Trinitarians & Witnessess, What God did the Jews worship? So, why?

Question

Was Paul proclaiming to them Jesus as the unknown God? Acts 17:23 says, "For as I passed by and beheld your devotion, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him I declare I unto you."

The bible says there is ONE GOD, not 3 Gods in 1 God.

Answer 1

That altar was not in Israel.
It was in Athens, Greece.

After learning that the trinity originated in ancient Babylon, and that it was grafted onto Christian doctrine in the 4th and 5th centuries, AND by reason of the fact that the word itself never occurs in the Bible, AND, the fact that the BLATANT teaching of the trinity is ALSO absent from the scriptures, I now, wonder how it is that people hold on so tightly, to an obvious pagan teaching, that brings God's position down, and exalts Jesus to a place he never claimed to belong.

Answer 2

A Trinitarian “Unknown God”

Speaking to a group of philosophers in Athens, Greece, the apostle Paul declared: “While passing along and carefully observing your objects of veneration I also found an altar on which had been inscribed ‘To an Unknown God.'” (Acts 17:23)

Interestingly, the French Pirot and Clamer Bible comments that the Greek philosophers “had not come to a knowledge of God the Creator. Even Plato saw in God merely the organizer of preexistent matter.” Plato's God was a nameless supreme “idea” that his later disciples called “the One,” or “the Good.” It was such a mysterious, unknowable God tied in with Plato's divine triad theory that apostate Christian church fathers set out to imitate. In a sense, therefore, Christendom has an “unknown God.”

Since “neither the word Trinity, nor the explicit doctrine as such, appears in the New Testament,” the philosopher-theologians had to fish around in the Scriptures to find a semblance of justification for a triune God. The best they could come up with were a few texts that happen to mention the Father, the Son and the holy spirit in the same context, although not necessarily in that order. (Matthew 28:19; 1 Corinthians 12:4-6; 2 Corinthians 13:14 [13 in many Catholic Bibles])

Such texts were said to contain a “triadic formula.” On this point, the scholarly Theological Dictionary of the New Testament states: “Perhaps recollection of the many triads of the surrounding polytheistic world contributed to the formation of these threefold formulae.” Then, in a footnote, this work says that in the apocryphal Gospel of the Hebrews, the spirit (feminine gender in Hebrew and Aramaic) “is regarded as the mother of Jesus” and adds: “Thus we have the common family triad of antiquity, i.e., father, mother and son.”

Of course, this was a little too much like the pagan triune gods of Egypt, Babylon and Gaul. And if the holy spirit was Jesus' mother, what would become of Mary? So the church fathers abandoned the pagan “father, mother and son” trinity and invented an original triune God composed of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

But this caused further problems, as explained by the Encyclopædia Britannica: “The question as to how to reconcile the encounter with God in this threefold figure with faith in the oneness of God, which was the Jews' and Christians' characteristic mark of distinction over against paganism, agitated the piety of ancient Christendom in the deepest way. It also provided the strongest impetus for a speculative theology—an impetus that inspired Western metaphysics [philosophy] throughout the centuries.”

Yes, the Trinitarian “unknown God” of Christendom is a product of theological speculation and philosophy.

Answer 3

That passage of Scripture is part a larger story in which Paul is attempting to make a meaningful connection with the city. If you read the whole chapter you will see that in verses 17 and 18 he has been talking with the Jews and Gentiles in the city about his God. However, because they were a monothestic (believing in more than 1 god) society, they thought he was just offering a suggestion for another god that they might worship. When Paul looked around the city, he saw his chance to make his beliefs known more clearly. In the rest of the chapter he is saying basically, "Look, you people are so afraid of worshipping the wrong god or ignoring one of the gods that might get angry for being left out you even have an altar to an "unknown" god. Let me tell you about the one TRUE God that no one around here knows about yet." Paul was not saying that God was unknown or unknowable to Jews or early Christians. He was saying that to those people at that time, he had a revolutionary concept to share with them that there is in fact only ONE God that is in control of everything.

Answer 4

According to trinitarians, it's 3 "persons" in one God, not 3 gods in one God. However, they also say that the Father is God, the Son is God, and the holy spirit is God. Isn't that 3 separate gods?

The Jews did not worship the trinity. At John 8:41, the Jews told Jesus: "“We were not born from fornication; we have one Father, God.” Does that sound like they worshiped a trinity? NO! To them, they claimed the Father was God, NOT the Father, Son, and the holy spirit.

It's never a good idea to stop at one verse and make a determination without considering what the surrounding verses say. After drawing attention to "an Unknown God," in the next verse, Paul says: "The God that made the world and all the things in it, being, as this One is, Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in handmade temples." Here, Paul calls God the "Lord of heaven and earth." At Luke 10:21, Jesus calls his Father the "Lord of heaven and earth."

So, Paul was proclaiming Jesus' Father, Jehovah to be God, NOT Jesus.

BTW, even if Paul were proclaiming Jesus to be the unknown God, what does that have to do with the trinity, which is the belief that THREE divine "persons" make up God, not just ONE "person"?

