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not made up just not the entire story. i think the vatican is sitting on that part of the story and its not going to get released unless we find another dead sea scroll.
not made up just not the entire story. i think the vatican is sitting on that part of the story and its not going to get released unless we find another dead sea scroll.
I have this wishful -thinking daydream...that one day we will find a lost history in a pile of dumped papyri, telling us the facts. I think we can work them out already.
I think it's the best story ever made: a guy in a white robe in a Roman-conquered area goes around and preaches a message of non-judgementalism. The problem is that I think most of it was made up!
Thoughts?
I like most of what this Jesus character had to say, mostly a bunch of general and universal humanitarian practices that would better humanity. Sure would be nice if more of his followers believed what he had to say as much as they believe in his existence. As for me, I think Jesus was either a total fiction, or a drastically exaggerated set of accounts of a real person who said "hey man, we should work together instead of be jerks to each other"
I'm not sure what kind of reaction you're looking for but I'm not interested in trying to change your mind. I don't care what you believe and I'm not sure why you think anyone would. This is a very personal matter - it's none of anyone else's business.
I think it's the best story ever made: a guy in a white robe in a Roman-conquered area goes around and preaches a message of non-judgementalism. The problem is that I think most of it was made up!
Thoughts?
Are the written stories embellished? Probably. Are they improbable--I don't think so. They came from oral stories handed down for a few decades before finally being recorded. Can that be accurate? Absolutely.
Two nights ago I watched a PBS documentary about the search for two modified British warships which disappeared after trying to sail through artic waters on a mission to find the Northwest Passage in 1845.
The searchers, part of Parks Canada, initially looked in a 500 mile area of sea near an outcropping of land where a rock cairn had been found twenty years after the ships went missing. It contained a note indicating the ships had been stuck in the ice all summer as it didn't melt that spring. Food was still available, but the expedition's leader, an experienced polar naval officer, had died. A note added later said survivors were going to attempt a 1000 mile trek southward using ship's boats to sled supplies in.
Nothing was found of the ships in the area. But in questioning Inuit Eskimos the Park service learned of oral tradition past down that claimed one ship was several hundred miles to the south in a spot they called The Place of the Boat.
With summer coming to an end the team rushed southward, dropped their underwater radar robot and discovered the wreck of the ship on the first day of looking. The ship sank there 170 years earlier. No written document or map existed, but the detailed oral traditions passed down through many generations proved accurate in discovery of the wreck. Program entitled Arctic Ghost Ship.
That is how we must view scripture--as an oral tradition that eventually got recorded. What we have of the Bible is a bit like that 170 year old shipwreck. We can no longer see the details, the intricacies of everything from machinery to artwork, but we can see the outline of the ship. We can glean what it's purpose might have been. And like the expertly picked seamen selected for that scientific expedition, our selected authors worked hard but occasionally made mistakes. The mistakes those seamen made cost them their lives. The mistakes our biblical authors made by not always being as clear as they might have been may not have cost any of them their lives, but sometimes costs lives emotionally today.
Oral tradition is and often was a powerful tool in gaining cultural, societal, and religious anchors in the world around us. Discounting their importance is not respecting human history.
What I wish was that Jesus wrote something, anything, so we could read what he was thinking. All we have is hearsay. John said Jesus said. Luke said Jesus said. Matthew said Jesus said. Mark said Jesus said. And on and on.
Have you ever been in a room where you whisper something into the ear of the person next to you and they do the same to the person on the other side and so on until the circle is complete? Everyone adds a little something along the way.
Maybe Jesus did write something but the Councils that decided what went into the Bible and what didn't preferred not to include those writings. After all, Constantine the Pagan converted to Christianity to get the Christians to support him. It was a political move. Who can say creating the Bible wasn't too?
Absolutely, I am 100% in agreement with you. I have been saying that for years. I do believe that somethings missing from the puzzle. We don't know what was censored from the final book. Like you, the lack of Jesus writing anything in the bible is a deal breaker for me.
I like your honesty. Why believe something...
Because someone told you to, because many others do? Good for you.
Seeing is believing.
Believing without seeing is fine, do not get me wrong. No need for attacks or quotes from the Bible, ok?
But, you are the type that just 'doesn't ' believe what everyone or some book says.
These are the brilliant minds that discover great things.
I believe in direct experience. I think the story is great, also.
I do not think it happened the way it was written...some maybe.
The reason why he was here I do not believe, anymore, was what others believe.
It 'seems' if you read immediately in Matthew when he leaves his 40 days and nights fasting in the desert (picture rocky, dry Utah and imagine this!!
Most people do not ever really grasp the whole thing!
Have never even closed their eyes for 1 solid minute of their lives to imagine it...ask them...)
That is when you really see what his mission was.
Sure, not judging was part of it,
love was part of it,
healing a big part,
cluing us in that what we see was not real was part of it,
letting us know the power we possess or who we really are was part of it...
then, you have the meat, imo...
that there is a Kingdom of God or Heaven that lies within inside us....(how many have noted how many xs Jesus declares this upon leaving 40 days of fasting?)
