But the belief that Yahweh was multiple in person or expressions goes beyond the mystical rabbis to the time of Jesus himself. Alan Segal, a Jewish scholar, argues that some first-century Jews held a “binitarian” notion of God.5 Daniel Boyarin, himself an orthodox Jew and a scholar, argues that rabbis declared such notions to be heretical only in response to Christian theology, not before.6 In other words, according to some notable Jewish scholars, views like the Trinity were present among Jews when Jesus was teaching in Israel. Only after Jews and Christians parted ways did rabbis declare
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