HashemisBeautiful: Theology

Showing posts with label Theology. Show all posts

God's Unity and the Menorah

March 3, 2023 - 27 Adar, 5783

And you shall make a menorah of pure gold. The menorah shall be made of hammered work; its base and its stem, its goblets, its knobs, and its flowers shall [all] be [one piece] with it. (Exodus 25:31)

It is arguably so that one of the most important aspects of our avoda (service of God) as Jews and humans being in general is our ability to comprehend God's absolute Oneness. While God takes care to relate His Oneness to us in explicit terms in the Torah, it nevertheless seems that humanity has historically struggled to fully accept and apprehend this concept.

The above verse is an interesting and useful metaphor to aid us in understanding the correct way to ascertain God's absolute Oneness, perhaps even a meditation. When God instructed Moses to build the original Menorah to be placed in the Mishkan (tabernacle), He said that it must "be made of hammered work." Rashi explains "hammered work" to mean that it must be constructed entirely from one block of gold, without constructing each piece individually and then assembling them together into a unified whole.

Rashi explains that Moshe Rabbeinu found it difficult to understand how to build the Menorah from one piece of gold. It is curious that a prophet on the level of Moshe's caliber found it difficult, and impossible, to construct the Menorah according to God's specifications.

Nevertheless, God promptly solved the problem by telling Moshe to throw the gold into the fire and that He Himself would form it into its required shape. This is evidenced by the Torah's use of the passive verb (it shall be made - תֵּֽיעָשֶׂ֤ה) in contrast to the active verb (you shall make - וְעָשִׂ֨יתָ) used earlier in the chapter, indicating that Moshe did not make it on his own.

Perhaps Moshe's struggle to understand how to construct the Menorah from one piece of gold speaks to the majority of humanity's struggle to understand God's absolute Oneness. The human mind tends toward complexity, being a complex object itself composed of many separate domains. And nevertheless God reveals His true nature to use as a unified whole Who cannot be correctly apprehended as an assembled composite of separate elements.

As with Moshe, the solution to this conundrum required him to throw the gold into the fire, and God Himself constructed the Menorah in its correct unified form. We must likewise resist the temptation to form our understanding of God as a complex unity. We can do this by subjecting our finite understanding to the purifying fire of God's superior understanding, and He will produce for us the correct understanding of His absolutely unitary nature.

As a side note, notice the eerie similarity between the method used to construct both the Golden Calf and the Menorah. In Exodus 32:24, Aharon says to Moshe, "I said to them, 'Who has gold?' So they took it [the gold] off and gave it to me; I threw it into the fire and out came this calf.'" Both were made by throwing gold into a fire, indicating the apparently thin line between an incorrect and correct understanding. The people were convinced that they were doing the right thing, but alas, they were in error.

If you find yourself struggling with God's Oneness, recall His reassurance to Isaiah, "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,' says the Lord." (Isaiah 55:8) It is as if God is saying, "Just as you may seek to understand Me as you would from the perspective of a finite and complex human, recall that I am an Infinite and Simple Being."

Progressive Revelation

February 15, 2021 - 2 Adar 5781

What Is Progressive Revelation?

According to Blue Letter Bible, "The things that God revealed to humanity were not all given at once. His revelation was given in stages." This essay addresses four issues with the concept of progressive revelation. The first is that there are no indications of progressive revelation occurring within the Torah. The second is that progressive relation prevents people from knowing the truth in the present. The third is that the Trinity, a product of progressive revelation, is too similar to polytheism for comfort. The fourth is that once such a claim is made, it is repeatedly claimed by subsequent religions.

Issue 1 - One Does Not Observe Progressive Revelation In The Tanakh

It's easy to believe that progressive relation occurs as one crosses over from the Jewish Scriptures to the Christian Scriptures; this is exactly the argument you would expect somebody to make to authenticate their own scriptures. But progressive revelation indicates that it occurred either gradually or at certain intervals, with the Christian Scriptures being the final stage. That would mean that one would be able to identify progressive revelation occurring within the Tanakh, of which there are no genuinely satisfying examples.

The Blue Letter Bible says that the Tanakh is incomplete because it contains prophecies that remain unfulfilled: "In addition, the Old Testament records predictions that were still to be fulfilled. For example, the Old Testament ends with the promise of the coming of Elijah who will prepare the way for the promised deliverer - the Messiah." The unfulfilled status of the Tanakh's prophecies does not mean that it is flawed, it just means that those events have not occurred yet, and that their occurrence will not be canonized in the Tanakh. This is like saying that a teenager isn't perfect because they haven't reached maturity yet.

Out of a genuine respect for the Jewish Scriptures, the Blue Letter Bible assures us that being incomplete is not synonymous with being less true: "Progressive revelation does not mean to say that the Old Testament is somehow less true than the New Testament. The progress was not from untruth to truth - it was from less information to more full information." While this is a gracious nod to the Tanakh, equating "more" with "more correct" is nevertheless not always true. Sometimes less is more: "Do not add to the word which I command you..." (Deuteronomy 4:2)

Issue 2 - It Prevents People From Knowing God In The Present

If God seeks people to know Him, why would He keep His true nature from His people and from the entire human race until a relatively late point in history? One explanation provided by Catholic.com relates the advice given to the author by a college professor: "A college professor of mine once said to be leery of someone who tells you everything about himself in the first five minutes you know him. Jesus did not do this, and neither has the Father."

While this may be true of strangers that you meet on the street or in the doctor's office, it isn't true of people with which you have a serious and intimate relationship. Nominally speaking, it's critical to discover the most important aspects of a person before, say, getting married to them. Insofar as the relationship between God and the Jews is like a marriage, it would be critical to have an accurate conception of God's Nature before going to the chuppah, which was Mount Sinai. It would be highly unfortunate to discover ten years into the marriage that your spouse was schizophrenic. Isaiah 55:8 says, "'For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways,' says the Lord." The way human beings do things is not necessarily the way that God does them.

