Hebrew Roots of Trinity Doctrine

Before getting started we need to define some words:



'Memra'-- is the Aramaic for 'word.' Intervhangeable for Jews of 1 century with logos

Targum-- second century Aramaic translation of Hebrew Scriptures.

Targumim (translations into Aramaic for use in worship services)

One of the most common beliefs among Pagan cultures was in a trinity of gods. We find this among the Egyptians, Indians (of India), Japanese, Sumarians, Chaldeans, and of course, the Babylonians, to where historians trace the roots of trinitarism.

Church history shows a gradual assimilation of Pagan ideas into Christianity, brought about mostly by the Roman or Western Church, which became a political/religious extension of the Roman Empire. Foremost among the pagan ideas was the adoption of the trinity doctrine into the dogma of the church. Pagan holidays (holy days) were also incorporated into tradition by “Christianizing” them, thus we end up with Christmas being celebrated on Dec 25th; Easter, which combined the resurrection of Christ with the pagan goddess Ester, and Halloween combined with All Saint’s Day.[1]

This view is bunck. I find little evidence that these pagan notions were a real Trinity like the Christian Trinity (three perona in one esence) and not just three gods closely identififed. More importantly, all the intellectual material necessary to formulate the doctrien is present in Judaism and no need need to appeal to pagan ideas.

Turnig to the works of Kaufmann Kohler:

Despite the fact that the Doctrine was formulated by the church over several centuries, the basic elements of it can be seen clearly in the New Testament. Several verses actually dipict the there persona of the Godhead working together at the same time, in concert but distinctively seperaate.In fact, a formula of the Trinity can be seen in many passages:

Matthew 28:19
Father, Son, holy spirit
1 Corinthians 12:4-6
Spirit, Lord, God
2 Corinthians 13:14
Christ, God, holy spirit
Galatians 4:4-6
God, Son, spirit of his Son
Ephesians 4:4-6
Spirit, Lord, God
1 Peter 1:2
God, Spirit, Jesus Christ

Kufmann Kohler:

"The Word," in the sense of the creative or directive word or speech of God manifesting His power in the world of matter or mind; a term used especially in the Targum as a substitute for "the Lord" when an anthropomorphic expression is to be avoided.


The point starting here,ryhhing thorughit the essay, is that John was not reaching to paganism but tryig to express in Greek an older idea from Judaism, that of the emeinationsof God.god, the Logos means word. This is going to be hard to understand. The word of God is distinct frm God and yet is God. Logos means word the logos is the word of God.

—Biblical Data:

In Scripture "the word of the Lord" commonly denotes the speech addressed to patriarch or prophet (Gen. xv. 1; Num. xii. 6, xxiii. 5; I Sam. iii. 21; Amos v. 1-8); but frequently it denotes also the creative word: "By the word of the Lord were the heavens made" (Ps. xxxiii. 6; comp. "For He spake, and it was done"; "He sendeth his word, and melteth them [the ice]"; "Fire and hail; snow, and vapors; stormy wind fulfilling his word"; Ps. xxxiii. 9, cxlvii. 18, cxlviii. 8). In this sense it is said, "For ever, O Lord, thy word is settled in heaven" (Ps. cxix. 89). "The Word," heard and announced by the prophet, often became, in the conception of the seer, an efficacious power apart from God, as was the angel or messenger of God: "The Lord sent a word into Jacob, and it hath lighted upon Israel" (Isa. ix. 7 [A. V. 8], lv. 11); "He sent his word, and healed them" (Ps. cvii. 20); and comp. "his word runneth very swiftly" (Ps. cxlvii. 15).[2]

Personification of the Word.

