Why did Jesus need to die?

Aiki,

Are you telling me that you are no longer saying that a person needs to believe in Jesus to escape hell? In post #73 you had said,
But now you seem to have denyed twice that one needs to believe in Jesus to escape hell. When I ask if you will confirm that you are really saying one does not need to believe in Jesus to escape hell, you deflect the question. So can I take it that you now say that one does not need to agree that the death and resurrection of Jesus happened to escape hell?

aiki said:

So you are now saying that I don't need to think Jesus died and rose again to escape hell?

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Simple intellectual assent to the fact of Christ's death and resurrection is not enough to be saved. It is a start, perhaps, but by itself is insufficient to obtain salvation. As the apostle James remarked, "Even the demons believe and tremble."

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I was not asking if you think simple intellectual assent was sufficient.

I was asking if you are now saying that I don't need to think Jesus died and rose again to escape hell.

It is this sort of reasoning that helps me understand how you came to your erroneous conclusions about the resurrection.

Whether or not I have proved that what I call Scripture is God's Word makes no difference to my point, which was that my beliefs about the resurrection are derived from Scripture.

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Huh? We got here because you had said:

So, yes, you were saying that since these words are scripture, therefore they were God's Words.

So my response was indeed valid: You would need to prove that all books that are included in the set of books you call scripture are indeed God's Word, before you assume that since these words are in scripture, that therefore they are God's Words.

What about all the historical/ archaeological facts the Bible presents that have been found to be true?

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What about the historical facts that Forrest Gump presents that are found to be true?

I do not see how presenting historical facts proves a book is God's Word.

But being wrong on history, which the Bible often is, is strong evidence it is not God's Words.

I can show you a fulfilled prophecy that I think is impressive. But what I find impressive and what you find impressive are not necessarily the same thing. Really, it is enough that a prophecy is fulfilled. Whether or not it impresses you is quite beside the point.

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I am not asking for a prophecy that impresses me.

I was wondering if you wanted to share a prophecy that impresses you.

This is what Paul reported in 1 Corinthians 15:4-6.

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Well, yes Paul reported that over 500 saw Jesus, but then he says that he, Paul, saw Jesus himself. Paul did not claim to see Jesus bodily, but only that he saw a vision. He in no way distinguishes that these people saw anything more than he saw. He may only be speakin of them seeing a vision.

But we have no writings of any of them saying they saw even a vision. We have only Paul saying they saw it.

This is what was held to be true by both Tradition and the Early Church Fathers. All affirm that Matthew is the author of the gospel bearing his name. Papias, Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Tertullian and Origen, to name a few, all unanimously agreed to Matthew's authorship of his gospel.

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Sir, Clement of Rome and Justin Martyr never said that Matthew wrote the book of Matthew. If you think they did, please show me where. Papias may have said that a Matthew wrote things about Jesus, but he is clearly describing a book other than the book we now ascribe to Matthew ( and the man who said that Papias said this was not reliable, so we are not sure we can believe him that Papias said this). Tertullian and Origin were after the 180 AD date I quoted.

So if you have evidence that any of these people said before 180 AD that Matthew wrote this book, please share it.

This similarity but with small differences seems quite to be expected since they are writing of the same events and person but are two different writers.

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Yes, exactly we would expect similarity with small differences between Matthew and Mark. I agree.

But that is not what we see. Matthew copies Mark, often word for word. He repeats 90 percent of the verses in Mark. If Matthew and Mark had both turned in these essays as a term project, then it would be obvious that one or the other was cheating, and was copying the other.

The problem for you is that it appears that Matthew copied Mark. If Matthew was an eyewitness--and Mark wasn't--why does Matthew copy from Mark everyplace where Mark speaks? Why doesn't he somtimes write his own first-hand observations?

It is not "completetly incompatible" but its focus is distinctly different from the other Gospels. John seems far more interested in the deity of Christ, than in the mere recording of events leading up to his resurrection.

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The interested lurker can easily check this out. Read Mark 1-13, followed by John 1-18. The story and teachings are so completely different, it is almost impossible to believe these books are describing the same person. Only in the passion narrative--which many believe was added to John later--do we find extensive corelation between the accounts.

