Carrie

This section is from my own research on the Bible. I used the NIV Bible and the NIV Exhaustive Concordance.

(Do any of you know any fundamentalist Christians who would actually read this information? Do you think it might cause them to question their beliefs?)

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PART 3

Early Christianity and the Creation of the New Testament

The New Testament is full of new religious ideas. There were new moral teachings, new customs, and entirely new concepts. For example, the New Testament has a lot to say about heaven and hell, Satan and demons, and baptism. I noticed that these ideas must have been fairly new to the Jewish people, because I did not find such things written about in the Old Testament the way they are written about in the New Testament.

In the Old Testament it seems that people did not really know what to expect after death. King Solomon is quoted in Ecc. 3:21 as saying, “who knows if the spirit of man rises upward?� Even the king (or whoever wrote Ecclesiastes) didn’t know what happened after you die. The Old Testament did not promise heaven as a reward or warn about hell as a punishment. All reward and punishment in the Old Testament was earthly and handed out in one’s lifetime. The only person who was said to have gone up to heaven
was Elijah. 2 Kings 2:11 says that Elijah “went up to heaven in a whirlwind.� As for Hell, the word is never used in the Old Testament, and neither is the word Hades. Those words are only found in the New Testament. The Old Testament only speaks of “sheol,� which my Bible defines as “the grave or unseen state,� while Hell and Hades are defined
as “the place of punishment.� So a place of punishment is only mentioned in the New Testament. However the Jews could have gotten the idea of Hell from the Old Testament, because of scriptures such as Isaiah 66:24 which says, “they will look upon the dead bodies of those who rebelled against me; their worm will not die, nor will their fire be quenched, and they will be loathsome to all mankind.� And Daniel 12:2 says that at the end time "multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt." Those are two of very few scriptures to even mention some kind of everlasting torment.
And Hell as a place is not specifically mentioned in the Old Testament. But the God of the Old Testament does punish, usually by illness, disaster or death.

Satan isn’t mentioned much in the Old Testament. The word “Satan� only appears 18 times in the Old Testament, mostly in the book of Job. In the New Testament, the words “Satan�, “Devil�, “Beelzebub� , and “Prince of demons� are used. Such references to Satan appear 81 times in the New Testament. And Satan is described as being very powerful. Christians are warned “Take your stand against the devil’s schemes� and “Be self
controlled and alert, your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.� He is called “the prince of this world,� and “the god of the age.� Revelation 12:3 even describes him as “an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns.� But in the Old Testament he was written about as just an accuser and trouble maker who could only do what God allowed him to do. See the book of Job. In Job 1:12
God tells Satan, “on the man himself do not lay a finger.� So since Satan could only do what God allowed him to do, there are no warnings about him in the Old Testament. But in the New Testament the devil is not described as being under God’s control, so he is much more of a threat. 1 John 3:8 says, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.� If God was in control of what the devil did in the first place, God would not have to put a stop to the devil’s work.

As for demons, they are mentioned twice in the Old Testament. Psalm 106:37 says, “they sacrificed their sons and their daughters to demons.� And Deut. 32:17 says, “they sacrificed to demons, which are not God.� In the Old Testament of the King James Version, the word for demon is “goat idol.� So the pagans sacrificed to goat idols. 1 Samuel 16:14 talks about an “injurious spirit� or “evil spirit from the Lord� that tormented Saul. Demons are mentioned much more in the New Testament (63 times). There is zero mention of demon-possession in the Old Testament, but the N.T. is full of
demons possessing people. The N.T. mentions demon-possession 16 times. It seemed to be a major problem back then, but for some reason it doesn’t exist anymore today, just like it didn’t exist in the Old Testament.

Another thing that was new was the idea of Baptism. There was no baptism in the Old Testament, just ceremonial cleansing. Numbers 8:6 reads, “Take the Levites from among the other Israelites and make them ceremonially clean. To purify them, do this: Sprinkle the water of cleansing on them; then have them shave their whole bodies and wash their clothes, and so purify themselves.� To become ceremonially clean required more than just water, and the sprinkling was not a baptism, and it wasn’t for forgiveness of sins.
Forgiveness of sins came with the sacrifice of animals. But suddenly, in the New Testament, people accepted baptism as the way to get sins forgiven. Mark 1:4 says, “John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.� How could the Jews suddenly just drop animal sacrifice for this new baptism thing? It wasn’t even controversial for John to be baptizing people. It seems it was a common and accepted thing that nobody had a problem with. Mark 1:5 says, “The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him.�

These new ideas did not develop all of a sudden, but over time, due to foreign influences, new interpretations of the Old Testament scriptures, and the natural evolution of religious ideas. According to the Gospel story, by the time of Jesus, he didn’t have to tell the people about heaven and hell, Satan and demon-possession, or baptism. They already knew about these things. The people were obviously comfortable and familiar with the ideas of heaven and baptism and demons, etc.

