posted
Jesus was not the founder of Christianity as we know it today. Most of the New Testament doesn't even concern the historical Jesus while the main influence is the Apostle Paul and through the church he founded at Ephesus a Greek convert named John. Paul never met Jesus in the flesh, he only claimed some strange vision and proceeded to paganize the teachings of Jesus (who preached an enlightened form of Judaism), until he created Pauline Christianity. Because there are no known writings from Jesus, the actual Apostles, or anyone that actually knew Him in the flesh (other then perhaps James), most of what He taught is lost forever, other than perhaps the disputed Gnostic Gospels.
While Jesus is regarded by Christians as the founder of the faith, Paul's role in defining Christianity can't be ignored. "Paul is regarded as the great interpreter of Jesus' mission, who explained, in a way that Jesus himself never did, how Jesus' life and death fitted into a cosmic scheme of salvation, stretching from the creation of Adam to the end of time." The doctrines of Christianity come mostly from the teaching or influence of Paul, a Pharisee(?) who rejected his Pharisaic Judaism. His worship was that of a "Christ" totally unrelated to the Jewish Messiah, a nationalist (and human) figure that was supposed to free the nation from foreign (Roman) rule. Paul would later be placed over his Jewish-Christian rivals by a Gnostic heretic named Marcion. See Marcion. The Church in its struggles with both Marcion and other fellow Gnostics was forced to define itself and launch an internal war to silence opponents.
What is shown below is taken word for word from The Sierra Reference Encyclopedia.
Copyright 1996 P. F. Collier, L. P. All rights reserved.
PAUL, ST.
PAUL, ST. (died c. A.D. 68), founder of Pauline Christianity. His name was originally Saul. He later claimed that he was a Jew of the tribe of Benjamin, from a long-established Pharisee family in Tarsus. According to Acts (though not according to Paul himself) he studied in Jerusalem under Gamaliel, the leader of the Pharisees and grandson of Hillel. This account of Paul's youth, however, is subject to doubt, since the tribe of Benjamin had long ceased to exist, and Pharisee families are otherwise unknown in Tarsus. According to Paul's opponents, the Ebionites, he came from a family of recent converts to Judaism. He learnt the trade of tent-making (or perhaps leather-working), by which he made his living.
While still a youth in Jerusalem, Saul became part of the opposition to the newly formed Jerusalem Church (the disciples of Jesus, who, believing that Jesus had been resurrected, continued to hope for his return to complete his messianic mission). Saul was present at the death of Stephen. Soon after, Saul was an active persecutor of the Jerusalem Church, entering its synagogues and arresting its members. Acts represents this as due to Saul's zeal as a Pharisee, but this is doubtful, as the Pharisees, under Gamaliel, were friendly to the Jerusalem Church (see Acts 5).
Moreover, Saul was acting in concert with the high priest (Acts 9:2), who was a Sadducee opponent of the Pharisees. It seems likely that Saul was at this period an employee of the Roman-appointed high priest, playing a police role in suppressing movements regarded as a threat to the Roman occupation. Since Jesus had been crucified on a charge of sedition, his followers were under the same cloud.
The high priest then entrusted Saul with an important mission, which was to travel to Damascus to arrest prominent members of the Jerusalem Church. This must have been a clandestine kidnapping operation, since Damascus was not under Roman rule at the time but was in fact a place of refuge for the persecuted Nazarenes. On the way to Damascus, Paul experienced a vision of Jesus that converted him from persecutor to believer. Paul joined the Christians of Damascus, but soon he had to flee Damascus to escape the officers of King Aretas (II Corinthians 11:32-33), though a later, less authentic, account in Acts 9:22-25 changes his persecutors to "the Jews."
After his vision, according to Paul's own account (Galatians 1:17), he went into the desert of Arabia for a period, seeking no instruction. According to Acts, however, he sought instruction first from Ananias of Damascus and then from the apostles in Jerusalem. These contradictory accounts reflect a change in Paul's status: in his own view, he had received a revelation that put him far higher than the apostles, while in later Church opinion he had experienced a conversion that was only the beginning of his development as a Christian.
Paul's self-assessment is closer to the historical truth, which is that he was the founder of Christianity. Neither Jesus himself nor his disciples had any intention of founding a new religion. The need for a semblance of continuity between Christianity and Judaism, and between Gentile and Jewish Christianity, led to a playing-down of Paul's creative role. The split that took place between Paul and the Jerusalem Church is minimized in the Paulinist book of Acts, which contrasts with Paul's earlier and more authentic account in Galatians 2.
Paul's originality lies in his conception of the death of Jesus as saving mankind from sin. Instead of seeing Jesus as a messiah of the Jewish type human saviour from political bondage he saw him as a salvation-deity whose atoning death by violence was necessary to release his devotees for immortal life. This view of Jesus' death seems to have come to Paul in his Damascus vision. Its roots lie not in Judaism, but in mystery-religion, with which Paul was acquainted in Tarsus. The violent deaths of Osiris, Attis, Adonis, and Dionysus brought divinization to their initiates. Paul, as founder of the new Christian mystery, initiated the Eucharist, echoing the communion meal of the mystery religions. The awkward insertion of eucharistic material based on I Corinthians 11:23-26 into the Last Supper accounts in the Gospels cannot disguise this, especially as the evidence is that the Jerusalem Church did not practise the Eucharist.
Paul's missionary campaign began c.44 in Antioch. He journeyed to Cyprus, where he converted Sergius Paulus, the governor of the island. It was probably at this point that he changed his name from Saul to Paul, in honor of his distinguished convert. After journeys in Asia Minor where he made many converts, Paul returned to Antioch. His second missionary tour (51-53) took him as far as Corinth; and his third (54-58) led to a three-year stay in Ephesus. It was during these missionary periods that he wrote his Epistles.
Paul's new religion had the advantage over other salvation-cults of being attached to the Hebrew Scriptures, which Paul now reinterpreted as forecasting the salvation-death of Jesus. This gave Pauline Christianity an awesome authority that proved attractive to Gentiles thirsting for salvation. Paul's new doctrine, however, met with disapproval from the Jewish-Christians of the Jerusalem Church, who regarded the substitution of Jesus' atoning death for the observance of the Torah as a lapse into paganism. Paul was summoned to Jerusalem by the leaders James (Jesus' brother), Peter, and John to explain his doctrine (c.50).
At the ensuing conference, agreement was reached that Paul's Gentile converts did not need to observe the Torah. This was not a revolutionary decision, since Judaism had never insisted on full conversion to Judaism for Gentiles. But Paul on this occasion concealed his belief that the Torah was no longer valid for Jews either. He was thus confirmed in the role of "apostle to the Gentiles," with full permission to enroll Gentiles in the messianic movement without requiring full conversion to Judaism.
It was when Peter visited him in Antioch and became aware of the full extent of Paul's views that a serious rift began between Pauline and Jewish Christianity. At a second conference in Jerusalem (c.55), Paul was accused by James of teaching Jews "to turn their backs on Moses" (Acts 21:21). Again, however, Paul evaded the charge by concealing his views, and he agreed to undergo a test of his own observance of the Torah. His deception, however, was detected by a group of "Asian Jews" (probably Jewish Christians) who were aware of his real teaching. A stormy protest ensued in which Paul feared for his life and was rescued by the Roman police, to whom he declared for his protection that he was a Roman citizen. This surprising announcement was the end of Paul's association with the Jerusalem Church, to whom the Romans were the chief enemy.
The Roman commandant, Claudius Lysias, decided to bring Paul before the Sanhedrin in order to discover the cause of the disturbance. With great presence of mind, Paul appealed to the Pharisee majority to acquit him, claiming to be a Pharisee like James. Paul was rescued by the Pharisees from the high priest, like Peter before him. However, the high priest, resenting this escape, appointed a body of men to assassinate Paul. Learning of the plot, Paul again placed himself under the protection of the Romans, who transported him by armed guard from Jerusalem to Caesarea. The High Priest Ananias was implacable, no doubt because of Paul's defection from his police task in Damascus, and laid a charge of anti-Roman activity against him. Paul appealed for a trial in Rome before Caesar, his right as a Roman citizen. The assertion of Acts that the Jewish "elders" were also implicated in the charges against Paul is unhistorical, since these same elders had just acquitted him in his Sanhedrin trial. Paul was sent to Rome, and here our information ends. Legends speak of his eventual martyrdom in Rome.
Paul's authentic voice is found in his Epistles. Here he appears as an eloquent writer, skilled in asserting his authority over his converts as their inspired teacher. The view often asserted, however, that Paul writes in the style of a rabbi is incorrect. His occasional attempts to argue in rabbinical style (e.g., Romans 7:1-6) reveal his lack of knowledge of rabbinic logic. Paul's letters belong to Greek literature and have affinity to Stoic and Cynic literature. His knowledge of the Scriptures is confined to their Greek translation, the Septuagint. Paul was a religious genius, who invested Greek mystery-religion with the historical sweep and authority of the Jewish Bible.
HYAM MACCOBY
An excellent book on this subject by Hyam MacCoby is entitled The Mythmaker, Paul and the Invention of Christianity. (ISBN 0-06-015582--5)
quote:Originally posted by Ayisha: The doctrines of Christianity come mostly from the teaching or influence of Paul, a Pharisee(?) who rejected his Pharisaic Judaism.
It is easy to make unsubstantial claims, but what does the evidence tells us?
Craig [Craig.ApIn, 160] reports:
Studies by New Testament scholars such as Martin Hengel of Tübingen University, C. F. D. Moule of Cambridge, and others have proved that within twenty years of the crucifixion a full-blown Christology proclaiming Jesus as God incarnate existed. How does one explain this worship by monotheistic Jews of one of their countrymen as God incarnate, apart from the claims of Jesus himself?"
"The oldest liturgical prayer recorded, in 1 Corinthians 16:22, is dated at around 55 A.D. It refers to Jesus as Lord. So does the earliest sermon and the earliest account of martyrdom. The authors of the NT epistles, including and especially Paul, even in his undisputed letters, use the language of divine Wisdom with reference to Jesus. The earliest pagan report of the church's activities indicates that Jesus was worshipped as Lord. Paul's letters, written between 49 and 65 A.D., exhibit the same fully-evolved Christology; logically, he must have gotten it from sometime earlier than 49 A.D. Paul cites creeds, hymns and sayings of Jesus that must have come from earlier (Rom. 1:3-4; 1 Cor. 11:23; Col. 1:15-16; Phil. 2:6-11; 1 Tim. 3:16; 2 Tim. 2:8); these items translate easily into Aramaic and show features of Hebrew poetry and thought-forms, which allows us to trace their origins to Jesus' first followers in Judea, between 33 and 48 A.D. [More.ScCy, 161-5] All of this leads to the inevitable conclusion that the concept of Jesus as divine quite definitely existed within, at the very least, a decade of the crucifixion, and therefore, was likely to have been asserted before His death by Jesus Himself, as is recorded in the Gospels."
Many Muslims, of course, do not believe that Paul's letters are trustworthy when it comes to historical information about Jesus Christ. However, notice in the above paragraph that Paul cites several creeds that predate his writings that attribute divinity to Christ. As also mentioned above, these creeds translate well into Aramaic. Since Aramaic was likely the language of Jesus and the very early church, and since the whole New Testament (with the possible exception of the Gospel of Matthew) was originally penned in Greek rather than Aramaic, they date back very early in church history, certainly before Paul wrote his epistles. If a Muslim still wishes to somehow argue that Paul was the inventor of the idea of Christ's divinity, consider the following excerpt from the same article cited above....
"If Jesus never claimed to be divine, and never claimed it in the sense that is indicated in the Gospels, it is reasonable to expect that:
* The enemies of Christianity and the early church would have declared that Jesus never made such claims, or was misunderstood. Some did indeed do this, but wrote quite some time after the fact. There is no record contemporary or closely contemporary with Jesus (first century AD) that indicates that He never made any special claims for Himself, or that the church invented the claims. Even after that time, however, the major skeptics of the first several centuries never argued this point. Celsus, for example, said that Jesus called Himself the Son of God, but wrongly. Porphyry, one of the most-feared skeptics in the early church, did not deny Jesus' claims to divinity, but instead tried to 'downgrade' Jesus into a hero-type deity (a third-class deity in the Roman hierarchy!). This adds up to strong evidence that (a) the Jesus-never-claimed-divinity argument had not been advanced by skeptics of the time, and (b) if it was used, perhaps by some skeptic whose works we have totally lost, it was so easily dismissed or so lacked adequate credibility that it could not be used by the best anti-Christian skeptics.
* A parallel movement, that acclaimed Jesus as merely a good teacher, would have emerged alongside Christianity. To be sure, there are those such as Burton L. Mack, author of The Lost Gospel, who would have us believe that a such a movement did exist; but conveniently enough, he tells us, it came and went too quickly to leave behind any concrete physical evidence for us to know what happened to them!
As it is, there are no extant texts from the first century, or even from the century thereafter, that represent Jesus as claiming to be only human or only a prophet--He is ALWAYS portrayed as making exalted claims to a super-human status. Later heresies of the church, such as Gnosticism, involved paganistic and/or mystical additions upon what Jesus meant in the Gospels when He claimed to be God; they never denied that He made any special claims about Himself. As we noted previously, the earliest known pagan critic of Christianity to address the issue, Celsus, argued that Jesus did apply the title "Son of God" to Himself, but wrongly [Wilk.ChrRom, 109]; only much later did those critics deny that Jesus made such claims. The argument that Jesus never claimed to be divine is in fact nothing more than an unsupportable conjecture, an argument from silence competing against the scream of the available data. Each of the above claims, and every known document of the church, even the heretical ones, acknowledge that Jesus claimed divinity. There is absolutely no evidence to the contrary that can be cited. Saying that there is no evidence that Jesus claimed divinity can only be managed by ignoring reams of evidence, or by facile dismissal."
If the first Christians denied Christ's divinity, then it is remarkable that there is no hard evidence for the existence of such a movement. This is particularly the case if one wishes to argue that Paul invented the idea of Christ's divinity. Paul did not even convert to Christianity until 1-3 years after the movement's genesis. Furthermore, unlike the 11 apostles, he did not follow Christ during the latter's 3.5 year ministry. If Paul competed with the 11 apostles in order to establish what form of Christianity would survive, then it is inexplicable that Paul could have possibly "won." After all, Paul not only did not have the extremely crucial factor of actually having known Jesus working for him, like the 11 apostles did, but also didn't start the alleged "Pauline Christianity" until 1-3 years after the so-called "true Christianity" was being preached by the disciples. On top of everything else, Paul was actually a great enemy of the earliest church (Galatians 1:13), persecuting them with zeal. It would have been virtually impossible, given the comparison of credentials of Paul vs. the 11 disciples, that Paul's movement could have not only "won", but did so emphatically enough to the point where the so-called "non-Pauline, true, Christianity" left no marks on the annals of history! I submit that the only way Paul could have had anything more than marginal success with his ministry would have been if he had apostolic authority behind his ministry, which the evidence that we have states that he did [see Galatians 2:9 (This of course was written by Paul, but if he was competing with the disciples, he would not have invented this fact since the apostles were still around to refute it; it would have been more important for him rather to downplay the authority of Peter, James, and John if in fact his message conflicted substantially with theirs!) and II Peter 3:15.
Something else that's important to consider is the evidence of early controversies within the church regarding certain doctrines. One example is the dispute over whether or not Gentile converts should have to keep the Jewish law. See, for instance, the issue of Paul's dispute with Peter on this matter in Galatians 2:11-21, though see also Acts 15:1-29. What is notable about these controversies is that there is no evidence of a debate regarding Christ's divinity within the New Testament. If Paul was in competition with the disciples (e.g. Peter, John, etc.) over the divinity of Christ, then it is notable that there is a complete absence of evidence of this from the New Testament. This is admittedly an argument from silence, but given the extreme importance of such an issue, this is something we certainly would expect to see evidence of should there have been disagreement. So, it is very unlikely that the earliest Christians disputed Paul regarding Christ's divinity.
This demonstrates the external evidence for the claims of Jesus regarding his divinity, which is, as you can see, very impressive.
Graeco-Roman historian A.N. Sherwin-White states that even two generations is not enough time for legendary developments to abolish a historical core of truth, yet it can clearly be demonstrated that Jesus was worshiped widely as Lord within a decade of his death! The abundant evidence of Christ's divine claims, combined with the non-existence of hard evidence to the contrary, leads us to the compelling conclusion that Jesus did indeed make divine claims.
Also, think about this. All of Christ's disciples were Jews. The majority of the early converts were Jews. With their very strong monotheistic bent, Jews were perhaps the LAST ethnic group in the ancient world that we would expect to start worshiping a human being as divine, ESPECIALLY if he didn't even make divine claims! The only way to explain such a strong reaction to Christ's teachings by so many Jews, as well later of many Gentiles, is if Christ claimed to be divine, and proved it with say, a resurrection from the dead!
Let me close by encouraging you to read the Gospel of John. In the very first verses (chapter 1, verses 1 to 18), does John, Jesus' closest disciple, leave any doubt about who Jesus really is? Read the entire record penned by John. In chapter 5, you will hear Jesus telling folks that it is to Him that they will have to give account at the Final Judgment (John 5:22-29). In chapter 17, He states that He was with God before the world began (John 17:5). In chapter 20, and all through the book of the Acts, we come face to face with pious, monotheistic Jews who are accepting Jesus as their Lord and God (John 20:28). Back in chapter 8, we hear Jesus claiming to exist prior to Abraham (who lived 2,000 years before Jesus; John 8:58). As I already alluded to, it was because of such claims that the top Jewish religious leaders purposed to kill Jesus (John 5:16-18; 8:47-59; 10:24-39). The Jews understood clearly that Jesus was claiming equality with God. Along these lines, the great scholar C.S. Lewis wrote, “Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a man who goes about talking as if He was God. He claims to forgive sins. He says He has always existed. He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time. Now let us get this clear. Among pantheists, like Indians, anyone might say the he was part god, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it. But this man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of god. God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else. And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips.”
