So Jesus is not God?

[metis]

I think that "Holy Spirit" may be a reference to "God's Spirit" as shows up in the Tanakh.

 

[Soapy]

Well there might be cause for the Trinity. But the concept of trinity was already in older religions in that region so it makes sense that early Christians would want one as well. They do have a "holy spirit" besides God, which is yet another myth borrowed from Persia and Greek"

"the Holy Spirit appears to have an equivalent in non-Abrahamic Hellenistic mystery religions. These religions included a distinction between the spirit and psyche, which is also seen in the Pauline epistles."

Persian:
", the Holy Spirit, also known as Spenta Mainyu, is a hypostasis of Ahura Mazda, the supreme Creator God of Zoroastrianism; the Holy Spirit is seen as the source of all goodness in the universe, the spark of all life within humanity, and is the ultimate guide for humanity to righteousness and communion with God. The Holy Spirit is put in direct opposition to its eternal dual counterpart, Angra Mainyu, who is the source of all wickedness and who leads humanity astray.[44]"

But the ENTIRE bible is mythology borrowed from older cultures. Those earlier religions were not literally true and neither is Christianity.




Yes I can, watch ....the entire Bible are stories created by highly educated writers and used other sources of fiction to create the narratives. Therefore trinity or non-trinity are both concepts in a Middle Eastern myth.





Right except this is a "religious debates forum". Not a "theology debates forum". Not a " let's debate conocepts but only people who believe the supernatural stuff is literally true".
Yeah it isn't that by a long shot. Now there IS an actual forum for that on this site, I think it's theological debates. This isn't that.
And yeah, Satan isn't real, that's another Persian influence. Satan was in the OT but the modern version of an eternal war against Satan and God started at the 2nd temple period. More myth borrowing. Here you go:

"
During the Second Temple Period, when Jews were living in the Achaemenid Empire, Judaism was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Achaemenids.[27][8][28] Jewish conceptions of Satan were impacted by Angra Mainyu,[8][29] the Zoroastrian god of evil, darkness, and ignorance.[8] In the Septuagint, the Hebrew ha-Satan in Job and Zechariah is translated by the Greek word diabolos (slanderer), the same word in the Greek New Testament from which the English word "devil" is derived.[30] Where satan is used to refer to human enemies in the Hebrew Bible, such as Hadad the Edomite and Rezon the Syrian, the word is left untranslated but transliterated in the Greek as satan, a neologism in Greek.[30]

The idea of Satan as an opponent of God and a purely evil figure seems to have taken root in Jewish pseudepigrapha during the Second Temple Period,[31] particularly in the apocalypse"

Oh, look, the later stories about Satan at war with Yahweh were not from people speaking with a God but was taken from a myth they clearly really liked and allowed it to radically change their theology.
It's all fiction.



Cathol...Non sequitur. I don't care about your opinion. I care about what is true. These are not "my" opinions. These are the consensus opinions of entire fields of scholarship. If opinions of vast amounts of scholars who spend their professional lives studying comparative analysis, archeology, historicity to you is "sheer worthlessness" then you simply don't care about what is true.
Meanwhile there are J.Witnesses, Hindu, Islamic, any strange cult making the same claim. That evidence and analysis are worthless because they simply want what they want to be true. Or they "feel it" in their heart.
Sorry, every line of evidence points to religions being metaphorical myths.



Well that would be brainwashing. To not allow historicity studies that demonstrate a religion is just like all others, to actually attempt to censor information is true ignorance. I can't believe you typed those words? Luckily it is not 1200AD and you cannot banish information that you find inconvienant.

Feel free to provide evidence that what you say is truth is actually true.

This is not a evangelical forum only for preaching. What's worse is you are trying to ban other points of view.
I cannot make this up?

I am not trying to ban other points of view THAT ARE BASED ON BIBLICAL SCRIPTURES.

What I’m saying is that we WHO DO BELIEVE would like to debate AMONG OURSELVES concerning what we believe.

IT IS YOU who is saying that we should NOT BELIEVE anything that we say we believe.

I think even Trinitarians who I tail against would turn and rail against you… ‘My enemies enemy is my friend while our common enemy is in battle!’

And, SATAN is not battling GOD, per se. He is battling the Son of man.

God CREATED the Angel that became known as Satan. Satan is completely wrong that he can rule over mankind, which is what the REAL BATTLE IS CONCERNING.

What would happen if there hadn’t been a saviour who maintained his sinlessness is that Satan would have proved to God that man could live without God … but, ironically, it would have DESTROYED mankind … leaving Satan with nothing to rule over…. A serpent biting its own tail!!

If you read the scriptures properly then you would know that it is Jesus who is battling with Satan.

Moreover, the ‘theology’ of the Hebrews, the Israelites, the Jews, was well established before they ever encountered any nation like the Persians or any belief as Zoroastroism (however it’s spelt!)

And TRINITY… they never encountered anything called or alluding to a TRINITY.

What they encountered were nations who believed that the world was created and maintained by spirit deities (GODS) who were MANY IN ‘persons’: there were many of them who each individually were managing aspects of the created world. Typically THREE but often more.

The Israelite ‘GOD’ told his favoured nation that they were NOT TO BELIEVE IN OR WORSHIP MANY GODS BUT THAT THEY SHOULD WORSHIP ONLY ONE GOD - Him - ALONE.

So that is the falling of trinity. Trinity say ‘God’ told them that he was THREE PERSONS who are THAT ONE GOD … and no matter what I show them of the farce of that notion and the TRUTH that worship of three as one is PAGAN, is exactly what ‘GOD’ told them NOT TO DO!

In that, you are my friend… against trinity!

But then you go on to say that no one should believe in ANY THEOLOGICAL belief…. Nah! That’s as far as the ‘friendship’ goes!

 

[Soapy]

No he fights wars and sea monsters too.


