[quote]pat wrote:
…
Would the Second Temple Jews have understood that?
I am pretty sure the answer is no, but it does not make it untrue.[/quote]
No, sorry, pat, the answer is “yes,” they would have understood it…and rejected the concept out of hand. (And that is not a judgment on the truth of the proposition.)
As I point out elsewhere in this thread, it is God (in the singular) alone who creates and created man. Then see Deut 6:4, and reflect that it does not say, “Hear, O Israel; YHWH is our God, YHWH is three.”
There is no doubt that the Shema was the national ethic, recited twice daily and understood as the central feature of Divinity at the time of Second Temple.
In fact, the first subject of the Talmud is a discussion of the time at which one may say the Shema. The unity of Divinity would have been understood by Pharisees, Sadducees, and probably even the Essenes, who were given to complicating matters.
With the Trinity, you’re taking extra-biblical doctrine and looking back at scripture. There is scripture in the OT that once having the doctrine of the Trinity would seemingly indicate that the Trinity is true. However, if you could derive from these OT scriptures that there was the doctrine of the OT well, you’re head and shoulders above everyone that ever lived besides Jesus who had public revelation at his dispense.
[quote]pat wrote:
No problem with that. My contention is that if they knew then what we know now, then perhaps there interpretations would have been different. Just because they were brilliant theologians, does not mean they were privy to all the information. More information came out later potentially changing the understanding.
If these same people has known of the Trinity, would they have interpreted it the same. Then tension in the high context interpretation is that man was made in God’s image alone. Further, there just simply was no evidence or explanation of angels or a heavenly counsel involved in that process. That’s more of a stretch then the Trinitarian explanation because it requires a lot of assumption on the nature of angels and/ or said judges. Neither of which were mentioned.
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Name one text where it states that humankind alone was made in the image of God. I’m not even going into what “image of God” denoted in an ancient Near Eastern context. Name one text where it makes a clear exclusive claim, i.e., that man and ONLY man was created in the image of God. If there is no such text, then you and forbes may be wrong in your assumptions.
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I am not saying we are the only ones. As previously stated, one could argue that all creation is made in God’s image. What’s stated explicitly is that man is made in God’s image and nothing else.
Angels, judges, etc may also be made in God’s image. Just we have nothing to tell us that.
Quite frankly neither you nor I nor anybody else knows what was in the author’s head at the time of writing. We don’t know how many wadded up piles of papyrus landed on the floor. We also don’t know what he knew and did not know. We also don’t know his thought’s, feelings or understanding about that or anything else. So you are assuming all of it, period. You just don’t know, neither do I, neither does anybody else.
Now maybe that was a horrible analogy, but since you do not believe divine inspiration happens in any of the potential ways that have been mentioned, how them does divine inspiration occur?
Rather than telling me ‘it didn’t happen that way’ (which you actually don’t know how it happened, nor does anyone else, tell me what divine inspiration is, how it occurs and what the ‘rules’ are regarding it.
That will be a great deal more helpful than ‘No, you don’t know shit’.
Or is it that you don’t believe the texts were divinely inspired? One could glean that you are positing the Holy Scriptures are a purely man-made creation. Are these divinly inspired texts and what is the process of divine inspiration?
So?
[quote]
You’re right, in so far as it does require AN assumption - the assumption that the doctrine of inspiration as formulated by the earliest Christians was true. Since they believed the human authors knew what they were writing, and we believe these texts were inspired because the earliest christians said so, then I see no way to legitimately bypass (as you’ve tried to do) the claims of the earliest Christians that human and divine intents were ONE. [/quote]
Bypass? I tried to bypass nothing.
The only thing you have explained is the ways divine inspiration does not happen. How does divine inspiration take place in the process of these scriptures? Is there a mathematical formula or something?
Maybe human and divine intents are one, maybe they are not. I think rather than stating it doesn’t work that way, explain the way it must work. Does it happen only one way and can no one stray from the formula?
Explain how a text is divinely inspired separately from those that are of purely human constructs.