To those who refused to believe that Jesus was the Eternal Word and Son of Almighty God, Jesus said, “All should honor the Son just as they honor the Father. He who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent Him. Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life… But you are not willing to come to Me that you may have life ... You search the Scriptures ... these are they which testify of Me. ... Do not think that I shall accuse you to the Father; there is one who accuses you — Moses, in whom you trust. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me; for he wrote about me. But it you do not believe his writings how will you believe My words?” (John 5:23,24,40,39,45-47)
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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The Testimony of Early Christian Hymnology:
From the Didache, AD 40-60:
Father we thank Thee who has planted Thy holy name within our hearts. Knowledge and faith and life immortal Jesus The Son to us imparts.
Thou, Lord, didst make all for Thy pleasure, Didst give man food for all his days, Giving in Christ the bread eternal; Thine is the power, be Thine the praise.
Watch o'er Thy Church, O Lord, in mercy, Save it from evil, guard it still, Perfect it in Thy love, unite it, Cleansed and conformed unto Thy will.
As grain, once scattered on the hillsides, Was in the broken bread made one, So from all lands Thy Church be gathered Into Thy kingdom by Thy Son.
Shepherd of eager youth, Guiding in love and truth Through devious ways, Christ our triumphant King, We come Thy name to sing, And here we children bring, Our songs of praise.
Thou art our holy Lord, The all-subduing Word, Healer of strife; Thou didst Thyself abase, That from our sin's disgrace Thou mightest save our race And give us life.
Ever be Thou our Guide, Our shepherd, and our pride. Our staff and song. Jesus, Thou Christ of God, By Thy eternal word, Lead us where Thou hast trod; Make our faith strong.
Clement of Alexandria AD 150-215
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Saul was an active persecutor of the Jerusalem Church, entering its synagogues and arresting its members.
And let's not forget that Paul (Saul) was martyred for his faith. Do you think that a person would die for a lie that was invented by himself ? After examining the general trustworthiness of the Apostles on the basis of their message and life, their emphasis on truth, as well as the fact that all of them have suffered much for their faith, and all died as martyrs for their faith, it is clear that they truly believed what they preached, since nobody dies happily for what he knows to have made up and isn't true.
According to certain Muslim expositors, there is a story in the Quran that affirms that Jesus’ disciples functioned as God’s messengers. Here is the story in question, which will be followed with comments from some of Islam’s best-known commentators and historians:
“Among the apostles and those disciples around them, whom Jesus sent out, there were Peter and his companion Paul.” (Thalabii, Qisas al-Anbiyaa, pp. 389-390)
According to al-Tabari Paul was a faithful follower of the Apostles, especially the Apostle Peter. In fact, al-Tabari lists Paul as one of those martyred for the faith:
“Abu Ja'far says: They assert that after Tiberius, Palestine and other parts of Syria were ruled by Gaius, son of Tiberius, for four years. He was succeeded by another son, Claudius, for fourteen years, following which Nero ruled for fourteen years. He slew Peter and crucified Paul head down. For four months Botlaius [Vittelius] ruled thereafter. Then Vespasian, father of Titus whom he sent to Jerusalem, ruled for ten years. Three years after his rise to power, forty years after the ascension of Jesus, Vespasian sent Titus to Jerusalem. Titus destroyed it and slew numerous Israelites in his wrath over the fate of Christ…” (Ibid., p. 126;)
Narrated Ibn S'ād and Ibn Asakir by the authority of Abi Saleh and Ibn Abbas who said:
There was a one thousand and nine hundred years gap between the time of Moses the son of Imran and Jesus. During which time one thousand prophets were sent to the people of Israel. And there was five hundred and sixty nine years gap between the birth of Jesus and the time of Muhammad. During the first part of this gap, three prophets were sent. The third one of these prophets WAS SIMON.
Narrated Ibn Abi Hatim by the authority of Shuwaib Al Jabā'ayee who said: The names of the first two messengers were Simon and John. And the name of the third one was Paul.
Narrated Ibn al-Monthere from Saed bin Jubayr who said: The name of the third messenger was Paul.
Not only is Paul called a messenger, but Simon (referring to Peter) is also said to be a prophet!
This is highly interesting, especially in light of the fact that Muslims often vilify Paul, attacking his credibility. Yet, it seems that the first Muslims did not doubt for a moment that Paul was a true follower of Jesus, or at least a true follower of Jesus' Apostles. For instance, in Alfred Guillaume's The Life of Muhammad (Oxford University Press Karachi) we find the first Muslims endorsing the legitimacy of Paul as a representative of Christ's teachings:
"God has sent me (Muhammad) to all men, so take a message from me, God have mercy on you. Do not hang back from me as the disciples hung back from Jesus son of Mary. They asked how they hung back and he said, ‘He called them to a task similar to that which I have called you. Those who had to go a short journey were pleased and accepted. Those who had a long journey before them were displeased and refused to go, and Jesus complained of them to God. (T. From that very night) every one of them was able to speak the language of the people to whom he was sent.’ (T. Jesus said, ‘This is a thing that God has determined that you should do, so go.’)
"Those whom Jesus son of Mary sent, both disciples and those who came after them, in the land were: Peter the disciple AND PAUL WITH HIM, (PAUL BELONGED TO THE FOLLOWERS AND WAS NOT A DISCIPLE) to Rome. Andrew and Matthew to the land of the cannibals; Thomas to the land of Babel, which is in the land of the east; Philip to Carthage and Africa; John to Ephesus the city of the young men of the cave; James to Jerusalem which is Aelia the city of the sanctuary; Bartholomew to Arabia which is the land of Hijaz; Simon to the land of Berbers; Judah who was not one of the disciples was put in place of Judas." (Ibid. p. 653;)
Other Muslim sources that affirm the preceding statement include:
"Among the apostles and those disciples around them, whom Jesus sent out, there were Peter and his companion Paul." (Thalabii, Qisas al-Anbiyaa, pp. 389-390)
And,
"Among the apostles, and the followers who came after them were the Apostle Peter and Paul who was a follower and not an apostle; they went to Rome. Andrew and Matthew were sent to the country whose people are man-eaters, a land of blacks, we think; Thomas was sent to Babylonia in the east, Philip to Qayrawan (and) Carthage, that is, North Africa. John went to Ephesus, the city of the youths of the cave, and James to Jerusalem, that is, Aelia. Bartholomew was sent to Arabia, namely, the Hijaz; Simeon to the land of the Berbers in Africa. Judas was not then an apostle, so his place was taken by Ariobus. He filled in for Judas Iscariot after the latter had perpetrated his deed." (Tabari, History, Volume IV, p. 123;)
quote:How does one explain this worship by monotheistic Jews of one of their countrymen as God incarnate..."
Easy. They were only one of the many cults that believed in a dead and resurrected savoir. [see Christianity Before Christ] They were simply following what others were doing at the time.
Posts: 4165 | From: jamaica | Registered: May 2008
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Except the followers of those cults (whatever cults you have in mind) were NOT Jews. I am not talking about Egyptians or Romans or Greeks, I am talking about JEWS. Jews were strictly monotheistic. They were following their OWN religion. The Romans never forced the jews to give up their religion.
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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Point is it was heavily influenced by the surrounding paganism at the time, hence it was not "their own". Don't be a fool.
Posts: 4165 | From: jamaica | Registered: May 2008
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Background of Paul and his writings We begin with bit of background. Saul (a.k.a. Paul) of Tarsus is a complex person - quintessentially Jewish but ultimately the driving force behind the eventual separation of Christianity from Judaism.
The late 20th century author Allen F. Segal of Paul the Convert describes Paul as "one of only two Pharisees to have left us any personal writings. As the only first-century Jew to have left confessional reports of mystical experience, Paul should be treated as a major source in the study of first century Judaism." To the Jews, Paul was what the author describes as "a first-century heresy."
Segal goes on to note that: "Although Paul met opposition from many Jews of his own day, because they believed Jesus to be neither messiah nor God, his greatest battles were fought against other Christians, especially Jewish Christians." In short, Paul embodied the quintessential role of heretic - for traditional Jew and Jewish Christian alike.
Dating of Written Works: Paul apparently began writing what are now known as the Pauline epistles while on the road. Some scholars believe the epistle to the Galatians to be the earliest written work of the New Testament, dating from about 48-49 AD, just after Paul's first missionary journey and before the Jerusalem council meeting.
An alternative view is that Galatians was written as late as 56 - with I Thessalonians being written first, around 50-51. There is less dispute about the first letter to the Corinthians which was written about 54-55 toward the close of a three-year residency in Ephesus. The epistle to the Romans likely was written shortly thereafter, about 56-57.
The last extant epistle attributed (by some) to Paul is known as II Timothy, written from prison shortly before Paul's death in 66-67. It is to Timothy that Paul reportedly writes, "...the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."
Authorship: Most modern scholars ascribe authorship of Pauline epistles to include Romans, both Corinthian letters, Galatians, Philippians, I Thessalonians and Philemon directly to the apostle Paul. Works most disputed (both historically and currently) include II Thessalonians and the pastoral letters to Timothy and Titus. Also questioned by some have been the letters to the churches at Ephesus and Colosse.
The Tradition of Paul: Originally called by his Hebrew name, Saul was born in the Cilician city of Tarsus - an intellectual and cultural center and a center of Greek Stoic teaching. In later life, Paul indicated that he was taught "at the feet of Gamaliel," the most prominent Jewish teacher of the early first century.
According to the New Testament book of Acts, Saul was present at the stoning of Stephen. He was not only present, but "approved of their killing him." And Saul's murderous activities were not limited to one evangelist but extended more widely.
After Stephen's death, Acts goes on: "But Saul was ravaging the church by entering house after house; dragging off both men and women, he committed them to prison." Intense persecution caused Christians to flee for other parts of Judea and Samaria - and beyond.
Saul subsequently extended the geographic reach of his anti-Christian activity. At the time of his conversion, he was headed for the Syrian city of Damascus to arrest those who belonged to "the Way." Subsequent to his conversion, Paul would confess: "I persecuted this Way up to the point of death by binding both men and women and putting them in prison... "
While dating is uncertain, it is around 35 AD that Saul experienced his vision of the risen Christ on the road to Damascus. Subsequently, he went to Arabia and the city of Petra. Three years later, he appears to make his first post-conversion visit to Jerusalem, meeting with both Peter and James as elders of the Jerusalem church.
It has not been easy for scholars to reconcile the subsequent events of Paul's life from the chronology of Acts with Paul's own account in his epistle to the Galatians. However, it appears that Paul spent some time in Arabia preparing himself for subsequent ministry. He was introduced to the church in Jerusalem by Barnabas, a Hellenistic Jewish Christian who made his home on the Mediterranean island of Cyprus.
For about a decade, Paul worked in Syria and Cilicia (though this period of activity is not recorded in Acts). He was then brought to Antioch by Barnabas, which became Paul's base of operations for subsequent missionary journeys.
It was during his stay in Antioch that the controversy over the applicability of Jewish customs (notably circumcision) first surfaced. Paul went to Jerusalem, a conference that is recorded somewhat differently in Acts versus Paul's letter to the Galatians.
In Acts, Paul appears to defer to the judgement of Jerusalem; however, to the Galatians he evidences clear disdain for the supposed authority of the mother church. There also are differences as to which emissaries were to accompany Paul in a subsequent trip to Antioch and as to the reasons for the subsequent split between Barnabas and Paul at Antioch. Paul spent nearly a decade on three so-called missionary journeys:
From about 46-48 AD, Paul took a relatively short journey from Antioch to Cyprus and through the closer regions of Asia Minor (now eastern Turkey). From 49-52, his second journey took him to the western reaches of Asia Minor (including Ephesus) and from there to Macedonia and Greece (both Athens and Corinth). His third journey took place over much the same route as the second and lasted the longest, from 53-57 (with much of that time spent in Ephesus). Both the second and third journeys ended in Jerusalem. Upon completion of his third journey, Paul was arrested in Jerusalem. He was brought before the Jewish ruling council of the Sanhedrin. However, he was protected from Jewish authority by Roman action, being imprisoned in Caesarea for two years.
Paul successfully asserted his right to be tried as a Roman citizen before the emperor in Rome. After surviving two assassination plots, he journeyed to Rome about 59-60 where he lived at least two years under house arrest. During this time Paul was free to receive guests, both friends and adversaries, all the while "... proclaiming the kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and without hindrance."
Paul wanted to travel to Spain, but it is unclear whether he actually did. From Acts 28, it appears that Paul was released from Roman house arrest after two years in about 62. The case for a fourth missionary journey to Spain is largely circumstantial, based on Paul's declared interest, a supporting implication by the fourth century Christian writer Eusebius, and statements from other early church patriarchs who attested to the early spread of the gospel to Spain.
In any event, Paul returned to prison under the reign of Nero. Though not recorded in the New Testament, the most common tradition is that Paul was executed at Rome about 67 AD.
Salvation and Grace Paul's distinctive contribution to Christianity is also his heresy - the doctrine of justification by faith. A salvation available not just to the descendents of Abraham, but to the pagan, non-Jewish world as well. Writing to those in the Roman capital, Paul makes the declaration that proved to be the cornerstone of all his writings:
"For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, 'The one who is righteous will live by faith. " Paul had come on the scene at a propitious time for the spread and acceptance of Christianity. By the first century, Jewish populations and synagogues were spread throughout the Roman empire. Judaism was becoming more attractive to a more cultured society because the notion of multiple pagan gods was proving increasingly anachronistic.
However, the legalistic practices of Judaism including blood sacrifice rituals, circumcision of foreskins and avoidance of certain meats were incomprehensible to the non-Jewish mind. What the Roman empire needed was a way for Gentiles to worship one god without the accompanying baggage of repugnant teaching. Paul was the one who made the message palatable - through a liberating theology of God's son, Jesus Christ.
Paul's heresy is centered on four major premises, the latter three of which are not found elsewhere in the New Testament:
There is salvation in Jesus. This salvation comes via the intangible expression of faith. Faith is a product of God's grace, not human performance. As newcomers to the faith like Paul, we also can be apostles with Christ. In Paul's view, anyone can experience the godhead acting not from motives of "payback" but acceptance. Like children, we are becoming "joint heirs" with Christ as members of the household of God.
Writing to the Galatians, Paul clearly states his case this way:
...yet we know that a person is justified not by the works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ. And we have come to believe in Christ Jesus, so that we might be justified by faith in Christ, and not by doing the works of the law, because no one will be justified by the works of the law. This is a man bold enough to buck not only Torah Judaism, but to also indict leaders of the early Christian movement for rigid adherence to the religious traditions of yesterday. Lest anyone miss the point, he went on to challenge his Galatian readers: "I wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves."
Aggressiveness and persistence would pay off. Paul's characterization of Christian faith and practice would become a dogma to withstand the test of time.
Relationship of Paul to Peter and James: How is it that a person who was not with the Christ during his earthly ministry became the primary agent for Christian evangelization? After all, Jesus had labeled Peter as "the rock" on which "I will build my church." And it was the brother of Jesus, James, who would become the recognized leader of the early post-Easter church at Jerusalem.
Yet Paul the apostle is the one who has shaped Christian belief and practice since the first century. In part, this is because Paul is the most voluminous of the writers whose materials are contained in the canonized New Testament. Paul wins by sheer volume of material written - on matters both mysterious and mundane.
And in part, Paul emerges victorious because the legacy of potential competitors was largely extinguished. Paul's aggressiveness and his persistence paid off - his characterization of the Christian faith appears to be the one that has passed the test of time.
Despite his subsequent designation as the first in the line of papal succession, we really know very little about Peter's leadership role within the early church. The actions of Peter as church leader are recorded early in the book of Acts, and there are two short, relatively little used New Testament books attributed to his name. However, beyond this, we know little.
The legacy of James ends with his illegal lynching at the hands of the Jewish leadership, and the subsequent demise of the Jerusalem church with the Roman destruction of this city in AD 70. However, James (or his followers) leaves one important writing -- the epistle of James which stands as a sharp counterpoint to the heresy of Paul the convert.
Acceptance of Paul: Of all the New Testament writings, Paul's have become the most widely accepted, both by early Christian leaders as well as current scholars from a wide variety of persuasions.
Despite the apparent authenticity of these core epistles and their acceptance as "scripture," Paul's writings often were viewed even by the early church - including the apostle Peter - as "hard to understand."
The epistles of Paul and Luke's gospel were the only New Testament writings accepted by the 2nd century Gnostic heretic Marcion, albeit conditionally. By the time of church historian Eusebius in the early 4th century, all of the current Pauline epistles were widely accepted, though there were continuing doubts as to the authenticity of the epistle to the Hebrews. Eusebius also notes that, as of the 4th century, there was even a color portrait of Paul yet in circulation.
Paul in Summary This has been a (too) brief sketch of the times and the heresy of Paul the apostle. We have reached to the man who held the keys to formulate a set of Christian beliefs and doctrine that could endure for two millennia. A man bold enough to buck not only Torah Judaism, but to also indict leaders of the early Christian movement for their rigid adherence to a religion of yesterday.
