Don't all roads led to heaven?

[ittarter]

Hi Ittarter

I have to thank you for the tone of your posts. One gets so used to hostility, that a well-mannered, well-thought, intellectually challenging post is a real pleasure. But, to answer:

Yes, I am not convinced any longer by (moral) relativism. I used to be, as an atheist, and was most grateful, when I became a theist, to be able to discard it in a properly honest manner. So, idealism, at least in terms of ethics, was like coming home.

I do not mean to disparage the ancients. They did the best they could with the conceptual tools at their disposal. But I do think philosophy, and, indeed, the whole of society, has made progress since, and that if Christians fail to realise this, then they are doomed to irrelevancy. And I think that would be a shame.

And thanks again, for the growing book list.

Best wishes, 2RM.

Yeah, you guys have really been hammering each other on this thread. I get sucked into it, too (as I'm sure you have observed).

I'm still working on discarding my moral relativism. I think it's a sign of total philosophical confusion, but since that's where I'm at right now, I'm still what I'd call a semi-emotivist.

I will note that the ancient thinkers seemed to be able to do a great deal more with the allegedly weaker "conceptual tools." Nowadays it seems that many philosophical debates are at an impasse. Thus I would suggest that while we have indeed made progress in a certain sense, in another sense we are entirely confused. I feel that my own personal confusion mirrors the confusion of this age, and so I can truly call myself its offspring, though I may sometimes loath it, and rightly so.

Whether my solution to this madness will ultimately take the same shape as yours remains to be seen.

Good luck with the remainder of this thread

 

[onthegallow]

I will say this:

They say if people haven't heard the gospel, then creatiion itself declares God. So, what about hindus? They have the oldest religion, and they believe in a supreme being, and dieties that make up the same supreme being. Will they go to hell? If only one unique God created this world and us, then why would he care if we worshipped a creator with a different/odd name? Then it comes down to that they got the name wrong, and I guess, God cares about this, BUT if there is but one creator wouldn't it automatically point to him as who they were worshiping, since there is no other God to contend with him? Why would God judge on the mere silliness that they had the name wrong. Obviously there knowledge, as best as it could, pointed to what they believed, and if God does judge on what we know, will they go to hell? If so, then God really needs to reveal himself more as to not judge on what we did not know.

You don't have the only God. It's an argument showing how manmade christianity is. Man made religion would want us to get the name right, because we want to convince people on the way we think, but if there were 1 absolute God, then someone simply seeing the world and giving God a refference/name would suffice as worshiping him, because there IS NO OTHER GOD. And if there were no other true Gods to contend with, then the absolute God probably wouldn't care if we stroked his ego with praise because there are no contenders, so it looks more man made in a way to try to get people to not want to believe other gods. If there is 1 absolute God, then all worship, under most any name would refer to the only one that there is.

Imagine I created someone, and one person said, "I think the person that created me wore a watch but no shirt" and he was correct on the watch but not the shirt, but another said, "I believe he did not wear a watch but has a red shirt" but he is correct on the shirt. Since I look around and see no one else and I know that I had created them, could I assume they both were looking for me? Wouldn't God be able to tell that people are trying desperatly to find the true God?

If there is a God, he is not cruel and unjust, and if he was, it would be my moral duty to deny him even in the face of hell.

The bible is man made. Would you use old manuscripts that tell you to drill holes in the heads of epileptics to release a demon? I don't think so! So why should you hold a much loftier claim under these same conditions. I could dig up many things on the internet, so, should I believe them all because someone wrote them? No, you and me both know that it defies reason, and reason guides us in a direction that is most inclined to be truth. So why should you believe these old manuscript; because God said it? Fine, in that same reason, Epileptics are demon possessed. You can't have it both ways -- God inspired this also to those people.

If Jesus died to forgive sins, then why did he say he has the power to forgive sins while he was yet alive? Why die and not just come down here, talk, then go to heaven and bypass the show and doesn't a sacrifice involve not getting the sacrifice back? So, what did Jesus sacrifice by raising again? Did Jesus really need to die for sin because in Psalms 51 David says:

16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 The sacrifices of God are [a] a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.



Sacrifces didn't cease when the Romans destroyed the temple, but way before when the Babolynians did, which was before Christ and jews knew that sacrifice wasn't required to get forgiveness from God.

