bacht

I appreciate your honesty. I'm not a scholar, but the last two centuries have seen a lot of work in this direction. The idea that the NT books we have are basically the same as the originals is no longer accepted by academics. I suspect even Catholic scholars were coming to this realization before the Reformation.

storytime

How could Jesus reward Gentiles when he wasn't even sent to them? His purpose was not in saving the idol worshiping Gentiles but the lost sheep in the house of Israel. He may have acknowledged faith of Gentiles as being more than what some of the Jews showed in their hypocrisy, but still, there is no indication of Jesus having made a new covenant with Gentiles. Jesus could not avoid the laws he was part of in his Jewish tradition, and especially for catering to idol worshiping Gentiles.

I made the point that Jesus believed his doctrine was the way, truth and life in his Judaism. And, evidently his doctrinal belief was different than his Jewish brethren in Pharisees and Sadducees, else they would not have been debating their laws. Jesus in debate with the Pharisees referred to their doctrine as "your law". The Pharisees may have been teaching from the Babylonian Talmud while Jesus was teaching from Torah scripts[Jerusalem Talmud?]

Sorry, Jesus didn't cut the covenant with Abraham. His saying "before Abraham was I am" was most probably in reference to the original priesthood in Melchezidek, where there was no law established, no covenants. However, as the priesthood evolved it took on certain aspects that entailed commandments from God, two of which were circumcision and laws of Moses. These as two witnesses stand before God in identity of Israel which separated Israel from other nations in its own independent state.

No, Jesus did not send his disciples to the Gentiles. Peter began that episode and Paul expanded its reach.

It's easier for me to believe that this bible story is nothing more than a bloody religion whose victims were both man and beast. Aside from that, I read the NT story as saying that Jesus came out of nowhere and declared himself God in the flesh, and for the express purpose of overthrowing the ruling party of Pharisees at Jerusalem.

The reason I say Jesus came out of nowhere is this: He has no mention by name or prophet in the OT story. God maintains preeminence without savior, mediator, god-man, messiah, and because God stands alone.

andrewcriddle

I think we should distinguish here.
Our best critical texts of the NT books doubtless have a number of (mostly minor) differences from the originals.
On the other hand. There seems no good reason to hold that they are not basically the same as the originals (If you mean by originals the earliest generally circulated version)

Andrew Criddle

storytime

What then were the earliest generally circulated originals scripted from? If Jewish scripts, which ones were considered as valid to be used by the church? Which Jewish scripts were altogether left out? How much oral storytelling (progaganda, heresay), went into creating the scripts for the church?

In the NT story, Jesus and his apostles did their thing in revisionist fashion and declared "so that the scripture[of the old prophet sayings] might be fulfilled" in their time. This seems to be the same method used by the church in their creativity and development of their own books a few hundred years later.

Later, the Protestants thought they knew a better truth and so threw out a few books and revised what they kept. Today the revisionists are doing the same as seen in the many versions of the bible. Does anyone study truth? No, they by reason study heresay, propaganda, fables and myth. All developed by men. Men who thought their way was the truth and the way for people to live. And of course, there have alwayss been objections and rightly so. Else the critics and skeptics and atheists would not have been able to drag the centuries of fundamentalists extremists kicking and screaming into the next generations. If things had been left to the religious extremists we'd still be slapping blood and guts on doorposts, practicing the most vile and contemptible offering to a psychopatic thunder god and stoning our children.

:wave:

bacht

Well, at the least I think we have to acknowledge that any Jewish-Christian documents surviving from the 1st C would have been updated afterward to reflect the majority of Gentiles in the movement. The appearance of Marcion's canon seems to have spurred either revisions or fabrications of foundation documents, especially the Pauline corpus. Competition with Gnosticism seems to have stimulated a refinement of Catholic doctrine.

bacht

I suspect 'twas ever thus my friend. Before the Bible there were Egyptian god-kings.

People WANT to believe, and there are always those willing to oblige them with the right story or rulebook. It hasn't changed today; in your town there are probably more bookstores selling occult and conspiracy literature than biblical.

storytime

You may be right. But, if memory serves me correctly, anything not written by Tim Lahaye, Hal Lindsey, Dobson, Falwell, etc. wasn't to be found. Bible sales doesn't seem to ring up the big bucks as people go for the thrill of end times prophecies proven by an assorted array of scripture verses to validate the writers expertise in theology.

andrewcriddle

Coud you give examples/evidence of what you are saying ?
I don't think I agree but I'm not sure exactly what you are claiming.

Andrew Criddle

bacht

Here's a tidbit from Wiki:
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Main article: Marcionism
Marcionism is the dualist belief system that originates in the teachings of Marcion around the year 144. Marcion affirmed Jesus Christ as the saviour sent by God and Paul as his chief apostle. Marcion declared that Christianity was distinct from and in opposition to Judaism. He rejected the entire Hebrew Bible, and declared that the God of the Hebrew Bible was a lesser demiurge, who had created the earth, and whose law, the Mosaic covenant, represented bare natural justice i.e. eye for an eye.

The premise of Marcionism is that many of the teachings of Christ are incompatible with the actions of Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament. Tertullian claimed Marcion was the first to separate the New Testament from the Old Testament. Focusing on the Pauline traditions of the Gospel, Marcion felt that all other conceptions of the Gospel were opposed to the truth. He regarded Paul's arguments of law and gospel, wrath and grace, works and faith, flesh and spirit, sin and righteousness and death and life as the essence of religious truth. He ascribed these aspects and characteristics as two principles: the righteous and wrathful God of the Old Testament, the creator of the world, and a second God of the Gospel who is purely love and mercy and who was revealed by Jesus.

His canon consisted of eleven books: his own version of the Gospel of Luke, and ten of Paul's epistles. All other epistles and gospels of the New Testament were rejected.
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I'd have to have my copy of The Pre-Nicene New Testament in front of me to get other references. The basic point is that Catholics wanted to keep the connection with the Jewish scriptures.

andrewcriddle

You claimed I can't see anything in the passage you quoted from Wikipedia which supports this claim.

Andrew Criddle