It is a legitimate literary device. What you haven’t shown other than your own desire to believe it, is that these passages are using that representative device.
Because evidently the disciples didn’t know that John was the reincarnated Elijah. Jesus was telling them that.
Wow, this is some screwy logic. Now you’re making up reincarnation doctrine from scratch. Do you think these men visually recognized Moses and Elijah?
They spiritually knew or sensed that it was Moses and Elijah. The idea that they didn’t sense that Elijah was John indicates nothing unless you’re desperatly looking for it.
It is full of them. That’s the plain text I mean.
You need to read something about Karma other than by those who are bashing it.
Karma is the spiritual equivilent to the physical law, To every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This principle is repeated in the Bible. How do you interpret the Biblical passages I referd to that indicate Karma.
I believed the Bible was the word of God. I read about possible contradictions and decided to take a look at them for myself. Some can be explained away with a little effort. To explain away others requires some form of denial IMHO. After that I had to reasses my thinking. I’ve also studied where the Bible came from, how the books were selected and by whom, as well as books that were rejected. It has helped me to understand what the Bible is and what it isn’t and seperate tradition from truth.
please do. It’s been a while since I’ve gone over them.
I’ve seen the lists as well and respectfully disagree with you. When two passages speaking of the same event describe it two different ways that are mutually exclusive, thats a contradiction.
Just to explain where I am coming from, I don’t think that the bible is, as some have claimed, a collection of metaphors on which we place our own meaning. I think that the bible writers had a clear and specific message in writing the biblical books. And since I also believe the bible to be inspired by God I believe that the message of the bible is consistent. So when I talk about the bible’s view, what I mean is the view of the authors that they were expressing when they wrote their parts. Since then the bible was written with an abjective message in mind I think that there are correct and incorrect interpretations of the bible. Those that do not reveal the original intent of the authors are incorrect, those that do are correct.
In terms of discovering what this view is I think we should take a self consistent type approach. Read some passages and then form an opinion as to what they mean. Then read some more and see if our view still holds. If not change it. Keep going until your framework encorporates the entire bible. I agree that we shouldn’t just discard passages. If a passage doesn’t agree with our theology, then it is our theology at fault.
There are a few problems with your reading
We use names today differently then they were in biblical times. In our mind names are just an arbitrary label for something. In the biblical view names were more, in that they told you something about the person. So for instance there are a few examples of God actually changing the name of someone to reflect something about them. (For instance Abram -> Abraham or Jacob -> Israel). Just calling someone by a different name did not necessarily mean that the person WAS someone else, just that the characteristics embodied by the name also applied to them.
Biblical prophecy rarely, if ever used the actual name of the person they were talking about. Jesus is prophecied about a lot in the OT, yet the actual name Jesus is not used. In it’s place are a variety of names that talk about his character. A good example is the name “Immanuel” in Isaiah 7, which Metthew explicity connects with Jesus, even though Matthew know full well that Jesus name was Jesus. There is no reason to think that Matthew didn’t see the same thing going on here, with JtB being given the figurative name “Elijah”, even though it wasn’t literally Elijah.
The background assumption was not that Elijah would be re-incarnated, but that he would be raised from the dead. In Matthew and Mark, the “Who do you say I am” incident says that Jesus is Moses or one of the prophets. That could mean either resurrection or re-incarnation. In Luke the account is given as
Note here that the assumption is that if one of the prophets was going to come back, it would happen through resurrection, not re-incarnation. So if you are going to argue that JtB was literally Elijah, (dubious, but if we go with it) it is far more logical to claim that we was risen from the dead, not re-incarnated. This is also explains in the transfiguration account, while Elijah and John were both dead the figure was unswervingly called “Elijah”, not “John” and certainly not “Elijah/John”
Doesn’t make it any less true. Besides it contradicts the common atheist argument that since there is no evidence for God, then God cannot exist.
