So I just got Dr. Robert Morey's book The Trinity: Evidence and Issues. I've only read the first 7 chapters and I have mixed emotions about the book. From the table of contents I noticed that the topics covered are amazingly similar to those which I have addressed in the book I'm working on concerning the Trinity. This came as no great shock since both works are apologetic in nature. Morey takes an interesting appraoch though and that is assuming the Trinity is true and then looking to see if the Bible supports this.
I was a little bored by the first few chapters as my epistomology is already developed, therefore he was only preaching to the choir. He contrasted Christians and Humanists which I saw as unnecessary and he appealed to the Trinity's being a mystery as proof of its truthfulness. I don't know... So far I'm unimpressed.
One thing that irked me a little bit was his treatment of the Hebrew words "yachid" and "echad" in chapter 7. His claim was that if "yachid" were used to describe God in scripture (which by the way it is not) then that would mean God was a solitary person as opposed to a plurality of persons. As an orthodox Trinitarian, I wholeheartedly disagree. The "yachid" argument doesn't hurt Trinitarianism in the least. We believe in One Indivisible God. An Eternal, Immutable, Simple, Necessary Being. Therefore "yachid" is wholly qualified to speak of the NATURE of God.
He then made the common error that echad means "compound unity" when the truth is that it ALLOWS for diversity in unity, but at times has no reference to this at all. The simple truth is that "echad" means "one" -- no more, no less. It's the word that "echad" modifies that tells us whether or not a diversity or plurality in unity is in view. One group is obviously composed of more than one person, while one king would be one and only one person. So we need to be careful not to stack the deck in our favor when it isn't necessary to do so.
I still have a lot to read and from what I've heard it's a good book. So far I haven't learned anything new and some common errors that actually hurt the Trinitarian position have been found, but I'll reserve full judgment for my completion of the book. Another thing that bugged me was Morey's mistake in saying that "Elohim" is the plural form of "El" -- this isn't the case and is a rookie mistake that should have been avoided by a guy with quite a few advanced degrees. For the record, "elim" is the plural of "el" and "elohim" is the plural of "eloah"
Anyway... When I'm done reading it I'll give it a full review...
To be continued...
