I'm saying that the bible is the Primary text. I'm saying that as the primary text we should treat it as such. The people who wrote it were close enough to be corrected, they were accurate and they weren't self serving.
Do you treat every other primary text from every other religious discipline as such? Or, for that matter, every other primary text that ascribes supernatural deeds to historical figures?
It's not so much a matter of what they believed as what happened. The Bible places itself in history and is thus historically accountable. You'll find that even non christian historians wont deny the historicity of the bible, they'll just stay agnostic about it.
It is only historically accountable in instances where actions described in the Bible are also part of the historical record outside of the Bible, and can therefore be corroborated or contradicted. Most of the events recorded in the Bible, including everything recorded about the words and deeds of Jesus, fall outside of the historical record. So yes, it is a matter of what they believed. Belief is the whole point of the gospels.
What's wrong with being Orthodox?
Nothing, on the face of it. If it works for you, great, have at it. But it doesn't work for me, and it doesn't work for a lot of other people, either. Unfortuately, most of them wind up losing their faith, leave the church, and became atheists.
Surely orthodox Christians who trace their orthodoxy back to the inception of Christianity (with Christ) who are the majority must be right? (Yes I know this is an argument of "everyone says so therefore it must be right". However I see no reason to believe that Luke in fact wrote Luke and Mark wrote his gospel etc.)
You've already answered your own question. I'm not going to comment any further than that.
That's your way of saying he's wrong and stupid. It's a despicable argument tactic.
DON'T put words in my mouth. My way of saying he's wrong and stupid is saying "He's wrong and stupid." I didn't say either one, and I used no despicable argument tactic. Keep it civil or take a vacation.
My point was that just because kings used that phrase that way doesn't mean that the phrase wasn't ever used any way except that way. Was there never any good news in the ancient world except that a king had conquered a foe? There was never any other good news?
The way they used it isn't necessarily the way that Mark had intended it. That's all that I was saying.
Of course he meant it that way. It was purposefully written there. Greeks are not ambiguous. Just look at their grammar. He meant exactly what he wrote. Look at the end of his book (original ending) it ends with the resurrection. Jesus conquered death and sin. The story ends how it begins so to speak.
OK, whatever.
And why's that?
Because of arguments you won't accept and will grill me for.
What are the different things?
Things that won't make sense to you and don't fit into your worldview and for which you will further persecute me.
The belief in the afterlife was actually around before Jesus. Just so you know. The pharisees didn't pop up out of nowhere when Jesus started preaching. They along with the zealots (I think) believed in the afterlife and were around a couple of hundred years before Jesus.
Yes, I know. Don't insult my intelligence. I have said over and over again that the belief in an afterlife was a relatively late development in the history of Israel. Are you also aware that the Pharisees were a relatively small group within Judaism? And that the Sadducees NEVER accepted a belief in an afterlife? That was because they understood that such a belief was not original to Judaism, but a later development.
The only source they had for an afterlife was the Tanak.
And to which sections are you referring?
In fact the Pharisees were so infatuated with the tanak (which had been closed from at least the third century BC when they started translating it into greek in the LXX. Along with that there were even scholars of the time before Jesus that believed in a trinitarian God or at least dinitarian.) that they wore it and memorised it. They breathed Tanak.
Please show me some evidence of Jews that believed in a trinitarian or dinitarian God.
The Pharisees and the scribes were synonymous.
That's not necessarily true.
There was also a "day of the Lord" which was talked about where everyone would be judged.
The "day of the Lord" mentioned in the prophets is not coequal with the Judgement Day of Christian thought. They describe the Lord as a divine warrior and are about the destruction of Israel's enemies or as a warning of destruction to Israel itself. It doesn't have anything to do with judging all the peoples of the earth and sending the true believers to Heaven and the non-believers of Hell.
Which is the only thing I've been talking about, once again.This is why the Jews were so proud of their lineage and snobs to the Samaritans who had intermarried. They thought that by being able to trace their family back purely they would be saved by being part of God's chosen few.
There are many reasons that the Jews and Samaritans despised each other, but the afterlife was not one of them.
And you would be right. But you neglect to define what is wrong with the world. You also neglect to delineate the consequences of there being something wrong with the world.
I don't think there is anything mystical or supernatural wrong with the world.
I was thinking more along the lines of Sin. Satan is the Prince of this world still but I was thinking that sin is what is wrong with this world. It tarnishes everything and even the earth is groaning under it. sin is what drives our every decision and what separates us from God. Satan just helps sin along as bnest he can. Sin is our attitude to serve ourself first.
I don't subscribe to the concept of "sin" as a supernatural or metaphysical problem in the world. I accept "sin" as a synonym for human nature, and all of the problems associated with it. Humans, left to their own devices, pretty much suck.
I think I get it now. So, Do you view Christianity as more of a socio political movement than God choosing his people to be set apart from the rest of the world?
