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The Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound

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This book will probably never be read or debated in circles that would re-open a widespread doctrinal dispute. But that does not diminish its possible effect upon people.

This book should come with a warning: WARNING: CAREFUL THOUGHT AND CONSIDERATION OF THIS MATERIAL CAN LEAD TO REJECTION.

If individual Christians ever freed themselves from the Councils and Creeds ... (as well as the fear of being labeled a "heretic" by friends and relatives) they would find that this book gives them the chance to confirm what they ALWAYS suspected:. That God and His Only Begotten Son, Jesus... are who the Bible clearly says they are...and that They are not the conglomeration of hundreds of years of speculation about a few difficult verses of scripture. This book gives average folks a chance to replace nonsense with sense.

This book does clearly show that plain logic and scholarly work still produce the best reading. If you want to assure that YOUR faith does not stand in man's cunning ability to conjure up imaginative explanations, you should read this book.

This book is one of the best books on the trinity I have ever read. Finally, a book that does not seek to bash the other side, but rather show them the truth. The authors are very careful in their analysis of scripture and put to rest the blasphemous doctrine of the trinity. If you are a trinitarian, this book will not offend you, it will merely show you where others have mislead you, and if you do not believe in the trinity, it will affirm what you already know. Many other works are cited, and most of all the Holy Word of Yahweh! Buy this book, you won't regret it.

Charles Twombly offers a tough critique of our Doctrine of the Trinity: Christianity's Self-Inflicted Wound. He begins however by saying that we did not discuss John 1:18, John 1:3, I Cor. 8:4-6 and Col. 1:15-17. But we did! Extensively in the case of Colossians and adequately for our purposes in the case of the other passages. Did he read us here? Rather than meet us exegetically he simply tells us what we already know: that the early church (after biblical times) used the Gospel of John to promote a second Person in the Godhead. He thinks that this method is justified. We do not. We simply point out that Matthew and Luke deal in detail with the question of the origin of the Son and they establish the genesis of the Son as occurring in Mary. Luke is explicit in Luke 1:35. The Son of God is precisely defined. Would that the church had learned this definition of Son of God. Luke is keen to show us that disbelief leads to trouble! If we do not accept the testimony of Gabriel in Luke and of Matthew, then we are doomed to confusion. Thus the church contradicted Matthew and Luke, using John to do this. It is not exactly "eccentric" to deal with John in a way which harmonizes him with Matthew and Luke. Top scholars of our time are doing this too, and very convincingly. Twombly thinks that we should have listened to the councils. Our whole point is that if the church had listened to the Hebrew Bible and then Matthew and Luke, it would never have contradicted the unitary monotheism of Jesus so well affirmed in Mark 12:28ff. 35,000 differing denominations may be the result of abandoning the unitary monotheism of Israel and of Jesus.

In this book authors Anthony Buzzard and Charles Hunting assemble scriptural and scholarly evidence against the traditional Christian doctrine of the Trinity, i.e., the idea that God consists of three distinct and eternal Persons - Father, Son (Jesus), and Holy Spirit. Buzzard and Hunting argue that, despite its centrality in Christian theology, the doctrine of the Trinity is supported by "proof texts" that are almost always ambiguous and subject to alternate interpretations that are more cogent than the traditional Trinitarian interpretation.

It is important to recognize that the authors are not skeptics, modernists, atheists, or New Agers. They remain Christians - and fairly conservative ones at that - who believe that Jesus is best understood as the Jewish Messiah, a human being chosen by God to teach the world the true nature and will of God and to live out the will of God in human form. The authors are not motivated by a desire to "modernize" theology, but to return it to its authentic original understanding, consistent with Jewish monotheism.

The book is thus a valuable addition to the Christological debate, but it is not without its flaws. It could have been better organized - the same arguments are repeated in different chapters - and the full implications of the rejection of the divinity of Jesus are not drawn out, e.g., how does this affect the doctrine of the atonement, which is (seemingly) a central theme of the New Testament? Be that as it may, the book raises serious questions about a central claim of Christian orthodoxy, a claim which is supremely relevant given the challenge of Islam.

