Jewish Roots of the Trinity update

While on holiday I was struck by a visual experience that I felt illustrated powerfully two suggestions this blog has made and is making now, but it caused me to look back at a post I made on 8 May 2017, when I wrote a post that would become one of my more significant and most visited posts: Jewish Roots of the Trinity. I even translated it into French. But I realised as I re-read it that it needed updating, which is what I have now done. I haven't touched the explanation, which I still feel is accurate and is reflecting my longer-term historical perspective on the development of a Triune-God theology. However, the bullets I wrote were not as clear as I had hoped and mingled the various Christian mutations of the Jewish worldview in a way I now found confusing.

The bullets still remain theologically dense - but now I am sitting the Triune Hub idea on three clearer Christian mutations, explorable by work clustered around N. T. Wright for the first mutation on resurrection, Larry Hurtado for the second on Jesus-worship and Dominic Crossan for the third on the Spirit-empowering participative kingdom.

If you can't be bothered to read the changes there, here they are in there (I hope) clearer form, first in English, then in French:

The first-century mutation, the Triune Hub, is making Jewish sense of:

• the Jesus events: death, postmortem encounters and enthronement visions mean the resurrection of God's Messiah and Son, physically absent but envisioned exalted and reigning at a cosmic level: at God's right hand.
• This super-exalted raised Messiah is also a clear instruction to worship God's annointed and continue to "follow" him.
• the unforeseeably early resurrection of Jesus winds the eschatological clock forward and prepares a new eschatological window: outpouring of the Holy Spirit, empowering God's people to advance the inevitably victorious kingdom foreshadowed by Christ's victory over death and evil during the Easter-Passover weekend.

La mutation du premier siècle, Le Moyeux Trinitaire, fait sens pour un juif chrétien de :

• Les évènements de Jésus : mort, rencontres post-mortem et visions d'intronisation doivent signifier la résurrection du Messie et Fils de Dieu, physiquement absent mais perçu en vision comme exalté et comme ayant reçu une autorité ultime et cosmique: à la droite de Dieu.
• Ce Messie "super-exalté" signifie clairement l'instruction divine de louer l'Oint de Dieu et de continuer à le "suivre".
• Cette résurrection précoce et imrévisible de Jésus avance le programme eschatologique et prépare une reconfiguration des propheties des dernniers temps: l'effusion eschatologique de l'Esprit Saint, habilitant Le Peuple de Dieu par le symbole du baptême, d’avancer l’inévitable Royaume victorieux anticipé par la victoire du Christ sur la mort et le mal pendant le week-end de Pâque.

By the way, I took the time to photograph this experience and have begun drafting the post to share with you soon!

John’s third impacting figure: Dr Dale Tuggy

Fatscript Episode 7 show notes, John’s third impacting figure: Dr Dale Tuggy

• ·        Onscript: http://onscript.study/

·        (Pennington interview http://onscript.study/podcast/jonathan-pennington-the-sermon-on-the-mount-and-human-flourishing/)

• ·        My book chapter is out! Check it out here: https://www.academia.edu/34726445/Trinitarian_Interpretation_Mutated_Faith_and_the_Triune_Hub_Re-examining_the_Foundations_Chapter_1_
• ·        Mark Gooadcre video on John’s relationship to the synoptics: http://www.christianorigins.div.ed.ac.uk/2017/10/23/johnandthesynoptics/
• ·        My first public interaction with Dr Dale Tuggy on his listeners’ questions show: http://trinities.org/blog/podcast-90-listener-questions-1/
• ·        My main interactions with Dale

1.      Dale’s post: http://trinities.org/blog/dialogue-with-john-on-thinking-about-the-trinity/

2.      John’s response: http://faithandscripture.blogspot.fr/2017/07/responding-to-dale-tuggy-on-trinitarian.html

• ·        Please give us a rating! https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-fatscript-podcast/id1217930034?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D4

Lord Jesus Christ, Part 15: Triune Hub Gleanings?

