why cant christians accept the origins of christianity

Originally posted by Sun Matrix
Please feel free to produce that incorrect prophecy.......if you can. I will check back.

To whom are you speaking? (hint: a quote helps )

Besides that, assuming that you're talking about when the gospels were written, I cannot point to any place in the bible, as I have not read it. I can quote from Crossan's book, if you like..

...when, for example, Matthew and Luke are using Mark as a source for what Jesus said or did or what others said or did in relation to jesus, they are unnervingly free about omission and addition, about change, correction, or creation in their own individual accounts -- but always, of course, subject to their own particular interpretation of jesus. The gospels are neither histories nor biographies, even within the ancient tolerances for those genres...
taken from Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan, preface, xiii

Originally posted by Diseria
Granted, I have not read the Bible itself. This I cannot deny,

While I do not deny that the Bible has things to teach, lovely parables and such, I cannot hold it up as fact in and of itself, nor against history...

And that's a choice you are choosing to make. That's what this life is about a choice, to believe in Christ or not.

Originally posted by Diseria

taken from Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography by John Dominic Crossan, preface, xiii

Why don't you read the Bible for yourself instead of getting stuff 2nd hand, from an ex-catholic priest at that. His view is tainted because the catholic church does not teach salvation properly. And it appears he even left that church.

It is accepted by modern New Testament scholars that the earliest Gospel (Mark) was written 70-80 years after Jesus was born. Matthew and Luke were later Gospels, parts of which were based upon Mark's. The Gospel of John is thought to have been written between 90-120 years after Jesus and is the only one to claim that it contains actual eyewitness information. The authors Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are not thought to be the disciples of the same names (it is not even certain that each Gospel was written by one author).

The Acts of the Apostles (which are included in the New Testament but are not Gospels) are letters that are much earlier than the Gospels. Some of these letters are recognised as being written by disciples who knew and were even related to Jesus (e.g. James).

Originally posted by Pepperslappy
Sun Matrix. Can you please show evidence that all those things were prophicised.

They were! It was in Appollyon....or maybe Soul Harvest? I always get my Left Behind series confused.

P.S. Why in the name of God (I am now terrified to use that term here) are we talking about end times prophecy? The thread author said ORIGINS not the END of Christianity. Matrix we will get to Christian Fiction eventually (and yes I loved every single one of those books,) just you wait.

[edit on 13-11-2006 by Baphomet79]

So then I'll start just to try and steer this back on track. In my opinion it was simply taking the most publicly acceptable Christian texts for the greatest number; kind of like a U.S. election if you will; one side wins and the other side is completely shut out. Hence the results of the Council of Nicea in 332 AD. Take notice of the year.

I do not feel like looking it up right now. But the duality of the early Gnostic Christians, in my opinion the ORIGIN of Christianity and there Dualism, was a direct threat to Emperor Constantine. Constantine you can say what you want, but every Historian and Classics Professor I've ever spoken to agrees he was a Pagan until his death bed. I know I'm simply giving the Cliff Notes right now, but it's late, I am sure someone can elaborate on my meaning.

Originally posted by Baphomet79
So then I'll start just to try and steer this back on track. In my opinion it was simply taking the most publicly acceptable Christian texts for the greatest number; kind of like a U.S. election if you will; one side wins and the other side is completely shut out. Hence the results of the Council of Nicea in 332 AD. Take notice of the year.

We have gone over this before, but the Council of Nicaea had nothing to do with choosing what books became part of the bible.

en.wikipedia.org..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow"> First Council of Nicaea

The First Council of Nicaea was convened by Constantine I upon the recommendations of a synod led by Hosius of Cordoba in the Eastertide of 325. This synod had been charged with investigation of the trouble brought about by the Arian controversy in the Greek-speaking east.[4] To many bishops, the teachings of Arius were heretical and a danger to the salvation of souls. In the summer of 325, the bishops of all provinces were summoned to Nicaea in Bithynia (now known as İznik, in modern-day Turkey), a place easily accessible to the majority of them, particularly those of Asia Minor, Syria, Palestine, Egypt, Greece, and Thrace.