The Greeks and Romans believed in such things. They had baptisms, they believed in an afterlife in a heaven or a hell, they believed in a powerful evil being, and they believed in demon possession. It’s not surprising that the Jews picked up some of their religious beliefs from these nations around them. The Jews had always been influenced by the beliefs of other nations. This changed the Jewish religion a great deal over time. There were many different sects of Judaism, each with different beliefs. But there was always
Orthodox Judaism as well, which was the conservative and officially accepted form of the religion, and was practiced by the Pharisees.

Among some branches of Judaism, the idea of a Son of God developed. This philosophy developed gradually over time. (I will later demonstrate how some of the Jews interpreted scriptures in the Old Testament to be referring to the Son of God). The Jews who interpreted the scriptures this way were the early Christians, and from this sect came the men who wrote the epistles and the gospels. Christians today also interpret Old Testament scriptures to be talking about the Son of God, that is, Jesus.

We know that the Jews in Old Testament times were expecting a savior, though not one like Jesus. Back then they weren’t expecting the Son of God. The prophets spoke of this savior that was to come as a righteous (though mortal) king descended from the line of David (Isaiah 11:1), who would gather all the Jewish people to the promised land (Isaiah 11:11-12, Jeremiah 23:7-8), restore them to the true faith (Ezekiel 37:23-24), subdue their enemies once and for all (Ezekiel 34:28, Isaiah 45:14, Isaiah 49:22-23), rule politically (Jeremiah 23:5) over a state of Israel unified as it was in the times of David and Solomon (Ezekiel 37:22), and usher in an era of worldwide peace (Isaiah 2:4, Micah 4:3)."

The Jews of the Old Testament were not expecting a spiritual savior who would be the Son of God. The prophets did not speak of the savior in that way. And these prophets were supposedly chosen by God to speak for him. So why would God have them say things that were not true? God would have known that no military savior king was coming. He wasn’t planning to have Jesus subdue their enemies or rule politically. And God would have known that Jesus wasn’t going to bring worldwide peace. Jesus’s own
words were, “I have not come to bring peace to the earth, but a sword.� Would God try to trick his own people all those years with the prophecies, and then surprise them with Jesus? And then make them feel foolish for expecting a great earthly kingdom? Not likely.

But many fundamentalist Christians will say that there are plenty of prophecies in the Bible that tell about the Messiah as a spiritual savior. I guess they ignore the prophecies that say the Messiah will be a military savior. Or they think the prophets were just wrong about that. Or they assume that all the stuff saying the savior would rule politically and subdue the enemies of Israel must be figurative. They do say Jesus was a king, the King of the Jews, but a spiritual ruler and not an earthly one.

Many fundamentalist Christians pretty much just pay attention to the stuff in the Old Testament that seems to be referring to Jesus in the way they understand him, as a spiritual savior. They look at certain scriptures and think they must be prophecies about Jesus.

In my Thompson Chain Bible there is a whole list of Old Testament scriptures that are listed as prophecies about Jesus:

Such as Isaiah 49. It is titled, The Servant of the Lord. It says, “I will make you a light for the Gentiles, that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth.� Well that sure sounds like Jesus doesn’t it? But in the same set of scriptures under the title The Servant of the Lord it says, “You are my servant, Israel, in whom I will display my splendor.� It just told you who the servant is. It’s not Jesus, it’s Israel. Israel is the light for the Gentiles that will bring salvation to the ends of the earth. Besides, the Bible says Isaiah was written in 760 BC Why write about Jesus 760 years before he comes? (Actually Isaiah was probably written quite a while after that, but still a long time before Jesus). Why tell the people about something that’s never going to happen in their lifetimes? Who would care? I’m sure the Israelites would have been more interested in hearing words of God that had to do with them and their own situation. That is why Isaiah 49 was written - for the Israelites of the time, to encourage them and make them feel special.

