Judaism & The Trinity Doctrine

[brotherskeptic]

I have been in a discussion at CARM concerning the Trinity and specifically that it is a Christian doctrine. One person is attempting to convince me that the Judaic people have had revelation of the Trinity.(1)

I have research this and would like some input from you folks as to your take on my presented evidences and arguments against the idea that the Trinity has been revealed and is known in Jewish theology, if you please.

Thank you,
Brother Skeptic


(1) http://new.carmforums.org/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=122&topic_id=45512&mesg_id=45512&page=

[seer]

http://www.christian-thinktank.com/trin02.html

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

Please allow me to restate some old posts.

Our great 9th century CE sage, Saadya Gaon (who lived in what is now Iraq, see http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/SaadiaGaon.html) said that to believe that God is triune is to define & limit Him by the physical concepts of quantity and number. To believe in a truly transcendant God (that is who transcends all physical constructs/concepts, including those of quantity & number), who is Wholly Other, one must believe that He is One. Since He created all things corporeal, He Himself cannot be, or have been at one time, corporeal; to believe otherwise, Saadya Gaon taught, is to define Him by, & limit Him to, the corporeal form that he presumably chose. The uniqueness of One is that it presumes no self-division. Like the smallest whole number that it, in fact, is, it cannot be broken down into constituent parts. Whereas 3 = 1 + 1+ 1, 1 (simply) = 1; it is in this sense that 1 is transcendant in a way that 3 is not. We believe that the Oneness of God is unbounded both internally & externally.

I have heard many Christians (like Jude3b) use the analogy that the three "persons" of the trinity are all one the same way that I, ferinstance, am a father to my boys, a husband to my wife, a son to my parents & a brother to my brother. I would reply that this is a human analogy & as such, it cannot be applied to a transcendant, Wholly Other, God (the same goes for the ice-water-steam analogy).

We do not believe that there are any references to the Trinity in the Tanakh. We have our own understandings of each & every verse that Christians believe does refer to the Trinity.

Without wishing to offend anyone (God forbid!), the Christian doctrine of the trinity seems (to us) to be a semantically ill-disguised tritheism and a pagan idea with a superficial monotheistic veneer.

See also my posts at http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?p=219124&highlight=Trinity#post219124.

I have seen more than a few Christian (!) websites that purport to state what various "Ancient Rabbis" and/or various Jewish texts (usually the Zohar; see http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/web/faq/faq026.html and http://www.messiahtruth.com/zohar.html) really said or really meant regarding the nature and/or identity of the Messiah. No Jewish Sage or rabbi worth his salt has ever made any favorable references to Jesus, the Trinity or the Incarnation no matter what any would-be missionaries-on-the-make or those with a king-size axe to grind would have you believe, mistranslations and misrepresentations (whether innocent or deliberate), and badly-taken-out-of-context quotes by would-be missionaries-on-the-make and those with an agenda, notwithstanding. Claims to the contrary are simply preposterous and/or wishful thinking.

Howzat?

Be well!

ssv :hi:

[seer]

No Jewish Sage or rabbi worth his salt has ever made any favorable references to Jesus, the Trinity or the Incarnation no matter what any would-be missionaries-on-the-make or those with a king-size axe to grind would have you believe, mistranslations and misrepresentations (whether innocent or deliberate), and badly-taken-out-of-context quotes by would-be missionaries-on-the-make and those with an agenda, notwithstanding. Claims to the contrary are simply preposterous and/or wishful thinking.

Well of course not. The Jews are generally blinded and under God's judgement:

Romans 11:

"Even so then at this present time also there is a remnant according to the election of grace. And if by grace, then is it no more of works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work.What then? Israel hath not obtained that which he seeketh for; but the election hath obtained it, and the rest were blinded. (According as it is written, God hath given them the spirit of slumber, eyes that they should not see, and ears that they should not hear;) unto this day.And David saith, Let their table be made a snare, and a trap, and a stumblingblock, and a recompence unto them:Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, and bow down their back alway."

2 Cor.3:

"And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty."

John 12:

"But though he had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not on him: That the saying of Esaias the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spake, Lord, who hath believed our report? and to whom hath the arm of the Lord been revealed?Therefore they could not believe, because that Esaias said again,He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.These things said Esaias, when he saw his glory, and spake of him."

Mark 4:

"And he said unto them, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear. And when he was alone, they that were about him with the twelve asked of him the parable. And he said unto them, Unto you it is given to know the mystery of the kingdom of God: but unto them that are without, all these things are done in parables: That seeing they may see, and not perceive; and hearing they may hear, and not understand; lest at any time they should be converted, and their sins should be forgiven them."

[Timothy Leary]

The Hebrew word אֱלֹהִים (Elohiym), generally translated as "God", ends in a masculine plural ending, it does not neccessarily mean it is numerically plural. Why is this?

For a word to be numerically plural, there are three things we need to look for:

1) The word needs to be plural
2) The verb needs to be plural
3) The adjective needs to be plural

However the passages cited to support the trinity have singular verbs and singular adjectives. Without Plural verbs and/or adjectives, it might as well be in the singular form.

Additionally the word אֱלֹהִים (Elohiym) not only refers to God, but can also refer to men and angels! In Chapter 9 of Chizzuk Emunah, Karaite Isaac Troki wrote:


Those who are conversant with the Hebrew language are aware that Elohim relates not merely to the Supreme Being, but also to angels and human authorities. Manoah, the father of Samson (mentioned in Judges 13:22), after he found that he had perceived "an angel of the Lord," said, "We shall surely die, for we have seen Elohim." In reference to human authorities, we read in Exodus 22:9, "Before the Elohim [judges] the cause of the two men shall be brought, and he, whom the Elohim [judges] shall declare guilty, shall pay twofold unto his neighbour." Having thus shown that the word Elohim bears various interpretations, it is perfectly out of question to refer it in the first verse of Genesis, to a plurality of persons in the Deity, of which assumption no corroboration whatever is given in our Revelation.

We should like to understand how the name of Elohim, given by God to Moses, Exodus 7:1, in the words, "Behold I have made thee an Elohim to Pharaoh," can be allowed by Christian expounders to allude to a plurality of persons, and represent in a mortal creature a visible Trinity?

Suppose, for argument’s sake, Elohim does allude to a plurality of persons, how could the occurrence of Eloha (the singular form of Elohim) be justified? Thus we find in Deuteronomy 32:15, "And he forsook the Eloha [God] who made him," and Psalm 50:22, "Ye who forget Eloha [God]." Again, how can the advocates of the existence of a Trinity account for the alternate employment of Elohim and Eloha? See Isaiah 44:6, "And besides me there is no Elohim;" and, in verse 8, we read, "Is there an Eloha besides me?" If the truth of the doctrine of the Trinity depend on the term "Elohim," the word "Eloha" most decidedly disproves it, since it renders the allusion to a plurality perfectly unnecessary.

Lastly, There are many words within the bible that have no singular form at all. An example of this would be שָּׁמַיִם (Shamayim), translated as "Heaven".

If anyone is interested, a while back I recorded a lesson (in mp3 format) on an in-depth study on the on the Hebrew Grammar relating to the use of this word, and the ways it is used biblically, given by my friend Nehemia Gordon (http://www.karaite-korner.org). Links to the Mp3s are below.

File #1 - First 30 minutes and 19 seconds - 6.9 MB (http://www.ancient-paths.net/Audio/Elohiym_1.mp3)

File #2 - the last 28 minutes and 15 seconds - 6.6 MB (http://www.ancient-paths.net/Audio/Elohiym_2.mp3)

[dizzle]

I am moving this to the Judaism section, which although a theist section I will give permission for this one thread for the nontheist participation of Brothersceptic.

Brothersceptic - in our forum decorum you need to present that arguments that you wish to have discussed here in quote form here, and then can give that forum link as further reference. Please send me what you would like to include in your opening post and I will edit it in and restore the link for further reference.

Seer - the same - argument by weblink is prohibited.. please post the relevant portions here.

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

Seer posted:

Well of course not. The Jews are generally blinded and under God's judgement:

Do you mean like this (http://tinyurl.com/yszdr& http://tinyurl.com/2xczn)?

Be well!

ssv :hi:

[Timothy Leary]

Bump.

Any replies, or shall we consider this thread finished?

[Jezz]

Hi all!
Hi ssv!

There are two aspects to the "Trinity has Jewish roots" argument:

1. The Christian claim that it has Jewish roots.
2. The Jewish claim that it is fundamentally contradictory to Jewish roots.

Because this post is long, and because you have already made a positive case for 2, I will confine this post to be a rebuttal of the points that you have made. This will help us stay focussed. I hope to present the postive case (1) in a future post.

Our great 9th century CE sage, Saadya Gaon (who lived in what is now Iraq, see http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/SaadiaGaon.html) said...
With due respect to this great sage, ssv, I must comment here. I feel that his comments are actually more incomprehensible than the doctrine he seeks to refute (ie, Trinitarianism). I will comment on what I perceive to be his errors here.

...that to believe that God is triune is to define & limit Him by the physical concepts of quantity and number. To believe in a truly transcendant God (that is who transcends all physical constructs/concepts, including those of quantity & number), who is Wholly Other, one must believe that He is One.
Couple of comments:

1. You have complained that the trinity is unsound because it tries to limit God by quantity and number. But to claim that God isn't triune is also to define and limit Him. Furthermore, after claiming that God cannot be defined and limited by the physcial concepts of quantity and number, you proceed to define and limit Him by the number one.

2. It is fine to say that "God is One", but the question is: "one what?" Trinitarians believe that God is One, too!

When people complain about the Trinity being incomprehensible or polytheistic, it's generally because they fail to note what there are "three" of or "one" of. The Trinitarian creed - first used by Tertullian and popularised by Athanasius, Basil and the Gregories in support of the Nicene Creed - is that God is one substance/essence (Greek: ousia) in three persons (Greek: hypostases). So the above creates a false dichotomy: the "three" of the Trinitarian doctrine is not in contradiction to His oneness, because they refer to different things.

Tautologically, the most essential thing about God is His essence. Because there is only one God, there can only be one essence of God. Trinitarian doctrine affirms this very strongly. Any doctrine that implies that there is more than one essential God (ie, more than one divine essence) is considered non-Trinitarian.

Since He created all things corporeal, He Himself cannot be, or have been at one time, corporeal; to believe otherwise, Saadya Gaon taught, is to define Him by, & limit Him to, the corporeal form that he presumably chose.
This is incorrect. This is actually an argument against the incarnation and not the Trinity (as the two are conceptually separate from each other - you could have a trinity without an incarnation). So this is, strictly speaking, a little off-topic, but as the two topics invariably go together I will address it here anyway.

The problem here is that Gaon is claiming that God could not become corporeal even if He wanted to. In other words, Gaon is defining and limiting God. Why couldn't God become corporeal if He wanted to? Why would He be limited in that way?

I think the main problem with Gaon's entire line of argumentation here is arguing here is that he is so strongly emphasising the fact that God is Wholly Other (ie, fully transendent), that he is forgetting that God is also immanent. The Tanakh teaches us that God didn't just create all things corporeal and then just sit back apart from it watching. It teaches us that God, in addition to fully transending His creation, was fully and intimately involved with it.

As a result, Gaon claims that God could not become corporeal (meaning human) because that would limit God to his human form. But this is a non-sequitur. It is possible for God to confine himself to some finite region of space-time, and yet somehow still remain fully transcendent and omnipresent. There are plenty of times in the Tanakh where God appears to His people in a finite, "limited" region. He dwelt on Sinai, and then in the Tabernacle, and then later in the Temple. Yet although the Temple was the dwelling place of God, somehow God's transcendence was preserved. People did not think that just because God was in the Temple that He was not still Lord over all creation. How exactly God managed to be transcendent while simultaneously being present in a finite region of space-time is a mystery that we will probably never understand. Solomon himself wondered at it when he had completed building the Temple:

"But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!
Solomon had built a temple for God to come and dwell in on earth. And yet, Solomon also knew that God was somehow, at the same time, still transcendent. He does not try to explain this mystery - he simply marvels at it.

So, when Gaon says "to believe that God became corporeal is to define Him & limit Him by the form He chose" is simply incorrect. In the Tanakh, when God appeared as a cloud of glory in the Tabernacle and in the Temple, this did not define and limit God to be just that cloud. And if God can take on the corporeal form of a glory cloud without defining and limiting His essential self, then there is no reason why He couldn't also take on the corporeal form of a human being without limiting His essential self. Gaon here is in fact denying a large part of Judaism - the immanence of God - in order to mount an argument against the incarnation.

The uniqueness of One is that it presumes no self-division. Like the smallest whole number that it, in fact, is, it cannot be broken down into constituent parts. Whereas 3 = 1 + 1+ 1, 1 (simply) = 1; it is in this sense that 1 is transcendant in a way that 3 is not. We believe that the Oneness of God is unbounded both internally & externally.
Now this, to me, just seems to be handwaving and borders on incomprehensible. What about aleph (ie, infinity)? Why is God not aleph? aleph + alpeh + aleph = aleph. Take any finite number away from aleph, and you've still got aleph. Also, it continues to ignore the question of "one what" that I addressed above.

I understand the reluctance of Jews to comment on the "inner nature" of the transcendent God. You will find this same reluctance all throughout Christian history right up until the advent of scholasticism in the Christian West, and to the present day in the Christian East:

1. God is absolutely transcendent. ‘No single thing of all that is created has or ever will have even the slightest communion with the supreme nature or nearness to it (Gregory Palamas, P.G. 150, 1176c (quoted on p. 77)). This absolute transcendence Orthodoxy safeguards by its emphatic use of the ‘way of negation,’ of ‘apophatic’ theology. Positive or ‘cataphatic’ theology - the ‘way of affirmation’- must always be balanced and corrected by the employment of negative language. Our positive statements about God - that He is good, wise, just and so on - are true as far as they go, yet they cannot adequately describe the inner nature of the deity. These positive statements, said John of Damascus, reveal ‘not the nature, but the things around the nature.’ ‘That there is a God is clear; but what He is by essence and nature, this is altogether beyond our comprehension and knowledge (On the Orthodox Faith, 1, 4 (P.G. 94, 800B, 797B)).

2. God, although absolutely transcendent, is not cut of from the world which He has made. God is above and outside His creation, yet He also exists within it. As a much used Orthodox prayer puts it: ‘Thou art everywhere and finest all things.’ Orthodoxy therefore distinguishes between God’s essence and His energies, thus safeguarding both divine transcendence and divine immanence: God’s essence remains unapproachable, but His energies come down to us. God’s energies, which are God Himself, permeate all His creation, and we experience them in the form of deifying grace and divine light. Truly our God is a God who hides Himself, yet He is also a God who acts - the God of history, intervening directly in concrete situations.
(From The Orthodox Church (http://www.fatheralexander.org/booklets/english/history_timothy_ware_2.htm) by Kallistos Ware.)

