Hebrew Bible Support for The Incarnation.

I'll be basing all of this on only the Masoretic Hebrew Text, no Septuagint or Hellenistic apocryphal writings. And nothing from Christian translations Jews would object to. I'll be using this linked below Translation made by Jews. Rather then my usual KJV defaulting.

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0.htm

The objection to the Incarnation clearly isn't that it's something God can't do. Even Jewish interpretations of Scripture agree that "The Angel of The LORD" or "The Angel of God" is God taking a physical tangible Human looking form. The Word (Dabar in Hebrew) could be viewed that way also, like in Genesis 15 where the Dabar performs the Covenant ritual all on his own. The Angel who announces the conception of Samson is an example, and the Captain of The Host who appears to Joshua before The Battle of Jericho. Anytime an Angel accepts Worship and yet isn't evil or fallen that's clearly not an ordinary Angel but God Himself.

The very name of Israel comes from when Jacob wrestled with God. And in Genesis 18 everyone agrees the leader of the three Angels there is God himself talking with Abraham. And He actually eats food with Abraham and Sarah. That's a pretty physical tangible Human like form, I'd argue incarnating as a Human isn't that much greater a leap.

But again, it's not about what God can do but what he's willing to. Is actually becoming a Human simply too far beneath Him? Remember God made Adam in his own Image, Genesis 1:26. So really why assume incarnating as a Human is something he'd never do when Adam was modeled after himself to begin with?

Then there is the Hebrew word Go'el. That word is variously translated Kinsman, Redeemer, and Avenger/Revenger. The word means all of those things. It maybe does not necessarily literally have to mean a biological relative every time it's used, but the Kinsman aspect is important to it's function in the Mosaic Law. And is vital to understanding the Book of Ruth, where Boaz is the Kinsman Redeemer, being a near male relative of Naomi and Ruth's late husband.

The word is used of God in Isaiah 41:14 and 43:14 "Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I help thee, saith the LORD, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel." Also in 44:6 and 24. And 47:4, 48:17, 49:7 and 26 and 54:5. And other Isaiah examples, also Jeremiah 50:34

Job said in 19:25 "But as for me, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He will witness at the last upon the dust". Also Psalms 19:14 and 78:35.

What about the Preexistence of The Messiah?

Micah 5 "out of thee shall one come forth unto Me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from ancient days." and Isaiah 9:5 "For a child is born unto us, a son is given unto us". Both verses even in Jewish translations imply a Preexistence.

Rapheal Patai is a Jewish scholar who agrees to the Preexistence of The Messiah "The concept of the preexistence of The Messiah accords with the general Talmudic view which holds that "The Holy One, blessed be He, prepares the remedy before the wound"", (The Messiah Texts pp. 16-17). Preexistence alone doesn't prove Divinity, but it makes him very special. Because while some cults believe we all had a preexistence like the Mormons, that view is entirely UnBiblical, from Genesis 2 "Then the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." The Soul and Spirit are created at the same time The Body is.

The Messiah is David's Son/Descendant. Yet David calls him lord in Psalm 110 "The LORD saith unto my lord: 'Sit thou at My right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.'" Psalm 2 is also interesting. The Messiah appears to be relating how "the LORD said unto me: 'Thou art My son, this day have I begotten thee. Ask of Me, and I will give the nations for thine inheritance, and the ends of the earth for thy possession."

Psalm 45 is considered a Messianic Psalm, it explicitly refers to the King as God in verse 8, and says in verse 11 to Worship him.

The clincher however I believe is to look at Ezekiel 40-48's description of the coming Messianic Kingdom. How come this in depth description mentions no Palace where The Messiah Ben-David rules from? A great deal of the point of the Messianic Age is to fulfill the Davidic promise from II Samuel 7, that a Son of David would sit on David's Throne forever. And this promise is inherently linked to Jerusalem.

And yet Ezekiel in his in-depth description of The Messianic future geography and architecture of Israel, Jerusalem and The Temple mentions no dwelling place for The Messiah. The only Throne mentioned is in Ezekiel 43:7 in the Holy of Holies, no longer separated from The Holy Place by the Veil. Where The LORD tells Ezekiel "this is the place of My throne, and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for ever; and the house of Israel shall no more defile My holy name".

 Here the LORD is saying he himself will rule. How can this be reconciled with the Davidic Promise? Clearly the Throne of David and the Throne of God have become the same Throne. And therefor God must incarnate as The Son of David, Son of Abraham, Son of Adam.

Ezekiel 40-48 does have references to a "Prince" (Nasi in the Hebrew). If the word for Prince here had been Sar or Nagyid then it could make sense to say he's The Messiah, but Nasi isn't a royal term, and could more accurately be translated President.  Ezekiel 34:23&24 and 37:24:25 explain that the Nasi is David himself Resurrected, not his Son who's The Messiah.

The LORD also enters through the Eastern Gate, just as The Messiah is supposed to do.

Add on top of that some interesting material from Zechariah 12-14. In 12:17 "In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that stumbleth among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as a godlike being, as the angel of the LORD before them."

 That verse is definitely translated differently in Christian translations, but even the way it's translated here is still pretty compelling. Also 14:9 "And the LORD shall be King over all the earth; in that day shall the LORD be One, and His name one." And in verse 16 "And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations that came against Jerusalem shall go up from year to year to worship the King, the LORD of hosts, and to keep the feast of tabernacles."

