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

[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.
Gen 1:3 And God said, (the Word of God hence of God that which goes forth from God) Let there be light: and there was light.


the God of Abraham the father Isaac the beloved son the was offered and Jacob who was renamed by God to Israel and had coincidently twelve sons and the Israelites are referred to as the Children of Israel. representing the Holy Spirit in the born again who are children in the same effect.


so there's the Father (the Power) the Son( the Word of God that processes from God now made flesh in Jesus Christ) and the Holy Spirit (the Presence of God).


all living that God created have the power to live the life they have, can express themselves to other living things in their presence. (in our case and creatures of the earth would be flesh or some form of earth they are made of)



so technically as long as God was, which is for ever.

but the Catholicism call trinity is some where in the 300's not long after the church of the roman empire was formed by a priest of the eastern part of the church and then the church adopted it.

[bjs]

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.

[2timothy316]

The idea of a set of three gods or triple deity was invented in Babylon.

The Origin of the Trinity: From Paganism to Constantine
by Cher-El L. Hagensick
http://www.heraldmag.org/olb/Contents/d ... rinity.htm

[bjs]

[2timothy316]

My assumption was that this thread is about the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which is nothing like the Babylonian concept.

Ah I can see you didn't read the article I posted...

From the article: "The historian, H. W. F. Saggs, explains that the Babylonian triad consisted of ‘three gods of roughly equal rank... whose inter-relationship is of the essence of their natures’ (316)."

So 'nothing' alike is incorrect. They are actually very much alike.

[steveb1]

“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

Christianity began as a sect within monotheistic Judaism. As such, it had no concept of a "Triune" God. Its God was strictly, numerically, "One". Official Trinitarianism was largely an invention of the Fourth Century, and was the product of mostly non-Jewish, Greco-Roman thinking and philosophy. That's the historical origin of the Trinity.

However, ancient Judaism always had a binitarian aspect - the conception that some great angelic figure had been standing by God's side in heaven from time immemorial. Although not ontological God, "Yahoel", Israel's Great Angel, nonetheless bore God's name and executed God's judgment. Likewise, the pre-existent, primordial, heavenly Son of Man was said to live in the clouds of heaven and to have a close association with God, as well as a glorified presence in God's throne room. This latter idea is particularly significant to Christian origins.

Jesus himself throughout the Gospels identifies himself and his mission with the figure and the intent of the heavenly Son of Man. Especially at his trial, he testifies to the Sanhedrin of his identity with the cloud-dwelling heavenly figure, telling the high priest that "you" will see the Son of Man coming in the clouds with great glory, "with Power" (a reference to the Presence of God himself). It is no wonder that the priest tore his garments and cried "Blasphemy!" because the strange Galilean preacher was claiming to be an enfleshed, earthly iteration of God's ancient heavenly companion.

Through a long process of development, Jesus as heavenly Son of Man, and his exalted function as Yahoel, Israel's Great Angel, who bore God's name and is to exercise God's judgment on the "last day", was slowly elevated to the status of "Son" - which by itself is probably not too far a stretch.

However, that "Son" figure became imbued with deity and became an ontological Son, a second person in a Trinity. From God's pre-existent assisting heavenly agent, the Jewish mystical Jesus was transformed from the Son of Man into the Son of God...and then, finally, into "God the Son" in its full-blown Trinitarian connotation.

[bjs]

My assumption was that this thread is about the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, which is nothing like the Babylonian concept.

Ah I can see you didn't read the article I posted...

From the article: "The historian, H. W. F. Saggs, explains that the Babylonian triad consisted of ‘three gods of roughly equal rank... whose inter-relationship is of the essence of their natures’ (316)."

So 'nothing' alike is incorrect. They are actually very much alike.

The Herald Magazine, a Muslim publication out Pakistan, leans hard into own philosophical bias. Mainly a political magazine, it is rarely seen as an objective source on culture or religion.

This particular article openly makes an effort to connect the Christian doctrine of the Trinity to earlier pagan religions, and does so at the expense of accuracy.

When we research the Babylonian pantheon, instead of reading propaganda attempting to link Babylonian beliefs to Christianity, we find nothing resembling the Christian Trinity.

Instead, we find something much more similar to the Roman and Greek pantheons. We find groups of gods in relation with each other, but nothing resembling the Christian concept of the trinity.

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_M ... n_religion

[Overcomer]

[2timothy316]

[Replying to post 8 by bjs]

Are you familiar with the term Babylon the Great? You claim bias yet the Bible agrees that the trinity is just Babylon's teachings magnified.