation between the two verbs correctly. The average Bible reader might never guess that there was something wrong with the other translations, and might even assume that the error was to be found in the NWT.”
Here is the LB translation he mentions…
58 Jesus: “The absolute truth is that I was in existence before Abraham was ever born!”
And here is the NWT…
58 Jesus said to them: ‘Most truly I say to YOU, Before Abraham came into existence, I have been.’
Again…
Jesus spoke of knowing something about Abraham’s thoughts.
The Jews said he couldn’t have known Abraham because he wasn’t even 50 year old.
Jesus CORRECTED their mistake - not by saying, “Oh, by the way I’m God Himself” - but by pointing out that he had already been alive before Abraham even came into existence.
You’re welcome to your delusion that, “Before Abraham came into existence, YAHWEH!” would be some kind of a sensible answer (“secret code”) to the Jews (who for some odd reason ended up charging Jesus with claiming to be the son of God when they could have just charged him with claiming to be God Himself). I don’t have the extreme “Jesus IS the very God he is the Son OF” bias that you do, and so I don’t have to pretend such nonsense.
That is not what I said. In Genesis God speaks as “we” , that is, in the self plural. Unless you are going to claim some sort of “Royal we” it is clearly not of God.
In the Decalogue God says that we should have no other Gods. That does not mean that any other God actually exists. It means that we should not worship others as God. Or that anything or person should be addressed as (a) God.
The fact that others believed in other Gods is not in dispute. When God claims to bring judgement He is judging their existence not confirming their reality. On Mt Carmel Bhaal is ridiculed and proven to not exist.
The whole point of the Old Testament Scriptures is to establish the one God, which is why we read it in context, not just verses but the whole thing.
An “unbiblical doctrine”? What other writings do you hold up to the holy scriptures as equals? And when you say they “based it on the Hebrew, nothing else”, what do you mean? Which Hebrew writings in particular? Link the writings here so we can all read them and come to our own conclusions on whether or not those writings are based on any scriptural teachings. Thanks.
How do you know he was a “brother Christian” at all? Even Satan can masquerade as an angel of light, right?
The statement I made is 100% factual and true. There is no ancient Earth and ancient universe in the Bible. Nor is there any empirical scientific evidence of such things in the present. There is only wild speculation about things that cannot be observed, tested, or repeated, and are therefore not a part of science at all.
Please provide the scripture(s) and other link(s) that support your claims.
No, it actually doesn’t. A couple examples from prominent Trinitarian scholars…
"Accordingly, from the point of view of grammar alone, [QEOS HN hO LOGOS] could be rendered “the Word was a god,…” - Murray J. Harris
“If a translation were a matter of substituting words, a possible translation of [QEOS EN hO LOGOS]; would be, “The Word was a god”. As a word-for-word translation it cannot be faulted.” - C. H. Dodd
And I’ve already shown the note from the 25 Trinitarian scholars who produced the NET Bible…
“Colwell’s Rule is often invoked to support the translation of θεός (qeos) as definite (“God”) rather than indefinite (“a god”) here. However, Colwell’s Rule merely permits , but does not demand, that a predicate nominative ahead of an equative verb be translated as definite rather than indefinite.”
They also say…
“The construction in John 1:1c does not equate the Word with the person of God (this is ruled out by 1:1b, “the Word was with God”)…”
Anyone with common sense can understand that if there truly is literally only one god, and that one god is a Trinity of three persons, then it couldn’t be said that “God was WITH God in the beginning”. What would that even mean? That the Trinity Godhead was WITH the Trinity Godhead? Because in the Trinity Doctrine, the Father alone isn’t God. Nor is the Son alone or the Spirit alone. So to say, “God said/did x, y or z” is to say the Trinity Godhead said/did x, y or z. There is no “Father God”, since the ONLY God in existence is the combo of all three. And the combo certainly couldn’t have been WITH the combo in the beginning.
