When did God tell the Israelites that He was three persons?

[Soapy]

The Trinitarian concept is a theological construct within Catholicism whereas Jesus and the Holy Spirit are of the essence of God. The concept of essence was from Aristotle and Plato, which the early Church used since the first books in what became the N.T. were in Koine Greek. Generally speaking, scholars living in the Mediterranean region would well know how that concept works.

es·sence
[ˈesəns]
NOUN

1. the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character:
   "conflict is the essence of drama"
   synonyms:
   • philosophy
     a property or group of properties of something without which it would not exist or be what it is.

Your presentation is very interesting… Since you present a definition - please explain it:

1) If the Father, Jesus, and the spirit of God are ESSENCE of God…. What (Who?) is GOD?

2) Is it like saying that GOD is a THING and the three PERSONS of the trinity partake of the THING that is God?

3) Why is God referred to as though IT is a PERSON WHICH even speaks to Jesus BUT NOT to the Father NOR the spirit of IT?

4) Scriptures states:

• ‘Spirit OF GOD’
• ‘Son OF GOD’

…
But no

• ‘Father OF GOD’

Please can you explain why since it would naturally follow:
G /———- Father of …
O -|———- Son of…
D \———- Spirit of …

But wait… Jesus is ‘Son of the Father’!

So does Jesus play a dual role as both Son of God AND Son of the Father?

Plus Jesus BECOMES Son of Man…!

And yet trinity says all three persons are EQUAL TO EACH OTHER… How is this possible?

If Jesus is MAN does this make him LESS than the total GOD since man is weakness in relation to Almighty God? Or, is Jesus MORE than the other two since he has MORE ATTRIBUTES than the other two?

Questions… Questions… everywhere…
But nothing in Scriptures to answer them!

 

[Soapy]

The Catholic church can trace itself back to the first century. Ignatius wrote of the Catholic Church before his death in 110 CE. Ignatius was ordained a bishop by Peter himself. Obviously Peter thought Ignatius trustworthy enough to teach what the apostles taught. Thus, one can reasonably say that the Catholic Church that Ignatius wrote about was one and the same church as that developed by the apostles.

You can also make a reasonable argument that the Nazarenes were not the same as the Catholic church. After all, these Christians were all Jews who obeyed Torah law and continued in the sacrifices. This is the only group i know of that someone can reasonably say existed prior to the Catholic Church.

There is scant evidence as to what the normative teaching on the divinity of Jesus in the first century. However, by the second century, the most common understanding was actually Modalism -- the idea that there was only one God, but this one God had different modes of existence. I forget the name of the church father, but someone in the second century wrote extensively against this position, and promoted a kind of proto-trinitarianism.

It was not really until the 4th century that the Catholic church (in response to Arianism) nailed down the Trinity as Christians know it today.

This is all interesting … in a minor way … but where in SCRIPTURES is the evidence of a TRINITY GOD?

 

[Soapy]

10 “You are my witnesses,” declares Jehovah,
“Yes, my servant whom I have chosen,
So that you may know and have faith in me
And understand that I am the same One.
Before me no God was formed,
And after me there has been none.

Please expand on this presentation to show the CONTEXT that these words were spoken:

• Who was speaking these words (perhaps frame the answer in terms of a single person God, and try for a Three-Person God)
• What was the purpose of these words - why was it necessary to utter them?
• Are there any other verses that compound the point of the verse you quoted?

 

[Soapy]

Yes

Hi Brian2, good to see you being as expressive as ever!

 

[Soapy]

[Exo 20:1-3 NIV] 1 And God spoke all these words: 2 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 3 "You shall have no other gods before me...."​

This is the NIV which is considered a premier English translation, so it is about as good a translation as we get. Therefore it has problems, but its as good a translation as can be obtained generally, and it treats the scripture in question the same way as most others. Soapy feels confident about it.

Soapy claims that God says to Israel the he is the one God or is one God, but it appears to be Moses who speaks to Israel on behalf of the LORD. There is no direct address to Israel as Soapy seems to claim. This lowers the authority of the speech from "God said to Israel" to something else. It is at best Moses saying it to Israel, not 'God' talking directly to Israel.

