History of the Trinity

Pavel Mosko

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I've been researching, Blogging and Video Blogging concerning How the Trinity doctrine came into being in Christianity the last few years. So this thread will be a kind of summation and clarification of that.

1) I'm going to talk about Old Testament weirdness that would lead to "The Two Powers of Heaven" theology of 2nd Temple Judaism.

2) Mention how we tend to think in terms of "monotheism" which is different than how the Early Jews thought about things. (Monotheism is a term/concept only coined the last 5 centuries, previous generations contrasted their faith to "polytheism"/ paganism.)

3) The Influence of Philo of Alexandria on Christianity

4) The Jewish Targums, Gnostics, Arians etc. but plan to stop just before the Latin Fathers (the point of things is to show you the milestones that lead to the Church Fathers work on the Trinity).


But will do all this.... when I feel like it. :)

Later edit days after starting the thread
(I later decided to stop short of what I posted here not covering Philo and the Influence of Stoicism because of getting conflicting information and wanting more time to research things, so I ended things just before the time of the New Testament, and will be covering this stuff someday later in the future).
 
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I've been researching, Blogging and Video Blogging concerning How the Trinity doctrine came into being in Christianity the last few years. So this thread will be a kind of summation and clarification of that.

1) I'm going to talk about Old Testament weirdness that would lead to "The Two Powers of Heaven" theology of 2nd Temple Judaism.

2) Mention how we tend to think in terms of "monotheism" which is different than how the Early Jews thought about things. (Monotheism is a term/concept only coined the last 5 centuries, previous generations contrasted their faith to "polytheism"/ paganism.)

3) The Influence of Philo of Alexandria on Christianity

4) The Jewish Targums, Gnostics, Arians etc. but plan to stop just before the Latin Fathers (the point of things is to show you the milestones that lead to the Church Fathers work on the Trinity).


But will do all this.... when I feel like it. :)
I belive the Trinty is clearly taught in the prophesy given by Isaiah 9:6.
There is a very clear teaching here.

For unto us a Child is born,
Unto us a Son(Jesus Christ of Nazareth)is given;
And the government will be upon His shoulder.
And His name will be called
Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
 
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BobRyan

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"One God" Deut 6:4
IN "three persons" Matt 28:19

is clearly taught in scripture itself and I know of no one in my denomination that teaches this doctrine from anything other than scripture itself which is how all of our evangelism is done.
 
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public hermit

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I've been researching, Blogging and Video Blogging concerning How the Trinity doctrine came into being in Christianity the last few years. So this thread will be a kind of summation and clarification of that.

1) I'm going to talk about Old Testament weirdness that would lead to "The Two Powers of Heaven" theology of 2nd Temple Judaism.

2) Mention how we tend to think in terms of "monotheism" which is different than how the Early Jews thought about things. (Monotheism is a term/concept only coined the last 5 centuries, previous generations contrasted their faith to "polytheism"/ paganism.)

3) The Influence of Philo of Alexandria on Christianity

4) The Jewish Targums, Gnostics, Arians etc. but plan to stop just before the Latin Fathers (the point of things is to show you the milestones that lead to the Church Fathers work on the Trinity).


But will do all this.... when I feel like it. :)

Historical theology, studying how doctrine has developed over time, has always been eye opening for me. It will be interesting to see what you've found.
 
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Pavel Mosko

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"Two Powers in Heaven" theology

This book link gives a pretty good explanation of things.
Two Gods in Heaven


My synopsis

In Second Temple Judaism BC 500 to AD 70 many rabbis and other people who studied the scriptures began to notice weird things going on in the Old Testament, especially with "the Angel of the Lord". The Angel of the Lord does not act like a normal, generic messenger angel, but really acts or is depicted more like a god or God....

What do I mean by this? Well you find the angel of the Lord doing things like receiving prayer, worship, having the name of the Lord "in Him", "being referred to as a God" by God. He has the power to forgive or not forgive transgressions and so on.


I am slowly video Blogging about this covering it from different OT books




Anyway, the basic idea of Two Powers in Heaven is that heaven is ruled much like an Ancient kingdom. It was common to have a ruler/regent with a vice regent. This is basically the same as the ruler and their chancellor that we see in later times like medieval ages. In the Bible, the best example is Pharaoh in Genesis making Joseph governor of Egypt.

This idea also in general fits into another big idea, namely the Divine Counsel, The notion of God as an enthroned King surrounded by his heavenly court (the angels).
 
