Chewing on the Trinity 3
In a previous post, we saw that Yeshua’s use of I am
or egw eimi
was pointing to the phrase before Abraham was
for its significance. What Yeshua says would therefore be better understood as: I am before Abraham was. But what does that mean?
The Trinitarian, as we saw in the debate video, is quick to say this means Yeshua is claiming a divine attribute for his own personal existence: eternality. This whole time while Yeshua has been telling people about how he is bringing about a day in which the word of YHWH will overcome death through himself, he suddenly decides, out of nowhere, to stop talking about that and to declare I have existed forever!
And surely no one can exist forever except God.
It would not need to be said had Trinitarians not been so blind to the problem of their own argument: Yeshua does not say forever, he says before Abraham.
There are trees and monumental structures created by humanity that existed before Abraham or stretch back as far or further in time from now as Yeshua did to the time of Abraham and no one would think to say they are eternal because of it. The angels existed prior to Abraham. Are they YHWH himself? Some patriarchs lived to be almost 1,000 years old according to various manuscripts of Genesis. Are they somehow specially divine because their lives have reached back beyond the limits of what we think of as ordinary human longevity? There is nothing in Yeshua saying I am before Abraham was
that requires the divine attribute of eternal existence. However, since reason doesn’t exclude the possibility of that interpretation, let’s have a look at what the text says and see if the subject of what Yeshua is saying and what the Jews understand him to be saying is anything like that at all or if there is something else going on (there I go again, daring to actually look at what the text says).
Then said the Jews unto him, Now we know that thou hast a devil. Abraham is dead, and the prophets; and thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death. Art thou greater than our father Abraham, which is dead? and the prophets are dead: whom makest thou thyself? Jesus answered, If I honour myself, my honour is nothing: it is my Father that honoureth me; of whom ye say, that he is your God: Yet ye have not known him; but I know him: and if I should say, I know him not, I shall be a liar like unto you: but I know him, and keep his saying. Your father Abraham rejoiced to see my day: and he saw it, and was glad. Then said the Jews unto him, Thou art not yet fifty years old, and hast thou seen Abraham? Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.
John 8:52-58, KJV
What is going on? Yeshua is saying that his Father (YHWH) is making him greater/of more honor than their father (Abraham) or all the prophets who came after. What is the essence of that honor/greatness? That Yeshua is eternal? That he existed forever? Is that what the Jews think he means by before Abraham was?
It is clear in the text that the essence of Yeshua’s honor/greatness is that what he says overcomes death. Let’s see it again right there in the text in case you missed it: thou sayest, If a man keep my saying, he shall never taste of death.
That is what Yeshua said to them and that is their problem with him because, obviously, they do not believe it! Abraham and the prophets spoke the word of God and the Jews follow the words that Abraham and the prophets spoke, but Abraham and the prophets all died and all those who follow their words die. So how can Yeshua’s word overcome death unless Yeshua were greater than Abraham and the prophets or carried a message from YHWH greater than they? Yeshua’s audience thinks he must be possessed of the devil and trying to falsely gain some honor or greatness that is not and never can be his.
Yeshua responds by saying that it is not only his Father (YHWH) who honors him, but even their father (Abraham) saw his day and was glad.
What is his day? In the context of everything that has just been said by Yeshua and by the Jews in response to him, it is a day they have never known: a day when the word from YHWH will overcome death. All other days with the word of YHWH ended in death. Abraham died and did not come back. The prophets died and did not come back. But Yeshua is claiming a day in which that end is overthrown. Surely Yeshua will die and not come back and what he says will not be able to bring anyone back either.
They respond by saying You are not yet 50 years old and you have seen Abraham?
But this is not asking Yeshua how far back he exists (and thus does not have to do with eternality
) because they obviously do not believe from the getgo that he could exist far back in time (you are not yet 50
) and there has been nothing Yeshua said in the passage that indicates he was previously talking about being eternally existent. By saying You are not yet 50 years old and you have seen Abraham?