As one might expect from a man as complex as Paul, his heresy is no less easy to understand - at least at first glance. This is a four-point message - of salvation in Jesus...manifest through the intangible expression of faith...a product of God's grace, not human performance...with opportunities for all to be apostles with Christ.
The challenge is to accept Paul's vision of humans reconciled to God not by their own attitudes or actions. Rather, in Paul's view, we experience the divine purely and solely by universal acceptance from a godhead acting not from motives of "payback" but acceptance. Like children, we are becoming "joint heirs" with Christ as members of the household of God.
The most material benefit of Paul's teaching was the opportunity for the Gentile convert to come into the family of believers without also having to accept the trappings of Judaism. The disadvantage of the Pauline formulation was that it severed Christianity from its Jewish roots, creating ongoing enmity between the Jewish and Christian traditions.
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quote:Saul was an active persecutor of the Jerusalem Church, entering its synagogues and arresting its members.
And let's not forget that Paul (Saul) was martyred for his faith. Do you think that a person would die for a lie that was invented by himself ? After examining the general trustworthiness of the Apostles on the basis of their message and life, their emphasis on truth, as well as the fact that all of them have suffered much for their faith, and all died as martyrs for their faith, it is clear that they truly believed what they preached, since nobody dies happily for what he knows to have made up and isn't true.
According to certain Muslim expositors, there is a story in the Quran that affirms that Jesus’ disciples functioned as God’s messengers. Here is the story in question, which will be followed with comments from some of Islam’s best-known commentators and historians:
“Among the apostles and those disciples around them, whom Jesus sent out, there were Peter and his companion Paul.” (Thalabii, Qisas al-Anbiyaa, pp. 389-390)
According to al-Tabari Paul was a faithful follower of the Apostles, especially the Apostle Peter. In fact, al-Tabari lists Paul as one of those martyred for the faith:
“Abu Ja'far says: They assert that after Tiberius, Palestine and other parts of Syria were ruled by Gaius, son of Tiberius, for four years. He was succeeded by another son, Claudius, for fourteen years, following which Nero ruled for fourteen years. He slew Peter and crucified Paul head down. For four months Botlaius [Vittelius] ruled thereafter. Then Vespasian, father of Titus whom he sent to Jerusalem, ruled for ten years. Three years after his rise to power, forty years after the ascension of Jesus, Vespasian sent Titus to Jerusalem. Titus destroyed it and slew numerous Israelites in his wrath over the fate of Christ…” (Ibid., p. 126;)
Narrated Ibn S'ād and Ibn Asakir by the authority of Abi Saleh and Ibn Abbas who said:
There was a one thousand and nine hundred years gap between the time of Moses the son of Imran and Jesus. During which time one thousand prophets were sent to the people of Israel. And there was five hundred and sixty nine years gap between the birth of Jesus and the time of Muhammad. During the first part of this gap, three prophets were sent. The third one of these prophets WAS SIMON.
Narrated Ibn Abi Hatim by the authority of Shuwaib Al Jabā'ayee who said: The names of the first two messengers were Simon and John. And the name of the third one was Paul.
Narrated Ibn al-Monthere from Saed bin Jubayr who said: The name of the third messenger was Paul.
Not only is Paul called a messenger, but Simon (referring to Peter) is also said to be a prophet!
This is highly interesting, especially in light of the fact that Muslims often vilify Paul, attacking his credibility. Yet, it seems that the first Muslims did not doubt for a moment that Paul was a true follower of Jesus, or at least a true follower of Jesus' Apostles. For instance, in Alfred Guillaume's The Life of Muhammad (Oxford University Press Karachi) we find the first Muslims endorsing the legitimacy of Paul as a representative of Christ's teachings:
"God has sent me (Muhammad) to all men, so take a message from me, God have mercy on you. Do not hang back from me as the disciples hung back from Jesus son of Mary. They asked how they hung back and he said, ‘He called them to a task similar to that which I have called you. Those who had to go a short journey were pleased and accepted. Those who had a long journey before them were displeased and refused to go, and Jesus complained of them to God. (T. From that very night) every one of them was able to speak the language of the people to whom he was sent.’ (T. Jesus said, ‘This is a thing that God has determined that you should do, so go.’)
"Those whom Jesus son of Mary sent, both disciples and those who came after them, in the land were: Peter the disciple AND PAUL WITH HIM, (PAUL BELONGED TO THE FOLLOWERS AND WAS NOT A DISCIPLE) to Rome. Andrew and Matthew to the land of the cannibals; Thomas to the land of Babel, which is in the land of the east; Philip to Carthage and Africa; John to Ephesus the city of the young men of the cave; James to Jerusalem which is Aelia the city of the sanctuary; Bartholomew to Arabia which is the land of Hijaz; Simon to the land of Berbers; Judah who was not one of the disciples was put in place of Judas." (Ibid. p. 653;)
Other Muslim sources that affirm the preceding statement include:
"Among the apostles and those disciples around them, whom Jesus sent out, there were Peter and his companion Paul." (Thalabii, Qisas al-Anbiyaa, pp. 389-390)
And,
"Among the apostles, and the followers who came after them were the Apostle Peter and Paul who was a follower and not an apostle; they went to Rome. Andrew and Matthew were sent to the country whose people are man-eaters, a land of blacks, we think; Thomas was sent to Babylonia in the east, Philip to Qayrawan (and) Carthage, that is, North Africa. John went to Ephesus, the city of the youths of the cave, and James to Jerusalem, that is, Aelia. Bartholomew was sent to Arabia, namely, the Hijaz; Simeon to the land of the Berbers in Africa. Judas was not then an apostle, so his place was taken by Ariobus. He filled in for Judas Iscariot after the latter had perpetrated his deed." (Tabari, History, Volume IV, p. 123;)
am I skimming this right? you are using Islamic sources to prove Paul knew Jesus when we all know full well he never met him and using Islamic sources to prove Paul wasnt the founder of Christianity??
Check again UT, the source I used was not an Islamic one, I am not looking at this from an islamic perspective. Because Paul was the founder of Christianity as it is today has been known for many years and the newly found scrolls confirm this. You can say this and that are forged all you like but not according to the scientists that date them. The church has covered up this mess since day one, having Jesus as saviour 3 in 1 was and still is a sure way of keeping the masses in the dark and under control. Jesus never said he was God, when asked if he was he replied he was the son of MAN. All the 'gospels' written by men that DID know him and found later have confirmed this, those you and the church continue to say are forgeries. Posts: 15090 | From: http://www.egyptalk.com/forum/ | Registered: Jul 2004
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The testimony of Muhammad does not add clarity to THE testimony of Christ.
Paul was an apostle called by Jesus Christ. He is a perfect example of what God can do, turn around a person one hundred and eighty degrees. He changed from being a persecuter of Christians to one of the most passionate proclaimers of the good news that ever lived.
It is important that Paul is a witness of the living risen Christ, who met him (in a vision) on the Damascus road and commissioned him to be a messenger. But still, this is "not enough". Paul also meets with the leaders of the Apostles and gets their approval for his mission and message which he is going to take to the gentiles, so that all can be sure, it is the one and true Gospel that is preached by all Apostles equally.
The early Church took great pains to make sure their faith was based on solid historical truth. They exposed heresy as soon as it came up from some people. All this is very clear from the records we have.
The Apostle Peter says (in 2 Peter 1):
12 So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. 13 I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, 14 because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me. 15 And I will make every effort to see that after my departure you will always be able to remember these things. 16 We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
The Apostles took great pain to make sure that their followers are firmly established in the truth and the true teaching was repeated and rehearsed over and over again. And it is formost on his mind that the Christians KNOW that all this was not invented stories [fables] but that all of it is based on their personal eyewitness account of Jesus life [and death and resurrection].
The Apostle John writes (in 1 John 1):
1 That which was from the beginning, which WE have HEARD, which WE have SEEN with our eyes, which WE have LOOKED AT and our hands have TOUCHED -- this WE proclaim concerning the Word of life. 2 The life appeared; WE have SEEN it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has APPEARED to US. 3 We proclaim to you what WE have SEEN and HEARD, ...
Can we miss the emphasis John puts on the fact that they [the Apostles] have intimate first hand knowledge? "Heard, ... seen, ... touched, ..."
And also the much maligned by the Muslims Apostle Paul, stresses exactly the same point (in 1 Corinthians 15):
1 Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received and on which you have taken your stand. 2 By this gospel you are saved, if you hold firmly to the word I preached to you. Otherwise, you have believed in vain.
3 For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, 4 that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures,
5 and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. 6 After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. 7 Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, 8 and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born. 9 For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God.
10 But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them -- yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. 11 Whether, then, it was I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed.
If anybody would change the gospel - that would make the faith invalid, then believing would be in vain (verse 2). It is important that it is the exact gospel. And this was a gospel which Paul has not "invented himself" but he has received it (verse 3) and only passed it on faithfully. And what is this gospel? Verses 3 and 4 give the summary. It is Jesus' death for our sins, and that he was raised from the dead. And not just the "event in itself" but it was of uttermost importance that these events are according to the Scriptures. Why? Because that is what we have already read above. That is how God authenticates. He gives prophecy for all major acts he does. He announces them beforehand so that nobody will mistake God's acts for anything else.
God announced it [in the Scriptures through the earlier prophets] and he brought it to pass. But we do not only believe it because it is predicted. Anybody can claim that something that is predicted has happened. How do we know? Because we do have many eyewitnesses who stand for this truth. Over 500 people who have witnessed the risen Christ are ready to be questioned. Most of them still alive at the time Paul writes this letter (about 55 A.D. = 25 years after the resurrection). This is an absolute solid case. At least 250 eyewitnesses are available. Some of which were not even believers in Jesus before he appeared to them [James, the brother of Jesus for example].
And, this is not just what Paul preaches, it is the exact same thing that all the other apostles also preach (verse 11).
Whether you believe the meaning of the Crucifixion or not, the historical evidence for the event of the Crucifixion and the Resurrection is rock solid.
And then, Muhammad comes along and just claims: It never happened. And he thinks, no explanation necessary. You just believe. And if not, if you have doubts, then you are just of those who have no knowledge (Qur'an 4:157).
Historical fact is the basis of Christian faith. My impression is that Islam goes the other way around. History is defined to be what the 'sacred texts' say, no matter what the factual evidence says.
My impression is that many Muslims seem to happily "just" believe it when the Qur'an says that Jesus was not crucified, that he didn't die, and that he (consequently) didn't rise from the dead. Historical evidence? Who cares!
In addition, I see the problem that the Qur'an says that the disciples of Jesus were sincere and truthful [helpers of Allah and Muslims] but that they on the other hand have clearly preached the death and resurrection of Jesus for the atonement of sin. For this there is as well lots of absolutely solid evidence and on the other hand there is no evidence at all for the Qur'anic ideas about the disciples of Christ. No doubt, the central message of the first followers of Christ was his crucifixion and resurrection.
How then do we judge the truth of the Qur'an?
What can be valid criteria to find out whether the Qur'an is right? Where is the God-given proof for its truth? And if there is no "objective" proof (at least as strong as the historical evidence for early Christianity), then how do we know it was God? God has so far always given evidence enough to show the authentication of his messages. This is the hallmark of all Biblical revelation.
Based on these observations, entrusting myself to Islam would be blind faith for me. It would be faith against evidence. I cannot do that. From the earlier prophets I see that God has never expected blind faith in his message. Especially since we are warned over and over again against false prophets and teachers. Why would God change his methods without warning or announcements? God is unchanging.
Isaiah 42:
8 "I am the LORD; that is my name! I will not give my glory to another or my praise to idols. 9 See, the former things have taken place, and new things I declare; before they spring into being I announce them to you."
Isaiah 48:
1 "Listen to this, ... 3 I foretold the former things long ago, my mouth announced them and I made them known; then suddenly I acted, and they came to pass. 4 For I knew how stubborn you were; the sinews of your neck were iron, your forehead was bronze. 5 Therefore I told you these things long ago; before they happened I announced them to you so that you could not say, `My idols did them; my wooden image and metal god ordained them.' 6 You have heard these things; look at them all. Will you not admit them? "From now on I will tell you of new things, of hidden things unknown to you.
7 They are created now, and not long ago; you have not heard of them before today. So you cannot say, `Yes, I knew of them.'
14 "Come together, all of you, and listen: Which of [the idols] has foretold these things?
And there are several more passages similar to this where God asks us to test him if he is not going to do what he announces. That is THE proof and decisive difference between the idols and the true God.
The Qur'an in the contrary seemingly expects to be believed without evidence that it is God who has given it. At least no hard evidence. Provable evidence, not something 'arbitrarily subjective' like the eloquence of the Qur'an which no non-Arabic speaker can verify for himself, and which not even native Arabs agree upon.
In Islam it is claimed that the same God of the earlier prophets also spoke through Muhammad, yet he seems to not only no longer give any evidence to his prophet's claims, but even worse Islam seems to be disregarding historical facts, and demands that we believe Muhammad's pronouncements for our eternal destination even though we can't even trust it in its "earthly" statements about history.
Jesus says to Nicodemus: how will you believe me if I tell you of heavenly things if you don't even believe me for earthly ones? Indeed, how can I? Not in regard to Jesus or the Bible which give us lots of facts to check and they hold up to scrutiny, but how can I believe the Qur'an and Muhammad?
Ten days after the ascension, 50 days after the resurrection, Peter, the leader of the Apostles who has been with Jesus for 3 years, preaches on the crucifixion and resurrection (Acts 2).
In Acts 1 it is made clear that to be an Apostle one must have been with him from the beginning and be an eyewitness of his resurrection to make sure everything is based on first hand knowledge and not on imagination and hearsay. That is the basis for the election of the twelvth apostle to replace Judas the traitor. Also later, when the Apostle Paul is called by Jesus himself, it is important that Paul is a witness of the living risen Christ. Like i said, Paul also met with the leaders of the Apostles and gets their approval for his mission and message which he is going to take to the gentiles, so that all can be sure, it is the one and true Gospel that is preached by all Apostles equally.
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doesnt it stand up without referring to Islam?
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The real historical picture is this: Jesus dies around 30 AD and his disciples believe he is raised from the dead. Within three years of that event a creed has been formed to guide orthodox Christian belief about what the gospel is, including accounts of five separate post-resurrection appearances. Shortly thereafter, Paul converts dramatically after claiming that Jesus appeared to him. In two separate meetings in Jerusalem, Paul meets with Peter, James, and John and they all determine together that Paul is preaching the truth about the resurrection.
Paul becomes a missionary and preaches this message to the Gentiles, sending letters to the Gentile churches later to ensure their spiritual growth. As the eyewitness generation begins to pass, Mark and others take the written and eyewitness accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and compose theological narratives that are true to what is already considered to be orthodox belief. Before he dies, John writes his Gospel, which includes some of the most mature reflections on the resurrection experience.
Paul’s account is not his own invention, but the inclusion of a creedal statement that was already widely believed before he wrote his letter. Paul is “passing on what he received,” a phrase that for Jews referred especially to the faithful handing down of sacred traditions.
So if Paul didn’t invent the account of the resurrection or the post resurrection appearances, where did this creedal formula come from? Let’s take a look at the timeline, which goes backward from John’s Gospel until the death of Jesus (the numbers are dates by year in the first century):
95: John writes his Gospel, claims to be an eyewitness. 85: Luke writes his Gospel, claims to have verified with available eyewitnesses. 80: Matthew writes his Gospel, traditionally believed to be an eyewitness. 70: Mark writes his Gospel, traditionally believed to reflect Peter’s eyewitness account. 55: Paul writes to the Corinthians, “What I received I also passed on to you,” followed by what most critics (including the Jesus Seminar) believe to be a preformed creedal formula. The statement is intended to show unity with the other Apostles’ teaching (see especially verse 11), not Paul’s invention. 50-51: Paul preaches to the Corinthians, delivers to them what he had already received. 49-50: Paul meets privately with the leaders of the church in Jerusalem fourteen years after his first meeting to “set before them the gospel that I preach… for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain” (Galatians 2.2). 35-36: Three years after his conversion, Paul goes to Jerusalem to meet with Peter and James. 32-33: Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. Jesus Seminar believes formula predates Paul’s conversion. 30: Death and resurrection of Jesus. James D. G. Dunn (Christian NT scholar) believes creedal statement was formed by fall of 30 AD.
The dating of Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 15, which provides details of the resurrection long before the writing of the Gospels, may not be “established fact.” But when the Jesus Seminar dates it before Paul was even a Christian, we can safely say scholarly consensus is that Paul did not invent it.
The confessional content of the Christian faith seems consistent throughout the first century, including the last 30 years. The most fantastic details of Jesus’ resurrection were already widely believed somewhere between six months to three years after the supposed event—that’s more than 35 years before Mark wrote his Gospel.
What about Paul’s statement in Galatians 1.12 that he got the gospel directly from Jesus, and was not taught it by any person? Does that mean he wrote the gospel and is responsible for inventing Jesus Christ?
Paul’s concern in Galatians to establish as historical fact his direct contact with Christ in receiving the gospel has more to do with establishing his legitimacy as an Apostle, as in 1 Corinthians 15. He intends to show independent corroboration of the gospel, an effort any naturalist could applaud, while also showing his complete unity with the other Apostles’ preaching. This is why he emphasizes both his direct experience of Christ as well as his preaching of the same gospel message.