To my mind you didn’t deal with resurrectino at all, just skirted the issue. The main problem is that for re-incarnation to make any sense you have to comletely divorce the body and the spirit. If the spirit inhabits many bodies, then the body is not a fundamental part of the self. This flies in the face of what the bible says about the resurrection being fundamentally a bodily resurrection. Even in the passages you quoted the body was talked about. Sowing to the body in Galatians makes no sense in a re-incarnation model as then the body is not fundamental to the self.
And if you actually understand what is being talked about in the Thesselonians passage it expressly prohibits re-incarnation. The reason Paul was writing is because the Thesselonians thought that Jesus was about to return, and those that were still alive would go to heaven with him. The dead however they freaded would not, as they were dead. Note that this prohibits re-incarnation, as then why would they be worried? Paul re-assures them by telling them that those that are dead aren’t really dead, but sleeping, and that when Jesus returns they will wake and be with him too. You may argue that only those on their “last life” or whatever fall asleep, but that is reading some major stuff into what the bible actually says. Besides it raises more questions than it answers. What if Jesus returns while people are in-between lives? What happens to them? They can’t be born again as there is no birth in the new kingdom (and no marraige either), and they can’t be resurrected because they havn’t gotten to their last body. The idea of re-incarnation just doesn’t make sense in the framework provided by this passage.
I think reincarnation is fairly prevelent in America today. I don’t quite understand the last part of your statement. The idea of Karma and reincarnation teaches us to take responsibility for our choices and be aware of what kind of energy we are sending out into the world. It also teaches us to not judge others who may be ona different path than we are , but rather to respect and revere their journey and their God given right to choose. The interaction that day to day life brings is how we learn from each other. When we see suffering we try to help. Thats part of our journey and our choice. If something happens and we get angry it’s an opportunity to learn about our anger and how to deal with it.
I believe we are eternal spiritual beings. There are biblical passages refering to our pre existance. The physical world unfolded as it did and when it was called for another spiritual being would descend to mortality. I think some spirits just refused to come to earth until we had cable TV
Yes. The NT clearly points to a process of spiritual growth and transformation.
Jesus says the Holy Spirit that lives within us will guide us to all truth. HE says the kingdom of heaven is within us. {via that spiritual transformation} Jesus’ tie in is that he taught us to seek and follow that inner spirit and to live according to love and truth.
The Bible also says, Be ye perfect as your father in heaven is perfect,
and to work out your own salvation and continue on to perfection and many many other passages that teach this. Reincarnation teaches that in each successive life we have the opportunity to hear, seek and listen to this inner guideing spirit and when we finally get to where Christ was, total communion and surrender, then we will not need to be reborn into this physical world again.
I think you’re right on. Jesus taught that by the spirit we are all members of the same body. That means exactly what you said. "Whatever you do unto the least of these, you do unto me. "
One reason reincarnation makes sense to me is that whole spiritual growth thing. Look at the world and the people in it. One short life time in comparison to all eternity is not enough opportunity to grow as we need to. It doesn’t make sense that a timless loving God in whom there is perfect justice would limit us to just a few years.
Another verse I’ve seen used is Job 1:21, which is sometimes translated as
“Naked I came from my mother’s womb,
and naked I will return there.
The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;
may the name of the LORD be praised.”
Other times it is translated as “and naked will I depart this life”. Not knowing Hebrew I’ve no idea, and ideologically I’ve no dog in this fight.
Another I’ve seen used is the Jacob have I loved passage, though I don’t really understand how it’s used for this since it makes it clear neither babe had sinned before he decided which would be master and which servant.
Flipping through my New Oxford Annotated Bible, I find the following.
From the Apocrypha, Wisdom of Solomon, 8.19-20:
As a child I was naturally gifted,
and a good soul fell to my lot;
or rather, being good, I entered an
undefiled body.
The notes say, “The Platonic view of the soul as preexistent is reflected here, as in other Hellenistic Jewish writings (compare Philo, On the Giants 6-14). The author may be referring also to Hellenistic theories about the transmigration of souls, a belief attibuted by Josephus to the Pharisees (War 2.8.14).”
Done that one already. See biblican name changing, Jesus != Immanuel, ect.