Issue 3 - The Trinity Is Too Similar to Polytheism

Perhaps God withheld the Trinity from the Jews due to the concern that they would confuse it with polytheism. This is another explanation advanced by Catholic.com: "In the Old Testament God needed to establish monotheism for the Jews to make them stand apart from all the polytheistic religions that abounded. Monotheism was almost unheard of, and if Yahweh had tried announcing that he is three Persons the people of the day might have misunderstood it as Tritheism, which is a heresy."

It does not evince much confidence in the Trinity to suggest that the Jews (or anybody else) would have mistaken it for polytheism. Surely the Jews had enough experience with said transgression, both from observing it all around them in a variety of forms, and from experiencing it first hand, to know the difference between polytheism and genuine monotheism. It is patronizing and insults peoples' intelligence to suggest that "God needed to establish monotheism for the Jews to make them stand apart from all the polytheistic religions" only to invite them into a relationship that was almost just as scandalous. If polytheism is prostitution, the Trinity is an escort service.

This site also argues that today "we have enough trouble trying to get people to believe in the one true God, let alone many. Thus the New Testament was a better time for God to have revealed his true nature, now that the danger of a polytheistic misunderstanding had been eliminated." What this ignores is that while polytheism is arguably not in fashion today, it was abundant in the era in which the New Testament was written and in the places that the Roman Empire occupied. The Trinity found itself in good company during that era and region and didn't overtly conflict with polytheism as Judaism did.

Issue 4 - When Does Progressive Revelation Stop?

How do we know that progressive revelation has stopped on the Christian Scriptures? While Jews contend with Christians over the impossibility and error of progressive revelation into Christianity, Christians contend with more than one group, namely Muslims and Mormons. While the Muslim claim precedes Mormonism, Mormonism claims to be the correct understanding of Christianity. Each of these groups advances the notion that progressive revelation continued after the Christian Scriptures into their own scriptures; the Book of Mormon or the Q'uran. There is an old joke that Jews like to tell; Why did God create Mormons? So Christians would know how Jews feel.

According to the Mormon site The Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter Day Saints, "'The Book of Mormon is another witness of Jesus Christ and confirms the truths found in the Holy Bible. Far from undermining the Bible, the Book of Mormon supports its testimony of Jesus Christ. One passage says that the Book of Mormon “shall establish the truth” of the Bible “and shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father, and the Savior of the world; and that all men must come unto him, or they cannot be saved' (1 Nephi 13:40)."

According to Islamweb.net, "Allah, The Almighty, revealed the Quran to be His last, all-embracing Scripture containing the final manifestation of the Divine Law. This necessitates that it has to be safeguarded from the mischievous hands of men and from all corruption. This protection has been a reality from the time the Quran was revealed until today and will remain so forever." It also says that the "'Islamic Law is lasting, remaining suitable for every place and time, and embracing the goodness of the previous manifestations of the Law. Allah Says (what means): “And We have revealed to you, [O Muhammad], the Book in truth, confirming that which preceded it of the Scripture and as a criterion over it.' [Quran 5:48]"

The above explanations sound structurally similar to Christianity's description of the relationship between the Jewish and Christian Scriptures. According to Christianity.com: "The religion of the Old Testament is the embryo of Christianity. The Old Testament is the gospel in the bud. The New Testament is the gospel in full flower. The saints in the Old Testament saw many things through a glass darkly. But they all looked by faith to the same Savior and were led by the same Spirit as ourselves." It also says, "The relation between our Lord's teaching and that of the Old Testament is cleared up by our Lord in one striking sentence. He says, 'Don't think that I came to destroy the law, or the prophets. I didn't come to destroy, but to fulfill' (Matthew 5:17)."

What does the Torah say about this matter? Deuteronomy 4:2 says, "Do not add to the word which I command you, nor diminish from it, to observe the commandments of the Lord your God which I command you." While Christians, Muslims, and Mormons all understand this verse as a prohibition of adding to their own own scriptures, Jews see it in its original context of not adding anything to the Torah.

Conclusion

A religion claiming to have received an updated vision will by definition reject all of its predecessor's objections. It rejects their objections on the grounds they were not the recipients of the new revelation. If they had received the new revelation then they would have no objections to it. This is a circular argument designed to prevent people from analyzing the contents of a prophecy critically.

There is therefore no good way to prevent new religions from forever claiming that they have received a new revelation, but there is a good way to prevent people from believing them. God explicitly inoculated the Jews against this form of deceit in two verses: Deuteronomy 13:1 through 6 and Deuteronomy 18:20: "Now if you say to yourself, 'How will we know the word that the Lord did not speak?' If the prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, and the thing does not occur and does not come about, that is the thing the Lord did not speak. The prophet has spoken it wantonly; you shall not be afraid of him."

In the latter verse, God legitimizes the Jews' suspicion that a prophet may be lying. This is demonstrated by the fact that He provides them with the criteria for distinguishing between true and false prophets. Claiming to have received prophecy to substantiate prophecy is considered to be an illegitimate means of verification. The only legitimate means of verification is empirical. In contrast to the Jews' complaining and rebelling against God in the desert, He does not see this question as a sign of stubbornness or rebellion, but as a sign of their willingness to follow Him.

The Seven Noachide Laws

Are The Seven Noachide Laws Written In The Torah?

In the post titled Gentiles and Jews, we described how the distinction between Gentiles and Jews came into existence and why. In this post we establish the veracity of the Noachide Laws, show where they are mentioned in the Torah, and describe them.

The first question that's on everybody mind is "How do we know that the Noachide Laws are legitimate and not human fabrications?"

The first point that needs to be made clear is that the Oral Law was Divinely revealed as well as the Written Law. Very briefly put, the way that the majority of the commandments are written in the Torah makes it virtually impossible to know how to observe them; the Torah presents many of them in a completely ambiguous fashion and omits many or all necessary details. One who seeks to observe them will find that he has to supply contextual information for himself. This is typically accomplished by creating interpretations usually based on extra-Biblical academic studies combined with one's own anecdotal information.

The Written and Oral Torah were designed to complement each other. The Written Torah will often refer to an idea or commandment in shorthand, and the Oral Torah will expound on it to explain its meaning. In short, whether one wishes to observe either the Mosaic or the Noachide laws, reliance on the Oral Law is critical. Technically speaking while there is no need for the Written Torah to refer to the Oral Torah, perhaps out of mercy for us God made actual references to it in the Written Law.