This is one of the best book written on the subject. Buzzard employs Hebrew thought in biblical interpretation with excellent result. This was one of the books I read at the beginning of my own personal research and have great respect for the author and a big thank you for opening my eyes to the correct interpretation of the scriptures.

I very warmly recommend this book to all Christians and other religious movements that use the bible as scriptures.

This remains good survey from both Bible and Patristic viewpoint. But since it was first published a more sizeable book representing a similar viewpoint has come out in the UK (and is currently only available on Amazon's UK site - although shipping to US is very reasonable): James Broughton and Peter Southgate: The Trinity True or False. I'd think that most people interested in the subject would want both of these books, but if you are only going to get one, then the patristic history is better in Buzzard and Hunting, the treatment of Bible passages such as Colossians 1:16 is more thorough in Broughton and Southgate.

Additionally, more for reference than an easy read, one academic book which goes deeper into the Trinity's origins in Egyptian religion is available from Amazon.co.uk as follows:    Triads and Trinity Prof. J. Gwyn Griffiths Hardcover - 388 pages (July 1996) University of Wales Press;

I enjoyed the book though I thought it could have better defended the truth regarding the Trinity. The authors have some good scriptural arguments but I feel they relied too much on the opinions of other scholars. The book is full of quotes of scholars with very impressive credentials who do not believe the Bible teaches the Trinity. This is okay to some extent as it does show that well educated and thinking persons recognize the paganism of the Trinity, but these men and their views cannot be used as proof that the Trinity is not true. I think they should have spent more time using scriptures to defend their stance rather than the viewpoints of men.

In addition, I do disagree with them and their belief that Jesus did not exist before he came to the earth. They seem to think that if Jesus did exist before he came to the earth, he must be God. Since it is obvious that Jesus is not God, they bend over backwards trying to explain away the many scriptures that show that Jesus was in heaven before he came to he earth. It was not necessary for them to revert to such extremes and try to explain away all of the scriptures that attest to Jesus' prehuman existance. Jesus was God's only-begotten son, the firstborn of all creation, the beginning of the creation by God. Being such does not make him Almighty God.

Despite this though, the book is very interesting and the many quotes from many different and famous scholars is impressive and sure to be a good addition to any student who wonders if there are scholarly arguments to defend certain Bible translations such as Romans 9:5, Titus 2:13, etc. I recommend it.

Another "Must Read" book on this subject is "Jesus-God or the Son of God?", available here at Amazon.com.

This book is the best source that I have found to show how Constantine and Platonism
reversed the intellectual course that Jesus had set the church on. Very Good!

Anthony covers the subject sufficiently of the Trinity doctrine to cause any person to question orthodoxy. The crux of the problem of accepting it lies with Jesus being preexistent God (Yahweh). As Harold Bloom point's out in his book (Jeshua), the Jesus of the New Testament wouldn't recognize on the street if he met him, the "God" of the Old Testament. They are two contrasting characters in the Bible.

The explanation of Chalcedon of Jesus being both fully human and fully God doesn't make sense. Anyone who reads very widely has come across statements by noted Biblical scholars from time to time that indicate their struggle to mentally grasp just exactly how this is supposed to be. In discussing Chalcedon, E.P. Sander's said: "History is in error to think that Christians must believe that Jesus was superhuman, and also in error to think that in Jesus own day his miracles were taken as proving partial or full divinity." (The Historical Figure of Jesus, page 135)

