Editing Openai/6957e05d-e018-8011-860c-0c0b8e7d65d9 (section)

=== Assistant: The “Three-in-One” Quote in Context ===
==== The “Three-in-One” Quote in Context ====

Origin in the Zohar: The quotation in question indeed comes from the Zohar, the foundational text of Jewish Kabbalah traditionally attributed to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai. In the Zohar’s commentary on ''Acharei Mot'' (Leviticus), we find a very similar statement. The Zohar, discussing the divine name Elohim (אֱלֹהִים), says: “Come and see the secret of the matter: there are '''three''' degrees, and each degree exists by itself; yet '''all are one''' and '''bound together in one''', not divided from each other.”zohar.com<ref>{{cite web|title=zohar.com|url=https://www.zohar.com/zohar/Acharei%20Mot/chapters/25#:~:text=159,of%20everything%20is%20within%20it|publisher=zohar.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>. In the original Aramaic: “ג׳ דרגין אינון… ואע״ג דכלא חד, ומתייחסין בחד ולא מתפרשין דא מן דא”zohar.com<ref>{{cite web|title=zohar.com|url=https://www.zohar.com/zohar/Acharei%20Mot/chapters/25#:~:text=159,of%20everything%20is%20within%20it|publisher=zohar.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>. This is essentially the quote attributed to Rabbi Simeon ben Yochai. It does appear in a Jewish mystical text – the Zohar – not in the Talmud or midrash, but in Kabbalistic literature. The context is a kabbalistic explanation of God’s name Elohim (a grammatically plural name for God) and how it can imply multiple “aspects” of God acting as onezohar.com<ref>{{cite web|title=zohar.com|url=https://www.zohar.com/zohar/Acharei%20Mot/chapters/25#:~:text=159,of%20everything%20is%20within%20it|publisher=zohar.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>. The Zohar describes three “grades” or aspects of divine judgment – elsewhere identified as the Sefirot Binah, Gevurah, and Malkhut – which operate distinctively yet are unified in the one Godzohar.com<ref>{{cite web|title=zohar.com|url=https://www.zohar.com/zohar/Acharei%20Mot/chapters/25#:~:text=Rabbi%20Elazar%20asks%20his%20father,the%20letters%20of%20judgment%2C%20Din|publisher=zohar.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>zohar.com<ref>{{cite web|title=zohar.com|url=https://www.zohar.com/zohar/Acharei%20Mot/chapters/25#:~:text=159,of%20everything%20is%20within%20it|publisher=zohar.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>. In other words, the Zohar is exploring a mystical unity within the divine, using triadic imagery.

Authenticity and Attribution: While the Zohar attributes this teaching to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai (2nd century CE), scholars have determined that the Zohar was actually composed much later, in 13th-century Spain (Castile) by kabbalists (traditionally Moses de León and others)cojs.org<ref>{{cite web|title=cojs.org|url=https://cojs.org/historical_periods_of_jewish_mysticism/#:~:text=This%20has%20lead%20scholars%20to,Ne%E2%80%99elam.%20It%20is%20only%20in|publisher=cojs.org|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>. In fact, the Zohar only began circulating in the late 1200s, and no references to it are found in earlier rabbinic literaturecojs.org<ref>{{cite web|title=cojs.org|url=https://cojs.org/historical_periods_of_jewish_mysticism/#:~:text=This%20has%20lead%20scholars%20to,Ne%E2%80%99elam.%20It%20is%20only%20in|publisher=cojs.org|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>. Thus, the quote is “authentic” to the Zohar text, but it is a later mystical interpretation retroactively put into Shimon bar Yochai’s mouth (as the Zohar frequently does), rather than a verifiable saying of the historical Rabbi Shimon. The Jewish Encyclopedia notes that the Zohar often presents doctrines that seem to echo Christian ideas like the Trinity, but these mystical ideas predate Christianity and developed independentlyjewishencyclopedia.com<ref>{{cite web|title=jewishencyclopedia.com|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15278-zohar#:~:text=this%20belief%20by%20the%20analogies,This%20and%20also%20the%20other|publisher=jewishencyclopedia.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>jewishencyclopedia.com<ref>{{cite web|title=jewishencyclopedia.com|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15278-zohar#:~:text=for%20man%20%27Non,%E1%BA%92eni%27uta%2C%22%20the%20%22Idra|publisher=jewishencyclopedia.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>. In other words, the Zohar’s talk of “three that are one” is part of Kabbalah’s own symbolic theology, not a deliberate reference to the Christian Trinity. Kabbalistic thought envisions God as having multiple emanations or attributes (the ten Sefirot), which can be grouped in various ways – sometimes in triads – yet ultimately unified in the absolute Oneness of God. The “three degrees” in the Zohar are understood by Kabbalists as three aspects of the one divine reality, not as three separate personszohar.com<ref>{{cite web|title=zohar.com|url=https://www.zohar.com/zohar/Acharei%20Mot/chapters/25#:~:text=Rabbi%20Elazar%20asks%20his%20father,the%20letters%20of%20judgment%2C%20Din|publisher=zohar.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>zohar.com<ref>{{cite web|title=zohar.com|url=https://www.zohar.com/zohar/Acharei%20Mot/chapters/25#:~:text=159,of%20everything%20is%20within%20it|publisher=zohar.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>.