Exodus 15:3:
Yahweh is a man of war;
Yahweh is his name.
Isaiah 42:13:
Yahweh goes forth like a mighty man;
like a man of war(s) he stirs up his fury.
Zephaniah 3:17: Yahweh, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory.
Psalm 24:8:
Who is the King of Glory?
Yahweh, strong and mighty;
Yahweh, mighty in battle.

GOD does not ‘go’ anywhere himself.

GOD sends his Spirit, his angels, his prophets, his servants … to do his Will.

God is the controller of his forces. He himself does not enter a fight but directs from his glorious throne!

GOD speaks a word and it is MANIFESTED in whomever and in whatever way he chooses.

GOD spoke the word that a saviour would come into the world to redeem mankind… and, Lo! In time, that WORD OF GOD was manifested in the MAN, Jesus Christ! Yes, the WORD OF GOD TOOK ON FLESH (which means, simply, ‘came true’).

So, it was not, “God came in the flesh”, but rather, and commonsensely, ‘the WORD THAT GOD SPOKE took on flesh… it came true’: ‘To put flesh on the bones of a plan’

A dictionary definition goes thus:

• “If you put flesh on something, you add details and more information to it. This is an attempt to put flesh on what has been a very bare skeleton plan up to now.”

 

[Soapy]

Why do you keep pointing out the ' humanity ' verses ? We affirm them . Jesus isn't a rebel within the God head ,doing things apart from The Father and the Holy Spirit . Just like in marriage the Man is not greater in the sense of ' being, worth essence , value, and such ..No he has greater roles in the sense of headship. Within the God head the three persons are co equal ( Just like the man and woman ) but the voluntarily assume different roles for purposes . Like all three were there in creating the universe and raising Jesus.

Ha ha ha… you joker.

A marriage!!!?? A man and his wife is not like a Father and his Son.

God created ONE HUMAN BEING. Adam.

It was ONLY because Adam did not choose a companion animal (not a PARTNER!) that God SPLIT Adam into MALE and FEMALE and said that the two had to come together to REESTABLISH themself as ONE MAN!
In other words, GOD took TRAITS of humanity out of Adam and fashioned them into another being called ‘WO-MAN’ (which is Hebrew for: “Taken out of Man”).

So, you are off the mark talking about a human marriage… irrelevant.

A SON is ‘one who does the works of him who gave him the works to do’. So, if God gives you a task and you complete it in honesty, sincerity, righteousness, holiness, and sinlessness in reverence to God, then you are ‘SON OF GOD’.

But we are sinful and only Jesus confirmed to ALL AND EVERYONE OF THOSE CRITERIA. And that is why Jesus is THE ONLY SON OF GOD!

 

[Soapy]

I think that "Holy Spirit" may be a reference to "God's Spirit" as shows up in the Tanakh.

Excellent.

The Holy Spirit of God is God’s Holy Spirit. True!

The tail of the dog is the dog’s tail. The dog’s tail is not another dog… except that trinity would say that it is!!

Trinity would say that the tail has the same nature as the dog that it is attached to.

When the dog (when GOD) empowers the tail (Jesus) by means of the muscle (The Dogs muscles and dog’s mind to do so!) that means the tail IS THE DOG (is God!). No amount of the dod saying it wagged it’s tail means anything to Trinitarians. The tail says it is the dog that wagged it… of myself I can do nothing until the mind of the dog incites me by it’s muscles to wag! Trinity still says the tail did it all by itself because the muscles of the dog in the tail belong to the tail of the dog!!!! Wow!!! The last I heard, there was an unsuccessful dinasaur that had a brain in its rear section separate from the brain in its head… it didn’t last long, comparatively - the overwhelming act of nature says One mind - one body. In our case, GOD; The Father; YAHWEH, is that mind… WHICH HE SIGNALS to the Son via His (YAHWEH’s) Holy Spirit to empower the Son to act! Therefore, the compliant SERVANT, the dutiful SON, OBEYS the Father - does the WILL of the Father. THIS DOES NOT MAKE THE SON THE FATHER (GOD (title) / YAHWEH (proper name) because the son obeyed the Will of the Father, not that he had the power to do so because it was the Father that empowers him via the Holy Spirit (which is OF THE FATHER!)

Trinity would say that the when the tail of the dog wags, this shows that the tail is autonomous and therefore an animal in itself. HE can wag just as when the dog does it.

What DO Trinitarians see linguistically when they read:

• “God sends HIS HOLY SPIRIT into our hearts and minds”

And they say this shows that the Holy Spirit OF GOD is a person!

How does GOD send GOD? Which one of the three GOD sent HIS GOD into our hearts and minds … and reserved the REST OF THE THREE GOD outside of our hearts and minds?

How can a baked cake be separated so that the eggs only are dished out to guests … and the ‘cake’ remains a ‘Cake’ without the eggs!

This is the conundrum that trinity races away from when it claims that the son OF GOD became a man YET ALSO REMAINED GOD … while the other two in the ‘Cake mixture’ called ‘trinity God’ REMAINS a complete ‘Cake God’ without the ‘Son’ element!

Realistically, GOD CANNOT LIVE IN FLESH… nor can flesh live in GOD. It is the SPIRIT of GOD that lives in flesh or flesh live WITH the spirit of God.

And this is what we see with the MAN, Jesus, in that this man was ANOINTED (consecrated, set apart for priesthood and/or kingship) WITH the spirit of God and thus was EMPOWERED to do the Will of God:

• “You know what has happened throughout the province of Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached—how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.“ (Acts 10:37-38)

And Jesus, himself, stated:

• “what about the one whom the Father set apart as his very own and sent into the world? Why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’?” (John 10:36)

The ‘set apart for his very own’ says that GOD CONSECRATED (Anointed with HIS OWN HOLY SPIRIT) Jesus.

