Dutch_labrat

How would you discredit the spells performed in the Harry Potter books?

mountainman

Or Gandalf's transition from Grey to White in the Hobbit books of Tolkien? Or even Clark Kent's x-ray vision? Do we really need any special dispensation nowdays to reject the NT as anything other than a common work of common fiction in common Greek? Historians have learnt how to reject fictional accounts, like the Historia Augusta, as anything other than bogus and fabricated sources. Sooner of later the same principals will be applied to the books of the NT canon.

Chili

The miracles in John are not empty words but are contingent upon the other and that is how "the word became flesh." The Gospel of John shows how that is done in real life of which Luke gives us the metaphysics that precede this. Matthew does this for the ant-christ that is confirmed by Mark, who is just whistling away and writes what he observes in a very eloquent way and so is impressive (the forerunner of KJV or Oxford vs Stradford even).

The miracles of Matthew make this very clear in that they resemble the miracles of Luke and John but always have the prime mover wrong in one way or another (kind of like using the wrong candle color in the advent wreath today).

The difference between these two is that the first beast of Rev. 13 speaks like the lion king while the second beast speaks like a dragon and therein using the authority of the first beast (Rev.13:12 = anti-christ), for which the obvious reason is that the first beast was reborn from the water (= reborn from above), while the second beast came from the [old] earth ( = reborn from below).

Chili

That's because philosophers have become historians who can see far from the ivory tower they occupy instead of far into the nature of things 'as they are where they are' = next to them.

Doug Shaver

Sound reasoning is all the ammunition I need. I don't need to play their game. If they want me to think the miracles really happened, they need to play my game.

Chili

Yes but their game is alchemy where base metal is purified into gold, water into wine, wine into blood, beauty into truth, and so love into life.

Petergdi

By "usual tricks" do you mean that they notice that Jesus uses "my hour" and "my time" to refer to his trial and crucifixion? You ought reasonably to have noticed that wine is a metaphor for blood and in turn a metaphor for the cross.

Peter.

Julio

Could be.
What I find abhorrent in John is that he apparently loved to speak in metaphors or parables, but never told us his secret. It has been a guessing job all along.

Julio

Literally speaking, how much wine was it?
The three containers would hold SIX HUNDRED LITRES of the happy stuff but the story is so badly presented that we find nowhere described that water had been turned into wine.
However, if the containers were holding that extraordinary amount, surely there would be enough reason to exalt the Saviour for all his benevolence.
Imagine the euphoria and jubilation of that intoxicated crowd after drinking another six hundred litres of the brightening up liquid!
There are two proverbs (31:6,7) teaching the reader to drink the stuff to heal a heavy heart and the miseries of life:
“Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts. Let him drink, and forget his poverty, and remember his misery no more”.
We assume that Jesus never read or wanted to observe that instruction.
Nobody was going to die or was sad at the wedding to take the extra toast; therefore, the rule was reversed.
For the fundamentalists, the Bible is the absolute word of God, all come from real divine inspiration, but in those words we see God unable to help the needy with a genuine gesture of grace.
The same God that inspired the Bible is there instructing the use and abuse of alcohol to overcome the terrible injustices of life.
It is a God who could not solve the problem at its origin, when it would be quite easy, but later suggesting the drinking option.
Jesus would later say to his audience that he liked to drink wine:
“The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunk, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’”, Luke 7:34 (ISV).
Funny it was that it had to be the religious elite to accuse Jesus of drinking with his friends, the same elite Jesus accused of being the greatest hypocrites in the forum.
What was wrong with a drink or two?
In other words, the Bible is NOT the model for total abstinence, period.
Baptists who forbid any use of wine drinking are an authority unto themselves; not biblical, and not in the fashion of Jesus, who liked to drink whenever the opportunity arrived.
He felt no conscience whatsoever by drinking with his friends; it was normal to use wine and strong drink in those days like always.
In fact, this particular “Jesus” enjoyed good wine, could make it out of water, of the best quality, and started his public ministry to become the Saviour of drunkards involved with a crowd of wine drinkers to whom he supplied more of it.
Who knows, if he would not at other occasions make the bright liquid and enjoy it with his disciples.
If he did, John left it out of his gospel, although he would say at the end of the script that Jesus did many other miracles and wonders that would fill the pages of many books; logically an absurd exaggeration, but it illustrates the point that perhaps miracles were often repeated.
Why, in other words, make the best wine only for other people, when what he needed was only a few litres of natural water to present his friends with an opportunity to celebrate whatever they wanted.
Let us be honest: wouldn’t you do that miracle often if you had the genuine talent to do it?
Why not even be popular for that particular miracle?
Why not even to do BUSINESS with it?
Is it too strange, do you think?
Didn’t anybody ever do BUSINESS with MIRACLES?!
Have we never encountered RELIGIOUS CHARLATANS industrious enough to take advantage of our superstitious credulities?
Have you heard of “apparitions” and their subsequent perpetual parades to profit?
Jesus was too immature to see the disastrous implications of that “miracle” at the wedding.

storytime

"see you later"?? Yeah, that's what Jesus said.

"I will try to comment throughout the day". Yeah, Jesus said he'd try to comment to his disciples. Something about he would not leave them comfortless, and the comforter would come to them and give them all the truth.

You're waiting for your friend Tony. Well, at least you're not planning to walk on water together. And you'll be three hours in the heart of the earth. humm.. this is getting strange.