The main subject of the council of Nicaea was to do away with the idea that Christ was not the same as God (en.wikipedia.org..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow"> Arianism), create the Nicene Creed, and adopt 20 or so cannon laws (not to be confused with selecting the biblical cannon).

The importance of removing the ideas of Arianism can be clearly seen in the content of the Nicene Creed:

Nicene Creed

And in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the Son of God, eternally begotten from the father, only-begotten, that is, from the substance of the father,
God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God,
begotten not made, one in Being with the Father.
through whom all things came into being, things in heaven and things on earth.

The purpose of the creed was to clearly show that Christ is of the same substance as God the father and not a separate, created being. This is fundamentally important to the Christian faith as only God himself can make the sacrifice to remove sins from man and re-extend to him grace that he may later enter Gods presence. No lower or separate being could pay the necessary cost to redeem man from even a single sin. Now try and find that bit in your ancient religions… The concept of salvation through grace.

As to the thread topic; yeah, there are many similarities in religions, but then Satan has always been good at making things that are close enough to the truth to seem correct, but just off enough that they lead man astray. He has been doing that since day one in Eden.

Again, and hopefully for the last time: the idea that the council of Nicaea had anything to do with picking the Biblical Canon is internet rumor and not factual.

Sun Matrix:
There is no where in that it says that. You are taking things out of context. You could take the line "Man was made in gods image" to god is white so men should be white. Anything int he bible can be taken differently. I bet you 400 years ago people didnt think that those things would happen. They sure as hell didnt take the things in the bible to mean that.

You are right I am sorry DefCon5, the subject was the divinity of Christ. But subsequently leading from this was what texts would be included in the official "Christian" work, thus the question of the divinity of Christ went very far in deciding which gospels and other texts were deemed Christian and which were heretical, or apocryphal. Gnostic Christians believed Christ was a man who was an extremely enlightened individual who was worthy of reverence, but none the less was still only a man. The Council of Nicea declared his divinity and thus Gnostic texts were deemed apocryphal.

Thus that is why I also have a problem with the modern interpretation of Christianity such as the thread author. I view myself just as religious as those who are literal translationist's of the Bible, but I as a Gnostic believe many of Christ's original teachings, as well as the story of his early life, have been lost to main stream Christianity.

Why can't Christians accept the origins of Christianity?

Many people get their sense of meaning and purpose from religion, which is fair enough if that's what they want. When looked at scholastically and objectively, however, religion ceases to impart meaning and purpose. That is to say, when looked at under such a microscope, religion ceases to be unique and ceases divuldge unique, absolute truth... thus ceasing to impart whatever sense of well-being or identity formerly imparted to the believer.

When identity and purpose (two highly emotional concepts) are based on faith, faith and reason become mutually exclusive.

There are several problems with the OPs post.

The first failure is to believe that we know anything "absolutely" about the past from what is left to examine. We know very little about the civilizations that lived on this planet 4000+ years ago.

The second problem is that we go by bits and fragments of stories and information that have been lucky enough to survivor the horrors of time. If you look back in history you can find periods of time where entire archives of knowledge are erased from human history - the burnings of the libraries of Alexandria for example. Who knows how many times this has happened over the course of thousands of years but you can bet it has happened many times over.

The third and biggest problem is that most people fail to understand that not all cultures throughout history wrote stuff down. Many cultures including the early Jews and other more recent cultures such as the American Indians almost never wrote down their history or stories. Their histories were "oral histories" passed on from generation to generation around campfires and dinnertables.

It is almost impossible to tell exactly where a story originated because of these problems. To determine without question who did what first is nearly impossible short of inventing a time machine and going back to see for yourself.

Personally I don't mind if christians can't except their "origins". They are allowed to believe in what they want. The only thing that bugs me is when they say there way is the only way and when they push their religion on others...I blow my lid.

Originally posted by Pepperslappy
Sun Matrix:
There is no where in that it says that. You are taking things out of context. You could take the line "Man was made in gods image" to god is white so men should be white. Anything int he bible can be taken differently. I bet you 400 years ago people didnt think that those things would happen. They sure as hell didnt take the things in the bible to mean that.

Man being made in Gods image means that he has an eternal soul to him, just like God. You seem to be the person that is taking things out of context.