 

[brightmorningstar]

To 2ndRateMind,

But I answered the thread OP by stating my belief that it is not the exclusive way to find Heaven, and your comments don't affect that position, as far as I can see.

Alright, but I could state my belief that there is only exclusive way to find heaven, and that would differ from yours. So how could one know which was right.
The point is where does Gods fit in? For me, I believe the Biblical testimony which says there is only one way, no-one comes to the Father God except through Jesus Christ, I believe Jesus spoke this as from God. That opposed to your opinion or anyone elses.

Indeed, if Christian belief is a gift of God, a matter of divine grace, it compounds the injustice issue, since God does seem to bestow that gift in a capriciously random manner.

You say if, how would you know if you don’t believe the Biblical testimony.

 

[joy2daworld]

God is the Great I AM and He does care if you call him by another name. Let's not give sinful human attributes to the Almighty.

 

[Criada]

God is the Great I AM and He does care if you call him by another name. Let's not give sinful human attributes to the Almighty.

The Bible itself has many names for God, and every human language has its own translations. I think that God understands enough not to be worried about a name...

 

[brightmorningstar]

To Criada,

The Bible itself has many names for God, and every human language has its own translations.

Again, whilst the Bible has a number of names for God, whatever translation, I AM as in Exodus 3:14 was evidenctly what joy2daworld was referring to. I can know that because we can both see what the Bible says. I AM is consistent throughout the translations, in which Bible version in English did you see anything different?

I think that God understands enough not to be worried about a name...

We were referring to what the word of God says rather than what you, we or other people think.

 

[Why9999]

I will say this:

They say if people haven't heard the gospel, then creatiion itself declares God. So, what about hindus? They have the oldest religion, and they believe in a supreme being, and dieties that make up the same supreme being. Will they go to hell? If only one unique God created this world and us, then why would he care if we worshipped a creator with a different/odd name? Then it comes down to that they got the name wrong, and I guess, God cares about this, BUT if there is but one creator wouldn't it automatically point to him as who they were worshiping, since there is no other God to contend with him? Why would God judge on the mere silliness that they had the name wrong. Obviously there knowledge, as best as it could, pointed to what they believed, and if God does judge on what we know, will they go to hell? If so, then God really needs to reveal himself more as to not judge on what we did not know.

You don't have the only God. It's an argument showing how manmade christianity is. Man made religion would want us to get the name right, because we want to convince people on the way we think, but if there were 1 absolute God, then someone simply seeing the world and giving God a refference/name would suffice as worshiping him, because there IS NO OTHER GOD. And if there were no other true Gods to contend with, then the absolute God probably wouldn't care if we stroked his ego with praise because there are no contenders, so it looks more man made in a way to try to get people to not want to believe other gods. If there is 1 absolute God, then all worship, under most any name would refer to the only one that there is.

Imagine I created someone, and one person said, "I think the person that created me wore a watch but no shirt" and he was correct on the watch but not the shirt, but another said, "I believe he did not wear a watch but has a red shirt" but he is correct on the shirt. Since I look around and see no one else and I know that I had created them, could I assume they both were looking for me? Wouldn't God be able to tell that people are trying desperatly to find the true God?

If there is a God, he is not cruel and unjust, and if he was, it would be my moral duty to deny him even in the face of hell.

The bible is man made. Would you use old manuscripts that tell you to drill holes in the heads of epileptics to release a demon? I don't think so! So why should you hold a much loftier claim under these same conditions. I could dig up many things on the internet, so, should I believe them all because someone wrote them? No, you and me both know that it defies reason, and reason guides us in a direction that is most inclined to be truth. So why should you believe these old manuscript; because God said it? Fine, in that same reason, Epileptics are demon possessed. You can't have it both ways -- God inspired this also to those people.

If Jesus died to forgive sins, then why did he say he has the power to forgive sins while he was yet alive? Why die and not just come down here, talk, then go to heaven and bypass the show and doesn't a sacrifice involve not getting the sacrifice back? So, what did Jesus sacrifice by raising again? Did Jesus really need to die for sin because in Psalms 51 David says:

16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 The sacrifices of God are [a] a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.



Sacrifces didn't cease when the Romans destroyed the temple, but way before when the Babolynians did, which was before Christ and jews knew that sacrifice wasn't required to get forgiveness from God.