Historically, Christianity has only tried to describe the nature of God to guard against heresy (eg, the Trinity doctrine was not fully developed until Arianism raised its head).

I have heard many Christians (like Jude3b) use the analogy that the three "persons" of the trinity are all one the same way that I, ferinstance, am a father to my boys, a husband to my wife, a son to my parents & a brother to my brother. I would reply that this is a human analogy & as such, it cannot be applied to a transcendant, Wholly Other, God (the same goes for the ice-water-steam analogy).
This example is not a good analogy to the Trinity. I used to use it myself, but then realised that it is more analogous to a heretical view called known variously as either Sabellianism or Modalism or Patripassianism. It denies that the persons of the trinity are separate persons, but are really the same person acting in three different capacities. Thus in terms of the essence/person distinction that Trinitarianism makes: Modalism teaches one essence and one person. This makes it basically a form of Unitarianism (like Judaism) - not Trinitarianism.

As for the usage of analogies in general: well yes, all analogies to the transcendent God will fail at some point. However, human analogies are not completely inappropriate, because we were created in God's image. Thus we are supposedly, in a finite way, like God himself - so human analogies shouldn't be considered entirely inappropriate. In fact, analogy is the only way we have to know of the transcendent God - analogy based on our experience of him, in his immanence.

The best analogy to the Trinity I can think of is that used by Athanasius - the sun, its radiance, and its warmth. But I will save a more in-depth analysis of this analogy for when I present the positive case later.

We do not believe that there are any references to the Trinity in the Tanakh. We have our own understandings of each & every verse that Christians believe does refer to the Trinity.
Of course. Otherwise, you'd be Christian. :smile: The question is, who's explanations are better?

Typical arguments are like the one that Yoshiah has prempted (plural usage of elohim) and also the use of "'ehad" instead of "yahidh". I find these arguments suggestive of the Trinity, but I don't find either of them conclusive or compelling. They can also be interpreted quite well in a unitarian framework (or, for that matter, a binitarian or a quadnitarian or a quinitarian...).

I will present the positive case for the Jewish roots of Trinitarianism in another post. This post is already getting long, so I will simply focus on dismantling the negative case presented here.

Without wishing to offend anyone (God forbid!)...
Unfortunately, offense comes easy to some. The truth is sometimes offensive by its very nature. But if we are offended by the truth, it can only be because we believe a lie...

So when someone tells you you are wrong about something, then either:

1. what they say is true, and hence they have pointed out your folly (for which you should be thankful!), or
2. what they say is false, in which case it's not worth getting offended over!

So we should all of us make the effort not to be offended by what another person says. :smile:

...the Christian doctrine of the trinity seems (to us) to be a semantically ill-disguised tritheism and a pagan idea with a superficial monotheistic veneer.
"Tritheism" is a common objection and one I can understand (though I disagree with). But I assure you that the difference between Trinitarianism and Tritheism is more than just semantic. Once you understand that there is a difference between an "essence" (ousia) and a "person" (hypostases), then the difference between Tritheism and Trinitarianism is quite straightforward; in summary:

1. Tritheism = three persons, each with their own essence => three essences => three gods.
2. Trinitarianism = three persons, each comprised of the same essence (homoousios) => one essence => one God.

Practically, the difference is this: in tritheism, because there are three gods, the gods can disagree with each other and fight with each other. In Trinitarianism, howeiver, the three persons are all of the same essence - hence, they are always in perfect unity of will and action. They don't disagree, and they don't fight.

As for calling the Trinity a pagan idea - well, this claim always struck me as a bit odd. I've never seen an example of the Trinity from the pre-Christian pagan world.

I have seen more than a few Christian (!) websites that purport to state what various "Ancient Rabbis" and/or various Jewish texts (usually the Zohar; see http://www.jewsforjudaism.org/web/faq/faq026.html and http://www.messiahtruth.com/zohar.html) really said or really meant regarding the nature and/or identity of the Messiah. No Jewish Sage or rabbi worth his salt has ever made any favorable references to Jesus, the Trinity or the Incarnation
Well, that's because you define "Jewish sage worth his salt" as someone who doesn't make favourable references to Jesus, the Trinity or the Incarnation... :smile: Otherwise, Paul would have to be considered a Jewish sage.

...no matter what any would-be missionaries-on-the-make or those with a king-size axe to grind would have you believe, mistranslations and misrepresentations (whether innocent or deliberate), and badly-taken-out-of-context quotes by would-be missionaries-on-the-make and those with an agenda, notwithstanding. Claims to the contrary are simply preposterous and/or wishful thinking.
To be fair, this is not just the modus operandi of some missionaries. There are many Jewish anti-missionaries who are just as bad. To quote just a couple of recent examples:

1. Christianity relies primarily on Greek and English translations. (!)
2. The LXX is not considered authoritative because we don't have the originals manuscripts.

The second claim is an exercise in foot shooting (as the same person presumably believes that the MT is authoritative, yet we don't have its originals either). The first is at best misleading and at worst plain incorrect.

I think that, per capita, the rate of deceptive and misleading claims made by both missionaries and anti-missionaries would be rather similar.

I will endeavour to try not to be an ignorant or deceptive missionary, if you help. :smile:

Howzat?
Not out! :smile:

(For the benefit of you North Americans - in Cricket, the fielding team usually makes an appeal if they think they have got the batsman out. The appeal is usually "howzaaaaaaaat!?"... if the umpire thinks he wasn't out, he'll say "not out".)

Be well!
You too!

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi Jezz,

First, thank you very much for your thoughtful, thought-out post.

Second, I'll have to ask my Cape Town-born wife about Howzat being a cricket term. I recall it being used in Garfield cartoons.

Third, despite that in the end we'll probably have to (amicably!) log most/many of our disagreements under the heading "Agree-to-disagree", here goes...

You posted:

But to claim that God isn't triune is also to define and limit Him. Furthermore, after claiming that God cannot be defined and limited by the physcial concepts of quantity and number, you proceed to define and limit Him by the number one...The problem here is that Gaon is claiming that God could not become corporeal even if He wanted to. In other words, Gaon is defining and limiting God. Why couldn't God become corporeal if He wanted to? Why would He be limited in that way?


I have linked these two sections because I think that both of us are making the same argument. I say what I have said because we believe that to hold to what you believe is to define & limit God; you say what you have said because you believe that to hold to what we believe is to define & limit God.

It is our position that our beliefs are based on the Tanakh (i.e. are based on what God has revealed of Himself in the Tanakh) and therefore not limiting/defining whereas your beliefs are artificial human constructs based on gross misinterpretations of the Tanakh and are limiting/defining. Of course, you'll turn this around, rearrange the pronouns & we will, once again be in a circular line of argument. How to break the circle? On the one hand, since faith is not mathematics, I don't know that we can break the circle. But, since I've already had 2 cups of strong Turkish coffee, I'll give it a try. I'll make two claims. 1. The Christian position regarding essences, persons, natures, etc. violates the Law of Parsimony and is too complicated/complex. A trinitarian must, perforce, resort to all sorts of complex arguments, "proofs" & lines of reasoning, whereas a unitarian does not; the former embraces complexity, the latter simplicity. 2. There is no historical record that I'm aware of that there were students & devotees of scripture who, before the birth of Christ, pointed to any given chapter or verse and concluded therefrom that the arrival/coming of such a one as Jesus Christ (as Christoans perceive him, you'll please forgive me if I use a lower case h, I mean no offense) was imminent/inevitable/certain. All of the Christian claims regarding references in the Tanakh to the Trinity, the Incarnation and the person and salvific significance of Jesus Christ were made well after the fact. Post-facto, one can justify or prove anything.

Tautologically, the most essential thing about God is His essence.

We agree.

Because there is only one God, there can only be one essence of God.

We agree.

Trinitarian doctrine affirms this very strongly.

We don't see how this is possible & would respectfully claim that your remarks regarding the differences between ousia and hypostases are so much semantic/sophistic rationalizing (that also violates the Law of Parsimony).

I don't think that Saadya Gaon would deny that God is fully immanent, not at all. Do you assume that to manifest His immanence and intimately affect the world & everyone/thing in it, He must assume a worldly form? We would assert that this is very far from the case & that His Wholly Otherness & Transcendence are concomitant with His Immance & intimate omnipresence.

And if God can take on the corporeal form of a glory cloud without defining and limiting His essential self, then there is no reason why He couldn't also take on the corporeal form of a human being without limiting His essential self.

But (in our view) the Cloud of Glory was not a corporeal form of God, thus the question of His essential self being defined & limited (or not) doesn't come into play. The Cloud was merely the earthly means by which He chose to make His presence felt; it did not define or limit Him (God forbid!). You make assumptions about Jesus Christ that we do not make about the Cloud.

The best analogy to the Trinity I can think of is that used by Athanasius - the sun, its radiance, and its warmth. But I will save a more in-depth analysis of this analogy for when I present the positive case later.

I look forward to your more in-depth analysis.

But, I must dismiss Athanasius' analogy. The radiance & warmth of the sun are mere by-products of the sun & have no independent existence apart from the sun. I only got mediocre grades in science, but it seems to me that to assume a fundamental identity between the sun, its radiance & its warmth is to misunderstand the sun, nuclear fusion, etc.

aleph + alpeh + aleph = aleph.

No, aleph + alpeh + aleph = 3 alephs, i.e. 1+1+1=3. I stand on my statement that:

The uniqueness of One is that it presumes no self-division. Like the smallest whole number that it, in fact, is, it cannot be broken down into constituent parts. Whereas 3 = 1 + 1+ 1, 1 (simply) = 1; it is in this sense that 1 is transcendant in a way that 3 is not. We believe that the Oneness of God is unbounded both internally & externally.

Hmm, I hope that I have given you enough (kosher, of course) food-for-thought.

Be well & be in touch!

ssv :hi:

[Timothy Leary]

I think it's אאא :smile:

[shunyadragon]

Hi ssv!

There are two aspects to the "Trinity has Jewish roots" argument:

1. The Christian claim that it has Jewish roots.
2. The Jewish claim that it is fundamentally contradictory to Jewish roots.
Both are correct.

1. You have complained that the trinity is unsound because it tries to limit God by quantity and number. But to claim that God isn't triune is also to define and limit Him. Furthermore, after claiming that God cannot be defined and limited by the physcial concepts of quantity and number, you proceed to define and limit Him by the number one.
The 'Trinitarian' doctrine attempts to define God beyond the traditional uniqueness and unknowable nature of God as one and indivisable in Hebrew tradition. In Christianity it becomes doctrine in Jewish belief it may be an analogy of the relationship between humanity and God and nothing more.

When people complain about the Trinity being incomprehensible or polytheistic, it's generally because they fail to note what there are "three" of or "one" of. The Trinitarian creed - first used by Tertullian and popularised by Athanasius, Basil and the Gregories in support of the Nicene Creed - is that God is one substance/essence (Greek: ousia) in three persons (Greek: hypostases). So the above creates a false dichotomy: the "three" of the Trinitarian doctrine is not in contradiction to His oneness, because they refer to different things.
In other religions that Christianity claims as polythesitic like the Vedic traditions of Hinduism, the different dieties and manifestation of divinity like Krishna are consider a part of and ultimately inseperable from the infinite divine source from which all are manifest and must return.

Tautologically, the most essential thing about God is His essence. Because there is only one God, there can only be one essence of God. Trinitarian doctrine affirms this very strongly. Any doctrine that implies that there is more than one essential God (ie, more than one divine essence) is considered non-Trinitarian.
I disagree as with all Hebrew scholars.



The best analogy to the Trinity I can think of is that used by Athanasius - the sun, its radiance, and its warmth. But I will save a more in-depth analysis of this analogy for when I present the positive case later.
This analogy fails to define the 'Trinity' and fits well with most other religions like Islam and the Baha'i Faith. The radience and warmth are attributes of the sun and not recognized as seperate in any way.


Typical arguments are like the one that Yoshiah has prempted (plural usage of elohim) and also the use of "'ehad" instead of "yahidh". I find these arguments suggestive of the Trinity, but I don't find either of them conclusive or compelling. They can also be interpreted quite well in a unitarian framework (or, for that matter, a binitarian or a quadnitarian or a quinitarian...).
This is a stretch and no Jewish theologian before or after Christianity ever reached that conclusion on their own studying the scriptures..

[Jezz]

Hi Jezz,

First, thank you very much for your thoughtful, thought-out post.
You're welcome. :smile: It's nice to interact with people on these issues without people getting hot under the collar.

Second, I'll have to ask my Cape Town-born wife about Howzat being a cricket term. I recall it being used in Garfield cartoons.
It may well have been a Garfield thing too.

Third, despite that in the end we'll probably have to (amicably!) log most/many of our disagreements under the heading "Agree-to-disagree", here goes...
Ditto!

I have linked these two sections because I think that both of us are making the same argument. I say what I have said because we believe that to hold to what you believe is to define & limit God; you say what you have said because you believe that to hold to what we believe is to define & limit God.

It is our position that our beliefs are based on the Tanakh (i.e. are based on what God has revealed of Himself in the Tanakh) and therefore not limiting/defining whereas your beliefs are artificial human constructs based on gross misinterpretations of the Tanakh and are limiting/defining. Of course, you'll turn this around, rearrange the pronouns & we will, once again be in a circular line of argument.
I completely agree. That was in fact the point I was trying to make - that the argument is easily reversed, and therefore not useful differentiator.

Also, just a brief comment on this: "It is our position that our beliefs... are based on what God has revealed of Himself in the Tanakh." I would say that this not the whole story. If you think about it a bit, God first revealed Himself in history, and this history was subsequently recorded and became the Tanakh. Thus history is God's primary means of revelation - the Tanakh is only a part of that revelation. To be sure the Tanakh is the most important part of God's revelation (at least, from the Jewish POV - Christians would rate the NT as just as important, if not more so) - but it is still only a part.

How to break the circle? On the one hand, since faith is not mathematics, I don't know that we can break the circle.
There is only one way to break the circle of logic - appealling to experience. That is the Eastern Orthodox approach to theology - it only aims to put into words God's people's experience of Him.

