Theological debate: please join me inside.

[hi.flyer]

[catphish]

"200% Jesus" will be the name of my christian rock group.

[Rob Martinez]

i knew Jesus was Mexican!! i knew it!!

Claro que si!

I always knew we were the chosen Juans!!

[Rob Martinez]

As a note, calling someone by their first name is generally considered rude unless you are friends with them or you've given them permission, either explicitly or implicitly (such as using your real name on a public forum, thus allowing for no other moniker to be used)... I have not ever given you permission and we are not friends... Just to clarify if you were thinking that the opposite were true in either case...since I know you're concerned about proper manners (at least you claim to be in many statements, your repeatedly demonstrated behavior to the contrary not withstanding)...

Oh darn, and just when I thought we were getting to be good friends!

[King Kashue]

Oh darn, and just when I thought we were getting to be good friends!

I'm glad I clarified then...

Like I said, just a heads up since, despite your frequent tantrums, insults, and vulgarity, I know you're concerned about proper manners (because you often say you are, in between your tantrums, insults, and vulgarity)...

I wouldn't want you to be unintentionally rude...since how people treat each other is so "important" to you...

[mrcrow]

 

Back to the original topic... If Jesus IS God, why did He need to address God as Father ? and... Why did Jesus say (paraphrased) "None can get to the Father , except through Me"? There are many examples of Jesus talking to His Dad... if They were the same, then why have conversations with One's self?

 

 

there were more that one part to God

Father Son and Spirit..as outlined in genesis 1 God, God said, and the spirit moved

the conceptual, the transliteral, and the executive...the trinity

 

jesus we can see is the word..the logos..the midrash on genesis..the book of john opens with the idea...in the beginning was the word and the word was WITH god!

 

eat my flesh eat my word..the word became flesh

 

and jesus said no one comes to the father unless the father draws them

john 6:44

 

work that one out you reprobates:lol:

[isaac42]

You are more intelligent than God!? If you can understand everything about God, then he really isn't all that impressive, is he? John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being. John 10:30 "I and the Father are one." - Jesus Christ

'Scuse me, but where in there did he claim to be more intelligent than God, or to understand all about him?

Beyond that, I have to say that no, God isn't all that impressive. I mean, he couldn't even defeat iron chariots.
Judges 1:19
The LORD was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains, because they had iron chariots.

[Sojourner7]

I find it hard to understand the connection here. From the general topic, most seem to believe that Jesus was an actual person. I assume they get this information on who he was from the bible. Also, it seems that "certain truths" are agreed with and wisdom from the bible is generally accepted. Yet, the bible is not. I guess I can buy someone saying they don

[isaac42]

Keep in mind that some would say that more have died in the name of atheism in this century alone than in the name of God in all others put together.

 

 

Really? Who has died "in the name of atheism"?

[isaac42]

And? You don't view atheism as a religion?

 

 

No, it is not a religion.

[isaac42]

What were the Nazis?

 

 

A political party.

[isaac42]

The church is religion.God did not invent religion,man did.Man has spent his entire existance killing each other in the name of religion.Each denomination points it's finger at the other,but there is only one God.Have we advanced as beings,NO! We just have cooler ways to kill more enemies at a time than the clubs,and spears we started with. Jesus existed.Of that there is no doubt. The rest is entirely up to you.Believe or don't.Have faith,or don't.There must have been something special about him,or this post would have been about Gingus Kahn.What more proof of eternal "life" do you need?

 

 

As a matter of fact, there is considerable doubt on that score.

[King Kashue]

As a matter of fact, there is considerable doubt on that score.

 

 

"Considerable"?

 

I can think of at most three or four significant historians who doubt his historical existence. Heck, even G.A. Wells acknowledges Q at this point, and he's perhaps the most vocal "Jesus wasn't historical" scholar of the 20th century.

[catphish]

 

Accounts written by multiple authors about events they either witnessed first hand or based on interviews with people who witnessed the events first hand. Multiple accounts, almost entirely in agreement and rendered in significant detail.

 

 

I was under the impression that the first gospel was written decades (60ish years) after Jesus was dead, and could be at best second hand. I also thought that there was evidence that later gospels copied the first.

 

Can you give me the cliff note version of what your understanding of the authorship of the canonical gospels are?

[TheBurkMan]

yeah man, but he always differentiates him from the Father. He says "I and the Father", but he never says "I am God, or I am the Father of All." that's what i was saying, read my post again.

