Christians try to show that the Trinity is found in the Torah in one of two ways.
The first way is to present proof texts from the Torah that demonstrate the Trinity. The second is to claim that ancient Jews historically believed in either a Binitarian or Trinitarian God.
Before describing and examining each method, we should understand the difference between them because the differences may not be that obvious.
The first method simply assumes that the Trinity is described in the Torah without assuming anything about the Jewish view regarding it. In other words, it claims neither that the Jews knew nor didn't know that the Torah described the Trinity, but only that it was in fact there. If they didn't about it, this was due to God's describing it in only a hidden and implicit fashion. It is therefore no fault of their own that they were unaware it because He did not explicitly reveal it to them. This is related to the concept of progressive revelation, which is that God chose the correct juncture of history at a later point in time to reveal His true Trinitarian nature.
To contrast, the second way is that Jews were actually aware that the Torah spoke of God in complex terms and were not averse to the idea at all. This view states that Jews began to reject the Trinity due to the influence of the rabbi's only in the First Century as a response to Christianity. Because the rabbinical leadership did not want Jews to accept Jesus, they led them to think that the Tanakh spoke of God only in the strictest Unitarian terms. As a result they rejected the Divinity of Jesus along with his Messiahship.
This essay will examine both views in terms of their legitimacy and historical accuracy. The first view will be examined by analyzing Tanakh proof texts brought forth by Christians to show evidence of the Trinity. The second view will be examined according to the historical accuracy of the claim that ancient Jews believed that God was a complex being. It will also examine the veracity of the claim that the Rabbinical leadership during Jesus' life sought to create Jewish opposition to him by claiming that the Tanakh referred to God as a Unitarian Being.
Is The Trinity Found In The Tanakh?
The Trinity in Genesis 1:26
The first passage in the Tanakh that Christian apologists address to demonstrate the Trinity is Genesis 1:26:
And God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, and they shall rule over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heaven and over the animals and over all the earth and over all the creeping things that creep upon the earth."
The claim that the Trinity is embedded in this verse is due to words "us" and "our," which in Christian translations tend to be capitalized ("Us" and "Our"). The Trinity's formulation of God is that He is one Being with three Persons. This is described by some modern apologists with the explanation that God is one "What," but three "Who's." Explained alternatively, God is one Being possessing three eternal and equal centers of consciousness, known in Christian thought as "Persons." When a person relates to God, he relates to each Person in terms of its given functions and roles, but must relate to all three of them. By relating to all three one is not said to be worshiping three gods, because each of them is God, while they are not each other. These Persons are known as "God the Father," "God the Son," and "God the Spirit." Rejecting either one of them amounts to what Christians consider to be one of several Christian heresies.
When Genesis 1:26 uses the words "us" and "our," it is referring to the Persons in the Trinity; the Persons, who are at complete harmony with each other, are planning the Creation of Man. The main issue with this is the next verse in the chapter.
Genesis 1:27 says the following: And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
What you may notice is that verse 26 uses the plural nouns "us" and "our," but reverts in verse 27 to the singular pronouns "His" and "He." This is explained by considering the context of both verses. In verse 26 God plans to create Man, and in verse 27 He creates Man. Let us now examine both verses together in light of both views. According to the view that God is a Trinity verse 26 makes perfect sense. This is especially true given that Christians consider all three Persons to have created Man. However, verse 27 is a problem because it uses only singular nouns and verbs to describe God. All three instances of the verb "created" are conjugated in the singular, while they are plural in verse 26. All three pronouns are singular as well in verse 27, while they are plural in verse 26. If God is using plural pronouns to refer to Himself, verse 27 should have been written like this:
And God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, and they shall rule over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the heaven and over the animals and over all the earth and over all the creeping things that creep upon the earth." And God created man in Their image; in the image of God They created him; male and female They created them.
This discontinuity between verses 27 and 27 seem to indicate that while all three Persons planned to create Man, that only one of them actually did, which may very well also be a heretical position.