, they are mocking his claim to bring into the world a word from YHWH that can overcome death by pointing out that what he says IS NEW. What he is claiming is not yet 50 years in the earth. But Abraham…boy, he goes WAY back. So how then can Abraham have known what Yeshua is claiming?
The issue is not whether Yeshua existed eternally or not. Nor is the issue whether Yeshua has existed for a very long time. The issue is whether this thing Yeshua is claiming about himself whoever keeps my words will not taste death
is new or whether it precedes him as far back as even Abraham. Yeshua said that Abraham knew of what he was claiming and approved, so that is where the Jews are taking their aim. There is nothing else in the text for them to take aim at—no claim of personal eternal existence, no declaration of I AM via the divine name, no statement that he, himself, is YHWH. What there IS, however, is the bold revelation that if those who follow Yeshua’s words will not taste death, then Yeshua himself, who lives by the very thing he is delivering, will escape death.
By saying I am before Abraham was,
Yeshua not only settles the issue at hand (that his claim isn’t new–it does precede him as far back as Abraham, which validates what he had just previously said about Abraham), but at the same time positively answers what is implicit about the claim: through the word given to him from the Father, Yeshua himself will overcome death. Not even Moses, who gave Israel the Torah From Heaven, escaped death! Frenzied at that claim and that assertion, the Jews pick up stones to put his word to the test. They intend to deliver him to death and thereby show him to be a fraud in what he says.
Unlike the Trinitarian, I do not come away from this text with the message Yeshua must be eternal and God himself.
Rather, my response is The word of the Lord. The word that conquers death. The word that is LIFE. Yeshua has it?” And then I read along further in the text and see that Yeshua rose from the grave and my reaction is “It is true! Yeshua’s way is life! Life greater than death! So I will believe what Yeshua says and follow him. Praise be to the Lord!
To the Trinitarian, John 8 is telling us something about the philosophical makeup of Yeshua’s being. To me, the non-Trinitarian, John 8 is preaching the gospel message.
Chewing on the Trinity 2
In a previous post, I talked about a debate between a Unitarian and a Trinitarian posted on YouTube where I had a few stunning revelations:
- A Trinitarian can actually make a good argument
- Whatever I am as a non-Trinitarian, I don’t fit very well into the Unitarian camp
- The Trinitarian, for the most part, destroyed the Unitarian’s arguments and won the debate by a landslide
The main reason, I think, for the Unitarian’s defeat was that he was outmatched and out-gunned. The Trinitarian knew his stuff and made good arguments. The Unitarian didn’t know his stuff and was unable to make arguments that worked with and overthrew his opponent’s criticisms.
One thing the Unitarian was on to, which he completely failed to lay out, was the problem with the Trinitarian’s assertion that when Yeshua said I am
(before Abraham) he was using the divine name to declare himself YHWH.
The Unitarian correctly pointed out that the Greek of I am
that Yeshua uses is egw eimi
and that when we look at what the translators of the Septuagint thought represented the divine name, YHWH, in Greek, it is NOT egw eimi,
but o wn.
Since Yeshua does not use the Greek equivalent of the divine name, the Trinitarian argument that Yeshua calls himself YHWH by saying egw eimi
falls flat on its face. The Unitarian should have won the argument. Instead, he let the Trinitarian run right over him by making the ridiculously false claims that egw eimi
actually does represent the name YHWH in Exodus 3 and that we can see this to be so in a passage like Deuteronomy 32:39 where the Greek renders the divine name as egw eimi.
Well, since this isn’t a debate, I have the luxury of actually looking at the verses in question and showing what they do and do not say instead of simply giving a verse reference, reading it in English, and then moving on as if I validated my point. So let’s do that.
First, let’s look at what Greek words the New Testament author(s) felt best represented what Yeshua said when Yeshua said before Abraham was I am.
John 8:58 according to the SBL Greek Text says before Abraham was: εγω ειμι.