But, since I've already had 2 cups of strong Turkish coffee, I'll give it a try. I'll make two claims. 1. The Christian position regarding essences, persons, natures, etc. violates the Law of Parsimony and is too complicated/complex. A trinitarian must, perforce, resort to all sorts of complex arguments, "proofs" & lines of reasoning, whereas a unitarian does not; the former embraces complexity, the latter simplicity.
Yes, the Law of Parsimony is typically invoked by unitarians as a trump card argument against the Trinity. But of course, as you are no doubt aware the Law of Parsimony (aka Occam's Razor) can only be used to differentiate between two theories if they have equal explanatory power. Otherwise, the one with the greater explanatory power is always to be preferred.

It is the Christian position that Trinitarianism, while more complicated than unitarianism, has greater explanatory power when it comes to certain aspects of God's revelation. There are parts of the Tanakh and other pre-Christian Jewish sources that, IMO, don't sit well in a unitarian interpretation. Now, these difficulties can typically be explained away in a unitarian interpretation, but the result is (IMO) that overall the unitarian hypothesis becomes the more ad-hoc and complicated of the two, and by the Law of Parsimony needs to be rejected in favour of the Trinity. You'll no doubt disagree with this overview, but we'll have to wait until we deal with the specifics (hopefully in a post soon, but not this one as it's already long!)

2. There is no historical record that I'm aware of that there were students & devotees of scripture who, before the birth of Christ, pointed to any given chapter or verse and concluded therefrom that the arrival/coming of such a one as Jesus Christ (as Christoans perceive him, you'll please forgive me if I use a lower case h, I mean no offense) was imminent/inevitable/certain. All of the Christian claims regarding references in the Tanakh to the Trinity, the Incarnation and the person and salvific significance of Jesus Christ were made well after the fact. Post-facto, one can justify or prove anything.
Again, this pertains more to the incarnation than to the Trinity. And I will certainly agree that many of the so-called "prophecies" in the Tanakh are not immediately obvious as prophecies (though I note that a good many of them were reckoned as Messianic before Christianity arrived - eg, Isaiah 53 was reckoned as Messianic by the Targum translators). I do not feel it accurate to say, however, that the references to the Trinity in the Tanakh were only made well after the fact. I believe that the "re"interpretation (if such it was) largely dates to Jesus Himself (parts of the NT suggest this). Thus the question then becomes one of whether or not Jesus' interpretation is considered authoritative. Which depends a lot on whether or not one accepts the NT as valid history.

It is also my position that the reason that much of these interpretations only came after Jesus is because there were difficulties in the Tanakh that couldn't be properly explained until He came. The attempts to explain some of these passages without reference to Jesus appear strained to me. Hence the claim that Jesus was the "fulfillment" of the Torah, and that the Scriptures testified of Him.

But I'm getting ahead of myself a bit. The above is all generalities. It will start to fall into place a bit more when we get into the specifics (hopefully in the next post or two, when I present the positive case for the Jewish roots of the Trinity).

As for not using capital letters for personal pronouns refering to Jesus - no offence taken by me. I wouldn't expect you to go against your beliefs by using capitals any more than you'd expect me not to (in fact, I'm not consistent with my capitalisation).

We agree.

We agree.
Cool. :thumb:

We don't see how this is possible & would respectfully claim that your remarks regarding the differences between ousia and hypostases are so much semantic/sophistic rationalizing (that also violates the Law of Parsimony).
I have dealt with the "Law of Parsimony" claim above. As for the rest:

The way I would answer this depends on exactly what you mean by "possible". Possible is generally used in two senses:

1. In terms of logical possibility.
2. In terms of practical possibility.

The first sense is the much stronger sense and is the only sense that really carries any weight in this context. But if you mean "possible" in this sense, then you have no leg to stand on. There is no logical contradiction in the Trinity, because (as I said) the "1" and the "3" apply to different things. It would only be a logical contradiction if we said that God was one essence and three essences.

If you mean "possible" in the second sense... well, what you really mean here is not that it's impossible, but rather that it is counter-intuitive and beyond your everyday experience. To which I would respond: "Surprise, surprise! The nature of God is different to our other, everyday experiences. Did you really expect otherwise?" :smile: This form of the "I don't see how it's possible" argument known as the "argument from incredulity", which isn't a strong argument - especially where the nature of God is concerned. I expect God to be incredible. :smile:

I should also point out that I don't see how it is possible that God could part the Red Sea, or send all those plagues on Pharoah, or create the universe ex nihlio. If "I don't see how it's possible" constituted a valid argument, then they would have to be discounted too! Why do I believe them? (Why do you believe them?) Because that's what God's people experienced. Again, it comes down to the experience of God. I will deal with how God's revelation of His nature leads to the distinction between "ousia" and "hypostasis" in a future post, when I present the positive case for the roots of the Trinity in the Tanakh.

I don't think that Saadya Gaon would deny that God is fully immanent, not at all.
I don't think that he would either - I'm sure that he would have talked about His immanence elsewhere. However, it seems that for the purposes of his argument against the incarnation, he seemed to be doing exactly that.

Do you assume that to manifest His immanence and intimately affect the world & everyone/thing in it, He must assume a worldly form? We would assert that this is very far from the case & that His Wholly Otherness & Transcendence are concomitant with His Immance & intimate omnipresence.
No, I agree with all of this 100%. My objection was as follows.

Saady Gaon seemed to be making the argument that because God is transcendent, He cannot limit Himself to a finite region of the space-time universe without compromising that transcendence. Yet, God does exactly that when He takes on the form of the Shekinah/glory cloud (exactly how God does it is a mystery... "I don't see how that's possible" :smile:). So I don't se why He couldn't take on the form of a human if He so desired.

But (in our view) the Cloud of Glory was not a corporeal form of God, thus the question of His essential self being defined & limited (or not) doesn't come into play. The Cloud was merely the earthly means by which He chose to make His presence felt; it did not define or limit Him (God forbid!). You make assumptions about Jesus Christ that we do not make about the Cloud.
Ok, so you are saying that somehow, God limiting Himself to a finite region of space-time in the form of a human is somehow "more limiting" than to limit Himself to a finite region of space-time in the form of a glory cloud. Exactly how is one more limiting than the other? I think clarification on this point could help me understand Gaon's objection better.

I look forward to your more in-depth analysis. But, I must dismiss Athanasius' analogy.
I think your dismissal of the analogy comes more from a misunderstanding of the Trinity than it does from a problem with the analogy itself. (I don't mean that as an insult; there are plenty of incorrect ideas floating around about the Trinity so it is easy to be misled by someone who misrepresents it to you. I was one of them until I started studying it closely for myself.) I say this because the objections that you offer are actually some of the very reasons that make the sun/radiance/heat analogy an excellent analogy to the Trinity - indicating that you understand the analogy properly, but think it doesn't fit because you're trying to make it fit a strawman prototype instead of the real thing. :smile:

The radiance & warmth of the sun are mere by-products of the sun & have no independent existence apart from the sun. I only got mediocre grades in science, but it seems to me that to assume a fundamental identity between the sun, its radiance & its warmth is to misunderstand the sun, nuclear fusion, etc.
Ironically, instead of explaining why Athanasius' analogy must be dismissed, you've given three reasons why it's a good analogy to the Trinity. :smile:

The only thing I object to in the above is that you call the radiance & warmth of the sun "mere by-products" of the sun. They are products of the sun, with that I agree. But "mere by-products"? From our point of view, the radiance and heat from the sun is just as important as the sun itself. The sun would be no good to us without its radiance or heat. So I would be happy to agree that they are "products of the sun" without the value-judgment of "mere by-products".

Aside from that, you raise three points that are all very good reasons why the sun/radiance/heat analogy is a good one. I will go through them and explain how they map to the Trinity doctrine:

1. The radiance of the sun and the heat of the sun are products of the sun. In the same way, the Word/Wisdom/Son of God and the Spirit of God (aka Holy Spirit) are products of God (aka the Father). The Son of God is produced from the Father by "begetting", and the Spirit of God is produced from the Father by "procession" (the production of the Spirit is a little complicated, because to this day there is a major split between Eastern and Western Christianity over this very issue).

2. The radiance of the sun and the heat of the sun have no independent existence apart from the sun. In the same way, the Wisdom of God and the Spirit of God have no independent existence apart from God (the Father).

3. The sun is not fundamentally identical with its radiance or with its heat. Similarly, God is not fundamentally identical with His Word or with His Spirit. That would be Sabellianism/Modalism.

The above reflects a misunderstanding that many people have of the Trinity (including myself until perhaps a year ago). People often assume that the relationship between the three persons has three-fold symmetry. It does not. In the same way that the relationship between sun/radiance/heat is asymmetrical - with the former being the principle, or the source, and the latter two deriving their essential nature from the former - so is the Father the source of the divine essence, with the Word and the Spirit drawing their essence from the Father. Kallistos Ware sums up the above two points as follows: "[The Father] is “the ‘fountain’ of the Godhead, the source, cause or principle of origin for the other two persons. He is the bond of unity between the three: there is one God because there is one Father."

Also note - although the radiance and heat of the sun derive their essential being from the sun itself, the sun was never without its radiance or its heat. As long as the sun has been, so has its radiance, and so has its heat. Similarly, there never was a time when God was without His Word or His Spirit - that is why it is said that they are both co-eternal with the Father, because God (the Father) is eternal.

And one final point about the analogy that makes it a good fit with the Trinity: it is only through the sun's radiance that the sun becomes visible to us. Similarly, Trinitarian teaching is that the Father is made known/visible through His Word (the Son). And similarly, you don't see heat - you feel it. Of the three, only the radiance is visible.

So there you have it - a more in-depth analysis of Athanasius' analogy. I hope you can see now why the sun/radiance/heat analogy is such a good analogy to the Trinity.

No, aleph + alpeh + aleph = 3 alephs, i.e. 1+1+1=3.
I'm sorry ssv, but you're speaking with someone who has a major in pure mathematics. I can tell you that, strange as it may seem, א=א3=א+א+א. When you try and do arithmetic with infinite numbers, you get counter-intuitive results. Check out this site for more in-depth description of aleph-0, and see [url=http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=18639]here (http://mathworld.wolfram.com/Aleph-0.html) for a thread in apologetics where I discussed this in somewhat more depth.

Hmm, I hope that I have given you enough (kosher, of course) food-for-thought.
A little bit, yeah. Although, I've been debating the Trinity with a Jehovah's Witness acquaintance of mine for some time, so I'm a pretty seasoned campaigner. :smile:

Be well & be in touch!
I will endeavour to do both! You too!

[Jezz]

1. The Christian claim that it has Jewish roots.
2. The Jewish claim that it is fundamentally contradictory to Jewish roots.

Both are correct.
Argument by assertion. Besides which, are you sure that's what you actually meant? If they were both correct (ie, Christianity drew its Trinity from Jewish roots and it fundamentally contradicts Jewish roots) then that means that Judaism is internally inconsistent.

The 'Trinitarian' doctrine attempts to define God beyond the traditional uniqueness and unknowable nature of God as one and indivisable in Hebrew tradition.
The Trinitarian doctrine is an attempt to better explain in more detail the experience that Christians have had of God, in the light of their further experience of Him.

In Christianity it becomes doctrine in Jewish belief it may be an analogy of the relationship between humanity and God and nothing more.
??? I don't understand your point here.

In other religions that Christianity claims as polythesitic like the Vedic traditions of Hinduism, the different dieties and manifestation of divinity like Krishna are consider a part of and ultimately inseperable from the infinite divine source from which all are manifest and must return.
"Christianity" doesn't often make claims about other religions. I do not believe that it has made any dogmatic pronouncements about Hindu traditions. Often people who are Christians make claims about such religions, but that's not the same thing.

But anyway, the question is a bit irrelevant to the topic at hand. We're not talking about other religions - we're talking about Judaism and Christianity.

Tautologically, the most essential thing about God is His essence. Because there is only one God, there can only be one essence of God. Trinitarian doctrine affirms this very strongly. Any doctrine that implies that there is more than one essential God (ie, more than one divine essence) is considered non-Trinitarian.

I disagree as with all Hebrew scholars.
The last two statements that I wrote above are simply statements of fact defining what Trinitarian is/is not. There is no room for disagreement there - that is simply what Trinitarian doctrine teaches, period. If you disagree and you think that Trinitarian doctrine teaches something else, you are simply wrong.

As for the first two statements - they are non-controversial. SSV agreed with both of them, and I am sure that any Hebrew scholar would too.

It seems to me that you didn't actually read what I wrote in any depth and are just replying in standard, polemical, "deny, deny, deny" fashion...

Where SSV and I disagree has nothing to do with any of the above statements. It is on the question of whether or not one divine essence can have more than one divine person. He is not convinced that there is anything other than a semantic difference between an "ousia" and a "hypostasis"; I disagree. We are now pursuing that line of difference.

This analogy fails to define the 'Trinity' and fits well with most other religions like Islam and the Baha'i Faith. The radience and warmth are attributes of the sun and not recognized as seperate in any way.
Of course the analogy failed to define the Trinity as it was written. That's because I wasn't attempting to define the Trinity at that point - I explicitly said I would develop it later (implying that it was underdeveloped as it stood). I have more completely developed the analogy in the previous post in response to SSV - but note that it is still incomplete.

As for your second comment: Yes, the radiance and warmth are attributes of the sun and not separate from the sun. In the same way, the Word and the Spirit are attributes of the Father, and not separate from the Father (but not identical with the Father either). See the previous post for a more in-depth analysis.

Where I think Islam and Baha'i faith (and probably Jewish as well) would disagree is the claim that the attributes can be considered persons in their own right. But again, we're discussing Christianity and Jewish roots - not Islam or Baha'i, so I see no point in going down that path any further.

This is a stretch and no Jewish theologian before or after Christianity ever reached that conclusion on their own studying the scriptures..
What is your point? I said that those particular bits of evidence weren't conclusive and were easily explainable within a unitarian framework. They're not the ones that I consider solid evidence for the Trinity in the Tanakh.

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

Jezz, first of all, thank you for your post. I must ask for your indulgence (didn't you guys used to sell those? :ahem: ). Today is a fast day on the Jewish calendar, one of 4 such days in our calendar, when we fast from first light (was 04:11 this morning where I live) to nightfall (after 20:00); we also have 2 'round-the-clock fasts. Today is the 17th of the Hebrew month of Tammuz, the "fast of fifth month" referred to in Zechariah 7:3, 7:5 and 8:19. It primarily marks when the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem in 70 CE (the Babylonians breached the walls of Jerusalem on the 9th of Tammuz in 586 BCE; the fast was originally observed on that day but was moved to the 17th of the month after the destruction of the 2nd Temple; in our prayers, we mourn both events today). According to tradition, the 17th of Tammuz also marks when Moses our Teacher smashed the first set of the 10 Commandments (which are actually 15). See http://tinyurl.com/32djq for a short read on what the day is about. At morning prayers today (05:40 at my synagogue), we read Exodus 32:11-14 and 34:1-10. At afternoon prayers, we'll read the Exodus readings again and Isaiah 55:6-56:8. It's 17:05 right now & my caffeine-deprived mind :dizzy: is in far too humus-like a state to post a reply. I will post a reply either tomorrow or Thursday. Like I said, thank you for your indulgence.

