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Hmmm...I think before that question is answered another demands and answer first. Who authored the Gospel of John? It is pretty clear that it was not John the Apostle himself.
So you believe the writer of the gospel of John made that part up?
Where to start...... Israel and the Jewish people are smarter then anyone else? We are no smarter then others. We just value education. We strive to be successful and I doubt that is just a Jewish trait.
Jews wrote the gospels so that means Jewish people ought to accept and believe them? We are Jewish not Christian. It was a group of early Jews who formed a sect within Judaism prior to Paul and their eventual separation from Judaism came with Paul. Why should a whole group believe something just because a Jew wrote it?
I guess that means that if a Christian writes something all Christians ought to believe it? There are many sects within Christianity and a multitude of beliefs. Christians are not one big block of people who think or believe the same. Nor are Jews, and that was the case 2000 years ago. There were many groups within Judaism and they all had different ideas of how to be a Jew.
They were simply a sect within Judaism and there were other sects within Judaism at the time. The Essenes were another one that comes to mind.
I am always stunned that Christians can't seem to get over nor understand we Jews don't want to be Christian. Its ok we are happy being Jews and we are happy with our religion, community and we don't need to be Christian.
Jazzymom -- the OP is clearly not a Christian, as you should have learned from a brief perusal of the threads on here. So how about not jumping to conclusions about what Christians believe?
Hmmm...I think before that question is answered another demands and answer first. Who authored the Gospel of John? It is pretty clear that it was not John the Apostle himself.
Whoever it was, he was more than likely a member of the Essene sect. The writer of John basically paraphrases the War Scroll (Light vs Dark).
We know Buddhists and others from the far east were in Egypt in the 1st and 2nd Centuries BCE, and they had a least some influence on theological thought, in addition to Greek Gnosticism which also influenced the Essenes.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimmiej
So you believe the writer of the gospel of John made that part up?
You don't seem to be very familiar with John. You might want to read (B. M. Metzger's summary: “the evidence for the non-Johannine origin of the Pericope of the Adulteress is overwhelming).
More embarrassingly, in some texts, the Pericope of the Adulteress occurs at John 21, while in other texts, it occurs at either Luke 21 or Luke 25.
For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, this is the story:
Pseudo-John 7:53 And each one departed to his own house. 8:1 But Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. 8:2 Early in the morning he came to the temple courts again. All the people came to him, and he sat down and began to teach them. 8:3 The experts in the law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught committing adultery. They made her stand in front of them 8:4 and said to Jesus, “Teacher, this woman was caught in the very act of adultery. 8:5 In the law Moses commanded us to stone to death such women. What then do you say?” 8:6 (Now they were asking this in an attempt to trap him, so that they could bring charges against him.) Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground with his finger. 8:7 When they persisted in asking him, he stood up straight and replied, “Whoever among you is guiltless may be the first to throw a stone at her.” 8:8 Then he bent over again and wrote on the ground.
Pseudo-John 8:9 Now when they heard this, they began to drift away one at a time, starting with the older ones, until Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. 8:10 Jesus stood up straight and said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” 8:11 She replied, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you either. Go, and from now on do not sin any more.”
I have argued in the past that this was an insertion to justify the adulterous affairs (including bisexual and homosexual affairs) and rapes committed by many of the popes (one pope in particular used to rape women on the streets in front of horrified on-lookers).
The Pericope comes from Document E14 (or, um, "witness" if you prefer) circa 1400 (just before the Reformation).
Codex Sinaiticus (circa 350 CE) is the only complete version of the New Testament, and there's huge conflicts between it and other Codices.
If you aren't reading a New Testament based entirely on Codex Sinaiticus, then you're basically reading someone else's fantasy, because there are numerous additions from about 800 to 1400 CE.
My view of the Creator is not one of a separate entity, if you will, apart from the world. Rather, the Creator is us, and we are a part of the Creator.
Why the confusion? Good question.
If we and the Creator are one, and we are very diverse in our human makeup, then the Creator is equally diverse, if not more so.
I strongly feel that for humans to declare a "one-way" to the Creator is wrong.
1. When Jesus declared "No one can come to the Father except through me," he was echoing a long-held belief that no one could approach the Creator on his own. Rather, the Creator reached out to humanity. How the Creator reached out is varied and diverse; hence, the various ways of depicting the Creator's contact with the OT heroes.
2. The Rabbinists had closed off the "Light of the World" to be exclusionary. In other words, only Jews were going to enjoy the fruits of paradise.
This new philosophy presented by Christ was not accepted by a whole lot of people in the beginning. It broke the mold of thinking that only a few ought to enjoy paradise. As it gained acceptance, in the beginning all people were accepted into this new "family."
3. Humans are really good into mucking up a "good thing." We have to codify things. We have to make structures. Then we have to measure those structures against standards. Et cetera.
In my perspective that the Creator is us (in us and around us), it is not the Creator who becomes mucked up but our perception of the Creator that becomes mucked up.
I have to fall back on one sane thought (for me): no matter how mucked up we humans make things, the Creator also remains constant. The Creator reaches out and gathers all people to It (perferring a neutral gender here). In spite of human efforts to divide and classify, the Creator does not. The love of the Creator will bring all into the fold. What that fold consists of, we humans have not one iota of knowledge, just a lot of speculation. That we humans are severely "brain-damaged" in our limited abilities to understand both the physical and the spiritual aspects of our universe, it is comforting that we believe the Creator is "there" for all and will receive all regardless of what we humans think.
I have a small problem with a declaration of the Jews or Israelis are smarter.
1. Jews were Semitic. [There is a hypothesis that the original Jews emmigrated from Africa, Ethiopia for example.]
2. The Jews were dispersed. They became less Semitic and more European. So, the Israelis today are not really Jews, per se. Their religion may be Judaic, but their lineage is more European.
So, should we then separate the terms "Jews" and "Israelis" to mean 1) a religion and 2) a nation and the citizens abiding in that nation?
I strongly feel that for humans to declare a "one-way" to the Creator is wrong.
1. When Jesus declared "No one can come to the Father except through me," he was echoing a long-held belief that no one could approach the Creator on his own. Rather, the Creator reached out to humanity. How the Creator reached out is varied and diverse; hence, the various ways of depicting the Creator's contact with the OT heroes.
So Jesus said He was the only way to God, but you believe He meant the way is varied & diverse? That doesn't make sense.
Jazzymom -- the OP is clearly not a Christian, as you should have learned from a brief perusal of the threads on here. So how about not jumping to conclusions about what Christians believe?
I reacted the way I did because of how he started his post which was a jab at Jews for not believing what a few Jews wrote who happened to be followers of Jesus.
I find it interesting that they were the ones who wrote the gospels and that now the Jewish people don't even believe what they wrote. Is it possible that the whole virgin birth, healing leprosy by touching, resurrection etc. was all a plot to keep a certain selected group in charge? Israel seems to get a lot of headlines.
Don't misunderstand me...if I had to pick a superior group in the world right now it would definitely be the people of Israel. They're smarter than everybody else...not just a little bit, a lot smarter.
Jazzymom -- the OP is clearly not a Christian, as you should have learned from a brief perusal of the threads on here. So how about not jumping to conclusions about what Christians believe?
I agree, he's an ex-Christian and I was one disagreeing with him.
Jazzymom's cool in some ways, but she seems too often to expect the worst of Christians and Muslims.
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