In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew, when we turn to Exodus 3:14, we see God say, Say to the Israelites I am ο ων. The I am
part of that is egw eimi,
but if we continue to read the passage, we see that the I am
or egw eimi
is NOT identified as the divine name YHWH. The verse continues, Thus you will say to the children of Israel ο ων has sent me to you. Not egw eimi,
but o wn.
Where the Septuaginat says ο ων has sent me to you, the Hebrew says YHWH has sent me to you,
clearly and unambiguously showing us that ο ων represents the divine name in Greek, not εγω ειμι. Yeshua does not say ο ων, but says another phrase that the Greek Old Testament doesn’t chose to identify with the name YHWH. The Trinitarian argument fails on the plain facts of the text.
So now let’s look at the claim that egw eimi
is being used in the manner of the divine name to identify YHWH in Deuteronomy 32:39.
The Septuagint says See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god beside me.
The Greek for I am he
is εγω ειμι, a common and familiar expression used throughout the Old and New Testaments, but not for the divine name. So the question is whether egw eimi
is being used here to signify the divine name. We can answer that by looking at the Hebrew. Is the divine name used there where the Greek text says egw eimi
? And secondly, is the identification of who is YHWH by use of this expression the purpose and meaning of the text?
Deuteronomy 32:39 says in the Hebrew אני אני הוא, ani ani hu,
which means I, I [am] he.
So what the LXX renders as egw eimi
is not standing in for YHWH
in the Hebrew text. Those two Greek words are standing in for the two Hebrew pronouns I
and he.
Not only has the Trinitarian failed to show that what Yeshua says is to be identified with the divine name, but we see direct evidence in the very verse quoted by the Trinitarian in the video that where he believes this identification to be taking place in the Greek by the phrase egw eimi,
that very identification is absent. It’s nothing but air. And so is another Trinitarian argument that when Yeshua says I am
(egw eimi) he is calling himself YHWH.
But let’s not stop there. Let’s ask the second question. What IS the Deuteronomy text saying? Is the text using egw eimi
to tell us exactly who is YHWH? It that it’s purpose? Or does egw eimi
serve a different purpose? Because if we can understand how egw eimi
IS used as opposed to how it ISN’T, that will tell us something about what Yeshua might actually be saying instead of what Yeshua is not. Let’s look at the text (you will by now notice that I like to pay attention to what the text actually says, which I have continually found be the fatal stroke against most Trinitarian arguments).
And he shall say, Where are their gods, their rock in whom they trusted, Which did eat the fat of their sacrifices, and drank the wine of their drink offerings? let them rise up and help you, and be your protection. See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
Deuteronomy 32:37-39, KJV
So what’s going on here? People are looking to other gods to rescue them and to protect them. But only YHWH can do that for them. The phrase egw eimi,
is being used in a very specific sense. Not to tell us he is
or I am,
but to tell us something about what he is: the one who kills and makes alive, the one who wounds and heals, the one who can be protection or deliver from the enemy’s hand. The Trinitarian has put the emphasis on exactly the wrong part of what egw eimi
is used by the text to tell us. It does not refer to itself, but to something else that was said.
By seeing how egw eimi
is used, we can expect something of its use by Yeshua. Yeshua should be using I am
(egw eimi) to say something else about himself, not to say I AM. If we look at the text, it is obvious what he is: before Abraham was. Before Abraham
is the significance of egw eimi,
not egw eimi
itself. This would be best represented by the English translation I am before Abraham was.
So what does that mean? See part 3: I Am Before Abraham Was.
So I’m not a Trinitarian. I don’t hide that fact. The main reason is because I have never really seen any reason from the scriptures to think in Trinitarian ways. Almost without exception (there are exceptions), virtually every argument I have ever heard in support of the Trinity, I have researched and looked into, and found to be false, baseless, or downright misleading.
But I’m open to this long-established and cherished doctrine. I took an on-line course through Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, a well-respected, very conservative school, where the primary emphasis was a defense of the Trinity. I wanted to know from people who know what they’re talking about and who have really looked into this what they thought and why. Lay it all down in front of me so I can see the cards you’re playing with. Unfortunately, I left thinking their game was a fraud.
