# Jesus as a Sacrifice??



## bullethead (Mar 9, 2019)

Why did the NT writers use Jesus as a Sacrifice when it goes against what is written in the Torah and goes against prophecy?

How could they not know what was required?


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## bullethead (Mar 9, 2019)

The whole concept of the NT is not a continuation of the OT but an entirely new religion that seems designed to change the rules.


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## Artfuldodger (Mar 9, 2019)

The shadows of the Sacrifice were in the Old Testament. Therefore the concept of the New Testament being  an entirely knew religion is wrong.

The Jews were blinded as to not see. This was necessary for God to bring salvation to the world.


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## bullethead (Mar 9, 2019)

Artfuldodger said:


> The shadows of the Sacrifice were in the Old Testament. Therefore the concept of the New Testament being  an entirely knew religion is wrong.
> 
> The Jews were blinded as to not see. This was necessary for God to bring salvation to the world.


Sacrifice was in the Torah no doubt, but a person as a sacrifice ESPECIALLY the way Jesus was treated and because Jesus was not sacrificed by the Jews go against all their prophecy.  
New religion needed new rules because in no way was it a continuation of or did it follow the old religion.


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## gemcgrew (Mar 9, 2019)

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know _them_, because they are spiritually discerned."


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## bullethead (Mar 9, 2019)

gemcgrew said:


> "But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know _them_, because they are spiritually discerned."


Geez, who would have thought that religious books say things like that??
Next you will say that The Braves team souvenir stand is partial to Brave's Fans...

I am just among the Natural man crowd. I am certainly not one them special people. I never got to ride the blue bus to school.


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## bullethead (Mar 9, 2019)

https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/mes...ite-called-the-refine-t3786.html#.TsWb58Mr2nA
This is from post #11 from the link above:
The Torah makes it clear that Jesus was NOT a sacrifice acceptable to G-d.  Torah tells us that a sacrificial ritual must be administered by a Priest (see Leviticus Chapters 1-7). 
According to the accounts in the Greek Testament (GT), Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers (Matthew 27:35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:33; John 19:18, 23). 
Torah further tells us that the blood of the (chatat / sin) sacrifice had to be sprinkled by the Priest on the veil of the sanctuary and on the altar in the Temple (e.g., Leviticus 4: 5-6).   
The Christian bible clearly shows this was not done with Jesus. 
Then Torah tells us that the (chatat / unintentional sin) sacrifice must be without any physical defect or blemish (e.g., Leviticus 4:3). 
According to the various accounts in the GT, Jesus was beaten, whipped, and dragged on the ground before being crucified (Matthew 26:67, 27:26, 30-31; Mark 14: 65, 15:15-20; Luke 22: 63; John 18:22, 19:1, 3). 
Moreover, as a Jew by birth, Jsus was circumcised on the eighth day after being born, a ritual that leaves a scar ("sign of the covenant"). 
According to the Christian bible, circumcision is tantamount to mutilation (Philippians 3:2, Galatians 5:12). 
Torah says that the Passover sacrifice be a male-goat, be offered on an individual (per household) basis (Numbers 28:22), not as a communal offering. 
According to the Christian bible, Jesus death (termed a sin sacrifice) expiated the sins of mankind (Romans 6:10; Hebrews 9:12, 10:10, 10:18 ). 
Torah goes on to say that the Paschal Lamb was NOT to be offered for the removal of sins. It was a commemorative/festive offering (see also under items 4 above and 6 below). A more appropriate time for a sin offering would have been on Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement; Numbers 29:11 [individual sin-offering male goat]; Leviticus16:15 [communal sin-offering male goat]). 
The sacrificed Paschal Lamb had to be roasted and eaten, and in the first instance in Egypt its blood was used to mark the side-posts and lintel of the doors (Exodus 12: 7-8 ). 
There is no record in the Christian bible that Jesus was eaten or that his blood was put on the door posts (lest it be suggested that Christianity promotes cannibalism). 
Torah says that the sacrificial sin offering could only atone for unintentional sins, with few notable exceptions as stated in Leviticus 5:1-6, 20-26 [Leviticus6:1-7 in Xian Bibles]; [e.g., Bambidar / Numbers 15:27-31] . Torah teaches that sacrifices can only atone for sins committed PRIOR to the offering of the sacrifice. No sacrifice could ever atone for sins committed AFTER the sacrifice was offered. Thus, no sacrifice could ever atone for people born after the sacrifice was offered. 
Torah vehemently FORBIDS human vicarious atonement (e.g., Exodus 32:31-33; Numbers 35:33; Deuteronomy 24:16; II Kings 14:6; Jeremiah 31:29 [30 in a Christian Bible]; Ezekiel 18:4,20; Psalms 49:7). Human sacrifices are strictly forbidden in Torah (e.g., Leviticus18:21, 24-25; Deuteronomy 18:10; Jeremiah 7:31, 19: 5; Ezekiel 23:37, 39). 
Per Torah,Jodav, the death of Jesus could never atone for any sin, much less all sins of all people for all time? NOT AT ALL, NEVER! The story is pagan in its entirety and breaks all the laws of Jewish sacrifice


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## Artfuldodger (Mar 9, 2019)

Leviticus 4:3 starts; "'If the anointed priest sins," Jesus never sinned. Regardless of what the Law stated, Jesus fulfilled the "Law." Also Jesus is the Priest.

Jesus was born under the Law, Philippians 3:2, Galatians 5:12  were after the sacrifice. Also, not even the same word is used in those two verses for "mutilate."

Jesus had no broken bones, thus he was without physical blemish in regards to a Jewish sacrifice. 

Before Jesus sacrifices were temporary. Thus they only covered past sins. None of the other sacrifices ever recovered from their deaths.


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## Artfuldodger (Mar 9, 2019)

bullethead said:


> https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/mes...ite-called-the-refine-t3786.html#.TsWb58Mr2nA
> This is from post #11 from the link above:
> The Torah makes it clear that Jesus was NOT a sacrifice acceptable to G-d.  Torah tells us that a sacrificial ritual must be administered by a Priest (see Leviticus Chapters 1-7).
> According to the accounts in the Greek Testament (GT), Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers (Matthew 27:35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:33; John 19:18, 23).
> ...



The human sacrifice thing? Good question. Jesus was most definitely human. 

My question would by "why was/is a sacrifice necessary?" Reminds me of the old movies where they had to throw living things in a volcano to appease the Gods.

Why would a God require a living or dead sacrifice? Especially blood, why not a living plant?


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## Artfuldodger (Mar 9, 2019)

Maybe a sacrifice should be one's most prized possession. It could be a human or animal but what about money? Maybe a bass boat or a rifle?
His truck. His job. His pride. His place in society.

What could one really give to a living God to appease him?


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## gemcgrew (Mar 10, 2019)

bullethead said:


> I am just among the Natural man crowd. I am certainly not one them special people. I never got to ride the blue bus to school.


Whether you are special or not will be evidenced in time. In either case, you serve a special purpose.

You are currently strengthening the believers by affirming what the Bible says about you.


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## bullethead (Mar 10, 2019)

Artfuldodger said:


> The human sacrifice thing? Good question. Jesus was most definitely human.
> 
> My question would by "why was/is a sacrifice necessary?" Reminds me of the old movies where they had to throw living things in a volcano to appease the Gods.
> 
> Why would a God require a living or dead sacrifice? Especially blood, why not a living plant?


It's not a good question. It is part of the rules of the Torah. No humans for sacrifice.


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## bullethead (Mar 10, 2019)

Artfuldodger said:


> Maybe a sacrifice should be one's most prized possession. It could be a human or animal but what about money? Maybe a bass boat or a rifle?
> His truck. His job. His pride. His place in society.
> 
> What could one really give to a living God to appease him?


He seemed to be happy with goats for thousands of years


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## bullethead (Mar 10, 2019)

gemcgrew said:


> Whether you are special or not will be evidenced in time. In either case, you serve a special purpose.
> 
> You are currently strengthening the believers by affirming what the Bible says about you.


Did I miss my name being mentioned in the bible?  It does not say anything about me but only makes general statements that leaves it's believers to interpret it how they want to in order to fit them.
What the bible does say specifically is what can and cannot be sacrificed and a human does not fit within the rules.  That is what we are talking about.
I seem to be able to see such things within the bible more clearly than those who supposedly are not foolish.


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## Israel (Mar 10, 2019)

I have long been provoked (and remain so) by Jesus words here:


"Even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up..." 
and 
"That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life." 

Review the incident as need be if one cares to, also to consider the matter of Nehushtan (of what that brazen serpent became to the people). An idol.

The image of what had poisoned the people by its bite (serpents moving among them) was remedied when this image was lifted up and those who obeyed to its "looking upon" were healed. And so Jesus also says

That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life. 

First the matter of Moses' instruction needs light. Why lift up the image of the very thing (for healing) that is the cause of the troubles? 

_Naturally_ my own inclination is more toward "thanks, but I'd prefer not to be reminded (of the very thing by which I am dying) by this thing being put in plain sight". 
Wouldn't it make more sense to (so to speak) raise an image of a "holy" hypodermic needle and a vial that says "God's antivenin"? "look upon this and believe...and live!" 
That's _my natural_ inclination. Which matters not at all, of course, because those _were not_ the instruction, nor remedy.

Therefore when Jesus says His lifting up is as likewise to the lifting of the bronze serpent, (in the wilderness) I am pressed to ask..."huh"?

Fear and fears are a powerful thing. God knows. A brother wrote this in regards to the Lord's appearing amongst us:

Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. 

Another wrote, or at least was written in another place:

For he hath made him _to be_ sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. 

"In the wilderness".

A wilderness is where a man experiences little reliance on convenience, or convenient resources. One might even say that those things are where all conveniences...are stripped away. A man might come to face just how much/little he really has there of "resource". 

A man might even be pressed to face fear and fears that in other circumstance...were kept (seemingly at bay)...by both convenience and conveniences. (Is this hard to understand?)  
Dying "in the wilderness" is not viewed there as a "possible thing", one might even say its reality there is quite pressing.

I am persuaded no believer is unfamiliar with some form of wilderness experience.

And no less persuaded many others are no less persuaded they have experienced some to some extent. Some have even sought them "to see what they are made of"...and those that return in some success of a _self reliance_ shown there hold this as their testimony. "I beat there what appeared overwhelming odds and opposition".

Yes, many come back with a story of victory of what they consider "having faced the abyss".
Yes, they do.


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## bullethead (Mar 10, 2019)

Israel said:


> I have long been provoked (and remain so) by Jesus words here:
> 
> 
> "Even as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up..."
> ...


Human sacrifice is against the Torah.
Period
The rules do not change no matter how much people need them to or how much filabustering is done to prolong the inevitable.


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## Israel (Mar 10, 2019)

And he said, Take now thy son, thine only _son_ Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.












And Abraham said, My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering: so they went both of them together.


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## bullethead (Mar 10, 2019)

Israel said:


> And he said, Take now thy son, thine only _son_ Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.


Oh darn you got me. 
Please continue with the rest of the passages where it details how Isaac was sacrificed and what happened because of it.... if Thine would do that for me I wouldst appreciatist mucheth.


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## Israel (Mar 10, 2019)

Do I? have you?


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## bullethead (Mar 10, 2019)

Pleaseth Readeth,

In The Binding of Isaac, Religious Murders & Kabbalah, Lippman Bodoff argues that Abraham never intended to actually sacrifice his son, and that he had faith that God had no intention that he do so. Rabbi Ari Kahn (on the Orthodox Union website) elaborates this view as follows: Isaac's death was never a possibility — not as far as Abraham was concerned, and not as far as God was concerned. God's commandment to Abraham was very specific, and Abraham understood it very precisely: Isaac was to be "raised up as an offering", and God would use the opportunity to teach humankind, once and for all, that human sacrifice, child sacrifice, is not acceptable. This is precisely how the sages of the Talmud (Taanit 4a) understood the Akedah. Citing the Prophet Jeremiah's exhortation against child sacrifice (Chapter 19), they state unequivocally that such behavior "never crossed God’s mind", referring specifically to the sacrificial slaughter of Isaac. Though readers of this parashah throughout the generations have been disturbed, even horrified, by the Akedah, there was no miscommunication between God and Abraham. The thought of actually killing Isaac never crossed their minds.


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## bullethead (Mar 10, 2019)

Israel said:


> Do I? have you?


Tell me what happened after Isaac was sacrificed.


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## Israel (Mar 10, 2019)

That God can tell Moses to write certain things after telling Abraham to "do" another...which He later prevented, is of course, a seeming paradox.

That Jesus would tell Peter in regards to things he might say to John..."what is that to you? You, follow me."


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## bullethead (Mar 10, 2019)

Israel said:


> That God can tell Moses to write certain things after telling Abraham to "do" another...which He later prevented, is of course, a seeming paradox.
> 
> That Jesus would tell Peter in regards to things he might say to John..."what is that to you? You, follow me."


Israel, I know the biblical paradox(s) and contradictions that inhabit the bible.
I just don't know what your point is about bringing up the Isaac "almost" sacrific..
Abraham was never going to do it and God was never going to let him. Period.
Human Sacrifice is not a viable option in the Torah or Judaism or anything that Jesus grew up with or preached.
This human sacrifice stuff is all added later to make a new religion palatable to all the non Jews because it was well known that none of it would work to lure away the believers of the religion that the writers were trying to change.
There were ALWAYS people writing about similar things and changes . It it like Christianity now. Never just one denomination that all is on the same page but 40,000 different ones that all want to tweak to suit.


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## Israel (Mar 10, 2019)

How you derive from the account "Abraham was never going to do it..." is interesting to me. It's true that God was not going to let Abraham "do it" and so it was as prevented at first mention to Abraham as was later made clear.
But, God alone knows/knew intents of heart, what was as submitted to "make a sacrifice" as "do not make this sacrifice". Are you implying Abraham himself never had intent or desire to obey?



> Abraham was never going to do it and God was never going to let him.



I am going to venture that this would be no more accepted by the "devout Jew" (that you seem to be using as having/retaining some form of right consistency to a resistance of Jesus as Messiah) that such consistency would _confirm your inconsistency_ of finding them of use to your contentions.

If you seek to present (or represent) "the Jew" who would say "God has never called for a man to sacrifice another man"...I would leave him, no less than with you, the example of Abraham.

I marvel at the God of Abraham, able to make a man of such obedience. And am persuaded that is to that very end..._that I marvel, at that God._

_Men, as examples. _

_Jesus as Lord._


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## bullethead (Mar 10, 2019)

Israel said:


> How you derive from the account "Abraham was never going to do it..." is interesting to me. It's true that God was not going to let Abraham "do it" and so it was as prevented at first mention to Abraham as was later made clear.
> But, God alone knows/knew intents of heart, what was as submitted to "make a sacrifice" as "do not make this sacrifice". Are you implying Abraham himself never had intent or desire to obey? You would have no reason to venture any of this if you actually read post#20
> 
> 
> ...


Post #20 specifically addresses what you are asking now.

And STILL to this post, despite me asking you why you even brought Isaac up as a sacrifice eludes any of your answers.
In no way should it be interesting to you because I used someone else's explanation in post #20 that covers my re-use of it. And in post#20 it specifically states that the saying, thoughts, reasoning came from an Orthodox Jew which directly refutes your "acceptance by a devout Jew" claim.


You threw out a verse that you wanted me to take as a human sacrifice as if it was command by god and followed through by Abraham and it satisfied god.
No sacrifice ever took place, nor was ever going to so again I ask you Why did you use that verse?


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## Israel (Mar 11, 2019)

יוַיִּשְׁלַ֤ח אַבְרָהָם֙ אֶת־יָד֔וֹ וַיִּקַּ֖ח אֶת־הַמַּֽאֲכֶ֑לֶת
לִשְׁחֹ֖ט אֶת־בְּנֽוֹ:

And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife, to slaughter his son.

From this site.

https://www.chabad.org/library/bible_cdo/aid/8217

The scripture being written well before the appearance of the Talmud; which like all commentaries are not equivalent to the Tanakh. Or that portion which is Torah.




> Though readers of this parashah throughout the generations have been disturbed, even horrified, by the Akedah, there was no miscommunication between God and Abraham.




Such generations being long before the appearance of Talmud.

יבוַיֹּ֗אמֶר אַל־תִּשְׁלַ֤ח יָֽדְךָ֙ אֶל־הַנַּ֔עַר וְאַל־תַּ֥עַשׂ ל֖וֹ מְא֑וּמָה כִּ֣י | עַתָּ֣ה יָדַ֗עְתִּי כִּֽי־יְרֵ֤א אֱלֹהִים֙ 
אַ֔תָּה וְלֹ֥א חָשַׂ֛כְתָּ אֶת־בִּנְךָ֥ אֶת־יְחִֽידְךָ֖ מִמֶּֽנִּי:

And he said, "Do not stretch forth your hand to the lad, nor do the slightest thing to him, for now I know that you are a God fearing man, and you did not withhold your son, your only one, from Me." 

You will take it as you will, to make of it as you will.

But no more than I believe your cleverness will allow.


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## bullethead (Mar 11, 2019)

Israel said:


> יוַיִּשְׁלַ֤ח אַבְרָהָם֙ אֶת־יָד֔וֹ וַיִּקַּ֖ח אֶת־הַמַּֽאֲכֶ֑לֶת
> לִשְׁחֹ֖ט אֶת־בְּנֽוֹ:
> 
> And Abraham stretched forth his hand and took the knife, to slaughter his son.
> ...


