Biblical Deaths: How Many Did God Kill? How Many Did Satan Kill?

No, the point I waS trying to make is the Gnostic scriptures/gospels date to the 2nd and 3rd century. Even the disciples of the apostles (Clement, Polycarp) make zero references to them. Why would anyone believe them to be accurate when they were written long after Jesus's apostles were dead???

They are just heretical Gnostic writings from Egypt that threw in names of apostles to makes them appear credible. If they in fact would have been true gospels they would have been referenced by Peter, Paul, James, John, or Jude. They would have been referenced once of twice by the apostles's disciples. Clement of Rome was Peter's direct disciple and Polycarp was John's.

OK. I gave a link to the chief Infancy Gospels, because that's what TD and adj seemed to be discussing, but were having trouble finding a link. I wasn't commenting upon their contents. Really not.

I did, however, distinguish Thomas from other non-canonical material, including Gnostic pseudo-gospels.

Thomas isn't really much of a Gnostic Gospel. The longest manuscript was found alongside Gnostic gospels, and the Coptic-translated text had obvious Gnostic interpolatiions.

But the core Greek text may be First Century and may be of Way origin.

You posted a link to a sermon by Mark Driscoll. As he says, there is, according to many Christians, general revelation. GR applies, because there is only natural content in Thomas, recorded spoken words, no miracles, no commentary, no Passion narrative.

The test of truth would be conformity and consistency with canonical scripture. Core Thomas holds up well to that test. I mentioned the work of the Jesus Seminar in that regard.

So, I don't see that I did bad because I applied your guy's test to a disputed book, and concluded that Thomas should be distinguished from clearly Gnostic texts, according to his criterion.

Granted, Driscoll dislikes Thomas, but then nobody likes verse 114. It's obviously a Gnostic addendum, not core.


(I drive my friends up the wall )

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[edit on 24-8-2010 by eight bits]

reply to post by eight bits


The ONLY scholars who think that Thomas dates earlier than the 2nd century AD are Gnostics. Outside of Gnosticism it's universally agreed to come from the 2nd century.

It's also important to notice that the apostles disciples never mention ANY Gnostic scriptures. If they were really from Thomas or Peter et cetra, they would be granted the same respect as the other gospels they mention frequently. That should also tell you they date to after these men died as well.

Umm, there aren't enough living capital-G Gnostics to make a dent in Biblical scholarship. Core Thomas is not the Coptic translation and amplification of Thomas.

There is no way to tell whether Apostloic writers made any use of Thomas or not. It didn't have a title, and almost the only content was sayings of Jesus, many of which are close to the canonical. We don't even know how close, since we have Greek only for fragments.

No moving the goalposts. You offered Driscoll as an expert witness. He doesn't like Coptic Thomas, but the criterion he proposed is largely satisfied by Core Thomas, upon which he offered no opinion.

Observing that is fair commentary.

reply to post by eight bits


I never said "Apostolic" writers. I said the disciples of the Apotles never mentioned these heretical books. Polycarp was John's disciple and Clement of Rome was Peter's disciple. The fact that neither men reference or mention any of the Gonostic gospels tells you that they originated after their lives. I would think that if the gospels were true Peter and John would have known so. lol

Here



[edit on 25-8-2010 by NOTurTypical]

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by traditionaldrummer

 

No you said my claim is incorrect, not said how.

I'd recommend that you go back and actually read my responses.

I've showed how several times now.

reply to post by traditionaldrummer


God also ended Adam and Eve's lives as well. By taking away their eternal life. You can basically say that God is killing every one of us very slowly.

You can say that because according to the Bible God is in charge of everything. God is even in charge of Satan's actions.



[edit on 27.06.08 by spy66]

Originally posted by eight bits
In any case, Thomas is hardly more Gnostic than John, and with the Jesus Seminar filter I suggested and cited, about as Gnostic as Mark.

Well, your interpretation of what is Gnostic and what is not is probably much different than mine, but there are plenty of passages in there that appear to be in support of Gnostic beliefs, and counter to Judaism and Christianity. 3b, 7, 11a, 11d (actually sounds like a Dr. Seuss passage, lol) 12, 13, etc etc etc. Without going back through the whole thing, my memory is that a fair percentage of the quotes that aren't part of the Gospels pointed in a Gnostic direction, making the whole of it pretty suspect.

