Boykin is a bigoted ignorant fool who, apperantly from his stupid remarks, doesn't know squat about his own religion.
Hello redhawk 44 God is the everlasting God. He is without beginning or ending. God and Jesus and The Holy Spirit have always been.
Muslims also recognize the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob but they do not recognize Jesus as his resurrected son who came to earth as a man to teach what God wanted of mankind.
The basic thing to realize is that the apostles experienced God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit in their lives and ministry. They came to recognize God as Father in their daily contact with Jesus, God as Son in the presence of Jesus, and God as Holy Spirit through the experience of Pentecost. The Trinity is more than doctrine. It was and is to enter into a life-changing experience. None of this diminishes the fact that God is one.
In Isaiah 40:28 are the words about God where He is described as "the Everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the ends of the earth." God as creator is everlasting. If the creator were not everlasting, there would always remain the question, "Who created the Creator?" God is the great "I AM" (Exodus 3:14), without beginning or ending. There is mystery here to be sure, but unless God is everlasting creation could not exist.
truth
I havn't been able to plow through all this good but dense stuff. Has anyone mentioned the role of Paul (Saul of Tarsus) in the separation from the Jews and the development of Christianity?
On a similar topic, does anyone know where Yahweh came from originally? I read something once that seemed to indicate that he was originally the pagan god Bel, as his name in Northern Isreal was El. Where the name Yaweh came from I have no idea though.
Paul was a pretty complex character. He was a Diaspora Jew, born and lived in Tarsus in Asia Minor (Turkey). Tarsus was a cosmopolitan city with a large mix of peoples of different cultures, and Paul seems to have been a very cosmopolitan person, having had the wherewithal to travel very widely. He was a citizen of Rome, and was a Hellenized Jew. He spoke Koine (Greek) along with Aramaic and probably knew Latin. He was a Pharisee; he knew the language of the Law of Moses, of halakah, Hebrew. He was in contact with a lot of goyim.
The biggest factor in the split with Pharisaical Judaism was that "the Jesus movement," Christianity, was not following Halakah. The gospel of Mark has Jesus arguing against halakah, referring to it as "the commandments of men," and the writer of Mark goes so far as to explain a cleanliness ritual, his audience was probably goyish, calling it the tradition of the elders. Paul takes this further by exempting the goyim from circumcision and other cleanliness rituals, which are major themes in his chastisement of the congregation in Galatia. Even at this time there is controversy in this movement because the Jerusalem leaders want Christianity with a more traditional following. Paul says he has an argument with Peter, he boasts about opposing him to his face, who refuses to eat with the goy converts that are with Paul because they are not properly washed. They come to an agreement that from then on Paul was to proselytize to a Gentile audience, and Peter was to preach to a Jewish one.
Here's a good page with a lot of information on Paul from some Bible scholars,
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/first/missions.html
it's from PBS/Frontline's excellent and massive site
From Jesus To Christ.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/religion/
Jesus' position
OK, there's one thing I could never get.
If Jews recognise Jesus, are they saying he was just a liar when he said he was the son of God? Or do they think we've interpreted it wrong? Or have I got it wrong and they don't recognise Jesus at all?
To Jews, Jesus was an apostate.
InfraBlue wrote:To Jews, Jesus was an apostate.
Sorry to be think what does this mean?
Quote:Personally, I think it's all crap,
Erudite, considered, and right on the nail old boy. Ever considered taking Holy Orders?
An apostate is one who has abandoned one's religious faith, a political party, one's principles, or a cause.
God is an Irishman with a vilely cruel sense of humor . . . listen carefully, you can hear him laughin' right now . . .
To sum it up Christianity, Islam and Judaism all sprang from the same seed and are different branches on the same tree. Unfortunately each one thinks the other two are rotting and should have been cut off.
"Yahweh" is in reference to the original name for the Hebrew god. The Yahwist tradition, written, began around the tenth cent. B.C.E., around the time of David/Solomon and the conquest and incursion of the Hebrews into Canaan, when the Hebrews were first exposed to writing. Its origins are most probably pre-historic. Yahweh is original to the Hebrews. Actually, what is written in the Torah is a tetragramaton, transliterated in the Roman alphabet in various ways YHWH, YHVH, JHWH or JHVH. The consonantal values are obscure. The Hebrews didn't have characters for vowels, and the name was so taboo to utter, that no one now knows the correct pronunciation of that name.
"Elohim" refers to the title of the Hebrew god, since his name was taboo. The Elohim tradition developed later, around the time of the divided kingdom, circa ninth cent. B.C.E. The Hebrews were very much influenced by the Canaanites, and the use of Elohim (El, El Elyon) is a product of that influence. "El" was the name for an early god of the Canaanites and other Semites of the Levant. El was also used as an appellative for god. El means god. Elyon means "on high," or "most high." El Elyon means "God on High," or "God Most High."
There is a passage in Deuteronomy in the Septuagint, which was relatively recently corroborated with a Deuteronomy manuscript found in the caves of Qumran, the Dead Sea Scrolls, in which El is referred to as a distinct deity from Yahweh.
When El Elyon allotted peoples for inheritance,
When He divided up the sons of Adam,
He fixed the boundaries for peoples,
According to the number of the divine sons;
For Yahweh's portion is his people,
Jacob His own inheritance.
[Deuteronomy 32:8-9]
To Yahweh was given Jacob, Israel.
Baal is another Canaanite god. The word is a construction based on the words (or letters) ba and el (b 'l), Ba'al or Ba'el. Ba'al means lord, or Most High Prince/Master.
Scholarship, through the historical-critical method, has inferred four different schools or sources of the Torah, The Yahwist, The Elohist, (a subsequent combining of the two traditions occurred some time after the fall of Israel c. 721 B.C.E.), The Deuteronomic, and the Priestly. These traditions cover roughly five to six centuries of Torah writing, editing and redacting.
au1929 wrote:To sum it up Christianity, Islam and Judaism all sprang from the same seed and are different branches on the same tree. Unfortunately each one thinks the other two are rotting and should have been cut off.
And that is almost the only thing they are all right about.
What about the rest?
Hey, we've talked loads about Islam, Judaism and Christianity - but what about the others with their completely different (or very similar?) Gods. Any thoughts about those?
Jesus Shmesus. Let's talk about God instead of religion.
Just to add to what InfraBlue posted, for rufio, 'Yahweh' is a loose English transliteration from the original Hebrew word for 'god', as InfraBlue stated, which is actually unpronouncable in it's original Hebrew form.
Also, god comes from within, just ask Aquinas.
