Feed my Lambs (moral standards)

We may carry this a bit farther. Politically, which party, dems or repubs are more likely to have accepted this higher set of standards?

RexRed wrote:

Umm, the apostles some of them natively spoke Greek and saw to the translation themselves. Is that too hard to figure out? The same men who wrote/recorded it translated it to Greek.

What evidence do you have that the apostles were native speakers of Greek? Do you even understand the implication of saying that someone is a native speaker of the language? Of the Evangelists, only one--John--is alleged to have been a contemporary and companion of Jeebus, and even that is disputed by reputable scholars. The claim that Matthew was a disciple is disclaimed by nearly all modern, reputable scholars. Mark was a companion of Saul of Tarsus (the alleged "Saint" Paul), and neither he nor Paul have ever been claimed to have been companions of Jeebus. Luke was also a companion of Paul, but the majority of modern scholars agree that there were at least two authors to what is now known as the gospel of Luke.

So, you have two people who might have been native speakers of Greek, but neither of whom would have been, nor are claimed to have been, disciples and companions of your boy Hey-Zeus. Since reputable scholars do not accept that Matthew was in fact one of the disciples, nor that he can reliably be identified with the tax collector Levi, you are left solely with John as someone who could have been both a companion and one of the four Evangelists, and even that is in doubt. If the John who is identified as an Evangelist is the same as John the disciple, and therefore a fisherman, it would be almost ludicrous to suggest that he were a native speaker of Koine Greek.

Leaving that aside, your boy John was the only Evangelist who did not produce a synoptic account of the life of Hey-Zeus, and that is one of many reasons that modern reputable scholars doubt the authenticity of the claim that identifies the putative disciple John with the author (or one of the authors) of the documents attributed to John the evangelist.

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The first century church was full of many Greek believers.

That's no good reason to assume that your boy Jeebus spoke Koine Greek, or would have been stupid enough to address his remarks in Greek to people who didn't speak or understand it.

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Are you also saying that "Jesus" a Greek name and perhaps well traveled a carpenters son (merchant) did not know the languages of his day?

I didn't happen to say anything of the kind--and the name "Jesus" is a corruption of the Greek version of Joshuah (or, more properly, Yeshuah)--but i would take this opportunity to comment that you're just making **** up when you claim that it is reasonable to assert that carpenters can automatically be identified with merchants. However, the very reason that Aramaic was the lingua france of Palestine at that time was because the Aramaeans were the merchants of the region, and therefore, your silly claim would only reinforce the argument that the native language of your boy Jeebus would have been Aramaic.

Whether or not any of that were true, there would have been no good reason for Yeshuah to have addressed a population of Aramaic-speaking people in Koine Greek, a language which they would not have spoken or understood.

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Set, are you trying to "wipe Jesus off the face of the map"?

I don't happen to have a dog in the fight, but i would say it's about a 50-50 shot that there ever was truly a Rabbi Yeshuah upon whom the character "Jesus" is based. It is equally as likely that the Rabbi Yeshuah was an avatar of the peripatitic Essene aesthete and teacher. So, maybe he did actually exist, and maybe he didn't. One thing is certain, and that is that there is no contemporary corroborative source for which the story, which has not been in the hands of christians, and therefore subject to corruption or interpolation.

So, given that it is in doubt whether your boy Jeebus was ever on the map in the first place, it isn't reasonable to suggest that i'm trying to wipe the boy off the map.

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Napoleon did not exist either. (Cynical)

One can fill libraries with the evidence for the existence of Napoleone Buonaparte (Napoleon Bonaparte, as the French would have it) which is contemporary to his life span. There is not a single document contemporary to your boy Jeebus which unambiguously demonstrates his existence.

RexRed wrote:

There are at least seven Greek copies of the NT.

These copies all vary in word selection in various places.

So the fact that Agape was used erroneous in some place does not account for the multitude of scriptures which teach of the coming holy spirit guide fifty days after the ascension and it's benefits to humanity.

There were a Hell of a lot more than seven--hundreds of them, in fact--which is why the "majority text," or Byzantine text became a standard basis for the "new testament." The Institute for New Testament Textual Research in Germany has more than 500 distinct copies.

But all of that ignores that you're attempting to claim that someone who had no good reason to be a native-speaker of Koine Greek, and every good reason to be a native-speaker of Aramaic, would have spoken to the public in Koine Greek, rather than their mother tongue--Aramaic--knowing that they would not understand a word of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mNDHTfdn1A

RexRed wrote:

We may carry this a bit farther. Politically, which party, dems or repubs are more likely to have accepted this higher set of standards?

This is where you really get disgusting--when you attempt to tie your loony religious beliefs to your crackpot political agenda, and to condemn half or more of the American public for not accepting your "godly" political agenda.

The politicians and the party operatives on both sides are all a pack of thieves and liars, and questions of "higher standards" are pathetically laughable.

