None of that accounts for a difference of 13 generations between Matthew's genealogy and Luke's. And it also doesn't account for the fact that both genealogies include the names of Shealtiel and his son Zerubbabel, both of which are found about midway through. Why would those two names match up...
My point exactly.
I take it you didn't read any of the posts that I referenced in my original remarks on this thread. From my perspective there is ample evidence that much of what Christians claim to believe doesn't even align with what the Bible actually says. Every major Christian sect claims...
None of the examples in the publication you cited directly responds to the issues I raised concerning the discrepancies between Matthew's and Luke's genealogies of Jesus. I would appreciate hearing a specific and direct response, as I haven't seen one yet.
Well, in all of the reaction to my...
As I see it, the Christian case is more or less as follows:
Every biblical author was directly inspired by God, and the process of selecting the texts to be included in the Bible was directed by God.
Therefore the Bible is the word of God and is absolutely without error.
The Bible says--...
Well there is this passage in which Jesus describes the arrival of the Son of Man:
"Immediately after the suffering of those days
the sun will be darkened,
and the moon will not give its light;
the stars will fall from heaven,
and the powers of heaven will be shaken.
"Then the sign of the Son...
Your comment forced me to go back and reevaluate the Catholic Catechism, and I agree that you were right. The Catholic Church does indeed accept the teaching of Jesus that Christians are to forgive the sins of others, and are even to forgive their enemies. It just seems odd to me that the...
Interesting, thanks for the detailed analysis. But let's also not forget that Jesus spoke in Aramaic:
So before the Septuagint, before the gospels, somebody somewhere translated the stories of Jesus from their Aramaic roots to Greek. As far as I am aware nobody knows who did that, or when.
Wow, where was my head? The heat must be turning my brain to mush. My bad.
But I hope we can agree that long prior to the Reformation there were different groups of people who called themselves Christians who had a wide range of beliefs concerning what must be done to be saved, when the...
I apologize for responding so late to your posting. I was traveling and was unable to do any research.
Let’s begin with Gnosticism, which was a belief system that predated Christianity. But there were some Gnostics who considered themselves Christians-- like Valentinus. As his following grew...
Not sure. Yes, we have the Parable of the Talents to tell us that faith is important. But we also have the Lord's Prayer which says nothing explicit about having faith in Jesus. That seems like a pretty significant difference. If faith were crucial to a Christian's path wouldn't Jesus have asked...
Very interesting. Thanks for the background info.
:)
:)
I agree that the NT authors weren't malicious, and that they were producing what they would have considered to be art.
Previously I argued that the New Testament is not without error. See this posting, if you haven’t already: Is it possible that Christianity is true, yet the Bible contains errors?
In this posting I argued that the Old Testament authors didn’t believe much of anything that the New Testament...
It also doesn't help that a great many Christians seem to enjoy nothing more than yelling at non-Christians to tell them that they're going to hell.
I can agree with that, though I would prefer not to be called a serial killer.
I can accept that interpretation.
The reference is to John 3:16...
If I were concerned about knowing the truth about salvation, shouldn't I approach all religious texts that promise eternal life with the same allowances as you are asking me to apply to the New Testament?
Not buying it:
That sounds like the author is talking directly to an individual, not a...
It almost sounds like you're saying that it's pointless to read the gospels. I get the idea of assuming that the New Testament writings all hang together somehow and that we should grant them allowances for passages that don't seem to align. Question: Is that how we are to read the Koran was...
A broad principle or norm doesn't seem particularly helpful if the fate of one's immortal soul is at stake. The whole point of the notion of salvation is that if you do the correct thing you will be saved and if you don't you will be damned. So you'd better be able to determine what the exactly...