Who and where are these people?

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The flat earth believers? They are on the Internet. See The Flat Earth Society.

Can you understand that just because a person offers interpretations of facts, that does not prove his interpretations are rational?

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Of course. Can you?

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Yes, of course.

Likewise, one cannot say that since some people interpret the facts as proving there is a resurrection, that does not prove their interpretation is rational.

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It doesn't prove their interpretation isn't rational, either. So, what's your point?

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My point is that finding that some people interpret facts as validating the resurrection does not prove belief in the resurrection is rational. One must look at the facts, to see if they lead to the conclusion they claim. One cannot claim that since some people believe this, that therefore their views are rational.

freezerman2000 said:

Why did Jesus have to die? because we are sinful creatures by nature

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And how did dying do anything to fix that problem?

freezerman2000 said:

Christ was His Father's sacrifice..once He died and rose again, we were no longer bound by death,but have the gift of Salvation, so that we can live in the House of the Lord forever.Read John 3:16.

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God could not give salvation until he sacrificed his Son?

Why not? One could think an Almighty God would be capable of giving salvation without first sacrificing his Son.

aiki,

Wow, can you possibly make this more complicated?

Please give a simple answer. Does a person need to think that Jesus rose from the dead to escape the endless torture of hell? If a person truly thinks that Jesus did not rise from the dead, will he experience eternal torture in hell?

aiki said:

Where do I deny that faith in Christ is unnecessary for salvation?

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So now you throw in a confusing double-negative?

If you prefer to think in terms of double negatives, then think it through and tell me. Do you or do you not deny that faith in Christ is unnecesary?

So can I take it that you now say that one does not need to agree that the death and resurrection of Jesus happened to escape hell?

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No, I don't agree that this is so.

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And yet another double negative? You deny that you don't need to agree on the resurrection to escape hell?

Are you or are you not saying that one needs to agree that the sacrificial death and resurrection of Jesus happened to escape hell?

aiki said:

I also don't agree that salvation can be reduced to a single question of history, which is what it seems to me you are trying to do.

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Excuse me, but where did I ever say anything about salvation being reduced to a single question of history??? You brought this up before, and I told you this is not what I am saying.

Once more, I am not asking if you think historical views are the only aspect of salvation. I am asking if you think a person must agree that Jesus rose from the dead in order to escape hell. I am not asking if you think this is the only requirement.

You're sticking on the wrong thing. My view is not self-derived. This was my point. I take my view from what every evangelical Christian I know regards as the Word of God. But even if what I call the Word of God isn't the Word of God, this doesn't change the fact that my views are drawn from it rather than from my own imagination. I made this point because you were referring to my point of view as solely my own, which it wasn't.

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Sir, I have told you multiple times that I understand that many agree with you. I have told you that you are following the broad way, for there are millions that agree. Nowhere have I ever said that your views are self-derived or solely on your own.

Where in the heck are you coming up with this stuff? Please, please stick with what I say. It is irritating to constantly remind you that I am not saying the things that you make up and claim that I am saying.

Help me out here, please. What do I need to do to get you to understand what I am actually writing? Should I use a bigger font? More repetition? A different color? A different language?

Please, please, please, respond to what I actually write, not to this stuff you make up about me.

How many times has the Bible been thought to be wrong on a historical point and then later found to be right? Many times! Here are a few instances:

The Hittites.
The Merneptah Stela.
The House of David Inscription.
The Mesha Stela, or Pharoah Shishak/Shoshenq Victory Lists.
The Ebla Tablets.
The Siloam Tunnel.

And so on.

Each of these archaelogical discoveries vindicates the record of Scripture - sometimes when it was thought certain that the Bible was in error about names, places, and customs.

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So they have found archeolgical evidence for the reigns of Hezekiah and Omri? Yes, of course. Many books of the Bible that deal with the later history of Israel are widely recognized as historical.

This does nothing to prove that fantastic claims like the global flood or the escape of 600,000 Jewish men from Egypt happened.

And finding evidence that 2 Kings records history does nothing to prove that Matthew is history. Those are different books.

And what is your evidence for the claim that the tunnel of Siloam or the reign of Omri were widely thought to be in error before these finds were made?

