I have no "wishes" either way. I've experienced a few answered prayers, What I read is possible as well I imagine.
Once you throw magical thinking into the mix, absolutely nothing is impossible.
Taken a spirit back from God's presence? An odd thought. Like Jesus pulling on one arm and me tugging on the other? I wonder how that would turn out? Especially if they were preemie-babies. I wonder what would be the best outcome?
Funny, nobody seemed to think about that in the Bible -- resurrections from the dead were pretty common.
How many is this number you have in mind? Could friends and married relatives read the scriptures too? Or would they only get half the message. What's the DNA cut-off point you have in mind?
Am I too LATE? Is there a cut-off date you have in mind? I'm open to your theory that the audience is limited, but I need details.
It's really quite simple -- You're not an ancient Hebrew, and you're not living in the time they did. You didn't grow up in their culture, didn't partake in their history, didn't have your worldview shaped by their folklore or mythology.
What you've got is a interpretation constructed after the fact by the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages -- which, perhaps not coincidentally, was estabishing itself as an social institution.
Not a deception -- see how messed up you've gotten it? -- but a mythical structure. The very verse you've cited points out the elephant in the church, as it were: Jesus never intended for his teachings to be taken as a separate religion from Judaism, but rather as the prophecised "Messiah" of the Old Testament, but still an observant Jew -- a notion the Gospel writers shared.
Of course, Christianity, for all its hijacked mythology,
is a separate religion from Judaism -- so somewhere along the line, someone screwed up -- either it was Jesus or the Church; you decide which.
So they made up fictional tales about Jesus and themselves performing miracles.....because if they made stuff up about themselves, it would help their case and increase their reputations.
"Themselves"? Oh my -- Now we're getting to another symptom of the confusion. You think that the Gospels were eyewitness acounts from the actual disciples? You think that Jesus traveled around Israel with four men following him with pencils and pads, frantically taking notes?
Child, you have no idea the history of your own Bible -- and it pains me -- but now isn't a time to go into that.
Ok, now we're talking -- John 5:1-8.
It's not as dramatic as the other healing miracles, and it doesn't attribute sickness to demon possession or anything as cool as that, but that particualr healing story does have an intereting trait -- it's association with the Pool of Bethesda.
Bethesda, by the way, comes from the Aramaic
beth hesda, meaning "House of Mercy," meaning its association with healing predates Jesus' arrival -- let's see how that came about, shall we?
Someone unaware of the local history might overlook the descripton of the place as fitting a Greek asclepeion -- a temple to the Greek God Asclepius, God of healing. Especially if they overlook 5:3, which more or less decribes how the infirm would wait for memebers of the Cult of Asclepius to heal their illnesses (for a donation, as like as not).
Now, around the first century AD (the time the Gospel of John was written), the Cult of Asclepius was relatively small, but still a potential bother to the burgeoning Christian movement. So, the writers find a way to stick it to his rivals, using the language of mythology to do it.
Think about it: Jesus goes into the temple of a "false god" -- a god of healing, no less -- to do a healing miracle (free of charge, incidentally). That's like having McDonald's give away free Big Macs on the front steps of a Burger King.
What better way for the writers to tell their audience, "their guy's a fake; ours is the real deal"?
Actually, the only solid meaning is "something you choose not to believe". That defines Myth.
Defines it for whom? Just because you won't go beyond the most superficial lay definition of the term is no reason to drag everyone else down to that level.
I wouldn't go there if I were you.
I'm already past "there" -- just waiting for you to catch up.
Since the beginning of civilizaion, humanity has searched for truth, for meaning, for cohesion in their individual and collective lives. Mythology is nothing less than a narrative of that search -- a metaphorical road map of a given culture's search for answers.
It's only because you're convinced that you already have those answers that you dismiss the path people before you have taken -- and that pains me to see.
Putting the tag on myth on something is like trying to nail jello to the wall.
Only when dealing with people who have no idea what myth truly is -- but fret not; I'll talk to you anyway; you have potential.
I know just who to trust on this. I'm going to take your advice!
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Messianic Judaism is an interesting hybrid, isn't it?
I think I'm in good hands now.
But of course you do.