I dont think jesus wanted religion

Originally posted by TopElite
No offense to anyone on here and this is only my opinion but I think people who believe in god are they same people who think super man and bat man are real. God is the ultimate super hero in a comic book. How can someone believe in talking animals and someone being born from a virgin. Come on now !

Has anyone ever watched the movie called religulous by bill maher. That movie is great . He actually goes to talk to all these religious people who don't have their facts straight and trip over words trying to answer his questions.

I give credit to the thought that there is a measure of craziness in all of man's religions. For me all the "your goin' to hell if' blah blah blah's" are crazy as hell itself and Maher has caught a whiff of that idealogy.

But I would prefer to have hope that their IS an interdimensional entity that merely wishes the people who may really be something much greater in spirit than we are in flesh, are able to learn to love one another. It is obvious if we don't, many suffer the consequences.

So many great things that we are capable of start with having belief outside of the box of what we have done or seen so far. It has been demonstrated by science that, tremendously hard to explain by conventional means, miracles happen after prayer or meditation. It is really hope that there is a better way than what we see in this hate filled world that is the true cause of belief in a God of love. And If you were on the fence you should take your chances with a God who requests you and I have a love our neighbor concept in our lives over any thing or idea ever concieved. That doesn't seem crazy.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

Hi Not Yr Typical -

OK - let's get some basics set down so we can continue this discussion intelligently.

Yes, Alexander the Great's power-hungry generals (after his death c. 323 BCE) siezed the areas of the 'Empire' under which they had control & declared themselves 'to be independent kings' - thus we have the 'royal' line of the Ptolmey's founded by Ptolmey who siezed Egypt, (one of whose descendants was e.g. Cleopatra VII, who was a Ptolmey, and NOT Egyptian...) and the 'royal line' of the Syrian-Greek Seleucids founded by Seleucus (who took Palestine/Syria, Mesopotamia, Persia & Anatolia) etc.

Koine Greek (in all its dialects) certainly became a kind of lingua franca for trading purposes throughout the Empire in the centuries before the common era, but....the more conservative ('torah Abiding' e.g. Pharasim etal.) as well as most of the the northern rural Palestinian Jews (including the Galileans) still spoke protoMishnaic Hebrew and Aramaic (at least with each other !) until well after the 1st Failed Jewish War against Rome (c. 66-72 CE), just as rural Egyptians clung to their own ancient tongues, despite the fact that Greek was widely spoken in Alexandria as well.

The LXX Septuaginta WAS NOT made for Palestinian Jews in eretz-Yiro'el, but for 'Greek speaking' Jews in the DIASPORA (e.g. Saul of Tarsus in Cilicia - present day Turkey - aka 'Paul' whose native tongue was almost certainly Greek - and who thought and spoke in Greek as a 'mother tongue') who no longer spoke Hebrew or Aramaic (see thee writings of Philo of Alexandria whose Greek was surely his primary language) - these people were NOT Palestinian Jews in Eretz Yisro'el, but more 'gentile friendly'

Here is some background on a LINK to fill you in on more details about the differences between 'Hebrao-Aramaic speaking Palestinian' Jews in Eretz Yisro'eel and the 'Greek-Speaking Jews of the Diaspora' the second group often came to Palestine three times a year for the High Holy Day Festivals of Pesach, Shavuot and Sukkhot - thus Jerusalem three times a year was flooded by Greek speaking Jews from abroad...

www.jewishencyclopedia.com...

But reactionary zionist movements in palestine, especially in the Galilee in the 1st century who opposed 'Hellenisation' such as R. Yehsohua bar Yosef the Galilean (Gk. Iesous) would have avoided speaking Greek, but would have tried to honour their 'mother tongues' which they regarded as 'the language of the angels...' and we see this trend in the Dead Sea Scroll Material (copied between c. 280 BCE and 68 CE) where there were very very few Greek text fragments found - almost all the documents were in proto-Mishnaic Hebrew (and sometimes even in PALEO Hebrew - talk about reactionary !!) and Aramaic - at least the documents meant for local consumption.

But all of this took place BEFORE the 1st Failed Jewish War against Rome (c. 66-72 CE) after which Greek and Latin started to become imposed on the few survivors (Josephus claims that more than 900,000 palestinian Jews were either killed or starved during the Jewish War against Rome, the rest 'sold into slavery in various parts of the Empire...'

And the life of R. Yehoshua bar Yosef the Galilean Nazir (Gk. Iesous) was approx 12 BCE to 36 CE - some 30 prior to the outbreak of the War in 66 CE (at the 70th anniversary of the death of Herod 'the Great' in 4 BCE) - and the majority of those Palestinian Jews not part of the government of Roman Rule stuck with their own 'national' tongue, i.e. a mix of proto-Mishnaic Hebrew and Aramaic.

The canonical 'Greek' Gospels were NOT written down in Koine Greek in anything like recogniseable form that we read to-day until AFTER the Failed Jewish War of 66-72 CE - and was obviously addressed to Greek Speaking Diaspora Jews throughout the Roman Empire (as were the Epistles of Saul of Tarsus) and scholars have seen this to be proved in many ways, not the least of which is by the way these documents were designed and expressed (i.e. by what material they 'contained' (and in what forms) & perhaps more importantly by what they 'ommitted' - as well as the clearly rabinnic 'midrashic style of utterance' with many passages of 'translation' for non-Aramaic speakers)

So we see several dozen phrases e.g. in the 4th gospel ('according to John', whoever he was...')

