Freethought & Rationalism Archive

show_no_mercy · 01-02-2009, 07:50 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PapaverDeum

Quote:

Jesus made it perfectly clear from the beginning of his ministry that Gentiles may receive salvation just as much as Jews, right?

I am not so sure of that. what about what Jesus allegedly said to the Canaanite woman of Matthew 15 ?

Quote:

Mat 15:22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, [thou] Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. 23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.
24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. 26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast [it] to dogs.

27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. 28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great [is] thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

The bolding is mine. The statement we find in Matt 15 when read in context seems very clear and certain. The sense I get from it is "I have not been sent to any except those of the house of Israel."

Is it that those later verses that seem to say that the gospel is to be preached to the "whole world" are at variance with Matt 15 ?

Or is there some other explanation. Please suggest a reasonable explanation, or why does Matt in 15 refer to something else ? (By "reasonable explanation" I specifically mean no apologetics please. )

Matthew is the most "Jewish" of all of the gospels. It's my understanding that some Jewish-Christians only used this gospel as canon along with the rest of the "Old Testament". However, some Jewish-Christians maintain that Jesus wasn't born from a virgin, wasn't a god, and his death wasn't meant to supercede Torah adherence.

This might point to evidence that an original gospel of Matthew didn't have the birth narrative and didn't have resurrection appearances, much like the original ending of Mark. This also makes sense of Jesus' last words: "My god, my god, why have you forsaken me?" found in both Mark and Matthew. Also, if the canonical version of this gospel is a later interpolation of an original, it might make sense of this "new" Matthew's overzealous insertion of "fulfilled" prophecies to convince Jews and Jewish-Christians of the messiah-hood and divinity of Jesus.

There we go. Non-apologetic explanation

Doug Shaver · 01-03-2009, 08:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

So is every account of historical events. You just can't believe anything you read about events in the past. Can you?

Oh, I think we can believe some of it.

Shall we discuss how we tell the difference between what to believe, what not to believe, and what to reserve judgment on?

rhutchin · 01-03-2009, 06:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

So is every account of historical events. You just can't believe anything you read about events in the past. Can you?

Oh, I think we can believe some of it.

Shall we discuss how we tell the difference between what to believe, what not to believe, and what to reserve judgment on?

How about listing the rules that we would follow that would tell us:

(1) what is true,

(2) what is not true, and

(3) what to reserve judgment on

to get us started.

rhutchin · 01-03-2009, 06:55 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by PapaverDeum

Quote:

Jesus made it perfectly clear from the beginning of his ministry that Gentiles may receive salvation just as much as Jews, right?

I am not so sure of that. What are we to make of what Jesus allegedly said to the Canaanite woman of Matthew 15 ?

Quote:

Mat 15:22 And, behold, a woman of Canaan came out of the same coasts, and cried unto him, saying, Have mercy on me, O Lord, [thou] Son of David; my daughter is grievously vexed with a devil. 23 But he answered her not a word. And his disciples came and besought him, saying, Send her away; for she crieth after us.
24 But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.

25 Then came she and worshipped him, saying, Lord, help me. 26 But he answered and said, It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast [it] to dogs.

27 And she said, Truth, Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters' table. 28 Then Jesus answered and said unto her, O woman, great [is] thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour.

The bolding is mine. This statement of Matt 15 when read in context seems very clear and certain to me. The sense I get from it is "I have not been sent to any except those of the house of Israel." ? Am I not interpreting that properly ?

Later, as the woman begs Jesus, who intialliy tries to ignore her, Jesus relents and makes an exception because of the woman's faith, correct ? But what has this to do with v 24 ?

Could this be interpreted as, sure, Jesus goes ahead and cures the woman's daughter, but does that really nullify that Jesus came only for the Jews ? IOW, the message that he brings is intended only for the Jews.

Is it that those later verses that seem to say that the gospel is to be preached to the "whole world" are at variance with Matt 15 ?

Or is there some other explanation. Please suggest a reasonable explanation, or why does Matt in 15 refer to something else ? (By "reasonable explanation" I specifically mean no apologetics please. )

Is this one of those biblical contradictions that cannot be resolved ? (Save for the special pleadings of the Apologist ?)

Paul later identifies the lost sheep of the house of Israel in this manner.

For they are not all Israel, which are of Israel: Neither, because they are the seed of Abraham, are they all children: but, In Isaac shall thy seed be called. That is, They which are the children of the flesh (physical descendants of Abraham), these are not the children of God: but the children of the promise (Jews and gentiles) are counted for the seed. (Romans 9:6-8)

The children of promise are those born of the spirit (born again in the language of John 3), not the flesh.

Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is now. (Galatians 4:28-29)

aa5874 · 01-03-2009, 08:21 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

The children of promise are those born of the spirit (born again in the language of John 3), not the flesh.