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"Two Powers in Heaven" theology

This book link gives a pretty good explanation of things.
Two Gods in Heaven


My synopsis

In Second Temple Judaism BC 500 to AD 70 many rabbis and other people who studied the scriptures began to notice weird things going on in the Old Testament, especially with "the Angel of the Lord". The Angel of the Lord does not act like a normal, generic messenger angel, but really acts or is depicted more like a god or God....

What do I mean by this? Well you find the angel of the Lord doing things like receiving prayer, worship, having the name of the Lord "in Him", "being referred to as a God" by God. He has the power to forgive or not forgive transgressions and so on.


I am slowly video Blogging about this covering it from different OT books




Anyway, the basic idea of Two Powers in Heaven is that heaven is ruled much like an Ancient kingdom. It was common to have a ruler/regent with a vice regent. This is basically the same as the ruler and their chancellor that we see in later times like medieval ages. In the Bible, the best example is Pharaoh in Genesis making Joseph governor of Egypt.

This idea also in general fits into another big idea, namely the Divine Counsel, The notion of God as an enthroned King surrounded by his heavenly court (the angels).

Interesting videos, and there's no doubt that some of the "Angel of the Lord" passages do not present as appearances of creatures. Do all the AOL passages come across exclusively as a divine appearances or are some more like generic (creaturely) angel passages?

What role do you think the intention of the word "angel" as messenger plays in the AOL passages? I"m already wanting to draw a connection between "Messenger of the Lord" and "Word of God."
 
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Pavel Mosko

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From what I can tell, Angel of the Lord in general describes a theophany. The only passage I sort of had some doubts on was this passage.

The Fall of Jericho
13 Now when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. Joshua went up to him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?”

14 “Neither,” he replied, “but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.” Then Joshua fell facedown to the ground in reverence, and asked him, “What message does my Lord have for his servant?”

15 The commander of the Lord’s army replied, “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy.” And Joshua did so.



I think I assumed for a long time this was arch angel Michael who was unnamed for some reason. But after reading up on this stuff, and looking at the context etc. I think this is probably a theophany, but this is one passage not usually spoken of as far as theophany's. But this passage kind was my best attempt to find an exception to the rule of thumb that the angel of the Lord term is something else like just an idiom of an angel that is working for the Lord.
 
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Pavel Mosko

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What role do you think the intention of the word "angel" as messenger plays in the AOL passages? I"m already wanting to draw a connection between "Messenger of the Lord" and "Word of God."

Yeah that is a good connection. And it is a connection that also comes out when it comes to later Aramaic and Greek language developments and theology and philosophy in Second Temple Judaism.
 
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I've been researching, Blogging and Video Blogging concerning How the Trinity doctrine came into being in Christianity the last few years. So this thread will be a kind of summation and clarification of that.

1) I'm going to talk about Old Testament weirdness that would lead to "The Two Powers of Heaven" theology of 2nd Temple Judaism.

2) Mention how we tend to think in terms of "monotheism" which is different than how the Early Jews thought about things. (Monotheism is a term/concept only coined the last 5 centuries, previous generations contrasted their faith to "polytheism"/ paganism.)

3) The Influence of Philo of Alexandria on Christianity

4) The Jewish Targums, Gnostics, Arians etc. but plan to stop just before the Latin Fathers (the point of things is to show you the milestones that lead to the Church Fathers work on the Trinity).


But will do all this.... when I feel like it. :)
You always have interesting and informative view. Excited to see what you found.
 
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Pavel Mosko

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I'm continuing onward with other developments of Second Temple Judaism
This one is just a small excerpt from "the Religion of the Apostles"

The Wisdom of God In addition to identifying Jesus Christ as the Second Person of Yahweh in ways that were consistent with appearances of the Word of the Lord in the Hebrew Scriptures, St. John in his prologue also draws on a parallel set of traditions from the same Scriptures that understood the Second Person of the God of Israel to be the Wisdom of God. Understanding this tradition and its import for early Christology links Christian concepts of the relationship between Christ and the Father on the one hand and Christ and creation on the other. Much of this tradition centers on the personification of Wisdom in Proverbs 8, in which grammatically feminine terms are used.8 The central portion of this passage features Wisdom proclaiming:

De Young, Stephen . Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century (p. 37). Ancient Faith Publishing. Kindle Edition.



De Young, Stephen . Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century (p. 37). Ancient Faith Publishing. Kindle Edition.
 
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Pavel Mosko

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I snagged this excerpt from a Blog post which did a pretty good job talking about the Jewish Targums and their relevance to the topic.



