Steven Carr

'Many deceivers, who do not acknowledge Jesus Christ as coming in the flesh, have gone out into the world.'

The writer must be referring to Christians here. After all, why bother mentioning that pagans were did not share Christian beliefs?

Bede

Clearly he is refering to Jews.

B

Steven Carr

I would doubt it. Most Christian rhetoric in the epistles is directed against hated fellow Christians (2 Peter and Revelation being good examples)

Bede

Do not be daft, Steven. Those who deny Jesus Christ came in the flesh are not Christians, pretty much by definition.

No more discussion is necessary.

B

Steven Carr

It is going to make it very hard to meet the request on the forum to produce Christians who denied that Jesus had really existed in a flesh and blood body :-)

Ted Hoffman

Bede
Do not be daft, Steven. Those who deny Jesus Christ came in the flesh are not Christians, pretty much by definition.
No more discussion is necessary.

I dont know how being daft is relevant but I agree with Bede.
By your own quotation, "they have not acknowledged christ", so, by definition, they cant be christians.

He could be talking about Jews as Bede says because they also claimed to be Gods people (Judaism).

Steven Carr

We were challened to produce on apostate who denied that Jesus Christ had come in the flesh.

Now we are asked to produce apostates who comply with Bede's definition of a True Christian :-)

Did the early Christians really call *Jews* 'Antichrists', rather than apostates?

Ted Hoffman

Pardon me, but I think the early christians were the ones who were regarded as apostates. By the Jews who still embraced the old teachings.

Please correct me if I am wrong.

NOGO

Let's get real here.

The text says "acknowledging" what?
Not just Jesus Christ but "Jesus Christ coming in the flesh". So this does not imply that we are talking about non-Christians as some have suggested.

Clearly Jews?

Perhaps not as clear as Bede would wish.
Jews would object to a number of things about Christianity but why pick on this specifically.
ie Did Jesus come in the flesh or not?

This is not the same as "Jesus never existed".

Jews would question Jesus' nature, whether he was God, whether he resurrected BUT NOT the subtle AND VERY CHRISTIAN question about whether Jesus came in the flesh or not? The issue is not denying Jesus but denying that he came in the flesh.

NOGO

Perhaps by today's definition however early Christians did have the benefit of 2000 years of Chruch history who imposed one view of Christianity.

It is amply clear that early Christians were divided.

Beded wrote: No more discussion is necessary.

So typical of you and all those who have received the inspired truth.