'and when Pilate appeared on the Gabbatha, which being translated means, Pavement'

we can clearly see that the writers (whoever they were) were breaking down a FOREIGN word to a FOREIGN audience (the Aramaic phrase Gaba-tha actually literally means 'high-up, there' or 'elevated place') - it would not make sense for the GREEK Gospels to TRANSLATE an ARAMAIC phrase, unless the ORIGINAL Aramaic expression was NOT understood by a Greek speaking audience.

I could give dozens of examples !!!

reply to post by Sigismundus


I have a question that is perplexing me. Why is it every time you refer to a gospel writer, I.E. Matthew, Mark, or John you always say "Whoever that is"?

Are you not aware who Christ's disciples were? It's just really odd to read it in all your posts. Thanks.

reply to post by NOTurTypical

Hi Not Your Typ

The reason why one must say 'the Greek canonical 'gospel' according to 'e.g. Mark' whoever he was' is to show that the 4 canonical 'Greek' council approved Gospels whose tattered remains are reflected in the printed versions of 'english' new testaments circulated for at least 100 years in Greek without titles or name-attributions.

This is straight out of Beginner's Gospel Studies-101 -

The attributions of ALL FOUR Greek canonical council-approved 'gospels' were LATER tacked onto these originally anonymous 'Midrashic' Messianic-fulfilment & Greek language LOGIA in the form of 'Messianic' propaganda tracts (compleat with a 'Koine Greek-speaking 'Iesous' who had real-live Koine late first century Greek placed into his mouth - even though he spoke as much Greek as my Grandmother could speak Mexican-Spanish by visiting San Diego once...)

We do not know wwho e.g. Matathiah was - the 1st canonical greek council approved Gospel is the only one who mentions a Matathias (='Matthew') the others menion a LEVI in his place. The 3rd canonical Greek gospel ('according to Luke' whoever he was) writer was the same person responsible for continuing his propaganda narrative in his 2nd treatise nicknamed 'Acts' - where in chapter 1 it states that the 11 remaining disciples after the execution of their fearless leader and the 'absence' of the 12th member R. Yehudah bar Shimeon ('Ish Keryiota' = Aram. lit. 'the man who handed over' i.e. betrayed, aka Judas Iscarioth) meant that to fill up the magic number 12 the survivors of this messianic movement had very quickly to 'elect' a replacement, and so they drew lots (which might have been Urim or might have been the raising of a rangom number of fingers and a random number chosen until the person was selected...)

Either way, according to 'Acts' (dedicated to His Excellency Theophilos, whoever he was) that replacement 13th disciple was one 'Matathiah' who never previously followed the inner circle of 'Iesous' and so, according to Papias writing 250 years later, had to learn the 'parables' and the messianic-fulffilment prophecies as they applied to the recently executed Messianic Pretender on the fly

e.g. 'Matthew collected the LOGIA TOU KURIOU ('oracles of the Lord') in the Aramaic tongue and they all had to translate them as best they could...'

The 'Matathias' of 'Acts' resembles the fuller name of a disciple that the writer of the 1st canonical Greek gospel named Matathiah bar-Halfa ('Matthew son of Alpheus') - it would appear that an early LOGIA collector who joined the group after the Crucifixion had written himself into his own gospel - the other 'Greek council approved canonical gospels' do not have a 'Matthew' as a disciple while their own version of their ownn Greek Speaking Iesous's lived.

Some would ascribe the 2nd Greek Canonical council-approved gospel ('according to Mark' whoever he was) as the same as 'John Mark' in Acts 12;12 who travelled with and translated Kepha's Aramaic preaching (R. Shimeon bar Yonah, ha Kephah = Simon Peter = Kephah is ARAMAIC for 'rock' and HO PETROS is Koine Greek for 'rock') into something that sounded like Greek - but the Koine Greek of the 2nd canonical gospel is often grammatically impossible ('baby Greek full of 'grammatical howlers...' to quote Dr. C.K. Barrrett) and clearly is based on an ARAMAIC original oral preaching tradition.

Aramaic and proto-Mishnaic Hebrew as was spoken in Palestine before the 1st Failed Jewish War against Rome (c. 66-72 CE) is often difficult to bring into later Koine Greek - so we have in the letters of Saul of Tarsus (whose native tongue was Cilician Greek) referring to 'Peter' as 'Cephas' the Aramaic nickname for rock ('Kephah') which shows that the mother tongue of the earliest Nazorean 'Messiansts' was Hebraeo-Aramaic & NOT Greek.

No body knows who 'Luke' was or whether he was the same person as the 'doctor' referred to in some of the Pauline fragments in Colossians 4:14 - we do not know who 'His Excellency Theophilos' was or when or where he lived. Some have tried to pin it down to a wealthy lord in Asia minor of the 2nd century...

All we have is a paragraph stating that the author (anonymously referred to in the prologue as 'me' as in 'as MANY OTHERS have already produced narratives.....it seemed good also to me to set down in 'order' the things that have taken place amongst us...' , .. whoever US is)

The 4th gospel is also anonymous - later attribted to John the Elder ('Yohanon the Presbuteros') who writes with an Alexandrian Koine Greek accent - probably a 'diaspora Jew' from Egypt - or maybe he just picked up his accent there -- but John the Elder was not 'one of the 12', but the Elder at least may have met the man - if only for a brief moment at the end (John 19:34) when he saw 'blood & urine flowing' at the Cross !

Originally posted by definity
mabey he didnt, but people did

i just prooved my point

reply to post by BroketheWall


This is what i thought on the matter, he was just trying to wright a book of morals that got turned into a story about him being almighty and the son of god meanwhile all he was saying was we all are able to become enlightened.