Be well & be in touch!

ssv :zzz:

[shunyadragon]

No Jewish Sage or rabbi worth his salt has ever made any favorable references to Jesus, the Trinity or the Incarnation no matter what any would-be missionaries-on-the-make or those with a king-size axe to grind would have you believe, mistranslations and misrepresentations (whether innocent or deliberate), and badly-taken-out-of-context quotes by would-be missionaries-on-the-make and those with an agenda, notwithstanding. Claims to the contrary are simply preposterous and/or wishful thinking.

Well of course not. The Jews are generally blinded and under God's judgement:

I can understand but do not agree with the NT view that Jews may be blinded under God's judgement when they did not accept Jesus as the messiah, but I do not think that applies before this. Before Christ are any Jewish scholars that supported a trinitarian view of God?

[Timothy Leary]

I think that was the RCC, SSV.

[Jezz]

Hi all!

Jezz, first of all, thank you for your post.
You're welcome!

I must ask for your indulgence (didn't you guys used to sell those? :ahem: ).
I am Lutheran with strong Eastern Orthodox leanings. Indulgences were the straw the broke the camels back and caused the Lutherans to defy the pope, which led to their excommunication and the formation of the Lutheran Church - the Reformation.

Indulgences are still an official part of the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. I used to think that they were thoroughly evil; now that I understand the concept of penance better (part of my shift to Orthodox leanings) I see them more as a good idea badly abused than something thoroughly evil. But that's a whole other story that we can go into another day if you're interested. :smile:

Today is a fast day on the Jewish calendar, one of 4 such days in our calendar, when we fast from first light (was 04:11 this morning where I live) to nightfall (after 20:00); we also have 2 'round-the-clock fasts. Today is the 17th of the Hebrew month of Tammuz, the "fast of fifth month" referred to in Zechariah 7:3, 7:5 and 8:19. It primarily marks when the Romans breached the walls of Jerusalem in 70 CE (the Babylonians breached the walls of Jerusalem on the 9th of Tammuz in 586 BCE; the fast was originally observed on that day but was moved to the 17th of the month after the destruction of the 2nd Temple; in our prayers, we mourn both events today). According to tradition, the 17th of Tammuz also marks when Moses our Teacher smashed the first set of the 10 Commandments (which are actually 15). At morning prayers today (05:40 at my synagogue), we read Exodus 32:11-14 and 34:1-10. At afternoon prayers, we'll read the Exodus readings again and Isaiah 55:6-56:8.
Your discipline devotion to the liturgical and worship life is admirable. I wish there were more of it in our church. The Eastern Orthodox place a similar level of emphasis on liturgical life and fasting as you do (see here (http://www.oca.org/pages/orth_chri/index.htm) for more info, if you're interested).

As for the 10 commandments being 15: Heh, yeah - the numbering of the commandments at "10" often seemed quite arbitrary to me. It seems that you could arrive at any one of several different numbers of commandments, depending on how you grouped them :smile: We Lutherans number them at 10, but we tend to group them differently to Roman Catholics and other Christians.

It's 17:05 right now & my caffeine-deprived mind :dizzy: is in far too humus-like a state to post a reply. I will post a reply either tomorrow or Thursday.
It sounds like this is an important part of the liturgical calendar for you, SSV, so take your time. Besides which, the longer you take, the less pressure I will be under to respond! :smile:

Like I said, thank you for your indulgence.
And like I said, you're welcome!

Be well & be in touch!
You too!

[Timothy Leary]

Would you mind making a thread on how you view the Bible?

[Jezz]

Hey yoshiah,

I don't mind in priniciple - but in practice it might be a different story... :smile: I'm not sure I will have the time, and don't want to commit to a thread I don't have the time to maintain (I've done that one too many times... :smile:) I can give you my view in a nutshell: which is, the Bible is the inspired word of God, and the preeminent (but not the only) means that God has chosen to reveal Himself to the nations through His chosen people. I believe that it is inerrant in all its details (not including scribal errors), but that is not a dogmatic belief of mine - I think it more important to believe that it is inerrant in what it purports to teach us about God and about humanity's relationship to him. I also do not believe that the Bible can be correctly interpreted by an individual outside of its supporting history - ie, tradition illuminates scripture. Have a read of this document (http://www.helsinki.fi/~risaarin/lutortjointtext.html) (the first three sections on Revelation, Scripture and Tradition, and The Canon and the Inspiration of the Holy Scripture cover it) if you want to know my position in more detail.

If I may ask in what context you are asking the question (eg, if there is a specific reason for you asking - eg, if it was a specific (set of) statement(s)/comment(s) of mine that prompted you to ask), that may help me to answer you better. Knowing this will also help me to figure out which is the correct forum to put the new thread in (should I get around to it) - eg, should it be here (if you are specifically thinking of Jewish vs Christian view of the Bible) or should it be in Ecclesiology... etc...

[Timothy Leary]

OOps... i posted this in the wrong thead. Sorry! (That's the *only* problem with tabbed browsing - you sometimes forget which thread you're in!)

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all (ssv says, resurfacing & emerging from a weeklong cybernation)!

Shunydragon, you posted:

Before Christ are any Jewish scholars that supported a trinitarian view of God?

None whatsoever.

Jezz, you posted:

Your discipline devotion to the liturgical and worship life is admirable.

Thank you! As of next Sunday evening (the beginning of the 1st of the Hebrew month of Av), we're off meat (among other restrictions) until mid-day on Wednesday, July 28, the day after our 'round-the-clock fast on the 9th of Av (see http://www.jewfaq.org/holidayd.htm and http://www.ou.org/yerushalayim/threeweeks/ninedays.htm).

Thank you for the orthodox link. I have bookmarked it & am looking forward to going through it as lunchtime reading (I always brownbag it & eat at my desk). Way back in 1979, I came to Israel on a 6-week summer trip sponsored by the Jewish Community Center of Pittsburgh (where I'm originally from). Back then, the section of the Sinai peninsula where the Monastery of St. Catherine is, i.e. the reputed site of the Mt. Sinai, was still in Israeli hands. We drove all the way down there & hiked up Mt. Sinai in the middle of the night to watch the sun rise. We went right past the monastery (which was, understandably, closed to visitors at that hour). The sunrise was, of course, spectacular.

As for the 10 commandments being 15...

See http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8441&highlight=15+commandments.

Now then...back to your July 5 post...

It's nice to interact with people on these issues without people getting hot under the collar.

Yes, it is. :smile:

Also, just a brief comment on this: "It is our position that our beliefs... are based on what God has revealed of Himself in the Tanakh." I would say that this not the whole story. If you think about it a bit, God first revealed Himself in history, and this history was subsequently recorded and became the Tanakh. Thus history is God's primary means of revelation - the Tanakh is only a part of that revelation. To be sure the Tanakh is the most important part of God's revelation (at least, from the Jewish POV - Christians would rate the NT as just as important, if not more so) - but it is still only a part.

I understand & agree. Well said!

It is the Christian position that Trinitarianism, while more complicated than unitarianism, has greater explanatory power when it comes to certain aspects of God's revelation.

I understand & do not agree.

There are parts of the Tanakh and other pre-Christian Jewish sources that, IMO, don't sit well in a unitarian interpretation. Now, these difficulties can typically be explained away in a unitarian interpretation, but the result is (IMO) that overall the unitarian hypothesis becomes the more ad-hoc and complicated of the two, and by the Law of Parsimony needs to be rejected in favour of the Trinity.

Uh...

You'll no doubt disagree with this overview...

Ah, took the words right out o' me mouth!

...but we'll have to wait until we deal with the specifics (hopefully in a post soon, but not this one as it's already long!)

I'd love to see a ferinstance or two!

...though I note that a good many of them were reckoned as Messianic before Christianity arrived - eg, Isaiah 53 was reckoned as Messianic by the Targum translators...

Even if I grant your point, I'll add that 1) None of them were reckoned as referring to a Christ-like figure (in accordance with the Christian view of Jesus) and 2) By "Targum", do you mean the 70 Jewish Sages who translated the Torah into Greek? If so, I don't know that this is a good reference. You can't point to the Greek and claim that it necessarily reflects a Messianic frame-of-mind on the translators' part. they might have had any number of motives for picking a given Greek word/phrase for a given Hebrew word/phrase. While a given Greek word or phrase might have been chosen to represent a given Hebrew word or phrase, I don't know that the translators' might not have picked it because it was the best they could come up, however inadequate/insufficient a match for the corresponding Hebrew it might have been. (As a Hebrew-to-English translator with 11 years' experience, I'll often choose an English word/phrase for a Hebrew one and go with it, even though it doesn't fully cover/match the Hebrew original & even though I'm far from satisfied, simply because it's the best there is & will have to do even though it doesn't quite cut it & I know that it doesn't. And 3) We don't consider any version of the Tanakh except the original Hebrew/Aramaic to be authoritative.

It is also my position that the reason that much of these interpretations only came after Jesus is because there were difficulties in the Tanakh that couldn't be properly explained until He came. The attempts to explain some of these passages without reference to Jesus appear strained to me. Hence the claim that Jesus was the "fulfillment" of the Torah, and that the Scriptures testified of Him.

I understand but do not agree. We are not aware of any such passages or of any such strained or contrived explanations. (There's that agree-to-disagree thing again!)

There is no logical contradiction in the Trinity, because (as I said) the "1" and the "3" apply to different things. It would only be a logical contradiction if we said that God was one essence and three essences.

Again, I can only restate our view that the Christian's differentiation between ousia and hypostases are so much semantic/sophistic rationalizing that are taking a simple concept & making it artificially complex in order to justify an artificial point.

The nature of God is different to our other, everyday experiences. Did you really expect otherwise?" This form of the "I don't see how it's possible" argument known as the "argument from incredulity", which isn't a strong argument - especially where the nature of God is concerned. I expect God to be incredible.

Of course, you are correct. Such as we can only relate to the nature of God insofar as He has revealed of Himself to us. We believe that the Christian doctrines of the trinity & the Incarnation not only do not jibe with, but flat-out contradict what He has revealed of Himself.

I will deal with how God's revelation of His nature leads to the distinction between "ousia" and "hypostasis" in a future post, when I present the positive case for the roots of the Trinity in the Tanakh.

I look forward to this!

Ok, so you are saying that somehow, God limiting Himself to a finite region of space-time in the form of a human is somehow "more limiting" than to limit Himself to a finite region of space-time in the form of a glory cloud. Exactly how is one more limiting than the other? I think clarification on this point could help me understand Gaon's objection better.

But we do not believe the clouds of glory were God limiting Himself to a finite region of space-time. They were merely the form in which He chose to make His presence felt to us. God did not condense Himself into the form of a cloud, He used the clouds as a tool. They did not define Him, they were not Him.

The only thing I object to in the above is that you call the radiance & warmth of the sun "mere by-products" of the sun. They are products of the sun, with that I agree. But "mere by-products"? From our point of view, the radiance and heat from the sun is just as important as the sun itself.

OK, I'll drop the adjective "mere." The Sun is the source/cause of its radiance & warmth. The latter have no independent existence apart from the sun itself & cannot have any. You cannot assert an identity/synonymous coexistence/existential sameness, between the sun and its radiance & its warmth. Yet John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God does appear (to me, at least) to assume just such an identity/synonymous coexistence/existential sameness between at least 2 of the persons in the Trinity.

The sun would be no good to us without its radiance or heat.

But it would still be the sun.

Similarly, God is not fundamentally identical with His Word or with His Spirit...so is the Father the source of the divine essence, with the Word and the Spirit drawing their essence from the Father.

How does this jibe with John 1:1?

If, as you have said, the Word and the Spirit draw their essence[s] from the Father, who is the Source, why ascribe so much importance to what is, essentially (pun intended), secondary? Why not go right to the Source? We see the Christian notions of the Son/Word and Spirit as artificial interpositions/intermediaries between us and our/the Source.

the sun was never without its radiance or its heat. As long as the sun has been, so has its radiance, and so has its heat.

Not so. Until the Sun reached a critical mass/size, the nuclear fusion that is the generator of its radiance & its warmth could not start. One day in the very far future, the Sun will be begin to exhaust its supply of fusionable material & eventually it's warmth & radiance will cease. Yet it will still be the Sun.

Similarly, Trinitarian teaching is that the Father is made known/visible through His Word (the Son). And similarly, you don't see heat - you feel it. Of the three, only the radiance is visible.

Unitarian teaching is that God can make Himself known/felt without the need of intermediaries. The radiance of the sun is [i]not visible but the sun itself is (that it'll blind you if you look at it long enough is beside the point).

I hope you can see now why the sun/radiance/heat analogy is such a good analogy to the Trinity.

Like Tom Hanks said in Big: "I [still] don't get it."

I can tell you that, strange as it may seem, א=א3=א+א+א.

Q: If Stillsmallvoice has one marble, and then takes another marble, and then takes another marble, how many marbles does Stillsmallvoice have?

A: Three.

(I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself!)

When you try and do arithmetic with infinite numbers...

But isn't 1 is a whole number; 1/0 is infinite. (Pleasepleaseplease don't talk mathematicalese at me! I will not be able to follow you! Humor me!)

Be well & be in touch!

(It's good to be back.)

ssv :hi:

[Timothy Leary]

Before Christ are any Jewish scholars that supported a trinitarian view of God?

For the record, there are next to nothing in records of scholars before that time period.

[shunyadragon]

Argument by assertion. Besides which, are you sure that's what you actually meant? If they were both correct (ie, Christianity drew its Trinity from Jewish roots and it fundamentally contradicts Jewish roots) then that means that Judaism is internally inconsistent.
Not so, it was simply a statement of fact that both have different claims which they each believe is true based on the same scripture. Each considers the other contraditory.


The Trinitarian doctrine is an attempt to better explain in more detail the experience that Christians have had of God, in the light of their further experience of Him.A deeply rooted belief and theology of Christianity should not be interpreted as an 'an attempt to better explain in more detail the experience that Christians have had in God, . . .