Interestingly enough, they were not revealed publicly all in one place and time as the Torah was, and pre-exist any written material; the verses that we read were not written until after the Exodus from Egypt. Instead, they were progressively revealed apparently within the context of events relating to them. The people in Genesis seem to have known them via communication with God and transmission of information, which indicates that they were "public knowledge."

For more information about Noachide resources, see the My Noachide Family YouTube channel, which is full of videos.

What Are The Seven Noachide Laws?

The Seven Noachide Laws are:

Do not deny God: Genesis 2:16. See Noachide Law 1.
Do not blaspheme God: Leviticus 24:15. See Noachide Law 2.
Do not murder: Genesis 9:6. See Noachide Law 3.
Do not engage in incestuous, adulterous or homosexual relationships: Genesis 2:24. See Noachide Law 4.
Do not steal: Genesis 2:16, Genesis 21:25. See Noachide Law 5.
Do not eat of a live animal: Genesis 9:4. See Noachide Law 6.
Establish courts/legal system to ensure law obedience: Genesis 9:6. See Noachide Law 7.

1. Do Not Deny God

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Genesis 2:16 says, "And the Lord God commanded man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat." This text focuses on the Name Elokim to derive this commandment. The singular tense Elokim is one of the Divine Names for the One God. According to AskNoah.org, "But the same word is used in the non-holy plural sense to refer to physical or conceptual idolatries (other “gods”), as in the verse “You shall not have the gods of others in My presence.” (Exodus 20:3). Therefore, Genesis 2:16 implies that people are permitted to serve only Elokim, "...the One Who commands mankind..." but no idols.

2. Do Not Blaspheme God

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According to Leviticus 24:15, "And to the children of Israel, you shall speak, saying: Any man who blasphemes his God shall bear his sin." The Hebrew for "any man" is written "ish ish," which literally means "a man, a man." The Oral Law explains that such textual anomalies indicate an embedded message, in this case the reference to any man, i.e., whether Jew or Gentile.

Further, Leviticus 24:10-16 indicates that violating this commandment is a capital offense. The root prohibition is found in Exodus 22:27.

3. Do Not Murder

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The Torah says, "Whoever sheds the blood of man through man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God He made man." (Genesis 9:6)

The word "whoever" indicates both Jews and Gentiles.

This prohibition also seems pretty clear from Genesis 4:8-13 that Cain committed a sin by murdering Abel although God had not yet explicitly or implicitly stated that it was prohibited. God only pronounces the prohibition five chapters later after Noah and his family left the ark.

4. Do Not Engage in Sexual Immorality

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The Torah says, Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother, and cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24).

The verse above covers five of the six sexual unions forbidden by God to Gentiles, as follows:

Therefore, a man shall leave his father: the prohibition against union with his father’s wife.
...and his mother: the prohibition against union with his mother.
...and cleave to his wife: the prohibition against union with another man's wife.
...and they shall become one flesh: the prohibition against union with another man, or with an animal.

The sixth prohibited sexual union for a Gentile is to have relations with his maternal sister according to Genesis 20:12: And also, indeed, she is my sister, the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife.

According to AskNoah.org, "Note that Abraham said this to appease Abimelech. It was actually only figuratively true in his case, since Sarah was the daughter of Abraham’s brother. They had the same paternal grandfather, whom people often referred to as “father”.) It was also universally accepted that father-daughter relations would be prohibited, as evidenced by the disgrace of Lot after he had relations with his two daughters, following G-d’s destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:29-36, and Rashi’s explanation of Genesis 20:1). Relations between females are likewise an abomination to G-d. This is one of the subjects of the verse Leviticus 18:3, which speaks against the immoral practices of the ancient Egyptians and Canaanites, and which Leviticus 18:30 refers to as “abominable traditions.” About these the Midrash specifies: 'A man would marry a man, a woman would marry a woman, and a woman would be married to two men.'"

Genesis 34:7 may also be a reference to this. Rashi explains that verse as follows: and such ought not to be done-: to violate virgins, for the nations (the general population) had refrained from illicit relationships because of the Flood. — [from Gen. Rabbah 80:7]

5. Do Not Steal

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According to AskNoah.org, "The prohibition of theft is contained within the permission which God granted to Adam and Hava (Eve) in Genesis 2:16 to eat from the trees of the garden. This implies that if the permission had not been granted, they would have been forbidden to do so, since the property did not belong to them. This Noahide commandment is cited explicitly by Abraham in Genesis 21:25: And Abraham contended with Abimelech about the well of water that the servants of Abimelech had forcibly seized.

This and other related sins are also referenced in Rashi's commentary on Genesis 6:11: was corrupt: Heb. וַתִּשָּׁחֵת is an expression of immorality and idolatry. (other editions add: immorality, “for all flesh had corrupted (הִשְׁחִית) its way,” and idolatry), as in (Deut. 4:16): “Lest you deal corruptly (תַּשְׁחִיתוּן).” - [Sanh. 56b, 57a]

...and the earth became full of robbery: Heb. חָמָס, robbery. (other editions add: as it is said (Jonah 3:8): “and of the dishonest gain (הֶחָמָס) which is in their hands.”) - [Sanh. 108a]

Rashi's commentary on Genesis 13:7 also mentions theft: And there was a quarrel: Since Lot’s herdsmen were wicked, and they pastured their animals in fields belonging to others, Abram’s herdsmen rebuked them for committing robbery, but they responded, “The land was given to Abram, who has no heir; so Lot will inherit him, and therefore this is not robbery.” But Scripture states: “And the Canaanites and the Perizzites were then dwelling in the land,” and Abram had not yet been awarded its possession. [from Gen. Rabbah 41:5]

6. Do Not Eat The Limb of a Living Animal

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Before leaving the Ark, Noah and his family were permitted only to consume plant life and vegetation; once leaving, God permitted them to consume meat, and hence added the commandment in Genesis 9:4: But, flesh with its soul, its blood, you shall not eat.