So you mean to tell me that Abraham raised the knife in out stretched arms as if he was going to plunge it into his "child" (who if you do the math was in his late 30's at the time who was the result of Abraham marrying his Sister Sarah and her giving birth at about the age of 90!!!!!!)? Say it isn't so Izzy!!!
Are you telling me that Abraham (gasp!)  went through the motions AS IF he was going to do it!?!?!? Like a child acting AS IF they were going to obey a parents command when told to eat the brussel sprouts(albeit in slo-mo) full well knowing that the parent was going to stop them or else it would have been one quick motion and done and over?
THAT type of action??
And what happened to the Son? He never was sacrificed,  soooo

Again I ask you since Abraham never actually sacrificed his 37 year old "child" who was born from a 90 year old mother as a result of Abraham marrying his sister (they both had the same dad), what was your point of using it as an example to show Human Sacrifice in the bible when CLEARLY despite the theatrics of it all...nobody was sacrificed.??..??

I take it not as I will but as it is,  No Sacrifice.

You are now arguing the motions of an act that never took place.
I don't care if Abe knew it or not, it doesn't matter...Abraham never sacrificed his son. Period.
So why did you portray the event as if he did??


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## j_seph (Mar 11, 2019)

bullethead said:


> According to the accounts in the Greek Testament (GT), Jesus was crucified by Roman soldiers (Matthew 27:35; Mark 15:24; Luke 23:33; John 19:18, 23).


Did the priest *Caiaphas* not charge Jesus with blasphemy?


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## bullethead (Mar 11, 2019)

j_seph said:


> Did the priest *Caiaphas* not charge Jesus with blasphemy?


Did the Priest Caiaphas beat him, whip him, and nail him to some wood?

What is your point? Another Izzy rabbit chase that leads right back to hole where it started.


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## Spotlite (Mar 11, 2019)

Keep in mind for Issac it was a burnt offering meaning to be burnt......all of it, nothing eaten, and as a “tribute to God” and since it’s not an animal, there’s no reason to believe it was a sacrificial offering for sin.

For all sacrifices, ultimately they’re offered to God from man. If God gave a list of things that are acceptable from man to him, wouldn’t you think he knows what he wants from himself (offering his Son)

For Issac, it’s more than an offering, it’s obedience, faith, and willingness......for Jesus, it’s akso that plus it allows for anyone of any status to come to him at anytime.

True story or not, how could one find fault in a system that made it easier for all?? Troubled over a happy ending


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## bullethead (Mar 11, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> Keep in mind for Issac it was a burnt offering meaning to be burnt......all of it, nothing eaten, and as a “tribute to God” and since it’s not an animal, there’s no reason to believe it was a sacrificial offering for sin.
> 
> For all sacrifices, ultimately they’re offered to God from man. If God gave a list of things that are acceptable from man to him, wouldn’t you think he knows what he wants from himself (offering his Son)
> 
> ...


So was Isaac burnt, stabbed or both?


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## bullethead (Mar 11, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> Keep in mind for Issac it was a burnt offering meaning to be burnt......all of it, nothing eaten, and as a “tribute to God” and since it’s not an animal, there’s no reason to believe it was a sacrificial offering for sin.
> 
> For all sacrifices, ultimately they’re offered to God from man. If God gave a list of things that are acceptable from man to him, wouldn’t you think he knows what he wants from himself (offering his Son)
> 
> ...


In the Torah the writers gave the list of what is acceptable to God and in the NT the writers changed it to suit.
Don't worry though, that is totally the way religious writings work.


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## ky55 (Mar 11, 2019)

bullethead said:


> In the Torah the writers gave the list of what is acceptable to God and in the NT the writers changed it to suit.
> Don't worry though, that is totally the way religious writings work.



That’s about the only thing consistent with their inconsistencies.


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## bullethead (Mar 11, 2019)

ky55 said:


> That’s about the only thing consistent with their inconsistencies.


Consistently Inconsistent!


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## Spotlite (Mar 11, 2019)

bullethead said:


> So was Isaac burnt, stabbed or both?


Neither.


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## bullethead (Mar 11, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> Neither.


!!!EXACTLY!!!
No human sacrifice. 

I don't know why Abraham/Isaac is even brought up as if it is an example  of a human sacrifice when Abraham neither actually stabbed him nor burnt him as a sacrifice to god.


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## Spotlite (Mar 11, 2019)

bullethead said:


> In the Torah the writers gave the list of what is acceptable to God and in the NT the writers changed it to suit.
> Don't worry though, that is totally the way religious writings work.


Who did the writers give credit to as what determines or who requires a certain sacrifice? 

Im not worried, I’m understanding more and more the reason catholism can't find  God in their fancy temples while going through their priest to look for him


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## bullethead (Mar 11, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> Who did the writers give credit to as what determines or who requires a certain sacrifice?
> 
> Im not worried, I’m understanding more and more the reason catholism can't find  God in their fancy temples while going through their priest to look for him


When did god change his mind?
Was it during the Torah, after the Torah and during the OT, was it during the 400 years no writings were used between the OT to Death of Jesus, or was it at least 50 years after the death of Jesus?
God seems to inspire many to write different contradictions about the same god.


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## Spotlite (Mar 11, 2019)

bullethead said:


> !!!EXACTLY!!!
> No human sacrifice.
> 
> I don't know why Abraham/Isaac is even brought up as if it is an example  of a human sacrifice when Abraham neither actually stabbed him nor burnt him as a sacrifice to god.


I think Israel’s point was since the Torah writers give credit to God as who’s requiring what; are you going to tell God he’s wrong if he wants something different?

Come on, even with the Santa clause story are you going to follow the story? If a new writer said Santa decided he wants to give gifts to the naughty, are you going to break down the mechanics of the old requirement and claim the naughty never gets one? If you do, you’re reading biased.


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## bullethead (Mar 11, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> I think Israel’s point was since the Torah writers give credit to God as who’s requiring what; are you going to tell God he’s wrong if he wants something different?
> 
> Come on, even with the Santa clause story are you going to follow the story? If a new writer said Santa decided he wants to give gifts to the naughty, are you going to break down the mechanics of the old requirement and claim the naughty never gets one? If you do, you’re reading biased.


I would ask the writers where they get their information from and then if that information is able to be scrutinized and picked apart to the points where it goes against the previous standard (which is as suspect) then I would make the case that the change of rules are coming from the writer and not God or Santa.


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## Spotlite (Mar 11, 2019)

bullethead said:


> I would ask the writers where they get their information from and then if that information is able to be scrutinized and picked apart to the points where it goes against the previous standard (which as suspect) then I would make the case that the change of rules are coming from the writer and not God or Santa.


Ok start in Ezekiel before the NT writers came along.

And then work backwards, what’s the difference / purpose in the old and new?


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## bullethead (Mar 11, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> Ok start in Ezekiel before the NT writers came along.
> 
> And then work backwards, what’s the difference / purpose in the old and new?


Start what in Ezekiel. 
Be specific


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## bullethead (Mar 11, 2019)

So, now that it may fit a point you are trying to make,  are we back to accepting oral tradition with Ezekiel?


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## bullethead (Mar 11, 2019)

Interesting:

Ezekiel was born in Israel to his father Buzi, a priest, and it was there that he began his career as a prophet. Then, in the year 3327 (434 BCE), Jerusalemwas conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar exiled the Jewish king Jehoiachin(Jeconiah) along with ten thousand captives, including the king’s family, the nobility of the land and the leaders of the army. 
Among the captives was the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel spent the rest of his life in Babylonia, where he envisioned most of his prophecies. Ezekiel’s prophecies are unique in that they were experienced in Babylonia, although as a rule the Divine spirit does not rest in the Diaspora. Nevertheless, since Ezekiel had already begun to prophesy in the Land of Israel, he continued to do so after leaving it.
Perhaps since he did not dwell in the Land of Israel, Ezekiel did not commit his prophecies to writing. Instead, the Men of the Great Assembly—a group of 120 Jewish prophets and sages who lived c. 3400 (360 BCE)—accepted the task of compiling the Book of Ezekiel.


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## Spotlite (Mar 11, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Interesting:
> 
> Ezekiel was born in Israel to his father Buzi, a priest, and it was there that he began his career as a prophet. Then, in the year 3327 (434 BCE), Jerusalemwas conquered by Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylonia. Nebuchadnezzar exiled the Jewish king Jehoiachin(Jeconiah) along with ten thousand captives, including the king’s family, the nobility of the land and the leaders of the army.
> Among the captives was the prophet Ezekiel. Ezekiel spent the rest of his life in Babylonia, where he envisioned most of his prophecies. Ezekiel’s prophecies are unique in that they were experienced in Babylonia, although as a rule the Divine spirit does not rest in the Diaspora. Nevertheless, since Ezekiel had already begun to prophesy in the Land of Israel, he continued to do so after leaving it.
> Perhaps since he did not dwell in the Land of Israel, Ezekiel did not commit his prophecies to writing. Instead, the Men of the Great Assembly—a group of 120 Jewish prophets and sages who lived c. 3400 (360 BCE)—accepted the task of compiling the Book of Ezekiel.


I guess the question is based on “what”.


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## bullethead (Mar 11, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> I guess the question is based on “what”.


Ezekiel had is prophetic visions outside of Israel where the Divine Spirit does not rest in the Diaspora.
And
Ezekiel didn't write any of his Prophecies down. 120 other men did it and compiled the book of Ezekiel.

That's some serious WHAT


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 11, 2019)

I think I recall the NT eluding to the fact that Abraham reasoned that God must be planning to raise Issac from the dead.... because he knew the promises were to come through Issac. But he also knew he was being tested, he just did not know the outcome, but by faith, figured it would work out. Am I remembering wrong. I'm not sure what to google in order to verify this. However, I think this is pointing to Jesus. I believe that Jesus was a mere man, whom went to the cross having faith that God would raise him from the dead, or inter-vein in some way.


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## ky55 (Mar 11, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Ezekiel had is prophetic visions outside of Israel where the Divine Spirit does not rest in the Diaspora.
> And
> Ezekiel didn't write any of his Prophecies down. 120 other men did it and compiled the book of Ezekiel.
> 
> That's some serious WHAT




Kinda like the gospel according to Ezekiel...
And then kinda like the gospel according to Matthew, Mark, and dot dot ad infinitum.....


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 11, 2019)

Why did the Christ have to suffer? Some will say to fulfill "suffering servant", but I still say why? If he were the son of God, it should not matter if he suffered or not, should it?


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 11, 2019)

Hebrews 11:17 By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac on the altar. He who had received the promises was ready to offer his one and only son, 18even though God had said to him, “Through Isaacyour offspring will be reckoned.” 19Abraham reasoned that God could raise the dead, and in a sense, he did receive Isaac back from death.…


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 11, 2019)

I think the suffering was a test. Many are willing to give of themselves for causes. But how many are willing to go to a death that is already spelled out as brutal. He wanted to flee. He struggled over it, probably because of the suffering, not the dying


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 11, 2019)

When we look back over the OT history, we see bad kings, then a good king, then a bad king, etc. It was a roller coaster ride of history. Up and down, up and down. This is what was meant when "every valley will be filled in and every hill made low". No more up and down, good king, then bad king. However, they all served themselves, rather than serve the people of which God called them to serve. They all lived as kings do. Exalted, wives, best of food, elaborate living, etc. Even Solomon, whom wrote of his own greatness, abused his power. None, really served the people, but rather set it up to be served........ except Jesus. He did not use his position, influence, etc, to gain for himself wives, political power, exaltation, etc. No, he gave it all up, willingly.  I wonder the internal struggle he had before he began his ministry. He was thirty something... how about the prior years. I wonder if it took years to get up the courage? Or did he just one day wake up and say, I think I am the Christ? Weird thoughts, however, reasonable that we don't just ignore his 30 years prior. He was doing something all that time.


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 11, 2019)

Bullet, sorry for my rambling. I have not addressed your point. I'm thinking on it..... Drawing a blank. Hebrews has a little insight as to how they attempt to justify it. However, according to one's perspective of the NT, it could be seen as explaining.... or trying to make it fit.  Getting late. I'll ponder this tomorrow


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## Spotlite (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Ezekiel had is prophetic visions outside of Israel where the Divine Spirit does not rest in the Diaspora.
> And
> Ezekiel didn't write any of his Prophecies down. 120 other men did it and compiled the book of Ezekiel.
> 
> That's some serious WHAT


I’m thinking more along the lines of what did the 120 other men base their writings on? Although Ezekiel may or may not have not written his prophecies down, did he tell anyone? Did anyone else jot down bits and pieces? In order to prophecy, wouldn’t you have to tell at least one?


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## Spotlite (Mar 12, 2019)

ky55 said:


> Kinda like the gospel according to Ezekiel...
> And then kinda like the gospel according to Matthew, Mark, and dot dot ad infinitum.....


Or the inconsistency according to


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## Israel (Mar 12, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> Keep in mind for Issac it was a burnt offering meaning to be burnt......all of it, nothing eaten, and as a “tribute to God” and since it’s not an animal, there’s no reason to believe it was a sacrificial offering for sin.
> 
> For all sacrifices, ultimately they’re offered to God from man. If God gave a list of things that are acceptable from man to him, wouldn’t you think he knows what he wants from himself (offering his Son)
> 
> ...




For if there be first a willing mind, _it is_ accepted according to that a man hath, _and_ not according to that he hath not.


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## Israel (Mar 12, 2019)

I don't think the thoughts are so weird. Why wouldn't we consider the way of the Lord?



> Weird thoughts, however, reasonable that we don't just ignore his 30 years prior. He was doing something all that time.




When younger He spoke to the elders in the temple, who marveled at Him. And when found by Mary and Joseph:

“Why were you looking for Me?” He asked. “Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” But they did not understand the statement He was making to them. Then He went down to Nazareth with them _and was subject to them._ But His mother treasured up all these things in her heart.

We speak of _the faith of Jesus Christ_. We speak of _having faith in Jesus Christ. _Perhaps even sometimes in our own minds as distinct things, as though our believing_ in Christ _is a thing apart from the faith_ He walked in._

Does that make any sense?

I can believe a man. I can believe a man who even tells me "I am the wisest man who ever lived". I may not believe he is, but I can believe he absolutely thinks so.
This is a thing far apart from having any _faith in that man._

But it is all of different when we come to Jesus, isn't it? Or, at least, might we come to see so?

Something is given, as I now see it, bringing us in Christ, both to an alignment; and a perfect congruity. (Would it be odd for me to say the most troubling, disturbing, thought provoking, conundrum _seeming things_ I have found in the words of Christ came in far more abundance after I sought Him as object of faith, thought of in my journey as believer, than ever came before?)

I don't mean troubling in a bad way, although I admit that connotation is a hard thing to escape, but more as when watching a "someone" their work and/or words appear so different, yet true, I cannot help but wonder "what is going on inside that guy or woman?" I wonder "how are they like that?" Do we not see this plainly presented in the scripture of those that followed Him? "now what are you talking about, now what are you doing and saying?" and probably with some wonder "where is all this stuff_ coming from?"_

Jesus knows our knowing. Jesus knows/knew at what point in His walking with the disciples when this question (despite the earlier exchange)

He first findeth his own brother Simon, and saith unto him, We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ.

who do you say that I am? Was in singular need of being answered.

I suppose the simplest way of saying it (for me at least) is that my first confession of Jesus as (is) Lord, had so little of understanding to it, so little of apprehension, despite its saying....I cannot even now not somehow wonder "then what brought me to its confession?"

But from that confession (though surely no more _my work_ from that point, as was anymore _my work_ in its first proclamation) I marvel...both at what brought that thing to first declare it, and the work following. How could what (me) had so little apprehension, so much blindness yet present, even be moved to declare what was of such overwhelming import to it?
Nevertheless, all I knew then (as I do now, but with a caveat...) is somehow it was shown to me "Jesus is alive!"...and "Jesus is Lord".

Did I reason this, as it now sometimes appears.."well if Jesus is alive...then He must be Lord...so I will say so?" I think not. Something came out that was, in all, beyond my own reasoning. And that is the caveat...that even presently I might rely upon, even after what may appear as much of (what I consider many confirmations and experience) my own experiences _as reason_ for such confession. No it remains as gift.

In short...did I ever have any idea "how much" Lord Jesus is/was? Do I, even now? Some comprehending (I believe)  is not inconsistent at all with what Jesus has said...we will grow in understanding. But growing in that apprehension of things, never changes that original confession...only enlightens it. It's like a surprise each and every time..."wow Jesus _really is_ Lord!" in ways and places and experiences (often troubling) in which He shows Himself so. His appearing is never...not a wonderful surprise! And I remain as much a child in this (perhaps more so) than ever I thought was fitting to what, still, and so often, likes to think itself something as "knowing".

I don't think this would be hard for any father, or grandfather, or great grandfather to understand. The delight of seeing a child discover, like maybe in first taking them fishing, and they screamingly haul in their first bluegill...it's like "see, didn't I tell you this is fun!" And I do believe it is that Father's delight to show us where Jesus is living...right now. So, far more like a child now I am finding an answer to certain matters that I once thought were of my own doing, my own agreement, but now know they are not, and never were. I was "taken fishing" though at one point in ignorance I might have said "Oh yes, this is fun...it is a good thing grandpa, that I agreed to come along." No, the fun is so much greater than _my need_ to find my place of seeming endorsement of it.