Genesis 3:15's Seed of the Woman is viewed by Jews as being Humanity, and unlike many Christians I'm not going to object to that. It's relevance here is this crushing the head of the Serpent theme does come up again in the Hebrew Bible.  Psalms 74:12-14, 89:10, 91:13, Isaiah 27 and Isaiah 51:9.  And in those passages it is The LORD that crushes the heads of serpents.

In Genesis 3:20 Adam calls his Wife's name Eve because she is " the mother of all living".  Deuteronomy 5:22(verse 26 in other Bibles) calls YHWH the "Living God".  Meaning Eve through one of her many daughter has to become the Mother of God.

Flood Speculation

 I am a 6 Day Young Earth Creationist, I tend to favor Creation dates older then Ussher's, but I still view about 7 Thousand years ago as the maximum.

Most importantly I believe everyone not just is a descendant of Adam and Eve, but every line of ancestry you have goes back to children Eve bore to Adam after the events of Genesis 3.  And by everyone I mean everyone modern science classifies as Homo-Sapien, and humans modern science doesn't want to classify as the same "species" as us like the Neanderthals and Homo Floresiensis and even Homo Erectus.

I did say fairly recently that I am more open to being convinced of a local Flood model then I am an Old Earth model.

What I have been considering is something between a traditional Global Flood model and a purely Local Flood model.  A Catastrophe that was Global in scale, but still no single moment at which the entire surface was covered in water.  Such a model could still allow the Ark to land on a completely different part of the planet then where it was first built.

And therefore allowing the possibly that there were some Flood survivors outside of Noah's family on The Ark.  But those survivors would still be descendants of Eve.  And it still definitely massively bottle necked the Earth's population.

Michael Hesiser's local Flood arguments are perhaps the most sensible, but still reflect his "Ancient Near Easter perspective" bias.  There have also been different theories about the Flood being a result of a Comet or Asteroid striking the Earth, theories which go back to Newton it seems.

This is perhaps a good time to bring up my ideas that have come from studying Y Chromosomal Haplogroups.  Here is a Tree I obtained from a completely secular source.

I think Y Chromosomal Adam is probably a Genesis 5 name more recent then Adam since this tree doesn't account for those so called Non-Human Humans I mentioned above, maybe Enos.

I think C is Japheth and DE is Ham, with E specifically being Mizraim. Because of the Mixed Multitude we should not be surprised to find people descended from Mizraim among Ashkenazim and other Jewish Populations.

F then is Shem.  My hunch is that G is Lud, H is Elam and J is Aram.  J also existed among Jewish populations which again shouldn't be surprising given the Biblical history.  And I is Ashur.

K is Arphaxad, L and T are the descendants of Joktan,  It is both R and Q I view as being definitely descendants of Jacob and perhaps even more specific then that.  The people this theory makes Paterlineal descendants of Peleg are very plausibly more then half the Earth's total population.

I've also considered models that would switch Shem and Ham, both models give Semitic descent to Ashkenazim Jews as well as Mizraimite descent, and maybe can both be made compatible with connecting Japan to the Ancient Israelites as well.

InspiringPhilosophy has argued something like this.  But I still think it happened more recently then he does.  Currently favoring a Flood date of 3337 BC thanks to my considering the Samaritan Text correct on Genesis 11.  And I don't agree with his view on where Eden was, I've considered a few models but his is the least likely to be correct.
https://youtu.be/lLSyiJ9KUCo

Violence was the Sin that caused The Flood

The Last verse of the First Chapter of Genesis.

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.

The Hebrew word for "good" there also gets translated words like bountiful, prosperity and welfare.  I've seen one scholar say that the Hebrew of this verse can be translated as saying the Earth was Good for Man to live in, that it was habitable.

In the blog post where I explained why I now support a Sethite view of Genesis 6, the last part of it is me emphasizing how Genesis 6 interprets itself and explains in verses 11 and 13 that the reason for the Flood was the Earth being filled with Violence.  Among other things I mentioned Tubal-Cain briefly which I want to elaborate on.

Genesis 4:22.

And Zillah, she also bare Tubalcain, an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubalcain was Naamah.

The word translated "instructor" is no where else translated something implying a type of teacher, elsewhere the KJV translated the word sharp, sharpen, sharpeneth and whet in Psalm 7:12 "If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready."  In this context it would be actuate to translate it sharpener.

The word for artificer here is very similar to the Hebrew word usually translated artificer but different, it appears only in this verse.  And it has me wondering if this word doesn't refer to persons but to objects and perhaps should be "artifice".

The word for Brass is again similar to other words for Brass but distinct mainly in that it ends with a t/th.  The word Iron is the standard Hebrew word for Iron (Daniel uses the Aramaic word in chapters 2 and 7 however).  But it's notable that in a few places it's clearly used directly of some type of weapon being translated in the KJV as "ax head".

The oldest brother of Tubal-Cain was the father of those that keep Cattle.  Some Anthropological theories suggest that first warlike societies came from Pastoral societies for a number of reasons.  But that's a complicated discussion that I don't want to make this thesis dependent on.

Genesis 6 verses 11-12 use in the KJV "Corrupt" twice and "Corrupted" once, all three are the same Hebrew word.  A Hebrew word that is also translated waste/waster, spoiler, perish, spill and destroy/destroyer/destruction.   That means the text is arguably saying The Earth was already destroyed before God even sent The Flood.

Genesis 6:12 is a parallel to what's said at the end of Genesis 1.  Except now instead of being "very good" the earth is "Corrupt".  I used to read "corrupted his way upon the earth" as referring to God's way, including when I made that Sethite view post.  But I now realize it's man's way on the earth that has been spoiled or destroyed. 