Christians have tried to find prophecies about Jesus going all the way back to Genesis. Some assume Genesis 12:3 is a prophecy about Jesus. Here God is speaking to Abraham and says, “all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.� God doesn’t say anything about a savior that will come from Abraham’s descendants. All it says is that people will be blessed because of Abraham, not because of some savior that will come in the far distant future. People would be blessed though Abraham much sooner than that. Because Abraham was righteous, God was going to make him into a great nation, and because of Abraham, this great nation Israel, would be “a light to the gentiles, who would bring salvation to the ends of the earth.�

In Deuteronomy 18:15 Moses says, “The Lord will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him.� He’s not telling them about Jesus. How could they listen to Jesus if he wasn’t coming for another 1,450 years? Besides, as the story goes, Jesus wasn’t just a prophet, and he wasn’t like Moses. So I don’t know why some Christians say this is a prophecy about Jesus. It could be talking about Elisha or some other prophet. Especially if Deuteronomy was written in the 7th century BC when Josiah was king and Elisha was the main prophet of the time. Maybe what
Moses said was written to get the people to listen to Elisha.

Isaiah 2:4 reads, “He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore.� This is a nice hopeful prophecy. Isaiah clearly is predicting that a time will come when there will be peace. What more could the Israelites of the time have wanted? But this prophecy could not be about Jesus, because after Jesus came, the world was not any more
peaceful. Many wars were waged because of Christianity. And Jesus hasn’t settled disputes for anyone. Think of the Crusades. Christians fought to force other people to believe in Jesus. And the Protestants and Catholics in Ireland are still at odds to this day. If disputes are settled between nations, it is because of people’s own efforts, such as the peacekeeping forces of the U.N. Isaiah 2:4 has never been fulfilled because wars continue to this day. We have men in the army training for war, and we have many men fighting in Iraq right now. So I don’t see why Christians use Isaiah 2 as a prophecy referring to Jesus. Maybe because it sounds nice and says other cool stuff like, “In the last days the mountain of the Lord’s temple will be established as chief among the mountains and all nations will stream to it.� To them it sounds like it must be talking about Christianity, because isn’t Christianity the greatest religion, and isn’t everyone streaming to it?

There are other scriptures in the Old Testament that really really really sound like prophecies about Jesus. That’s because they seem to be fulfilled in the New Testament:

Take Psalm 69 for example. In vs. 21 it says, “They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.� Wow, that really sounds like it’s talking about Jesus. The Gospels do say afterall that when Jesus was on the cross he was given vinegar to drink. The problem is that in the same Psalm, in verse 5, it says, “You know my folly O God, and my guilt is not hidden from you.� If Jesus was sinless, how is this Psalm a prophecy about him? I guess Christians just ignore verse 5 of this Psalm. Or maybe they think it’s okay
for prophecies about Jesus to come in little bits and pieces. There are many prophecies that are supposed to be about Jesus that have some sentences that sound like they refer to him, and other sentences that don’t.

Isaiah 7:14 “The Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel.� Sounds like a prophecy about Jesus. But the scripture goes on to say, “Before the boy knows enough to reject the wrong and chose the right, the land of the two kings you dread will be laid waste.� Further on in Isaiah 8, the prophecy is fulfilled. It says, “The prophetess conceived and gave birth to a son.� This prophecy has nothing to do with the virgin Mary, because the prophecy was
fulfilled a long time before her. But it does show that this idea of a virgin giving birth was already in the Bible a long time ago.

Isaiah 61:1 “The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, and release from darkness for the prisoners.� It is written in the gospel of Luke that Jesus said this very same thing when he got up to read the scroll in the Temple. And after reading it Jesus said, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.� The problem is that Isaiah 61 isn’t a prophecy at all. Isaiah was
speaking about himself when he said, “the Lord has anointed me.� Isaiah was the one anointed to preach good news to the poor and bind up the brokenhearted, etc. He was a prophet, and that’s the kind of stuff that he went around doing.

Micah 5:2 “But you Bethlehem, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel.� Sounds like the ruler will be Jesus, since we read in the gospels that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. But the same passage of scripture says, “He will deliver us from the Assyrians when they invade our land.� Jesus never did that. This prophecy is predicting that there will be a king who will bring military victory to the Jews.

Zech 9:9 is titled The Coming of Zion’s King. It reads, “Rejoice greatly, oh daughter of Zion! See, your King comes to you, righteous and having salvation, gentle and riding on a donkey.� Again, sounds like Jesus. In the gospel stories of the triumphal entry, Jesus enters Jerusalem on a donkey. But Zechariah 9:13 goes on to say, “As for you, I will rouse your sons oh Zion, against the sons of Greece, and make you like a warriors sword.� So what does rising up against Greece have to do with the coming of Jesus?

