Affirmations of the doctrine of the Trinity in places you might not expect:

The Hebrew Bible (i.e. the OT), the Qur'an, and the Jehovah's Witness 'translation' of the Bible

All of these sources, when read carefully, testify to the eternal truth of the Trinity. This is demonstrated below.

The Hebrew Bible. Also called the Old Testament, or, more recently, the Tanakh, a term taken from the Hebrew first letters of the Torah (books of Moses), the Nevi'im (Prophets), and the Ketuvim (Writings), the three rabbinic divisions of the books of the Hebrew Bible.

A more complete explanation of why the Hebrew Bible testifies to the eternal triune nature of the one God is given in the drop-down section Trinity as taught in both OT and NT." Three examples will be mentioned here:

  • Isaiah 9:6, where the Son to be born is called "Mighty God."
  • Zech 12:10, where the Lord Yehoweh (inappropriately transliterated as "Jehovah") says that one day, Israel will look "on Me whom they pierced."
  • Genesis 48:3, where Jacob calls the Angel of God who appeared to him at Bethel, "God Almighty" (Heb. El Shaddai). JWs teach, as do Christians, that the "Angel of God" who appeared to the patriarchs was a pre-incarnation appearance of our Lord Jesus. However, when Christians quote Isaiah 9:6 to a follower of Charles Taze Russell and his successors in Brooklyn, they are taught by those mentors to say "But he's not called 'God Almighty' in Isaiah 9:6." No, not in that particular verse, but the Lord Jesus is definitely called 'God Almighty' (El Shaddai) by Jacob in Gen 48:3.

These verses, along with the entiretly of chapter 53 of Isaiah, must have been very hard to understand before the life, death, and resurrection of the Son of God, the Third Person of the Trinity. The historical events recorded in the NT therefore explain these otherwise perplexing scriptures in the Hebrew Bible that looked forward to the fuller revelation of the nature of God as given in the Gospels, the writings of Paul, and the inspired writings of the other authors of the NT.

The Qur'an. The Muslim Qur'an supports the Christian doctrine of the Trinity. This is just a simple exercise in logic.
  • The Qur'an states that the Injil (New Testament), as well as the Torah (Hebrew Bible) are the Word of God. Qur'an, Surah 2:85: Muslims have not submitted themselves to the word of Allah and will be sent to Hell if they do not believe in the Scriptures revealed to the Jews and the Christians. A fuller exposition of this important teaching of the Qur'an that is never taught by modern imams is found in the first section of this link.
  • The Qur'an states that the word of Allah can never be changed (Surah 18:27). That means the Torah and the Injil cannot be corrupted or changed, since Surah 2:87, 89, 91, 97, 101, etc. say that the Torah and the Injil were given by Allah.
  • The Qur'an, Surah 5:47, 48, etc., states that the Injil (NT) existed in the time of Muhammed, and that Christians should consult it.
  • Since we have copies of the NT before the time of Muhammed, the Qur'an says that the NT was not corrupted before the time of Muhammed, nor was it corrupted after his time.
  • The NT, which the Qur'an says is the word of Allah, unequivocally teaches the doctrine of the Trinity.
  • Therefore the Qur'an, by affirming the divine inspiriation, authority, and preservation of both testaments of the Christian Bible, affirms that the doctrine of the Trinity taught in the Bible is true; the Qur'an says the Bible is the unchangeable and uncorrupted word of God.
But, it will be objected, there are verses in the Qur'an that say that Allah is one and that contradict the doctrine of the Trinity. That does not negate what was said just above: The Qur'an affirms the divine inspiration, preservation, and authority of the true Word of God (the Old and New Testaments). The Qur'an, in doing so, contradicts itself in those places where its teaching differs from the teaching of God's true word.

This is the famous Islamic dilemma: The Qur'an, by declaring that the Bible is the Word of Allah and has never been--indeed cannot be--corrupted, shows that the Qur'an itelf is false, since the Bible contradicts the Qur'an in numerous places. Nevertheless, the statement still stands: the Qur'an, false as it is in so many ways, nevertheless testifies to the doctrine of the Trinity because it says that the Injil (New Testament) is the fully authoritative and preserved word of God. And the true word of God teaches us the doctrine of God's triune nature. Yes, there is inconsistency in the Qur'an, but, yes also, it is a direct witness to the doctrine of the Trinity in all those verses that unambgiuously testify that the Torah and the Injil are the Word of God, a Word that existed in Muhammed's day, that could not be corrupted, and exists today as the true word of the true God.