I don't view it as only socio-political, but I think there is an inherent and important socio-political element to it that seems to be ignored by many Christians.
Is this why you don't believe in the afterlife? Is it because you think that Christianity is for the people and Jesus has already instated the kingdom of God?
I do think that when Jesus taught about the Kingdom of God, he was referring to life here for us and not an afterlife. And again, I didn't say that I think there is no afterlife at all. I said that I don't believe in a Hell to which non-believers are consigned. Please stop misconstruing or misrepresenting what I say.
So I think that this means that the difference between us is that I believe that there is injustice in the world and that God can and will fix it. However my theological leanings determine that i look for that to come at the day of the Lord and in the mean time I try and be as much gospel focused as I can, whereas you don't believe that there is anything past this life and Jesus isn't going to come back so you are working to change the world (an honourable attitude) as it is.
That's not completely accurate, but it's close enough.
Question: Why do you think Humans - which are flawed - can fix the world?
I don't think they can on their own. But if everyone were exposed to Jesus's kingdom teachings, and bought into them completely, then the world would definitely be changed.
You know, Jesus said, go and get this mule, it will be here in this person's yard. He didn't say "Oh look a Mule".
Yes, he knew where it (or, as in your example from Matthew specifically, they) would be and told his disciples to go and get them. And he told them what to say if anyone said anything to them about taking the animals. Ergo, according to this story, he made specific arrangements beforehand to ensure that he would be seen as "fulfilling a prophecy."
and a colt of a donkey is called a mule dupkis. Matthew didn't say he rode in on two things, he said Jesus rode in on a mule. It's still a donkey but it's the colt child of a donkey, known as a MULE. It's a tautology. like "therefore and hitherto" "here and now" "omnipotently all powerful"
That's how Zechariah wrote it, sure, which I noted by saying it was parallelism, a common writing technique among the classical prophets. But that's not how Matthew read it.
Mat 21:1
The Triumphal Entry Now when they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two disciples,
Mat 21:2 telling them, "Go to the village ahead of you. Right away
you will find a donkey tied there, and a colt with her. Untie
them and bring
them to me.
Mat 21:3 If anyone says anything to you, you are to say, 'The Lord needs
them,' and he will send
them at once."
Mat 21:4 This took place to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet:
Mat 21:5 "Tell the people of Zion,
'Look, your king is coming to you,
unassuming and seated on a donkey,
and on a colt, the foal of a donkey.' "
Mat 21:6 So the disciples went and did as Jesus had instructed them.
Mat 21:7 They brought
the donkey and the colt and
placed their cloaks on them, and
he sat on them.
I used the New English Translation for this example, but check whatever version you desire. Matthew got it wrong. Of course, if he was divinely inspired, and his writing was literally and factually true, he wouldn't have been ABLE to get it wrong, but hey, that's not a problem for me since I don't believe in divine inspiration of the Bible anyway. It's OK to me that he got it wrong.
Yeah, Jesus knew about Zechariah's prohpechy. He also knew Isaiah's prophecy. He opened his ministry reading from Isaiah. He ended his ministry quoting from Psalms on the cross. That doesn't mean it's therefore negated as prophecy. Jesus had to fulfil the prophecy to confirm to the spectators that he was the messiah. Actually, have a look at Isaiah. You'll see OODLES of messianic prophecy. Only a small amount of messianic prophecy is actually stuff you can consciously fulfil.
Yes, that is the standard Christian viewpoint. Of course, another viewpoint is that the earliest Christians used things from the Hebrew Scriptures that didn't have anything to do with "predicting a Messiah" and shaped them into the depiction of Jesus's life.
I don't know why you think a prophet can't switch between Prophecy and Apolcalyptic text. It's not like he has to be profoundly different and his message is still the same. He just uses a different style of language. I think it's rather arrogant to say that critical scholars think they can just chop books up to get "the real purpose" of the book when to get the real purpose of the book you should be viewing the whole text as a unit. Would you say that James Joyce didn't write Ulysses because of the difference in use of punctuation from the start to the end? The third section of the book completely neglects punctuation.
This sounds like the argument of someone that doesn't fully understand what critical scholars are talking about. Have you actually read any critical scholarship on the authorship of Zechariah? Or of any other Biblical text?
At the end of the day it doesn't matter, Phil. Because these posts of yours are long, drawn-out, and frankly tiring. I've been working on this response for... *looks at watch* ...entirely too long. No more 17-part responses from me. If you have any other questions or comments, please go one at a time. I don't mind discussing this stuff, but I frankly don't have the time to do it this way.
And again, the point of ALL of this was that I don't believe in a Hell, and I don't believe that the earliest Israelites did either. Please discuss that, rather than the entire length and breadth of Christian doctrine point by point.
Topic: Jamesman vs. Hef - Who will die and go to heaven...or will they? (Read 12198 times)