RSV is better, the Ignatius Study Bible is excellent the New Oxford Annotated Bible is good if you need a particularly academic version, but honestly a lot of the quibbling about English translations is baloney. The best translation is always the one that you actually study.
This. KJV is the pinnacle of western lit. Nothing comes close to its beauty and grace. Geneva is a distant runner up
Most of it is pretty full tho. read genesis, job, ecclesiastes, john, and revelation. Dont bother with the rest
Depends on what your goal in picking up the Bible is. If you just want to understand Biblical allusions in literature there really isn't an alternative to the KJV. If you're trying to convert or simply understand Christian belief ESV is probably fine, though it's going to lack the deuterocanonical books.
The ESV Study is good and very comprehensive. Just don't try to read every single note and you'll be fine. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the study helps at the back of the book, particularly the ones on systematic theology.
It's a fairly sectarian set of notes, catering to conservative Evangelicals. For example, the note on I Peter 4 about the gospel being preached to "those who are dead," says something like "only a deranged mind would read this as it being preached to people after their death.
In reality, this is a fairly straightforward reading of how the original is phrased and plenty of early Christians, probably the majority who were native speakers in the original language took it this way. There is of course debate on this, and always has been, so it's fine to include a note to that effect. However, it's a little much to say the Catholic and Orthodox interpretation, which represents the view of the vast majority of Christians both today and throughout history is completely ridiculous.
There are a number of instances like this. The translation is fine in most instances, although like the NIV there are some important places where it seems to cater to reformed views rather than being more literal.
If you want something more broadly ecumenical I would recommend the Oxford Study Bible.
Or if you want a more historical set of notes, the Ancient Faith Study Bible is cool, as all the notes are from folks like Origen, Augustine, Jerome, etc. Although there too the selection of quotes is a bit biased.
ESV Study Bible also lacks the deuterocanonical books, which are included in most Bibles (including Protestant ones) except really in the United States.
The articles are pretty heavy handed against liberal Protestant theology too.
1 Peter 3 and 4 are interesting passages that most evangelicals just skip over. It forces them to accept a potentially universalist interpretation of the atonement and salvation which is the absolute worst of all christian heresies (despite being the most aligned with the nature of the Logos). 99% of income for the clerical class (pastors, priests, missionaries) would dry up over night if people realised Christ is reconciling the entire universe to himself and hell is a false and perverted construct.
>only a deranged mind would read this as it being preached to people after their death
This is what happens when the West forgets the Harrowing of Hades
If you want notes and don't mind going digital, Ancient Christian Commentaries on Scripture is excellent.
It goes section by section through each book and has all the stuff written by the Church Fathers on the verse organized there. Nor is it edited for just one theology. It includes folks like Pelagius who were condemned, or Origen (although I feel like Origen has basically become fully rehabilitated by this point, I saw him for sale in a Catholic monestary giftshop the other week; if he hadn't been condemned for how other people took him he'd probably be named a saint).
Read St John Chrysostom's homilies on the whole of Matthew, John, Acts and most of the epistles. Read the Orthodox Study Bible for rest of the Bible but also don't neglect reading the Church Fathers' commentaries. For example, St Gregory of Nyssa's "Life of Moses" is fantastic to understanding how Moses' life was a prefigurement of Christ's.
how do you go about reading the bible? it kills me to say it but i tried reading it front to back and i just about got through the pentateuch but it is frankly exhausting. starting with anything else seems weird but so much of it just seems so miscellaneous
>front to back
There's the problem. Many anons have attempted to read the Bible front to back only to burn out before they complete the Torah, because they weren't expecting the Torah to shift from narrative to 3 and a half books of do's and don'ts. They are called the Law Books for a reason. I recommend you try again with Gospels because they are the heart of the Christian Bible.
Ok, well it largely depends on what you want to get out of it.
If you have a burning need to deeply understand what the Bible really is then of course you have to eventually read all of it. Starting with the Pentateuch is good because all of the Old Testament was written with respect to those 5 books, even if it's not obvious. But after that it's literally a lifelong project to understand not just all that you were reading but also a fraction of the Rabbinical writings that go along with it.
Naturally, israeli tradition already sets people up for this, for example: https://www.sefaria.org/calendars
There's also free Bible audiobooks on Audible so you can get through it while multitasking.
You can of course go even deeper by learning Biblical Hebrew for the OT and Koine Greek for the NT, though the utility of those efforts isn't very high. Hebrew especially shows how it's impossible to have good English translations and how much poetry the Bible has that most Christians will never even know about.
If you only want to understand the way most Christians get direction from the Bible then you can even skip the OT entirely and just do the NT which is soo much shorter. But add in things like Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes if you want because those are also popular and also look for any official-looking Christian commentary. It all should be somewhat familiar because so much of it gets aired in Western culture, but also hopefully pretty surprising because of what is never talked about.
