Hi, I no longer believe in the trinity teaching and I also no longer have to kid myself and others that it was logical to me.
People say that the Bible must be understand in context.
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the men who drew up the creeds and wrote the theological texts?"
They must also be understood in their context. There is is the context:
In the Roman Empire, there were many gods and and sons of gods, both among the Greco-Roman pagan religions as well as the emperors who were ascribed "divinity" and "divi filius", "son of a god". It is also known that the Romans sought common ground among the various religions in the empire. Further evidence of motive is that early Roman Christianity was state religion enacted by force such as destruction and/or conversion of houses of worship.
Based on this, it is not unreasonable to consider that for the needs of unified religion in the Roman Empire ("all things to all people"), Jesus was used as a human-like ‘god’ figure to help a huge population of Greco-Roman pagans convert to Jewish monotheism. The pagans believed in human-like gods. By using a human-like form (Jesus) as an image of the true God, the pagans could transfer their thinking from the pagan gods to the true God. It's a parable. This should not be surprising. In the Roman Church we see a pattern of substitution of a pagan artifact of worship for a Christian one. It's a simple substitution process. We see this in holidays, prayer, statues, and many other aspects. So, the substitution of a human-like image of God, in place of human-like pagan god figure, for adaptation to monotheism, is a normal part of the pattern.
Many Scriptures can be shown that fit the above pattern, and in my experience, this pattern is generally a better explanation for those Scriptures than the traditional one.
If interested, to get a sense, one can look up what the name "Jupiter" means.
None of this has bearing on whether God taught through Jesus. It only has bearing on additional stories that were fabricated about Jesus (based on the above reasoning and related reasoning). This also is not to judge whether the use of these "parables" was right or wrong. The intentions may have been honorable, and one might argue that the resultant religion was an improvement over polytheism. It is also reasonable to consider that a tension existed between the church and that state. I.e. The church may have been pressured into the extent of the theological adaptations. However, the "parables" went too far and the religion wasn't accepted by Jewish people, including the trinity, which they (rightly in my belief) still don't accept.
You may also find this interesting:
Many religious including those who use the Christian Bible, are non-trinitarian. This appears to be a potential trend. Some believe that Jesus has a particular role and relationship to God, other's don't. However, all believe that God is one in the non-trinitarian sense. Jewish people...
www.religiousforums.com
The word "Judaic" is an adjective, not a noun, so one would never say "a Judaic." You are correct that the right word is Jew.