- Zechariah 12:10 is supposedly about Jesus. If you start with vs. 10 it seems to be about him. But if you start back at vs. 9 is says this, “On that day I will set out to destroy all the nations that attack Jerusalem. (then vs. 10) - And I will pour out on the house of David a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for him.� In the gospel stories, we read that Jesus was pierced as he
hung on the cross, and people mourned for him. But God did not set out to destroy all the nations that attack Israel.

-Zech 13:1 goes on to say, “On that day a fountain will be opened to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity.� In the gospel of John, Jesus is the fountain. Jesus said, “whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.� And Jesus is also supposed to be the one who cleanses us from sin. So Zech 13 vs.1 seems to be about Jesus, but 13:3 doesn’t. It says, “If anyone still prophesies, his parents will say, ‘you must die.’ His own parents will stab him.� Now why would Jesus want that?

- Zech 13:7 says, “strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.� That’s supposed to be a prophecy about how all the disciples abandoned Jesus when he was sent to be crucified. But the very next sentence of the same verse says, “and I will turn my hand against the little ones. In the whole land, declares the Lord, two thirds will be struck down and perish.� God never did anything like that in the New Testament.

Malachi is the last book in the Old Testament. Malachi 3:1 says, “See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come, says the Lord Almighty.� Then Malachi 4:5 says, “See, I will send you the prophet Elijah before that great and dreadful day of the Lord. He will turn the hearts of their fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with a curse.�

So the last thing you read in the Old Testament is that Elijah, who went up to heaven in a whirlwind, was supposed to come back first. The Jews must have been expecting that to happen. In the gospel story, Jesus said that Elijah had come back, as John the Baptist. So that would fulfill the prophecy about Elijah coming back. But the other parts of the same prophecy don’t fit into the gospel story. The Gospels never indicate that John the Baptist “turned the hearts of the children to their fathers.� That couldn’t have been his purpose, because according to the Gospel story it wasn’t Jesus’ purpose. Jesus said, “I have come to turn a man against his father...a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.� And the Gospels never warn that God might “strike the land with a curse.�

At the end of the Old Testament we have the last words “of God� for 400 years. It said the Lord would come to his temple, the messenger of the covenant. So the Jews must have been expecting the Lord to come. And I imagine they expected him to come relatively soon. But if they had to wait many hundreds of years for him to come, why isn’t there anything written in the Bible after 400 BC about the coming of the Lord? There’s nothing at all in the Protestant Bible during that time. That’s 400 years without any encouragement from God about this messenger that’s supposed to be coming.


QUESTIONS FOR CHRISTIANS:

1. Does it seem weird to you that in the New Testament there are suddenly new things like baptism, demon possession, and heaven and hell? Or do you think these things were in the Old Testament? Or do you think they weren’t in the OT, but John the Baptist and Jesus told the people about such things? Or did the Jews get these ideas from the nations around them?

2. Do you think some Old Testament scriptures are prophecies about Jesus? Or are they clearly talking about something else and are misinterpreted to be about Jesus? If they are about Jesus, what about the parts of them that seem totally unrelated to Jesus? Is it rational to take bits and pieces of a prophecy and interpret them to be about Jesus, while rejecting the rest of the prophecy as being about Jesus?

3. Why do you think that parts of these prophecies are fulfilled in the Gospels? (I will provide an answer to this question later).

4. Do you think that God would have given prophecies to the prophets telling them a military savior was coming, when he was actually intending to send a spiritual savior? If so, why would God do that? Or do you think the prophets just came up with the prophecies out of their own heads?

5. Did any of this information surprise you? How do you feel about it so far?

GakuseiDon

Perhaps you mean "Questions for Fundamentalist Christians"?

Not weird at all. The NT was written in a different cultural climate to the OT. The Jews may well have gotten some ideas from the nations around them.

There were definitely "prophecies" (or at least a looking-towards) a Messiah. Do fundies reject prophecy about Jesus? I don't know enough to know for sure, but I doubt this is true.

A development of Typology.

Good questions! But these questions HAVE been addressed by the fundamentalists.

So far, your articles have been very good, Carrie! I can't really fault them. My comments are nitpicks only. Of course, if you start quoting Doherty, Archarya or Freke and Gandy, I might have a few things to say...