HURTADO'S POWERFUL STRUCTURE functions well not only in chapter 1 but also as a way in which to organise the historical data that aligns with his thesis of consistent Jesus worship in early Christianity for the rest of his book, Lord Jesus Christ. It seems to have enough flexibility to allow for the diversity of various strands of "successful" Christianity while ensuring that the model is sufficiently broad by insisting that the various factors he identifies are all covered as we move between location and time.

As a reminder: I am not just doing a critical series for the sake of doing a series. I have a thesis of my own. It is not yet as sophisticated or robust as Hurtado's, but it is definitely out of the starting blocks. It is my conviction that study of key works like LJC will help me form the case I want to make for a first-century form of Jewish-Christian trinitarianism that does not require the Triune God idea of post-381 Christianity (when a Roman-sponsored Church Council ruled in favour of the notion of "consubstantiality" of the Persons: Father, Son and Spirit) but rather provides a better platform for speculation about its historical occurrence via hermeneutics theory. So before we continue with the book Lord Jesus C, how might I follow Hurtado's fourfold structure, and where should I depart from it?

1. Monotheism

This constraining force prevented Jesus from supplanting the Father or a simple apotheisis of Christ as an additional God. All of what has already been said is 100% relevant for the Triune Hub hypothesis. But is the Holy Spirit ever at risk of apotheisis? You might think not, but check out this "unsuccessful" Gnostic movement in the early second century:

"Whoever blasphemes against the Father, it will be forgiven him.
And whoever blasphemes against the Son, it will be forgiven him.
But whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit,
it will not be forgiven him, neither on earth nor in heaven." (Gospel of Thomas 44:1-3)

(Gnostic trinitarianism provides an interesting early case of the problem of a triune Hub, but one in which "some are more equal than others", to borrow from George Orwell's famous line in Nineteen Eighty-Four. In this case, it is the Holy Spirit, even though it is considered possible to blaspheme (and somehow get away with it) against the Father and the Son. In other cases, especially in the fourth-century, the theological equilibrium is under threat by subordinationist proponents, who may simply be trying to follow through with authoritative texts with seemingly obvious interpretations like "the Father is greater than I", John 14:28. If the Son is lesser in glory and greatness than the Father, then it is also therefore legitimate to reserve a still lesser place of glory and greatness to the Spirit.)

2. Jesus

Well, this is going to sound heretical, but I think my case is going to be clearest by emphasising and focusing on the John-Jesus distinctions that the gospel writers are at pains themselves to emphasise. So if I were to adopt such a subheading it would likely either need to be "Jesus and John" or "John and Jesus" or possibly isolating John into his own subheading. This contrast does not only propel Jesus more to the centre but the Spirit also, who is the fundamental differentiator between Jesus and John when it comes to baptism.

The points that Hurtado makes of the impact of Jesus' ministry as forcefully polarising his followers and opponents should be maintained, albeit adapted for my purposes, which are to see Jesus moving rapidly toward sharing the centre of the Jewish faith with God, via resurrection, enthronement etc.

3. Religious Experiences

As I already pointed out in my two posts here and here, there is ample scope within such a structure to furnish the trinitarian framework for these experiences.

4. Religious Environment

Since the clearest ideas of trinitarianism that emerge in a late first-century Jewish context follow on organically from the extraordinary events and changes that allowed Christianity's initial emergence from within Judaism in the 30s, I feel inclined to move a section such as this to the beginning. In addition to some of the comments and observations already made on the religious environment here, a summary of Tom Wright's presentation of the resurrection, Larry Hurtado's presentation of Jesus-worship and John Dominic Crossan's presentation of the collaborative kingdom may be appropriate as painting the backdrop of mutations out of which the trinitarian mutation follows, in which the Messiah is ushered into the divine centre and the Spirit is heralded out of the Father into God's now-multiethnic people in this new eschatological timeframe.