[quote]pat wrote:
…
Would the Second Temple Jews have understood that?
I am pretty sure the answer is no, but it does not make it untrue.[/quote]
No, sorry, pat, the answer is “yes,” they would have understood it…and rejected the concept out of hand. (And that is not a judgment on the truth of the proposition.)
As I point out elsewhere in this thread, it is God (in the singular) alone who creates and created man. Then see Deut 6:4, and reflect that it does not say, “Hear, O Israel; YHWH is our God, YHWH is three.”
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Do we all wish the Bible was more explicit and direct so we wouldn’t have to try and figure it out? I don’t think it’s necessarily fair to say, "Well, if X were true, it would have been said more plainly in Y’
And perhaps you are right. Maybe even with all the information we have available now, these Second Temple Jews would have come to the same conclusion. But in light of the revelations in the NT, expressed tying tying in John 1:1-3 a Triniatrian explanation just plain makes sense. But it’s also possible then to look at it and say that it was the Trinity and all heavenly beings included. OR we could just look at John and say it was Father and Son. But what we have is a self reference in the plural, which was no doubt deliberate and all would have been fine if it didn’t follow that God then said let ‘us’ make man in ‘our’ image, and then say that man was made in God’s image. That’s the sticky bit. Maybe it reads different in Hebrew, but in the translations I have read.
The only argument I think one could have against a Trinitarian explanation, is that the New World translation did not seek to remove or change it. And the reason I say that is there are several instances in that translation where the text was changed to take the Trinity out of God.
[quote]
There is no doubt that the Shema was the national ethic, recited twice daily and understood as the central feature of Divinity at the time of Second Temple.
In fact, the first subject of the Talmud is a discussion of the time at which one may say the Shema. The unity of Divinity would have been understood by Pharisees, Sadducees, and probably even the Essenes, who were given to complicating matters. [/quote]
And for the record, no I am glad the Bible isn’t more explicit and direct. It wouldn’t be near as much fun to discuss.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Pat you are not grasping that KingKai is arguing for your church. Kinda. Not directly or even out of a motivation to do so. His position of necessity if true lends credence to at least a BIT of the RCC’s claim of authoritative extra canonical tradition though not their exclusive ownership of it. Is that not right KK?[/quote]
Tirib, I am not an opportunist like that. It’s not about trying to prove what I believe in the Catholic church is right. Otherwise, I’d be ceasing on it. Sure, the Trinity is Catholic dogma, but the scriptures all talk about God in Father, Son and Holy Spirit and various points. The Trinity dogma was not a flying leap. It just coalesced what we knew about God into a single statement.
It’s just a good ol’ fashion spirited Bible discussion which I am quite enjoying. Well I am enjoying it now, when KK is not trying to read my mind and head off any arguments he thinks I was possibly going to make. That I did not enjoy.
[quote]Brother Chris wrote:
With the Trinity, you’re taking extra-biblical doctrine and looking back at scripture. There is scripture in the OT that once having the doctrine of the Trinity would seemingly indicate that the Trinity is true. However, if you could derive from these OT scriptures that there was the doctrine of the OT well, you’re head and shoulders above everyone that ever lived besides Jesus who had public revelation at his dispense.[/quote]
It’s an extra-biblical doctrine summarizing the nature of God as expressed in the Bible.
[quote]Kingkai wrote:
3) More importantly, you are completely wrong in your assessment that ancient conceptions of representation are not clearly present in the passage itself, as the apostles themselves, possessing the Holy Spirit, stand as its representatives. There’s no theophany in this passage, no mention of tongues of fires or doves or anything else - in other words, there is no evidence that the Holy Spirit is there at all, EXCEPT for the words of the apostles. Ananias and Sapphira lie to the apostles, but since the apostles are the representatives of the Holy Spirit, An. and Saph. are REALLY lying to the Spirit.
And once again, I am not denying that this passage could indicate that the Holy Spirit is God; I am simply pointing out that there are alternative possibilities, and your claim that “the text says nothing about representation” is false both at the textual and contextual levels.
