Trump Calls for Ban on All Muslims Entering US

[Crypto2015]

Jesus said that his return, a time of wars and rumors of wars, would happen before all of his apostles had died. Does that make Jesus a false prophet?

He said that the generation of the apostles would see him coming in his kingdom. That happened when they saw the resurrected Christ. I already told you this, but since you don't really read what I write...

 

[SkepticThinker]

Then what's all the talk about him returning all about?

 

[Crypto2015]

A false prophet is someone who claims to speak for God, that doesn't speak for God at all. For 800AD Pagan Arab culture, Mohammad spoke for God, in however flawed way, he still spoke for God, you on the other hand, do not IMHO.

Muhammad spoke in the name of Satan. This is known as the "Satanic verses episode". According to the word of God:

"But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak . . . that prophet shall die." (GOD in Deuteronomy18:20)

Muhammad acknowledged

"I have fabricated things against God and have imputed to Him words which He has not spoken." (MUHAMMAD in Al-Tabari 6:111)

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Jesus never left us.

In Matthew 16:28 Jesus states that there are those who will not "taste death" until they have seen Christ returning in his kingdom.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

"But the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in My name which I have not commanded him to speak . . . that prophet shall die." (GOD in Deuteronomy18:20)

Then what of the editing and careful selection process that the Bible has went through?

 

[Crypto2015]

Then what of the editing and careful selection process that the Bible has went through?

You have no idea of what you are saying. I won't give you a long reply, because you won't read it anyway. However, the Red Sea Scrolls prove that the Old Testament has not been corrupted. The New Testament, on the other hand, is unique among ancient manuscripts both in the accuracy with which it has been preserved and in the short time span between the moment in which they were written and the events that they relate. You can Google it for yourself.

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

Jesus never left us.

Then, not having left us, he cannot return to us. QED.

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

You have no idea of what you are saying. I won't give you a long reply, because you won't read it anyway.

You know you could be a little less condescending in your responses. You're a really bad advert for the virtues of Christianity if this is how you treat people who disagree with you, and Shadow has been reading your posts. It's evident in the fact she actually responds to what you've said (or more accurately, what you've not said about the Bible regarding slavery).

However, the Red Sea Scrolls prove that the Old Testament has not been corrupted.

So it proves Christianity has co-opted the original Jewish Messiah prophecies and not some knock-offs. Well done.

The New Testament, on the other hand, is unique among ancient manuscripts both in the accuracy with which it has been preserved and in the short time span between the moment in which they were written and the events that they relate. You can Google it for yourself.

300-400 years is a short time span to you?

 

[metis]

Actually the DSS did show some items were "corrupted", but they were quite minor.

 

[Crypto2015]

You know you could be a little less condescending in your responses. You're a really bad advert for the virtues of Christianity if this is how you treat people who disagree with you, and Shadow has been reading your posts. It's evident in the fact she actually responds to what you've said (or more accurately, what you've not said about the Bible regarding slavery).




So it proves Christianity has co-opted the original Jewish Messiah prophecies and not some knock-offs. Well done.



300-400 years is a short time span to you?

Who said that Christians have to reply endless times to people who obviously do not read what they write nor have any intention of examining the evidence? By the way, have you noticed how inconsistent is your stance on this issue? You say that Christians are the worshippers of an evil, cruel God, but at the same time you expect us to be overly kind and patient. It is one thing or the other. Either we are beasts with no morals or we are kind and patient people. You have to make up your mind. Shadow has not even looked at all of the passages and all of the evidence that I have laid out for her. She has recently made me questions to which I have already replied during our conversation. Like that question about Jesus' return. Would you reply to me if I make you the same question every 15 posts?

Regarding the New Testament, the Gospels were all written before the end of the first century. Paul letter's date from the 50s and 60s. The oral tradition of the church can be traced back to the decade in which Jesus was born. This oral tradition is centred on Jesus' resurrection.

 

[Crypto2015]

Actually the DSS did show some items were "corrupted", but they were quite minor.

