jesus knows no bible

[kidcanman]

christians have told me that the bible can be viewed as a "factual account of events" due to the collaboration of eye witnesses.

but my question is:

WHO WAS IT that decided that the collection of writings labeled bible are all "inspired".

jesus did not speak of a collection of "inspired" writings.

there is 1 passage in the bible that reads "all scripture is inspired" (or something close). however THAT PASSAGE IS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT and can be interpreted "only that which is inspired is scripture". anyhow it is a general statement.

ive heard somewhere about holy men of god being moved to write...

this is a single, general, statement.
there is no mention of the bible or bible writers in this statement.
nowhere is it implied that this statement is refering to "all" the biblical writings.

so again the biblican events are collaborated by eyewitnesses and thus can be viewed as factual.

but jesus does not reference the bible or its writers by name as being inspired. nor does the bible reference the bible or its writers by name as being inspired.

so who made the decision that the collection of writings labeled "bible" are inspired and why did they make that decision?

[Uthman]

[mkh4JC]

christians have told me that the bible can be viewed as a "factual account of events" due to the collaboration of eye witnesses.

but my question is:

WHO WAS IT that decided that the collection of writings labeled bible are all "inspired".

jesus did not speak of a collection of "inspired" writings.

there is 1 passage in the bible that reads "all scripture is inspired" (or something close). however THAT PASSAGE IS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT and can be interpreted "only that which is inspired is scripture". anyhow it is a general statement.

That passage is actually in the New Testament, we have several of those kinds of passages actually:

'All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:

That the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished unto all good works.' II Timothy 3: 16-17.

And here Peter says:

'Knowing this first, that no prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation.

For the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man: but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.' II Peter 1: 20-21.

ive heard somewhere about holy men of god being moved to write...

this is a single, general, statement.
there is no mention of the bible or bible writers in this statement.
nowhere is it implied that this statement is refering to "all" the biblical writings.

so again the biblican events are collaborated by eyewitnesses and thus can be viewed as factual.

but jesus does not reference the bible or its writers by name as being inspired. nor does the bible reference the bible or its writers by name as being inspired.

so who made the decision that the collection of writings labeled "bible" are inspired and why did they make that decision?

Jesus actually quotes from the Old Testament in numerous places in the Gospels, to prove certain doctrines, or even his being the Messiah:

'And he said unto them, These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and in the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me.'

Luke 24: 44.

Many times Jesus quotes from the Old Testament to make such statements or to prove a doctrine. And as I've shown, both Paul and Peter attest that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, this would also include the New Testament. So yes, Jesus upheld the position that the scriptures were the inspired Word of God.

[Supreme]

christians have told me that the bible can be viewed as a "factual account of events" due to the collaboration of eye witnesses.

That's true, at least for some parts.

WHO WAS IT that decided that the collection of writings labeled bible are all "inspired".

The Apostolistic Church (read: Catholics) decided that the sacred texts were divine. The Jews decided the Old Testament.

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[Supreme]

this is a single, general, statement.
there is no mention of the bible or bible writers in this statement.
nowhere is it implied that this statement is refering to "all" the biblical writings.

Where is this statement from?

there is 1 passage in the bible that reads "all scripture is inspired" (or something close). however THAT PASSAGE IS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT and can be interpreted "only that which is inspired is scripture". anyhow it is a general statement.

This proves you've either never read the Bible, or read it some time sixty years ago.

so who made the decision that the collection of writings labeled "bible" are inspired and why did they make that decision?

Well I guess the Jews made the decision to include the books about Abraham, Moses and the Prophets because they consider such figures integral to their religion. Christians chose their canon because the stories of Jesus are (unsurprisingly) important to any God fearing Christian, and the letters and acts of early Christians were also important.

[kidcanman]

fedos
i have learned from you that jesus made reference to old testament writings. and it can be argued that we can identify those writings. and it can be argued that many people have testified that jesus made such a statement. so the case for the old testament is closed.

and timothy 3:16 may not be in the old testament but it is an account of a story in which THE SPEAKER IS SURELY NOT REFERENCING HIS OWN STORY AS SCRIPTURE but rather he is speaking of old testament writings.

and again in the quote from peter it states that "PROPHECY CAME IN OLD TIMES". that quote is not referencing the story in which it is being quoted.

so did jesus or anybody reference the new testament as being inspired.

[kidcanman]

supreme
i, like most people including most christians, have only read parts of the bible.
the statement "all scripture is inspired..." is taken from a writing in which the speaker is clearly not referencing the writing of his own story. and in fact the speaker is not referencing the new testament because it did not exist in its current form at the time.

i know that christians chose stories that are important to them, but my question is. from what i have heard jesus never referenced the new testament. actually nobody with divine authority EVER mentioned that the writings of the new testament are from god as far as i know.

so who was it that made that decision.

[Grace Seeker]

so did jesus or anybody reference the new testament as being inspired.

And what would it mean if they had? It would have just been a case of claiming something for itself. That doesn't prove it is so, either.


The Qur'an isn't inspired because Muhammad said so -- hundreds of other people from Joseph Smith to people publishing their latest dreams on the internet have made similar claims -- you believe it is inspired for reasons beyond that it says it is. Likewise, we consider the NT inspired for reasons beyond merely a prooftext in the middle of it saying that it is. It isn't because Paul tells Timothy that the scriptures are inspired; it isn't even because Jesus used the Old Testament passages and treated them as the divine word of God. The primary reason that we accept the scriptures as inspired is because we believe we see the work of the Holy Spirit present in making the revelation of Jesus Christ known to us and in the community which passed this message on to us.

[Supreme]

from what i have heard jesus never referenced the new testament

If Jesus referenced books that would be written up to forty yeats after His ascension, then people of the time would have been slightly worried as to His wellbeing.

actually nobody with divine authority EVER mentioned that the writings of the new testament are from god as far as i know.

Who do you mean by 'divine authority'?

[Grace Seeker]

supreme
actually nobody with divine authority EVER mentioned that the writings of the new testament are from god as far as i know.

Well, actually...

Peter did write this: "our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him." (2 Peter 3:15)

Paul wrote: "God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles." (Galatians 2:8)


John wrote: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ." (1 John 1:1-3)



So, Peter and Paul each testify that the ministry of the other one is from God. And John testifies that what he writes about is first-hand information. And as a part of that first-hand account he shares that Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit: "When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth." (John 16:13) And that presence of the Spirit guiding the disciples and the rest of the Church is why we say that the product of their writings is inspired.

[Al-manar]

John testifies that what he writes about is first-hand information.

Someone here seems,not aware yet of how controversal the Authorship of the Johannine works(and other NT writings as well) is ..!!


there is the basic introduction,and more in the right time...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors...ohannine_works

[جوري]

And what would it mean if they had? It would have just been a case of claiming something for itself. That doesn't prove it is so, either.


The Qur'an isn't inspired because Muhammad said so -- hundreds of other people from Joseph Smith to people publishing their latest dreams on the internet have made similar claims -.

The Quran isn't inspired because Mohammed (p) Said so, but because it can stand on its own accord and it challenges you. Not the case with the bible. At odds with other monotheistic religions, at odds with science and at odds with itself. The book should be able to exonerate itself if it is true word of God and not inspired of charlatan's dreams which by the way I can't for the life of me understand why you'd view smith as a charlatan but not paul or a doubting thomas or jon of arc? Selective hypocrisy perhaps? Joseph smith's 'inspirations' turned out much like your 'original' bible, only with more ludicrous tales. Not the case with the Quran.

You want to try that again?

all the best!

[Grace Seeker]

Someone here seems,not aware yet of how controversal the Authorship of the Johannine works(and other NT writings as well) is ..!!


there is the basic introduction,and more in the right time...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authors...ohannine_works

Someone here seems not aware how questionable wikipedia is as an academic source. But let's actually examine what even it says:

The phraseology of the first letter of John is very similar to that of the fourth gospel, so that the question of authorship is often connected to the question of authorship of the gospel.

the Gospel was known in Antioch before Ignatius' death (probably 107).

The earliest testimony to the author was that of Papias....

