Preface

My purpose in this book is a rescue mission.

Not a theological exercise or academic project meant to answer every objection. Nor an exhaustive and weighty tome bringing every strand of evidence to the table. A beacon, rather, for people who sensed something was wrong but couldn’t name it, who were never told the whole story, and who deserve to know the truth about where the doctrine of the Trinity came from.

The Bible tells us that at the very beginning, God gave a simple commandment: Do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Almost immediately, the serpent taught to interpret those words, not as a clear and binding commandment, but as a puzzle to be questioned, reinterpreted, and rephrased. In hindsight, we know the serpent enticed Eve to submit God’s commandment to human reasoning. Ever since then, the Bible has been chronicling man’s struggle as a battle of man’s imaginations against God’s authority to issue commandments. Those who chose to keep and live by God’s commandments were always recognized as God’s people. Those who chose otherwise were not.

This book is about exposing the history of that same drama, with the same stakes and cast, through a Christian lens in critique of the Christian “development of dogma.”

The purpose of this book isn’t hidden, it isn’t a mystery, and it isn’t complicated. The title clearly states what I document in the book. Here’s the conclusion the documentation leads to:

From a Christian perspective, God’s first and greatest Commandment, founded on His self-revelation as God expressed it, has not changed.

“One of the scribes… asked [Jesus], ‘Which commandment is the greatest of all?’ Jesus answered, ‘The greatest is: “Hear, Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one”’… The scribe said to him, ‘Truly, teacher, you have said well that he is one, and there is none other but he’… When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from God’s Kingdom.’” (Mark 12:28–34)

Almost immediately after the apostles and their direct disciples passed from this world, non-Jewish Christians began to teach a different way of interpreting those words than Jesus and the scribe had agreed was correct and true: not as a clear and binding commandment, but as a puzzle to be interpreted and rephrased.

According to Trinitarians, God’s commanded words aren’t enough and aren’t clear. They feel God’s greatest commandment must be redefined. This book documents and exposes the sources behind that Trinitarian refinement and its evolution up to the 381 AD version of the Trinity, the most widely held view among today’s Trinitarians.

This book traces two paths: Peter’s confession of the Anointed Man (Matthew 16:16), versus the pagan idea of gods come to earth in the form of men (Acts 14:11).

Matthew 16:13–17: “…Jesus…asked his disciples, ‘Who do you say that I am?’ Simon Peter answered, ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.’ Jesus answered him, ‘Blessed are you, Simon Bar Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.’”

Acts 14:8–15: “At Lystra a certain man sat…who never had walked… Paul… said…, ‘Stand upright on your feet!’ He leaped up and walked. When the multitude saw what Paul had done, they lifted up their voice, saying…, ‘The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men!’…and would have made a sacrifice… But when the apostles, Barnabas and Paul, heard of it, they tore their clothes and sprang into the multitude, crying out, ‘Men, why are you doing these things? We also are men of the same nature as you, and bring you good news, that you should turn from these vain things to the living God…’”

These are two conflicting confessions that plague Christians to this day. In the first century, the Jewish apostles would have recognized only the first confession as compatible with their religion.

One came by revelation from the Father. The other claims that additional critical enlightenment comes from outside the Bible by understanding the gods of the people around them and interpreting Scripture through that worldview. The former honors God’s greatest commandment that Yahweh is ‘one He’; the latter assumes interpreting the Bible through the pagan view of logos [word] forces them to make no other choice than to qualify and redefine God’s greatest commandment. As in the Garden, the method is the same: question the commandment, reframe it, and call the result faithfulness.

I’m telling you this so you can follow the trail of evidence with clarity of purpose.

My position is what Solomon said:

“This is the end of the matter. All has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, with every hidden thing, whether it is good, or whether it is evil.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13–14)

With that priority in mind, I wrote this book.

I have been contending for biblical monotheism for forty years. In that time, I have watched countless sincere believers defend a doctrine they received in good faith, never imagining its foundations lie not in the words of Moses, the prophets, Jesus, or the apostles, but in the mystery religions of Egypt, the philosophical schools of Greece, and the imperial decrees of Rome. That is not an accusation against individuals. It is an indictment of a system—and of those who built it.

What you hold in your hands is the documented case—as brief as the evidence allows, and as sufficient as the evidence requires. This book is not speculative and does not rely on fringe sources or conspiracy theories. It relies on history as recorded by the primary architects of the Trinity themselves, on historians—including historians who are themselves defenders of the Trinity—and on Scripture read in its own terms, through its own lens, without the overlay of Greek categories of thought.

The evidence follows a clear sequence. God established his identity at Sinai in singular, personal, masculine terms: ‘one He,’ by commandment. Jesus affirmed it. The apostles taught it. And then, within a few centuries, a combination of Egyptian Hermeticism, Greek philosophy, and Roman imperial power produced a doctrine that replaced ‘one He’ with a three-personed substance—language the apostles never used, concepts they never taught, and formulations enforced not by Scripture but by imperial decree, exile, and even execution.

That is not the story most Christians have been a party to. But it is the story the evidence tells.

The beginning chapters of this book each document one link in the chain—from the Shema in ~1400–1200 BC to the Council of Constantinople in 381 AD. You will see where the vocabulary came from, who introduced it, who imposed it, and what it cost those who refused it. The evidence is drawn from pagan philosophers who first articulated it, church fathers who explain where they derived their words and concepts from, council records, modern Trinitarian historians, and Scripture itself. The defenders of the doctrine are their own witnesses against the doctrine.

The latter chapters describe the Jesus of the Bible, the man approved by God and exalted above his fellows. This is the Jesus the apostles preached—and the Jesus Trinitarians have sought to dismiss, redefine, and ultimately condemn as heresy from the moment they began making common cause with pagan polytheism.

I want to be clear about who this book is for. It is for those who want to know the truth—who dare to ask whether what they were handed is what the Bible teaches, and who are willing to follow the evidence wherever it leads.

Jesus said, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32). That freedom is what this book is about. Not freedom from Christ—but freedom from the layers of tradition, philosophy, and coercion that have obscured him and his God, and branded those who believe in them both as heretics.

If you are one of those who have been searching for that freedom, read carefully. The evidence is here. The door is open.

Choose life.

— Tom Raddatz

“But you, Daniel, shut up the words and seal the book, even to the time of the end. Many will run back and forth, and knowledge will be increased.” (Daniel 12:4)

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Copyright © 2026 by Tom Raddatz

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Cover design: Tom Raddatz
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Published by 1Lord1Faith Publishing, Lancaster, Ohio

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN 978-0-9854318-5-3 (paperback), 978-0-9854318-6-0 (pdf)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2026910389

Library of Congress Subject Heading: Religion – Doctrinal Theology – Christology

BISAC Subject Heading: RELIGION / Christian Theology / Christology

All scripture quotes are from the World English Bible, unless otherwise noted. All italics and boldface for emphasis in quotes from other authors have been added by the author of this book unless otherwise noted.

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