Memra

Apart from this, the Jews in Aramaic speaking countries had a logos concept different from that of philosophically minded Jews in Egypt. The article “In the beginning was λόγος …” in Bible Researcher has this observation:

“After the Babylonish captivity the Jewish doctors combined into one view the theophanies, prophetic revelations and manifestations of Jehovah generally, and united them in one single conception, that of a permanent agent of Jehovah in the sensible world, whom they designated by the name Memra (word, λόγος) of Jehovah. The learned Jews introduced the idea into the Targums, or Aramæan paraphrases of the Old Testament, which were publicly read in the synagogues, substituting the name the word of Jehovah for that of Jehovah, each time that God manifested himself. Thus in Genesis 39:91, they paraphrase, “The Memra was with Joseph in prison.” In Psalms 110 Jehovah addresses the first verse to the Memra. The Memra is the angel that destroyed the first-born of Egypt, and it was the Memra that led the Israelites in the cloudy pillar.”[30]

In the Septuagint version the word logos is often used, but mostly in connection with the content of a message and in many places similarly to the use of Memra, as mentioned above.




The Jewish Encyclopedia writes:

“‘The Word,’ in the sense of the creative or directive word or speech of God manifesting His power in the world of matter or mind; a term used especially in the Targum as a substitute for “the Lord” when an anthropomorphic expression is to be avoided…

“In the Targum the Memra figures constantly as the manifestation of the divine power, or as God’s messenger in place of God Himself, wherever the predicate is not in conformity with the dignity or the spirituality of the Deity.” [31]

Some scholars claim that in the Jewish scriptures the memra cannot be regarded as personal, but this is contradicted by others.[32] Whatever the case, as we have seen above, terms such as wisdom and logos have been personified in the Bible although not originally personal beings.

The question therefore is: did John, who evidently had Aramaic as his mother tongue,[33] use the word logos because of its connotations in Greek philosophy or were the connotations of John’s logos similar to those of the Aramaic memra?[34]


Logos and Memra

 
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Andrewn

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From what I can tell, Angel of the Lord in general describes a theophany. The only passage I sort of had some doubts on was this passage.
I've heard the idea that the Angel of Yahweh is Yahweh himself all my life. But there is reason to doubt that that is the case in all occurrences of the term.

But the huge thesis of the "two powers in heaven" made popular by Dr Michael Heiser does not depend on these handful of passages. He quotes a multitude of OT passages where there are clearly 2 Yahweh's, one of them is occasionally called the Word / Memra, which is excellent proof for Christ's pre-existence and it explains a lot of difficulties in the OT.
 
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Pavel Mosko

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I've heard the idea that the Angel of Yahweh is Yahweh himself all my life. But there is reason to doubt that that is the case in all occurrences of the term.

But the huge thesis of the "two powers in heaven" made popular by Dr Michael Heiser does not depend on these handful of passages. He quotes a multitude of OT passages where there are clearly 2 Yahweh's, one of them is occasionally called the Word / Memra, which is excellent proof for Christ's pre-existence and it explains a lot of difficulties in the OT.

Yes Heiser has been a person I have gotten into in recent years. This guy is another in the hands on blue collar sense of things.

Much of my starting passages are coming from him since the hands on stuff is the weakest part of my wheel house. This video is great if you don't mind a hard nosed Apologist give an extended scolding/lecture to a young Orthodox Jewish man for giving aid and comfort to Islamic Evangelists in their efforts to undermine Christian doctrine and Christianity itself.

I am going to post some of the remaining verses it covers, as well as other I know about. A number of OT passages basically imply Divine Complexity rather than hard literal monotheism in their grammar using plural verbs, particles etc. when only one God is spoken of literally in the text.

Besides that there are only 3 general passages in the OT that basically show what looks like a Christian trinity, while the rest of them are implying divine complexity with the Angel of the Lord, the presence of the Lord, Holy Spirit, Word of the Lord etc.



 
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Pavel Mosko

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Well I guess on the Trinity I'm going to stop for now, ending just before the time of the New Testament. I'm getting some conflicting things on Philo of Alexandria, some folks would just see him as being a Hellenized Jew who brought formal philosophical ideas into the Faith while others would see him as basically handing the rough draft of the Trinity doctrine to the Church Fathers.

Philo on the Logos.jpg
 
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Pavel Mosko

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I find this thread very interesting. Sad it stopped. :disappointed:

Well if your interested maybe I'll keep on going. I need to read some Philo :)

And probably will tie it to my Video Blogging etc. (Working on slowly trying to get some kind of video ministry going at some point. But baby stepping it.)
 