We all make the mistake of reading the Bible retrospectively with our preconceived concepts taught us from our birth. The greatest service we can do ourselves is to spend a lifetime critically examining how we came to believe the things we believe. "Orthodox" religion has many flaws. As Anthony points out, belief in the trinity is one of them. It has feet of clay. The most difficult pill to swallow on tackling the subject is Jesus preexistence. Anthony does a credible job with John 1:1-14 but falters, for me, in some of the "lighter" dismissal of other passages in John, the "I am" statements, and some other areas. I believe the audience reaction to various statements Christ makes in John lead one to assume "they" thought he certainly was talking about being alive during the days of Abraham. Even though he quotes Raymond Brown as an authority for pointing out the belief's the synoptics held concerning Jesus coming into existence at the virgin birth of Mary (she was the first surrogate mother), Raymond also takes John's passages overall as substantiating the preexistence of Christ. So do many other scholars. Whoever wrote John may not have final word on the subject. The book can't be harmonized as easily as Anthony presents the case for harmonization of John with Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Anthony's strongest reasoning is that the New Testament makes no sense if Jesus was fully God, and "reincarnated" in a baby. Where did the id of God go, while in gestation? Theologians would have us believe that the alter-ego continued to "run the universe" and do all the things God does. For lack of a better word, it would almost make a suffering Christ a fraud, to say that at any time he could retire into his other mind or self. The prayer of Christ asking that he could "join" the father again wouldn't make sense. Omnipresence can't be boxed. Theologians tell us Christ was actually in two places at the same time.

Our choices are limited. We either go on trying to make sense of Chalcedon or bag the preexistence of Christ. That is a whole new world flying against the majority belief of all orthodox Christianity. Christmas songs won't quite be the same. Will the world wake up one day to the "truth" of what has been presented?

I know Anthony and spent time with him as a student. My only caution to all of us in making that search for ultimate reality is that there is still a great deal of mystery about life, God, the bible, and just exactly what we think we know about the other side, and the one we so easily call God. A great book I would recommend to anyone examining the issues of this book and others as we search for God, is Richard Taylor's book, The Myth of Certainty. We will go to our graves not knowing, as John the Baptist did, Paul did, and Peter did. It is evident they all had misguided beliefs the Messiah was going to return in their day. E. P. Sanders says in his book that the belief of the "timing" of Christ's return came from the teachings of Jesus himself. For that reason I would chide Anthony for his slight hubris as being the ultimate possessor of "truth" on this subject, and his warnings to others of not accepting his understanding of the matter. I commend him for his statement that his intent is to broaden the understanding of Christians on this subject. He didn't quite broaden, he bludgeoned the historical understanding.

The purpose of his efforts is the worship of the true God. If one wasn't moved in reading the recent biography of Mother Theresa exposing her struggles to believe in God and worship Jesus Christ, I don't think they understand the human soul. I know too many "good" people, as Anthony does as well, that will tell him his book is heretical. I believe they will be in the kingdom of Jesus just as quickly as either he or I will be there. My mother is one of them.

The doctrine of the Trinity is the central dogma of Christianity. It has been held and confessed by Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox and Protestant Christians, who are over two billion in number, ever since the days of the councils of Nicea (325 C.E.) and Constantinople (381 C.E.), and, in the case of the Protestants, since the Reformation of the Middle Ages. But though so long and widely held, is it correct? Does it have a firm scriptural basis? Our authors demonstrate that it doesn't, that it is erroneous! Publication of such a book in another day would have been considered a capital crime and the authors promptly hauled to the stake like Miguel Servetus, the Spanish doctor.

The work is thorough, though not exhaustive, in its handling of the principal proof-texts of the doctrine of the Trinity. Missing, for example, are treatments of Genesis 1:2 (the Spirit/mighty wind), the three men who visit Abraham before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha (Genesis 18), the baptism of Jesus (Matthew 3:16-17 par.), I Corinthians 10:9 (NRSV), and Jude 5 (Douay-Rheims). The authors are gentle and irenic throughout and do not thunder or pontificate against the Trinitarians. They choose rather to persuade than to condemn. Key texts are John 17:3 and Mark 12:29. And special attention is devoted to the problem of preexistence in the Gospel of John.

Slowly but surely, one comes to the overwhelming and surprising conclusion that the Christians who hold to this doctrine and claim to be orthodox are really heterodox, even heretical, and that the Unitarians
and Socinians, who are called heretical, are really orthodox. Shades of 'the last shall be first and the first last'! This important work,
whose many scripture citations are throughly indexed, deserves a wide
circulation among Christianity's two billion members. A copy should even be sent to the pope.