The Jehovah's Witness Bible, called, in its various editions, The New World Translation. The NWT affirms the Trinity for one compelling reason: The existence of the various places in its "translation" where the translators have to mistranslate the original Hebrew or Greek, or add words not found in the inspired text, in order to hide from their readers the true meaning of the texts that show, and definitely teach, the Triune nature of God. Their actions testify that they understood that the texts they were dealing with teach the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, and since the Biblical texts contradict the doctrines of their false teachers and multiple false prophets, they consciously chose to continue to follow the lies of their teachers rather than the truth of the inspired text. In other words, the fact that they deliberately mistranslate Scriptures teaching the Trinity is a testimony, even from the followers of their demonic doctrine, that those texts taught the triune nature of God and the full divinity of the Son of God.

Below are examples of this dishonest (and deliberately wicked, Rev. 22:18,19) method that shows that the mistranslators of the NWT understood that the texts they were dealing with taught the eternal truth of the blessed Trinity, and they had to deliberately mistranslate in order to deceive others into following their false doctrines:

  • In Zech 12:10b, the NWT mistranslates as follows: " . . . and they will certainly look to the One whom they pierced through, and they will certainly wail over him . . ." Here Yehoweh/Jehovah is speaking (vv. 12:1, 4, 9, 10), and in v. 12 He says, in the Hebrew, "they shall look on Me whom they have pierced." The identity of the One being pierced is emphasized in the Hebrew, using the definite-object or accusative particle et before the "the One Whom they have pierced." The purpose of this is to emphasize that the speaker, Yehoweh, is the One who will be pierced on Calvary (John 19:37). The NWT translators knew that if they translated Zech 12:10 correctly, it would contradict their doctrine that Jesus was not divine, hence the deliberate mistranslation. That they did this shows that they knew that Zech 12:10 is a testimony to the divine nature of the Son of God, and hence to the doctrine of the Trinity. The truth was right before them, and they knew it, yet they denied the truth, and in doing so actually denied Him who is the Truth (John 14:6).
  • In John 1:1, the NWT gives us "In [the] beginning the Word was, and the Word was with God, and the Word was a god." The rendering given by every other English translation that I know of: ". . . and the Word was God." Koine Greek does not have the indefinite article ("a" or "an"), and the NWT translators try to justify their rendering by supplying the "a," as can be done in other places of the NT.1 However, that the Word was "a god" is immediately contradicted by the apostle John, first in verse 3, where John writes that "all things were made by Him," and hence Jesus is not "a god," since all "gods," whether interpreted as judges on earth or fallen angels, are created beings. The fact that the NWT translators "translated" John 1:1 so that it contradicts John 1:3 shows that they knew that John 1:1 testifies to the full divinity of the Son of God. That they deliberately mishandled John 1:1 in order to preserve their wrong doctrine is actually an evidence that affirms that this verse, when translated properly, unequivocally affirms the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.
  • In John chapter 1 the word "God" (Theos) appears nine times. In four of the nine cases, "God" has a preceding definite article: verses 2, 29, 36, and 51. In the other five cases--1:1, 1,6, 1:12, 1:13, and 1:18--the definite article is not present. All this is consistent with the standard usage of koine Greek. But if omission of the article means we should translate "a god" instead of "God", then the NWT translators, to be consistent with their misrendering of Jn 1:1, should translate as follows in the other four verses that do not have the definite article before Theos:
    • Jn 1:6, "There was a man sent from a god, whose name was John."
    • Jn 1:12, "But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of a god . . ."
    • Jn 1:13, "which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of a god."
    • Jn 1:18, "No man hath seen a god at any time; the only begotten Son [best texts, including p66 and p75, have "God" here instead of "Son"], who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared Him."
    The inept and deliberately misleading translators of the NWT are inconsistent when they insist that, in Jn 1:1, the definite article is not present before Theos, therefore they are justified in their rendering that Jesus was just one of many "gods," but they do not apply this same logic and render "a god" in verses 6, 12, 13, and 18.
  • In Col 1:16-17, the NWT inserts the word "other" five times in the text because the inspired original says, in no uncertain terms, that Jesus is the Creator, and therefore not part of the creation. Since this contradicts the JW doctrine that Jesus is a created being, the NWT contradicts the meaning of the original inspired text to give us the following (their added word "other" is italicized here, but not in their twisted mistranslation of these verses): "because by means of him all other things were created in the heavens and upon the earth . . . All other things have been created through him and for him. Also, he is before all other things and by means of him all other things were made to exist. . ." Also in Col 1:20, "and through him to reconcile to himself all other things . . ." Why the five insertions of "other," for which there is no warrant in any extant Greek text? It was because the NWT translators knew that, if they left the text as it stands, it shows that Christ is not a created being, but existed from all eternity as one person of the Triune God. The dishonesty of the NWT in this matter, in order to try to maintain their Arian doctrine, is therefore testimony that chapter 1 of Colossians is, throughout, a statement that Jesus is not a created being, and therefore must be uncreated and eternally divine. Because the NWT has to resort to dishonesty in their mistranslations Colossians chapter 1, their adding words that contradict the meaning of the Greek text shows that the NWT "translators" fully understood the original meaning: that Jesus is not a created being.2 They knew that this chapter fully supports the divinity of Christ, and so their dishonest handling of the text is a testimony that, ultimately, they knew these verses teach the divinity of Christ. Revelation 22:18, 19, ESV: "I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book, and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book."