In light of my comments above, the early Gnostic threats identifiable already in the contexts into which 1 John, in particular, is written, might require repeating as a shaping force. 1 John combats this famously by insisting on the physicality of Jesus rather than an equal balance between Father, Son & Spirit, and I don't find its pneumatology particularly clear, to be honest (regardless of 1 Jn 3:24, e.g. see 1 Jn 4:2). This case of 1 John raises an interesting point about first-century trinitarianism I need to think more about.

_________________________

I'm still not certain I would maintain the four factors per se, although it is tempting to adapt them for my purposes. My issue is when to lay them out. It certainly couldn't be in Part 1 of my manuscript, which will focus on my initial investigation and its inadequacies (as a reflection of some of the inadequacies of the various explanations for the Trinity currently on offer).

Since my book does not attempt a historically parcelled defence of the factors in the way we will see Hurtado proceeds, it may instead serve as a conclusion section to my presentation chapter for the Triune Hub model, which could provide a launchpad for further historical research into the early centuries of the church à la Hurtado, while preceding my other important offering, which is to fold in the hermeneutical circle principle to look as a more satisfactory explanation for the Hub-to-God transition.

Block, technical issues, faith kick [+ mise à jour]

[MISE A JOUR 26/06/17 - Un commentaire important en français en bas de cet article ajouté, suite à une question d'un lecteur français]

Hi. Apologies for the slow-down on the journey into Hurtado first century Christian binitarian worship territory. I felt like I was on a real charge doing a post every day or every other day, then a few things happened.

Like anyone, I sometimes experience "block": just that inability to engage my mind with the same clarity I enjoy at other times. I am also going through a period in my life when my mind actually totally saturates as well, which increases this effect when it occurs. This effect was either caused or worsened by learning that although SPCK found my book proposal interesting (it definitely sounded from their personalised response that it had been discussed between several members of their editorial staff), they weren't going to be able to pursue it further. So that was a downer.

Then, I had this really weird technical issue with Kindle notes. I don't know if you have tried it, but kindle notes and highlights are a great way of interacting with a book. Kindle have recently decided to revamp their online interface and call this new area simply "notebook", with a nice thumbnail of the cover of each book to hit to see your highlights and notes. For some devilish reason, all my Hurtado notes and highlights on which I was relying for this first century blog cruise we're on are present on their old system and totally absent on the new one. With my wife we probably have a couple of hundred of books on Kindle, and Hurtado's Lord Jesus Christ is the only book that this glitch is affecting. And to make matters worse, the old site where all the content is intact will die on July 3rd. Oh, and I'm getting nowhere with Amazon.

Urggh. This all leads to feeling a bit down about it to be honest, and in a world and market which frankly is just not as interested in trinitarian theology as I have been, I'm beginning to wonder if it's worth carrying on.

Sorry for such a depressing post - I'll also share one more thing about faith. From time to time I read or hear something that makes me really question my faith. I'm delighted about that because it means I am engaging with the criticisms out there and have usually bounced back. My research into first century expressions of proto-trinitarianism led me at various points to the Gospel according to Matthew, which time and again seemed late to me, by which I mean late first century. This actually is another small series of blog posts I need to write, and very important with respect to Matthew's relationship to baptism and John the Baptist in particular. Suffice it to say that there are others that share this view, and that Matthew had access to Luke (it's sometimes called the Matthean posteriority hypothesis, MPH) - one of these proponents made some analyses on this basis about the synoptic burial narratives that stung me. So that hasn't helped either.

Looking forward to a more upbeat post soon, and especially a solution to resume the Hurtado cruise.

Unsuccessful Mutations

"Unwrapping" my digital birthday gift of Larry Hurtado's most substantial work on early Christian devotion to Christ, I searched for his use of "mutation" as a way to understand how Christianity grew in the first century from within Judaism. Of course, I know what his thesis is in general terms, but it is important to understand in more detail the evidence arising out of first-century sources for how Jesus was reverenced religiously and from the offset.