I am not saying that Jesus spoke Greek to the multitude in this instance. I am saying the Greek testament reveals the meaning of the Aramaic in their choice of words in this case.

Scholar's opinions can never obliterate what is clearly and simply written.

One should always question standards regardless of which side of the fence one is on. I am meaning that those on either side have a certain propensity to be a certain "way". Though that is not in all cases of course.

My religious belief is not that loony.

Agreed many religious people have made a spectacle of faith but the fundamental word and will of the true "God" still remains.

RexRed wrote:

One should always question standards regardless of which side of the fence one is on. I am meaning that those on either side have a certain propensity to be a certain "way". Though that is not in all cases of course.

I've seen enough of your hatred of those here who don't agree with you politically, i've seen enough of the vitriol you have unleashed at them, to refuse to accept at face value the mild and reasonable appearance of this remark. You waxed positively hysterical in your condemnations of Obama, and i suspect that you will continue to do so. That is not disagreement between reasonable people--that is hatred, pure and simple.

Set, I could write something very scathing about the last 8 partisan years of the dems but let's for now try and leave that in the politics thread.

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My religious belief is not that loony.

Perhaps you will excuse me if i dissent from this statement.

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Agreed many religious people have made a spectacle of faith but the fundamental word and will of the true "God" still remains.

This takes us right back to the problem of exegesis. Leaving aside those who question the very existence of your imaginary friend "god," even among the community of the faithful, there is wide disagreement about what the fundamental word and will of "the true god" might be, and it has often lead to profound divisions among christians, many of which exist to this day. It is only very recently, for example, that Serbs were killing Croats and Slovenes because Serbs are Orthodox and Croats and Slovenes are Catholic.

Your arguments fail to convince me of anything other than that you have deluded yourself, and invite others to join you in the delusion.

Which religion is the right one and why such division within the church?

I will preface this with there is an answer to that.

The basic answer to part of you inquiry is that the Christian church is "dynamic". Dynamic in that it changes.

Let's go back to the time when Christ Jesus stood on the shore on the day of the ascension and he was telling his apostles that this gift that would be coming soon and needed to be taught to the world…

Where was the collective Christian church then? Soon after the apostles were forbade to speak the word of God in the temples but they did it anyway. They were jailed and set free by "angels" which made even more of a stir among the people. Yet their purpose was not easily blunted.

Then the word of God took off like a wild fire and all of Asia Minor heard the word of Christ Jesus in the space two years. Paul's ministry has never been duplicated successfully to this day.

Because people organized themselves in little churches and the church kept rising and expanding and unity existed amongst the worlds most divers people in civilized world history.

The first century Christian church was not permitted to exist in it's early state for much longer. Roman rule handled Christianity like a doll made from egg shells. What survived out of Roman rule was not the same thing that entered into Roman rule in the first place. Christianity had been paganized. Did God foresee this? Was it God's intention all along for the word to become lost through the dark ages and resurface 2000 years later under such scrutiny?

According to the Bible, God has foreknowledge so what has happened after, biblically, God knew would occur. The Bible even foretells of the event. When it speaks of the "son of perdition" that is the likely interpretation. I say this because to the character an nature of this son of perdition is noteworthy.

I will be the first to admit where my knowledge gets fuzzy on this stuff at certain points.

It is not that God changes with whatever church people devise. It is that God has a way and if people draw neigh to that way they will be fulfilled.

They will hear the voice of God and see the way of holiness.

So the Christian church survived and core epistles and gospels survived so we can read and study them today. They have been translated and now our duty is to find how to interpret them and figure out how to get back to the original way of God as it was given in the first century.

So the hurdles are great. One must first leave behind any doubt that the word of God is not innately inerrant and divinely inspired. For the perfect truth will not and cannot come from a book devised by a limited "human" capacity to love. Only a book divinely inspired can reveal this higher vision of greatness. (emphasis added)

I think he went off his meds some years back, Darlin' . . .

So, you allege that persecution can consist in pointing out how loony your ideas are? On that basis, there are likely as many "persecutors" in the world as there are victims.

I persecute no one, Bubba, nor do i consider you to be qualified to judge upon what "level" i am to be found.

So much for christian charity.

It has been suggested that the favourite choice of the Christian word for 'love', agape, is influenced by Hebrew aheb, 'love' (which happens to have much stronger sexual overtones than the Greek), and Greek skene, 'tent', by Hebrew seken, 'dwelling' (Moule 1959:186)

Source: Empires of the Word - A Language of History of the World by Nicholas Oster

No, RexRed, the reason early Christians used the word, agape is because it sounded similar to a Jewish word for love aheb.

Nicholas Oster wrote:

It has been suggested that the favourite choice of the Christian word for 'love', agape, is influenced by Hebrew aheb, 'love' (which happens to have much stronger sexual overtones than the Greek), and Greek skene, 'tent', by Hebrew seken, 'dwelling' (Moule 1959:186)

Source: Empires of the Word - A Language of History of the World by Nicholas Oster