Carrie

Yeah I'll be bringing up Doherty's theory in a later section, so look for that.

I'm sure there are Fundamentalist Christian explanations for all of the questions, and I wonder what they are. Some things I just can't see how they could come up with a good answer to, but I know they have tried. Its just that after a while the apologetic explanations get pretty far fetched, and there has to be so many that it gets ridiculous. They have to explain all this stuff away when it would make much more sense and be more simple to just admit that the Bible is a man made book and is not perfect.

Thanks for the compliments

GakuseiDon

I shall. To my mind, some people defend the Christ Myth in the same way that fundamentalists defend the Bible. Have you actually looked into Doherty's theory for yourself, or have you pretty much just accepted it without investigation?

I agree completely, though I'm a liberal Christian, not a fundamentalist.

It's good to see someone actually analyse the Bible for what it says, rather than just attack it.

Clivedurdle

Carrie

I am in a converse position with a fundie wife and me like you having seen the light. I was not able to stop at a half way post of Liberal Christian because as I see it the baby has to go out with the bath water once the plug comes out!

I want to convert the world to rationality as well, and have started odd discussions on christian websites to attempt to create some cognitive dissonance.

It is a huge problem that requires everone to take the words of John Lennon literally - imagine no heaven.

Sun Tzu in the art of war emphasises strategy and only fighting where you can win. I have not worked out clearly enough where it is best to put my energies!

I find walk away a valuable site.

http://walkaway.aimoo.com/



Clive

Carrie

As for Doherty's theory, I take it as just that, a theory. He could be wrong. But I think it's a pretty good theory. Seems reasonable. I think he makes a good case for the epistles being written first and that Christ was similar to other gods of the time. But could there have been a real man who the Gospel stories were based on? Maybe, but I think he would have just been a man that people glorified, and in people's minds he could have become something that he was not in reality.

By liberal Christian, do you mean you believe in Jesus as a good teacher whose teachings you follow, or do you believe he was God in the flesh? Do you think you can follow other teachings and still reach heaven, or do you believe you have to believe in Jesus as the Son of God? Its just that Liberal Christian can mean many things, so it helps to know where you are coming from.

GakuseiDon

OK.

I honestly couldn't say. Part of the problem is defining what "God" means. But I'm not interested in discussing this on this forum. With regards to Jesus: I don't believe in the virgin birth, but I do believe in the empty tomb and that the Risen Jesus was seen by Paul and others.

Yes, I believe that people can be Buddhists, atheists, etc, and still go to Heaven.

Well, I hope not. I'm more concerned with debating based on what the evidence says, at least on this forum. Where I am coming from is irrelevent, unless you are just out to question my personal beliefs.

Carrie, I don't mind discussing my personal beliefs, but it would be OT to this forum. Feel free to PM me if you have any questions.

judge

The word translated as hell in the NT is the Aramaic word g'henna, meaning the valley just outside Jerusalem. This word actually does occur in the OT if we look to the Aramaic targum of the book of isaiah in Chapt 66.

...... when Jesus alludes to Scriptures in the Gospels, he usually does so in a manner that agrees with the Aramaic Targum, not the Greek or Hebrew versions. Some examples: In Mark 9:42 ?50, Jesus warns of judgment by speaking of Gehenna and alluding to Isaiah 66:24, "where their worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched." The word Gehenna does not appear in the Hebrew or Greek, but only in the Aramaic.

Craig A. Evans, professor of biblical studies at Trinity Western University in British Columbia, Canada. From this artilcle.

But i agree it never meant a place of never ending torment but rather an earthly judgement. As far as i am aware belief in hell as we know it today was not held by early Christians or if it was it was only held by a minority.

Only later did it become orthodoxy (if it actually is)

rasputin1072

The Old Testement is the story of the Jewish people and you can see, in the present day Jewish religion, that the after life isn't really talked about with them. They don't really know what happens when they die, and the most ramarkable thing is that they don't really seem to care. I do, however, believe that they say something about their bones rolling to israel where they live with everyone that they knew in life, but don't quote me on that. That was a passing comment in a conversation at school.

FordMadoxBrown

Carrie, this is just to say that I have, with yuor permission, copied patrts one and three of your paper (Wghere is part 2?) to read when I have time.

I can' comment on until i have read it, but I will do so as soon as I can. I will,say, thought, that what you are doing is much needed. I care passionately about the ned t get away from a literal view of the Bible which has done much harm , I think.

See ya later.