A couple of initial surprises. One of the practices in modern evangelical church of confusing Jesus and the Father was apparently a first-century struggle as well in some areas. I've yet to cover Hurtado's development there.

Secondly, very intriguingly, Hurtado also uses mutation language to describe unsuccessful early forms of Christian thought and practice. In responding to (and grilling) scholar Burton Mack, Hurtado points out that Mack's Jesus had to be a Jesus closely associated with a Sayings Jesus, such as the one found in the Gospel of Thomas. And that brand of Christianity didn't make it.

A question instantly popped into my mind: why? What can we identify about Christianity streams that were successful? As usual, I referred back to my Triune Hub model, which builds on three major developments within successful Judeo-Christianity that mainstream scholars have described as mutations (the combination of these three (along with other data) points to the mutation of faith itself into a trinitarian shape). Let's state them again:

1. The future hope of restoration of judgement and salvation has tangibly begun in the resurrection of the Messiah - nobody saw that coming.

2. Jesus is worshipped alongside God (Hurtado - although I might suggest that Jesus mediates worship back to the Father) - nobody saw the ascension of the Messiah coming.

3. The collaborative/participative kingdom mutation - nobody expected God's people to be directly involved and empowered to achieve God's Divine Cleanup of the world.

Not only do these three central mutations seem to require some kind of trinitarian articulation to faith (in place of "unitarian"), but they might provide the response to unsuccessful mutations. The Sayings Jesus seems to fail on 2 or 3 of these counts, the docetic Jesus on at least the resurrection count I would think, the Marcian Jesus rejects the notion of mutation entirely (i.e. rejects Judaism). The later Arian and subordinationist Jesuses were also unsuccessful but were seated on a couple of centuries of successful mutations. This probably indicates why they may not have denied any of the above.

But this is where it gets really interesting. Unlike some Christian apologetics that may try to squash these three centuries of debates into a small and even contemporary timeframe, we need to see the subordinationist movement as very close indeed to orthodoxy. All the really whacky stuff had already been done away with. In the fourth century we are not asking "was Jesus a man" or "did the resurrection matter". Successful Christianity acknowledged the mutations and had, by and large, left Judaism by now by virtue not least of its trinitarian shape. The question was now to decide how Christ and the Holy Spirit integrate the hub of Christian religious thought and activity. The question is ontological. But my recent discovery via Paul Ricoeur is that the question may not be ultimately ontological (I have yet to decide), but is certainly not uniquely ontological. 

What I am proposing is that because the church zoomed in further on their trinitarian faith, because there was a strong sense of loyalty to the biblical texts (the canonisation of which was in some interaction with the doctrine), which assert that "the Father is greater than I", a paradox ensued. Was the Father really greater than the Son? By bringing in Platonic thought, metaphysics and ontology into the discussion, a platonic-metaphysical-ontological answer to this question was necessary that would not upset the balanced trinitarian faith inherited from the earliest mutations described above, yet would still satisfy the loyalty issue.

An Arian or subordinationist view, despite the negative characterisations we receive from successful Christian historians, could still have rejoiced in the resurrection of the Christ as an anticipation of their own future bodily resurrection, could still have worshipped Jesus religiously and still be acting to lovingly advance God and Christ's Kingdom. But by asserting, for the first time perhaps from within this successful adaptation framework, that one aspect may be lesser or greater than another, may have just been too upsetting to the foundational Triune Hub mutation.

Jewish roots of the Trinity

As readers of my blog may have noticed, I can appear difficult to pin down on my views on the Trinity. That isn't because I enjoy that status - the reason is that my view simply doesn't fit any of the categories that I am currently aware of, and I continue to tweak it.

