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There is nothing quite so pretentious as someone who thinks they have the solution to a problem that has puzzled people for millenia, and then has the nerve to publish a book of only 175 pages saying they have the answer. Yes, I know it says 360+ pages above; that's only because the book's text is double-spaced throughout. But let's get to the meat of the matter. As you first read this book (by a teacher at the "Atlanta Bible College" and a "retired pastor and college business manager" -- how's that for credentials!), you may at first think that you're reading a Mormon argument against Trinitarianism. Buzzard and Hunting make much over saying that Hellenistic philosophy corrupted the church, but they reach a conclusion that would turn Mormons pale: pure Unitarianism. (But, expect Mormons and others to perhaps use what parts of this book they like anyway.)
The argument Buzzard and Hunting repeat time and time again -- literally a hundred times, if I may make an underestimate -- is as follows: 1) The Scriptures say God is One. 2) Therefore, God is one person, and Jesus could only be "a human being vested with extraordinary powers as God's legal agent." [41] It won't take a logician to see a certain premise missing from the middle: 1.5) "One" equals to "one person" -- not one something else (as in, "one Being of composite nature"), and our authors never succeed in making this connection in spite of repeating the other two points to the threshhold of nausea. Beyond that, there is no interaction with some key works on this subject that substantially reduce the force of B and H's arguments about what Jewish monotheism was all about: Hurtado's One God, One Lord; Segal's Two Powers in Heaven, and Longenecker's Christology of Early Jewish Christianity are just three of the important works that B and H don't dare to touch...to say nothing of hundreds of books on Christology. But, Thomas Jefferson is quoted on the Trinity [5], so they did do a little digging in the relevant Biblical scholarship. (Actually, very little: like Dunn's Christology in the Making, for example [Dunn's overcautious conclusions are quoted as though gospel], but far from enough relevant sources to do a thorough job).
Although these guys do take full advantage of some of the weaker Trinitarian arguments, when it gets to the strong ones, they resort to incoherence. Must not Jesus have been in some sense God (infinite) to pay the infinite price needed for our sins? No, they say: First, that would imply that God could die, and God can't die, so Jesus could not be God. (What if He takes on a human body?!? No good, they tell us: they use the Semitic Totality Concept to say that if a body dies, so it is with the whole man; the dualism between body and soul is said to be "unbiblical" -- they are misrepresenting what Semitic Totality means; it does not mean that body and soul cannot exist separately [2. Cor. 5], just that they belong together properly.) And anyway, if God is willing to take an less-than-infinite payment for sin, He can if He wants to. (He can also make a stone so heavy He can't lift it!)
You would think also that Wisdom theology would keep these guys quiet, but they have that covered. The great Colossian hymn is dispensed with in 3 double-spaced pages, with no reference to any of the material we have covered on that subject. John's prologue is said to be referring to a personal Wisdom only after v. 14 ("the Word became flesh"); the prologue as a whole is the transition "of an impersonal personification...becoming embodied as a human being," [126], "the self-expressive activity of God" becoming flesh. Odd, though, that John does not bother to make this clear but instead uses logos, completely unqualified, throughout the prologue (and there are other problems as well; Buzzard and Hunting have forgotten to look into the other member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, which apparently didn't need the transition of appearance on earth to become a person). In all of this, Trinitarians are scolded as though they are small children for "reading their doctrines into the text." The pot calls the kettle black yet again!
In the future, it will be my distinct pleasure to dismantle this book and send it back to the happy hunting grounds. Until then, the reader is advised to be on the lookout for Buzzard droppings from your local Mormons and skeptics.
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