(no subject)
So I take it you're not a Calvinist then?
They are [the predestination bunch], but I was referring mostly to the strain of thought that known as Total Depravity that says people are stained with sin and cannot be "cleaned".
This isn’t actually what the concept of total depravity is about. I would double check your research here. Total depravity is the concept that we are born of sin, and sin is our essential nature. Having no ultimate power over our sinful nature, one cannot actually choose to serve God, or to be saved; rather one must be called by God to serve, and must be predestinated, sanctified, and chosen by the Lord for salvation. (Romans 8:28-30, Revelations 3:20)
If people cannot be cleaned from sin, then there can be no salvation, as the baptism of the blood of Christ washes the believer from sin, in preparation for eternity in God’s kingdom. (Revelations 7:3-17)
Interestingly, among scholarly circles the "Lake of Fire" is not a concept Jesus would have been familiar with.
First of all, to the believer, Jesus is part of the Godhead, the holy trinity (Matthew 28:19), and therefore omniscient (Psalm 147:5, Psalm 139:1-4, Psalm 33:13-15). Therefore there are no concepts he is unfamiliar with.
Secondly, he actually spoke (Luke 16:19-24) about it (Matthew 7:17-19) personally.
Sheol is a Hebraic concept for a place for the dead, but it isn't an underworld - all souls end up there. Gehenna was a geographical location near Jerusalem that acted as the cities garbage heap where refuse and dead animals were burned. That concept was later developed into the lake of fire/hell concept you see in Revelation.
Sheol simply means “grave” or “pit” in Hebrew, which is just another name for Hell used in the bible. (Proverbs 1:12; Job 33:18, 24, 28, 30; Psalm 86:13) There are frequent examples of concepts with multiple names or symbols throughout the scriptures.
The term Gehenna does not appear in the bible except to be used as an alternate name for Hell. (Matthew 10:28 for example)
Keep in mind that the later gospels were written between two sociological phases; the author of matthew quite clearly believes he is among the final generation.
The next two gospels have realized they were mistaken and are trying to understand and retrofit their teachings to account for this discrepnancy - this happens nearly every time cult makes apocalyptic prophecies - so taking the vaguely metaphoric warnings from Christ and sifting them into a greater vision was fairly simple.
What do you mean by next two Gospels? Mark and Luke? I’m not sure how the Gospels of Mark and Luke are ‘attempted retrofitted teachings’ as they are actually parallels to Matthew.
The Gospel of Mark is an epitome of the Gospel of Matthew (and most scholars place the Gospel of Mark as written earlier than Matthew for that matter). Luke also of course parallels them, being one of the four canonical Gospels. They are all about the same thing- the life, ministry, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Not sure what you’re going for here.
(It's also rather insulting to claim that 400 years of scholarship via philology, archeology, linguistics, hermeneutics, etc was all done by people who "failed to do their biblical research". These are the guys who invented biblical research.)
True, but if their premises were flawed, so too would be their conclusions. The book of Job illustrates in Eliphaz, Bil’dad and Zo’phar that every flawed premise begets a flawed conclusion. (Job, selective chapters)
Furthermore, the scriptures are abound with warnings that the simple and unbelievers will twist or misinterpret the scriptures (2nd Peter 3:16; Proverbs 1:7, 1:22, 12:23), and that false prophets will arise (Matthew 24:11, Mark 13:22, 2nd Peter 2:1). The wisdom of God is not for unbelievers, but rather for the elect (Proverbs 2:6-9).
Also, it is really funny to hear (even lightheartedly) that biblical research was invented in the last 400 years.
And not to be a jerk or nuthin' but you gotta remember that I grew up being proselytized to. I know you're taught different methods of proselytizing, but I mean. Come on. Is the next step to ask me "If you were to die to night and appear before god and he were to ask you "Why should I let you into heaven?" what would you say?" I've always loved that one.
Okay, okay. You’ve piqued my curiosity. What would you say?
Fun fact, the word faith is used only twice in the Old Testament, and the concept is expressed as trust in the Prophets. Christ (educated in the Torah) expressed the concept similarly, asking disciples to trust in him after witnessing his healing powers.
It wasn't until Saul of Tarsus, who used faith as a verb to mean 'believe" that the concept you're utilizing came into existence.
Fun fact: The word Christian(s) is used only three times in the entire bible. This of course, is of no significance… though the word Christian appears rarely, the concept of living as a Christian (follower of Christ) appears throughout… much as the word faith appears only twice in the Old Testament, but the concept of having faith- believing in and trusting the Lord- appears throughout.
