Historical antecedents to modern-day Christian fundamentalism

i guess 2 thousand years of jewish people believing the messiah isn't jesus doesn't count then? the NT writers would claim that jesus was the messiah, but they hope people would accept this since they hoped for a messiah to come save them from roman rule, jesus was nothing like what messiah was supposed to be, so it didn't really work you see this is where you are wrong, they BELIEVE that it is from god, they believe the talmud, being the oral part of the torah is part of the torah. do you know anything about jewish belief at all? they believe the torah is inspired by god and they also believe the talmud is too. so you want me to accept evidence from the book itself then? after all this time you feel the need to use this? you know what i mean by evidence and the NT doesn't count then god lied to them gee faith, i guess since i can't read your mind i wouldn't be able to know this. the fact that your ignorence of the jewish people astounds me for someone who claims suddenly they know everything about a people, yet says that the talmud is human law, but the jews say its part of the torahby the way where the hell did i talk about paul? i was pointing out that the talmud is part of what the jews think of as their scripture, can you please read my posts instead of superimposing false things on what i post? so what? so was adam, so was david,it was symbolic. what john wrote wasn't "son of god" he wrote "God". thomas calls jesus god and he accepts this title, are you sure you are reading it? yes and it would be a human warlord who would release the jews from opression, did jesus do this? no. he would be from davids line through the father, was jesus? no, he was the son of god and mary, neather is of the line of david or a male.
david wrote peotry about god, he wasn't a prophet by any streach. where did moses write about the messiah? the messiah was needed later after the jews started to get oppressed by rome no this is untrue for most of the prophets, most of them did not make prophecies for 2 thousand years in the future, most of them were about current events, isiah is about current events, zech is about current events. i know that they were gods voice but, god wasn't speaking of the far future, it was a book for the jewish people, what good would talking about some guy in the far future, who dies on a cross, do them when they didn't believe in having faith in someone who died? uh huh, i get it now you just don't like sceptics and people who don't take things at face value, this sounds like hypocricy when you becry that people have differing views
so i can't question things? i would believe it a lot easier if he did write it, with insights into the future that no one knows from that time. being sceptical is good, being aceepting of things without a thought leads to foolishness that makes you look like an idiot and makes your religion look idiotic

your god must be a weak one if he can't take a little scepticism from people. i would expect that from a fire and brimstone tyrant, but not from someone who is claimed to be all loving no matter what

Just metaphors.There's your trouble.Prejudice. Someone has sold you a bill of goods that symbolic meaning is second-class, that factuality is where the action is.You have been badly served by your religious teachers. This prejudice is now such a habit with you that you express it even in a discussion where you claim to uphold the value of symbolic meanings. You just can't help yourself, can you?_

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

I agree, i've now come to the conclusion that people think myth is a bad thing too, as if myth = lie or something
being a myth only means it doesn't mean its factual, it doesn't make it any less meaningful or spiritually truthful for being a mythi love myths they are fun and you learn something

Ringo asks: And if you read a story that describes Napoleon getting his idea to invade Russia from a talking iguana at The Cliffs of Insanity, would you interpet it as history?_

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

If you want to write something that lasts, myth is how you do it. Scientific documents go out of date quickly because only the latest research matters. Symbols endure.But 'myth' is one of those words, like 'theory,' where you run into problems with double definitions and popular misunderstandings.In science a valid theory is a substantial and useful thing. The popular use of the word theory, though, is closer in meaning to 'hypothesis' or 'conjecture.' Hence the mischief done by statements like 'evolution is just a theory.'In the field of literature, myth refers to a particular story form that employs symbols on a grand scale. It is as valid and important as any other story form. Every culture has its myths. The popular use of the word, though, means 'falsehood'. Hence the resistance one finds to reasonable interpretations, such as saying a story with a talking snake is likely a myth. One uses the word to describe a symbolic story rich with meaning. Many listeners hear the word and think 'lie.'_Edited by Archer Opterix, : Emoticon.Edited by Archer Opterix, : Brevity.

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ArcherAll species are transitional.

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When a lawyer is trying to build a case the first thing that they look for is motive. Why on earth would they do that? I would agree that having seen Christ crucified and then resurrected, they likely did go back and connect some of the dots that they hadn't connected earlier. That doesn't mean that the dots shouldn't have been connected, it was just that they hadn't done it earlier.