Verse 13 uses "destroy" in the KJV but it's in the Hebrew the same word used for Corrupt/Corrupted in verses 11-12.  God is saying what Man has done to the Earth, He will do to Man using the Earth.

What God says to Noah is that the End of All flesh is already come, it's already inevitable, Man's Violence has rendered the Earth no longer habitable for organic life.  Mankind was already dying off.

The Flood didn't destroy The Earth, it was The Earth's Baptism, it cleansed and purified The Earth of it's corruption. Towards the end of 1st Peter 3 the Flood of Noah seems to be compared to Baptism.

Gnosticism and Marcionism are Chaotically used terms

Marcion is one of many Christian Heretics who's name has become shorthand for just one particular idea he taught and thus Marcionism as a label will be applied to people or belief systems that are maybe even the opposite of Marcion on everything else.  In Marcion's case that is teaching that the God of the Hebrew Bible, YHWH, is not the same entity as The NT God who is The Father of Jesus.

I have recently learned that Marcion didn't even believe YHWH was Evil per se but more like Lawful Neutral to use some Gamer lingo. 

Others who separated the OT God from the NT God were even less hostile to the OT God then Marcion was.  Cerinthus separated them while still being a Legalist who said Christian should still keep The Torah.

Using Gnostic as a catch all term for everyone who believed anything even kind of like this or other related ideas was not being done at the time.  Irenaeus in Against Heresies used the word Gnostic only of the Valentinians and even that was not as a term to describe anything about their Theology or metaphysical world view but simply as his way of calling them pretentious.  Gnosis was a Greek word for knowledge, so you could translate calling someone Gnostic as an insult as "know it all".

My past desire to define Gnosticism as simply the most extreme end result of 2nd Century Christians being too influenced by Middle Platonism and Neopythagoreanism is hindered by Wikipedia giving that label to Epiphanes who was clearly the opposite of that but rather a Zenonian Stoic.

The first theological system that tends to enter my mind when I think "Gnosticism" is primarily that of the Sethians.  So for example on my other blog in Gnosticism in Anime and Video Games the Sethian system is mainly what I had in mind when I suggested that SSSS.Gridman, Serial Experiment Lain and Revolutionary Girl Utena could perhaps be considered Reverse Gnosticism, using a Gnostic Mythological Framework but to actually convey the exact opposite attitude towards the material world.  

There are few topics where I am more susceptible to Godwin's Law then the subject of nominally Christians theologies that reject YHWH.  Thomas Carlyle had expressed a similar sentiment though he didn't go in-depth on it mostly not seeing himself a Christian at all anymore.  Volkish Antisemitism began doing this with Paul de Lagarde in the late 1870s.  Houston Stewart Chamberlain gave it a more refined expression in Foundations of the Nineteenth Century in 1899 and from there it was incorporated into the writings of NSDAP Propagandists like Alfred Rosenberg, Ludwig Muller and Ernst Bergman in forming their "Positive Christianity".  And in post-War Neonazism we see it even in how George Lincoln Rockwell describes the Old Testament in his Autobiography, but for him it lead to rejecting Christianity entirely.

However I have grown uncomfortable with calling this tendency "Nazi Marcionism" as I have in the past, partly because of the above but also because I know plenty others do not connect their rejection of the Jewish God to any hostility to Jews themselves.  You could say there is a type of Antisemitism in viewing The Jews as the ultimate victims of a cruel evil god who Jesus came to save them from rather then for.  But that would be distinct from Nazi Antisemitism.

If I were to compare any ancient Anti-Yhwists to those Nazis it would be the Cainites.  They were the ones who were explicit that the followers of the Evil God were also Evil.  And they also loved identifying themselves with those YHWH was seemingly hostile to in The Hebrew Bible.  

Houston Stewart Chamberlain argued Jesus was an Aryan by arguing he was a Canaanite, this and a few other ideas of his imply he felt the Aryans were Biblically Hamites, an idea that wouldn't hold up to historical scrutiny but I know a few still try to argue it in the obscure corners the Internet to this day.

Meanwhile Cain and his descendants are presented as the first violent warmongers in Genesis 4 making them natural people for Fascists to identify with.  Cain is the perfect Biblical Symbol for the Nietzschean conception of Master Morality.

And then there is the bizarre Islamophilia of the Nazis which would lend itself to identifying with the Arabian antagonists of Israel, Ishmaelites, Midianites and Edomites.

Now a lot of people online talking about the Nazis and Gnosticism tie into it some Conspiratorial belief in an unbroken continuity between Ancient Gnostics and groups active today.  That is obviously not the case, the Cainites died out during late Antiquity. The Manicheans survived into the "Middle Ages" in the East but even they eventually died out.  Only the Mandeans survived to today but as isolated communities in the middle east with no connection to any "Secret Societies" in The West.

Ignatius of Antioch was not an Apostolic Father

A tradition developed that Ignatius was another student of John alongside Polycarp and Papias.  But Papias doesn't mention Ignatius, Polycarp does mention him but not as a fellow student of the same teacher.  Nor does Ignatius in his seven authentic letters ever claim to be a student of John or to have a shared mentor with Polycarp.  Polycrates's letter defending Quartodecimanism doesn't mention Ignatius either.

The oldest surviving sources on Polycarp being a student of John are Irenaeus of Lyon (who is considered a student of Polycarp) and Tertullian of Carthage.  Neither of them says anything about Ignatius being a student of John or even mention him by that name at all.  Irenaeus does seem to quote an Ignatian letter once without naming who he's quoting.  (I now believe the John who Polycarp and Papias knew was John Mark not the son of Zebedee, but that's another topic.)

