Is the New Testament Inspired Scriptures? (myth, quote, pagan, about)

[RevelationWriter]

Originally Posted by RevelationWriter

Even the Jews ask:
How does this Man (jesus) know Letters having never studied.

I find it interesting that even The Jews did not ask:
How does this Man know the word of God having never studied?

My point is that if the Jews
did not consider 'the letters' as THE word of God?

Then why should Christians
consider every 'letter' THE word of God?

[whoppers]

Originally Posted by Shiloh1

Another thought along these lines - if they were thinking of the LXX - is the probelm that the LXX was not recieved well by all. Itself was controversial and of course different than the Hebrew and DSS.

Yes, indeed - but this was perhaps why the writer of that epistle made it a point to affirm it's "inspiration"? To deal with such doubts?

It must be remembered that Hebrew had long been relegated to a liturgical and scholarly language, so many people could not read the original Hebrew. Additionally, there were apparantly several different Vorlages floating around before a final Masoretic Text was settled on, so that presented it's own problems.

The LXX - while fairly paraphrastic in places - has actually been vindicated in many places by the DSS - in opposition TO the later MT.

Originally Posted by whoppers

Yes, indeed - but this was perhaps why the writer of that epistle made it a point to affirm it's "inspiration"? To deal with such doubts?

Good point! What other 'Holy' writings were competing with what they thought to be Scripture that made them affirm the 'inspiration' of those writings? Or was it more philosophical doubts? Or Both?

[eanassir]

Originally Posted by Shiloh1

Did the New Testament writers think of thier writing as Inspired Scripture anymore than we would if we repeated in a letter what was already written and preached?

The true story:
Pilate did not crucify Jesus, who - after he was released from prison - went to Syria, to a hill near Damascus: the disciples and his mother followed him there;
A Call to Christians


he stayed there on that hill for some period of time worshipping God then he died: his body was buried in that hill, while his soul went up to heaven to be in the neighborhood of God Most Gracious.



The Gospels:
Following the death of Jesus Christ, God inspired his disciples to write down the words and work of Jesus Christ, and that was the Gospel.

But later on there was a large number of Gospels with distortions and much alterations, changes, additions and subtractions,

Then Imperor Constantine ordered to select 4 gospels and burn the rest of about 70 gospels.

[logos7]

This is like saying I believe that a watermelon is blue on the inside until you cut it open, now prove me wrong.



Malachi 3:1
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His Temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, He shall come, saith LORD of host.

With just the first four books of the New Testament we have an incomplete Covenant Message. But if you will please remember that John the Baptist promised that those who believed in Christ would be Baptism with the Holy Ghost (Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8; John 3:16), and later Jesus them tells the Apostle after His Resurrection to tarry in Jerusalem until they were endued with power on High (Luke 24:48-49).

This is of course is the Story of Pentecost the Apostle being filled with the Holy Spirit, (Acts 2) in other words INSPIRED WITNESSES (Luke 24:48; Acts 1:8).
So than all these writers knew they were inspired for we find later when Paul converted that he also was filled with the Spirit (Acts 9:17-18). And this is how Peter states that the writer of Tanakh (Old Testament/Old Covenant.) were inspired (I Peter 1:21)

This is why John wrote the word witness and record often in his 1st Epistle (I John 1:1-2; 5:11-13). The early churches required that the Books that where added to the Canon for this reason, had to be accepted as being written by an Apostle or a near associate and in wide use.
For in this way we know that all 27 Books of the New Testament are INSPIRED!

[RevelationWriter]

The problem is that the word 'Inspiration' ?
Does Not Mean The False Doctrine It Is Given In The Church.

Yes, of course I believe the scriptures of
when The Holy Spirit comes upon them to do His will. Or to speak.

But it does not mean that the one, The Holy Spirit comes upon
is all time infallible to err in word again.

God's breathed into Adam
but it did not make him infallible nor inerrant.

All scripture is given by the inspiration of God.
But not in the purpose of being Infallible nor Inerrant.