Imo you're ignoring a very important point: hell may be destruction of the non-believer according to what the SDA's state. It makes a lot of sense if you read it. God keeps the people around that He has a relationship with and the rest are destroyed at the end of the age. Their is not eternal torture, just logic and reason.

 

[onthegallow]

First off, prove that your Bible is more the word of God than the Koran, or minus the new testament (judaism), or more so than Buddhist scripture. You back your claims with your Bible that has been handed down to you from a group of people who voted on it. If you think God preserves his word, then read your Bible about the king who found a book and then turned the nation toward God...His word was not preserved before that time. Neither the new testament...there are the gnostic books that the "heretics" believed and there was confusion about how they didn't line up to the other books, because in them Jesus never rose from the dead physically. Of course the catholics had no use of this and only disregarded them based on that he must have rose from the dead physically, and this is 4 hundred years after the fact. The older manuscripts of Mark end with just an empty tomb. Why not accept these older manuscripts over the interpolated ones? There is no proof that what is written later is not interpolated. When did Jesus ascend to heaven? was it about a week after hsi ressurection? 40 days? Take your pick, the bible says both. Who saw Jesus first, and how many men or angels were at his tomb? You have an array of choices. Why did Jesus command them to buy swords before he was arrested and then tell peter, "Those who live by the sword, die by the sword." Why did Paul say he had a vision when all the witnesses heard no voice.

 

[ittarter]

I will say this:

They say if people haven't heard the gospel, then creatiion itself declares God. So, what about hindus? They have the oldest religion, and they believe in a supreme being, and dieties that make up the same supreme being. Will they go to hell? If only one unique God created this world and us, then why would he care if we worshipped a creator with a different/odd name? Then it comes down to that they got the name wrong, and I guess, God cares about this, BUT if there is but one creator wouldn't it automatically point to him as who they were worshiping, since there is no other God to contend with him? Why would God judge on the mere silliness that they had the name wrong. Obviously there knowledge, as best as it could, pointed to what they believed, and if God does judge on what we know, will they go to hell? If so, then God really needs to reveal himself more as to not judge on what we did not know.

Record for most rhetorical questions in a single paragraph!

It's not actually about the name. Hindus clearly perceive the supreme being quite differently than Christians -- for example, how many there are, what he is responsible for, what his interaction with human beings and the planet are.

You don't have the only God. It's an argument showing how manmade christianity is. Man made religion would want us to get the name right, because we want to convince people on the way we think, but if there were 1 absolute God, then someone simply seeing the world and giving God a refference/name would suffice as worshiping him, because there IS NO OTHER GOD. And if there were no other true Gods to contend with, then the absolute God probably wouldn't care if we stroked his ego with praise because there are no contenders, so it looks more man made in a way to try to get people to not want to believe other gods. If there is 1 absolute God, then all worship, under most any name would refer to the only one that there is.

Again, not really. A lot of Hindu worship does not go to an absolute supreme being. They spend a lot of time worshiping numerous characters in the great Hindu pantheon.

What does worship mean? If I worship President Obama but in fact believe Obama to be the Great Bunny Rabbit of Love, is the worship still true? It seems to me that the object of worship is in fact a figment of my imagination, even though Pres. Obama is clearly not imaginary. Likewise, if God has a specific set of attributes that make up his character, and people worship an imaginary deity with a very different set of attributes, you can't say that they're worshiping God. Even if you were to say that all supreme beings are imaginary, they still keep their own attributes and believing in one is not the same as believing in another.

Imagine I created someone, and one person said, "I think the person that created me wore a watch but no shirt" and he was correct on the watch but not the shirt, but another said, "I believe he did not wear a watch but has a red shirt" but he is correct on the shirt. Since I look around and see no one else and I know that I had created them, could I assume they both were looking for me? Wouldn't God be able to tell that people are trying desperatly to find the true God?

Watches and shirts are irrelevant when discussing the identity of a person. You can take off your watch or your shirt without becoming a different person. However, when a Christian believes that God is love and a Muslim does not, the love is an attribute that cannot be removed or added without critically altering the identity of the deity.

If there is a God, he is not cruel and unjust, and if he was, it would be my moral duty to deny him even in the face of hell.

