Practical theologian, Biblical Unitarian, Fellowship starter.
Ithilien
Joined February 2023
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I can't believe how much is placed on flimsy 'harder reading' textual variant arguments.
Reminds me of arguments in scholarship like: Matthew's Olivet Discourse must have been written after AD 70, because Jesus couldn't have had that sort of prophetic knowledge.
C'mon, guys.
Anthony Burgoyne retweeted
“In the beginning was Jesus” - Imaginations 1:1 😭 @OneGodPodcast Exploring John 1C with New Testament scholar Dr Dustin Smith. Simply put, the Word is NOT identical to God.
A lot of people claiming the Granville Sharp rule has been vindicated by modern scholarship don't seem to realize:
1. It's not the same proposed rule, but qualified more strictly to prevent obvious counter-examples.
2. Sharp's original list of 8 key examples has been shrunken down to only 2 (Titus 2:13 and 2 Peter 1:1) in latest attempts to salvage it.
Oops!
Anthony Burgoyne retweeted
The mental gymnastics of Christian trinitarians man
“Just because the bible say that god is one person does not mean god is only one person”
Man 🤧🤧
Anthony Burgoyne retweeted
Theophilus of Antioch was a second-century bishop who was the very first Christian to use the word 'Trinity" in his writings. Does that mean that Bishop Theophilus was a Trinitarian before Nicaea? This episode explores what Theophilus of Antioch believed about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, concluding that he did not, in fact, believe that the God of Israel was triune in nature. Instead, Theophilus regarded the Father alone as the true God.
youtu.be/iSNxS7rnoXQ
Basic Biblical fact: everything Jesus says, when put in context, indicates he thought he was distinct from God.
"You shall proskuneo me, and latreuo me only."
👈 The 'only' here is applied to 'latreuo', not 'proskuneo'.
The Flimsy Five Trinitarian proof-texts: verses routinely used as the basis of Trinitarian arguments, but that have major relevant textual variants, and so introduce a major question mark at the beginning of any argument that uses one.
1. John 1:18 -> the 'theos' ('God/god') applied to Jesus doesn't appear in many manuscripts, also makes a hash of the line ('No one has seen God, but God who many people has seen ...')
2. 1 John 5:7 -> most famous Trinitarianism-in-a-verse line, but almost unanimously rejected by contemporary scholars/translators as a corruption - perhaps the biggest historical 'oops!' on this list
3. 1 Timothy 3:16 -> one of the few places in Paul's voluminous writings Trinitarians can go to make an argument for Jesus being God, just so happens to be a major textual variant
4. Acts 20:28 -> one of almost the only places in Acts Trinitarians can go for support, but just so happens to have a major textual variant with a major grammatical ambiguity on top
5. 2 Peter 1:1 -> only place in all of the text attributed to Peter in the gospels, Acts, 1 Peter, or 2 Peter where he supposedly applies 'theos' ('God') to Jesus, just so happens to have important manuscripts that don't have 'theos'
These should all be ruled out as a basis for a Trinitarian argument, unless they're making a broad probabilistic argument that includes these as statistical support (the Trinitarian variant of 1 John 5:7 *might* be true, maybe 10% likely? and so on).
"Everyone ('pantes') is looking for you!" (Mark 1:37)
Did Simon mean everyone in the universe?
Nope. We intuitively scope 'all/every' claims to the context.
But when we come to 'all/every' claims in certain other parts of the Bible, Trinitarians want to pretend we can't do this.
C'mon, guys.
Surprise, surprise. Acts 20:28's 'God' - that Trinitarians often rely upon - is actually a major textual variant.
So we have a major textual variant problem, and then on top of that we have a major grammatical ambiguity, for the verse.
Why does this keep happening to Trinitarian arguments? 🤔
There's a big difference between *basing* an argument on a verse with a major textual variant, and *applying* an already established argument to a verse to help decide which major textual variant is authentic.
For example, Trinitarians who base their arguments on major textual variants at John 1:18, 1 John 5:7, 1 Timothy 3:16, or 2 Peter 1:1 are doing the former.
If, instead, they make an argument without relying on those major variants, and then come back to those and say, for ex., "Therefore, we think the 'second theos' variant at John 1:18 is authentic," they are doing the latter.
Quite often, I see the former on X. A significant percentage of the core Trinitarian proof-texts bandied about are actually major textual variants.
(A similar argument can be made for grammatically ambiguous verses and semantically unclear ones, as well.)
Manuscript arguments are notoriously tricky. This is why, once a given variant reaches a certain threshold for manuscript evidence, the argument quickly turns to context.
Which variant makes more sense of the close context? Of the context of the rest of the letter/book? Of the rest of the author's writing that we have? Or even just of common sense?
Anthony Burgoyne retweeted
this post has so much wisdom in it i thought naval wrote it
and i don't think the author even realizes why
if you understand this properly, you can explain almost all political issues we see in the world today
you can't take care of your loved ones if you can't even take care of yourself. you can't build a functioning country if your loved ones aren't taken care of. and you certainly can't save the world if your own country is falling apart. responsibility has to expand outwards.
the problem with so much left-wing thinking is that it's backwards. it starts with the most noble sounding objective imaginable, "saving the world" or "climate change" or "poor migrants", and thinks about the most nice-sounding solution, without considering if the conditions required to achieve it even exist, and that's why so many apparently well-intentioned policies end up doing the exact opposite of what they were supposed to achieve.
they sound compassionate, but completely ignore incentives, tradeoffs, or second-order consequences
clean your own damn bedroom and put your house in order before trying to change the world
you will never be able to fix the world if you can't even get the order of your own responsibilities right
When Trinitarians say God is one essence in 3 persons, I'm not sure if they mean one essence in *only* 3 persons.
</sarc>
