Innerrantcy

Originally posted by josephw
Oh man! My digestion ain't what it used to be.


It seems that time is relative some times.

A couple of years ago, before I sold my dairy cows, I had an experience I'll never forget.
One morning as I went out to bring the cows in from the pasture I stumbled upon a time zone. It was mid summer, at about 5am, and the sky was blazing blue. When I got o ...[text shortened]... ely describe the feeling, but it was great. I stayed out there for awhile just soaking it in.

Originally posted by kirksey957
I'm not sure what a time zone is, but what you described was a spiritual and mystical event full of mystery and awe. You didn't need the Bible to get what you did from it and that is not to discount the Bible for you, but rather to affirm your openness to that event.

Originally posted by josephw
Do you think that all experiences have some spiritual component to them? Or could it be just circumstances and imagination?
Are there false spiritual experiences?

Originally posted by kirksey957
Let's just take your last question as we could probably write a book about any of them. What if I were to say the fog you encountered was God telling you that you are "in a spiritual fog"? Wouldn't it be more beneficial to you or anyone to just admit that it was a spiritual experience for you and let it go at that?

I have a friend who felt God spok ...[text shortened]... w. But at the very least he felt he was listening to God. Maybe that is more important.

Originally posted by Nemesio
If you want to revise your initial statement, then I'll play ball, but I'm not going to continue to
indulge this 'moving goalpost' strategy of yours. Either defend the claim that all canonized books
teach the 'vital teaching' of the Resurrection or retract the claim.

Nemesio[/b]

Originally posted by josephw
I hear ya!
To be truthful, I think we're all in a spiritual fog.

Originally posted by whodey
Alrighty then. I will revise my initial claim. What I was getting at is the fact that Christ is the inspiration for the writing of the NT. Christ is the focus. For example, you noted that in James there is no mention of the resurrection of Christ. However, I subsequently showed that the author of James made reference to Christ on more than one occasion. ...[text shortened]... its head if not shatter it entirely. So I ask you, can you provide us with such proof?

Originally posted by ahosyney
Hi Whodey again, in the last few days I was reading a lot to answer your question about the 12 disples, and their faith. There are a lot of issuse regarding it. So I will try share some idea with you:

For me the NT contains 3 parts:

1- The four gosples: In this part the idea of salvation is not there. Jesus in the for gosples was focusing on other thi on: Was the current Christian faith was the only one Just after the death of Jesus.

Originally posted by whodey
Alrighty then. I will revise my initial claim. What I was getting at is the fact that Christ is the inspiration for the writing of the NT. Christ is the focus. For example, you noted that in James there is no mention of the resurrection of Christ. However, I subsequently showed that the author of James made reference to Christ on more than one occasion. Why?

Your new claim is that the Christian Scriptures focus upon Jesus? Forgive me, but isn't this obvious?
I mean, this is probably the least controversial claim posed in this forum.

Why? Because the authors believed that Jesus was special in one way or another. The way in which
they believed He was special varied (and the degree), but obviously they thought He was a gateway
to a greater spirituality.

This brings me to my second point. Why is it that Christ seems to be the focus of the majority if not all of the writers of the NT? What did he do? What was he about?

This seems identical to your first point.

For those who do not believe in the resurrection of Christ and that he did not overcome death, hell and the grave for us all via the resurrection but believe he was merely a prophet of God or someone who was simply elightened, I think they are missing the big picture as to what the NT is actually saying.

First of all, the two are not mutually exclusive (that He was a prophet whose death opened the gates
to eternal life). There were many early Christians who believed this and some sects today who do.
But, of course, as a creedal Christian, you think such people are missing the big picture.

So what of the evidence? How does one go about showing evidence for the resurrection of Christ? I think the first order of business is to ascertain if the 12 disciples actually believed Christ was resurrected. What evidence do we have that the supposide eye witnesses say they saw Christ resurrected? I would then think that we would then need to search for documents that are believe to have been heavily influenced or actually written by the 12 disciples themselves.