If it was?
God would have never had to give His Son of "A Better Covenant".
God doesn't change. But He does change His mind.
Does that mean God is wrong? No.

It just means man gets to be a witness to God in their life.
Sometimes they got it wrong! And we can see it now.
When they could not.

So why does The Church teach
a false doctrine of the word 'inspiration'? CONTROL!
As long as you keep Buying Into What They say this one word means?
They don't care if we fight among ourselves over context.

As along as we don't blame the Scholarly Schools
for teaching you why to believe it.

Scriptures are 'Testaments' of God's people with and without Him.
Many times their testaments were fallible of God's will!

Could we stop to consider how many people
have been destroyed through out all the centuries?

Just because of this false doctrine teaching of
all scripture being the infallible inerrant word of God.
Because of the false meaning of this word 'inspiration'???

People have been slaudered, tortured, and degraded.
For not obeying ALL scripture as if it was All God's Word!

It has been the main reason of
divisons of the dwelling for demonations!

This one false doctrine built upon this one word, Inspiration?
Has caused more harm to families, freinds, and Nations.
In the history of The Church than secular humanism ever could.

[MysticPhD]

Originally Posted by RevelationWriter

The problem is that the word 'Inspiration' ?
Does Not Mean The False Doctrine It Is Given In The Church.

Yes, of course I believe the scriptures of
when The Holy Spirit comes upon them to do His will. Or to speak.

But it does not mean that the one, The Holy Spirit comes upon
is all time infallible to err in word again.

God's breathed into Adam
but it did not make him infallible nor inerrant.

All scripture is given by the inspiration of God.
But not in the purpose of being Infallible nor Inerrant.

If it was?
God would have never had to give His Son of "A Better Covenant".
God doesn't change. But He does change His mind.
Does that mean God is wrong? No.

It just means man gets to be a witness to God in their life.
Sometimes they got it wrong! And we can see it now.
When they could not.

So why does The Church teach
a false doctrine of the word 'inspiration'? CONTROL!
As long as you keep Buying Into What They say this one word means?
They don't care if we fight among ourselves over context.

As along as we don't blame the Scholarly Schools
for teaching you why to believe it.

Scriptures are 'Testaments' of God's people with and without Him.
Many times their testaments were fallible of God's will!

Could we stop to consider how many people
have been destroyed through out all the centuries?

Just because of this false doctrine teaching of
all scripture being the infallible inerrant word of God.
Because of the false meaning of this word 'inspiration'???

People have been slaudered, tortured, and degraded.
For not obeying ALL scripture as if it was All God's Word!

It has been the main reason of
divisons of the dwelling for demonations!

This one false doctrine built upon this one word, Inspiration?
Has caused more harm to families, freinds, and Nations.
In the history of The Church than secular humanism ever could.

About this issue I find myself in complete agreement with you.

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by logos7

This is like saying I believe that a watermelon is blue on the inside until you cut it open, now prove me wrong.

For in this way we know that all 27 Books of the New Testament are INSPIRED!

Luke 13:1 Now there were some present on that occasion who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mixed with their sacrifices. 13:2 He answered them, “Do you think these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered these things? 13:3 No, I tell you! But unless you repent, you will all perish as well! 13:4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower in Siloam fell on them, do you think they were worse offenders than all the others who live in Jerusalem? 13:5 No, I tell you! But unless you repent you will all perish as well!”

As you can see, Jesus is discussing two different facets of "evil":

1] the moral facet with regard to Pilate

2] the natural facet

Deuteronomy 28:15 “But if you ignore Jesus and are not careful to keep all his commandments and statutes I am giving you today, then all these curses will come upon you in full force: 28:16 You will be cursed in the city and cursed in the field. 28:17 Your basket and your mixing bowl will be cursed. 28:18 Your children will be cursed, as well as the produce of your soil, the calves of your herds, and the lambs of your flocks. 28:19 You will be cursed when you come in and cursed when you go out.

28:20 “Jesus will send on you a curse, confusing you and opposing you in everything you undertake until you are destroyed and quickly perish because of the evil of your deeds, in that you have forsaken me."