As far as I know, Isaiah 53 in the Dead Sea Scrolls is virtually identical to the Isaiah 53 that we have in our hands right now. Only one word in the entire chapter was different, and it didn't change the meaning of the text. I am citing Isaiah 53 because it is the example about which I have read, but I bet that the other books of the Old Testament have been equally preserved. I am not a Muslim, so I am not saying that "not a single letter in the scriptures have changed". I am aware that scribes made mistakes. That's why it is so important to have multiple copies of the same text. For example, the fact that there are about 5 thousand New Testament manuscripts and that we know when these manuscripts were written and in which country/region, helps us to identify the errors of the scribes in order to eliminate them. That's why the scholars say that the New Testament resembles the original in a 99.5%.

 

[The Emperor of Mankind]

Who said that Christians have to reply endless times to people who obviously do not read what they write nor have any intention of examining the evidence? By the way, have you noticed how inconsistent is your stance on this issue? You say that Christians are the worshippers of an evil, cruel God, but at the same time you expect us to be overly kind and patient. It is one thing or the other. Either we are beasts with no morals or we are kind and patient people. You have to make up your mind. Shadow has not even looked at all of the passages and all of the evidence that I have laid out for her. She has recently made me questions to which I have already replied during our conversation. Like that question about Jesus' return. Would you reply to me if I make you the same question every 15 posts?

Which is proof that, ironically, you're the one not reading her posts. Or at the very least you're caught in an echo chamber and ignoring the parts you don't like. She's already addressed the fact that the Bible does not condemn or forbid slavery as you claim it does. She's already pointed out that because the Bible distinguishes between slave and free-man, that it normalises slavery.

You'd know this if you read her posts.

 

[Crypto2015]

Which is proof that, ironically, you're the one not reading her posts. Or at the very least you're caught in an echo chamber and ignoring the parts you don't like. She's already addressed the fact that the Bible does not condemn or forbid slavery as you claim it does. She's already pointed out that because the Bible distinguishes between slave and free-man, that it normalises slavery.

You'd know this if you read her posts.

It seems that you are also not reading my posts. I said that she is not reading my posts because she asked me about Jesus' second coming, which is something that I have already discussed here. By the way, Shadow has not addressed my explanation of why the Bible does not condemn slavery. On the contrary, she just restated her claims without even examining what I had written. Have you yourself read what I wrote? It seems that you didn't.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

The New Testament, on the other hand, is unique among ancient manuscripts both in the accuracy with which it has been preserved and in the short time span between the moment in which they were written and the events that they relate. You can Google it for yourself.

If you Google it, or better yet do some actual research on it, then you would know that the English Bible is rife with translation errors. The KJV especially is known to be a very terrible translation, one of the worst in the literary world.
http://www.servantsnews.com/docs/kjverrors.htm
Protestant translators sometimes did not have access to all of the Received Greek Official Text, and being familiar with the Vulgate, they sometimes put words into their translations based upon the Latin which were never there in the original Greek. Schaff points out that in about 80 places in the New Testament, the KJV adopts Latin readings not found in the Greek. Erasmus had a corrupt, incomplete text of Revelation to work from, and hence this book has many errors in the KJV.

Who said that Christians have to reply endless times to people who obviously do not read what they write nor have any intention of examining the evidence?

You keep saying I'm not reading your posts, but it's obvious I have been reading and replying to them.

You say that Christians are the worshippers of an evil, cruel God, but at the same time you expect us to be overly kind and patient.

There is a difference between pointing out the things your God commanded, and in the OT some of those things are very barbaric and cruel, and pointing out how Christians are expected to behave and conduct themselves, as per the commandments of Christ.

Shadow has not even looked at all of the passages and all of the evidence that I have laid out for her.

Yes, I did. It's how I could acknowledge the "enslavers" part - I took that in, but I know that the Bible still says slaves are OK to have, and that it even lays out policy for handling them. You said the Bible states a few times that "slaves and free people are equal/one" before the Lord, and I pointed out all that does is affirm the status of slavery - it's not saying slavery is bad, it's saying that slaves are an acceptable and normal part of society.

As far as I know, Isaiah 53 in the Dead Sea Scrolls is virtually identical to the Isaiah 53 that we have in our hands right now.

So out of 929 chapters, having just one that is nearly identical is supposed to be impressive? That's only .001% "sameness" if that is all you have.

By the way, Shadow has not addressed my explanation of why the Bible does not condemn slavery.

