davidH

Sorry about the delay Sojourner! Don't know if you are still around but I'll give my thoughts anyway.

By the way - I enjoyed this discussion with you and Nogo - it gets you thinking a lot.

Ok, about the deceitful talk of Jesus - you still disagree with me on it - that's fine.
You asked me why I didn't comment on your King story - well the reason was that I didn't see the parallels between it and what was written about Jesus.

eg.
1. The subject would have had no reason to call the King rich - since the King was in disguise.

2. Also the subject asks the King if he has any money but Jesus was never asked if he was good or not.

I feel the need to highlight the above since it is very important. Jesus wasn't asked anything. Now if Jesus was asked if he was good, his answer would have been different.

But you must remember that Jesus was not asked, nor did he have any reason to interupt the man when he called him good.
So why did he do it then?

You didn't answer my previous thoughts and questions on this - I will put them up again.

Yes, when the man said , "Good master" he was never implying that Jesus was God - that is obvious.
So why then did Jesus say what he did when there was no need to?

Any ordinary man wouldn't say a thing to this.
If he did say something it would have been "Don't call me good" - You see the logic I am getting at here - right?

Wouldn't an ordinary man have said Don't call me good? - why then doesn't Jesus say this?

You wrote:
No, an ordinary man would say "Don't call me good" - because only God is good.

This must be obvious to you Sojourner.

But then we have another problem that arises for you if you take this approach.

Jesus asks people if they can show him to be guilty of sin. Is this a humble attitude?

Now Jesus saying he is sinless doesn't want to be called Good?!
As you put in the post - only God is good because everyone else is a sinner - but Jesus isn't - so what reason is there for Jesus to say he isn't Good?

There is none - and you will find that Jesus doesn't say "Don't call me good." He only asks the man why he called him good.

Again lets approach this from another angle - the one you did, namely If a "true" God were asked this question, what would he answer?
This is what you wrote:

Ok lets see.

"Thank-you" Now to the man talking this would have meant nothing - correct? Since he wasn't implying Jesus to be God no-one would have thought anything of it.

But what if Jesus was trying to get the people thinking?

You said that by doing this Jesus wasn't being "coy". The view I am taking is that Jesus didn't want to come straight out and say that he was God - but that he wanted the people to decide for themselves.

By saying this he would have achieved nothing. As I said before Jesus didn't want to reveal himself fully at this time, but he did want people to start thinking for themselves.

By saying the second thing you mentioned he is revealing himself totally - which is not what he wanted to do.

So Sojourner, the question has to be asked is what could Jesus say to get the people to think?

He couldn't give the second answer you gave, and to give the first answer would mean nothing to the people.
So the answer we are left with is the one in the Bible.

1. "Why do you call me good?"

Gets the people thinking here - why was he called good? Answer: Because the people saw him to be good in all he did.

Jesus even says later on: "Can any of you find me guilty of Sin?

Jesus has got the people thinking - they are saying to themselves ....it is obvious, he is called good because he is good - we can all see that.

2. "No one is good except God alone."

This puts the people in an akward position, either they continue to call him good and so call him "God" or they don't call him good.

But the people see him as good - he even asks if they can find him guilty of sin.

Jesus has achieved what he wanted - the people are now seriously thinking about what he has just said.....could he really be divine? The one we have been waiting for?

Can you see what I am getting at Sojourner?

Jesus said this to get the people thinking.

Yes, but your son wouldn't put himself in the position of implying he had done his homework unless you ask him - or he wants to do something else. - correct?
But Jesus isn't asked....he interrupts to say this.

Yes, but the word "good" is used very loosly nowadays. Think about it "Ah..isn't he a good boy"
grandmothers will say when the boy did something good. However that statement isn't correct. They should rather say, "Ah...isn't that a good thing that you did."
Good person does imply perfect person if you think about it.

anyway that's about it for the "deceitful" Jesus topic.

You an engineer Sojourner? - What sort of things do you work at?

Yeah, I know where you are coming from on the greeks adding Jesus with powers etc. Though I do commend you for acknowledging that there was an historical Jesus - there are many on this board that will deny this no matter what you present them with.

No, I don't think I can just reason this out without knowing backgrounds and philosophies. I do read history ( at the present time I am in Egyptian history - I'm actually putting forward a theory on the Exodus on another topic here....though I found out that I made a mistake with a certain princess...so no doubt alot of critism awaits lol).

Ok lets see.

No, I never did manage to check it out. History only goes back so far Sojourner, but in any case I wouldn't have expected them to have.
I think that it was only when Jesus came that he began to open eyes to the scriptures - and as I have shown before, the OT does support a Trinity.
Since Jesus is also fortold in the OT I believe what he said.


Now, I'd like to address this here Sojourner.

Let me also check this here with you;
You believe that all the gospels apart from Mark were altered by the greeks to fit their mindset religious views?

Firstly to show this here to be so an early (hopefully the earliest known) manuscript must be found to have major differences between the Bible that we have today. ie. It would contain no miracles at all, Jesus wouldn't have risen from the dead, he wouldn't have been born of a virgin and there would be no voice from the clouds.
This would show that our Bibles of today had been altered and the miracles and everything fitted in.
- correct?

mid 4th centuary is a long time after Jesus - there must have been earlier manuscripts (not neccessarily whole Bibles that can be compared).

Now, going only on this data that you have given me there are 2 conclusions that can be made.

1. This is the one that you gave, that our Bibles have been modified. But it shows that they have only been modified after the 4th centuary...

2. That these are Bibles that themselves have been modified from the original version and that our Bibles are the preserved unmodified original.

Both of these theories are valid, but they can prove nothing if there is no more to go on. Only assumptions can be made - and these aren't scientific.

Is this all that you go on Sojourner?

I have no doubt in my mind that manuscripts were modified and things added - but I see the original manuscripts as the ones that "survived" and are what we have today.
Reading in the letters of the earlier church we read about people introducing "heresies", denying that Jesus is God - and gathering around them supporters. So it is likely that manuscripts have been altered.
But the main core of Christians would have preserved the original versions.

I've already written a lot but I just want to add some more stuff here that you may find interesting.

The Muratorian fragment written in apprx. AD 170 lists all the NT apart from the epistle of James and John 3.

The oldest pieces of the NT are the Magdalen Matthew fragments of 50AD and Ryland's fragments of John 19.

There are over 3000 Greek manuscripts of the whole or part of the NT going back to about AD 350.

In addition to actual old copies still existing, we have quotations from the NT in the works of early church writers from as early as just after AD 70 and into the next century. Practically all the NT is quoted.
You can see all this evidence that has been assessed by the "Oxford Society of Historical Theology in The New Testament in the Apostolic Fathers.

Here's what Sir Frederick Kenyon, former Director of the British Museum and leading authority on ancient manuscripts said:

Maybe this is stuff you haven't come across before Sojourner but it does convince me that the Bible is as we have it today.

I don't know how old some of this information may be because new things are being discovered all the time and so there may be earlier stuff that's been found.

Sojourner553

Cheez DavidH,

you are going on too many topics. This one is off track here, I will start one just for you.

Sojourner