I suggest you (and others) read “Jesus 100 years after christ”. There is strong evidence that the the writings of Paul were written shortly after christ was supposed to be crucified (yet he doesn’t talk about any of the events in the gospels especially the matthew account of the dead rising) and that ALL of the gospels were written in the second century AD.
So if Paul referred to christ as an ancient prophet and he lived in the first century AD, what does that tell you about the Gospels which were written later? (one key evidence for this is past-fore shadowing. The effect of a writer to make a prophesy come true, by prophesying about something that’s already happened, like the fall of the temple in Jerusalem (73 AD).)
I agree with this, But I also think that there were many greater philosophical teachings on life being formed in the east, and in greece pre-christianity. This of course is based upong opinion.
I don’t agree that the message is clear though. If we go by the gospels, and what jesus “says” many of his sayings are just recycled sayings from the letters of the first century, apocrypha and old testament collections of sayings.
The book I mentioned above covers this, how a letter written by Barnabas, and a statement he makes becomes a statement from Jesus in the gospels.
no, facts. Compare the lineage to the that of Luke.
Matthew has a mere 28 generations where Luke has 43. Nearly twice as many people in Luke’s genealogy.
The common defence to this is that, one genealogy is for Mary and the other is for Joseph. The problem with this is that both genealogies go back to David. Neither MATCH, and BOTH have the father above Jesus as Joseph (not the mother Mary.)
another example of Matthews need to fulfill prophecy and numerology:
Yes he would be a warrior that would kill the non-believers. And the Isaiah prophecy about a “virgin” is a young maiden and she gives birth about 1 chapter later.
This event would’ve still been recorded by Jewish and Roman historians. There’d be no reason for the catholic church to burn such a record (like they did with countless others that proved how little evidence there was for a god/christ) so we can assume that no such evidence existed.
That’s out of context and if you read the rest of that chapter you can see it’s talking about Samson. (who was also believed to be a savior/messiah of the Jewish people. Look at how many people he killed versus Jesus? Samson was the type of Messiah the Jews were expecting to come save them.)
and lo, to fulfill his prophecy what does Isaiah do?
read all of chapter 8, when Isaiah speaks about Immanuel again, he is talking about his son he bare with the prophetess (young maiden (probably a virgin before getting married)) Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz.
Yes, she could’ve been before Isaiah slept with her and married her.
Paul makes many references to the Gospels. His accounts, dated circa 45 - 60 A.D. demonstrates that these gospels were within 15 - 30 years of the event. This predates the 73 A.D. and your “post fulfillment” theory. Could you provide some of this evidence that suggests that the gospels were written in the second century?
Let me try to break this one down for you and O_G.
(1) Matthew provided an abridged version of the geneaology of Jesus while Luke was more thorough. Matthew only lists the names that were important to the Jews in order that they understood the lineage of Jesus. Something other than a quick glance at this material might be helpful.
(2) Matthew actually included female names in the lineage.
(3) Mary’s lineage ALSO went back to David. Thus, the genealogy of Jesus went back to King David from BOTH parents.
b The inclusion of these two potentially contradicting genealogies actually feeds the notion that there was no attempt to cover up anything. No conspiracy. Nope, not here. Either that, or the old Christians understood the genealogy well enough that they saw that it posed no threat. Either way, this is evidence in support of an accurate bible.[/b]
Think that over a minute or two…
You mean the same way that the Romans recorded the crucifixxions of three men. The way that the Jews recorded the crucifixxion of that dangerous fanatical outlaw Jesus? Yeah right. Sorry, such a small event needed no recording. There were much bigger things going in those days.
I will get back to you on the rest… gotta do something for now. Gobbo, still waiting.
That humans wrote the bible, Humans copied the bible. And human errors exist in the bible to this day. I don’t find it at all surprising that the contradictrary genealogies slipped through.
I also assume that you no longer think those scriptures you quoted prophesy christ as you haven’t challenged my answer on them. (you focused on the genealogy debate)
You assume way too much, I focused on Genealogy because of lack of time to respond about the prophecies. It requires more effort to consisely represent the phrophecies.
