I don’t believe that for a minute. I don’t think your curiosity has a thing to do with it. I think you are simply trying to convince believes not to be believers.
Well, since I clearly can’t convince you otherwise, I expect you won’t be posting in any more of my threads here.
:shrug:
I don’t think you’re convincing anyone otherwise. If you had sincere interest you wouldn’t be asking random people on the internet. You would ask clergy and bible scholars. People who’s life’s work is to answer these things. Why don;t you do that and let us know how it goes?
I’m not asking random people on the internet. I’m asking people here.
Why don;t you do that and let us know how it goes?
Would you like me to share the Youtube videos by Southern Seminary where I have been asking a few questions? Are you familiar with Southern Seminary?
I don’t think you’re convincing anyone otherwise
To repeat, since I clearly can’t convince you otherwise, I expect you won’t be posting in any more of my threads here.
Study the culture, study the history of the day. Perhaps your question is why people of modern culture and an entirely different history may still be doing things the way anyone recommend for a past day and age?
Actually, Meri, I’d just like to talk about Paul.
Are you aware that there is a new translation of the New Testament that is “literal”.
And in the article about it - which I just found today - the translator says that Paul didn’t say a lot of what people claim he say in previous, poor translations.
You’re missing the point. He’s trying to convince you not to believe the bible. I’m not sure why he cares. But he does.
Why not let Meri read my posts and come to her own conclusions?
She and I have had conversations here for five or six years or even longer. She’s not afraid to discuss religion, unlike some.
And here I thought you were going to send me something new! You are aware that I am Catholic and that Protestants came up with their own interpretation of Paul’s letters? I am not at all surprised that a Greek Orthodox scholar (as Greek Orthodox and Catholic are very close in both interpretations and beliefs) sees it the way he has outline it.
Throw in what was happening in Judaism in the hundred years before Christ–and the hundred years after–and not only will you see more clearly what Paul is about, but also what the Book of Revelation is as well.
Why do you think I am always pointing out when New Earth creationism came about, when Rapture was coined, and yes, when Paul’s letters took on a different meaning? Why do you think I am always harping on going back to the original languages, cultures, and history–the ORIGINAL intent of the author and what he was saying to his ORIGINAL audience.
Jesus. Paul, by his own witness of course, and he built up enough confidence by people such as the apostles that they believed him. The first Christians believed it, and the followers of the first Christians believed it.
I actually wasn’t aware of it until I saw a Southern Seminary video a couple of days ago when some guy named Tim Challies did this whole thing about why he was glad to be a Protestant
I’ve got to admit it’s funny… you’ve got the same Bible - or you did have - and yet you (meaning Christians) can’t agree on what any of it means…
Grin. Alex and I have been at this for years. I don’t think he is trying to convince me not to believe the Bible. And, I am always complaining about him thinking he knows what everyone “really” believes about Biblical accounts. Those who have read the two of us for any length of time will tell you that Alex often counsels me that he wants to talk to people who actually believe the way he thinks most believe, not someone like me who does not see it that way at all.
Include yourself in that “some.” You are not interested in discussing religion either. You are interested in converting people to your religion. Atheism.
That is a whole different kettle of fish that takes us into where people began to differ on what is most important, which again takes us into the history–particularly the political history–of the time(s) when each divergence occurred.
My (certainly biased) take is that people decided that Catholicism took things too seriously and made them too complicated. Non-Catholics found the bottom line and decided the rest was unnecessary. Simplified Christianity if you will. There is nothing wrong with that. I compare it to the quick, new fangled way of making homemade bread with a bread machine, while I insist on doing it the old fashioned way.
If doing so affects my like or anybody else’s then dang right it’s our business.
One scripture you (and sadly, many Christians) are unaware of, or outright ignore is 2 Timothy 3:16 " ALL scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for DOCTRINE, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:". Why? That’s answered in verse 17 " That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works."
Notice I bolded the words ALL and DOCTRINE. One of the big reasons I detest non KJV versions of the Bible is because in most, the word DOCTRINE is omitted. If Christians can’t use the Bible to support their doctrine, then they have nothing to support their doctrine with.
Another scripture which you are likewise unfamiliar with is 2 Peter " knowing this first, that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation." IOW, It says what it means and means what it says.
Jesus personally called Paul to be an Apostle. Not only did Jesus speak to Paul, but Paul got to see the glory of Heaven before his death. Christians shouldn’t dismiss Paul lightly, yet many do. Paul never contradicted Jesus or scripture…
They’re not.
For me, the non-Christians who pop into Religion threads claim to be asking “for knowledge” or to understand, etc.
Yet any explanation to them is met with disagreement and argument.
That’s not seeking knowledge. It’s an attempt to tell the believer why he is wrong.
And that’s what “pearls before swine” warns about.
1 Like
There is no “instead”.
I’m a layman on religion.
Paul was the most educated I believe. He spoke, and wrote Ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, again I’m not positive.
He was the first really to take the Jesus show on the road. Jesus did not, as many today believe, include other than Jews in his world view. He did not travel much outside his Jewish world, and only helped, those in it. Others from outside coming in he dealt with, but him outside, not too much.
Paul took the story of Jesus after he died, and wrote, and traveled. The other’s gave their accounts, and so on.
Debate was had amongst them if Christianity was for other people; non-Jews too.
Paul is the first messenger of Jesus’s life, and his message for human kind.
Being the smartest among them I always wondered why Jesus himself did not control the message he would leave behind, he must have known his days were numbered.
The Third Rasool Muhamed I understand; in it’s largest parts, had the Quaran written under his personal design, via God of course.
The Torah is the 1st.
The Holy Bible is the 2nd. It’s old testament is essentially the Torah, added with the life of Christ via Paul, and others.
The Quaran is the 3rd. Or last version, as Muhamed calls himself the Seal of the three. It is the Bible, but with new events via the life of the Seal added.
They all worship the same single God, they all acknowledge the Torah’s stories, and use them.
Paul was the first, and probably main person in getting out, and down on paper the Jesus story.
Christianity first appears in Greece after Jesus’s death, Paul traveled their first.
Paul is a big deal.