So it is with "Jesus is Lord" a thing I once thought was in my own will and power of making so. The one who prepared the lunch, strung the poles, got the tackle together, collected the bait and filled the car with gas for the outing...and woke me early and simply said "come on with me, there are fish waiting"...thinking my waking up to go was my great contribution...(besides, who can sleep when shaken so?).

First getting "shook enough" to say, believe (in whatever measure) "Jesus is Lord" and hold that conviction (sometimes as loosely as that child holds the pole, maybe even whining in the waiting of it "when does the fun start...you said this would be fun!") till the bobber dips, the pull is felt, and then the hand grips in a tightness now..."I got something, I really got something!" This...really works!

This "faith" thing, that is given to us, how can it not cause us wonder? And when we come to (even in some smallest part) begin to apprehend it is the same faith in which Jesus walked as a man, how can we not say "What was it like for him?" We are walking, not only in faith in Him, (as in a man believed), but in the very same faith...of Him.
When did Jesus...know? How did Jesus "know"? What's his mind like...in man?

I believe He told us, tells us.

So Jesus replied, “Truly, truly, I tell you, the Son can do nothing by Himself, unless He sees the Father doing it. For whatever the Father does,the Son also does. The Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does. And to your amazement, He will show Him even greater works than these.… 

Huh?

Jesus relied on seeing? He didn't just "come up with His own stuff to do" like the miracle poppin' man I once (in infancy) imagined? Need bread...there you go! Need some fish? Healing? Need to see the storm calmed? Boom...I got it all!

But, He does "have it all". But how? Can it really be as He said? Just by watching to see what His Father is showing/doing?
And now...what of us?
Who are we given to see? Why? How? When? Where?

Then He went down to Nazareth with them _and was subject to them._

For years the Father was showing Jesus this was His occupation. Messiah...subject to Mary and Joseph.

Then.

The Spirit of the Lord _is_ upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. 
And he closed the book, and he gave _it_ again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. 
And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. 

I am made glad to His obedient watching. For all is changed in it.


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## Israel (Mar 12, 2019)

I never set out to discover I am the man that "of myself I can do nothing". All I can do is speak of the joy found there when _given another to watch_...and watch for.


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> When we look back over the OT history, we see bad kings, then a good king, then a bad king, etc. It was a roller coaster ride of history. Up and down, up and down. This is what was meant when "every valley will be filled in and every hill made low". No more up and down, good king, then bad king. However, they all served themselves, rather than serve the people of which God called them to serve. They all lived as kings do. Exalted, wives, best of food, elaborate living, etc. Even Solomon, whom wrote of his own greatness, abused his power. None, really served the people, but rather set it up to be served........ except Jesus. He did not use his position, influence, etc, to gain for himself wives, political power, exaltation, etc. No, he gave it all up, willingly.  I wonder the internal struggle he had before he began his ministry. He was thirty something... how about the prior years. I wonder if it took years to get up the courage? Or did he just one day wake up and say, I think I am the Christ? Weird thoughts, however, reasonable that we don't just ignore his 30 years prior. He was doing something all that time.


Nothing is known about Jesus except for about 3 years.
He never was a King. Except in nickname. 
What position could he have used when he had none to use?


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> I’m thinking more along the lines of what did the 120 other men base their writings on? Although Ezekiel may or may not have not written his prophecies down, did he tell anyone? Did anyone else jot down bits and pieces? In order to prophecy, wouldn’t you have to tell at least one?


Research shows Ezekiel did not write anything down. The same research shows that prophecy outside of the land of Israel was not considered given by the Divine Spirit.
Much like Jesus the writings were left to men who were not with him to go into intricate details about what was said despite NOBODY else being around.
And I do believe that in another thread I was told the Oral Tradition that makes up the Torah did not count. Why would it count here then?


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Israel said:


> I don't think the thoughts are so weird. Why wouldn't we consider the way of the Lord?
> When younger He spoke to the elders in the temple, who marveled at Him. And when found by Mary and Joseph:
> “Why were you looking for Me?” He asked. “Did you not know that I had to be in My Father’s house?” But they did not understand the statement He was making to them. Then He went down to Nazareth with them _and was subject to them._ But His mother treasured up all these things in her heart.
> We speak of _the faith of Jesus Christ_. We speak of _having faith in Jesus Christ. _Perhaps even sometimes in our own minds as distinct things, as though our believing_ in Christ _is a thing apart from the faith_ He walked in._
> ...


Jesus sounds like every other believer in that he talks as if his relationship with a god is just a little better than the next person. Meanwhile the next person thinks they are just a little more special than the rest. God was considered everyone father because they all considered themselves as God's children.


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## Israel (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Jesus sounds like every other believer in that he talks as if his relationship with a god is just a little better than the next person. Meanwhile the next person thinks they are just a little more special than the rest. God was considered everyone father because they all considered themselves as God's children.



To the contrary, I see Him going to the extreme of ensuring that His joy is freely made available by the very extreme of death...

Ya ever know anyone so willing to get "out of the way" for you to make way for you?
I don't think that's such an unusual proposition or even experience...someone willing to "make way"...that another have something that either didn't have...or might have in greater measure. Think...jumping on a grenade...not for the mere show of making a sacrifice, but because love compels? I don't doubt for a minute you'd not even think about it for your wife and kids...in whatever form it might take....when it's clear to you that in a situation it would be _your honor_ to do so.

Ya ever known some kids that have very different views of their own parents? Like one will hold a very dim view of them...but another will say "mom and dad sacrificed a lot for us kids, and I really appreciate them for it"? While another says "I can't wait for them to croak"?

I'm the kid who held once a very dim view about this gift of life, given. And I am by no means "done" to a full appreciation. Surprise! Sometimes I think I need what appears your sarcasm like a hole in the head! But then I remember someone who has borne with me in all my smart a**edness...(which would put yours to shame) and I am reminded how much of a gift you really are to me. Even a gift at times that I think "thanks but no thanks"...which is basically where I always seem to be moving from...to something else.

No, in that I cannot but admit I may not only be the most common of men...but even the worst...not knowing a good thing when I see it.

This matter of being a "conscious being" comes with many pitfalls...not the least of which is some perception of death. A terror of going from "being" to not being. But then, I had to be told I had it all wrong. Still do.

And somehow someone has made being _all wrong_...alright. I know I'm all wrong about you. You're probably not even being sarcastic at all...just giving a thing that needs a taste of a thing to be reminded. And all because I am loved so.

Yeah...sometimes love looks even more terrifying than death...dying is easy...but the compelling found in love...all I can say is I am glad another has met this compelling...for me.


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Nothing is known about Jesus except for about 3 years.
> He never was a King. Except in nickname.
> What position could he have used when he had none to use?


The "position" was his following, his ability to gather an audience. The miracles he did. One might say that this "position" was an easy position to obtain being that they were expectant of "one to come". This is why he shied away from town, and often layed low, because he was afraid they would rally and force him to be king. You can't force him to be king, but I think the point was that trouble would develop if they rallied around him to much. As with anyone in power, always a smooth talker. Not saying Jesus was smooth, but among the offensiveness, he impressed people with what he said. Based on his "triumphal entry" into town, and masses forming to hear him speak, and feeding the 5000, all this gathering by word of mouth, it seems that he could have kept that going, cultivated it, capitalized on it, but he did not


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Israel said:


> To the contrary, I see Him going to the extreme of ensuring that His joy is freely made available by the very extreme of death...
> 
> Ya ever know anyone so willing to get "out of the way" for you to make way for you?
> I don't think that's such an unusual proposition or even experience...someone willing to "make way"...that another have something that either didn't have...or might have in greater measure. Think...jumping on a grenade...not for the mere show of making a sacrifice, but because love compels? I don't doubt for a minute you'd not even think about it for your wife and kids...in whatever form it might take....when it's clear to you that in a situation it would be _your honor_ to do so.
> ...


Who got out of his way?
Historically he wasn't even noticed ket alone revered, let alone recognized as the Son of God.


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> The "position" was his following, his ability to gather an audience. The miracles he did. One might say that this "position" was an easy position to obtain being that they were expectant of "one to come". This is why he shied away from town, and often layed low, because he was afraid they would rally and force him to be king. You can't force him to be king, but I think the point was that trouble would develop if they rallied around him to much. As with anyone in power, always a smooth talker. Not saying Jesus was smooth, but among the offensiveness, he impressed people with what he said. Based on his "triumphal entry" into town, and masses forming to hear him speak, and feeding the 5000, all this gathering by word of mouth, it seems that he could have kept that going, cultivated it, capitalized on it, but he did not


In ancient Israel, he was one of many. All the preacher types had followers, gathered crowds etc.
The miracles happened 50+ AFTER he was dead.
The numbers are always 500 or 5000, sounds like a nice whole number guess.
Historically he went unnoticed


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 12, 2019)

Interesting that the followers where crushed at his death, not thinking he would rise. Interesting that the authority's did remember what he said, and sent out guards, not believing it, but making sure that the followers could not claim it so. Why did the followers not remember this? They went back to fishing? On with their lives. Disappointed. They clearly, from their knowledge of scriptures, much or little, did not expect the Christ to be a sacrifice. Paul did more to explain it than any writer.


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 12, 2019)

I should clarify that I'm discussing "what's written in the book". But I don't believe everything written. Such as 7 last sayings of Jesus. Likely several are speculation.  Or that Mary's song, to herself, was ever handed down, beginning with her handing it down. So, point is that I often use verses that I find suspect. So I feel I should point that out.


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

In Jewish history, there is so much more recorded about what should be lesser men than the supposed son of god.
Even the Roman Guard detail sent to guard the tomb.
The writers were blatantly unaware about how such a detail works and the consequences of "falling asleep"
The NT writings are interesting but incredibly inaccurate.


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## Israel (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Who got out of his way?
> Historically he wasn't even noticed ket alone revered, let alone recognized as the Son of God.





> Who got out of his way?



As in made way for Him?

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:



> Historically he wasn't even noticed ket alone revered



Yep.

He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not. 




> let alone recognized as the Son of God



Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesseth that Jesus Christ (Jesus the Messiah) is come in the flesh is of God:

Yep...it's miraculous, and remains so to me...and I would be (and am no less  than so often tempted) worse than a wretch to hold in low esteem what has not yet had a miracle..."done for them". I mean...wouldn't that be the most lousy of all louses? Someone who gets all huffity puffity because I look at someone standing in the rain with a flat...and think "what a poor schlump!" when the only reason I am not is some fellow stopped to help me with mine? Not only that...but gave me his tire?

But, I can't deny...I sure have known that attitude. Oy. Ouch. Ugh. Yuck. Blech.

I had no idea (and still have to be reminded) how much forgiveness was both needed...and available. In truth...I didn't want to know...how much I needed. It was easier to think "yes, Jesus is sooooo wonderful...coming into a world where it is plain how much everyone else needs Him".

How many "ha ha's" will you allow?


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## Spotlite (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Research shows Ezekiel did not write anything down. The same research shows that prophecy outside of the land of Israel was not considered given by the Divine Spirit.
> Much like Jesus the writings were left to men who were not with him to go into intricate details about what was said despite NOBODY else being around.
> And I do believe that in another thread I was told the Oral Tradition that makes up the Torah did not count. Why would it count here then?



Oral Tradition counting or not has nothin to do with the significance of Ezekiel......Living in exile, he and a number of God’s people were separated from the temple with its symbolism, sacrifices, priestly ministrations and worship rituals.

This just keeps revealing the importance of establishing a new covenant that’s available to all, anywhere and at anytime, and it also indicates that even in captivity, God didn’t abandon his people.

You’ll have to ask who stated it doesn’t count and let them explain that.


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## Israel (Mar 12, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> Interesting that the followers where crushed at his death, not thinking he would rise. Interesting that the authority's did remember what he said, and sent out guards, not believing it, but making sure that the followers could not claim it so. Why did the followers not remember this? They went back to fishing? On with their lives. Disappointed. They clearly, from their knowledge of scriptures, much or little, did not expect the Christ to be a sacrifice. Paul did more to explain it than any writer.


 
Yeah! The writers don't for a minute try to hide their unbelief. Nobody says when Jesus appears "Ha! _I knew it!_ I knew you'd be back!" LOL...no...they are described as being in "disbelief for joy"

Something "too good to be true" took place...and how much I find I am not unlike them...at all. And I have hope.


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Israel said:


> As in made way for Him?
> 
> Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:
> 
> ...


History does not back your claims


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> Oral Tradition counting or not has nothin to do with the significance of Ezekiel......Living in exile, he and a number of God’s people were separated from the temple with its symbolism, sacrifices, priestly ministrations and worship rituals.
> 
> This just keeps revealing the importance of establishing a new covenant that’s available to all, anywhere and at anytime, and it also indicates that even in captivity, God didn’t abandon his people.
> 
> You’ll have to ask who stated it doesn’t count and let them explain that.


I believe you stated it about the rules of prophecy in the Torah. I had to find it written in the Torah until you conceded.


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Israel said:


> Yeah! The writers don't for a minute try to hide their unbelief. Nobody says when Jesus appears "Ha! _I knew it!_ I knew you'd be back!" LOL...no...they are described as being in "disbelief for joy"
> 
> Something "too good to be true" took place...and how much I find I am not unlike them...at all. And I have hope.


Or more than likely, did not take place


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## spurrs and racks (Mar 12, 2019)

Christ walked this earth in human form, to teach us the way of God, lived, loved all, and suffered and died on the cross for the forgiveness of your and my sins so that when we pass on we can live forever in the kingdom of God.

It's not that difficult. 

"The way to my father is threw me, whoever believes will not perish but live in ever lasting life."


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## spurrs and racks (Mar 12, 2019)

Matthew 4:1-11 King James Version (KJV)

*4 *Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.

*2 *And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterward an hungred.

*3 *And when the tempter came to him, he said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread.

*4 *But he answered and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

*5 *Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of the temple,

*6 *And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down: for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee: and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.

*7 *Jesus said unto him, It is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

*8 *Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

*9 *And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

*10 *Then saith Jesus unto him, Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.

*11 *Then the devil leaveth him, and, behold, angels came and ministered unto him.


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

spurrs and racks said:


> Matthew 4:1-11 King James Version (KJV)
> 
> *4 *Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
> 
> ...


So neither Jesus or Satan wrote down anything. Nobody else was there to listen to or write down that supposed conversation.

Explain to me how some anonymous writer got the story straight 50,60,70+ years after?


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

spurrs and racks said:


> Christ walked this earth in human form, to teach us the way of God, lived, loved all, and suffered and died on the cross for the forgiveness of your and my sins so that when we pass on we can live forever in the kingdom of God.
> 
> It's not that difficult.
> 
> "The way to my father is threw me, whoever believes will not perish but live in ever lasting life."


Jesus walked an extremely small area of Earth in human form because he was a human. He preached and taught just like many before and after him. He was put to death for being a troublemaker. Human sacrifice is not part of the religion that he believed in.
All that extra mumbo jumbo are embellishments that have not been proven to happen then or since.

Is really is that difficult or else no one ever could question it.

The way all gods is through something...thats what keeps that something relevant.


----------



## 1gr8bldr (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> So neither Jesus or Satan wrote down anything. Nobody else was there to listen to or write down that supposed conversation.
> 
> Explain to me how some anonymous writer got the story straight 50,60,70+ years after?


Lots of this sort of thing in the NT that I have issue with. What Jesus said to Pilate, or what pilate said to Jesus. Mary's song. So many  specifics and details that would require you to be there. Or HS inspired, which lots of the NT I don't consider inspired. What Jesus told the thief on the cross.... I would love to see a list of these.


----------



## spurrs and racks (Mar 12, 2019)

"Explain to me how some anonymous writer got the story straight 50,60,70+ years after?"

 You have the wrong good book my friend. Our Christ had the 12 and his life was well documented. While Jesus walked the earth.

The old testament and the law of Moses was documented almost 1400 years before Christ. There is good work in it, and the Jews are God's chosen people. They too will not escape this life without excepting Jesus Christ. 

Godspeed, I hope one day, before it's to late, that you except Jesus Christ as the son of God, sent to the earth to save your and my soul and everybody else's.


----------



## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

spurrs and racks said:


> "Explain to me how some anonymous writer got the story straight 50,60,70+ years after?"
> 
> You have the wrong good book my friend. Our Christ had the 12 and his life was well documented. While Jesus walked the earth.
> 
> ...


You do not know the history of your own religion. Outside of the bible he is lesser known that fictional characters  let alone real people.
The facts do not match the claims


----------



## spurrs and racks (Mar 12, 2019)

All you need to know about the cross is Jesus perished on it for you and I. They pierced his side with a sword to make sure he was dead.

One the 3rd day Jesus arose from the grave and into heaven to sit at the right hand of God the father almighty.

I am an old man, I have nothing but time left to be ready to see my Lord. I could tell you why I believe, but you as a non-believer would just scoff at it.

But, it has been proven to me.


----------



## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

spurrs and racks said:


> All you need to know about the cross is Jesus perished on it for you and I. They pierced his side with a sword to make sure he was dead.
> 
> 
> One the 3rd day Jesus arose from the grave and into heaven to sit at the right hand of God the father almighty.
> ...


That is all need to know in order to blindly follow and not ask questions.
And such a symbol is also why I don't wear a guillotine, electric chair, lethal injection needles and other such ridiculous pendants around my neck. Do you think a guy that was nailed to and died on a couple of crossed stix wants to have crossed stix as his symbol???
Try giving the surviving members of a severe car crash where they lost a loved one a t-shirt with a picture of the smashed car on it, ya know, as a symbol to represent their loved one who died....

