Dataset search of Trinity to find grammatical and historical constructions

Christian Alexander
Christian Alexander Member Posts: 746
edited November 21 in English Forum

How can I do a search of the Trinity to find grammatical and historical constructions of the term and the term's usage in Greek and Hebrew?

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  • Graham Criddle
    Graham Criddle MVP Posts: 32,475

    How can I do a search of the Trinity to find grammatical and historical constructions of the term and the term's usage in Greek and Hebrew?

    What sort of resources are you wanting to search for this - bearing in mind the word does not appear in the Bible?

  • Christian Alexander
    Christian Alexander Member Posts: 746

    I do not really know. I want to get a broad overview then narrow down into theological and biblical understanding of the Trinity

  • Ken McGuire
    Ken McGuire Member Posts: 2,074 ✭✭✭

    Quite frankly, I wouldn't, and I am not at all sure that it would help. IIRC the term "trinity" was coined by Tertullian in Latin in the 3rd Century, and went into Patristic Greek shortly after. And the Fathers found that they had to rip apart words that had been considered synonyms in order to express the mystery of God, even as they felt called to try to say what God we do and do not believe in as Christians. This hammering out split the church in the 4th century, and if you look closely at ANY figure from before this debate that was consistently orthodox by later standards - including the original form of the Nicene Creed.

    Yes, the roots of later Orthodoxy were there. Yes, I think those who challenged "Nicene orthodoxy" were wanting in their expression of the faith. But for me, when I want to try to understand what they were talking about, I read the actual writings of those who were hammering it out - with significant input from Hanson's Search for the Christian Doctrine of God, Pelikan's The Christian Tradition, and Behr's Formation of Christian Theology.

    Logos has been wonderful in letting me have many of these primary sources at my fingertips - even on my phone. But I can't imagine a software that would shortcut the faithful path of discovery of reading and struggling with these giants of the faith as they figure out how to talk about this.

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