—In Apocryphal and Rabbinical Literature:

While in the Book of Jubilees, xii. 22, the word of God is sent through the angel to Abraham, in other cases it becomes more and more a personified agency: "By the word of God exist His works" (Ecclus. [Sirach] xlii. 15); "The Holy One, blessed be He, created the world by the 'Ma'amar'" (Mek., Beshallaḥ, 10, with reference to Ps. xxxiii. 6). Quite frequent is the expression, especially in the liturgy, "Thou who hast made the universe with Thy word and ordained man through Thy wisdom to rule over the creatures made by Thee" (Wisdom ix. 1; comp. "Who by Thy words causest the evenings to bring darkness, who openest the gates of the sky by Thy wisdom"; . . . "who by His speech created the heavens, and by the breath of His mouth all their hosts"; through whose "words all things were created"; see Singer's "Daily Prayer-Book," pp. 96, 290, 292). So also in IV Esdras vi. 38 ("Lord, Thou spakest on the first day of Creation: 'Let there be heaven and earth,' and Thy word hath accomplished the work"). "Thy word, O Lord, healeth all things" (Wisdom xvi. 12); "Thy word preserveth them that put their trust in Thee" (l.c. xvi. 26). Especially strong is the personification of the word in Wisdom xviii. 15: "Thine Almighty Word leaped down from heaven out of Thy royal throne as a fierce man of war." The Mishnah, with reference to the ten passages in Genesis (ch. i.) beginning with "And God said," speaks of the ten "ma'amarot" (= "speeches") by which the world was created (Abot v. 1; comp. Gen. R. iv. 2: "The upper heavens are held in suspense by the creative Ma'amar"). Out of every speech ["dibbur"] which emanated from God an angel was created (Ḥag. 14a). "The Word ["dibbur"] called none but Moses" (Lev. R. i. 4, 5). "The Word ["dibbur"] went forth from the right hand of God and made a circuit around the camp of Israel" (Cant. R. i. 13).

II.Hebrew Emanations embedded in Trinity.

A. Hebrew view of God is emanation theory.

This concept is more often found in the Kabala, where it is more explicit, but it can be seen in the Torah and in Rabbinical writings too. In the Intertestamental period, Philo the Jewish philosopher uses the term Logos (as Edersheim documents, op. cit) to refer to the emanation of God's presence in the world. The notion of memra is used in that way as well. Emanation is like light from the sun, or form a light bulb, the light is emanating out in continuous manifestations. We cannot go into the origins of Kabalism here, but even though the actual Kabala was written in the middle ages, the ideas contained in it, and the basic style of mysticism, go back to intertestamental times. Many, both Jews and Gentiles are suspicious of it, because it is basically the Jewish occult. But one of the oldest if not the earliest Kbalaistic works, Yetsirah, shows us something of the use of this term Memra. Kabalism contains influences of Hellenization through Platonism mixed with Hebrew mysticism. The basic question here is, according to Edersheim, God's connection with his creation. That connection is an emanation. God is emanating through the Sephiroth, realms which make up the world.[3]

"These 10 Sephiroth occur everywhere and the sacred number 10 is that of perfection. Each of these Sephiroth flows from its predecessor and in this manner the divine gradually evolves. This emanation of the 10 Sephiroth then constitutes the substance of the world; we may add it constitutes everything else. In God in the world everywhere we meet these 10 Sephiroth at the head of which is God manifest or the Memra "(Logos or Word). From the Book of Yetsirah Edersheim quotes Mishnah 5: "The Sephiroth Belimah--their appearance like the sheen of lighteing (reference here to Ez. 1:14) and their outgoing (goal) that they have no end, His Word is in them (The Logos Manifest in the Sephiroth), in running and in returning and at his word like storm wind they peruse and before his throne they bend in worship." [Edersheim--693]

Note: This is not to say that the Jews thought of these things as a "Trinity." If one says Memra, to a Jew, he/she does not say "ah, yes the second person of the Jewish Trinity." There is no Jewish Trinity. To a Rabbi this is just a word for God's presence. But the Messianic Rabbis do take a similar approach to my own in their understanding of Trinity. After all, This self revealing presence of God is what John was driving at in his use of the term "logos" just as a Word reveals, so is the Logos the revelation of God.