Unfortunately I know a lot more and that is why I am unable to find truth to any religion.

I am glad you are content and have whatever it takes for you to believe as you do. Using scripture to back up scripture is an awful way to try to present truth but I do realize that is all a believer has because outside of the bible that stuff does not exist.


----------



## Madman (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Unfortunately I know a lot more and that is why I am unable to find truth to any religion.



The internet is not a very good research library.  I believe you know a lot, and I believe you know a lot more than you have written, unfortunately so much of what you know is not so.


----------



## 1gr8bldr (Mar 12, 2019)

Why did the disciples not remember that Jesus said over and over in the NT that he would be raised in 3 days?


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Madman said:


> The internet is not a very good research library.  I believe you know a lot, and I believe you know a lot more than you have written, unfortunately so much of what you know is not so.


Like...


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## Madman (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Even the Roman Guard detail sent to guard the tomb.
> The writers were blatantly unaware about how such a detail works and the consequences of "falling asleep"
> The NT writings are interesting but incredibly inaccurate.



Where do you get "Roman Guards"? Scripture doesn't say that, they may have been Sanhedrin guards.  The verbiage is vague.


----------



## Madman (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Jesus sounds like every other believer in that he talks as if his relationship with a god is just a little better than the next person. ....................God was considered everyone father because they all considered themselves as God's children.



Jesus called God his father.   The Jews did not consider themselves "Sons of God" or even "children of God" in the manner you are speaking' that was to equate yourself to God and that was blasphemy, that is what got Jesus killed.


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Madman said:


> Where do you get "Roman Guards"? Scripture doesn't say that, they may have been Sanhedrin guards.  The verbiage is vague.


Matthew 27: 65-66
65 Pilate told them, “You have a  guard. Go and make the tomb as secure as you know how.” 66 So they went and secured the tomb by putting a seal on the stone in the presence of the guards. Matthew 27:62-66

So far, I agree,Vague.

But then when scripture says that the Priests bribed the guards to say that they fell asleep....

What in your opinion would be the reason that Guards who are Sanhedrin Guards and are commanded by the Sanhedrin Priests had to be bribed by those Priests?


----------



## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Madman said:


> Jesus called God his father.   The Jews did not consider themselves "Sons of God" or even "children of God" in the manner you are speaking' that was to equate yourself to God and that was blasphemy, that is what got Jesus killed.


Deut 14
“Ye are the children of the LORD your God: ye shall not cut yourselves, nor make any baldness between your eyes for the dead.”

What manner are they speaking?


----------



## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Madman said:


> Jesus called God his father.   The Jews did not consider themselves "Sons of God" or even "children of God" in the manner you are speaking' that was to equate yourself to God and that was blasphemy, that is what got Jesus killed.


Avinu Malkeinu (Hebrew: אָבִינוּ מַלְכֵּנוּ‎; "Our Father, Our King") is a Jewishprayer recited during Jewish services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, as well as on the Ten Days of Repentancefrom Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur. In the Ashkenazic tradition, it is recited on all fast days; in the Sephardictradition only because it is recited for the Ten Days of Repentance does it occur on the fast days of Yom Kippur and the Fast of Gedaliah.

Joseph H. Hertz (died 1946), chief rabbi of the British Empire, described it as "the oldest and most moving of all the litanies of the Jewish Year." It makes use of two sobriquets for God that appear separately in the Bible; "Our Father" (Isaiah 63:16) and "Our King" (Isaiah 33:22)

More here:
http://www.jewishencyclopedia.com/articles/6726-god-children-of

GOD, CHILDREN OF ("bene ha-Elohim," perhaps= "sons of the gods"): By: Emil G. Hirsch The "sons of God" are mentioned in Genesis, in a chapter (vi. 2) which reflects preprophetic, mythological, and polytheistic conceptions. They are represented as taking, at their fancy, wives from among the daughters of men. For the interpretations given to this statement see Fall of Angels, and Flood in Rabbinical Literature. As there stated, the later Jewish and Christian interpreters endeavored to remove the objectionable implications from the passage by taking the term "bene ha-Elohim" in the sense of "sons of judges" or "sons of magistrates." In the introduction to the Book of Job (i. 6, ii. 1) the "bene ha-Elohim" are mentioned as assembling at stated periods, Satan being one of them. Some Assyro-Babylonian mythological conception is held by the critical school to underlie this description of the gathering of the "sons of God" to present themselves before Yhwh. Another conception, taken from sidereal religion, seems to underlie the use of the phrase in Job xxxv. 7. The Israelites are addressed as "the children of the Lord your God" (Deut. xiv. 1). When Israel was young, he was called from Egypt to be God's son (Hosea xi. 1). The Israelites are designated also "the children of the living God" (ib. ii. 1 [R.V. i. 10]; comp. Jer. iii. 4). They are addressed as "backsliding children" (Jer. iii. 14) that might and should call God their father (ib. iii. 19). Deut. xxxii. 5, though the text is corrupt, seems to indicate that through perverseness Israel has forfeited this privilege. Isaiah, also, apostrophizes the Israelites as "children [of God] that are corrupters," though God has reared them (Isa. i. 4). As a man chastises his son, so does God chastise Israel (Deut. viii. 5); and like a father pities his children, so does God show pity (see Compassion).


----------



## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Madman said:


> Where do you get "Roman Guards"? Scripture doesn't say that, they may have been Sanhedrin guards.  The verbiage is vague.


Are you also saying that the Jews had to go ask Pilot for permission to use their own guards to watch a Jewish tomb?


----------



## Spotlite (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> I believe you stated it about the rules of prophecy in the Torah. I had to find it written in the Torah until you conceded.


You may have to point me back to that one. I don’t remember it.


----------



## Madman (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Avinu Malkeinu (Hebrew: אָבִינוּ מַלְכֵּנוּ‎; "Our Father, Our King") is a Jewishprayer recited during Jewish services on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, as well as on the Ten Days of Repentancefrom Rosh Hashanah through Yom Kippur. In the Ashkenazic tradition, it is recited on all fast days; in the Sephardictradition only because it is recited for the Ten Days of Repentance does it occur on the fast days of Yom Kippur and the Fast of Gedaliah.
> 
> Joseph H. Hertz (died 1946), chief rabbi of the British Empire, described it as "the oldest and most moving of all the litanies of the Jewish Year." It makes use of two sobriquets for God that appear separately in the Bible; "Our Father" (Isaiah 63:16) and "Our King" (Isaiah 33:22)
> 
> ...


No doubt the Jews considered themselves "sons of god"  and that is seen in language used in Genesis.  It has long been used to describe someone as righteous.  Jesus used language that made him equal to God.


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> You may have to point me back to that one. I don’t remember it.


http://forum.gon.com/threads/was-matthew-an-inspired-writer.938239/page-9
Post #165 you are talking about the difference between Tradition (oral) and Law.
Then again in post #239 you say that you will cut to the chase, Outside of Tradition or custom....
http://forum.gon.com/threads/was-matthew-an-inspired-writer.938239/page-12

My reply in post #249
http://forum.gon.com/threads/was-matthew-an-inspired-writer.938239/page-13
And then I posted the verse from the Torah in #251
And again in #256, #257, #258


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Madman said:


> No doubt the Jews considered themselves "sons of god"  and that is seen in language used in Genesis.  It has long been used to describe someone as righteous.  Jesus used language that made him equal to God.





Madman said:


> Jesus called God his father.   The Jews did not consider themselves "Sons of God" or even "children of God" in the manner you are speaking' that was to equate yourself to God and that was blasphemy, that is what got Jesus killed.



Seems you need to have a talk with yourself


----------



## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Madman said:


> No doubt the Jews considered themselves "sons of god"  and that is seen in language used in Genesis.  It has long been used to describe someone as righteous.  Jesus used language that made him equal to God.


Don't forger this part..
The Israelites are addressed as "the children of the Lord your God" (Deut. xiv. 1). When Israel was young, he was called from Egypt to be God's son (Hosea xi. 1). The Israelites are designated also "the children of the living God" (ib. ii. 1 [R.V. i. 10]; comp. Jer. iii. 4). They are addressed as "backsliding children" (Jer. iii. 14) that might and should call God their father (ib. iii. 19). Deut. xxxii.


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 12, 2019)

Interesting to... either they had some gossips on both sides or a mole.... if it was done in secrecy, paying the guards off to say what they wanted, so that no one would believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, it sure did not stay a secret. ???? How did they get this secret information?


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> Interesting to... either they had some gossips on both sides or a mole.... if it was done in secrecy, paying the guards off to say what they wanted, so that no one would believe that Jesus was raised from the dead, it sure did not stay a secret. ???? How did they get this secret information?


Lets not forget that Jesus was in the tomb on Friday. The Sanhedrin did not ask for the Tomb to be guarded until Saturday.
Was anybody guarding an actual body by Saturday eve???


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 12, 2019)

Apparently, the writers of the gospels never expected the tomb story to be compared. Apparently, they thought that their writing only would survive? Otherwise they would have made them match one another rather than contradict.


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Lets not forget that Jesus was in the tomb on Friday. The Sanhedrin did not ask for the Tomb to be guarded until Saturday.
> Was anybody guarding an actual body by Saturday eve???


Thinking this through.... If the disciples had of stole the body, they would have passed the story along that they knew he would be raised from the dead, calling attention to it to sell the story, but we have just the opposite. Them being totally ignorant of his claim of rising in three days. I have a hard time believing that none of them knew he claimed he would rise... Or maybe the NT writers put more emphasis on this than Jesus actually did...... Hmmmm, bingo. Jesus words on the cross, why have you forsaken me.... hmmmm, I need to ponder this awhile.


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> Apparently, the writers of the gospels never expected the tomb story to be compared. Apparently, they thought that their writing only would survive? Otherwise they would have made them match one another rather than contradict.


I am convinced that No, no they didn't expect writings to be compared.
There was ALWAYS people writing back then just as there are today. 
So many things were written both pro and con on any subject and person that was  in one way or another.
The one's who screwed up were the Councils that put various writings together and destroyed the rest because they didn't fit the story wanted told.


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> Thinking this through.... If the disciples had of stole the body, they would have passed the story along that they knew he would be raised from the dead, calling attention to it to sell the story, but we have just the opposite. Them being totally ignorant of his claim of rising in three days. I have a hard time believing that none of them knew he claimed he would rise... Or maybe the NT writers put more emphasis on this than Jesus actually did...... Hmmmm, bingo. Jesus words on the cross, why have you forsaken me.... hmmmm, I need to ponder this awhile.


The Disciples wouldn't have had to be the only other option to steal the body or move the body.


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> I am convinced that No, no they didn't expect writings to be compared.
> There was ALWAYS people writing back then just as there are today.
> So many things were written both pro and con on any subject and person that was  in one way or another.
> The one's who screwed up were the Councils that put various writings together and destroyed the rest because they didn't fit the story wanted told.


Yep, like the book of Enoch. Matthew quotes it, said to be 100 times, yet, they did not find what they wanted within, so they did not include it.... even though the books they did chose... validated Enoch. Go figure


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> The Disciples wouldn't have had to be the only other option to steal the body or move the body.


I agree. and this theory would answer why they seemingly did not know he said he would rise, making them look innocent.  ? Although only one constant in the 4 gospels is that Joseph of Armetheia took the body and put it in a tomb. Would he then be a part of his removal? It would seem disrespectful to move the body, once laid to rest. I don't know. Much to ponder. But I agree


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

If Roman guards were in fact guarding the tomb the Roman Authority could have went there that same night and taken the body themselves and told the Guards to tell the Sanhedrin a made up story. Why else would Roman Guards report to the Jews? And that way the Roman guards would have also avoided punishment.
Roman Authorities dump the body in the dump where many thieves were put and hoped it was done and over with never telling anyone where it was.

The Disciples clueless.
Jewish Authorities kept out of loop so no word gets out.

By the time it goes to another level, the body is eaten and scattered by scavengers and decomposed, not to be found by even the Romans to produce.


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## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> I agree. and this theory would answer why they seemingly did not know he said he would rise, making them look innocent.  ? Although only one constant in the 4 gospels is that Joseph of Armetheia took the body and put it in a tomb. Would he then be a part of his removal? It would seem disrespectful to move the body, once laid to rest. I don't know. Much to ponder. But I agree


A/The Jew(s) wouldn't touch a dead body after burial in that situation.


----------



## Spotlite (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> http://forum.gon.com/threads/was-matthew-an-inspired-writer.938239/page-9
> Post #165 you are talking about the difference between Tradition (oral) and Law.
> Then again in post #239 you say that you will cut to the chase, Outside of Tradition or custom....
> http://forum.gon.com/threads/was-matthew-an-inspired-writer.938239/page-12
> ...



 I’m not following how Oral tradition counting or not counting had anything to do with my question below. The intent of my question is to ask regardless if Ezekiel wrote anything down or not, could someone else had written anything down??? 

 “Ezekiel may or may not have not written his prophecies down, did he tell anyone? Did anyone else jot down bits and pieces? In order to prophecy, wouldn’t you have to tell at least one?”

For your above references, they’re questioning you on the difference in tradition and Gods requirement on a topic concerning blood lineage.  “Outside  of tradition or custom” doesn’t mean and doesn’t say tradition and custom doesn’t count. It says outside of tradition or custom, there is no requirement. Tradition and custom are just that, not enforceable. It’s my Saturday tradition to fish / hunt. There’s no requirement and no penalties involved.


----------



## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> I’m not following how Oral tradition counting or not counting had anything to do with my question below. The intent of my question is to ask regardless if Ezekiel wrote anything down or not, could someone else had written anything down???
> 
> “Ezekiel may or may not have not written his prophecies down, did he tell anyone? Did anyone else jot down bits and pieces? In order to prophecy, wouldn’t you have to tell at least one?”
> 
> For your above references, they’re questioning you on the difference in tradition and Gods requirement on a topic concerning blood lineage.  “Outside  of tradition or custom” doesn’t mean and doesn’t say tradition and custom doesn’t count. It says outside of tradition or custom, there is no requirement. Tradition and custom are just that, not enforceable. It’s my Saturday tradition to fish / hunt. There’s no requirement and no penalties involved.


If Ezekiel didn't write his prophecy down, it would have to have been passed on Orally. That is how it would have gotten to the 120 others who wrote Ezekiel's words and HOW it has to do with your question.


----------



## bullethead (Mar 12, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> I’m not following how Oral tradition counting or not counting had anything to do with my question below. The intent of my question is to ask regardless if Ezekiel wrote anything down or not, could someone else had written anything down???
> 
> “Ezekiel may or may not have not written his prophecies down, did he tell anyone? Did anyone else jot down bits and pieces? In order to prophecy, wouldn’t you have to tell at least one?”
> 
> For your above references, they’re questioning you on the difference in tradition and Gods requirement on a topic concerning blood lineage.  “Outside  of tradition or custom” doesn’t mean and doesn’t say tradition and custom doesn’t count. It says outside of tradition or custom, there is no requirement. Tradition and custom are just that, not enforceable. It’s my Saturday tradition to fish / hunt. There’s no requirement and no penalties involved.


If oral tradition is as binding as written as far as what is Followed in the Torah, it is a requirement.  The Torah is comprised of Written and Oral.


----------



## 1gr8bldr (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> If Roman guards were in fact guarding the tomb the Roman Authority could have went there that same night and taken the body themselves and told the Guards to tell the Sanhedrin a made up story. Why else would Roman Guards report to the Jews? And that way the Roman guards would have also avoided punishment.
> Roman Authorities dump the body in the dump where many thieves were put and hoped it was done and over with never telling anyone where it was.
> 
> The Disciples clueless.
> ...


Another possible explanation. I don't deny the possibility in theory trying to see it without bias. I believe that even though it's a mess of contradiction,  that the stone was rolled away and Jesus's body was not there, which they then assumed that someone took him, but then put 2 and 2 together to remember what he said. Whether he appeared to anyone or not, matters not to me. Realizing it sounds made up, but still believing that he was alive, in heaven. You might say, I have a Markian priority, other than the last chapter addition


----------



## Madman (Mar 12, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Seems you need to have a talk with yourself


Notice the phrase "in the manner you are speaking".  Jesus called himself God see John 8:48-59.  The Jews only saw themselves as righteous, not as God.


----------



## Madman (Mar 12, 2019)

Here is a source that may shed some light from the standpoint of one part of the church.  https://www.catholic.com/encyclopedia/son-of-god


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 12, 2019)

Madman said:


> Notice the phrase "in the manner you are speaking".  Jesus called himself God see John 8:48-59.  The Jews only saw themselves as righteous, not as God.


Before Abraham[what? was born} I am [God] Makes no sense. John gives us the answer in regards to who is greater. "He was before me". Jesus claimed to be greater than their Father Abraham, the context, vs 39. How is he "before"?  God promised him before Abraham. Just as Issac was Abrham's first born son, even though Ishmael was born first, because he was promised first. Before. The concept that God's promises are factual is foreign to the NT, but not the OT. There is no so called "I am".  God said I am who I will be, like a blank check. But it then tells us of how God gives us a name, to be remembered from generation to generation. YHWH. Not I am. There is no way, if this was so, that Paul would say, "by the grace of God, I am who I am.


