The Trinity in the Dead Sea Scrolls

Red Sky at Morning

Superstar
Joined
Mar 15, 2017
Messages
13,933
I have noticed a popular claim here by those wishing to deny that the Trinity is a Biblical concept - that it was a later imposition by the Catholic Church.

If that were so, you would be hard pressed to find the concept of a triune God in the Dead Sea Scrolls, sealed in caves by the Essenes to protect them from the Roman devastation in the first century.

The problem is that you do...

 
Last edited:

Red Sky at Morning

Superstar
Joined
Mar 15, 2017
Messages
13,933
This could be one of the slam-dunk proofs that the Dead Sea scrolls, that took decades to be published - why? can unfortunately not be trusted - ample time for the forgers to kosher them?

https://vigilantcitizenforums.com/threads/twelve-tribes-of-israel-info-research-thread.5480/page-9#post-264507

And the Essenes where not Jesus' close disciples anyway.
I think the issue here is not whether the Essenes could be trusted with the provenance of doctrine and faith but that were a group of people who gathered together texts they believed to be valuable to protect them, which formed a “time capsule” for later researchers.

Whilst there are a number of references to God contained in these fragments which point at a belief in a triune nature, it appears that these references are not heavy handed interpolations but represent doctrines and ideas that were held by the writers of these scrolls.

Definitely worth a watch!
 

Phithx

Veteran
Joined
Nov 5, 2019
Messages
549
I think the issue here is not whether the Essenes could be trusted with the provenance of doctrine and faith but that were a group of people who gathered together texts they believed to be valuable to protect them, which formed a “time capsule” for later researchers.

Whilst there are a number of references to God contained in these fragments which point at a belief in a triune nature, it appears that these references are not heavy handed interpolations but represent doctrines and ideas that were held by the writers of these scrolls.

Definitely worth a watch!
Will have to watch when have enough GBs again, thank-you.
 

Kung Fu

Superstar
Joined
Mar 24, 2017
Messages
5,087
The only verse in the Bible which speaks about the Trinity is a fabrication/interpolation. It legit popped out of nowhere in around the 16th century.
 

Red Sky at Morning

Superstar
Joined
Mar 15, 2017
Messages
13,933
The only verse in the Bible which speaks about the Trinity is a fabrication/interpolation. It legit popped out of nowhere in around the 16th century.
Posted elsewhere, but appropriate here...


The Very Earliest Witness for 1 John 5:7

...We have seen that there is a list of early writers who all attest, directly or indirectly, to the genuineness of the verse 1 John 5:7. The list begins with Theophilus of Antioch who wrote in the latter half of the 2nd century, and goes all the way up to the Council of Arles and beyond which sat at the beginning of the 4th century (see n. 12 below). But impressive though it is, there is one thing that is patently wrong with this list. The men in it are all Christian authors, and the suspicion comes naturally to mind that ‘well, they would say that, wouldn’t they’. They each had a deep theological interest in the subject of the Trinity and the vindication of the New Testament, and therefore it is only to be expected that they would say nothing to controvert the verse in question and everything they could to corroborate it. In other words, in the eyes of many skeptics, their words are shot through with bias and self interest. How can we possibly trust them?