Irenaeus's witness based on Papias represents the tradition in Ephesus, where John the Apostle is reputed to have lived. Irenaeus was a disciple of Polycarp, thus in the second generation after the apostle. He states unequivocally that the apostle is the author of the Gospel.

In favor of the historical and eyewitness character of the Gospel, a few passages are pointed to. John's chronology for the death of Jesus seems more realistic.... Schonfield agrees that the Gospel was the product of the Apostle's great age, but further identifies him as the Beloved Disciple of the Last Supper, and so believes that the Gospel is based on first hand witness, though decades later and perhaps through the assistance of a younger follower and writer, which may account for the mixture of Hebraicisms (from the Disciple) and Greek idiom (from the assistant).

Fredriksen sees the Fourth Gospel's unique explanation for Jesus' arrest and crucifixion as the most historically plausible: "The priests' motivation is clear and commonsensical: 'If we let [Jesus] go on.... the Romans will come and destroy both our holy place and our nation.' Caiaphas continues, 'It is expedient that one man should die for the people, that the whole nation not perish' (John 11:48,50)

All of this from the link that you provided to prove the counterpoint.


What Wiki fails to mention is that just a Irenaeus (who "states unequivocally that the apostle is the author of the Gospel") was a student of Polycarp, so too Polycarp was a disciple of John the Apostle. Irenaeus' testimony is that he learned from Polycarp that Polycarp heard John identify himself as the author of the gospel in question. In fact recalls that in his youth he used to sit in Polycarp's house and listen to him discourse about his intercourse with Joh and others who had seen the Lord. Consequently, when Irenaeus declares categorically that after the publication of the other Gospels John also wrote his, while he was dwelling in Ephesus, it is to be assumed that he is giving no other view of the authorship of the Fourth Gospel than that which he inherited fro a disciple of John himself.

Thus, I believe we have what, if we were talking about a student of a companion of the Prophet, would be known in Islamic circles as very strong support for the Haddith.

If Irenaeus is in error and misunderstood Polycarp's testimony, and if, as some of the other authors that Wiki cites claim, the early church never did believe John to be the author of the Gospel, then we are left with three very interesting problems:
1) why did they allow this apellation of Johanine authorship to be applied in the first place?
and
2) why did they not bother to correct Irenaeus?
and
3) when Irenaeus in later life promulgated this supposedly unfounded statement that the rest of the church allegedly knew was not true, why did they in fact believe him -- in both the East AND the West? This included such notable figures as Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian who agree that John the Apostle was the author.


Reflecting on the authorship of John, Professor Evertt Harrison writes:

In summery, the external testimony [in favor of John the Apostle] is strong. Some are troubled that it does not begin at an earlier point, but this would be damaging only if earlier testimony existed that pointed to another than John.....

Today it is customary to concede the strength of the traditional position in so far as it depends on ancient testimony, but to hold that it is counterbalanced by what the Gospel itself has to tell us about the writer.

So, let's look at these internal issues. One of these issues is that John looks at the life of Jesus differently than the other three gospels. (For myself, I find it strange that this is cited at all, as some of these same people cite the converse when writing about Matthew, Mark and Luke that they are too much alike. And seek to counter them by appealing to writings such as the Gospel of Thomas for an alternate view to support their hypotheses. Yet these same people hold differences between John and the synoptics are problematic.)

But let noted NT scholar W.F. Albright speak to the matter:

One of the strangest assumptions of critical New Testament scholars and theologians is that the mind of Jesus was so limited that any apparent contrast between John and the Synoptics must be do to difference between early Christian theologians. Every great thinker and personality is going to be interpreted differently by different friends and hearers, who will select what seems most congenial or useful out of what they have seen and heard. From Socrates to the most recent men of eminence there are innumerable examples. The Christian might a fortiori suppose the same to be true of his Master.

Westcott's analysis of the internal evidence suggested that the author must have been:
1) a Jew
2) a Palestinian
3) an eyewitness
and
4) a disciple of Jesus.
I do not believe this would exclude John, and his authorship seesm a lot less controversial than you propose.

It most be admitted that the Gospel contains no author's name actually attached. The only thing we know is that the author testifies to himself being the "beloved disciple" against whom Jesus rest at their final Passover meal.

In reading the text, one other thing we know about this beloved disciple is that he was a close companion of Peter. The book of Acts and Paul's letter to the church in Galatia both testify that John and Peter were indeed constant companions in the early ministry of the apostles.

There is much more that I could write in regard to both internal and external evidences regarding Johanine authorship, but if you've decided to doubt, I don't suppose there is anything I could show you that would bring about a change of your mind. But this I hope to have made clear, your statement that "Someone here seems,not aware yet of how controversal the Authorship of the Johannine works(and other NT writings as well) is ..!!" does not apply to me. Indeed I am aware. It is just that on considering the evidence for myself, I disagree with such a conclusion.

[Grace Seeker]

The Quran isn't inspired because Mohammed (p) Said so, but because it can stand on its own accord and it challenges you.

Right! I know that is why you view it as you do. That was the point I was making. (Sorry if it wasn't clearer.) The questioner seemed to be suggesting that unless the Bible claimed to be inspired from within its own text that it was therefore proof that it was not.

I was trying to show that even though the Qur'an might make internal claims to being inspired, that it wasn't for that reason that Muslims held it to be so. I question the value of his suggested standard of internal self proclaimation of inspired status as even relevant to evaluating a text. Why hold different texts to different standards? So, I'm questioning the very nature of the his proposal for looking to an internal claim of inspiration as being of limited value and irrelevant to determine whether or not any text is inspired. I much prefer that which you set forth -- not because it says it is inpsired, but because it can stand on its own accord and it challenges you.

While Muslims may doubt that to be true of the Bible, at least it is a standard that can be applied to all texts, and one which I personally do find to be true of the Bible.

[kidcanman]

B][/B]

And what would it mean if they had? It would have just been a case of claiming something for itself. That doesn't prove it is so, either.
The Qur'an isn't inspired because Muhammad said so -- hundreds of other people from Joseph Smith to people publishing their latest dreams on the internet have made similar claims -- you believe it is inspired for reasons beyond that it says it is. Likewise, we consider the NT inspired for reasons beyond merely a prooftext in the middle of it saying that it is. It isn't because Paul tells Timothy that the scriptures are inspired; it isn't even because Jesus used the Old Testament passages and treated them as the divine word of God. The primary reason that we accept the scriptures as inspired is because we believe we see the work of the Holy Spirit present in making the revelation of Jesus Christ known to us and in the community which passed this message on to us.

i already stated that both the issues with paul and jesus referencing the old testament are closed cases. however if you somehow think that these issues bolster the evidence for the devinity of the NEW TESTAMENT scriptures please state why plainly and dont imply that they do when they dont.

you have basically collaborated with my original thinking by your statement that the PRIMARY REASON you consider the NT ispired is because you the christians, without any authority from jesus, and without any scriptual authority, have made that decision. and of course what right does anybody have to say that certain writings are the inspired words of god without any evidence of god making that claim.

you spoke of the quran. but the book states that it is inspired. so prove it wrong. but what sense does it make to take a collection of writings, and, without any divine authority, claim that they are inspired. you guys made that up and thats not right.

[Ramadhan]

Right! I know that is why you view it as you do. That was the point I was making. (Sorry if it wasn't clearer.) The questioner seemed to be suggesting that unless the Bible claimed to be inspired from within its own text that it was therefore proof that it was not.

I was trying to show that even though the Qur'an might make internal claims to being inspired, that it wasn't for that reason that Muslims held it to be so. I question the value of his suggested standard of internal self proclaimation of inspired status as even relevant to evaluating a text. Why hold different texts to different standards? So, I'm questioning the very nature of the his proposal for looking to an internal claim of inspiration as being of limited value and irrelevant to determine whether or not any text is inspired. I much prefer that which you set forth -- not because it says it is inpsired, but because it can stand on its own accord and it challenges you.

While Muslims may doubt that to be true of the Bible, at least it is a standard that can be applied to all texts, and one which I personally do find to be true of the Bible.