I see that we must make a distinction between two historical components or phases: a first century Judeo-Christian "mutation" and a late fourth-century Hellenistic preservation of the first-century mutation. Both are hermeneutic effects, but work differently.

In the New Testament, Father, Son and Spirit dominate. Never before in Jewish thought had focussed religious reflection ever been expressed in such a way, but that is the plain and evidential reality that we find in these first Christian texts (including early non-canonical texts, like the Didache).

The title of this post now needs some word of explanation. What I am about to grossly over-simplify is a Jewish threefold centre of their religious worldview and discourse. It is not a Hellenistic product (even if Tuggy is correct to assert an influence of divine triads over the development of Christian Trinitarianism, I would argue that this influence would be underscoring a pattern that we see already evidenced in the texts that we both agree are authoritative). However, it is also false to affirm that the second Hellenistic phase has also occurred, namely that God is triune. First, faith mutates into having a trinitarian structure. Secondly, the God concept mutates into having a trinitarian internal structure but in conformity with the faith mutation stage. 

What is going on in the first phase? The religious space typically accorded by the Jews to Yahweh alone, that hub, centre, core or whatever other synonyms you might prefer, had come to be shared with those other Two (my favoured term is "hub" because, in addition to centricity, it also carries the idea of movement of dependent elements around that hub). 

The first-century mutation, the Triune Hub, is making Jewish sense of:

• the Jesus events: death, postmortem encounters and enthronement visions mean the resurrection of God's Messiah and Son, physically absent but envisioned exalted and reigning at a cosmic level: at God's right hand.
• This super-exalted raised Messiah is also a clear instruction to worship God's annointed and continue to "follow" him.
• the unforeseeably early resurrection of Jesus winds the eschatological clock forward and prepares a new eschatological window: outpouring of the Spirit, empowering God's people symbolised through baptism to advance the inevitably victorious kingdom foreshadowed by Christ's victory over death and evil during the Easter-Passover weekend.

Between the two trinitarian mutation phases, there was a lot of heated debate within the church, particularly over Christ's exalted status as the movement rapidly outgrows its Jewish roots and moves wholesale into the Roman empire. This too is unwittingly hermeneutical, because while debating subordinationism, for example, and trying to understand quite what Christ meant when he said "the Father is greater than I", another threat was lurking in the shadows. By asserting an unnuanced interpretation of that statement, the Jewish root idea of tri-centric religious discourse was under threat, along with the movement hosting the discussion. If the church were to admit that one really was greater than another, then that lesser one would also begin a potentially slippery slide further and further from the divine centre space. This would throw the whole delicately balanced mutation out of whack. At some point, the words trias and later trinitas were introduced to help establish the hub with a referring term, even though God himself remained graciously one of those three.

When eventually events required some sort of resolution to this fourth-century crisis, it is the response to the subordinationists that wins the day. Orthodoxy - if we may personify it - subconsciously realised the inherent paradox of the Sirmium Council, which both affirmed the central task of forever preserving the Trinity and that one of those three really was lesser. Those two views are not compatible. Since it was indeed essential that the Trinity be forever preserved (or perhaps practiced would have been more faithful still to the New Testament texts), it could not be that one Trinity member was greater than another, where "greatness" carried symbolism of not just greatness or glory per se, but centricity.

So it is an over-simplification from the Unitarian minority report to insist that God is one, God is one, God is one, until suddenly a great theological switch is thrown to now insist that God is three in the late 300s. It's an impossible picture and one that would be far too destabilising for the church. No, you have to start earlier than the New Testament and affirm that God was identical to the space he occupied at the hub of the Jewish faith. Secondly, the faith unpredictably evolves to feature three somethings at the hub of the faith - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Thirdly, the space is again reconciled with the being of God, comprising now three hypostases. So while the Unitarian will seek to show the drastic error of saying God was simply one and became three much later on, that person misses the organic nature of the development I am arguing for and the threefold centre of the faith they cherish. The number "three" can be seen as a threat to Unitarians, so they do not tend to focus on the possibility of such an early threefold hub. Perhaps they too, like Trinitarians, confuse trinitarian faith with trinitarian God. What both camps thus ignore is that the first and fourth-century churches share a triune hub. 

