storytime

My guess would be that Jesus meant for his disciples to preach throughout the world as Jews lived in many countries of the world. Today if a rabbi wants to send his message to Jews throughout the world he need only to email his disciples[fellow Jews] throughout the world. Make sense?

Jesus was sent only to the house of Israel. Jesus thus excluded Gentiles. Some might argue that the House of Israel was meaning the divided kingdom which was still separate from the kingdom of Judah. If Jesus believed that salvation was of the Jews then he may have aimed his gospel at converting those of other tribal names to Judaism. Or if his intention was the whole house of Israel then his gospel was meant to convince all Israel that Jerusalem was the place God chose to seat his authority, the city of David, the king.

The doctrine of Jesus was different than that of Pharisees and Sadducees. Debating of laws is seen between Jesus and Pharisees and Sadducees. Jesus is not seen debating laws with any Gentiles. Also, the laws, statutes and ordinances were the bread of life for Jews, considered as their inheritance. Gentiles were not a people of God, not given any inheritance of laws or circumcision or covenants, due to their not being circumcised and not having been given any laws at Sinai.

Also, Jesus wasn't recruiting people into another religious tradition, Gentilism[idolatry]. His way, truth and life was Judaism which meant circumcision and observing the laws of Moses. Any Gentiles after converting to Judaism would get a new name, "Jew", be considered equal to the Jews and under the whole law. "One law for the Jew and the Gentile"[convert].

This is my understanding of the story and anyone is free to disagree with it.

Johnny Skeptic

That would be fine, but since you do not have any intention of explaining why you believe what you believe, at least not in specific detail, why should I explain why I believe what I believe?

You ought to know that it is appropriate to grant skeptics the same courtesy that you ask from them.

Johnny Skeptic

Please do not make false statements. A web definition for the word "substantive" is as follows:

"substantial: having a firm basis in reality and being therefore important, meaningful, or considerable; "substantial equivalents."

According to that definition, you have refused to reply to many substantive arguments that I have made. The following issues are most certainly important and meaningful:

1 - The flood. You believe that a global flood occurred. A few weeks ago, I told you about a thread about the flood at http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=259291 at the Evolution/Creation Forum. You made a couple of posts, quickly realized that you were in trouble, and conveniently took the next bus out of town. The claim that a global flood occurred is utterly absurd. In order to believe the claim, a person has to abandon common sense, logic, reason, history, and science.

2 - Inerrancy. Although inerrancy is the basis for most of your beliefs, you have always conveniently refused to discuss it because you did not want to embarrass yourself. Inerrancy is merely an appeal to emotions, and yet you have claimed that Christians should not abandon common sense, logic, and reason. Although inerrantists have accused skeptics of wanting God to act like they want him to act, they (inerrantists) have an emotional need to have God act like they want him to act, and that includes providing Christians with inerrant texts. Inerrantists can easily image a God who kills babies and innocent animals, but for some odd reason they cannot imagine a God who would not inspire and preserve the Bible. If, as many Christians claim, God is not obligated to save anyone, he certainly is not obligated to provide Christians with inerrant texts, which invites the question "Why do you believe that the Bible is inerrant?"

3 - Firsthand, eyewitness accounts. I said:

You conveniently refused to reply to those arguments.

4 - Opinions and speculations. Consider the following:

As you know, a few days ago I started a new thread at http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=259452 at the General Religious Discussion Forums and quoted what you said. The title is "How is the Bible not the personal opinions of the authors?" You conveniently refused to make any posts in that thread.

As you know, several weeks ago I started a new thread at http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=259383 at the General Religious Discussion Forums and quoted what you said. The title is "A fundie says "Speculation proves nothing and never will." You conveniently refused to make any posts in that thread.

You are obviously afraid to go to the General Religious Discussions Forum because much greater latitude and variety are allowed at that forum than at most other forums. If you do not have any intention of going to the General Religious Discussions Forum to discuss anything about any issue. please say so. I assume that you are not confident enough of your debating abilities to go to the General Religious Discussions Forum.

Consider the following claims:

1 - The God of the Bible created the heavens and the earth.

2 - A global flood occured.

3 - The Ten Plagues occured in Egypt.

4 - Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit.

5 - Jesus was born of a virgin.

6 - Jesus never sinnned.

7 - Jesus' shed blood and death atoned for the sins of mankind.

Those are very important claims. Now will you please tell us why those claims are not the personal opinions of the authors, and why the claims are not speculative? Obviously, claims 1, 4, 5, 6, and 7 must be accepted entirely by faith, or rejected. Common sense, logic, reason, science, and history cannot be used to verify the claims. Regarding claims 2 and 3, history and science, including archaeology, do not back up the claims. It is incredible that for years you have claimed that arguments from skeptics are personal opinions, and are speculative. I do not know of any claim that is more speculative than the claim that the Bible is inerrant, with the claim that a global flood occurred running a close second.