Not only that, he places the preaching of the one true gospel above his own legitimacy as an Apostle. In 1 Corinthians 15.11 he says hearing and believing the one true gospel is more important than who preaches it. But what is clear is that Paul believed that he was preaching the same gospel, and he used the well-known formula to show his unity with the other Apostles, even though he first received the message from Christ himself.
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Ayisha: Jesus never said he was God, when asked if he was he replied he was the son of MAN. All the 'gospels' written by men that DID know him and found later have confirmed this, those you and the church continue to say are forgeries.
The Gnostic gospels are attributed to a group known as (big surprise here) the Gnostics. Their name comes from the Greek word gnosis, meaning “knowledge.” These people thought they had secret, special knowledge hidden from ordinary people.
As Christianity spread, the Gnostics mixed some doctrines and elements of Christianity into their beliefs, morphing Gnosticism into a counterfeit Christianity.
In The Oxford History of Christianity John McManners wrote of the Gnostics’ mixture of Christian and mythical beliefs.
Gnosticism was (and still is) a theosophy with many ingredients. Occultism and oriental mysticism became fused with astrology, magic. … They collected sayings of Jesus shaped to fit their own interpretation (as in the Gospel of Thomas), and offered their adherents an alternative or rival form of Christianity.
A mild strain of Gnostic philosophy was already growing in the first century just decades after the death of Jesus. The apostles, in their teaching and writings, went to great lengths to condemn these beliefs as being opposed to the truth of Jesus, to whom they were eyewitnesses.
Check out, for example, what the apostle John wrote near the end of the first century:
Who is the great liar? The one who says that Jesus is not the Christ. Such people are antichrists, for they have denied the Father and the Son. (1 John 2:22, NIV).
Following the apostles’ teaching, the early church leaders unanimously condemned the Gnostics as a cult. Church father Irenaeus, writing 140 years before the Council of Nicaea, confirmed that the Gnostics were condemned by the church as heretics. He also rejected their “gospels.” But, referring to the four New Testament Gospels, he said, “It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are.”
Christian theologian Origen wrote this in the early third century, more than a hundred years before Nicaea:
I know a certain gospel which is called “The Gospel according to Thomas” and a “Gospel according to Matthias,” and many others have we read—lest we should in any way be considered ignorant because of those who imagine they possess some knowledge if they are acquainted with these.
Nevertheless, among all these we have approved solely what the church has recognized, which is that only four gospels should be accepted.
When it comes to the Gnostic gospels, just about every book carries the name of a New Testament character: the Gospel of Philip, the Gospel of Peter, the Gospel of Mary, and so on. But were they even written by their purported authors? Let’s take a look.
New Testament scholar Norman Geisler writes, “The Gnostic writings were not written by the apostles, but by men in the second century (and later) pretending to use apostolic authority to advance their own teachings. Today we call this fraud and forgery.”
No credible scholar believes any of them could have been written by their namesakes. In James M. Robinson’s comprehensive The Nag Hammadi Library, we learn that the Gnostic gospels were written by “largely unrelated and anonymous authors.”
The Gnostic gospels are not historical accounts of Jesus’ life but instead are largely esoteric sayings, shrouded in mystery, leaving out historical details such as names, places, and events. This is in striking contrast to the New Testament Gospels, which contain innumerable historical facts about Jesus’ life, ministry, and words.
Who would you be more likely to believe—someone who says, “Hey, I’ve got some secret facts that were mysteriously revealed to me,” or someone who says, “I’ve searched all the evidence and history and here it is for you to make up your mind on”? Keeping that question in mind, consider the following two statements, the first from the Gnostic Gospel of Thomas and the second from the New Testament’s Gospel of Luke (c. 55-70 A.D.).
* These are the hidden sayings that the living Jesus spoke and Judas Thomas the Twin recorded. * Many people have written accounts about the events that took place among us. They used as their source material the reports circulating among us from the early disciples and other eyewitnesses of what God has done in fulfillment of his promises. Having carefully investigated all of these accounts from the beginning, I have decided to write a careful summary for you, to reassure you of the truth of all you were taught. (Luke 1:1-4, NLT)
Do you find the open and aboveboard approach of Luke appealing? And do you find the fact that it was written closer to the original events to be in favor of its reliability? If so, that’s what the early church thought as well.
And most scholars concur with the early church’s view that the New Testament is the authentic history of Jesus. New Testament scholar Raymond Brown has said of the Gnostic gospels, “We learn not a single verifiable new fact about the historical Jesus’ ministry, and only a few new sayings that might possibly have been his.”
Thus, even though the Gnostic writings have impressed some scholars, their late dating and questionable authorship can’t compare with the New Testament. Such contrast between the New Testament and the Gnostic writings is devastating to those pushing conspiracy theories. New Testament historian F. F. Bruce wrote, “There is no body of ancient literature in the world which enjoys such a wealth of good textual attestation as the New Testament”
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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He was crucified on a cross at Golgotha, or "The place of a skull," undoubtedly outside the wall of Old Jerusalem. Another name for this hill, in the language of Rome, is Calvary.
Although it's debatable where exactly Jesus is buried, we know it was in Jerusalem. Many even make pilgrimages to Jerusalem to see where Jesus died, was buried, and arose from the dead. But what's important to Christians is not where He was buried, but that the tomb was empty.
Most Protestants (especially English Protestants) believe Jesus was buried and resurrected in the Garden Tomb and most Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Coptic, and Ethiopian believe Jesus was buried and resurrected in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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Something important to keep in mind is that the Gospels sprang forth from the Church. The Church which was started by Jesus, was based on who Jesus was, what he talk, said and did. The people in the early Church knew who Jesus was. Thus in the late 4th century when Councils came together, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, they could discern which writings revealed Jesus and which ones did not. The Gnostic gospels, which were a product of Gnosticism, did not reveal the same Jesus of the Church (and they still don't).
The gnostic gospels to not appear until long after the time of Jesus and the apostles. When they did begin to appear, we have documents written by various churches leaders that often give us information about when the documents first appeared, who (or what group) was responsible for them, and why they were rejected. Many of the "gnostic gospels" were not even written in the 4th, 5th and 6th century, after the content of the New Testament was decided.
Think of it like this, 500 years from now, someone may find a copy of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar, and wonder why it was not including the Bible. Those of living today know why, because we know when it was written (thousands of years later), who it was written by (a secular musician and not someone with first hand knowledge), and that it was never intended to seen as "scripture". So the early church fathers had the advantage of living when these documents were produced, knowing where they came from, and being able to reject those that had no first hand knowledge of Christ.
As early as 97 AD, the books of the New Testament was well enough established that Clements of Rome in his writings quotes from 21 of the 27 books. (The five books authored by John were created between 95 and 100 AD, so not available for him to quote.) He also does NOT quote from a single one of the later rejected books.
By 100 AD, liturgies of the church were in place that use only the 27 books of the New Testament in the prayers and rituals, quoting all by 11 verse of the New Testament. Not a single quote from any of the other "gospels" or writings are included. Within 65-70 years of the time of Jesus, those writings were already rejected by the church, by the people who would have had first knowledge of their origin and intends.
By 120 AD, Ignacius was already circulating a list of the accepted and rejected books of the New Testament. All of the early "gnostic" gospels are on his reject list. The majority of the "gnostic gospels" did not even appear until the mid to late 2nd century, a century to a century and a half after the time of Jesus. This calls into question the reliability of them as "historical". Historically, they don't line up with the rest of the bible.
You know how you can test art to see if it's authentic or a reproduction? Similarily you can examine signitures to see if they're forgeries. With written works there's a somewhat sketchy process where you can test for tone, tempo, writing style, etc, etc... What's amazing is that the 66 books of the bible, even though they were all written by different authors, they all have a quality to them in terms of tone, writing style etc., that gives the impression they were all written by the same author - even though we can prove they were not. The gnostic gospels sound different, they don't line up. There are several issues which make them questionable - even to those who aren't Christians and are just examining them to see what's what. They are very interesting to read, especially the gospel of Thomas.
You might want to get a copy of "the missing Gospels" by Bock for more information on historical accuracy, and dating documentation.
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Originally posted by unfinished thought.: [QB] The real historical picture is this: Jesus dies around 30 AD and his disciples believe he is raised from the dead. Within three years of that event a creed has been formed to guide orthodox Christian belief about what the gospel is, including accounts of five separate post-resurrection appearances. Shortly thereafter, Paul converts dramatically after claiming that Jesus appeared to him. In two separate meetings in Jerusalem, Paul meets with Peter, James, and John and they all determine together that Paul is preaching the truth about the resurrection.
Paul's new religion had the advantage over other salvation-cults of being attached to the Hebrew Scriptures, which Paul now reinterpreted as forecasting the salvation-death of Jesus. This gave Pauline Christianity an awesome authority that proved attractive to Gentiles thirsting for salvation. Paul's new doctrine, however, met with disapproval from the Jewish-Christians of the Jerusalem Church, who regarded the substitution of Jesus' atoning death for the observance of the Torah as a lapse into paganism. Paul was summoned to Jerusalem by the leaders James (Jesus' brother), Peter, and John to explain his doctrine (c.50).
At the ensuing conference, agreement was reached that Paul's Gentile converts did not need to observe the Torah. This was not a revolutionary decision, since Judaism had never insisted on full conversion to Judaism for Gentiles. But Paul on this occasion concealed his belief that the Torah was no longer valid for Jews either. He was thus confirmed in the role of "apostle to the Gentiles," with full permission to enroll Gentiles in the messianic movement without requiring full conversion to Judaism.
It was when Peter visited him in Antioch and became aware of the full extent of Paul's views that a serious rift began between Pauline and Jewish Christianity. At a second conference in Jerusalem (c.55), Paul was accused by James of teaching Jews "to turn their backs on Moses" (Acts 21:21). Again, however, Paul evaded the charge by concealing his views, and he agreed to undergo a test of his own observance of the Torah. His deception, however, was detected by a group of "Asian Jews" (probably Jewish Christians) who were aware of his real teaching. A stormy protest ensued in which Paul feared for his life and was rescued by the Roman police, to whom he declared for his protection that he was a Roman citizen. This surprising announcement was the end of Paul's association with the Jerusalem Church, to whom the Romans were the chief enemy.
The Roman commandant, Claudius Lysias, decided to bring Paul before the Sanhedrin in order to discover the cause of the disturbance. With great presence of mind, Paul appealed to the Pharisee majority to acquit him, claiming to be a Pharisee like James. Paul was rescued by the Pharisees from the high priest, like Peter before him. However, the high priest, resenting this escape, appointed a body of men to assassinate Paul. Learning of the plot, Paul again placed himself under the protection of the Romans, who transported him by armed guard from Jerusalem to Caesarea. The High Priest Ananias was implacable, no doubt because of Paul's defection from his police task in Damascus, and laid a charge of anti-Roman activity against him. Paul appealed for a trial in Rome before Caesar, his right as a Roman citizen. The assertion of Acts that the Jewish "elders" were also implicated in the charges against Paul is unhistorical, since these same elders had just acquitted him in his Sanhedrin trial. Paul was sent to Rome, and here our information ends. Legends speak of his eventual martyrdom in Rome.
deceitful slippery little bugger wasnt he?
quote:Paul becomes a missionary and preaches this message to the Gentiles, sending letters to the Gentile churches later to ensure their spiritual growth. As the eyewitness generation begins to pass, Mark and others take the written and eyewitness accounts of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus and compose theological narratives that are true to what is already considered to be orthodox belief. Before he dies, John writes his Gospel, which includes some of the most mature reflections on the resurrection experience.
Paul’s account is not his own invention, but the inclusion of a creedal statement that was already widely believed before he wrote his letter. Paul is “passing on what he received,” a phrase that for Jews referred especially to the faithful handing down of sacred traditions.
So if Paul didn’t invent the account of the resurrection or the post resurrection appearances, where did this creedal formula come from? Let’s take a look at the timeline, which goes backward from John’s Gospel until the death of Jesus (the numbers are dates by year in the first century):
95: John writes his Gospel, claims to be an eyewitness. 85: Luke writes his Gospel, claims to have verified with available eyewitnesses. 80: Matthew writes his Gospel, traditionally believed to be an eyewitness. 70: Mark writes his Gospel, traditionally believed to reflect Peter’s eyewitness account. 55: Paul writes to the Corinthians, “What I received I also passed on to you,” followed by what most critics (including the Jesus Seminar) believe to be a preformed creedal formula. The statement is intended to show unity with the other Apostles’ teaching (see especially verse 11), not Paul’s invention. 50-51: Paul preaches to the Corinthians, delivers to them what he had already received. 49-50: Paul meets privately with the leaders of the church in Jerusalem fourteen years after his first meeting to “set before them the gospel that I preach… for fear that I was running or had run my race in vain” (Galatians 2.2). 35-36: Three years after his conversion, Paul goes to Jerusalem to meet with Peter and James. 32-33: Paul’s conversion on the road to Damascus. Jesus Seminar believes formula predates Paul’s conversion. 30: Death and resurrection of Jesus. James D. G. Dunn (Christian NT scholar) believes creedal statement was formed by fall of 30 AD.
The dating of Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 15, which provides details of the resurrection long before the writing of the Gospels, may not be “established fact.” But when the Jesus Seminar dates it before Paul was even a Christian, we can safely say scholarly consensus is that Paul did not invent it.
The confessional content of the Christian faith seems consistent throughout the first century, including the last 30 years. The most fantastic details of Jesus’ resurrection were already widely believed somewhere between six months to three years after the supposed event—that’s more than 35 years before Mark wrote his Gospel.
What about Paul’s statement in Galatians 1.12 that he got the gospel directly from Jesus, and was not taught it by any person? Does that mean he wrote the gospel and is responsible for inventing Jesus Christ?
Paul’s concern in Galatians to establish as historical fact his direct contact with Christ in receiving the gospel has more to do with establishing his legitimacy as an Apostle, as in 1 Corinthians 15. He intends to show independent corroboration of the gospel, an effort any naturalist could applaud, while also showing his complete unity with the other Apostles’ preaching. This is why he emphasizes both his direct experience of Christ as well as his preaching of the same gospel message.
Not only that, he places the preaching of the one true gospel above his own legitimacy as an Apostle. In 1 Corinthians 15.11 he says hearing and believing the one true gospel is more important than who preaches it. But what is clear is that Paul believed that he was preaching the same gospel, and he used the well-known formula to show his unity with the other Apostles, even though he first received the message from Christ himself.
We have already seen Paul to be a liar and how can he say it was from Jesus himself when he never met him? It is also more clear now with your dates that there was only oneof the 4 'gospel' writers that actually met Jesus!!
You missed the whole point of this totally UT. The text I quoted is not disputing the death and resurrection as you have assumed, it is disputing the 3 in 1, the trinity, the Jesus is God and/or the son of God. Jesus never preached that and neither did anyone that was around then, the eye witnesses. Jesus was a Jew and followed the Moses route, he did not come to bring a new religion as he said himself. Paul invented the new religion. Posts: 15090 | From: http://www.egyptalk.com/forum/ | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by unfinished thought.: He was crucified on a cross at Golgotha, or "The place of a skull," undoubtedly outside the wall of Old Jerusalem. Another name for this hill, in the language of Rome, is Calvary.
Although it's debatable where exactly Jesus is buried, we know it was in Jerusalem. Many even make pilgrimages to Jerusalem to see where Jesus died, was buried, and arose from the dead. But what's important to Christians is not where He was buried, but that the tomb was empty.
Most Protestants (especially English Protestants) believe Jesus was buried and resurrected in the Garden Tomb and most Roman Catholics, Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Coptic, and Ethiopian believe Jesus was buried and resurrected in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.
No I dont mean this 'death' I mean where is he NOW, where was his END death? People saw him after he was crucified, Mary saw him and others, didnt he say to not touch him? it was not just that the tomb was empty it was that he was alive still after the supposed crucifiction, so where is the BODY or did he keep dying, being buried in various places and coming back again? Posts: 15090 | From: http://www.egyptalk.com/forum/ | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:We have already seen Paul to be a liar and how can he say it was from Jesus himself when he never met him?
Act 9:1 Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest Act 9:2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Act 9:3 Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. Act 9:4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" Act 9:5 He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Act 9:6 But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do."
Paul did not lie about Jesus, and certainly he did not "invent" Christianity. If Paul really "invented" Christianity, then one would expect that his teachings would be different from Jesus, the other apostles, and disciples.
For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:11-12)
If it were true that Paul received his teaching directly from Jesus Christ, then surely Jesus Himself would have taught what Paul was preaching.
You don't believe Paul yet you believe Muhammad whose testimony was hearsay. Muhammad's testimony would not be admissible in court. There was no coroboration that his "revelations" were from "Jibreel," who may or may not have even existed except as a figment of Muhammad's imagination. It could be argued that he was psychotic; he showed all of the symptoms. All of this is to say that I see no good reason for to believe that anything that Muhammad said was true.
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Ayisha: No I dont mean this 'death' I mean where is he NOW, where was his END death? People saw him after he was crucified, Mary saw him and others, didnt he say to not touch him? it was not just that the tomb was empty it was that he was alive still after the supposed crucifiction, so where is the BODY or did he keep dying, being buried in various places and coming back again?
Jesus rose from the dead in the very same physical body that He died in. This resurrected body was a glorified, spiritual body. After the resurrection Jesus was able to eat (Luke 24:4243). He showed people His hands and feet with the nail prints in them (Luke 24:51; John 20:27), and people even grabbed His feet and worshipped Him (Matt. 28:9). After the reports of Jesus' resurrection were spreading, Thomas, who was doubting the resurrection of Christ, said, "Unless I shall see in His hands the imprint of the nails, and put my finger into the place of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe," (John 20:25). Later, Jesus appeared to Thomas and said to him, "Reach here your finger, and see My hands; and reach here your hand, and put it into My side; and be not unbelieving, but believing," (John 20:27).
