Was Jesus a Trinitarian?

[Elijah John]

Consider the opening line of the Lord's prayer.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name

Is this the prayer of a Trinitarian?

Isn't the Lord's prayer evidence that Jesus was not a Trinitarian, neither did he teach Trinitarianism?

If you see the Lord's prayer as "Trinitarian", how did Jesus work the other members of the Trinity into the Lord's prayer?

[Divine Insight]

Consider the opening line of the Lord's prayer.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name

Is this the prayer of a Trinitarian?

Isn't the Lord's prayer evidence that Jesus was not a Trinitarian, neither did he teach Trinitarianism?

If you see the Lord's prayer as "Trinitarian", how did Jesus work the other members of the Trinity into the Lord's prayer?

That's an obvious "Cherry-picked" verse in an effort to support your argument.

How about:

John 10:30 I and my Father are one.

Here Jesus is claiming to be one and the same as the Father God.

Or how about this:

John 8:58 Jesus said unto them, Verily,verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.

Sounds here like Jesus is claiming to have existed prior to Abraham.

Or how about this:

John 10:34 Jesus answered them, Is it not written in your law, I said, Ye are gods?

If you ask me this sounds like support for the idea that Jesus was a Pantheist.

~~~~~

The problem with these ancient texts is that you can cherry-pick verses to support just about any idea you can imagine.

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

Agreed, the Bible does lend itself to cherry picking. Conventional, Trinitarian Christians do this as well, but will not admit it.

But it doesn't matter. And to accuse me of "cherry picking" doesn't invalidate the evidence from the Lord's Prayer that Jesus did not teach Trinitarianism.

Speaking of "cherry picking" all your references here are from John. And Evangelicals cherry pick from John and Paul to support their arguments. Seldom from the Synoptics.

And their Evangelical tracts often recommend the new convert to begin their Bible studies with the Gospel of John. Why do you suppose that is? Could it be an attempt to get them to view the entire Bible with a "Johannine lens"?

[Divine Insight]

[Replying to post 2 by Divine Insight]

Doesn't matter. And to accuse me of "cherry picking" doesn't discredit the evidence from the Lord's Prayer that Jesus did not teach Trinitarianism

Speaking of "cherry picking" all your references here are from John. And Evangelicals cherry pick from John and Paul to support their arguments. Seldom from the Synoptics.

I don't need to accuse you of cherry picking. Just look what you're doing now.

You're trying to discredit the verses I pointed to in this theological doctrine.

If you need to discredit the writings of John and Paul in order to support you attacks against Christian Theology I would suggest that you have extremely weak arguments.

I mean, you posted this in Theology, Doctrine, and Dogma, and how you want to reject a large part of Christian Theology, Doctrine and Dogma in an effort to argue against it.

Does that even make any sense at all?

[Elijah John]

[Replying to post 4 by Divine Insight]

Fair game, they ignore evidence to the contrary to their party line that "Jesus is God and died to "pay for" our sins".

I am simply presenting oft overlooked New Testament evidence to the contrary. Overlooked or deliberately ignored?

In fact, it can be argued that my evidence from the Synoptics is more solid, as the Synoptics were written closer to the events they depict. John was written much latter, and with the passage of time myth and legend tend to accrue and attatch themselves to our heroes.

[steveb1]

Consider the opening line of the Lord's prayer.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name

Is this the prayer of a Trinitarian?

Isn't the Lord's prayer evidence that Jesus was not a Trinitarian, neither did he teach Trinitarianism?

If you see the Lord's prayer as "Trinitarian", how did Jesus work the other members of the Trinity into the Lord's prayer?

Jesus was not a Trinitarian:

1 He explicitly excluded himself from the Godhead in John 17:3 where he says, "You [Father] are the only true God". Not Jupiter/Zeus, not Apollo, not Jesus. ONLY the Father.

2 Jesus said, in John, "The Father and I are one". This is not a claim to be God. It is a simple claim to be united with God - to be in union and communion with God.

3 Jesus said, in John, "Before Abraham came to be, I am". Again, this is not a claim to be God. It is a claim - made by many divine union mystics - to be so united with God as to share in God's timeless awareness - to live in "the Eternal Now". If you live in the Eternal Now, then of course you are "before" Abraham - and everyone else, for that matter.

4 Jesus said, in John, "Who sees me sees the Father". Not a claim to be God, but rather a claim to represent God on earth, as in the phrase, "Like father, like son". The Son is the Father's perfect shaliah or agent-messenger, so to see the Son is also to see the Father - to see the agent is to see the principle. No claim "to be God" is involved.

5 Jesus said, in John, "I return to the glory I had with you [Father] before the world was made". Not a claim to be God, but rather a claim to pre-existence, which is only to be expected of Jesus, who claimed identity with the heavenly, cloud-dwelling Son of Man from the book of Daniel: a pre-existent, angelic type of spirit-being, close to God in heaven, but not God Himself.