Many skeptics are quite interested in the process that caused you to rubber-stamp hundreds of Bible claims that do not have any basis at all in history and science. Are you not aware that many entire books in the Bible have no basis at all in history or science?

Johnny Skeptic

Well, regarding your belief that a global flood occurred, there is no "seems unlikely to be true" about it. It is a virtual given that a global flood did not occur. Even many conservative Christians know that, including Hugh Ross, Ph.D., astronomy, and Glenn Morton, geophysicist. They both believe that the flood was localized, but Ross believes that a localized flood occurred in Mesopotamia, and Morton basically says that there is no way that a localized flood occurred in Mesopotamia. How do you explain the needless confusion that God causes?

Do you know of any firsthand eyewitness claims in Matthew, Mark, or Luke that state that Jesus performed miracles? If there aren't any, why should anyone believe that Jesus performed miracles?

How do you determine if what you read in the Bible "seems likely to be true"?

It would be nice if you had something to offer other than personal opinion, speculation, and guesswork.

Johnny Skeptic

But I do believe that the Bible says, or indicates, that a global flood occurred, and so do you.

Regarding "Just deal with what the Bible says," I obviously have already dealt with the claim that a global flood occurred by rejecting the claim. Why shouldn't people reject the claim?

rhutchin

Why don't you start a new thread and explain why you think people should reject the Biblical claim for a global flood.

skepticdude

Jesus was speaking to a mixed crowd of Jews and Gentiles when he laid down the following legalistic rule for salvation:

When he said "righteousness", in context it was associated with the absurdity of those who annul the least part of the law.

The point was that Jesus taught both Jews and Gentiles that only very close obedience to the WHOLE law would allow them entry into heaven. Mosaic Law demands that Jews become circumcised to show they are in covenant with God (Genesis 17) and Mosaic law says Gentiles must become circumcised if they wish to align themselves with Jews enough to partake of their Passover feast (Exodus 12).

You are wrong, Gentiles always needed to get circumcised to get to heaven, Jesus preached exactly this, and Paul appears to be the only first-century person to relax this requirement.

If the Judaizer gospel was as obviously false as today's conservatives think it is, James would not have held a Council of Jerusalem and allow "much debate" on the subject, anymore than he'd call a council to debate whether Jesus Christ was manifested in the flesh. If that council existed at all, it can only have been called to order by a James who was NOT entirely convinced the Judaizer gospel was heretical. Acts has evidences of extreme bias that go beyond normal unavoidable bias, and in terms of historicity, this fact causes it to lose points in the reliability department.

rhutchin

That would seem very limiting I think. But it does identify a very important presupposition for your decisions.

OK. What are your presuppositions (in addition to the one you identified above)? I do not mean to disapprove of presuppositions. They merely identify the boundaries within which a person operates and are not to be approved or disapproved, merely recognized for what they do.

rhutchin

If we agree that Jesus taught both Jews and Gentiles that only very close obedience to the WHOLE law would allow them entry into heaven, then we should certainly agree with Paul that all come short of that standard and none can actually get into heaven based on their obedience to the law. Thus, to the one who seeks to obey the entire law, circumcision is necessary, but not sufficient, to get him into heaven. Therefore, to actually enter heaven, a person will need more than their limited obedience to the law as all end up disobeying the law on some, or many, points. That the apostles so easily deserted the law as a viable means to get into heaven suggests that they too saw the inability of people to keep the law and therefore the inadequacy of the law to save people.

Johnny Skeptic

I have obviously already dealt with the claim that a global flood occurred by rejecting the claim. Why shouldn't people reject the claim? Why do you accept the claim, solely by faith?

But I do believe that the Bible says, or indicates, that a global flood occurred, and so do you.

As you know, there is a thread about the flood at http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=259291 at the Evolution/Creation Forum. You made a few posts in that thread, got into trouble, and quickly took the next bus out of town. Many Christians, and many skeptics too, believe that the texts do not exclude a reasonable possibility that the flood was localized. Christians who believe that the flood was localized include Hugh Ross, Ph.D., astronomy, and Glenn Morton, geophysicist. Ross and Morton are well aware that a global flood is out of the question since it would violate some very well-established science, including the science of hydrodynamics, and the law of gravity. Of course, a localized has some problems too.

Since Christians are in disarray regarding many issues, and have been for the past 2,000 years, obviously the God of the Bible is the author of confusion. If you wish, we can discuss this issue further in some current threads at the General Religious Discussions Forum.