7. Establish Courts of Justice

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The Torah says, "Whoever sheds the blood of man through man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God He made man." (Genesis 9:6) This commandment is the obligation to judge and penalize a murderer.

According to AskNoah.org, "This is explained as follows by the Talmudic Sages: “Whoever sheds the blood of man” (referring to the murderer), 'among man' (i.e., he is to be prosecuted in a court by a man who is qualified to testify as a witness), “his blood shall be shed” (if convicted, he is liable to capital punishment by the court). The Noahide Code commanded through Moses at Mount Sinai specifies that Gentiles are similarly obligated to bring transgressors of the other Noahide commandments to justice in a court of law."

References to the Oral Law in Other Parts of the Tanakh

Interestingly enough, the Written Torah includes references to the oral details pertaining to the following:

The Oral Law in general - Exodus 18:13-22, Leviticus 26:46, Deuteronomy 17:8-11
Mosaic laws - Jeremiah 17:19-24, Nechemiah 13:15-22, Isaiah 56:2, 58:13-14
Noachide laws - I Kings 8:41-43

Do I Need Jesus To Talk to God?

A common argument among Christian apologists is that Jesus did not come to destroy the Law (the Torah), but to fulfill it. Their goal with this assertion is to answer a particular Jewish objection, which is that the Torah is eternal. The Christian response is to agree and to emphasize that Jesus didn't do away with the Torah, but that he fulfilled it:

Do not think that I came to do away with or undo the Law [of Moses] or the [writings of the] Prophets; I did not come to destroy but to fulfill. (Matthew 5:17)

Aside from the fact that instructions are followed and not fulfilled, this statement implies an idea that the Torah considers to be incorrect, namely that the Torah is impossible to keep. However, the Torah itself seems to preempt this erroneous conclusion thousands of years in advance by addressing this concern directly:

It is not in heaven, that you should say, "Who will go up to heaven for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?" Nor is it beyond the sea, that you should say, "Who will cross to the other side of the sea for us and fetch it for us, to tell [it] to us, so that we can fulfill it?" Rather,[this] thing is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it. (Devarim 30:12-14)

In direct contrast to Jesus' statement that he came "to fulfill" the Torah, God says above that "you," the Jews, "can fulfill it." Their concern seemed to be that receiving and fulfilling the Torah was too distant for them, and therefore impossible. If so, then an intermediary would have been required to do it for them. God assures and consoles them that "[this] thing is very close to you... so that you can fulfill it!"

In other words, the text is saying something that Christians would consider to be utterly radical: God is saying that no intermediary is required to forge a relationship with Him, which would turn Christianity completely on its head. Apparently I can fulfill it, and nobody needs to go up to the heavens or across the sea to get it for me. The Christian Scriptures unequivocally say “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me,” (John 14:6) which is the literal description of an intermediary. Ultimately, God says that the correct and expected way to relate to Him is with no intermediary, made possible by the fact that I have a direct connection to Him.

To this end Tehillim 145:18 says, "The Lord is near to all who call Him, to all who call Him with sincerity."

Does Genesis 18 Mention the Trinity? Part 2

There is another issue in Genesis 18 that prevents us from believing that it is a reference to God in the form of an angel. That is the word "and," which is used in different ways in the text of the Torah. What we often see in the verses is that the word "and," which is "ve" (ו) in Hebrew, is used first as an introduction to a particular set of events, and then switches to being used as subsequent steps in a sequence. The first place that we see this in the Torah is at the very beginning (no pun intended) in Genesis:

In the beginning of God's creation of the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was astonishingly empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water. (Genesis 1:1-2)

We see here that the word "ve," which I said means "and" in Hebrew, is translated as "Now the earth was..." It is translated this way because it introduces to us a set of events, and if you check the Hebrew you will see that it is in fact the word "ve," which is a word written as one letter, the letter "vav. (ו)" The second and third instances of this word in verses 1-2 are translated as "and," but they are describing the next steps in the sequence, they are describing "Now the earth was astonishingly empty" and what was already occurring at this stage in time.

Immediately following this the word "and" kicks into "subsequent steps" gear and begins describing what happens after verses 1 and 2 in chronological order:

And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light. And God saw the light that it was good, and God separated between the light and between the darkness. And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night, and it was evening and it was morning, one day. (Genesis 1:3-5)

We see above that the word "and," the same word "ve," introduces each next step in the sequence:

And God said... and there was light... and God saw the light... and God separated... And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night... and it was evening... and it was morning..."

This usage of the word "and" continues for the majority of the entire chapter.

This usage of the word "and" appears to be the same one in Genesis 18:1-2 when the angels visit Abraham:

Now the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent when the day was hot. And he lifted his eyes and saw, and behold, three men were standing beside him, and he saw and he ran toward them from the entrance of the tent, and he prostrated himself to the ground. (Genesis 18:1-2)

We first have the word "ve" being translated as "Now" to introduce the set of events. For the record, this occurs again in Genesis 18:11 when the chapter introduces a new set of events separate from 18:1-10:

Now Abraham and Sarah were old, coming on in years; Sarah had ceased to have the way of the women. (Genesis 18:11)

Back to verses 1 and 2, we see that every instance of "and" is the next step in the sequence (except for the first, which introduces the set of events and doubles as the first event):

Introduction/Event 1: Now the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent when the day was hot.
Event 2: And he lifted his eyes…
Event 3: and saw…
Event 4: and behold, three men were standing beside him…
Event 5: and he saw…
Event 6: and he ran toward them from the entrance of the tent…
Event 7: and he prostrated himself to the ground.

There are two issues with the claim that the angel was God.

The first is the unnatural way, according to the belief that one of the angels was God, that the Torah reports that they were "standing beside him." The first verse says, "Now the Lord appeared to him..." If one of the angels in Event 4 was God in the form of a man, it should not have said, "three men were standing beside him," it should have said, "The Lord and two angels were standing beside him." The reason for this is that Event 1 says only that God appeared to him, but made no references to the angels. However, all appear to him together, which either means that all three appeared in Event 1 (even though the angels aren't mentioned), or that all three angels appeared to Abraham in Event 4 and that the Lord that appeared to him in Event 1 is not one of the angels!