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## Artfuldodger (Mar 12, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> Before Abraham[what? was born} I am [God] Makes no sense. John gives us the answer in regards to who is greater. "He was before me". Jesus claimed to be greater than their Father Abraham, the context, vs 39. How is he "before"?  God promised him before Abraham. Just as Issac was Abrham's first born son, even though Ishmael was born first, because he was promised first. Before. The concept that God's promises are factual is foreign to the NT, but not the OT. There is no so called "I am".  God said I am who I will be, like a blank check. But it then tells us of how God gives us a name, to be remembered from generation to generation. YHWH. Not I am. There is no way, if this was so, that Paul would say, "by the grace of God, I am who I am.



That's the way I see it to. He was before Abraham in Word. Perhaps in spirit as well.(where we differ)
First backing up to verse 47 it shows why they can't see or understand. They aren't of God. They are not one of His.

Next Jesus says "I honor my Father I do not seek My own glory. There is One who seeks it, and He is the Judge" That shows that Jesus is not God.

Then Jesus has to explain what death truly is. We know that Abraham, the prophets, and Christ all died. Yes even Jesus died. But through Jesus, we no longer have to die.

Jesus answered, “If I glorify Myself, My glory means nothing. The One who glorifies Me is My Father, of whom you say ‘He is our God.’…

Jesus gives no glory to himself. Nothing, zero, zilch. God glorified Jesus. He is your God but "My" Father.

Abraham saw the day Jesus came to the earth yet Jesus existed in Word before Abraham was.

I've read this a hundred times and can't make it say that Jesus is his Father or 1/3rd of the always existing Godhead.


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## Artfuldodger (Mar 12, 2019)

Isn't it possible that through Omniscience or Omnipotence, Jesus existed before Abraham? Perhaps even in an out of time existence? 
That he was God's Son from before time without actually being God or a created being? 
That with God's unity he became the Messiah before Abraham was? Always glorifying and honoring his Father? Always a Son? 

Maybe Jesus was always the only Son of the Father. A Son/Servant elected by God. 

Isaiah 42:1-4
“Behold! My Servant whom I uphold,
My [a]Elect One _in whom_ My soul delights!
I have put My Spirit upon Him;
He will bring forth justice to the Gentiles.


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## Israel (Mar 13, 2019)

bullethead said:


> That is all need to know in order to blindly follow and not ask questions.
> And such a symbol is also why I don't wear a guillotine, electric chair, lethal injection needles and other such ridiculous pendants around my neck. Do you think a guy that was nailed to and died on a couple of crossed stix wants to have crossed stix as his symbol???
> Try giving the surviving members of a severe car crash where they lost a loved one a t-shirt with a picture of the smashed car on it, ya know, as a symbol to represent their loved one who died....
> 
> ...



Nehushtan.


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## bullethead (Mar 13, 2019)

Israel said:


> Nehushtan.


You'll need multiple pendants to wear that on one chain


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## Israel (Mar 13, 2019)

And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

Israel said:


> And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.


He's speaking as the second Adam, having regained what Adam lost. Adam means man. Jesus regained for mankind, what Adam lost


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

Artfuldodger said:


> Isn't it possible that through Omniscience or Omnipotence, Jesus existed before Abraham? Perhaps even in an out of time existence?
> That he was God's Son from before time without actually being God or a created being?
> That with God's unity he became the Messiah before Abraham was? Always glorifying and honoring his Father? Always a Son?
> 
> ...


Everything was made in the 6 days, in word. God spoke, and it was so. God has not created as "he went". It was all created, yet not come to pass until times set forth by God. "For those God foreknew, he gave...."


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## Madman (Mar 13, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> Before Abraham[what? was born} I am [God] Makes no sense.


Well that explains everything, it was just a big misunderstanding.  The Jewish leaders didn't understand what Jesus was saying.  It is a shame you were not there to explain it, because it got Jesus killed.  Thank you for clearing that up.


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

It will probably come up.... John 1


Madman said:


> Well that explains everything, it was just a big misunderstanding.  The Jewish leaders didn't understand what Jesus was saying.  It is a shame you were not there to explain it, because it got Jesus killed.  Thank you for clearing that up.


 Hmmm, so what did Pilate write.... that he claimed to be God.... or king of the Jews? No misunderstanding on their part, just NT readers. He claimed to be greater than Abraham.... How offensive this would be to those who considered Abraham the father of their faith.


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

"He trusts in God, let God rescue him"
"For he knew it was out of envy that they handed Jesus over to him"
"Tell us if you are the Christ, the son of the living God"
"The chief priest were looking for false evidence against Jesus... but they could not find any"except" distroy this temple and rebuild it in three days"
"You brought me this man as one inciting the people to a rebellion"
"the whole assembly led him to pilate, accusing him, that he opposes payment of taxes and claims to be the Christ"
"Do not write King of the Jews but write that he claimed to be king of the Jews"
"Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Ceasar""we have no king but Caesar"

Sorry, but 1, maybe 2 ambiguous verses don't trump context, clear context, no, zero, ambiguity. He was not killed for claiming to be God.


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

The only ambiguous verse that gets used is "We have a law and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God". Truth is... no law existed. And they in no way attributed a claim to son of God as a claim of being God. The context is clear, if he had claimed to be God, this would be all the talk, all the accusations, Pilate's questions would revolve around this, his sign would have said this. It's just not so. you can't build theology off 1 ambiguous verse when the context is clear.


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

The Jews were allowed to live within the Roman territory, like the Indians were given reservations. But they had to live by the rules. They had a constant mindset that the Romans were aware of, that one day they would overthrow the Romans oppression. I don't think they were oppressed, yet they had the victim complex. With every festival or gathering, Roman manpower/presence was increased for fear they might riot, or start a revolt. Pilate was in charge of keeping the peace, the ambassador, you might say, to Rome. He answered to Rome on behalf of the Jews. There was always a fear that Rome might step in and take away privileges if they did not behave. So they used this.... Trying to get Pilate to kill Jesus under the idea that he would bring down the wrath of the Romans if they allowed Jesus to live, opposing Caesar.


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

"are you greater than our Father Abraham" the context. Imagine this.... They considered Abraham the father of their faith. The greatest man to ever live. The man of faith. The promises coming from him.... and then a man they just met, claiming to be greater....


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## Israel (Mar 13, 2019)

The deficits in hearing, apprehending significance, the necessity of being made conformable to instruction is first demonstrated to, in, and then through the apostles.

What may consider them "supermen" chosen for their exquisite hearing and exemplary performance is made clear as untrue through their own confessions and the testimony of the scriptures.

One, (perhaps the most frequently quoted and considered by many as _the exemplary_) was not reluctant to state this:

This is a trustworthy saying, worthy of full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst.
Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.

For this cause.

Regardless of what others may say of him...(appearing to them as so rich in revelation, wisdom, and understanding) such attribution is completely negated by them in their _naive fan boy _consciousness (little children, keep yourselves from idols)
if they do not consider his own appraisal and stated cause of choosing worthy of equal weight in revelation.

Is Paul stating "I was chosen because I was and would be such a peculiar exemplar of my innate faithfulness and obedience"?

Or

"I am (was) of such a _special-ness_ and remarkable character that Jesus Christ knew I'd really be good at this"?

Oy.

If there is a "firstness" to apostles (and Christ gave first in the church apostles...), it is that they might first apprehend the utter necessity of hearing and right attention to the Lord Jesus, even worked out through their plain... and not un-confessed density in such matters.

Paul understood..."I am an example, chosen as example, made to be an example of such weakness and frailties common to _all men_, that the most common and weakest might see in me the work of patience of the Lord Jesus Christ...so that even what appears to itself as least becoming and fit...and might have hope."


Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.

There is no derision in this...no seeking to make Paul _(or any other) _less, or the work of Christ through him less, or diminish his standing as worthy example.

Yeah, Paul had a lot of cargo (yet esteemed by many, but specifically and irrefutably consigned by him to the trash bin) that some still think was what made him so particularly suited to being called as an apostle.

But unless one sees the very work of Christ in his being persuaded they are/were of no use at all, (even and perhaps a specific hindrance) its quite possible to miss the forest for the trees.

"Paul the brilliant!" "Paul the brilliant expositor and eloquent ambassador!"

How so? If brilliant... and indeed _brilliant in light,_ don't imagine this came as result _and _consequence of natural intelligence...his brilliance in Christ is all and only result of counting such as worthless to the knowing of Jesus Christ in truth. 

Paul is far more to be found in saying: "yes, _even smart people_ can be saved" 

than he would be to: 

"it takes a lot of intellectual steam to sort this out". 

But, men who choose to see so will, and must...until they impale themselves on their own intellect.

Oh, how this insults the wisdom of the wise. The one who would "figure out God".

What other apostle bears different testimony? Does Peter appear as one who could declare of himself his great comprehending and obedience as _reason for his choosing?_ John? any?

But he spake the more vehemently, If I should die with thee, I will not deny thee in any wise. Likewise also said they all.

The seeming forgetting of Christ's words, to be even found in a despair and grief (and fear) after his crucifixion despite his oft speaking of being raised, is it lost on us? These disciples chosen as apostles...is it foreign to them in their own experience to come to know it is only the Lord's faithfulness beyond a man's apprehension...that saves him?

Do we think the one who wrote this:

_It is_ a faithful saying: For if we be dead with _him_, we shall also live with _him_: If we suffer, we shall also reign with _him_: if we deny _him_, he also will deny us: 
If we believe not, _yet_ he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself.

did not have this particularly worked out in and through himself...that all that matters, and has only and ever mattered_ is the Lord's faithfulness?_

This one...whose calling was so profoundly miraculous to himself, so abundantly made plain by a voice heard, a light blinding, a consignment to darkness for three days till such other disciple Ananias came and laid hands upon him...might later testify

For we would not, brethren, have you ignorant of our trouble which came to us in Asia, that we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life: But we had the sentence of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead: 

The man who has entered (yes, even after coming to know Christ in some measure...perhaps even profoundly miraculously) that has had such experience of _despair in himself_ does not need any of this explained. How that in such pressing he may know how all seems "lost"...how all previous promise and experience (once even so very glorious) may now be not able to lay a hand of hope to it, as though to him there now, almost nonexistent as such pressing even seems to press it from memory...needs none of this as reminder.

It would only be hard to understand for one who has not been through such to imagine "how could any ever wonder about a thing Jesus has once spoken to them?"

Yes, the disciples saw and heard much. They saw the dead raised, the lame healed, bread and fish multiplied and all manner of miraculous works. But such was of little comfort before whose eyes Jesus Christ was plainly crucified. Even, and despite His having told them of His resurrection. Perhaps later they marveled..."why did we so easily come to fear, when we now remember he told us it would be so"?

But maybe they also remembered this:

Now Jesus knew that they were desirous to ask him, and said unto them, Do ye inquire among yourselves of that I said, A little while, and ye shall not see me: and again, a little while, and ye shall see me? Verily, verily, I say unto you, That ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice: and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy. 

And there they began to understand things are, and will be, just as the mouth of the Lord has pronounced.

And perhaps all is to bring us to no less than that very thing...Jesus knows, and Jesus knows whereof He speaks...always and in absolutely everything. To this end, is all. There is no end run around Him.

And this is made most plain through those in whom He had first given to the Church...apostles...who have come to learn such. And that nothing has ever relied upon their ability, their special-ness...except perhaps that they admit of themselves...they are the especially weak...that hope be rightly assigned its only proper source.


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## Israel (Mar 13, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> "He trusts in God, let God rescue him"
> "For he knew it was out of envy that they handed Jesus over to him"
> "Tell us if you are the Christ, the son of the living God"
> "The chief priest were looking for false evidence against Jesus... but they could not find any"except" distroy this temple and rebuild it in three days"
> ...



That's true...He wasn't killed for any of his saying of what_ they claimed to_ take offense at.

What they claimed to be offended by (today it's called virtue signaling) has nothing to do with anything except that the offense was _in them_, and none_ in Him_.
Always in such instances...something's gotta give.

And so the giver...gave.

And what is offended by the presence of God, was allowed its _appointed_ exercise.


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## Artfuldodger (Mar 13, 2019)

Israel said:


> And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was.


 
If it was a pre-existing Jesus; 

John 7:39
By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. 

How could Jesus have glory he was seeking if he already had it? "since Jesus had not yet been glorified."

Also, the Spirit had not been given. Yet some say the Holy Spirit has always been on the earth. More confusion.


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## Artfuldodger (Mar 13, 2019)

Before the beginning of time? What was before the beginning of time? What had already happened and who existed?

2 Timothy 1:9
He has saved us and called us to a holy life--not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace. This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,

Revelation 13:8
All inhabitants of the earth will worship the beast--all whose names have not been written in the Lamb's book of life, the Lamb who was slain from the creation of the world.

1 Peter 1:20
He was known before the foundation of the world, but was revealed in the last times for your sake.

Romans 8:29
For those God foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brothers.

So perhaps in some way or Word, everything already existed.


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## Israel (Mar 13, 2019)

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus: Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of _things_ in heaven, and _things_ in earth, and _things_ under the earth; And _that_ every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ _is_ Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

What is found paradoxical or confusing...does it not demand light


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## bullethead (Mar 13, 2019)

Guys, if the message is SO clear, why all the different interpretations among the like minded?


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## Artfuldodger (Mar 13, 2019)

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you."

*Psalm 139:15-16* (NIV1984)
  15 My frame was not hidden from you
     when I was made in the secret place.
  When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
  16 your eyes saw my unformed body.
  All the days ordained for me
     were written in your book
     before one of them came to be. 

God chose us before the foundation of the world, Eph. 1:3–4.


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## Artfuldodger (Mar 13, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Guys, if the message is SO clear, why all the different interpretations among the like minded?


 Because God has laid a Stumbling Stone;

1 Peter 2:6-
For it stands in Scripture: “See, I lay in Zion a stone, a chosen and precious cornerstone; and the one who believes in Him will never be put to shame.” 7To you who believe, then, this stone is precious. But to those who do not believe, “The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone,” 8and, "A stone that causes people to stumble and a rock that makes them fall." They stumble because they disobey the message--which is also what they were destined for.

Destiny?

9But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Possibly chosen before time?


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## bullethead (Mar 13, 2019)

Real writings written about mythological events that were written to explain a culture's existence and their special connection to a diety that they want to believe loves them the most.
Yes, there was a guy named Yeshua that preached apocalyptic style. Yes his ways got him in trouble with the authorities.  Yes he was smacked to some wood as punishment until he dead.
The rest is embellishments made to take every day happenings and make them linked to the Divine. Those things happened and exist nowhere else but within those pages. Because of that even believers in it cannot agree in what it all means or represents. How could a god be involved in it at all with all these discrepancies and obviously unclear meanings and messages?


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## bullethead (Mar 13, 2019)

How many followers/friends/family were present to support Jesus during crucifixion?


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## Israel (Mar 13, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Real writings written about mythological events that were written to explain a culture's existence and their special connection to a diety that they want to believe loves them the most.
> Yes, there was a guy named Yeshua that preached apocalyptic style. Yes his ways got him in trouble with the authorities.  Yes he was smacked to some wood as punishment until he dead.
> The rest is embellishments made to take every day happenings and make them linked to the Divine. Those things happened and exist nowhere else but within those pages. Because of that even believers in it cannot agree in what it all means or represents. How could a god be involved in it at all with all these discrepancies and obviously unclear meanings and messages?



Because overriding all, whether agreements and disagreements, greater or lesser understanding, greater or lesser_ apparent stature _comes not only the commandment to, but the grace to be found to "love one another as I have loved you".


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

bullethead said:


> How many followers/friends/family were present to support Jesus during crucifixion?


What I would like to know is how many it took to roll the stone in  front of Jesus's tomb? Imagine a tomb large enough to walk inside. The stone would have to be round in order to roll. So... lets just say it was 4 inches thick like a slab of concrete. Lets say, that the ground is flat and solid. The stone would need to be at least 5 feet high. This assumes it flat and solid ground that keeps it from sinking in and rolls well. This we know is not likely. I can't visualize anything that works in my mind. Maybe pictures of other tombs would help me. I have faith, that he was raised from the dead, but not much in the story details.


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Guys, if the message is SO clear, why all the different interpretations among the like minded?


The bible, in a sense, prophesies that it will be this way. "those who have eyes to see", "those who have ears to hear", etc. It implies that something is still hidden? As if "the keys have been given to one, but not to the other. Have you not seen "blindness" here everyday? Those whom would say that 4+4 equals 23, if the bible had of said so.


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## bullethead (Mar 13, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> The bible, in a sense, prophesies that it will be this way. "those who have eyes to see", "those who have ears to hear", etc. It implies that something is still hidden? As if "the keys have been given to one, but not to the other. Have you not seen "blindness" here everyday? Those whom would say that 4+4 equals 23, if the bible had of said so.


Who here has the eyes and the ears?
Would any believer admit that they absolutely do not?


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## bullethead (Mar 13, 2019)

Israel said:


> Because overriding all, whether agreements and disagreements, greater or lesser understanding, greater or lesser_ apparent stature _comes not only the commandment to, but the grace to be found to "love one another as I have loved you".


I didn't ask what phrase is used to avoid the question, I hoped for an answer  that addressed  the actual question.


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## bullethead (Mar 13, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> What I would like to know is how many it took to roll the stone in  front of Jesus's tomb? Imagine a tomb large enough to walk inside. The stone would have to be round in order to roll. So... lets just say it was 4 inches thick like a slab of concrete. Lets say, that the ground is flat and solid. The stone would need to be at least 5 feet high. This assumes it flat and solid ground that keeps it from sinking in and rolls well. This we know is not likely. I can't visualize anything that works in my mind. Maybe pictures of other tombs would help me. I have faith, that he was raised from the dead, but not much in the story details.