"Christianity" doesn't often make claims about other religions. I do not believe that it has made any dogmatic pronouncements about Hindu traditions. Often people who are Christians make claims about such religions, but that's not the same thing.

But anyway, the question is a bit irrelevant to the topic at hand. We're not talking about other religions - we're talking about Judaism and Christianity. Other beliefs are relevant, because the concept of the trinity exists in them also and you yourself asked about other pagan beliefs before Christianity believing in the Trinity. If they were not relevant you should not ask. Both Vedic traditions and Buddhism have beliefs that can be shown to parallel beliefs in the trinity.

Where SSV and I disagree has nothing to do with any of the above statements. It is on the question of whether or not one divine essence can have more than one divine person. He is not convinced that there is anything other than a semantic difference between an "ousia" and a "hypostasis"; I disagree. We are now pursuing that line of difference. This is where I also disagree.


Of course the analogy failed to define the Trinity as it was written. That's because I wasn't attempting to define the Trinity at that point - I explicitly said I would develop it later (implying that it was underdeveloped as it stood). I have more completely developed the analogy in the previous post in response to SSV - but note that it is still incomplete.

As for your second comment: Yes, the radiance and warmth are attributes of the sun and not separate from the sun. In the same way, the Word and the Spirit are attributes of the Father, and not separate from the Father (but not identical with the Father either). See the previous post for a more in-depth analysis. Your analysis fails to demonstrate the Christian belief of three equal identities or persons in one. The radience and heat are distinctly lesser dependent realities of the sun.

What is your point? I said that those particular bits of evidence weren't conclusive and were easily explainable within a unitarian framework. They're not the ones that I consider solid evidence for the Trinity in the Tanakh.I am looking forward to what you consider 'solid evidence in the Tanakh. So far it is a highly tenuous interpretation at best.

[Jezz]

Not so, it was simply a statement of fact that both have different claims which they each believe is true based on the same scripture. Each considers the other contraditory.
If that is what you were trying to say, then may I humbly suggest that you worded it poorly. I will grant that both Christians and Jews think that they are correct (everyone thinks that they are correct) and thinks that the other is incorrect. But what you said was actually "both are correct". Because the two beliefs are contradictory, they cannot both be correct.

A deeply rooted belief and theology of Christianity should not be interpreted as an 'an attempt to better explain in more detail the experience that Christians have had in God, . . .
On the contrary, all Christian theology is an attempt to explain the experience that God's people have had of Him in history. Because that is the means by which the Creator-Sustainer God reveals Himself to us. Christian doctrine did not fall out of the sky fully formed and expressed in its current format. It was developed over centuries as the Saints and the great theologians of the Church quietly meditated and reflected on God's revelation - both in Scripture and in the lives of those who came before them.

Other beliefs are relevant, because the concept of the trinity exists in them also
They are not strictly speaking relevant to the topic at hand - the topic being the Jewish roots of the Christian Trinity. That other trinities exist is not strictly relevant to this topic (with qualifiers given below).

...and you yourself asked about other pagan beliefs before Christianity believing in the Trinity. If they were not relevant you should not ask.
If that was your intent. It would have helped if you had quoted the part where I allegedly asked. I had to go back hunting through my post to find where I asked, only to see that (as I suspected) I didn't actually ask. I did comment that I didn't know of Trinity doctrines in paganism that pre-date Christendom, but I was referring specifically to the pre-Christian Hellenistic world (ie, cultures that could have been a source for the Christian doctrine). I do not think that Buddhist and Hindu beliefs could have influenced Christianity.

Both Vedic traditions and Buddhism have beliefs that can be shown to parallel beliefs in the trinity.
I do not know the beliefs all that well - though I was aware of the Vedic tradition of something called a "trinity", I was not sure how well it fit the Christian view.

But even if a precise match for the Trinity should be found in another culture, that hardly disproves it. In fact, it does rather the opposite. Christians hold that God has not left any person without witness. If He has really revealed Himself to all, then we should not be surprised to find pieces of Christian doctrine in all cultures all over the world. Indeed, we should expect it (and we do find it). Contrary to many modern Western Christians, I do not believe that all non-Christian religion is completely devoid of God's Truth. Rather, I believe that of all religions, Christianity (specifically, Lutheran/Orthodox) is the closest to God's Truth that we can get this side of death.

This is where I also disagree.
I suspected as much. :smile:

Your analysis fails to demonstrate the Christian belief of three equal identities or persons in one. The radience and heat are distinctly lesser dependent realities of the sun.
Granted, the radiance and heat are dependent realities of the sun. That's part of the point of the analogy. But you have not justified your claim that the realities of the radiance and heat are "lesser" - you've merely asserted it.

I am looking forward to what you consider 'solid evidence in the Tanakh. So far it is a highly tenuous interpretation at best.
Of course it's highly tenuous so far. That's because I haven't given it yet. Gee, you're a little eager to jump on me, aren't you? :smile:

[Jezz]

Hi all (ssv says, resurfacing & emerging from a weeklong cybernation)!
"Cybernation" - cool word!

Shunydragon: Before Christ are any Jewish scholars that supported a trinitarian view of God?

None whatsoever.
What about Philo? He was contemporary with Jesus, and probably wrote all of his stuff without even hearing about Christianity. Or is he too Hellenised to be considered a Jewish scholar by your reckoning?

Way back in 1979, I came to Israel on a 6-week summer trip sponsored by the Jewish Community Center of Pittsburgh (where I'm originally from). Back then, the section of the Sinai peninsula where the Monastery of St. Catherine is, i.e. the reputed site of the Mt. Sinai, was still in Israeli hands. We drove all the way down there & hiked up Mt. Sinai in the middle of the night to watch the sun rise. We went right past the monastery (which was, understandably, closed to visitors at that hour). The sunrise was, of course, spectacular.
I can imagine! Sounds good!

See http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8441&highlight=15+commandments.
Interesting... Lutherans count two commandments for coveting, and combine "you shall have no other gods" with "you shall not make idols" into a single commandment.

I understand & agree. Well said!
:thumb: Thanks.

I'd love to see a ferinstance or two!
Next post.

Even if I grant your point, I'll add that 1) None of them were reckoned as referring to a Christ-like figure (in accordance with the Christian view of Jesus)
Would it come as a surprise to learn that God's Messiah would turn out not quite like people expected? Would it be the first time that God did something unexpected in history? :smile:

and 2) By "Targum", do you mean the 70 Jewish Sages who translated the Torah into Greek? If so, I don't know that this is a good reference. You can't point to the Greek and claim that it necessarily reflects a Messianic frame-of-mind on the translators' part. they might have had any number of motives for picking a given Greek word/phrase for a given Hebrew word/phrase. While a given Greek word or phrase might have been chosen to represent a given Hebrew word or phrase, I don't know that the translators' might not have picked it because it was the best they could come up, however inadequate/insufficient a match for the corresponding Hebrew it might have been. (As a Hebrew-to-English translator with 11 years' experience, I'll often choose an English word/phrase for a Hebrew one and go with it, even though it doesn't fully cover/match the Hebrew original & even though I'm far from satisfied, simply because it's the best there is & will have to do even though it doesn't quite cut it & I know that it doesn't.
No actually, I wasn't talking about the Septuagint (generally when I do I will use the abbreviation "LXX"). I was talking about the Aramaic Targums. These were translated prior to the time of Jesus, and they weren't tight translations, but were rather loose and expository. Hence they give an indication of how the Jews of those times were interpreting the Tanakh.

Specifically, the one I was referring to (Isaiah 52:13) which I believe is translated in Targum Jonathan as "Behold, My Servant the Messiah shall prosper."

Now, I don't know a whole lot about Hebrew and Aramaic, but it is my understanding that the languages are similar enough that your comments aren't really applicable here. "Messiah" was the same word in both languages.

And 3) We don't consider any version of the Tanakh except the original Hebrew/Aramaic to be authoritative.
I would certainly agree that it makes sense to consider the original Hebrew/Aramaic is most authoritative. The thing is, we don't have the original Hebrew/Aramaic. We have the Masoretic Text, but that is a very late witness. Often earlier witnesses (including the DSS) agree with each other and disagree with the MT, indicating that the MT has been corrupted through the centuries.

But anyway, that's a little bit irrelevant to the point I was making. Regardless of whether you consider the Targums authoritative or not, they do give some sort of indication what Jews of that time believed. It gives particular insight into the mind of the translator, but also into Jewish thought in general (they wouldn't have been preserved unless they were well-received by the Jews of their day).

I understand but do not agree. We are not aware of any such passages or of any such strained or contrived explanations. (There's that agree-to-disagree thing again!)
Fair enough! I guess we'll cover this when I get to some specific examples.

Again, I can only restate our view that the Christian's differentiation between ousia and hypostases are so much semantic/sophistic rationalizing that are taking a simple concept & making it artificially complex in order to justify an artificial point.
Father Thomas Hopko - a contemporary Orthodox theologian - came up with the following explanation that I found to describe the difference between "ousia" and "hypostasis". I think it illustrates the point nicely. In summary: the "ousia" of something is what it is. The "hypostasis" is who it is.

For example - the thing that composed the post to which I am responding: what is it? Well, I'm pretty sure it is a human being and not an AI bot or something. It's "ousia" is, therefore, "human being". On the other hand, who is the thing that composed the person to which I am responding? It's the person (Greek: hypostasis) known on this forum as "stillsmallvoice" or "ssv" for short. So the distinction between "ousia" and "hypostasis" is one that we are all familiar with - if you understand the difference between the questions "what is X?" and "who is X?", then you understand the difference between "ousia" and "hypostasis". It is more than just a semantic difference, and not just sophistry.

The Christian view of God is that, while there is only one valid answer to the "what" question, there are three answers to the "who" question.

Of course, you are correct. Such as we can only relate to the nature of God insofar as He has revealed of Himself to us. We believe that the Christian doctrines of the trinity & the Incarnation not only do not jibe with, but flat-out contradict what He has revealed of Himself.
I suspect that for the most part, Jews were content to teach that God was one being, but didn't speculate beyond that on what the nature of that being might be.

I look forward to this!
Next post I will try and present the positive case for Trinitarian roots in the Tanakh.

But we do not believe the clouds of glory were God limiting Himself to a finite region of space-time.
We do not believe that God was limiting Himself to a finite region of space-time in the incarnation either. The Word was still divine at the same time as it was human.

They were merely the form in which He chose to make His presence felt to us. God did not condense Himself into the form of a cloud, He used the clouds as a tool. They did not define Him, they were not Him.
Really? So you're saying that the cloud was not really God's presence? That perhaps we might call it an "intermediary"? :smile:

OK, I'll drop the adjective "mere."
Cool. :thumb:

The Sun is the source/cause of its radiance & warmth. The latter have no independent existence apart from the sun itself & cannot have any.
Correct. The same is true in Trinitarian doctrine of the relationship between the Father and His Word & Spirit.

You cannot assert an identity/synonymous coexistence/existential sameness, between the sun and its radiance & its warmth.
Correct. The same is true in Trinitarian doctrine of the relationship between the Father and His Word & Spirit.

Yet John 1:1 does appear (to me, at least) to assume just such an identity/synonymous coexistence/existential sameness between at least 2 of the persons in the Trinity.
Not quite. The problem is that you're reading it in English. :smile:

Greek is a very precise language. There are some things you need to know about the language before you can understand the theological intricacies wrapped up in this simple verse.

1. "God" (theos) in Greek wasn't a proper name - it was a title. (Putting this into the context about what I discussed re: "ousia" and "hypostasis", "theos" tells us what the Creator is, not who - His ousia, not His hypostases).
2. Names and titles in Greek were used with the definite article - we do not use this convention in English.
3. English is a positional language - the grammatical function of a phrase is determined by its position in the sentence (most sentences conform to the basic pattern subject-verb-object). In Greek, the function of a noun is determined by its case, which is determined by changing the noun slightly. This means that the sentence order does not serve a grammatical purpose. Instead, it is used for emphasis. When a Greek writer wishes to emphasise something, they move it towards the front of the sentence. We can only do this to a limited extent in English.

Ok, with that basic background in mind, here is the complete verse in Greek:

En arche hn ho logos kai ho logos hn pros ton theon kai theos hn ho logos.

A literal, word-for-word translation in English is:

In beginning was the word and the word was towards the god and god was the word.

(Note: I prefer the translation "reason" for logos, which is what is typically translated "word". But I will use "word" for the sake of familiarity.)

Now, note that it says "the word was towards the god". It uses the definite article there - it's referring to the god here. That reflects the convention that I referred to above.

But the real beauty and elegance of this sentence lies in the last phrase "and god was the word". Note the omission of the definite article - it says "god was the word", not "the god was the word". Thus, while your objection here is understandable when reading it in English, it is not supported by the original Greek. The Greek of John 1:1 does not imply an identity between "the god" and "the word". But note that it does not imply polytheism, either - that the word is a lesser deity, because "theos" is put in the emphatic position at the start of the phrase. Thus we should translate it, not as "the word was god" but "the word was god". The way that John wrote this sentence is perhaps the most precise way to state the relationship between the Father and the Word.

The sun would be no good to us without its radiance or heat.

But it would still be the sun.
No, it wouldn't. A sun that does not give of radiance or heat is a dead sun - a white dwarf. More on this below.

How does this jibe with John 1:1?
See above.

If, as you have said, the Word and the Spirit draw their essence[s] from the Father, who is the[ir] Source, why ascribe so much importance to what is, essentially (pun intended), secondary? Why not go right to the Source? We see the Christian notions of the Son/Word and Spirit as artificial interpositions/intermediaries between us and our/the Source.
Because "secondary" does not automatically imply "less important". The Word and the Spirit are part of the very nature of God Himself. The greatness of the Word of God derives from the greatness of God Himself. Likewise for the Spirit.

As for these being "artificial intermediaries", well I must disagree with that strongly of course. Read Genesis 1. How did God create the universe? Answer: God spoke, and it was. In other words, He created the universe through His Word. Also note verse 2: what was hovering over the waters during creation?

The idea that God uses intermediaries when dealing with His creation is not a Christian invention. The idea appears in the very opening verses of the Bible. You yourself acknowledged above that the Shekinah was an intermediary of God.

Not so. Until the Sun reached a critical mass/size, the nuclear fusion that is the generator of its radiance & its warmth could not start. One day in the very far future, the Sun will be begin to exhaust its supply of fusionable material & eventually it's warmth & radiance will cease. Yet it will still be the Sun.
I disagree slightly with the above. Before the nuclear fusion started, it wasn't the sun - it was simply a big ball of hydrogen. It was not the sun until the fusion started, at which point it had radiance and heat. And once the radiance disappears, it will be dead.