That is only half of what is wrong. In Moses words here in Exodus 20 is the phrase 'Your god', showing possession and creating a problem with Soapy using the modern term 'God' in the verse. The Hebrew term 'Eloheem' has been changed to 'God'. Why? 'God' is a philosophically derived English term implying a divinity that is over all people everywhere, but this scripture verse has the term 'Your' in it addressed to Israel. It is specific to Israel and not to everyone, not over everyone, not for everyone. It does not say "I am God" but "I am the LORD your God" and is addressed not to everyone everywhere but to Israel. Therefore Soapy's appeal to it being about 'God' is shaky in spite of the translation. He is, after all, questioning large bodies of churchmen and using scripture as his solid basis. Shouldn't the scripture he uses support his position without translational trickery -- without sliding things around and tapping things in with hammers? Shouldn't he rely upon something that doesn't exclude all people other than Israel when talking about the God of all people everywhere?

Should we view everyone everywhere as Israel? If not, then this 'Elohim' should not be translated 'God', but it is. Soapy is not at fault for that, however he does make the mistake of criticizing catholics for not being able to find support for their ideas about trinitarianism in scripture but then mistakenly appeals to this scripture to support his own claims. He has no more support for his claim than the catholics have to their trinitarian one.

There is no Jewish scripture in which God says to Israel "I am one person: God." It is at best some semantic slidery that doesn't reflect the original intent of the verses claimed by Soapy.

Oh, you mean this one doesn’t count:

• “Hear, O Israel, the Lord your God is ONE”!

The context follows and leads on all else spoken by God such wherein God tells the Israelites to have no other God but He since no other ‘God’ is true.

And your previous suggestions… This one God IS the God of all people, tribes, and nations IN OVERARCHING VIEW. However, on a local level each tribe, and nation ascribe to themself a CREATED God and forgoes the true God. So saying, the true God views the Israelite nation as the only one that has a tendency to follow His spirit and do His works… therefore this God says that Israel is his Son (and this definition is important : A Son is he who does the works of his Father!)

 

[IndigoChild5559]

This is all interesting … in a minor way … but where in SCRIPTURES is the evidence of a TRINITY GOD?

There is nothing in the Tanakh that supports the Trinity. As for the New Testament, it's better if you ask Christians.

 

[Brian2]

Hi Brian2, good to see you being as expressive as ever!

The Father is the only true God.

 

[wellwisher]

I have heard many debates about the so-called Trinity God that the greater sect of Christianity is supposed to believe in. However, I cannot find in the scriptures anywhere where God tells anyone that He is three persons.

I know that God tells the Israelites that He is ONE GOD and that they should have no other God but He…, but I can’t see anywhere where it is stated, inferred, conjectured, shown, nor proved to the Israelites, Jews, nor Christian’s, that He is three person!

Are there any such proofs, suggestions, inferences, etc….?

The trinity can be understood with an analogy. There is a man named, Joe, who is a father, a son and a husband. He is a father to his children, a son to his parents and a husband to his wife. He is one person with one Driver's license, but he relates in three distinct ways to different members of his nuclear family. He is intimate with his wife in unique ways. He is respectful of his parents in unique ways, and he is strict but fair with his children in unique ways.

The trinity is connected to the three main ways the people within Judeo-Christianity worship the same God; Joe. This is why the Bible is all combined. The Old Testament is about law; father. The New Testament is about forgiveness of sins and love; son. The Future Testament; after Jesus, is about faith in the inner voice; Holy Spirit. They are all one big family, spread out over space and time, with God and humans interacting in three distinct ways, which all exist, together, today.

It is not polytheism in the sense that Joe is not three separate people; split personality, but he is one Joe and three essences of the same being. Joe is also a manager in his job and a volunteer at the shelter. In polytheism, they would represent Joe with five separate entities, each with different costumes and looks. The trinity represented a shift in perspective, seeing the human personality not linear; polytheism specialty, but composed of many connected neural firmware; one complete person.

The Future Testament has yet to be compiled.It would be the stories of faith in the inner voice of the Holy Spirit, that helped to shape the future; after Jesus, leading to the present. Those who worshiped the father and son; old and new testaments, were not always receptive to the spirit; Joan of Ark. They were often spooked and assumed Satan or Witches. But as time went on they all saw how these renegades of faith were also part of the same family.

The Catholic Church had two career paths for Priests. Some were the leaders of a flock teaching the words of the Church. Others were more meditative and were isolated, so they could follow the charisma of faith, sheltered from temporal secular interference and judgements. The Alchemist who pioneered modern science and chemistry were doctors and often meditative priests, who saw into the future, but had to guard against the present.