I suppose people either get moved by this stuff or they don't, but in the end it's good to be exposed to it so you actually know what the deal is.
>front to back
There's the problem. Many anons have attempted to read the Bible front to back only to burn out before they complete the Torah, because they weren't expecting the Torah to shift from narrative to 3 and a half books of do's and don'ts. They are called the Law Books for a reason. I recommend you try again with Gospels because they are the heart of the Christian Bible.
>because they weren't expecting the Torah to shift from narrative to 3 and a half books of do's and don'ts
filtered
I will give account of Eastern Orthodox theology. For this explanation, Roman Catholics will largely agree. Oriental Orthodox who reject the Council of Chalcedon will disagree.
The Word of God, the Son of God being also God, is a Divine Person (or Hypostasis). He is Divine because He has the Divine Nature (or Essence). When the Word Incarnated, He took on human nature alongside His Divine Nature. Therefore, without change to His Divine Nature, He also had a human nature via the Incarnation. One Divine Person with two natures - one Divine, one human, without mixing but without separation, mediated in a single Person. As the Word had both a Divine and human nature, He possessed the qualities proper to both natures. In His Divinity, He was impassable, incorporeal etc. In His humanity, He was passable, corporeal etc. Furthermore, by virtue of His humanity, He was capable of experiencing hunger, thirst, tiredness and, importantly for our discourse, the capacity to die. However, both sets of properties remain ascribable to the Word, being Son of God and God. Therefore, when the israelites put Him up on Cross, He truly suffered in His humanity and truly died in His humanity. It would of course be blasphemy to say the Divinity died. But given He was a Divine Person as we have already established, when His human soul left His corporeal body (as death is definitionally the separation of soul from body), He descended into Hades, the waiting place of all those who had died prior to the Incarnation. At no point did His human nature break away from the referent Person. Indeed, an essence cannot exist independently of a hypostasis (see: St John of Damascus). But being a Divine Person, and the source of Life itself, the power of Hades was utterly shattered, thereby the Word trampled down on Death by His own death and Resurrection and therefore destroying the final enemy. We also participate in this Life via the sacraments which bring us into communion with God's own Life (being the source of Life itself). For further detail, look into the Harrowing of Hades - a very important doctrine in Orthodoxy (and no, it's not the Hades of Greek Mythology).
If you're interested in furthering reading on Trinitarian and Christological theology, read St John of Damascus' "Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith." There's also a great illustrative analogy which I've extracted: >Take the case of the flaming sword; just as in it the natures of the fire and the steel are preserved distinct, so also are their two energies and their effects. For the energy of the steel is its cutting power, and that of the fire is its burning power, and the cut is the effect of the energy of the steel, and the burn is the effect of the energy of the fire: and these are kept quite distinct in the burnt cut, and in the cut burn, although neither does the burning take place apart from the cut after the union of the two, nor the cut apart from the burning: and we do not maintain on account of the twofold natural energy that there are two flaming swords, nor do we confuse the essential difference of the energies on account of the unity of the flaming sword. In like manner also, in the case of Christ, His divinity possesses an energy that is divine and omnipotent while His humanity has an energy such as is our own. And the effect of His human energy was His taking the child by the hand and drawing her to Himself, while that of His divine energy was the restoring of her to life.
Energy here means activity, loosely speaking.
>one Divine, one human, without mixing but without separation
Doublethink. This is exactly what I mean. It's illogical. God can't even make a fruit that is 100% apple and 100% orange. Just as he can't create a rock he can't lift. These are paradoxical.
it's not like a fruit being 100% apple and 100% orange, it's more like an apple being 100% green or 100% red. people as creations of god have that potential to participate in god's work in heaven within them but marred by sin; jesus came to earth as a man to show us what man could aspire to
5 months ago
Anonymous
>it's not like a fruit being 100% apple and 100% orange
It is, because the nature of God is unlimited, and of a man limited. You're literally saying Jesus is God, but he's also limited. Not different types of the same thing (red apple and green apple, or limited God and unlimited God (which isn't possible)). We aren't hierarchical siblings. God is above, and the creator is unlike the creation.
>"You shall have no other gods before Me."
The God of Moses said this via the 10 commandments. Why do you worship a being other than the God of Moses. It's IMPOSSIBLE for God to become a human. That's not because God is limited, but this is a feature of the unlimitedness of God.
What's the issue with the fire and steel analogy?
The problem is that it directly contradicts the trinity. As you know, the Father IS God, Jesus IS God, and Holy Spirit IS God. The flaming sword analogy is saying that to have the flaming sword, you need the flame PLUS the sword. In other words, flame is 1/2 of the flaming sword, and the sword is the other 1/2. To map this to the trinity, it's like saying Jesus is 1/3 God, Father is 1/3 God, and Holy Spirit is 1/3 God.
I don't think it's so illogical when that kind of thinking becomes so common as you move toward the East and was a basis for civilizations.