Of course, this is where the analogy breaks down a little. The sun is not eternal, God is. Unlike our sun, God did not have a beginning, and He will not have an end. To fix this problem, take our sun as it is now, and imagine that it has always been like that, and always will be.

Unitarian teaching is that God can make Himself known/felt without the need of intermediaries.
Dealt with above. That is not what the Tanakh teaches, in my understanding. Noone may see God and live - yet people in the OT are always claiming to have seen God. Clearly, they must have seen one of His intermediaries instead. :smile: See above for more detail.

The radiance of the sun is not visible but the sun itself is (that it'll blind you if you look at it long enough is beside the point).
Actually, this is completely backwards. In a very real sense, the only thing that is visible is visible light (ie, radiance). The sun would not be visible if it did not radiate. That's why black holes are black - their radiance does not reach us. Actually, a sun that did not radiate could be visible, but only if it reflected light from another source - but I don't think this fact is relevant because I don't think either of us would claim that God is only made visible by reflecting the light of others.

Q: If Stillsmallvoice has one marble, and then takes another marble, and then takes another marble, how many marbles does Stillsmallvoice have?

A: Three.

(I'm sorry, I couldn't help myself!)

But isn't 1 is a whole number; 1/0 is infinite. (Pleasepleaseplease don't talk mathematicalese at me! I will not be able to follow you! Humor me!)
Ok, I promise not to use mathematicalese if you promise not to use it!won't push this any further. I'm just pointing out that if you want to play the numbers game, then it is easy to claim that God is aleph (infinity) and not 1. I find this particular aspect of Saady Gaon's argument against the Trinity to be more handwaving than anything else.

Be well & be in touch!
You too!

(It's good to be back.)
It's good to have you back!

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

Jezz, you posted:

"Cybernation" - cool word!

Thank you! It's an ssv original.

What about Philo? He was contemporary with Jesus, and probably wrote all of his stuff without even hearing about Christianity. Or is he too Hellenised to be considered a Jewish scholar by your reckoning?

I quote the Jewish Encyclopedia entry on Philo (who was not a rabbinical sage) http://tinyurl.com/5vhvc:

Philo included in his philosophy both Greek wisdom and Hebrew religion, which he sought to fuse and harmonize by means of the art of allegory that he had learned from the Stoics. His work was not accepted by contemporary Judaism...Philo was all the more enthusiastically received by the early Christians, some of whom saw in him a Christian.

Would it come as a surprise to learn that God's Messiah would turn out not quite like people expected?

What we expected the Messiah to be is far less important than what our scriptures taught about him. It's not that Jesus didn't jibe with our expectations, he didn't jibe with what we believe our scriptures say.

Specifically, the one I was referring to (Isaiah 52:13) which I believe is translated in Targum Jonathan as "Behold, My Servant the Messiah shall prosper."

Now, I don't know a whole lot about Hebrew and Aramaic, but it is my understanding that the languages are similar enough that your comments aren't really applicable here. "Messiah" was the same word in both languages.

Actually, the original Hebrew word in 52:13 is avdi, literally My servant. I'll check a Targum Jonathan at synagogue tomorrow morning (06:00 morning prayers). (But the Jewish Encyclopedia article says: "As a whole, this Targum resembles that of Onkelos, although it does not follow the Hebrew text so closely, and paraphrases more freely, in harmony with the text of the prophetic books.") See http://tinyurl.com/3mzyk for a Jewish view on Isaiah 52-53.

I would certainly agree that it makes sense to consider the original Hebrew/Aramaic is most authoritative. The thing is, we don't have the original Hebrew/Aramaic. We have the Masoretic Text, but that is a very late witness.

Ah, I suppose that we'll have to agree to disagree on this one too. http://tinyurl.com/652xj might be of interest.

The Christian view of God is that, while there is only one valid answer to the "what" question, there are three answers to the "who" question.

While I certainly respect Father Hopko's explanation (and yours), as a Jew, I would rephrase the foregoing to say: The Jewish view of God is that there is only one valid answer to both the "what" question and to the "who" question & that as far as God is concerned, it's the same question.

I suspect that for the most part, Jews were content to teach that God was one being, but didn't speculate beyond that on what the nature of that being might be.

We belive Him to be One Being with One Nature.

Really? So you're saying that the cloud was not really God's presence? That perhaps we might call it an "intermediary"?

No, not at all. We would say that God chose to make His presence felt via a cloud. The cloud did not define Him, the cloud was not Him & was neither coexistent with, nor existentially identical to, Him. The cloud was no more Him than my shadow is me.

Thank you for the Greek lesson regarding John 1:1. Do you consider the Greek to be more authoritative than any other language (as the KJV-onlyists get ready to pull you into a dark alley :ahem: )?

the word was god".

To a Jew, this is bitheism.

A sun that does not give of radiance or heat is a dead sun - a white dwarf.

A dead sun/white dwarf is still a sun. A corpse is still a person, just a dead one.

Because "secondary" does not automatically imply "less important.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary propping up my left forearm at the moment defines "secondary" as, "coming after or next below what is primary; derived from or depending on or supplementing what is primary." I believe that secondary does automatically imply less important.

Read Genesis 1. How did God create the universe? Answer: God spoke, and it was. In other words, He created the universe through His Word. Also note verse 2: what was hovering over the waters during creation?


Yes, God spoke and the universe came into being, on that much we agree. But we Jews cannot countenance attributing a separate personhood/nature/status to His speaking. I speak (way too much my wife says :ahem: ), yet my words are not me. They are created things. As regards Genesis 1:2, I would submit that you are misunderstanding the literary/poetic use of metaphor.

The idea that God uses intermediaries when dealing with His creation is not a Christian invention. The idea appears in the very opening verses of the Bible.

Hmm, there's that "agree-to-disagree" thing again!

You yourself acknowledged above that the Shekinah was an intermediary of God.[quote]

When? Where? I do not subscribe to the notion that God's presence is a separate person/nature & is existentially identical to Him.

[quote]Before the nuclear fusion started, it wasn't the sun - it was simply a big ball of hydrogen. It was not the sun until the fusion started, at which point it had radiance and heat.

But an unborn person is still a person (now the pro-choicers are going to want to pull me into a dark alley!). Ya gotta take a long view!

Clearly, they must have seen one of His intermediaries instead.

They see angels, they see clouds, they hear still, small voices (sorry, I couldn't resist slipping that one in...). I see "Seeing God" as a metaphor for comprehending Him in His totality, and nobody can do that.

It's good to have you back!

1) Thank you!

2) Are you really sure? I mean, I keep asking you all these pesky (stiff-necked?) questions! :smile:

Be well & be in touch!

ssv :hi:

[Jezz]

Hi all!
Hey, I'm back! I apologise for the delay... While I've not been "cybernating", I have been procrastinating because I knew that this post would take some effort, and I've had a million other things on my plate... In this vein, you'll understand if my next response also takes a while. :smile:

I quote the Jewish Encyclopedia entry on Philo (who was not a rabbinical sage) http://tinyurl.com/5vhvc:

Philo included in his philosophy both Greek wisdom and Hebrew religion, which he sought to fuse and harmonize by means of the art of allegory that he had learned from the Stoics. His work was not accepted by contemporary Judaism...Philo was all the more enthusiastically received by the early Christians, some of whom saw in him a Christian.
Hmm, I don't see that this is relevant to the objection I was answering. Allow me to recap:

shunydragon: Before Christ are any Jewish scholars that supported a trinitarian view of God?

ssv: None whatsoever.

The implication that you are making in this claim is that Christians invented the Trinity and that no Jew even hinted at it. Now, I wished to prove this false. Given that you've claimed a universal negative, I need only find one counter-example to do so. Thus, I responded:

Jezz: What about Philo?

Philo was a Jew. Philo was a scholar. Philo espoused views on Wisdom and the Logos (which he considered one and the same) that are compatible with the Trinitarian doctrine of Christianity. And he did so before the ministry of Jesus. Thus, he is an example of a Jewish scholar who hinted at Trinitarian ideas prior to Jesus. Therefore, I must conclude that your assertion is false.

Your counter-claim is that Philo's ideas were rejected by what was later to be come rabbinical Judaism. This is true, but irrelevant to the argument. I have proven that Trinitarian ideas were put forward by at least one Jew before the rise of Christianity. Besides which, it seems that the only grounds that you have for rejecting Philo as a Jewish sage is the fact that his views were too similar to Christianity. Thus it seems to me that the reason that (in your opinion) no Jewish scholar before Christ thought of Trinitarian ideas is because any such scholar would be considered non-Jewish by definition - making your claim somewhat tautological. :smile:

What we expected the Messiah to be is far less important than what our scriptures taught about him. It's not that Jesus didn't jibe with our expectations, he didn't jibe with what we believe our scriptures say.
Do you not admit the possibility that when the Messiah comes, he will tell you that what you believe your scriptures say is not what they were actually meant to say?

Actually, the original Hebrew word in 52:13 is avdi, literally My servant. I'll check a Targum Jonathan at synagogue tomorrow morning (06:00 morning prayers). (But the Jewish Encyclopedia article says: "As a whole, this Targum resembles that of Onkelos, although it does not follow the Hebrew text so closely, and paraphrases more freely, in harmony with the text of the prophetic books.")
You misunderstood my intent slightly. My point was not that the word "Messiah" in the Aramaic Targum was a translation of a Hebrew word that was present in the original text. I realise that the Targum is a paraphrase and not a direct translation, but that doesn't affect my point.

I was making two points:

1. The word "messiah" in Aramaic and Hebrew means the same thing (there aren't the translation difficulties here like from Hebrew to Greek).
2. The fact that the Targum translator decided to paraphrase this important verse by calling the suffering servant "the Messiah" proves that the translator (and probably his audience) believed that the suffering servant was the Messiah.

See http://tinyurl.com/3mzyk for a Jewish view on Isaiah 52-53.
I am familiar with the standard Jewish view on Isaiah 53 - ie, that the "suffering servant" is the faithful remnant of Israel. I think it would be losing the focus of this thread to talk about this prophecy now. For now, I will simply make two comments on this excerpt from the article:

The only exception is the Fourth Servant Song (Is 52:13-53:12), commonly referred to as "Isaiah 53", where the Sages all agree on the identity of the servant being the righteous remnant of Israel, henceforth referred to as Israel. Consequently, "Isaiah 53" is not Jewish messianic text.
Again, this is a universal claim ("all Sages agree") and thus only requires one counter-example to disprove it. The Targum I cited above suffices to disprove this assertion, which is why I quoted it. It is also significant that the Targum was translated before Christ - there is no possibility of Christian influence (either for or against).

The second comment: I don't necessarily disagree with the "faithful Israel" interpretation, either. After all, I do not believe that it was a coincidence that Jesus chose 12 men to be His main disciples...

Ah, I suppose that we'll have to agree to disagree on this one too. http://tinyurl.com/652xj might be of interest.
Again, this would be a divergence to talk about now, but a few brief comments. The article you cited proves that there is little divergence in the modern copies of the MT. With that, I have no problems agreeing with that. But this is only part of the textual criticism problem - it proves that the current MT is an extremely accurate preservation of the form of the text that originated at some point in the past, but gives no indication of how far in the past that applies. The uniformity of the modern MT is perfectly compatible with my understanding - ie, that the MT in its present form was not standardised until after the destruction of the temple in 70 AD. This understanding is actually supported by a comment made in that link: Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Sages would periodically perform global checks to weed out any scribal errors.

Add to this that the DSS evidence (in my understanding) indicates that there were two main streams of written Hebrew Torah tradition in earlier times: one that closely matches our current MT, and another that closely matches the LXX.

The article makes a number of errors, too. For example, it's comparison with the Christian Bible is not done on an apples-to-apples basis, because it only counts the master copies in doing the MT statistics, whereas the GNT statistics include all manuscripts. I'm also doubtful about the way they are counting "variants" in the GNT, but it will be beyond the scope of this post to go into that in more detail.

While I certainly respect Father Hopko's explanation (and yours), as a Jew, I would rephrase the foregoing to say: The Jewish view of God is that there is only one valid answer to both the "what" question and to the "who" question & that as far as God is concerned, it's the same question.
I certainly accept that that is your viewpoint. However, I think you've forgotten what the original dispute was about.

Your original complaint was not merely that you disagreed with the "one ousia, three hypostases" description of God. Your complaint was a lot stronger than that - not merely that you thought the position incorrect, but that the difference between "ousia" and "hypostasis" was semantic games only. The aim of my response was not to convince you to agree with the description, but to convince you that the difference was not merely semantic/sophistic. The difference between "ousia" and "hypostasis" is the same as the difference between "what" and "who".

So even if I have not convinced you of the correctness of the "one ousia, three hypostases" formulation, have I at least convinced you that the difference between "ousia" and "hypostasis" is not just semantic?

I suspect that for the most part, Jews were content to teach that God was one being, but didn't speculate beyond that on what the nature of that being might be.

We belive Him to be One Being with One Nature.
My point precisely. :smile: You acknowledge God to have one nature - but you don't speculate any further on what the internals of that nature might be.

Trinitarians also believe that God is One Being with One Nature. We just go a little deeper than Unitarians into the description of that nature - where Jews historically have made no comment, we believe it to be Triune.

No, not at all. We would say that God chose to make His presence felt via a cloud.
Um, ssv - an "intermediary" is something that one acts through, or "acts via". Thus to say "God made His presence felt via a cloud" is to say that the cloud is an intermediary. :smile: An intermediary need not be a person (though it can be).

The cloud did not define Him, the cloud was not Him & was neither coexistent with, nor existentially identical to, Him. The cloud was no more Him than my shadow is me.
I agree with that. Sort of.

I agree that God's existence was not exhausted by the glory cloud. Solomon wondered at that - how God could be present in a finite space, and yet even the highest heavens couldn't contain Him. We do not say that Jesus was "identical with God", because that would be Sabellianism/Patripassianism. We say that in Him the fullness of deity dwelt in bodily (ie, human) form. One person, two natures.

Thank you for the Greek lesson regarding John 1:1. Do you consider the Greek to be more authoritative than any other language (as the KJV-onlyists get ready to pull you into a dark alley :ahem: )?
Isn't that a no-brainer? I realise that there are some who hold translations as more authoritative, but I consider them a bit silly. :smile:

The only case I can see for a more authoritative language is the Syriac Peshitta - as it is written in a dialect of the language that 1st-century Palestinians spoke. However, it is generally held to be later than the Greek and a translation thereof, though there is a minority who hold that the Greek was translated from the Peshitta.