Well, we can trust them on one point at least, namely that if the verse hadn’t existed in their time, then they each would have had to invent it, though for no obvious purpose. Another point on which we may trust them is this. In their day 1 John 5:7 was not in dispute. There was therefore no anti-Arian axe to grind and therefore no need to mention it, yet they mention or quote from the verse anyway if only in passing. Such incidental treatment of the verse speaks powerfully for the genuineness of their statements and for the inclusion of 1 John 5:7 in the very earliest manuscripts of the New Testament, manuscripts which were still extant and with which they were all familiar. But even this observation will not do. It is nowhere near radical enough. What is needed to settle the matter is an independent witness to the early presence of 1 John 5:7; one who was patently not a Christian; preferably someone who was an actively anti-Christian pagan writer (making him a hostile witness); someone who pre-dates even the earliest of the Christian apologists (namely Theophilus of Antioch in this case); and whose writing directly refers to or even quotes from 1 John 5:7 - and, moreover, just to make things really difficult, one whose hostile testimony was produced within just fifty years of the close of the Eyewitness Period during which John wrote his first epistle. Produce such a witness as that – one who fulfils every one of these thoroughly unreasonable criteria – and we will surely and truly believe that 1 John 5:7 was no late interpolation, but an integral component of the first epistle of John from the very beginning. Do that and the argument will surely be settled. Now, that is what we may call a tall order, a very tall order indeed - and a most unreasonable one at that. Where can we possibly hope to find such a writer - one who is pagan and a hostile witness to Christianity, who wrote demonstrably within just fifty years of John, and who quotes from or directly alludes to 1 John 5:7? It is a tall order indeed, and seems impossible to meet.

Providentially, however, it is one that is met on every point by the anti-Christian satirist Lucian of Samosata, whose too-little-publicised satire, Philopatros, has survived to the present day. It is a most intriguing document. Firstly, there is its date. Mainly for the fact that it mentions a punitive expedition into Persia by the Romans, there are two emperors under which the Philopatros could have been written. The first is Trajan who was emperor from AD 98-117; and the second is Marcus Antoninus, who reigned from 161-180.
Expeditions into Persia took place under both emperors, so which one was it?

Critics generally plump for the latter of the two simply because this removes the witness further from the scene. But interestingly, the dialogue of the Philopatros undoes the notion by mentioning the taking by the Romans of the Persian city of Susa – the Shushan of the Book of Esther – which occurred under Trajan in the year 116. Marcus Antoninus’ incursion into Persia was to descend into farce before it had even begun, with nothing taken by Rome at all apart from a very bloody nose. Thus it is the taking of Susa under Trajan which dates the Philopatros, giving it an earliest possible year of writing of AD 116, within just 46 years of the close of the Eyewitness Period during which John wrote his first epistle.19

And then there is its intriguing title, Philopatros. It is Greek for ‘love of the Father,’ and is powerfully reminiscent of John’s repeated allusions to the love of the Father which appear in his first epistle (throughout but particularly in 1John 2:15; & 3:1). Clearly, and on this ground alone, we may conclude that Lucian of Samosata was familiar with the first epistle of John, very familiar indeed. But there’s more – much more.

Remarkably, and out of all the verses of the New Testament that he could have parodied, Lucian satirises for us our disputed verse, 1 John 5:7. He puts his own satirical slant on it, to be sure, but he has clearly taken 1 John 5:7 and made it the focus of his parody. Even after he has done his work, the close resemblance between the contents of what Lucian has written and 1 John 5:7 is truly remarkable, and leaves no room whatever for any notion of coincidence or happenstance. One wonders why the critics never mention it.20 But let’s see how Lucian deals with the verse.

1 John 5:7 has: “For there are Three that bear record in Heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these Three are One.” (King James Version)

Satirising the verse, Lucian has: “The mighty god that rules on high, Immortal dwelling in the sky, the son of the father, spirit proceeding from the father, three in one and one in three. Think him your Zeus, consider him your god.”21

Interesting, isn’t it? Lucian’s satire (by which he meant to mock the Word of God) contains not just Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but he even tells us that these Three are One, exactly as John does in the 7th verse of his first epistle’s 5th chapter, though in parody, thus unwittingly – I should say Providentially - vindicating the Word of God in one of its most controverted statements. Why, he even uses the neuter gender for ‘three’, as does John, a usage which Porson and so many of his ilk have needlessly and foolishly choked upon. Lucian could not have copied his material from any early 1 John 5:7 apologist, for the earliest of those (Theophilus of Antioch) did not appear on the scene for another fifty years, and the verse was not to be publicly challenged by the Arian heresy for a further 300 years; which leaves only one possible source for his satire, namely John’s first epistle.