Well, the Bible has no shortage of resurrections 6?10? More?


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## bullethead (Mar 13, 2019)

I get the feeling that not much impressed many locals in those times. Earthquakes and eclipses went unrecorded, graves bursting open with spirits flying out and about got the same attention as if it never happened,  the dead rising barely made the back page on the News Papyrus,  and ascension into the clouds managed to gather exactly 500 unknowns that watched but must have dismissed it as a Balloon getting away from yet another resurrection party.
Luckily though, all to be remembered 50 to100 years later by the ones who were not there!!


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

bullethead said:


> I get the feeling that not much impressed many locals in those times. Earthquakes and eclipses went unrecorded, graves bursting open with spirits flying out and about got the same attention as if it never happened,  the dead rising barely made the back page on the News Papyrus,  and ascension into the clouds managed to gather exactly 500 unknowns that watched but must have dismissed it as a Balloon getting away from yet another resurrection party.
> Luckily though, all to be remembered 50 to100 years later by the ones who were not there!!


Sorry, there was a miscount. It was 488, two guys got  counted twice


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## bullethead (Mar 13, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> Sorry, there was a miscount. It was 488, two guys got  counted twice


Lololol, still 10 short!!!!!
Those 10 must have been on the Map of the Future Stars Mule Wagon Tour


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

I realize that we have not addressed the original question. Something I am still pondering. I'm pondering about him being a sacrifice for sin..... or him giving of himself, willingly, a sacrifice, not like a blood sacrifice, but like a denying of self sacrifice, which accomplished the same thing. But there is a difference. And I think the NT points to the first, yet...


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Lololol, still 10 short!!!!!
> Those 10 must have been on the Map of the Future Stars Mule Wagon Tour


LOL, I just saw that. I thought I wrote 498. The other ten, were actually 5, standing in front of a big mirror. Now, the other 5???


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

I'm also pondering the significance of 3 days in the grave. Where did the 3 come from. It seemingly is emphasized. As if, something from the OT eluded to this. When Jesus said, "tear down this temple and raise it back in three days", where does the 3 come from? Of course, it could have originated with Jesus, but he somewhat implies that it is a fulfillment?


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## bullethead (Mar 13, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> I realize that we have not addressed the original question. Something I am still pondering. I'm pondering about him being a sacrifice for sin..... or him giving of himself, willingly, a sacrifice, not like a blood sacrifice, but like a denying of self sacrifice, which accomplished the same thing. But there is a difference. And I think the NT points to the first, yet...


But before all that, was human sacrifice even acceptable?


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## bullethead (Mar 13, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> I'm also pondering the significance of 3 days in the grave. Where did the 3 come from. It seemingly is emphasized. As if, something from the OT eluded to this. When Jesus said, "tear down this temple and raise it back in three days", where does the 3 come from? Of course, it could have originated with Jesus, but he somewhat implies that it is a fulfillment?


I don't think he spent 3 days in the grave according to the stories.


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

I don't really see Jesus as a sacrifice for the sins of the world? I realize that the NT writers seemed to believe this and emphasized it. I believe his sitting down at the right hand of God, after being raised, made him our mediator for sins. Not our sacrifice for sins. I think the NT writers bounced around with these two lines of reasoning, but it should be one or the other. Still thinking though. I am not decided yet.


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

bullethead said:


> But before all that, was human sacrifice even acceptable?


No, yet in the OT we see the strangest story where a man said that the next person out of his door, he would kill. To his disappointment, out walked his daughter. But God allowed him more time.... but not off the hook for his vow.  Weird


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> I don't really see Jesus as a sacrifice for the sins of the world? I realize that the NT writers seemed to believe this and emphasized it. I believe his sitting down at the right hand of God, after being raised, made him our mediator for sins. Not our sacrifice for sins. I think the NT writers bounced around with these two lines of reasoning, but it should be one or the other. Still thinking though. I am not decided yet.


 It would be strange to say, that he died for the sins of the entire world. Yet only if you believe it. So, then.... essentially, it was not the whole world. What would believing have to do with it. The mediator between God and man, seems to work better.  So much to ponder here though.... so, this will take a long time. In the day, I would have read it cover to cover, 3 times, with just this one topic in mind, to see what it says, and took notes on every single instance that might apply, but, I'm hoping it don't require this


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> It would be strange to say, that he died for the sins of the entire world. Yet only if you believe it. So, then.... essentially, it was not the whole world. What would believing have to do with it. The mediator between God and man, seems to work better.  So much to ponder here though.... so, this will take a long time. In the day, I would have read it cover to cover, 3 times, with just this one topic in mind, to see what it says, and took notes on every single instance that might apply, but, I'm hoping it don't require this


I suppose he died for all the sins, as a sacrifice... before the new covenant, and mediates all the sins during the new covenant.... Lots to think about


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## 1gr8bldr (Mar 13, 2019)

bullethead said:


> I don't think he spent 3 days in the grave according to the stories.


 Jonah was said to be in the belly of a whale for 3 days and 3 nights. Dead, he would have been, so spit out on the beach, he would have had to be risen from the dead. However, this does not match Jesus's time frame exactly as you point out.


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## bullethead (Mar 14, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> Jonah was said to be in the belly of a whale for 3 days and 3 nights. Dead, he would have been, so spit out on the beach, he would have had to be risen from the dead. However, this does not match Jesus's time frame exactly as you point out.


Correct . According to the story Jesus was dead on Friday and supposed to have been buried before sundown then the grave was empty by Sunday morning.


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## bullethead (Mar 14, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> I suppose he died for all the sins, as a sacrifice... before the new covenant, and mediates all the sins during the new covenant.... Lots to think about


According to the Jews, which he was, human sacrifice was not an acceptable sacrifice.

It seems like the rules never changed officially, just that the NT writers had to say they did in order to try to explain why the man that they believed in was put to death instead of fulfilling prophesy.
Much was written of Simon Bar Kokhba by Romans and Jews as he lived. He had about a 5yr run. No contemporary writing was done of Jesus.


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## bullethead (Mar 14, 2019)

1gr8bldr said:


> It would be strange to say, that he died for the sins of the entire world. Yet only if you believe it. So, then.... essentially, it was not the whole world. What would believing have to do with it. The mediator between God and man, seems to work better.  So much to ponder here though.... so, this will take a long time. In the day, I would have read it cover to cover, 3 times, with just this one topic in mind, to see what it says, and took notes on every single instance that might apply, but, I'm hoping it don't require this


NT writers. NT new rules. You have to believe All, Most, Some of it if you want to be a Christian.


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## Israel (Mar 14, 2019)

bullethead said:


> I didn't ask what phrase is used to avoid the question, I hoped for an answer  that addressed  the actual question.





> Guys, if the message is SO clear, why all the different interpretations among the like minded?





> How could a god be involved in it at all with all these discrepancies and obviously unclear meanings and messages?



I can only surmise that by your first response above you take it I am seeking to avoid your question by my response of Jesus' instruction to "love one another as I have loved you". 

For you perhaps, that matter seems an unfit thing upon which all is settled, but I am not sure, and do not know. Only that for you _that response_ is insufficient for whatever reason. Am I wrong in that surmising?

Admittedly, and obviously, I cannot make any man receive that (even any particular believer, no less) as a fundamental matter in all. Even were I to expand it to a further fullness in Jesus' saying

A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all _men_ know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another. 

Is it commandment, yes. Does it_ include in the commandment _a promise of knowing?
I see that it does.

To say I have been reduced to a certain seeing you have been careful in times past to either caution me or to resist the use of _"always", "or all men"._ Fair enough.
Nevertheless, I see as I see, and you do as you do. For either of us _to not express_ "as we see" (which I have, no less been, brought to conclude is _absolutely inescapable_, anyway, _for all men_) would imply we are willing to enter exchange with one another upon deceit and falsehood. But even so, and even there, the truth of the matter (even _that particular matter) _is to be known: "These are men who lie to one another" (I trust you have heard the aphorism "some use words to illuminate the truth, some use words to hide it")

If I say _all men_ are _always _engaged in an establishment of their consciousness to "a knowing" matters not to me how others may receive this. That is how _I see._ Anyone is free to call me both (or either) liar and wrong in my seeing...that this compulsion "to know" is at work_ at all times_, in _all men. _And so much the more obvious in those who enter into communication with one another to establish to both themselves and the other, that they _have consciousness_. And again, as stated before, I maintain it is futile to the extreme for a man, _(any_ man, _all_ men, _always)_ to believe he can hide what informs his consciousness.

To think this is not all, or any less, than what particularly takes place here, on these forums, in these exchanges...is to me folly. Displaying of "consciousnesses" to one another. It is in all now redundant, needless, and probably most silly to reiterate (but I am not ashamed of the label "captain obvious") that what maintains its position as "believer" as opposed to, or distinguished from, anything that may describe itself as else, that there is a conscious (and even _supremely conscious_) witness to all our communications. Yes, we believe there is _the_ all knowing God, and_ fully aware. _And almost to a man (though I have not been on this forum forever) what claims such is of the persuasion that that God has made Himself _fully_ known through Jesus Christ. (I have yet to see "other" expressed here, no Hindu nor Muslim etc, have I yet seen)

Yes, "captain obvious".

What you may dismiss as "phrase used to avoid the question" I would be liar to deny as fundamental. But I trust we both know, to whatever extent, that discrepancies may often be seen between words, and practice. The verbal approval of certain things does not always translate into an application in practice. (the believer may most easily see this in such words as "these people do draw near to me with their mouths and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me") In whatever form, though, hypocrisy is made plain_ as a thing _to both what calls itself believer and what may deny "a" God, or any god. But each, regardless, appear to regard hypocrisy _as not_ a "good thing". To me it appears quite universal to _all men, _a dealing in lies for advantage of self, is repugnant. Especially to those who have either been hoodwinked by such, or are discerning of its exercise. It is better a man _not speak, _than to engage in speaking to such end as self service in deceit. And, no one need agree. I cannot make anyone believe the consequences I have seen, are true consequences to such.

And decidedly (with little disagreement, as I have found) as one who "speaks much"  (comparatively) the reduction to this brevity, and fundamentality, "love one another as I have loved you" for both a display (and appeal) of, and to, consciousness and no less, _to a knowing, _is what most often "holds my feet to the fire".

I don't wonder that to others it may sound useless, or an avoidance. Yet it is inescapable to me (though any are free to deny my ability_ to know it_) and of such utter and complete utility, that I cannot deny it. Even and especially as I find myself included in the "all men" as described..."by this shall all men know..." And I cannot, and will not deny my own "need to know" no less than I believe any other man is in its possession.

To say it has most curiously been outworked in exchanges with you, (though not exclusively) for me would not be a lie. I have sometimes found myself provoked to an anger and vexation that would make me spit. I have found myself "wanting no part with you" in such measure as only the God I know...knows. I could say "you have done this"...but I know...it is not so. It has all been necessary to me as instruction in that very matter, mentioned. It is I who deny myself any knowing, or hope thereof should I allow such a dim view to hold sway...to regard you as any less "loved" than myself. Oh, make no mistake, this discipline for me is most strict and inescapable...I have no right, business, no place of exchange toward you or with you...unless I love you...and that no less than of the experience I have had of love through Jesus Christ.

I am able to bear being called liar, fool, even perhaps hypocrite, by any and all...except One. And you have surely been used to cause me to appear before Him, in my own "need to know". What I find there, always find there in being "forced to appear" for knowing, is never without benefit. Even _in rebuke_. How could I not appreciate your being?

So, yeah...it's more than fine if your continued role is to find me wanting. It works...perfectly. After all, I myself no less find me wanting...to an extreme.


----------



## bullethead (Mar 14, 2019)

Israel said:


> I can only surmise that by your first response above you take it I am seeking to avoid your question by my response of Jesus' instruction to "love one another as I have loved you".
> 
> For you perhaps, that matter seems an unfit thing upon which all is settled, but I am not sure, and do not know. Only that for you _that response_ is insufficient for whatever reason. Am I wrong in that surmising?
> 
> ...


No need go off the rails and stew upon the dialog of prior conversations just to fill bandwidth.
Is addressing questions that pertain to the conversation at hand by staying on point too much to ask?

Was human sacrifice acceptable?
Did Jesus spend 3 days in the tomb?


----------



## Israel (Mar 14, 2019)

"bandwidth bandit" is no more unsuited to me than "captain obvious".


----------



## spurrs and racks (Mar 14, 2019)

Israel my brother, I personally cannot post on this forum.......

It's good that you can

Godspeed


----------



## Spotlite (Mar 14, 2019)

bullethead said:


> NT writers. NT new rules. You have to believe All, Most, Some of it if you want to be a Christian.


The only problem with your “new rules” scheme is that even in what’s considered to be part of the Torah (Deuteronomy) it is written about a Prophet being raised up among them and God will put words into his mouth to speak ALL of his commandments to them.

The Jews even knew the “rules” would change with this Prophet. At this point, it’s moot to argue who that Prophet is, your argument is over the “rules of the Torah”.....and being bound to those.

Told ya to start in Ezekiel and go backwards


----------



## bullethead (Mar 14, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> The only problem with your “new rules” scheme is that even in what’s considered to be part of the Torah (Deuteronomy) it is written about a Prophet being raised up among them and God will put words into his mouth to speak ALL of his commandments to them.
> 
> The Jews even knew the “rules” would change with this Prophet. At this point, it’s moot to argue who that Prophet is, your argument is over the “rules of the Torah”.....and being bound to those.
> 
> Told ya to start in Ezekiel and go backwards


Yeshua doesn't fit. A few fulfilled what Jesus did and more and they still didn't cut it.
I know what you are trying to say but the person that you are trying to associate it with does not fit as much as you are wanting us to believe.


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## bullethead (Mar 14, 2019)

spurrs and racks said:


> Israel my brother, I personally cannot post on this forum.......
> 
> It's good that you can
> 
> Godspeed


He is persistent


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## Artfuldodger (Mar 14, 2019)

Why Israel could not see the prophesy had come;

Romans 11:8
as it is written: "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see and ears that could not hear, to this very day."


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## Israel (Mar 14, 2019)

bullethead said:


> He is persistent


I don't know which of us you mean.

But if you mean me...it may well be I am being made to find you irresistible...among others.

I mean for me this is the greatest surprise! And, I do like surprises.

Who'd a thunk it?


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## bullethead (Mar 14, 2019)

Artfuldodger said:


> Why Israel could not see the prophesy had come;
> 
> Romans 11:8
> as it is written: "God gave them a spirit of stupor, eyes that could not see and ears that could not hear, to this very day."


The Torah seemed to think that God thought highly of them.

When starting a new religion, it would make sense to try to discredit the old religion, no?


----------



## Spotlite (Mar 14, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Yeshua doesn't fit. A few fulfilled what Jesus did and more and they still didn't cut it.
> I know what you are trying to say but the person that you are trying to associate it with does not fit as much as you are wanting us to believe.


See that’s a diversion and doesn’t address your Torah rules gripe. I just stated it didn’t matter who the Prophet was, is or isn’t. Your gripe is the rules, new rules, bound to Torah, etc. The Torah told you one would come and speak Gods commandments.


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## bullethead (Mar 14, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> See that’s a diversion and doesn’t address your Torah rules gripe. I just stated it didn’t matter who the Prophet was, is or isn’t. Your gripe is the rules, new rules, bound to Torah, etc. The Torah told you one would come and speak Gods commandments.


Which one?
There were many


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## bullethead (Mar 14, 2019)

From:
https://answers.yahoo.com/question/...HZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzcg--?qid=20071101072338AAd3jLL
Since the name Jesus (Yeshua or Yeshu in Hebrew, Ioshu in Greek, source of the English spelling) originally was a title (meaning ‘saviour’, derived from ‘Yahweh Saves’) probably every band in the Jewish resistance had its own hero figure sporting this moniker, among others. Josephus, the first century Jewish historian mentions no fewer than nineteen different Yeshuas/Jesii, about half of them contemporaries of the supposed Christ! In his Antiquities, of the twenty-eight high priests who held office from the reign of Herod the Great to the fall of the Temple, no fewer than four bore the name Jesus: Jesus ben Phiabi, Jesus ben Sec, Jesus ben ****eus and Jesus ben Gamaliel. Even Saint Paul makes reference to a rival magician, preaching ‘another Jesus’ (2 Corinthians 11,4). The surfeit of early Jesuses includes: 
Jesus ben Sirach. This Jesus was reputedly the author of the Book of Sirach (aka 'Ecclesiasticus, or the Wisdom of Jesus the Son of Sirach'), part of Old Testament Apocrypha. Ben Sirach, writing in Greek about 180 BC, brought together Jewish 'wisdom' and Homeric-style heroes. 
Jesus ben Pandira. A wonder-worker during the reign of Alexander Jannaeus (106-79 BC), one of the most ruthless of the Maccabean kings. Imprudently, this Jesus launched into a career of end-time prophesy and agitation which upset the king. He met his own premature end-time by being hung on a tree – and on the eve of a Passover. Scholars have speculated this Jesus founded the Essene sect. 
Jesus ben Ananias. Beginning in 62AD, this Jesus had caused disquiet in Jerusalem with a non-stop doom-laden mantra of ‘Woe to the city’. He prophesied rather vaguely: "A voice from the east, a voice from the west, a voice from the four winds, a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house, a voice against the bridegrooms and the brides, and a voice against the whole people." (Josephus, Wars 6:3) Arrested and flogged by the Romans, he was released as nothing more dangerous than a mad man. He died during the siege of Jerusalem from a rock hurled by a Roman catapult. 
Jesus ben Saphat. In the insurrection of 68AD that wrought havoc in Galilee, this Jesus had led the rebels in Tiberias. When the city was about to fall to Vespasian’s legionaries he fled north to Tarichea on the Sea of Galilee. 
Jesus ben Gamala. During 68/69 AD this Jesus was a leader of the ‘peace party’ in the civil war wrecking Judaea. From the walls of Jerusalem he had remonstrated with the besieging Idumeans (led by ‘James and John, sons of Susa’). It did him no good. When the Idumeans breached the walls he was put to death and his body thrown to the dogs and carrion birds. Jesus ben Thebuth. A priest who, in the final capitulation of the upper city in 69AD, saved his own skin by surrendering the treasures of the Temple, which included two holy candlesticks, goblets of pure gold, sacred curtains and robes of the high priests. The booty figured prominently in the Triumph held for Vespasian and his son Titus.