Further, Event 4 says, "three men were standing beside him," not the three men, indicating that these men were altogether different ones than any of the beings that appeared in Event 1. For example, if I say "the eggs are cold," you know which eggs I'm referring to because you have already seen them, or I've already made reference to them. But if say "eggs are cold" you don't know which eggs I'm referring to.

If the angel was God in the form of a man the verse should have read something like the following:

"Now the Lord appeared to him in the plains of Mamre, and accompanying him were two angels, and he was sitting at the entrance of the tent when the day was hot. And he lifted his eyes and saw the three men were standing beside him, and he saw and he ran toward them from the entrance of the tent, and he prostrated himself to the ground."

More simply put, the word "and" in Event 4 indicates that something new happened, which is that the three men suddenly appeared to him in addition to God's appearing to him in Event 1.

Secondly, in Event 5 we get what seems like an incomplete thought, "and he saw." What did he see? His very next action was running towards the angels. Rashi explains according to the plain reading of the text that he saw that they were standing in one place away from him, i.e., that they were not coming any closer to him. He therefore runs toward them.

Further, we said that events 2 through 7 describe Event 1. However, we see that Abraham was in different locations in Event 1 and Event 6; in Event 1 he is "at the entrance of his tent," and in Event 6 he is away from the entrance of his tent near the angels, to whom he had to run given that they were standing some distance away. Event 6 can only be a description of Event 1 if it gives us more information about Event 1, but not if it contradicts Event 1. Take Genesis 1:1-2, which explain how the earth was "astonishingly empty."

If the verses said, "Now the earth was astonishingly empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the people were building a tower," we would know that it was not really astonishingly empty. In this case verse 2 contradicts verse 1, indicating that the people built a tower after the earth had been astonishingly empty. And this is exactly the relationship between Event 1 and Event 6 in Genesis 18. When the Torah says that Abraham "ran toward them from the entrance of the tent," he did so only (a few steps) after God appeared to him at the entrance of the tent, indicating that neither of the angels or men were incarnations of God.

Does Judges 13 Mention the Trinity?

And an angel of the Lord appeared to the woman, and said to her, "Behold now, you are barren, and have not borne; and you shall conceive and bear a son. (Judges 13:1)

Some Christians claim that this angel was as well an incarnation of God according to the following verse:

And Manoah said to his wife, "We shall surely die, because we have seen God." (Judges 13:22)

However, this overlooks two major points. The first point is the one that we have been discussing until now, which is that the Torah often refers to visions of angels as visions of God. The second point is explicitly in all of the verses in this chapter preceding verse 22 (the phrase "an angel of God" appears ten times), all of which repeatedly refer to this being as "an angel of God." In addition, several of these verses explicitly distinguish between God and the angel:

And God hearkened to the voice of Manoah; and the angel of God came again to the woman, and she was sitting in the field, and Manoah her husband was not with her. (Genesis 13:9)

And Manoah said to the angel of the Lord, "Let us take you in now, and prepare for you a kid goat." And the angel of the Lord said to Manoah, "If you take me in I will not eat of your bread, and if you will make a burnt-offering, you must offer it to the Lord;" For Manoah did not know that he was an angel of the Lord. (Genesis 13:15-16)

Some Christians argue, however, that Manoach and his wife only thought that it was an angel, but it was really God. Further, the only reason that the angel continues to accept being referred to as the angel of God is to avoid causing Manoach and his wife to mistakenly commit "idolatry in their hearts" by offering a sacrifice to an angel, which is the reason that it tells them to offer the sacrifice to God.

However, there are two issues with this as well. Manoach did not say that he intended to offer the goat to the angel as a sacrifice, but rather believing that it was a human being, like Abraham he offered to prepare food for him. Secondly, if the angel was really God, and God sought to reveal Himself as a Trinity, it would have simply said, "No, I am God in the form of an angel, so you may prepare the sacrifice to Me." For some odd reason God chose to keep his true Nature as a Trinity hidden, which is why I say that the apparent references to the Trinity in the Torah are implicit and not explicit, as Christians claim them to be.

They in fact are not references of any kind. Instead, Christians sought to find references in the Tanakh to the Trinity in order to authenticate and bolster their claims against its plain reading.

Instead, the Torah says exactly what it should have said if it was an angel, which is, "No, offer the sacrifice to God," i.e., not to me.

Is Genesis 1:26 Talking About the Trinity?

October 2, 2020 - 14 Tishrei 5781

Introduction

Does Genesis describe the Trinity as most Christian apologists claim it to? There are two verses in Genesis that seem demonstrate that this is not the case:

Genesis 1:26
Genesis 3:5

Genesis 1:26

The Problem

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."

Christian apologists point out that the word "us" in this verse is a reference to the Trinity, or more specifically, to the Persons in the Trinity speaking among themselves.

The first proof that Genesis 1:26 is not referring to the Trinity is the following verse, Genesis 1:27, which says:

And God created man in His image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.

Note that although God says Let us make man in our image, when it comes to actually creating Man the Bible does not use the pronoun us, but He.

Ask yourself the following question; if us signifies the Trinity, why does Genesis 1:27 switch to using He? If Genesis 1:26 refers to the Trinity, then it is describing the Persons of the Trinity in the planning stages of creating Man. This also indicates that all three of them created Man as Man is created in the image of all three Persons.

This is confirmed by the following excerpt from the Christian website, Answers in Genesis, which says that "All three Persons are the Creator," as shown below:

"But now, O LORD, You are our Father; We are the clay and You our potter; And all we are the work of Your hand." (Isaiah 64:8)

"He (Jesus) is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist." (Colossians 1:15–17)

"The Spirit of God has made me, And the breath of the Almighty gives me life." (Job 33:4)

If so, then Genesis 1:27 should say "And God created man in Their image; in the image of God They created him; male and female They created them." In this context "They" would refer to all three Persons of the Trinity.

The Resolution

The Jewish commentators deal with it as a statement made to the administering angels, which can be seen 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 them 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."

