Holy TRINITY in Old Testament - Hubert_Luns

8/12/2019 Holy TRINITY in Old Testament - Hubert_Luns

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Hear O Israel our God is one!The Trinitarian Thought as from Old Testamentic Times

The Tri-Une God (original design by Exper)

The Shma, which is taken from Deuteronomy 6:4, is perhaps the best known Jewish

prayer: Hear, O Israel: the Lord is our God, the Lord alone! ( !"#$ % &"'&() *'+), &-./ % &"'&() ., %"01(23) 45 67(2 ) Actually it is not a prayer but constitutes the central Jewish confessionof faith (1) whereby, just as in the Islams central confession of faith (2) , the unicityof God is declared, as revealed to Moses, as against the notion of Trinity (Father, Sonand Holy Spirit) held by the Christians. This verse, quoted over and over again, is

followed in the next verse by the Bibles greatest commandment: You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength!The simplistic approach assumes that the Shma taught the new people that there isbut one God, thereby rejecting the polytheism of the surrounding peoples, but in factit is a call to adore God and God alone, the one God who, in the midst of fire andthick smoke, had revealed Himself to the people (Deut. 5:22), the one God who ismuch more powerful than the gods of neighbouring peoples. Yes, happy is the peoplethat has Yahweh as its God! (Ps. 33:10-12)

1 - God in plural form

It is a remarkable fact that in Deuteronomy 6:4 the Hebrew word for God has the pluralform derived from Elohim , which in the Bible is the most used form for God (2500times), also translated as Lord. Elohim is used in Exodus 20:3: You shall have no other

gods before me . In 1 Kings 11:5 & 33 Elohim is even translated as Astarte, which is


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understandable when considering that the Bible uses the title Elohim 217x in relation toidols. The fact that a singular form of the verb is used in Deuteronomy 6:4 is not an argu-ment in favour of seeing this as a rejection of polytheism, since in Psalm 58:11 we readliterally: Surely, there is one God, 'they' judge the earth. Incidentally, in Genesis 1:26we read: Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness , with as footnotein the Dutch Canisius translation (1955): Many Church Fathers and later writers see inthis an indication of the Mystery of the Holy Trinity . The Jewish biblical scholarsstumbled over the same interpretation awkward for them as witness their commentaryin the Midrash Rabbah.

Mezuzahs, to be fixed to doorposts and containing a text

It is further remarkable that the Shma mentions God three times as Yahweh is our Elo-him , Yahweh alone . At the beginning of Psalm 50 this is erroneously rendered in sometranslations as The God of gods, the Lord , but it should be something like The God,the Three-One, the Lord (El, Elohim, Yahweh). This matches the Shma and the logicalfollow-up in Psalm 50.

An alternative for Elohim was available in the original Hebrew. There was no need touse Elohim in this verse in Deuteronomy. The singular form for God, Eloah , still

occurs 250 times in the Bible, as in Deut. 32:15: Then he forsook God who made him,and scornfully esteemed the Rock of his salvation .

Of interest is the biblical use of Adoniem, that appears 432x and is used exclusively forthe Creator. It means my Adoniem, or: my Lord who owns me. The title was used ori-ginally as a common term of address, but was applied to emphasize by Whom the pro-

phets were speaking according to the salutation: Thus speaks Adonai Jahweh.

The notion of the Big Bang is a type of monotheismThe Big Bang is the popular name for the in no way proven theory concerning

the origin of the universe, presumed to have originated from a single point some 17

billion years ago. This theory is based on among other things the observation ofthe continually expanding universe. Calculating backwards we thus come to a pointfrom which everything stems. As the cause in principle of existence this can becompared to monotheism. But are we able to love or to build a personal relationship with the Big Bang? The religions say that it is the spiritual that constitutes thefoundation of the material. Thus a material cause can never be the prime cause, andin that sense the Big Bang has nothing to do with monotheism. If we accept thecommandment to love our God, we know that the Big Bang can only be a secondarycause if, indeed, it was the origin of our Creation.


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2 One is a combinative unit

Finally, I would point out that the word for one (ichud or echad ) allows of a combinativeunit something that is characteristic of the Trinity as shown in the passages Genesis1:5; 2:24; Ezra 2:64 and Ezekiel 37:17. In these places the unity is the consequence ofcombining evening and morning, man and woman, the individual members of an asso-

ciation and two sticks placed together. Hebrew has a separate word for undivided unity:yachid ; but the saintly writer did not wish to use this for the Shma. The great biblicalscholar Maimonides, who lived in the 12 th century AD, nonetheless used yachid for histhirteen articles of faith in sharp contrast to the original text in order to indicate that Godis indivisable One. The word yachid exclusively represents a singular unity. He thus de-viated from the biblical canon and from his own Jewish tradition such as found in theZohar, where the notion of trinity is often and frankly expressed.

It is generally assumed that the Zohar is the earliest known record of the oral tradition based on a direct revelation of God to Abraham and afterwards to Moses. The book is ofa much earlier date than is commonly pretended. Is this in order to discredit the notion oftrinity? According to Le Chevalier Paul Drach (David), who converted to Roman

Catholicism in 1823 and enjoyed until then a certain reputation among his Jewish core-ligionists, there is no doubt that the text, as written down, originated in the early secondcentury of our era, as evidenced by the archaic language used (not pure Hebrew). AlsoAryeh Kaplan was convinced of the ancient character of the Zohar. (3) According toWikipedia under Zohar (14 March 2011), most of Orthodox Judaism holds that theteachings of Kabbalah were transmitted orally from teacher to teacher, in a long and con-tinuous chain, from the Biblical era until its redaction amongst other in books like theZohar, in this instance written down by Shimon ben Yochai, who lived at the turn of thefirst century.

