The Myth of the Spiritual Hierarchy

a reply to: HarryJoy

I will reference a quote by C S Lewis. If Jesus was not who he claimed to be ( Son of God ) then he has no more credibility then a man claiming to be a poached egg.

That absurd! That is no kind of logic. This C S Lewis is supposed to be an educated man?

There is scriptural precedent that suggests that there were many "sons of God, and many times when God referred to a human as his begotten son. There is scripture that suggests that everyone are children of God.

It's "Our Father", not "Dear Father of Jesus".

The Bible is NOT an autobiography written by Jesus. Besides, Jesus makes no claims of being God. Jesus makes no claims whatsoever. Stories are told, well after the fact, and NOT by eyewitnesses.

a reply to: windword

For these and other reasons we welcome and concur with Bauckham’s overall thesis regarding on the Gospels’ eyewitness character yet do not find his case against the apostolic authorship of John’s Gospel convincing. Much more likely, in our opinion, is the view that John’s Gospel, like the other three canonical Gospels, are founded on apostolic eyewitness testimony, and that John, in fact, is the Gospel that is written by the apostle who was closest to Jesus during his earthly ministry, a claim that fits historically only with the apostle John, who according to the unified witness of Matthew, Mark, and Luke was one of three members of Jesus’ inner circle together with Peter and John’s brother James.

Source

Any thoughts?

a reply to: windword
Yes I do agree with you that there are more sons of God then just Jesus and in fact I believe the primary reason that he came was to produce more. "Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds" John 12:24 And again you are correct to say that Jesus did not call himself the Son of God he called himself the Son of man...it was His father that referred to him as his son. "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased"....Matt 17:5

I find this verse to be particularly encouraging. "For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God" Rom 8:14. And also this one."For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed". Rom 8:19

a reply to: Kashai

Students taking a college-level Bible course for the first time often find it surprising that we don't know who wrote most of the books of the New Testament. How could that be? Don't these books all have the authors' names attached to them? Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, the letters of Paul, 1 and 2 Peter, and 1, 2 and 3 John? How could the wrong names be attached to books of Scripture? Isn't this the Word of God? If someone wrote a book claiming to be Paul while knowing full well that he wasn't Paul — isn't that lying? Can Scripture contain lies?

Preliminary Observations: The Gospels as Eyewitness Accounts

As we have just seen, the Gospels are filled with discrepancies large and small. Why are there so many differences among the four Gospels? These books are called Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John because they were traditionally thought to have been written by Matthew, a disciple who was a tax collector; John, the "Beloved Disciple" mentioned in the Fourth Gospel; Mark, the secretary of the disciple Peter; and Luke, the traveling companion of Paul. These traditions can be traced back to about a century after the books were written.

But if Matthew and John were both written by earthly disciples of Jesus, why are they so very different, on all sorts of levels? Why do they contain so many contradictions? Why do they have such fundamentally different views of who Jesus was? In Matthew, Jesus comes into being when he is conceived, or born, of a virgin; in John, Jesus is the incarnate Word of God who was with God in the beginning and through whom the universe was made. In Matthew, there is not a word about Jesus being God; in John, that's precisely who he is. In Matthew, Jesus teaches about the coming kingdom of God and almost never about himself (and never that he is divine); in John, Jesus teaches almost exclusively about himself, especially his divinity. In Matthew, Jesus refuses to perform miracles in order to prove his identity; in John, that is practically the only reason he does miracles.

The Gospel Truth: Sometimes A Little Hazy

a reply to: HarryJoy

And again you are correct to say that Jesus did not call himself the Son of God he called himself the Son of man...it was His father that referred to him as his son. "This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased"....Matt 17:5

This is a great example of how the Bible doesn't prove the Bible to be true. I, personally, don't believe that the "voice of God" boomed out from nowhere, for all to hear. That, to me, is an obvious interpolation, as the Book of Matthew was not a narrative in it's original state, it was a book of sayings, attributed, supposedly, to Jesus. However, many of those saying have been found earlier texts. like the Dead Sea Scrolls and earlier Holy men, like Hillel.

At any rate, Biblical God's voice speaks similar words in the Old Testament, whenever he calls someone his son, like he did of Israel and David.

a reply to: windword

No offence but to me it is just silly to claim a disparity of 100 years has any value in relation to such a claim.

In so far as the disparity in accounts, from a psychological standpoint. It is very common in human behavior.

Any thoughts?