Evangelical Apologist Embarrasses Himself on the Trinity and Genesis 20:13

I was recently informed by a "response" to my article More Trinitarian Logical Fallacies by an Evangelical Protestant by the name of Douglas Burnham. As proof of his ignorance and lack of intellectual honesty and integrity, here are his comments about Gen 20:13:

I already discussed this in the article, which I will reproduce below. However, I will note that he also tries to argue that the Trinity is not illogical(!) As one of the many disproofs of such, consider the statement in the Athanasian Creed that states that "just as we are obliged by Christian truth to acknowledge each person separately both God and Lord, so we are forbidden by the Catholic religion to speak of three Gods or Lord," Dale Tuggy wrote the following:

This explanation falls short, though. It seems that the subject has been changed from how we are to think to how we are to speak. each of the three must be called "God" and "Lord," and the Christian is not to say "three Gods" or "three Lords." But why these rules, if indeed each of the three "is God" and they truly are three? This famous creed leaves us wondering.

Imagine meeting a new neighbor who introduces you to the two women at his side.

“Hi neighbor!” This is my wife Alice. We’ve been married for exactly five years.”

“Pleased to meet you.”

“And this is my wife Betty,” he says, pointing to the other women. “We’ve been married exactly three years.”

“I’m pleased to meet you and your two wives,” you reply. “I’ve never met anyone who was married to two women.”

“Oh no, neighbor, we don’t say ‘two wives’ or ‘two women.’ In truth, I’m married to just one women; I have just one wife. True, Alice is one person, and Betty is another; but we “neither confuse the persons nor divide the wifehood.”

This exchange would leave you confused (not to mention uncomfortable). You can see that Alice and Betty are two different beings, and their husband has told you of their different beings, and their husband has told you of their different wedding dates. But you’ve been told that they’re a single wife, even though each alone is a wife and you’ve been told not to say “two wives” or “two women” about them. You might wonder if this man has some idiosyncratic way of counting wives! (Dale Tuggy, What is the Trinity? Thinking About the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit [2017], 9-10)

For those wishing to delve more into the topic, Tuggy has a two-part podcast series that I highly recommend, 10 Apologists' Mistakes About the Trinity, wherein he exposes the more common fallacious arguments in favour of classical Trinitarianism:

10. The Trinity doctrine is not obviously contradictory, so problem solved!
9. There has always, or at least since the fourth century, been a single, dominant doctrine of the Trinity.
8. Trinitarian theology is obviously implied by scripture.
7. “The” Trinity doctrine is “the Christian view” about God.
6. Trite, new-fangled summaries of “the” doctrine.
5. New-fangled slogans and grandiose claims.
4. Dubious “proofs” of the Trinity from reason.
3. Flights of speculation about the atonement.
2. Confusing the Trinity with the “deity of Christ.”
1. Linguistic sophistry: “Let us make,” “elohim,” “echad.”

Part 1 (arguments 10-6)

Part 2 (arguments 5-1)

While one will disagree with Tuggy on occasion, as he holds to a Socinian Christology (Jesus only notionally, but personally, pre-existed--a view similar to Anthony Buzzard, Christadelphians, and others), he does show the many problems of the Latin/Creedal formulations of the Trinity in his podcast and writings.

With respect to elohim being coupled with a plural verb, there are other instances where such a construction appears in the Hebrew Bible and it refers to plural "elohim," not a singular as he desperately argues for in Gen 20:13 (his attempt to side-step this basic rule of Hebrew grammar is driven by his theology, not sound exegesis--similar to how Catholics argue that αδελφος can mean "near kinsman"/"cousin" in the Greek New Testament [click here for a refutation of Tim Staples on this point]). Indeed, using his "logic" (read: ignorance about basic biblical Hebrew), translations rendering the second instance of elohim as plural in Psa 82:1 is in error. The Hebrew reads:

‎ אֱלֹהִים נִצָּב בַּעֲדַת־אֵל בְּקֶרֶב אֱלֹהִים יִשְׁפֹּט׃

The first instance of elohim is coupled with a verb in the singular, thus translations rendering it in the singular; however, the second (in red) instance refers to plural elohim, thus "gods" or "divine beings" being used. Note the following modern translations:

God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment. (NRSV)

God stands in the divine assembly; among the divine beings He pronounces judgement. (1985 JPS Tanakh)