In the Qur'an, Allah SWT declares in numerous ayats that the Qur'an is His clear guidance for the mankind and Allah SWT Himself will preserve the Qur'an.

That is what muslims hold as the standard: that Allah SWT unambiguously states that it is the scripture.

BTW, I don't know what your motive in saying that muslims believe the Qur'an is a book created by inspired prophet Muhammad SAW, because I am 100% certain that you are AWARE that all muslims believe that the Qur'an is the direct, unaltered, unadulterated words of Allah SWT.

This is VERY different to the christians claim that the bible is written by "inspired" writers (among them are unknown)

[kidcanman]

Well, actually...

Peter did write this: "our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him." (2 Peter 3:15)

Paul wrote: "God, who was at work in the ministry of Peter as an apostle to the Jews, was also at work in my ministry as an apostle to the Gentiles." (Galatians 2:8)


John wrote: "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us. We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ." (1 John 1:1-3)



So, Peter and Paul each testify that the ministry of the other one is from God. And John testifies that what he writes about is first-hand information. And as a part of that first-hand account he shares that Jesus promised to send the Holy Spirit: "When he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth." (John 16:13) And that presence of the Spirit guiding the disciples and the rest of the Church is why we say that the product of their writings is inspired.

paul wrote with "the wisdom that god gave him". god has given all of us wisdom. paul did not write with "god's wisdom given to him" or with "inspiration from god".

god was at work in paul's and peter's ministries. but the scripture does not state that the work that god was helping them do was writing scripture.

"the spirit will guide you to all truth" can be interpreted in many ways. perhaps the fall of contemporary christianity is the "guidence". perhaps the fall of contemporary islam.

[mkh4JC]

fedos
i have learned from you that jesus made reference to old testament writings. and it can be argued that we can identify those writings. and it can be argued that many people have testified that jesus made such a statement. so the case for the old testament is closed.

and timothy 3:16 may not be in the old testament but it is an account of a story in which THE SPEAKER IS SURELY NOT REFERENCING HIS OWN STORY AS SCRIPTURE but rather he is speaking of old testament writings.

and again in the quote from peter it states that "PROPHECY CAME IN OLD TIMES". that quote is not referencing the story in which it is being quoted.

so did jesus or anybody reference the new testament as being inspired.

Well, going further with what you have said, there are Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah--that is, Jesus Christ--where it is stated that he will deliver the Jewish people from all hostilities and threats; and prophecies concerning how the Messiah will rule the world and bring about peace everywhere. None of these things have happened yet.

But in the New Testament we have the account of Christ's ministry, and in some places (like the book of Revelation) prophecies concerning how Christ will come to rule the world and deliver the Jewish people.

But I do understand what you are saying. The point I'd just like to make is that the Old Testament is a percursor to the New, or a foreshadowing of the New. You can't have the New Testament without first having the Old. The New Testament gets it's authority from the Old.

[kidcanman]

If Jesus referenced books that would be written up to forty yeats after His ascension, then people of the time would have been slightly worried as to His wellbeing.



Who do you mean by 'divine authority'?

jesus is a prophet of god. thus he could have prophisied the NT. futhermore some people call the NT the gospel of jesus as if he sanctioned the writings.

by devine authority i mean sanctioned by god. if you found a book that told the future and led you to do only good things you still could not claim that it is inspired by god. perhaps an angel inspired it. perhaps the devil. perhaps a smart fortune teller. perhaps anybody.

so why is it okay for a group of catholic men to select specific writings and then say, "this is from god" without god's authority. is there even the slightest evidence that these men had god's authority to make such a claim. or else is there evidence that jesus made such a claim. on what authority do you make the claim.

[kidcanman]

Well, going further with what you have said, there are Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah--that is, Jesus Christ--where it is stated that he will deliver the Jewish people from all hostilities and threats; and prophecies concerning how the Messiah will rule the world and bring about peace everywhere. None of these things have happened yet.

But in the New Testament we have the account of Christ's ministry, and in some places (like the book of Revelation) prophecies concerning how Christ will come to rule the world and deliver the Jewish people.

But I do understand what you are saying. The point I'd just like to make is that the Old Testament is a percursor to the New, or a foreshadowing of the New. You can't have the New Testament without first having the Old. The New Testament gets it's authority from the Old.

the NT does not get its authority from the OT because as far as we know the OT does not reference the NT anywhere. not one single mention. there are prophecies about jesus and other events in the OT but it does not reference the NT writings.

there are prophecies in the NT that are found in the OT. Just because a collection of writings, in some places, mention OT prophecies does not mean that the collection of writings are inspired or that they are somehow linked to the OT.

[Seeker1066]

jesus is a prophet of god. thus he could have prophisied the NT. futhermore some people call the NT the gospel of jesus as if he sanctioned the writings.

by devine authority i mean sanctioned by god. if you found a book that told the future and led you to do only good things you still could not claim that it is inspired by god. perhaps an angel inspired it. perhaps the devil. perhaps a smart fortune teller. perhaps anybody.

so why is it okay for a group of catholic men to select specific writings and then say, "this is from god" without god's authority. is there even the slightest evidence that these men had god's authority to make such a claim. or else is there evidence that jesus made such a claim. on what authority do you make the claim.

The Authority belongs to the Church instituted by Christ with St Peter at its head holding the Keys of the Kingdom of heaven. It is this Church in union with the Pope who decided the Cannon of the New Testament. This decision is infallible due to the Authority of the Church and Sacred Tradtion. The Church predated a completed new testament by hundreds of years.

[mkh4JC]

the NT does not get its authority from the OT because as far as we know the OT does not reference the NT anywhere. not one single mention. there are prophecies about jesus and other events in the OT but it does not reference the NT writings.

Well, if there are prophecies concerning Jesus in the Old Testament, then how exactly does it not get it's fulfillment in the New Testament writings? The point is, the Old Testament points to Christ. Consider passages like these:

'The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken;

According to all that thou desiredst of the Lord thy God in Horeb in the day of the assembly, saying, Let me not hear again the voice of the Lord my God, neither let me see this great fire any more, that I die not.

And the Lord said unto me, They have well spoken that which they have spoken.

I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him.

And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him.'

Dueteronomy 18: 15-19

Consider what Jesus said in the New Testament:

'I am come a light into the world, that whosoever believeth on me should not abide in darkness.

And if any man hear my words, and believe not, I judge him not: for I came not to judge the world, but to save the world.

He that rejecteth me, and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him: the word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day.

For I have not spoken of myself; but the Father which sent me, he gave me a commandment, what I should say, and what I should speak.

And I know that his commandment is life everlasting: whatsoever I speak therefore, even as the Father said unto me, so I speak.' St John 12: 46-50

What about Isaiah 53?

Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?

2For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty that we should desire him.

3He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.

4Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

5But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

6All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

7He was oppressed, and he was afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth: he is brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so he openeth not his mouth.

8He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare his generation? for he was cut off out of the land of the living: for the transgression of my people was he stricken.

9And he made his grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death; because he had done no violence, neither was any deceit in his mouth.

10Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in his hand.

11He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied: by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities.

12Therefore will I divide him a portion with the great, and he shall divide the spoil with the strong; because he hath poured out his soul unto death: and he was numbered with the transgressors; and he bare the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors

A clear cut demonstration of what the Messiah would have to do. And all this is in the Old Testament.

Here's what we find in the book of Daniel:

'I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the Son of Man came with the clouds of heaven, and came to the Ancient of Days, and they brought him near before him.

And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.' Daniel 7: 13-14.

How many times in the Gospels did Jesus refer to himself as the Son of Man?

there are prophecies in the NT that are found in the OT. Just because a collection of writings, in some places, mention OT prophecies does not mean that the collection of writings are inspired or that they are somehow linked to the OT.

Well, you can't separate the Old and New Testaments. Jesus fulfilled countless prophecies in the Old Testament, prophecies in the Psalms, books of Moses, and the books of the prophets. As I said, and as I have shown, the New Testament gets its authority from the Old.

And just to add, the church already was on a consensus of what was inspired scripture before any council took place, meaning, the texts that were known to be inspired were already circulated among the churches.