But if you insist on interpreting Jesus in an excessivly literal fashion, he doesn’t actually say that JtB is Elijah re-incarnated. All he says is that JtB is Elijah. The passage that I quoted from Luke woud suggest that if you want to take it literally, then it is much more likely that Jesus saw JtB as the resurrected Elijah. The only reference to re-incarnation comes from you yourself.
First off, the passage describes them as appearing, not sensing, so it seems that there is largely a visual component to it. Of course you wonder how the disciples knew it was Elijah and Moses, since they had never seen them. Maybe the conversation with Jesus tipped them off.
Anyway the point is that if JtB is the re-incarnated Elijah, (that is, the spirit of Elijah left his body and went into the body of JtB), then it is incorrect to talk of the “spirit of Elijah” and the “spirit of JtB” as two separate entities. It is essentially the same spirit, so logically Elijah alone cannot apear, as there is no singular “just Elijah”. The spirit of Elijah is necessarily the spirit of JtB as well. Since the passage unswervingly refers to the person as only “Elijah”, that would speak against the re-incarnated duality you suggest.
And this I think is the central cause of our disagreement. If you believe that the bible is full of contradictions then asking what the bible says is a non-sensical question. If the bible is contradictory then there is no coherent message to discover in reading it.
In fact I think that the fundamental way we understand written stuff is through logical contradiction. We form an opinion as to what the writer is saying as we read, and as we read our view is shaped by its consistency to the text. If you assume that the text is inherently contradictory then we have no way of knowing if any percieved inconsistencies are a result of our view or are inherent in the text.
So for instance I could argue that the bible supports killing all humans. Jesus says “I come not to bring peace but a sword”. I take that to mean that I should kill all humans (ie: use the sword on them). Nothing in the rest of the bible could convince me otherwise because I could just say “that the bible is inconsistent”.
So to assert that both the bible is inconsistent and the bible supports X is in my mind a tautology, as you can just take any old passage out of context to prove what you want, and then claim that anything that does not support your view is part of the inherent inconsistency. And to be perfectly honest I think the only way that you can come to the view of what the bible says that you have is by explicitly ignoring large parts of what the bible says. So fir instance the fact that it is God alone that works salvation through faith, and that we are not saved by our own works is the central theme of quite a few NT books (Romans and Galatians for instance) which flies in the face of your idea of us working our own salvation out through multiple lives.
My position in this thread is that you can’t claim that both the bible is consistent and that the bible supports re-incarnation. No part of the bible endorses re-incarnation as true, and too many parts logically exclude it.
Maybe instead of just telling me that I am wrong you sould tell me what you think Karma is. You talk about Karma being the equivalent the the law of equal action. Does that not imply that if I do bad things then bad things will happen to me? Does that not imply that if I see someone who is suffering it is because they have done something previously bad to bring that suffering on themselves? And since it is a near physical law that those who do bad must suffer, how is it possible to help those who are suffering if their suffering is a direct result of their past deeds. If it is a law that they must suffer, then if we help them then their bad deeds will only catch up to them later.
Let me ask you, why do you think people suffer?
While you tell me to go get a better understanding of Karma, I think you should also do the same, particularly how it is worked out in the religions that include it. I think many in the west have a negative view of Christianity, thinking that it is all about persecuting others, and that Eastern monism is all about follwoing your own path and respecting others. That is a completely nieve view of what these religions actually teach. So for instance look at the Caste system in India. Here Karma is used to justify the dividing people up into different classes, with the top classes (the Brahmin) oppressing the other lower castes. Because in their view if you are in a lower caste it is because you deserve the abuse they give for your past misdeeds. In fact there is even the argument that in opressing them you are helping them work out their negative Karma and therefore being re-incarnated to a higher station. Or you could look at the widespread fatalism in many Hindu countries. Since karma is only apportioned by the cosmos, then there is nothing you can do to improve your situation but ride it out for this lifetime and hope that the next life has something better. Since the cosmos is working against then there is nothing you can do. That is how Karma is understood by the religions that incorporate it as a central tenant.