It is to be noted three things especially in that verse:

1. Jesus remonstrated with the Jews that he DID NOT CALL HIMSELF ‘GOD’ and that (previous verse) the reference to ‘GOD’ was used BY THE PERSON OF GOD towards those of humanity as meaning ‘Holy’, ‘Powerful’, ‘Heroic’, ‘GODLY’, persons IN THE SERVITUDE OF THE GREAT GOD. Therefore, saying that ‘God is my father’ is not a claim that he, too, was GOD!!!
2. It is the GOD of the Jews who consecrated Jesus… ‘set Jesus apart’ by anointing him with holy oil - as was done to prophets, priests, and kings of the past. So, why would Jesus need to be SET APART for kingship and Priesthood IF HE WAS GOD… who would GOD be priest for - or king to… indeed, priesthood, prophetership, kingship, in this regard, would be TOWARD GOD… if Jesus IS GOD how would that pan out??
3. Jesus BECAME ‘CHRIST’ (‘Jesus the Christ’) AFTER he was consecrated BY GOD! John the Baptist may have prophesied about Jesus but it is the ‘anointing’ that made him ‘Christ’ (Christ: ‘Anointed One’)
4. Being ANOINTED with GOD’s Holy Spirit EMPOWERS A PERSON with POWERS. Jesus was empowered with the FULLNESS of the Holy Spirit because it was the Father’s pleasure that it should be so:
   1. “For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form” (Col 2:9)
5. It was AFTER Jesus was ANOJNTED - set apart - that he was SENT INTO THE WORLD… which means: ‘To oppose Sin, corruption, paganism, ungodliness, etc’.

Contrast 4.1 with this verse:

• Ephesians 3:19: "and to know this love that surpasses knowledge--that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God."

Ephesians suggests that the apostles should be filled with the fullness of God …. Fullness of the ‘GODHEAD’ … according to trinity.

Yet, when Jesus is FILLED WITH THE FULLNESS, trinity says that this means that Jesus IS FILLED WITH GOD… MAKING HIM GOD!!!!

But doesn’t trinity say he was already 100% GOD (can there be a less than 100% God??) and so why would he need to be filled with GOD if he IS GOD?

But yet the apostles are NOT GOD when they are FILLED WITH GOD….!!!

Weird!!!

 

[Soapy]

I believe God the Son fits what scripture tells us.

Which scriptures mentions ‘God the Son’?

‘Son of God’ is not ‘God the Son’ since there is no such thing as ‘God the Son’.

You read that from a trinity website and it sounds sexy so you adopted it as a mantra without knowing even that it is false ideology!

 

[Starlight]

I believe Jesus is not God

 

[Soapy]

I believe Jesus is not God

Great! Excellent! Brilliant!

Yes, Jesus is not God. And therefore trinity is false! TRINITARIAN Christianity is False Christianity doctrine.

There are FALSE Scriptures in the New Testament which ‘appear’ to claim Jesus is God but it is absolutely clear that these verses are fabricated or altered to make that attempt at saying so.

Even when Jesus tells from his own mouth that the Father is the only true God, Trinitarians claim Jesus is saying that he, too, is the only true God AS WELL!

And when Jesus DENIES CLAIMING TO BE GOD because of A FALSE BELIEF OF THE JEWS, Trinitarians still claim Jesus WAS SAYING HE WAS GOD!

And when a doubting disciple finally comes to a realisation that Jesus has been resurrected from the dead BY GOD, AND Jesus tells him that he (Jesus) is not a SPIRIT, Trinitarians still say the disciple was claiming that Jesus was God…! God? Jesus just told the disciple that he was not a Spirit … and we know that GOD IS SPIRIT!!!!
Moreover, Jesus REBUKED that disciple for his unbelief, saying:

• ‘Is it only because you have seen and touched me that you believe? BLESSED ARE THEY WHO HAVE NOT SEEN AND YET WILL BELIEVE!’

Trinitarians say Jesus was BLESSING the disciple.

And when Jesus is asked if he is greater than Abraham, his ancestor (and the ancestor of the Jews - same thing) and Jesus answers:

• ‘Yes, I am [greater] and Abraham spoke about me saying he was pleased to see me (in spirit) as the messiah coming from his loins’

Trinitarians still say Jesus was saying he is God for saying ‘I am’. Be it known to you that ‘I am’ is NOT THE NAME OF GOD… else in the very next chapter, a man born blind who is healed is asked if he is sure he is that same man. In front of a jury of Jews he answers: ‘I am’… and yet no one accused that man of claiming to be God!
In fact, saying, ‘I am’ is nothing to do with being God else we would all be in serious blaspheming sin!!!!!! Now, if Jesus had said, ‘Before Abraham, YAHWEH’… because ‘YAHWEH’ IS the name of God… not ‘I Am’.

And you will read about Phillippians 2 in which Trinitarians will claim that Jesus:

1. WAS GOD but decided that
2. BEING EQUAL TO GOD was not something he wanted to be… and so became MAN and a servant.

Please…! Consider how it could be that Jesus could be ALMIGHTY GOD and decided that being EQUAL TO GOD was NOT WORTHWHILE!

How can he BE GOD and yet EQUAL TO GOD. Do you not see that is nonsense?

And not liking being God so he decided to become man??? Really.

Actually, that’s not what the verses say.

The verses say that ALTHOUGH Jesus had the POWER OF GOD (he was anointed and EMPOWERED with the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:37-38) Jesus did not think to ABUSE that power by misusing it did his own benefit BUT INSTEAD… acted like a servant to mankind - doing good and allowing himself to be abused by the Jews whom he had been SENT BY GOD to proclaim the testimony of the God… God who empowered him and sent him!

Trinity condemns the God-Man of paganism (Luke the Greek Hercules, Son of a God and earthly mother, yet claims Jesus is God-Man, son of God and human female… odd, isn’t it???

There is far more but this last parts is fully worth hearing and pondering:

• Why does Jesus acquire the kingship over creation IF HE IS GOD?

