dongiovanni1976x

He accepts John Bloom and Dr. Patricia Bikai whom he disagrees with...http://iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=158283&page=10

TomboyMom

Sigh. You are really hard to communicate with. My post is not about the facts. It is about what the consensus of modern scholarship believes about the facts. Get it? Your claimed that the consensus of modern scholarship accepts certain things as facts. You were wrong about this. Are you still claiming that this statement is true? As I say, this is not in accord with what I have been told ABOUT THE CONSENSUS OF MODERN SCHOLARSHIP. Once we figure out what the consensus of modern scholarship believes, then we can decide what the relationship is between that and actual historical fact.

TomboyMom

Pardon me, it's exactly the topic here. From your OP: Therefore the topic of this thread is: what does the general consensus of modern scholarship accept as established historical facts?

As for a list of scholars, make it objective. Take the faculty of the departments of religion, ancient history, and history of religion at the leading 100 universities in the world and poll them.

TomboyMom

Perhaps you are not familiar with the meaning of the word "Roman" in the above post. You asserted that Jewish and Roman sources mention an empty tomb. Apparently by "Jewish and Roman sources" you meant, "The New Testament?"

Gamera

We disagree that scripture requires one to reject the validity of scientific theories. This assumes the literalist heresy, which Christianity did without for 1900 years and which is probably best discussed on a separate thread.

Gamera

Anybody who boasts in their acceptance of the gospel message that they need a savior to become the loving person God intended them to be, are clearly not accepting the gospel message as it is offered, and hence aren't Christians in any meaningful sense of the word.

dongiovanni1976x

gamera, I'd like your opinion on what the "gospel's message" is as it is offered in a new thread, perhaps in the Religious Discussion.

You could save me the time of a new thread if you could tell me if my summary is relatively accurate or not:

There are four canonical gospels but you believe they have a syncretic harmony to them. Jesus may say he is the only way to the father but this should be taken metaphorically. Any person, regardless of specific beleifs can get to the Father" if they act in accord with Jesus' message. And since you believe there is a common message found in all four gospels, that message is to love others as you would love yourself. Following this golden rule is synonomous with follwoing Jesus...yes, no, maybe- close- way off?

Gamera

Wonderful question. In my opinion, for what it's worth, I think you're close, but I don't know if you have fully considered the implications of requiring the love of others as a basis of "salvation" (given that nobody can be commanded to have an emotional state - and that to my mind is the point).

First the gospels are not the gospel message itself, as I'm sure you know. Paul and others were preaching the gospel message long before the gospels were written, and if every bible in the world were destroyed tomorrow, we would still have the gospel message. The gospel texts are a narrative, much broader than the message itself, filled with teachings and details that are not necessarily the gospel message. I just point this out because there is a lot of material in the narrative that shouldn't be confused with the kerygma itself, and I include in that all the specifically messianic elements..

Second, we have actual examples of preaching in the NT: Acts 17, Acts 26, John 3:16, as well as Paul's statements about what he preached, such as 1 Cor 15, They all revolve around Jesus's relationship to God (as a child), his suffering, death and resurrection. The point of this is, I agree with you, a message of love, filtered through the particular terms of the culture of the time (notions of sin, judgment, heaven, etc). I agree with Bultman and the Emerging Church movement that these are simply culturally specific ways of talking about an existential issue: who we are and how we relate to God and others. The premise is that we are alienated from God and our authentic selves through selfishness, and the kerygma calls upon us to simply accept God's love (as shown through his awful willingness to allow his own son/self to die for us) to be reconciled with God and regain our authentic identities as loving persons.

But here we differ. Accepting the gospels isn't an act or a set of beliefs (I think a Christian can accept the gospel and still have grave doubts about the existence of God, as in fact we all do if we're honest about it, and I don't think doctrine has anything to do with being a Christian). But the message itself is that God's love, once accepted as preeminent and beyond all the other things we rely upon in life, allows us to become loving persons. As Paul so wonderfully puts it, the gospel isn't about this or that doctrine, but becoming a "new creation" 2 Corinthians 5:17, Galatians 6:15.

So while the narrative is not the message, it is woven into it. The gospel message is tied up with the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, because that's how God demonstrated the dreadful profundity of his love (all of us are either a parent or a child, so we know what emotional pain involved in the crucifixion, which is what it's really about, not physical pain -- I literally cannot imagine what it would be like to allow my children to die). God's love is embodied in the narrative.

So we agree that the message is about love; we disagree about how the message is embodied. I don't think you have the gospel message unless you have the suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus. I don't say this because I have a fetish for punishment, but because the issue is not love in general, but the capacity to love that, seems to me we do not demonstrate, but which is promised through the acceptance of God's love, which is only experienced through the Jesus narrative.

Having said all this, I certainly respect your version of the message and realize it has its merits.

RGD

If I recall, Jesus doesn't require this. In fact, Jesus just asks folks to believe in him. Nothing whatever about resurrection, death, suffering, etc. Nothing.

Kosh

So that's it? Just believe in the HJ, and you're in? No "fellowship", tithing, missionary work, etc?