God takes His stand in His own congregation. He judges in the midst of the rulers. (1995 NASB [see this article by Daniel McClellan for a discussion of why elohim is not a reference to human rulers as the NASB's use of "rulers" argues for; however, the point stands that these [conservative] Protestants render the second instance of elohim as a plural, not singular)

In a recent commentary, Evangelical Protestant scholars Nancy Declaissé-Walford, Rolf A. Jacobson, and Beth Laneel Tanner, The Book of Psalms (New International Old Testament Commentary; Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2014), 641, 642, 680 argues that the elohim in Psa 82 and 89 are deities, not human judges:

Psalm 82: King of the Gods Psalm 82 places the modern reader in a very unfamiliar world. Modern thinkers hold to a monotheistic theology, meaning there is only one god and the gods of others simply do not exist. Ancient Israel did not have the same definition of monotheism. Indeed, for them not only did other gods exist, but these gods were active in the world.[1] This psalm gives us a window on the assembly of the gods, a place where the gods are gathered to make decisions about the world.[2] This council is part of the greater ancient Near Eastern mythology and would be a familiar image to ancient Israelites.[3] [1] A multitude of texts demonstrate this belief, e.g. Exod. 20:3-6; Deut. 4:15-20; josh. 24:14-15. In addition, many prophetic texts extol the people to love God alone and not go after other gods, e.g., Jer. 8:19; Hos. 11:2. In later texts, the theology seems to move more toward an exclusive monotheism; see. Isa. 41:21-24 . . . Verses 6-7 place the gods on equal footing with the humans. They have lost their immortality, hence their god status[4]. This ability for the God of Israel to demote the others speaks of the power of the king of the council. The king alone can control all of the other gods. This divine trial also demonstrates the fairness of Israel’s god. This god is not capricious, but sentences the other gods for their refusal to act in ways that reflect the values of God’s kingdom . . . [Psalm 89:5-8] set the state in the heavenly council. In vv.5 and 8, God is praised by the heavens for God’s faithfulness, and this certainly continues the theme of vv.1-4 while also broadening God’s faithfulness to the whole world. The questions in v.6 are rhetorical, just as in Isa. 40:18 and Pss. 18:31 and 77:13, followed by the declaration of God’s clear supremacy among the gods (v.7). God is not only the God of Israel but is the chief god of the council, and all others bow before the Lord. [2] See 1 Kgs. 22:19-23; Job 1:6-12; Zech. 1:7-17. [3] See Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic, pp. 177-90. [4] The Gilgamesh Epic is a story that concerns Gilgamesh’s quest for immortality that will make him a god, indicating the importance of immortality in ancient myth.

LDS scholar Daniel McClellan has a number of articles on elohim on his blog (click here).

Another relevant verse is Gen 35:7:

And there he [Jacob] built an altar and called the place El-bethel, because it was there that God had revealed himself to him when he fled from his brother. (NRSV)

In the Hebrew, the verb “to reveal” (גלה) is in the third person plural (נִגְל֤וּ), indicating that הָֽאֱלֹהִ֔ים (the elohim) means “the gods,” that is, a plurality of gods who, according to the author of Genesis, have ontological existence (false idols and the like are not in view here). As one commentator noted:

there the gods had revealed themselves to him] The pl. vb. together with the use of the art. suggests that the sentence preserves a more polytheistic version of the Bethel-legend than 28:12,—one in which the ‘angels of God’ were spoken of as simply אֱלֹהִים (John Skinner, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on Genesis [New York: Scribner, 1910], 424.)

As they say on one of my favourite comedies, "And now for something completely different." Here I will simply reproduce my comments on Gen 20:13 that Burnham, for some reason or another (due to being deceptive and/or just plain ignorant) embarrassed himself on (e.g., his comments about elohim being singular--I clearly discussed why it should be plural, as it is followed by a plural verb, etc., and responded to the NET and J.P. Holding on the relevant issues).

Firstly, a short Hebrew lesson. The term   אֱלֹהִים is irregular in that, while its form is plural, it can denote either a singular or plural Elohim (“G/god[s]”—not “human judges”) depending on the verb it is coupled with. For instance, in Gen 1:1, it is coupled with a verb in the second person singular, so Elohim is singular; however, there are many instances where it is coupled with a verb in the plural, denoting plural “G/gods” (e.g., Psa 82:6).