Use in Christian and Apologetic Literature: Despite its mystical intent, this Zohar passage has been repeatedly cited by Christian writers – often out of context – to suggest that even Jewish tradition hints at a triune nature of God. For example, the 19th-century Bible commentator Adam Clarke (drawing on earlier scholar Henry Ainsworth) eagerly quoted “Rabbi Simeon ben Joachi” on Elohim – “there are three degrees, and each degree by itself alone, and yet notwithstanding they are all one” – and remarked that “he must be strangely prejudiced indeed who cannot see the doctrine of a Trinity… expressed in these words.”sacred-texts.com<ref>{{cite web|title=sacred-texts.com|url=https://sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/clarke/gen001.htm#:~:text=deriving%20it%20from%20the%20first,in%20the%20singular%20number%20with|publisher=sacred-texts.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>.  This line of reasoning actually goes back further:  Renaissance Christian kabbalists like Giovanni Pico della Mirandola and Johannes Reuchlin were fascinated by the Zohar, believing it contained esoteric confirmation of Christian doctrines. They pointed to Zoharic statements about God’s “threefold” nature (for instance, “the Ancient of Days has three heads… all three forming but one”jewishencyclopedia.com<ref>{{cite web|title=jewishencyclopedia.com|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15278-zohar#:~:text=this%20belief%20by%20the%20analogies,This%20and%20also%20the%20other|publisher=jewishencyclopedia.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>) as evidence that the Trinity was embedded in Jewish mysticism. The Jewish Encyclopedia observes that Christian scholars, “deluded by the similarity of these teachings to certain Christian dogmas,” propagated such Zohar passages in support of Christianityjewishencyclopedia.com<ref>{{cite web|title=jewishencyclopedia.com|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15278-zohar#:~:text=this%20belief%20by%20the%20analogies,This%20and%20also%20the%20other|publisher=jewishencyclopedia.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>jewishencyclopedia.com<ref>{{cite web|title=jewishencyclopedia.com|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15278-zohar#:~:text=for%20man%20%27Non,%E1%BA%92eni%27uta%2C%22%20the%20%22Idra|publisher=jewishencyclopedia.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>. Notably, parts of the Zohar were translated into Latin (e.g. by Joseph de Voisin and later in Knorr von Rosenroth’s Kabbala Denudata, 1677) precisely because of this perceived value in Christian apologeticsjewishencyclopedia.com<ref>{{cite web|title=jewishencyclopedia.com|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15278-zohar#:~:text=for%20man%20%27Non,%E1%BA%92eni%27uta%2C%22%20the%20%22Idra|publisher=jewishencyclopedia.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>.