Our attention is drawn particularly to the second and third articles of this frequently reci-ted thirteen articles of faith that were deviced by Maimonid:

I believe with complete faith that the Creator, blessed is his NAME, is unique,and there is no uniqueness like His in any way, and that He alone is our God, Whowas, Who is, and Who will be. I believe with complete faith that the Creator,

blessed is his NAME, is not physical, and is not affected by physical phenomena,and that there is no comparison whatsoever to Him.

The Shacharit, the morning prayer with its twice thirteen verses, goes a little further. It is based on the thirteen articles of faith drawn up by Maimonides: Exalted be the livingGod and praised. He is the One and there is no oneness like His Uniqueness. He has noimage or body nor is He a body.

It is remarkable that these articles of faith speak of God Who was and Who is and Who

is to come , a reference to Exodus 3:14 and, according to the Jewish interpretation, alsoto Isaiah 6:3: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts! And yet Petrus Galatinus (ca.1539), who belonged to a Catholic religious order, the Friar Minors, in his time stillhad access to the (rare) Targum on the hagiographies of Rabbi Jonathan ben Uziel, acontemporary of Jesus, in which he could read next to that specific verse the following

paraphrase: Holy the Father, holy the Son, holy the Holy Ghost. (4) If he had access toit, so Maimonides must have had access to it as well.


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What does the Bible say about the Holy Trinity?The Song of Moses refers to God as the Father of Israel, as the one who bought

them, made them, and established them. (Ex. 4:22, Deut. 32:6) This verse does notshow the affective relationship related to the word father. Emphasis is placed onGod the Father as our creator and ruler. The truly fatherly and emotionally charged

relation only starts with king David, who tells that God is a father of the fatherlessand a defender of widows. He cries to Him: You are my Father! (Ps. 68:5, 89:26)That is how God revealed Himself when the Davidic covenant was established, say-ing: I am his Father, and he is my son () and my mercy shall never depart fromhim. (2 Sam. 7:14-15)

The compassionate relation between God and us takes precedence when Jesusstarts his messianic mission; then also the divine tri-unity becomes clearer. There ismuch evidence in the New Testament that God the Father is totally distinct fromGod the Son. Where John says that the Word (or Son) was God, he also says thatthe Word was with God. (John 1:1) The apostle thus differentiates the Son fromthe Father. They are not just alternative names for the same God, showing different ways in which the one God operates and reveals Himself, either at different pointsin history or at the same time.

From Jesus it is said that He is our advocate and priest before the Father (1 Jn2:1, Hebr. 7:24), which implies a distinction between them as real persons. More-over, Jesus' experience of the Father and his prayer to Him (e.g. Jn 12:28) makes nosense if they are not different individuals; in effect He would be conversing withHimself.

In the Old Testament the Spirit is not distinguished as a person in His ownright, distinct from the Father, unless in Proverbs 8:22-30. But in the New Testa-ment that becomes different: the Spirit is distinguished from the Father (Rom.8:27), and He is said to engage in a range of personal activities, including speaking(Acts 8:29), bearing witness (Rom. 8:16), forbidding certain actions (Acts 16:6-7)and approving others (Acts 15:28), being grieved (Eph. 4:30), and deciding thedistribution of gifts (1 Cor. 12:11). And although the Greek word for Spirit is neuter,He is denoted by masculine pronouns in John 15:26 and 16:13-14, which also points

to his personal nature.The Son and the Spirit are explicitly distinquished from each other (Jn 14:26,

16:7). Jesus is antointed by the Spirit (Luke 4:18), speaks about the Spirit as some-one distinct from Himself (Mt. 12:32) and breathes the Spirit on the disciples (John20:22). The relationship between the three persons is one of activity and agency.The Father carries out the work of creation and redemption in the Son and by theSpirit (Col. 1:15-20, Rom. 8:3-4). Thus He can be said to send the Son (Gal. 4:4)and the Spirit (John 14:26) in order to accomplish his purposes. The Son also fulfilshis work through the Spirit (Acts 10:38), and He too is said to send the Spirit(John 16:7).

Excerpt from the May/June 2012 magazine of Barnabas Aid

3 Love God!

The above makes it clear that the Shma is not actually an appeal, as the Jews state, to believe in the One single God, but rather a call to serve the God of Abraham, and noother, exclusively. This approach cannot be seen as separate from the next verse (in-cluded in the Shma) stating that we must love God with all our heart. Love God! That iswhat is most important, said Jesus, referring to this commandment (Mark. 12:28-30).


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We may therefore conclude that at the time the Shma is more a monolatric than amonotheistic commandment . In the time of Moses monolatry was very common. Manycities and peoples had their own god. Thus it was not a new idea that exclusively onegod, in this case the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, should be adored and no other.But the absolute and universal character of the call was indeed new, with the only limi-ting condition that in the beginning this applied only to the people of Israel, the peoplechosen by God from among all the peoples of the world to be his personal possession. Itshould be pointed out that at the stage when Moses received his revelation it too early forthe common people to seize the notion of trinity, though it does lie concealed within thenew idea. (5)

Scriptural proof for the doctrine of the Holy TrinitySome of the early Church Fathers and even some later theologians, disregar-

ding the progressive character of Gods revelation, gave the impression that thedoctrine of the Trinity was completely revealed in the Old Testament. On the otherhand, some Christian sects were of the opinion (which is shared by modern Jews)that it is not found there at all. Both were mistaken. The Old Testament does not

contain a full revelation of the trinitarian existence of God, but does contain severalindications of it. And this is exactly what might be expected. The Bible never deals with the doctrine of the Trinity as an abstract truth, but reveals the trinitarian life inits various relations as a living reality, to a certain extent in connection with the works of creation and (the divine) providence, but particularly in relation to the work of redemption.

Its most fundamental revelation is rather given in facts than in words. And thisrevelation increases in clarity in the measure in which the redemptive work of Godis more clearly revealed, as in the incarnation of the Son and the outpouring of theHoly Spirit. And the more the glorious reality of the Trinity stands out in the facts ofhistory, the clearer the statements of the doctrine become. The fuller revelation ofthe Trinity in the New Testament is due to the fact that the Word became flesh, andthat the Holy Spirit took up His abode in the Church.