 

[metis]

Does this mean that the Christians that existed before Catholics declared its belief of trinitarianism were unitary?

It's impossible to recreate today all the elements that went into the Nicene Council's formulation of the creed, but this was debated by an estimated 1000 bishops for around a half-century which included compromises, especially to bring those in Arianism aboard.

 

[PruePhillip]

The Trinitarian concept is a theological construct within Catholicism whereas Jesus and the Holy Spirit are of the essence of God. The concept of essence was from Aristotle and Plato, which the early Church used since the first books in what became the N.T. were in Koine Greek. Generally speaking, scholars living in the Mediterranean region would well know how that concept works.

es·sence
[ˈesəns]
NOUN

1. the intrinsic nature or indispensable quality of something, especially something abstract, that determines its character:
   "conflict is the essence of drama"
   synonyms:
   • philosophy
     a property or group of properties of something without which it would not exist or be what it is.

People stumble at the SIMPLICITY of the Gospels, don't they? Nothing to do with Plato, Aristotle or Constantine, thank goodness.

 

[metis]

Your presentation is very interesting… Since you present a definition - please explain it:

1) If the Father, Jesus, and the spirit of God are ESSENCE of God…. What (Who?) is GOD?

2) Is it like saying that GOD is a THING and the three PERSONS of the trinity partake of the THING that is God?

3) Why is God referred to as though IT is a PERSON WHICH even speaks to Jesus BUT NOT to the Father NOR the spirit of IT?

4) Scriptures states:

• ‘Spirit OF GOD’
• ‘Son OF GOD’

…
But no

• ‘Father OF GOD’

Please can you explain why since it would naturally follow:
G /———- Father of …
O -|———- Son of…
D \———- Spirit of …

But wait… Jesus is ‘Son of the Father’!

So does Jesus play a dual role as both Son of God AND Son of the Father?

Plus Jesus BECOMES Son of Man…!

And yet trinity says all three persons are EQUAL TO EACH OTHER… How is this possible?

If Jesus is MAN does this make him LESS than the total GOD since man is weakness in relation to Almighty God? Or, is Jesus MORE than the other two since he has MORE ATTRIBUTES than the other two?

Questions… Questions… everywhere…
But nothing in Scriptures to answer them!

I did explain it, so let me just do it in brief: Technically, the Holy Spirit and Jesus are not God, but their essence has it that they are of God.

 

[metis]

People stumble at the SIMPLICITY of the Gospels, don't they? Nothing to do with Plato, Aristotle or Constantine, thank goodness.

True, but the Christian scriptures do reflect the time and the location whereas they were composed.

 

[metis]

I've referenced Joel Burnett's A Reassessment of Biblical Elohim before. The author argues, convincingly in my opinion, that the term 'elohim is a grammatical form which he calls "concretized abstract plural" -- a reference to something possessing multiple qualities/characteristics (or, perhaps, essences). A good example might be the Hebrew word mayim (water).

Exactly, and one strongly believed in possibility is that the plural refers to YHWH and his angels. However, ...

 

[metis]

False. The doctrine of the Trinity long predates the split between Eastern and Western Churches ad is also shared by the Copts and other branches. So it is far from being just part of Catholic theology. It was the belief of just about all Christians, once a coherent body of doctrine had coalesced after the earliest days, apart from the various "heresies" of Arianism, the Cathars etc, and then some post-Reformation groups in the Western church.

No, it is not false.

In the 1st & early 2nd century Church, the scholars that helped to start organizing what would eventually become most of the N.T. scriptures, predominantly lived in the Mediterranean area with Alexandria, Egypt, being more of the standout location. They well knew of the strong Hellenizing influence that was going on then and there. If the scriptures had been written in modern English as used in the west today, they undoubtedly would read quite differently.

BTW, an excellent source that goes into detail on this is "History of the Catholic Church" by James Hitchcock.

 

[Soapy]

The trinity can be understood with an analogy. There is a man named, Joe, who is a father, a son and a husband. He is a father to his children, a son to his parents and a husband to his wife. He is one person with one Driver's license, but he relates in three distinct ways to different members of his nuclear family. He is intimate with his wife in unique ways. He is respectful of his parents in unique ways, and he is strict but fair with his children in unique ways.

