https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RmRdZmPIGrA
Couple of things -
If you are interested in Christian theology in general, this video will be interesting to you and you should watch it from the beginning.
It generally goes over how the trinity (God, Jesus, Holy Spirit) was believed to be compromised of separate and subordinate beings (God>Jesus>Holy Spirit) from Jesus and forward. Then in 325AD that became illegal to think, book burnings happen a little later on, control of the translators to misrepresent theologians and change their “wrong speak”, yadda yadda yadda...
Anyhow, for the “Cabalesque” tactics it’s at 33:20 and takes about 10 minutes.
Totally agree with you that primary source material is always better and learning to read it, decipher it, for your own understanding is always better.
Never mind the time. At least you read it. Thumbs up!
Personally, I do not care whether or not people believed in the Trinity. Triads have been around for longer than that. And with the spread of the original message, chances are, when it comes into contact with other cultures, certain ideas will be mixed.
Interesting.
So, when I read Acts, Romans, Galatians, etc, I find it rather stunning that the more Judaic Christians had their own ways, whereas the world we are talking about was way more diverse. Bridging these two needed some guidance. But in general, the Judaic component was easily outgrown.
As I said: people believed all kinds of things, especially in Samaria. A hotbed of all kinds of wild speculative theories. Or Greece for that matter. Let alone in Marseille and Lyon and further up north in Gaelic country.
So, I think that reasoning is post hoc justification. At least it sounds like it.
But I do think politics has had a huge influence in the progression of the IDEA of trinity in Christianity as a whole, especially when you want to incorporate the more learned part of society in one system of faith.
It happened before, and right now, the cabal is at it again.