The Trinity: Genesis of a doctrine

The salient point here is it's not merely John 8:58 upon which the whole 'I Am' debate depends, but the entire discourse, of which the 'I Am' statement rests, and which supplies the context.
 
A Freeman said:
Free from all of the lies; free from all of the satanic dogmas/traditions/doctrines of men that plague ALL organized religion; and free from being ruled over by Lucifer/Satan/Iblis through the "self".
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On what authority does your reference website claim to be the sole arbiter of Truth, the sole interpreter of Scripture ... do you and it claim infallibility?
 
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LOL, and me!

"Everybody's wrong but me!"

Or –

"People for 2000 years have been wrong. God wrote the Bible in such a way that not until the 21st century would anyone be able to understand it!"
 
Thomas said:
even his own disciples were not aware of the totality of his meaning
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Very intriguing.
Is it supposed to be perceived that theologians in the following centuries do indeed understand the totality of meaning?
How would they explain it? Is it something that can be grasped intellectually?
Or, are we still in the situation where we can say, quite fairly, that people still strive to understand the meaning, and we haven't got it yet? That the strongest and most traditional theories /theologies /doctrines could be incomplete or wrong?
To me that last statement I made seems to be the natural hypothesis, if the following statement from you represents the true state of affairs:
Thomas said:
so there is an argument that the insistence that the meaning of Scripture is self-evident and explicitly clear is, in itself both a false premise and one that is refuted by Scripture itself
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I do agree that bible texts (as well as scriptures from other religions, to the very limited extent I know them) are not at all properly described as "clear" or self evident or explicit or transparent in any way shape or form.

That's why I SMH when people use the common but errant phrases "clear bible teaching" "the Bible is clear" "As the bible clearly teaches" etc when expounding on some doctrinal point or another.

It is used to bolster their arguments, sort of, but is untruthful (the bible is not always entire coherent to many readers, esp without context, must less anything close to clear) and therefore in the end weakens their arguments.
 
Thomas said:
corrects certain points to avoid confusion, the primary one being subordination, a belief that sets up a hierarchy of superiority which inevitably would lead to the idea of a God and Demigods,
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I do wonder what it is about certain "heresies" that are supposedly wrong... I started a thread on that actually.
In day to day discourse, the way people talk, it would be easy to get the idea that Jesus is either a demigod or a very special prophet adopted by God due to his goodness. That was more or less the impression I soaked in from people around me. The idea of the "trinity" was presented in a Methodist Sunday school I went to for a time... but they acknowledged it was "hard to understand" and couldn't offer any explanation that made it make sense. My grandfather railed against the trinity and I forgot it for a time.

A lot of what i know now I didn't know until I was in my 30s and really reading up on these things. The more I found out about Christian doctrine the more I leaned towards thinking Judaism is right. It seems like every mental effort one makes to wrap one's head around this "trinity" concept turns out to have been dismissed as so called "heresies" - dismissed, ridiculed, if not outright persecuted and punished, of all things!!! :confused::mad:o_O😒🧐:oops:
 
Thomas said:
renders the verse as "I have been in existence before Abraham was born" (p. 42).

The majority of scholars understand ἐγώ εἰμι in the verse not merely in terms of tense/aspect but in light of the use of this expression contextually in John and in the Hebrew Scriptures, as the equivalent of Hebrew אני הוא, a solemn divine pronouncement
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Intriguing.
Michael Heiser, one of the bible scholars I mentioned in that thread, has said in some of his talks that there was an ancient Hebrew idea of there being "a second power in heaven" which I think he connects to trinitarian thinking. He is as far as I can tell a fairly orthodox trinitarian believer.

Thomas said:
Before me there was no God formed, and after me there shall be none"
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On it's face this seems almost like referring to God as having a beginning and an end.
Rhetorical?
 
Thomas said:
"People for 2000 years have been wrong. God wrote the Bible in such a way that not until the 21st century would anyone be able to understand it!"
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It's far too extreme for people to claim they and only they can understand the bible. It's amazing how often people imply that though.
Thomas said:
"Everybody's wrong but me!"
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LOL. It seems that is really what some communities and some individuals present!

Still
People may not all share the supposition that God wrote the bible. After all he is referred to in the third person throughout most of it.

Also, as far as whether or not newer interpretations should be doubted just because they are new...
As I put in another thread in response to an entirely different conversation, there are indeed things that people have access to increasingly in and over the last 200 years or so that a great many or most people did not have for the previous 1800 years.
Literacy and education.
Plentiful published books.
Reasonable work hours. Artificial light to read after work. (more a feature of the 20th century on)
Religious freedom, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press, at least in many countries.
Rigorous bible scholarship and translations. The existence of people who can devote their lives to these things (bible scholarship, bible translation bible archaeology and church history) and NOT be in the employ of a church defending its doctrines, but present their findings as they find them, and lay people can buy those books and read them.
Modern communications and modern travel, so people can reach out to, talk to, and get together with, like minded people with new ideas, even if they are far away.
So in vastly increasing numbers the average person has been able to pore over scripture themselves, and find various books and people to give them guidance, and they can and do sometimes say "oh no, oh no, now that I really read the bible I feel like we have been told the wrong thing for years, let's set it right!" As I also said elsewhere, though I do not always agree with the conclusions that those people (sometimes self styled new prophets, sometimes just sincere believers who want to get things right) arrive at, I am more than thrilled that so many people have access to whatever they need so they can follow their intellect and conscience.

Referring back to the idea of something being possibly wrong after 2000 years:
A number of religions are ancient. Thousands of years. Does the extended time frame make them right?

Don't get me wrong: I am NOT defending the post you were replying to. I am definitely one of the sternest critics of some of what was said.
 
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