Adj, the PTB were trying to kill the guy. Any excuse would do. Jesus needed to go with parables in public, and save the plain text for private consumption, until he had completed the mission. Then the Apostles would earn their tuition.

So you're saying that Jesus made public proclamations which were vague (yet still specific enough to get him and his followers killed) and then made private clarifications which were contrary not only to his public messages, but also to the Jewish faith? And, when the Gospels were set down later, the writers opted to only include these public sayings, even though there was no longer any threat of harm from the release of the private teachings? And allowed the private teachings to become "lost" or "hidden" and needing discovery? And God, who just gave himself over to a humiliating and tortuous death on a cross, was okay with this derailing of his plan?

I think it likely that Jesus told his apostles things that are not recorded in the Gospels, in fact, I would say that it's impossible that he didn't. But whether those things are substantive, conflicting with other teaching, and critical, as the Gnostics believe, no, I see no sense to that.

When I say that God is not an elitist, it is based on the notion that God grants salvation freely, to all who want it, in a plain and simple manner. He does not expect you to "figure it out" or "discover the real truth", because you are saved by his grace, not by your own cleverness.

The Gnostics existed before Christ, their teachings are incompatible with Judaism, they are incompatible with Christ, and they are not a part of Christian doctrine. Documents which purport to portray Christianity, but offer a view of God that is contrary to Christian belief, are not appropriate to the faith.

Can the Gnostics be right? Sure. Could Gnostic Christians have really had the right story, and the nascent Church suppressed Gnosticism, and Christianity is inaccurate in every way? Well, for the reasons cited above, I find it incredibly unlikely, but it's possible, sure.

However, it makes no difference -- I believe what I believe, and none of this affects what absolute truth happens to be. I think that I'm congruent with that truth, and I see no benefit to changing my beliefs by letting in parts that are contrary to it. Aside from catering to one's tendency to want to be clever, or wanting to belong to some hidden society, or wanting to make millions from poorly constructed and written books, Gnosticism offers nothing to Christianity.

adj

3b, 7, 11a, 11d (actually sounds like a Dr. Seuss passage, lol) 12, 13,

Applying the filter:

3b: black
7: black
11a: black
11d: black
12: black
13: black

Black = Jesus did not say this; it represents the perspective or content of a later or different tradition.

Six for six so far.

So you're saying that Jesus made public proclamations which were vague ...

I'm not saying anything. I pointed you to what Mark said.

I believe, based on Mark, there was a time limit on the esoteric aspect, consistent with Jesus not being prematurely killed, before he could perform his mission. Since Jesus has long since left the mission to others, I can only assume that Jesus' best friends carried out his wishes, and disclosed everything that they could recall.

The use of the word hidden in the preamble to Thomas does not conflict with that assumption. That would be so even if the preamble were core, which it doesn't seem to be.

In case it is unclear, I hold no brief for the Gnostic gospels. That they are not included in the canon is a fine call, in my agnostic opinion.

However, why my attitude toward core-Thomas should be determined by its having been embellished by Gnostics eludes me. I scrape away the Gnostic stuff, and look at what's left, which is quite a bit, more or less the pink and red stuff in the resource I mentioned.

NOTurTypical

I never said "Apostolic" writers.

I said it, using the word to refer to the usual authorship standard for the canon, an Apostle or a personal associate of an Apostle. Your witness, Driscoll, discussed that point.

I meant what I said. Whether or not the Apostolic writers used Thomas cannot be determined. There is little or nothing for them or their disciples to mention, and no way for them to identify Thomas to us if they did use it.

The fact that neither men reference or mention any of the Gonostic gospels tells you that they originated after their lives.

We don't seem to be on the same page. Nobody here disputes that the Gnostic gospels aren't gospels. The question before us is whether Thomas is a Gnostic gospel.

If some Gnostics had their own "tuned-up" version of Luke, does that make Luke a Gnostic gospel?

No, of course not. The case against Thomas as Gnostic is that there is a moderately tuned-up Gnostic translation of it into Coptic. Strip away the obvious accretions, and you are left with a core. The core has no Gnostic content, by construction.

