Growing up protestant, and getting to know various evangelical churches, including a fundamental cult (the International Church of Christ), I’d say the trinity is not a tenet many Christians engross their minds with much at all. Faith, repentance, good works, thankfulness, praise – these are the elements of the day-to-day life of a believer. Most believers are not theologians.
That said, I carried this conundrum around with me, and it did plague my mind: how am I supposed to follow and imitate and become like someone who was essentially G‑D? Jesus, as a man, could never really have sinned, because his divine nature would immediately have caught and prevented it. He must have been kept from crossing the line, because all humans fail – even the righteous falls seven times (Prov. 24:16). Failure was not a possibility. How then could his trial and overcoming be logically valid? How could he still “forgive my sins”? If however he was purely human, and through disposition and upbringing developed an unwavering obedience to the Spirit of G‑D, deciding to go the path of righteousness in every instance, all the way – then he becomes relatable again.
I began studying Hebrew in order to understand some key concepts of faith, including “eternity”, “hell”, and the nature/essence/being of G‑D. E.g, how come in the “Old Testament”, the Spirit seems to come over people as an when required, while in the “New Testament”, the Spirit seems to come over people at conversion and more or less stay with them as a new characteristic of their being?
In that process, I started listening to some Rabbis including Yom Tov Glaser, Mendel Kessin, Alon Anava, and yes, Tovia Singer also, and was fascinated by their teaching and authenticity and sincerity. By then I knew about the “messianic” movement of course, and wanted to find out more about why the (orthodox) Jews take such issue with Jesus/Yeshua being the messiah. I learned about the main areas of criticism:
- His apparent failure in re-building the temple and gathering in the people, which required the explanation of a “second coming”, which is not predicted widely
- His supposed abrogation of the Torah, which is really mainly pushed ahead by Paul not Jesus/Yeshua himself, who asserts “no jot or tittle…” but then also seems to bring the binding nature of the Torah into question, e.g. with regards to washing hands or keeping Shabbat.
- His claim to be “One with G‑D” in a way that is incompatible with Jewish thought and understanding: a oneness in essence/being, not just in will and alignment.
Digging deeper into this, I learned how the church only codified concepts like the divinity of Jesus and the trinity in 325, and how even Thomas exclaiming “My Lord and my God” does not literally mean that he is calling Yeshua “G‑D”.
Overall, I continue to find the intellectual integrity and the way of thinking of Jewish sages much more fascinating than that of all the Christians or “messianics” whom I’ve encountered, who all more or less constantly seem to be defending or glossing over pretty glaring inconsistencies and contradictions, including but not limited to:
- Why were the gospels written originally in Greek, if the writers and primary audience were (supposedly) Hebrew-/Aramaic-speaking Jews?
- Inaccuracies/misquotes of the “Old Testament” e.g. Mt 1:23, Mt 23:35, Mk 2:25-26
- quotes of verses that simply don’t exist, e.g. Lk 24:46, John 7:37-38 or 1 Cor 15
- Why is there such a chasm between Paul’s doctrines and Yeshua’s own teachings?
- Why would an eternal G‑D change his mind and consider something given as “eternal” suddenly as “done away with”?
- 3 days and 3 nights?
- Why Sunday? We believe in “sola scriptura” but admit that the Sunday is a tradition??
- the whole ruse with the Septuagint apparently confirming Christian concepts, while the Septuagint was originally only the Torah, with the other parts of Tanakh added later, partially already in view of Christianity
Apologetics are a precarious endeavor, having to convince others, and yourself, that what you believe in makes sense. Instead, our beliefs should give us meaning, purpose and strength. True faith should make sense to us on all levels. Apparent inconsistencies should give us opportunities to dig deeper instead of glossing over.
Judaism of the non-messianic kind, believing in Moshiach but not as a god-in-the-flesh or a hidden and yet-to-be-revealed figure, just appears as a more convincing religion to me at this point.
Many of the inconsistencies listed above also are perfectly well explained by the “Roman Provenance” theory.
Further reading: Seminar on the errors of the trinity • trinitydelusion.net
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