The bigger question is regarding how it meaningfully applies outside of its own context, because it's theology after all.
So what does it matter that energies and essences are laid out in such a way? How does it mirror both scripture and the rest of the world? Why is it more correct than alternative interpretations?
The point should be to give you a window into reality that you wouldn't otherwise be able to access. The point is not to be something obvious and factual. If a particular Trinitarian theology does not help in such a way then that would be what makes it wrong.
>It's not illogical because people in the East think like this.
breh >The bigger question
No it IS the biggest question in Trinitarianism. You are encouraging polytheism. Hindus do the same thing. They say their Gods are God in the flesh so to speak, or one form or God. Return to monotheism.
5 months ago
Anonymous
>Return to monotheism.
I agree for many reasons but idolatry is inevitable and it's not like Unitarians are accepted in Christianity anyway. So it's still better that people work to sharpen themselves through a triune God than be subjects to other masters.
5 months ago
Anonymous
>I agree for many reasons but idolatry is inevitable
Wow this is such a shocking statement. How can you say that??? Idolatry is the BIGGEST disrespect to the one who's given you eyes and ears! Do not think this way please.
>it's not like Unitarians are accepted in Christianity anyway
Why is this the standard you check against!? Even if I am the last monotheist on Earth, and not accepted anywhere, I would fight for the truth. Just as Jesus did. He was the Messiah, and the Children of Israel persecuted him. He didn't give in and say "screw this, it's not like israelites accept me anyway".
5 months ago
Anonymous
>Wow this is such a shocking statement. How can you say that??? Idolatry is the BIGGEST disrespect to the one who's given you eyes and ears! Do not think this way please.
First, I'm not saying that I am purposely being an idolator. I'm defending the fact that Christians do what they can under the Trinity.
Second, how is idolatry worse than murder, or a whole slew of terrible acts for that matter? People fail miserably by default and can only work up to the best of what they've been given. To find Christians or anyone else as idolators is also a given for the very reason that we are humans with eyes and ears and are not Angels. Instead, look down on the ones who seek to destroy the good and faithful and their accomplishments. They despise creation itself. >Just as Jesus did. He was the Messiah
Striving for a Messiah complex is dangerous, let alone going for martyrdom. You and I are not so anointed and have to find our place and our calling with the life that we have. One pattern that shouldn't be ignored in the Bible is that great figures were called on because of what they had already accomplished in life. Moses could lead his people because he grew up in Pharaoh's palace. David could slay Goliath because he grew up protecting sheep from predators. I'm working with the gifts and skills that I can and that does include finding my way with a Biblical monotheism.
I don't think it's so illogical when that kind of thinking becomes so common as you move toward the East and was a basis for civilizations.
The bigger question is regarding how it meaningfully applies outside of its own context, because it's theology after all.
So what does it matter that energies and essences are laid out in such a way? How does it mirror both scripture and the rest of the world? Why is it more correct than alternative interpretations?
The point should be to give you a window into reality that you wouldn't otherwise be able to access. The point is not to be something obvious and factual. If a particular Trinitarian theology does not help in such a way then that would be what makes it wrong.
5 months ago
Anonymous
>The point is not to be something obvious and factual
Objections to Trinitarian theology more broadly usually tend to amount to "1+1+1=3" - at least in the popular apologetics sphere. You can explain the concepts of energy, essence, hypostasis, will etc. till you're blue in the face. You can show how real distinctions in God are scriptural in both the Old and New Testaments. All of that is useless if your interlocutor is operating off the presupposition that things just have to be "simple". You ask them what "simple" means and it comes down to their own idiosyncratic ways of thinking rather than some genuine philosophical appellation. It's faux-humility masquerading as intellectual and spiritual laziness.
>it's not like a fruit being 100% apple and 100% orange
It is, because the nature of God is unlimited, and of a man limited. You're literally saying Jesus is God, but he's also limited. Not different types of the same thing (red apple and green apple, or limited God and unlimited God (which isn't possible)). We aren't hierarchical siblings. God is above, and the creator is unlike the creation.
>"You shall have no other gods before Me."
The God of Moses said this via the 10 commandments. Why do you worship a being other than the God of Moses. It's IMPOSSIBLE for God to become a human. That's not because God is limited, but this is a feature of the unlimitedness of God.
[...]
The problem is that it directly contradicts the trinity. As you know, the Father IS God, Jesus IS God, and Holy Spirit IS God. The flaming sword analogy is saying that to have the flaming sword, you need the flame PLUS the sword. In other words, flame is 1/2 of the flaming sword, and the sword is the other 1/2. To map this to the trinity, it's like saying Jesus is 1/3 God, Father is 1/3 God, and Holy Spirit is 1/3 God.
[...] >It's not illogical because people in the East think like this.
breh >The bigger question
No it IS the biggest question in Trinitarianism. You are encouraging polytheism. Hindus do the same thing. They say their Gods are God in the flesh so to speak, or one form or God. Return to monotheism.