Jewish Perspectives and Clarifications: Mainstream Jewish scholars and anti-missionary voices caution against reading the Zohar as if it taught the Trinity. They stress that the Zohar’s “three unity” language is internal to Jewish theology, referring to the unity of divine attributes or Sefirot, and not a literal three-person Godhead in the Christian sense. In fact, the Zohar’s theology ultimately posits ten interrelated emanations of God, not only three. As Jewish theologian David R. Blumenthal puts it, when one actually examines the Zoharic view of God’s unity, “three is not enough” – God’s fullness is more complex than a simple triaddavidblumenthal.org<ref>{{cite web|title=davidblumenthal.org|url=http://davidblumenthal.org/Trinity.html#:~:text=To%20put%20it%20in%20declarative,is%20more%20than%20three|publisher=davidblumenthal.org|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>. In other words, Kabbalah’s God is emphatically one, though manifested through many facets; any surface resemblance to the Trinity is coincidental or allegorical. Some Orthodox Jewish authorities even regard literal belief in a triune deity as heretical, noting that interpreting the Zohar’s words as endorsing a Trinity would violate the Jewish principle of God’s indivisible unitymikyab.net<ref>{{cite web|title=mikyab.net|url=https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%94%D7%90%D7%9D-%D7%99%D7%A9-%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%95%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%9E%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA%D7%A4%D7%99%D7%9D-%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9F-%D7%9E%D7%90%D7%9E%D7%99%D7%A0%D7%99-%D7%94%D7%96%D7%95%D7%94%D7%A8-%D7%95/#:~:text=%D7%90%D7%A0%D7%99%20%D7%9E%D7%91%D7%99%D7%9F%20%D7%A9%D7%9B%D7%91%D7%95%D7%93%20%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%91%20%D7%9C%D7%90,%D7%91%D7%91%D7%A8%D7%9B%D7%94%20%D7%9C%D7%91%D7%99%D7%90|publisher=mikyab.net|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>. The three degrees in the quote are therefore understood as a mystical unity of three divine powers or qualities (forces of judgment and mercy) within the one God, not as three separate entities.

Misquotations and Distortions: It is also important to note that not all attributions of “Trinity” ideas to the Zohar are reliable. There have been cases of misquotation or even fabrication. For instance, early 20th-century missionary Leopold Cohn (founder of Chosen People Ministries) published a pamphlet claiming the Zohar’s commentary on the Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4) explicitly supported the Trinity. He even asserted the Zohar identified the Messiah as part of a “triune Jehovah.” However, Jewish researchers later exposed this as spurious – “no such text exists in the Zohar.” It was essentially a fraudulent insertion used to bolster Christian claimsbloggingtheology.net<ref>{{cite web|title=bloggingtheology.net|url=https://bloggingtheology.net/2016/10/13/trinitarian-forgery-and-the-zohar/#:~:text=the%20Zohar%E2%80%99s%20commentary%20on%20Deuteronomy,relevant%20Zohar%20commentary%20on%20the|publisher=bloggingtheology.net|date=2016-10-13|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>. This fabricated Zohar passage has nonetheless circulated in some missionary literature, demonstrating how quotations from Jewish texts can be distorted for apologetic purposesbloggingtheology.net<ref>{{cite web|title=bloggingtheology.net|url=https://bloggingtheology.net/2016/10/13/trinitarian-forgery-and-the-zohar/#:~:text=the%20Zohar%E2%80%99s%20commentary%20on%20Deuteronomy,relevant%20Zohar%20commentary%20on%20the|publisher=bloggingtheology.net|date=2016-10-13|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>. In contrast, the “Come and see… Elohim; there are three degrees…” quote is genuinely in the Zohar, but its meaning is often oversimplified when lifted out of context.