I’ve looked into Mithras. Also, the mysterious nameless religions that everyone claims existed around the same time… I’ll get back to you soon on the prophecies.
Gobbo, the reason I asked you to provide info is simply because I doubt your grasp and knowledge of this material. I am glad Scythekain came along because otherwise I severely doubt I would ever hear from you.
You misunderstood. It is not the abridged version of Luke’s genealogy, it is the abridged version as in not everyone is included because the audience it was intended for… I repeat that Matthew was not (NOT) abridging Luke’s version. He merely was abridging it for the audience he had in mind, namely: the Jews.
However, I need to address this because there are multiple issues:
(1) Paul’s letters (dated circa 45 A.D. to 60 A.D.) has the earliest information we can find about the historical Jesus.
(2) Paul specifically cites how he was passing on the exact doctrine that the early Church believed. Over the course of the next few quotes, we will examine specifically 1 Corinthians 15:1-15 (in parts).
Paul is declaring a few things: he has preached the gospel that he personally received. He stresses the importance of keeping what he has preached “in memory”. He talks about the specific doctrine of death, burial, and resurrection. Thus, early on we can begin to see that Paul’s epistles are accurate and in keeping with the doctrine found in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. If the gospels were written in the 2nd century, they still were not in conflict with the early Christian doctrine.
[/b] of James; then of all the apostles. And last of all he was seen of me also, as of one born out of due time.
[/quote]
Why does Paul list specific people that witnessed Christ after his death on the cross? Because he was not afraid, he had nothing to hide. He was inviting people to check for themselves. He challenged the Jewish authorities to deny the truth of his assertions. Paul is also driving home that Jesus was seen by many people that could testify to this truth.
Having named names, Paul makes it clear that the other apostles and disciples of Jesu also preach Christ crucified. We are talking about biblical doctrine being dated as early as within 15 years of the death and subsequent resurrection of Christ.
I think this lays it out pretty clearly. The resurrection was the central theme to the early Church’s doctrine (within 15 years of the death of Christ).
Tell that to Abraham and Sarah (half-brother and sister) or to Jacob who married his two first cousins. And since when did the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob care about laws outside of his holy word?
Both genealogies can be the true and accurate depiction of Jesus’ lineage. Despite your wild grasps.
The problem with debating with you Scythekain is that you cannot stay on topic. If you are going to continue to bury me with homework, I will never catch up. We went from the introduction of a highly important possible contradiction to thousands… Pick one at a time and we will discuss!
Now you say the contradictions slipped through, I say they were kept intentionally. At the least, I have shown that there is no conscious cover up or conspiracy. Why, because we know that within 15-25 years of the ministry of Jesus, Paul was preaching as accurately as possible, what he witnessed and what he learned directly from the apostles.
Furthermore, we have a huge stack of documents that attest to the overwhelming accuracy of the bible. Haven’t you argued that the accuracy is in the vicinity of 99.5%???
I appreciate what you are saying about the contradictions, but this is only a problem for those who want history in the sense we have history today, but that was never the intention of the Bible. I agree that Luke wrote later, which is probable because of his use of the history of Flavius Josephus, which is said to have become commonly available after 100 AD. He also tried to give the Gospel a Greek feeling about it, probably as the Gospels attributed to Mark and Matthew seemed a little scrappy, which accounts for the extensive legend of Jesus’ birth at the beginning.
I do find it important though that we understand that if you go through Egyptian history, you will find a lot of accounts that seem familiar if you know the biblical record. Many heroic deeds are recorded in the Bible that seem to have had their beginnings in Egypt, although historians say that the Egyptian Pharaohs borrowed too. The major figures of any culture have always been given attributes thought befitting to heroes and Judaism and Christianity are no different.
This is a part of the Origins-Mythology and hardly to be taken literally, but it is revealing that the contradiction is in the Bible itself. Were the Scribes too stupid to know that? No, but they obviously didn’t intend to achieve the requirements that fundamentalists raise.
Now you are exaggerating, which just goes to show how easily it can happen. 500 is the highest number of witnesses of an apparition.