This is explained by Rashi as follows:

"When the constellations ascend, each one thinks, 'I will ascend first,' and because he does not see what is before him, he is not envious. So I heard. [Tanchuma Buber ad loc.] Another explanation: 'He makes peace in His heights' - Fire and water are mixed, and the water does not extinguish the fire; I did not hear this."

Genesis 3:5

The second proof can be seen by comparing the following two verses:

Genesis 3:5 in which Satan 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.

Genesis 3:22 in which : 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."

Both of the verses above include the phrase "knowing good and evil." The first verse clearly identifies that this refers to the angels. However, the more ambiguous second verse uses it in reference to "us." Without this phrase, one might assume 3:22 as a reference to the Trinity also (like 1:26). However, the phrase in 3:22 "knowing good and evil" explicitly identifies "us" as the angels.

This may be the reason why Christian apologists say that 1:26 is a reference to the Trinity, but not 3:22.

See below for Jews for Judaism's Rabbi Michael Skobac's answer according to four traditional Jewish approaches:

How We Know that the Trinity is Not in the Torah?

September 7, 2020 - 18 Elul 5780

Introduction

The first and most basic answer is that God did not explicitly reveal the Trinity in the Torah.

What Christians claim to be God's explicit revelation of the Trinity in the Torah are in fact implicit references to what they assume to be explicit revelations. There is a difference between the words "explicit" and "implicit." God explicitly tells the Jews that His Nature is Unified. He explicitly tells them that He expects them to keep His commandments, and explicitly tells them what will happen if they do not. He does not explicitly tell them that He is a Trinity. When God wants to make something understood clearly and imminently He explains it in an explicit fashion so as to remove any possibility of doubt of what He is referring to. He does not leave it up to conjecture or interpolation. This does not mean that the Torah is low on mystery or enigmatic passages, for any student of the Tanakh knows it contains many. Instead, those passages tend to be found in association with particular details related to narratives and not when describing His true Nature, or His expectations of the Jews or humanity.

The question becomes, if God wanted to reveal Himself as a Trinity why did all Jews up until the first century fail to realize that God had revealed Himself as such?

Some Christians like to make the claim that appearances of particular angels throughout the Torah are in fact appearances of the Second Person in the Trinity before he manifested himself as Jesus. Some common examples are Genesis 18 (and 21) in which three angels visit Abraham's tent, and another is Judges 13, each of which will be examined independently.

Are We Hardwired For Polytheism?

July 10, 2020 - 18 Tammuz 5780

Why does polytheism seem to have been so prevalent throughout human history?

The answer to this may be that almost everything to which human beings attribute greatness is complex. The word “complex” refers to things “consisting of many different and connected parts.”

This applies to things found in nature such as trees and rivers, human endeavors such as architecture or engineering, and non-tangibles such as eco-systems, governments, and philosophies. The tendency, therefore, is to equate importance and sophistication with complexity. The structural cooperation required for a complex object or system to function translates to elegance and appreciation. With some exceptions, the greater the complexity, the greater something is, and the simpler, the more primitive.

Human beings’ anthropocentric tendencies applied to Divinity may have led us to produce complex theological systems that we believe are superior to simpler ones. In terms of God, a network of gods is more appealing, and may be more effective from a practical perspective. Complexity finds expression even within monotheistic theology in the form of, for example, the Trinity.

Polytheism- Theological Fragmentation

July 3, 2020 - 11 Tammuz 5780

Polytheism is a more extreme version of theological refraction, and is more accurate to refer to it as theological fragmentation. The metaphor of the mirror was useful in describing the process of theological refraction, so here will use a similar metaphor of a prism to explain polytheism.

Light itself can be used as a metaphor for explaining how both polytheism and idolatry began. The light that emanates from the sun is described as white light, and its wavelength is the only one that the human eye can detect. When this light passes through an object that refracts light, such as a prism, it is fragmented into its wavelengths. The human eye naturally recognizes seven wavelengths (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet), but the total amount of wavelengths is much greater.

This process of the fragmentation of light is useful in understanding how polytheism works. In the Mishna Torah, the Rambam describes polytheism as having its roots in the universal recognition of the existence of the One True God. He in fact describes it as a process whereby individual, charismatic leaders first formulated a system of honoring God by venerating the elements of nature, such as the sun and the moon. This gradually devolved into systems that attributed divinity to the forces of nature and began worshiping them in-and-of themselves.

Theologically speaking, the fragmentation of light is similar to the process whereby the human mind fragments its concept of God into a host of deities and divine forms. One aspect of the majority of the idols and deities native to the disparate religions of the world is their often colorful and exotic nature. It is fitting, then, that the white light that in the metaphor represents God is broken down into a seemingly endless array of colorful gods and goddesses.

While on the subject of dispersed light, it is most fitting and almost uncanny that God chose the rainbow as the very sign by which He pledged to Noah (and humanity) never to destroy the earth again by Flood. Even more interesting is that the human eye detects seven colors in the rainbow, which seems to correlate with the Seven Laws of Noah that make up the universal laws designed for the entire human race. A rainbow is the product of the same light dispersion that we have discussed up until now, as if to say "You, humanity, dispersed Me into a host of deities as light is dispersed into a rainbow, and so I will use the rainbow as both a testament to this and a reminder to you that I will never destroy the earth again as I did in the Flood." The observance of these seven commandments ensures humanity's staying on the "straight and narrow." A rainbow road.

Eerily enough, in the past decade-or-so the rainbow has become a different sort of symbol, regressively reminiscent of one of the behaviors that led to the Flood. Foresight, anyone?

Another interesting aspect of this is that while fragmented light can apparently be re-merged into its original white form using two prisms, simply mixing the same colors that emerge as a result of fragmentation cannot. As any artist will tell you, the more colors you mix, the closer you get to black, not white. This means that the process cannot be reversed by combination, because attempting to do does not actually reunite the wavelengths. In line with our metaphor, we can thus say that combining all of the religions that emerged from this original fragmentation does not produce our original understanding of God, but instead leaves us with black. The color white is produced when an object refracts all light that hits it, and black is produced when it absorbs all of the colors. Therefore, white is produced by refracting light back to its source, while black is produced by absorbing and consuming everything into itself.