Date the core. First Century is in play.



[edit on 25-8-2010 by eight bits]

Originally posted by eight bits
However, why my attitude toward core-Thomas should be determined by its having been embellished by Gnostics eludes me. I scrape away the Gnostic stuff, and look at what's left, which is quite a bit, more or less the pink and red stuff in the resource I mentioned.

The problem (my point in noting the black passages) is that we already have the red stuff, and while the pink stuff ("Jesus probably said this") is not conflicting, its veracity is suspect because of all the other junk that someone is trying to shoehorn in.

#114 is notable because it's at the end, so its lunacy can be pretty readily dismissed as being appended. However, the rest of it is mixed in, so it seems less likely that someone had a list of authentic things that Jesus said (the red and perhaps the pink) and then tacked on things which supported their beliefs. More's likely that it was written to be intentionally misleading, by pulling accurate statements of Christ from some source (depending on dating, probably the Gospels,) and then sprinkling those through the list, along with things that the author came up with (on his own, or from some other Gnostic source.)

Rather than the "Jesus said this", "Jesus probably said this" and so on, it would be more useful to have a simple "This is in harmony with Jesus' teaching" and "This is in conflict with Jesus' teaching", as the Jesus Seminar method denotes some authenticity that is probably not deserved.

The reason that the Church takes a pretty dim view of these sorts of things is that, unlike you and I (and others in this thread,) many people do not approach these texts critically. Catering to that desire to be clever or more knowledgable, some will get pulled in this direction because they fail to see how this is a significantly different view of the nature of God.

After "The Gospel of Judas" came out (well, some book about it came out,) someone in my church small group was reading it and asked what I thought of it. When I replied that it was Gnostic and contrary to Christianity, he was taken aback and said he didn't realize it.

Witness how many people, both here and elsewhere, view "The Da Vinci Code" as being factually based. They're not stupid (well, not all of them :-) but they're being pulled into a belief system that has no practical or theological basis, for whatever reason, but not because they looked into Dan Brown's sources and found them credible.

reply to post by traditionaldrummer


No you showed your interpretation, which I then followed to show how it was wrong. In fact I even quoted an earlier part where God says he promises not to kill innocents. So really I have to ask. Where did you prove yourself right? And again, you have not explained how to remedy the logic hole in your posts. In addition to that, you did not answer my example.

The problem (my point in noting the black passages) is that we already have the red stuff, and while the pink stuff ("Jesus probably said this") is not conflicting, its veracity is suspect because of all the other junk that someone is trying to shoehorn in.

If I find a gold coin in the mud, then your advice to me is to throw it away, because I have other gold coins, and this one has to be cleaned?

Look at 113 (pink), for example. When will the kingdom come? The synoptics, by definition, are usually close on Jesus' sayings. There is some diversity on this one.

Mark 13: 3ff., in an (ahem) private face-to-face discussion with four of the Twelve, sometime in the future.

Matthew 24: 3ff , also privately, with unspecified disciples, sometime in the future. This is fairly close to Mark's account.

Luke 17: 20ff., now asked in public by Pharisees "When will the Kingdom come?" Jesus says,

The coming of the kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, 'Look, here it is,' or, 'There it is.' For behold, the kingdom of God is among you.

That is, in the present. Like Thomas 113:

The kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it.

Then Jesus turns to his disciples in Luke, and says things reminiscent of the other two synoptics to them.

An additional perspective may be helpful in focusing thought on questions like this. Sort of important, too, even for a secular understanding of Jesus' thinking about his place in the scheme of things. (In the Thomas we have, the present-tense answer is presented to his followers, for whatever that is worth.)

Rather than the "Jesus said this", "Jesus probably said this" and so on, it would be more useful to have a simple "This is in harmony with Jesus' teaching" and "This is in conflict with Jesus' teaching",

I proposed the Jesus Seminar poll only to accomplish a specific task on this specific text. Whether it is the best way to approach other problems with other texts lies beyond my claim.

Originally posted by Gorman91
No you showed your interpretation, which I then followed to show how it was wrong. In fact I even quoted an earlier part where God says he promises not to kill innocents. So really I have to ask. Where did you prove yourself right? And again, you have not explained how to remedy the logic hole in your posts. In addition to that, you did not answer my example.