I find it comforting that I can read these different versions and that the whole thing wasn’t ironed out previously. It tells me a lot about the nature of Holy Scripture.
So he wrote in greek for his “jewish” audience? Unlikely.
It is likely that both luke and matthew used a “Q” document as a source, and it’s possible that Matthew abridged this genealogy. But, that’s unlikely as only six names match. This also contradicts that later you say, one genealogy is for Mary and the other for Joseph. (which is in itself ridiculous since both genealogies list the father of Jesus, Joseph… then immediately Joseph’s father has a different name…)
just for a recap for those not in the know:
The epistles were written from 40 - 85 AD with no knowledge of Jesus’ earthly life. And in these epistles Jesus is referred to as an ancient prophet/teacher. The earliest Gospel, Mark was written from 95 - 110 AD. It says nothing of christs childhood or, miraculous virgin birth.
The gospels of Matthew and John were written next with Luke being written last, incorporating text from all of the previous gospels.
Why is this important?
Only Matthew and Luke mention any sort of genealogy, so Matthew probably got the story from an as of yet unknown source, and it’s doubtful that he cropped it to fit in his book as his book is nearly twice as long as Mark’s. When Luke came across it, he for whatever reason felt the need to correct Matthew’s genealogy and add 300 years to it (to put King David in the Time frame he was believed to live in.)
It’s just as likely that Jesus is related to so many OT characters, as it is that I’m the reincarnation of George Washington.
The genealogy issue, is done and solved Thirst… They are obviously both relating to the fathers line for the following reason:
The father of Jesus is mentioned (Joseph) and not the mother. It’s not like they don’t mention women, because one of them mentions several. (all from the OT and other apocryphal important women.)
They all have the same great-great-great … (etc) grandfather david.
so,
Either one is right or both are wrong.
yes through visions and dreams, like Mohammed and Joseph smith.
Don’t believe me? he left a huge clue for you in hebrews:
Yes so did mohammed. One of the key doctrines is to constantly re-read the qu’ran.
All, key mythological doctrines… none invented by christ. Notice the KEY mythos missing from this early testament. Namely those of the miracles he performed while he was “alive”.
Of course not, it was built atop early essene (church of god) doctrine.
Why don’t those 500 people mention that?
and Acts (1:15) (which was written later as I’ve acknowledged) states that after the ascension the number of believers “were about a hundred and twenty.”
Why isn’t peter considered one of the twelve by Paul’s statement here, but is one of the twelve in a couple of the gospels?
Why doesn’t he mention that the “12” saw christ BEFORE his resurrection?
Mohammed saw god in a cave, and wrote down that he did.
Smith saw 3 angels on a hill and got 12 corroborating witnesses that confirmed the saw the “golden plates”.
If I pointed to the sky right now and said “I see a UFO”, chances are that even though I don’t really see it, several other people would CLAIM that they could see it also.
the real question is do you believe this:
Yes but where are the other 12 interactions with the early church?
Why is the church so clearly a large establishment where it has been setup in what is now egypt, rome, greece, turkey, and Isreal. (not to mention several other middle eastern developments.)
In 15 years, they managed to convert such a large portion of roman gentiles and jewish diasporia to the essene church of god?
In 15 years without the internet, with horse drawn travel… they managed to get such widespread indoctrination?
Not even Mohammed accomplished that, and he used military might to spread his word.
Resurrection from death was a central theme of MANY religions of this era. It’s believed that many jews believed in resurrection BEFORE Paul’s teachings. They prepared individual ossuaries for the bones of the deceased during this period.
Come on… your the one not focusing on the prophesies and getting obsessed with the genealogies, then you switch over to the resurrection and pauline teachings.
That didn’t happen till the inquisition. They let things slip through because several copyists were responsible for writing the bible. What’s more likely given the amount of information borrowed from mark and Q? that Luke and Matthew were individual witnesses? or that they were copyists who copied the key moments from Mark… corrected the grammatical errors and fleshed out the story to help with the teachings of their beliefs?