As for what the bible says about suffering, I think that the biblical view of suffering is much broader than just “Everyone gets what they deserve”. There is a sizable thread in the bible (especially in Proverbs) that all things being equal generally wise living leads to a peaceful life, and that generally foolish living leads to an unhappy life. But there are many other threads as well. So there is the thread (especially in Job and Ecclesiasties) that acknowledges that many wicked people do in fact prosper, and many righteous suffer. That just being good is no guarantee of not suffering. There is also another strong thread that people suffer for doing right, and for worshipping Jesus. So in the sermon on the mount Jesus says
Notice how it goes from “blessed are the” in verses 3-10 to “blessed are YOU” in verse 11-12. Jesus is telling his disciples to be ready for suffering for doing what is good, because it will happen. Paul even goes so far as to say in 2Timothy
This does not fit with Karma at all which suggests that if you do good you will be rewarded, not given suffering.
The largest problem with the idea of Karma and Christianity is that Jesus is fundamentally the suffering Messiah. Jesus is not portrayed as one who lives the ultimately good life who reaps all the rewards of his goodness. Jesus is the innocent person who suffers terribly on the cross. This is about 180 degrees away from any idea of karma. In fact Jesus himself says of his mission
Jesus mission was fundamentally one of suffering for humanity. Therefore the bible argues that if we are to be like Jesus then we too must suffer in doing good for others. This is completely different to any idea of Karma, in which doing good and suffering are mutually exclusive.
Besides it is almost certain that the early church did not believe in Karma either because the experience of the church for the first 250 years was almost exclusivly one of suffering for following Jesus as they were brutally persecuted by the Romans. These people were suffering and dying for their faith. Telling them that they were suffering or that their persecutors were propering because of some sort of natural law that you get back what you put out would make no sense.
I don’t know what to say. I am certainly not ignorant of church history and the bible, and I have not found anything to make me think that the bible in inherently contradictory.
I would say though that my idea of the accuracy of the bible is somewhat more nuanced than you might expect. I only believe that the bible is accurate in so far as the authors intend ti to be accurate. It is not a contradiction if the contradiction relies on implying something that the bible writer didn’t intend.
So for instance take the phrase “the sun rises in the east and sets in the west”. In astronomical terms, this senstance is complete rubbish. The sun doesn’t move, it is the earth that moves around the sun, but anyway it is not the translation of the earth it is the rotation that makes the sun appear to move relative to your position on the earth. However this is not how this phrase is commonly understood. All this phrase is commonly meant to mean is that the sun appears in the east in the morning and in the west in the evening. To try and create some sort of planetary model out of this statement is to completly misunderstand the way in which it was given.
The same can be said about the bible. I think that the bible is only non-contradictory in the points it intends to make. So I don’t think that evolution necessarily contradicts the bible, because I don’t believe that the bible intends to tell you the exact meachanism behind creation, but more who created it and how it was when it was originally created.
In the same way I don’t think that the gospels necessarily intend to give you a tight chronology of Jesus’ life and times. The gospels are not biographies, nor do they read as such. Mark for instance ignores the first 30 years of Jesus life, and the other gospels do little to fill in the details. Even in the time they record there is not much thought given to tracking exactly when things happen, or indeed what happened in the large gaps that are necessarily in the narrative. The point of the gospels is for more to tell you about the remarkable things that Jesus did and why he did them rather than to give you a water-tight chronological account of everything that Jesus did. There is also a string theme of linking the story of Jesus to wider theological points (so in Matthew the recurring theme of Jesus is the true Israelite, or in John the connection between miracles and the “I am” statements). Therefore I am not surprised that some of the minor details are slightly different, or that there are some things that may have happened twice or more (for instance feeding groups of people, ect).
This is important because when you look at these lists of contradictions they always seem to focus on the most minor points in the story that are completely beside the point. A common one is what Jesus last words are on the cross. In Matthew and Mark it is “Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?”, in Luke it is “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!”, and in John it is “It is finished”. This is commonly pointed to as a contradiction. It completely ignores though that the point if the passages is not exactly what Jesus said as he died on the cross, but that he died. It also ignores the vast similarity between the accounts, in that all agree that Jesus was on the cross on the Friday before passover at the authorisation of Pilate, and that he died on that Friday. Exactly what his last words were is not the focus of the story, and therefore it doesn’t surprise me that there is some disagreement in what is an unimportant detail.