Well said. However, the question then becomes, does [a given action] truly show that God is cruel and unjust? For example, if God sends 97% of the world to hell for all eternity, is he unjust or cruel? And that is a separate discussion that belongs in the "Unorthodox Theology" subforum.

The bible is man made. Would you use old manuscripts that tell you to drill holes in the heads of epileptics to release a demon? I don't think so! So why should you hold a much loftier claim under these same conditions. I could dig up many things on the internet, so, should I believe them all because someone wrote them? No, you and me both know that it defies reason, and reason guides us in a direction that is most inclined to be truth. So why should you believe these old manuscript; because God said it? Fine, in that same reason, Epileptics are demon possessed. You can't have it both ways -- God inspired this also to those people.

Obviously, the Bible was made by man. But is it not also true to say that the Bible was made by God? Are these just opposite sides of the same coin? What does it mean when we say, "The Bible was written by God"? Does it mean that we believe, as traditionalist Muslims do, that the Bible effectively floated down from heaven? Most Christian views of inspiration tend to try to strike a balance between human and divine involvement. How convincingly, I don't know. In any case, if we suppose that the two are not mutually exclusive until proven otherwise, we might also then suppose that some scientific discoveries have outdated certain parts of the Bible (like the claim that rabbits chew the cud or the earth has four corners). However, what is outdated is hardly central to the message of the Bible, which many believe (and I think rightly so) to be timeless (as is all great literature).

So, are epileptics demon-possessed? If we say yes, then we must explain what a demon is. A demon, in the ancient world-view, was a carrier or cause of evil. Can we safely say that epileptics have problems that ought to be fixed, if we are able to fix them? If the answer is yes, then we share a common view of epilepsy with the ancient medicine man -- we are just using different language. The greater difference is actually how we go about curing it. The ancients believed in the power of religion, magic, and the application of various aids that we would now call superstitions. We believe in pills, psychiatry, medicine and science. Did it always work for them? No. Does it always work for us? No. Did it sometimes work for them? Yes. Does it sometimes work for us? Yes. So tell me, are we so far advanced as we often pretend to be?

If Jesus died to forgive sins, then why did he say he has the power to forgive sins while he was yet alive? Why die and not just come down here, talk, then go to heaven and bypass the show and doesn't a sacrifice involve not getting the sacrifice back? So, what did Jesus sacrifice by raising again? Did Jesus really need to die for sin because in Psalms 51 David says:

16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it;
you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 The sacrifices of God are [a] a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart,
O God, you will not despise.

Sacrifces didn't cease when the Romans destroyed the temple, but way before when the Babolynians did, which was before Christ and jews knew that sacrifice wasn't required to get forgiveness from God.

Interesting question. This view of the atonement was actually developed much later in the history of Christianity. Anselm basically started it, and the Reformers (the forefathers of Protestantism) took the idea and modernized it. However, I don't think that early believers saw Jesus' death in terms of him dying in our place to pay for the punishment our sins deserved. To them, Jesus' resurrection was a sign that the "new age" promised to them had finally begun, and was proof that evil was conquered, even in its seemingly unconquerable form of death. Also, he modeled for his followers the willful suffering that all righteous people must endure during their life on earth.

You brought up a lot of interesting points, and I hope my own reflections were helpful to you.

 

[ittarter]

First off, prove that your Bible is more the word of God than the Koran, or minus the new testament (judaism), or more so than Buddhist scripture.

What do you want, exactly, when you ask someone to "prove" this to you?

You back your claims with your Bible that has been handed down to you from a group of people who voted on it.

No, I don't, and no, no one voted.

If you think God preserves his word, then read your Bible about the king who found a book and then turned the nation toward God...His word was not preserved before that time.

I think we can all agree that, whatever God's intentions with this book of his, he never deigned to make it perfectly available to everyone. However, preservation is not the same as availability. Preservation means that it is not lost forever. So in fact your example proves preservation better than you might think.

Neither the new testament...there are the gnostic books that the "heretics" believed and there was confusion about how they didn't line up to the other books, because in them Jesus never rose from the dead physically. Of course the catholics had no use of this and only disregarded them based on that he must have rose from the dead physically, and this is 4 hundred years after the fact.

