God in 3D
Finding the Trinity in the Bible and the Church Fathers
by Colin Green
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
This groundbreaking book sets out fresh arguments that common views on the doctrine of the Trinity are mistaken, on three counts. One, the idea of the Trinity can't be found explicitly in Scripture. Two, it is a mystery irrational to the human mind. Three, the classical creeds of the church are the best place to start. These old ideas break down in light of recent research in biblical studies.
Writing in plain English, the author sets out where the Trinity can be found in Hebrew and Christian Scripture; that it is rational and understandable; and that there are biblical ways of understanding it that are easier to get across than the classical creeds.
This book offers what many interested in teaching or learning about the Trinity have lacked up to now. And it will be a great help to those who are unsure how to communicate the idea of the Trinity in ways that the nonspecialist can understand.
For the scholar interested in biblical and early-church studies, recent insights from temple theology and name theology produce a fresh perspective that will stimulate further discussion on this important subject.
In the temple of God, we find the triune God.
Colin Green is a post-graduate research student in the field of early-church history at the University of Nottingham, England.
“Christians find the Trinity a challenge: it is a doctrine they have to defend, a topic that seems difficult to understand and something about which all that could be said seems to have been said. At the heart of this fresh, thought-provoking, and yet profoundly biblical book is a challenge for us to rethink how we understand the Trinity and an encouragement to see Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in a new and richer light.”
—J.John, speaker and writer
“Colin Green attempts to recover the Hebraic roots of the doctrine of the Trinity. The Hebrew Bible tells us of God’s name and his glory which dwell in his temple. These mediate God’s presence to his people. So, when the early followers of Jesus began to ask how God was present in him, they had to hand established Jewish ways of thought to make sense of what they had experienced in Jesus and in the subsequent transforming arrival of the Holy Spirit into their lives. . . . Semitic ways of speaking about Jesus and the Spirit continued in the Syriac tradition and among the Desert Fathers and Mothers. They form a significant complement to the Greek and Latin patristic tradition and are important as the church grows in non-Western cultures more akin to that of the Hebrew Bible and Syriac Christianity. Colin Green has performed an important service in returning the church to its Semitic roots at a time when Christianity is becoming mainly a non-Western faith.”
—Michael Nazir-Ali, Anglican bishop