Pamela Spencer

With the exception of a more detailed Eschatology, Islam doesn't seem to state (or introduce) anything that hasn't already been found within the realm of Christendom, in some form or another.

Certain Gnostics also deny the Crucifixion (and subsequent Resurrection of Christ). The author, Dan Brown maintains the view that Christ survived the Crucifixion.

Considering the Bible's portrayal of Christ having "superhuman" healing powers (analogous to Wolverine from the X-men) and the salient attribute of being able to revive the dead; a plethora of contradicting reports regarding the exact number of witnesses present during the supposed execution; 75 lbs worth of Aloe and Myrrh placed in the tomb for the purpose of facilitating self-healing and rejuvenation; the Apocalypse of Peter narrative--- It really doesn't take a rocket scientist to come to the conclusion that something insidiously funky happened on that day.

sotto voce

Read the Qur'an, sometime. It's nothing better than contradiction of the Bible; but suicidally. If a deity is so inept as to permit his beloved humanity to go wandering in the dark so long, he's not a deity worth having.

That's only to be expected of humans.

One must properly understand the point. The point is that Allah himself revealed that he had blundered, very badly indeed. Not just with the crucifixion, but with the whole biblical record from Genesis onwards. So we are asked to believe.

Why is a farcical notion so often apparently believed?

Chili

It is a matter of reading right and not lose track of who it is they crucified, wherein a distinction must be made between the Lamb of God and Son of Man. Crucial here is that he Lamb of God was born from religion as the required illusory precondition to set the Son of Man free, and so without the Lamb of God the infancy of the Son of Man will always be a travesty wherein the awakened child [within] just dies to wither in its germ.

This makes the Jesus of Matthew in impostor as Son-of-man without the shielding and protection of the Lamb of God to serve as sacrificial lamb of God to provide the insight that is required to emancipate.

It is wrong to say and certainly is weak defence for Islam to lean on the error exposed in Christendom such as the Gnostics who were just fiery enriched believers but doubters nonetheless.

For Dan Brown to say that Christ survived the crucifixion is the height of ignorance since it was Jesus who they crucified, and clearly shows that he does not even know the difference between Christ and Jesus, while actually reading that the Son of Man was set free under Bar-abbas before they crucified the Lamb of God. I can now say that he was a like a 'gawker looking in the wrong direction' to see the spectacle and now is reporting what he saw. If this then is the foundation of Islam that sure does not say much for Islam either.

So then if the Lamb of God was not the Son of Man that without an 'eidos' was only a 'fig-ment' of the imagination that they crucified, and here you now are denying that they did and rely on doubt to make that known.

Chili

Pete, I am in full agreement with you here and I am reminded of Herodotus who pure and simple only gathers lore and tells us what his pick and shovel bore.

Then there was Homer who brings out the 'optional character' pertinent to the lore to show things in their 'emergent' rather than in their 'emerged' character that is often drenched by curiosity emergent from oblivion.

And then the philosopher comes along to say that we see things truly only in their emergent character, i.e. kinetically, and so transcend even Homer in his poetic vision of the base historical find. All three work in 'earnesty,' but in Descending Order and so philosophy has the final word in that it transcends poetry that in its turn transcends history with its dumbfounding find.

Chili

I think a better delineation is to call Islam Jewish protestants and Christians Catholic protestants, wherein protestants are protestants and Jews and Catholics are like twin halves anon to provide the source for boths and so both sides deserve each other.

In this context Jews and Catholics walk side by side to enjoy the fruits of their labor, while Islam and Christians are always poised against each other and let the best man win from war to war to defend the idol that they see within.

Toto

Just to be clear, Dan Brown is a fiction writer.

There are two different ideas here. One is the early gnostic idea that Jesus was not actually crucified. Islam seems to have adopted that idea from early Christian non-orthodox sects.

The other is the idea that comes out of Protestant Rationalism that Jesus was crucified, but dead people don't come back to life, so therefore Jesus was not really dead when he was taken down from the cross, and was revived by spices and healing rituals in secret. This is sometimes called the "swoon theory," especially by Christian apologists who try to explain why it is improbable.

Or that someone has a rich fantasy life.

sotto voce

One might say similarly of Pagels and Ehrman.

From antichrist sects. First, the Bible says that to deny Jesus' crucifixion is to deny that there is a christ at all. Second, the Bible says that to deny Jesus' crucifixion is of Satan.

That's not Protestant, is it. Protestantism is defined as following what the Bible says, nothing more, nothing less.

It was a notion began by skeptics. If skeptics artfully call themselves Christians, they don't have to be taken seriously.

It does not matter where Islam got its ideas from. There is nothing that a simpleton could not devise in the idea that Jesus didn't die. In fact, it needs a simpleton to actually believe that the deity changed his mind about that after six hundred years! "Ooops!"

Toto

One might not, if one is being careful about language, and if that one prefers to avoid the libel laws.

For most of us here, the Bible is not an authority.

In general, Christians have a hard enough time decided who is a True Christian^TM, so I have no opinion on that. I am referring to a particular movement known as "Protestant Rationalism," with no regard as to whether it is True Protestantism or really rational.

Why should any so-called Christians be taken seriously? I only listen to Christians for entertainment purposes (as they say in the Astrology section of your newspaper.)

Of course, they think that you are the one claiming that the Deity changed its mind.

sotto voce

One might be very careful about language, and thereby make libel laws hazardous for those who might wish to sue. Certainly, there has been public comment on these lines, quite strongly expressed (and similarly, if not more strongly, of conservatives), that has not met objection.

The Bible defines the term 'Christian' in a forum that is based on it.

Theological words have precise meanings. If we use them, people take those meanings as our intended meanings.

No matter what people call it, it is not Protestant. Just in case anyone should suppose that it might be.

This forum would hardly exist without them; Protestants, particularly.

They could think it if they had evidence.

Chili

The crucify Jesus is the best things the Jews ever did and is the high-point of their ambition. That is where the punch-line hits the target of the entire religion, and they wrote about it for us to know. So the bible is true also, but not if you read it as a 'heavy duty lightweight consumer.'