[kidcanman]

The Authority belongs to the Church instituted by Christ with St Peter at its head holding the Keys of the Kingdom of heaven. It is this Church in union with the Pope who decided the Cannon of the New Testament. This decision is infallible due to the Authority of the Church and Sacred Tradtion. The Church predated a completed new testament by hundreds of years.

deciding the cannon means deciding which books are to be included.

where did peter, or the pope, or the church claim to have the devine authority to make this decision.

i take it that you are saying that st peter prophecied this decision seeing as how he too died hundreds of years before the new testament was completed.

were did peter claim to be a prophet.

you say that the pope and peter, the head of the church ( i.e. a group of men), made the decision.
were does jesus say (implicitly or explicitly) that his followers, "the church", have the authority to write scripture or to say that certain writings are from god. where does god give the church this authority.

[kidcanman]

fedos
people wrote about how jesus fulfilled many OT prophecies. so what was prophecied in the OT was fullfilled by jesus. and people recorded this.

im not asking about weather or not these recordings are TRUE. im asking who decided that these recordings are inspired by god.
jesus fulfilling OT prophecies has nothing to do with weather or not the people who wrote about how jesus fullfilled the prophecies were inspired by god.

ive heard that many text were circulating at the time. supposedly some text were left out of the bible because the witness' stories did not collaborate. apparently christians DECIDED what to potray as god's words based upon witness collaboration. thats not god's authority.

[mkh4JC]

fedos
people wrote about how jesus fulfilled many OT prophecies. so what was prophecied in the OT was fullfilled by jesus. and people recorded this.

im not asking about weather or not these recordings are TRUE. im asking who decided that these recordings are inspired by god.
jesus fulfilling OT prophecies has nothing to do with weather or not the people who wrote about how jesus fullfilled the prophecies were inspired by god.

ive heard that many text were circulating at the time. supposedly some text were left out of the bible because the witness' stories did not collaborate. apparently christians DECIDED what to potray as god's words based upon witness collaboration. thats not god's authority.

It's true that many texts were available at the time. But the things is, God confirmed within his Church which texts were inspired and not inspired. For the true Church back then (ie the real Church, the blood bought, sanctified, Holy Ghost filled, fire baptized) there was never any doubt as to which texts were inspired or which ones had apostolic authority.

[Supreme]

fedos
people wrote about how jesus fulfilled many OT prophecies. so what was prophecied in the OT was fullfilled by jesus. and people recorded this.

im not asking about weather or not these recordings are TRUE. im asking who decided that these recordings are inspired by god.
jesus fulfilling OT prophecies has nothing to do with weather or not the people who wrote about how jesus fullfilled the prophecies were inspired by god.

ive heard that many text were circulating at the time. supposedly some text were left out of the bible because the witness' stories did not collaborate. apparently christians DECIDED what to potray as god's words based upon witness collaboration. thats not god's authority.

The numerous Gospels circulating around proposed simply heretical ideas, not in common with the Messiah prophesised and not in line with the all loving nature of Jesus. The Infancy Gospel of Thomas suggests that Jesus was a mass murderer as a child; the Gospel of Judas, the earliest manuscripts of which were written in the late 2nd century and without using any known earlier sources, suggested that Judas was the closest disciple of Jesus and His greatest friend.

Now, the church fathers needed to devise a canon that matched this criteria:

1) Portrayed Jesus in a good, traditional and holy light
2) Portrayed Jesus in both a divine and human nature. Any book that focused too much on His divine or human aspect was rejected out of hand.
3) Had credibility amongst Christians of the time, many of whom may not have read any books in the New Testament canon at the time.
4) Had the right structure- eg, a Gospel was required to follow a structure of Jesus' miracles, works, teachings, crucifixion and eventually resurrection. The Epistles had to give advice to Christians on faith and good works.
5) Preferably did not contradict each other. The Christmas stories found in Matthew and Luke seem to contradict each other, however, these differences were not seen as a contradiction as such, just different perspectives and details of the same story.

[Al-manar]

Someone here seems not aware how questionable wikipedia is as an academic source. .

Once the encyclopedia goes in favor for the christian concepts,ignoring other criticism,you would find so much praise among the christians of how accurate wonderful the content is....
and that is the way the fanatics wish the sources to be...

All of this from the link that you provided to prove the counterpoint.

Thought that have taught you what wiki's objectivity is.....

What Wiki fails to mention is that just a Irenaeus (who "states unequivocally that the apostle is the author of the Gospel") was a student of Polycarp, so too Polycarp was a disciple of John the Apostle.

Polycarp never quotes from the Gospel of John in his own writings, which indicates very strongly that whichever John he knew was not the author of that Gospel.

Thus, I believe we have what, if we were talking about a student of a companion of the Prophet, would be known in Islamic circles as very strong support for the Haddith.

And talking about hadith ,there are thousands of hadiths claimed to be narrated by the companions of the prophet,yet classified as weak...
and can't be trusted to be the words of the companions...
cause they have similar defects to that of the Bible...

There is much more that I could write in regard to both internal and external evidences regarding Johanine authorship.

And There is much more in regard to both internal and external evidences against Johanine authorship

The authorship of John

Who was the author of John? Tradition has it that it was written by the apostle John, the son of Zebedee who is identified with "the beloved disciple" mentioned on at least four occasions in the gospel (John 13:23-25; 19:26f, 20:2-8 and 21:7f). This would make the gospel an eyewitness account. However several consideration shows that this is extremely improbable.
Firstly it is important to note that nowhere in the twenty chapters of the gospel is the author identified with anyone named John.
Secondly the identity of John, son of Zebedee with the person referred to as "the beloved disciple" is based primarily on parallel passages in the synoptics. For instance it is argued that John is depicted as Peter's companion in Acts (Acts 1:13; 3:1-4; 3:11; 4:13; 4:19; 8:14), the beloved disciple also appears with Peter in the fourth gospel (John 13:23-25; 20:2-8, 21:21-23 and, possibly, 18:15f [a] ).
Yet appealing to parallel passages in the synoptics cuts both ways. For there are many parallel scenes in the synoptics in which the beloved disciple is not mentioned when we would have expected him to, given the importance of his role depicted in the fourth gospel. These episodes are the last supper, the crucifixion and the empty tomb.
In the last supper Peter is made to ask the "beloved disciple" to inquire from Jesus who the traitor was after Jesus reveled that it will be one of the twelve (John 13:18-26). The incident, as described in the other gospels had the disciples inquiring among themselves who the betrayer is (Mark 14:19; Matthew 26:22; Luke 22:23).
In the episode of Jesus' crucifixion Jesus is said to have handed his mother to the care of the "beloved disciple" (John 19:25-27). This episode is nowhere to be found in any of the synoptics' account of the crucifixion. Indeed we are explicitly told by Mark that "all of them [Jesus' disciple] deserted him and fled" (Mark 14:50).
In the episode of the empty tomb, the "beloved disciple" is made to race Peter to the empty tomb and even outran him (John 20:3-5). Again nowhere in the synoptics do we find the "beloved disciple" or anybody apart from the women (and Peter in Luke 24:12) to have seen the empty tomb. This episode provides a clue as to how the stories concerning the beloved disciple is constructed. In the episode on the resurrection, John's account is very similar to Luke where Peter, alone, ran to the tomb after hearing the news from Mary Magdalene (Luke 24:12). The expression in John 20:3 was "Peter went forth". The verb here is singular in Greek and seems to show that John's traditional material only has Peter alone running to the tomb. But the evangelist clumsily adds "and the other disciple, and they went toward the tomb." Far from being an eyewitness account this shows that the character of the "beloved disciple" is merely a inept insertion by the author into his traditional source material. [10]
There is a passage in the fourth gospel that would also seem to exclude John, the son of Zebedee as the "beloved disciple". Recall that sometimes the "beloved disciple" is also referred to as "the other disciple" and is never named (e.g. 21:21-23 and, possibly, 18:15f ). If this indeed is an alternate designation, then the disciples who were present during the resurrection appearance at the Sea of Tiberias were given in John 21:2 as Peter, Nathaniel, the sons of Zebedee and two "other disciples". Given the premise of not naming the beloved disciple, it is more probable that he was among the "two other disciples" than one of the sons of Zebedee.
We should also note, for what it is worth, that Acts 4:13 mentioned John (with Peter) to be "uneducated and ordinary", which according to Bart Ehrman in his textbook The New Testament: A Historical Introduction to the Early Christian Writings, means that he was illiterate. It is unlikely that such a theological work could be the result of such a person.
Thirdly the gospel is anonymous for the first twenty chapters. It also seems probable that chapter was the end of the original gospel, as the following verse will testify:
John 20:30-31
Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
This sounds very much like a concluding paragraph of the gospel. Prior to this point no claim is made that the beloved disciple himself wrote the gospel. Indeed one passage seems to explicitly ruled him out as the direct author of the gospel:
John 19:35
He who saw it has borne witness -- his testimony is true, and he knows that he tells the truth -- that you also may believe.
The "beloved disciple" was described in earlier (John 19:26) as being the only disciple present at the crucifixion (besides the women), so it is reasonable to assume that "he" here refers to him. However the third person construction of the sentence more naturally means that, whoever this disciple is, his witness is being claimed for the gospel not his authorship.
However chapter 21 restarts rather abruptly with: "Afterwards Jesus appeared again...". It is only here that the author is explicitly identified as the mysterious "beloved disciple."
John 21:24
This is the disciple who is bearing witness to these things, and who has written these things; and we know that his testimony is true.
The first person plural "we" in the above verse , as well as the abrupt beginning mentioned earlier, show that chapter 21 is definitely a later addition to the gospel. And it is also clear that the beloved disciple had died when this chapter was written, as we can surmise from this passage:
John 21:21-23
When Peter saw him, he said to Jesus, "Lord, what about this man?" Jesus said to him, "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? Follow me!" The saying spread abroad among the brethren that this disciple was not to die; yet Jesus did not say to him that he was not to die, but, "If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you?"
The explanation provided in John 21:23 above only makes sense if the beloved disciple had already died when the last chapter was penned. Thus the claim that the "beloved disciple" wrote the gospel was made in a chapter that was definitely not written by him! [11]
Even if we have shown that the author was not John the son of Zebedee, what about the claim that it was written by an albeit anonymous eyewitness? This is unlikely in the extreme, as Udo Schnelle, Professor of New Testament at Halle, Germany noted:
The different way in which the life of Jesus is portrayed, the independent theology, the numerous special traditions and the thought world explicitly oriented to the post-Easter perspective point to the conclusion that the Fourth Gospel was not composed by an eyewitness of the life of Jesus. He was a theologian of the later period who, on the basis of comprehensive tradtions, rethought the meaning of Jesus' life, and interpreted and presented it in his own way. [12]