1  It would be interesting to see how someone from the Watchtower Society would translate John 1:1 into Russian. Russian, similar to Greek, has no indefinite article. My Russian NT reads, in literal Russian-to-English translation, just like the proper translation into English from the Greek: ". . . and the Word was God." Would the WS translator have to add a footnote explaining to a Russian reader that the verse does not mean what it says? Or would he/she try get their point across by not capitalizing 'God,' without providing any explanatory footnote for such a rendering? That would certainly lead to confusion due to the contradiction it necessarily introduces between John 1:1 and John 1:3, just as in the Watchtower's English version (NWT) in this place.
2 If you speak to any JW about this passage in Colossians, they will almost invariably refer to verses 15 and 18, which are translated as follows in the ESV: Col 1:15: "He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation." Col 1:18: ". . . He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead . . ." The JW will say that the word firstborn in these two verses shows that Jesus is a created being. If that were so, then the Scripture contradicts the verses just cited, for which the original Greek text says in the clearest terms that Jesus is not a created being.
  However, the Scripture does not contradict itself once we understand what the Holy Spirit means in this chapter (and elsewhere) when He uses the term "firstborn" (Greek prototokos). For prototokos, the standard BAG lexicon gives the literal meaning of the "the first one born," but then adds that it has a figurative meaning as "admirably suited to describe Jesus as the one coming forth fr. God to found the new community of saints . . ." The BAG then mentions non-biblical literature in which the being literally born (i.e. from a mother) is not intended. Even the members of the Watchtower Society cannot take this word too literally, otherwise we would have to have Jesus coming forth from a womb (whose?) before all other things were created. Vincent (Word Studies in the New Testament) says, regarding the application of this word to Christ as the "firstborn from the dead" in Rev 1:5 and Col 1:18, "He was not the first who rose from the dead, but the first who so rose that death was thenceforth impossible for Him (Rom 6:9); rose with that resurrection-life in which He will finally bring with Him those who sleep in Him (1 Thess. 4:14)." For other examples of the non-literal usage of prototokos, see Romans 8:29 and Hebrew 12:23. See also Exod 4:22, where Israel is called the firstborn (Heb. bekor, LXX/Greek prototokos) of Yehoweh, and Psalm 89:27, where David is called the "firstborn, the highest of the kings of earth," although David was neither the first person born in his family nor the first king to reign on earth. When we realize how the inspired writers understood and used this word, there is complete agreement with the several statements in Colossians chapter 1 and elsewhere in Scipture that Jesus is not part of this creation or any other creation, but instead is the Creator of all things that were created.