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11-25-2007, 03:16 AM | #81 | ||||||
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I don' t think therse are the only two options. Quote:
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In science we can get others to do the work to verify hypotheses, and this is agreat system and a very powerful tool. But we cannot get anyone else to test the god hypothesis for us, each must do it him/herself. Only this can convince us. How could we be convinced merely on the word of another? Maybe... Quote:
Thinking of, or calling god a person is just a metaphor IMHO. The problem is when we (or religions) mistake the metaphor for reality. Quote:
On top of this the entire passage is eschatological ,or to do with the end times (which happened long ago). It is written in language and metaphors that the audience would have been familiar with but that we are not, and so what we imagine it might mean can be very different to someone living at that time. This article might be at least an introduction to another perspective. Jesus' Teaching on Hell :devil1: Quote:
For that matter is there even such a thing as the god idea? Some people think god is an entity, some a process, somethink god is love. At the end of the day i think they are just all metaphors. I met a man a while ago and he said "there is something there, and we dont know what it is...but some people think they connect with it." I think I know what he meant. Anyway I have rambled enough ,and probably gone way off topic..but again I wish you the very best with this stuff. - |
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11-25-2007, 03:21 AM | #82 | |
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11-25-2007, 07:17 PM | #83 | |||||||
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For Judge et al
I have to say that I am getting lost in all these divergent (but very interesting threads).
It would seem that the answer to my original question is that the first references to the gospels by early Christians isn't until around ~150-180 CE I Quote:
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What good is a metaphor that has no connection to reality? Quote:
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-evan |
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11-25-2007, 11:49 PM | #84 | |||||
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Well that is a good question. I think fundmentalists have it wrong but that god does exist, but my ideas are still evolving quite a bit.
I think I am still in the process of letting go of wrong ideas. I may have to come back to this. Quote:
I think it is connected to reality but the problem is however good the metaphor is it is still only that, only a clue to the reality. I don't think god is personal being who hands out punishments and rewards, but I think the nature of reality is such that this metaphor can be helpful. Quote:
There is probably a lot better stuff than this out there and you should get some betterinput than mine here but this might be a start for you. Quote:
A time of great trouble occurs and the kingdom of god is ushered in, a new age, the dead are raised and the messiah rules. It is this kind of idea that I believe Jesus draws on in Matthew 25. The age comes to an end the son of man is seated on his glorious throne "separating the wheat from the chaff". So when Jesus talks this way, it is about the judgement coming. It is about the end of the age. Later on churchmen misunderstading that the age had ended made the idea of an eternal hell orthodoxy. "In the first five or six centuries of Christianity there were six theological schools, of which four (Alexandria, Antioch, Caesarea, and Edessa, or Nisibis) were Universalist, one (Ephesus) accepted conditional immortality; one (Carthage or Rome) taught endless punishment of the wicked. Other theological schools are mentioned as founded by Universalists, but their actual doctrine on this subject is not known." "The Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge" by Schaff-Herzog, 1908, volume 12, page 96 Most of early christianity was universalist according to the above quote. Quote:
God , reality, the fullness of it all it, just too marvelous for us to even begin to comprehend intellectually, so we use metaphors. The ones we inherit come via the bible from the near east. Jesus uses them because He was in that culture. I have quote from William James on a book on my desk it says....We may be in the universe as cats and dogs in our libraries, seeing the boooks and hearing the conversation, but having no inkling of the meaning of it all..." I dont know the exact context he wrote it in but it might be a good description. Life on earth is mysterious and god is a mystery, so we use metaphors. In science we try as far as possible to verify by setting up the exact same condictions for the test, but we can't do that with life. Every instant is different, both in ourselves and without. Quote:
Not at all it is fascinating topic for me, and this forum has some excellent contributors. Here is an old thread on hell that helped me. I amy have changed some of my ideas sisnce then though. |
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11-26-2007, 12:51 AM | #85 | |
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2. Check whether the statement is true. (It isn't). All the best, Roger Pearse |
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11-26-2007, 01:16 AM | #86 | |
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Added in edit: Google books gave me this ,so it appears the quote is found in the work. Added in edit: Roger are you able to expand on your remark here? After a little poke around I am suspecting Alexandria (with Clement and Origen as examples) might have and Nibisis and Antioch (with Theodore and Gregory as examples) also have taught universalism. Just where is the quote wrong? This article has some perhaps worthwhile info. The doctrine of the final restoration of all souls seems to have been not uncommon in the East during the fourth and fifth centuries. It was clearly taught by Gregory of Nyssa9 and is attributed to Diodore of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia,10 and some Nestorian theologians.11 Others, such as Gregory of Nazianzus, regarded it as an open question.12 Augustine took the trouble to refute several current versions of universalism, as well as views on the extent of salvation which stopped short of universalism but were more generous than his own.13 Origen's universalism was involved in the group of doctrines known as 'Origenism', about which there were long controversies in the East. A Council at Constantinople in 543 condemned a list of Origenist errors including Apokatastasis, but whether this condemnation was endorsed by the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553) seems in doubt. At any rate the condemnation of Origenism discredited universalism in the theological tradition of the East. In the West, not only Origen's heretical reputation but also Augustine's enormous influence ensured that the Augustinian version of the doctrine of hell prevailed almost without question for many centuries. |
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11-26-2007, 01:21 AM | #87 |
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The quote from "The Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge" is from Christian_Universalism
Schaff-Herzog_Encyclopedia_of_Religious_Knowledge says you can blame Christian Classics Ethereal Library, not google books. eta: if this is in error, perhaps it should be corrected. Can you provide specifics, Roger? |
11-26-2007, 05:02 AM | #88 | |
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Andrew Criddle |
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11-26-2007, 05:12 AM | #89 |
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Thank you Andrew for this. No, I can't provide chapter and verse on this, since I've never looked at it in great detail. But the assertion was that all these schools taught universalism. Whereas (iirc) even Origen did not do so; it was merely inferred from his works, after his death, that he did.
All the best, Roger Pearse |
11-26-2007, 07:01 AM | #90 |
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To try to get back to the OP, in addition to looking at uses of the word "gospel", you should consider writers who quote verses that could have come from a gospel. Maybe others can improve on this list, but to the best of my memory:
1 Clement - c. 90 AD - Ambiguous. Uses some phrases that could be gospel quotes or could be sayings in general circulation. Ignatius - c. 110 AD - Ambiguous. Uses numerous phrases that could be gospel quotes or could be sayings in general circulation. Didache - 1st-2nd century - Ambiguous. Cites the Lord's Prayer, saying to recite it "as the Lord commanded in his gospel", but since this is a composite document, portions of which were written at different times, it's hard to say how early this reference is, or if it was from a gospel or from oral tradition. Barnabas - late 1st-early 2nd century - Ambiguous. Uses a few phrases that could be gospel quotes or could be sayings in general circulation. And then there are numerous Christian writings, like the Shepherd of Hermas, that DON'T quote the gospels at all. So, there is SOME support here for a knowledge of the gospels among early Christians, but it's not very strong. Certainly, there is no evidence that ALL early Christians considered the gospels authoritative, or central to their beliefs, or thought they were written by eyewitnesses (when 1 Clement describes the apostles traveling and teaching, he doesn't mention any of them writing anything). |
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