Except you really didn't. You said it would have had them all killed off and it wouldn't be a wise thing to do. To which I replied that such a mentality allowed for the continued existence of slavery, and that slavery frequently involves insurrections, rebellions, and wars to bring an end to it. And, on top of that, a slave cannot even turn to the Bible to hear or learn of how bad their situation is, that they should have the right to self-determination, and their is nothing good about their situation.

 

[Crypto2015]

If you Google it, or better yet do some actual research on it, then you would know that the English Bible is rife with translation errors. The KJV especially is known to be a very terrible translation, one of the worst in the literary world.
http://www.servantsnews.com/docs/kjverrors.htm
Protestant translators sometimes did not have access to all of the Received Greek Official Text, and being familiar with the Vulgate, they sometimes put words into their translations based upon the Latin which were never there in the original Greek. Schaff points out that in about 80 places in the New Testament, the KJV adopts Latin readings not found in the Greek. Erasmus had a corrupt, incomplete text of Revelation to work from, and hence this book has many errors in the KJV.

You keep saying I'm not reading your posts, but it's obvious I have been reading and replying to them.

There is a difference between pointing out the things your God commanded, and in the OT some of those things are very barbaric and cruel, and pointing out how Christians are expected to behave and conduct themselves, as per the commandments of Christ.

Yes, I did. It's how I could acknowledge the "enslavers" part - I took that in, but I know that the Bible still says slaves are OK to have, and that it even lays out policy for handling them. You said the Bible states a few times that "slaves and free people are equal/one" before the Lord, and I pointed out all that does is affirm the status of slavery - it's not saying slavery is bad, it's saying that slaves are an acceptable and normal part of society.

So out of 929 chapters, having just one that is nearly identical is supposed to be impressive? That's only .001% "sameness" if that is all you have.

Except you really didn't. You said it would have had them all killed off and it wouldn't be a wise thing to do. To which I replied that such a mentality allowed for the continued existence of slavery, and that slavery frequently involves insurrections, rebellions, and wars to bring an end to it. And, on top of that, a slave cannot even turn to the Bible to hear or learn of how bad their situation is, that they should have the right to self-determination, and their is nothing good about their situation.

Ah, OK. That's another thing. A translation never reflects everything that is contained in the original text. So, an English translation of the Bible, although being more than sufficient to understand the message of the Gospel, cannot accurately reflect all of the nuances contained in the original text. This is not true only when it comes to the Bible, but it is generally true for all translations. Also, it is true that the King James Bible was written using only a subset of the Biblical manuscripts that we have today. That makes the King James version less accurate, in the sense that some transcription errors were not filtered through. However, the message of the Gospel can still be correctly understood by reading the King James Bible. Personally, I never liked the Kind James Bible anyway. I prefer more modern translations like the English Standard Version.

Regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls, I said that all chapters were preserved with the same accuracy with which Isaiah 53 was preserved, but I cannot offer any quantitative information about the number of differing words in each chapter because in the article that I read only Isaiah 53 was analysed in depth, although the authors of that articles state that all of the other chapters of the Old Testament, with the exception of the book of Esther, which is not included in the Dead Sea scrolls, were equally well preserved.

Regarding slavery, Paul was teaching people to win souls by being obedient and honest, regardless of our position in society. Bear in mind that for a Christian saving a soul is everything, and that it is worth suffering for it. For example, Paul tells us that if we are slaves and we have a harsh slave owner, we must try to serve him anyway, because if our owner sees our good behaviour and our honesty, he may embrace the message of the Gospel himself. This is similar to what Jesus said

"You have heard that it was said, An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But I tell you, don't resist an evildoer. On the contrary, if anyone slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. As for the one who wants to sue you and take away your shirt, let him have your coat as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go with him two." (Matthew 5:38-41)

Neither Jesus nor Paul were condoning slavery or slapping someone on the right cheek, or suing people to take away their shirts, or forcing people to take your things for one or two miles. They were simply saying that evil must not be fought with evil, but overcome with good. That even if your enemy is cruel to you, you should love him, pray for him, and serve him. Also, bear in mind that reforming society if not one of the goals of Christianity. It is rather a secondary effect. The goal of Christianity is to save souls, and the best way to save souls is doing what Paul and Jesus taught.

