Biblical Criticism & History Forum - earlywritings.com

I did not mean it to be derogatory towards either you or Mormons. I just wanted to clarify if that matched your beliefs, since what you wrote describes the Mormon belief about God.

Andrew wrote:I did not mean it to be derogatory towards either you or Mormons. I just wanted to clarify if that matched your beliefs, since what you wrote describes the Mormon belief about God.

Fair enough.

My beiefs are nothing like any denomination you can muster. It's a combination of mostly Christian, Jewish and Bronze Age fatalist, with tiny similarities to JW, 7th day and the New Orleans Judiciary.

Only through Greek philosophy does the trinity make sense to me.

God in its entirety is a transcendence that cannot be encompassed in words; the enormity of which can only be felt or intuited during a revelation or divine state. That is the father.

The intelligibility of god, that is the extent to which we have words for and can communicate with each other about god, that is the son.

The holy spirit is the mind's participation in the other two. God and son exist independently of the mind, but when the mind is contemplating them, it is participating in their Oneness.

These terms are all predicated on the idea that there is an invisible universe which brings order and understanding to the material universe and which can only be seen and understood with the eye of the mind.

transcendence

Is that a Greek idea? I thought it was eleventh century CE.

Clive wrote:

transcendence

Is that a Greek idea? I thought it was eleventh century CE.

It's very much a Greek idea.

Plato called it "true being" when the mind contemplates the eternal unchanging reality as opposed to the "becoming and going away" of the sensible world.

I use "transcendence" as a term of convenience.

Putting all preconceptions aside, my understanding of the God of the Bible is that there is God- Yahweh/The LORD/HaShem/Adonai what have you. He is one (Deut. 6.2)

The "second person of the Trinity" is the son, yes? The Son of God, biblically is adopted and anointed as the chosen King of Israel. Over the years, the King of Israel and Son of God came to mean the Messiah, or "Mashiach", meaning 'Anointed'. So, when Jesus calls himself the Son of God, which he often doesn't, instead favoring 'Son of Man', which is a code word from the book of Daniel, used cleverly to disguise his royal claim from the Romans, he is claiming to be the Messiah.

In my opinion, I don't think the virgin birth narratives were originally part of the stories told of Jesus. I believe he existed, but to me, I think having Mary conceive by the Spirit is unnecessary, seeing as he is anointed at his baptism where God literally says, "You are my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased." And seeing as the virgin birth narratives have a very nice fit in the Infancy Gospels, I think they were transposed into the earlier narratives later on. But that's just me.

The Holy Spirit, then. In Judaism, they call it the Ruach HaKodesh, or the Spirit of Holiness. Basically, it's the character of God, and his very being and essence. God, Yahweh, is still ONE. But his character is prevalent (The Holy Spirit) his Messiah will return (The Son). I guess I've accepted Adoptionism; it seems to work with my rationale.

As a Baha'i I believe in the strict form of Monotheism the same as Judaism and Islam. I consider the Trinitarian Doctrine a Hellenist Roman Religious cultural construct to explain the nature of Jesus Christ and the relationship with humanity. Paul was the main initial promoter of the Trinitarian Doctrine for the nature of God.

I actually believe the Trinitarian Doctrine is a form of polytheism

toejam wrote:The Trinity is one big embarrassing cop-out IMO. From my experience, when you ask the average self-professing "Christian" in the street how the Trinity works, they will tell you a view of it that would have been regarded as heretical in the days that it was being formulated (and probably still is according to the official positions of the major Christian denominations). Most Christians I've found will give you a PART+PART+PART=WHOLE analogy, which is not how it's supposed to work. i.e Most Christians don't understand it. And even the ones that do acknowledge that it's a "mystery" that isn't supposed to make sense. In my opinion the Trinity was simply a cop-out to appease competing views. Christians desparately wanted to uphold the prestige of declaring "monotheism", while at the same time they desparately wanted to say that Jesus was God... the problem being that in the Gospels, Jesus and "The Father" are clearlly two separate characters. Solution? Let's just say that 3=1 and pretend no one noticed!

There is an infinite number of even numbers There is an infinite number of odd numbers . There is an infinite number of rational numbers.

one infinity of Even numbers+ one infinity of odd+ one infinity of rational = one infinity of natural numbers

one infinity of even numbers = one infinity of natural numbers

He's saying that Jesus' death was a statement of solidarity, God is expressing his solidarity with humanity by becoming human and dying at the lowest level of society, a victim of human sin and political oppression. The political aspect wasn't brought out much in the NT becuase they didn't think in political terms, even though the Messiah's role was conceived of politically as a liberator.

So God is not being defeated, he's participating with humanity in it's most dramatic consequence so that he can identify with us and with our needs. Then because we place ourselves into that death and establish solidarity with him he establishes it with us and we share in the power of his resurrection and his future. this is expressed clearly by Paul in Romans.

what did crock say? god died by death taking over him but was not defeated? i dont understand english very well please explain this crock.

theterminator wrote:

He's saying that Jesus' death was a statement of solidarity, God is expressing his solidarity with humanity by becoming human and dying at the lowest level of society, a victim of human sin and political oppression. The political aspect wasn't brought out much in the NT becuase they didn't think in political terms, even though the Messiah's role was conceived of politically as a liberator.

So God is not being defeated, he's participating with humanity in it's most dramatic consequence so that he can identify with us and with our needs. Then because we place ourselves into that death and establish solidarity with him he establishes it with us and we share in the power of his resurrection and his future. this is expressed clearly by Paul in Romans.

what did crock say? god died by death taking over him but was not defeated? i dont understand english very well please explain this crock.

He was resurrected and became immortal