We can summarized the evidence against identifying the author of the fourth gospel as John, the son of Zebedee:
• Nowhere in the gospel is the author's name given as John
• The identification of the "beloved disciple" with "John, the son of Zebedee" is false. The very method used for this - parallel passages in the synoptics - can be used to exclude the identification.
• There is no explicit claim, in the first twenty chapters, of any authorship by the "beloved disciple" whoever he was.
• The claim was made in chapter 21 was that of another hand and was penned after the death of the "beloved disciple".
• The content of the fourth gospel explicitly excludes it as an eye-witness account.
The tradition of identifying the author with John the son of Zebedee is very late. It was first stated by Ireneaus around 180 CE who reported that the author of this gospel was John the son of Zebedee. This utterance by Ireneaus was most likely based on his confusion of the two Johns mentioned by Papias:
Quoted in Eusebius'History of the Church 3:39:3-4
And whenever anyone came who had been a follower of the presbyters, I inquired into the words of the presbyters, what Andrew or Peter had said, or Philip or Thomas or James or John or Matthew, or any other disciple of the Lord, and what Aristion and the presbyter John, disciples of the Lord, were still saying.
There were thus two Johns referred to above. One is John, one of original circle of disciples, which as can be inferred from the passage, was already dead. The other is the presbyter John who was still alive at the time of Papias writing around AD125. Now we know that Ireneaus, in his work Against Heresies, maintained that Papias was the follower of the apostle John (Against Heresies 5:33:4). We can see from the above passage that Papias gave no hint of knowing the apostle John but that he knew the presbyter John. It could very well be this same presbyter who wrote the Johanine epistles. In the second and third epistles of John, the writer introduces himself as John the Presbyter (or elder). [13]
Furthermore there is no evidence of any tradition attributing the authorship of the gospel to John the apostle before Ireneaus' assertion. Even some of Ireneaus' contemporaries do not share his opinion. The Roman presbyter, Cauis, writing a few years after Ireneaus, attributed the book to the Gnostic Cerinthus. We have evidence that this gospel was not universally accepted in Rome during the end of the second or beginning of the third century because the presbyter Hippolytus (c170-c236) had to defend the Johanine authorship. [14] After Ireneaus however the attribution apostolic authorship started to gain ground among the Christians. This probably happened via a circular process: the claims of apostolic authorship strengthen its claims to canonicity while the strengthening of its canonicity further boosted the claims of apostolic authorship.
The authorship of John, like that of the three gospels, is therefore anonymous. We can be reasonably certain, though, that it was not John the apostle. .

In sum . The issue of Authorship of the Johannine works is at best controversal,and only such fanatics who would claim that John the disciple(if there was a disciple called john) is the one who wrote the gospel according to john....


and to be honest such issue (who wrote the work) I consider to be waste of time and effort.........

the serious searcher is the one who busy his mind more with (what the work itself tells).....

The New Testament has enough material to refute the assertion that it is from cover to cover the truly inspired word of God..

and that is why ,my posts would be primarily concerned with the text itself,and that is why that was my last post in that thread..


peace for all

[Grace Seeker]

That is what muslims hold as the standard: that Allah SWT unambiguously states that it is the scripture.

Just in case you didn't notice, while all Muslims would agree with you that Allah does make that statement in the Qur'an, it is NOT the reason that all Muslims give for understanding the Qur'an as inspired -- just read Skye's post again and you will see what I mean.

BTW, I don't know what your motive in saying that muslims believe the Qur'an is a book created by inspired prophet Muhammad SAW,

I never said that. You need to read more carefully.

This is VERY different to the christians claim that the bible is written by "inspired" writers (among them are unknown)

It is indeed. Only a very few Christians claim that the Bible is a recitation from God. I am not one of them.

[Grace Seeker]

futhermore some people call the NT the gospel of jesus as if he sanctioned the writings.

NO!!!



You are completely misinformed as to the meaning of the word Gospel. To call something a gospel does NOT mean that it is a sanctioned writing. That is where Muslim err so terribly in suggesting that Jesus came with a specifically sanctioned message from God and that this pre-sanctioned message is the Gospel. IT IS NOT!!

Even if Jesus had come and we had witnessed God write a message that Jesus would give to us on stone tablets with lightening bolts, while that message would most definitely be a word from God, it would still not be the Gospel of Jesus Christ for that is simply not what the word Gospel means.

Just is it is improper to speak of the Qur'an as Muhammad's message when it is Allah's, so it is wrong to speak of the Gospel as something which it is not. The Gospel is the announcement of the Good News of what God did with regard to the relationship between God and humanity as a result of Jesus' life. It is neither Jesus' teaching about God, nor a biography of Jesus' life. It is a reporting of what God does because of what Jesus did.

[Grace Seeker]

by devine authority i mean sanctioned by god. if you found a book that told the future and led you to do only good things you still could not claim that it is inspired by god. perhaps an angel inspired it. perhaps the devil. perhaps a smart fortune teller. perhaps anybody.

so why is it okay for a group of catholic men to select specific writings and then say, "this is from god" without god's authority. is there even the slightest evidence that these men had god's authority to make such a claim. or else is there evidence that jesus made such a claim. on what authority do you make the claim.

I already told you, the internal witness of the Holy Spirit which Jesus promised. It was shared with more than just the apostles, but with the entire Church.