The best argument I had ever heard for the Trinity was something Francis Schaeffer said (or maybe it was C.S. Lewis? Or a combination of both?). His (their?) point was that there are attributes of YHWH that make no sense unless there is an relationship—particularly love. YHWH is love. And yet how can YHWH be love if there is no one/nothing to love since love is an interchange and if YHWH is only one God or one person, there cannot be an interchange? It would make that attribute of God dependent upon creation or upon something that is less than God. And how can something that is not God define an attribute of God? There must be something or someone in God that allows for the interchange of love. That makes sense. That is a good argument. Not a great argument (it certainly doesn’t require Trinitarianism), but a good one.
So to get to what I really wanted to discuss here… I just finished watching a really informative debate between a Trinitarian and a Unitarian on YouTube. Here is the beginning of that debate (it is in 12 parts).
This is the first time that I have EVER heard a good defense from a Trinitarian (and he even brings up the Schaeffer/Lewis argument…in his own way). I’m not saying it’s a great defense (it has a whole host of problems), but it is a good one. I, of course, align more with the Unitarian perspective (not to be confused with Unitarian Universalist
). Although after watching that video, I think I differ from Unitariansim in a great many respects. But I am very willing to concede that the Trinitarian wipes the floor with his opponent. I often come away from Trinitarian arguments thinking this person has no concept of what the biblical text is or is not saying and is trying to substitute this strange concept into it.
And yet throughout the debate at the link above, I felt like the Unitarian had no concept of Trinitarianism and spent most of his time either trying to understand what his opponent thought (or what Trinitarianism was) and kept going back over his own thoughts without answering the challenges his opponent brought to those thoughts. The Trinitarian makes some good arguments and counter-arguments and they deserve to be answered well in turn.
So as I ponder those arguments and counter-arguments, I was wondering what stood out to you, dear reader? Not only in support of Trinitarianism, but also against it. (Yes, I realize I am asking that you watch the whole thing. And, yes, I realize that I am asking those who probably support one or the other of those positions to try to allow their perspective or bias to be challenged, but I think it is possible.)
Let me get the ball rolling…
One thing that stood out to me as a Unitarian
(so to speak
since I differ from that Unitarian and from that Trinitarian’s experience with other Unitarians) is how so much of the Trinitarian argument rests upon and results from specific theological perspectives without which those arguments would fall apart. One theological perspective it requires (and that I am not so sure—in fact, very doubtful—I follow) is Original Sin. The Trinitarian’s belief in Original Sin (combined with other requisite beliefs), makes Yeshua have to be a certain way in order for his salvation (as that is understood—another specific theological belief) to be genuine or effective. So the Trinitarian perspective is a natural outflow of what the biblical texts say about Yeshua within the confines of the interpreter’s underlying set of theological beliefs. Since, however, I do not share many of those underlying theological beliefs, I am not restricted in my interpretation of scripture to a Trinitarian perspective. The Trinitarian’s argument would have been stronger had he shown why all his underlying theological beliefs are valid. But, of course, there is never enough time in a debate to do something like that (one reason why I generally hate debates).
Perhaps the most lucid argument the Trinitarian made, which is something I’m going to have to chew on for a while, is that if Yeshua was ever able to sin, then is he able to sin now that he stands at the right hand of YHWH? Does Yeshua have the ability to turn away from YHWH either back then, now, or ever? My perspective has been—contrary to the Trinitarian and slightly different from the Unitarian (the Unitarian believes Yeshua had the capacity to sin but was ALWAYS sinless)—that Yeshua could have sinned and that there was a point at which he became sinless. But even if that is so…does that mean Yeshua could ever cease to be sinless? Because if Yeshua can… Well, that opens up a whole can of worms that is pretty yucky to deal with. And it also creates other issues such as free will or choice and how that relates to YHWH (not my will, but your will
). My position is not an easy one. And I certainly don’t have all the answers for it. The Trinitarian argument that says Yeshua was always sinless and never could sin because Yeshua is God himself in his being is a much better or easier road to take since it means the Trinitarian doesn’t have to worry about his eternal fate whereas mine will never be completely and totally certain.