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Well, there is no evidence that several of the writers of the Gospels saw what you say they saw. John, for example, was written over 100 years later. And we don't know who the writers of the Gospels really were, anyway.

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In a way the example you use kinda proves the point. If they were going to make things up to make them fit you'd think they would do a better job.

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I think in some cases they did a good job, and in others, like the example I gave, they were clumsy.Having lots of faith and belief in no way determines that you will be able to make arguments that will convince anybody else, nor doing a good spin job.

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My only suggestion is that it was part of the oral history or possibly in some other Jewish text that existed at the time.

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This may be true, but it in no way precludes the plausibility of my proposal, and in fact makes it more probable.One thing that is certain about oral histories is that they tend to be changed and embellished and "improved" with each retelling.

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I have to agree that the theory that you have proposed regarding the verse from Matthew, (as written and not having any further knowledge of it myself) is very interesting.

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Yes.Isn't it interesting that this is the first you have heard of it? I hope this encourages you to explore your holy book with a more academic, skeptical eye.

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The latter.

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Right.So, you have retracted your previous argument that we should give greater consideration to what they believed because they were persecuted and martyred for their beliefs?

Actually all 27 books of the NT were written by the end of the 1st century at the latest. Many scholars make it earlier. You pick out a verse using a concordance that doesn't seem to fit. It ain't that hard to do that. My concordance is just short of a 1000 pages long and there is a lot in there I don't know.I don't pretend to be a Biblical scholar. I read my Bible and I read about my Bible but frankly I'm a whole lot more interested in living my faith than I am in reading about it.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

This was your original statement. "Spun their tales" is a statement that says they were writing what they believed to be fiction. My point, which you now seemed to agree with, was that they were convinced of the truth of what they wrote, which is not proof that what they wrote was actually true.The trouble with corresponding with you schraf is that we have different objectives. I spend time on this forum to exchange thoughts and ideas but I'm here primarily to learn from others. You seem, at least on the surface to be interested only in debate. Interestingly enough the main reason that I spend time on this forum is to gain knowledge of science and yet I keep allowing myself to get involved in these debates on religion.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

GDRWith the earliest possible manuscript describing the life of an apostle pegged at no earlier than 60 A.D.there are plenty of errors of recording that can creep in. Since humans tend to embellish deeply emotional tales with their own additions then over 60 years the "gospel" is likely not so gospel at all.Edited by sidelined, : typo repaired

Can you provide some indication why/how you know this? I concede I'm not familiar with the passage that describes this. You've explained here how amazing it was to consider an alternative.. but neglected to respond to the question entirely. I would say it's utter amazement at your seeming refusal to engage with the evidence your god has put in place for you.

That reminded me of this story:

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Act 10:9 On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour:
Act 10:10 And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a trance,
Act 10:11 And saw heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet knit at the four corners, and let down to the earth:
Act 10:12 Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air.
Act 10:13 And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.
Act 10:14 But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean.
Act 10:15 And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, that call not thou common.
Act 10:16 This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up again into heaven.

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The "faithful" have a marvelous capacity for denying their own God.

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There are several layers to answering this question. The most simplistic is that the oral tradition of that day was taken very seriously and had to be for obvious reasons.If I accept, and I'm not sure to what degree I do, that some errors may have crept in there are still the essential parts that there is no way they would forget. The obvious one is the resurrected body of Christ. One has to believe either that it actually happened or they were lying.Look at the life of Peter he was a very different man after the time of the crusifixion and resurrection. He went from someone who denied Christ to someone who sacrificed the rest of his life to serve Him.Mind you, as someone who isn't a literalist, I am primarily concerned with the spiritual truths.Another approach is just simply faith. I can look at the information that is available to me whether the source be the Bible, the creation, the moral code, my world view, the wisdom of others, my experiences that seem to transcend the physical or even science and come to my conclusions, but in the end there is a leap of faith that is required. So yes, faith plays a large part in it.I don't see any motive for embellishing their accounts of what happened at all but there is certainly no motive to fabricate the most important aspects. As I say there was a cost to following Christ's teachings. Edited by GDR, : No reason given.

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Everybody is entitled to my opinion.

How do you know this? You are assuming the pre-Damascus road info is correct.If Paul was a down and out, then making up tales about Jesus would be very lucrative.Brian.