Land and Bible

Summary notes for the One God Report podcast, "The Evolution of the Trinity, Part 1", Interview with Dr. Dale Tuggy First, in AD 100s, we don’t have any sources for what the average Christian believed. What we do have are some sources from elite writers who were heavily influenced by Hellenistic, or Greek philosophy. These elites made a strong push for a centralized authoritarian church government led by bishops in major Roman population centers. Later, these bishops would vote to determine church policy and doctrine. Another main feature of the 100s AD was the emergence of Christian Logos theories. Logos is the Greek word for “word” in John 1:1. Logos theories were an adaption of earlier Greek philosophical speculations, especially of Plato, who maintained that the ultimate Good or Ultimate Source was too transcendent, too distinct, too separate from the physical world to either make the world or have interaction with the world directly. Rather, the...

Does Philippians 2:5-11 describe an eternal pre-incarnate God the Son humbling himself to become man?   Short answer: No.   These are notes for two episodes of the  One God Report podcast, the first one here , and the second here ,  in which we explain some problems and contradictions with the "deity of Christ" interpretation of Philippians 2, and suggest a better way to understand this portion of Scripture: 1.       When Christ Jesus "emptied" and "humbled" himself, he was a human being, not a pre-human deity. The acts of emptying and humbling himself relate to his obedience to God as a human being on planet earth, to be a servant of God and to die on the cross, not "to become a human being".   2.       It is very, very, very unlikely that Paul would discuss what would be an essential feature of Christianity, “God becoming man”, in a by-the-way manner when he is describing the necessary unity through...