And yet the counter-point is also a strong one: if Yeshua never could have sinned, if he was never able to do so (the Trinitarian belief), then the word temptation
is pretty much meaningless (though technically, I know, the meaning is probably more like trial
or test
). How can God be tempted? Scripture indeed says it is impossible. And while saying that Yeshua was both 100% man and 100% God enables him to be tempted/tried/tested as a man but not as God solves the problem philosophically, it doesn’t deal with the language and story issue. What does temptation mean? If temptation for Yeshua means temptation in a way that is totally unlike all other temptation experienced by humanity, then what’s the point of the story at all?
Of course, the Trinitarian will answer the point is to show and tell us that Yeshua is God himself in his being and thus cannot be tempted/tested/tried.
But that, to me, avoids the question and cheapens scripture. That is not the way to go about telling us Yeshua is God in his being and cannot be tempted/tested/tried. Rather, that is the way to go about saying Yeshua could be tempted and yet in the end triumphed.
The Trinitarian’s response (at least from those videos) would be that I am trying to hold the word of God to my own judgment. That I am saying if the word of God is going to communicate to me, it has to do so on my terms.
This misses the point, however, because what I am saying is, look, I know something about how stories and literature are written. And I know that there are ways to communicate that make sense of a certain kind of text and ways that don’t.
This is called literary competence.
Like when I read a phone bill, I don’t expect it to tell me the weather because I know from my experience with weather reports and phone bills that they have certain ways of telling me things. So if I read a text and it’s telling me something in the way a phone bill should and would, it should be interpreted as the information of a phone bill and not as a weather report. And yet I ALSO know if someone told me my phone bill is trying to tell me the weather, that such a thing cannot be right because that is not what a phone bill does. I am not trying to tell scripture how it should speak instead of allowing it to say what it does. I am saying, look, this phone bill isn’t a weather report!
So in the temptation
of Yeshua, we have a very clear story being played out in which Yeshua goes through the water, is lead into the wilderness by YHWH for 40 days, is tested/tried/tempted, and then enters the Promised Land. This is very obviously a story that is trying to equate Yeshua with the formation of Israel in the Exodus story. In that story, Israel is lead through the waters and into the wilderness for 40 years where they are tempted/tried/tested by YHWH in a very real sense in which they could fail or they could triumph. And they fail. But Yeshua does not! And through this contrast we see that Yeshua is the foundation of a new and better Israel. The significance of the story and its relation is entirely lost if Yeshua could never have failed and the whole point was to tell us that Yeshua is God himself because he can’t be tempted. The Trinitarian perspective requires one to negate the relevance of the exodus and wilderness story that the gospels are trying to communicate about Yeshua’s mission and position and replaces it with a philosophical concept of Yeshua’s being. In terms of literary competence, that is like saying the phone bill is a weather report. It just ain’t so!
This sort of thing (replacing the relevance of the story with a philosophical concept of Yeshua’s being) seems to be a common thread in Trinitarian arguments. It is ironic that the Trinitarian in the video spends so much time trying to show how the Trinitarian belief is not Platonistic, but the Unitarian’s is, and yet by replacing this fundamental Jewish story and its significance to Yeshua with a philosophical concept about the makeup and character of Yeshua’s being, the Trinitarian does nothing but exchange the shoes of a Judaic perspective and worldview with the shoes of a Hellenistic philosopher. The Gospel of John seems to be ripe for this sort of activity. To be fair, though, I suppose if you believe in Trinitarianism, it would be a natural thing to do. Like Pentecostals who see demonic warfare in all sorts of scriptural passages when there is nothing there to give that impression. To err is to be human. And in that respect, I am no better off than the Trinitarian.
