No it doesn’t.
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.
Show me where scripture claims “Sola scriptura”. That is a human doctrine designed to prevent having to think too hard.
Richard
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.
That would mean three different statements of Creation.
But in both linguistic and literary terms, 1:1 is part of the first Genesis Creation account (which spills over into the next chapter because whoever divided the chapters wasn’t very good at reading literature).
That said, the first Creation account has nothing to do with “how the things familiar to humans appeared in the created Earth”. As a story of a mighty accomplishment of a great king – the simplest of the literary forms in Genesis 1 – it is peripherally concerned with “things familiar to humans”, but its point is that this “King YHWH-Elohim” created all that exists by His own power. As a story of a temple establishment and inauguration, it is again peripherally concerned with “things familiar to humans”, but its main point is that what seems familiar isn’t after all because all of it is the temple of the Creator and the things He filled it with. Both forms are concerned with the relationship of YHWH-Elohim to His Creation, and only secondarily with anything being familiar to humans.
Though if you were going to fashion a creation account, by necessity you’d fill it with the parts of creation that are familiar to your audience!
The third intent of the first Creation account is revealed in that the writer takes the Egyptian version’s order of events and turns the Egyptian version on its head by turning everything in the Egyptian version that was considered a god or divine and demoting them all to the status of mere created tools of YHWH-Elohim. In that intent nothing is really about being familiar to humans, it is all about a polemic that in essence declares to the Egyptians “All your gods are belong to YHWH” and to the Israelites “Your YHWH-Elohim is master of all”.
I don’t understand what that means. Are you saying that when God said, “Let us make man in our image” that it was one member of the Godhead speaking to the other two members?
I agree that we are not to worship other gods. I disagree that God’s command to have no other gods before/above Him means that no other gods exist. It seems to imply that there are other gods - otherwise it would be senseless to tell people to not place any of those other gods before/above Him.
But our disagreement about that commandment is easily settled by the rest of the Bible anyway. I’ve already shown you a few scriptures that speak of other real, living gods (God’s spirit sons). Here is another that is explicit…
The word translated in verse 1 as “divine council” is “el” (god). This psalm describes the Most High God, Yahweh, presiding over “the assembly of gods” and pronouncing judgement upon some of those gods for doing the exact opposite of what they were supposed to be doing. And Yahweh’s judgement was that, although being created immortal and called gods by Yahweh Himself, they would end up dying like flesh and blood men die.
What? When Yahweh said that He would punish the gods of Egypt, you think He really meant “the gods of Egypt aren’t real”? I think the gods of Egypt are among those upon whom Yahweh passed judgment in Psalm 82.
Numbers 33… 3The Israelites set out from Rameses on the fifteenth day of the first month, the day after the Passover. They marched out defiantly in full view of all the Egyptians, 4who were burying all their firstborn, whom the Lord had struck down among them; for the Lord had brought judgment on their gods.
Did Yahweh bring judgment upon “the thought that the gods of Egypt were real”?
Here’s a better look at it…
Jeremiah 46:25… The LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “I am about to bring punishment on Amon god of Thebes, on Pharaoh, on Egypt and her gods and her kings, and on those who rely on Pharaoh.
Here Yahweh identifies Amon, god of Thebes, and Egypt’s other gods as separate entities from Pharaoh and Egypt’s other kings. One couldn’t sensibly claim that the single word “punishment” refers to one thing in the case of Pharaoh and the other kings, but something else in the case of Amon and the other gods. These are all living entities who will be (have been) punished by Yahweh.
Show me in scripture that Baal was “proven to not exist”.
2 Timothy 3:16… All Scripture is inspired by God and beneficial for teaching, for rebuke, for correction, for training in righteousness…
Add to that the many times Jesus made his case with the words, “It is written…”. Written where?
And add to that the question I asked but you didn’t answer: What OTHER writings do you hold in higher esteem than the scriptures, so that they might take precedence over the scriptures if the two disagree?
1 John 4:1… Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world.
What do we test those spirits against, Richard, if not against the scriptures?
Now I’m not saying the Bible is the ONLY book of information in the history of mankind. I’m saying it is the ULTIMATE authority if another source of information conflicts with it.
Does not say what you claim.
Beneficial, does not mean only.
Inspired does not mean only (or dictated)
There is no scripture that claims Sola Scriptura.
None.But Scripture does not have an opinion on everything. Scripture should be used for what it was written.