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Certainly an inference, but in 4:31 we are met with the scene that they are filled with the Holy Spirit which then leads directly in to the next scene. By the process of elimination, one could only be lead to the one conclusion. The apostles are not God, the only other divine character mentioned was the Holy Spirit, therefore of all those present the only one that can claim status as God is the Holy Spirit. The inference is strong if not direct. What other conclusion could be drawn?
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You missed the point, Pat. Narrative criticism is a particular method of biblical studies that examines the function of narratives within larger works, the constituent and distinctive elements of narratives, etc. One of the first questions a narrative analysis of the text asks is, “who are the primary actors?” Is the Holy Spirit the primary actor, i.e., is this a story about the Holy Spirit?
Acts 5:1-5 is part of a larger section - Acts 4:32-5:11, the focus of which is the the generous nature of the Christian community, as all members shared everything in common. In response to your likely skeptical retort, “you don’t know that; no one knows that,” I’ll say (1) Luke, like every other narrative text, is organized along thematic lines; (2) authors of narrative texts in antiquity (we actually have treatises from antiquity explaining how to craft arguments, compose narratives, write historiography, etc.) always exercised selectivity in their choice of the narratives to include; (3) the themes organizing particular sections can be deduced from the narratives chosen; (4) the scholars are unanimous in their recognition of Luke 4:32-5:11 as a single unit.
Anyway, 4:32-5:11 has to foci - the generous nature of the apostolic community, and the authority of the apostles within that community. We are then exposed to two examples along these lines, the first being the positive story of Barnabas, who sold his field and gave the entirety away to the church community (4:36-37), and the latter being the negative example of Ananias and Sapphira (5:1-5:11). So the Holy Spirit isn’t the main character of 4:32-37, or 5:1-11. The main characters of 5:1-11 are the apostles and the wicked couple. They are the focus, not the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is mentioned in an ancillary role, and he is represented by the apostles.
All this matters because, since you didn’t understand the theme of the larger narrative, you completely missed the fact that this ancient concept of representation is absolutely and clearly a foundation of this story. The Holy Spirit is an ancillary character; he is only mentioned in the speech of the apostles. If you took out Peter’s reference to the Holy Spirit, you would simply be left with Peter’s claim that, “You have not lied to men, but to God.” If the reference to the Holy Spirit in verse 3 were taken out, how would you explain Peter’s comment? My point is that, while the Spirit’s presence could theoretically be inferred from 4:31, one would not make the inference that the HS (mentioned in a prior section of the work and not treated as a primary actor here OR there) was the “God” being referred to unless one started from the assumption that the HS IS God.
Take out the reference to the Spirit, and does the passage still make sense? Totally, from a Greco-Roman perspective - Peter is functioning as God’s representative, so a lie to him is a lie to God. This would make perfect sense in the cultural context in which Luke composed his narratives. So my point stays the same with the reference to the Holy Spirit - if one doesn’t ASSUME (as you do) from the outset that the Holy Spirit is God, one could just as easily interpret this passage as stating that the Holy Spirit sent from God functions as God’s representative. Thus, Acts 5:1-5 is NOT a slam-dunk case for the Holy Spirit’s divinity; there are other possible explanations that worked JUST AS WELL in a Greco-Roman context.
Lol once again with the favorite refrain, “you don’t know; no one knows.” Pat, technically, no one “knows” anything when it comes to historical research. What we have are probabilities, and once you’ve read as many ancient texts as I have and seen what scholars who have read far MORE texts than I have also see in these texts, you’d realize that, across the board, ancient authors didn’t compose their texts with the expectation of later audiences’ temporal and cultural distance. You’re spoiled because you have translations, where all the REAL difficulties are ironed out for you. You don’t realize that even the author’s word choice and syntax indicate that these authors didn’t foresee YOU reading them and try to accommodate that. Look at the reference to “Solomon’s colonnade” in 5:12, a section of the temple we know very little about. Luke doesn’t offer an explanation or further description; he simply assumes that his readers will be familiar with the locale.
