What completely confuses me is why the desire for the world to end? I’m in my 40’s, but I plan on sticking around for another 40-odd years at least. I’d like to think my brother’s children will get to see their grandchildren who in turn will get to see their grandchildren, and on into, if not infinity, at least for another few millenia. Who knows? Maybe they’ll get to live out the dreams I’ve had of travelling among the stars? I’ve been so deep in despair I’ve wanted my life to end, but never the world. I do sincerely believe it’s too full of wonder and beauty for God to do away with it so soon.
As for the reason for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, I’m at work, so I don’t have my usual cites handy, but the Bible itself says the reason they were destroyed was lack of hospitality to strangers. Then again, the people who are saying they know the world will end soon are already saying they know more than Christ (see my earlier post), so perhaps I shouldn’t be surprised that they also know more than the Bible.
It’s debatable whether any such demand is actually made in the story. the phrase "…so that we may know them’ does not have a sexual connotation in Hebrew but implies a desire to get information. I’ll quote the late Yale historian, John Boswell on this:
Even if I were to grant you that the sin was attempted rape, which I don’t, and which is belied by the fact that it apparently would have been acceptable to God for Lot to allow his daughters to be gang raped, rape is not homosexuality. If we condemn heterosexual rape we are not condemning heterosexuality. Moreover, I’ve already quoted the Bible itself as to the sin of Sodom and God apparently agree with me, not you. In case you missed it, here it is again.
[quote=GOD]
(Ezek. 16:49-50) Now this was the sin of Sodom: She and her daughters were arrogant, overfed and unconcerned; they did not help the poor and needy. They were haughty and did detestable things before me. Therefore I did away with them as you have seen.
Assuming Jesus actually did endorse all of Hebrew scripture as the literal and inerrant word of God (an assumption I do not necessarily grant), so what? You’re making an appeal to an authority which I don’t recognize. You’re asking me to take your personal belief that Jesus was God as evidence that “God” endorsed Hebrew Scripture. Before you cite Jesus as an irrefutable authority, you need to prove he was such an authority.
There are no such scriptures.
Wrong on all counts. We’ve talked about the passages from Paul many times here and I don’t feel like going into my spiel on them again, but if you do a search for the word arsenokoitai, you can find numerous other threads about the subject and inform yourself as to what those passages actually say in Greek and why “homosexuals” is a mistranslation. The passage from Romans, I’ve addressed upthread. The Jude pasage refers to Sodom and Gomorrah and accuses them ekporneuo (“going out to prostitutes; going whoring; fornication.”) Although this word is typically translated as “having given themselves over fornication,” (or 'sexual immorality") it could just as easily be translated as “having gone to Temple prostitutes,” or even “having practiced idolotry.”
Even if we just take it as fornication, that still does not equate to homosexuality.
[quote]
The New Covenant is based on Christ’s personal fulfillment of the requirements of the Law, the commandments of God are never set aside in the process. Jesus said, “Do not think that I have come to destroy the Law and the prophets but to complete and fulfill them.” (Matt5:17) None of God’s commandments will ever pass away including the prohibitions against sexual perversions (homosexuality, adultery, beastiality, incest, cross-dressing, etc) Only the rituals of the law concerning feasts, ceremonial washings, sacrifice of lambs, dietary laws etc, passed away with the arrival of and the sacrifice of Christ. Their prophetic, preparatory function was fulfilled. This was signified by the tearing of the temple veil at the death of Christ.[.quote]
In other words, you’ve decided that you can pick and choose which laws are valid and which ones are not. You are not getting these kinds of arbitrary categories from the bible, and may would argue anyway that the man-on-man proscription in Leviticus was part of the ritual laws, not the moral ones.
Sodom and Gomorrah. Nothing about homosexuality anywhere in the story.
We’ve talked about Leviticus already. These verses were probably cultic proscriptions. If you believe in Jesus, he made these proscriptions null and void anyway.
I’ve already dealt with all of these. The Romans passage is about the consequences of idolotry, not homosexuality (God turned people gay for worshipping idols). 1 corinthians and 1 Timothy are mistranslations.
“Sodomite” does not mean “homosexual.” It just means a person from Sodom.
Ditto.
A virtual duplicate of the Sodom story (only the poor girl gets raped and dismembered this time). Still nothing about homosexuality, though.
“Sodomites” does not mean “homosexuals,”
Ditto.
Ditto.
Ditto
Already dealt with.
But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death.
Where does it say anything about homosexuals?