Your presupposition is that distinctions necessitate division. If I cut off your arm are you now 3/4 human?
5 months ago
Anonymous
>It's faux-humility masquerading as intellectual and spiritual laziness
Wrong way around, intellectual and spiritual laziness masquerading as faux-humility
5 months ago
Anonymous
>Your presupposition is that distinctions necessitate division. If I cut off your arm are you now 3/4 human?
No that's not my presupposition, it's the presupposition for the flaming sword by default. To be a flaming sword, it must be a sword, on fire. That's the formula for flaming sword.
To be a human, the requirement is not to have 2 arms, 2 legs, 10 fingers, etc. I don't present myself as "human with 2 arms, 2 legs, 10 fingers, etc.". I (and everyone else) present myself as just "human". You can cut my arm off and I am still human.
However, if you present a weapon to me as "flaming sword", the implication is that its a sword, on fire. If you put out the fire, it's no longer a flaming sword. If you present a weapon as just "sword", and I see that its also on fire, and I put out the fire, it's still a sword. Why all the mental gymnastics...God is formless, and unlike the creation.
5 months ago
Anonymous
You missed the point of the analogy. It was to show how one thing can retain the properties proper to its nature while taking on another nature without losing the first nature given your fear that God somehow changed after the Incarnation. It can still cut before and after its contact with fire. To make it even clearer, the sword is the Person of the Word. To cut is proper to the nature of the sword. Divine activity is proper to the Word as He is God. The sword comes into contact with the flame and can now burn alongside cutting. The Word took on human nature. The Word did things proper to human nature alongside things proper to His Divine nature. His Divinity was not compromised in any way. It's the *same* Person doing both Divine and human activities (energeia). We can predicate both activities to Jesus Christ because He retains both the Divine and human nature. Again, I recommend you read about the meaning of ousia/essence/nature, person/hypostasis and energeia/energy in a theological context to understand what is being said. There are no mental gymnastics.
>Return to monotheism.
I agree for many reasons but idolatry is inevitable and it's not like Unitarians are accepted in Christianity anyway. So it's still better that people work to sharpen themselves through a triune God than be subjects to other masters.
Your interlocutor is clearly a Muslim. I assume you aren't - perhaps you're a Platonist of some sort. There's no such thing as a generic monotheism that you can both agree to. Unless you are a Muslim and then my intuitions are wrong.
5 months ago
Anonymous
I'm the anti-trinitarian guy that started this convo. I am Muslim.
> It was to show how one thing can retain the properties proper to its nature while taking on another nature without losing the first nature
But that's not in your analogy! The sword, whether it's on fire or not, cuts. We agree there. But when it's a flaming sword, the sword does take on the nature of the fire!!! When you swing the sword, the sword is not doing any burning, the FLAME is. The sword did not take on any new nature. The fire did not adopt any new nature. Fire is still burning, and steel is still cutting. Mental gymnastics is trying to explain how God can be killed. At the foundation of all of this, you believe God was killed.
5 months ago
Anonymous
Hey brother, would it help to think in terms of simulation theory which we moderns are privileged to have in our collectives psyche and vocabulary? This is how the Almighty Creator becomes a man: He uploads himself into the simulation as a playable character as easy as a C++ programmer instantiates a new object into his code. If the Creator is truly omniscient and omnibenevolent as logic leads us to believe then incarnation of the divine into the mortal is nor really outside of the scope of conceivable possibilities.
5 months ago
Anonymous
It would help my case, not the Trinity. If God uploads himself to the simulation as a playable character, and the playable character is killed, then the playable character (Jesus) is clearly not God! Because God is powerful and cannot be killed. If there's a transfer of knowledge to the playable character, it doesn't make the playable character God. If Jesus was unlimited he couldn't be killed.
As a Muslim I believe in the miracles of Moses and Jesus, but we believe it in a theologically correct way. We don't believe that Moses himself split the sea, but God did it for Moses. Him waving his hands or whatever is just theatre basically. No transfer of power. Besides Jesus doesn't have the same knowledge as the Father, so this is not what could have happened. >“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
If you want to argue God uploaded a limited version of himself, well there you go Jesus can't be God still, because now you're just limiting Jesus which means he's not God once again.
I've also heard a similar argument, that Jesus is like a human puppet (or playable character as you put it). In this case it doesn't work either because a puppet is a puppet and separate from the puppeteer. If I take a puppet and control it with the strings, the puppet is not me and I am not the puppet. Difference between this and your example is that there is no copying of knowledge from puppeteer to puppet.
Although we are not discussing the salvation aspect, I'll still add that there's no pain/suffering or sacrifice and all of a sudden "Jesus died for our sins" is meaningless, because it's as easy as instantiating a new object.