Besides I think it is a catch 22 situation anyway. If the bible did agree on everything then it would be accused of being engineered that way. I actually thing that in some ways the witness of the bible is more compelling with small imperfections, as this demonstrates that the accounts wern
t doctored to fit some agenda as is commonly (and erroneously) claimed.
Another idea that is contradicted by the bible. The bible (and specifically the psalms) is constantly is telling us how comparatively short human life is. The common image is that of the grass and the flowers, that man quickly withers and dies like the grass. The point that it is making is that human life is short. In Psalm 144 the writer even wonders at why God bothers with humans at all, since they are only like breath and his days are fleeting like a shadow. All this is stated without any mention of re-incarnation, the obvious implication being that death is a once for all thing.
I do not disregard them. Although I do not believe the Bible is the word of God I maintain a great reverence for the book as a source of study. In a nutshell, I believe Jesus when he says the Spirit will guide us into all truth. I also believe 1
See above. It became importent for me to seperate truth from tradition. That’s an important part worshiping in Spirit and truth. Jesus said not to follow the traditions of men. He also said call no man teacher for there is one who teaches. To me that means that I can gather information from different sources and listen to scholars and study various works, keeping my focus on discerning the truth, and at the end of the day, it is my moral and spiritual responsibility to decide what the truth is for myself and what that means for me. People have studied the Bible as well as other “holy” books for years and still don’t agree.Why would I let them dictate to me what the truth is? I don’t.
I respectfully disagree. The Bible tells me why this is not true. Jesus tells us what the fruits of the spirit are. Regaedless of lip service it is our actions and choices in day to day life that reveals what spirit we follow. It’s very obvious that many people who haven’t accepted Christ exhibit the fruits of the spirit. My conclusion. Jesus is not an egotist insisting that we worship him. If we seek love and truth then we are following that spirit. Eventually all who seek the truth unswervingly will come to the truth about Christ.
I agree it is God who saves. We don’t agree on the process. In fitting the Bible passages together and trying to understand we must balance the passages about belief and faith with passages like
I also did a study on passages like the one above. Turns out there are* many*
like this one. for every
there is a
or a
To worship in spirit and truth we must discover how these work together.
Sure it does. And you can pull those scriptures out of context and make a good case of it. For God so loved the world…and, I am the way the truth and the light, and…there is no other name given…etc As I just pointed out there are just as many passages that speak of us being rewarded and judged according to our works and deeds. How do we reconcile all those passages as well?
That’s a nice theory but it doesn’t fit reality. I’ve met plenty of non Christians who exhibit the fruits of the spirit. I would call accepting Christ as a step in salvation not salvation completed. I would agree that somewhere in our journey it helps to acknowledge that guiding spirit.
Funny. I could reprint your paragraph here word for word and it would be just as true and sincere as you present it to me. One exception, I don’t think either of us fully understands what Jesus taught,… but we will.
Odd that the Oxford Companion to the Bible- written by some 300+ of the greatest experts in the field; Rabbis, Professors, writers, scholars, Linquists, Archeaologists, Preists, Skeptics, beleivers and so forth; well researched, completely footnoted, peer reviewed, unbiased, and generally the most respected Publisher in this field- disagrees. :dubious: I guess that those dudes are just “The only dissent comes from a tiny minority of conservative religionists who assume their conclusions a priori and don’t back them up with evidence. They are not “experts,” they are religious believers and they are perfectly welcome to participate in debates or contribute to journals all they want. They just aren’t able to contribute anything that holds up to scrutiny. Their opinions are dictated by their faith, not by methodology.” :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
Dude- I have a cite- backed by over 300 of the worlds greatest experts in the field. You have…your posts. Hmm, let’s see- Oxford University press and 300 dudes with PhD after their name vs DtC. Guess who wins.