There is nothing which says those offenses included homosexuality. You’ve struck out badly on this list, I’m sad to say. You have two arguable lines in Leviticus, othere than that, you’ve shown us nothing.
And how is that any different from people who die for any other religious belief?
I’ve read the Bible cover to cover twice and have read many of the books far more than that. I have concentrated especially on the New Testament which i read as much as possible in the original Greek. I have a BA in Religious Studies and Classical languages. A BA is not especially impressive or meaningful but I cite it only to show that I have made some honest attempt to study the Bible. I’ve spent a considerable amount of time, both in college and out, pursuing higher criticism of the Bible and keeping up with mainstream scholarship on the subject. I’m not the only one on this board who has done so and I think you’ll find that attempts to dismss opinions on the Bible that you don’t like as “uninformed” are likely to backfire on you.
Your conclusion follows from an unsupported premise (the God wrote the Bible). Furthermore it is demonstrably untrue by overwhelming evidence. It is absolutely false that any significant number of “names, dates and places” have been confirmed while giant swaths of historical Biblicalnarratives have been severely called into question if not disproven outright.
Josephus’ passage on Jesus is widely believed to be at least a partial forgery, but even if Jesus existed, that doesn’t mean that he did miracles or was God or came back from the dead and it doesn’yt mean that the Bible has been “confirmed” as true in all its historical claims.
You can’t use the Bible to prove the Bible, dawg. Nothing in the Gospels was written by a witness, so it doesn’t count as a primary source…especialy since so much of the gospels contain numerous contradictions, historical, geographical and factual errors and demonstrably fictional material.
So what? Why should we take paul’s word for it? A n uncorrobrated claim (even in the Gospels) by a non-witness is proof of nothing. We don’t even know what paul meant by “appearance.” He includes his own hallucinations of Jesus in his chronology of appearances, (a chronolgy which contradicts all four Gospels, by the way) so it is not clear at all that by “appearance,” he meant anything physical. In any case, it still does not represent a first-hand claim of anything.
By “recorded,” you mean “alleged.” Those words are not synonomous.
Dude, If you really want to go to this place, I’ll be happy to go there. I’ve been taking it easy on you because you’re new and struck me as kind of naiive and unequipped for a hardcore battle. If you want to make it nasty, I can make it nasty, but this is the wrong forum. Please post any more of your irrelevant 9and uninformed) ad hominems in the pit where they belong and if I think you deserve a response in kind, I’ll do so. While we’re in GD, though, could we please stick to facts?
Heh…“indirect.” with the arguable exception of Levitcus, you have produce ZERO verses which condemn homosexuality.
No. you have whiffed on 16 attempts to come up with something. Ouch.
Wow. You’ve sure got me. Hey, genius, what I asked you for was PROOF that anyone claimed to have witnessed a physically resurrected Jesus. A second hand claim in the Bible is not proof. I don’t know how to break it to you, but the Bible in itself is evidence of nothing. I’m asking you for prrof that the Biblical claims are TRUE, not to show me they merely exist.
Y’know, you keep throwing out the (generally false) accusation that others have not read the bible, then you continue to post stuff like this that indicates that you have not read it. “A few of the apostles and disciples”? John the Baptist was neither an apostle nor a disciple (since he preceded Jesus rather than following Him). That leaves exactly Stephen as a disciple or apostle whose martyrdom is mentioned in the New Testament.
(Saying that Thomas was mentioned in the Gospel and that tradition indicates he was martyred in India does not count.) Your claim was that Scripture mentions only “a few” who were martyred while a person who had read the bible would know that there was only one. I strongly urge you to break your habit of telling other posters what they have or have not done. You keep making yourself look foolish (and, thus, discounting your message), when you insist on lodging accusations that appear to be better aimed at yourself.
You are also not very good at actually responding to what others have written:
So “all their writings” is a reference to the Hebrew Scripture, to which DtC responds, quoting your words to demonstrate that he is referring to only the Hebrew Scriptures
To which you reply with a a long list of (arguable) New Testament references, prefixed by the Lot incident and the single reference to which DtC alluded.
If you think that posting a long list of references from works outside the discussion along with a two references from the point of the discussion–one of which does not include the actual “condemnation” that you claim for it–somehow validates your argument, you are mistaken.
Apropos of nothing, I’ve written a bit of doggerel which I like to insert into all threads on this topic:
Mine eyes have seen the coming of the Dark Lord Antichrist
He is humorous and handsome, and he isn’t very nice
We’ll get along just fine if you don’t make him tell you twice
Apocalypse today!