According to the Scriptures death does not mean non-existence, but rather refers to the separation that resulted from Adam's sin. The Bible tell us that as a result of the first man's sin, two types of separation occurred. The first is spiritual "death" where a person is severed from having fellowship with God, being separated from God's loving, intimate presence. Spiritual separation occurred as a result of sin.
"As for you, you were DEAD in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to LIVE..but because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us ALIVE with Christ even when we were DEAD in transgressions–it is by grace you have been saved." Ephesians 2:1-5
This passage, speaks of believers being dead in sin prior to their regeneration and union with Jesus. Yet it is obvious that believers were still conscious and alive when they were dead in sin. Being dead in sin doesn't mean ceasing to exist, but refers to being separated from loving union with God, just as the passage states.
The second type of "death" that the Bible refers to is physical death. This is where the soul/spirit departs from the body and the body returns to the ground from which it came. And, as our sin-bearer, Jesus experienced both types of death, i.e. the loss of intimate communion with God and his soul departing from his body.
Yet, neither types of death results in non-existence or cessation of life. Note for example, the following citations:
"But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel." Hebrews 12:22-24
Interestingly, the Quran agrees with this definition of death:
And say not of those slain in God's way, 'They are dead'; rather they are living, but you are not aware. S. 2:154
Count not those who were slain in God's way as dead, but rather living with their Lord, by Him provided, rejoicing in the bounty that God has given them, and joyful in those who remain behind and have not joined them, because no fear shall be on them, neither shall they sorrow, S. 3:169-170
This echoes the words of Jesus Christ:
"But in the account of the bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive." Luke 20:37-38
Christ therefore, did not cease to live when he died on the cross since, as the Bible teaches, the Lord's soul was still consciously alive during the three days his body lay in the tomb:
"Jesus answered them, ‘Destroy this temple, AND I WILL RAISE IT AGAIN IN THREE DAYS.’ The Jews replied, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and YOU are going to raise it in three days?’ But the temple he had spoken of was HIS BODY. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken." John 2:19-22
"The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life--only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down OF MY OWN ACCORD. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father." John 10:17-18
The only way that Christ could be able to raise himself from the dead is if Christ were still consciously alive. This establishes that Christ did not cease to exist for those three days that his body remained in the grave. Both Christ’s divine nature and his human soul were still conscious during that period of time. God always exists as Trinity even during the entombment of Christ’s physical body.
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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After his resurrection, Jesus could be recognized as Jesus. Jesus had flesh and bones, and some of the marks of crucifixion (v. 39). He could be touched, and he could eat. But he could also miraculously appear in locked rooms, or ascend into heaven (John 20:19-20; Acts 1:9).
But is this the way Jesus now is? Is there a five foot six inch body of flesh and bones somewhere in outer space? Is Jesus normally invisible, or does his body shine in glory, or does he look like a lamb that has been slain? (Rev. 5:6). Or are all of these appearances merely appearances, not necessarily a permanent shape or form?
I see a couple of basic facts here: First, that the tomb was empty and the body of Jesus was gone. Second, that the resurrected Jesus had a body, although that body had some extraordinary properties. The simplest way to connect these two facts is to conclude that the body of Jesus was resurrected and changed. The new Jesus had physical continuity with the old Jesus, but there were important differences.
I do not believe that Jesus has to remain visible to our eyes. When he appeared, his body reflected photons; when he disappeared, it did not. Yet in both states, Jesus had a body.
He inhabits eternity, and he does not have to conform to the finite electromagnetic quantum world that we are able to investigate. And for that reason, I do not believe that Jesus' body has to conform to the dimensions that we know.
Our questions about "size" and "location" are based on limits that probably do not apply to Jesus Christ. Such questions may make no more sense than asking what purple smells like—we are asking about a condition with terminology that is not suited for that condition.
quote:We have already seen Paul to be a liar and how can he say it was from Jesus himself when he never met him?
Act 9:1 Meanwhile Saul, still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord, went to the high priest Act 9:2 and asked him for letters to the synagogues at Damascus, so that if he found any who belonged to the Way, men or women, he might bring them bound to Jerusalem. Act 9:3 Now as he was going along and approaching Damascus, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. Act 9:4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, "Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?" Act 9:5 He asked, "Who are you, Lord?" The reply came, "I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. Act 9:6 But get up and enter the city, and you will be told what you are to do."
Paul did not lie about Jesus, and certainly he did not "invent" Christianity. If Paul really "invented" Christianity, then one would expect that his teachings would be different from Jesus, the other apostles, and disciples.
For I would have you know, brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not according to man. For I neither received it from man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ. (Galatians 1:11-12)
If it were true that Paul received his teaching directly from Jesus Christ, then surely Jesus Himself would have taught what Paul was preaching.
You don't believe Paul yet you believe Muhammad whose testimony was hearsay. Muhammad's testimony would not be admissible in court. There was no coroboration that his "revelations" were from "Jibreel," who may or may not have even existed except as a figment of Muhammad's imagination. It could be argued that he was psychotic; he showed all of the symptoms. All of this is to say that I see no good reason for to believe that anything that Muhammad said was true.
UT, we are not talking about Muhammed we are talking about Paul, the one who was Saul and persecuted followers of Christ and never met Jesus until his 'vision' and was the main contributor to the New Testement. Please try to stay on track or are you so insecure about this that you have to attack my belief to make yours appear better? And have you never heard of Gabriel from the Bible?
You keep going back to him teaching the same as Jesus when he didnt and his meeting with James and Peter showed him to be concealing things. There are no writings from Jesus, the only way we know what Jesus taught is from eye witnesses and those eye witness books are banned from the Bible. The 4 Gospels are written by people that never met him apart from one 'possibility' so there is only Pauls word for it that he is teaching this 'from' Jesus. Doesnt it seem odd that with all those disciples Jesus chose one of his persecutors to 'teach' his words?
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quote:There are no writtings from Jesus, the only way we know what Jesus taught is from eye witnesses and those eye witness books are banned from the Bible.
I explained why the Gnostic Gospels were banned from the Bible.
The four Gospels were written by their traditional authors, who used first-hand, eyewitness testimony in their accounts. Furthermore, the Gospels are early and therefore too close to the events they narrate for unhistorical legends to replace the hard-core facts. Finally, the words of Jesus were preserved carefully during their oral transmission before being written down in the Gospels.
The four Gospels we have were written by the people whose names they bear. Several lines of evidence support this, but I will focus on only a few. First of all, even though the authors of the Gospels did not sign their names to their work (the early Church gave each Gospel its name), this does not mean that their authors were not known or that the Church was wrong. In fact, if it was not widely known in the early church who wrote the gospels, we would expect there to be differing traditions among the early Christians about who did write them. Instead, there were no dissenting traditions in the first century of church tradition, but all agreed that the Gospels were authored by the people whose names they bear. The people who were closest to the actual composition, and therefore were in one of the best positions to know, unanimously agreed that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John authored the four gospels.
A common objection is that oral traditions attract unhistorical embellishments as they are transmitted over time, much like we see in the "telephone game." The Gospels, however, were simply written too early for legend to overcome the hard-core historical facts. There was not enough time for Jesus' words to be imbellished. Also, a study of the use of the Gospels in later Gnostic and aberrant Jewish Christian sources, as well as their use by the more orthodox church fathers, suggests that it was actually common for the length of narratives to be abbreviated and streamlined in transmission, not imbellished.
Apostolic control of the oral traditions would have also served to keep them accurate. The apostles, who had themselves been eyewitnesses and been the first to memorize Jesus' teachings, would have not allowed for any departure from the facts.
And even if there would have been any tendency to distort the words of Jesus, the presence of hostile eyewitnesses during the short period of oral transmission before the Gospels would have served as a corrective on any intention to depart from the facts. False statements could and would have been challenged by those who were only too glad to do so in order to discredit Christianity.
The idea that the early Church willfully manipulated Jesus' words cannot be held in light of the historical evidence. A lack of reference within the gospels to later church controversies (such as speaking in tongues and circumcision) indicates that the early church did not change or add sayings of Jesus as they desired to suit their purposes. If the teachings of Jesus were largely the invention of the early church, or if the early church purposely altered His teaching during the oral transmission, they would have had Jesus address such hot topics of their day. This tells us that the Jesus of the Gospels was not manufactured to meet the needs of the early church.
Lastly, a refusal to eliminate the "hard sayings" of Jesus (such as Matt. 10:5-6 and Mark 13:30) further shows that the early church did not feel free to rewrite the story of Christ's life apart from the constraints of historical fact. If the early church actively distorted the sayings of Jesus, as is often claimed, then why did they not eliminate such difficult sayings? And as we saw earlier, why did they not invent sayings that would have suited their purpose and solved the current controversies of the day? There is therefore no ground for believing that the early church manipulated and changed the teachings and life of Jesus.
quote:The 4 Gospels are written by people that never met him
Well, John who wrote the Gospel of John was one of Jesus disciples if you read it you will see clearly he was with him and talks of himself as the disciple Jesus loved.
Mark, is possibly the young man carrying a pitcher of water leading Jesus and his disciples to the upper room for the last supper. In any case he had the apostle Peter as his major source of material. It is also contended that the man at Gethsemane, when Jesus was arrested who fled naked was Mark. Certainly, if Mark was the man who fled, he knew Jesus. Certainly if Mark knew Peter, he knew a lot about Jesus, as is evident from his Gospel record. Mark leaves historical clues that could easily be discredited if they were not true. He sites actual places: Nazareth, Galele, the Jordan. John was a real person, in that his beheading is recorded in a documented case. There were witnesses of John and his early baptizing. So all of these historical facts contextualizes the baptism in the currents of history.
Don't assume that Mark and Luke never met Jesus ONLY BECAUSE they weren't in the 12 apostles, which would mean in Jesus' lifetime, he met only 12 people. Mark was an accomplice of Paul and Barnabas, and later Peter. He's mentioned in 1 Peter 5:13. Luke was also Paul's accomplice, and is mentioned in Colossians 4:14, 2 Timothy 4:11 and Philemon 24. Members of the twelve changed over time. When Judas died he was replaced by Mathias. Jesus stopped Paul on the road to Damascus because he had a purpose for him. Paul later received the office of Apostle as well. His mission was to the Gentiles. His letters were to churches in the West that he established. The epistles of the senior Apostles Peter, James and John were general instructions to the entire church. Paul carried out his mission under their leadership. Paul was an Apostle to the Nations. He preached throughout Asia Minor. The original 12 were generally confined to Jerusalem and it's surroundings.
The Gospel writers intended to convey reliable history. This is forcefully supported by the careful preservation of the oral tradition that existed before the gospels. Formally, the gospels parallel other historical and biographical literature of the day.
The presence of details which actually go against the purpose of the account also supports that the writers intended to be accurate. For example, a woman's testimony was not considered very trustworthy in that day. Yet, the gospel writers have women as being the first witnesses to the resurrection. There is also much material in the Gospels that is embarrassing to Jesus' disciples. They are portrayed, in each account, as unbelieving, cowardly, and dull. This shows the integrity of the writers to tell it like it was.
Finally, the gospel writers claim to be writing accurately. This is the strongest testimony of their intentions because it comes from their own mouths. Luke says that he had "investigated everything carefully from the beginning...so that you might know the exact truth about the things you have been taught" (Luke 1:3,4) John declares "and he who has seen has borne witness, and his witness is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe" (John 19:35). And Peter is very clear when he says "For we did not follow cleverly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty" (2 Peter 1:16). They knew the difference between fact and fiction.
Because the writers intended to convey accurate history, this means that if in any way they willfully manipulated the facts, they were intentional deceivers. And because the apostles were present to ensure that the oral tradition did remain pure, any tampering would have been willful. For example, if Jesus' tomb was not empty, the gospel writers were intentionally lying when they say that it was empty. This means that if the gospels are not accurate records of the sayings and doings of Christ, then they are simply a colossal fraud. Yet, no reputable critical scholar today holds that the early disciples were intentional deceivers.
Also, the fact that all of the apostles were willing to die horrible deaths, refusing to renounce their faith in Christ, is tremendous evidence that they had truly witnessed the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is not so important how the apostles died. What is important is the fact that they were all willing to die for their faith. If Jesus had not been resurrected, the disciples would have known it. People will not die for something they know to be a lie.
quote:Paul never met Jesus in the flesh, he only claimed some strange vision and proceeded to paganize the teachings of Jesus
Using this logic, you shouldn't even begin to trust what Prophet Muhammad taught about Jesus since he never met Jesus and didn't even live close to the same time period.
Paul was a Jew, not a pagan. Statements made by the apostle Paul (see also Paul's Ministry):
"Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia" (Acts 21:39 KJV)
Paul was religiously a Jew (and a Pharisee at that), of Judah.
Why would a Jew want to paganize the teachings of Jesus?
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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posted
Well said Unfinished. What cannot be forgotten is how Jesus respected women. He first revealed himself to them after his resurrection. We also have from the Bible teachings that Men and WOMEN were filled with the holy ghost and were prophets.
Peace
Posts: 9651 | From: Reace and Love City. | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:There are no writtings from Jesus, the only way we know what Jesus taught is from eye witnesses and those eye witness books are banned from the Bible.
I explained why the Gnostic Gospels were banned from the Bible.
where?? you skimmed past Gnostisism like swatting a fly away from your face, you explained nothing.
quote:The four Gospels were written by their traditional authors, who used first-hand, eyewitness testimony in their accounts. Furthermore, the Gospels are early and therefore too close to the events they narrate for unhistorical legends to replace the hard-core facts. Finally, the words of Jesus were preserved carefully during their oral transmission before being written down in the Gospels.
How and where? There is no records of Jesus oral transmissions only of 'eye witnesses' relating things supposedly to these 4 unknown Gospel writers who wrote it how many years after?? what about the traditions that were still being followed by a small group who still followed the Jesus way? The Gospels were not that early and dear old Paul started preaching 10 years after the 'death' of Jesus (you still not found the body remember) so whatever you have NOW is from Paul as the text above shows he deceived James (Jesus brother)and Peter and kept his little inventions to himself until he had spread the word enough to be the majority vote.
quote:The four Gospels we have were written by the people whose names they bear. Several lines of evidence support this, but I will focus on only a few. First of all, even though the authors of the Gospels did not sign their names to their work (the early Church gave each Gospel its name), this does not mean that their authors were not known or that the Church was wrong. In fact, if it was not widely known in the early church who wrote the gospels, we would expect there to be differing traditions among the early Christians about who did write them. Instead, there were no dissenting traditions in the first century of church tradition, but all agreed that the Gospels were authored by the people whose names they bear. The people who were closest to the actual composition, and therefore were in one of the best positions to know, unanimously agreed that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John authored the four gospels.
wonderful, the top brass all agreed that 'Matthew, Mark, Luke and John' wrote the 4 Gospels but who the hell WERE these guys and why only POSSIBLY ONE actually knew Jesus, the guy they were supposedly relating the words and teachings of??? How do you KNOW that good old Matt Mark Luke and John were not mates of PAUL or got their info from Paul who said it was from someone else?
quote:A common objection is that oral traditions attract unhistorical embellishments as they are transmitted over time, much like we see in the "telephone game." The Gospels, however, were simply written too early for legend to overcome the hard-core historical facts. There was not enough time for Jesus' words to be imbellished. Also, a study of the use of the Gospels in later Gnostic and aberrant Jewish Christian sources, as well as their use by the more orthodox church fathers, suggests that it was actually common for the length of narratives to be abbreviated and streamlined in transmission, not imbellished.
Interesting NOW you are referring to the Gnostics to back up your claim? Also interesting that you claim these oral traditions are so close to the real time to have been tampered with but when repeatedly told that Bukhari was BORN 200 years after the death of Muhammed you STILL claim these are the true words of Muhammed?? Do you EVER read what you write UT??
quote:Apostolic control of the oral traditions would have also served to keep them accurate. The apostles, who had themselves been eyewitnesses and been the first to memorize Jesus' teachings, would have not allowed for any departure from the facts.
But the apostles BOOKS are now thrown out in the world of Gnostisism and not believed so how can you say this? Thomas - eye witness, Barnabas - eye witness, where are their gospels??? in the Gnostic pit.
quote:And even if there would have been any tendency to distort the words of Jesus, the presence of hostile eyewitnesses during the short period of oral transmission before the Gospels would have served as a corrective on any intention to depart from the facts. False statements could and would have been challenged by those who were only too glad to do so in order to discredit Christianity.
quote:The idea that the early Church willfully manipulated Jesus' words cannot be held in light of the historical evidence. A lack of reference within the gospels to later church controversies (such as speaking in tongues and circumcision) indicates that the early church did not change or add sayings of Jesus as they desired to suit their purposes. If the teachings of Jesus were largely the invention of the early church, or if the early church purposely altered His teaching during the oral transmission, they would have had Jesus address such hot topics of their day. This tells us that the Jesus of the Gospels was not manufactured to meet the needs of the early church.
