Talk:Trinitarian formula

Jesus Seminar

I actually have no problem with MerricMaker adding the basic paragraph which he did, but I do have great problems with presenting the "Jesus Seminar" as the consensus of mainstream scholarship, because it's not. Please rewrite the paragraph so it isn't so laudatory, and there will be no problem. AnonMoos 17:51, 12 July 2006 (UTC)

As per your request, I have reworked and reintroduced the passage. Please have a look at it to keep me honest, and thanks for the feedback. MerricMaker 18:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

Thanks to whoever edited the section mentioned, however, I removed the "liberal" label applied broadly to the Jesus Seminar. There are about a hundred people in it and some of them are hardly liberal at all if you read their works outside of the Seminar itself. To be frank, there is no such thing as "liberal" or "conservative" scholarship. There is only well-founded scholarship or poorly-constructed scholarship and liberals and conservatives contribute equally to both forms. On a lighter note, I know that the Jesus Seminar was just a distillation of quite a lot of archeological work, translation, and form criticism that was going on before Funk gathered the group. If someone is familiar with that research (dare we dream that someone from United Bible Socities is paying attention?) they might strengthen this segment of the article by actually addressing the various old Gospel fragments, the Dead Sea Confetti and the like. MerricMaker 06:34, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

historical view

I tried to unify this section. Since this formula is uttered by the resurrected Jesus, and the so-called "historical Jesus" is portrayed as not having been resurrected, the scholars who take a purely historical view of Jesus conclude that Jesus didn't say it. Jonathan Tweet 15:45, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Latin

I can have sworn that the appropriate latin phrase was "In nominae pater et filius et spiritus sancti." Is the latin used in the article just the modern vulgar form? Because instead of "In the names of the father, the son, and the holy spirit," it comes across more as: "In the name of father(more or less), sons, and the holy spirit." I wish I understood why this is so. -me -- 01:18, 20 October 2007‎ 24.46.166.57

First off, the form nominae is impossible in Latin -- this is a third declension noun where the nominative singular is nomen, the genitive singular is nominis, the ablative singular is nomine, etc. The ending "-ae" only occurs in the nominative plural and genitive singular of the 1st declension. Also, pater and filius are in the nominative form, whereas a genitive singular case form is required here ("in the name OF"). The genitive plural form ("of the sons") would be filiorum. See Latin declension. AnonMoos 07:22, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Can you "translate" into layperson's language? Thanks. Do we have clear sources for the form or forms in Latin? Maybe there was an ancient form, a liturgical form, a Vulgate form, etc.? Misty MH (talk) 21:23, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

You can get all the information you need from article Latin declension, supplemented by a standard Latin dictionary. AnonMoos (talk) 00:07, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

Greek

I notice the Greek εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος is in the accusative after εἰς implying a direction; a more literal translation would be "into the name of the Father etc." The Latin, on the other hand, uses the ablative after in implying static location, like the English "in the name of the Father" etc. Would the Greek equivalent of the Latin, ἐν τῷ ὀνόματι τοῦ Πατρὸς καὶ τοῦ Υἱοῦ καὶ τοῦ Ἁγίου Πνεύματος (Greek ἐν + dative = Latin in + ablative), ever be used? —Angr 17:26, 15 December 2008 (UTC)

Don't know, but it's not in the accepted Greek text of Matthew 28:19... AnonMoos (talk) 14:18, 10 December 2009 (UTC)

Do we have multiple sources for the form or forms in Latin? Maybe there was an ancient form, a liturgical form, a Vulgate form, and/or a current form, etc.? Misty MH (talk) 21:25, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

The Latin version of the Trinitarian formula is included in just about every pre-Vatican-II Roman Catholic missal, not to mention the Vulgate New Testament... AnonMoos (talk) 00:14, 11 January 2014 (UTC)

into may be found in some reference works, and is included as a footnote of the English Standard Version (ESV). It is an important part of some groups' arguments for or against certain formulas in baptism. Misty MH (talk) 21:29, 10 January 2014 (UTC)

References

Church authority for trinitarian baptisms

The article should maybe mention the issue of Church authority for trinitarian baptisms. I think there is a historical Catholic practice of considering that all Protestant baptisms are de facto Catholic baptisms because they are trinitarian in character. This explains the development of the ecumenical movement and the absence of modern conversion efforts directed at Protestants. Hence, as it is shown in the 2007 document "Subsistit in" in Lumen Gentium about the ecclesial communities born out of the Reformation, the Catholic Church continues to behave as if it literally owns the souls of the vast majority of Protestants in the world. This issue also applies for the Eastern Orthodox, given that the Holy Office continues to assert that the Eastern Churches are mere local Churches subjected to the authority of the Roman protos. ADM (talk) 08:19, 10 August 2009 (UTC)

