gotigrz's Christianity topic, part 2 Options

[gotigrz]

Someone i think badman or merica actually asked ed in person and he admitted being a christian. im pretty sure his is a little more of an open faith (i remember a recent interview where he stated that praying doesnt do much good in the world) I know he thinks the bible is the best source of morality and guide for mankind but im not clear if he believes in the divinity of jesus or that he was born of a virgin etc...

well, if ed said that he was a Christian, then he does believe in the virgin birth, the dying on the cross, and the resurrection 3 days later. that is the criteria of being a Christian. nobody says, .. "yeah, i'm a Christian, but that whole virgin birth thing is just crazy."

when ed said that about prayer not doing much good (i heard the interview)... he was referring to prayer that he thinks isn't really "prayer". he was saying that when you are truly in prayer with God that you are like one with Him, and that most people just close their eyes and ask for something. and, that THAT isn't doing much good cause that's what most people do and look at the world around us. PRAYER... aka... truly talking to God is VERY powerful.

[FishOutaWater]

I will post the citations to the Letters of Paul and Acts where the conflict between Paul and James and Peter are described. I have read analysis of those verses in numerous books written by biblical scholars, but I need to look back at them for the exact verses.

It is universally accepted that Peter and James, who were the leaders of the Jesus movement within Jerusalem after Jesus died believed and followed the practice that the followers of the Jesus movement must first be Jewish. In fact, in their ministry after Jesus died, they only spread the word of Jesus to those in the Jewish community. It was Paul, who moved from town to town in the "east" around Greece, who was setting up small Christian communities in those towns, attracting non-Jewish gentiles. Paul seemed to believe that salvation through Jesus was made available to all people outside of the Jewish religion. While doing so, he continued to endorse the continuing and enduring convenant between God and the Jewish people, which is described in Chapter 11 in the letter to the Romans. He describes Judaism and its covenant with God as an olive tree - and Christianity which extends God's love to the gentiles is described as a branch that is grafted on to the olive tree. Paul warns that the branch is just grafted on and can easily be torn off. He also warns that if the olive tree dies, so does the branch. He affirns the ongoing covenant with God and the Jews. This is the basis for Pope John Paul's numerous official statements that Jews are in an enduring, irrevocable covenant with God and that they do not need to be converted because the Jewish religion is salvic for Jews.

A big reason that Paul fought against the requirement that followers convert to Judaism is that his followers were established adults in Roman society who assimilated into Roman life. The Jewish dietary laws and having male adults get circumcized and to show that off in the naked Roman gymns was a hard sell.

The only reason why Christians are not first required to become Jewish and follow all of the Jewish laws is because of the theology of Paul. There is a story in both the letters of Paul and in Acts about an encounter between Paul and Peter. It was an argument over Jewish dietary laws. James strongly reprimanded Peter (one of the many reasons why scholars think that it was actually James who was initially in charge) for dining with unclean Gentiles with Paul. Paul then describes major arguments he had with Peter and James over these issues. Many of Paul's letters are actually debates about the importance of "the law" (i.e. Jewish laws and identity) verses faith superceding the law.

Incidentally, another argument between Paul and James is the importance of faith verses works. In the letter of James in the bible, he clearly stresses the importance of works over faith. Paul stresses works alone is not enough - that you need works plus faith. The difference between the letter of James and Pauls letters on this point is very clear in the bible. This argument between works and faith is as old as Christianity itself. Incidentally, I remind you again that James, who is referred to at least a half a dozen times in the new testament as "the brother of Jesus", and is referenced even more times as the "beloved desciple", actually knew Jesus and he seemed to think that good works is the important thing for being with God. Peul, who never met Jesus, thought faith alone was enough.