Of course they did, and those messages were intended for the people of their own era. Fortunatly, people still being people, we can still find plenty of valuble and enriching material that relates to us today.
I can accpet the term inspired for the Bible but I doubt we agree on what that means. The spirit moves through less than perfect people and the Bible has passed from generation to generation through less than perfect people . Since people are not consitent, neither is it.
I disagree. It is a valuble study tool and the truth that is relevent to the individual is revealed by the spirit. There is a consistent and unchanging truth that we seek and Christ promised the spirit will lead us to. It is contained within us, not within any book. In my studies I discovered that Christians will often interpret passages about the word of God as being about the scriptures. In many cases those passages are about the living word, which is that inner guiding spirit.
OKay, but it appears both you and I have done this and we don’t agree. It is a matter of personal interpretation. That doesn’t mean any interpretation is just dandy. It means individuals have individual spiritual journeys, and thats okay.
Your conclusions and how you get there are not conclusive or convincing. You are free to see it that way. My objection is that you think that is the only reasonable and correct way to see it. Neither of us is nessecarily correct. My point is that it is* just as reasonable* to see this as an example of reincarnation as not based on existing evidence.
It seems obvious that some did believe in reincarnation.
I have no idea where you find the assumption of resurrection here.
I thought dust to dust meant exactly that the body is not a fundamental part of the self. Tell you what. I haven’t really studied this but if you have some suggested books or passages about this subject I will go over them and we could deal with it in another thread. Our posts are getting to large to continue this subject here,
Just to repeat what cmkeller said before, John the Baptist being Elijah wouldn’t be a case of reincarnation. Jews at the time believed, and Orthodox Jews still believe, based on the biblical passage, that Elijah never died…that God miraculously took him up to heaven, and will send him back to earth before the messiah comes.
So the belief wasn’t that John the Baptist was a reincarnation of Elijah. The belief that John the Baptist was Elijah.
Your Oxford book represents the opinions of translators and theologians, not critical scholars. We’ve gone over this many times before. I am not misrepresenting anything. Why don’t you spend some time browsing Early Christian Writings. It’s one of the best NT resources on the internet. Read some articles on individual books and see for yourself where the scholarship is.
“.” Entries written by over 250 leading international scholars reflect the current state of biblical scholarship"
“The Oxford Companion to the Bible opens with a list of the 267 contributors, most academically affiliated, who come from a variety of religious backgrounds”
“. While many zealots and fanatics might disagree with several definitions/discussions such as the topics of homosexuality, prostitution, and any other acts that they feel go against God’s words, the editors take a non-biased, neutral approach.”
“Oxford University Press has a reputation second to none in the production of scholarly reference works, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. It has certainly upheld that fine reputation for scholarship, objectivity, and authoritative research with its latest ‘Oxford Companion to the Bible’,”“The Companion reflects this diversity: it is consciously pluralistic, and its more than 250 contributors, as well as its editors and editorial advisory board, encompass a wide spectrum of intellectual and confessional perspectives.”
“The tone and views of many contributors is sharply cynical over the inspiration of the Bible and the truth of Christianity in general. Some reference material is informative and okay, but this book should be left to egghead intellectuals, humanists and unitarians.”
But let’s look at your source. Lets take a look at Matthew:
“It is also the consensus position that the evangelist was not the apostle Matthew”. Ok.
So now, lets look for a line like “It is also the consensus position that the evangelist was not the apostle Matthew” under your cite for John. No such thing. Sure, in this very cynical source- doubt is cast. But no such line as “It is also the consensus position that the evangelist was not the apostle Matthew”- not even close. For fun, let’s take a look at the Catholic encycl: http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08438a.htm
Thus, yes, there are doubts- but the consensus of experts in Oxford accepts John as at least a partial “author” of that Gospel- as the best hypothesis.