I’ve never argued for that. At most:
First five books: 60% accurate, most of that 60% being the laws that were written for the jews.
next group of historical writings, about 40 - 50% historically accurate.
Prophets: were probably prophesying about events that alread happened.
New testament: life of jesus, as I’ve established, and as several mythological analyzers have established, is a complete work of fiction.
Bob,
I think you’d have a hard time proving that wasn’t a large portion of the original intent of the bible. I think they had a completely different view of the world, and history and legend were tightly intertwined.
There’s no doubt that legends are copied and incorporated into local beliefs. The flood account of gilgamesh is surprisingly similiar to that of Noah, and the ages of the early “kings” (adam, noah, etc) is from sumer circa 3000 BC. The only mistake the early bible copyist made is that he got the age of their deaths off by a factor of ten.
Of course not, but it shows the redactors additions and they Y,E,P fragmentation of the Torah (the first five books).
ok, half of a thousand is still alot of people. If those 500 people tell two people and so on, and even only 1% of that number write something, there should still be other authors besides Paul talking about this event.
Do you feel the same way about other “holy” scripture?
Pagels argues that there probably is a problem with interpretation. That is, Jesus said go forth not turn the other cheek. Also, many claim that the Commandment “Thou shalt not kill” really claims “Thou shalt not murder.”
For those interested, the writings found at Nag Hamadi provide insight. The Gnostics Bible explores the communal, feminist man, not the patriarchical man denoted in Biblical texts.
Pagels is considered expert in this area.
Also, for those who claim the Bible as been distorted, sorry but the Dead Sea scrolls support that veracity of the Bible. The major differences that currently appear are in the recent King James New Translation, at least this is what I believe it is named. The older version of the King James does omit three chapters of the Catholic version, too, but the rest is dead on the same.
BTW: on the BBC religion and ethics board a poster Eli Pennywhistle, a Jew, claims that Jesus was rejected by many Jews as his father did not fit the prophesy, Mary did, but not the father.
Many on this board are very well versed regarding their faith, much more so than the the Christians and Muslims. I am quite impressed with the depth and understanding they have regarding Talmud law.
Evidently, Jesus wasn’t the only rabbi who caused miracles. Many religious Jews claim that miracles were common throughout their history, including the revival of the dead, curing of disease, living to a very old age, a women giving birh past their mensus.
Again, this is from a second hand source, as I haven’t the documentation, actually never did. Hum, I can probably dig this up on another site.
And, no, I am not religious, just interested in why individuals are and how religions shape societal norms. For example, most of our laws stem from the Ten Commandments, and the individual is valued in monotheism as God made a deal with humans, thus each human is important.
This contrasts with most Asian faiths that value the family and the group more than the individual.
How can you say there was no knowledge of Jesus’ earthly life? The only evidence we “could†have would be another original source i.e. Brian or someone …
There are those who say that Paul states in Romans that God’s Gospel in the prophets announced not the life of Jesus itself but the Gospel about him which Paul proclaims, and that no life of Jesus seems to have intervened between the prophecy and Paul’s discovery of that Gospel in scripture. But again, this assumption doesn’t base itself on fact, but lack of knowledge.
Really, critics rely on the standard arguments and reject the fact that when Christ was killed and was seen afterwards by his followers, psychological impetus had been given the people to follow his example of believing that Prophecy is realised when people devote themselves to the promises of God and that God had proclaimed a new age of Grace. Paul, confronted with this new paradigm and convinced, had to think it through and came up with a completely new Theology, even though it drew from many older sources.
The first task he approached was proof of the fact that the death of Jesus was in according with scripture. In his theory, the mystical Christ became incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth (Christ Jesus) but the life of Jesus (after the flesh) became secondary. It is the mystical Christ who features in his teaching, which obviously caused problems with his “fellow†Apostles, who gave the life of Jesus far more importance. It is this struggle within Christianity that is glossed over by Luke in Acts, but is very real in the epistles.
