JW Obession with the trinity

Riley

So a few years I watched a lecture series by a man named Dr. Micheal Heiser called the two powers in heaven, Jesus in the old testament. Funny thing was it wasn't even very evangelical in nature, so I turned off my religious binders and just watched it like a regular person.

It turns out that the New Testament is a hinge point in the bible. First century " Jews " not Christians are just figuring out some of the weird shit that is happening in the old testament. You have this god no one can see but people do see him. Sometimes god is speaking to god. Lots of obscure stuff and you are not sure who is really speaking " The word of the LORD appeared and the LORD said ".etc etc

Readers digest version, First century Christians think Jesus is this other guy. I don't know all the details but when you don't cherry pick scripture , the overview leads to a certain place.

It got me thinking, how depressing it is to spend your entire life trying to disprove this. It literally comes up at every meeting. Over and over and over. It is so weird when you think about it and you no longer really care either way.

Sea Breeze

Dr. Micheal Heiser is described as a gnostic heretic here.

ThomasMore

The trinity doctrine is a third wheel similar to Social Security and Abortion - it has a polarizing effect. Someone close to me knows that I left and why but he is not satisfied and will not be until I accept the trinity. I guess I just think that it should be enough to serve God, treat others with kindness and enjoy a good meal. The rest will work itself out on its own. IS THAT SOOOOO WROOOOOOOONG?

Sea Breeze

I guess I just think that it should be enough to serve God

That is where I started after the WT, and after atheism. I finally learned that believing God is far superior to serving God. Serving God won't get righteousness imputed to you, belief will. Scripture says that we are a tri-union of soul, spirit and body, each with personhood, individually or collectively. We experience the differences all the time....every day. Most of us can accept that we have three parts and yet are one being.

We are made in God's image, who is one being with three manifestations.

Disillusioned JW

God as described in the Jewish Hebrew Scriptures is far more concerned with being obeyed than he is with people having correct metaphysical (or theological) ideas of God. In Judaism atheistic ethnic Jews are considered good Jews if they adhere to the laws/rituals of Judaism and do good. That is because in Judaism beliefs are not nearly as important as what a person does. In that respect I think Judaism is better than Christianity.

Judaism is about what people do, whereas Christianity is about what people believe.

It is better for human society when people do good and avoid doing bad, whether they believe in God or not, than if they have the correct metaphysical (or theological) ideas about God but do bad instead of doing good.

smiddy3

I guess theI Italian Mafia / Vatican back in the day are good examples of that ?

Phizzy

The thing that boils my piss about the J.W. org is their constant crowing that they are right and Christendom has got it all wrong.

I can remember this feeling when they used to constantly brag about how they had got 1914 right, and the other Christian religions had missed this event in heaven ! I remember sitting there during a W.T Study and thinking "I wish they could be proved wrong over this, just to shut them up". well, they were, and it didn't.

The Trinity is another exactly parallel thing, they keep on about how it is a false Doctrine, to such an extent that J.W's go to great efforts to get "interested" persons to reject the Doctrine. The problem is that the J.W org has got this one wrong too.

I don't wish to get in to a big discussion on the Trinity, but suffice to say, if you know how to read the Bible, as an Academic expert in the field would, and if you know about how Philosophical thought works, you will see how later Theologians developed the Trinity Doctrine and why, you will also understand that it isn't in any way a deal breaker as J.W org would have it.

The org hypocritically goes on about how it isn't found spelled out in a simple formula in the Bible, and developed after the 1st Century, well that rather brings us back to the Foundation Doctrine of the J.W org, the 1914 nonsense doesn't it ?

That Doctrine suffers from the above problems levelled at the Trinity, plus it is not to be found anywhere at all in Scripture, unless you are mildly insane about Biblical interpretation and understanding.

BelisemDeBelimakom

so I turned off my religious binders and just watched it like a regular person

I am also approaching Biblewith this attitude. So when the Bible (and all related books, studies etc.) is read in such a way, you realize everything that WT corporation try to cover/subvert/explain away, such as Cross and Soul etc., all seem to have foundation in the Bible.

With this approach in mind, here are recommended extra-biblical books for aditional insight:

- Book of the Bee (https://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/bb/index.htm)

- Book of the Cave of Treasures (https://www.sacred-texts.com/chr/bct/index.htm)

slimboyfat

They hardly ever mention the Trinity these days. Their new study book mentions the word once in passing. Compare this to the old Let God Be True book that had an entire chapter on the Trinity. The old Trintiy brochure has not been updated or replaced since the 1980s. I don’t think JWs are particularly interested in doctrinal issues like the Trinity any more, partly because many householders are less religious these days, so it doesn’t come up on the ministry as often as it did in the past.

TonusOH

They may also be ignoring it because they need all the converts they can get, and anything that might prevent people from joining or staying will get short shrift in the hopes that it doesn't become an issue for them.

JW Obession with the trinity

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