Let's talk about Paul...

hephzibah wrote:

djjd... I'm sorry I lost you there... lol... ok I lost myself on that one... I'm dealing with more than one thing at a time here and trying to make it all work. Apparently it's not working so well for me. It sure made sense when I typed it though! oh boy...

Terry, this is what I'm trying to find out here. I don't understand a lot of this stuff. I've never studied anything much more than the bible. I'm openly admitting this because I want to understand the other sides of this issue. I believe in God. That will not change. I've been through too much to deny He exists and is very present in my life. But I know that a lot I have been taught up to this point has been bologna. So will someone help me out here to understand please? I know I need to study some stuff here on my own, but I think some people have insight here I need to hear...

I fully support other people's right to believe what they wish. In accordance with that statement, I'd advise you that the types of questions you are asking could very well shake what faith you have. Just a warning to you. That you are seeking out answers to these questions is commendable.

I'll be watching this with some interest, unless it turns into yet another S&R pissing match.

First you get down on your knees
Fiddle with your rosaries
Bow your heads with great respect
And genuflect, genuflect, genuflect, yeah!

Do whatever steps you want if
You have cleared them with the Pontiff
Everybody say his own Kyrie eleison
Doin' the Vatican Rag ! ! !

Get in line in that processional
Step into that small confessional
There, the guy who's got religion'll
Tell you if your sin's original

If it is try playin' it safer
Drink the wine and chew the wafer
Two, four, six, eight
Time to transubstantiate

Make a cross on your abdomen
When in Rome do like a Roman
Ave Maria, gee it's good to see ya
Getting ecstatic an' sorta dramatic an'
Doin' the Vatican Rag ! ! !

Hephzibah, if the message was so important, why do you suppose that Jesus failed to write it down himself? Even his disciples couldn't agree on the details, once he was gone.

Why allow Paul (who never actually met Jesus) to change the original message to make it appealing to Gentiles?

Why rely on oral transmittal for decades, then have a lot of people who got the testimony second or third hand each write their own versions, then have other people edit/revise the stories, then spend centuries on political fighting to decide which of the many manuscripts floating aorund should be included in the Canon and which were "pious frauds" that did not reflect the desired theology?

Why allow Paul (who never actually met Jesus) to change the original message to make it appealing to Gentiles?

I'm going to reply to your question with a question for you...

Where did Paul change the original message to make it appealing to the Gentiles? I would like to see actual proof here please.

As far as your last question... I will ask again for proof of this.

Oh yeah... I have one more question for everyone reading this and thinking of responding...

What is it that makes your sources of information more credible than the sources that wrote the bible?

here's a question, how did a perfect god, let so much of his word be transfered through so many imperfect people, if i wanted the story to get out right, i'd have made sure that i used some divine intervention to guide the authors hand

ok, but i'm god (well not me), i can make the heavens and the earth, can't i make sure that my words get out, i know the writers are imperfect, but can't i kinda work some magic, put the right words in there heads and bang, my bible is the perfect text

the argument that it was a text translated by imperfect men, means that the whole thing could be wrong, a long shot i know, but we've all played the game where somebody whispers something in one persons ear, and they whisper it in somebody elses and by the time i t gets around the room, it bears little or no resemblence to what was orginally said

What makes you think the perfect God did not oversee the copying, the translating and canonical selection to make sure that his word would be preserved for our and future generations?

You assume it is impossible to learn the truth from the bible but have failed to demonstrate the veracity of your proposition.

Where did Paul change the original message to make it appealing to the Gentiles? I would like to see actual proof here please.

Act 13:47 For so hath the Lord commanded us, [saying], I have set thee to be a light of the Gentiles, that thou shouldest be for salvation unto the ends of the earth.

1Cr 9:19 For though I be free from all [men], yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.
1Cr 9:20 And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;
1Cr 9:21 To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.
1Cr 9:22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all [men], that I might by all means save some.
1Cr 9:23 And this I do for the gospel's sake, that I might be partaker thereof with [you].

neologist wrote:

You assume it is impossible to learn the truth from the bible but have failed to demonstrate the veracity of your proposition.

Sottises, sottises, sottises . . . and you know it. You are asserting that the bible is the source of "authentic moral law"--you have the burden of proof that this were so, no one else is obliged to disprove it.

Don't be beggin' questions here, Bubba . . . here, have a hot cocoa and chill out . . .

What about me Hep?

neologist wrote:

What makes you think the perfect God did not oversee the copying, the translating and canonical selection to make sure that his word would be preserved for our and future generations?

Conversely, what makes you think that the perfect God has taken a hand in anything pertaining to the mortal world? Given his apparent lack of activity of late, it's not presumptuous at all to imagine that he very well didn't have one iota of input into whatever wound up being the bible.

Questioner, what exactally is God's apparent lack of activity as of late? Is it because you don't see Him? You don't feel His presence? Think about this, I know we've all heard this before:

If a tree in the forest falls and no one is there to hear it... did it really make a sound?

Just because no one was there to hear the sound, does that mean it didn't make one? Just because no one was there to see it fall, does that mean it didn't fall? How could you prove it made a sound if you weren't there to hear it yourself and record it?

So then are you blaming God for the ill intentions of those He created? I'll agree with you that there's a lot of bullcrap going on within the church. Which is one of the prime reasons I rarely attend. But think about this questioner:

If a teenager's parents do the best they can to teach their child right from wrong, yet as soon as he/she get's his/her drivers liscence that teenager goes out to a party, get's drunk, and kills himself on the way home driving drunk. They told them 100 times before letting him get his liscence, "We love you. We know you are young and will sometimes do things that aren't agreeable to us. But please call us if you go to a party and get drunk. We would rather get up at three in the morning to come pick you up, than to get a call from the hospital that you are dead." Yet still that child did not listen. Are the parents responsible for that decision their child made? They told him. They warned him. They gave him another option. Yet still he made his choice. And his choice didn't only cost him, it cost his parents, other family, and friends as well.

Jer 19:5 They have built also the high places of Baal, to burn their sons with fire [for] burnt offerings unto Baal, which I commanded not, nor spake [it], neither came [it] into my mind:

See above. If God exists, he's going to great pains to keep his activities a secret. The overabundance of greed and scandals in his own church are example enough of his absence in my opinion.

I've been through this scenario before but... I'll put it out there again. It can't be denied that if three people witness a car wreck when the police come to take a report they will receive three similar stories, however every detail will not match exactly. Why? Three different people saw it from three different perspectives.

hephzibah wrote:

I've been through this scenario before but... I'll put it out there again. It can't be denied that if three people witness a car wreck when the police come to take a report they will receive three similar stories, however every detail will not match exactly. Why? Three different people saw it from three different perspectives.

Yes, but Paul wasn't actually there. He was nowhere Jesus when his disciples were following him and as far as we can tell, nowhere near Jesus when he was crucified or when he reappeared in front of the Disciples after his resurrection.