Btw thanks for not spewing stuff like "FIND THE LIGHT" as many Christians do. Appreciate it
5 months ago
Anonymous
>Your interlocutor is clearly a Muslim. I assume you aren't - perhaps you're a Platonist of some sort. There's no such thing as a generic monotheism that you can both agree to.
I'm fine with the typical propositions of Neoplatonism, but I'm of the belief that culture-specific inculcation is needed, whereas Neoplatonism tends to be dry philosophy. To that end, I'm not going to agree with Muslims on the cultural details because I'm coming from a nominal Christian background. I just don't subscribe to all the proclamations Christians require from others and it would either be endless lying or endless offending if I tried to participate with them religiously. So I work on these things on my own. Maybe one day I'll pretend to fit into such communities but that could only be for a very high purpose which I haven't figured out yet.
5 months ago
Anonymous
>but that could only be for a very high purpose which I haven't figured out yet
That high purpose should be expanding anti-degeneracy ideologies throughout your family and friends. This is the only way to ensure peace and justice across the world.
RSV is better, the Ignatius Study Bible is excellent the New Oxford Annotated Bible is good if you need a particularly academic version, but honestly a lot of the quibbling about English translations is baloney. The best translation is always the one that you actually study.
Cultural Backgrounds Study Bible >>>> Anything else
KJV
Daring today, aren't we?
Out of curiosity, how does the NKJV rate in your opinion? What about other versions which remove the archaisms?
1611 or bust
Fair enough, I can respect a commitment to purity.
What's your favorite commentary?
The Holy Ghost
This. KJV is the pinnacle of western lit. Nothing comes close to its beauty and grace. Geneva is a distant runner up
Most of it is pretty full tho. read genesis, job, ecclesiastes, john, and revelation. Dont bother with the rest
Depends on what your goal in picking up the Bible is. If you just want to understand Biblical allusions in literature there really isn't an alternative to the KJV. If you're trying to convert or simply understand Christian belief ESV is probably fine, though it's going to lack the deuterocanonical books.
No, get pic rel.
What in the KJV is considered by some to be more offensive compared to other bibles?
I think it is the list of racial slurs in the footnote on Genesis 10:2 that might be considered offensive by some.
Bro I literally just got this same Bible. Haven’t read it yet though lol.
The ESV Study is good and very comprehensive. Just don't try to read every single note and you'll be fine. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the study helps at the back of the book, particularly the ones on systematic theology.
It's a fairly sectarian set of notes, catering to conservative Evangelicals. For example, the note on I Peter 4 about the gospel being preached to "those who are dead," says something like "only a deranged mind would read this as it being preached to people after their death.
In reality, this is a fairly straightforward reading of how the original is phrased and plenty of early Christians, probably the majority who were native speakers in the original language took it this way. There is of course debate on this, and always has been, so it's fine to include a note to that effect. However, it's a little much to say the Catholic and Orthodox interpretation, which represents the view of the vast majority of Christians both today and throughout history is completely ridiculous.
There are a number of instances like this. The translation is fine in most instances, although like the NIV there are some important places where it seems to cater to reformed views rather than being more literal.
If you want something more broadly ecumenical I would recommend the Oxford Study Bible.
Or if you want a more historical set of notes, the Ancient Faith Study Bible is cool, as all the notes are from folks like Origen, Augustine, Jerome, etc. Although there too the selection of quotes is a bit biased.
ESV Study Bible also lacks the deuterocanonical books, which are included in most Bibles (including Protestant ones) except really in the United States.
The articles are pretty heavy handed against liberal Protestant theology too.
1 Peter 3 and 4 are interesting passages that most evangelicals just skip over. It forces them to accept a potentially universalist interpretation of the atonement and salvation which is the absolute worst of all christian heresies (despite being the most aligned with the nature of the Logos). 99% of income for the clerical class (pastors, priests, missionaries) would dry up over night if people realised Christ is reconciling the entire universe to himself and hell is a false and perverted construct.
>only a deranged mind would read this as it being preached to people after their death
This is what happens when the West forgets the Harrowing of Hades
This would be a question for your pastor not Oyish, although I do use that study Bible. I only use it because it's the translation my pastor uses
There are so many good choices, the new oxford is the worst one, dogshit essays.
If you want notes and don't mind going digital, Ancient Christian Commentaries on Scripture is excellent.
It goes section by section through each book and has all the stuff written by the Church Fathers on the verse organized there. Nor is it edited for just one theology. It includes folks like Pelagius who were condemned, or Origen (although I feel like Origen has basically become fully rehabilitated by this point, I saw him for sale in a Catholic monestary giftshop the other week; if he hadn't been condemned for how other people took him he'd probably be named a saint).