Secondly, he had to explain why the message didn’t spread amongst the Jews of Jerusalem as well as amongst the Grecian Jews. In fact, the break with Jerusalem was only mended by compromise, because Paul could prove that the Gospel was spreading and Non-Jews were praising the God of the Jews. Peter and John are recorded as having been highly sceptical of the spreading of the Gospel by people like Stephen and Philip.
It is this conflict that critics leave out of their considerations. But then again, so do Christians.
Sorry, but a legend is not “complete fiction†and the mystical stories about Jesus have more content than you are aware of. Of course, it doesn’t supply the facts you need to provide a history, but for those who take the Semitic origins of Judaism and Christianity into account, it provides a basis for faith.
What is more important, to know history, or to understand what an occurrence meant to the participants and how it changed them, why they believe it happened and what it means for the future? I’d say that history is often very lacking.
There were, but you don’t know them. The fact that it wasn’t written down until Paul mentioned it doesn’t mean much either. There were umpteen “Gospels†and reports on miracles etc. Many of them didn’t make it into the canon.
What events meant to the participants and what these events led to, is history. It is not this, that, happened on this date, or this battle occured on this date with x losses.
Brian led quite an interesting life. he taught us to “always look on the bright side of life”…
We could have more evidence of the earthly life of jesus if the catholic church didn’t feel so threatened by the truth. I think there is strong scholarly evidence that Jesus was the Essene teacher of wisdom that lived in the range of 150 - 50 BC. (who also died on a cross, coincidentally enough). I think that the deification of the man came much later. Much in the same way that Buddha was deified in many ways by his followers.
I think it goes without saying that paul believed the Old Testament (and what we now consider apocrypha) prophesied the coming of christ. The “gospel” were a collection of quotes from the “scriptures” of the time.
People claim to still see Elvis. What would be really interesting is that 100 years from now a modern day Paul wrote about Elvis the same way that Paul wrote about Jesus. He sacrificed himself on the crapper for your sins.
I think if anything it shows that people weren’t as critical of supernatural claims in those days. People weren’t as aware of mental illness in those days. If someone today claims they have visions or talk to god (or demons) they are usually put on meds to restabilize their brains so that they don’t hear the “voices” anymore.
Really if some street preacher came up to you and told you, “I’m the son of god, Only those who believe in me can get to heaven”, you’d most likely think he was a crackpot.
Misquoted scripture just as today. The scripture stating the birth of Samson (who also fits the typical hero archetype) is still used today to show that Jesus was prophesied to be a nazarite.
People look at the writings of the bible and think it’s incredible that they predicted such things as the rise and fall of the empire of babylon… never considering for a minute that it’s easy to prophesize something that’s already happened, and use it as a tale of warning for future generations.
Well that all depends on where you date the epistles. Even biblical scholars place the dating of Mark at least 45 years after the “death” of christ. With Luke being even farther away in time. About 175 AD (he wrote for theophilus of antioch).
The goal of the gospels was very different than the goal of the epistles. They were trying to establish a much stronger line of guilt for you to believe in christ. Paul was just trying to establish saving by grace.
The epistles if they were written in the short span of time after the traditional timeline of jesus have very little to say about the life of Jesus. Paul never refers to him in the flesh, and has only seen him in visions. Then in one chapter of corinthians he tells the corinthians (who he was trying to win over from the apostle apollus(sp?)) that not only has he seen the christ, but Peter, and the 12 and 500 others have as well.
after doing a little research, I think the christian church is a wholly Grecian/Roman invention, and that is why the Jews of Jerusalem never converted. The diasporia jews were famous for their lax belief in the laws of old. How much easier it would be to convert them to a “new covenant”, than those who still believed in the “old covenant”?
to the folklorist they are important. To the average person, I think you can gather just as important spiritual lesson from any material that inspires you. (as you state below). Do you think the legend of Jason and the argonauts is complete fiction or inspired fiction?
Does the histrocity matter as much as the folklore? I think looking at the folklore built up for christ it’s perfectly devised to make you feel guilty about being human, and to lay on the guilt trip for christs brutal death (see passion of the christ.)
Are there statements that christ “says” that are inspired? Well of course. Just as mohammed has things that touch the human heart, so does Jesus. If they didn’t it would’ve garnered no followers.