From: Systematic Theology by Louis BerkhofGrand Rapids, Michigan # 1932, revised ed. 1938 (VIII.B-2a)

4 The Blessed Trinity was not a new doctrine

Despite the fact that the Shma was originally a monolatric commandment, it is not farfrom being monotheistic at least as regards the people to whom God addressed. In con-trast to the other peoples of the earth, Abraham and his descendants lived not for theirown existence but for the foundation of their existence , for Him through whom theirexistence came into being. And, indeed, there can be only one cause, one principle, one

point of departure. This constitutes the core of monotheism, a concept that matches upwith the verse following the Shma (verse 5): You shall love the Lord your God with all

your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. This addition removes frommonotheism any reprehensible and purely intellectual approach.

We may compare the Shma from Deuteronomy 6:4 with the monogamous marriage (one partner, no more), and the call from the following verse (verse 5: Love your God) withthe marriage vow of everlasting fidelity and devotion. In this sense marriage is an exer-cise in our relationship with God. It is not without reason that Jesus named the fifth-verse-commandment from this chapter as the most important in the Bible, the one on


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which the entire law and the prophets depend (Mtt. 22:34-40). It is the linking of thestanding opposite one another in the duality of marriage, as mirror image of the divine(combinative) unity, from which the fruit reveals itself as divine sparks in many facetsthrough time. And because true love is a mirror image of divine Love, in that which

people experience between themselves if indeed they strive for such love there mustalso be a link made with the One from whom we all come and whose image-bearer weare meant to be, image-bearers of God in this hitherto broken world.

By way of conclusion to this article, I would now like to quote from the writings of theaforementioned P.L.B. Drach, the man who had been destined to be Chief Rabbi of Paris:

The doctrine of the divine Trinity, that is, of three distinct (though notdistinguished) Persons of the Divinity and, at the same time, united in the mostabsolute union possible, in the single and indivisible eternal Essence, was alwaysaccepted in the ancient synagogue. When Our Lord Jesus Christ gave to hisdisciples, all chosen from among the Jews, the mission to go and preach his holyGospel to the peoples of the earth, he commanded them to baptise in the name ofthe Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit (Mtt. 28:19). These words, theonly words in the four Gospels whereby the three divine Persons are named togetherand in such deliberate terms, were clearly spoken not with the object of revealingthe Holy Trinity. When the Saviour pronounced here the adorable names of theFather, the Son and the Holy Spirit, it was to prescribe the sacramental formula for

baptism. The naming of the great mystery in this context, on the occasion of baptism, produces in the mind of whoever reads the Gospel the effect of an article offaith already known and completely accepted among the children of Israel. And so,in the four Gospels that we possess, we do not see any new revelation of the HolyTrinity, fundamental point and pivot of the whole of the Christian religion, butrather the statement of a doctrine like all others already taught in the synagogueduring the time of Christ: such as, for instance, Original Sin (in Hebrew the Jetzerha-ra), the creation of the world without pre-existing matter, the existence of God.

Where, in other places, Our Lord distinguishes between the Father and the Son,while teaching that they are but One (Jn. 10:30: I and the Father are One ), it isonly in order to proclaim that his sacred person is the Son. If it had been a questionof teaching as if it were a truth as yet unknown that three Persons constitute theunity of God, the divine Teacher would certainly not have neglected to refer to theHoly Spirit, who necessarily proceeds from the Father and the Son. He would havesaid: I and the Father and the Spirit are One. The same is the case in the witnessgiven in the Gospel of St. John, 14:16 and 15:26. Here, where the three divine

persons are mentioned, it is on the occasion of the sending of the Comforter, theSpirit of Truth. We can say the same of the Holy Spirit in particular. Several texts inthe Gospels speak of this Person, but none constitute a revelation.

On the occasion of the baptism of Our Lord, he speaks of the Spirit and, at the

same time, of the Father and the Son, but only to recount what has happened on thatoccasion. The Spirit is presented as already known and adored as God. Thirty years before the preaching of the Gospel, the Mosaic Law was still in full force when theangel said to St. Joseph: That which is conceived in Mary your wife is of the HolySpirit , but Joseph did not ask: What is the Holy Spirit? unlike Pharaoh whoasked Moses: Who is Yahweh? I do not know this Yahweh (Ex. 5:2).

In a word, the evangelists take the mystery of the Incarnation as their starting point. They reveal it and command us to believe it. As for the mystery of the Trinity,which preceded and which is its basis in the faith, they treat it as something already


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revealed, admitted into the belief of the old law. And that is why at no point do theysay: know, believe that there are three Persons in God. In fact, anyone familiarwith the teachings of the ancient Doctors of the synagogue, especially those wholived before the coming of the Lord, knows that the doctrine of the Trinity in oneunique God was a truth accepted by them from the earliest times. (from Delharmonie entre lglise et la synagogue pp. 277-80)

Drach states: The naming of the great mystery in this context () produces the effect ofan article of faith already known and completely accepted among the children of Israel. I must assume that this was a familiar article of belief, but this in no way proves that itwas completely accepted at all levels of the population. If this had been so, the scripturalscholars would not have been able to negate it so easily within the stream of TalmudicJudaism. In Gods witness to His Little Souls J.N.S.R. wrote on 25 th December 2008(J.N.S.R. writes only under these initials) that the divine NAME (as a trinity) was alreadyknown to the patriarchs but that from 270 BC this knowledge was steadily forced into the

background and that this process was completed by the time of the death of Simeon theJust (mentioned in Lk. 2:25-35). J.N.S.R. also writes that forcing the knowledge of thedivine Trinity into the background represented an attempt to please the people, who had

become extremely monotheistic and were unable to accept that the Messiah should findhimself in the almighty Father whose NAME the tetragram is pronounced Yehoshuaor Yeshua (Jesus) if the letter Shin (our s) is placed in the middle of it, which indicatesGod who has become Man. And therefore we may say that in Jesus time the Holy Trini-ty was known within Jewish certain circles though not generally accepted, by way ofcontrast to what the first Christians believed in.

