@Slimboyfat
I'm not a fan of Metzer:
Metzger was a radical ecumenist. He was at the forefront of producing “the Ecumenical Edition” of the RSV in 1973 and personally presented a copy to Pope Paul VI. “In a private audience granted to a small group, comprising the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Athenagoras, Lady Priscilla and Sir William Collins, Herbert G. May, and the present writer, Pope Paul accepted the RSV ‘Common’ Bible as a significant step in furthering ecumenical relations among the churches” (Metzger, “The RSV-Ecumenical Edition,” Theology Today, October 1977). Metzger also presented a Bible to Pope John Paul II.
Metzger was rationalistic in his approach to the Bible’s text. He did not believe in the divine preservation of the Scripture in any practical sense. In fact, he claimed that it is possible that we do not have sufficient manuscript evidence to recover the original text, because the manuscripts that exist might not even represent the text of the early churches. “... the disquieting possibility remains that the evidence available to us today may, in certain cases, be totally unrepresentative of the distribution of readings in the early church” (Metzger, Text and Interpretation: Studies in the New Testament Presented to Matthew Black, 1979, p. 188).
Metzger blatantly denied the infallible inspiration of the Bible.
Metzger brazenly claimed that some portions of the original Scriptures might have been unfinished or lost before any copies could be made. Of the original ending of Mark 16 he says, “Whether he [Mark] was interrupted while writing and subsequently prevented (perhaps by death) from finishing his literary work, or whether the last leaf of the original copy was accidentally lost before other copies had been made, we do not know” (The Text of the New Testament, p. 228).
Metzger advocated that Matthew incorporated errors in his royal genealogy of Christ (Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 1975, p. 1; cited from Thomas Strouse, “The Pauline Antidote for Christians Caught in Theological Heresy: An Examination and Application of 2 Timothy 2:24-26,” Emmanuel Baptist Theological Seminary, Newington, CT, 2001).
Metzger’s theological liberalism in regard to inspiration was expressed in the Reader’s Digest Condensed Bible. He was the chairman of the project and wrote the introductions to each book, in which he questioned the authorship, traditional date, and supernatural inspiration of books penned by Moses, Daniel, Paul, James, and Peter.
So, do you accept these early church fathers' statements below about Jesus being God?
https://www.berenddeboer.net/article/1_timothy_3_16.html#greek
My larger point is the one you keep dodging. The one about Jesus' spirit inhabiting a person like scripture says is necessary. How does a Unitarian invite a created being (angel) into his heart? How would that be different than spiritism?
What if that spirit decided to be malevolent at some point? See the problem I'm getting at? How does a Unitarian get around the fact that scripture plainly states that if a Christian does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his"?
But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. - Romans 8: 9
The Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ is used interchangeably here. Does it concern you that Gods Word says you are not a Christian if you don’t allow the Spirit of Christ to reside in you?
None of us want to ever hear these terrifying words from the Lord: ”I never knew you” - Jesus
The tripartite nature of man made in the image of a tri-partite God taught in the bible eliminates this problem that a Unitarian must deal with.