Oh? That's not what you seem to be saying here:

4. I haven't yet found an impressive fullfilled prophecy. Can you show me one, please?

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Read it again. I did not ask for a prophecy that impresses me. I asked for a prophecy that is impressive. Can you share one that is impressive, please?

He may, but this is something you must assume without any support from the passage where he talks about the appearance of Christ to the five hundred. The Gospels make it clear that Christ rose bodily. And Paul himself writes explicitly of Christ's resurrected body. It is, therefore, very unlikely that Paul meant that Jesus had appeared to the five hundred in a collective vision.

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Paul appears to be totally unaware of the four gospels, so what they say about the resurrection is not necessarily what Paul says. Paul describes his sighting of Jesus as a vision. He includes his vision in his list of people that saw Jesus. That is strong evidence he thought all on that list saw what he saw, a vision.

Yes, Paul refers to a resurrected "body" in I Cor 15, but he calls it a spiritual body. He does not appear to be talking about a physical body.

At any rate, we have only Paul's word for it that these 500 saw Jesus. We do not have the testimony of a single person that says he personally saw the physically resurrected Jesus.

Sir, Clement of Rome and Justin Martyr never said that Matthew wrote the book of Matthew. If you think they did, please show me where.

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I didn't say that they did, but only that they affirm the view of Tradition that Matthew was the author of the Gospel bearing his name.

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Excuse me, but how can Clement and Justin affirm that Matthew is the author if they never wrote that he was? If you think they affirmed this, what evidence do you have that they affirmed this?

"Clearly" is a distortion of the facts. The debate over what Papias meant by "logia" is hardly concluded in favor of your position. In fact, there is good reason to think he meant "gospel" and not simply "sayings" when he used the term "logia."

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]"Does the word translated above as "sayings" (logia) mean that or "gospel"? That it could mean the latter is implied by Papias' use of the word in the title of his work, Interpretation of the Lord's Logia: it is arguable that Papias means "gospels" by logia. This is strengthened by the fact that Papias claimed that Mark made an arrangement of the logia of the Lord, the result of which is the Gospel of Mark. Clearly, the logia include not only what Jesus said but also what he did ("the things said or done by the Lord")"[/FONT]

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Actually Papias said that Mark recorded the deeds and saying of the Lord. For Matthew he says only that he recorded sayings.

Papias never saw either of these books. He downplays the importance of reading such books. He relies on second hand information from people who talked to the apostles.

So we don't know what Papias thought that Matthew wrote, but we do know that Papias, who wrote a book about the saying of the Lord, did not have a copy of Matthew, and shows little desire to know what is written there. See Papias of Hierapolis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia .

LOL! What a slant you've given to the facts! There are ancient letters which criticise Eusebius and others which extol his virtues. There is by no means a unanimous consensus that Eusebius was utterly untrustworthy.

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I didn't say that Eusebius was utterly untrustworthy. There is considerable controversy, however, about his reliability as a historian. One cannot say for sure that something is true, just because Eusebius said so. See Eusebius of Caesarea - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tertullian and Origin were after the 180 AD date I quoted

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I'm not particularly interested in confining myself to the parameters you chose to establish. I don't argue according to your restrictions.

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Huh? In response to my assertion that nobody clearly identified Matthew as the writer of this book before 180 AD, you mentioned Tertullian and Origin. They in no way contradict my assertion about Matthew, for they wrote after 180 AD.

But it is an assumption that Matthew copied from Mark. It could easily be the other way around.

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No sir, it is not just an assumption. The reasoning can be summed up by saying there was no good reason to write Mark if Matthew existed. It is, however, obvious, why one might want to alter Mark to produce the book of Matthew.

Matthew does offer his own first-hand observations and additions to Mark's account. His Gospel is longer than Mark's, after all.

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Yes, I have already told you that Matthew adds stories that are not in Mark.

The point is that, where Matthew writes a story that Mark had used, then Matthew always uses Mark as his source with small changes, rather than write the same story from his own perspective. If Matthew was an eyewitness, then we would expect him to sometimes give his own version of a story that Mark includes, rather than copy Mark.

Perhaps the Aiki Breaky dance is now over. It has been quite a spin across the dance floor.