Has the focus of this thread changed? The topic was inerrancy. Now it's about whether there is
sufficient evidence to reasonably conclude that the physical body of Jesus died wholly and was subsequently
raised. This is a statement of faith. I will neither argue with someone who believes this or disbelieves
it because it's a utterly personal matter. You believe the evidence is sufficient, Rwingett thinks the
evidence is insufficient. There is no mediating between these because the evidence is not conclusive
in either case. You opine that the NT literature provides a strong basis for such a belief, Rwingett
thinks that they are biased sources and parsimony tells him that a dead body doesn't come back to
life.

Such an argument is a dead end.

Now, to argue about the contents of the Bible is another matter. The Bible as a closed source
is available for reflection by all who have access to it. If I claimed, 'Jesus said that black people are
cooler than white people,' then anyone can peruse the literature and say, 'This claim is false' or at
best that it is unsubstantiated (and parsimony will lead us to conclude that it is maximally improbable).

The claim made was 'There are no contradictions in the Bible.' This is the claim I sought to disprove
(and did, although people will argue against all reason against it for reasons I observed above).

This is why I brought up the epistle of Mark. It is believed to have been the first gospel written and we know that Mark was a disciple of Peter who was one of the supposide witnesses of Christ's resurrection. However, the text ends abruptly with the tomb being empty but does not mention the resurrection. I am of the opinion that this was not the original intention, rather, I think it highly unlikely that Mark was intentially ended so abruptly and without explanation of the empty tomb, rather, I think it more likely that the ending was either lost or perhaps the author died before finishing and the ending was subsequently finished later. As I pointed out earlier, Wiki states that critics who think as I do argue that it would be a very unusual sytax for the text to end with the conjunction "gar", as does Mark 16:8 and that it would be thematically strange for a book of good news to end with a note of fear, "for they were afraid".

That Eusebius and St Jerome in the early 4th century and early 5th centuries respectively said that
their Greek copies lacked anything after verse 8 is reasonably conclusive that the additions are not
original. The presence of two later but ancient endings (a short one and a long one) serve as
evidence against each other that they are original (at least one must be a scribal interpolation).
You are right, though, many scholars think that the Gospel is incomplete; the Codex Vaticanus has
a blank column for information never added, indicating intent. However the Codex Sinaiticus has the
Gospel of St Luke following immediately after that of St Mark's. Personally, I am in the minority that
believes that St Mark ended at verse 8 and that nothing original is lost.

There is absolutely no reason to believe that St Mark knew St Peter -- this attribution is a very late
interpretation coming 100 years after its writing. Like every other attribution, such a claim lends
authority to the book increasing its appeal.

As I told Ahoseney, if he could prove that the original 12 did not believe that Christ was not raised from the dead or was not the Messiah then he could then turn Christiandom on its head if not shatter it entirely. So I ask you, can you provide us with such proof?

Er. You've utterly lost your focus. I can't prove that, nor can anyone. I never claimed that I could,
nor do I have a tremendous interest in trying. I'm perfectly happy with your Creedal-Christian stance.

That having been said, St Paul's perspective on the Resurrection seems different than that of
Sts Matthew, Luke, and John (assuming St Mark is quiet on the issue, or that his testimony is lost).
For St Paul, God (as distinct from Jesus) raised Jesus up. The raising is not distinguished from the
Ascension; that is, God raised Jesus from the dead to sit at God's right hand with no intermediate
time on earth.

Let's be clear: I'm not telling you that the Gospels are right or wrong about Jesus' time on earth.
I'm telling you that St Paul was evidently unaware or he didn't find such information relevant to his
theology. For St Paul the sacrifice was the relevant factor, not Jesus' ministry as such. This
is unsurprising, giving that St Paul was writing for a predominantly Jewish audience, ones for whom
the concept of sacrifice was central to their being.

