Christianity began as a Jewish sect. Judaism has a strong doctrine of monotheism. Christianity worships Jesus as divine. How did this come to be?
Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism, edited by Loren Stuckenbruck and Wendy North, examines many of the issues surrounding this question.
It is not a unified thesis giving one explanation of what monotheism looked like in early Judaism and Christianity but a choir of scholars, each giving a different perspective. They are not necessarily building one each other but are giving different interpretations of the data available.
How rigid was Jewish monotheism?
How did Paul apply Old Testament YHWH texts to Jesus?
What does it mean when Christians worshiped Jesus?
What is monotheism anyway? (the term itself is much more recent than you would expect)
This is an interesting collection of essays by respected biblical scholars. There is a wide range of perspectives and some are more convincing than others.
This was actually my second time reading Early Jewish and Christian Monotheism and I enjoyed it just as much this time. Extremely helpful information for anyone interested in the formative years of these two religions.
There seems to be many problems with the confusion effect of the trinity because that is what selfish ambitions lead to. But here is one problem. The trinitarians claim God is elohim and that is plural in meaning and spelling. But as far as other nouns that refers to God, such as Father, King, Healer, and LORD, these are all singular nouns. In fact, there is no noun referring to God that I can remember that means or is spelled plural in Hebrew. With all that said, how does a trinitarian weigh the overwhelming empirical evidence of God being referred to a singular Person in pronouns, and in nouns in comparison with their understanding of the word elohim, and yet they still believe God is three divine Persons?