Do we not understand that the created world was created FOR THE SON OF MAN!!!

So then Jesus sits on the throne of DAVID - which is an earthly throne over creation -AS PROMISED BY GOD… did God promise himself to be king over creation? Or was it for the sin of his love?

And is that Son “GOD” himself?

Jesus says that it is the Son of Man, a human Being who will rule creation…

And GOD IS SPIRIT.

 

[steveb1]

A question for the Unitarians and other Christians who doubt Jesus is God:

<snipped>

This is extremely easy to answer if Jesus is God. But if he's not, I wonder how it's answered.

Thanks for playing!

The mainstream Christian Jesus is "God" because he's said to be ontological God, "of one substance with the Father".

The New Testament Jesus is not God and never claimed to be, not even in John's Gospel, which explicitly excludes Jesus from the Godhead in texts such as John 17:3 where Jesus says, "You, Father, are the only true God"; where Jesus says he is a man who hears and obeys God's will and word; and where Jesus tells Mary that he must ascend to "your God and MY God" - obviously God does not "have" a God and cannot ascend to God.

Nor is John 1:1ff a special case where it says the Logos/Word was with God and was God, because John uses "theos", meaning divine or "small-'g' god". He doesn't employ the standard usage of "ho theos" ("THE God"). Johannine context decides this issue, because in the main body of the Gospel, John never again refers to Christ as "Logos", and as mentioned actually excludes Jesus from the Godhead. Moreover, it is unbiblical to identify Jesus as "the Word in the beginning" for the simple reason that Jesus did not yet exist. That is, the Logos had not yet incarnated in the human nature of the man who would be called "Jesus".

The NT Jesus is as close as a created angelic being can be to God, but he is not God himself. God alone is the Creator, although he "subcontracted" the work of creation to the Son. Jesus is the express image of God, but of course, no image is identical to what it reflects.

This is why no NT prayer is directed to Jesus as to God, but only to God "in Jesus's name" or "through Jesus". The only prayer to Jesus - "Maranatha" ("Come, Lord") or "Lord Jesus receive my spirit" (Stephen) is addressed to him not as "God", but rather as God's agent and the Christian's Messianic Lord.

The Trinitarian Jesus is simply a misunderstanding of the biblical terms "Son of God", "God's Son", and "Son of Man". Trinitarianism took these originally monotheistic-Jewish phrases and blasphemously and idolatrously transformed them into semi-Pagan, Hellenistic categories which are in direct contradiction to NT christology.

 

[joelr]

GOD does not ‘go’ anywhere himself.

GOD sends his Spirit, his angels, his prophets, his servants … to do his Will.

God is the controller of his forces. He himself does not enter a fight but directs from his glorious throne!

GOD speaks a word and it is MANIFESTED in whomever and in whatever way he chooses.

Exodus 15:3:
Yahweh is a man of war;
Yahweh is his name.
Isaiah 42:13:
Yahweh goes forth like a mighty man;
like a man of war(s) he stirs up his fury.
Zephaniah 3:17: Yahweh, your God, is in your midst,
a warrior who gives victory.
Psalm 24:8:
Who is the King of Glory?
Yahweh, strong and mighty;
Yahweh, mighty in battle.


You are demonstrably wrong. It's right there is scripture that he goes forth like a mighty man. It does not say he "sent someone"
So do you just make up stuff about scripture whenever you feel like it?
Now show me where it says God never goes anywhere himself.

GOD spoke the word that a saviour would come into the world to redeem mankind… and, Lo! In time, that WORD OF GOD was manifested in the MAN, Jesus Christ! Yes, the WORD OF GOD TOOK ON FLESH (which means, simply, ‘came true’).

First you cannot prove that those words were spoken by any God. They are myths written down by humans most likely.
Second the Persian religion predicted a world savior, virgin born in 1600BC. During the 2nd temple period the Israelites were occupied by these people and clearly adapted some of their myths.
Savior Gods are actually a Hellenistic concept, were in Greece first. So we have 2 clear indications of the Jewish mythology borrowing myths.


Hellenistic religion

"This led to a change from concern for a religion of national prosperity to one for individual salvation, from focus on a particular ethnic group to concern for every human. The prophet or saviour replaced the priest and king as the chief religious figure."

SO the gospels were written (Mark), highly mythical and copying OT and other narratives line by line. As well as taking the Epistles and crafting earthly stories and created the savior that was prophecized. Every religion already had a similar savior who got members into heaven.
This demonstrates incredibly clearly that it's mythology all the way down. The first savior to the last.
Do you have any evidence whatsoever besides just proclaiming what you believe?

 

[joelr]

I am not trying to ban other points of view THAT ARE BASED ON BIBLICAL SCRIPTURES.

What I’m saying is that we WHO DO BELIEVE would like to debate AMONG OURSELVES concerning what we believe.

IT IS YOU who is saying that we should NOT BELIEVE anything that we say we believe.

You just cannot stop being cult-like, brainwashy and inapropriate. You have no right to suggest one entire side of the debate should leave?
This is not "Same Faith Debates"?????????? There is a section for that. This is not it. This is General debates which means I can demonstrate your religion is a bunch of mythical stories with no evidence and THAT is why the trinity is false. Get over yourself.

And I'm not saying what anyone should believe. I'm saying I follow what the evidence presents. I follow what the truth is regardless of how much I want something else to be true.
You just responded to scripture about Yahweh going forth and fighting war by saying "Yahweh doesn't go anywhere"?

Ok, please provide evidence. Then explain why this is in scripture which clearly states Yahweh goes places and does stuff.

I think even Trinitarians who I tail against would turn and rail against you… ‘My enemies enemy is my friend while our common enemy is in battle!’

It isn't "ME"? They also can produce a shred of evidence if they like? Prove these fantasies and myths have any basis in reality?
And you are not in battle. You haven't even attempted to justify your strange beliefs in ancient stories? They remain completely made up stories with no historical evidence except myths written to be metaphorical myths?