To a Jew, this is bitheism.
How can it be, when the verse maintains that there is only one God? The title "ho theos = the God" doesn't make sense if one is talking bitheism. It only makes sense if there is only one possible referent for "the God".

A dead sun/white dwarf is still a sun. A corpse is still a person, just a dead one.
Well, I'm not sure that I agree but really it's irrelevant. As noted in my last post, God is eternal - unlike our sun, He does not change. So take the sun analogy, and assume that the sun was in the beginning as it is now, and that it will be forevermore. And then you have an accurate analogy - with the sun/radiance/heat all being co-eternal.

The Concise Oxford Dictionary propping up my left forearm at the moment defines "secondary" as, "coming after or next below what is primary; derived from or depending on or supplementing what is primary." I believe that secondary does automatically imply less important.
I agree with the Oxford Dictionary definition. However, that definition does not mention anything about secondary being less important. Again, one counter-example will suffice:

Viral encephalitis is an often fatal disease that can result as a secondary infection caused by measles. Measles by itself, on the other hand (ie, the primary disease) is not fatal. Hence, the secondary here is actually somewhat more important than the primary.

I grant that sometimes secondary effects are not as important as the primary causes. However, as the above example shows, the opposite may be the case.

Yes, God spoke and the universe came into being, on that much we agree. But we Jews cannot countenance attributing a separate personhood/nature/status to His speaking. I speak (way too much my wife says :ahem: ), yet my words are not me. They are created things.
A couple of comments here:

When we say that Jesus was the Word of God, we do not mean "word" as in the semantic symbol used to communicate meaning. Rather, the Greek word "logos" actually refers to the meaning itself - the thought behind the semantic symbols. In fact, elsewhere "logos" is sometimes translated "reason", and it's the word that we get our modern word "logic" from - not to mention all those sciences that are called "ologies" (eg, theology = reasoning about God, biology = reasoning about life, etc).

Bearing the above in mind, consider the question: "Am I identical to my logos - my thoughts?" In a sense, no. But in another sense, yes - my thoughts are in every way an accurate image of me. They reveal my character, they consist of my essence - and in that sense, they are "of one essence" with me. Just as in the Nicene Creed, we say that Christ is "of one essence" with the Father.

As regards Genesis 1:2, I would submit that you are misunderstanding the literary/poetic use of metaphor.
Hmm, interesting comment. I noted this comment in your linked article about the preservation of the Torah text:

These letters were employed by God in creating the world, and it is through them that He sustains it.

The "letters" that the sentence refers to are the letters of the Torah - ie, the letters that make up God's word. The author claimed to be relating the view of the Rabbis. If I am misunderstanding the literary/poetic use of metaphor in Genesis, then so is the author of that article and the Rabbis he quoted. :wink:

You yourself acknowledged above that the Shekinah was an intermediary of God.

When? Where? I do not subscribe to the notion that God's presence is a separate person/nature & is existentially identical to Him.
You said that God acted through His glory cloud. As I noted above, that alone is enough to establish that it was an intermediary. An intermediary doesn't have to be a person.

But an unborn person is still a person (now the pro-choicers are going to want to pull me into a dark alley!). Ya gotta take a long view!
Well, I agree with that statement wholeheartedly. But a ball of gas that has not begun nuclear fusion is not an "unborn sun". It is an unconceived sun - it may not ever begin nuclear fusion. :smile: But again, see above because this isn't strictly relevant in an analogy to an eternal, unchanging God.

Clearly, they must have seen one of His intermediaries instead.

They see angels, they see clouds, they hear still, small voices (sorry, I couldn't resist slipping that one in...).
Yes - and all are intermediaries. Though not all are God.

I see "Seeing God" as a metaphor for comprehending Him in His totality, and nobody can do that.
Well, I agree that noone can comprehend God in His totality. However, I do believe that God in His omnipotence and omniscience can present an image of Himself to us in a form that is comprehensible to us, so that we may comprehend Him as fully as is possible for us finite beings to do. Do you not agree?

Ok, I promised I would say something about the positive case for Trinitarian roots in the Tanakh in this post. So here goes. In the following, I will use the standard English convention of referring to the tetragrammaton as "the LORD" - to avoid possible offense for the Jewish readership.

If the Trinity doctrine were true, this is what we would expect to see:

1. Statements indicating that God is a unity and not a plurality.
2. Statements indicating multiple persons interacting with each other (eg, addressing each other in the 3rd person), and yet where sometimes they are considered identical.

If Unitarianism were true, we'd have statements corresponding to point 1, but it would be extremely misleading to have points of form 2.

Now of course in support of 1, I can point to the famous shema. This claims that God is a unity. However, the word used for "one" (echad, from memory) is ambiguous enough to support either trinitarianism or unitarianism - the same word is used to describe the Israelites speaking in "one voice" (obviously, there were many voices, so this verse can be used when there is plurality-within-unity).

Now specifically, Trinitarianism consists of these three persons:

The Father - aka "God/the LORD"
The Son - aka "the Word/Wisdom of God"
The Holy Spirit - aka "the Spirit of God"

These three persons are distinct, but united. The first person is the source of the other two (as per Athanasius' analogy). To show the Trinity, I need to demonstrate two things:

1. That the Word and the Spirit were both considered distinct from God and from each other;
2. That the Word and the Spirit were nevertheless united with Him;
3. That the Word and the Spirit were considered persons.

It is my position that support for all three of these points are found in the Tanakh. I will consider the Word first, and the Spirit second.

Now, as you are no doubt aware, the word "angel" literally means "messenger" - ie, one who is sent to carry the message (ie, the word), of the one who sent him. So here is the first important point: It is thus the Christian position that "The Angel of the LORD", aka "The Angel of God", (where the definite article is used) is the Word of God.

Now, throughout the OT there are many instances where the LORD sends the Angel of the LORD (hereafter AOTL), and the AOTL speaks both as God (ie, in the first person) and speaks about God in the 3rd person. Example:

17 God heard the boy crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, "What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. 18 Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation."
Notes:

-God heard the boy crying, yet it was the angel of God who responded (and apparently this response happened automatically, without God's explicit direction).
-The angel of God refers to God in the third person ("God has heard the boy crying").
-The angel of God makes a promise that only God can make, and makes it in the 1st person ("I will make him into a great nation.")
-This switch from 3rd person to 1st happens in adjacent sentences, and without any warning.

Of course, there are many more examples of this AOTL flipping between 1st and 3rd person references.

The fact that this angel speaks of the LORD in the third person proves that he is a separate person from the LORD. And yet, this Angel also speaks as God - indicating a close unity with Him. Thus, we see all the elements of the Trinitarian precursor for the Word of God in the Hebrew Bible, in the form of the AOTL.

Now for the Spirit of the LORD. There are plenty of passages where the Spirit of the LORD is spoken of in the OT. Sometimes it is called the Holy Spirit (Isaiah 63:11). It is clear that this Spirit is (as per Trinitarian teaching) somewhat separate from the LORD and can be sent by the LORD (eg, Genesis 1:1 - the Spirit hovered over the waters). Yet being the Spirit of the LORD, it is still considered divine.

The only real question left open is whether or not the Spirit of the LORD is actually a person, or some other non-conscious entity. There are passages that attribute personal characteristics to the Spirit - for example, the Spirit is said to instruct (Nehemiah 9:20), to be grieved (Isaiah 63:10), and be angry (Micah 2:7). These ascriptions are a little odd for an impersonal force - especially saying that the Spirit got angry. Getting angry does not sound much like something an impersonal force would do.

Now admittedly, it does seem that the information about the personality of the Spirit is a little lacking in the Tanakh. It could be interpreted as being a metaphorical personification as opposed to representative of an actual personification. But that doesn't really matter - my aim here was not to prove that it is conclusive, as I never said that the full Trinitarian doctrine was found in the Tanakh. I simply claimed that the roots of Trinitarian belief are found there - and I believe that I have adequately demonstrated that. Later interpretations of the Spirit of the LORD as a distinct (yet not separate) person are perfectly consistent with the data in the Tanakh.

So there you have it - a brief overview of the positive case for the Trinitarian roots in the Tanakh. Fire at will. :smile:

1) Thank you!
You're welcome!

2) Are you really sure? I mean, I keep asking you all these pesky (stiff-necked?) questions! :smile:
Hah! Yes, of course I'm sure. Btw, Jews are not the only people who are stiff-necked. In fact, you are far less stiff-necked than a few Protestants or "non-denominationalists" that I am having a hard time with. :smile: Atheists are even more so... :wink:

Be well & be in touch!
You too!

[mikeledo]

Jesus represents the sun in the Christian Trinity. His long hair and halo are characteristics of pagan sun gods. The Holy Spirit was the odd ball. Seldom is the Holy Wind mentioned in the Bible. Most references are vague and controversial. He was a surprise addition to the debate.

Creeds were used as a tool in the Homoousian vs. Heteroousian fight. Not only were they statements of belief but also statements of disbelief aimed at the opposite side.
Every center of Christian faith had their own declaration known as a creed. Centers that had their own creed included: Milan, Aquileia, Ravenna, Turin, Remesiana, Hippo, Carthage, Ruspe, Priscillian, Spain VI Cent., Mozarabic, Riez, Arles, Euzoius, and St. Macarius.


The Nicea Creed was not only designed to standardize Christianity, but to condemn other Christians. The Creed ended thusly: “But as for those who say, There was when He was not, and, Before being born He was not, and of a different hypostasis or substance, or is subject to alteration or change—these the Catholic and apostolic Church anathematizes.”

It is true anyone can make up a Triad- in fact Christianity did just that. I am just the messenger. The prayers the Jews use in the morning, afternoon and evening- I guess I made them up too. You can attempt to make sport of the concept of the Triad, however one can clearly see they exist as expressions of the time of day. Jacob was the night- that is why he had 12 sons- they represented the zodiac.

Depending on who was emporer at the time determined which side has peresecuted Homoousian or Heteroousian - that is true. The trinity was a compromise idea to stop the fighting.

A question of Jesus pre-existence is eternal? Jesus either pre-existed for all eternity or he did not. There were many views on Jesus. Jesus as the word or logos would have come after the creator who spoke the word and created Jesus. That was one view. The begetting of Jesus at baptism doesn't change this idea, only adds confusion of spirtual baptisms etc.

The evidence shows by the altered text that the church conspired to change to Bible. It does matter that they existed and were accepted as Gospel by our church leaders.


Mikeledo, this is a theist vs theist forum. You're welcome to bring up these points in the apologetics 301 forum, but your interaction here goes beyond our guidelines.

[stillsmallvoice]

Hi all!

Jezz, thanks for your July 29 post. Lessee...

Hey, I'm back! I apologise for the delay... While I've not been "cybernating", I have been procrastinating because I knew that this post would take some effort, and I've had a million other things on my plate... In this vein, you'll understand if my next response also takes a while.

No prob'! You never have to apologize on this score. I used to be a member of the GWU Varsity Slacking Team way back so I understand! :teeth:

Philo was a Jew. Philo was a scholar...Therefore, I must conclude that your assertion is false.

Correct, on both counts. But being a Jew & being a scholar hardly made him/qualified him to be a rabbinical Sage and thus my assertion holds.

I have proven that Trinitarian ideas were put forward by at least one Jew before the rise of Christianity...

But what one Jew who is not a rabbinical Sage may happen to believe (on the one hand) and traditional, normative Judaism (on the other) are not synonymous; the former may have no bearing whatsoever on the latter (as is the case here).

Do you not admit the possibility that when the Messiah comes, he will tell you that what you believe your scriptures say is not what they were actually meant to say?

Nah (he says, rubbing Ben-Gay into his neck).

I was making two points:

1. The word "messiah" in Aramaic and Hebrew means the same thing (there aren't the translation difficulties here like from Hebrew to Greek).

2. The fact that the Targum translator decided to paraphrase this important verse by calling the suffering servant "the Messiah" proves that the translator (and probably his audience) believed that the suffering servant was the Messiah.

Actually, as you know, the Hebrew root m-sh-kh means "to annoint." We would hold that when Targum Jonathan was written, the author meant the phrase to read, "My annointed servant," and that Christians are reading this verse not in context but with an after-the-fact set of rose-colored glasses.

The Targum I cited above suffices to disprove this assertion, which is why I quoted it. It is also significant that the Targum was translated before Christ - there is no possibility of Christian influence (either for or against).

In light of what I've just posted, I respectfully submit that the assertion holds.

After all, I do not believe that it was a coincidence...

To go off on a tangent, this is something else that our respective faiths have in common. We don't believe in coincidences either. A friend of ours pointed out to us that if you take the Hebrew word for "coincidence" & spell it backwards, you get "God has woven." Thus, she said, what may appear to us as coincidences are all part of God's plan. This jibes with what a Catholic friend of mine told me once. He said that if you look at a beautifully woven rug or needlepoint from underneath, all you'll see is a disjointed crisscrossed tangle without any pattern or harmony. God, he said is the Master Weaver, but all too often we, with our limited human perspective, only manage to see His handiwork from underneath, and thus we see the crisscrossed tangle. We should never lack the faith that there is a pattern and that a/the Master Weaver is watching over it.

This understanding is actually supported by a comment made in that link: Following the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE, the Sages would periodically perform global checks to weed out any scribal errors.

About that. Our Sages were weeding out scribal errors, not suppressing alternative/rival versions, in order to ensure the accuracy of the pre-existing text, lest (ooo, methinks I wax Biblical) it be corrupted.

The difference between "ousia" and "hypostasis" is the same as the difference between "what" and "who".

So even if I have not convinced you of the correctness of the "one ousia, three hypostases" formulation, have I at least convinced you that the difference between "ousia" and "hypostasis" is not just semantic?

Mmm...the jury is still deliberating.

You acknowledge God to have one nature - but you don't speculate any further on what the internals of that nature might be.

We don't see that there are any grounds for such speculation. We believe that according to what God has revealed of Himself to us, His nature is unitary and not at all triune.

Um, ssv - an "intermediary" is something that one acts through, or "acts via". Thus to say "God made His presence felt via a cloud" is to say that the cloud is an intermediary.

But nobody prayed to the cloud and anyone doing so would have been committing a capital offense; that's what I mean by intermediary.

The "letters" that the sentence refers to are the letters of the Torah - ie, the letters that make up God's word. The author claimed to be relating the view of the Rabbis. If I am misunderstanding the literary/poetic use of metaphor in Genesis, then so is the author of that article and the Rabbis he quoted.

But the letters themselves are (on a certain level) metaphors themselves; in nany case they are created tools.