As to Sun Matrix’s predictions they are based on a known prophetic language. It would require you to read and understand the Bible to understand what I am speaking of, and since most here that slam Christianity will never truly read the bible other then bits and pieces to try and put it down, I cannot expect you to understand what a Christian is speaking of in this aspect. There are three generally accepted schools of Biblical Prophetic teaching, they agree on many points but each has a few differences, mainly in their timelines. If you would care to read what each is this is a good gleaning over of it here:

Eschatology
Historicism
Preterism
Futurism
Idealism

Personally, I tend toward Historicism myself, that the end times have been ongoing since the fall of Jerusalem around 70AD, and continue on until the second coming. This was what most protestant reformers believed throughout history.

Now, with the Zionist’s being the main force in the media, most people are only familiar with Futurism, which sounds like its what Sun Matrix believes. Futurism is what movies and books such as the Seventh Sign, Left Behind, The Omega Code, End of Days, The Oman, etc… are based upon.

This style of prophecy is the most commonly pushed by Zionists, as it requires a rebuilt Jewish temple to complete the prophecies. This plays along with their hopes and plans to rebuild this structure, so they push this school of prophecy as it gets the Christians on their side against Islam.

And it all comes down to one verse that has been purposely misinterpreted by the Roman Catholic Church (Jesuit Order) to throw off the Protestant Reformers that were accusing the Pope of being the “Little Horn” of Daniel, believe it or not. This verse right here:

Dan 9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate.

[edit on 11/14/2006 by defcon5]

Originally posted by Or_Die_Trying
Its blatantly obvious that nearly all modern day creation based religions have strikingly similar (almost to the point of names being the only real difference) stories regarding creation, adam and eve, a flood, a "noah" character, a "jesus" character etc.... many of which pre-date christianity and even those stories can be traced even further back to egyptian, assyrian, babylonian etc "mythologies". When the evidence is so obvious why does every bible thumper seem to think their idealogy is the one truth when its obviously based on more ancient knowledge and stories? this goes for muslims too and jews, and so forth. anyone who does any research regarding ancient beliefs and creation stories willfind modern religion copying liberally from these.

Judging by the tone of your post, you really don't want an anwser to your question. You only want to push your belief/agenda. If I have misinterpreted your intentions, I appologise. I can give you answers if you seriously want to know.

Please keep in mind that your opinions are only opinions. There will be those who agree and those who disagree. Agreement does not make you right anymore than disagreement makes you wrong.

The Bible is true. Peoples interpretation is faulty.

God is no respector of persons (genealogy). The children of God (Israel) are the ones who love their neighbor as theirself. The promised land is under your feet. The Bible historically reflects the spirituality of believers and nonbelievers. Preachers won't preach it because they are controlled by the rulers of darkness of this world. Those that know the truth (reject the beast) are persecuted.

Siren

So God respects no one. Forgive me if I am wrong in my "worldly view," but how can you love someone without respecting them, and do not try and argue that God does not need to respect us to love us, if we were made in his image then God and man both have the simultaneous attributes of love and respect right? Ahh I guess we are still operating in old-testament god mode, huh? That would explain it.

Originally posted by Baphomet79 But subsequently leading from this was what texts would be included in the official "Christian" work, thus the question of the divinity of Christ went very far in deciding which gospels and other texts were deemed Christian and which were heretical, or apocryphal. Gnostic Christians believed Christ was a man who was an extremely enlightened individual who was worthy of reverence, but none the less was still only a man. The Council of Nicea declared his divinity and thus Gnostic texts were deemed apocryphal.

The creation of the bible is not as straight forward as many think it was. There are many that accuse the Roman Catholic Church of having manipulated what was in the Bible to their own ends; however there is a major problem with this concept. The Protestant Reformation occurred because Rome was not following what was in the Bible, this is why they tried so hard to keep it available in only Latin and in small numbers for so long. If Rome had been able to alter what was in the Bible so easily then they would have altered it to avoid the Protestant Reformation.

