Originally posted by jaywillI finally answer your question (despite your persistent refusal to answer mine) and you fall silent for three days. Why?
What are you waiting for FMF? [...] "So then Revelation does not belong in the Bible as I said all along. It changes Christian Ethic."
(If it's due to Real World interference with your RHP Life, then I apologise for my slight impatience!) 🙂
Originally posted by jaywillI offered you my thesis on 12 March, as a personal repsonse to your request, and yet because parrotting unoriginal thoughts from scripture will not suffice as a refutation, you fall silent. Not a word. You reveal yourself to be dishing out little more than duckspeak. All memorized mouth and no trousers.
Whatever. Pat yourself on the back, whatever.
I [b]heard from you already and its on to better things.[/b]
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the early Christian ethic was directly linked to the teachings of a man called Jesus who walked on the earth and died.
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The historical fact of the matter is this: the earliest Christian writings that we know about are the epistles of Paul.
Paul's writings go back before the writing of the four Gospels. As far as ideas about what Jesus Christ taught and did you cannot find any documents written which pre-date the epistles of Paul.
There, in Paul's letters, we learn the earliest written ideas about Christian ethics, so to speak.
Of the 13 letter attributed to Paul, some scholars dispute his actual authorship of about 4 to 6.
The four gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were all written after the writing of Paul's letters.
When you read the New Testament in order, you of course read the four gospels first before you come to Acts, the epistles, and the epistles of Paul. But you have to realize that in terms of what was written when - Paul's letters were penned down before the four Gospels were penned down in the form in which we now have them.
The point is that to discover what was taught about your "Christian ethics" you cannot produce anything written before Pauline theology. We assume that oral traditions of the Gospels were preached and possibly written before they were compiled into the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They may have existed in some written form. But we do not have those writings.
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The reason I have some vestige of fondness for the 4 Gospels is because, embelished warts and all, they tell the brilliantly simple, empowering story that formed the basis for early Christian enthrallment and belief.
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Early Christian "enthrallment and belief" in written form finds its most ancient existence in the epistles of Paul which were written before the traditions that formed the four Gospels were written as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
So your thesis fails if you are trying to submit that the writing of the Gospels predates the writing of Pauline theology.
Yes, Jesus taught, spoke, died and rose before Paul began his ministry and before the church was formed. But the earliest writings are those of Paul.
You would notice the marked absence of quotations from any Gospels in Paul's writings. That is not to suggest that Paul's writings were not solidly based on the circulating oral and now lost written traditions which were the bases for Christian teaching.
What you are really doing is taking what portions of the Christ's teachings which you are personally fond of for their simplicity, perhaps, and attempting to make a case that from these samples all else in the NT was a corruption.
You try to bolster up that theory by making generalization about admittedly bad behavior of the clerical hierarchical people. And in this some only, of what you write I might agree with. In other words you want to toss out the baby with the bath water.
Some gullible types may be impressed. I'm not.
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I actually do not have a very strong desire to change your mind.
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Not a chance of that, on this point. Don't worry.
Question: What are the earliest writings telling us what Christians believed?
Answer: the epistles of the Apostle Paul.
Historically, of course Jesus obviously came and taught, died, and rose before Paul's ministry. The Gospels written after Paul's letters tell us of this pre-history to Paul, OF Jesus of Nazareth.
Goodnight.
Originally posted by jaywillI thought you believed that the New Testament was inspired by God and not formed from traditions. Or am I misunderstanding you?
Early Christian "enthrallment and belief" in [b]written form finds its most ancient existence in the epistles of Paul which were written before the traditions that formed the four Gospels were written as Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.[/b]
Originally posted by twhiteheadThe asumption of this question is that I believe "Inspiration verses Tradition". The implication also seems to be that a tradition cannot be true.
I thought you believed that the New Testament was inspired by God and not formed from traditions. Or am I misunderstanding you?
Unlike orthodox Moslems with their Quran, Christians do not all believe that inspiration of the Bible means that every line was dictated from heaven.
Your view of inspiration may be that we believe in "dictation". That is the extreme theologically right wing branch of fundamentalism.
Inspiration does not have to mean dictation. Oral or written traditions related by the disciples of events in the life of Christ, when written in the form of the Gospels, we believe, were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Originally posted by twhitehead============================
I thought you believed that the New Testament was inspired by God and not formed from traditions. Or am I misunderstanding you?
I thought you believed that the New Testament was inspired by God and not formed from traditions. Or am I misunderstanding you?
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It is time for you to open up your own thread and tell us all about what you DO believe.
We have heard plenty about what you are skeptical about. What Do you believe ? Open up a discussion on your beliefs for the examination of everybody.
Or do you feel that you just don't have to have anything that you have belief in ?
Originally posted by jaywillSo does this mean that the records were kept accurate by God, or does is mean that they do not necessarily reflect the true history but rather reflect what God wanted to say?
Inspiration does not have to mean [b]dictation. Oral or written traditions related by the disciples of events in the life of Christ, when written in the form of the Gospels, we believe, were written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.[/b]
If inspiration was involved then does it really matter when a document was written?
Originally posted by jaywillI am an atheist, I thought you knew that. What else would you like to know?
It is time for you to open up your own thread and tell us all about what you [b]DO believe.
We have heard plenty about what you are skeptical about. What Do you believe ? Open up a discussion on your beliefs for the examination of everybody.
Or do you feel that you just don't have to have anything that you have belief in ?[/b]
Originally posted by twhitehead"Atheist," is essentially just a definition of what you do not believe.
I am an atheist, I thought you knew that. What else would you like to know?
There you go. That is all you have, what you don't believe in.
I'm more impressed with the Bible. It deals with the nature of man, the purpose of man's creation, the problem of man's alienation from God, the source of the problem, the remedy for the problem. Such things as answers to the big questions of life - life, death, judgment, salvation, etc.
I have become much more impressed with that content of the Bible.
"I don't believe in a god. What else do you want to know?" impresses me far less than the Person, words, and deeds of Jesus.