Read St John Chrysostom's homilies on the whole of Matthew, John, Acts and most of the epistles. Read the Orthodox Study Bible for rest of the Bible but also don't neglect reading the Church Fathers' commentaries. For example, St Gregory of Nyssa's "Life of Moses" is fantastic to understanding how Moses' life was a prefigurement of Christ's.
how do you go about reading the bible? it kills me to say it but i tried reading it front to back and i just about got through the pentateuch but it is frankly exhausting. starting with anything else seems weird but so much of it just seems so miscellaneous
>front to back
There's the problem. Many anons have attempted to read the Bible front to back only to burn out before they complete the Torah, because they weren't expecting the Torah to shift from narrative to 3 and a half books of do's and don'ts. They are called the Law Books for a reason. I recommend you try again with Gospels because they are the heart of the Christian Bible.
Ok, well it largely depends on what you want to get out of it.
If you have a burning need to deeply understand what the Bible really is then of course you have to eventually read all of it. Starting with the Pentateuch is good because all of the Old Testament was written with respect to those 5 books, even if it's not obvious. But after that it's literally a lifelong project to understand not just all that you were reading but also a fraction of the Rabbinical writings that go along with it.
Naturally, israeli tradition already sets people up for this, for example: https://www.sefaria.org/calendars
There's also free Bible audiobooks on Audible so you can get through it while multitasking.
You can of course go even deeper by learning Biblical Hebrew for the OT and Koine Greek for the NT, though the utility of those efforts isn't very high. Hebrew especially shows how it's impossible to have good English translations and how much poetry the Bible has that most Christians will never even know about.
If you only want to understand the way most Christians get direction from the Bible then you can even skip the OT entirely and just do the NT which is soo much shorter. But add in things like Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes if you want because those are also popular and also look for any official-looking Christian commentary. It all should be somewhat familiar because so much of it gets aired in Western culture, but also hopefully pretty surprising because of what is never talked about.
I suppose people either get moved by this stuff or they don't, but in the end it's good to be exposed to it so you actually know what the deal is.
>because they weren't expecting the Torah to shift from narrative to 3 and a half books of do's and don'ts
filtered
Can any trinitarians explain how its possible for God to be killed by humans? Theologically.
I will give account of Eastern Orthodox theology. For this explanation, Roman Catholics will largely agree. Oriental Orthodox who reject the Council of Chalcedon will disagree.
The Word of God, the Son of God being also God, is a Divine Person (or Hypostasis). He is Divine because He has the Divine Nature (or Essence). When the Word Incarnated, He took on human nature alongside His Divine Nature. Therefore, without change to His Divine Nature, He also had a human nature via the Incarnation. One Divine Person with two natures - one Divine, one human, without mixing but without separation, mediated in a single Person. As the Word had both a Divine and human nature, He possessed the qualities proper to both natures. In His Divinity, He was impassable, incorporeal etc. In His humanity, He was passable, corporeal etc. Furthermore, by virtue of His humanity, He was capable of experiencing hunger, thirst, tiredness and, importantly for our discourse, the capacity to die. However, both sets of properties remain ascribable to the Word, being Son of God and God. Therefore, when the israelites put Him up on Cross, He truly suffered in His humanity and truly died in His humanity. It would of course be blasphemy to say the Divinity died. But given He was a Divine Person as we have already established, when His human soul left His corporeal body (as death is definitionally the separation of soul from body), He descended into Hades, the waiting place of all those who had died prior to the Incarnation. At no point did His human nature break away from the referent Person. Indeed, an essence cannot exist independently of a hypostasis (see: St John of Damascus). But being a Divine Person, and the source of Life itself, the power of Hades was utterly shattered, thereby the Word trampled down on Death by His own death and Resurrection and therefore destroying the final enemy. We also participate in this Life via the sacraments which bring us into communion with God's own Life (being the source of Life itself). For further detail, look into the Harrowing of Hades - a very important doctrine in Orthodoxy (and no, it's not the Hades of Greek Mythology).
1/2
If you're interested in furthering reading on Trinitarian and Christological theology, read St John of Damascus' "Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith." There's also a great illustrative analogy which I've extracted:
>Take the case of the flaming sword; just as in it the natures of the fire and the steel are preserved distinct, so also are their two energies and their effects. For the energy of the steel is its cutting power, and that of the fire is its burning power, and the cut is the effect of the energy of the steel, and the burn is the effect of the energy of the fire: and these are kept quite distinct in the burnt cut, and in the cut burn, although neither does the burning take place apart from the cut after the union of the two, nor the cut apart from the burning: and we do not maintain on account of the twofold natural energy that there are two flaming swords, nor do we confuse the essential difference of the energies on account of the unity of the flaming sword. In like manner also, in the case of Christ, His divinity possesses an energy that is divine and omnipotent while His humanity has an energy such as is our own. And the effect of His human energy was His taking the child by the hand and drawing her to Himself, while that of His divine energy was the restoring of her to life.
Energy here means activity, loosely speaking.