It’s really most annoying, with the rains of flaming pitch
And the things that bite, and things that burn, and things that sting and itch
But, oh, that Whore of Babylon’s a lusty, royal bitch!
Apocalypse today!
(CHORUS)
It’s really most confusing, with the Horsemen in the skies
And the seven seals, and seven plagues, and lambs with seven eyes
But we get no fun from Jesus, so bring on the Prince of Lies!
Apocalypse today!
Diogenes, what to you would constitute adequate proof that Jesus existed, that He made all the claims & purported to do all the miracles attributed to him, that people who knew him in life as well as those who had not sincerely claimed to experience him as bodily risen and ascended into Heaven, and that those in his inner circle died maintaining all that to be true? Is it a matter of the
dating of the NT texts and Church ‘histories’ or would nothing less than Roman imperial and Sanhedrin court documents regarding the trials of Jesus & the earliest Christians satisfy you (not as evidence for the miracles & claims of Jesus but that he & his earliest disciples claimed to do miracles & claimed that JC was Messiah/Son of God raised from the dead)?
What are the earliest documents/monuments we have for the Gallic Wars, career & death of Julius Caesar?
When I was a Rapturist, part of it was the desire for JC to be back, but there also was an element of resentment against the world & the satisfaction that JC would be kicking its butt & maybe let me help.
And note that Rapturists don’t believe the Apocalypse ends the world but repairs it- basically, God takes out His people, lets the unsaved run free as they enthrone & worship the Beast & make things so bad that God is more than justified in cutting loose with the Plagues & wiping out 50% of humanity at His Return to
renovate the Earth & rule a purified humanity for a thousand years, after which they endure a final Satanic test, get culled again, and then Earth & humanity enter into an Eternal blessed state.
I still think Scripture forces me to hold to a future Beast/Tribulation/Armageddon/ Millenium. But I doubt it will happen in my lifetime and do believe God has a different plan to bring humanity into surrender to Jesus as Lord & Savior.
I already believe that Jesus existed and was crucified. Any primary documents or first hand accounts by people claiming to have been witnesses would satisfy that the claims at least had been made. As it stands, we simply don’t have any first hand accounts of Jesus or eyewitness claims of miracles. I don’t even think we have second hand claims. Paul says that Jesus appeared to Cephas, but we have nothing to prove that Cephas made that claim himself. On top of tha, the Gospel accounts are not only relatively late (70-100 CE), they are contradictory, they are not independent, they contain factual errors and they show strong evidence of literary invention. Paul, who wrote his letters before the Gospels were written, does not seem aware of (or at least does not mention) a number of quintessential details from the Gospels. He does not mention the Virgin Birth, Bethlehem, any miracles except for the Resurrection or the empty tomb. In fact, none of those details are found in any Christian literature (The Pauline corpus, Q or Thomas) before Mark’s Gospel. Even Mark does not mention a physical resurrection or say that Jesus appeared to the apostles. The first unambiguous claim of a physical resurrection does not come until the Gospel of Matthew (c. 80 CE) whose author was not an eyewitness and who probably never met an eyewitness.
In order for me to believe that any direct followers of Jesus at least claimed to have witnessed any miracles, I would need to see an actual first hand claim, or at least some attestation that anyone had heard these claims before 70 CE.
We have Caesars’ own accounts of the Gallic Wars, as well as a plethora of independent, contemporary corroboration, not only by historians but more definitively in statues, monuments, coins and inscriptions, not to mention archaeological confirmation of his miltary activities in Gaul.
Okay, we’ve got a last name. What’s this Christians’ first name? Where does he live? I’m assuming he’s listed in the white pages under C, probably just before the Christiansens.
This is just a nit and really doesn’t matter. On the second page of this thread, one of the nicknames or “titles” in a long list that was given, was “Morning Star”. If I remember right, the Morning Star was Lucifer, the most beautiful and most favored of all the angels. Then he turned to the dark side.
John Grant Viking Mythology. It includes all kinds of fun details but is not dry and boring. From page 118
Other passages in the book make it clear that Grant didn’t accidentally transpose the names in this section. I haven’t read the book in a while but a skim leaves ambiguity as to whether Odin will kill Fenris and Vidar shall tear up the wolf’s corpse, or if Fenris will defeat Odin and then be slain by Vidar. I suspect that there are conflicting sources on this.
Where does it say anything about homosexuals?