B. Hebrew Emanations at the root of Trinity.

Hebrew emanation theories influence upon the Trinitarian doctrine. The doctrine of the Trinity is too complex to cover in full here, but it can be sufficed to say that in seeking meaning within the Pagan world, early Christian theologians borrowed from Middle Platonism which committed them to a view of three persons in one essence. However, even this view borrows from emanations views already within Platonism, and earlier Jewish notions. "Middle Plantonism can be described as emmanationist, predominately Binartarian, and possibly subordinationist. Not much needs to be said about the middle platonist preference for emanation theory in its theology of origin, partly because such imagery remains just as much at home in the Christian binartarian and Trinitarian theology..."[4]. According to this same article there may also be some influence from Philo's Middle Platonism directly upon Christian thinkers.

The first Christian theologian to coin the term "Trinity" was Tertullian, and the analogy he used was that the sun, it's rays dappled and visible as three separate shafts but all of the same substance and emanating form the same source. Classified list of passages in which the term Memra occurs in the Targum Pseuo-Johanthan on the Pentateuch

C. Edersheim's List of uses of Memra.

Edersheim complied an amazing list of several hundred instances of the use of Memra in Targimum translations:

(From Edersheim, p 663--partial list) Gen. 2: 8, 3: 8, 10, 24, ; 4: 26; 5: 2; 7: 16, 9:12, 13, 15, 16,17; 11:8; 12:17; 15:1; 17: 2, 7,10, 11; 18: 5; 19: 24;20: 6, 18;21:20, 22, 23, 33, 22: 1; 24: 1,3; 26: 3, 24,28; 27: 28,31; 28: 10,15,20; 29: 12; 31: 3,50; 35: 3, 9; 39: 2,3, 21,23; 41: 1, 46:4; 48: 8,21; 49: 25, 1,20;

Exodus 1: 21; 2: 5, 3:12; 7: 25; Lev. 1:1; 6: 2; 8: 35...

Examples: Gen 2:8 "Now The Lord God had planted a Garden in the East and there he put the man he had formed." (presumably Lord God is Memra).

Gen. 7:16 "And the animals going in were 2 of every kind as the Lord God had comanded."

(The original list is 16 rows long) The Notions on Memra and especially on the Kabala are very complex. Edersheim goes into it in much more detail. We do not have the space to follow this in that sort of detail. But I urge anyone who understands Hebrew and is familiar with Hebrew writings to get Edersheim's Book and read this section and contemplate it deeply. In fact I urge them to read and contemplate the whole book deeply.

The Point of all of this:

1) John uses Logos as the Greek for Memra.

Through looking at the way in which the Targumim translate certain words for God's presence as "memra," and the interchangeability of Memra and logos, we can understand the way that John used Logos in his Gospel; he used it in the way that the Targums use Memra. In other words, the logos is an emanation of God's presence.

The point here is John was not reaching to paganism but trying to express in Greek an older idea from Judaism, that of the emeinations of God.

Spources:

[1] Ed Torrence, "Pagan Roots of the Trinity Doctrinem" Bibical Unitarian, wevsite, 2024m from Rediscovering Original Christian Theology,” Pagan Roots of Trinity Doctrine by Ed Torrence © 2002 https://www.biblicalunitarian.com/articles/pagan-roots-of-the-trinity-doctrine-ed-torrence-2002

[2] Kaufmann Kohler, "MEMRA (= Ma'amar' or 'Dibbur,' 'Logos'"Jewish Encycloedia, website,1897 https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/10618-memr%CE%B1 Kaufmann Kohler (born May 10, 1843, Fürth, Bavaria [Germany]—died Jan. 28, 1926, New York, N.Y., U.S.) was a German-American rabbi, and one of the most influential theologians of Reform Judaism in the United States. [3]Alfred Edersheim, Life and Times ofJesus the Mssiah,Andesite Press (August 8, 2015) The life and times of Jesus the Messiah. by: Edersheim, Alfred, 1825-1889. Publication date: 1907. Topics: Jesus Christ. Publisher: New York

Alfred Edersheim (7 March 1825 – 16 March 1889) was a Jewish convert to Christianity and a Biblical scholar known especially for his book The Life and Times of Jesus the Messia .He was a major scholar in late 19th century teaching at both Oxford and Cambrige at the same time. His faily was wealthy he was trained to be a rabbi while growing up up but and to went college in Eourpe he became a christian.

[4]"Trinity" Westminster's Dictionary of Christian Theology p582).


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