In the two Old Testament occurrences, the word faith isn’t actually expressed merely as faith in the prophets. Deuteronomy shows that to blaspheme/deny God by worshipping false Gods shows a lack of faith (Deut 32:20), and in Habakkuk that to live in uprightness comes not from within us, but from having been lifted upright by God (Hab 2:4). No mention is made of the prophets. (Though to have faith in the prophecies of Christ’s coming IS to have faith in the Lord)
Faith is defined biblically as trusting (Heb. ‘emuwn, Aramaic ‘aman), steadfastness, (Heb. ‘emuwnah) or to believe (Heb. ‘aman). More thoroughly, the Greek “pistis” (“faith”) is: “the conviction that God exists and is the creator and ruler of all things, the provider and bestower of eternal salvation through Christ,”
or “a strong and welcome conviction or belief that Jesus is the Messiah, through whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God”
or “belief with the predominate idea of trust (or confidence) whether in God or in Christ, springing from faith in the same” (Strong’s exhaustive concordance #G4102).
Fun fact #2: The word faith appears 245 times in the New Testament.
I have only presented facts accumulated through hard won research, debate and expertise
Along with opinions and conjecture. :)
We haven't even touched on anything remotely interesting, like why Genesis 1a uses the phrase Elohim, while 2b says Yahweh, while 2a uses an entirely different third moniker for the same deific figure.
Though these are tangential points, allow us to indulge and touch on something remotely interesting. God has many names, often used to illustrate his attributes.
Elohim means “strong One, divine.” (Gen. 1:1)
Yahweh is “LORD “I am,” meaning the eternal self-existent God (Ex. 3:13-14)
Of course there is also El Elyon (“most high, the strongest one” -Gen14:20), El Roi (“the strong One who sees” -Gen 16:13), El Shaddai (“Almighty God”-Gen17:1), El Olam (“everlasting God” Isaiah40:28), Adonai (“Lord” -Ex:4:10,13), Jehova-Jireh (“God provides”) aka Yahweh-Yireh.
These various names and titles serve to offer up the believers praise and reverence to the divine name of the Lord, while illustrating some of his characteristics.
We haven't discussed the existence of the Nephilim
I’ve heard some debates on the Nephilim. Many ideas people present in this realm seem to rest on shaky theological foundation, if not outright fabrication. I’m interested for your take on it, because I’ve heard some wacky stuff here.
or the concept of metaphor within the Noahtic tale
Expound if you like, I’m interested (obviously the entire bible is rife with typology, symbolism and metaphor, I’m curious where you’re going with this).
or the veracity of the historical claims made by the Prophets when discussing great battles.
Expound if you like
There is a lot of meat to be enjoyed within the Bible, but if you're unwilling to even face up to the idea that certain words can mean different things to different people, the entire book will simply forever be a mirror to you, reading out of it whatever you put into it.
And to you, Sir. Thou hast said it.
Just to be clear, I'm not trying to rag on you.
And I’ll say the same here. This is a good opportunity for me to string together some of the important fundamental concepts learned from my short time in the faith thus far, and practice my scripture research and recall. And if either of us gains any new insights along the way, so much the better!
In my experience however, the vaaaaaaaast majority of religious people in America are "biblically illiterate
Tragically so. Completely related to this, many are not actually under a proper and truthful Christ-centered teaching and preaching ministry either. These are the reasons why so many Christians have grievous misconceptions about their faith. I wish every Christian would read their bible diligently.
" Jesus is a household name and yet only a distinct minority of Americans have studied an English translation of the original documents that tell us about Jesus, much less read them in the original Greek."
This is so painfully true.
I'm not trying to attack you, but I am trying to push you a bit on what you believe you believe. For example, I've no doubt you're familiar with the story where Christ tells the adulteress to "go and sin no more" - its easily THE most famous passage in the NT, as it is the 'cast the first stone' passage.
Yet the evidence for it being a later scribal addition to the text is so strong that even the Fundamentalist, Literalist nuts behind the "Conservative Bible Project" admit to it being a later scribal tradition and not traceable to anywhere near the earliest works of the gospels.
I’m interested to see sources on this theory, as I desire to be well educated in the history and details of the formation of the scripture. There’s a solid lecture DVD called “Why 66?” which details much of the formation of the scripture as we know it today that I’d definitely recommend. You’d totally love the lecturer too. Super dry old British professor type.