You must also remember that the Old Testament has a somewhat separate origin from the New Testament:

The Dead Sea scrolls discovered at caves near Qumran refer to the Torah and Nevi'im and suggest that these portions of the Bible had already been canonized before 68 CE

Rather then try and re-explain it, Wiki seems to have a pretty fair and honest evaluation of how the Biblical Cannon was formed. Here: en.wikipedia.org..." target="_blank" class="postlink" rel="nofollow">Cannon

Also don’t forget that many of these guys were not that far separated from the actual apostles and were not exactly flying as much in the dark as non-Christians would have many believe:

St. Irenaeus of Lyons
He was also a disciple of Polycarp, who himself was a disciple of John the Evangelist. His feast day is 28 June.

Since communication in those days was poor, they had to spend a long time weeding out the Doctrinally incorrect things that seeped into Christianity as up to that point there was no one set Church or Doctrine. Thus the removal of much that was Gnostic, Arianistic, etc…

Here is Irenaeus's feelings on Gnosticism and how well it related to Christianity:

Irenaeus wrote a number of books, but the most important that survives is the five-volume On the Detection and Overthrow of the So-Called Gnosis, normally referred to by the Latin title Adversus Haereses ("Against Heresies"). Only fragments of the original Greek text exist, but a complete copy exists in a wooden Latin translation, made shortly after its publication in Greek, and Books IV and V are also present in a literal Armenian translation. Irenaeus: Against heresies

The purpose of Against Heresies was to refute the teachings of various Gnostic groups; apparently, several Greek merchants had begun an oratorial campaign praising the pursuit of "gnosis" in Irenaeus' bishopric. Until the discovery of the Library of Nag Hammadi in 1945, Against Heresies was the best surviving description of Gnosticism.

I would conclude that someone that was actually trained under someone that was directly taught by one of the original 12 apostles would have a pretty good idea of what the original message of the bible was and would be good at deciding what needed to be weeded out.



[edit on 11/14/2006 by defcon5]

Originally posted by Baphomet79
So God respects no one. Forgive me if I am wrong in my "worldly view," but how can you love someone without respecting them, and do not try and argue that God does not need to respect us to love us, if we were made in his image then God and man both have the simultaneous attributes of love and respect right? Ahh I guess we are still operating in old-testament god mode, huh? That would explain it.

First off, God never changes, that is stated repeatedly in the Bible, and so to say that God is operating on Old Testament Mode cannot be correct. The Bible does in fact say that God is no respecter of Man; the problem is that you’re trying to understand God from a Human perspective. Man is a creation of God; he loves us because he chooses to love us, not because we inherently deserve his love. Much to the opposite, every time we disobey him and sin, we show how much we deserve nothing but his punishment. Its only out of love that God even grants us the opportunity to accept salvation through grace. Either way though, you cannot compare Gods love to a love relationship between two humans, as no human has ever been perfect nor created another human, you are comparing apples to oranges.

Again man being crated in the image of God means that he has an eternal spiritual component and the capacity for speech (the word), not that we literally are in anyway equal or similar to God. As God alone is perfect, we can never be equal, thus he does not have to respect us.

Is the original thread meant to imply why is there Catholics, Methodists, Lutherans, Baptists, etc.?

I would have to say there are too many people that interpret the Bible differently. As another poster said, there are Historianists, Futurists..and so on. I for one have a difficulty believing the teachings of Catholics. Some Fathers don't even open a Bible during sermons. I don't know if that's because they are so good, or they studied it religiously just beforehand or what. And why do so many just "take his word for it"? I for one would prefer to read it myself. But, we should be careful what some wish for, for when all the religions become one.....well read Revelations.

Yes when all religions become one, apparently thats a bad thing.

However, the point made at the start of this thread said that Christianity shares features of other religions. So, therefore, this must mean if we assume there is a truth, that christianity is one way of looking at it. So this would mean all religions have a truth in them, not one is superior to the others.

Originally posted by Sun Matrix
Please stop.............Islam has nothing to do with Judaism or Christianity.

Islam comes from Babylon and is the worship of the Moon god. Check your facts.

While I think it was the case that Allah was a pagan Moon god, I don't think that they worship him in that way. Muhammed actually thought that Jesus was one of the greatest prophets from what I've read, so I'm thinking Islam is a branch off of Christianity, as christianity is a branch off of Judaism.