Any Spirit that denies Christ or demands worship. (amongst other things)
Read the passage. All attempts to contact Baal failed.It only took one attempt to reach God.
You have the right to your opinion. That does not make it correct.
Richard
Psalm 82… 1God presides in the divine assembly;
He renders judgment among the gods…
6“I have said, ‘You are gods;
you are all sons of the Most High.’
7But like mortals you will die,
and like rulers you will fall.”
This is just one of the many times in scripture where Yahweh speaks of other living gods. Give me your thoughts on this one, and then we can discuss some of the many others.
Psalm 82 is prefaced. A psalm of Asaph. What makes you think it is God speaking?
Besides, Yahweh is a false name for God. it is a tetragram (Acronym) God has no name. He is known by His actions and those with whom He associates. He is the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, the God who brought Israel out of Egypt, but we can call Him Father.
Richard
The Psalms are poetry. You shouldn’t expect them to be entirely literal.
It was not me claiming that Psalms prove that there is more than one god.
Richard
My post was not a reply to anyone, it just followed yours. I should have made it a reply to @MikeBoll.
What would that even mean… “always in a state of being begotten”? This is a great example of the kinds of nonsensical things people who believe in the Trinity Doctrine must say with a straight face.
Isn’t Jesus called the SON of God in this creed? Isn’t he said to have been BEGOTTEN and BORN of the Father? Isn’t he said to be God from God? Why would two persons who have existed from eternity and make up one entity be considered father and son - one begotten and born of the other/came from the other?
Words have meanings, and everyone understands that a father/son relationship requires one to have existed before the other was begotten/born and became that one’s son. The one who has not existed as long is of the other one, and came from the other one… making the second one the son and the first one the father.
All of those bolded words mean something. They exist for a reason.
No it doesn’t. It means a long time ago.
No it doesn’t. It means they are both made of the same substance. The fact that I and my son are also both made of the same substance doesn’t mean that “everything that is true of” me is also true of my son. The substance of God is spirit. The substance of Jesus and the rest of God’s heavenly sons (including Satan) is also spirit. Satan and Jesus are both “consubstantial” with their Father. It doesn’t mean that everything that is true of God is also true of Satan.
The creed’s claim that Jesus was “begotten, not made” is not only moot (since to be begotten IS to be made), but contradicts scripture…
Proverbs 8:22… The LORD created me at the beginning of His way, Before His works of old.
Colossians 1:15… Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature.
Revelation 3:14… These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God…
And as a side note, why does this creed mention the third member of your Godhead in passing, as if an afterthought? Why isn’t the Spirit also right up there with the “true God of true God” stuff at the beginning of the creed? 
By the way, “true god of true god” requires TWO gods, not one. Just like god being with god in the beginning (John 1:1) requires two gods.
This is a baseless claim unless you can show Jesus claiming what you say in scripture. Of course you can’t do that, can you?
Look back at the creed again.
“…through him all things were made…”
The creed aligns with scripture on this point…
1 Corinthians 8:6… New International Version
yet for us there is but one God, the Father, from whom all things came and for whom we live; and there is but one Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom all things came and through whom we live.
Words have meanings. Is there a difference in the words “from” and “through” in the verse above? Is there a difference between “one God, the Father” and “one Lord, Jesus Christ”?
The Hebrews used what is commonly known as a “plural of majesty” or “plural of grandiosity”. For example, the plural of the Hebrew word “tree” could refer to either multiple trees or to one very large/majestic tree. Behemoth in Job is a good example where the plural of “beast” is used to describe one very majestic beast instead of multiple beasts. You are correct that we know which use of the plural is meant by whether the verbs/pronouns associated with the statement are singular or plural.
You are incorrect that a plural Hebrew word ever refers to what you call a “plurality of a single subject”. The word “behemoth” could refer to multiple beasts or one beast, but never a “plurality beast” made up of different persons. Likewise, the plural “elohim” could refer to multiple gods or one god, but never a “plurality god” comprised of different persons.
And just so everyone knows, the plural “elohim” is used to refer to many different gods in the Bible - not just Yahweh. For example, here’s Yahweh Himself using the plural to refer to some other gods…
1 Kings 11:33… I will do this because they have forsaken me and worshiped Ashtoreth the goddess [elohim] of the Sidonians, Chemosh the god [elohim] of the Moabites, and Molek the god [elohim] of the Ammonites, and have not walked in obedience to me, nor done what is right in my eyes, nor kept my decrees and laws as David, Solomon’s father, did.
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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