And, SATAN is not battling GOD, per se. He is battling the Son of man.

God CREATED the Angel that became known as Satan. Satan is completely wrong that he can rule over mankind, which is what the REAL BATTLE IS CONCERNING.

As I have pointed out, with evidence, Satan was just an agent of God. During the 2nd Temple period when they were exposed to the Persian God vs Devil ideas they decided to change Satan to be at war with God.
"During the Second Temple Period, when Jews were living in the Achaemenid Empire, Judaism was heavily influenced by Zoroastrianism, the religion of the Achaemenids.[27][8][28] Jewish conceptions of Satan were impacted by Angra Mainyu,[8][29] the Zoroastrian god of evil, darkness, and ignorance.[8] In the Septuagint, the Hebrew ha-Satan in Job and Zechariah is translated by the Greek word diabolos (slanderer), the same word in the Greek New Testament from which the English word "devil" is derived.[3"

So none of that is real. They are myths taken from the Persians.

What would happen if there hadn’t been a saviour who maintained his sinlessness is that Satan would have proved to God that man could live without God … but, ironically, it would have DESTROYED mankind … leaving Satan with nothing to rule over…. A serpent biting its own tail!!

But it's a myth and the good guy always wins over the bad evil creature so it probable would have worked out.
When the Israelites incorporated Persian myths about a world savior they also incorporated ideas about Satan wanting to destroy mankind and Satan being at eternal war with God and everyone resurrects at the end of the world. They are just stories.

If you read the scriptures properly then you would know that it is Jesus who is battling with Satan.

I am familiar with the myths.

Moreover, the ‘theology’ of the Hebrews, the Israelites, the Jews, was well established before they ever encountered any nation like the Persians or any belief as Zoroastroism (however it’s spelt!)

I was waiting for some kind of lie. You see this a lot with fundamentalists. At one point they will just decide to lie because they cannot accept some truths.
Again, the leading scholar, MAry Boyce, lived in Iran for years learning about their ancient culture. She has several books on Zoroastrianism and there is no doubt that the world savior predictions are from 1600BC. Before the Israelites were even a nation.

But also, in the Torah there is no heaven for everyone, resurrection at the end of the world. I have been giving you scholarship and sources so now you are just sounding delusional.
Again, pg 29 in Boyce's book:

"The unique historical features of Zoroastrianism, such as its monotheism,[5][6][7][8][9] messianism, judgment after death, heaven and hell, and free will may have influenced other religious and philosophical systems, including Second Temple Judaism, Gnosticism, Greek philosophy,[10] Christianity, Islam"

And TRINITY… they never encountered anything called or alluding to a TRINITY.

What they encountered were nations who believed that the world was created and maintained by spirit deities (GODS) who were MANY IN ‘persons’: there were many of them who each individually were managing aspects of the created world. Typically THREE but often more.

There have been versions of the Trinity since Babylon.
"
The Hindu Trinity represents the Divine in its threefold nature.

Each part of the Trinity contains and includes the others.

Each God in the trinity: Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva has his Goddess. Brahma’s consort is Saraswati, the Goddess of knowledge; Vishnu’s is Lakshmi, the Goddess of delight, beauty and love, and Shiva’s is Parvati (or Kali), the Goddess of transformation, and destruction.

The Hindu trinity's origin can be also found in Babylon, where it might have been incorporated into the Kabbalah, with the Jewish names of the 'sephiroths'.
We find the concept of trinity in many other beliefs systems:

- the Egyptian Trinity of a transcendental god Amun that also manifests as Ra and Ptah. Of God Ra that has a daughter Maat (Wisdom, Knowledge) that is a consort or sister of God Thoth (Divine Word or Logos of Ra). This was soon replaced with Osiris, Isis and Horus.

- the Greek Trinity consisting of Zeus (the God), Hera (the Goddess) and Hercules (their son)

the Babylonian holy Trinity consisting of Ninki (later became Ishtar) the mother, Enki (later became Namakh) the father, and Marduk the son. Three animal icons associated with the three Sun ‘gods’ are: the lion for the goddess, the bull for the father, and dragon for the son.

- The three sacred Vedic energy manifestations – Tamas (inertia, darkness, destruction), Rajas (preservation, movement, dynamic), and Satvas (creation, existence, order, purity)

The Israelite ‘GOD’ told his favoured nation that they were NOT TO BELIEVE IN OR WORSHIP MANY GODS BUT THAT THEY SHOULD WORSHIP ONLY ONE GOD - Him - ALONE.

That was a late development. For centuries the Israelites had a consort to Yawhey - Ashera, which I an give sources to.
During the 2nd temple period the Persians allowed banished religious leaders to return home and establish their religion.
During this period they were confused why God said they would rule everyone but were invaded over and over. They decided Yahweh was pissed because they worshiped too many Gods so they became Yahweh-centric and focused on one God.
If you go here to 3:05 you can hear OT Professor F.S. speak on this exactly

But then you go on to say that no one should believe in ANY THEOLOGICAL belief…. Nah! That’s as far as the ‘friendship’ goes!

I didn't say ANY theological belief. I simply gave what the current understanding and beliefs are in academia of the Bible, explained a bit of evidence and asked you to back you beliefs up with evidence.
If you cannot and simply choose to believe because it "feels" right then you are doing the same thing done by every other religion currently and past. That includes all cults and any supernatural belief system.

I said the EVIDENCE does not support what you believe. I do not want to believe things that are false. I do not care about your personal feeling about me. I am asking a person who holds a belief to justify the belief with something more than anecdotal stories, feelings and faith because we already know people use those to believe things that are false. Therefore you may also be doing that.
So evidence is required. Sounds like you have nothing.
Outside fundamentalism historical scholars do not buy this stuff at all.

 

[joelr]

Those sentences that you wrote. I think it's more metaphorical.