Co-eternal, He is the only-begotten and perfect SonThe divine Word, St Thomas Aquinas wrote, measures up to the power of God,

because by his essence He understands Himself and everything else. So the WordHe conceives by his essence, when He understands Himself and everything else, isas great as his essence. It is therefore perfect, simple and equal to God. We call this Word of God a Son, because He is of the same nature with the Father, and we pro-fess that He is co-eternal with the Father, only-begotten and perfect. () We do notsay that the three divine persons or hypostases are distinct by essence. () Since theFather and the Son and the Holy Spirit are not distinct in their divine nature, butonly by relationship, we are right in saying that the three persons are not threegods, but one true and perfect God.

If man, knowing his weakness, were promised the eventual happiness, () hecould hardly hope to reach it unless the dignity of human nature was demonstratedin another way, namely, by God valuing it so highly that He became Man for his salvation. So God becoming Man gave us hope that a man can eventually be united toGod in blessed enjoyment.

Thomas Aquinas: De rationibus fidei contra Saracenos, Graecoset Armenos ad Cantorem Antiochenum (Ch. 3-5)

Irenaeus of Lyons (ca 140 ca 202) is perhaps the first Church Father who opposedChristian gnosticism (a mixture of Christendom and paganism). He considered it harmfulthat this perfidious doctrine denies a number of facts of salvation, like the incarnation ofGod and the ensuing theology of the Trinity. Going back to an earlier stage we alreadyown a valuable document that expresses the fact that the first Christians believed in the


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divinity of Jesus. Plinius the Younger was the imperial legate in Bithynia and Pontus,situated at the Black Sea, adjacent to the region where the Apostle Paul preached, andwhere his teachings were kept in their original form (1 st century). He wrote a letter in theyear 112 to Emperor Trajan in which he explains that Christians are a large crowd ofevery age and every rank, not only in the cities but even in the villages and farms. Aftercareful investigation in the context of his persecution of this contagious superstition(superstitionis istius contagio), he discovers that they were accustomed to meet on a

fixed day before dawn and sing responsively a hymn to Christ as to a god (quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire carmenque Christo quasi deo), and to bind themselves by oath, not to some crime, but not to commit fraud, theft, or adultery, nor fal- sify their trust. Plinius is a trustworthy source, who understood the art of writing andhad a keen eye for detail. We have also the answer to his letter by the Emperor. (See:Letters 10:96 & 10:97 of Pliny to Emperor Trajan and Trajans reply.) A victim of thistime was Simeon, being called Niger in the Book of Acts. (Acts. 13:1) He was the sonof Mary of Klopas, who was standing at the foot of the Cross. As the bishop of Jerusalemhe was crucified under Trajan at the age of 121 after having first suffered terrible tor-tures. Klopas was the brother of the father in law of Jesus and may therefore be calledJesus uncle. (6) We may assume that in this epoq the doctrine closely followed the con-victions of the early Christians. Simon will have taken care of it. Therefore, Pliniusremark that Christ was worshipped as a God, is a convincing one.

5 How the name Jesus is written in Hebrew

There are different ways of writing Jesus. Theusual way is that of Joshua, the name of the manwho led the people of Israel in their conquest of thePromised Land after forty years of trekking throughthe desert. His name is written as Jehoshua and, inan abbreviated form, pronounced as Yeshua/Joshuaor Josua. In Greek that is written as Jesus (I !"# ! $) yes indeed as witness Hebr. 4:8and Acts 7:45. There it is more than clear that Joshua, son of Nun, should be regarded asan image of Jesus Messiah. Joshuas name was originally Oshea. By adding the Hebrewletter yod at the beginning of that name, the name Yoshua comes about. The same yodadded to Nun (his father) makes Yinnon, which according to Psalm 72:17, is one of thetitles of the Messiah, where it means something like shall endure: His NAME shallendure forever; His NAME shall continue as long as the sun. And men shall be blessed in

Him; All nations shall call Him blessed.

Because the name Jesus/Yehoshua is a conjugation of the tetragram (JHWH, pronouncedYahweh) with in the middle the letter shin, then the name Joshua/Yeshua (with ayin atthe end) is to be considered a concealment of the messiah. Woe betide him who shouldwrite his own forename with the complete tetragram. In Matthew lacks the last letter ofthe tetragram. In Hebrew that is: Mattithyah, or Gift of JHW. The classic Hebrewname for Jesus, used as an ordinary forename, starts with the first three letters of the te-tragram, then the letter shin and then two other letters ending with the letter ayin(Strongs 3091, see example). This is a usual way to place the name of Yahweh in a

persons name, such as in Joseph, though with two different final letters (Strongs 3084),where, just as with the name Jesus, it means God saves. The only exception to the

practice of using a part of the Yahweh name for a normal persons name exists in Judahor Jehuda: by adding an extra letter in the NAME, the dalet, we get five letters (yod, h,


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waw, dalet, h), which reads as Jehuda. Patriarch Judah, who is the ancestor of Jesus,represents the door (dalet) through which the divine entered our human condition. Thathas really taken place in Jesus Christ, in Whom the natural and supernatural are One.

