What is a Person? What is the difference between the Father’s Person and the Spirit’s Person? And if these Persons are One in substance how can they be different? It took the church quite a while before they espoused the doctrine but instead of being non-dogmatic some said you were bot a Christian if you did not believe in the Trinity.

Never mind that the Word says nothing of the sort, these are the doctrines of men. I believe in the orthodox view of the Trinity, but is is such an intangible and can only be supported Scripturally by very thinly conjunctive verses with many “fill ins” that are assumptions. And after all is said and done we are explaining the eternal God Himself, not with what He has revealed to us, but we are reaching up into eternity past and systematizing it.

So if you believe God is three different Persons, or if you believe the three manifestations are one Person, it matters very little. The divinity of Christ is the paramount and non-negotiable doctrine upon which our faith stands.

There are a number of pre-Christian Jewish writings which identify the “trinity”

I have no probems with that, what I have problems with however is three persons. Again, the word Elohim also refers to kings, rulers and false gods all of which are very clearly singular and the word in that context means plural (in numeracy)! Surely if God was three persons (not denying a triune nature however) He would have revealed that in His name, YHWH, which is very singular.

Now – where I HAVE heard that God (plural) meant God + the heavenly hosts, is from some Christian scholars who understand the Hebrew language, but don’t understand the Hebrew context of scripture

It just doesn’t make plain sense for God to join with creatures He just made like…a second ago… and say “Hey, let’s make man in OUR image.”

I suppose it’s a matter of opinion then, as it makes sense to me With the usage of Elohim it just doesn’t fit to me God speaking to Himself and using “us” when the word means singular in that context. Straight from Brown-Driver-Briggs’ dictionary:

2) (plural intensive – singular meaning)
2a) god, goddess
2b) godlike one
2c) works or special possessions of God
2d) the (true) God
2e) God

If He is three Persons, which one spoke? Which was in charge to order them? If it was the Godhead that spoke to all of them, was it all of them and none at the same time? God often gets his angels to do his work, so it doesn’t seem silly to me. If I’m in the shed working on my car with a mate who doesn’t know much about them, I still use “we” type words to describe what’s happening.

Right, that makes no sense though, and also, remember they’re assuming the Trinity doesn’t exist, because they refuse to believe. I wouldn’t trust Jewish Scholars to interpret the Bible anymore than I would trust Muslims. Or an Atheist.

The exact opposite can be said that Christians believe in a Trinity of Persons that doesn’t exist and refuse to believe so. I feel there’s also a great danger in refusing truth from Jews just because they don’t have the Holy Spirit. It’s their native language and they understand it well. We can end up in all sorts of strange beliefs that aren’t grounded in the Old Testament.

I still don’t trust “bible scholars” who don’t have the Holy Spirit. Then again, I don’t trust a lot of scholars who DO. LOL. Not that I won’t listen and consider.

Joe

Besides, it can’t be the heavenly hosts that makes the ‘our’ statement with God. Angels are not made in God’s image, man is. Man is the only creation in God’s image. It just doesn’t make plain sense for God to join with creatures He just made like…a second ago… and say “Hey, let’s make man in OUR image.” Angels aren’t anything like God or man, they’re ministering spirits like Hebrews says.

It’s not like the angels (part of this creation, the only creation) existed before God started making things either, because nothing existed except God, so they’ve only been around as long as humans have. Angels were made to minister for God and Man. It just seems like a huge exegetical stretch to say the “us” from Genesis is angels. That would imply the angels were in God’s image, and that destroys a lot of Biblical doctrine. What about the tower of Babel where God says “us” again?.

But then again, Rob Bell would just say that these doctrines are just more ’springs on the trampoline of faith’, whatever that junk means lol. I usually deal in brick walls. (Read Velvet Elvis if you have no idea what I mean by this lol)

V/R

Joe

There are a number of pre-Christian Jewish writings which identify the “trinity” (God as Creator, God as Word, God as Spirit), including the ancient sections of Genesis Rabbah, which would have been in the oral traditions Jesus was familiar with.

There are a number of times that the Ruach Ha Kodesh – the Holy Wind or Holy Spirit – is mentioned in the Old Testament, and it has always been seen as separate from God but yet still a part of God from the beginning.

Additionally, there was – and for Jews who do not believe in Jesus, there still is – on exactly what God the Word (Genesis 1:3) is, though traditionally it was seen as the Hebrew Scriptures (which we call the Old Testament), which had orally passed down over centuries of time. This is why John opens his gospel the way he does:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.

John is acknowledging what most observant Jews believed at this point. The Word = God (Elohim)

Later, though, he identifies that Word

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.

It is here that John is explicitly stating that Jesus = Word, leaving it for the reader to understand that if Jesus = Word and Word = God, that Jesus = God.

I once had a Jewish friend who thought it was funny that Christians argued over the triune nature of God, specifically because the first three verses of scripture spelled this out.

Now – where I HAVE heard that God (plural) meant God + the heavenly hosts, is from some Christian scholars who understand the Hebrew language, but don’t understand the Hebrew context of scripture… that does not surprise me. In modern parlance, we call that “book-smart and street-stupid”…

where he opens with a direct definition of the Trinity from Genesis 1:3 (where God is identified as plural – Elohim):

Elohim is a plural, but it is a plural of importance, not numeracy.

Phil Miller:

I’ve often wondered what someone would think reading Genesis for the first time having not heard of the concept of the Trinity and coming across the “let us”. It would indeed seem odd.

From what I’ve read on the matter, *pretty much every Hebrew scholar seems to think that God refering to “us” is Him speaking to the heavenly hosts.

*That I have read

FWIW, my 14-year-old son with ADHD stood (standing room only) through the entire 105 minutes of it, listening intently – and he still remembers most of what was presented 17 months later…