Book Review: Demystifies Doctrine of the Holy Trinity

Read Comments Comments (11)

• C.Y. ANDY-K 8 years ago

  A pity a lot of Africans have no clue about the pagan origins of the concept of trinity, which was adopted into Christianity centuries after the death of Jesus and the apostles. Of course, teh dispute between the Trinitarians ...
  read full comment

  A pity a lot of Africans have no clue about the pagan origins of the concept of trinity, which was adopted into Christianity centuries after the death of Jesus and the apostles. Of course, teh dispute between the Trinitarians led by Bishop Athanasius and the Unitarians led by Arius, led to the calling of the Council of Nicea. You cn all read about these things now on the Internet. Read this for instance.
  
  Saint Athanasius of Alexandria (/?æ???ne???s/; Greek: ????????? ????????????, Athanásios Alexandrías; c. 296–298 – 2 May 373), also called Athanasius the Great, Athanasius the Confessor or, primarily in the Coptic Orthodox Church, Athanasius the Apostolic, was the twentieth bishop of Alexandria (as Athanasius I). His episcopate lasted 45 years (c. 8 June 328 – 2 May 373), of which over 17 were spent in five exiles ordered by four different Roman emperors. Athanasius is a renowned Christian theologian, a Church Father, the chief defender of Trinitarianism against Arianism, and a noted Egyptian leader of the fourth century.
  
  Conflict with Arius and Arianism as well as successive Roman emperors shaped Athanasius's career. In 325, at the age of 27, Athanasius began his leading role against the Arians as his bishop's assistant during the First Council of Nicaea. Roman emperor Constantine the Great had convened the council in May–August 325 to address the Arian position that the Son of God, Jesus of Nazareth, is of a distinct substance from the Father.[1] Three years after that council, Athanasius succeeded his mentor as archbishop of Alexandria. In addition to the conflict with the Arians (including powerful and influential Arian churchmen led by Eusebius of Nicomedia), he struggled against the Emperors Constantine, Constantius II, Julian the Apostate and Valens. He was known as "Athanasius Contra Mundum" (Latin for Athanasius Against the World).
  
  Nonetheless, within a few years of his death, St. Gregory of Nazianzus called him the "Pillar of the Church". His writings were well regarded by all Church fathers who followed, in both the West and the East, who noted their rich devotion to the Word-become-man, great pastoral concern, and profound interest in monasticism. Athanasius is counted as one of the four great Eastern Doctors of the Church in the Roman Catholic Church.[2] In the Eastern Orthodox Church, he is labeled the "Father of Orthodoxy". Some Protestants label him "Father of the Canon". Athanasius is venerated as a Christian saint, whose feast day is 2 May in Western Christianity, 15 May in the Coptic Orthodox Church, and 18 January in the other Eastern Orthodox Churches. He is venerated by the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox Churches, the Roman Catholic Church, the Lutherans, and the Anglican Communion.

  reply
• Godd 8 years ago

  The scholarship on the "true" history of the church emanating from pure academic research is abundant but believing Christians never refer to these studies. How can they? It will give the lie to many of the things they believ ...
  read full comment

  The scholarship on the "true" history of the church emanating from pure academic research is abundant but believing Christians never refer to these studies. How can they? It will give the lie to many of the things they believe in.
  
  The surprising thing is that the ministers of the orthodox churches learn some of this history but they never share it with the congregation. For instance Catholic priests know of the controversial history of the trinity, how many of the church fathers never accepted it, and many other things but they will never share these with the congregation.
  
  Today, many Christian clergy present the bible to people as if it were one whole revealed truth from the beginning. They never tell them the bible as it is today was the result of an arbitrary project and that many books nearly didn't make it or that some books that are not in today nearly made it but did not. They never tell the people that Paul wasn't the one who wrote many of the epistles attributed to him.
  