It is, incidentally, normal in the Cabbalistic literature to write the name of Jehoshua withthe tetragram and the shin in the middle, but there the shin is ascribed to the hissingsnake and all kinds of strange and unholy conclusions are drawn from this, apparently toavoid having to believe in Jesus Christ. In Luke 10:18 Jesus says that He saw Satan fal-ling like lightning from heaven. Lightning is like the SS Nazi symbol, also known as theSiegrune or sign of victory. Again the hissing snake, the snake that wishes to rise up to

become God. In the Jewish tradition heaven is seen as image of the tetragram, somethingconfirmed in the Lords Prayer: Our Father, who art in heaven, blessed be thy NAME .So it is not at all stupid to see in this verse from the Evangelist Luke the hissing snakethat falls out of Gods NAME. The usual meaning of the letter shin is that it stands forShaddai, the name by which God first revealed Himself to Abraham: God Almighty. (Ex. 6:2-3) It also represents fire, the image of the Holy Spirit. And the letter shin iswritten on the tefillin (small prayer boxes) in which the words of the Shma are beinghidden.

When we look at Jewish tradition we will, of course, find no direct reference to Jesus be-cause his coming was shrouded in clouds. But there are indications. I quote from Drach:

In the Chapters of R. Eliser, a highly praised book placed by the rabbis on thesame level as the Talmud itself, the following is to be found at the beginning ofChapter III: Before the creation of this world took place, there was nothing otherthan God himself, He and his NAME . (Vol. 1, pp. 410 and 413)

Many rabbis have converted to Christianity after having read the Zohar, according toDrach. And we have seen already that the Zohar is older than the Talmud. Here is a quotefrom the Zohar (taken from Drach):

Zohar, part II, fol. 19, col. 74-75 1st

ch. (of the tefillin), called Justify my first- born: is the heavenly mystery that represents all four letters that come out ofnothing (Hebr. : where?).

It follows from these two quotations and in the knowledge that Jesus is the first-born,even before creation began that the only correct way of writing Jesus, in whom we be-lieve, is with the shin in Gods full holy NAME. Logic commands that there be no other

possibility. Naturally the Jews, who do not believe in Jesus Christ, will protest at this,since it touches the heart of the matter. Hence, it can be expected that after the Jews haveaccepted Jesus as their Lord and Saviour, they will start to announce this to the world in aloud voice.

The discussion is, in fact about the following. If Jesus is God, then the Hebrew way ofwriting with the shin in the middle of the tetragram is the only correct way. If Jesus is notGod, then other ways of writing are possible. The question is that the Jewish scripturescholars are very familiar with the enclosure of the shin in the tetragram and continue tostate that that is an indication of Gods imitator Satan. Their conclusion is false since itconflicts with Jeremiah 23:6, where the Messiah is called Yahweh our Justifier (canalso mean Justification). They twist and turn in the strangest manner in order to attemptto prove that this is not about Jesus. But fortunately there is a change in the offing be-cause the next verse in the Book of Jeremiah talks of the return of Gods people to the


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land of their fathers, an exceptionally satisfying fact that we have been able to witness inour days.

The evolution of the concept of Holy TrinityThe God, revealed in his interventions in history, is the transcendent God sub-

sisting in three substantial modes of his One nature. This identity is not stated inthis explicit formulation in the Bible. The very word Trinity is not in the inspiredScriptures. Nor does it occur in the Apostles nor the Nicene Creed, even thoughtheir three-part structure is determined by their speaking of the Father, the Son andthe Holy Spirit in turn. Tertullian, who died around the year 220 was the first toapply the term Trinity to God, nearly 150 years after Matthews baptismal formula. Another 200 years were to pass, filled with much struggle and serious conflict be-fore the first two Ecumenical Councils formulated the implications of the revelation.Belief that the Son [Council of Nicea in 325] and the Holy Spirit [Council of Con-stantinople in the year 381] are truly God and equal to the Father in all thingspertaining to the divine nature was formally affirmed by the universal Church as thelegitimate understanding of what had been once revealed. There was a major deve-lopment of dogma in the course of this long and often painful examination into themeaning of the economic Trinity. Great care was taken to assure that this unfoldingof implicit content of revelation did not take an arbitrary course, but was faithful tothe revelation brought by Jesus and confided to his disciples.

By the Abbot John Eudes Bamberger, born in 1926. Taken from the website of the Abbey ofthe Genesee (in Upstate New York). Dom John was the 4 th Abbot of the Abbey for a period ofover thirty years.

6 The historical development

The current use and composition of the Shma prayer go back to the 2 nd century AD. Thehistorical development that led to this form is, according to the Encyclopdia Judaica(1971, 1992), difficult to trace. It is assumed, according to the same source, that a formof the prayer was retained for the priestly caste in Old Testament times. As far as I cansee, this is connected to the expression in Exodus 3:15 (with a different application ofvowels): My eternal NAME must be kept hidden. In fact, that NAME contains thehidden knowledge of the divine Trinity, knowledge which was only buried in its fullnesstogether with Simeon the Just, the last of the zugots or pairs. This Simeon, the of the

New Testament, is not the same as the famed Simeon of the Talmud who was one of thelast of the Men of the Great Synagogue; he lived from ca. 370 until 270 before Christ.(see Wisdom of Sirach 50) Simeon the Just of the New Testament was possibly thegrandson of the honourable Hillel the Elder. According to the Talmud Shammai wastogether with this Hillel the last of the zugots, of those who kept the flickering flame ofknowledge burning, but I disagree. During the Presentation in the Temple (Lk. 2:21-34)it was Simeon the zugot who embraced Jesus in his arms. His peer, Jochanan benZakkai, had already died. Afterwards the Shma was introduced to the people in a twistedinterpretation to imprint on their minds that it was impossible that Jesus could be God-made-man, even though the religious authorities were not ignorant of the oral tradition inthe matter; they even forbade to pronounce Jesus name, which was very current then;the criminal Barrabas was also called Jesus. So, they must have known about the Jeho-shua, which also fits Jeremiah 23:6 where the Messiah is called Jahwe our Redeemer.People were nevertheless allowed tot call Jesus Jesus of Galilee or Jesus of Nazareth,


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as happened during the incident when the servant girl recognized the discipel Peter, whothen denied his master. (Mt. 26:69-75) It was precisely this addition of Gallilean thatturned Jesus Christ in a common man.

