When was the Trinity concept invented?

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polonius
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When was the Trinity concept invented?

Post #1

Post by polonius »

“Regarding the New Testament, trinitarian scholar William Rusch has admitted:
“The binitarian formulas are found in Rom. 8:11, 2 Cor. 4:14, Gal. 1:1, Eph. 1:20, 1 Tim 1:2, 1 Pet. 1:21, and 2 John 1:13...No doctrine of the Trinity in the Nicene sense is present in the New Testament...

“There is no doctrine of the Trinity in the strict sense in the Apostolic Fathers...(Rusch W.G. The Trinitarian Controversy. Fortress Press, Phil., 1980, pp. 2-3).

“So, a trinitarian scholar admits that the New Testament uses what he calls binitarian formulas and no doctrine of the trinity was found in early post-apostolic times from those known as "Apostolic Fathers." This would include people such as Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna."

http://www.cogwriter.com/binitarian.htm#scholars

DPMartin
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Re: When was the Trinity concept invented?

Post #2

Post by DPMartin »

[Replying to post 1 by polonius.advice]

Gen 1:1 In the beginning God (the power) created the heaven and the earth.
Gen 1:2 And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God (the Presence hence Holy Spirit) moved upon the face of the waters.
Gen 1:3 And God said, (the Word of God hence of God that which goes forth from God) Let there be light: and there was light.


the God of Abraham the father Isaac the beloved son the was offered and Jacob who was renamed by God to Israel and had coincidently twelve sons and the Israelites are referred to as the Children of Israel. representing the Holy Spirit in the born again who are children in the same effect.


so there's the Father (the Power) the Son( the Word of God that processes from God now made flesh in Jesus Christ) and the Holy Spirit (the Presence of God).


all living that God created have the power to live the life they have, can express themselves to other living things in their presence. (in our case and creatures of the earth would be flesh or some form of earth they are made of)



so technically as long as God was, which is for ever.

but the Catholicism call trinity is some where in the 300's not long after the church of the roman empire was formed by a priest of the eastern part of the church and then the church adopted it.

bjs
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Post #3

Post by bjs »

The doctrine of the Trinity was formulated sometime between 33 AD and 213 AD.

There was no one person or group we can point to as the author of this doctrine. It was formulated slowly, organically, as people studied the writings of the Apostles.

By the time Tertullian wrote Adversus Praxean in 213 AD the doctrine was so well established that he could describe it as something already accepted as truth.

Tertullian wrote “We define that there are two, the Father and the Son, and three with the Holy Spirit, and this number is made by the pattern of salvation . . . [which] brings about unity in trinity, interrelating the three, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. They are three, not in dignity, but in degree, not in substance but in form, not in power but in kind. They are of one substance and power, because there is one God from whom these degrees, forms and kinds devolve in the name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit."

When and how the specific language of the doctrine (three in form but one in substance) was developed cannot be securely nailed down. It cannot be attributed to any one person or one moment. The slowly established consensus of the Apostolic Fathers is that, in accordance with the scriptures, there is one God who exists in three persons.
Understand that you might believe. Believe that you might understand. –Augustine of Hippo

2timothy316
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Post #4

Post by 2timothy316 »

The idea of a set of three gods or triple deity was invented in Babylon.

The Origin of the Trinity: From Paganism to Constantine
by Cher-El L. Hagensick
http://www.heraldmag.org/olb/Contents/d ... rinity.htm

bjs
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Post #5

Post by bjs »

[Replying to 2timothy316]

My assumption was that this thread is about the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which is nothing like the Babylonian concept.

If “trinity� is just being used to mean “any set of three� then the concept originated in Hinduism prior to the existence of written languages.
Understand that you might believe. Believe that you might understand. –Augustine of Hippo

2timothy316
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Post #6

Post by 2timothy316 »

bjs wrote:
My assumption was that this thread is about the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which is nothing like the Babylonian concept.
Ah I can see you didn't read the article I posted... :no:

From the article: "The historian, H. W. F. Saggs, explains that the Babylonian triad consisted of ‘three gods of roughly equal rank... whose inter-relationship is of the essence of their natures’ (316)."

So 'nothing' alike is incorrect. They are actually very much alike.