Holy Ghost

I'm no theologian, by i'm prety sure in anglican (CoE) services "Holy Ghost" is used, not "Holy Spirit". Shouldn't this be mentioned and explained? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.81.11.178 (talk) 20:29, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

Only in traditional-language services. Contemporary-language services use "Holy Spirit". Anyway, the place for the two terms to be discussed is at Holy Spirit, not here. —Angr (talk) 21:12, 4 May 2011 (UTC)

188.81.11.178 -- "Ghost" has distracting meanings in modern English, and should mostly only be used when directly quoting some specific document in Renaissance or imitation-Renaissance English... AnonMoos (talk) 02:04, 5 May 2011 (UTC)

Spiritūs

I won't insist on it, but the "ū" shows that it's 4th declension genitive singular, not 2nd declension nominative singular (similar to the "â" indicating 1st declension ablative singular)... -- AnonMoos (talk) 12:34, 21 August 2014 (UTC)

@AnonMoos The long marks are never used in actual written Latin; they are an invention of modern academics for the purposes of instruction and poetic analysis (perhaps among other things). But no ancient Roman or pre-Vatican II Church author would ever have used them in actual writing. Those who know enough to know about Latin declensions will probably know that "Spiritus" is 4th anyway, or could figure it out by its not appearing to agree with the 2nd-declension "Sancti" at first glance. Crusadestudent (talk) 20:32, 6 May 2016 (UTC)

Actually, around about the 17th and 18th centuries, selective disambiguating length diacritics were sometimes used (follow the link in my comments above) -- most often a circumflex over the 1st declension ablative singular ending, but occasionally also in other cases. AnonMoos (talk) 01:19, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Learn something new every day, I guess. I still think it should be left out though, both because of the context clue within the phrase "Spiritus Sancti" and because the name is traditionally written without it (in the 4th century Vulgate, for example); in my own experience, at least, I have never seen it written "Spiritūs Sancti". Crusadestudent (talk) 02:34, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

I never claimed it was part of the "official" text... AnonMoos (talk) 09:55, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

I'm not saying that the macron is "officially" incorrect, either. I'm just saying that as far as my experience goes, it's never used in practice, and so it would be somewhat misleading to use it here. Crusadestudent (talk) 20:15, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

Holy Ghost and the Great Commission

@AnonMoos, I'm curious what translation was used in the article, then. It looks exactly like the KJV, except that it mysteriously mixes "ye" and "Holy Spirit". I can see "Holy Ghost" being distracting, but this inconsistency (and lack of clarity of which translation is being used) is even more distracting, IMHO. Perhaps a definitive switch to NABRE might be appropriate? Crusadestudent (talk) 02:38, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

I objected to your translation change because it resulted in an undesirable mixture of "Ghost" and "Spirit" being present on the article. Also, ancient Greek very commonly used participles or participle phrases (where the participle agreed in case, number, and gender with the subject or object of a sentence) in situations where English would generally much more naturally use distinct clauses with an infinitive or finite verb, so I did not see the advantage of a mechanically literalistic translation of this grammar feature. I'm not a big translation version connoisseur, so I'm not sure I would have any alternative to suggest without going through a tedious process of taking down various volumes from shelves, but if you can point out anything objectionable or substantively unfaithful to the original Greek in the current translation, I would examine the matter with great attentiveness... AnonMoos (talk) 09:55, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

I understand not wanting to mix "Holy Spirit" and "Holy Ghost". And I'm not curious about the translation used because I'm a Douay-onlyist or anything, but it seems even stranger to mix archaic forms like "ye" with distinctively modern forms like "Holy Spirit". It makes me wonder if the translation given is someone's own on-the-fly translation, or an arbitrary hodgepodge of various translations. (I also thought it might be the New King James Version, but I checked and it's not.) While the grammar purist / formal equivalence-favoring translator in me would prefer to avoid switching participles to conjugated verbs on the fly, I think the real problem here is this ye-Spirit mixing. I know that NABRE doesn't do that. It reads:

Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit

Would you be agreeable to switching the translation to this version? Crusadestudent (talk) 20:15, 7 May 2016 (UTC)

"Ye" is actually less archaic than "thou" ("ye" continued to be used in non-religious poetry that was literary -- but not really archaicizing -- well into the nineteenth century, as in Keats' "Ode on a Grecian Urn"). However, sure, I don't see any problem with that translation... AnonMoos (talk) 01:14, 8 May 2016 (UTC)

Greek accent marks

The grave accents in the Greek text have been mysteriously changed to acute. It would be much better to completely remove the grave accent marks, since they did not indicate any feature of ancient Greek pronunciation (they indicate that if the word were to occur in another context, then there would be a pitch accent, but in the actual context where the word is found, there is no pitch accent). AnonMoos (talk) 21:23, 9 January 2022 (UTC)