I finish with a quote from Hymen Polano from The Talmud: Selections (1876):

Simeon (of the 4th

and 3rd

centuries BC) is renowned for his familiarity with theLaw (Torah), for his services as president and member of the Great Senate(Synagogue), and for the efficient manner in which he strengthened the religiousfervour of the people and participated in all their doings and institutions. Heofficiated as High Priest for forty years, and himself announced the approach of hisdeath on completing the services on the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur). ()Posterity honoured him as the most holy among men, and it has been asserted thatduring his life visible tokens of Gods favour never ceased. His grandchildren,however, deserted Judaism entirely, and set the example for those actions which

brought upon Israel the troublous times of Antiochus Epiphanes. It was shortly afterSimeons death, and in view of the degeneracy of the people, that the pious resolvedthat only the priests should use Gods holy NAME. The four letters of the sacred

NAME were substituted for (the neutral term) the Name (in Hebrew: HaShem),and the former was (from then on) only uttered (in its original form) by the priestswhen they concluded the daily sacrificial service and pronounced the blessing on the

people (as mentioned in Numeri 6:24-26). (The sacred NAME was also uttered) bythe High Priest on the Day of Atonement. (pp. 212-213)

Hubert Luns

NotesThe complete Shma(1) The Shma synagogue prayer goes like this at the beginning: Shma Israel, Adonaieloheynu, Adonai echad. This comes from Deuteronomy 6:4: Hear, Israel, the Lordis our God, the Lord is One! , with the following addition: Blessed be the NAME of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever. Then follow verses 5 to 9:

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all yoursoul and with all your might . And these words that I command you today shall bein your heart. And you shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shallspeak of them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the way, and when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall bind them as a sign on your hand,and they shall be for tefillin between your eyes. And you shall write them on thedoorposts of your house and on your gates. (It then continues with verses 13 to 21 ofchapter 11:) And it shall come to pass if you surely listen to the commandments that Icommand you today to love HaShem (the Name) and to serve him with all your heartand all your soul, that I will give rain to your land, the early and the late rains, that you may gather in your grain, your wine and your oil. And I will give grass in yourfields for your cattle and you will eat and you will be satisfied. Beware, lest your heart be deceived and you turn and serve other gods and worship them. And the anger ofHashem will blaze against you, and he will close the heavens and there will not berain, and the earth will not give you its fullness, and you will perish quickly from thegood land that the Lord gives you. So you shall put these, My words, on your heartand on your soul; and you shall bind them for signs on your hands, and they shall befor tefillin between your eyes. And you shall teach them to your children, and youshall speak of them when you sit at home, and when you walk along the way, and


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when you lie down and when you rise up. And you shall write them on the doorpostsof your house and on your gates. In order to prolong your days and the days of yourchildren on the land that the Lord promised your fathers that he would give them, aslong as the days that the heavens are over the earth.

Praying Israelites with leather straps around the arm, as pres-cribed by Ex. 13:9, Deut. 6:8 and 11:18. See on forehead the Tefil-lin. The meaning of Tefillin does not appear from the biblical textand needs an explanation to be understood. Within the Tefillin ishidden the Shma. The Shma, in its turn, contains a hiddenness(the concept of the Holy Trinity), which is not obvious from the biblical text and it needs to be explained.

The Shma synagogue prayer ends with the praying of Numbers 15:37-41: And Hashem spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the children of Israel and say tothem they should make themselves tzitzit (= fringes) on the corners of their clothingthroughout their generations, and give the tzitzit of each corner a thread of blue. And


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they shall be tzitzit for you, and when you look at them you will remember all of theHaShems commandments and do them and not follow after your heart and after your eyes which lead you astray. In order to remember and do all My command-ments, and be holy for your God. I am the Hashem, your God who led you from theland of Egypt to be a God to you. I am Hashem, your God. This is the truth.

The Shma became the central confession of faith for Islam(2) It is a known fact that Islam, that took root in Israels brother-people (both have Abraham as their father), adopted a number of important elements from the Jewish belief. It can hardly be a coincidence that in Islam, just as in the Jewish faith, the centralconfession of faith rests on the oneness of God, as expressed in Sura 112 (which is their Shma): In the name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. Proclaim: He is theOne (in Koranic Arabic: ahad) and only GOD. The Absolute GOD. Never did Hebeget. Nor was He begotten. None equals Him. *)

Although the notion of the Trinity was, in Jesus time, not unfamiliar in the Jewishfaith, once the High Priests had rejected Jesus as their Messiah any reference to it was banned, a development to be regretted and one of which, in fact, Islam was the victim. Although Islam shares with Christianity the belief in the Virgin Birth of Jesus (Sura 3:42)and believes that He will pass the final judgement and, in addition, in contrast to theirprophet Mohammed, that Jesus is without sin, the notion of trinity remains a massiveobstacle to peaceful coexistence between the Christian and Muslim peoples. Sura 112states that God is neither begotten nor has begotten. The usual interpretation of this isthat the idea of trinity is blasphemous !

But the Christians too state that God has never begotten children in the manner usualto humans, since according to Christian doctrine Jesus and the Holy Spirit have alwaysexisted and thus Christian belief speaks of the already existing Word that became flesh ata certain point in time, that same Word that was already with God and was God beforerevealing Himself in this way (Jn. 1). Marys son can, in human terms, have come intoexistence but the way it happened was different. The Saviour of the human race was not begotten in the way usual to human beings. In Jesus Christ the divine and human naturestogether constitute a single person. During the incarnation these two natures wereunited, made one , in the womb of theBlessed Virgin Mary. In human concep-

tion there is, of course, no question of in-carnation, which is why Psalm 85:11speaks of Truth shall spring out of theearth . This fits Jesus who is sometimescalled the Scion or Root of Jesse (Is.11:10). This explanation cannot be seenseparately from Psalm 67:6: The earthshall yield her increase; God, our ownGod, shall bless us See also Psalm 2:7:The Lord has said to Me: You are my Son, today (thus, for all eternity) I havebegotten You.