I would just like to highlight that in that verse we get a beautifully constructed passage that reinforces and interlinks several key concepts from throughout the scriptures: adultery as a cardinal sin of the new covenant, sin as our essential nature, and to not return evil for evil (as in 2nd Peter). The passage plays harmoniously with the rest of the canonical scripture, and that in itself is evidence of it’s place in scripture, as all of the scriptures are interwoven and cannot be broken (John 10:35).
For example one person I know believes whole-heartedly in the "eye-witness testimony" of the healing miracles reported in the gospels. He argues that the number of people there, plus the number of miraculous healings (somewhere between 7 and 15 I think), plus the willingness for these people to be come martyrs etc is all strong evidence for the reality of these miracles.
OK, fair enough. However what he vehemently does not believe in (and rather has a repugnance for) are the claims of miraculous healing at the hands of Catholic saints, while still alive. Yet in medieval times there were certain bishops who racked up well over 100 hundred miraculous healings, all witnessed by their congregations and towns people.
That's five times as many healings as Christ, using the same standard of evidence, but he only believes one and not the other. That is philosophically inconstant and (in my opinion) hypocritical. It is a form of special pleasing, a logical error in reasoning that gives exemption to a concept without foundation.
Actually, Jesus healed thousands and thousands of people (referred to repeatedly as great multitudes). Certainly many more than 15 or 100 (Not of course, counting the spiritual healing he bestows on his elect in the 144,000 and the great multitudes of redeemed sinners as shown in Revelations).
“But when Jesus knew [it], he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all;” (Mat 12:15, Mat 15:30, Mat 19:2, Luke 5:15)
As far as this person you mentioned… It’s not a belief in the eye witness testimony that seems important, so much as the confirmation thereof in being included in the immutable word of God. So that person may quite reasonably refute the Catholic saint’s alleged healings, being that there is no scriptural evidence for them. The reasoning isn’t necessarily inconsistent, you may just misunderstand the paradigm.
All you've said is the equivalent of "That's all well and good, but your Honor the problem with the Prosecutors arguments is it doesn't take into account the existence of the Imp who is trying to frame me."
The analogy breaks down when divinity is in the equation. If one believes God exists, and is all powerful, a great many of the answers of course revolve around His power and divinity. I understand the point of frustration for an unbeliever here, but you’re talking to a Christian about the bible… how is God’s omnipotence NOT the central answer to so many questions?
Peace and love,
They are [the predestination bunch], but I was referring mostly to the strain of thought that known as Total Depravity that says people are stained with sin and cannot be "cleaned".
This isn’t actually what the concept of total depravity is about. I would double check your research here. Total depravity is the concept that we are born of sin, and sin is our essential nature. Having no ultimate power over our sinful nature, one cannot actually choose to serve God, or to be saved; rather one must be called by God to serve, and must be predestinated, sanctified, and chosen by the Lord for salvation. (Romans 8:28-30, Revelations 3:20)
If people cannot be cleaned from sin, then there can be no salvation, as the baptism of the blood of Christ washes the believer from sin, in preparation for eternity in God’s kingdom. (Revelations 7:3-17)
Interestingly, among scholarly circles the "Lake of Fire" is not a concept Jesus would have been familiar with.
First of all, to the believer, Jesus is part of the Godhead, the holy trinity (Matthew 28:19), and therefore omniscient (Psalm 147:5, Psalm 139:1-4, Psalm 33:13-15). Therefore there are no concepts he is unfamiliar with.
Secondly, he actually spoke (Luke 16:19-24) about it (Matthew 7:17-19) personally.
Sheol is a Hebraic concept for a place for the dead, but it isn't an underworld - all souls end up there. Gehenna was a geographical location near Jerusalem that acted as the cities garbage heap where refuse and dead animals were burned. That concept was later developed into the lake of fire/hell concept you see in Revelation.
Sheol simply means “grave” or “pit” in Hebrew, which is just another name for Hell used in the bible. (Proverbs 1:12; Job 33:18, 24, 28, 30; Psalm 86:13) There are frequent examples of concepts with multiple names or symbols throughout the scriptures.
The term Gehenna does not appear in the bible except to be used as an alternate name for Hell. (Matthew 10:28 for example)
Keep in mind that the later gospels were written between two sociological phases; the author of matthew quite clearly believes he is among the final generation.
The next two gospels have realized they were mistaken and are trying to understand and retrofit their teachings to account for this discrepnancy - this happens nearly every time cult makes apocalyptic prophecies - so taking the vaguely metaphoric warnings from Christ and sifting them into a greater vision was fairly simple.
What do you mean by next two Gospels? Mark and Luke? I’m not sure how the Gospels of Mark and Luke are ‘attempted retrofitted teachings’ as they are actually parallels to Matthew.