Maybe the ancient scholar Origen can shed some light…
“We next notice John’s use of the article in these sentences. He does not write without care in this respect, nor is he unfamiliar with the niceties of the Greek tongue. In some cases he uses the article, and in some he omits it. He adds the article to the Logos, but to the name of God he adds it sometimes only. He uses the article, when the name of God refers to the uncreated cause of all things, and omits it when the Logos is named God… Now there are many who are sincerely concerned about religion, and who fall here into great perplexity. They are afraid that they may be proclaiming two Gods, and their fear drives them into doctrines which are false and wicked… To such persons we have to say that God on the one hand is Very God (Autotheos, God of Himself); and so the Saviour says in His prayer to the Father,4665 “That they may know Thee the only true God;” but that all beyond the Very God is made God by participation in His divinity, and is not to be called simply God (with the article), but rather God (without article). And thus the first-born of all creation, who is the first to be with God, and to attract to Himself divinity, is a being of more exalted rank than the other gods beside Him, of whom God is the God, as it is written,4666 “The God of gods, the Lord, hath spoken and called the earth.”… The true God, then, is “The God,” and those who are formed after Him are gods, images, as it were, of Him the prototype. But the archetypal image, again, of all these images is the Word of God…”
Origen understood that the Bible is the account of many different real, living gods - and the Most High God of all those other gods, who created not only them but also the heaven, earth, sea and everything in our world. Jesus was that God’s first creation - the archetype of all the other gods that came after him, but before mankind.
He also understood that John knew exactly what he was doing when he included the article for the true God the Word was with, and omitted the article when calling the Word “god”.
There does seem to be some evidence, but I’ll leave this one alone since the threefold formula doesn’t say anything one way or the other about a Trinity Godhead anyway.
Please show me the scripture where the Jews officially charged Jesus with his crimes, and “making himself equal with God” was among them.
You are full of ad hominem insults, but not very much else. I just quoted Trinitarian scholars in my last post that refute your assertion that “a god” couldn’t possibly be a valid translation of John 1:1c, right? Perhaps you’re confusing, “I disagree with Mike” and “I have refuted Mike” or something.
You are 100% correct that the “us” in Gen 3:22 refers to Yahweh and His divine council of “lesser gods”/“lesser beings of heaven”! And can we also agree that the Hebrews/Jews, and Yahweh Himself, openly referred to these living beings as gods all throughout the Bible?
Because that would be a great starting off point for everyone involved in this discussion.
I don’t know of any scriptures to support your assertion here. But I do see scriptures that refer to all these false gods as things that are not “beings” at all as you seem to presume. Jesus refers to “Mammon” as a god we shouldn’t serve. “Mammon” essenetially means money or riches or material wealth - not anything that is locatable as an actual being. In Deuteronomy 4 (verse 28 and on) we read: “… you will serve gods of wood and stone, the work of human hands, that neither see, nor hear, nor eat, nor smell.” So just because things are personified as beings or referred to as ‘gods’ doesn’t at all mean that they are actual beings - spiritual or otherwise, even though the worship of all these false ‘gods’ very much does have spiritual implications for us.
I run into this occasionally when the Creed is read in English; in that language, it isn’t exactly obvious that “born” here doesn’t indicate that there wasn’t ever a situation where “there was only God and then there was God who birthed a son”. I put in italics the parts that in Greek make it clear:
“born” is in a Greek form that indicates not a time but a state or condition; it tells us that the Son was always in a state of being begotten
“before all ages” means it was that way out of eternity, and thus reinforces the above by indicating the eternal condition of the Son vis a vis the Father
“consubstantial” indicates that everything that is true of the Father’s being is also true of the Son’s being, and thus the Son was always there with the Father, and indeed “Father” and “Son” are indicative of this; since God is unchanging, then “Father” and “Son” are not titles pinned on happenstance but on eternal condition – God has always been Father and this also there has always been God the Son as well.
So the Greek makes plain that this is an eternal Trinity, not one that developed at some point. “Trinity” is thus an eternal truth about the Godhead.
He did so repeatedly.
“Jesus never claimed to be God” is the battle cry of the uneducated who are self-satisfied in their lack of knowledge.
Absolutely.
Except even the second Temple Jews recognized that there is more than one YHWH – not different versions of YHWH, but different “editions”, so to speak, that exist side-by-side. Besides that, every time “elohim” is used with a singular verb it posits plurality of a single subject.