The Trinity - Theological Refraction

July 2, 2020 - 10 Tammuz 5780

What we need to seek to understand when thinking about the Trinity is how it works on a psychological level. In this I will not be appealing to scriptural proof texts from the Christian Bible because it is already clear to believers that Scripture is a valid source of information. I am therefore more interested in the psychological mechanisms that take place as a means to understanding and believing in a particular theological formulation, in this case the Trinity. How does an individual understand the concept that God is One and yet three Persons?

Although I respect Christianity I feel compelled to say that the Trinity seems like a theological aberration. Given the potentially complex nature of trying to speak about such a thing, I think the best way to approach this is with a metaphor.

Let us consider a mirror, for a moment. It is possible for a single individual to create three reflections of himself by positioning himself at the right angle in front of three mirrors. This process of refraction seems to be the one taking place at the center of the belief in the Trinity.

The most disturbing thing about this metaphor is that I can't really have a relationship with God. In effect I am having discussions with the reflections while my back is to the person who is speaking to me. I may not even know that he exists because all I know of him are his reflections, which I take to be real. Imagine my shock were I to turn around and see a single individual as the source of the voice speaking to me! I would feel embarrassed and foolish for having spoken to a three-way mirror my entire life!

However, this process of converting God to elements occurs on the psychological and meta-level; God is not actually describing Himself in this way. It is a product of human reflection in the realm of theology and not the product of Divine revelation. For the record, the Trinity is but a mild form of theological refraction compared to the literal polytheism described in the Torah and anthropological studies. It is a huge step in the right direction from polytheism, but has not quite made it.

An equally useful, but cruder, example is that of a fractured mirror. Looking into a mirror that has a great crack right in the middle creates a bunch of “small mirrors” around the crack. Each pane of broken glass faces in a slightly different direction, creating its own reflection of the object in front of it at a slightly different angle. The result is several similar images of one object.

Extended to the theological understanding of God as One, the multiple or broken mirrors represents a mental mechanism whereby God is presented at several different angles at once through different perspectives. And just as these reflections are not for all intents and purposes real, the Persons in the Trinity are not real. The reflections are real insofar as they really do reflect the object in front of them, but they do not actually multiply that object. Practically speaking, the reflections are illusions; they are images that depict all visual aspects of a three dimensional object on a two dimensional surface. This is why just as reflections have the illusion of depth, the Trinity as well produces an illusion of depth – they reflect shadows and spaces perfectly, but they are ultimately not real.

For more information on how theological refraction is similar to full-blown polytheism, see Polytheism - Theological Fragmentation.

The Trinity - What's Under the Hood?

Judaism in the Ancient World

July 2, 2020 - 10 Tammuz 5780

In the ancient world, Judaism's pervasive conflict with other religions was centered on whether the One God existed alone or whether a number of other deities co-occupied the ephemeral strata of existence. In other words, how many gods were there? When Christians today are flummoxed by what seems like the stubborn obstinacy of (religious) Jews to accept or tolerate the Trinity, they fail to realize that Jews are acting out of the same motivations that moved their ancestors to resist polytheism in all of its forms in the past.

The Trinity is problematic even though it has associated itself in name with God. If we described the Trinity as a vehicle we could say that the body of car was designed to look, for example, American, but that the motor, the carburetor, and the valves were imported Japanese products. Now if a car that was designed to look American is full of Japanese parts it will operate like a Japanese car. Further, such a car cannot be accurately described as being an American car because the operational components belonging to any thing define what that thing is. It is very easy to see how this example applies to the Trinity.

How Does the Trinity Work?

But let us take a look under the hood and see what parts we find. The cornerstone of the Trinity is something called the Athanasian Creed, which states that “The Father is not the Son, the Son is not the Spirit, the Spirit is not the Father, but each is God individually and yet they are together the one true God of the Bible.” This is the official description that both Catholics and Protestants accept and use regarding the Nature of God.

A Diagram of the Athanasian Creed

This explanation may be a bit confusing so we will try to break it down to its component parts. The idea behind this is that there is One God, but that He exists eternally as three Persons. Christians are familiar with the term "Persons," but most religious Jews are not so we will take a moment to describe it.

The term "Persons" does not mean "human beings." Jews are likely to recoil at this term because it sounds like a description of God as a person. The term "Persons" actually alludes to the three eternal expressions of God’s nature. These Persons are understood as being co-eternal, which means that all three of them existed forever. They are also described as being co-substantial, which means that they are all composed of the same "spiritual substance." The Trinity also avoids describing God as being composed of separate parts by explaining that these three elements exist in total harmony with each other in a state known as “hypostasis.”

Now that we have an accurate description of the Trinity we can take a deeper look.

What Are the Issues with the Trinity?

The issues with the Trinity begin when we consider that God is not only One in quantity, but that He is One in quality. This is the meaning of the verse in the Torah, "The Lord our God, the Lord is One," (Deuteronomy 6:4) and so it is essentially a theological statement. The idea that God is One in quality means that He is a simple entity; the word "simple" is the opposite of "complex" and refers to something that has no parts. With this description in mind it automatically becomes clear that the Trinity implies that God is not simple. In other words, even though the three elements are harmonized and synchronized, they can nevertheless be observed in distinction from each other. This is by definition complexity.

So for example, imagine that you looked down into a pool of water. There is no way to discern where "different regions" of water start and end. As far as you are concerned the water in the pool is one contiguous, undivided region of water. Now let use a different example. A phenomenon that is known to occur in large bodies of water, such as oceans, is the division of pockets of fresh water from salt water. Because salt water is denser than fresh water it sinks down while the fresh water floats upward. The result is a captivatingly beautiful image that looks like an ocean within an ocean, but I digress.

A Weird Jog on the Beach

The point is that while both pockets of water are composed of water, they are discernible from each other, i.e., an observer can tell the difference between them with his naked eye. The whole purpose of the idea that God is One is that He is completely simple; there is no way to observe any separation within Him.