We can hardly continue to state that

these references are only possible because as Islam says the Jews have falsifiedthe Bible, because these texts also happento be a stumbling block for the Jews sincethey clearly refer to the Saviour and Hopeof Israel who has already come, He whomthey have refused to recognise. TheIslamic writings repeatedly say that bothJews and Christians have falsified theBible in order to discredit Mohammed as Fecit: Philippe de Champaigne


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prophet. The accusation does not appear to be baseless: thanks to the choices that theoriginal Hebrew offers at the time there were no vowels nor spaces between words it was possible in the period following Jesus' crucifixion to play around with the SacredTexts in order to put His predicted coming in a bad light. This was sufficiently wellknown, and in this knowledge the Christian church has always preferred the GreekSeptuagint (dating from the 3 rd and the 2 nd century BC) as also the Latin Vulgate trans-lation of Holy Scripture, the latter having borrowed a great deal from the Septuagint anddating from the 5 th century AD. Since then the Vulgate has been regarded as the standardBible translation (though Jewish scripture experts who have converted to Christianityhave always shown a preference for the Septuagint). Since the Vulgate and the New Testa-ment had long been fixed and were widely spread before the birth of Mohammed, around570 AD, the accusation made by Islam is plucked out of thin air, but it does constitute anobstacle in the conversion of Muslims to Christianity. (see also article: The Veracity ofthe Holy Scriptures )

*) The majority opinion assumes that Sura 112 originated in the Meccan period, when Mohammed was still on friendly terms with the Jews and thus could have become acquainted with the Shma.

(3) Aryeh Moshe Eliyahu Kaplan (1934-83) was convinced that the Zohar was written byRabbi Shimon bar Yochai, who lived at the turn of the first century, a view based on

studying the Otzar Ha-Chaim written by Rabbi Yitzchok deMin Acco. Rabbi Yitzchok in- vestigated the authenticity of the Zohar at the time it was first published in the 13 th cen-tury. The first time Kaplan discussed this finding in a public forum was during a lecture tothe Association of Orthodox Jewish Scientists (AOJS - New York State) on Febr. 18, 1979on the topic of Kabbalah and the Age of the Universe (p. 17).

(4) Reference taken from Paul Drachs: De l'harmonie entre l'glise et la synagogue(pp. 190-91), that refers to: De arcanis catholicoe veritatis (Vol. 2, Ch. 1).

(5) Exodus 20:3 reads in Hebrew: Lo yiheyu lecha Elohim acheirim ( singular mas-culin ) le-fanai, of which the correct translation goes: There shall not be for you an-other God (projected) upon my face , stated differently: whom you worship in myplace. This agrees with Exodus 34:14: You shall worship no other god: for Jahwe,whose name is Jealous, He is a jealous God.

(6) Taken from A Dictionary of Early Christian Biography, edited by Henry Wace & William C. Piercy # 1911 (under heading: Simeon 2 nd bp. Jerusalem).

Sources: The article is partly taken from the website of Jews for Jesus . See their journal Issues , 1:8 / July 1981, with the article Jewishness and the Trinity written by Arnold G. Fruchtenbaum . See also under: theological issues: Dont Christians Be-lieve in Three Gods? / Jan. 2005, via questions & answers.


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.POSTSCRIPT .

The deeper meaning of Ichud / Echad

The following note is an elaboration by myself of a text by the writer Liliane Warris (Bruges) taken from Openbaring symboliek van het Hebreeuws (Revelation symbolism in the Hebrew language Servire Katwijk # 1981 (pp. 29-35):

An extremely important word both as word and as number is echad (aleph,cheth, daleth), meaning one, written with the letter values 1 + (8 + 4) . This Hebrew word indicates composite unit and is in fact a combination of One plus Twelve.Thirteen as such represents a divine number.

In the word echad (1 + 12) we clearly see the 12 as a representation of time andmeasurement of time (annual cycle), which are tied to the all-embracing One, thealeph. Together they express the real Oneness that exists only in God and theharmony between temporality (12) and eternity (1). We find this beautifullyemphasised in the well-known text of Deuteronomy 6:4, the Shma: Hear Israel,Yahweh is our God; Yahweh is One (echad).

If we omit from echad the first letter (aleph) we get as already seen in variousexamples a word with a totally different structure and meaning. The word chad (cheth, daleth) then appears, meaning one-sidedness and something that alsosuggests the existence of another side. If the numerical value of 12 is thus created byomitting the aleph, both word and number become an expression of only a singleside. It is the tangible side determined by that which we observe in this material world, bound by time and space. And thus not a oneness in the sense of a link between the visible and the invisible but a one-sided approach which refersexclusively to the material or tangible.

It is remarkable that Jacobs twelve sons, representing the basic structure of thepeople of Israel, show the same composition of 8 + 4 (cheth, daleth), namely eightsons of Lea and four of Rachel, whereby the actual meaning is done justice only bythe appearance of the One, the One who is the Messiah born of Israel who at sometime was to restore the balance between the temporary, the material, and the

timeless, the invisible, since the creation as a material unit (the twelve) is not perfect without the involvement of the Creator himself (the One). Indeed, in the usualMasoretic interpretation we read: In the beginning of Gods work of creation asregards the heavens and the earth (Gen 1:1). This expression can be understoodin the sense of Gods creative activity, which is not determined by a point in time.But then at that exceptional moment spoken of He was occupied in calling theheavens and the earth into existence. The first verse incidentally, can also betranslated: By (means of) the beginning God created the heavens and the earthinstead of In the beginning. And that beginning, in and with God, is of course the Word.