By contrast, the Gospels focused not on the nature of Jesus' sacrifice but on Jesus' actions and
teachings. In fact, the word 'sacrifice' which seems to come up every few verses in St Paul's letters
is by contrast scarcely used in the Gospel texts. This shows a different focus. Rather than the Crucifixion
as sacrifice, it becomes a vehicle for demonstrating the closeness that Jesus had with God (and, again,
God and Jesus are thoroughly distinct in the Gospel texts). Particularly in the Synoptic Gospels,
Jesus' ministry -- His sayings and healings -- was of primary importance, not what His death did on
behalf of humankind.

Again, I'm not trying to compel you to believe that Jesus wasn't God (a Creedal position). I'm trying
to get us on even ground, reading the actual literal contents of the NT literature and not interpreting
it with a Creedal mindset.

But if your interest is what the closest followers of Jesus believed, then you will have to temporarily
set aside your Creedal beliefs and view the texts through a 1st-century lens.

So far, are we together or do you have objections?

Nemesio

Originally posted by Nemesio
Originally posted by whodey
[b]Alrighty then. I will revise my initial claim. What I was getting at is the fact that Christ is the inspiration for the writing of the NT. Christ is the focus. For example, you noted that in James there is no mention of the resurrection of Christ. However, I subsequently showed that the author of James made referen ...[text shortened]... o far, are we together or do you have objections?

Nemesio

I reviewed your posts answering me and Nemesio , and it seems to me you didn't read them carfully.

Any way there is an interesting thread by rwingett, you have to take a look at it, it includes answers to your questions:

http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/threadlist.php?forumid=23

Originally posted by whodey
We seem to be in agreement for the most part except for Mark never having met Peter. I mean, when I read Wiki there is never even the slightest hint that there is disagreement over whether Mark was a direrect disciple of Peter. Therefore, I will have to do further study into the matter.

Well, there is disagreement. The earliest citation of such a claim comes from Eusebius' quoting of
Papias, which at earliest puts it at the first quarter of the second century (i.e., roughly 50 years after
the Gospel's composition). The attribution gives authority to an otherwise unfamiliar name. That is,
if you saw that 'Gospel of Charlie' and the 'Gospel of James, brother of the Lord,' without any other
information, which do you think would be more reliable? The latter, of course, because 'Charlie' is
an unknown name. Now, if someone told you, 'Charlie was John's scribe and companion,' you'd give
it some more attention.

Why do you think that it's important that St Mark was a disciple of St Peter? If he wasn't, would
you trust its narrative less?

St Mark's Gospel is a 'poor man of faith' text, of this there is no doubt. It was written by a man who probably
very much believed in Jesus' authority and who strove amidst personal limitations to provide people
with written access to his record. (Those personal limitations include a relatively limited grasp of
Greek, a weak knowledge of Palestinian geography, limited access to the oral traditions of Jesus'
sayings). He is a man on a mission: record this important material no matter what.

He was so important that both Sts Matthew and Luke used him as a basis for their own narratives.

Also, now that I have been labeled a "creedal Christian", what exactly does this entail in your mind?

Nothing more than you take as a basis of faith the contents of the Creed (at least the Apostles'
Creed, if not the Nicene Creed). The former was written to clarify that which was unclear from the
Christian Scriptures, and the latter to clarify the former.

And as for the last bit of information, what are some first century sources that say that Christ was not resurrected?

I dunno. Not many I guess. Did you read the part where I said that the Resurrection is a matter of
faith? I would never try to compel you to believe otherwise.

I didn't read this, but maybe this would help you:
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/resurrection/

It sounds like someone who has done research into this issue.

Nemesio

Originally posted by Nemesio
Well, there is disagreement. The earliest citation of such a claim comes from Eusebius' quoting of
Papias, which at earliest puts it at the first quarter of the second century (i.e., roughly 50 years after
the Gospel's composition).

Originally posted by blakbuzzrd
And let's not forget that Eusebius considered Papius a moron.

Originally posted by Nemesio
Why do you think that it's important that St Mark was a disciple of St Peter? If he wasn't, would
you trust its narrative less?