No critical scholar seriously thinks GJohn was written by an apostle. From the ECW page on GJohn (bolding mine):
And I wouldn’t call Catholic Encyclopedia a very critical source (although it’s better than many and is often a very good source. It’s still steeped in certain necessary assumptions, though)…
If everyone valued love and truth like you do then we would not have many problems in the world. The problem comes from the fact that people are not like you. You have to realize that people already misrepresent Christianity for their own uses. What more do you think people will judge others based on karma? Think about it, a person has a shity life. Do we need to help them? Of coarse not, they brought everything on themselves and deserve it…See the problem with this? Also think about the less educated, poor people who would be taught karma. They might not know better. I have no problem with your theory on reincarnation as long as you realize that it is not heavily alluted to. What I do have to make sure is that you understand the consequences of teaching karma to people.
I fundamentally disagree with this assessment. You make it sound as if life is a report card and if we get an 89 percent instead of a 90 percent, we do life over again until we get that 90 percent. Do you honestly believe that a benevolent, all-knowing God would put a report card on our lives? The whole purpose of Christ is to save.
Basically the two main reasons for reincarnation as you present them are:
a) A means for us to have more time to come to know God/Christ
b) A means for reaping what we sow (in a strictly non-judgmental way).
The only thing that I ask is that you take another look at the purpose of Christ because I feel as if you are forgetting about the whole reason for Him coming. The only sinless man died for the sinful. Do you think when Christ says he has come to fulfill God’s purpose, he is simply talking about being a good example?
John the Baptist being either the reincarnation or resurrection of Elijah has many problems. As mentioned several times, he cannot be reincarnated since he never died - which is what makes him special. As far as I am aware, all those resurrected are resurrected in their adult form. Is there any evidence that John was not born of man and woman, and did not have a childhood?
For those of us who do not have faith in Jesus, either atheist or Jew, the words of Jesus or the gospel writer who wrote for him can be much more easily explained as that of Jesus calling John the virtual Elijah, fulfilling one of the many Messianic prophecies that did not come to pass around Jesus. The Immanuel reference is yet another, as is Matthew’s claim of a virgin birth based on the misreading of Isaiah. If one reads the Bible with an open mind, the contradictions and problems spring out at you. If you begin reading convinced that there are no contradictions, of course they can be explained away. But the Sherlockians can do the same with their sacred writings, after all.
Now, a question for cosmosdan. If the Christian belief in redemption through Jesus is correct, and if there is reincarnation, does each reincarnation have to be save all over again, or the last before judgement day, or at least one? I don’t understand how these two concepts are compatible.
In the interests of full disclosure, let’s admit that the scholars we agree with are the scholars who agree with us. And where we stand on faith issues has a lot to do with it.
Except for my disagreement that those who die w/o faith in JC go into eternal conscious damnation, I am in agreement with the vast majority of the Fundist/Evangelical community. I am in most points a Theologically & Politically Right-wing Christian. I even believe that the Law of Moses should at least be
studied, but not completely adopted, in developing a good & fair civil & criminal justice system.
That said, I could still believe that the New Testament was written two-three generations after JC, constructed around oral traditions, the consensus of the various C’tian communities. and maybe written snippets, yet still hold it to be an
accurate representation of the works & miraculous deeds of JC & His
Apostles, and thus, God’s authoritative written record for us today.
Diogenes does not believe in God, or that Jesus could do actual miracles, or that the NT gives us an adequate representation of what he truly taught & did. If tomorrow, it was announced that a cache of NT documents which substantially match our present NT has been irrefutably dated 40-70 AD, Diogenes may concede that the NT was written by contemporaries of JC & the Apostles and that it might give us a reliable representation of their teachings & purported miracles.
However, this would still not constitute proof of God, that JC is His Son, or that JC
& Pals could do anything outside our natural abilities.
However, it is easiest for us to side with those scholars who seem to support us theologically. So DtC can call those on my side closet fundies & I (with Anne Rice) can call those on his side closet Jesus-haters.
That’s written by one, count 'em one author. I have 250.
But here’s what you said earlier: “The only dissent comes from a tiny minority of conservative religionists who assume their conclusions a priori and don’t back them up with evidence. They are not “experts,” they are religious believers and they are perfectly welcome to participate in debates or contribute to journals all they want. They just aren’t able to contribute anything that holds up to scrutiny. Their opinions are dictated by their faith, not by methodology.”