Further, if I were writing as a Catholic, I would tell you that Jesus himself still speaks through the Church. That he gave that authority to Peter as the Vicar of Christ, that authority is passed from one Pope to the next, and in this role Christ continues to speak authoritatively through his Church.

While as I protestant I don't quite buy all of that, there is truth in understanding that Christ did invest authority in his body, the Church. Under the promised guidance of the Holy Spirit it has authority to act in God's name. In my opinion, we must be careful with that authority because as humans we are not perfect and do make mistakes, but that doesn't mean that we cannot or should not act. In declaring the canon of scriptures the Church is not saying that every other person outside of the Church as to accept them as the inspired verbal words of God. What we are saying is to the Church, that contained in this grouping of books is all that is necessary for edification regarding salvation and faithful living, and that nothing is needed outside of them for they are completely sufficient for that purpose.

[Grace Seeker]

i take it that you are saying that st peter prophecied this decision seeing as how he too died hundreds of years before the new testament was completed.

That's simply untrue. I don't know where you get your history from, but you need to get another source. It was several hundred years before the canon of scripture was set, but (despite some "supposed" scholars who would argue for later dates) I don't believe that there were any NT writings that were composed later than 100 AD.

[Grace Seeker]

In sum . The issue of Authorship of the Johannine works is at best controversal,and only such fanatics who would claim that John the disciple(if there was a disciple called john) is the one who wrote the gospel according to john....


and to be honest such issue (who wrote the work) I consider to be waste of time and effort.........

the serious searcher is the one who busy his mind more with (what the work itself tells).....

The New Testament has enough material to refute the assertion that it is from cover to cover the truly inspired word of God..

and that is why ,my posts would be primarily concerned with the text itself,and that is why that was my last post in that thread..


peace for all

That's fine. I can respect that you disagree with Johanine authorship. I can respect that you don't care who the author was. I can respect that you don't consider it inspired and that you do consider me a fanatic. All of that is fine. But I think you better take back the inference that I am unaware of these issues. I believe I have proved that I am not only aware, but also conversant in them and simply come down in a different place than you do. Hopefully you can respect that.

[kidcanman]

God confirmed within his Church which texts were inspired and not inspired.

do you have even 1 example of how god confirmed any of these text within the church. for example a historical statement from a history book were somebody claims that god confirmed these text within the church, or a quote from the bible that implies that god confirmed the text within the church. no you do not have any facts behind your statement. show me any evidence of how god confirmed the text within the church. if you have none then it is obvious that you are simply endoctrinated.

i need 1 example to consider this a true occurance.

For the true Church back then there was never any doubt as to which texts were inspired or which ones had apostolic authority.

do you have ANY historical or scriptual evidence that there was no doubt or did you just write this because somebody told you that?

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Supreme;1250035]

Now, the church fathers needed to devise a canon that matched this criteria:

The fathers were men not gods; nor prophets. Therefore the criteria they followed is a result of mortal reasoning. there is no basis to consider this criteria or the product of it devine so far as you said.

jesus did not suggest this criteria nor do you find this suggestion in any scripture. men (the church)chose (they used their criteria), without any devine authority, what to consider the word of god; which books to consider the NT.

so on what basis do you consider the NT devine.

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Grace Seeker;1250133]

You are completely misinformed as to the meaning of the word Gospel. To call something a gospel does NOT mean that it is a sanctioned writing.

when some christians say "gospel" they mean the sanctioned words of god.

It is neither Jesus' teaching about God, nor a biography of Jesus' life. It is a reporting of what God does because of what Jesus did.

im not taking issue with this definition. are the writings inspired by god. or are they god's words? and by what authority.

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Grace Seeker;1250136]

I already told you, the internal witness of the Holy Spirit which Jesus promised. It was shared with more than just the apostles, but with the entire Church.

you quoted that jesus said "the holy spirit will guide...". is this the only statement that grants authority to the apostles and the church? if not then list 1 more.

does this statement mean that all the words that the church leaders utter will be sanctioned by god? does it mean that all the actions of the church leaders or the apostles are sanctioned by god? every single one?

do you have historical or biblical evidence that the church leaders or the apostles stated that the holy spirit guided them to include the writings.

Further, if I were writing as a Catholic, I would tell you that Jesus himself still speaks through the Church. That he gave that authority to Peter as the Vicar of Christ, that authority is passed from one Pope to the next

where did he give peter this authority

What we are saying is to the Church, that contained in this grouping of books is all that is necessary for edification regarding salvation and faithful living, and that nothing is needed outside of them for they are completely sufficient for that purpose.

If the writings are not inspired then this is a presumptious statement.

[kidcanman]

That's simply untrue. I don't know where you get your history from, but you need to get another source. It was several hundred years before the canon of scripture was set, but (despite some "supposed" scholars who would argue for later dates) I don't believe that there were any NT writings that were composed later than 100 AD.

st peter did not determine the current cannon unless he did so by prophecy.
regardless of when the scriptures were written, it was later church leaders that decided which ones are devine and should be included.

[Supreme]

[QUOTE=kidcanman;1250465]

The fathers were men not gods; nor prophets. Therefore the criteria they followed is a result of mortal reasoning. there is no basis to consider this criteria or the product of it devine so far as you said.

jesus did not suggest this criteria nor do you find this suggestion in any scripture. men (the church)chose (they used their criteria), without any devine authority, what to consider the word of god; which books to consider the NT.

so on what basis do you consider the NT devine.

I'm not sure how you want me to reply to this. I've given you an answer, and as usual when somebody is given an answer, they start to ask more questions. But you fail to see the most obvious point here. Jesus didn't say which books to include because Jesus was no longer around, and the books were written after His time.

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Supreme;1250601]

I'm not sure how you want me to reply to this. I've given you an answer, and as usual when somebody is given an answer, they start to ask more questions. But you fail to see the most obvious point here. Jesus didn't say which books to include because Jesus was no longer around, and the books were written after His time.

i pose the same question that i posed from the beginning. give 1 single scriptual or historical evidence of the church or the bible claiming to have devine insperation. if there is none then simply state that.

so far you have purposefully, or inadvertantly, stated examples that are not historical or scriptual evidence of devine authority. and i had to show you how you have not addressed the question.

bring 1 concrete example and that will not lead to further questioning.

[Supreme]

[QUOTE=kidcanman;1250696]

i pose the same question that i posed from the beginning. give 1 single scriptual or historical evidence of the church or the bible claiming to have devine insperation. if there is none then simply state that.

so far you have purposefully, or inadvertantly, stated examples that are not historical or scriptual evidence of devine authority. and i had to show you how you have not addressed the question.

bring 1 concrete example and that will not lead to further questioning.

There is none. That is the answer. I apologise, I believed people has already addressed this.

[kidcanman]

There is none. That is the answer. I apologise, I believed people has already addressed this.

if there is no evidence to claim that it is, then the NT is not the inspired word of god. jesus did not sanction it. and it is not be considered "devine" guidance in the sense that god definitly approves of it.

[Supreme]

if there is no evidence to claim that it is, then the NT is not the inspired word of god. jesus did not sanction it. and it is not be considered "devine" guidance in the sense that god definitly approves of it.

Fair enough.

[Seeker1066]

deciding the cannon means deciding which books are to be included.

where did peter, or the pope, or the church claim to have the devine authority to make this decision.

i take it that you are saying that st peter prophecied this decision seeing as how he too died hundreds of years before the new testament was completed.

were did peter claim to be a prophet.

you say that the pope and peter, the head of the church ( i.e. a group of men), made the decision.
were does jesus say (implicitly or explicitly) that his followers, "the church", have the authority to write scripture or to say that certain writings are from god. where does god give the church this authority.

The Church is not a group of men. It was founded by Christ upon the confession of St. Peter the first pope.

15He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"

16Simon Peter answered, "You are (T)the Christ, (U)the Son of (V)the living God."

17And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, (W)Simon Barjona, because (X)flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

18"I also say to you that you are (Y)Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of (Z)Hades will not overpower it.

19"I will give you (AA)the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and (AB)whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven."

Here you see Jesus founds the Church and that Saint Peter has the power of the keys of Heaven to Bind and Loose here on earth and in Heaven.