Our discussion goes back to post #62 where I wrote:

Aiki responded in post #64:
And it's not hard to see why he would say that. For he was proclaiming that we all richly deserve to be tortured in hell forever. Yes, he was declaring an escape plan from hell, but as far as I could tell, it was only available to those who agreed that Jesus was the Son of God who experienced a sacrificial death followed by the resurrection. If we didn't think those events happened, there was no possiblity of escape unless we came to a different conclusion about those historical claims.

In post #73 he told me:
So yes, if what Aiki says is true, I would be in a real pickle, for all who don't agree that these historical claims are true are doomed with no way of escape.

If I am mistaken in my view of history, how can God condemn me to eternal torture with no possibility of escape, simply because I got the "wrong" answer on a history exam?

Recently Aiki seems to be backing down on that claim, although there has been so much two-stepping going on here, its hard to tell what he is saying.

Of course Muslims disagree with Aiki, and they argue the exact opposite, that Aiki is eternally doomed for failing to agree about the Quran.

I am just glad to be free from all that. I no longer believe that there is a hell that I must plan to escape. I can dedicate my life to living in harmony with the world and those around me, without fear.

aiki said:

Because you are not mistaken in the way a person who is ignorant of a fact might be mistaken. You know there is a different conclusion to which you might reasonably come - as many others have done - yet you choose to adopt a view that has the eternal ramifications that it does.

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And yet you know there is a different conclusion (Islam) to which you might reasonably come - as many others have done - yet you choose to adopt a view that has the eternal ramifications that it does, yes?

Can you understand that we cannot possibly accept every possible religion, just because there might be eternal ramifications if we don't?

I choose to follow the facts wherever they lead. Will God torture me for eternity for doing that? I would think God would want that.

For this conscious, willful choice you will be held responsible by God and judged. Why should you not?

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I will be judged for what "conscious, willful choice" exactly? For thinking that certain events are not historical that you claim to be historical? Can you not understand that thinking something is false is not a "conscious, willful choice"?

Why will I be tortured forever with no possibility of relief if am wrong on a question of history?

If there has been any two-stepping or obfuscation it has been on your part, not mine.

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Excuse me, but what obfuscation are you referring to? I will gladly explain any of my positions if you just ask. What would you like me to explain?

Especially in the contortions of Scripture that you have made you are acutely guilty of blatantly faulty thinking and arguing.

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Excuse me, for which verse do you think I am guilty of using "blatantly faulty thinking"? I would be glad to elaborate.

And if I am wrong, then I will bear the consequences of my choices concerning what I believe just as you must. I will not attempt a lame excuse such as the one you use above to escape personal responibility for my choices.

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And if I am wrong, and people who don't believe certain historical facts are tortured forever without possibility of relief, then I will bear the eternal consequences.

But on the other hand, if God exists and loves intellectual honesty, then all those who dishonestly forced themselves to say they believe while fighting back any evidence to the contrary will need to face that God of intellectual honesty.

If I must place a wager on a God existing, then I will wager that the God of intellectual honesty exists.

I have escaped hell by the plan God has made for me to do so. I don't live my life in fear.

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And that plan to escape the tortures of hell involves believing that Jesus died and rose again? And that plan is not available to those who think this is not history (unless they start thinking these events are historical)?

aiki said:

I am glad to be rid of this discussion.

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That may be true, but I suppose your mind will not want to leave this discussion. For you have told us we all richly deserve to be tortured in hell forever. So every day you meet people who you think deserve eternal torture. And you have told us that people cannot escape this torture if they do not believe in Jesus. You have admitted that one cannot beleive in Jesus and at the same time think Jesus did not rise from the dead. So if this is true, then there are millions who cannot possibly escape the torments of hell as long as they think certain events recorded about Jesus are not historical.

And no matter how much confidence you may show in your beleifs here, I would think something deep inside your mind is not comfortable with the thought that those around you will be tortured forever if they do not share your beliefs in certain events of history. And I would think something deep down inside would want to ask if this is really the state of reality. And that part of you is not yet rid of this discussion.

So I hope you think about the things discussed here, and that you will not stop that part of your mind that wants to ask questions such as those asked here.

Cheers!