2/2
>one Divine, one human, without mixing but without separation
Doublethink. This is exactly what I mean. It's illogical. God can't even make a fruit that is 100% apple and 100% orange. Just as he can't create a rock he can't lift. These are paradoxical.
it's not like a fruit being 100% apple and 100% orange, it's more like an apple being 100% green or 100% red. people as creations of god have that potential to participate in god's work in heaven within them but marred by sin; jesus came to earth as a man to show us what man could aspire to
>it's not like a fruit being 100% apple and 100% orange
It is, because the nature of God is unlimited, and of a man limited. You're literally saying Jesus is God, but he's also limited. Not different types of the same thing (red apple and green apple, or limited God and unlimited God (which isn't possible)). We aren't hierarchical siblings. God is above, and the creator is unlike the creation.
>"You shall have no other gods before Me."
The God of Moses said this via the 10 commandments. Why do you worship a being other than the God of Moses. It's IMPOSSIBLE for God to become a human. That's not because God is limited, but this is a feature of the unlimitedness of God.
The problem is that it directly contradicts the trinity. As you know, the Father IS God, Jesus IS God, and Holy Spirit IS God. The flaming sword analogy is saying that to have the flaming sword, you need the flame PLUS the sword. In other words, flame is 1/2 of the flaming sword, and the sword is the other 1/2. To map this to the trinity, it's like saying Jesus is 1/3 God, Father is 1/3 God, and Holy Spirit is 1/3 God.
>It's not illogical because people in the East think like this.
breh
>The bigger question
No it IS the biggest question in Trinitarianism. You are encouraging polytheism. Hindus do the same thing. They say their Gods are God in the flesh so to speak, or one form or God. Return to monotheism.
>Return to monotheism.
I agree for many reasons but idolatry is inevitable and it's not like Unitarians are accepted in Christianity anyway. So it's still better that people work to sharpen themselves through a triune God than be subjects to other masters.
>I agree for many reasons but idolatry is inevitable
Wow this is such a shocking statement. How can you say that??? Idolatry is the BIGGEST disrespect to the one who's given you eyes and ears! Do not think this way please.
>it's not like Unitarians are accepted in Christianity anyway
Why is this the standard you check against!? Even if I am the last monotheist on Earth, and not accepted anywhere, I would fight for the truth. Just as Jesus did. He was the Messiah, and the Children of Israel persecuted him. He didn't give in and say "screw this, it's not like israelites accept me anyway".
>Wow this is such a shocking statement. How can you say that??? Idolatry is the BIGGEST disrespect to the one who's given you eyes and ears! Do not think this way please.
First, I'm not saying that I am purposely being an idolator. I'm defending the fact that Christians do what they can under the Trinity.
Second, how is idolatry worse than murder, or a whole slew of terrible acts for that matter? People fail miserably by default and can only work up to the best of what they've been given. To find Christians or anyone else as idolators is also a given for the very reason that we are humans with eyes and ears and are not Angels. Instead, look down on the ones who seek to destroy the good and faithful and their accomplishments. They despise creation itself.
>Just as Jesus did. He was the Messiah
Striving for a Messiah complex is dangerous, let alone going for martyrdom. You and I are not so anointed and have to find our place and our calling with the life that we have. One pattern that shouldn't be ignored in the Bible is that great figures were called on because of what they had already accomplished in life. Moses could lead his people because he grew up in Pharaoh's palace. David could slay Goliath because he grew up protecting sheep from predators. I'm working with the gifts and skills that I can and that does include finding my way with a Biblical monotheism.
What's the issue with the fire and steel analogy?
I don't think it's so illogical when that kind of thinking becomes so common as you move toward the East and was a basis for civilizations.
The bigger question is regarding how it meaningfully applies outside of its own context, because it's theology after all.
So what does it matter that energies and essences are laid out in such a way? How does it mirror both scripture and the rest of the world? Why is it more correct than alternative interpretations?
The point should be to give you a window into reality that you wouldn't otherwise be able to access. The point is not to be something obvious and factual. If a particular Trinitarian theology does not help in such a way then that would be what makes it wrong.
>The point is not to be something obvious and factual
Objections to Trinitarian theology more broadly usually tend to amount to "1+1+1=3" - at least in the popular apologetics sphere. You can explain the concepts of energy, essence, hypostasis, will etc. till you're blue in the face. You can show how real distinctions in God are scriptural in both the Old and New Testaments. All of that is useless if your interlocutor is operating off the presupposition that things just have to be "simple". You ask them what "simple" means and it comes down to their own idiosyncratic ways of thinking rather than some genuine philosophical appellation. It's faux-humility masquerading as intellectual and spiritual laziness.
Your presupposition is that distinctions necessitate division. If I cut off your arm are you now 3/4 human?
>It's faux-humility masquerading as intellectual and spiritual laziness
Wrong way around, intellectual and spiritual laziness masquerading as faux-humility
>Your presupposition is that distinctions necessitate division. If I cut off your arm are you now 3/4 human?
No that's not my presupposition, it's the presupposition for the flaming sword by default. To be a flaming sword, it must be a sword, on fire. That's the formula for flaming sword.