Is Yahweh a man? No
Does He actually come down and go into the mist of people? No.
So what does all this mean then? Is someone lying to us? No

God is the king of glory too. He was actually Israel's first king. He told them that He will be there king, but they wanted a king like that nations around them, so God gave them Saul.

God is mighty in battle, does that mean He fighting in the front lines? No of course not. All of this is God manifestation. God manifesting Himself in people, esp when it comes to war. He can also manifest himself in angels where it can say that God walked among them.

Angels can also carry and bear God's name too, just like on how Jesus did. And God said..... well no... an angel said.... That angel was speaking for God. God can also speak through people and work through people too. God worked through His son all of Jesus's life. Jesus said that he could do nothing without his father.

God is mighty in battle. Of course He is. He will help people win wars by his help. Very easy to understand. God does not leave heaven. There is no reason for that. Plus, the angels do God's work too, they are the "finger's of God" as scripture tells us.

God is not Jesus and Jesus is not God. God was working through Jesus, 2 Cor 5 even tells us that one too. The trinity totally degrades our Creator.

No. First Yahweh appears many times in the OT, riding a Chariot, speaking with Job, putting him on trial. He did stuff.
You are also adding modern theological ideas about God developed by Aquinas and others. Back then each nation had a National God:

"
The 9th century BCE saw the emergence of nation-states in Syria-Palestine, including Israel, Judah, Philistia, Moab and Ammon, each with its national god.[34] Thus Chemosh was the god of the Moabites, Milcom the god of the Ammonites, Qaus the god of the Edomites, and Yahweh the "God of Israel" (no "God of Judah" is mentioned anywhere in the Bible).[35][36] This development occurred first in the kingdom of Israel (Samaria), and then in Judah, the southern kingdom, where king Jehoshephat was a strong ally of the Omride dynasty of the northern kingdom.[37] In each kingdom the king was also the head of the national religion and thus the viceroy on Earth of the national god,[38] and when Judah became an Assyrian vassal-state after the destruction of Israel, the relationship between the king and dynastic god Yahweh came to be thought of in terms of Assyrian vassal treaties.[39]

The Bible retains traces of this worship of multiple gods both in the region and in Israel.[40] In this atmosphere a struggle emerged between those who believed that Yahweh alone should be worshiped, and those who worshiped him within a larger group of gods.[41] The Yahweh-alone party, the party of the prophets and Deuteronomists, ultimately triumphed, and their victory lies behind the biblical narrative of an Israel vacillating between periods of "following other gods" and periods of fidelity to Yahweh.[41"

Yahweh also fights a sea monster.


Before that Yahweh was a smaller God who later was promoted. NOt what you would expect is the "one true God" was communicating with people. But exactly what you would expect if these were myths made by people:

"
Contrary to the traditional picture of the Israelites entering Palestine from outside its borders, the current model is that they developed from the native Canaanite population, and that Israelite religion was accordingly much closer to that of the Canaanites than the Bible suggests.[28] The Israelites initially worshiped Yahweh alongside a variety of Canaanite gods and goddesses, including El, head of the Canaanite pantheon, (he, not Yahweh, was the original "God of Israel"—the word "Israel" is based on the name El rather than Yahweh), Asherah, who was El's consort, and major Canaanite deities such as Baal.[29] El and his seventy sons, who included Baal and Yahweh, made up the Assembly of the Gods, each member of which had a human nation under his care; a textual variant of Deuteronomy describes Yahweh received Israel when El divided the nations of the world among his sons, and incidentally suggests that El and Yahweh were not identified as the same god in this early period:[30][31]

When the Most High ('elyôn) gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he separated humanity,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of divine beings.
For Yahweh's portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted heritage.

Then Yahweh was promoted in the myth-making to a higher God:


"Between the Judges and the first half of the monarchy El and Yahweh and other gods merged in a process of religious syncretism;[32] 'el (Hebrew: אל‎) became a generic term meaning "god", as opposed to the name of a specific god, and epithets such as El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh alone, diminishing the position of El and strengthening the position of Yahweh,[6] while features of Baal, El, and Asherah were absorbed into Yahweh.[7] In the next stage the Yahwistic religion separated itself from its Canaanite heritage, first by rejecting Baal-worship in the 9th century, then with prophetic condemnation of Baal, the asherim, sun-worship, worship on the "high places", practices pertaining to the dead, and other matters."


So none of the 14th century theology applies to early myth writing.


Also if you are going to start with "that is a metaphor", fine then so is the resurrection. It's a metaphor for dying and rising from your lower self to your higher compassionate self. No real savior demigods to get you into heaven. It's just metaphorical spirituality.
Once you start saying "I say this is a metaphor" then anyone can say anything is a metaphor.

I mean, I do actually believe that is what the myth could mean but I don't think it was written to mean that. Scholar John Dominik Crossan actually does think that was the resurrection metaphor. It's more likely that all the other religions were being Hellenized (they all got savior demigods who when baptized into the group you got into the afterlife) and people in Judiasm also wanted one. I think they believed the myths were real, not metaphor. Back then it was common to believe in some supernatural story and heaven was another Greek myth that was very appealing to people.
The Israelites did not have an afterlife like that. The Jewish religious leaders rejected it but eventually it caught on. Of course this was during the Greek invasion, wow what a coincidence!? Yahweh told the Jews about heaven just when the people who already had it invaded?

