Interpretation the Trinity is polytheistic

[mikewhitney]

You appeared to consider that my comment was"amateurish". The Nestle-Alan NA28 uses the MSS that are extant. None of these are original MSS, as we do not have those original MSS. We are therefore relying, as I wrote earlier, upon copies of copies of copies with all the attendant scribal errors etc. I recommend Peter Cresswell's The Invention of Jesus: How the Church rewrote the New Testament on this issue.

You finally answered my question about the source of your conspiracy theory.
Do you have something better than that book to recommend?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

You finally answered my question about the source of your conspiracy theory.
Do you have something better than that book to recommend?

There is no conspiracy theory nor is Cresswell the only academic to deal with those issues.

[mikewhitney]

There is no conspiracy theory nor is Cresswell the only academic to deal with those issues.

If there are no theories, then why are you even talking about this topic?

You have to go to theories when you are speculating what is happening without even a historical record you trust for the first century on this stuff.

[rogue06]

There is nothing in Scripture to support that belief. It was a much later Christian theological construct.

An affirmation-free assertion.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

If I recall rightly, the first Council confirmed the EXISTENCE of the Trinity doctrine by their rejection of Arius. They also, with some controversy, confirmed the concept of Father and Son being of the same substance. Does Eusebius add to this?

No it did not "confirm the Existence of the Trinity". No one was playing hide and seek. It was all metaphysical and theological speculation.

In the early church the doctrine was embodied in creeds and doxologies. Where it was elaborated, the language was indefinite and not always free from subordinationism. At the Councils of Nicaea 325 and Constantinople 381 CE the dogma was defined in the face of “heresies”. Against Sabellianism the real distinction, and against Arianism, and Macedonianism the equality of co-eternity of three persons were affirmed. The persons differ only in origin in that the Father is ungenerated, the Son is generated by the Father, and the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father through the Son.

In the West the doctrine developed somewhat differently. Latin theologians started not from the difference of the persons, as did many of the Greeks, but from the unity of the substance. The procession of the Holy Spirit was attributed equally to the Father and to the Son, and so here the Trinitarian symbol was not a line [as in the East], but a triangle. The generation of the Son was compared to an act of thinking on the part of the Father, and the Holy Spirit explained as a mutual love of the Father and the Son. The article in the Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church goes into this more detail.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

If there are no theories, then why are you even talking about this topic?

Serious academic theories are not conspiracy theories. There was no canon of Christian scriptures in the first century CE. Christian communities had their own texts including some texts that were later incorporated into the canon, and others that were not.

[mikewhitney]

Serious academic theories are not conspiracy theories. There was no canon of Christian scriptures in the first century CE. Christian communities had their own texts including some texts that were later incorporated into the canon, and others that were not.

There also came to be Gnostic Christians but they were able to be logically proven wrong. You are admitting that Christians were not organized like a modern corporation. It took 30 or 40 years to see it important to record the gospel testimonies. There are all sorts of organizational details. Do you have a point to make about this all?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

There also came to be Gnostic Christians but they were able to be logically proven wrong.

Religious beliefs of any kind have little to do with logic.

It took 30 or 40 years to see it important to record the gospel testimonies.

Firstly, they are not testimonies as we have no idea who actually wrote them, and secondly, the canon, as we now have it, first appears in the late fourth century [367 CE Festal Letter from Athanasius]. However, it all came down to the human opinions of powerful ecclesiastics as to what should be included and what should be omitted.

[37818]

Religious beliefs of any kind have little to do with logic.

You cannot know that. There are types generalization fallacies. You do know that, do you not?

[JonathanL]

With regard to the Christian texts, of course there isn't. We have no original MSS and rely on copies of copies of copies.

This is yet another non-issue. According to most scholars of textual criticism the original text has been reconstructed to a very high degree of certainty. Even if we don't have the original texts anymore there is very good reasons to believe that the text we have in the NA28 and UBS5 is very close to what was in the original manuscripts contained.

[JonathanL]

I recommend Peter Cresswell's The Invention of Jesus: How the Church rewrote the New Testament on this issue.

1. What are Cresswell's qualifications regarding the textual transmission of the biblical manuscripts?

2. How seriously is his theory being taken by scholars in the relevant field?

[Tassman]

People are still people. They tend to do things how they want to do them regardless of what they are told.

I know, the naughty little tykes. Entire Christian communities scripturally justified slave ownership, the intimidation of black people, witch-killing, the subjugation of women in very large numbers and for many generations. These are the fruits of Christianity. Matthew 7:16-20

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

1. What are Cresswell's qualifications regarding the textual transmission of the biblical manuscripts?

His main discipline is not NT studies, if that is what you are asking. He is a social anthropologist.

2. How seriously is his theory being taken by scholars in the relevant field?[/QUOTE] Robert Eisenman gave the book a good review. However, he is not the only individual engaged in the study of the NT. Metzger and Ehrman, as well as Goodacre [to name but three] have spent much time on those texts.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

An affirmation-free assertion.

The first Christian to use the term "trias" was Theophilus of Antioch in the second century. He developed Logos theology more than any Christian thinker had before him, and was thus a precursor of the predominance of the Logos school in the next century (see Clement of Alexandria, Hippolytus, Origen).

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

You cannot know that. There are types generalization fallacies. You do know that, do you not?

Persons who exhibited beliefs in miraculous events, such as the raising of the dead, turning water into wine [an accomplishment credited to Dionysus], accepting the apotheosis of human beings, the resurrection of the dead, or of individuals being visited by, or hearing the voice[s] of, supernatural entities [e.g. Mohammed and Paul] would, in today's world, be more the concern of psychiatrists.