  Islam also has similar problems and difficulties. Today you'll hear many uneducated Muslims "boasting" that the Quran today is EXACTLY how Muhammad left it. But this is a big lie not supported by any historical research. The Quran did not become a single book until hundreds of years after Muhammad's death when a compilation was made from the best available material and all the rest burned. How can that be the exact words of the prophet? Those who made the final compilation never met Muhammad just as Paul, who is responsible for much of Christian doctrine never met Jesus.

  reply
• GIDEON ATONGO 8 years ago

  Andy, I don't know your level of education but I can see that you lack critical thinking. As far as you are concern any scholarship about the godhead which is not based on the council of Nicea and the events that lead to it c ...
  read full comment

  Andy, I don't know your level of education but I can see that you lack critical thinking. As far as you are concern any scholarship about the godhead which is not based on the council of Nicea and the events that lead to it cannot be academic, right? If you are a muslim I entreat you to learn about your theology evolved. Religious doctrine do not get estableshed the very day scriptures are received. It takes several years of critical thinking, and in the case of christianity, the inspiration of the holy spirit in adddition to understand scriptures and build a doctrine. Let me say even the prophets through whom the revelations came never understood all what was revealed to date. The council of Nicea which you believe should be the bases of every christian academic exercise was itself academic; with the bible being the reference material from which all arguments were made either in favor of or against the triune nature of God. The triune nature of God was known by christians from the first century and was never disputed until in the third century when a mischievous bishop developed a new doctrine to dispute it. The purpose of the council was therefore, among other issues, to give an opportunity to those whose disputed the trinity to make their case; unlike in islam where those who disagreed with the mainstream islamic doctrines were killed.

  reply
• Godd 8 years ago

  You wrote:
  
  "As far as you are concern any scholarship about the godhead which is not based on the council of Nicea and the events that lead to it cannot be academic, right?"
  
  I re-read Andy's comment and cannot see anywh ...
  read full comment

  You wrote:
  
  "As far as you are concern any scholarship about the godhead which is not based on the council of Nicea and the events that lead to it cannot be academic, right?"
  
  I re-read Andy's comment and cannot see anywhere he made that statement - directly or by implication.
  
  For someone questioning another person's education and ability to think critically, your own understanding of things and deductive abilities leave a lot to be desired.

  reply
• C.Y. ANDY-K 8 years ago

  Godd,
  
  Thanks for attempting to pull the wool from the eyes of our lost brother. Indeed, I specified my starting point for tracing the origins of he god in three concept in my first sentence thus:
  
  "A pity a lot of Afric ...
  read full comment

  Godd,
  
  Thanks for attempting to pull the wool from the eyes of our lost brother. Indeed, I specified my starting point for tracing the origins of he god in three concept in my first sentence thus:
  
  "A pity a lot of Africans have no clue about the pagan origins of the concept of trinity, which was adopted into Christianity centuries after the death of Jesus and the apostles."
  
  "...pagan origins..." I wrote. If he is indeed informed and has a critical mind, then he can debate the issue with this "academic wannabe and school drop-out". Just a note of warning: before I dropped out I was reading through stuff for PhD candidates, PhD holders and Professors of several years standing, one of whom even graciously acknowledged me, I found out on the Internet.
  
  Andy-K

  reply
• C.Y. ANDY-K 8 years ago

  Gideon,
  
  Further to my comment to Good, let me serve you and sundry with a bit of what I had written on the subject before and has been re-editing for posting again for a wider audience. What is below is a cut from my arti ...
  read full comment

  Gideon,
  
  Further to my comment to Good, let me serve you and sundry with a bit of what I had written on the subject before and has been re-editing for posting again for a wider audience. What is below is a cut from my article tracing the origin of the virgin myths that Christians adopted to make Jesus a son of a virgin and a god too.
  --------------------------------
  
  "In this rather brief piece, I intend to present evidence tracing the origins of the myth of Jesus's birth by a virgin, one of many pagan myths foisted on the teachings of Jesus and his disciples, long after their deaths. From this particular myth we have the celebration of Christmas and Easter arising, two pagan festivals pre-dating Christianity. While the latter is known to many Christians as a pagan spring festival to the goddess Eostre, the case is not the same for the former.
  
  With the foisting of the pagan idea of Trinity (God in three) on the Gospel of Jesus by the Trinitarians, the stage was set to adopt the attributes of the "triune" gods. This, of course, has ancient origins in Egypt but are found throughout almost all major civilizations before the Christian era.
  
  The similarity themselves are so staggering that we hardly need historical evidence to conclude that, by deduction, these ideas and practices were lifted more or less wholesale and put into Christianity. Paul had already set the trend, with his compromising of major tenets of the Gospel of Jesus. He claimed "visions" and "revelations" from Jesus himself, of course, in order to make the gospel receptive to the Gentiles by making the changes that he made. These are two issues - the origins of the Three in one God and Paul's corruption of the Gospel of Jesus - that needed to be returned to in detail, but a brief digression into the origin of the concept of Trinity is necessary here. Later, it may be necessary to examine the disputes between the followers of deacon Arius (a Unitarian from whom we got the term Arianism) and his Bishop Athanasius (a Trinitarian), both of Alexandria, among others, which led to the calling of the Council of Nicea in 325 C.E. by Emperor Constantine.
  
