Rudolph P. Boshoff

Welcome back, fellow theological sleuths, to our ongoing series where we rescue early Christian history from the clinical, flat-earth historiography of Jake Brancatella’s The Making of the Trinity. In our previous look at the Apostolic Fathers, we established that "not yet explicitly Nicene" is not a synonym for "actively anti-Trinitarian". Today, we move into the third century (c. 190–270 CE), where Jake shifts from examining pastoral greetings to dissecting the first great systematic theologians of the [...]

Jake’s central argument is that if the Trinity were clearly taught by Jesus and the Bible, we should find recognizable Trinitarians within the first three centuries. He then defines “Nicene” using six propositions, including eternal generation/procession and the eternal equality of the three persons, and uses those criteria to judge the ante-Nicene writers. That gives us the target. And honestly, Part III is where Jake’s argument starts developing a rather serious case of theological whiplash. [...]

Welcome back. We have now arrived at Part II of Jake Brancatella's The Making of the Trinity: From Christ to Constantinople, where we encounter the Apostolic Fathers and early post-apostolic witnesses: the Didache, 1 Clement, 2 Clement, Ignatius, Polycarp, the Martyrdom of Polycarp, Barnabas, Papias, Shepherd of Hermas, Apocalypse of Peter, and the Letter to Diognetus. Those are precisely the eleven headings Jake himself lists in Part II. And before we start swinging the theological [...]

There are surely quite a few pages to cover and a lot more posts to make... So, let’s go! Back to Jake’s Part 1. Again, there seems to be a problem with asking Philo to be Nicene. Alright, buckle up, because this particular take on Philo and “Two Powers” needs a serious historical reality check. The argument goes something like this: No full-blown Nicene Trinitarians among pre-Christian Jews. Therefore, the Old Testament could not possibly [...]

A fascinating moment in Jake Brancatella’s "The Making of the Trinity From Christ to Constantinople" pauses the argument to address an obvious problem. The problem is called history. More specifically, what do you do when your thesis depends heavily upon the absence of something from the historical record? Jake knows the objection is coming. He therefore includes two sections near the beginning of the book: “Responding to Anticipated Objections” and “Arguments from Silence.” And to [...]

Well, friends, if you’re reading this, it could be quite lengthy. But the overall clarification needs more context. That's why I’m blogging about it rather than making a two-hour YouTube video that might bore you to death. In this section, I would like to look at Jake’s chapter titled “Theological Diversity in Early Christianity.” For Jake, there seems to be no distinction between Early Orthodox Christianity and the other Jewish/Christian sects that existed during [...]

In 2022, I wrote an article on apostolic succession, particularly the rule of faith and the Old Testament's eschatological expectation of the Messiah's coming. For me, one thing was certain: even Jesus’ earliest followers clearly anticipated the coming of the Messiah—the One appointed to set things in order and usher in the new hope of God’s Kingdom. The expectation was of Someone to come, but the shape and substance of that expectation were formed by [...]

There is something wonderfully confident about the claim that we can simply establish a neat little checklist for determining who is and who is not Nicene. Five propositions. Oh, sorry, six! That little numerical wobble may seem insignificant, but it actually introduces us to the larger problem. Jake Brancatella argues in The Making of the Trinity that anyone who wishes to be regarded as Nicene must affirm a series of propositions concerning the Father, Son, [...]

There is a particular argument against the Christian doctrine of the Trinity that sounds rather impressive when delivered with enough confidence, enough footnotes, and preferably a photograph of an ancient manuscript somewhere in the background. The argument goes something like this: If Jesus taught the Trinity, and if the Bible clearly teaches the Trinity, then Christians in the first three centuries should have been Trinitarians. But we supposedly do not find Trinitarians in those first [...]

When I came across this book, I was quite excited (and still am), because as a Biblical Trinitarian, I welcome any sincere inquiry into one of the most cardinal doctrines of Christianity. So, while discussing this with some of my students in the Islamic courses I teach, three or four of us have decided to grapple together with the information we are discovering throughout this book. Needless to say, this will be a slow read, [...]