The teachings of these letters seem to me to be a clear product of the increasing Platonist influence on the early Church that in my view largely started following the death of Plutarch but even more so during the reign of Hadrian.

I have also come to agree with the theory that Ignatius of Antioch was the same person as Peregrinus Proteus.  Now this idea is usually promoted online by Atheists or others who believe a lot of other things about Early Christian History I don't agree with, but that's fine.  This website is one example.

https://vridar.org/other-authors/roger-parvus-letters-supposedly-written-by-ignatius/

Now I don't agree with everything about their particular way of arguing this theory.  I'm a lot less interested in arguing the Ignatian letters have been changed from their original form.  I believe the letter to the Romans is even in the text as we have it not actually claiming Ignatius is being taken to Rome, that's a misunderstanding of what it says.  I also disagree with their conclusion that Ignatius is an Apellean.  The aspects of the letters that lend themselves to seeing similarities to Marcion, Apelles or others called Gnostics are a product of Middle Platonist and/or Neopythagorean influence that started to increase in the Early Church in the mid 2nd Century.

I do agree on the mid 140s probably being when the letters were written and with the Philo mentioned in the letters possibly being Theophilus of Antioch who is often considered the first to explicitly teach Creation ex Nihilo.

Tatian and Athenagoras each referred to Peregrinus very negatively and Tertullian is a bit more sympathetic but still acknowledging he was an Apostate.  None of these three ever cite the Ignatian letters.  

Here is a list of similarities I'm going to copy/paste from one of virdar's articles.

• Both are prominent Christian leaders in the same part of the world and were active at about the same time, the second quarter of the second century.

• Both are reputed to be prophets. Peregrinus “had become their prophet, cult-leader, head of synagogue, and what not, all by himself.” The author of the letters claims to have spoken “with the voice of God” (IgnPhil. 3:1) and to receive revelations from the Lord (IgnEph. 20:2).
  • It is sometimes thought that Lucian made a mistake in saying that Peregrinus was head of a ‘synagogue.’ But that word means ‘assembly’ and the author of the letter uses it too to tell his readers to assemble more frequently: “Let synagogues be held more often” (IgnPoly. 6:2.)

• Both figures are associated with a convocation of Christians that drew participants “even from the cities in Asia.”

• Both wrote treatises and last-will type letters of advice and rulings. Peregrinus “sent letters to just about all the important towns, a sort of last will and testament, with advice and rulings… ” This description is an equally apt way to describe the letter collection.

• Both figures conferred titles on their messengers. Peregrinus called them “Death’s Messengers” and “Couriers of the Grave.” The author of the letters called his “God’s Ambassadors” and “Couriers of God.”

• Both figures display an unusual interest in taking on additional names. Peregrinus liked to call himself ‘Proteus’ (TDOP 1) and, later, Phoenix (TDOP 27), while the author of the letters is careful in all seven of them to refer to himself as “Ignatius who is also Theophorus.”

• Both figures have a remarkably similar death wish and loudly profess their desire for martyrdom. Peregrinus, while he was a Christian, wanted to “gladly die in order that he might leave behind him a reputation for it.” Later, after he became a Cynic, he longed “to die like Heracles, and dissolve into thin air.” Compare this to the author of the letters’ longing “to be an imitator of the passion of my God” (IgnRom. 6:3) and “to be visible to the world no more” (IgnRom. 3:2). Notice how in both cases the desire to imitate God is expressed. And in one instance we have total consumption by wild beasts, and in the other total consumption by fire. Do we not seem to be dealing with the same person whose mindset, despite a change of religious affiliation, remained basically the same? Earlier in life he wanted to die suffering like Christ; later, after a transfer of allegiance, he wanted to die like Heracles?

• Access to both prisoners by their religious supporters seems unusually easy. Peregrinus’ supporters “even slept inside with him after bribing the guards. Then elaborate meals were brought in, and sacred books of theirs were read aloud.” (TDOP 12, Harmon). Similarly, the author of the letters has no problem meeting with the Christian delegations that come to see him. He even asks the Ephesians to let one of their number – a deacon named Burrhus – stay on with him to keep him company (IgnEph. 2;1). When he writes to the Philadelphians he has with him a deacon named Philo “ministering to him in the word of God.” (IgnPhil. 11:1). And when he says his guards “are treated well” (IgnRom. 5:1) the reference is apparently to bribes.

• And both figures have a friend with a similar name. Peregrinus, while still a Christian, began to dress like a Cynic, and when he finally was expelled by the Christians he took up Cynicism under the guidance of someone named Agathobulus. The author of the letter collection too knows someone with a name like that: Agathop(o)us. And his description of him as a man “who has renounced this life” (IgnPhil. 11:1) has a Cynic-like ring to it. If Ignatius is Peregrinus, it may be that his Cynic friend too abandoned Christianity when Peregrinus was shown the door.

I find it odd that virdar mentions Peregrinus liking to use multiple names but is still inclined to assume the name Ignatius came later.  I suspect the names he used in the letters were names only other Christians knew him by and that the names Lucian primarily used came from his later time as a Cynic.

I also find it interesting that they fail to notice Ignatius's role in popularizing Episcopal Polity as itself another reason to identify him with Peregrinus.  Because Lucian's account does stress that Peregrinus became a leader of the Christians claiming more authority for his office then any prior leader since Jesus Himself.