Now, as you are no doubt aware, the word "angel" literally means "messenger" - ie, one who is sent to carry the message (ie, the word), of the one who sent him. So here is the first important point: It is thus the Christian position that "The Angel of the LORD", aka "The Angel of God", (where the definite article is used) is the Word of God.

Yes, we're familiar with this view.

The fact that this angel speaks of the LORD in the third person proves that he is a separate person from the LORD.

Correct.

And yet, this Angel also speaks as God - indicating a close unity with Him. Thus, we see all the elements of the Trinitarian precursor for the Word of God in the Hebrew Bible, in the form of the AOTL.

The Angel speaks for God & is relaying His message, in the first person, but remains a distinct, created, entity, not God.

It could be interpreted as being a metaphorical personification...

Which is what we do.

Look at the strange syntax of Exodus 20:3 and Deuteronomy 5:7 (which we read just last Saturday).

"You will have no other gods besides Me" = Lo yihyeh lekha Elokim akherim al panai.

What's strange about this is that the verb yihyeh ("will have") is singular while the subject elokim ("gods") is plural. Grammatically, both verb and subject should be both either singular or plural, but this is not the case here. This is no mere semantics. We believe that every word and every letter of the Torah are full of meaning & are there to teach us something. Although this verb-and-subject-don't-jibe phenomenon recurs in the scripture, our Sages have endeavored to learn why it is used here. The phrase goes from the singular to the plural. In my Jewish way of thinking, I cannot help but think that this is a refutation of the Christian concept of a triune God, i.e. that in this verse, which links the singular & the many, the Torah is telling us that we cannot claim that He who is singular & utterly unique is, in fact, many. The reflexive connotation of the seemingly redundant al panai, which literally means "in/on my face" but is an expression meaning "in my place/in my stead," only adds to this. In effect, God is using Exodus 20:3 and Deuteronomy 5:7 to tell us (inter alia): Do not claim that I, the One, am I, the Many.

Just some (kosher) food for thought!

Be well & be in touch!

ssv :hi:

[Jezz]

Hi all!

Jezz, thanks for your July 29 post. Lessee...


No prob'! You never have to apologize on this score. I used to be a member of the GWU Varsity Slacking Team way back so I understand! :teeth:
Heh, cool.

Correct, on both counts. But being a Jew & being a scholar hardly made him/qualified him to be a rabbinical Sage and thus my assertion holds.
But again, I think you're "stacking the deck" here. You're basically defining a "rabbinical sage" as "a Jew who doesn't teach anything like what Christians teach".

Let me try and help you see my point: can you define what a "rabbinical sage" is for me?

Besides which, shunydragon did not ask if any rabbinical sages taught the Trinity before Christ - he asked if any Jewish scholars taught the Trinity before Christ. The answer to that is clearly yes.

But what one Jew who is not a rabbinical Sage may happen to believe (on the one hand) and traditional, normative Judaism (on the other) are not synonymous; the former may have no bearing whatsoever on the latter (as is the case here).
Well, I tend to agree with that. Of course, I tend to think that it is the post-70 AD rabbis who strayed from normative Judaism.

Nah (he says, rubbing Ben-Gay into his neck).
It happened plenty of times in the history of the Tanakh - what makes you think it wouldn't happen now?

Actually, as you know, the Hebrew root m-sh-kh means "to annoint." We would hold that when Targum Jonathan was written, the author meant the phrase to read, "My annointed servant," and that Christians are reading this verse not in context but with an after-the-fact set of rose-colored glasses.
It seems to me that you're making a distinction without difference. I don't see how the fact that Hebrew/Aramaic "messiah" means "annointed one" when translated into English is relevant. Whether you translate it "My annointed servant" or "My messianic servant", in Aramaic it still reads the same, because Messiah means annointed one. Thus, the fact remains, the Targum describes the suffering servant as "messiah/messianic".

To go off on a tangent, this is something else that our respective faiths have in common. We don't believe in coincidences either. A friend of ours pointed out to us that if you take the Hebrew word for "coincidence" & spell it backwards, you get "God has woven." Thus, she said, what may appear to us as coincidences are all part of God's plan. This jibes with what a Catholic friend of mine told me once. He said that if you look at a beautifully woven rug or needlepoint from underneath, all you'll see is a disjointed crisscrossed tangle without any pattern or harmony. God, he said is the Master Weaver, but all too often we, with our limited human perspective, only manage to see His handiwork from underneath, and thus we see the crisscrossed tangle. We should never lack the faith that there is a pattern and that a/the Master Weaver is watching over it.
:thumb: Absolutely. I came to this realisation the other day, and have been meaning to post in Apologetics 301 about it. The concept of a "coincidence" or "luck" is a purely pagan concept, and actually equivalent to claiming that God is not sovereign. This is in fact the very reason that atheists like to appeal to chance, for example, in claiming that life evolved, or the universe was created. But in doing so, they aren't really proving that God doesn't exist. Rather, they're calling God by a different name - "chance".

About that. Our Sages were weeding out scribal errors, not suppressing alternative/rival versions, in order to ensure the accuracy of the pre-existing text, lest (ooo, methinks I wax Biblical) it be corrupted.
Well, I guess that that is possible. However, I suspect that passages which testified to Jesus' Messiahood would have been classified as "scribal errors", too. The reason I suspect that such passages existed (as I have said a couple of times) is that (to my knowledge) the pre-70 AD Tanakh scrolls found at Qumran seem to indicate the existence of two streams of Hebrew manuscripts - one from which our modern MT was derived, and one that agrees with the LXX against the current MT.

Mmm...the jury is still deliberating.
Fair enough. Much better than an out-of-hand dismissal. :thumb:

We don't see that there are any grounds for such speculation. We believe that according to what God has revealed of Himself to us, His nature is unitary and not at all triune.
Well, I disagree. But anyway, one reason we differ is because we believe that Jesus Himself explained the references to Him in the Tanakh (see the story in Luke about the post-resurrection appearance on the road to Emmaus, Luke 24:13ff). The question is, whose interpretation is correct? Jesus and Paul and our rabbis, or your rabbis?

But nobody prayed to the cloud and anyone doing so would have been committing a capital offense; that's what I mean by intermediary.
They prostrated themselves in front of the cloud and spoke to the cloud as if they were speaking to God. The cloud spoke to them as if it were God. The inspired writer also freely interchanges the phrases "the cloud went before Israel" and "God went before Israel". How many more "intermediary" functions can the cloud perform before it is considered an intermediary? :smile:

But the letters themselves are (on a certain level) metaphors themselves; in nany case they are created tools.
If the letters are merely metaphors, then why the paranoia about getting any of them wrong? I tend to agree, btw - the letters themselves are not the Word. They are an expression of the Word.

Yes, we're familiar with this view.
Thought that perhaps you might be. :smile:

And yet, this Angel also speaks as God - indicating a close unity with Him. Thus, we see all the elements of the Trinitarian precursor for the Word of God in the Hebrew Bible, in the form of the AOTL.

The Angel speaks for God & is relaying His message, in the first person, but remains a distinct, created, entity, not God.
Yes, that is the rabbinical pushback that I am familiar with. This now brings me back to an earlier comment that I made in this post (http://www.theologyweb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28989&page=1&pp=16#post612393):

There are parts of the Tanakh and other pre-Christian Jewish sources that, IMO, don't sit well in a unitarian interpretation. Now, these difficulties can typically be explained away in a unitarian interpretation, but the result is (IMO) that overall the unitarian hypothesis becomes the more ad-hoc and complicated of the two, and by the Law of Parsimony needs to be rejected in favour of the Trinity.

The rabbinical answer to the question of the identity of the AOTL is one that has always struck me as a rather contrived, "band-aid" solution. It leaves more questions unanswered than it answers. For example:

1. The AOTL in the various passages does not merely speak for God, he speaks as God - he speaks God's words in the first person, but almost never (only one example that I can think of) does he add a cautionary "thus saith the LORD". Scripture has lots of examples of agents who speak for God, but you struggle to find any examples of them speaking in the first person without explicit "thus saith the LORD" qualification.

2. The AOTL refers to the LORD in a mix of 1st and 3rd person - often switching within a single sentence. Other agents aren't this mixed up - they typically deliver their messages exclusively in one style or the other.

3. Those who saw the AOTL were invariably convinced that they had seen God and feared for their life. For what other agent of God do we have similar responses? Which other angel or human was "mistaken" by a Biblical character for God Himself? If the AOTL was a mere creature, then why would people fear for their lives after seeing him?

4. The AOTL is at times explicitly referred to as "the LORD" by the sacred, inspired writer himself (eg, Judges 6:14). Is it not blasphemy to be called anyone other than "the LORD" by that Name? Either you have to deal with the fact that the inspired writer was inspired by God to write blasphemy, or you have to admit that it is not blasphemy to call the AOTL "the LORD".

5. Why does Gideon present an offering to the AOTL, and moreover, why is it accepted (Judges 6)?

6. Most importantly, why is there no other creature in the Tanakh of which all the above is true?

These are the questions that the rabbinical understanding of God leaves unanswered. Now, the law of parsimony states: "If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and smells like a duck - then it's a duck." Well, if:

1. the AOTL looks like God, speaks as God, accepts offerings as God, and is called God/the LORD by both the Biblical characters & the inspired, sacred writer of Scripture, and
2. there is no other mere creature of which all (or even half) of this is true,

then the most parsimonious explanation for all of this is that the AOTL is not a mere creature. Unitarianism can come up with ad-hoc contrivances to explain away all of the above difficulties, but they picture that you are left with of God and His revelation is a whole lot more complicated than trinitarianism.

Look at the strange syntax of Exodus 20:3 and Deuteronomy 5:7 (which we read just last Saturday).

"You will have no other gods besides Me" = Lo yihyeh lekha Elokim akherim al panai.

What's strange about this is that the verb yihyeh ("will have") is singular while the subject elokim ("gods") is plural. Grammatically, both verb and subject should be both either singular or plural, but this is not the case here. This is no mere semantics. We believe that every word and every letter of the Torah are full of meaning & are there to teach us something.
That's fair enough, I can tentatively agree with that (though I put more stock in the message than its form).

Although this verb-and-subject-don't-jibe phenomenon recurs in the scripture, our Sages have endeavored to learn why it is used here. The phrase goes from the singular to the plural. In my Jewish way of thinking, I cannot help but think that this is a refutation of the Christian concept of a triune God, i.e. that in this verse, which links the singular & the many, the Torah is telling us that we cannot claim that He who is singular & utterly unique is, in fact, many. The reflexive connotation of the seemingly redundant al panai, which literally means "in/on my face" but is an expression meaning "in my place/in my stead," only adds to this. In effect, God is using Exodus 20:3 and Deuteronomy 5:7 to tell us (inter alia): Do not claim that I, the One, am I, the Many.
I'm still looking into this - as I don't know Hebrew, it will take some time. But for now:

What I don't understand is that, as you quite rightly point out, there are plenty of times in the Torah where plural nouns are used with singular verbs - most prominently in the term "elohim" as applied to God Himself. It seems to me mightily inconsistent to attribute special significance to this one instance, while ignoring all of the others. Surely if that one instance has special significance, then all of the other instances do too? If, as you say, every letter of the Torah has special significance, then it would seem to me an extremely Jewish thing to do look at passages refering to "elohim" and see them as indicating the trinity.

Btw, if you want to have fun looking at "hidden meanings" in the Hebrew, try Isaiah 49:6 and Psalm 28:8. :smile:

Be well & be in touch!
You too!

[Menachem]

It seems to me that you're making a distinction without difference. I don't see how the fact that Hebrew/Aramaic "messiah" means "annointed one" when translated into English is relevant. Whether you translate it "My annointed servant" or "My messianic servant", in Aramaic it still reads the same, because Messiah means annointed one. Thus, the fact remains, the Targum describes the suffering servant as "messiah/messianic".

actually the targum for Isaiah 53 doesn't give the figure of the Messiah as a suffering servant for instance

Targum Yonatan Isaiah 52:13-15(aramaic)

הָא יַצלַח עַבדִי מְשִיחָא יִראַם וְיִסגֵי וְיִתקַף לַחדָא׃

כְמָא דְסַבַרוּ לֵיה בֵית יִשׂרָאֵל יוֹמִין סַגִיאִין דַהְוָה
חְשוֹך בֵינֵי עַמְמַיָא חִזוְהוֹן וְזִיוְהוֹן מִבְנֵי אְנָשָא׃

כֵין יְבַדַר עַמְמִין סַגִיאִין עְלוֹהִי יִשתְקוּן מַלכִין
יְשַוֹון יַדהוֹן׳יְדֵיהוֹן״ ׳ עַל פוּמְהוֹן אְרֵי דְלָא
אִשתַעִיאוּ לְהוֹן חְזוֹ וּדלָא שְמַעוּ אִסתַכַלוּ׃



the translation is as follows:

13) Behold My anointed servant( or My servant, messiah,) will prosper and be exaulted and increase to be very strong.

14) Just as the House of Israel has hoped for many days their appearences were so dark among the other peoples, and their aspects were beyond that of other human beings.

15) He will be scattered among many peoples; kings will be silent about him, they will place their hands upon their mouth; because of things that have not been told to them they have seen, and that which they have not heard they understood.

This is just the last part of Chapter 52 and the anointed servant or servant "messiah" is not suffering but he is the one prospering.

The house of israel is the one made to suffer as verses 14 and 15 suggest. this is carried over to chapter 53 and is definately not about one person but about Israel as a whole....


my two and a half cents worth

[shunyadragon]

actually the targum for Isaiah 53 doesn't give the figure of the Messiah as a suffering servant for instance

my two and a half cents worth
I agree!!

[Sacrificial Ram]

I have been in a discussion at CARM concerning the Trinity and specifically that it is a Christian doctrine. One person is attempting to convince me that the Judaic people have had revelation of the Trinity.(1)

I have research this and would like some input from you folks as to your take on my presented evidences and arguments against the idea that the Trinity has been revealed and is known in Jewish theology, if you please.

Thank you,
Brother Skeptic


(1) http://new.carmforums.org/dc/dcboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=122&topic_id=45512&mesg_id=45512&page=
No, there is not concept of the Trinity that can be found in the Jewish scriptures. What some people have tried to claim is that the 'Elohim' points to it. However, if you look at the verbs that follow the words Elohim, the
verb is singular. This shows a magnification of the noun, to increase it's importance, and not showing the concept of mulitple.

The same can be shown with references to Moses. Just because Moses is
referred to in the plural doesn't mean there are three Moseses.