And once again, this stuff about us possessing knowledge they didn’t is itself questionable. I’m constantly surprised that so many Christians go spelunking in the biblical text, searching for every single reference they can find that even HINTS at a belief in Jesus’ divinity or God’s triune nature, and yet seem to forget that, in Jesus’ world, claims of Christ’s divinity or God’s triune nature would have often been considered blasphemous. But if that’s the case, WHY don’t we find our apostles wrestling with this fact, constantly endeavoring to PROVE it in their texts? The Jews would have been wrestling with it harder than ANYONE. This belief would CERTAINLY have required some proof, so why is that nearly every statement about Jesus’ divinity or God’s triune nature is made in passing? Could it not be that they had an explanation for why they used language that implied the divinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit that we just don’t know about? That our formulation “three persons with one nature” is just an attempt to reconstruct an answer they already had, and THAT’S why that which we struggle with was for them simply an assumption?
No, Pat, we don’t KNOW how the divine ontology works - all we can get from Scripture is that there were three persons (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) who are called God, but there’s still only one God, and yet the Father seems to be the one in charge. We have NO mention of “economic vs. imminent” trinity; such distinctions are merely an attempt to deal with the problems created by our choice to canonize a Greek philosophical account of the divine ontology. So what KNOWLEDGE do we possess that they didn’t? What you mean is, we believe X to be the proper interpretation of the various passages that touch on God’s nature.
LOL do you think that I just spout stuff thoughtlessly? I’ve been doing my research for years, Pat, and I meant what I said at two different levels. First of all, Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Clement of Rome, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Augustine, Athanasius - all believed that the meaning of the OT was unlocked by the Christ-event, that the texts could only be understood by those with knowledge of Christ. At another level, it has only been over the last few centuries that the myth derived from antiquity, the myth of intellectual objectivity, has been dispelled. When you’ve spent time reading through the writings of the church fathers, you realize pretty quickly that they bought into many of the cultural assumptions of their time, including the inherent supremacy of Greek thought. Their defenses of the OT frequently are comprised of attempts to justify its “poor” style; one church father even argued that the lack of discernible meter in the Greek translations of the Psalms was the fault of the translator, that the original Hebrew HAD clear meter, a claim that is absolutely, unequivocally false. Rather than recognizing that these texts were written at a different time in place, that the conventions of Greco-Roman rhetoric and poetry were neither universal nor inherently ideal, the church fathers generally shared the all-too relative assumptions of their culture. In short, they took a LOT for granted in their exegesis; the things they point out as “problematic” in the OT we can often chalk up to their unrecognized cultural elitism. They evince minimal recognition of the kind of historical distance you and I take for granted.
So my statement is true on two levels - first, many believed the true meaning of the OT Scriptures were available only to men like themselves, i.e., Christians; secondly, they did not analyze their most basic presuppositions
[quote]
The phenomena in scripture is the source of it. Again by reduction we are either force to believe some parts of scripture are false, or that Father, Son and Holy Spirit are all God. I don’t see any difference in the dogma of the Trinity from what is expressed in scripture. [/quote]
And again, I’m not denying the Godhood of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; I’m simply pointing out that the way we understand their ontological relationship is NOT derived from Scripture, NOR is it self-evident, NOR is it necessary.
There are lots of Books and writings mentioned in the Bible that would illuminate futher if we
had 'em in our hot little hands that would clarify many issues that are discussed here and elsewhere,
but most if not all, are lost forever.
Too bad, because if the Bible MENTIONED them, that must mean they were worth a look.
The Book of Wars - Num. 21:14
The Book of Jasher - Josh. 10:13
The Chronicles of David - 1 Chron. 27:24
The Book of the Kings of Israel and Judah - 2 Chron. 27:7; 35:27; 36:8
The Book of the Kings of Israel - 1 Chron. 9:1; 2 Chron. 20:34.
The Words of the Kings of Israel - 2 Chron. 33:18.
The Decree of David the King of Israel - 2 Chron. 35:4.