I don't understand your argument. Why, in your opinion, were "orthodox" Christians so opposed to a merely spiritual resurrection? And why were they wrong in committing themselves to a physical resurrection?

The older manuscripts of Mark end with just an empty tomb. Why not accept these older manuscripts over the interpolated ones? There is no proof that what is written later is not interpolated.

And you suppose that Mark's gospel does not imply a resurrection? And that the resurrection was an idea added later on? Friend, the Pauline letters are older than the Markan gospel, and they clearly show a common belief of a resurrection among many Christian communities in Asia Minor. His strong opposition to the teachers in Corinth who taught that Christ was not resurrected shows, I think, that the other churches (Thessalonika, Philippi, etc.) took it for granted.

When did Jesus ascend to heaven? was it about a week after hsi ressurection? 40 days? Take your pick, the bible says both.

Seven days and forty days are symbolic numbers in the Bible, used regularly to mean not seven or forty literal days, but "the amount of time divinely decreed." The point is that Jesus ascended to heaven. There is no disagreement on that point.

By the way, where in the Bible does it say seven days? I don't recall that one.

Who saw Jesus first, and how many men or angels were at his tomb? You have an array of choices. Why did Jesus command them to buy swords before he was arrested and then tell peter, "Those who live by the sword, die by the sword." Why did Paul say he had a vision when all the witnesses heard no voice.

So, you suppose that because you can find some possible discrepancies, you can safely ignore the Bible? Then you must also deny that the Holocaust ever happened, that Apollo 11 landed people on the moon, and that Muslim extremists were behind 9/11. Lots of historical events have strange difficulties that must be worked through. However, that doesn't mean that they didn't happen. It just means it's not as cut and dry as we'd like it to be.

You seem to be trying to throw together an overwhelming number of logical difficulties which a reader of the Bible and a believer in Christ might encounter. However, I assure you, you are not the first to raise these issues. People have given them a lot of thought, and have come up with various solutions for them. Whether their solutions are good enough is certainly a question open to discussion. However, I would discourage you from simply ignoring those solutions as if your list of "contradictions" was able to inspire doubt from anyone except those people entirely ignorant to the discussions that surround them.

Please, be a model of intellectual honesty and face these questions head-on.

Thanks.

 

[onthegallow]

Ok, who wrote the gospels? Why does paul never refer to any of Jesus's teachings to use but rather on things his own theology.

The other ascension count might be 8 days, I can't remember off hand, but you say that those days imply something other than literal, then what is to stop you from taking everything else as "not literal". You can't have it both ways.

My point with the hindus was this: We all are climbing a mountain and trying hard to come to what we see as God and make sense of things, but in the end we all are looking to the peak to form one true God, because there is no other God if one created us, so all these paths lead to the only being that is there. You can't blow these other religons off as if they are lying to themselves, because they aren't; they are seeking desperatly for what they see as truth. "seek and ye shall find". They are seeking and coming to a different conclusion, Jesus didn't say "Find me, and then seek", nor did he say "Seek and your conclusion should always come to me". God will know who desperatley seeked truth, I think many people will die and see God, and see that He is who they were looking for. I don't believe that person will go to hell.
t

 

[joy2daworld]

Ok, who wrote the gospels? Why does paul never refer to any of Jesus's teachings to use but rather on things his own theology.

The Gospels were written by those whose names are on the cover of each of those books, namely, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Those gospels were written prior to 70 AD as research has proven. Paul's epistles were written by Paul, to the early Christian churches.

I'm not sure why you say he doesn't refer to Jesus' teachings. Could you please explain?

The other ascension count might be 8 days, I can't remember off hand, but you say that those days imply something other than literal, then what is to stop you from taking everything else as "not literal". You can't have it both ways.

Could you please find this account of which you are speaking? You have posted 2 ideas/concepts so far concerning this but have not given any reference. How can we tell that the account you speak of is documented and not just a misunderstanding or false memory from your past?

