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I think the idea of the Holy Trinity originated to settle the dispute over whether Jesus was really God or was merely the Son of God. In the 4th century AD, Catholic priests decided that he could be both, although I'm not sure where the Holy Spirit came from. Interestingly enough, in the New Testament, Jesus usually referred to himself as the Son of Man and only a few times as the Son of God, and the phrase "Son of God" was occasionally used to refer to other people in the Bible. So even in Christian scripture, the evidence for Jesus literally being God or the Son of God is weak.
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