You don’t know; we Jews know

[Matthias]

Read the Apostles Creed - more in line with truth

Among other things, I’m a retired adjunct theology professor. I recommend reading widely, deeply, thoughtfully, critically. I read all of the creeds, including the Apostles’ Creed.

 

[Matthias]

Jesus himself is a Jewish monotheist. That is a constraint of history. Trinitarian scholarship acknowledges it. If someone wants to deny that Jesus is a Jewish monotheist, they will. I can’t stop them from doing it, but they won’t ever be able to persuade me that he isn’t.

Jesus himself doesn’t leave us in the dark about who his God is. He tells us unambiguously that his God is only one person, the Father. That’s the very definition of a Jewish monotheist.

I pointed out earlier - using the New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology (a trinitarian source) - that Jesus made the unitarian creed of Judaism his own creed.

I’m settled on that being bedrock and cannot be moved.

“Jesus himself stood in the tradition of Jewish monotheism, more exactly, of Palestinian early Judaism. His thinking and acting were geared towards this One God by whom he felt himself to have been sent and to whom he felt close, so that - again following early Jewish practice - he called him Father.

It needs to be explained how and why, from the second century on, this fundamental monotheism underwent a binitarian and Trinitarian ‘enrichment.’ This would be relatively simple if the narrative documents of Christianity, above all the soon-to-be called New Testament, had suggested such a doctrinal development. That is however not the case. … In the vast majority of the New Testament, however, Jesus is God’s representative, an eschatological man who after his death was raised to God. The sporadic triadic formulas are by no means to be viewed in the same sense of an ‘implicit’ concept of the Trinity.”

(Karl-Heinz Ohlig, One or Three? : From the Father of Jesus to the Trinity, p. 121)

An excellent book which I’ve just finished rereading. I recommend it to all of my readers.

This trinitarian scholar possesses a clear understanding of my position (Jewish monotheism / primitive Christianity) and a clear understanding of binitarianism and trinitarianism. It can’t be discussed here by members who are registered “Christian”, and there is virtually no interest in church history here anyway. I maintain though, as I have for decades, that the history should be taught in all churches, and privately in the home.

 

[Matthias]

I understand that this will be a minority opinion among non-trinitarians, but here goes. Geronimo.

Something I learned as an adjunct theology professor: It isn’t necessary for non-trinitarians to speak against trinitarianism. (And, unsurprisingly, it isn’t well-received by trinitarians when it is.) What is necessary is to provide students with education on Church history.

Read widely, deeply, thoughtfully and critically.

Let everyone be convinced in their own mind.