Conclusion: In summary, the famous saying attributed to Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai about “the mystery of the word Elohim” does appear in the Zohar (Zohar III, 65a on Acharei Motzohar.com<ref>{{cite web|title=zohar.com|url=https://www.zohar.com/zohar/Acharei%20Mot/chapters/25#:~:text=159,of%20everything%20is%20within%20it|publisher=zohar.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>). It is an authentic Kabbalistic teaching, though not a mainstream Jewish exegetical comment from antiquity. Instead, it reflects the medieval mystics’ view of divine unity-in-multiplicity. Later readers – especially Christian theologians – found the language strikingly parallel to the Trinity and often appropriated it as proof that even Jewish tradition hints at a triune Godsacred-texts.com<ref>{{cite web|title=sacred-texts.com|url=https://sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/clarke/gen001.htm#:~:text=deriving%20it%20from%20the%20first,in%20the%20singular%20number%20with|publisher=sacred-texts.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>jewishencyclopedia.com<ref>{{cite web|title=jewishencyclopedia.com|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15278-zohar#:~:text=this%20belief%20by%20the%20analogies,This%20and%20also%20the%20other|publisher=jewishencyclopedia.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>. However, from a scholarly and Jewish perspective, this quote is not an endorsement of the Trinity doctrine. Rather, it’s a mystical metaphor: the Zohar’s “three degrees” are aspects or Sefirot of one God, mystically unified. Claims that this validates Christian theology should therefore be met with caution. As shown, some missionary works have even gone beyond the real text, fabricating Zohar passages to support their claimsbloggingtheology.net<ref>{{cite web|title=bloggingtheology.net|url=https://bloggingtheology.net/2016/10/13/trinitarian-forgery-and-the-zohar/#:~:text=the%20Zohar%E2%80%99s%20commentary%20on%20Deuteronomy,relevant%20Zohar%20commentary%20on%20the|publisher=bloggingtheology.net|date=2016-10-13|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>. The consensus of historians is that the Zohar was written in the 13th century and only attributed to Shimon bar Yochaicojs.org<ref>{{cite web|title=cojs.org|url=https://cojs.org/historical_periods_of_jewish_mysticism/#:~:text=This%20has%20lead%20scholars%20to,Ne%E2%80%99elam.%20It%20is%20only%20in|publisher=cojs.org|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>, meaning the quote is a later interpretation placed into a revered sage’s mouth. It remains a fascinating example of how Jewish mystical lore and Christian Trinitarian ideas can coincide in language, yet differ in intent and theology.

Sources: The Zohar, Acharei Mot (Zohar III 65a)zohar.com<ref>{{cite web|title=zohar.com|url=https://www.zohar.com/zohar/Acharei%20Mot/chapters/25#:~:text=159,of%20everything%20is%20within%20it|publisher=zohar.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>; Jewish Encyclopedia (1906), s.v. “Zohar,” noting triadic Godhead imagery in Zoharjewishencyclopedia.com<ref>{{cite web|title=jewishencyclopedia.com|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15278-zohar#:~:text=this%20belief%20by%20the%20analogies,This%20and%20also%20the%20other|publisher=jewishencyclopedia.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>jewishencyclopedia.com<ref>{{cite web|title=jewishencyclopedia.com|url=https://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/15278-zohar#:~:text=for%20man%20%27Non,%E1%BA%92eni%27uta%2C%22%20the%20%22Idra|publisher=jewishencyclopedia.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>; Adam Clarke’s Commentary on Genesis (1831) quoting the Zohar on Elohim as evidence of the Trinitysacred-texts.com<ref>{{cite web|title=sacred-texts.com|url=https://sacred-texts.com/bib/cmt/clarke/gen001.htm#:~:text=deriving%20it%20from%20the%20first,in%20the%20singular%20number%20with|publisher=sacred-texts.com|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>; Yahya Snow, “Trinitarian Forgery and the Zohar?” (blog) summarizing Gerald Sigal’s research on a forged Zohar quote in missionary literaturebloggingtheology.net<ref>{{cite web|title=bloggingtheology.net|url=https://bloggingtheology.net/2016/10/13/trinitarian-forgery-and-the-zohar/#:~:text=the%20Zohar%E2%80%99s%20commentary%20on%20Deuteronomy,relevant%20Zohar%20commentary%20on%20the|publisher=bloggingtheology.net|date=2016-10-13|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>; and academic discussions of Zohar’s authorship and theologycojs.org<ref>{{cite web|title=cojs.org|url=https://cojs.org/historical_periods_of_jewish_mysticism/#:~:text=This%20has%20lead%20scholars%20to,Ne%E2%80%99elam.%20It%20is%20only%20in|publisher=cojs.org|access-date=2026-01-03}}</ref>. Each of these confirms that the quote is real but must be understood in its proper mystical context, rather than as a literal proto-Trinitarian statement.