The fourth and fifth-century creeds, as ontological in focus as they might appear, should be seen to carry purpose, and that purpose is to guard - fiercely - the triune Hub rooted in the Jewish first-century church, by means of the philosophical tools available at the time. Those tools happen to be metaphysical and appear to be straight up fact claims, but they are loaded with the deeper purpose given at Sirmium.

The startling surprise of resurrection

I am currently researching for some further chapters in my book, Mutated Faith, which is a serious historical re-think about how belief in the Trinity arose in what I believe is a two-stage process over the first four centuries of the common era.

I am absolutely loving looking again at a very cherished book of mine, The Resurrection of the Son of God, by N. T. Wright, published in 2003 (which is also when I bought it). The reason why this is an important book for me again is that I need to demonstrate why this "mutation" talk is so relevant, since I am applying it to the Trinity. There is a fundamental issue that historians of early Christianity have had to come to terms with, which is to answer: how could it have been possible that the first Christians were also Jews? Furthermore, why even did they hold to the Jewish Scriptures - surely the occasional New Testament citation should have been sufficient? Heck, we could just call it "The Testament". Something similar to this was indeed attempted by a Second-century Christian called Marcion, who dissociated the loving Father of Jesus from the vengeful YHWH of the Old Testament.

The answer to these questions lies in the word "mutation". Although other vocabulary can be and is applied (e.g. "innovation"), fundamentally, Christianity described as a mutation of Judaism provides a good historical understanding of how the movement rose up from within an existing religious framework, before their points of incompatibility became too great.

"I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with..."

I have spied out three key contributions to understanding the Christian mutation, all of which can and are described as mutations in their own rights, and all of which prepare for the understated "mumma" of all mutations: the religious core, a.k.a. the Triune Hub.

One of these three key mutations to prepare my presentation of the Trinity (which is founded on developed subjective understanding and not ontological fact claims, thus attempting to adopt Ricoeur's voie longue), is resurrection - hence my interest in Tom Wright's tome. The other two are dyadic worship patterns (worshipping Jesus alongside the Father) and participative eschatology, actively including the people of God in ushering in God's kingdom, instead of waiting for God to do it by himself. These three combine to prepare for the dramatic reconfiguration of the core of the Judeo-Christian faith into three inter-locked entities.

Why is resurrection such a startling surprise? Wright does an excellent job showing how in Judaism and in the ancient greco-roman world, no-one had been resurrected. He also forcefully differentiates where others have assimilated 2nd temple Jewish eschatological hopes in the resurrection from liberating platonic escape for the soul. Why are these two not the same? For second temple Jews, I think more so than second-century Christians, the foundation was Yahweh, their God, who created all things and created all things well. He was a redemptive God, saving his people powerfully from the hand of the Egyptians through the Red Sea. He is not in the business of throwing out duff stuff that he loved, but instead of fixing it.

Despite that drastic difference, and maybe some sense of veneration of former heroes of the faith like Enoch, David, Abraham, Moses and so on, there was no talk of them being raised from the dead. At the same time, hope was crystalising as needs intensified for a Messiah-King to coordinate another great act of Yahweh (aka the LORD) to save his people from oppressive foreign forces. As Wright puts it:  "nobody put those two hopes together until the early Christians did so" (p205). As a result, Judaism was "quite unprepared for the new mutation that sprang up [Christianity], like a totally unexpected plant, within the already well-stocked garden" (p206). My emphasis.

Christian origins video, and asking the question of the Christian departure from Judaism

Dr. James Carleton Paget, from Cambridge University, looks here at current methodological trends in Biblical Studies and Christian origins. It's a fairly follow-able condensed summary of where studies have been going in the last few decades regarding the origins of the Christian faith. Of particular interest to my own work are two points that Dr Paget draws out.