The Chronicles of Samuel the Seer - 1 Chron. 29:29
The Chronicles of Nathan the Prophet - 1 Chron. 29:29
The Book of Gad - 1 Chron. 29:29
The Book of the Prophet Iddo - 2 Chron. 13:22
The Words of Shemaiah the Prophet - 2 Chron. 12:15
The Deeds of Uzziah by Isaiah the Prophet - 2 Chron. 26:22; 32:32
The Book of Jehu - 2 Chron. 20:34
The Record book of Ahasuerus - Esther 2:23; 6:1
The Book of Remembrance - Mal. 3:16…etc.
[quote]kingkai wrote:
This is, once again, a horrible analogy, because it reflects a view of the process of inspiration and the composition of the biblical texts that was not shared by those who called these texts inspired in the first place! Once again, Genesis was not “handed down from above” in some sort of dictation; the human author slaved over the text, crafted it, had say over every single example. Ancient texts weren’t written the way you take notes; people didn’t just start writing in the hopes of seeing where their pens take them. Writing was too difficult AND TOO EXPENSIVE OF A PROCESS for that. They had clear purposes in mind, and every aspect of the text contributes to the achievement of that purpose. Once again, inspiration was not a process of note-taking; God worked behind the scenes.
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Quite frankly neither you nor I nor anybody else knows what was in the author’s head at the time of writing. We don’t know how many wadded up piles of papyrus landed on the floor. We also don’t know what he knew and did not know. We also don’t know his thought’s, feelings or understanding about that or anything else. So you are assuming all of it, period. You just don’t know, neither do I, neither does anybody else.
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First of all, you missed how the comment below renders your first paragraph above irrelevant…
I know you revel in the whole “ambiguity” thing, but these kinds of arguments get really tedious, really fast. We’re dealing in probabilities. Once again, since the implied author is a discernible construct of the text, we actually can get insight into the purposes of this implied author. I don’t have to know the thoughts, feelings, etc., of the actual human author to know (1) language precedes the individual, determining what his “meanings” can be; (2) writing was massively expensive, so people didn’t put stylus to papyrus until they were CERTAIN of what they would write (they used wax tablets for rough drafts); (3) there is no evidence in the Hebrew Bible that any of the authors knew about the Trinity, so until such evidence turns up, why should I believe they knew about it? Given that I have no evidence that they knew of the Trinity, why should I read it in instead of something they likely knew?
LOL pat, I’ve repeatedly told you what you don’t know. Your comment above makes it sound like I simply deny things without offering counter claims. I’ve been offering counter claims since they beginning!
This is a question of authority, Pat. Simple as that. From whence do we derive our authority? You seem to think that you can have a rational discussion about the meaning of biblical texts without referring back to this question. Why do we believe as Christians what we believe? Because we believe the earliest Christians (i.e., the apostles and those they taught) believed fundamentally the same things. Questions of doctrinal development and Christ’s supposed promises of infallibility aside, this is a point shared by both Protestants and Catholics alike - we believe what we think our best evidence suggests the earliest Christians believed.
We don’t have a systematic treatise detailing how the earliest Christians or the Jews defined inspiration, so we have to look at the implications of their statements about inspiration. And what we consistently find is (1) they believed the human authors knew what they were writing and (2) that human and divine intent were one. A further point of note is that the earliest Christian authors link the authority of the NT texts to the authority of those who composed them. These are the limitations any formulation of the doctrine of inspiration has to function under if we accept the authority of the apostles and their earliest successors. This is the same problem the early church fathers faced in formulating the doctrine of the Trinity - the evidence before them (the biblical texts and the tradition) imposed limitations they had to accept and reason under. I’m not saying that inspiration was not a complex process, or that God didn’t do different things at different times. I am saying that we have to work within these limitations, and that at least allows us to rule out certain possibilities, including your “dictation style” or “note-taking style” or whatever you want to call it.
The BEST thing about these limitations is that they enable us to read the text in a consistent and faithful manner, because we can test our interpretations against what we know of the various cultures and societies in which they were composed. This notion of separating human and divine intent, on the other hand, throws us into the realms of the arbitrary; start reading the Gnostics and you’ll know exactly what I mean.
