LET GOD BE TRUE........WORSHIP THE FATHER IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH...... (page 3)

Qcmbr

I think Jehovah is Jesus Christ - any takers? If anyone is interested I have some cool scriptural hints (proof is far too strong a word).

I usually stay away of Trinitarian threads because I feel that to argue for or against a 4th-century doctrine on the basis of 1st- or 2nd-century texts is just pointless. It's about as meaningful as asking whether the apostle Peter was a Catholic or a Protestant.

The NT reflects a wide variety of christologies, none of which exactly fits the later Trinitarian or Arian doctrines. Imho we just don't have to choose.

Will Power

Narkissos: any thoughts on how it fits with OT Jewish thought? which is why the controversies in the first place eh? Adding the New Jesus person thing into the mix?

will

Sunspot

How odd to think that the ONLY unforgiveable thing--in all the universe--is to sin against an electricity-type power. Something that is unable to know it was sinned against.

Ooooooh, I like that! Some of the greatest reasonings on here are so simple.

Annie

Narkissos

any thoughts on how it fits with OT Jewish thought? which is why the controversies in the first place eh? Adding the New Jesus person thing into the mix?

Imo, one should not accept rabbinical Judaism (which among other things fixed the OT canon) as a correct reflection of 1st-century Judaism. Rabbinism is the development of one Jewish school, namely the Pharisees, that was far from dominant before 70 AD. Other completely different schools in the "Holy Land" were the Saducees, the Essenes, the Samaritans. And in the Jewish diaspora throughout the Roman empire religious diversity was even wider (e.g. the specific brand of Hellenistic Judaism of Philo). As scholars such as Raphael Patai and Margaret Barker have shown, not even strict monotheism was really consensual. Whereas Pauline or Johannine Christianities sound very different from rabbinical Judaism (which partly developed against them), they might have been at some stage considered as acceptable within a broader Judaism, perhaps among other brands of Jewish gnosticism, Jewish mystery cults we are hardly aware of. For instance, the notions of "Son of God" in Paul and "Logos" (the Word) in John, which are so important for Christian theology, have very close parallels in the fully Jewish writings of Philo.

Will Power

Narkiss - thanks for responding
I wasn't really commenting on any particular period of Jewish tradition, or specific teachings,

as the beauty of Judaism is the LACK of such.

" Judaism has no dogma, no formal set of beliefs that one must hold to be a Jew. In Judaism, actions are far more important than beliefs, although there is certainly a place for belief within Judaism. "

Many rabbis, sects and the five main movements "spell it out their way" so to speak, but the basics:

G-d exists, there is only one, the messiah will come, the dead will be resurrected, there is an afterlife, are basic to all. and you DO NOT have to belong to or believe any specific movement to be saved. even if that movement tells you so!

They certainly have miles and miles of discussion, majority rules of thought etc. which is understood as that. I listen to a bunch of rabbis discuss a topic - they do not leave one stone unturned. There is a weekly program here (TO) - can't remember the name.

on this computer I can't make a "quote" stand out, but you mentioned that

"not even strict monothesim was really consensual" this I don't agree with.
I also think the word trinity has gotten a bad wrap. there are too many people with too many different versions of what it is or could be. I don't profess to know what or how but I find it intriguing that the essence of the idea can be found in so many places. thats all.

will

the_classicist

you DO NOT have to belong to or believe any specific movement to be saved.

I don't know about that one, the some of the Orthodox Rabbis consider the Reformed Jews heretics. Really, it depends on beliefs and practices rather than movements, though.

Will Power

the classic - exactly - SOME say.....
which is allowed in jewish thought, and they are only considered as authorities amongst themselves - or if YOU CHOOSE for yourself.

the basic beliefs are few and vague, and not spelled out. They concentrate on the person, their relationship with G-d and their interaction with world around them to the betterment of mankind.
their LAWS however are another story.

wp

Narkissos

Will Power,

" Judaism has no dogma, no formal set of beliefs that one must hold to be a Jew. In Judaism, actions are far more important than beliefs, although there is certainly a place for belief within Judaism. "

Many rabbis, sects and the five main movements "spell it out their way" so to speak, but the basics:

G-d exists, there is only one, the messiah will come, the dead will be resurrected, there is an afterlife, are basic to all. and you DO NOT have to belong to or believe any specific movement to be saved. even if that movement tells you so!

IMO those "basics" are only basic to rabbinical, i.e., (post-)Pharisaic Judaism.

The Sadducees, for instance, certainly didn't hold that "the messiah will come, the dead will be resurrected, there is an afterlife" -- yet they were the very center of pre-70 AD Judaism. On the Hellenistic side, Philo's interpretation of the Torah is remarkably exempt from Messianism.

There is overwhelming evidence that monotheism did not emerge in Israel prior to the exile (6th century BC). A few decades before, the so-called "reform" by Josiah (7th century), which actually was a politico-religious revolution, suppressed the polytheistic diversity of ancient Israelite religion, but it was not widely accepted as the book of Jeremiah makes clear (about the worship of the "Queen of Heaven" for instance). Even after the exile, in the 5th century, Yhwh (Yahu) was still worshipped together with a consort-goddess, Anat-Bethel, in the Jewish temple of Elephantine (Yeb) in southern Egypt. The books of Maccabees show that many Jews in the 2nd century were willing to accept a polytheistic interpretation of their religion, identifying Yhwh to Dionysos. The Maccabees who rejected this interpretation were the start of the hasidim movement in which later monotheistic Judaism (including Essenes, Pharisees and Sadducees) is rooted -- but they were not "all Israel," and the repressed is always ready to come back in the most unsuspected ways. For instance, an obvious El-Baal polytheistic imagery structures the pro-Maccabean (!) vision in Daniel 7 (the Ancient of Days and the Son of Man). Yhwh has stepped up from the second place to the first, leaving the second place free for further developments (the Son of Man, the archangel Michael)... The empty seat of Yhwh's consort is free for personified Wisdom in the Egyptian Maat's style -- identified to the Torah in Siracides, but to the Logos in Philo. To put it briefly, I suspect that the diversity of (extant) Judaism you rightly marvel at is only the tip of the iceberg. And early Christianity, even in the Pauline or Johannine brands which are the roots of later trinitarian developments, may well have been a part of it.

Will Power

hold that thought, I've got dinner company be back tomorrow :-)

LET GOD BE TRUE........WORSHIP THE FATHER IN SPIRIT AND TRUTH......

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