Oxford is NOT a “a tiny minority of conservative religionists who assume their conclusions a priori and don’t back them up with evidence” and is you are also wrong when you thereby claim Oxford is "are not “experts,” they are religious believers ". I proved that by the cites above. Do you still maintain that Oxford University press are a bunch of religious fanatics and fundamentalists?
And did you not also say "But did you also not say “Originally Posted by Diogenes the Cynic The overwhelming consensus of experts in the field is that all four authorship traditions of canonical Gospels are completely spurious” (italics mine)
But in your own damn cite: http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/mark.html
"However, there are two other pieces of external evidence that may confirm that the author of the Gospel of Mark was a disciple of Peter. Justin Martyr quotes from Mark as being the memoirs of Peter (Dial. 106.3). In Acts 10:34-40, Peter’s speech serves as a good summary of the Gospel of Mark, “beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached.” Finally, there was not an extremely strong motivation for the early church to attribute the second gospel to one obscure Mark, the disciple of Peter, instead of directly to an apostle. Thus, the tradition of Markan authorship is to be taken seriously.
Nevertheless, even though the author may have been a disciple of Peter at some point, the author of the Gospel of Mark needn’t have limited himself to Peter’s preaching for his material". Hmm, looks like your own cite is thus "completely spurious. :rolleyes:
I cited an author who is representative of the mainstream and, most importanly, an author who actually lists the reasons that traditional authorship is rejected by the mainstream.You haven’t cited anyone who has made a reasoned argument for the traditional authorship of John. You just keep falling back on this Oxford staff of translators and clergy like it’s meaningful and then trying to extropolate from it. How do your theologians and translators counter the hard evidence against traditional scholarship?
Yes they are.
I ddn’t say “fanatics” and I didn’t say “fundamentalists.” I said religious believers and conservatives. I stand by that. Theya ssume their conclusions a priori. They are not performing critical scholarship and they are not in the mainstream.
Absolutely.
ECW cites every side. If you keep reading, and if you read all the linked commentaries, you;ll see that it often presents the most traditional views first before blowing them out of the water. The quote above relies on patristic tradition which is no longer taken seriously by the mainstream.
All four authorship traditions of the Canonical gospels have long been abandoned as spurious in mainstream NT scholarship. That is a fact, not an opinion.
As you well know, in other posts I have given you lengthy quotes form the book. The book covers all side of the debate, and alights upon John being the source for that Gospel as the most likely hypothesis. Your source makes no hypothesis at all.
And you go on claiming Oxford is just a bunch of “theologians & translators” even though I have proven otherwise: :rolleyes: ." Entries written by over *250 leading international scholars * reflect the current state of biblical scholarship"
“The Oxford Companion to the Bible opens with a list of the 267 contributors, most academically affiliated, who come from a variety of religious backgrounds” “*Oxford University Press has a reputation second to none * in the production of *scholarly reference * works, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. It has certainly upheld that fine reputation for scholarship, objectivity, and *authoritative research * with its latest ‘Oxford Companion to the Bible’,”“The Companion reflects this diversity: it is consciously pluralistic, and *its more than 250 contributors, as well as its editors and editorial advisory board, encompass a wide spectrum of intellectual * and confessional perspectives.”
I have 250 experts- you have one.
Indeed- ECW does do that. But not in the case of Mark. Read it yourself-rather than blowing such claims “out of the water” it makes no serious claims at all that Mark is not the author.
In fact, in general, your own source accepts the authorship of Luke, even! :dubious:
However, I agree- your cite is “spurious” and is “no longer taken seriously by the mainstream” :dubious:
Since you’re new here (and welcome!) I want to mention that this is not a common atheist argument. The actual argument is that the absence of evidence gives us no reason to believe god exists, not that god cannot exist. Certain gods, like the deistic one, offer no direct evidence of existence by definition.
We might say that the god defined by a literal reading of the Bible has been falsified both by internal contradictions and external evidence, but this is not the god you believe in, clearly.
(We have many threads about this, which you can get to if you join.)
