What Really Happened

river8101

Posts: 5,150

Is Phelps the one who won a gzillion Olympic medals for swimming? Or the Phelps from the Westbury Baptist Church?

“Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject.”

river8101

Posts: 5,150

I should think that little story which turned into a huge story should close the argument as to whether or not the story of Yeshua was written by Judaeans or Greeks, since an amazing tale happened to be written in Greek and was written by a gentile named Luke. The story goes that pregnant Mary visits Elizabeth...

"In a loud voice she (Elizabeth exclaimed to Mary:) 'Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the child you will bear!" Mary answers: "But why am I so favored, that the mother of my Lord should come to me? As soon as the sound of your greeting reached my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy.' " Luke (1:42-44) Now why would those two Jewish women be discussing Mary's pregnancy in front of a Gentile man? Total nonsense.

This little story is reported to be heard by a gentile, Luke. But the writing of this tale was written years after it supposedly happened, and it was written in Greek. And I suppose this Greek man just happened to walk by and was snooping around when this little meeting of the two women took place, and of course, he understood the Aramaic language of Elizabeth's and Mary's conversation. Really? Back in the day, women did not discuss private affairs in front of men, especially non Jewish men not of their family. Luke made that one up.

“Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject.”

LeahOne

Posts: 14,488

River, it was Phelps the Olympian, referring to 'Jesus in his diving mode'....... sorry if I was confusing.

river8101

Posts: 5,150

That's OK. Now I understand much better! I don't always watch the Olympic Games, but when I did I usually only watched the figure skating. I do remember one opening (or closing) when a space ship appeared over Los Angelos after the movie Close Encounters came out. Everybody was clapping and cheering. That was a great movie, and they didn't have any computers back then. There was an extra DVD where Steven Spielberg explained how they did those impossible feats in that film. Fascinating. I bought the DVD sometime ago. Anyway, I thought the space ship appeared at the opening of the Games, but I read on the internet, it was at the closing. I'm not sure I can accept that. I'm positive it was at the opening. Hummm.

“Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject.”

river8101

Posts: 5,150

Most everyone on these forums gets their information from websites, books, forums, and other places. How else can we learn?

I'd like to have a nickel for every post that is gleaned or written in B Net that comes from the writings of others.

But this is one I found on the internet was one of the best ones I ever read.

"Amazingly, the question of an actual historical Jesus rarely confronts the religious believer. The power of faith has so forcefully driven the minds of most believers, and even apologetic scholars, that the question of reliable evidence gets obscured by tradition, religious subterfuge, and outrageous claims. The following gives a brief outlook about the claims of a historical Jesus and why the evidence the Christians present us cannot serve as justification for reliable evidence for a historical Jesus.''

ALL CLAIMS OF JESUS DERIVE FROM HEARSAY ACCOUNTS

No one has the slightest physical evidence to support a historical Jesus; no artifacts, dwelling, works of carpentry, or self-written manuscripts. All claims about Jesus derive from writings of other people. There occurs no contemporary Roman record that shows Pontius Pilate executing a man named Jesus. Devastating to historians, there occurs not a single contemporary writing that mentions Jesus. All documents about Jesus came well after the life of the alleged Jesus from either: unknown authors, people who had never met an earthly Jesus, or from fraudulent, mythical or allegorical writings. Although one can argue that many of these writings come from fraud or interpolations, I will use the information and dates to show that even if these sources did not come from interpolations, they could still not serve as reliable evidence for a historical Jesus, simply because all sources about Jesus derive from hearsay accounts."

www.nobeliefs.com/exist.htm

“Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject.”

river8101

Posts: 5,150

Here's the thing. The story of Jesus was supposedly written within Judaea, and the whole story of the gospels in the NT refer to it that way! Yet it certainly couldn't have occured in Judaea! because all the dating of the scrolls in the NT were written years later in a non Jewish language.

Many scholars and historians claim the NT was not written in Judaea, and agree that the NT was not a Jewish story but a story written by a Hellenistic culture, most likely Greeks, and those that believe in that story are Christians. For to them, Jesus is "the Christ" , the Messiah, but he was never the messiah to the Jews. Therefore the concept of Messianic Jews is impossible. One is either a Christian or a Jew.

I do not argue the fact that some Jews in other Indo European countries read and spoke Greek or that it was the lingua franca throughout that part of the world during the time the NT was written.. But it was NOT the lingua franca in Judaea! It was in Judaea, that the story of Jesus was supposed to have taken place! The apostles go to great length to describe the birth, death and story of their god/messiah in Judaea, It was also the apostles who wrote they were there with Jesus/Iesous when they wrote the stories about him.

For one thing the whole story is undeniably in the present tense, not the past tense. One cannot read the gospels, and come away thinking that the Jesus story supposedly occurred in any other place but Judaea, and that the apostles who wrote the story wrote it that way. They wrote that they were with him when the stories were taking place and written down by them. Christians seemed blind to that fact! Yet they continue to call us blind. How absurd. Therefore it must have been some oral stories carried off and then written down years later, somewhere else, most likely in Greek. If the "so called" apostles were really Jews, why didn't they write the stories in their own language? The Jews abandoned most everything Greek after the Maccobean Wars with the Greeks, 200 + years before. Yet everything we know and have found of the gospels was written in Greek, and all were written many years after the death of Jesus. No documents about Jesus were ever found to this day in Judaea. The story of Jesus was never a Jewish story. And is not to this day.

“Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject.”

river8101

Posts: 5,150

The emphasis of the Greek and Roman Gospel narratives are misleading. Jesus was not a harmless preacher who erupted into action only once in his life (the Triumphal Entry and the Cleansing of the Temple) and then relapsed into his previous passivity. He. was not primarily a teacher of doctrines who incurred Jewish doctrinal and theological antagonism which brought about his tragedy.

From the moment that he began to preach the beginning of "the kingdom of God" he was a marked man, and when "it is told in the NT" he claimed thc Messiahship he was in head-on collision with Rome. From the outset of his "reported" public career he was on the run from the Roman authorities, which "supposedly" led to the verse by Jesus: "The foxes have holes, the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head. "

Jesus’ so called written intervention on the political scene in his "reported" NT Triumphal Entry and his so called reform of the Temple are not therefore inexplicable. They are told of the eruptions of violent action because of his "so called" bid for power, and when he failed, it was not because of the opposition of Jewish religious leaders (as it is told in the Roman story) but because the forces of Roman imperialism were after him. Like so many a Jewish patriot, both before and after him, he died on a Roman cross; and the Jewish people and their leaders the Pharisees mourned for him as a Jewish hero and martyr, but not a god.

“Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject.”

river8101

Posts: 5,150

Why is more than half this thread gone?

“Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject.”

river8101

Posts: 5,150

There were 5or 6 pages to this thread.

“Faith is deciding to allow yourself to believe something your intellect would otherwise cause you to reject.”

rocketjsquirell

Posts: 11,971

Jan 29, 2013 -- 6:52AM, river8101 wrote:

There were 5or 6 pages to this thread.

Early Spring pruning at B'net?

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