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The Liturgist

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I'm continuing onward with other developments of Second Temple Judaism
This one is just a small excerpt from "the Religion of the Apostles"

The Wisdom of God In addition to identifying Jesus Christ as the Second Person of Yahweh in ways that were consistent with appearances of the Word of the Lord in the Hebrew Scriptures, St. John in his prologue also draws on a parallel set of traditions from the same Scriptures that understood the Second Person of the God of Israel to be the Wisdom of God. Understanding this tradition and its import for early Christology links Christian concepts of the relationship between Christ and the Father on the one hand and Christ and creation on the other. Much of this tradition centers on the personification of Wisdom in Proverbs 8, in which grammatically feminine terms are used.8 The central portion of this passage features Wisdom proclaiming:

De Young, Stephen . Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century (p. 37). Ancient Faith Publishing. Kindle Edition.



De Young, Stephen . Religion of the Apostles: Orthodox Christianity in the First Century (p. 37). Ancient Faith Publishing. Kindle Edition.

I ... must ... have ... that ... book :ebil:
 
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Pavel Mosko

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I ... must ... have ... that ... book :ebil:

Thanks! Well I figured I would pop in and give some updates.


I'm going to be having to read some Philo etc. actually already started that. Stanford University has a nice web site for all these kinds of Trinity, Church Fathers topics, as far as Cliff Notes kind of things.

Philo of Alexandria (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)


One major person that will probably help me is this notable online anti-Trinitarian "pastor R. Euresti" from You-tube and he has had some web sites. He has a You-tube channel named "Approved of God".
From what I can tell he probably is a member of the Mexican branch of the "Apostolic" Pentecostals. (Haven't found any definite biographical info on him, but that branch is a really common anti-Trinitarian and anti-Catholic group and he really fits that).


I would say that I'm impressed with what I can see about this theological nemesis in that he really knows a lot about Philo. He actually seems to know a lot more than most people that teach on Trinity stuff. And that kind of is his schtick. He basically has so much Philo familiarity that he can use that as a cudgel to bash the Trinity by trying to make a "pagan corruption" argument against the doctrine.


That line of attack seems like it is extremely affective for influencing people online, especially Youtubers out there. But it is vulnerable when it comes to the stuff I've said in this thread and elsewhere because:

1) the basic foundations of Divine Complexity start in Genesis, and keep going throughout the OT. So if this guy debated Sam Shamoun "on the Scripture" of the Trinity vs. his position, The Assyrian encyclopedia could clean his clock because he pretty much has all the every relevant passage on the subject and its grammar completely memorized.



2) Their is a kind of logical fallacy that various fundamentalists make with Pagan corruption, which can really under their position in various ways.

A) This guy in his presentations really wants to bash the Church Fathers for being Hellenized and bringing a pagan corrupt pseudo-Christianity into existence. And this isn't just the obvious Greek ones, but he even went after Ignatius of Antioch, who goes as far back as you can go without being one of the apostles of the NT. He calls these people "Catholic" etc.

"IF these people corrupted the Church with their paganization, how can you trust the New Testament that they Canonized?" God say's He will build His Church and "The Gates of Hell will not prevail" did He lie? etc.



B) The Whole notion that somehow borrowing a Hellenic term = pagan corruption is a dubious proposition as far as the Judeo-Christian tradition goes. I will just link to a thread I did about an old Blog post on Christians crusading against Christmas and Christmas trees to make that case.


Social Myths About Paganized Christianity and (pure) Hebrew culture
 
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Andrewn

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He basically has so much Philo familiarity that he can use that as a cudgel to bash the Trinity by trying to make a "pagan corruption" argument against the doctrine.
One thing that is clear to me is that there is no single doctrine of the Trinity. There are at least 3 or 4 different ways to understand the Trinity. I say "at least" because there are many subdivisions of these basic types. So, when someone is described as "anti-Trinitarian" this does not mean much to me. Which understanding of the Trinity is he against?

https://trinities.org/blog/podcast-239-dr-beau-branson-on-the-monarchy-of-the-father-part-1/
 
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Pavel Mosko

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Wow those anti-Trinitarians have really flooded You-tube! I found a lecture on Philo by a professor, who appears to be a Presbyterian based on a google search (had to really dig for that). So will watch it after posting.



This oneness guy is very educational on the topic. He for example emphasizes the early Nicene fathers directly quoting Philo, or saying statements that directly reference his works without dropping his name. So that thing sort of thing is useful as far as finding a bread crumb trial goes. And of course talking about how the differences of an "allegorical Trinity" vs. what the early Latin Fathers are proposing etc.
 
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