In Gen 20:13, the Hebrew reads (followed by my transliteration and translation of the text in red):

וַיְהִ֞י כַּאֲשֶׁ֧ר הִתְע֣וּ אֹתִ֗י אֱלֹהִים֘ מִבֵּ֣ית אָבִי֒ וָאֹמַ֣ר לָ֔הּ זֶ֣ה חַסְדֵּ֔ךְ אֲשֶׁ֥ר תַּעֲשִׂ֖י עִמָּדִ֑י אֶ֤ל כָּל־הַמָּקוֹם֙ אֲשֶׁ֣ר נָב֣וֹא שָׁ֔מָּה אִמְרִי־לִ֖י אָחִ֥י הֽוּא׃

Wyhy k'sr ht'w 'ty 'lhym mbbyt 'by ...

And it came to pass when (the) Gods caused me to wander from my father's house...

Another way to render the pertinent phrase would be, "And it came to pass when (the) Gods caused me to wander from my father's house . . ."

Not only is this consistent with LDS theology, but also supports the creation story in the Book of Abraham. If it had been the singular 'God', it would have been ht'h 'lhym rather than the plural ht'w 'lhym, consistent with the creation account of the Book of Abraham (Abraham 4:1ff) and LDS theology, though it blows strict forms of monotheism (whether Unitarian or creedal Trinitarian) out of the water. If one wants to see the exegetical gymnastics Trinitarians have to engage in to play-down the theological importance of this verse. As one such example, note the following from the NET Bible:

The Hebrew verb is plural. This may be a case of grammatical agreement with the name for God, which is plural in form. However, when this plural name refers to the one true God, accompanying predicates are usually singular in form. Perhaps Abraham is accommodating his speech to Abimelech's polytheistic perspective. (See GKC 463 §145.i.) If so, one should translate, "when the gods made me wander."

Such words echoe that of Gordon Wenham in vol. 2 p. 73 of the Word Biblical Commentary on Genesis. Evangelicals and others who hold to similar views on the "number" of God are in a precarious position--either claim Abraham endorsed something that would be idolatrous and blasphemous in their theological perspective, wherein Abraham accommodated his language and theology to fit that of a pagan non-believer's theology (and this was *after* Gen 15:6, where, according to most Protestant commentators, Abraham was justified by God[!]; also note that is never condemned by God in the Genesis text, too) or that Abraham and the author of Genesis believed in a "plurality of Gods."

A much weaker "response" can be seen in this article by J.P. Holding. In discussing this verse, Holding writes:

This is hardly proof of polytheism in a real sense. Of course, we may say "Allah is the God of the Muslims" without affirming the objective reality of Allah. There is no indication that Abraham at this point considered these gods to have an objective existence.

Actually, Abraham did affirm the ontological/objective existence of these gods. It is not similar to one saying "Vishnu is one of the gods of Hinduism." How so? Because this is part of Abraham's own speech to Abimelech! Here is Gen 20:10-13 from the NRSV:

And Abimelech said to Abraham, "What were you thinking of, what you did this thing?" Abraham said, "I did it because I thought, There is no fear of God at all in this place, and they will kill me because of my wife. Besides, she is indeed my sister, the daughter of my father but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife. And when God caused me to wander (Heb: the gods [they] caused me to wander) from my father's house, I said to her, 'This is the kindness you must do me: at every place to which we come, say of me, He is my brother.'"

Contra Holding, Abraham did affirm the ontological existence of the plurality of gods. This verse blows holes into various Trinitarian and Unitarian theologies today, though such is consistent with Latter-day Saint theology.

Honestly, I have seen more intellectual integrity from pro-choice activists than Evangelicals such as Burnham; at least the former, at best, can only destroy the body; the latter, Evangelical Protestantism, however, destroys the soul (cf. Matt 10:28). Rather unsurprisingly, many Evangelicals who lack basic skills in theology and exegesis have applauded Burnham's embarrassing piece:

Jordan McDaniel, by the way, is the same individual who embarrassed himself not too long ago in a really pathetic attempt to defend Sola Scriptura on Jaxon Washburn's blog:

"A Defense of Sola Scriptura Continued" (cf. Not by Scripture Alone: A Latter-day Saint Refutation of Sola Scriptura)

I think the following from another of my favourite comedies really sums up how bad this "response" (as well as comments from the Evangelical cheerleading squad):

Update:

A friend alerted me to the following "response" from Burnham, one that is dripping with projection (by the way, I hold degrees in theology and anthropology, so I do have relevant qualifications; Burnham's comments are slanderously false in this respect):

As I said, like dealing with a pro-choice activist.