My point with the hindus was this: We all are climbing a mountain and trying hard to come to what we see as God and make sense of things, but in the end we all are looking to the peak to form one true God, because there is no other God if one created us, so all these paths lead to the only being that is there. You can't blow these other religons off as if they are lying to themselves, because they aren't; they are seeking desperatly for what they see as truth. "seek and ye shall find". They are seeking and coming to a different conclusion, Jesus didn't say "Find me, and then seek", nor did he say "Seek and your conclusion should always come to me". God will know who desperatley seeked truth, I think many people will die and see God, and see that He is who they were looking for. I don't believe that person will go to hell.
t

Just because we all do something does not mean it is the right thing to do. Just because we are all seeking truth does not mean we will find the absolute truth offered by the one true God. And, by the way, anything we choose to worship becomes a god (small g) but that doesn't make it real.

 

[Adoniram]

Ok, who wrote the gospels? Why does paul never refer to any of Jesus's teachings to use but rather on things his own theology.

The other ascension count might be 8 days, I can't remember off hand, but you say that those days imply something other than literal, then what is to stop you from taking everything else as "not literal". You can't have it both ways.

My point with the hindus was this: We all are climbing a mountain and trying hard to come to what we see as God and make sense of things, but in the end we all are looking to the peak to form one true God, because there is no other God if one created us, so all these paths lead to the only being that is there. You can't blow these other religons off as if they are lying to themselves, because they aren't; they are seeking desperatly for what they see as truth. "seek and ye shall find". They are seeking and coming to a different conclusion, Jesus didn't say "Find me, and then seek", nor did he say "Seek and your conclusion should always come to me". God will know who desperatley seeked truth, I think many people will die and see God, and see that He is who they were looking for. I don't believe that person will go to hell.
t

One can "seek" all they want, but unless they are seeking in the right place, they will never find. The Hindus, or any other religion, may find "a" truth which seems right to them, but they cannot find "the Way, the Truth, and the Life" in a religion that does not preach Jesus Christ. The Bible is crystal clear about this.

Prov. 14
12 There is a way that seems right to a man,
But its end is the way of death.

 

[onthegallow]

There is no proof of who wrote the Gospels.

Paul never quotes Jesus sayings, so it almost seems as if he had no gospel of Jesus life in his time which really hurts the assumption that they were eye witness accounts.

People tend to not believe in cults, they believe what they see is real and truth, as what you see, and think is true also. A simple "Oh, but what you believe just isnt true!" won't suffice. Maybe it doesn't make it real, but what they percieve as truth is as real as what you percieve as truth. I believe most Christians tend to believe with some doubt, or try to convince themself till doubt is gone. There is nothing wrong with saying, "I have, to the best of my knowledge, the truth, and I may be wrong". Nothing wrong with that. If the pharisees had that mentality, they might have been convinced of Jesus. And those are the people he rebuked. As soon as you are closed minded, you limit god. If his ways are indeed not your ways, you wouldn't do this, and you woud check your religion and make sure that you aren't being decieved as the Jews believe Jesus to not have been the messiah. That alone should raise concern, that the people God chose in the Old testament don't believe Jesus to be the messiah. That warrrants a case to objective thinking.

 

[Adoniram]

The early church fathers are pretty much in agreement that the gospels were authored by those whose names are attached to them. Latter day efforts to raise doubts about the authorship are just smoke and mirrors. You have to realize that these documents were copied and handled with much care and reverence as they were passed among the various churches. The identities of their authors is not something that would have been taken lightly, mistaken, or forgotten.

Are you very certain that Paul never quotes Jesus, because I can think of one case right now off the top of my head without even searching.

I will agree with you that people believe what they perceive as truth. But in the case of two statements which are in opposition, only one can be true. Both may be false, but they cannot both be true. So when Jesus says "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no man comes to the Father but through me," that is automatically to the exclusion of any other faith or religion. Or course, you may believe Jesus is a liar and a fraud; that's up to you. And the argument that because the Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah, this should be cause for concern, is untenable. God told us this would happen in the OT. Paul and Peter both explain in detail how the Jews missed the boat on that one.

 

[brightmorningstar]

To Onthegallow,

There is no proof of who wrote the Gospels.

There is no proof that those who claim to have written them didn’t. The evidence suggests they did.

Paul never quotes Jesus sayings,

Paul quotes Jesus sayings alright, what about the Genesis 2 passage that Jesus quotes in Matthew 19 and Mark 10, which Paul quotes in Ephesians 5 (ie in the beginning God made them male and female.. )

 

[onthegallow]

The early church fathers are pretty much in agreement that the gospels were authored by those whose names are attached to them. Latter day efforts to raise doubts about the authorship are just smoke and mirrors. You have to realize that these documents were copied and handled with much care and reverence as they were passed among the various churches. The identities of their authors is not something that would have been taken lightly, mistaken, or forgotten.