11.    "It was then that he learned the wondrous lore of the Christians, by associating with their priests and scribes in Palestine.   And—how else could it be?—in a trice he made them all look like children, for he was prophet, cult-leader, head of the synagogue, and everything, all by himself. He inter preted and explained some of their books and even composed many, and they revered him as a god, made use of him as a lawgiver, and set him down as a protector, next after that other, to be sure, whom¹¹ they still worship, the man who was crucified in Palestine because he introduced this new cult into the world.

So that should show how sus Episcopal Polity always was.  (Also note that Lucian doesn't question the existence of Jesus.)  

Kenneth A Strand wrote some articles theorizing about the origins of Episcopal Polity that I find useful but I disagree with some of his conclusions.  Even if the Angels of the Churches in Revelation are human members of those Churches that doesn't mean they had Episcopal Polity already just that they served the role of Messager.  

And his argument that the Churches Ignatius is stressing Episcopal Polity to in his letters to them were the ones that already had it I think is a mistake, in my view it's if anything the opposite, I think Ignatius was arguing for it to the Communities most strongly resisting it.  For example we know from Polycarp's own surviving Epistle that he was merely one among a group of Bishop/Elders at Smyrna.  Also later Church Historians like Eusebius couldn't even construct an imagined pre-Nicene line of Bishops for Philadelphia so I feel Philadelphia never became Episcopal till Nicaea.

Ignatius's Episcopal Polity is probably itself another Platonist influence, Plato argues for Monarchy being the ideal form of Government in The Statesman and The Republic.  Plutarch was also strongly Anti-Democratic and he was a big influence on Second Century Platonism.

Ignatius, Justin Martyr and Tatian were the three earliest Christian to stress Free Will in a way that implies humans become Sinners of their own Free Will, planting the seeds of Pelagianism.  This was another influence from Plutarch who expressed the same Free Will sentiments in his criticism of the Stoics.  For Justin Martyr it also comes up in the context of criticizing the Stoics (these critics of Stoicism overstated how deterministic Stoicism was).  Tatian claimed to be an opponent of all Greek Philosophy including Plato, yet the Theology he developed is virtually indistinguishable from contemporary Middle Platonism.  That's because the Platonist influence on him was indirect with one key middle man being his old mentor Justin.

Peregrinus was excommunicated from the very Syrian Church he originally lead, he should not be considered a reliable source for anything.

Monotheism is another Platonist concept Christians should become less attached to.

To avoid any confusion I want to clarify upfront that I am a Trinitarian.  I believe The Trinity is Three Co-Eternal Persons with one Divine Essence.  I agree with every detail of the original Nicene Creed (including Homoousias which I view as Biblically Supported by Colossian 2:9 which also refutes Partialism).  I have a few issues with the Nicene-Constantinople Creed but none of them are based on it's Trinitarianism, I agree with all of it's elaboration on The Holy Spirit. 

I do agree with the Eastern Orthodox over Latin Denominations on the Filioque question and The Monarchy of The Father.

This is also not a reversal of what I argued in Against Monolatery, I still stand by all of that.

I've looked at every New Testament verse that says "One God" or that "God is One", or "One Lord" or "Lord is One".  And likewise none of them use Mono either but instead Heis.  Some material from my Trinity in the Hebrew Bible and the YT videos I linked to in it are worth remembering here.  It's the same with the "are one" references in John 10:30 and 1 John 5:7.  And in case you're curious the same is true for the use of "one God" in the opening line of the Nicene Creed.

When Mono is used in the New Testament, in the KJV it partly because of context tends to get translated "Alone" or "Only" instead of simply One.  While it may be used close to Theos in the text sometimes it's never directly used of how many Theos exist or that we worship.

According to the Strongs Concordance, Mia is the "irregular feminine" form of Heis. Mia/Heis more specifically means United or Unified not an absolute singular.  The "One Flesh" verses in The New Testament use Mia as does the "One Wife" references in the Pastoral Epistles.  Eustathius of Antioch used Mia Theos rather then Mono Theos (that some people think that justifies accusing him of Modalism shows how they don't understands the difference between Mia and Mono).

The Christology of the Oriental Orthodox Church is Miaphysite, that is how they self describe themselves firmly rejecting the label of Monophysite.  And Chalcedonians consider Cyril's original use of Mia Physis compatible with Chalcedonian Christology.

Modern Trinitarians feeling attached to a desire to claim they are Monotheists is based on Extrabiblical importance Monotheism had obtained in western Philosophy already before Christianity was born.  If the Theology I expressed at the top of this post is still Monotheistic from a certain point of view then that's cool, my point is I'm not attached to an ultimately unbiblical term and am not going to let that attachment influence how I interpret Biblical Theology.

It is wrong when people try to claim The Trinity just emerged out of nowhere in the Fourth Century.  But it is also wrong for us Nicenes to claim Arianism came out of nowhere in the same century.  Justin Martyr and Tatian both had a Logos Doctrine that was fairly Proto-Arian already in the Second Century because of the influence of Middle Platonism.  Tatian explicitly says God was Alone before the emanation of the Logos that to me is a a rejection of Nicene Theology.  Strict Monotheism comes from the Monad Theology of Pythagoreanism.

"But wasn't Stoicism just as Monotheistic as Platonism and you are kind of fan of Stoicism?"  You may ask.

1. I find Stoic ideas useful but will always side with The Bible and Trinitarianism if I ever see a conflict.

2. Stoicism looks Monotheistic but in a different way, I myself am far from fully educated on everything there is to know about Ancient Stoic Theology.  But it sounds to me like they too may have preferred Mia Theos to Mono Theos.