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It should be noted that the first letter of the creation account and of the Bibleitself is a beth (our b), but it is in fact the aleph as image of God from whomeverything comes. Nevertheless as image of the Invisible this letter, without furtheralteration to the meaning of the word, has been withdrawn from view. In this contextit is extremely interesting to note that the Talmud (Meghilla) states that the 72translators of the Greek version of the Bible, the Septuagint, were driven to changethe sequence of the first three words of Genesis from Bereshit Elohim bara intoElohim bara bereshit. The reason for this change was, chas v'shalom (may God bring mercy and peace upon us to prevent this from happening), that the work ofcreation would not be ascribed to a being called reshit. It appears that the first letterof Elohim is aleph. The new word sequence then means: God generated theprinciple or beginning, creating the heavens and the earth. Bereshit can be read asBeth-resith, which is the second principle or beginning (within the trinity) since beth is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet and principle is simply thetranslation of reshit. In a similar way, Adam can be read as Aleph-Dam, meaningGod in the blood or Life in the blood, or the Anointed One. Reshit also meansfirst-born. And Jesus is Gods firstling. And, as everyone is aware, the firstling orfirstfruits have to be sacrificed to God. Why? Because they belong to God from Whom everything proceeds. The sacrifice of the first-born is therefore a tribute toGods omnipotence and glory.

Now the Lord, in His sojourn with us, is as the expression of this Invisible takenshape. Because of His love for man He makes His way with him through this world,for the Word says: I am with you always, even to the end of the world (Mt. 28:20).

Of interest is the manner in which the Hebrew of the Shma is written. The lastletter of the first word and the last letter of the last word of Deuteronomy 6:4 areusually written larger in most Hebrew Bibles. These letters are the Ayin ( 70 ) and theDaleth ( 4 ), together pronounced as d or ad , which in the one case means witness and in the other infinity/eternity . And thus there are 70 witnesses and the 4evangelists, who were sent out by Jesus to win souls for Gods Kingdom (Lk. 10:1).

We have just seen in the echad itself that even the relationship between 1 + 12 ishidden. We see this repeated in Jesus (1) and His 12 apostles, who were sent out justlike the 70. Together with Jesus they represent a fullness, which as a composite unityof 13 reaches beyond the criteria of this world.

Another word, based on the concept of a composite unity with a value of 13 isthe Hebrew word for love, ahawah (aleph, hee, beth, hee): 1 + 5 + 2 + 5 (= 13).From this, One + 5 as against Two + 5, we can conclude or even more so, we mustactually conclude that the most sublime form of unity is love as it is experienced (through the five senses). Without the mutual giving of love, the longing for thegiving and the accompanying certainty that the other will experience the giving ashappiness and the fulfilling of his being, there can be no thought of unity and loveseen from Gods point of view. In such a case, in fact, a link would be made only between form and form , and the concept of love cannot attain its essential andthus the fulfilling and all-embracing function. Oneness in variety (1 over against 2),indeed, can exist and function therefrom only when two opposites or contrasts meetand complement one another. The finding of each other is made easier because thereis also equality in the 5 over against the 5. It is the link between the situation of beinga two-ness over against one another for instance in a marriage as mirror-image of

The Shma of Deuteronomy 6:4


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the divine (combinative) oneness, from which the fruits reveal themselves as divinesparks in many facets through the time. And because true love is a mirror image ofthe divine Love, in the experience between people if such a love is sought after atthe same time a link must be made with the One from whom everything stems and whose image bearers we are meant to be, image bearers of God in this as yet broken world.

Put briefly, love in one-ness is an image of that which in God functions as theharmony of opposites, through which from the mutual giving the preparedness toaccept the happiness of the unity is automatically confirmed. This divine love andOneness, in their ceaseless fullness and intensity, with all its consequences, cannotthus be understood as continuity or experience from this world alone. The concept ofechad reveals itself here , in our reality but, however as an opportunity that has to be seized!

But that which functions by God as an existing Oneness functions in man inphases, in separate moments, because we have to continually learn to undergo the joy of oneness time and time again. And so we see that the number 13, just as thenumber 12, occurs many times in the chronological thus sequential account ofthe Old and New Testaments.

One of the most fascinating examples of this is to be found in Exodus 34:6-7,

where Moses is confronted with the Thirteen Attributes of Divine Mercy (see Wikipedia) or the Shelosh-Esreh Middot, that are shown in the form of acomposite unity as one side of God: Then I will take away My hand and you shallsee My back; but My face shall not be seen. (Ex. 33:23) Both sides constitute thetotal, expressed in the (inexpressible) NAME Yahweh consisting of the letters yod, hee, waw, hee, or 10 + 5 + 6 + 5 (= 2 x 13).

The repetition of the NAME, mentioned in the list of Divine Attributes as if it were not deliberately in Exodus 34:6 and again in the following verse, has a deepand significant meaning for man, as indeed all information seen from a biblical pointof view. According to the great Talmudist Rashie, this is related to His fourthcharacteristic and to the concept of compassion as counterpart of justice. Thisinseparable combination of compassion & mercy is a so-called binomium and part ofthe Shma, which belongs to Him who forgives injustice but in no way regards (the

rebels) as innocent (verse 7). This can be understood from Yahwehs companionship with man on his difficult road through the world, a companionship both before asafter the original fall from grace and still does, on a road that takes Man coming fromhis Origin back to his Origin once more.

These two aspects of Yahweh as the compassionate but also as the just, areproposed to the people of Israel as an inseparable (composite) Oneness, belongingtogether, and belonging to God as the Essence and for man the Inaccessible,according to the description in Pauls first letter to Timothy (6:16): The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords who alone has immortality, dwelling in unapproa-chable light, whom no man has seen or can see.

Thus we have learned to understand that it is only through the Son, Who lets the Father be known to us, that we can reach towards the Father. By dying on the cross He con-

quered the power of death thereby becoming the gate through which all salvation flows tous. It is the sacrifice, the sacrament. His suffering built the bridge between thisand the other side, between the twelve, which is an image of the body in which Jesus tookshape, and the One: Father of eternity (Abi-ad).

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Holy TRINITY in Old Testament - Hubert_Luns