So back to the arguments between Paul and Peter and James. Paul describes in one of his letters about how he was trying to raise money to take back to the leaders in Jerusalem. The Jewish followers in Jerusalem were poor because they were Jewish peasants who were unable to gain wealth in the Roman empire. On the other hand, the gentiles that Paul was converting in the East were wealthy Roman citizens who were tax collectors and upstanding people in Roman society. In one of Paul's letters and in Acts, it describes Paul as going to Jerusalem to meet with Peter and James. He brought money that he raised from the followers in the East to fund the ministries in Jerusalem. It was that money offering that convinced James and Peter to reluctantly allow Paul to continue his ministry to the non-Jewish gentiles, which eventually resulted in the break from Christianity from Judaism. In the very beginning, what we think of as "Christianity" was just a Jesus movement within Judaism, and it was the force of Paul ( and frankly his money offering) that dramatically changed that.

Most of Christian theology is based on Paul's theology, as reflected in his letters. You have to remember when you look at those letters that you are essentially reading someone else's 2,000 year old mail. What Paul did was go into a community and try to develop a following for Jesus. Then he would leave that town and go on to the next town. From there he would get reports that the community he established were losing faith or going back to their pagan ways. Or he needed to update them on things or ask for help. He would write them letters. About a half a dozen times, Paul mentions in his letters that Jesus was going to come back and the kingdom of heaven would be established on earth within their lifetimes. Paul was under the false impression that the end was coming very soon. It is clear that Paul had an eschatalogical world view, which created an urgency in his letters. When you read the morality and urgency of faith and salvation in Paul's letters, you have to read them in the context of Paul, writing to a community he had set up and left, who reverted to their pagan ways of sleeping with their sheep, etc., from his perspective that the end times were coming during their generation. The letters read a little differently through that perspective.

All of what I wrote here is universally accepted by scholars and seminarians alike. It's all right in the bible and they teach this in seminaries.






Now about the things that some of the Gospels say that Jesus predicted before he died - you have to remember one inportant fact - the Gospels were written between 60 to 120 AD. They were written after the fact, based on hindsight and oral history that was passed down until they were reduced to writing. None of the things that the gospels say that Jesus said were exact quotes. And they reflect after-the-fact versions of what Jesus said. Interestingly, Mark is the earliest written gospel, followed by Luke and Matthew, which are based on Mark and then added to. These are called the synoptic gospels because they basically lay out the facts without a lot of theology. John is the latest written gospel, written around 120 AD. That is the gospel that includes most of the theology. "In the beginning was the word" - which suggests that Jesus always was God from the beginning of time and the word became flesh. The famous statement in John 3:16 "I am the eway, the truth and the light, no one comes to the father except through me." John is the only gospel that attributes Jesus with proclaiming his own divinity. Most of the pre-Easter predictions about his death and resurrection are in John. The bottom line is that by the time John was written, much of this theological interpretation of Jesus had become more developed and was reflected in the gosepel. John has to be understood through that perspective. Of course, I do understand that you believe that the 4 gospels are divinely inspired and literally true. I don't believe that.

There are many factual inconsistencies between the 4 gospels. For example, just in the Easter story alone, John has a different number of angels at the grave (two sitting at the grave) and he has Peter and James arriving at the tomb to experience that Jesus was not there. Luke has Mary Magdelane and several other women arriving at the tob to see Jesus was missing. Matthew and Mark have Mary Magedelane and the other Mary (mother of Jesus?). Matthew has an earthquake and the stone rolling away before them by the angel of the Lord (only one angel). Mark has the stone already rolled away and a young man sitting by the grave. John has the crucifixion happening at a different time on the calendar relative to Passover than the other gospels. In Matthew, the chief priests and Pharisees went to Pilate and told him that they wanted guards to stand by the grave and make sure that no one would steal the body of Jesus and would make sure that the stone was sealed because they said that Jesus predicted he would be resurected. Matthew is the only gospel to state this and there are no guards in the other gospels. Scholars believe that this was added into Matthew because at the time Matthew was written, the author fealt the need to dispel crticism that Jesus didn't really raise from the dead and his apostles stole his body to make up the resurrection story. Many think that Matthew (only Matthew) added this to the story to try to provide evidence that it must have been a miracle because there were guards outside the tomb.

There are many other factual discrepancies between the gospels. They can't all be literally true.

This post has been edited by FishOutaWater: Mar 31 2010, 10:07 am