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Re: When was the Trinity concept invented?

Post #7

Post by steveb1 »

polonius.advice wrote: “Regarding the New Testament, trinitarian scholar William Rusch has admitted:
“The binitarian formulas are found in Rom. 8:11, 2 Cor. 4:14, Gal. 1:1, Eph. 1:20, 1 Tim 1:2, 1 Pet. 1:21, and 2 John 1:13...No doctrine of the Trinity in the Nicene sense is present in the New Testament...

“There is no doctrine of the Trinity in the strict sense in the Apostolic Fathers...(Rusch W.G. The Trinitarian Controversy. Fortress Press, Phil., 1980, pp. 2-3).

“So, a trinitarian scholar admits that the New Testament uses what he calls binitarian formulas and no doctrine of the trinity was found in early post-apostolic times from those known as "Apostolic Fathers." This would include people such as Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna."

http://www.cogwriter.com/binitarian.htm#scholars
Christianity began as a sect within monotheistic Judaism. As such, it had no concept of a "Triune" God. Its God was strictly, numerically, "One". Official Trinitarianism was largely an invention of the Fourth Century, and was the product of mostly non-Jewish, Greco-Roman thinking and philosophy. That's the historical origin of the Trinity.

However, ancient Judaism always had a binitarian aspect - the conception that some great angelic figure had been standing by God's side in heaven from time immemorial. Although not ontological God, "Yahoel", Israel's Great Angel, nonetheless bore God's name and executed God's judgment. Likewise, the pre-existent, primordial, heavenly Son of Man was said to live in the clouds of heaven and to have a close association with God, as well as a glorified presence in God's throne room. This latter idea is particularly significant to Christian origins.

Jesus himself throughout the Gospels identifies himself and his mission with the figure and the intent of the heavenly Son of Man. Especially at his trial, he testifies to the Sanhedrin of his identity with the cloud-dwelling heavenly figure, telling the high priest that "you" will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great glory, "with Power" (a reference to the Presence of God himself). It is no wonder that the priest tore his garments and cried "Blasphemy!" because the strange Galilean preacher was claiming to be an enfleshed, earthly iteration of God's ancient heavenly companion.

Through a long process of development, Jesus as heavenly Son of Man, and his exalted function as Yahoel, Israel's Great Angel, who bore God's name and is to exercise God's judgment on the "last day", was slowly elevated to the status of "Son" - which by itself is probably not too far a stretch.

However, that "Son" figure became imbued with deity and became an ontological Son, a second person in a Trinity. From God's pre-existent assisting heavenly agent, the Jewish mystical Jesus was transformed from the Son of Man into the Son of God...and then, finally, into "God the Son" in its full-blown Trinitarian connotation.

bjs
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Post #8

Post by bjs »

2timothy316 wrote:
bjs wrote:
My assumption was that this thread is about the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which is nothing like the Babylonian concept.
Ah I can see you didn't read the article I posted... :no:

From the article: "The historian, H. W. F. Saggs, explains that the Babylonian triad consisted of ‘three gods of roughly equal rank... whose inter-relationship is of the essence of their natures’ (316)."

So 'nothing' alike is incorrect. They are actually very much alike.
The Herald Magazine, a Muslim publication out Pakistan, leans hard into own philosophical bias. Mainly a political magazine, it is rarely seen as an objective source on culture or religion.

This particular article openly makes an effort to connect the Christian doctrine of the Trinity to earlier pagan religions, and does so at the expense of accuracy.

When we research the Babylonian pantheon, instead of reading propaganda attempting to link Babylonian beliefs to Christianity, we find nothing resembling the Christian Trinity.

Instead, we find something much more similar to the Roman and Greek pantheons. We find groups of gods in relation with each other, but nothing resembling the Christian concept of the trinity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylonian_religion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_M ... n_religion
Understand that you might believe. Believe that you might understand. –Augustine of Hippo

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Post #9

Post by Overcomer »

2Timothy316 wrote:
From the article: "The historian, H. W. F. Saggs, explains that the Babylonian triad consisted of ‘three gods of roughly equal rank... whose inter-relationship is of the essence of their natures’ (316)."
I have noticed a disturbing trend in anti-Trinitarian articles. They tend to take statements out of context which make it seem like the author is backing up their viewpoints on the Trinity -- in this case, that Christians borrowed the idea of the Trinity from the Babylonians. The articles tend to leave out key parts (that's what the ellipsis indicates in the above quotation) that they don't want you to know about. And when you read the articles from which those statements are taken, we see that they don't support JW or Muslim beliefs about the Triune God at all.