  Here, I shall only present the evidence showing that Jesus was not born by a virgin; that this claim of the virginity of Mary was something adopted from previous religions by Trinitarians long after the death of Jesus and his 12 disciples.
  
  In fact, it is even doubtful whether Paul also believed in that, having died in 62 A.D. Bible scholars are now agreed that out of the 13 books attributed to him, only 7 (Romans 1 and 2, Corinthians, Galatians, Philipians, Philemon, 1 Thessalonians) can be said to be, authentically, compilation of his writings, with much alterations and additions ("corrections of errors" by the priesthood, it is called, of course). The process of making Jesus born by a virgin and being the son of God was a long one, completed about 500 years after his death. This was far longer than it took to make Alexander the Great the son of the Egyptian god Amun-'Re, when he visited Egypt in 332 B.C., a practice followed by all the Ptolemaic rulers of Egypt too, just like the Pharaohs before them. Nothing new about making a human the son of a god then. More of that later."
  -----------------------------
  
  I wonder if these things were discussed in that book too.
  
  Andy-K

  reply
• DIET 8 years ago

  ARE YOU SURE GOD EXISTS? GOD IS AN IMAGINARY FIGURE IN THE SKY. GOD DOES NOT EXIST IN SUBSTANCE. JUST FORGET GOD AND FACE LIFE WITHOUT GOD AND YOU WOULD SEE THAT YOU HAVE MORE TIME FOR WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING AND YOU WOULD BE ...
  read full comment

  ARE YOU SURE GOD EXISTS? GOD IS AN IMAGINARY FIGURE IN THE SKY. GOD DOES NOT EXIST IN SUBSTANCE. JUST FORGET GOD AND FACE LIFE WITHOUT GOD AND YOU WOULD SEE THAT YOU HAVE MORE TIME FOR WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING AND YOU WOULD BE MORE SUCCESSFUL IN LIFE. YOU SEE THAT MANY TIMES WHEN YOU PRAY TO GOD FOR SOMETHING, YOU DO NOT GET ANY FAVOURABLE RESPONSE. WHY? BECAUSE GOD DOES NOT EXIST. ONLY HARD WORK AND DISCIPLINE WOULD MAKE YOU SUCCESSFUL IN LIFE. WORSHIP OF GOD WOULD NOT ADD VALUE TO YOUR LIFE. THERE IS A GHANAUAN WHO HAS NOT WORSHIPPED GOD FOR OVER 50 YEARS BUT HE IS SUCCESSFUL.

  reply
• lankwei 8 years ago

  "One day, he had an encounter with the Holy Spirit who revealed Jesus Christ to him through the Holy Bible"
  
  When and where did this take place?

  "One day, he had an encounter with the Holy Spirit who revealed Jesus Christ to him through the Holy Bible"
  
  When and where did this take place?

  reply
• Bob 8 years ago

  Do you ask when Anansensem took place?

  Do you ask when Anansensem took place?

  reply
• Rev. Tutu 8 years ago

  Please you guys should stop arguing and buy the books for me to make my money.

  Please you guys should stop arguing and buy the books for me to make my money.

  reply
• Ofori 8 years ago

  I have been reading through all the comments but nobody made reference to the book in question. It is very sad that Ghanaians or black people in general are always pulling down their own people for no apparent reason. Here is ...
  read full comment

  I have been reading through all the comments but nobody made reference to the book in question. It is very sad that Ghanaians or black people in general are always pulling down their own people for no apparent reason. Here is a Ghanaian author with a book and instead of Ghanaians supporting his work by reading the book to find out what it says, you are rather displaying your intellectual muscles. Not even one person has read the book they are arguing about. Yet they are arguing about it because it was written by another Ghanaian. Therefore they are going to criticize it regardless of the truths in the book. I downloaded this book for free on Amazon and for your information, it is a very powerful book full of insights. Rev.Tutu, in this book, addressed the pagan origins of the doctrine of the Trinity and I think you will do yourself a good favor if you will read the book. Stop criticizing something you haven't even read.

  reply