However, an astute Christian may have made a very startling observation; while the verbs in verse 27 are indeed conjugated in the singular, the word "created" appears three times! Further, the singular pronouns "His" and "He" as well appear a total of three times! What began as a refutation of the Trinity has proven it! This can be taken to refer to the role of each Person. As comforting as this observation may be, the very formulation that God is one Being and three Persons refutes it; remember that God is the Being, and the pronouns are the Persons. While verse 27 mentions three pronouns, it also mentions "God" twice; if the threefold mention of the pronouns indicates all three Persons, then the twofold mention of "God" indicates two beings, and so this observation, if made, must be discarded. Further, "God" is mentioned only in the first and second clauses, but not in the third (male and female He created them). This observation would have held water if all three clauses used the word "God."
Having shown that the Trinitarian understanding of this verse is not supported by the text, we will consider the Jewish understanding.
While the problem arises for the Christian view in the second verse (27), it arises immediately in verse 26 for the Jewish view of God as a simple Being. If God is One, why is He using the plural pronouns "us" and "our"? One view that has been advanced, normally by Muslims, but by some Jews as well, is that God is referring to Himself in the "majestic plural." This is similar to when Jews will address a rabbi or person of honor in plural instead of the singular. It is also found in the greeting "shalom aleychem," which literally means "peace unto you all" even while being addressed to a single individual.
However, referring to a person in plural is always done in the second person (you) and not in the first person (I); nowhere in the Tanakh does God refer to Himself in the plural first person (We), although this is a normal description of God in the Q'uran. We must therefore discard this argument even though it may be appealing.
The true answer is that God is referring to entirely separate beings, the administering angels. The Jewish commentators understand this word choice as an act of humility and a model for us to build partnerships with others to embark on our missions, as opposed to "going it alone." God involved the administering angels in theory in order to maintain peace in the Heavens, as Job 25:2 says, "Dominion and fear are with Him; He makes peace in His heights."
"Us" Is The Angels - Another Textual Proof
Verse 3:5 of Genesis also supports that "us" refers to the angels, in which the snake says to Eve:
For God knows that on the day that you eat thereof, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like angels, knowing good and evil.
The original Hebrew, however, does not say "angels" in this verse; it says "Elokim." Indeed, Rashi understands it to be God Himself, "the Creator of worlds," while Ibn Ezra understands it to mean "angels." What is the basis of their differing opinion? The answer to that may be in how we understand the verb directly following "Elokim" in verse 3:5:
כִּ֚י יֹדֵ֣עַ אֱלֹהִ֔ים כִּ֗י בְּיוֹם֙ אֲכָלְכֶ֣ם מִמֶּ֔נּוּ וְנִפְקְח֖וּ עֵֽינֵיכֶ֑ם וִֽהְיִיתֶם֙ כֵּֽאלֹהִ֔ים יֹֽדְעֵ֖י ט֥וֹב וָרָֽע
For God knows that on the day that you eat thereof, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like angels, knowing good and evil."
The verb yod'ei is the third person plural form of "know." In other words, it means "[they having the ability to] know." If the word "Elokim" refers to God, "know" refers to Adam and Eve - they will know good and evil. If it is read as "elohim," which can refer to any powerful being (even humans), it refers to the angels - you (Adam and Eve) will be like them, the angels, who know good and evil.
Compare this with Genesis 3:22, which says, "Now the Lord God said, "Behold man has become like one of us, having the ability of knowing good and evil, and now, lest he stretch forth his hand and take also from the Tree of Life and eat and live forever."
The phrase "knowing good and evil" appears in both verses. In 3:5, according to Ibn Ezra, it refers to God and the angels. In 3:22 "us" has the ability to know good and evil, which indicates that "us" is God and the angels also. Because 3:22 explicitly associates "us" with the angels by comparing it to 3:5, it is clear that "us" in 1:26 refers to the angels as well. This may be the reason that while Christians say that "us" in 1:26 is the Trinity, they do not say the same thing about 3:22.
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