Here we have:

1] being faithful and loving Jesus brings joy and good things

2] ignoring Jesus and failing to keep the commandments and laws brings curses

So, what happens when Jesus contradicts himself?

Inspiring...

Mircea

Some other points about why the NT writers did not think of their writing as 'Scripture' on par with the OT.

1) Eschatology: They thought the return of the Lord was near and soon and as such no need for any new writings. Only after a period of delay and growth (25-30 years) did the writers start to 'explain' and 'establish' the 'facts' of their faith. This is for a number of reasons - one being competing ideas about what and how to believe and what Jesus 'really' taught.

2) Specificity: Most letters were for local regions regarding local problems only to be circulated within that region. The collection of these writings into a Corpus was a post apostolic and post-hoc attempt to standardize and universalize those theological views. The OT was thought of as such and was therefore a National Corpus of God, a legal and theological work. The apostolic writers had no such inclination. Their writings were mostly about instructions, clarifications, and doctrine based on previous material that was already believed to be inspired (the OT and Christ's teaching which flowed from the OT) and their physical closeness to the Lord's teaching (except in the case of Paul who convieniently had a vision of the risen Lord and was instructed personally by Him).

3) Delay: It must not have been that important if it took 25-30 years to get to establishing the facts and when done so it was not the intention of the writer to standardize that letter and send it to all the the regions that had churches in them. This was done later as noted in #2.

[whoppers]

Originally Posted by logos7

This is like saying I believe that a watermelon is blue on the inside until you cut it open, now prove me wrong.



Malachi 3:1
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before Me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to His Temple, even the Messenger of the Covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, He shall come, saith LORD of host.

With just the first four books of the New Testament we have an incomplete Covenant Message. But if you will please remember that John the Baptist promised that those who believed in Christ would be Baptism with the Holy Ghost (Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8; John 3:16), and later Jesus them tells the Apostle after His Resurrection to tarry in Jerusalem until they were endued with power on High (Luke 24:48-49[/b]

It should be observed that the placement of the book of Malachi as the final book of the "Old" Testament by later Christians, was done in order to make it appear as if the Gospels immediately followed it, thus "proving" it's (the Gospels') record of events as the supposed fulfillment of Malachi's words. This was not done on accident - it was done as an example of Christian ideology altering a canon's structure to make a theological point, and create a false*sense of relationship where none had existed.

The Hebrew Bible contains 3 sections, in this order:

• Torah
• Prophets
• Writings

Malachi appeared in the middle section, with the book of Chronicles actually being the last book which would make up the final Jewish Canon. But in the meanwhile, during the Intertestamental Period (ca 400 bc - 100 ad) many other works were written and included in the Septuagint translation and considered as "inspired" (thus the reference in Timothy to the LXX and the legend of how 72 separate translators independently produced the same Greek translation by the "inspiration", one could say, of God), and some of these books were excluded from the later "official" closing of the Jewish Canon which is our Hebrew Bible in usage today. Later, Protestants would adopt this Jewish Canon and relegate most of these Intertestamental writings to an uninspired status, even though they had been part of the Christian Canon for almost 1500 years, and still are in non-Protestant Canons.

The Christians would rearrange the order of books of the old Hebrew Bible and Septuagint differently in the early centuries of Christianity, and this is my point: Malachi was placed last to give a false impression of prophetic fulfillment, so it is extremely questionable as to the merits of using Malachi's words out of context to essentially make a theological and ideological bridge between the Testaments.

So one should first see if Malachi was truly making a prophetic utterance applicable to the Messiah, and when it was written. Due to its references to problems that Ezra-Nehemiah would solve, it is probably safe to date it to the early 5th Century BC, and that's quite a jump to make to John the Baptist, ignoring all that Intertestamental Literature and the events that gave rise to it. The last 3 verses of the book are a late addition added to conclude that section of the Hebrew Bible (Prophets), so they are not the words of Malachi, and questionable as a "bridge".