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## bullethead (Mar 14, 2019)

Continued from above

But was there a crucified Jesus? 

Certainly.
 Jesus ben Stada was a Judean agitator who gave the Romans a headache in the early years of the second century. He met his end in the town of Lydda (twenty five miles from Jerusalem) at the hands of a Roman crucifixion crew. And given the scale that Roman retribution could reach – at the height of the siege of Jerusalem the Romans were crucifying upwards of five hundred captives a day before the city walls – dead heroes called Jesus would (quite literally) have been thick on the ground. Not one merits a full-stop in the great universal history. 

But then with so many Jesuses could there not have been a Jesus of Nazareth? The problem for this notion is that absolutely nothing at all corroborates the sacred biography and yet this 'greatest story' is peppered with numerous anachronisms, contradictions and absurdities. For example, at the time that Joseph and the pregnant Mary are said to have gone off to Bethlehem for a supposed Roman census, Galilee (unlike Judaea) was not a Roman province and therefore ma and pa would have had no reason to make the journey. Even if Galilee had been imperial territory, history knows of no ‘universal census’ ordered by Augustus (nor any other emperor) – and Roman taxes were based on property ownership not on a head count. Then again, we now know that Nazareth did not exist before the second century. 
It is mentioned not at all in the Old Testament nor by Josephus, who waged war across the length and breadth of Galilee (a territory about the size of Greater London) and yet Josephus records the names of dozens of other towns. In fact most of the ‘Jesus-action’ takes place in towns of equally doubtful provenance, in hamlets so small only partisan Christians know of their existence (yet well attested pagan cities, with extant ruins, failed to make the Jesus itinerary). What should alert us to wholesale fakery here is that practically all the events of Jesus’s supposed life appear in the lives of mythical figures of far more ancient origin. Whether we speak of miraculous birth, prodigious youth, miracles or wondrous healings – all such 'signs' had been ascribed to other gods, centuries before any Jewish holy man strolled about. Jesus’s supposed utterances and wisdom statements are equally common place, being variously drawn from Jewish scripture, neo-Platonic philosophy or commentaries made by Stoic and Cynic sages.


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## 660griz (Mar 14, 2019)

spurrs and racks said:


> Israel my brother, I personally cannot post on this forum.......


You can't? What is the above? ^^^^^^^^^^^^


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## bullethead (Mar 14, 2019)

660griz said:


> You can't? What is the above? ^^^^^^^^^^^^


Lololol,
That is a "I am gonna post telling others how I cannot post and hopefully make it seem like the reason I cannot post is because of some sort of self restraint,  but the reality is because despite all my claims I can't back any of them up and these guys don'tmiss that trick" post.


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## spurrs and racks (Mar 14, 2019)

because, I am a believer


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## ky55 (Mar 14, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Lololol,
> That is a "I am gonna post telling others how I cannot post and hopefully make it seem like the reason I cannot post is because of some sort of self restraint,  but the reality is because despite all my claims I can't back any of them up and these guys don'tmiss that trick" post.



“And nobody here believes that my bible proves everything in my bible!”


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## Spotlite (Mar 14, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Which one?
> There were many


Which one what??? It’s not even  relevant. It was a Prophet (consider John????) that was raised up from out of that people.

 But in a sense I guess it can be relevant if using the Torah “rules” as why Jesus can’t be the Messiah. 

What’s relevant is the age old argument of new rules and new religion to get away from the Torah to make Jesus the Messiah after being told by the Torah a Prophet would come and give Gods commandments.


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## bullethead (Mar 14, 2019)

spurrs and racks said:


> because, I am a believer


Believers are entitled to unlimited posts just like everyone else. 
And since you've posted a few already your excuse is not making any sense.


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## bullethead (Mar 14, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> Which one what??? It’s not even  relevant. It was a Prophet (consider John????) that was raised up from out of that people.
> 
> But in a sense I guess it can be relevant if using the Torah “rules” as why Jesus can’t be the Messiah.
> 
> What’s relevant is the age old argument of new rules and new religion to get away from the Torah to make Jesus the Messiah after being told by the Torah a Prophet would come and give Gods commandments.


Which Prophet Is what I am asking.
Specifically which prophet came and gave Gods commandments?

We can "consider" many but WHICH  one IS the prophet that the Torah said would come?

Yes, the Torah rules are what the Jews used to decide if someone met the criteria to be the Messiah.
Jesus was Jewish. He followed the Torah. He did not meet the criteria.

Jesus never came out in public to large crowds and said  "I am the Messiah" he had a conversation with a woman according to John 
(The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.”  (26)  Jesus said to her, “I who speak to you am he.”)
Funny how her Messiah Senses were tingling and that she "knows" that Messiah is coming, yet didn't know the guy she was talking to was the Messiah... But anyway...he still never muttered the words "I am the Messiah" because even he knew the Messiah criteria.
I am sure his pals all thought that Jesus was the Messia and probably spread the word around that he was, but that is what the personal  "crew" does. His for him and the other potential Messiah candidates had their own "crew".


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## bullethead (Mar 14, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> Which one what??? It’s not even  relevant. It was a Prophet (consider John????) that was raised up from out of that people.
> 
> But in a sense I guess it can be relevant if using the Torah “rules” as why Jesus can’t be the Messiah.
> 
> What’s relevant is the age old argument of new rules and new religion to get away from the Torah to make Jesus the Messiah after being told by the Torah a Prophet would come and give Gods commandments.


John?
In Jewish religion prophecy can only happen when Israel is ruled by god, which only happens when the Jews are in control of the country. The Romans were in control of Israel at that time. The whole NT was under Roman rule.
Lots of people have prophetic visions , John had prophetic visions, but he was not a prophet.

They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.” ~ John 1:21

Jesus did not meet the criteria so John coming before him was not the prophet the OT was talking about.
That person has yet to appear.


----------



## Artfuldodger (Mar 14, 2019)

bullethead said:


> The Torah seemed to think that God thought highly of them.
> 
> When starting a new religion, it would make sense to try to discredit the old religion, no?


 
He does;
"And so all Israel will be saved." 

Romans 11:27 
"And this is my covenant with them when I take away their sins."

"regarding election, they are loved on account of the patriarchs."

"How unsearchable His judgments, and untraceable His ways!"


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## Israel (Mar 15, 2019)

bullethead said:


> John?
> In Jewish religion prophecy can only happen when Israel is ruled by god, which only happens when the Jews are in control of the country. The Romans were in control of Israel at that time. The whole NT was under Roman rule.
> Lots of people have prophetic visions , John had prophetic visions, but he was not a prophet.
> 
> ...



What is it then?
How is it then?
Is it recorded, as you speak, (in the book of John) to dis-annul John (the Baptizer) by John the writer of John 1:21? And if so...if this be found as ground of truth (by you) to _use _for such dis-annuling, how do you not then receive the total of the writer of the book of John's testimony?
If you find of him a satisfactory recorder to the negation of a thing...how do you _not _find him satisfactory to all he does affirm?

Jesus knew something of John (the Baptizer) that even he did not know of himself.
(Just as you and I _are known_)

What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written: ‘Behold, I will send My messenger ahead of You, who will prepare Your way before You.’ Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist. 

Here is a strange thing:

I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth.

I am made glad to not find you lukewarm about Jesus Christ.


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## bullethead (Mar 15, 2019)

Israel said:


> What is it then?
> How is it then?
> Is it recorded, as you speak, (in the book of John) to dis-annul John (the Baptizer) by John the writer of John 1:21? And if so...if this be found as ground of truth (by you) to _use _for such dis-annuling, how do you not then receive the total of the writer of the book of John's testimony?
> If you find of him a satisfactory recorder to the negation of a thing...how do you _not _find him satisfactory to all he does affirm?
> ...


I just use the information available from the writings and the name assigned to the writings. Neither of which have to be true in order to discuss what is written.

Much is written about The Hulk and Spiderman and using those writings we can make a case for who is or is not the BEST superhero. A person can certainly make a case that one arrived before the other. We can use the foretold dialog from previous writings that gives clues as to who may be what and for those writings what is written could be extremely accurate but that accuracy only exists between the pages contained within those writings as it holds true NOWHERE else but in those works.
Does that rule out ALL the other supposed Superheroes that may be in fact (again according to more made up writings) more qualified to the BEST?
Does any of that writing really affirm one or the other outside of that realm? 
Does either or any actually speak the words that Stan Lee gave them?
Does ANY of it actually make it true beyond the front and back cover no matter how many kids dress up as one or the other and pretend to sling webs or SMASH?

One cap full, swish for 30 seconds, spit, repeat if necessary. Enjoy your minty treat.


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## bullethead (Mar 15, 2019)

Israel said:


> What then did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written: ‘Behold, I will send My messenger ahead of You, who will prepare Your way before You.’ Truly I tell you, among those born of women there has risen no one greater than John the Baptist.


Wasn't Jesus born of a Woman?

And does the OT/Torah state that someone would be MORE than a prophet?
More than a prophet is not a prophet is it? Or are we talking Prophet Plus, Super Prophet, 4 star Prophet...
I need this cleared up a little.


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## Spotlite (Mar 15, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Wasn't Jesus born of a Woman?


Before or after John........

I haven’t eaten the greatest hamburger in the world until I’ve eaten the greatest hamburger in the world.......


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## bullethead (Mar 15, 2019)

“See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.” ~ Malachi 4:5-6

They asked him, “Then who are you? Are you Elijah?” He said, “I am not.” “Are you the Prophet?” He answered, “No.” ~ John 1:21


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## bullethead (Mar 15, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> Before or after John........
> 
> I haven’t eaten the greatest hamburger in the world until I’ve eaten the greatest hamburger in the world.......


So are you saying that there is always a chance that a better burger could be out there and the one you eat is just the best one you have had up until that point?
Kind of like those ancient guys were the best candidates at that time, but it turns out that there may certainly be a better burger out there?


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## 660griz (Mar 15, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> Before or after John........
> 
> I haven’t eaten the greatest hamburger in the world until I’ve eaten the greatest hamburger in the world.......


Legend has it that John was about 6 months older than Jesus.
Mary and Elizabeth hung out together and traded getting away with cheating secrets. Elizabeth hid her pregnancy for 5 months. Mary just said, "God did it".
So, the time of the utterance of "more than a prophet" is of importance.


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## bullethead (Mar 15, 2019)

Israel said:


> What is it then?
> How is it then?
> Is it recorded, as you speak, (in the book of John) to dis-annul John (the Baptizer) by John the writer of John 1:21? And if so...if this be found as ground of truth (by you) to _use _for such dis-annuling, how do you not then receive the total of the writer of the book of John's testimony?
> If you find of him a satisfactory recorder to the negation of a thing...how do you _not _find him satisfactory to all he does affirm?
> ...


In Christianity and/or Judaism,  do they believe in Reincarnation or Resurrection?


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## Spotlite (Mar 15, 2019)

660griz said:


> Legend has it that John was about 6 months older than Jesus.
> Mary and Elizabeth hung out together and traded getting away with cheating secrets. Elizabeth hid her pregnancy for 5 months. Mary just said, "God did it".
> So, the time of the utterance of "more than a prophet" is of importance.


 I’m just saying I have a younger cousin that was the greatest grass cutter known until I bought a lawnmower.


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## bullethead (Mar 15, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> I’m just saying I have a younger cousin that was the greatest grass cutter known until I bought a lawnmower.


Are there better lawn mowers available now or is it possible that better ones will be made in the future?


----------



## Spotlite (Mar 15, 2019)

bullethead said:


> So are you saying that there is always a chance that a better burger could be out there and the one you eat is just the best one you have had up until that point?
> Kind of like those ancient guys were the best candidates at that time, but it turns out that there may certainly be a better burger out there?




My comment was more in relation of your comparison that both John and Jesus were born of a woman. Regardless of who’s older / younger....Johns ministry began before Jesus’s did.......as pertaining to Israel’s post, “among those born of women there HAS risen no one greater than John the Baptist”.........that’s what that’s saying, it’s not eliminating John.


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## Spotlite (Mar 15, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Are there better lawn mowers available now or is it possible that better ones will be made in the future?


 I’m sure there are many out there.......and more to come.......but nothing runs like a Deere......


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## bullethead (Mar 15, 2019)

Spotlite said:


> My comment was more in relation of your comparison that both John and Jesus were born of a woman. Regardless of who’s older / younger....Johns ministry began before Jesus’s did.......as pertaining to Israel’s post, “among those born of women there HAS risen no one greater than John the Baptist”.........that’s what that’s saying, it’s not eliminating John.


I agree. But,
Jesus is saying that John is greater  than even Jesus since they are both born of Women. Age had nothing to do with my answer.


----------



## Madman (Mar 27, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Guys, if the message is SO clear, why all the different interpretations among the like minded?


What different interpretations has the church put forth?


----------



## bullethead (Mar 27, 2019)

Madman said:


> What different interpretations has the church put forth?


Their Interpretation. 
I find them no more closer to or have any better connection with a god than you, me or anyone else. Am I incorrect?


----------



## Madman (Mar 27, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Their Interpretation.
> I find them no more closer to or have any better connection with a god than you, me or anyone else. Am I incorrect?


As I have said before, there is almost no difference in interpretation within the church, you can point to various protestant groups who disagree but their teaching comes some 1500 years after the origin of the religion.

As to "connection with god",  the question must first be answered as to whether there is a "god" or evidence for a "god".  If one's answer is no, then there is no need for them to pursue "god".  I happen to believe there is plenty of evidence for "an unmoved mover", therefore I began to investigate what that "unmoved mover" might be.


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## bullethead (Mar 27, 2019)

Madman said:


> As I have said before, there is almost no difference in interpretation within the church, you can point to various protestant groups who disagree but their teaching comes some 1500 years after the origin of the religion.
> 
> As to "connection with god",  the question must first be answered as to whether there is a "god" or evidence for a "god".  If one's answer is no, then there is no need for them to pursue "god".  I happen to believe there is plenty of evidence for "an unmoved mover", therefore I began to investigate what that "unmoved mover" might be.


If there is almost no difference, what IS different?

There is not enough known about what happened within the "Church" from when Jesus died and Peter took the reigns to the time Christianity became "official" in Rome and the Organized Church started.
It went from underground to mandatory and that time in between is not well documented.


I agree with you on the establishment of whether or not a god exists AND that it is not a universal truth but an individual belief.

Do you think the Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, Priests are any closer to, or have a more direct line of communication to God than you do?


----------



## Madman (Mar 27, 2019)

bullethead said:


> If there is almost no difference, what IS different?


Church in the east uses leavened bread for mass,  church in the west uses unleavened bread, mainly because leavened bread molded in the humidity.  Some disputes over the kalendar.   Was the Pope the chief among equals.  Nothing theological.  The Coptic church got ticked that everyone was not listening to their man Cyril so the left.  That has been agreed upon as a language barrier problem.



bullethead said:


> There is not enough known about what happened within the "Church" from when Jesus died and Peter took the reigns to the time Christianity became "official" in Rome and the Organized Church started.
> It went from underground to mandatory and that time in between is not well documented.



We know plenty.  Justin the Martyr wrote on the first century.  Plenty of writings from the church fathers, the councils, the didaca.  Lots of writings out there.



bullethead said:


> I agree with you on the establishment of whether or not a god exists AND that it is not a universal truth but an individual belief.



  creation will not get someone to a redeemer but I believe it can get them to a first cause.  That is the route many of us took.




bullethead said:


> Do you think the Pope, Cardinals, Bishops, Priests are any closer to, or have a more direct line of communication to God than belief.



I dont know.  I believe they spend more time praying, mediating,  studying, etc.  At least I hope the do.  Our priests and bishops have always given sound council to me and my family.  I believe God is active in creation but my beliefs are different than many on here.  Go figure.


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## bullethead (Mar 28, 2019)

> ="Madman, post: 11653776, member: 36479"]Church in the east uses leavened bread for mass,  church in the west uses unleavened bread, mainly because leavened bread molded in the humidity.  Some disputes over the kalendar.   Was the Pope the chief among equals.  Nothing theological.  The Coptic church got ticked that everyone was not listening to their man Cyril so the left.  That has been agreed upon as a language barrier problem.
> 
> 
> 
> We know plenty.  Justin the Martyr wrote on the first century.  Plenty of writings from the church fathers, the councils, the didaca.  Lots of writings out there.