How else could he have made use not only its content and unique turns of phrase, but also its grammar? Could a better witness than this be had from anywhere in the ancient world? Dating as it does from within just fifty years of the Eyewitness Period – long before our earliest Christian apologist for this verse - and coming as it does from the hand of a decidedly hostile witness, is it possible to ask for more? We may not think so.

This is a truly excellent testimony to the authenticity, and indeed the antiquity of 1 John 5:7 – a source of evidence which our critics strangely forget to tell us about. Curious, isn’t it? Philopatros has been available to them since 1506, yet they would rather have us believe that 1 John 5:7 is a spurious interpolation and no true part of the New Testament, not having appeared for several centuries after the New Testament period. Yet this astounding and unsuspected source of evidence meets all of the unreasonable evidential demands that are made upon it and is, in every sense, as plain as day. I shall leave the reader to guess why it has gone unmentioned all these years.22

Extract from Authenticity of the New Testament (Part 2) Bill Cooper

Notes from the Postscript on this chapter...

19. Forster, A New Plea..., p. 34. AD 116 would admittedly be a little early, as Lucian was but a child in that year. However, the Greek of Philopatros is clumsy and unpolished (Macleod, p. 414), and no doubt reflects the fact that Philopatros was one of his first attempts at writing parody. Either way, it still dates to long before Theophilus of Antioch, the earliest 1 John 5:7 apologist from whom Lucian might have copied his information.

20. I know of no modern critic who treats of the Philopatros and its vindication of the verse 1 John 5:7. Porson, however, does refer to it – with revulsion, to be sure - but he does mention it. He writes it off with no evidence whatever as an early 4th-century forgery, but even so it clearly unnerves him, for even the 4th century is way too early for the appearance of 1 John 5:7 in any pagan writer. According to the critics’ model the verse hadn’t even been written by then. Porson writes: “I know not whether I ought to mention the ‘Philopatros’, a dialogue written early in the fourth century, and falsely ascribed to Lucian, where the Christian Trinity is thus ridiculed.” (cit. Forster, A New Plea..., p. 30). He knew that mentioning it at all undid his case, whilst not mentioning it would have opened him to a charge of dishonesty - most discomfiting. So discomfiting, in fact, that an attempt has been made in more recent times on no good grounds to date Philopatros to the 10th century simply because that is the date of its earliest surviving mss (MacLeod, p. 414). For the problems this raises, see Postscript above.

21. MacLeod, Lucian Volume VIII. 1967. Loeb Classical Library. p. 437. In its original Greek, the passage reads: “...υιον πατρος πνευμα εκ πατρος εκπορευομενον ενα εκ τριων και εξ ενος τρια.” My thanks to Dr James J Scofield Johnson, Chief Academic Officer of ICR’s School of Biblical Apologetics, for supplying me with a literal translation and a thorough grammatical analysis of the passage, enabling me to check MacLeod’s accuracy in translating such an important piece.

22. Critics who lazily lean on Porson for their wit and knowledge, would have learned of Philopatros from Porson’s own mention of it (see n. 20). But since Porson’s day, something strange has happened to the title of Philopatros. Lucian’s works were first translated into Latin by Erasmus in 1506, then in co-authorship with Thomas More in 1521, and were afterwards translated afresh in 1634; 1637; 1638; 1663 and 1684. Various Greek-Latin extracts of Lucian were published in the late 17th and early 18th centuries, but somewhere along the line the title of Philopatros (love of the Father) was changed to Philopatris (love of country). See for example Jacobitz, Luciani Samosatensis Opera. 1904. Leipzig. Vol 3. pp. 411-425. Patriotism is not the focus of this parody. The love of the Father is, which makes one wonder if the alteration was made some time after 1790 - when Porson uses its correct title - to disguise Philopatros’ contents and their significance for 1 John 5:7. It underwent this change during the height of the rationalist ‘Age of Enlightenment’ after all. If it was deliberate, then it was very effective, for few in the modern age have even heard of Lucian’s Philopatros, let alone know what it contains. After all, an old Greek satire on patriotism isn’t likely to stimulate curiosity in anyone, especially when they find that it’s not even about patriotism. Thus, this simple change in title guaranteed that Philopatros – the greatest witness we have for the authenticity and antiquity of 1 John 5:7 - would thereafter languish in obscurity... till now, at any rate. (The Philopatros should not be confused with Lucian’s Patridos, which certainly is about patriotism; see Fowler, The Works of Lucian of Samosata. 1905. Oxford. Vol 4. pp. 23-26).
 