Both are important for different reasons. It’s important to understand what a verse of holy scripture can do to someone. The leader of the Waco Cult believed Christ empowered him to be a military leader and to take down the non-believers. →
To me the scriptures are like a novel. Yes there’s greatness to be had, but for those who use it as an absolute measure of belief there is much danger to be had for the rest of us. Is it any wonder with verse like the above that you have things like:
forceministries.com/ - “It is literally true-there
are no atheists in foxholes-religion is precious under fire.”
Does that mean that all christians are like that? no. But, moderation itself is a misnomer. If you believe in evolution, you’ve automatically discounted the first sin. (adam’s transgression) and thusly christ’s sin sacrifice is useless to you.
as for other books, if someone believed in them like the bible and just stripped verses willy nilly, they would be just as dangerous.
example from alice and wonderland:
yeah, because many of their accounts (like the gospel about jesus’ childhood) made jesus look more human than the catholic church wanted.
I think anything can be inspiring including someone else’s life. I think it’s really inspiring how Lance Armstrong struggled through his cancer and overcame it. I don’t think it’s inspiring how he left his wife that was supporting him, for a supermodel.
But so is the way we should view “holy scripture”… there is some inspiring stuff and some ugly stuff. If we view it correctly we can learn more from it.
You know of course that you are speculating … ? Of all explanations generally it is the truth that is the strangest. The conspiracy theories are all very probable judging by what we know of the Church, but then again, so are many storylines that have provided umpteen novels about the Vatican.
It is interesting that Jewish scholars point to credible Hebraisms in the Gospels that ring true according to Rabbinic tradition. In a German book by Pinchas Lapide and Ulrich Luz, Lapide mentions the fact that five reasons alone show that Jesus did not understand himself as being the Messiah:
1.He never presented himself as the Messiah and avoided the use of the Name
2.He forbade anyone to reveal of the secret of his suffering
3.He continually withdrew from the crowds to a hidden place and conducted his “signs†under the pledge of secrecy
4.His parables did not reveal, but instead veiled the details of the coming of the Kingdom – especially the so called eschatological parables
5.If Pauls conclusion is right, “… how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?†(Romans 10:14) then this is true of the large majority of Jews, who could never have believed Jesus or become Christians because they had not heard anything about him.
Note that this is all in keeping with the idea that I subscribe to, that Jesus saw Salvation unwinding in different ways to the Jews, and indeed differently to Paul. This is supported by statements from Jesus that underline his affinity to Pharisaic teaching, but reveal a radically different way of counselling the people to trust the promises of God. His is a conspirational though peaceful movement, which explains why he did at times react rather touchy when, for example, his Family or the Pharisees were making a row and drawing attention to him.
He chose to teach in the Temple and the Synagogues, or whilst on the march. He was elusive and even had to escape the crowds at times, because if he didn’t he would become a target. That is why he knew that, if he were to be betrayed, it would be someone from the inner circle. Of course, all the things written about Judas were done so in hindsight. His was a dangerous life, and those who chose to follow him would also lead a dangerous life. But the aim was to strengthen the people in the assurance of their faith, help them build communities that could cope better with the occupation and thereby overcome the Romans by letting the love of God rule their lives.
His was the Good News that Salvation was already in the midst of Israel, already unravelling and therefore reason to remain faithful and hopeful. His was a spiritual message, warning his listeners about trusting external signs – when they had reached their goal, it wouldn’t be a case of the Realm of God being here or there, it wouldn’t be mistakable and couldn’t be overseen. I believe he reckoned with achieving his aims within a lifetime, within two generations, and he praised those people who had shown the kind of faith and stamina that believers would require. He soon doubted, however, that he would live to see it – but even that would be part of the plan of God.
Jesus had to avoid awakening messianic hopes for fear of militancy thwarting what he saw as Gods plan for Israel in difficult times. Although it was a peaceful movement, at crucial moments he ensured that the Disciples were armed to at least protect themselves. I believe he saw the betrayal coming as a result of his outburst in the outer temple court. Too many people held on to Herod’s temple as a sign of the spiritual covenant, but Jesus didn’t, and knew that the Temple was something temporary.