The trinity is connected to the three main ways the people within Judeo-Christianity worship the same God; Joe. This is why the Bible is all combined. The Old Testament is about law; father. The New Testament is about forgiveness of sins and love; son. The Future Testament; after Jesus, is about faith in the inner voice; Holy Spirit. They are all one big family, spread out over space and time, with God and humans interacting in three distinct ways, which all exist, together, today.

It is not polytheism in the sense that Joe is not three separate people; split personality, but he is one Joe and three essences of the same being. Joe is also a manager in his job and a volunteer at the shelter. In polytheism, they would represent Joe with five separate entities, each with different costumes and looks. The trinity represented a shift in perspective, seeing the human personality not linear; polytheism specialty, but composed of many connected neural firmware; one complete person.

The Future Testament has yet to be compiled.It would be the stories of faith in the inner voice of the Holy Spirit, that helped to shape the future; after Jesus, leading to the present. Those who worshiped the father and son; old and new testaments, were not always receptive to the spirit; Joan of Ark. They were often spooked and assumed Satan or Witches. But as time went on they all saw how these renegades of faith were also part of the same family.

The Catholic Church had two career paths for Priests. Some were the leaders of a flock teaching the words of the Church. Others were more meditative and were isolated, so they could follow the charisma of faith, sheltered from temporal secular interference and judgements. The Alchemist who pioneered modern science and chemistry were doctors and often meditative priests, who saw into the future, but had to guard against the present.

Did you forget that Joe is a brother to two siblings, and a nephew to three uncles, and a grandfather, too!

How many ‘Joe’s are there?

In Christianity, SATAN is said to be ‘GOD’, also.

Jesus is said to be ‘Prince’… But SATAN is also ‘Prince’… meaning, in your terms, that he is also Jesus, since Jesus is prince!

‘Oh what a tangled web you weave
when first you think it good to deceive!
But know this well, and do perceive:
It’s the truth of God you really grieve!’

 

[Soapy]

I did explain it, so let me just do it in brief: Technically, the Holy Spirit and Jesus are not God, but their essence has it that they are of God.

And the Father…? Is He not ‘Essence of God’?

So since the Son and the Spirit are both only OF GOD then that means they ARE NOT GOD, is that right?

The holy Angels are also sons OF GOD.

The Spiritual Church is OF GOD.

 

[Soapy]

It's impossible to recreate today all the elements that went into the Nicene Council's formulation of the creed, but this was debated by an estimated 1000 bishops for around a half-century which included compromises, especially to bring those in Arianism aboard.

Compromises create flaws in a pure entity.

Compromise is what the church demanded when it insisted that the earth was the centre of the solar system. Most who disagreed were tortured or killed.

Compromise is what led the church to believe in a tri-person god. It’s what most other religious belief system favoured as their doctrine. In order to bring such beliefs under the umbrella oc the new Christianity, the church sought to COMPROMISE itself:

• ‘We have but one God…. The Father is one; the Son is one; the holy spiritual is one’ … oh dear!!
• ‘But though there are three they are yet one!’... oh, double dear dear!!

Sounds like a u-turn - a double-back… an attempt at forcing a situation on a failed theology much like the ‘Earth is centre…’: The fudge to make the belief appear true!! (Yes, the church got the astronomers to fudge the calculations to get the ‘errant’ planets to appear to orbit the earth…. Happily, Galileo and Copernicus stuck by their guns (true calculations) and showed that it was the sun that was the centre of tte solar system…!)

 

[Colt]

I have heard many debates about the so-called Trinity God that the greater sect of Christianity is supposed to believe in. However, I cannot find in the scriptures anywhere where God tells anyone that He is three persons.

I know that God tells the Israelites that He is ONE GOD and that they should have no other God but He…, but I can’t see anywhere where it is stated, inferred, conjectured, shown, nor proved to the Israelites, Jews, nor Christian’s, that He is three person!

Are there any such proofs, suggestions, inferences, etc….?

While there are traces of plural deity in the scripture Judaism eradicated the idea of plural manifestation from their theology.

To the Jews, Elohim was the God of gods, while Yahweh was the God of Israel. Jesus referred to all divine beings in unity as God.

 

[metis]

Compromises create flaws in a pure entity.

Not necessarily, since people and groups of people are not omniscient, therefore there's simply no guarantee that any one element will get it 100% right.

 

[metis]

And the Father…? Is He not ‘Essence of God’?

The belief is that He is God.