6 Thomas said to Jesus, in John, "My Lord and my God!" The context is not Jesus's purported deity, but rather faith in his resurrection. Thomas had missed a prior apparition of the risen Jesus, the disciples told him about it, and he said that he would not believe them unless he saw the risen Christ and touched his wounds, for which he was rewarded with an appearance of said Christ. The lesson was that now Thomas saw and could probe Jesus's crucifixion wounds, but that the greater ideal would be to believe without seeing. Thomas's exclamation is not calling Jesus Lord and God. It is a spontaneous outburst of praise for the Lord and God by whose will Jesus had been raised.

Thus, Jesus was no Trinitarian, and the NT cannot be made to support that late, misbegotten, anti-Judaic and ecumenically harmful dogma.

[Elijah John]

Consider the opening line of the Lord's prayer.

Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name

Is this the prayer of a Trinitarian?

Isn't the Lord's prayer evidence that Jesus was not a Trinitarian, neither did he teach Trinitarianism?

If you see the Lord's prayer as "Trinitarian", how did Jesus work the other members of the Trinity into the Lord's prayer?

Jesus was not a Trinitarian:

1 He explicitly excluded himself from the Godhead in John 17:3 where he says, "You [Father] are the only true God". Not Jupiter/Zeus, not Apollo, not Jesus. ONLY the Father.

2 Jesus said, in John, "The Father and I are one". This is not a claim to be God. It is a simple claim to be united with God - to be in union and communion with God.

3 Jesus said, in John, "Before Abraham came to be, I am". Again, this is not a claim to be God. It is a claim - made by many divine union mystics - to be so united with God as to share in God's timeless awareness - to live in "the Eternal Now". If you live in the Eternal Now, then of course you are "before" Abraham - and everyone else, for that matter.

4 Jesus said, in John, "Who sees me sees the Father". Not a claim to be God, but rather a claim to represent God on earth, as in the phrase, "Like father, like son". The Son is the Father's perfect shaliah or agent-messenger, so to see the Son is also to see the Father - to see the agent is to see the principle. No claim "to be God" is involved.

5 Jesus said, in John, "I return to the glory I had with you [Father] before the world was made". Not a claim to be God, but rather a claim to pre-existence, which is only to be expected of Jesus, who claimed identity with the heavenly, cloud-dwelling Son of Man from the book of Daniel: a pre-existent, angelic type of spirit-being, close to God in heaven, but not God Himself.

6 Thomas said to Jesus, in John, "My Lord and my God!" The context is not Jesus's purported deity, but rather faith in his resurrection. Thomas had missed a prior apparition of the risen Jesus, the disciples told him about it, and he said that he would not believe them unless he saw the risen Christ and touched his wounds, for which he was rewarded with an appearance of said Christ. The lesson was that now Thomas saw and could probe Jesus's crucifixion wounds, but that the greater ideal would be to believe without seeing. Thomas's exclamation is not calling Jesus Lord and God. It is a spontaneous outburst of praise for the Lord and God by whose will Jesus had been raised.

Thus, Jesus was no Trinitarian, and the NT cannot be made to support that late, misbegotten, anti-Judaic and ecumenically harmful dogma.

If Jesus himself was not a mystic, you make a good case that the Evangegist John was, and he saw Jesus as such.

I think John 17.3 brings the GoJ into it's proper focus, and is the baseline verse by which to interpret the rest of that Gospel. Your "mystic" view fits that interpretaiton, and is in harmony with John 17.3.

Do you see any hint of Trinitarianism in the Lord's Prayer? Or just pure, Jewish- Shema monotheism.

[steveb1]

[Replying to post 7 by Elijah John]

Thanks. I think the Synoptics also provide some evidence of Jesus's mysticism - his claim to be the Son of Man, his claim to represent his Father in a new, special way that enabled Jesus to be God's Kingdom-agent on earth, his secret knowledge of the Kingdom and the Spirit which he expressed in parables, and his mysterious, lone vigils of prayer in the wilderness (which seem to be examples of divine union, unless, as Marcus Borg quipped, Jesus had an unusually large prayer list),etc.

Yes, the Lord's Prayer is a good Jewish prayer and it also works with other forms of monotheism. No reference to praying in or through the Son; no reference to Jesus's supposed deity; no reference to Jesus mediating prayers; no reference to Jesus's purportedly atoning death; no reference to Jesus as "only-begotten", etc. Luke says that it wasn't even Jesus's prayer, and he repeated it based on the crowd's request to teach them to pray like John the Baptist prayed. So even if it does not represent the ipsissima verba of Jesus, apparently he thought it worthy of repetition. So on the principle that if it was good enough for Jesus, then it ought to be good enough for his followers.

[brianbbs67]

No, Christ was not teaching trinity. People do. They should also remember the Christ's words in Matthew. (and Mark) When christ quote Isaiah 29:13. "and in vain they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of man"