However, a Christian may be quick to point out that in the example above, the water described is not pure water. In other words, the fresh water is pure, but the salt water contains salt, which is why it is denser, and this does not fit the definition of "co-substantial" (made of the same substance). If you were to extract the salt from the water they would be of equal density. This, a Christian may argue, is a more accurate description of the Trinity; imagine three pockets of fresh water in the same ocean. The division between them is unperceivable to the naked eye, so there is still no way to observe any separation within Him even though He is three Persons.

However, the idea that God is One is that He is One in every conceivable way. So for example, He is not only One insofar as observing Him is concerned, but He is One in terms of the operations that He carries out, or the functions that He affects. So for example, when God carries out His myriad responsibilities over the Creation, we as human beings cannot know "what element" of Him is responsible for each one. He surely knows, but as far as we are concerned all of His actions and interactions with the Creation emanate from one "place" within Him. For example, both life and death come from God. While life and death are (to human beings) different things we cannot say that within God there is a component, or an element, or a Person, that creates life and another that creates death. All things that God does emanate from one indivisible source, which is simply God Himself.

Looking at it this way we can now apply this idea to the Trinity. God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Each of these Persons has its own function within the Godhead.

This position is affirmed by the Crosswalk website, which explains that each Person has a specific eternal and fundamental role in Creation:

The way of redemption showcases these roles in a clear manner. The Father designed and organized how mankind would be redeemed (Galatians 4:4-5). He set into motion a complex set of events, actions, and prophecies which culminated in the life and death of a Savior. The Son carried out the plan (John 6:37-38). He followed the Father's instructions to come to earth, even though that meant He would have to die. The Holy Spirit sees to it that every person feels a call toward God's saving grace (John 14:26, John 16:8; Romans 1:19-20). Furthermore, He transforms the lives and hearts of those who receive salvation through Jesus Christ.

God's being omnipotent means that He has all power at His disposal and has no limitations. It also means that He can oversee all responsibilities without what seems to be internal delegation. If so, and He is not subject to external pressure from anybody to be as they will Him to be, then He can perform the functions of all three Persons in the type of unified state that we have been trying to describe. To say that He exists in a unified state even though He is three Persons defeats the purpose of believing in the Oneness of God in the first place. If true, it seems that the Trinity is a completely arbitrary understanding borne of necessity more than being borne out of God's self-description. Further, as long as this is true then there is no end to the number of elements or Persons that can be recognized within the Godhead. Indeed, this is a classical theological formulation used within Hinduism as well, which will be described at a later date.

As a caveat, note that God exercises not three, but an infinite number of functions while overseeing the world. So while the description of the Trinity above identifies three main functions belonging to the Father, Son, and Spirit each, these are in reality not functions, but function sets each conceivably including within them a number of other, more precise functions. This leads to the startling conclusion that there may be no way to stop this process, further leading us to divide them according to increasingly detailed levels of granularity, coming close to what seems like infinite granularity.

This is perhaps the process by which a system such as Hinduism can declare that there is One God while believing in billions of deities and avatars. According to hinduwebsite.com, "Hinduism is unique because it is essentially a monotheistic faith which acknowledges polytheism as reflective of the diversity in God's creation." According to an article about Brahman on the same site, "When God wakes up from His sleep He becomes Saguna Brahman, Brahman with qualities... As the creator, sustainer and destroyer of the worlds, He is also the Trinity, Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesa. They are but one though they appear differently to the mortal world."

Where is God in the Trinity?

This next point is easier to understand if we are able to look at the diagram of the Athanasian Creed, shown below.

A Diagram of the Athanasian Creed

Notice that the Father, Son, and Spirit occupy the corners of diagram. This represents the formulation that the Trinity includes three Persons. Notice also that "God" is the center of the diagram. This represents the formulation that the entire Trinity is God.

Now, suppose that I wanted to relate to God without relating to either of the three Persons. Do I really feel that I am experiencing a face-to-face relationship with God when I am aware of three different personas that He possesses? For example, pretend that you were trying to have a discussion with a person while he was wearing a three-sided mask, or a person with a Siamese twin. This interaction would lack a certain indescribable sense of privacy and intimacy that can only exist between two parties.

Now even though the Trinity is described as God, the finite human mind finds difficulty in having a one-way relationship with a Being that possesses three different forms of consciousness. The very fact that each Person has its own role means that my relationship with God forces me to engage each of them in a fundamentally different way. For example, pretend that my brother was a married man that practiced Law. In other words, he was a husband and a lawyer. Now let's say that the following dialogue occurred when I visited him at his house while sitting at the table:

Me: Hi Tim.

Tim: Hi, how's it going?

Me: Fine, thanks. Can I ask you a legal question?

Tim: [Silence...]

Me: Tim?

Tim: Yeah, what's up?

Me: I just asked you a question.

Tim: No you didn't.

Me: Yes, I did.

Tim: No, you asked the lawyer a question. I am not your lawyer, I am your brother. Do you want me to get the lawyer for you?

The point of this dialogue is to illustrate that the Father cannot help me with the jurisdiction of the Son or the Spirit, the Son cannot help me with the jurisdiction of the Father or the Spirit, and the Spirit cannot help me with the jurisdiction of the Father or the Son. Because I have to send my messages to three different addresses, it cannot be fully clear in my mind that I am speaking with one individual. And even if he really is one individual, that makes very little difference to me if I cannot relate to him as one. We all know how annoying it is when you go to some place, like the Post Office, and the clerk won't help you because it's not her department. Something about the itemized roles of the Persons in the Trinity comes off like a Divine bureaucracy.

Conclusion

The description of the Trinity that we have been considering is not like Judaism's description of all actions performed by God as coming from one indistinguishable place. Each action or function is assigned strictly to only of the Persons in the Trinity and not to any of the other Persons. This means that we can recognize a difference between them, and as long as we can recognize a difference between different elements of God, we have not fully come to appreciate the concept that God is One. That God has chosen three different Persons to achieve three different goals indicates that the Trinity is a misunderstanding of God's True Nature.

For more information on how the Trinity operates, see The Trinity - Theological Refraction.

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