 

[Soapy]

No. First Yahweh appears many times in the OT, riding a Chariot, speaking with Job, putting him on trial. He did stuff.
You are also adding modern theological ideas about God developed by Aquinas and others. Back then each nation had a National God:

"
The 9th century BCE saw the emergence of nation-states in Syria-Palestine, including Israel, Judah, Philistia, Moab and Ammon, each with its national god.[34] Thus Chemosh was the god of the Moabites, Milcom the god of the Ammonites, Qaus the god of the Edomites, and Yahweh the "God of Israel" (no "God of Judah" is mentioned anywhere in the Bible).[35][36] This development occurred first in the kingdom of Israel (Samaria), and then in Judah, the southern kingdom, where king Jehoshephat was a strong ally of the Omride dynasty of the northern kingdom.[37] In each kingdom the king was also the head of the national religion and thus the viceroy on Earth of the national god,[38] and when Judah became an Assyrian vassal-state after the destruction of Israel, the relationship between the king and dynastic god Yahweh came to be thought of in terms of Assyrian vassal treaties.[39]

The Bible retains traces of this worship of multiple gods both in the region and in Israel.[40] In this atmosphere a struggle emerged between those who believed that Yahweh alone should be worshiped, and those who worshiped him within a larger group of gods.[41] The Yahweh-alone party, the party of the prophets and Deuteronomists, ultimately triumphed, and their victory lies behind the biblical narrative of an Israel vacillating between periods of "following other gods" and periods of fidelity to Yahweh.[41"

Yahweh also fights a sea monster.


Before that Yahweh was a smaller God who later was promoted. NOt what you would expect is the "one true God" was communicating with people. But exactly what you would expect if these were myths made by people:

"
Contrary to the traditional picture of the Israelites entering Palestine from outside its borders, the current model is that they developed from the native Canaanite population, and that Israelite religion was accordingly much closer to that of the Canaanites than the Bible suggests.[28] The Israelites initially worshiped Yahweh alongside a variety of Canaanite gods and goddesses, including El, head of the Canaanite pantheon, (he, not Yahweh, was the original "God of Israel"—the word "Israel" is based on the name El rather than Yahweh), Asherah, who was El's consort, and major Canaanite deities such as Baal.[29] El and his seventy sons, who included Baal and Yahweh, made up the Assembly of the Gods, each member of which had a human nation under his care; a textual variant of Deuteronomy describes Yahweh received Israel when El divided the nations of the world among his sons, and incidentally suggests that El and Yahweh were not identified as the same god in this early period:[30][31]

When the Most High ('elyôn) gave to the nations their inheritance,
when he separated humanity,
he fixed the boundaries of the peoples
according to the number of divine beings.
For Yahweh's portion is his people,
Jacob his allotted heritage.

Then Yahweh was promoted in the myth-making to a higher God:


"Between the Judges and the first half of the monarchy El and Yahweh and other gods merged in a process of religious syncretism;[32] 'el (Hebrew: אל‎) became a generic term meaning "god", as opposed to the name of a specific god, and epithets such as El Shaddai came to be applied to Yahweh alone, diminishing the position of El and strengthening the position of Yahweh,[6] while features of Baal, El, and Asherah were absorbed into Yahweh.[7] In the next stage the Yahwistic religion separated itself from its Canaanite heritage, first by rejecting Baal-worship in the 9th century, then with prophetic condemnation of Baal, the asherim, sun-worship, worship on the "high places", practices pertaining to the dead, and other matters."


So none of the 14th century theology applies to early myth writing.


Also if you are going to start with "that is a metaphor", fine then so is the resurrection. It's a metaphor for dying and rising from your lower self to your higher compassionate self. No real savior demigods to get you into heaven. It's just metaphorical spirituality.
Once you start saying "I say this is a metaphor" then anyone can say anything is a metaphor.

I mean, I do actually believe that is what the myth could mean but I don't think it was written to mean that. Scholar John Dominik Crossan actually does think that was the resurrection metaphor. It's more likely that all the other religions were being Hellenized (they all got savior demigods who when baptized into the group you got into the afterlife) and people in Judiasm also wanted one. I think they believed the myths were real, not metaphor. Back then it was common to believe in some supernatural story and heaven was another Greek myth that was very appealing to people.
The Israelites did not have an afterlife like that. The Jewish religious leaders rejected it but eventually it caught on. Of course this was during the Greek invasion, wow what a coincidence!? Yahweh told the Jews about heaven just when the people who already had it invaded?

So this proves that Jesus is not God. True.

Good research….! Maybe!!!

But it is still the case that ‘WE BELIEVE’, therefore what the debate is concerning is FOR THOSE WHO DO BELIEVE!

Specifically, the debate is whether the Son of God IS GOD!

There are those who see complete nonsense in:

• a three-person God (which is pagan) being touted as their One God when these same three -person-One-God believers dearest the thought of three Gods rulers

There’s no difference, I say.

And further, how can a United (??!!!) three separate themselves since the TRINITY of the three is a permanent feature!

Trinity says the son did not want to be God anymore and therefore became man…. But remained being God despite deciding not wanting to be God anymore.

Trinity says that the Son whom they claim is God (and God is THREE…!!!! Check that for linguistic integrity!) DIED…. But did not die….

And GOD raised him from the dead … but it was himself who raised himself from the dead …. (Check that for illogic and conundrum!)

And GOD, whom he is, raised him up to heaven and seated him next to GOD, whom he already is…

And GOD, whom he is, gave him power and authority … which he always had!

And He, the Son, gets to rule over his own creation which he did not create because else he would be called ‘Father’, which he is not!!! (What the… !!!)

But creation is a minor part of Heaven…. So why go through all the sacrifice, suffering, humiliation, and (non-death… pretence of death) to acquire what he already own (if he did so!) and that rulership is FAR LESS THAN what he already rules over (if he were God) HEAVEN?

Somehow the ideology (I can’t even say it’s a THEOLOGY) just doesn’t add up!!

BUT TGIS IS TRINITY CHRISTIANITY… that is being debated.

 

[Soapy]

A question for the Unitarians and other Christians who doubt Jesus is God:

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8​

Notice that it is GOD that demonstrates His love towards us but it is CHRIST who dies.

The answer is so simple that it really questions what it is that Trinitarians believe about the scriptures that we commonly read.

It is US, humanity, that sinned.

