Is the Trinity really in the Bible?

[polonius]

The “Messiah� according to the OT is a man and never divine. This was only changed when the Christian community decided that Jesus was divine himself which was followed by the Jewish 12th Benediction (c. 85 AD) declaring Christians to be “minim� or apostates and expelling them from the Jewish synagogues (see John’s gospel, c. 95 AD).

Even the “Introduction to Matthew� in the New American Bible recognizes that the author of the Gospel of Matthew was not the apostle Matthew.

So what we are left with is, at best, the writing of an unknown writer who was not a witness to the event and whose writings about 50 years after the fact are unsupported to the writing of the other gospel writers.

[bjs]

Linking descriptors is that are at least commentary, if not outright redundant, is the norm for semitic thought. “Shield and Defender.� “Rock and Redeemer.� “Fortress and Deliverer.�

That kind of language is common enough it would be striking if Paul never used it.

Yep, there are nice terms for the piling up of adjectives and nouns: synathroesmus and accumulatio and in Latin congeries verborum was favoured by Cicero. The case we have is different from shield and defender, rock and strength. Referring to Jesus as God is shock enough.

Another interpretation is that we are dealing with god meaning mighty human - it's used that way in the OT, psalm 82 I think - but I believe the passage here is simply talking about the greatness of Yahweh and the saving power of Jesus. We have discussed the text enough to indicate that we are far from being able to say with certainty that Jesus is being called God.

Shock does not seems to have been the goal in Paul’s account in Titus, nor was it the goal in any of the other examples of I mentioned.

Sure, it’s possible that Paul was referring to Jesus as God in the sense of being a mighty human. He never used the word like that in any of the letters attributed to him and he gave no hint that this is what he was doing it this passage from Titus, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible. This would be an awkward and unnatural way of saying this, but that doesn’t make it impossible.

Like I pointed out in my first post on this topic: There are other possible interpretation, but they are not the natural reading of the passage. We can’t be certain that Paul was saying that Jesus is God; it is just most likely meaning based on what Paul wrote.

[marco]

Shock does not seems to have been the goal in Paul’s account in Titus, nor was it the goal in any of the other examples of I mentioned.

I wasn't using the word as descriptive of the writer's goal. The enormity of saying Jesus is God needs no further embellishment or epithet. It's nothing to do with intent.

Like I pointed out in my first post on this topic: There are other possible interpretation, but they are not the natural reading of the passage. We can’t be certain that Paul was saying that Jesus is God; it is just most likely meaning based on what Paul wrote.

We can't be certain - that is true - so it is wrong to introduce the passage as an indication that Jesus was God. As I translate it, there is no need for such a leap. If one already believes Jesus is God, it's a small matter to take that meaning from the text.


Quite apart from all this, Paul's view on things is not an infallible one, however much Paul may like to have thought so. If it did enter the Pauline brain to consider Jesus a deity, he was doing so within the polytheism of his Roman citizenship.