 

[Underhill]

You have no idea of what you are saying. I won't give you a long reply, because you won't read it anyway. However, the Red Sea Scrolls prove that the Old Testament has not been corrupted. The New Testament, on the other hand, is unique among ancient manuscripts both in the accuracy with which it has been preserved and in the short time span between the moment in which they were written and the events that they relate. You can Google it for yourself.

I would agree that they didn't change it dramatically (although there are plenty of small subtle details). But they did pick and choose what went into the bible. There were a whole slew of writings that were not included because they didn't fit the church leaders goals. There have also been alternative versions of many of the books of the bible found that are drastically different.

Many of these could have had a large affect on what is considered truth in the modern church as it is today.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/pagels.html

 

[Shadow Wolf]

Regarding the Dead Sea Scrolls, I said that all chapters were preserved with the same accuracy with which Isaiah 53 was preserved, but I cannot offer any quantitative information about the number of differing words in each chapter because in the article that I read only Isaiah 53 was analysed in depth, although the authors of that articles state that all of the other chapters of the Old Testament, with the exception of the book of Esther, which is not included in the Dead Sea scrolls, were equally well preserved.

So you have an article that is addressing only one chapter of the 929 chapters of the OT. That's not impressive, nor does it make for a convincing argument because it says nothing about 99.999% of the OT. They may have been physically preserved, but the English translations are terrible, meaning that much of what the English reader reads does not match up with what the documents where originally saying - granted, it's a problem with any translation, and even translating songs from one language to another can be very difficult, and it's the reason there are many footnotes in many philosophy books that are longer than the text of the page. But, with the English Bible, they got a lot of it wrong.

Regarding slavery, Paul was teaching people to win souls by being obedient and honest, regardless of our position in society. Bear in mind that for a Christian saving a soul is everything, and that it is worth suffering for it. For example, Paul tells us that if we are slaves and we have a harsh slave owner, we must try to serve him anyway, because if our owner sees our good behaviour and our honesty, he may embrace the message of the Gospel himself. This is similar to what Jesus said

And it is precisely this "obey your master" that condones and affirms slavery. Not once does the Bible say anything that can, even remotely, be interpreted as saying slavery is bad.

Neither Jesus nor Paul were condoning slavery or slapping someone on the right cheek, or suing people to take away their shirts, or forcing people to take your things for one or two miles.

Jesus said to turn the other cheek when slapped, give up your shirt when sued, and walk the extra mile. But he did affirm and normalize slavery by stating that even slaves and free people are equal before him. Paul stated, several times, that slaves are to obey, which is very much condoning slavery. Trying to say it isn't condoning slavery is like trying to say that a man who says a woman needs to learn her place and please her husband isn't condoning misogyny.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I would agree that they didn't change it dramatically (although there are plenty of small subtle details). But they did pick and choose what went into the bible. There were a whole slew of writings that were not included because they didn't fit the church leaders goals. There have also been alternative versions of many of the books of the bible found that are drastically different.

Many of these could have had a large affect on what is considered truth in the modern church as it is today.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/story/pagels.html

And there is also the Council of Nicaea. That, in and of itself, was a very hefty editing project.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

The First Council of Nicaea (/naɪˈsiːə/; Greek: Νίκαια [ˈni:kaɪja]) was a council of Christian bishops convened in Nicaea in Bithynia by the Roman Emperor Constantine I in AD 325. This first ecumenical council was the first effort to attain consensus in the church through an assembly representing all of Christendom.[5] It was presided over by Hosius of Corduba, a bishop from the West.

Its main accomplishments were settlement of the Christological issue of the nature of the Son of God and his relationship to God the Father,[3] the construction of the first part of the Creed of Nicaea, establishing uniform observance of the date of Easter,[6] and promulgation of early canon law.[4][7]

 

[Underhill]

And there is also the Council of Nicaea. That, in and of itself, was a very hefty editing project.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Council_of_Nicaea

It was Nicaea that I was referring to when I said they did pick and choose what went into the bible. Nicaea didn't allow for much actual changing of the text, but they did edit out books that didn't agree with their approach to christianity.

 

[metis]

There were somewhere around 1000 books to choose from, according to the Anglican theologian William Barclay, and even some of the books that were selected, such as Hebrews and Revelations, were hotly argued as to whether they should belong. Some felt that Clement I should have been included.

Needless to say, the Christian Bible didn't come floating down from heaven and landing into someone's outstretched hands.