[Seeker1066]

[QUOTE=kidcanman;1250696]

i pose the same question that i posed from the beginning. give 1 single scriptual or historical evidence of the church or the bible claiming to have devine insperation. if there is none then simply state that.

so far you have purposefully, or inadvertantly, stated examples that are not historical or scriptual evidence of devine authority. and i had to show you how you have not addressed the question.

bring 1 concrete example and that will not lead to further questioning.

Here from the Ecuminical Council of Trent.

DECREE CONCERNING THE CANONICAL SCRIPTURES
The sacred and holy, ecumenical, and general Synod of Trent,--lawfully assembled in the Holy Ghost, the Same three legates of the Apostolic Sec presiding therein,--keeping this [Page 18] always in view, that, errors being removed, the purity itself of the Gospel be preserved in the Church; which (Gospel), before promised through the prophets in the holy Scriptures, our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, first promulgated with His own mouth, and then commanded to be preached by His Apostles to every creature, as the fountain of all, both saving truth, and moral discipline; and seeing clearly that this truth and discipline are contained in the written books, and the unwritten traditions which, received by the Apostles from the mouth of Christ himself, or from the Apostles themselves, the Holy Ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted as it were from hand to hand; (the Synod) following the examples of the orthodox Fathers, receives and venerates with an equal affection of piety, and reverence, all the books both of the Old and of the New Testament--seeing that one God is the author of both --as also the said traditions, as well those appertaining to faith as to morals, as having been dictated, either by Christ's own word of mouth, or by the Holy Ghost, and preserved in the Catholic Church by a continuous succession. And it has thought it meet that a list of the sacred books be inserted in this decree, lest a doubt may arise in any one's mind, which are the books that are received by this Synod. They are as set down here below: of the Old Testament: the five books of Moses, to wit, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy; Josue, Judges, Ruth, four books of Kings, two of Paralipomenon, the first book of Esdras, and the second which is entitled Nehemias; Tobias, Judith, Esther, Job, the Davidical Psalter, consisting of a hundred and fifty psalms; the Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Canticle of Canticles, Wisdom, Ecclesiasticus, Isaias, Jeremias, with Baruch; Ezechiel, Daniel; the twelve minor prophets, to wit, Osee, Joel, Amos, Abdias, Jonas, Micheas, Nahum, Habacuc, Sophonias, Aggaeus, Zacharias, Malachias; two books of the Machabees, the first and the second. Of the New Testament: the four Gospels, according [Page 19] to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; the Acts of the Apostles written by Luke the Evangelist; fourteen epistles of Paul the apostle, (one) to the Romans, two to the Corinthians, (one) to the Galatians, to the Ephesians, to the Philippians, to the Colossians, two to the Thessalonians, two to Timothy, (one) to Titus, to Philemon, to the Hebrews; two of Peter the apostle, three of John the apostle, one of the apostle James, one of Jude the apostle, and the Apocalypse of John the apostle. But if any one receive not, as sacred and canonical, the said books entire with all their parts, as they have been used to be read in the Catholic Church, and as they are contained in the old Latin vulgate edition; and knowingly and deliberately contemn the traditions aforesaid; let him be anathema. Let all, therefore, understand, in what order, and in what manner, the said Synod, after having laid the foundation of the Confession of faith, will proceed, and what testimonies and authorities it will mainly use in confirming dogmas, and in restoring morals in the Church.

[Seeker1066]

if there is no evidence to claim that it is, then the NT is not the inspired word of god. jesus did not sanction it. and it is not be considered "devine" guidance in the sense that god definitly approves of it.

I have answer this in other posts. Jesus himself gave the the Church supreme authority to bind and loose. Anyone familiar with the old testament use of Keys of Authority cannot deny that Christ has transferred his authority.

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Seeker1066;1250905]

The Church is not a group of men. It was founded by Christ upon the confession of St. Peter the first pope.

that does not mean it was founded upon st. peter. it means the church was founded by jesus upon st. peter's confession; i.e. st. peter's statement (you are christ son of the living god). which means the church was founded upon the statement, "you are christ, son of the living god". that has nothing to do with st. peter, and everything to do with the statement. Nor does this mean that the people who are part of the church are more than a group of men.

15He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"

16Simon Peter answered, "You are (T)the Christ, (U)the Son of (V)the living God."

17And Jesus said to him, "Blessed are you, (W)Simon Barjona, because (X)flesh and blood did not reveal this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.

18"I also say to you that you are (Y)Peter, and upon this rock I will build My church; and the gates of (Z)Hades will not overpower it.

its clear that when jesus says, "and upon this rock", he is refering to peter's statement, "you are christ...". because it is the statement that they were talking about. first jesus affirmed peter's statement. and then he said, "you are peter, and upon this rock (i.e. the statement that i was just affirming) i will build my church".

19"I will give you (AA)the keys of the kingdom of heaven; and (AB)whatever you bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall have been loosed in heaven." [/U][/B]

Here you see Jesus founds the Church and that Saint Peter has the power of the keys of Heaven to Bind and Loose here on earth and in Heaven.

you infer from this statement that jesus gave peter a power of the keys.

i infer from this statement that when jesus says, "i will give you...",
he is simply stating that if you follow me (i.e. whoever follows jesus)then you will receive the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
the latter part of the statement is simply a lesson. whatever a person binds on earth that shall have been bound in heaven. i.e. faith and deeds.

i dont see how this could difinitively mean that jesus is saying, "peter now you can speak for god or now you have godly authority to make decisions". especially since in the same chapter of the bible JUST A FEW SENTENCES DOWN peter rebuked jesus and jesus turned and said unto peter GET THE BEHIND ME SATAN. now does that sound like the desicion of somebody who is making godly desicions? rebuking jesus?

if you have an example of where PETER STATED that jesus gave him a power then that's different. or like in this statement jesus says, "i will give you the keys". do you have an example where jesus says, "peter now has the keys".

[Grace Seeker]

when some christians say "gospel" they mean the sanctioned words of god.

Does it surprise you that some Christians are misinformed as to that word's meaning as well?

im not taking issue with this definition. are the writings inspired by god. or are they god's words? and by what authority.

You'll get a different answer from each person you ask -- generally depending on where they fall on the liberal to conservative spectrum.

My own view is that the individual writers are inspired (by the presence of God's Holy Spirit in their lives) and they write out of that inspiration. Then the Church (which is also gifted by the Holy Spirit for discernment) determines through its collective voice that which is or is not willing to recognize as being worthy of being called scripture and that which is simply other writings (or in some cases even rejected writings).

[Grace Seeker]

The fathers were men not gods; nor prophets. Therefore the criteria they followed is a result of mortal reasoning. there is no basis to consider this criteria or the product of it devine so far as you said.

Discernment is itself a gift of the Holy Spirit. This would mean that the Church could under its own collective inspiration observe that a very human and non-inspired person might have said something that is still God's word for us.

For example there is the story of Gamaliel speaking as a member of the Jewish Sanhedrin with regard to treatment of the apostles-- "I advise you: Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God" (Acts 5:38-39).

I doubt that Gamaliel was aware of the prophetic nature of his statement at the time, but the Church has preserved his words because it has discerned them to be God's word for the Church.

In other words, one does not have to have the office of a prophet to be one who might at least temporarily have the gift of prophecy and speak forth on behalf of God. The Holy Spirit moves in many different ways among different people to communicate God's message to us in a whole host of different formats. In the end, we believe that it is the work of the Holy Spirit moving in and among his people to help the Church discern the relative value of different messages that confirms whether something was to be part of our scriptures or not. For instance, two of Paul's letters to the church of Corinth were preserved and an apparent third letter was not. We trust this to be the work of the Holy Spirit to preserve some but not all of Paul's letters and that the Church led by this same Spirit discerned that those we did have were worthy of being part of scripture, while the letters of Clement (though considered for a time) ultimately were not.

[Grace Seeker]

st peter did not determine the current cannon unless he did so by prophecy.
regardless of when the scriptures were written, it was later church leaders that decided which ones are devine and should be included.

