This thread is a continuation of another I did on Christian Forums dot come over 2 years ago (History of the Trinity) but I'm going to try for it to be more focused. One of the big break throughs that has come about in recent times is our understanding of Second Temple Judaism. So what I'm going to do is focus more on the areas of Judaism from that era that lend itself to what we understand as Nicene Theology of the bishops that eventually formulate the Nicene Creed. Lots of people incorrectly believe that the Trinitarianism is a pagan corruption, and it is such a touchy subject that it is officially banned here (so no Trinitarian debates allowed for folks that want to argue against it).
My basic thesis for this thread is that there was already a basic Trinitarian Phronema (mindset) coming out of 2nd Temple Judaism. This official theology is called "Two Powers In Heaven" in various books, lecturers written by scholars. In Recent times Biblical scholar Michael Heiser was one of the big people talking about this topic.
Besides the "Two Powers in Heaven" theology of 2nd Temple Judaism there is another bullet point coming from the Aramaic language. By the time of Jesus, the common people had lost a lot of their knowledge of Hebrew. Hebrew by that time had largely become a dead language, and used as an official "Holy Language" in the same way that we have Churches use Latin, ancient Greek, Coptic, Armenian, Syriac and Slavonic today. What is however interesting in 2nd Temple Judaism are Aramaic translations of the Old Testament texts. In the Targums, we have a concept Memra that is very similar (seemingly identical to the Greek Logos), and has a lot of theological significance for describing things like Divine appearances and manifestations (Theophanies, Parousia's etc.).
I will end this basic setup, post by mentioning a basic point mentioned by Author Fr. Steven Deyoung in his book, "Religion of the Apostles". Much of our understanding of theology has been shaped by previous centuries and the development of "Monotheism". Unfortunately, much of the discussions on theology has been influenced by what Deyoung calls "Hard Monotheism". This the kind of monotheism that we have coming out Talmudic Judaism (a theology made purely for the purposes of rejecting Christian doctrine), as well as the rise of Islam. This is the kind of "monotheism" that rejects all forms of Scriptural nuance or complexity for the purposes of pure simply absolutism. That however is not the monotheism that existed in earlier Judaism. The Early Judaism believed God was One but began to recognize and take note that there was some really weird stuff going on in some of the scriptures and Old Testament events and begin to take notice of them and ponder the significance of them. Rather than thinking in terms of "Monotheism" vs. "Polytheism" the ancient Jews thought more in terms of "Their true Faith of Yahweh" vs. "the religions of the pagan heathens surrounding them". It basically allowed for more mystery than Talmudic Judaism where all the weird stuff we will talk about in scripture simply gets dismissed as idiom, hyperbole etc. And of course, I found it interesting learning that the term "monotheism" itself is more of a Post Reformation construct than something the ancients talked about.
OK hopefully that gives you a good overview. I will be hopefully laying out an introduction of why the 2nd Temple Rabbis began talking about "Two Powers in Heaven" hopefully sometime early Sunday, or later in that day. Tomorrow is Father's day, and my dad's birthday and he is in the hospital (been there the last 2.5 weeks so if I don't post early, I likely won't be posting until later. Thanks for reading!
Pavel
My basic thesis for this thread is that there was already a basic Trinitarian Phronema (mindset) coming out of 2nd Temple Judaism. This official theology is called "Two Powers In Heaven" in various books, lecturers written by scholars. In Recent times Biblical scholar Michael Heiser was one of the big people talking about this topic.
Besides the "Two Powers in Heaven" theology of 2nd Temple Judaism there is another bullet point coming from the Aramaic language. By the time of Jesus, the common people had lost a lot of their knowledge of Hebrew. Hebrew by that time had largely become a dead language, and used as an official "Holy Language" in the same way that we have Churches use Latin, ancient Greek, Coptic, Armenian, Syriac and Slavonic today. What is however interesting in 2nd Temple Judaism are Aramaic translations of the Old Testament texts. In the Targums, we have a concept Memra that is very similar (seemingly identical to the Greek Logos), and has a lot of theological significance for describing things like Divine appearances and manifestations (Theophanies, Parousia's etc.).
I will end this basic setup, post by mentioning a basic point mentioned by Author Fr. Steven Deyoung in his book, "Religion of the Apostles". Much of our understanding of theology has been shaped by previous centuries and the development of "Monotheism". Unfortunately, much of the discussions on theology has been influenced by what Deyoung calls "Hard Monotheism". This the kind of monotheism that we have coming out Talmudic Judaism (a theology made purely for the purposes of rejecting Christian doctrine), as well as the rise of Islam. This is the kind of "monotheism" that rejects all forms of Scriptural nuance or complexity for the purposes of pure simply absolutism. That however is not the monotheism that existed in earlier Judaism. The Early Judaism believed God was One but began to recognize and take note that there was some really weird stuff going on in some of the scriptures and Old Testament events and begin to take notice of them and ponder the significance of them. Rather than thinking in terms of "Monotheism" vs. "Polytheism" the ancient Jews thought more in terms of "Their true Faith of Yahweh" vs. "the religions of the pagan heathens surrounding them". It basically allowed for more mystery than Talmudic Judaism where all the weird stuff we will talk about in scripture simply gets dismissed as idiom, hyperbole etc. And of course, I found it interesting learning that the term "monotheism" itself is more of a Post Reformation construct than something the ancients talked about.
OK hopefully that gives you a good overview. I will be hopefully laying out an introduction of why the 2nd Temple Rabbis began talking about "Two Powers in Heaven" hopefully sometime early Sunday, or later in that day. Tomorrow is Father's day, and my dad's birthday and he is in the hospital (been there the last 2.5 weeks so if I don't post early, I likely won't be posting until later. Thanks for reading!
Pavel
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