But, Jesus could have only been human if he existed at all, so John 3.16 is actually a false promise. Jesus could not save the Jews from their sins, the Jews already had a system set up by the God of the Jews as laid out in the Jewish Bible hundreds of years before the days of Pilate.

And further, based on the chronology given in Galations, it was already known Jesus was executed for blasphemy, was considered even worse that Barabbas, a criminal, and that his body could not be found.

It is almost certain that John 3.16 could not have any truth value with respect to salvation of Jews or Gentiles since Jesus could have only been human and died in disgrace.

Jayrok · 01-03-2009, 09:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Quote:

Originally Posted by SeekingKnowledge

So can circumcised people enter the kingdom of heaven, or not?...

Of course they can. Whether a person is circumcised does not determine whether a person can enter the kingdom of heaven, or heaven itself, and never did.

Ezekiel 44:9 -- This is what the Sovereign LORD says: No foreigner uncircumcised in heart and flesh is to enter my sanctuary, not even the foreigners who live among the Israelites.

:huh:

Transient · 01-03-2009, 10:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jayrok

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

Of course they can. Whether a person is circumcised does not determine whether a person can enter the kingdom of heaven, or heaven itself, and never did.

Ezekiel 44:9 -- This is what the Sovereign LORD says: No foreigner uncircumcised in heart and flesh is to enter my sanctuary, not even the foreigners who live among the Israelites.

:huh:

Yeh but paul completely supersedes the OT - that is so OT.
Paul has visions and secret meetings with god who gives him a brand new religion "paulianity". No longer do gentiles need to obey those stupid old OT laws lol.
OT laws are for wooses.
Christians are way above all those silly laws.
Jesus thought his hand-picked disciples (guess even god can't pick 'em) were too daft to teach so he gets super Paul in to teach and completely overides what Jesus said (but hey).

And christians follow the super dreamer Paul rather than the Jesus-taught disciples.

nuf said.

aa5874 · 01-03-2009, 10:41 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Transient

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jayrok

Ezekiel 44:9 -- This is what the Sovereign LORD says: No foreigner uncircumcised in heart and flesh is to enter my sanctuary, not even the foreigners who live among the Israelites.

:huh:

Yeh but paul completely supersedes the OT - that is so OT.
Paul has visions and secret meetings with god who gives him a brand new religion "paulianity". No longer do gentiles need to obey those stupid old OT laws lol.
OT laws are for wooses.
Christians are way above all those silly laws.
Jesus thought his hand-picked disciples (guess even god can't pick 'em) were too daft to teach so he gets super Paul in to teach and completely overides what Jesus said (but hey).

And christians follow the super dreamer Paul rather than the Jesus-taught disciples.

nuf said.

And Paul had an even more stupid means of salvation, believe in and worship a man as a God who was executed for blasphemy and he will save the Jews and the dead believers when he comes back a second time.

And the superdreamer had his butt beaten to a pulp with over 195 strokes for his [b]stupid (good) news and he still continued with his foolishness, using his words.

2 Corinthians 11.24

Quote:

Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned...

Why would Paul tell the Jews that Jesus could save them from their sins when he was just executed for blasphemy?

Because he was so stupid. He will be executed next for his stupidity.

Doug Shaver · 01-04-2009, 08:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

How about listing the rules that we would follow that would tell us:

(1) what is true,

(2) what is not true, and

(3) what to reserve judgment on

to get us started.

All the rules? I can't do that in 250,000 words or less.

But to get us started, as you suggest, how about we consider a single hypothetical document. For the sake of discussion, we assume that the oldest extant manuscript of that document has been uncontroversially dated to, oh, let's say the 10th century.

This hypothetical document claims that certain people did certain things during the late first century CE, and the question is whether we should believe that those people actually did those things. Would you agree that the first step in answering this question is to determine who was the author of the original document of which the extant manuscript is a copy?

rhutchin · 01-04-2009, 05:08 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Doug Shaver

Quote:

Originally Posted by rhutchin

How about listing the rules that we would follow that would tell us:

(1) what is true,

(2) what is not true, and

(3) what to reserve judgment on

to get us started.

All the rules? I can't do that in 250,000 words or less.

But to get us started, as you suggest, how about we consider a single hypothetical document. For the sake of discussion, we assume that the oldest extant manuscript of that document has been uncontroversially dated to, oh, let's say the 10th century.

This hypothetical document claims that certain people did certain things during the late first century CE, and the question is whether we should believe that those people actually did those things. Would you agree that the first step in answering this question is to determine who was the author of the original document of which the extant manuscript is a copy?

Authorship would not necessarily matter unless the author was known to be a person like Shakespeare and recognized for writing plays that were largely fictional. If the author had no particular reputation and basically unknown, then I guess the initial presumption would be that the account could be accurate until shown otherwise.

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.