The councils started in the 300's in Rome. Peter was never in Rome.

There is a difference Peter's vs Paul's christianity.

Peter was married, priests on up not married.

The Trinity?
Worshiping Mary?
Papal Hierarchy ?
When did these start?




> ="Madman, post: 11653776, member: 36479"] creation will not get someone to a redeemer but I believe it can get them to a first cause.  That is the route many of us took.


Again, the decision of what an individual chooses to use as their explanation is evidence of nothing specific.






> ="Madman, post: 11653776, member: 36479"] I dont know.  I believe they spend more time praying, mediating,  studying, etc.  At least I hope the do.  Our priests and bishops have always given sound council to me and my family.  I believe God is active in creation but my beliefs are different than many on here.  Go figure.


I understand that you hope they do but...
Is praying more, meditating more studying more requirements for a person to have more of an in with your God?
Lots of people give sound council on matters, does that mean they have a closer connection to a god?
Explain how your preist and his boss above him, and his boss above him and his boss above him are closer to god than you or even I am.
Why the hierarchy
What makes one closer to god than the next and closer than any other human that is not clergy?


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## Israel (Mar 28, 2019)

bullethead said:


> The councils started in the 300's in Rome. Peter was never in Rome.
> 
> There is a difference Peter's vs Paul's christianity.
> 
> ...


 




> There is a difference Peter's vs Paul's christianity.




In what way?


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## bullethead (Mar 28, 2019)

Israel said:


> In what way?


LOTS of questions that you did not give detailed answers to and examples gone unaddressed before we get into another rabbit hole.


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## Madman (Mar 28, 2019)

bullethead said:


> The councils started in the 300's in Rome. Peter was never in Rome.
> 
> There is a difference Peter's vs Paul's christianity.
> 
> ...



The councils did not start in Rome, the first was in Jerusalem.  There is no difference in Peter and Paul's Christianity, the both preached Christ and him crucified.

My bishop is married, the church in Rome decided it would be better if a priest and bishop was not married, as the church was their bride. Orthodox priests marry. Paul said it was better not to marry so as to dedicate time to the ministry.  
The is no adoration of Mary.

The church has always believed in a triune God, there just needed to be language agreed upon to describe him.  See the discussion on Homoousion at one of the councils.

There has always been a hierarchy, see Acts 15.  

The problem may be that there is so much that you know that is incorrect.


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## Madman (Mar 28, 2019)

bullethead said:


> I understand that you hope they do but...
> Is praying more, meditating more studying more requirements for a person to have more of an in with your God?
> Lots of people give sound council on matters, does that mean they have a closer connection to a god?
> Explain how your preist and his boss above him, and his boss above him and his boss above him are closer to god than you or even I am.
> ...



I didn't say I hope they do, I said I believe they do.  I see it in their interaction with me, my family and the world.

I don't understand the language you are using about being "closer to God".  What does that mean? How is it to be applied by anyone?  I don't know anyone who seeks "Closeness" to God.  

I seek deification not closeness. The Christian is called to be like Christ not to be closer to Christ.

As for council,  I have never heard any secular person or group give spiritual council, I do not pursue secular council, it does not benefit me in any way.


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## bullethead (Mar 28, 2019)

Madman said:


> I didn't say I hope they do, I said I believe they do.  I see it in their interaction with me, my family and the world.
> 
> I don't understand the language you are using about being "closer to God".  What does that mean? How is it to be applied by anyone?  I don't know anyone who seeks "Closeness" to God.
> 
> ...





> "Madman, post: 11653776, member: 36479"] I dont know. I believe they spend more time praying, mediating, studying, etc.*** At least I hope the do.*** Our priests and bishops have always given sound council to me and my family. I believe God is active in creation but my beliefs are different than many on here. Go figure."


Clearly after you saying believe you said "at least I hope the(minus the Y, no biggie, just making the quote accurate) do"  Added asterisks are mine.

Closer to God.
Is clergy able to communicate with God,  hear God, better than anyone who is not clergy? Is god more involved in their lives,  more of an influence in their lives, does god inspire them to do things more than god would non clergy?
Is clergy more able to understand god and know what god wants and thinks better than non clergy?
That is what I mean.

Again, why is clergy able to give spiritual council better than non clergy? What qualifies them to do so? What "extra" do they possess that non clergy does not?


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## Madman (Mar 28, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Closer to God.
> Is clergy able to communicate with God,  hear God, better than anyone who is not clergy? Is god more involved in their lives,  more of an influence in their lives, does god inspire them to do things more than god would non clergy?
> Is clergy more able to understand god and know what god wants and thinks better than non clergy?
> That is what I mean.



Certainly,  they spend more time in the very act.  Are you closer to and able to communicate, understand, etc. your wife better than I am?

James 5;16 16 Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.



bullethead said:


> Again, why is clergy able to give spiritual council better than non clergy? What qualifies them to do so? What "extra" do they possess that non clergy does not?


The priest/bishop is intimately connected with the sacramental character.


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## bullethead (Mar 28, 2019)

Madman said:


> Certainly,  they spend more time in the very act.  Are you closer to and able to communicate, understand, etc. your wife better than I am?
> 
> James 5;16 16 Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.
> 
> ...



Yes I am able mostly because My wife exists.
If clergy is in fact able to actually communicate with God easier than you or I, doesn't God tell let them know their wrongdoings?

Intimately connected...how so?


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## Madman (Mar 28, 2019)

bullethead said:


> My wife exists.


 prove it



bullethead said:


> If clergy is in fact able to actually communicate with God easier than you or I, doesn't God tell let them know their wrongdoings?



That has nothing to do with "ease" we are all able to communicate with God.  God assuredly communicates wrong doings, he is the arbiter of right and wrong.



bullethead said:


> Intimately connected...how so?


They are priests, I am not.  A Priest has been given sacramental power by the laying on of hands that originated with Christ.


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## bullethead (Mar 28, 2019)

Madman said:


> prove it


I have a priests signature on a piece of paper that says he married us.
It can be backed up at the courthouse with the license.
I won't post either here because there is just some information that I'd rather not share on here. But since you are a big fan of priests and possibly wouldn't question their authority you should be fine with the information I have.
If it came down to a court of law I could easily prove whatever was needed to suffice.

This god thing...not so much





Madman said:


> That has nothing to do with "ease" we are all able to communicate with God.  God assuredly communicates wrong doings, he is the arbiter of right and wrong.


 As wrong doings are happening or before they happen?  Or is the excuse that God will punish them after they are dead?




Madman said:


> They are priests, I am not.  A Priest has been given sacramental power by the laying on of hands that originated with Christ.


That an a buck will get ya any sized soft drink at Micky Ds


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## Madman (Mar 28, 2019)

bullethead said:


> I have a priests signature on a piece of paper that says he married us.
> It can be backed up at the courthouse with the license.
> I won't post either here because there is just some information that I'd rather not share on here. But since you are a big fan of priests and possibly wouldn't question their authority you should be fine with the information I have.
> If it came down to a court of law I could easily prove whatever was needed to suffice.


  All of this could be a forgery, or lies by the people who wrote them.  You may come before a judge who refuses to accept what you consider to be valid evidence.

What this all comes down to is ones refusal to look at the logical beginning and move from there.  Neither of my sons would have been able to comprehend Calculus without first understanding Trig.

It may be best for some to revisit origins, and how things must have began.  Perhaps they should read some philosophy, start with Parmendes. (_ex nihilo nihil fit)_

A person would not be able to move to a savior until they are convinced of the presence of God.

Personally I am convinced of the necessity of a first cause, or a prime mover.  Until then.

God's Peace.


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## bullethead (Mar 28, 2019)

Madman said:


> All of this could be a forgery, or lies by the people who wrote them.  You may come before a judge who refuses to accept what you consider to be valid evidence.
> 
> What this all comes down to is ones refusal to look at the logical beginning and move from there.  Neither of my sons would have been able to comprehend Calculus without first understanding Trig.
> 
> ...


I can prove it in a court of law. If necessary forensics can exonerate any forgery charges. Recorded history both personal, at the courthouse, at the church, eyewitnesses, physical evidence such as invitations,  rsvp replies,  pictures from a professional photographer,  pictures from guests, records from the place the reception was held, newspaper articles in the form of announcements that have been not only cut from papers and saved and the ability to research online archives, and yes even oral traditions from the people who still talk about our wedding and reception 30 years later. And inadvertent proof in the form of a County Firemans parade that was hosted by our town was in progress at the same time and the parade was halted as the wedding party had to cross the street with full documentation as it being featured in several news papers from reporters of different towns who there to cover one event and also recorded another unexpected event of our Wedding.

There is ALL THAT PROOF and I was just a 20 year old younger man getting married in one small town..

On the other hand, the events, activities, miracles, Earth altering happenings etc etc etc etc that are claimed to have happened to the supposed Son of the God of Abraham , as far as history is concerned, went unnoticed. It exists nowhere else but in the religious texts that are full of similar events which went unnoticed outside of those texts. Which just so happens to happen in other cultures religions where, yes again, exist nowhere else outside of their holy texts.

Quite frankly, there is more proof of me than your god or his son.

What is the logical beginning?
Walk me through it since you did not want to participate in my line of questioning that I had with a few priests.


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## Madman (Mar 28, 2019)

bullethead said:


> What is the logical beginning?
> Walk me through it since you did not want to participate in my line of questioning that I had with a few priests.


I have explained the unmoved mover, how do you explain it?



bullethead said:


> as far as history is concerned, went unnoticed.



There are many writings outside of the Bible that speak of the things you claim "went unnoticed".  Do you research and find them I have done mine.  If I believed you were in this for any reason other than argument I would put a little more into it.  I have answered you questions about the very small differences in the church in the east and the church in the west, nothing theologically different exist between them and you return with questions about "proximity of the priest vs. the laity to God",  Not even an acknowledgement of the answer.  When you are provided with truthful, sincere answers you blow them off and move to the next internet found remark.  As Israel asked, " what are these great differences' that you claim in the church?


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## bullethead (Mar 28, 2019)

Madman said:


> I have explained the unmoved mover, how do you explain it?


Energy is just as likely to be the Unmoved Mover. Always is. Always was.



There are many writings outside of the Bible that speak of the things you claim "went unnoticed".  Do you research and find them I have done mine.  If I believed you were in this for any reason other than argument I would put a little more into it.  I have answered you questions about the very small differences in the church in the east and the church in the west, nothing theologically different exist between them and you return with questions about "proximity of the priest vs. the laity to God",  Not even an acknowledgement of the answer.  When you are provided with truthful, sincere answers you blow them off and move to the next internet found remark.  As Israel asked, " what are these great differences' that you claim in the church?[/QUOTE]
If I did not research things I would not waste the bandwtith on this site. If I found what you found as convincing to me we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Who wrote of the graves bursting open and the saints flying out? Who wrote of the day turning into night on that day? Who recorded the Earthquake that supposedly happened on that day? Who among 500 recorded that troublemaker Jesus ascending into the sky?
Why were other cultures recording living history when they were supposed to be under water?
Nothing addresses those with any convincing explanations let alone facts.

Without getting into a 10hr back and forth, this is easiest for me to let you read.
https://doctrine.org/jesus-vs-paul


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## Madman (Mar 28, 2019)

bullethead said:


> The councils started in the 300's in Rome. False
> Peter was never in Rome. History and tradition states otherwise
> 
> There is a difference Peter's vs Paul's christianity. no they are not if you think they are please elaborate
> ...



 As I stated so much of what you believe to be true, is not true.  No wonder you confuse yourself and others, no one cares to keep up with the constant topic change. You need the facts.  When you acknowledge that so much of your belief about Christianity is simply wrong maybe others will be more favorable to dialog.


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## Madman (Mar 28, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Energy is just as likely to be the Unmoved Mover. Always is. Always was.


No it is not.  Energy is an effect, it must have a cause.


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## Madman (Mar 28, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Without getting into a 10hr back and forth, this is easiest for me to let you read.
> https://doctrine.org/jesus-vs-paul



I rest my case.  You need to check and recheck your sources.  This guy is  There is nothing orthodox about what he teachs.  The church, does not now nor has it ever believed the junk this guy is espousing.

If I believed this kind of nonsense I'd probably be in the boat with you.


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## bullethead (Mar 28, 2019)

Madman said:


> As I stated so much of what you believe to be true, is not true.  No wonder you confuse yourself and others, no one cares to keep up with the constant topic change. You need the facts.  When you acknowledge that so much of your belief about Christianity is simply wrong maybe others will be more favorable to dialog.


http://christianbeliefs.org/articles/peter&rome.html


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## bullethead (Mar 28, 2019)

Madman said:


> I rest my case.  You need to check and recheck your sources.  This guy is  There is nothing orthodox about what he teachs.  The church, does not now nor has it ever believed the junk this guy is espousing.
> 
> If I believed this kind of nonsense I'd probably be in the boat with you.



Incident at Antioch 

And yeah
I've been seeing some junk espousing alright


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## bullethead (Mar 28, 2019)

Madman said:


> I rest my case.  You need to check and recheck your sources.  This guy is  There is nothing orthodox about what he teachs.  The church, does not now nor has it ever believed the junk this guy is espousing.
> 
> If I believed this kind of nonsense I'd probably be in the boat with you.


I will look forward to seeing you join his forum and set him straight with your facts.


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## bullethead (Mar 28, 2019)

http://paulproblem.faithweb.com/have_we_followed_wrong_gospel_jamesvspaul.htm


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## Madman (Mar 28, 2019)

bullethead said:


> I will look forward to seeing you join his forum and set him straight with your facts.


I have no need to wade into the crazy people farm.


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## Madman (Mar 28, 2019)

bullethead said:


> http://christianbeliefs.org/articles/peter&rome.html


I'll stop here.
"*First of all, there is no place in the New Testament where there is any hint or any record of any kind that Peter was in Rome*. "  You do understand that the hyper protestants believe that if it is not in writing in the Bible it did not happen.  History is a mute point with them.   I have had them scream at me "SHOW ME THE VERSE."

While I was showing them extra Biblical historical evidence. 

come on Bullethead buy some books, stop with the google searches.


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## bullethead (Mar 28, 2019)

Madman said:


> I'll stop here.
> "*First of all, there is no place in the New Testament where there is any hint or any record of any kind that Peter was in Rome*. "  You do understand that the hyper protestants believe that if it is not in writing in the Bible it did not happen.  History is a mute point with them.   I have had them scream at me "SHOW ME THE VERSE."
> 
> While I was showing them extra Biblical historical evidence.
> ...


Euseubius's evidence????


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## bullethead (Mar 28, 2019)

Madman said:


> I'll stop here.
> "*First of all, there is no place in the New Testament where there is any hint or any record of any kind that Peter was in Rome*. "  You do understand that the hyper protestants believe that if it is not in writing in the Bible it did not happen.  History is a mute point with them.   I have had them scream at me "SHOW ME THE VERSE."
> 
> While I was showing them extra Biblical historical evidence.
> ...


Even with Amazon Prime, online search is much quicker, I can read all the books available and I can use multiple sources to come to a conclusion instead of one book or a few books that I bought because they say what I want them to say.


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## Madman (Mar 31, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Even with Amazon Prime, online search is much quicker, I can read all the books available and I can use multiple sources to come to a conclusion instead of one book or a few books that I bought because they say what I want them to say.


Not all opinions are of equal value.


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## bullethead (Mar 31, 2019)

Madman said:


> Not all opinions are of equal value.


Tell me about it


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## atlashunter (Apr 21, 2019)

bullethead said:


> It's not a good question. It is part of the rules of the Torah. No humans for sacrifice.



Well you do have the story of Isaac so the idea of human sacrifice is introduced early on. Also the story of Jephthah. I think the idea that Yahweh would at least under certain circumstances accept human blood is not that far fetched.


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## atlashunter (Apr 21, 2019)

bullethead said:


> Pleaseth Readeth,
> 
> In The Binding of Isaac, Religious Murders & Kabbalah, Lippman Bodoff argues that Abraham never intended to actually sacrifice his son, and that he had faith that God had no intention that he do so. Rabbi Ari Kahn (on the Orthodox Union website) elaborates this view as follows: Isaac's death was never a possibility — not as far as Abraham was concerned, and not as far as God was concerned. God's commandment to Abraham was very specific, and Abraham understood it very precisely: Isaac was to be "raised up as an offering", and God would use the opportunity to teach humankind, once and for all, that human sacrifice, child sacrifice, is not acceptable. This is precisely how the sages of the Talmud (Taanit 4a) understood the Akedah. Citing the Prophet Jeremiah's exhortation against child sacrifice (Chapter 19), they state unequivocally that such behavior "never crossed God’s mind", referring specifically to the sacrificial slaughter of Isaac. Though readers of this parashah throughout the generations have been disturbed, even horrified, by the Akedah, there was no miscommunication between God and Abraham. The thought of actually killing Isaac never crossed their minds.



Interesting interpretation. Do we have other examples of god showing something was wrong in this manner? Did he ever for example instruct a man to lie with another man and then stop them at the last moment? In the story he doesn’t actually say this behavior is wrong. What he says is he will bless Abraham for his willingness to sacrifice his son.

Human sacrifice was part of Canaanite religion from which Judaism arose. So it’s not surprising that we find the idea so early on. Maybe part of Judaism was breaking away from that tradition but the idea of it was there along with the blood lust from the beginning.


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