Not getting into that now. I’ve said enough above.
LOL if the AUTHORITIES, i.e., the people whose word we take on faith that these texts ARE inspired and who defined inspiration in the first place, are truly authorities, then yes, Pat, they HAVE to be one.
Again, we have no evidence that they thought human and divine intents diverged. Nor did they leave us with some sort of rubric to tell when a text could have more than one meaning. Consequently, any attribution of additional divine meaning beyond the human author’s is entirely arbitrary speculation.
[quote]
Explain how a text is divinely inspired separately from those that are of purely human constructs.[/quote]
Is his majesty or is he not, by this whole line of argumentation, declaring that THE CHURCH is responsible for the doctrine of the Holy Trinity through extrabiblical inspiration if not revelation? Is this not the unavoidable implication? We’ve gotten to know each other quite well my brother. A thing for which I consider myself blessed. If I wanted to attack you, despite your clearly superior technical skills, I still would. I’m not. I’m asking a question.
In regard to man being made in Gods image is this meant to be physical or some kind of spiritual image? I ask because if we were made in God’s Image why do aliens look different (if we except they exist and look how they are described)? Do you all believe they are false descriptions and if they exist would look human?
If this does not belong here I will start a new thread I just recall it being discussed earlier in the thread.
Wisdom also has where those Arrogant Nephilim Giants died in the Flood as well…
14:6 For in the old time also, when the proud giants perished, the hope of the world governed by thy hand escaped in a weak vessel, and left to all ages a seed of generation.
[quote]Legionary wrote:What do y’all think about the Book of Wisdom? It has always been one of my favorites.[/quote]Not an expert but not scripture in my view.
[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Is his majesty or is he not, by this whole line of argumentation, declaring that THE CHURCH is responsible for the doctrine of the Holy Trinity through extrabiblical inspiration if not revelation? Is this not the unavoidable implication? We’ve gotten to know each other quite well my brother. A thing for which I consider myself blessed. If I wanted to attack you, despite your clearly superior technical skills, I still would. I’m not. I’m asking a question. [/quote]
Haha I know it seems like it, but that’s not actually what I am trying to do. I am actually pushing for the opposite - the realization that the classical Nicaean definition of three co-equal persons sharing a single nature is a contingent attempt to make sense out of the biblical material, and the success or failure of that formula is NOT beyond evaluation. I affirm the rules governing the formula - recognition of only ONE God; three distinct persons are all called God at various points - but I disagree with the assumption that the formula is itself necessarily accurate or binding. I’ll get to Push’s list of verses supposedly supporting co-equality of Father and Son later today (God willing), but for now I’ll say that the claim of co-equality between Father, Son, and Spirit derived more as a logical inference given the intellectual constraints of the philosophical categories employed than a necessary extrapolation from the biblical data. In other words, the assertion that the Father, Son, and Spirit are equal in power and authority is a necessary corollary of the philosophical categories used to describe the divine ontology - unity of God being defined in terms of unity of action and nature - and this assertion then dictated the fathers’ exegesis.
My concern here isn’t really for Catholics - they can always appeal to “apostolic tradition” and church authority alongside of Scripture. My concern is for Protestantism, whose greatest strength (in my estimation) is its capacity for theological reform on the basis of Scripture. The Nicaean formulation makes sense as a binding, authoritative formulation within the confines of Catholicism, not within Protestantism. I have no problem with a Protestant believing that the Nicaean formula best represents the biblical evidence (though I would disagree), but I do not think it is legitimate for Protestants to deceive themselves about the “self-evidentiary nature” of the formula and to hold that formulation as a standard of orthodoxy. Yes, Father, Son, and Spirit are all called God, and Scripture portrays them as distinct persons; let us leave our speculations there.
[quote]Legionary wrote:What do y’all think about the Book of Wisdom? It has always been one of my favorites.[/quote]Not an expert but not scripture in my view.
[/quote]
Do you care to elaborate? Perhaps King Kai and some of the Catholic posters can weigh in?