You really must hear what I am saying. Of course the question of Deity came much later, but the statement that “God was in Christ†is several steps away from that. Paul’s “fault†was to polemicise too much, which finally poisoned the relationships between Israeli Jews and Grecian Jews who were the first to carry the Gospel out of Israel. By doing that, he was indirectly responsible for later generations of Gentile Christians loosing the Semitic origins of their faith and the rise eventually of anti-semiticism.
No, Paul originally tried to find the line of Salvation that Jesus had initiated. If it wasn’t the political liberation that the Messiah would bring – then where did it come from? Who was this Jesus of Nazareth? It was at some time in his studies when he put together the two step plan of Salvation together, inspired by Scripture. God had done things in the past that required a rethink, mostly when Israel had rejected his Prophets, which provided him with an explanation.
Of course, this found more readily an audience outside of Israel, but Peter and James were prepared to go along to a certain degree. There is no doubt though, Paul had created a rift and it was something that Christianity never overcame.
This is probably one of the best kept secrets regarding Christianity in the West. People ascribe so many different meanings and purposes for Christianity denying its essential purpose of re-birth.
Scyth referred to the alleged Q document that supposedly as the source for the Gospels. This came about from this IMO misguided venture called the Jesus Seminar that brought together various “experts” to share their secular expertise.
Not appreciating that the esoteric teaching is aware of how the secular mind destroys meaning so instead of writing documents like this mysterious Q, it functions initially as an oral tradition and only after a while after sufficient understanding has been established does it begin to spill out into society by those having studied under the oral tradition.
Experts like official documents signed and with an official seal that sum it all up. Naturally the assumption is that the esoteric side acts the same. The esoteric traditions though are concerned instead with understanding so avoid this in favor of creating something that provokes the helpful questions so that the teaching can be uncovered in oneself. That is why no such authentic Q document would exist since it defeats the esoteric purpose of creating understanding for the individual.
Bob refers to some Jewish scholars who for some reason have a concern for Christianity but again, working under the assumption that it follows secular influences.
Where an "expert"likes to announce their credentials like PhD for example to create allegiance, the true master pushes the student away. The purpose of the teaching is inner freedom to grow so it must be needed and the student must prove themselves open minded and not be affected by trivialities. It is necessary to be both attracted and repulsed by the same thing to avoid preconception. Naturally Jesus would have to be vague so as not to create slaves but allow the truth to be discovered for oneslelf
His attraction was his “presence” felt in the depth of ones being and not words that often through charisma, influence ones personality as in the case of “experts.”
This is really interesting and also very revealing IMO. First of all, while secular religion is concerned with quantity, the esoteric side of religion is concerned with quality of understanding. Consider Romans 10: 14 in the larger context beginning with 5:
This is not preaching words but requires real understanding in order to do it. There is a deep psychological idea here that contemporary psychology is oblivious of and that is the normal disconnect between what is deeply felt and how it becomes distorted during ones speech by ones personality. A person could not be allowed to preach until they had acquired the “presence” to be able to connect the outer and the inner in themselves and retain it during speech so that the listener could “feel” its worth in a deeper part of themselves normally hidden.
I guess it is a tribute to the depth of Christianity that it can be considered both from the secular and esoteric perspectives depending on the attractions of individuals.
These Jewish scholars had every reason to be concerned about Christianity, after 6 million deaths in the Holocaust, centuries of Ghettos and discrimination, oppression and miscellaneous attempts at genocide. How else is a dialogue supposed to begin if we don’t start listening?
Where do you come from when you start writing this obnoxious stuff about being a “true masterâ€? Who are you even talking about? The discussion between scythekain and myself was following a completely different path until you butt in and start talking about “experts†for the millionth time. Just get off of my cloud and if you want to join in, do that. But don’t try to hijack threads!
Tell that to Abraham and Sarah (half-brother and sister) or to Jacob who married his two first cousins. And since when did the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob care about laws outside of his holy word?