God sees we are infected with sin in such a way that we will all die an eternal death NO MATTER HOW PIOUSLY we may live our lives. That is to say, none of us behave sufficiently holy enough for God to consider us as worthy for redemption…. NONE OF US.

But seeing that we are unholy Sons of God, made in the image of God, which Father would not seek to redeem his sons IF THEY SHOWED TRUE REPENTANCE!

But remember that it is not simply a case of GOD forgiving us. The fallen Angel, Satan, challenges God to prove that man can live a holy life without God’s Holy Spirit.

God gave Satan a set amount of time to try what he liked to prove Satan wrong. This time came to an end when Jesus DIED on the cross.

Note carefully: It was NOT the coming of Jesus BUT HIS DEATH that ended that era. This is because all up until Jesus died, all mankind with Jesus, was severely set against by the Sin of Adam, the cause of the original sin. So, when Jesus OVERCAME the temptations - and the final temptation in the garden of Gethsemane wherein Jesus ALMOST FALTERED, knowing he was going to die - this was the triumphant point! Albeit he still had to actually suffer and die but now his mind was made up to do the Will of his Father and God, YAHWEH.

And what was that Will?

God said that he would redeem MANKIND from the sin of Adam IF there were a man holy enough who would shed his blood for the purpose. Such a man was PROMISED that GOD would resurrect him from the dead if he died so. BUT EVEN JESUS wondered if this could really be so - but recovered himself enough to say:

• ‘Not my Will, [Father], but Your Will’

So, it could hardly be that ‘GOD’ came into his own creation to pay the price of sin for his unholy image. How would this prove against Satan? Because an immortal God who cannot die and cannot sin would certainly fulfil the role and would not fear his BODY turning to dust … yet we see that with the man, Jesus the Christ.

So, Oeste, it is exactly that God loved the son so much that he sacrificed the only holy man in order to SAVE THE WHOLE OF MANKIND from the original sin of Adam:

• ‘For by one unholy man, Adam, sin came into the world…. And by the death of one holy man, Jesus Christ, sin is destroyed out of the world’ (paraphrased)

It was by complete FAITH in the Father, that the Father would raise him again, that Jesus sacrificed himself, and the reward that was destined to the one who did so.

Let's pretend Jesus is NOT God, just like you claim. How is it GOD showing his love toward us by asking someone else to die?

Jesus is not God, and there is nothing to pretend against!

If the Warden comes to your house and requests you die for someone who's currently in jail, someone who knows and confesses he's guilty, would you consider this an act of love by the Warden?

Remember, I'm not asking if you are loving by agreeing to die for the convicted felon, I'm asking if you feel the Warden is showing his love for you by asking.

This is extremely easy to answer if Jesus is God. But if he's not, I wonder how it's answered.

Thanks for playing!

You have the wrong analogy… What you suggest is nothing like what the scriptures alludes to.

The nearest I can think of is like in a mafia whereby a highly important and loved family member is imprisoned for their own crime - an unforgivable heinous crime that would condemn the whole mafia family.

A sacrifice is called for who would admit To the heinous crime of the jailed one BUT THAT the mafia Don promised that he would GET HIM BACK OUT OF PRISON again and REWARD him very generously with a top level CAPO position under him (second level boss).

Now you have a scenario….

Who would volunteer THINKING, ‘What if the Don cannot get me out of prison…. I’m DOOMED - no parole - no appeal - I’m AS GOOD AS DEAD!’.

Moreover, the volunteer would have to be SQEAKY CLEAN, unblemished, pure, innocent of all sins… having every faith and love for the Don.

And he certainly WOULD NOT BE THE DON, himself!!!

And guess who the imprisoned gang member is?
Yep, MANKIND!

And the eventual volunteer?
Yep, Jesus Christ!

And the Don?
Yes, again, YAHWEH GOD!

And Prison?
ETERNAL DEATH!

 

[Soapy]

I think that "Holy Spirit" may be a reference to "God's Spirit" as shows up in the Tanakh.

Absolutely right.

The Holy Spirit IS the Spirit of the Father; the Spirit of God; God’s Holy Spirit.

Trinitarian Christians have a problem with ‘ownership’.

They cannot seem to understand the word ‘of’.

In fact, if you say to them ‘hand of God’, they believe that ‘hand’ is another person…. AND that because it is ‘of God’ it must mean that ‘hand’ IS GOD!

How many things are said to be ‘of ‘ God?

And then treat each as trinity claims!

How many Sons of God (angels) are there?

How many PERSONS OF GOD do they have?

Answer: Countless!!

 

[Muffled]

I think that "Holy Spirit" may be a reference to "God's Spirit" as shows up in the Tanakh.

I believe Holy Spirit is used interchangeably with the Paraclete.

 

[Muffled]

Which scriptures mentions ‘God the Son’?

‘Son of God’ is not ‘God the Son’ since there is no such thing as ‘God the Son’.

You read that from a trinity website and it sounds sexy so you adopted it as a mantra without knowing even that it is false ideology!

John 10:36 do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’? 37 If I am not doing the works of my Father, then do not believe me; 38 but if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me and I am in the Father.”

I believe you are making that up since you have no proof. The null hypothesis is difficult to prove.

I believe you assume things that are not true. I came to the realization that Jesus and God are one through the Holy Spirit when I received Jesus as Lord and Savior before I even knew that the scripture says the same thing and my understanding of scripture comes from my own study of the Word.

 

[Muffled]

I believe Jesus is not God

I believe you would be right if you were taking the Spirit of God within and the body as a whole but He is God by identification of the Spirit within.

 

[Starlight]

I believe you would be right if you were taking the Spirit of God within and the body as a whole but He is God by identification of the Spirit within.

Are you trinitarian or modalist?

 

[Starlight]

I think that "Holy Spirit" may be a reference to "God's Spirit" as shows up in the Tanakh.

So you do not believe the holy spirit is a person?