BS again. The Gospel writers did NOT KNOW JESUS, Paul did NOT KNOW JESUS and the early 'church' was the synagog, Jesus was a JEW, the invention of Jesus the saviour was started off by Paul as Jesus did not come with a new religion or a new law, he said that himself. He was continuing the teachings along the Torah line, he was a RABBI. 'Church' came well after they had brushed up all the 'evidence' to suit the story they decided to stick with and Paul had deceived who he needed to to preach this 'saviour' by faith instead of the Torah saving be deeds. THAT is what Paul did, there is no saving by faith, you are saved by your DEEDS and Paul has fooled billions for 2000 years.
quote:Lastly, a refusal to eliminate the "hard sayings" of Jesus (such as Matt. 10:5-6 and Mark 13:30) further shows that the early church did not feel free to rewrite the story of Christ's life apart from the constraints of historical fact. If the early church actively distorted the sayings of Jesus, as is often claimed, then why did they not eliminate such difficult sayings? And as we saw earlier, why did they not invent sayings that would have suited their purpose and solved the current controversies of the day? There is therefore no ground for believing that the early church manipulated and changed the teachings and life of Jesus.
It was BEFORE the early 'church'. The early church is PART of Pauls invention, Paul is the FOUNDER of the early church and the REAL stuff was drowned out, shunned as heresy.
What an incredibly clever and manipulating man!
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quote:wonderful, the top brass all agreed that 'Matthew, Mark, Luke and John' wrote the 4 Gospels but who the hell WERE these guys and why only POSSIBLY ONE actually knew Jesus, the guy they were supposedly relating the words and teachings of???
Matthew - Written by Matthew who was an apostle of Jesus. It was written in 41 CE
Mark - Written by Mark who lived at the time of Jesus. It was written somewhere between 60-65 CE
Luke - Written by Luke who was a physician but traced his information like a historian. It was written about 56-58 CE
John - Written by the apostle John. It was written at 98CE.
Acts - Was written by Luke around 61 CE
Romans to Hebrews - Written by Paul who spoke to Jesus before becoming an apostle. These books were written from 50 CE to 65CE
James - This was written by James before 62 CE
1 Peter and 2 Peter - This was written by the apostle Peter. It was written approximately 62-64 CE.
1 John - 3 John - Written by the apostle John at 98 CE.
Jude - Written by Jude at 65 CE
Revelation - Written by the apostle John. It was written at 96 CE.
In conclusion, all were either apostles or disciples. They all lived at the time of Jesus.
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Ayisha: BS again. The Gospel writers did NOT KNOW JESUS, Paul did NOT KNOW JESUS and the early 'church' was the synagog, Jesus was a JEW, the invention of Jesus the saviour was started off by Paul as Jesus did not come with a new religion or a new law, he said that himself.
The 'invention' of Jesus as a saviour started in the Old Testament, and by Jesus Himself.
Isa 9:6, "For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. "
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Ayisha: The early church is PART of Pauls invention, Paul is the FOUNDER of the early church and the REAL stuff was drowned out, shunned as heresy. What an incredibly clever and manipulating man!
"The oldest liturgical prayer recorded, in 1 Corinthians 16:22, is dated at around 55 A.D. It refers to Jesus as Lord. So does the earliest sermon and the earliest account of martyrdom. The authors of the NT epistles, including and especially Paul, even in his undisputed letters, use the language of divine Wisdom with reference to Jesus. The earliest pagan report of the church's activities indicates that Jesus was worshipped as Lord. Paul's letters, written between 49 and 65 A.D., exhibit the same fully-evolved Christology; logically, he must have gotten it from sometime earlier than 49 A.D. Paul cites creeds, hymns and sayings of Jesus that must have come from earlier (Rom. 1:3-4; 1 Cor. 11:23; Col. 1:15-16; Phil. 2:6-11; 1 Tim. 3:16; 2 Tim. 2:8); these items translate easily into Aramaic and show features of Hebrew poetry and thought-forms, which allows us to trace their origins to Jesus' first followers in Judea, between 33 and 48 A.D. [More.ScCy, 161-5] All of this leads to the inevitable conclusion that the concept of Jesus as divine quite definitely existed within, at the very least, a decade of the crucifixion, and therefore, was likely to have been asserted before His death by Jesus Himself, as is recorded in the Gospels."
Several writtings written in Aramaic that attribute divinity to Christ PREDATE Paul's writings. Aramaic was likely the language of Jesus and the very early church, and since the whole New Testament (with the possible exception of the Gospel of Matthew) was originally penned in Greek rather than Aramaic, they date back very early in church history, certainly before Paul wrote his epistles.
As it is, there are no extant texts from the first century, or even from the century thereafter, that represent Jesus as claiming to be only human or only a prophet--He is ALWAYS portrayed as making exalted claims to a super-human status. Later heresies of the church, such as Gnosticism, involved paganistic and/or mystical additions upon what Jesus meant in the Gospels when He claimed to be God; they never denied that He made any special claims about Himself. The earliest known pagan critic of Christianity to address the issue, Celsus, argued that Jesus did apply the title "Son of God" to Himself, but wrongly- only much later did those critics deny that Jesus made such claims.
quote:But the apostles BOOKS are now thrown out in the world of Gnostisism and not believed so how can you say this? Thomas - eye witness, Barnabas - eye witness, where are their gospels??? in the Gnostic pit.
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:The 4 Gospels are written by people that never met him
Well, John who wrote the Gospel of John was one of Jesus disciples if you read it you will see clearly he was with him and talks of himself as the disciple Jesus loved.
didnt YOU post this:
95: John writes his Gospel, claims to be an eyewitness. This is 65 years AFTER the death of Jesus and you telling me this man is the same John that knew Jesus?
quote:Mark, is possibly the young man carrying a pitcher of water leading Jesus and his disciples to the upper room for the last supper. In any case he had the apostle Peter as his major source of material. It is also contended that the man at Gethsemane, when Jesus was arrested who fled naked was Mark. Certainly, if Mark was the man who fled, he knew Jesus. Certainly if Mark knew Peter, he knew a lot about Jesus, as is evident from his Gospel record. Mark leaves historical clues that could easily be discredited if they were not true. He sites actual places: Nazareth, Galele, the Jordan. John was a real person, in that his beheading is recorded in a documented case. There were witnesses of John and his early baptizing. So all of these historical facts contextualizes the baptism in the currents of history.
YOU posted this: 70: Mark writes his Gospel, traditionally believed to reflect Peter’s eyewitness account. which shows it was not HIS OWN eye witness account. If he was an eye witness as you're now trying to say then why didnt he write from his OWN accounts instead of Peters?
quote:Don't assume that Mark and Luke never met Jesus ONLY BECAUSE they weren't in the 12 apostles, which would mean in Jesus' lifetime, he met only 12 people.
again YOU posted this 85: Luke writes his Gospel, claims to have verified with available eyewitnesses. I never said I assumed they never met him ONLY BECAUSE they werent of the 12 did i? I am going now on what YOU posted.
Mark was an accomplice of Paul and Barnabas, and later Peter. He's mentioned in 1 Peter 5:13. Luke was also Paul's accomplice, and is mentioned in Colossians 4:14, 2 Timothy 4:11 and Philemon 24. Members of the twelve changed over time. When Judas died he was replaced by Mathias. [b]Jesus stopped Paul on the road to Damascus because he had a purpose for him. Paul later received the office of Apostle as well. [/quote] Paul CLAIMS to have seen a vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus and he appointed himself as an apostle.
quote:His mission was to the Gentiles. His letters were to churches in the West that he established. The epistles of the senior Apostles Peter, James and John were general instructions to the entire church. Paul carried out his mission under their leadership. Paul was an Apostle to the Nations. He preached throughout Asia Minor. The original 12 were generally confined to Jerusalem and it's surroundings.
yes I have gone into that. Paul carried out HIS mission while deceiving James, Peter and John of his true beliefs while he was running here and there claiming to be this and that to stop various people who KNEW what he was doing wanting to stop him.
quote:The Gospel writers intended to convey reliable history. This is forcefully supported by the careful preservation of the oral tradition that existed before the gospels. Formally, the gospels parallel other historical and biographical literature of the day.
If so then why are the REAL eye witness accounts not there and have been passed over for non eye witness accounts?? Thomas and Barnabas were disciples, matt mark luke and John were not, where are Thomas and Barnabas' eye witness accounts now?? they were thrown out as forgeries or gnostics because they told it as it WAS which didnt wuite match with Pauls idea of saviour by FAITH.
quote:The presence of details which actually go against the purpose of the account also supports that the writers intended to be accurate. For example, a woman's testimony was not considered very trustworthy in that day. Yet, the gospel writers have women as being the first witnesses to the resurrection. There is also much material in the Gospels that is embarrassing to Jesus' disciples. They are portrayed, in each account, as unbelieving, cowardly, and dull. This shows the integrity of the writers to tell it like it was.
No this shows they were NOT telling it like it was!
How can you claim this was true about the disciples of Jesus, the very men closest to him, and then claim Paul, his persecutor, to be right and truthful when we have a clear picture that he was a liar a manipulator and deceived Jesus own brother James along with Peter and John??
quote:Finally, the gospel writers claim to be writing accurately. This is the strongest testimony of their intentions because it comes from their own mouths. Luke says that he had "investigated everything carefully from the beginning...so that you might know the exact truth about the things you have been taught" (Luke 1:3,4) John declares "and he who has seen has borne witness, and his witness is true; and he knows that he is telling the truth, so that you also may believe" (John 19:35). And Peter is very clear when he says "For we did not follow cleverly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of His majesty" (2 Peter 1:16). They knew the difference between fact and fiction.
Obviously they did not OR they did but these are the words of Paul. Just because 'from their won mouths' they says its accurate doesnt make it so does it as we have seen from Paul who from his own mouth deceived James and Peter.
quote:Because the writers intended to convey accurate history, this means that if in any way they willfully manipulated the facts, they were intentional deceivers. And because the apostles were present to ensure that the oral tradition did remain pure, any tampering would have been willful. For example, if Jesus' tomb was not empty, the gospel writers were intentionally lying when they say that it was empty. This means that if the gospels are not accurate records of the sayings and doings of Christ, then they are simply a colossal fraud. Yet, no reputable critical scholar today holds that the early disciples were intentional deceivers.
again you have lost the argument. The argument is not whether the tomb was empty or not.
quote:Also, the fact that all of the apostles were willing to die horrible deaths, refusing to renounce their faith in Christ, is tremendous evidence that they had truly witnessed the resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is not so important how the apostles died. What is important is the fact that they were all willing to die for their faith. If Jesus had not been resurrected, the disciples would have known it. People will not die for something they know to be a lie.
then that in itself doesnt match with your previous claim "There is also much material in the Gospels that is embarrassing to Jesus' disciples. They are portrayed, in each account, as unbelieving, cowardly, and dull. This shows the integrity of the writers to tell it like it was. " if they were unbelieving and cowardly they wouldnt be so willing to die for this faith in Jesus would they? so which are they?
quote:
quote:Paul never met Jesus in the flesh, he only claimed some strange vision and proceeded to paganize the teachings of Jesus
Using this logic, you shouldn't even begin to trust what Prophet Muhammad taught about Jesus since he never met Jesus and didn't even live close to the same time period.
Muhammed didnt teach about Jesus as im aware, God did and He WAS there.
quote:Paul was a Jew, not a pagan Statements made by the apostle Paul (see also Paul's Ministry):
"Paul said, I am a man which am a Jew of Tarsus, a city in Cilicia" (Acts 21:39 KJV)
Paul was religiously a Jew (and a Pharisee at that), of Judah.
Why would a Jew want to paganize the teachings of Jesus?
Why would a Jew want to kill Jesus? why would a Jew want to change the course of the Torah teachings that Jesus was continuing? Why would a Jew want to persecute Jesus?
If Paul was 'religiously' a Jew as you claim why did he split from Judaism and form Christianity as we know it today?
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quote:Originally posted by Ayisha: Also interesting that you claim these oral traditions are so close to the real time to have been tampered with but when repeatedly told that Bukhari was BORN 200 years after the death of Muhammed you STILL claim these are the true words of Muhammed??
The traditions of Bukhari have always been part of Orthodox Islam. The SAME sources that preserved the Quran also preserved the traditions of Muhammad. The collections of Bukhari were accepted as true and authentic from the very beginning. These hadithes are ALL WE HAVE about the life of the Prophet. They should not be taken as a substitute to Quran (assuming that this is a revealed book) but they are the biography of the Prophet. Without the Hadith, we know nothing of Muhammad, his life and his history.;With out hadithes, Muslims have no way to know how to perform their prayers or fast. These are pillars of Islam.
These hadiths were collected by Muhammad's followers who gave their life for him and his cause. They were preserved by the very ones who preserved the Quran. The early Muslim scholars accepted a hadith as Sahih only when its authenticity was established on the basis of both Fann-i-Riwaayat (The art of sequence of narration) and Fann-i-Daraayat. The reason the Church rejects the gnostic gospels is because they were written by people who had no connection with the congregations formed by the apostles and also they were all written centuries after the canonical Gospels were already in common use. Many of gnostic doctrines were abhorant (i.e. that the God of Israel was the menstrual discharge of the goddess Sophia, or that God raped Eve, both from the Secret Gospel of John). None of them were read publicly in any ancient Church. Many of them were virtually unknown outside of limited Gnostic communities (because the Gnostics refused to discuss their doctrines with outsiders).
I used to be very interested in Gnosticsism, but then I actually read a Gnostic text. I will briefly summerise it from what I remember: In the afterlive there are several gates and each one is guarded by some sort of animal. Like a snake or crocadile or lion. And the final one is guarded by Jesus who is in the shape of a bird or something. Now this was just one text of many, but this forms a trend. Gnosticism didn't really add anything to the faith. Most of what I have read, its actually quite irrelavent to the Christian message. All these people looked at Christianity a little differently, alot of their theories come pretty close to crossing the line. The main reason most people think Scientology is a little dumb, is why gnosticism was considered dumb, it was created by a science fiction author, claims to have a secret truth that they wont tell you, it requires payment to be allowd in (gnostic sects seem to have required payment to attain the secret "knowledge" or gnosis in greek.) Really gnosticism was regarded by the ancients the same way we regard scientology.
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:wonderful, the top brass all agreed that 'Matthew, Mark, Luke and John' wrote the 4 Gospels but who the hell WERE these guys and why only POSSIBLY ONE actually knew Jesus, the guy they were supposedly relating the words and teachings of???
Matthew - Written by Matthew who was an apostle of Jesus. It was written in 41 CE
quote:Originally posted by unfinished thought.: 80: Matthew writes his Gospel, traditionally believed to be an eyewitness.
quote:Mark - Written by Mark who lived at the time of Jesus. It was written somewhere between 60-65 CE
quote:Originally posted by unfinished thought.: 70: Mark writes his Gospel, traditionally believed to reflect Peter’s eyewitness account.
quote:Luke - Written by Luke who was a physician but traced his information like a historian. It was written about 56-58 CE
quote:Originally posted by unfinished thought.: 85: Luke writes his Gospel, claims to have verified with available eyewitnesses.
quote:John - Written by the apostle John. It was written at 98CE.
quote:Originally posted by unfinished thought.:
95: John writes his Gospel, claims to be an eyewitness.
quote:Acts - Was written by Luke around 61 CE
Romans to Hebrews - Written by Paul who spoke to Jesus before becoming an apostle. These books were written from 50 CE to 65CE
Paul 'had a vision' but never met Jesus.
In conclusion, all were either apostles or disciples. They all lived at the time of Jesus.[/QUOTE]Lived maybe, MET, no.
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posted
The Apostle Paul started out as Saul, Pharisee and persecutor of the Christian Church.
Paul said this about himself in the years that he opposed Christians:
Acts 26:9-11 So then, I thought to myself that I had to do many things hostile to the name of Jesus of Nazareth. And this is just what I did in Jerusalem; not only did I lock up many of the saints in prisons, having received authority from the chief priests, but also when they were being put to death I cast my vote against them. And as I punished them often in all the synagogues, I tried to force them to blaspheme; and being furiously enraged at them, I kept pursuing them even to foreign cities.
The story of Saul’s conversion begins with the stoning of Stephen. Stephen preached Christ boldly and was drug out of town and stoned to death. Acts records that Saul was there and in full support of the stoning. (Acts 8:1) Saul was an enemy of the Church and a persecutor of its believers. “As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering into every house, and haling men and women committed them to prison.” (Acts 8:3)
Saul went to the chief priests and got permission to go to Damascus to hunt for Christians. His intention was to find them and haul them back to Jerusalem to prison. He set off and when he got close to the city, a bright light surrounded him. “And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” (Acts 9:4)
Saul was terrified “And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest.” (Acts 9:5) Paul asked the Lord what he should do and was told to continue on into the city; he would be told there what to do. Those traveling with him had seen the light and heard the voice, but didn’t see who spoke. Saul arose from the ground and discovered that he was blind. His companions led him the rest of the way into Damascus.
Saul remained blind and didn’t eat or drink for three days. A believer named Ananias lived in Damascus and the Lord spoke to him in a vision telling him to go to Straight Street to the home of Judas where he would find Saul of Tarsus. This frightened Ananias for Saul’s persecution of believers was well known. “But the Lord said unto him, Go thy way: for he is a chosen vessel unto me, to bear my name before the Gentiles, and kings, and the children of Israel:” (Acts 9:15)
Saul had also had a vision from the Lord; his vision was of a man named Ananias laying hands on him and his sight being restored. When Ananias arrived and laid hands on Saul, scales fell from his eyes and his sight was restored. Saul was filled with the Holy Spirit and was baptized. He stayed on in Damascus for several days and preached Christ in the synagogues. (Acts 9:18-22)
The Jews there didn’t trust Saul for they knew of his persecution of the Christians. They plotted to kill him, but the plot was revealed to him and he was smuggled safely out of the city in a basket. He returned to Jerusalem where he sought to meet with the Apostles. The Apostles weren’t anxious to meet with him, though. They too were frightened of this man who had so doggedly pursued believers. (Acts 9:23-26) “But Barnabas took him, and brought him to the apostles, and declared unto them how he had seen the Lord in the way, and that he had spoken to him, and how he had preached boldly at Damascus in the name of Jesus.” (Acts 9:27) So began the ministry of Saul, now Paul.