 

 

Perhaps, you didn't read my post? Isaih 9 clearly prophecies the coming of Christ and calls him the "Mighty God, Everlasting Father", and in Rev. 21 The Alpha and Omega (who john identifies as Christ) calls himself the father. And again Paul clearly identifies him (Jesus) as the Creator (creation bestows Fatherhood. Also you are ignoring the reaction of the Jews when Jesus said "Before Abraham was I am". They prepared to stone him for Blasphemy because he was Clearly claiming to be God. Clearly the Jews who heard him at that moment thoght he was claiming to be God. I don't recall Jesus issuing a clarification later. Again Luke in acts calls the church something "bought with Gods own blood". Who else came and bought the church? Luke clearly believed Jesus was God.

[ThudMaker]

I was under the impression that the first gospel was written decades (60ish years) after Jesus was dead, and could be at best second hand. I also thought that there was evidence that later gospels copied the first.

I'm not sure why the first account being written well after Jesus' death is too critical. Afterall, the Apostles would have had expectations of Jesus return (He was coming back "soon."). Why write something down in that case? Perhaps KK will weigh in on that, too.

[catphish]

 

I'm not sure why the first account being written well after Jesus' death is too critical.

 

 

I didn't say it was, but KK implied that first hand accounts led validity to the story.

 

As far as I know the first mention of him in historical, non-religious, writing was Josephus. There are other mentions of him in historical writings as well. There probably was a man named Jesus back then. Big deal, there's a guy named Jesus who works on the assembly line at my company.

[King Kashue]

 

I was under the impression that the first gospel was written decades (60ish years) after Jesus was dead, and could be at best second hand. I also thought that there was evidence that later gospels copied the first. Can you give me the cliff note version of what your understanding of the authorship of the canonical gospels are?

 

 

There are two general chronologies (though there's rather big variation at times):

 

Christian Biblical Scholars and the more traditional view put forth by the Church Fathers put Matthew in the 50s (20 years or so after Christ's death), Luke in the late 50s early 60s (since Acts was likely in the mid 60s and the beginning of Acts mentions the Gospel account already being written), Mark in the mid to late 60s, and John is generally considered the last written somewhere in the 80s...

 

Another vein of modern Christian scholarship puts Mark first then Matthew and Luke (based on source criticism and Q, discussed below).

 

The most popular academic chronology (and again, there's variations here), puts Mark first at shortly after 70 AD. This is because Mark hints at the destruction of the temple in Jesus' "prophecy" (the gospel doesn't mention it outright though, which is used as an argument against placing it post 70)...Matthew and Luke then fall between 70-85, both drawing from Mark and from "Q" (since Mark contains little that isn't in Matt or Luke, but the latter two have much extra in common with each other, theoretically taken from Q)...John is once again last with a date of 80-100ish.

 

 

Now, there are arguments in various directions, the important difference to consider between the two views is the reason for placing Mark after 70 (both views share much of the source and textual criticism methods, as well as the "internal disagreements", but this is one thing not shared)...

 

The Christian view allows for the prophecies in Mark (and Luke, but Luke is almost never thought to have been first) to actually be prophecies. The academic view takes the position that those prophecies must be projected back. I.e., the author knew the temple fell in 70, so he wrote in Jesus having prophesied it in the late 20s...

 

Now, the academic view needs to proceed from that assumption, since scholars can't legitimately work with a premise of miraculous prophecy, but it's important to note why that difference is there (particularly if one isn't just concerned with the historical debate, but is making a personal decision about the significance of the content as it pertains to their life and faith)...

 

 

Those are the two big schools of thought (there are others, like form criticism, but they're sort of fringe in terms of influence)...

 

The "early dates" would put the gospel range from 50-90 (so 20-60 years after Jesus' death) and the late dates would put the gospels from 70-100 (so 40-70)...

[catphish]

Thank you for that explanation. It seems to be close to what I thought was the case.

The "early dates" would put the gospel range from 50-90 (so 20-60 years after Jesus' death) and the late dates would put the gospels from 70-100 (so 40-70)...

If this is the case, how can you say the gospels were written based on first hand accounts? They decided to wait decades to write it down? And what about the later gospels copying earlier ones (Mark)?

[Emprov]

Really? Who has died "in the name of atheism"?

I said, "some would argue", not I would argue. I'm sure that there's plenty of rhetoric on the subject online if you care to take it up with them. Again, I haven't looked into enough to form an opinion one way or another, but I do personally know people who have been in the very real danger of "going away" because they happened to be Christians in countries where that's not kindly looked upon. Call it Atheism or anti-religion, I'll leave the labels up to you.

[King Kashue]

 

If this is the case, how can you say the gospels were written based on first hand accounts? They decided to wait decades to write it down? And what about the later gospels copying earlier ones (Mark)?

 

 

They're based on 1st hand accounts if the people writing them were there, regardless of when it was written. Why would they decide to wait to write it down? Because there wasn't an audience previously...