Lisa

Superstar
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
Messages
20,288
Show me a Greek manuscript of the Comma prior to the 14th century? If I'm lying you'll be able to find it and provide it, right?
All I know Kung Fu is that the trinity didn’t just pop out of no where, though for your faith in your god that seems like a great explanation. Only it’s your god who is wrong not the God...or His book.
 

Kung Fu

Superstar
Joined
Mar 24, 2017
Messages
5,087
All I know Kung Fu is that the trinity didn’t just pop out of no where, though for your faith in your god that seems like a great explanation. Only it’s your god who is wrong not the God...or His book.
Lol. As usual you continue to prove me right.
 

Lisa

Superstar
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
Messages
20,288
If I'm wrong then provide the Greek manuscript prior to the 14th century which supports the conveniently placed Comma in John? Otherwise deal with the fact that your KJV has forgeries.
I don’t think the kjv has forgeries...but then I don’t read that Bible.
 

Lisa

Superstar
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
Messages
20,288
Your statement doesn't make any kind of sense whatsoever lol.
Sure it does...if I don’t read that particular Bible than I don’t know exactly what its saying. I wouldn’t think its off..but then again..it does have all that archaic language..so how anyone can figure it out is beyond me.
 

Red Sky at Morning

Superstar
Joined
Mar 15, 2017
Messages
13,933
I think the issue at stake is the lineage of the source texts. Routinely in academia, the “critical texts”, primarily Alexandrinus, Vaticanus and Sinaiticus are elevated as “oldest and best” while the “Byzantine” texts such as the “Textus Receptus” from which the KJV was translated is denigrated. Truly the history of the text of the Bible is a tale of two cities, Alexandria in Egypt and Antioch in Syria.

There is so much that could be said on this, (and for what it’s worth Lisa, my favourite version to read is the NKJV), but as an overview, this diagram may be helpful to some.
The only proviso here is in the dating of Sinaiticus, discussed elsewhere (which was taken up by Westport & Hort as a justification for their revised (or maimed) version, the RV.

95953017-6853-414F-B5D1-7CB33912A3A1.gif

The “higher critics” on the other hand loved these revisions as they cast doubt on (or made unclear) core doctrines. As such, an alternate critique which suggests an “evolving” doctrine based on claims of “interpolations” and “improvements” has emerged.

This idea is expressed by the adage of the Bible critic: "In general the more difficult reading is to be preferred" is Bruce Metzger's reservation. "There is truth in the maxim: lectio difficilior lectio potior ('the more difficult reading is the more probable reading')", write Kurt and Barbara Aland.

The truth may be that there has been a history of repeated attempts to attack the real text by people with gnostic, unbelieving or heretical leanings, but that despite the odds, and often at the ultimate cost, that text has been preserved.

Anyway, I found the whole study fascinating, and perhaps the most interesting history of skullduggery I have come across!
 
Last edited:

Kung Fu

Superstar
Joined
Mar 24, 2017
Messages
5,087
Sure it does...if I don’t read that particular Bible than I don’t know exactly what its saying. I wouldn’t think its off..but then again..it does have all that archaic language..so how anyone can figure it out is beyond me.
If you haven't read the KJV how would you know it doesn't have any forgeries? Let's see your little brain try to explain this now.
 

Lisa

Superstar
Joined
Mar 13, 2017
Messages
20,288
If you haven't read the KJV how would you know it doesn't have any forgeries? Let's see your little brain try to explain this now.
With all that archaic language..how do you know it has forgeries?
 
Top