Few of us have as dramatic a conversion experience as Paul yet the change in our lives can be just as dramatic. But why would God choose a persecutor of the Church to be an Apostle? What was there about Paul that made him useful to God? What significance does his life have to us today?
Paul was a Pharisee, one of the religious leaders of the day. He was a devout Jew with a profound knowledge and understanding of Scripture. He persecuted the Church because he truly believed that the teaching of Christ was dangerous and heretical. After his encounter with Christ, his knowledge of Scripture made him an authoritative preacher of the gospel. His ability to apply the Old Testament teachings to the new covenant in Christ made him uniquely effective.
Although Paul was a Jew, he was also a Roman citizen. His citizenship gave him an entrance into audiences he would not otherwise have enjoyed. He is known as the Apostle to the gentiles because his ministry focused on non-Jewish Greeks and Romans. The Lord looks at all of our talents and circumstances and puts them to use for His service.
Paul worked feverishly to stamp out the Christian Church before his salvation and worked as diligently or more so for the Church after he was converted. His fire and zeal were powerful qualities, qualities that made him a successful missionary. Paul’s ministry reached throughout the Roman Empire and his slavish devotion to Christ helped him spread the Word as far or farther than any other Apostle. God used Paul’s single-mindedness and dedication to their best advantage.
The story of Paul’s conversion teaches us some lessons about the nature of God and about the nature of salvation. God meets us where we are at, whether it is on the road to Damascus preparing to persecute His people or whether it’s on the road to ruin from drugs, alcohol or any other kind of self-destructive sin. Just as Jesus went to the homes of sinners to share His Good News with them, so does He come to us where we are to offer His salvation. We only have to say yes to His invitation, like Paul did.
Paul’s blindness before his conversion is a metaphor about our spiritual blindness before we accept salvation. Paul couldn’t see the worth of Christ; he could only see the danger to his set of beliefs. When Christ opens our eyes, we see the things of this world for what they really are, paths to death. When Paul’s sight was restored, his spiritual eyes were opened too and he immediately repented of his former persecution of the Church and devoted himself entirely to the service of Christ.
Paul’s story is a testimony to the absolute forgiveness that we are offered by Christ. If any man should have been condemned, it should have been Paul. He hunted Christians and sent them to prison and perhaps even torture and death. Yet, the Lord forgave him completely and made him one of the greatest servants in Christian history. No life is useless or too far gone for God. He has a purpose for all of us and can forgive us no matter what if we are willing to ask for His forgiveness and accept it as His gift to us. What miracle life might He have in store for you?
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Ayisha: If Paul was 'religiously' a Jew as you claim why did he split from Judaism and form Christianity as we know it today?
Christianity subtracts nothing from Judaism, but only fulfills it. Christians are completed Jews.
All Christians are spiritually Jews, said Vatican II, echoing St. Paul.
This is the point of the “Jews for Jesus,” who insist that a Jew who becomes a Christian does not lose anything Jewish but completes his or her identity. When a Hindu or a pagan becomes a Christian, he is converted. When a Jew becomes a Christian, he is completed.
This is surely Jesus' point of view too, for He said He came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them.
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:John writes his Gospel, claims to be an eyewitness.
And in Quran Muhammad claims to be a messenger of God.
you are quoting your own quote
UT this discussion is about Paul, the founder of Christianity NOT about Muhammed. I know you are lost on this and keep contradicting yourself but trying to get the topic onto Islam isnt going to make you look any better or any more secure in what you think you believe in. Posts: 15090 | From: http://www.egyptalk.com/forum/ | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Why would a Jew want to kill Jesus? Why would a Jew want to persecute Jesus?
For making claims such as this:
"I and the Father are one."[/b] 31The Jews took up stones again to stone Him. 32Jesus answered them, "I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?" 33The Jews answered Him, "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God,"Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Originally posted by Ayisha: If Paul was 'religiously' a Jew as you claim why did he split from Judaism and form Christianity as we know it today?
Christianity subtracts nothing from Judaism, but only fulfills it. Christians are completed Jews.
that has to be Daft quote of the year!
quote:All Christians are spiritually Jews, said Vatican II, echoing St. Paul.
so why have they abandoned the Torah and invented a new religion, one which Jesus did NOT teach?
quote:This is the point of the “Jews for Jesus,” who insist that a Jew who becomes a Christian does not lose anything Jewish but completes his or her identity. When a Hindu or a pagan becomes a Christian, he is converted. When a Jew becomes a Christian, he is completed.
you really are getting into a spin now the Jews who followed Jesus did not become Christians as jesus was a JEW. The early followers of Jesus were Jews, they did not become Christians as they knew Jesus did not come with a new religion and still continued to teach the Torah, in fact he 'continued' the Torah teachings but this wasnt Christianity as Christianity has done away with the Torah, Jesus didnt.
quote:This is surely Jesus' point of view too, for He said He came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them.
Then why does this mean, according to Christians and 'The Church' that the Torah Laws are no longer needed? If he didnt come to destroy the Law (of Moses) then why dont Christians TODAY follow it as JESUS DID??
Posts: 15090 | From: http://www.egyptalk.com/forum/ | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by unfinished thought.: [QUOTE]This is surely Jesus' point of view too, for He said He came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them.
Then why does this mean, according to Christians and 'The Church' that the Torah Laws are no longer needed? If he didnt come to destroy the Law (of Moses) then why dont Christians TODAY follow it as JESUS DID??
Jesus did not come to “abolish” the Law, but to “fulfill” the Law. Paul says, in light of this, that “Love is the fulfillment of the Law.”
And this is in line with what Jesus said, when he proclaimed the greatest Commandment, and the second “like unto it,” which I’m sure we all know: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength;” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” So love is the fulfillment of the law. We are not *under* the Law, but under Grace. So the Law still exists, but we are not “under” it.
The fact is, the NT is an improvement for anyone with eyes to see and a heart to feel compassion.
Out of curiosity do you believe that people should be stoned to death for violations of the majority of the ten commandments?
Jesus Christ came with good news and the love of God. Jesus did not endorse flogging fornicators and stoning adulterers to death. Rather, he forgives, heals, and restores them. He came to die for the sins of the world and to cleanse sinners with his Holy Spirit, from the inside out; he does not impose holiness on to people, with whips and stones.
“. . . He that is without sin among you, cast the first stone.”
Seems like Jesus was not about to stone anyone for violating the ten commandments.
Jesus also rebuked the priests and pharisees for their rigid interpretations of the law, and their refusal to violate the law to help their fellow man.
Remember, there is no condemnation in Christ.
Jesus came to fulfill the law or Torah, not to abolish it and he certainly did fullfill it in at least three ways:
- Jesus fulfills the law by taking on himself the penalty for our sins. The Torah is filled with specific punishments for specific sins, but his death on the cross satisfies and propitiates divine wrath that is directed at our sins—this is the Christian doctrine of the atonement. It is for this reason that a Christian could never give up this doctrine and must totally reject Muhammad’s odd view that Christ never died on the cross, but another man took his place (Sura 4:157).
How Jesus forgives sexual sins
One aspect of the old law that Christians take seriously is its morality—though failing or succeeding to keep it does not determine their eternal destiny, for only Christ’s death on the cross does that. Be that as it may, the Old Testament says that adultery and fornication are sins, and so does the New Testament. So what is the policy of Jesus on stoning or flogging sexual sinners? For us Christians, his interpretation on these matters is final.
Of course, Jesus emphatically says that adultery and fornication are sins (Matt. 15:19; Mark 7:21), but they are no longer crimes as the Torah implies by its stern punishments and as Islamic sharia would like to revive. Again, Jesus fulfills the punishment aspect of the old law. He also shows a new path in dealing with these sins in two ways. This clear and better path goes to the human heart, the root of the sin.
First, Jesus zeros in on the root cause of adultery. In the famous Sermon on the Mount he says this about adultery and lust (Matt. 5:27-28):
5:27 "You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Immediately, this raises the stakes so high that all corporeal punishment is removed; otherwise, all of humanity would kill each other with legalized stoning. These two verses say that sexual sin is no longer a civil crime or any kind of crime. As usual with Jesus, he goes to the heart of the sin. Adultery and other sexual sins begin in the mind, so the solution to them must also begin in the mind.
Muhammad, on the other hand, believes in imposing sexual holiness from the outside of a person’s mind by flogging and stoning. But this has never worked throughout human history because sexual sin is too deeply entrenched in human nature. Moreover, Muhammad’s harsh punishments do not bring healing to a family and subsequently to society, but they tear the family and society apart. Also, it is only logical that such punishments would drive the sin underground; indeed, according to reliable hadiths that Maududi cites, Muhammad encouraged his early followers to keep their sins or "crimes" a secret. This is no long-lasting solution, either.
Second, Jesus goes beyond pointing out the spiritual root cause, and offers a spiritual solution, which is clarified in the Gospel of John 8:1-11. This passage says that some religious leaders, wanting to trap Jesus between his message of love and forgiveness and his respect for the Torah, brought a woman caught in adultery and made her stand in their midst. They reminded Jesus that the law of Moses orders that she should be stoned. He stooped down and wrote in the dirt, contemplating. They kept questioning him, perhaps stones in hand. What would he do? He then spoke the famous lines: "He who is without sin should throw the first stone" (v. 7). One by one, from the oldest to the youngest, the accusers left. Alone with her, Jesus straightened up and asked her: "‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ ‘No one, sir,’ she said. ‘Then neither do I condemn you.’ Jesus declared, ‘Go and leave your life of sin’" (vv. 10-11). The spiritual solution is forgiveness without condemnation. Jesus never intended to reinstitute the punishment of stoning sinners, or even their flogging, as Muhammad would like to reinstitute an old-new law. Jesus intended to rise above such shallow solutions. Muhammad’s sharia imposes its own version of holiness from the outside onto the populace, and this is not good. People must be allowed to choose holiness freely and voluntarily and without harassment if they take another path.
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Why would a Jew want to kill Jesus? Why would a Jew want to persecute Jesus?
For making claims such as this:
"I and the Father are one."[/b] 31The Jews took up stones again to stone Him. 32Jesus answered them, "I showed you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you stoning Me?" 33The Jews answered Him, "For a good work we do not stone You, but for blasphemy; and because You, being a man, make Yourself out to be God,"
said John who?
"Was the author of John the Apostle John that knew Jesus or a later convert? Secular scholars claim convert, while religious scholars claim he knew Jesus in the flesh based more on faith then anything else. Both have their bias and political agendas. The New American Bible describes the Gospel of John as "highly literary and symbolic" and "does not follow the same order or reproduce the same stories" as the synoptic gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke. John is full of "signs" and cryptic babble.
The Gospel of John to Christians is the most important of all. Here is the only place Jesus Himself claims divinity. Here Jesus is a full-blown savior god in the way an educated Greek scholar could understand. Here was the platonic Logos (a form of it) acceptable to the Greek mind. The troubling part is this "John" was no simple fisherman from Galilee. Even the church admits his advanced age (90) and the late dates of his writings. (90+ CE) His audience was not Jews and makes the remark "the Jews" at least 64 times. (KJV) He also wrote of himself as the "disciple whom Jesus loved." (21:20) In the other gospels, John is mentioned in passing and while mentioned only once as "a pillar" of the Church along with James and Peter in Paul's Epistles (Galatians 2:9) in passing while John doesn't mention Paul at all.
John the Apostle was one of the twelve apostles of Jesus Christ. He is also known as John the Theologian, and John the Divine. According to the New Testament account, John the Apostle was the son of Zebedee and Salome, and the brother of James. They originally were fishermen and fished with their father in the Lake of Genesareth. He was first a disciple of John the Baptist, and later one of the twelve disciples of Jesus Christ. He is revered as a saint by all branches of Christianity that revere saints. The Roman Catholic Church commemorates him on December 27. The Eastern Orthodox Church commemorates him on September 26, and also remembers him on May 8, on which date Christians used to draw forth from his grave fine ashes which were believed to be effective for healing the sick.
John was traditionally held to be the author of five books of the New Testament, including the Gospel of John, but many scholars dispute this. Catholic/Orthodox tradition says that he and the Virgin Mary moved to Ephesus, where both eventually died. Many Evangelical and other scholars question this, especially due to the advanced age which Mary would have reached by this time. Some believe, however, that there is support for the idea that John did go to Ephesus and from there wrote the three epistles sometimes attributed to him. John was allegedly banished to the Greek island of Patmos, where some believe that he wrote the Book of Revelation.
John the Evangelist
John the Evangelist (? - c. 110) is the author of the Gospel of John. Tradition has identified him with John the Apostle, although many scholars dispute that they are the same person. In addition to the Gospel, he is also presumed to be the author of other books in the New Testament: 1 John, 2 John, 3 John, and the Book of Revelation. Collectively, these books are known as Johannine literature.
That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose. (Genesis 6:2) There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown. (Genesis 6:4) Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. (Job 1:6) Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD. (Job 2:1)
John also used the term: "But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name..." (John 1:12) Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. (1 John 3:1) and "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2)
Paul uses the term in an identical manner: For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. (Romans 8:14) For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God. (Romans 8:19)
So as Paul and John illustrate, one who is righteous becomes a "son of God."
The term "only begotten Son" is used in relation Jesus only by the writer of John: For the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ. No man hath seen God at any time, the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. (John 1:17-18. Also John 3:16, 3:18, and 1 John 4:9)
The writer of John is believed to be a Greek convert and his lack of knowledge of Judaism and the Torah is as appalling as his hatred of Jews. (He uses "Jews" as a slur over 60 times in the Gospel of John alone.) First, the Law was given directly by God to Moses. Second, Moses saw God. Whomever wrote John is not quoting Jesus, he is giving us his own opinion. Third, Jesus is not the only "only begotten Son" of God: I will declare the decree: the LORD hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. (Psalms 2:7) Psalms is believed to be written by David.
When the writer of John does quote Jesus, "But now ye seek to kill me, a man that hath told you the truth, which I have heard of God: this did not Abraham." (John 8:40) And according to Paul's follower Luke, "Because he hath appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead." (Acts 17:31)
But John 8:40 is contradicted by John 5:18, "Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him, because he not only had broken the sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God." According to the New American Bible most scholars believe John had been altered and rewritten. That is the opinion of the writer of John, Jesus did not say it. The same story is in the other Gospels without that claim. Does that mean anyone that becomes a "son of God" becomes an equal to God?
Jesus was a man, a human ordained by God to show us the way. So like David (Psalms 132:10, etc.), he was an "anointed" servant of God. Jesus and David were not the only "anointed," "Thus saith the LORD to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden.." (Isaiah 45:1) One doesn't even have to be a Jew to be "anointed" and anyone can be a "son" (or daughter) of the Lord as long we act in righteous manner and obey God's Laws.
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Early "church tradition" is unanimous in ascribing the fourth gospel to John. Ireneus (c. A.D. 130-202) was the first to name the gospel of John and said that it was written after the other gospels from Ephesus.
John was either cited or named as authentic during the first four centuries by the following:
Clement of Rome (c. 95-97) Ignatius, in 110 quoted Jno. 3:8 Polycarp (110-150) Basilides, in 120 AD quoted Jno. 1:9 Papias (c.130-40) Irenaeus (c.130-202) Justin Martyr (c.150-155) Clement of Alexandria (c.150-215) Tertullian (c.150-220) The Muratorian Fragment (c.170-200) The Latin Marcionite Prologue (c.200) Origen (c.185-254) Cyril of Jerusalem (c.315-386) Eusebius (c.325-340) Jerome (c.340-420) Augustine (c.400)
Eusebius specifically identified John with the Gospel which bears his name and he classified the gospel without hesitation as being among "the undisputed writings." External evidence leads to the conclusion that what we call "the gospel of John" is the authentic writing of the apostle John. Westcott declared: "All the evidence points in one direction. There is not, with one questionable exception, any positive indication that doubt was anywhere thrown upon the authenticity of this book." (The Gospel According to Saint John, B.C. Westcott, p. xxxii).
Internal Evidence
The information from within the Gospel itself supports the universal tradition of the "early church fathers" who assigned the work to the Apostle John:
The author was a Jew. He understood and quoted from the Old Testament (12:40;13:18; 19:37). He knew and understood Jewish customs (2:1-10; 3:25; 11:55; 11:38,44; 19:40). He knew and understood the Jewish expectation of the coming Messiah (1:19-18). He was aware of the religious differences between Jews and Samaritans (4:9,20). The writer was a Jew. A Jew from Palestine. He knew the pool of Bethesda had five porches (5:2). {Archaeologists have unearthed the five porticoes of the pool of Bethesda by the Sheep Gate. Among many scholars who were not asked to participate in the Jesus Seminar, there is a new consensus of confidence in John due to these recent discoveries. Some have even asserted that John's record is more reliable than the synoptics (Smalley, quoted in THE EVIDENCE FOR JESUS, by France, p.#131)}. But further, he knew that Bethany was only fifteen furlongs away from Jerusalem (11:18). He knew that Ephraim was near the wilderness (11:54). He knew that the Garden of Gethsemane was on the other side of the brook Kidron (18:1). He knew that there was a paved area outside of the praetorium (19:13). He was aware of the region of Samaria and that Jacob's well was located in Sychar (4:5-6), and that it was deep (4:11). Again, archaeologists have found this well. He knew about the sacred mountain of Samaritan worship (4:20-21). He was aware of Galilee (1:44,46; 2:1,2). Another interesting feature of John is that, when compared with the Synoptics, his Gospel consistently gives more references to chronology, geography, topography, and the like. As recently as 1961 an inscription was discovered in Caesarea, providing for the first time extra-biblical corroboration of Pilate as Judea's prefect during the time of Christ.