Answer 5

1) The Jewish ppl worshiped 1 God, YHWH.
He is Father and God to Jesus...
and the whole of mankind.
2) No, Paul was not saying Jesus is the unknown god.
Foxtrot n LineDancer gave u good 411, on that Q.
3) And YOU are correct, the Bible does say there is 1 God.--
1 Cor 8:4--there is no God but one.
Eph 4:4,5,6---
One body there is, and one spirit,
even as YOU were called in the one hope
to which YOU were called;
(5) one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
(6) one God and Father of all persons,
who is over all and through all and in all.

The Christian Congregation of Jehovah's Witnesses
do Not believe in the Trinity; as it is Not a Biblical teaching.
We worship One God, YHWH aka Jehovah.

Answer 6

Jews worship the "God of Abraham" see (Torah)

You said "The bible says there is ONE GOD, not 3 Gods in 1 God."

The Shepards of Hermas, written between 88 and 97 A.D. at Patmos, near Ephesus (Turkey) was regarded as a book of Revelation by the Church. It affirmed the Divine Unity (There is one God), there was a concerted effort to destroy it once the doctrine of the trinity had become rooted in the established Pauline Church. It was one of the books which was banned as a result of the decisions made by the Council of Nicea in 325 A.D.

Hermas wrote "The Shepherd" at about the same time that John was writing his Gospel. Some people think "The Shepherd" was written earlier. Muslims also worhip one God (Allah) also the "God of Abraham."

Shepards of Hermas
"First of all, believe that God is One and that He created all things and organised them and out of what did not exist made all things to be, and He contains all things alone is Himself uncontained..."

(The Apostolic Fathers, E.J. Goodspeed)

Answer 7

The Oneness is what I believe and most early Christians too.
God manifested as the Father, Jesus ,and the Holy Spirit every were at once not 3 in 1 at different times and places.

Answer 8

The Holy Trinity is not 3 gods. They're all one...they represent the different aspects of ones life so to speak. God (father), being the maker of all is at the top, Jesus (son) being the human form of God and Holy Ghost or Spirit being your Soul. it shows the circle of life sort of like in Aztec culture or some Asian cultures they show the snake eating it's tail. That's what the Holy Trinity is suppose to represent that everthing comes full circle it starts with God it ends with God.

Answer 9

Paul was speaking to Greeks there (rather than Jews). Those Greeks were not familiar with the concept of Jehovah (as the Jews were).

Jehovah's Witnesses teach that no salvation occurs without Christ, that accepting Christ's sacrifice is a requirement for true worship, that every prayer must acknowledge Christ, that Christ is the King of God's Kingdom, that Christ is the head of the Christian congregation, that Christ is immortal and above every creature, even that Christ was the 'master worker' in creating the universe!

Jehovah's Witnesses love and respect and honor Christ. But Jehovah's Witnesses recognize the bible truth that Jesus the Son is distinct from and not equal to God the Father (see Scriptures below).

Most Mormon religions (including LDS) believe somewhat similarly that Jesus is a god, and that "Jesus the Son" is a distinct person subject to "God the Father". However, Mormon beliefs about the identities of Jesus, Jehovah, and "the Father" are quite different from the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses.

As mentioned above, Jehovah's Witnesses believe that the Scriptures quite plainly demonstrate that Jesus and the Almighty are separate distinct persons, and the Almighty created Jesus as His firstborn son.

(Colossians 1:15) the firstborn of all creation

(Mark 10:18) Jesus said to him: 'Why do you call me good? Nobody is good, except one, God.

(Revelation 3:14) the Amen says, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation by God

(Philippians 2:5-6) Christ Jesus, who, although he was existing in God's form, gave no consideration to a seizure, namely, that he should be equal to God

(John 8:42) Neither have I come of my own initiative at all, but that One sent me forth

(John 12:49) I have not spoken out of my own impulse, but the Father himself who sent me has given me a commandment as to what to tell and what to speak

(John 14:28) I am going my way to the Father, because the Father is greater than I am

(1 Corinthians 15:28) But when all things will have been subjected to him, then the Son himself will also subject himself to the One who subjected all things to him

(Matthew 20:23) this sitting down at my right hand and at my left is not mine to give, but it belongs to those for whom it has been prepared by my Father

(1 Corinthians 11:3) I want you to know that the head of every man is the Christ; ...in turn the head of the Christ is God

(John 20:17) I am ascending to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God.

(Deuteronomy 6:4) Jehovah our God is one Jehovah

(1 Corinthians 8:4-6) There is no God but one. For even though there are those who are called "gods," whether in heaven or on earth, just as there are many "gods" and many "lords," there is actually to us one God the Father, out of whom all things are, and we for him

Thanks again for an opportunity to share what the bible actually says about the distinct persons of Jesus Christ the Son and Jehovah God the Father!

Learn more!
http://watchtower.org/e/ti/
http://watchtower.org/e/20050422/
http://watchtower.org/e/20020515/

Answer 10

There are 4 Gods. They are Gods because we called them all God, but there is but One True God, Our Father who art in heaven.

We worship God the father, who art in hell, Satan. (Story of the Tares)
The God Moses whorshiped in the wilderness is Satan. The God which said, "I am that I am" is Satan.

Jesus told us this in John 4:20-23, John 1:17, John 3:14, John 6:32, John 10:8, Luke 4:6 and 4:9, and in Revelation 13:10-18, but will you be deceived, yes.