Firstly he is going to insist that of the departure of "Christianity" from Judaism, the literature is increasingly emphasising a fragmented and gradual process, which re-frames, re-directs or simply questions the relevance of questions like "was Paul really a Jew?"

Secondly, he is going to insist that there is a substantial lack in "takeaway" value. "So what?", he wants to ask, about different perceptions in history about Paul, for instance.

So, since I am in the process (a highly stop-start process) of writing a manuscript on the Trinity for an interested publisher, I want to self-assess Mutated Faith and the Triune Hub according to these trends that Dr. Paget identifies. On the first count, do I allow for a less simplistic, monolithic understanding of Christianity and Judaism? How will I frame "the departure"? Since my decision is to address readers like me, with little formal training but a keen interest in Christian origins and what we are to do with some of these creeds, I don't think I need to tackle it with the same academic depth or vocabulary. However, since one of my takeaways is that there was a radical shift of Jewish focus within the Jewish followers of Jesus to a threefold centre of their faith in the first century, it would be beneficial to remember that the Christ cult fold in the tapestry of first century Judaism would not have been known by all, and would certainly not have stood out to all among the throngs of other cults and Jewish groups out there throughout the Roman empire. I would nonetheless like to suggest that in addition to the other reasons developed for increasing distance, that the Triune Hub is a major issue and identifier for the early movement (and as such, required enshrining in subsequent times via the 3rd century middle-platonic ideas available at the time) that may have been repugnant for non-Christ-following Jews, many of whom would have been expectant of a Messiah, perhaps an eternal one, but would not be ready to connect all of that to his departure and subsequent commissioning of God's Spirit as the Third, through whom (or which) all else is identified, enriched, empowered, directed to recruit collaborators for the Kingdom that God entrusted in its entirety to his Son, appointed Lord in his stead. This is not the "be-all-and-all" of separation, especially in light of the weight of research pointing toward fragmented separation, however, it should certainly add some hefty weight to the increasing burden of distinction.

As a small aside, I have been doing some thinking about distinction and separation. Not the same thing at all. If you take conjoined twins - they are clearly not separated, by definition! But they are two distinct persons. One might laugh, the other sulk. One might sleep, the other be awake. And so on - in fact, one could conceivably (or theoretically) die and the other live. Indeed, that is what has happened, I am certain, during various attempts to surgically separate such twins. Interesting that the surgical intervention is to provide separation to that which is distinct. This difference, between separation and distinction, has applicability for both the case of the Christian sect - apparently cast out of synagogues even by 60s or 70s in some cases - and the question of the emergence of the Triune God. For the Christians that were cast out of synagogues, their distinction of followers of a resurrected and exalted Messiah, Jesus, did not require their immediate separation. However, there can be a pressure that results from sustained distinction, like with the conjoined twins, that eventually pushes apart and separates the two. A counter example exists, however, in the development of the Trinity dogmas, wherein the man Jesus is increasingly associated with God, whom he prefers to call his Father, that the blinding glory with which he is drawn into at God's right hand binds them so closely together that for some, with separation now forever defeated, the distinction can also come under threat. For those that know me, they know what I will say next: to their great peril! 

So will Mutated Faith also tackle the takeaway problem? I think it should. It aims to, at least. Since it is only semi-academic will mean that the non-academic half needs to be relevant anyway. My key takeaways are that the new threefold hub, Father, Son and Spirit, is a first century Jewish phenomenon (and shouldn't shackle modern individuals and who knows maybe one day churches on a wider level to fourth century interpretations requiring talk of essence and substance), and is especially necessary for the modern evangelical church to re-adopt: for collective worship and prayer, for individual discipleship and consecration, and finally for understanding the church's role as key (but not sole) collaborator for the advancement of the kingdom of God.