3. From what I can tell some modern Stoics are flat out Atheists so the number of gods one believes doesn't seem to be the point of anything.

The point of this post is that if I have to choose between Monotheism or The Trinity I will choose The Trinity.  

Calvinism is often predicated on not reading to the End.

John 6:44 is a verse that I'm sure is attractive to Calvinists saying no one can come to Jesus unless the Father draws them to Jesus.  The thing is the same Gospel returns to that theme in John 12:32 where it is clarified that Jesus will draw ALL MEN unto Him.

This is even more apparent in how they deal with the Epistle to The Romans.  

In chapter 9 verses 15 and 18 we are told God has Mercy on who He will.  However in chapter 11 verse 32 it is clarified that God consigned all to disobedience so that he might have mercy upon all.  

Same with the fixation on Romans 9's quotation of what Malachi said about Jacob and Esau.  The word Malachi used that gets translated "hate" really only means to not be preferred in a given context.  Romans 9 is Paul summing up Israel's past while Romans 10 is about the present and Romans 11 the future.  Esau may not be name dropped again in chapters 10 and 11 but what he represents in Romans 9 is, that being the Gentiles.  In the present the children of Jacob are now under a temporary spiritual blindness and those god "hated" before are now the ones who are fruitful provoking Israel to jealousy in Romans 10:19 and 11:11.  Romans 11:25-26 makes clear that the fullness of the Gentiles will be grafted into Israel and then ALL Israel shall be saved.

One bad theory of Hermeneutics you'll find out there is the "law of first reference" that the first time The Bible mentions something is key to understanding every later reference to it.  I find that theory appalling because to anyone who knows how writing works it is obvious that Romans 11 is explaining and clarifying the earlier references to these concepts especially in Romans 9.  But Calvinists instead will always do the opposite and use Romans 9 to debunk how someone like me quotes Romans 11.

Resistibility of Grace

There is a tension in the sentiments I express on this blog, between being sympathetic to Arminianism and wanting to explain why Universal Salvation does not contradict God allowing Humans to have Free Will.  In contrast to my rejection of Existentialist Free Will ideology as a Left Wing Materialist.

The key to resolving this seeming contradiction is how we think about Resistible Grace.  I agree with Arminians, Lutherans and Molinists that many humans who God is actively calling are resisting Him. Bible passages that support that include Luke 13:34, Acts 7:51 and 2 Timothy 3:8.

The verses Calvinist cite to support Irresistible Grace all in my view as a Universal Salvationist refer to how God will ultimately get His way, they do not contradict some people having resisted for their entire mortal lives.

But the difference between me and most who would oppose Calvinism on this point is that I don't think humans resist because of our Free Will, we resist God because of the Sin nature, because of Total Depravity, it effects each of us in different ways so some will be able to overcome it more then others.

There is no Biblical Support for the notion of Free Will as in Man Freely Choosing to be Evil, to me that is an oxymoron, man's nature is to be Good, Sin is a disease interfering with that natural tendency according to Matthew 9:9-12

This bad Free Will ideology did infect that Church early on, being in Justin Martyr, Ignatius and Tatian, it is another influence of the rise of Plutarchian Middle Platonism during the Second Century.

Six Points of Universal Salvation

The author of the YouTube Channel Total Victory of Christ has their own Five Points of Universal Restoration proposal, but it’s flawed in my view in how it brings in his positions on other doctrines.  So I want to devise a system that both Origenist and Anti-Origenist Universal Salvation believers can agree on.  And partly structure it as a response to the Five Articles of Remonstrance and the TULIP (Five points of Calvinism).

But I also decided on 6 Points since I prefer Hexagrams to Pentagrams. I prefer the Star of David to the Star of Remphan.

Total Depravity: God has consigned All to Disobedience so that he might have Mercy on All. Romans 11:32, Romans 5:11-21, Matthew 9:9-12, John 6:44, John 12:32.

Absolute Atonement: Jesus is the Atonement for our Sins but not of ours only but of The Whole World. 1 John 2:2, 1 Timothy 2:4, 4:10, John 3:16, Hebrews 2:9, 2 Corinthians 5:18-21, Colossians 1:15-20.

Unconditional Grace: Grace ultimately benefits even those who resist it because God is not willing that any should Perish and the Gates of New Jerusalem are never closed even though not everyone will be immediately inside of it.  1 Timothy 2:6, Revelation 21-22. Matthew 18:14, 2 Peter 3:9.

Perseverance of The Shepherd:  The Good Shepherd will find all his Sheep and none shall pluck them out of his hand.  Matthew 18:12-14, Luke 15:3-7, John 10:28-29.

Christ Victorious: 1 Corinthians 15 defines The Gospel as The Resurrection and is clear that all will be Resurrected and that Death and Hades will have no Victory in agreement with other Scriptures.  Revelation 20, Isaiah 25:8, Hosea 13:14.

Finite Punishment: Leviticus 26:42-45 and Deuteronomy 30 make clear that God’s judgments on Israel do not remove His promise to inevitably restore them, this is reaffirmed in Malachi 3 when he says his Fire is to purge and purify the Sons of Levi.  Ezekiel 16 promises the inevitable restoration of even Sodom.  Habakkuk 1:12 says God’s punishments are for correction.  Psalm 30:5 says God’s anger is for but a moment and Psalm 103:9 says his Anger will not last “forever” but later verse 17 says his Mercy lasts from Age to Age. In Matthew 5:26 and 18 34 Jesus defines punishment as being until a debt is paid.  Luke 12:46-48 is consistent with that but adding in agreement with 2 Peter 2:22 that punishments for sinful believers will be worse than for nonbelievers.  1 Corinthians 3:15 confirms there will be a judgment of works but even those consumed are still saved.