To be a human, the requirement is not to have 2 arms, 2 legs, 10 fingers, etc. I don't present myself as "human with 2 arms, 2 legs, 10 fingers, etc.". I (and everyone else) present myself as just "human". You can cut my arm off and I am still human.
However, if you present a weapon to me as "flaming sword", the implication is that its a sword, on fire. If you put out the fire, it's no longer a flaming sword. If you present a weapon as just "sword", and I see that its also on fire, and I put out the fire, it's still a sword. Why all the mental gymnastics...God is formless, and unlike the creation.
You missed the point of the analogy. It was to show how one thing can retain the properties proper to its nature while taking on another nature without losing the first nature given your fear that God somehow changed after the Incarnation. It can still cut before and after its contact with fire. To make it even clearer, the sword is the Person of the Word. To cut is proper to the nature of the sword. Divine activity is proper to the Word as He is God. The sword comes into contact with the flame and can now burn alongside cutting. The Word took on human nature. The Word did things proper to human nature alongside things proper to His Divine nature. His Divinity was not compromised in any way. It's the *same* Person doing both Divine and human activities (energeia). We can predicate both activities to Jesus Christ because He retains both the Divine and human nature. Again, I recommend you read about the meaning of ousia/essence/nature, person/hypostasis and energeia/energy in a theological context to understand what is being said. There are no mental gymnastics.
Your interlocutor is clearly a Muslim. I assume you aren't - perhaps you're a Platonist of some sort. There's no such thing as a generic monotheism that you can both agree to. Unless you are a Muslim and then my intuitions are wrong.
I'm the anti-trinitarian guy that started this convo. I am Muslim.
> It was to show how one thing can retain the properties proper to its nature while taking on another nature without losing the first nature
But that's not in your analogy! The sword, whether it's on fire or not, cuts. We agree there. But when it's a flaming sword, the sword does take on the nature of the fire!!! When you swing the sword, the sword is not doing any burning, the FLAME is. The sword did not take on any new nature. The fire did not adopt any new nature. Fire is still burning, and steel is still cutting. Mental gymnastics is trying to explain how God can be killed. At the foundation of all of this, you believe God was killed.
Hey brother, would it help to think in terms of simulation theory which we moderns are privileged to have in our collectives psyche and vocabulary? This is how the Almighty Creator becomes a man: He uploads himself into the simulation as a playable character as easy as a C++ programmer instantiates a new object into his code. If the Creator is truly omniscient and omnibenevolent as logic leads us to believe then incarnation of the divine into the mortal is nor really outside of the scope of conceivable possibilities.
It would help my case, not the Trinity. If God uploads himself to the simulation as a playable character, and the playable character is killed, then the playable character (Jesus) is clearly not God! Because God is powerful and cannot be killed. If there's a transfer of knowledge to the playable character, it doesn't make the playable character God. If Jesus was unlimited he couldn't be killed.
As a Muslim I believe in the miracles of Moses and Jesus, but we believe it in a theologically correct way. We don't believe that Moses himself split the sea, but God did it for Moses. Him waving his hands or whatever is just theatre basically. No transfer of power. Besides Jesus doesn't have the same knowledge as the Father, so this is not what could have happened.
>“But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."
If you want to argue God uploaded a limited version of himself, well there you go Jesus can't be God still, because now you're just limiting Jesus which means he's not God once again.
I've also heard a similar argument, that Jesus is like a human puppet (or playable character as you put it). In this case it doesn't work either because a puppet is a puppet and separate from the puppeteer. If I take a puppet and control it with the strings, the puppet is not me and I am not the puppet. Difference between this and your example is that there is no copying of knowledge from puppeteer to puppet.
Although we are not discussing the salvation aspect, I'll still add that there's no pain/suffering or sacrifice and all of a sudden "Jesus died for our sins" is meaningless, because it's as easy as instantiating a new object.
Btw thanks for not spewing stuff like "FIND THE LIGHT" as many Christians do. Appreciate it
>Your interlocutor is clearly a Muslim. I assume you aren't - perhaps you're a Platonist of some sort. There's no such thing as a generic monotheism that you can both agree to.
I'm fine with the typical propositions of Neoplatonism, but I'm of the belief that culture-specific inculcation is needed, whereas Neoplatonism tends to be dry philosophy. To that end, I'm not going to agree with Muslims on the cultural details because I'm coming from a nominal Christian background. I just don't subscribe to all the proclamations Christians require from others and it would either be endless lying or endless offending if I tried to participate with them religiously. So I work on these things on my own. Maybe one day I'll pretend to fit into such communities but that could only be for a very high purpose which I haven't figured out yet.
>but that could only be for a very high purpose which I haven't figured out yet
That high purpose should be expanding anti-degeneracy ideologies throughout your family and friends. This is the only way to ensure peace and justice across the world.