I listen to a man who has done this...Heaven was the major message...healing, walking on water, manifesting things was to get our attention only. He wanted us to know the Father...His will, His Nature, His wishes, His Divine Love.His message, imo, was about reality and our Creator Father.
Love?
A consequence or by-product of knowing the Father.
Not sinning...also a by-product or result of a changed mind knowing the Father.
Any of his advice was to purify us to so we would even want the Father's Divine Love.
~~~~~~~~~~~
You could test or practice a few things Jesus said to do..I did...and you would see if you did them
100%...that they worked!
That is a great place to start if you have a desire to know a little about him and his message...
You seem to.
I can tell you where to start, btw...baby steps.
I just read this now. Beautifully said, Miss Hepburn
At a very early age I came to question the idea that he died for "us" and this his death "redeemed" us.
The idea seemed preposterous and deluded and I struggled to accept it, and to accommodate myself to it in order to live within the Christian religion my family practiced.
Ultimately the idea came to seem truly repellent, and dangerously misleading to those who succumb to it..
Jesus was hated by the jews and did every thing they could to discredit Him they have their own books on Jesus as a matter of fact ,and it is likely that the jews hating Him so much, probably destroyed every thing they could find written about Jesus but what they wanted to be remembered.
Secondly , Jesus (God ) Provided the Holy Spirit to teach in His place in those that would receive Jesus in there life as Lord of their life.
This no man can destroy or pervert , and the Holy Spirit teaches the same things Jesus Himself taught .
No matter how men distort the things written ,
God does have a way of getting the truth to those that honestly LOVE "Him."
Are the written stories embellished? Probably. Are they improbable--I don't think so. They came from oral stories handed down for a few decades before finally being recorded. Can that be accurate? Absolutely.
Two nights ago I watched a PBS documentary about the search for two modified British warships which disappeared after trying to sail through artic waters on a mission to find the Northwest Passage in 1845.
The searchers, part of Parks Canada, initially looked in a 500 mile area of sea near an outcropping of land where a rock cairn had been found twenty years after the ships went missing. It contained a note indicating the ships had been stuck in the ice all summer as it didn't melt that spring. Food was still available, but the expedition's leader, an experienced polar naval officer, had died. A note added later said survivors were going to attempt a 1000 mile trek southward using ship's boats to sled supplies in.
Nothing was found of the ships in the area. But in questioning Inuit Eskimos the Park service learned of oral tradition past down that claimed one ship was several hundred miles to the south in a spot they called The Place of the Boat.
With summer coming to an end the team rushed southward, dropped their underwater radar robot and discovered the wreck of the ship on the first day of looking. The ship sank there 170 years earlier. No written document or map existed, but the detailed oral traditions passed down through many generations proved accurate in discovery of the wreck. Program entitled Arctic Ghost Ship.
That is how we must view scripture--as an oral tradition that eventually got recorded. What we have of the Bible is a bit like that 170 year old shipwreck. We can no longer see the details, the intricacies of everything from machinery to artwork, but we can see the outline of the ship. We can glean what it's purpose might have been. And like the expertly picked seamen selected for that scientific expedition, our selected authors worked hard but occasionally made mistakes. The mistakes those seamen made cost them their lives. The mistakes our biblical authors made by not always being as clear as they might have been may not have cost any of them their lives, but sometimes costs lives emotionally today.
Oral tradition is and often was a powerful tool in gaining cultural, societal, and religious anchors in the world around us. Discounting their importance is not respecting human history.
I agree. Which is why the gospel stories cannot be dismissed without good reason. Not even the miracles, because a son of God could do them, even if nobody else can. It is even possible to play the 'witnesses do not always agree' card with a couple of trumps of 'some unreliable stories creeping into the oral tradition'.
That would certainly explain why silly stuff like the shekel eating fish and sinking Simon got into Matthew's gospel, plus the absurd descending angel and the tombs opening and dead saints shanking about the streets.
But then, doesn't the nativity have to go too? Doesn't the tomb -guard have to go too? Doesn't Jesus appearing to the women (contradicted by Luke) have to go too? Doesn't the transfiguration, totally ignored by John, even though he describes all the other events at that time have to go too? I can just say that your analogy works with Inuit tales of men with fire -sticks casting spells on seals so they fell dead, but tales of the men flying through the air or growing ten feet tall and strangling polar bears can be discarded as fantasy.
Do you see the problem? Appeal to eyewitness reliability and oral tradition collapses under scrutiny, because of the contradictions and (as I argue) internal textual evidence of how the gospels were written and re-written. The fact is that eyewitness testimony becomes discredited under examination and the Oral tradition' argument becomes just an excuse which itself comes apart under examination. In fact it is a reason to distrust the gospels, not to trust them.
Last edited by TRANSPONDER; 09-25-2015 at 07:59 AM..
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Why believe something...
I can tell you where to start, btw...baby steps.