Arminian Universal Salvation

Strictly speaking Universal Salvation is considered a separate position from either Calvinism or Arminian, that schism that happened among the Dutch Reformed was predicated on both sides assuming not everyone will be saved.

However among modern proponents of Universal Salvation on the Internet who came out of Protestant Denominations, they mostly come out of fairly mainline ones and thus try to sound more Calvinist then they do Arminian, Peter Hiett is explicit that he is a 4 Point Calvinist removing only Limited Atonement, he came out of Presbyterianism.

For me though there is only one point of Calvinism I kinda do agree with and that's actually the one Amrinianism doesn't actually disagree with, Total Depravity.  Unfortunately that is the most easy to strawman of the points of Calvinism because of modern people reading the modern connotations of "depravity" onto this term coined when King James was still on the Throne.  It simply refers to the fact that All Have Sinned, that Sin is a disease we've all been infected with, that it's only possible to follow God if God is calling us via The Holy Spirit.  The difference between what Calvinism believes and what I and Amrinians believe on this is simply whether God is calling everyone or only a chosen few.  The Arminian Agreement with Calvinism here is why they aren't Pelegians, Pelegius did deny Total Depravity and was one of the first to condemn Universal Salvation by associating it with Origen.  It's actually not that different from Secular Determinism, meaning I was mostly wrong in the past when I insinuated Arminains would be in agreement with Existentialists.

The other three Articles of Remonstrance/Points of Calvinism are bound up in how Protestantism has conflated Salvation with other things.  

Elect is just a fancy way of saying Chosen, not every reference to Election in the New Testament is about the same choosing, however I view not one of them as being a reference to Salvation.  I already have a post proving that "the many" can refer to everyone so "Many are called but few are Chosen" only makes sense if the Chosen are those who Choose to answer the Call rather then Refuse it.  They choose to be part of The Kingdom on Earth, to be those proclaiming The Gospel that Death will be swallowed up in Victory.

Grace is resistible during this mortal life but eventually those who resist it now will be Saved regardless because God never gives up just like an Anime protagonist.

Jesu said "all who Persevere to the end will be saved" in the Olivet Discourse, that people started thinking it was about Eternal Salvation is frankly embarrassing to all sides of the argument.  Regardless I come at this form the perspective of someone who's prior Soteriology was Free Grace Eternal Security.  Now however I do believe there is something a Believer obtains when they place their Faith in Christ that can be lost if they renounce that Faith, and also that their Rewards are contingent upon obedience, but Salvation was never contingent upon either Faith or Obedience.  You can't lose something that wasn't your responsibility to begin with.

So in a sense I can claim to agree with Arminius over Calvin on all Five Articles from a Universal Salvation perspective, and I'm not the first.

First of all there is evidence that Arminius himself was at least an Inclusivist.

https://wesleyanarminian.wordpress.com/2012/03/22/inclusivism-luther-zwingli-and-arminius/

The General Baptists of the early 17th Century were named that primarily after their positron on Atonement.  John Smyth and Thomas Helwys were full Arminians who in the statements of faith they made proclaimed even a belief that Salvation could be lost.  But the larger General Baptist movement did include some who taught Universal Salvation.

Ariel Hessayon wrote a thesis you can find online as a PDF called Winstanley and Baptist Thought documenting how certain ideas of Gerrard Winstanley he got from the General Baptists since he had been one for a time.  Winstanley stopped being a Baptist because he decided to stop preforming the ordinances at all for the same reason as The Quakers.  In fact a lot of the early converts to Quakerism came out of the General Baptists.  (18th Century Universalist James Relly also went on to reject the Earthly Sacraments but for some reason was buried in a Baptist Cemetery.)

Amusingly the Baptist Perpetuity Doctrine is today usually taught among Calvinistic Baptists but it is in fact only the General Baptists who can claim a lineage through the Anabaptists and Waldenses, indeed the Anabaptists and Waldenses seem to be who Arminius himself got his ideas from.

Another informative PDF is The Baptist Universalist: Elhanan Winchester by Robin Parry.  Winchester was first converted to Credo-Baptism by an Arminian, then backslide into the Calvinism he was raised in for awhile before finally being lead to Universal Salvation mainly by the precedent for it that existed among the "German Baptists" the Schwarzenau Brethren another group descended from the Anabaptists.

Two other Baptists who were important to early American Universalism were Adams Streeter and Hosea Ballou, and then there is Caleb Rich who's father was a Baptist, but I don't at this time know if their Baptist Heritage was more General or Particular.   Then there's Giles Chapman the first Universalist in The South who married into a German Baptist family.

I have prior posts on this blog responding to arguments that Universal Salvation conflicts with God respecting Free Will.  Some Free Gifts can't be rejected.

Brythonic Christianity was Baptist

They wouldn't have named themselves based on their position on Baptism at the time, but I believe they fit the core requirements, or at least in some regions they did.

My main basis for this is Bede's account of Augustine of Canterbury's interactions with the Briton Christians that already existed on the island.  Bede's Ecclesiastical History of England Volume II Chapter 2.

https://ccel.org/ccel/bede/history/history.v.ii.ii.html

Bede leads with the timing of Easter as seemingly the first concern but acknowledges other issues existed mostly without identifying them.  

