Jesus' Wife?

[Tonitrus]

I bet even Jesus got tired of his wife's shit.

[crazy canuck]

Has the argument morphed to whether someone who thinks Christ is divine, son of god, came to earth to save us, etc., etc. is NOT Christian if they don't believe in the Trinity?

Iirc that was the position Sheilbh took up thread.

[crazy canuck]

True and I disagree with trinity as the bar as I think Christ's divinity should be sufficient.

I think the trinity is key. It was the subject that most divided early Christians because if you have a divine Jesus how do you also have a divine God the Father? Once you accept the divinity of Jesus you are inevitably going to end up trying to establish the nature of a singular God in (at least) two places. It's why it wracked the early Christian world and why the great cry of Islam was the unity of God which was very receptively heard.

I remembered correctly 

[alfred russel]

I bet even Jesus got tired of his wife's shit.

She wanted answers and wouldn't stop without them: did he believe in the Apostle's Creed and did he believe in his own divinity? What were his thoughts on the trinity? But on these topics, Jesus only said things that were ambiguous. 

[jimmy olsen]

I love this analogy.

Jesus is Marx,
Paul is Lenin,
There are many contenders for the role of Stalin  ,
Benedict is Brezhnev,
Francis is Gorbachev?

Sadly not entirely mine, but everyone loves Jesus just like everyone digs Marx nowadays. You needed Paul's betrayal of Christ's message to build Christianity as an actual religion for good or bad.

Constantine as Stalin.
Luther as Mao.
Calvin as Hoxha.
Pius X as Brezhnev.
John XXIII as Gorbachev.

This is supposed to be an endorsement of Catholicism? With friends like you, who needs enemies?

[Berkut]

True and I disagree with trinity as the bar as I think Christ's divinity should be sufficient.

I think the trinity is key. It was the subject that most divided early Christians because if you have a divine Jesus how do you also have a divine God the Father? Once you accept the divinity of Jesus you are inevitably going to end up trying to establish the nature of a singular God in (at least) two places. It's why it wracked the early Christian world and why the great cry of Islam was the unity of God which was very receptively heard.

I remembered correctly 

Kind of odd to argue that belief in the trinity is the key by noting that it "divided early Christians".

It cannot divide them if it defines them.

[crazy canuck]

True and I disagree with trinity as the bar as I think Christ's divinity should be sufficient.

I think the trinity is key. It was the subject that most divided early Christians because if you have a divine Jesus how do you also have a divine God the Father? Once you accept the divinity of Jesus you are inevitably going to end up trying to establish the nature of a singular God in (at least) two places. It's why it wracked the early Christian world and why the great cry of Islam was the unity of God which was very receptively heard.

I remembered correctly 

Kind of odd to argue that belief in the trinity is the key by noting that it "divided early Christians".

It cannot divide them if it defines them.

Yeah, that has been the counter argument.

[Martinus]

I love this analogy.

Jesus is Marx,
Paul is Lenin,
There are many contenders for the role of Stalin  ,
Benedict is Brezhnev,
Francis is Gorbachev?

Sadly not entirely mine, but everyone loves Jesus just like everyone digs Marx nowadays. You needed Paul's betrayal of Christ's message to build Christianity as an actual religion for good or bad.

Constantine as Stalin.
Luther as Mao.
Calvin as Hoxha.
Pius X as Brezhnev.
John XXIII as Gorbachev.

This is supposed to be an endorsement of Catholicism? With friends like you, who needs enemies?

Well, the same can be said about any endorsement ever made by you.

[Valmy]

Kind of odd to argue that belief in the trinity is the key by noting that it "divided early Christians".

It cannot divide them if it defines them.

How exactly can you believe that Jesus is the divine son of God and NOT either be a pagan or believe the Trinity? I mean you seem to be the one demanding that that defines them.

[alfred russel]

Kind of odd to argue that belief in the trinity is the key by noting that it "divided early Christians".

It cannot divide them if it defines them.

To somewhat switch sides in this discussion, a kind of concept of the trinity does make its way into the gospel of John (at least the portions of the trinity relating to god and jesus):

John 1:1-5:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome[a] it.

John 1:14-18:
14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

15 (John testified concerning him. He cried out, saying, "This is the one I spoke about when I said, 'He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me.'") 16 Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given. 17 For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. 18 No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.

None of this is in the synoptic gospels, which were likely written before. The gospel of john was likely included, as I mentioned earlier, for its theological content, and John 1 is probably the most important part.

Jesus is described as the "word of god", which commanded the world into existence in genesis. That seems to be a reply to those who would say the early christians were not monotheistic. Jesus as a divine being was already present in the beginning--the case was being made that christianity was as montheistic as judaism.

Genesis 1 however doesn't seem to support monotheism, but that is a separate topic.

[Valmy]

The trinity also got awkwardly tacked on to the end of Matthew:

Matthew 28:19

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit

Earlier versions just said 'my name'.

[Martinus]

The trinity is also a rather silly concept, at least as perverted by Catholics.

The original Jewish and then Judeo-christian/gnostic mysticism indeed had three divine beings/aspects, but they were the male (the father), the female (the mother, or Sophia) and the synthesis of the male and female (the "son" - but the son was then expected to "mate" with another opposite principle, creating another triad and so on, in a system that was not unlike that of the Heglian thesis-antithesis-synthesis triad).

Catholics could not accept that (if anything, because it put the male and female principle on equal footing) so they came up with the sily Holy Ghost that doesn't do shit.

[Valmy]

I seriously doubt the first century Jews were out there declaring males and females on equal footing. 'Perverted' by Catholics is ridiculous anyway. The religion was mostly invented by Greeks who, not surprisingly, put Greek ideas into it. The Trinity is a perfectly logical system in the way they thought about religion. They figured all Gods had several different 'aspects' which was why everybody seemed to have different Gods who were actually kind of similar.

[Malthus]

I seriously doubt the first century Jews were out there declaring males and females on equal footing.

Or later, for that matter.

My favorite bit of (probably) medieval Jewish folklore: the creation of the mythology of "Lilith" (of "Lilith Fair" fame.  ).

She was an attempt to reconcile the differences between the two creation myths in Genesis (in one, man and women were created at the same time out of dust; in the other, woman was created after man, out of Adam's rib).

The reconciliation: before Eve, Adam had a "first mate": Lilith. She got chucked out for asserting that, because they were created at the same time, they were equal! 

[Berkut]

Kind of odd to argue that belief in the trinity is the key by noting that it "divided early Christians".

It cannot divide them if it defines them.

How exactly can you believe that Jesus is the divine son of God and NOT either be a pagan or believe the Trinity? I mean you seem to be the one demanding that that defines them.

No idea, I don't believe he is the son of god, so it hardly matters to me.

But there are plenty of religious stories that involved Gods having "children" without there being a need for the idea of the trinity, just as an example.

If you think Jesus was some aspect of God, but there isn't a defined trinity per se, that seems entirely reasonable to me under the basic context of the religion.