When was the Trinity concept invented?

[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

[2timothy316]

[Replying to post 9 by Overcomer]

This changes nothing. The idea of 3 gods together is nothing new. The trinity is the same pig with different colored lipstick. Sadly people still are following Babylon the Great with it's 3 in one god. That 'god' didn't exist then and the new '3 in one god' doesn't exist now. I can't wait until Jehovah vindicates His name from these lies. "To us there is but one God, the Father, of whom are all things."--1 Corinthians 8:6.

[bjs]

[Replying to 2timothy316]

I assume by “Babylon the Great� you mean the Babylonian Empire. No one who is knowledgeable about both orthodox Christianity and ancient Babylonian religions would ever claim anything more than surface similarities.

Information about the actual Babylonian religious history is readily available. I have already provided links for the basic overview, and more details history is avaliable online.

(If you are talking about the JW interpretation of "Babylon the Great" then you are referring to things written more than 1800 years after the start of Christianity).

[polonius]

[quote="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.

RESPONSE:

My high school football had great Spirit, but it was an aspect of the team and not a separate person. The Spirit of God is an aspect of God and not a separate person.

Shema: Hear O Israel, the Lord is One. Jesus is also quoted as saying that.

Christianity remained a Jewish sect until they added the teaching that Jesus was divine. This occurred about 85 AD and claims that there were two divine personages resulted in the Christians being expelled as apostates. (See the 12 Benediction on the web)

A Messiah was to be a man not a divine person. Read the Old Testament.

[polonius]

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.

RESPONSE:
I'd be curious what reference you are using that the Trinity "doctrine" was formulated between between 33 and 213 AD. The earliest writings in the New Testament are those of Paul beginning about 55 AD. Have you discovered an earlier copy.?

"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."

So you are now conceding that the existence of the Trinity is not a revelation or contained in scripture. It was created by men over time becoming firm in 381 AD.

[2timothy316]

[Replying to 2timothy316]


Information about the actual Babylonian religious history is readily available.

That is correct. It has been known for some time.

No one who is knowledgeable about both orthodox Christianity and ancient Babylonian religions would ever claim anything more than surface similarities.

Your statement is incorrect. There is more to it than surface similarities. They are at their root, the same. It's incredible how similar they are. Also, there are many knowledgeable people of both and they see the truth. The trinity is yet another pagan doctrine in a pile of more pagan doctrines.

“The trinity got its start in Ancient Babylon with Nimrod - Tammuz - and Semiramis. Semiramis demanded worship for both her husband and her son as well as herself. She claimed that her son, was both the father and the son. Yes, he was “god the father� and “god the son� - The first divine incomprehensible trinity.� — (The Two Babylons, Alexander Hislop, p. 51)

Marie Sinclair, Countess of Caithness, in her 1876 book Old Truths in a New Light, states: “It is generally, although erroneously, supposed that the doctrine of the Trinity is of Christian origin. Nearly every nation of antiquity possessed a similar doctrine. [The early Catholic theologian] St. Jerome testifies unequivocally, ‘All the ancient nations believed in the Trinity’ � (p. 382).

A Dictionary of Religious Knowledge notes that many say that the Trinity "is a corruption borrowed from theheathen religions, and ingrafted on the Christian faith." And The Paganism in Our Christianity declares: "The origin of the [Trinity] is entirely pagan."

[polonius]

Tertullian, who eventually left the Church, may have claimed the existence a “Trinity� early on, but of course, offered no proof.

By his day, Christianity had taken on much of Greek philosophy. The Greeks had a number of triune gods.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tertullia ... _teachings
Catholic Encyclopedia

"The Catholic Encyclopedia comments that for Tertullian, "There was a time when there was no Son and no sin, when God was neither Father nor Judge."[29][30] Similarly J.N.D. Kelly has stated: "Tertullian followed the Apologists in dating His 'perfect generation' from His extrapolation for the work of creation; prior to that moment God could not strictly be said to have had a Son, while after it the term 'Father', which for earlier theologians generally connoted God as author of reality, began to acquire the specialized meaning of Father and Son.". As regards the subjects of subordination of the Son to the Father, the New Catholic Encyclopedia has commented: "In not a few areas of theology, Tertullian’s views are, of course, completely unacceptable. Thus, for example, his teaching on the Trinity reveals a subordination of Son to Father that in the later crass form of Arianism the Church rejected as heretical."[14] Though he did not fully state the doctrine of the immanence of the Trinity, according to B. B. Warfield, he went a long distance in the way of approach to it.[30]

[bjs]

RESPONSE:
I'd be curious what reference you are using that the Trinity "doctrine" was formulated between between 33 and 213 AD. The earliest writings in the New Testament are those of Paul beginning about 55 AD. Have you discovered an earlier copy.?

Christian doctrine started to develop before the Christian scriptures were written. Christianity, in its most basic sense, started at Pentecost. The scriptures were not written in a vacuum. They were written as the Apostles sought to understand the teachings of Christ in light of his resurrection.

"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."

So you are now conceding that the existence of the Trinity is not a revelation or contained in scripture. It was created by men over time becoming firm in 381 AD.

I am saying what I have said many times before on this site. The doctrine of the Trinity is an effort to formulate the teachings of the Apostles (the Bible): There is one God, Jesus is not the Father, and Jesus is God.

[bjs]

[Replying to post 15 by 2timothy316]

Once again, if we research these religious pantheons on their own, instead of reading propaganda searching for connections to Christianity, we don’t find anything like this.

If we want to know about deities like Tammuz, then research Tammuz. We will find nothing similar to the Christian trinity. The only time connections between the Christian trinity are Babylonian religions are found is when someone makes it a conscious goal to find such connections. These connections are drawn at the expense of accuracy.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tammuz ... tamian-god

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

[bjs]

[Replying to post 16 by polonius.advice]

Tertullian offered no proof save the teaching of the scriptures. There is a valid discussion about how much Greek philosophy became a part of Christian doctrine. You can even insist that Tertullian was just flat out wrong, or point to other things he did that you have a problem with.

None of that changes the fact that the trinity was a well-established doctrine by the time Tertullian wrote at the beginning of the third century.

[2timothy316]

[Replying to post 15 by 2timothy316]

Once again, if we research these religious pantheons on their own, instead of reading propaganda searching for connections to Christianity, we don’t find anything like this.

If we want to know about deities like Tammuz, then research Tammuz. We will find nothing similar to the Christian trinity. The only time connections between the Christian trinity are Babylonian religions are found is when someone makes it a conscious goal to find such connections. These connections are drawn at the expense of accuracy.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Tammuz ... tamian-god

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

The way I see it, it's not me under the influence of propaganda. The similarities are clear as day. Britannica is just a book of facts. It doesn't piece it all together for you. Even an early Catholic scholar St. Jerome said "All the ancient nations believed in the Trinity". Why do you deny your own fellow trinitarian's observations?

BTW, here is what Britannica says about your trinity.

"Trinity, in Christian doctrine, the unity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit as three persons in one Godhead. Neither the word Trinity nor the explicit doctrine appears in the New Testament, nor did Jesus and his followers intend to contradict the Shema in the Hebrew Scriptures: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one Lord� (Deuteronomy 6:4)."

I am sure your propaganda is going to win out over the statement above. Let's see if you turn your back on and attack your own reference source.