Kosh

Doubtfull

Kosh

Galatians 1:1
Paul, an apostle (not sent from men nor through the agency of man, but through Jesus Christ
and God the Father, who raised Him from the dead),

NO mention of Jesus personally meeting Paul here. Just an appeal to authority.

1 Timothy 1:1
Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus according to the commandment of God our Savior, and of Christ
Jesus, who is our hope,

Same here. Remember, I asked for scriptural support that Jesus had personally selected Paul. Pauls own claims cannot count, since he would have had alterior motives to make such claims.

Remember Christian, Jesus was allegedly crucicified 3 years before Paul came on the scene. They NEVER met.

See the link I posted. Not even Xian scholars believe Peter to be authentic.

You'll need to go to the II library here and read through the many excellent articles there, and you might want scan the last two years of archives in this forum. All this has been discussed by people very knowledgable in the area.

Simple, as you yourself pointed out, Xians believe Pauls word to be as good as scripture. Much of the doctrine practiced comes from his writings, not so much the teaching of Jesus in the Gospels, which are rather scant compared to Pauls own opinions represented in the NT.

Respectfully,

Christian [/B][/QUOTE]

Reprobate

I bared with you, Carrie. And now that we're both freezing our asses of, perhaps you can tell me why you want Christianity simplified... Isn't the mystique of Christianity one of its main attractions? Suppose Jesus could prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was the son of God, etcetera, wouldn't that make 'faith' redundant. You don't have 'faith' in that which can be proved to be correct. It wouldn't be faith, in the sense of 'believing something to be correct without any claim or evidence that can be scientifically proven'.

Cozmodius

Christian,

Let me point something out to you from a totally different perspective.

Please allow me to preface this by stating that I LOVE much of the writings of Paul. In fact, there was a time when my faith and very life were called into question by other so-called "Christians" that 1 Corinthians :13 gave me enormous peace of mind...maybe in fact saved my life.

Still, let us use the very bible that you choose as your "test of fact" as "test of fact" against Paul's writings or authority as being "The Word Of God", or even scriptural.

Honestly ask yourself this question. In the Gospels Jesus mentions many things that are to come. He tells His apostles how He is sending His Holy Spirit to aid and guide them, and he says to Simon Peter "you are Peter, and upon this rock I build my church", thus proclaiming Peter as his representative.

Don't you think that Jesus, our Lord God Almighty, by His word "The Son Of Man" and by His disciples word "The Son Of God", possesor of knowledge of all things that have been, that are, and that are to come, would have mentioned to those closest to Him that "oh, by the way, there's this guy Saul...I mean Paul...and he's gonna take care of everything"?

Yet it is Paul that the enormous majority of the scriptural teachings, rules and laws of the Christian faith are based upon. I mean, If Jesus made sure to tell His disciples of the coming of the Holy Spirit, in which thousands would be brought to the faith, I would think that He would at least mention Paul, who would shape the very faith itself (in lieu of Jesus for the most part).

Just a thought for you to peruse...

Gooch's dad

You're kidding, right? II Peter is widely recognized as being a pseudepigraphical epistle, not written by Peter or even by one of his disciples.

Peter Kirby has an excellent page discussing the evidence for why II Peter cannot have been written by Peter.

Even I Peter isn't generally accepted to have been written by the apostle Peter. C'mon, you'll have to come up with a better argument than that.

NOGO

Here is my plan.

It is based on rewarding good behaviour and punishing the bad.
In the NT there are many places where it is clear that people at the time believed that sick people were sinners. illness is associated with sin. So ...

Make a world where everyone's success and wellbeing is dependent on one's moral character.

You cannot be a crook and make it as a leader of a nation nor as a leader of anything. The system would not allow it. Instead you fall sick and if your ways do not change you die.

The Bible says that all authority comes from God (from Paul I think). Well, if this was the case we would not be in the mess that we are in.

People who cared about the well being of everybody would be successful and healthy.

Etc... you know the exact opposite as in the world that the Christian God created.

Butters

And this would be a bad thing? Having Faith in what you don't know to be true has been the most destructive thing humans have ever engaged in. If faith is a virtue, then Muslims, Jews, Hindus, etc. have the same exact right to their claims as Christians do, you would not be able to say, well, we have proof and you don't. Oh.. You can't say that anyway.

Carrie

Thank you Butters.

Well said. Faith is a religious belief anyway, and we are not religious. I think faith is stupid.

And no, I don't like the mystery of Christianity, not any more than I like the mysteries of Hinduism. They're both based on myths.

Why have faith in a myth? If I'm going to have faith, it's going to be in things that can be proven, like the fact that the earth is round. I have faith that if I fly around around the earth, I'll eventually end up back where I started. That has been proven.

But lots of people have faith in falsehood. Look at the Branch Dividians. They had faith, and they all burned in a fire.

Christian

Kosh / Gooch's Dad,

I skimmed through some of the material on the links you posted about the authorship of II Peter. My initial impression is "highly speculative."

C.S. Lewis wrote an interesting article once on why he didn't buy the arguments of the Anglican theologians of his day who were trashing the Bible. His claim was from the perspective of an author. When critics analyzed his writings and drew conclusions about what sources he had used and what thought processes he had gone through to write a particular book, he observed that they were not only wrong most of the time ... they were always wrong. 100% of the time, in his experience. He could not remember even one time when a critic drew such an inference about his writings and it was actually true.

He argued that if the critics of the day were so far off about his writings as to miss the mark every single time (having the advantage of a common historical and cultural context, not to mention a living author who personally answered all of his mail his entire life) ... then what reason is there to imagine that the same process applied to a 2000 year old document written in an ancient language in a very different time and culture would produce better results.

I'm not saying that criticism and scholarship are not worthy and necessary endeavors. But I am saying we should be honest about how speculative it is to try to determine such things as which 2000 year old documents use which other 2000 year old documents as a source, or whether there might be some common source which they both draw from. Good things to pursue, but only a fool would take the results as unquestioned fact.

But that said, I will look more closely at your links regarding the authorship of II Peter when I have time. I will also look into the opinions of Bible Scholars who disagree, of course.

Respectfully,

Christian

Christian

Kosh,

Gal 1:1 - Unless the Greek language is very different from what I posted, this verse explicitly states that Jesus sent Paul as an Apostle. The way that he appeals to authority is by stating that Jesus sent him.

I admit that those two verses are Paul giving his own references, but they do say what they say.

I also agree that Paul wrote a good hunk of the New Testament. So did Luke, for that matter. If number of New Testament words is the criteria for "highjacking" Christianity, then there is just as good a case for Luke doing that.

Respectfully,

Christian