The Gospel of Mark is an epitome of the Gospel of Matthew (and most scholars place the Gospel of Mark as written earlier than Matthew for that matter). Luke also of course parallels them, being one of the four canonical Gospels. They are all about the same thing- the life, ministry, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Not sure what you’re going for here.
(It's also rather insulting to claim that 400 years of scholarship via philology, archeology, linguistics, hermeneutics, etc was all done by people who "failed to do their biblical research". These are the guys who invented biblical research.)
True, but if their premises were flawed, so too would be their conclusions. The book of Job illustrates in Eliphaz, Bil’dad and Zo’phar that every flawed premise begets a flawed conclusion. (Job, selective chapters)
Furthermore, the scriptures are abound with warnings that the simple and unbelievers will twist or misinterpret the scriptures (2nd Peter 3:16; Proverbs 1:7, 1:22, 12:23), and that false prophets will arise (Matthew 24:11, Mark 13:22, 2nd Peter 2:1). The wisdom of God is not for unbelievers, but rather for the elect (Proverbs 2:6-9).
Also, it is really funny to hear (even lightheartedly) that biblical research was invented in the last 400 years.
And not to be a jerk or nuthin' but you gotta remember that I grew up being proselytized to. I know you're taught different methods of proselytizing, but I mean. Come on. Is the next step to ask me "If you were to die to night and appear before god and he were to ask you "Why should I let you into heaven?" what would you say?" I've always loved that one.
Okay, okay. You’ve piqued my curiosity. What would you say?
Fun fact, the word faith is used only twice in the Old Testament, and the concept is expressed as trust in the Prophets. Christ (educated in the Torah) expressed the concept similarly, asking disciples to trust in him after witnessing his healing powers.
It wasn't until Saul of Tarsus, who used faith as a verb to mean 'believe" that the concept you're utilizing came into existence.
Fun fact: The word Christian(s) is used only three times in the entire bible. This of course, is of no significance… though the word Christian appears rarely, the concept of living as a Christian (follower of Christ) appears throughout… much as the word faith appears only twice in the Old Testament, but the concept of having faith- believing in and trusting the Lord- appears throughout.
In the two Old Testament occurrences, the word faith isn’t actually expressed merely as faith in the prophets. Deuteronomy shows that to blaspheme/deny God by worshipping false Gods shows a lack of faith (Deut 32:20), and in Habakkuk that to live in uprightness comes not from within us, but from having been lifted upright by God (Hab 2:4). No mention is made of the prophets. (Though to have faith in the prophecies of Christ’s coming IS to have faith in the Lord)
Faith is defined biblically as trusting (Heb. ‘emuwn, Aramaic ‘aman), steadfastness, (Heb. ‘emuwnah) or to believe (Heb. ‘aman). More thoroughly, the Greek “pistis” (“faith”) is: “the conviction that God exists and is the creator and ruler of all things, the provider and bestower of eternal salvation through Christ,”
or “a strong and welcome conviction or belief that Jesus is the Messiah, through whom we obtain eternal salvation in the kingdom of God”
or “belief with the predominate idea of trust (or confidence) whether in God or in Christ, springing from faith in the same” (Strong’s exhaustive concordance #G4102).
Fun fact #2: The word faith appears 245 times in the New Testament.
I have only presented facts accumulated through hard won research, debate and expertise
Along with opinions and conjecture. :)
We haven't even touched on anything remotely interesting, like why Genesis 1a uses the phrase Elohim, while 2b says Yahweh, while 2a uses an entirely different third moniker for the same deific figure.
Though these are tangential points, allow us to indulge and touch on something remotely interesting. God has many names, often used to illustrate his attributes.
Elohim means “strong One, divine.” (Gen. 1:1)
Yahweh is “LORD “I am,” meaning the eternal self-existent God (Ex. 3:13-14)
Of course there is also El Elyon (“most high, the strongest one” -Gen14:20), El Roi (“the strong One who sees” -Gen 16:13), El Shaddai (“Almighty God”-Gen17:1), El Olam (“everlasting God” Isaiah40:28), Adonai (“Lord” -Ex:4:10,13), Jehova-Jireh (“God provides”) aka Yahweh-Yireh.
These various names and titles serve to offer up the believers praise and reverence to the divine name of the Lord, while illustrating some of his characteristics.