Also, the writer was an eye-witness of what happened. He does not state his name, but there are traces of his own hand in the gospel. "We beheld his glory," (1:14). He knew the number of pots used at the wedding at Cana (2:6). He knew the value of the anointing perfume (12:5). He was at the crucifixion (19:33-35). He knew the distance from the shore of the apostles boat and the number of fish caught (21:8,11). "This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things; and we know that his testimony is true," (21:24).
So the writer was a Jew from Palestine, who was an eye-witness and he was a master of accuracy in chronology, geography and history. Also, an apostle, "whom Jesus loved." He refers to himself often as the disciple whom Jesus loved (13:23; 19:26; 20:2; 21:7,20). The identity of this "one whom Jesus loved" is narrowed down to be John from the following --
(a) From 21:7, the "disciple" may be identified as one of the seven persons mentioned in 21:2.
- Simon Peter - Thomas called the Twin - Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee - The sons of Zebedee - Two others
(b) He must be one of the Twelve since only they were with the Lord at the lastsupper (Jno. 13:23-24; cf. Mk. 14:17; Lk. 22:14).
(c) He is not Peter: - He sat next to the Lord at the last supper, and Peter motioned to him (13:23-24). - His future is distinguished from Peter's (21:20ff).
(d) He is closely related to Peter and thus seems to be one of the inner three {James, John, Peter} (20:2-10; cf. Mrk. 5:37-38; 9:2-3;14:33).
(e) James (John's brother) died in AD 44, therefore, he was not the author (Acts 12:2).
(f) Therefore, if it is true that he was an apostle, and one of the inner three, and he was not Peter, or James, then he must have been the Apostle John, the son of Zebedee.
Internal evidence leads to the conclusion that what we call "the gospel of John" is the authentic writing of the apostle John. Luke wrote that "with great power gave the apostles their witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all," (Acts 4:33). One manifestation of this great power was the gospel of John. In this marvelous work we discover the same Messiah promised by the prophets ... the same King introduced by Matthew ... the same Servant we learn to trust in Mark ... the same Man we long to be like in Luke.
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Originally posted by unfinished thought.: [QUOTE]This is surely Jesus' point of view too, for He said He came not to destroy the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them.
Then why does this mean, according to Christians and 'The Church' that the Torah Laws are no longer needed? If he didnt come to destroy the Law (of Moses) then why dont Christians TODAY follow it as JESUS DID??
Jesus did not come to “abolish” the Law, but to “fulfill” the Law. Paul says, in light of this, that “Love is the fulfillment of the Law.”
And this is in line with what Jesus said, when he proclaimed the greatest Commandment, and the second “like unto it,” which I’m sure we all know: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul, and strength;” and “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” So love is the fulfillment of the law. We are not *under* the Law, but under Grace. So the Law still exists, but we are not “under” it.
Pauline bable, sorry. God gave 10 Commandments to Moses, if Jesus didnt come to abolish this Law then why dont 'Christians' still follow this Law instead of replacing it for what Paul said? You are not answering my questions UT and your Christian babble makes no sense. If Jesus was not here to abolish the Law of Moses then why do christians not adhere to them and replace them with this new commandment number 11? And 'fulfill' what law exactly?? Which of the Law (10 Commandments) does Jesus 'fulfill'??
quote:The fact is, the NT is an improvement for anyone with eyes to see and a heart to feel compassion.
so are many books, but they are not from God either. You see the NT as an 'improvement' on Gods Books Great, Paul improves God
quote:Out of curiosity do you believe that people should be stoned to death for violations of the majority of the ten commandments?
you see you dont really believe that the Torah IS from God do you?
quote:Jesus Christ came with good news and the love of God. Jesus did not endorse flogging fornicators and stoning adulterers to death. Rather, he forgives, heals, and restores them. He came to die for the sins of the world and to cleanse sinners with his Holy Spirit, from the inside out; he does not impose holiness on to people, with whips and stones.
“. . . He that is without sin among you, cast the first stone.”
Seems like Jesus was not about to stone anyone for violating the ten commandments.
Jesus also rebuked the priests and pharisees for their rigid interpretations of the law, and their refusal to violate the law to help their fellow man.
Remember, there is no condemnation in Christ.
Jesus came to fulfill the law or Torah, not to abolish it and he certainly did fullfill it in at least three ways:
- Jesus fulfills the law by taking on himself the penalty for our sins. The Torah is filled with specific punishments for specific sins, but his death on the cross satisfies and propitiates divine wrath that is directed at our sins—this is the Christian doctrine of the atonement. It is for this reason that a Christian could never give up this doctrine and must totally reject Muhammad’s odd view that Christ never died on the cross, but another man took his place (Sura 4:157).
How Jesus forgives sexual sins
One aspect of the old law that Christians take seriously is its morality—though failing or succeeding to keep it does not determine their eternal destiny, for only Christ’s death on the cross does that. Be that as it may, the Old Testament says that adultery and fornication are sins, and so does the New Testament. So what is the policy of Jesus on stoning or flogging sexual sinners? For us Christians, his interpretation on these matters is final.
Of course, Jesus emphatically says that adultery and fornication are sins (Matt. 15:19; Mark 7:21), but they are no longer crimes as the Torah implies by its stern punishments and as Islamic sharia would like to revive. Again, Jesus fulfills the punishment aspect of the old law. He also shows a new path in dealing with these sins in two ways. This clear and better path goes to the human heart, the root of the sin.
First, Jesus zeros in on the root cause of adultery. In the famous Sermon on the Mount he says this about adultery and lust (Matt. 5:27-28):
5:27 "You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ 28 But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."
Immediately, this raises the stakes so high that all corporeal punishment is removed; otherwise, all of humanity would kill each other with legalized stoning. These two verses say that sexual sin is no longer a civil crime or any kind of crime. As usual with Jesus, he goes to the heart of the sin. Adultery and other sexual sins begin in the mind, so the solution to them must also begin in the mind.
again all your quotes from the 4 gospels written by men who never met Jesus so how do you KNOW Jesus said these things?? because PAUL told them so.
God has been very clear in that he gave clear guidelines to follow and told you what sin was. Why then would He HIMSELF come and die and take on all the sins that hadnt been committed and all those that had? There would have been no point in giving the Laws in the first place and telling us that we are judged by our DEEDS.
quote:Muhammad, on the other hand, believes in imposing sexual holiness from the outside of a person’s mind by flogging and stoning. But this has never worked throughout human history because sexual sin is too deeply entrenched in human nature. Moreover, Muhammad’s harsh punishments do not bring healing to a family and subsequently to society, but they tear the family and society apart. Also, it is only logical that such punishments would drive the sin underground; indeed, according to reliable hadiths that Maududi cites, Muhammad encouraged his early followers to keep their sins or "crimes" a secret. This is no long-lasting solution, either.
this discussion is not a competition and Muhammed did not write the Quran. Again God was very clear in the crimes and the punishments, the fact that we also have a 'Paul' attached to Islam is not really surprising as there is always someone who would like to change what God actually says.
quote:Second, Jesus goes beyond pointing out the spiritual root cause, and offers a spiritual solution, which is clarified in the Gospel of John 8:1-11. This passage says that some religious leaders, wanting to trap Jesus between his message of love and forgiveness and his respect for the Torah, brought a woman caught in adultery and made her stand in their midst. They reminded Jesus that the law of Moses orders that she should be stoned. He stooped down and wrote in the dirt, contemplating. They kept questioning him, perhaps stones in hand. What would he do? He then spoke the famous lines: "He who is without sin should throw the first stone" (v. 7). One by one, from the oldest to the youngest, the accusers left. Alone with her, Jesus straightened up and asked her: "‘Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?’ ‘No one, sir,’ she said. ‘Then neither do I condemn you.’ Jesus declared, ‘Go and leave your life of sin’" (vv. 10-11). The spiritual solution is forgiveness without condemnation. Jesus never intended to reinstitute the punishment of stoning sinners, or even their flogging, as Muhammad would like to reinstitute an old-new law. Jesus intended to rise above such shallow solutions. Muhammad’s sharia imposes its own version of holiness from the outside onto the populace, and this is not good. People must be allowed to choose holiness freely and voluntarily and without harassment if they take another path.
Again, the sharia is based on hadith, stoning is based on hadith, hadith written well over 200 years after the death of Muhammed. Quran does not support stoning.
Jesus came with a continuation of a message from God. I agree he tried to bring peace but he didnt or he wouldnt have been persecuted as he was. Everything you have just said does NOT convince me that Jesus was God or the son of God, it only proves to me he was a man with a message FROM God.
he who is without sin cast the first stone is a classic saying of Jesus and much in line with producing 4 witnesses to the ACT of adultery, the witnesses would also have to be without sin enough to be not hypocritical in accusing someone of this. Jesus spoke many parables, so does Quran, they are from the same source.
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quote:Originally posted by Ayisha: again all your quotes from the 4 gospels written by men
..inspired from God.
quote:Originally posted by Ayisha: God has been very clear in that he gave clear guidelines to follow and told you what sin was.
Yet the Bible is a much better book of guidence than the Quran is. The Bible is a clear book without ambiguous meanings and double talk. The Quran, far from being a clear book is replete with contradictions and confusion. That is why Muslims can find anything they want in the Quran and interpret it in any way they wish. Osama Bin Laden can find verses that justify his crimes against humanity and you can find verses to portray Islam as a moderate religion. Far from being a book of guidance, the Quran misguides people. Muslims will do much better if they stop following this book of confusion and rely on their own intelligence to find their way, just like other people do.
quote:Originally posted by Ayisha: God gave 10 Commandments to Moses, if Jesus didnt come to abolish this Law then why dont 'Christians' still follow this Law instead of replacing it for what Paul said?
We still follow the moral law, the difference is that we are now under a New Covenant. Jesus fulfilled the old covenant does not mean it became irrelevant. Without the old there cannot be new. How are we to know the difference without a comparison?
Moroever, the terms of both the covenants were same - the Ten Commandments. The only difference is in the LOCATION of the commandments. In the old covenant they were located in the tablets of stone. Under the new covenant they are written in the believers' hearts.
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people." (Heb. 8:10)
The old testament was about the Law, with the Ten Commandments being its foundation. The law is to show you your need for salvation- it can not perfect you. The Law and the Prophets were taught until John (the Baptist), after this, the kingdom is being preached/taught. Jesus is said to be the fulfilment of the Law. He inaugurated a new covenant.
As there can be no "new" without an "old" you can't just have the New Testament because you won't understand why we have it. The Bible is one story from the beginning and from the OT we gain an understanding of many things and why we need a Saviour. Both OT and NT are about Jesus and God's mercy and grace and His plan for our redemption and salvation.
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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quote:Originally posted by unfinished thought.: do you believe that people should be stoned to death for violations of the majority of the ten commandments? [QUOTE]Originally posted by Ayisha: you see you dont really believe that the Torah IS from God do you?
[QUOTE]Originally posted by Ayisha: Quran does not support stoning.
don't you believe in the Torah? Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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Jesus said let he who is WITHOUT SIN cast the first stone, he never said let four witnesses come forth and cast the first stone!
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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Ayisha, When you go to collage does it negate what you learned in kindergarten? No, It doesn't, even though you are learning something that you didn't learn in kindergarten. For example you don't learn about negative number in kindergarten, not because they don't exist but because you are not ready to learn them.
That is what Jesus did, continue our education. Brought it to the spiritual level. First we learned the basics then we advanced to a more complete and better way.
The teachings of Muhammad(pbuh) negates what Jesus taught and takes you back to elementary school, so to speak.
As far as the Bible being written by man, I don't understand why you keep saying this, when you have said before that the Bible is Gods message.
I think it is much more impressive that many people contribute to a book from different time periods, and the book agrees, than it is for one man to dictate something that is a repleca of what has been written before.
Posts: 3891 | From: No good deed goes unpunished. | Registered: May 2007
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quote:Originally posted by Ayisha: again all your quotes from the 4 gospels written by men
..inspired from God.
says who, them? The scholars or you cannot even make up your minds who these 4 men were!
quote:
quote:Originally posted by Ayisha: God has been very clear in that he gave clear guidelines to follow and told you what sin was.
Yet the Bible is a much better book of guidence than the Quran is. The Bible is a clear book without ambiguous meanings and double talk. The Quran, far from being a clear book is replete with contradictions and confusion. That is why Muslims can find anything they want in the Quran and interpret it in any way they wish. Osama Bin Laden can find verses that justify his crimes against humanity and you can find verses to portray Islam as a moderate religion. Far from being a book of guidance, the Quran misguides people. Muslims will do much better if they stop following this book of confusion and rely on their own intelligence to find their way, just like other people do.
But thats what is SAYS IN IT and thats what I do. I find the Bible to be as you describe the Quran. God knows all people are different, you can read the same thing as me and see something totally different in it to that which I do. To use your example of Osama bin Laden and others like him, he will read 'parts' to reflect what HE wants to see from it, and thats what he will be judged on by God in the end, how the information is USED. But we are not discussing Quran so stop trying to sway the topic.
quote:
quote:Originally posted by Ayisha: God gave 10 Commandments to Moses, if Jesus didnt come to abolish this Law then why dont 'Christians' still follow this Law instead of replacing it for what Paul said?
We still follow the moral law, the difference is that we are now under a New Covenant. Jesus fulfilled the old covenant does not mean it became irrelevant. Without the old there cannot be new. How are we to know the difference without a comparison?
But Jesus said he had not come with a NEW Law.
quote:Moroever, the terms of both the covenants were same - the Ten Commandments. The only difference is in the LOCATION of the commandments. In the old covenant they were located in the tablets of stone. Under the new covenant they are written in the believers' hearts.
"For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people." (Heb. 8:10)
a covenant is not the 10 commandments. God made covenants with many prophets, they were not the 10 commandments
quote:The old testament was about the Law, with the Ten Commandments being its foundation. The law is to show you your need for salvation- it can not perfect you. The Law and the Prophets were taught until John (the Baptist), after this, the kingdom is being preached/taught. Jesus is said to be the fulfilment of the Law. He inaugurated a new covenant.
As there can be no "new" without an "old" you can't just have the New Testament because you won't understand why we have it. The Bible is one story from the beginning and from the OT we gain an understanding of many things and why we need a Saviour. Both OT and NT are about Jesus and God's mercy and grace and His plan for our redemption and salvation.
again Jesus did not come with a NEW religion he came to CONTINUE the one already in existance. Yes the Bible is one story starting with the Torah that you call the 'Old Testament, continues with the Gospel which you call the 'New Testament' and is finalized with Quran, all from the same source, all parts of the same message. But I am not discussing the Old Testament or the New and I am not saying Quran is the only Book which does away with the old ones as you claim for Christianity, I am discussing whether Paul was the FOUNDER of what you believe today as a Christian.
Posts: 15090 | From: http://www.egyptalk.com/forum/ | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by of_gold: Ayisha, When you go to collage does it negate what you learned in kindergarten? No, It doesn't, even though you are learning something that you didn't learn in kindergarten. For example you don't learn about negative number in kindergarten, not because they don't exist but because you are not ready to learn them.
That is what Jesus did, continue our education. Brought it to the spiritual level. First we learned the basics then we advanced to a more complete and better way.
Of_Gold that is exactly what I am saying and have been all along yet I keep being told by you and others that the old lesson in kindergarted is NO LONGER NEEDED when it IS.
quote:The teachings of Muhammad(pbuh) negates what Jesus taught and takes you back to elementary school, so to speak.
No it doesnt and I am not discussing any 'comparisons' between either 'religion'. The Quran continues the lesson from kindergarten (Torah), clarifies Pauls involvement in where he taught you a wrong version in elementary school, clarifies JESUS REAL lessons which lead you to college, but as Paul taught you wrongly as to the nature of Jesus you have gone off and are now a high school drop out.
quote:As far as the Bible being written by man, I don't understand why you keep saying this, when you have said before that the Bible is Gods message.
It is written by men and you have never refuted that although we agree to differ on the 'inspired by God' bit. There IS part of Gods message in it and in parts it is clear, but this discussion is not whether the Bible is from God or not it is about Pauls involvement in Jesus being the son/God which Jesus didnt ever say, Paul DID.
quote:I think it is much more impressive that many people contribute to a book from different time periods, and the book agrees, than it is for one man to dictate something that is a repleca of what has been written before.
I think its much more impressive to read the Words of GOD personally but each to his own Posts: 15090 | From: http://www.egyptalk.com/forum/ | Registered: Jul 2004
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quote:Originally posted by Ayisha: Yes the Bible is one story starting with the Torah that you call the 'Old Testament, continues with the Gospel which you call the 'New Testament' and is finalized with Quran
Except for one little detail: the Quran contradicts the Bible in history and theology at just about every point
Posts: 3773 | From: unfinished thought | Registered: Nov 2008
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