 

When Christianity was a small Jewish sect in Jerusalem, there was no need to write things down, since everyone "knew the score". If someone had a question, they could physically go to Peter or Matthew or John and ask them.

 

As the sect's message spread among Jews in Judea, then to Jews outside of Judea, and particularly once Paul started preaching to the Gentiles, there was suddenly an audience in places where the eye-witnesses weren't, and then there was a need for written accounts that could be copied and disseminated...

 

Think of it as marketing (which it was). You don't create a product for which there is no market. You create a product to meet the market demand.

 

As for copying, it's not like plagiarism. Remember, these communities were not huge. Matthew's gospel wasn't likely "This is the stuff I personally remember", but rather Matthew's presentation of the info (in his case, writing to Jewish communities)...Luke wasn't an apostle, but a companion of Paul's and explicitly wrote his account based on interviewing multiple people (so using Matthew, an eye-witness, would be logical), etc...

[ThudMaker]

I didn't say it was, but KK implied that first hand accounts led validity to the story. As far as I know the first mention of him in historical, non-religious, writing was Josephus. There are other mentions of him in historical writings as well. There probably was a man named Jesus back then. Big deal, there's a guy named Jesus who works on the assembly line at my company.

The post wasn't a case of one sentence standing alone, and was part of an answer to your question of why wait so long to write down a first hand account.

[Rob Martinez]

Found this on Wikipedia:

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word bible[6] is from Latin biblia, traced from the same word through Medieval Latin and Late Latin, as used in the phrase biblia sacra ("holy book" - "In the Latin of the Middle Ages, the neuter plural for Biblia (gen. bibliorum) gradually came to be regarded as a feminine singular noun (biblia, gen. bibliae, in which singular form the word has passed into the languages of the Western world."[7]). This stemmed from the Greek term ?? ?????? ?? ???? (ta biblia ta hagia), "the holy books", which derived from ??????? (biblion),[8] "paper" or "scroll," the ordinary word for "book", which was originally a diminutive of ?????? (byblos, "Egyptian papyrus"), possibly so called from the name of the Phoenician port Byblos from whence Egyptian papyrus was exported to Greece.

Biblical scholar Mark Hamilton states that the Greek phrase Ta biblia ("the books") was "an expression Hellenistic Jews used to describe their sacred books several centuries before the time of Jesus,"[9] and would have referred to the Septuagint.[10] The Online Etymology Dictionary states, "The Christian scripture was referred to in Greek as Ta Biblia as early as c.223."

Some points to remember:

1. The Bible did not drop down from heaven, carried by God almighty, even Jesus Christ Himself did not sit down and write any of the Bible.

2. The Bible was not written at once or by one person but is a collection of different writings from different time periods representing different genres. Much of it was oral history until put down on parchment.

3. The Bible was not originally in English (!), rather some writings were in Hebrew, then the original 27 books of the New Testament were in Greek, all later translated into Latin my St. Jerome. Protestants later used the Hebrew canon of the Old Testament, while the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholic use the older Greek language Septuigent version of the Old Testament, the one Jesus would have read in the synagogue.

4. The Bible was not printed in ANY language until the 1400s and the invention of the Gutenberg printing press. This means there were no "Bible" Christians as we understand the term today until at least 1500 years after the time of Christ.

[TheBurkMan]

ROB MARTINEZ 4. The Bible was not printed in ANY language until the 1400s and the invention of the Gutenberg printing press. This means there were no "Bible" Christians as we understand the term today until at least 1500 years after the time of Christ.

 

 

Rob, While I had no issue with the rest of your post. This is a bit inaccurate. The Hebrews had compiled a version of Old Testament Scripture as early as 200-250 BC. It was in circulation by the time of Christ. Now obviously I'm talking about hand printed scroll copies. But they were in circulation enough for their to be copies in most of the synagogues at the time of Christ.

 

In fact the Septuagint ( a greek copy of the Hebrew scriptures) for Jewish converts appeared around 200 BC too. And was available in many temples and some libraries thru-out the ancient world.

 

And the Latin Vulgate ( a full Latin Bible) was finalized about 400 AD. Before the vulgate their were plenty of copies of epistles and gospels in circulation. Again these became readily available in early churches and some libraries. So while the scriptures didn't appear in the language of the common man until around 1500. They were available to Scholars and Clergy far earlier. So Christianity was not practicing without the Bible for 1500 years, not even close.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Septuagint

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vulgate

[lokidecat]

Here's what gets me:

 

Straight outta Exodus:

 

You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above , or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

 

 

According to the ten commandments worshiping this Jesus character is in direct violation of that commandment.

 

The only argument that can be surmised is that Jesus is the manifestation of some god/deity/etc. Otherwise (and I'm trying not to laugh while I type this) the followers might be hypocrites.

 

I know I know. Hard to believe, eh?