It's not an interpretation, it's a fact. The 70K people who were killed were innocent of David's crime which angered god. Since god promised not to kill innocents this makes him a liar as well as a mass murderer.

So there it is again. Hopefully this time you'll concede to these obvious facts and stop imagining ways in which these poor people were guilty; subsequently calling innocently murdered people "barbarians".

Originally posted by eight bits

The problem (my point in noting the black passages) is that we already have the red stuff, and while the pink stuff ("Jesus probably said this") is not conflicting, its veracity is suspect because of all the other junk that someone is trying to shoehorn in.

If I find a gold coin in the mud, then your advice to me is to throw it away, because I have other gold coins, and this one has to be cleaned?

Not a very good allegory -- how about "I give you two boxes. One has 20 gold coins that you know are gold. The other has 10 gold coins that you know are good, 10 that might be good, and 20 that you know are not good, and it's up to you to sort them all out." Which box would you prefer?

Luke 17: 20ff., now asked in public by Pharisees "When will the Kingdom come?" Jesus says,

The coming of the kingdom of God cannot be observed, and no one will announce, 'Look, here it is,' or, 'There it is.' For behold, the kingdom of God is among you.

That is, in the present. Like Thomas 113:

The kingdom of the Father is spread out upon the earth, and people do not see it.

If you put the passage in Luke back in its context, the verses that follow your cite clarify that Jesus is referring to himself, he is among you. The bit in Thomas, however, doesn't say that the kingdom is among you, but spread out upon the Earth, which a person cannot be.

Similar statement, significantly different meaning.

I don't disagree that there is value in non-canonical texts, I just believe that the core of what is canonical is sufficient, and when something else of dubious value is introduced, it is likely that it is more dilutive of the truth than enhancing, so one needs to take care with it.

reply to post by traditionaldrummer


But how do you know that was not their punishment for some other crime? If a rapist dies in the crossfire between a murderer and the cops, that's two birds with one stone.

Originally posted by Gorman91
reply to post by traditionaldrummer

 

But how do you know that was not their punishment for some other crime? If a rapist dies in the crossfire between a murderer and the cops, that's two birds with one stone.

Because it's not specified in the bible. There are two bible chapters about this same event and neither specify such a thing. Also, pestilence isn't exactly discriminating about who is guilty and who isn't.

reply to post by traditionaldrummer


A.) So you are admitting guilty until proven innocent?

B.) Yes it is discriminatory, as seen in Egypt.


You're putting God in a box, assuming he has to follow the natural order of things. When God could just as easily do whatever he feels like and not attack innocent people.

This was a time of barbarianism and dictators. Innocents was rare, perhaps only amongst children.

As it is said

the LORD was grieved because of the calamity

So he was not exactly doing it in happiness. And David called them sheep. IE, blind followers. Committing whatever crime he ordered or they desired.

[edit on 25-8-2010 by Gorman91]

[edit on 25-8-2010 by Gorman91]

Originally posted by Gorman91

A.) So you are admitting guilty until proven innocent?

No. How could you possibly get to this assumption? They are innocent until proven guilty and I've already demonstrated their innocence.

You're putting God in a box, assuming he has to follow the natural order of things. When God could just as easily do whatever he feels like and not attack innocent people.

If god affects the physical world he is forced to follow the natural order. Also, he could have not killed 70K innocent people but he did.

Originally posted by Gorman91

As it is said

the LORD was grieved because of the calamity

No

That was over the angel attacking Jerusalem, not god killing 70K innocent people.

reply to post by traditionaldrummer


You are saying they are innocent because it is not stated they were not. So you are in doing so calling God guilty of killing innocents until proven guilty. This is nothing short of flawed logic. It is not stated they were not innocent people. It is also not stated they were. They were just people. IE, you have to look at other parts of the Bible to see who God kills. It is stated that God will not kill innocent people. Because it is not stated they are or are not innocent, they were not innocent people based on previous remarks. What you are doing is assuming.

Also this is the same God who pretty much gave Moses a TARDIS boat. God can do whatever he feels like. He is not bound by any physical law.