Are you very certain that Paul never quotes Jesus, because I can think of one case right now off the top of my head without even searching.

I will agree with you that people believe what they perceive as truth. But in the case of two statements which are in opposition, only one can be true. Both may be false, but they cannot both be true. So when Jesus says "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life, no man comes to the Father but through me," that is automatically to the exclusion of any other faith or religion. Or course, you may believe Jesus is a liar and a fraud; that's up to you. And the argument that because the Jews rejected Jesus as their Messiah, this should be cause for concern, is untenable. God told us this would happen in the OT. Paul and Peter both explain in detail how the Jews missed the boat on that one.

Ok, tell me where Paul quotes something that Jesus said in the gospels. Do you know why Jews rejected Jesus? You are arguing from your books, of course they will side with your belief. I am talking about being objective. And, no , it was not agreed upon what was authoritative scripture. The Gnostic gospels are the first gospels we have. Later, we have the other gospels which makes a big discourse, and Constantine sets Eusibeius to pick books for the Bible, yet he is known for forgery. That is a great starter. And his justification for the 4 gospels is this:

"It is not possible that the Gospels can be either more or fewer in number than they are, since there are four directions of the world in which we are, and four principal winds...the four living creatures [of Revelation 4.9] symbolize the four Gospels...and there were four principal covenants made with humanity, through Noah, Abraham, Moses, and Christ." (Against All Heresies 3.11.8; cf. M 263)

Boy! that makes me trust them!

Around 135 the Gnostic Basilides composed a mighty treatise called the Exigetica which, judging from quotes by critics, contained lengthy exegesis on Gospel stories like the Sermon on the Mount and the Rich Man and Lazarus (M 78-9). We do not know if he was drawing on any actual Gospels, or oral tradition. Nevertheless, the attack was underway: whoever disagreed with him had to respond in kind, with their own texts, and somehow win the resulting propaganda war. For this purpose the New Testament was all but born. And in addition to this was the political need for a scapegoat: pressure against Christians by the Roman authorities prompted many to criticise other Christian sects with the general theme "they are the bad Christians, but we are the good ones, so you should punish them instead." Thus, pro-Roman elements, and the absence of anti-Roman features, were a precondition for the canonic texts of any church with a chance of success, and this also affected the formation of the surviving canon--and, incidentally, given the tense relations between Rome and the Jews, antisemitic features would also win Roman favor and release the Christians from Roman hostility toward Jews, although one could not take this pandering too far in a church largely comprised of Jews or their descendants.
In 144, Marcion proposed a reform of Christianity for which the church leaders expelled him merely for suggesting: that the OT was contradictory and barbaric and that the true Gospel was not at all Jewish, but that Jewish ideas had been imported into NT texts by interpolators, and only Paul's teachings are true. Moreover, he rejected the idea that Jesus was flesh, and the idea of Hell. But what is significant for us is that this implies a recognition of "texts" as being authoritative (M 90-4). Expelled, Marcion started his own church and was the first to clearly establish a canon, consisting of ten of the Epistles and one Gospel, which Tertullian decades later identified as the Gospel of Luke, though stripped of "unacceptable features" such as the nativity, OT references, etc. Yet Tertullian attacks Marcion for not having named the author of the book, but simply calling it "the Gospel" (Against Marcion 4.2), even though everyone had been doing just the same thing before him. Thus it is possible, if not likely, that by 144 the Gospel of Luke had not yet received its name. We have already seen how around 130 Papias perhaps names Mark so as to defend its authority, and alludes to a text by Matthew which could have inspired naming another Gospel after him, the one which seemed to rely most on OT prophecies. Thus, the very need to assert authority is perhaps compelling church leaders to give names to the Gospel authors sometime between 110 and 150, in order that the authority of certain Gospels can be established.
Marcion's canon influenced the final canon of the Church. His prefaces to the letters of Paul that he thought authentic were even retained in several versions of the Latin Vulgate Bible, and many of his proposed emendations of these letters and the Gospel of Luke have turned up in numerous surviving manuscripts, showing that his legacy was intimately integrated at various levels throughout the surviving Church, affecting the transmission as well as the selection of the final canonical texts (M 94-9).
The next stage in this process was also spurred by the "heresy" of Montanism in 156, an apocalyptic, grass-roots church movement of "inspiration" and speaking in tongues very reminiscent of revivalist "the end is nigh" movements that arise still to this day, especially in its popular anti-clerical attitudes, and its appeal to non-elites by admitting women into the leadership. This movement persisted long enough to win over Tertullian in 206, even though the congregations were cut off from the church as demon-inspired. But this push back to personal revelation among the non-elites drove the elites to seek a decisive written text to counter it and maintain control of doctrine. Consequently, we find the first reference to the term "New Testament" (kainê diathêkê) in an anti-Montanist treatise (written by an unknown author in 192, quoted by Eusebius, History of the Church 5.16.2ff.). This controversy also led to a long-standing hesitancy to canonize the Revelation, which was associated with a Montanist emphasis on personal apocalyptic visions, and was perhaps a little too anti-Roman to be safely approved.