We haven't discussed the existence of the Nephilim
I’ve heard some debates on the Nephilim. Many ideas people present in this realm seem to rest on shaky theological foundation, if not outright fabrication. I’m interested for your take on it, because I’ve heard some wacky stuff here.
or the concept of metaphor within the Noahtic tale
Expound if you like, I’m interested (obviously the entire bible is rife with typology, symbolism and metaphor, I’m curious where you’re going with this).
or the veracity of the historical claims made by the Prophets when discussing great battles.
Expound if you like
There is a lot of meat to be enjoyed within the Bible, but if you're unwilling to even face up to the idea that certain words can mean different things to different people, the entire book will simply forever be a mirror to you, reading out of it whatever you put into it.
And to you, Sir. Thou hast said it.
Just to be clear, I'm not trying to rag on you.
And I’ll say the same here. This is a good opportunity for me to string together some of the important fundamental concepts learned from my short time in the faith thus far, and practice my scripture research and recall. And if either of us gains any new insights along the way, so much the better!
In my experience however, the vaaaaaaaast majority of religious people in America are "biblically illiterate
Tragically so. Completely related to this, many are not actually under a proper and truthful Christ-centered teaching and preaching ministry either. These are the reasons why so many Christians have grievous misconceptions about their faith. I wish every Christian would read their bible diligently.
" Jesus is a household name and yet only a distinct minority of Americans have studied an English translation of the original documents that tell us about Jesus, much less read them in the original Greek."
This is so painfully true.
I'm not trying to attack you, but I am trying to push you a bit on what you believe you believe. For example, I've no doubt you're familiar with the story where Christ tells the adulteress to "go and sin no more" - its easily THE most famous passage in the NT, as it is the 'cast the first stone' passage.
Yet the evidence for it being a later scribal addition to the text is so strong that even the Fundamentalist, Literalist nuts behind the "Conservative Bible Project" admit to it being a later scribal tradition and not traceable to anywhere near the earliest works of the gospels.
I’m interested to see sources on this theory, as I desire to be well educated in the history and details of the formation of the scripture. There’s a solid lecture DVD called “Why 66?” which details much of the formation of the scripture as we know it today that I’d definitely recommend. You’d totally love the lecturer too. Super dry old British professor type.
I would just like to highlight that in that verse we get a beautifully constructed passage that reinforces and interlinks several key concepts from throughout the scriptures: adultery as a cardinal sin of the new covenant, sin as our essential nature, and to not return evil for evil (as in 2nd Peter). The passage plays harmoniously with the rest of the canonical scripture, and that in itself is evidence of it’s place in scripture, as all of the scriptures are interwoven and cannot be broken (John 10:35).
For example one person I know believes whole-heartedly in the "eye-witness testimony" of the healing miracles reported in the gospels. He argues that the number of people there, plus the number of miraculous healings (somewhere between 7 and 15 I think), plus the willingness for these people to be come martyrs etc is all strong evidence for the reality of these miracles.
OK, fair enough. However what he vehemently does not believe in (and rather has a repugnance for) are the claims of miraculous healing at the hands of Catholic saints, while still alive. Yet in medieval times there were certain bishops who racked up well over 100 hundred miraculous healings, all witnessed by their congregations and towns people.
That's five times as many healings as Christ, using the same standard of evidence, but he only believes one and not the other. That is philosophically inconstant and (in my opinion) hypocritical. It is a form of special pleasing, a logical error in reasoning that gives exemption to a concept without foundation.
Actually, Jesus healed thousands and thousands of people (referred to repeatedly as great multitudes). Certainly many more than 15 or 100 (Not of course, counting the spiritual healing he bestows on his elect in the 144,000 and the great multitudes of redeemed sinners as shown in Revelations).
“But when Jesus knew [it], he withdrew himself from thence: and great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all;” (Mat 12:15, Mat 15:30, Mat 19:2, Luke 5:15)
As far as this person you mentioned… It’s not a belief in the eye witness testimony that seems important, so much as the confirmation thereof in being included in the immutable word of God. So that person may quite reasonably refute the Catholic saint’s alleged healings, being that there is no scriptural evidence for them. The reasoning isn’t necessarily inconsistent, you may just misunderstand the paradigm.
All you've said is the equivalent of "That's all well and good, but your Honor the problem with the Prosecutors arguments is it doesn't take into account the existence of the Imp who is trying to frame me."
The analogy breaks down when divinity is in the equation. If one believes God exists, and is all powerful, a great many of the answers of course revolve around His power and divinity. I understand the point of frustration for an unbeliever here, but you’re talking to a Christian about the bible… how is God’s omnipotence NOT the central answer to so many questions?
Peace and love,