Augustine's first meeting with some of them was at a place Bede calls Augustine's Oak which seems to be located just south east of the Severn or Bristol Channel.  This may have specifically been the Pengworm colony who were not actually located in the modern dentition of Wales but probably somewhere in or by Somerset.  Some Welsh Genealogies associate them with Glastonbury but that city as we know it didn't properly exist yet.

By the end of that first meeting...

The Britons then confessed that they perceived that it was the true way of righteousness which Augustine taught; but that they could not depart from their ancient customs without the consent and sanction of their people. They therefore desired that a second time a synod might be appointed, at which more of their number should be present.

This pretty clearly establishes what we would today call Congregational Polity, the Ecclesiastical Polity favored by Baptists most Anabaptists and the Pedo-Baptist Puritans who became the Congregationalist denomination. 

Later came what is called the Synod of Chester, (it probably wasn't actually held at the northern Chester it's traditionally identified with). What Bede says Augustine said to them here is what I have become more convinced only makes sense if these Britons were Credo-Baptists every time I read it.

He said to them, "Many things ye do which are contrary to our custom, or rather the custom of the universal Church, and yet, if you will comply with me in these three matters, to wit, to keep Easter at the due time; to fulfil the ministry of Baptism, by which we are born again to God, according to the custom of the holy Roman Apostolic Church; and to join with us in preaching the Word of God to the English nation, we will gladly suffer all the other things you do, though contrary to our customs." They answered that they would do none of those things, nor receive him as their archbishop

Bede is trying to be fairly sympathetic to the Britons here, so given how scandalous refusing to Baptize Infants would be to his readers it makes sense for him to tip toe around explicitly revealing that.  But here is the thing, there were lots of divergences in custom but Augustine had decided only these three things were important enough to risk schism over.  No other disagreement about Baptism could have been that important, it was the importance placed on Infant Baptism by Cyprian of Carthage the prior Augustine and Cyril of Alexandria that made Baptism an issue of such cosmic importance.

Now you might think the date of observing Easter is a pretty superficial thing to make such a big deal out of.  But the Council of Nicaea had ruled that all of the Church should be practicing Easter at the same time so to a representative of the established organized Church it's absolutely something Augustine had to prioritize no matter how much he personally cared.  And it was the only of these three issues addressed by a Canon of an Ecumenical Council so that's why it has the highest priority.  But Infant Baptism had become so important to the Roman Church that it was practically on the same level.

In time the Welsh, Cornish and other Britons eventually mostly submitted to Catholic practice, 768 is the date given for when they finally adopted the Roman method for when to observe Easter.

Among those who already before I wrote this liked to speculate on the Britons/Welsh being Baptists are many Primitive Baptists.  And part of why lies I think in the part of this dispute about refusing to help Evangelize the Anglo-Saxons.  Again Bede was surprisingly sympathetic to the Briton, I sympathize with the Briton perspective on that part of this more here then I do reading later presumably more pro-Welsh accounts, Geoffrey of Monmouth just makes them sound kinda Racist.

I don't believe in the Doctrine of Baptist Perpetuity, I don't think it matters if any modern Baptists can claim an unbroken line of Believers Baptisms going back to The Disciples.  But I do think the reasons Infant Baptism is wrong are obvious enough in The Bible that there have always been some people who figured it out.  And I don't think it's impossible there was some underground survival of pre Augustine Brythonic practice in the more mountainous remote parts of Wales or the Welsh Marshes or other parts of England, and I may make a future post on which 17th Century Baptist Churches could and could not work to imagine as having such a connection.

But I do want to warn people that others talking about the possibility of the Britons being Baptists repeat a lot of the bad history out there about the origins and history of Christianity in Ancient Brittan.  So I want to clarify... I don't think Jesus visited Britain as a child nor do I think Joseph of Arimathea ever came to Britain nor did Simon Zelotes or Aristobolus or Paul or Peter.  I also don't believe the King Lucius legend or that Helena the mother Constantine was a Briton.  

And returning to the main story I devoted this post to, no these events are not directly connected to the Bangor-on-dee massacre, that happened years after Augustine died and the King of Northumbia who did it was a Pagan, that kingdom was Christianized later.

I am open to the theory that the Claudia and Pudens mentioned in 2 Timothy are the same as the couple from Marital who are linked to Britannia but even that is highly speculative.  However we do know that Christianity was established in parts of Britannia by the early 3rd Century because Tertullian said the The Gospel had subdued parts of the Island even Rome hadn't.  Britain had at least 3 Bishops contemporary with the Council of Nicaea but none of them seem to have attended it just like the Bishop of Lyon didn't, there were no Briton Bishops at any of the Ecumenical Councils.

One thing not included in other books or websites on the subject of the Britons possibly having been Baptists is any reference to Arthur.  If this theory is true it means probably the historical King Arthur was a Baptist.  Baptists like to see themselves as a font of modern Democracy, they can exist under a Monarchy and even be loyal to The King but it makes sense they wouldn't want to lead with the Arthur question.

But I'm one of those investigators of the Matter of Brittan who likes to note that the three oldest surviving references to Arthur (Annales Cambriae, the Historia Brittonum and Y Goddodin which isn't as old as it's sometimes claimed to be) don't call him King, one uses the title Dux Bellorium, often translated War Chief. You know who else could be called a Dux Bellorium of Britannia?  Oliver Cromwell, who was a member of a Congregational Polity denomination yet gets looked at as a King in all but name.  But he does have apologists who maintain that no he was truly a believer in making Brittan more Democratic.  So what if Arthur was a 6th Century Baptist Cromwell?