This is but the start. What survives is from the people who killed the "heretics".

 

[onthegallow]

To Onthegallow,
There is no proof that those who claim to have written them didn’t. The evidence suggests they did.

Paul quotes Jesus sayings alright, what about the Genesis 2 passage that Jesus quotes in Matthew 19 and Mark 10, which Paul quotes in Ephesians 5 (ie in the beginning God made them male and female.. )

That is from Genesis...reach further why dont you. There were 3 versions of mark floating about in the first and second century one was a short version, one was a long version and another was short also. I do not call that well preserved.

Theophilus' successor, Serapion, reveals the next stage in the process in 200 A.D. While touring churches in Asia he came upon a dispute in a village in Cilicia about whether the Gospel of Peter could be read in church. He tentatively agreed, but after reading it he closely instructed them not to use it anymore because it supported the Docetic heresy--the belief that Jesus only "seemed" to be a man, and was not really flesh--so he concluded on this ground alone that it was falsely ascribed to Peter. Thus, doctrine more than objective evidence of historicity was driving the selection of canonical texts.

 

[brightmorningstar]

To onthegallow

That is from Genesis...reach further why dont you.

Jesus is recorded as saying it so Paul who says he received his knowledge from Jesus rather than man also repeats it.

There were 3 versions of mark floating about in the first and second century one was a short version, one was a long version and another was short also. I do not call that well preserved.

Ok what about Matthew 19, Mark 10, Eph 5. Sorry but your argument doesn’t stack up.

The cannon of scripture is seen by many Christians as without contradiction, it’s the same Holy Spirit that believers have that has lead to what we have as the Bible and authentic. Marcion was expelled and Marcionism was considered heresy and not Christian. If you are suggesting Maricion was right you wont be the first.

 

[onthegallow]

To onthegallow
Jesus is recorded as saying it so Paul who says he received his knowledge from Jesus rather than man also repeats it.

Ok what about Matthew 19, Mark 10, Eph 5. Sorry but your argument doesn’t stack up.

The cannon of scripture is seen by many Christians as without contradiction, it’s the same Holy Spirit that believers have that has lead to what we have as the Bible and authentic. Marcion was expelled and Marcionism was considered heresy and not Christian. If you are suggesting Maricion was right you wont be the first.

I am sorry but it wasn't a TEACHING of Jesus, it was from the Torah. You can say what you want but Paul never quotes Jesus. He didn't say "as Jesus said in matthew/luke/mark/john."

I am not saying Marcionism was right, I am saying this was a time of confusion. Do you think the method of since there is 4 winds and four direction is an adequate way of backing up authoratative scripture? Do you rest assured on your Bible, though a man put some of it together and was known for lying for "good cause"?

If it is from the Holy Spirit, then I guess Catholocism is the way to go? Or does the Holy Spirit help us get " more correct" as time goes on? If you accept things on what people have said and claimed in the past, then maybe you should check out Mormonism, or Islam. Or is it that the Holy Spirit has guided your decision, and has not guided their decision that has convicted them? How do you know when it's the Holy Spirit guiding natural advents? So, is it majority rules what is holy Scripture? I guess Hindus and Muslims have holy scripture if majority rules.