With that in mind, here is what Saggs actually wrote. Notice how the above quoted statements read in context:

“Though the term ‘triad’ is often applied (as it is elsewhere in this book) to the three gods Anu, Enlil and Enki considered together, it can be misleading if ‘triad’ is to mean anything more specific theologically than three gods of roughly equal rank. In many respects Enki stands apart from Anu and Enlil, and the conception of a triad (in the more precise sense of three deities whose interrelationship is of the essence of their natures) is certainly not present in Sumerian religion in the earliest stage at which we know it.�

Here is how Robert Bowman, an expert on the Trinity, analyses what Saggs wrote:

Notice that according to Saggs the three deities in question were a “triad� only in a very loose sense. There was nothing essential or necessary about their grouping into three. The words “whose interrelationship is of the essence of their natures� quoted in the Herald Magazine article are actually expressing an idea that Saggs said did not apply to the ancient Sumerian belief: he says this idea of a triad “is certainly not present in Sumerian religion in the earliest stage at which we know it.� Thus, the Herald Magazine article has taken Suggs out of context.

From: http://bib.irr.org/h-w-f-saggs-babyloni ... and-nature

Do you see what I mean about altering a statement to make it say what anti-Trinitarians want it to say? Saggs actually said the exact opposite of what the author of the article would like you to believe.

And to be fair to 2timothy316, he's only quoting the article in support of what the JWs teach. Therefore, I am not accusing him personally of dishonesty. It's the JW church that bears the responsibility for teaching outright lies to its adherents.

On the one hand, I could be generous and say that, when the author of the Herald article talks about a "triad", it shows that he doesn't understand what Christians mean when we talk about a Trinity and he's writing out of ignorance. The Biblical Trinity isn't three gods. It's one God who exists in three persons, that is, a Godhead consisting of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit who are one in essence but have three individual consciousnesses. We're not talking about three ontologically separate gods.

On the other hand, the fact that the doctored quotation attempts to make it look like the Babylonian gods did have some connection in essence tells me that the author of the article DID understand how we define the Trinity re:ontology and he is making a desperate attempt to make it sound like we borrowed the ontological argument from elsewhere. We didn't. Indeed, that's what makes Christianity different from every other religion out there. There is only one Triune God and that's the God of the Bible.

There are a thousand verses in the Bible that attest to the reality of the Trinity. They show that Yahweh, Jesus and the Holy Spirit are identical in essence and attributes as well as purpose. I'm willing to talk about them one at a time for however long it takes with anybody who is interested in doing so. They're listed here:

http://irr.org/biblical-basis-of-doctrine-of-trinity

And there are numerous church fathers who also wrote about the Trinity. Clement of Alexandria wrote this:

“I understand nothing else than the Holy Trinity to be meant: for the third is the Holy Spirit, and the Son is the Second� (Stromata, Book V, ch. 14; 190 A.D.)

See here:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... book5.html

Irenaeus wrote this:

'For inasmuch as the Word of God was man from the root of Jesse, and son of Abraham, in this respect did the Spirit of God rest upon Him, and anoint Him to preach the Gospel to the lowly. But inasmuch as He was God, He did not judge according to glory, nor reprove after the manner of speech.' (IX.3, Against Heresies).

See here:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... book3.html ).

If you read everything Irenaeus wrote, you'll see that he considered Jesus is God. He states it outright, for example, in Book 1, XX.1, of Against Heresies, where he calls Jesus Christ "our Lord, and God, and Saviour, and King".

See here:

http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/t ... book1.html

These are not the only church fathers who wrote of the Trinity, but I don't have time to post more today.

2timothy316
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Post #10

Post by 2timothy316 »

[Replying to post 8 by bjs]

Are you familiar with the term Babylon the Great? You claim bias yet the Bible agrees that the trinity is just Babylon's teachings magnified.

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