What you previously said was:

Originally Posted by kidcanman
i take it that you are saying that st peter prophecied this decision seeing as how he too died hundreds of years before the new testament was completed.

When the NT was completed is prior to 100 AD. There is nothing that is in the NT today that was written later than that. When it became a composite entity was later. I've read enough of your material to see now that you do understand these things and we've just not been clear with one another.

To my way of thinking, if your statement is to be true that the NT wasn't completed until several hundred years after Peter's death because it wasn't put together in the form it now has until later, then we would have to say the same thing of the Old Testament, as the list of books which are to be considered canonical for it was not formulated till later either. Indeed the explicit definition for the canon of the Old Testament used by the Catholic Church was given at the Council of Trent in 1546 A.D. I don't really think you are wanting to argue that the Old Testament wasn't "completed" till 1546. And that's why I argue that it is incorrect (perhaps a better word than "untrue" since you weren't trying to convey a falsehood) to say that the NT wasn't completed until hundreds of years after Peter.

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Seeker1066;1250909][QUOTE=kidcanman;1250696]

Here from the Ecuminical Council of Trent.

this is a claim, from the church, of authority to make devine desicions.
in many places of this document the council claims that the gospels are inspired but of course many christians make that claim.

my concern remains the same: where do christians, that is the council, get the devine authority to make that claim.

in this document i noticed 2 places in which the council cites where they get the devine authority to claim that the gospels are inspired.

"the synod of trent, lawfully assembled in the holy ghost"

"the holy ghost dictating, have come down even unto us, transmitted hand to hand"

in the statements where the council cites how they have devine authority to make these decisions, there is no mention of where scripture, or jesus, or st peter gives them that authority. or how they can interprit through "a devine source", that such authority is given to them. and really thats the kind of information that such a claim requires.

this document, assembled 500 years after peter, basically states, "we have devine authority because we've always said we do".
this is a claim without any evidence

so what i've infered from this? not only do christians claim, without any devine authority, that the NT is the inspired word of god. but the catholic church claims to have devine authority without any devine authority.

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Seeker1066;1250912]

I have answer this in other posts. Jesus himself gave the the Church supreme authority to bind and loose. Anyone familiar with the old testament use of Keys of Authority cannot deny that Christ has transferred his authority.

you interprit the quote were jesus tells peter, i will give you the keys to heaven, as jesus giving the church, through peter, sepreme authority. i addressed this passage of scripture a couple of post prior as im sure you noticed.

however just to futher clarify Peter never claimed to have any special power from jesus. nor did peter claim that his church has that power. nor did peter claim that he is passing that power on to anybody.

in addition the old testament message is similar to matthew 16. the keys that god gives eliakim are the reward for his faith. then god blesses him so that whatever eliakim opens (the blessings from his faith and good deeds) no one can shut (because god will not allow it to shut).

i think thats the old testament verse you are refering to.

[Seeker1066]

[QUOTE=kidcanman;1251282][QUOTE=Seeker1066;1250909]

this is a claim, from the church, of authority to make devine desicions.
in many places of this document the council claims that the gospels are inspired but of course many christians make that claim.

my concern remains the same: where do christians, that is the council, get the devine authority to make that claim.

in this document i noticed 2 places in which the council cites where they get the devine authority to claim that the gospels are inspired.




in the statements where the council cites how they have devine authority to make these decisions, there is no mention of where scripture, or jesus, or st peter gives them that authority. or how they can interprit through "a devine source", that such authority is given to them. and really thats the kind of information that such a claim requires.

this document, assembled 500 years after peter, basically states, "we have devine authority because we've always said we do".
this is a claim without any evidence

so what i've infered from this? not only do christians claim, without any devine authority, that the NT is the inspired word of god. but the catholic church claims to have devine authority without any devine authority.

Honestly I don't have the energy to debate Christian Theology on a forum I came to in order to learn about Islam. So we will simply agree to disagree and I wish you Peace.

[yuksel]

I want to ask a questions for abaut gospels!!!

The mathew and Lucas explain Jesus's family...

But those are very very diffrence...

Which one is correct???

[asadsami]

asalam o alaikum brother,,, the founder of Christianity was not so called "JESUS(pbuh)" but it was mainly SAINT PAUL... there is something in the bible called "RED LETTER BIBLE" which christians themselves claims that whatever is in red ink in the bible are the words uttered by Jesus(pbuh) himself and if u see or read the 27 books in the new testament there is only 20% or less verses written in red ink.... which means only 20% of what Jesus(pbuh) had spoken is kept preserved!!! but what about remaining 80% of the new testament???? who have written or collected them???? probably historians!!!! BIBLE CANNOT BE A WORD OF GOD!!! ITS NOT EVEN A WORD OF JESUS(PBUH) WHOLLY!!! so actually people have written the bible!!!!

[yuksel]

I agree your thought...

but ,I wondering christians thougt...

[Grace Seeker]

asalam o alaikum brother,,, the founder of Christianity was not so called "JESUS(pbuh)" but it was mainly SAINT PAUL... there is something in the bible called "RED LETTER BIBLE" which christians themselves claims that whatever is in red ink in the bible are the words uttered by Jesus(pbuh) himself and if u see or read the 27 books in the new testament there is only 20% or less verses written in red ink.... which means only 20% of what Jesus(pbuh) had spoken is kept preserved!!! but what about remaining 80% of the new testament???? who have written or collected them???? probably historians!!!! BIBLE CANNOT BE A WORD OF GOD!!! ITS NOT EVEN A WORD OF JESUS(PBUH) WHOLLY!!! so actually people have written the bible!!!!

First off, I want to show you that you are not as logical as you think you are. You said:

only 20% of what Jesus(pbuh) had spoken is kept preserved

If this is true, then add up all of the verses that are preserved, multiply by 5 and you have the total amount of all that Jesus ever said. Maybe that is not what you mean, but it is what you wrote. And no one makes such a claim. What we have in the scriptures is indeed just a very small portion of all that Jesus ever spoke. That only 20% of the verses in the NT are reported to be Jesus' words is not the same as saying that one has just 20% of what Jesus ever spoke. As a logic problem, knowing one fact tells you absolutely nothing about the other.

Secondly, the practice of some Bible publishers to print "red-lettered" editions of the Bible with the words of Jesus in red is just a marketing tool. It does make it easier to find what are reported to be Jesus' words for those for whom such a thing is important. Of course, the use of quotation marks is just as effective for those who don't need things highlighted for them. But more importantly, understand that those are just the publisher's opinion about what are and are not Jesus' words. The NT text itself had no red-highlighting of Jesus' words when originally written; they didn't even use quotation marks. And so there are many passages where an educated guess has to be made whether what is in the text are the words of Jesus or of the gospel writer adding his own commentary regarding the scene. The most famous verse in the Bible, John 3:16, is an example of one such passage where based on the original text itself there is no way to know for certain whether Jesus himself said "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have everlasting life," or if that is John's writing making further comment on the discussion that Jesus has been having with Nicodemus. My Bible has John 3:10-21 as Jesus speaking, but it could be that Jesus concluded his remarks in verse 12 and where the language switches from 1st person to 3rd person is not Jesus speaking, but John reflecting. There is no way to tell today.

All of that is to say that the actual words of Jesus that we have are probably an even smaller portion of the NT than you perceive. But just as you erred in your previous logic, so to you have erred in the significance of that information.

What makes a person the founder of something is NOT the amount of verbage that he employs, but the degree of influence they have. Certainly Paul has been one of the key influences of Christianity, no denying that, but he simply is not a greater influence than Jesus. Even listen to what Paul had to say about what was the central influences on his life and they are his encounter with Jesus on the Damascus Road which reordered his life from a persecuter of the Church to a missionary on behalf of Jesus. And the message that he delivered was one that focused on the cross as central. Now I know that Muslims don't believe this event ever even occured, and so you want to lay it at the feet of Paul. But Paul didn't preach that first. It was preached before him by Peter, John, Phillip and the other disciples. It was the message of Stephen whom Paul had put to death. It was the central rallying cry of the church long before Paul ever shows his face on the scence. So, while Paul took this message more effective and to a broader group of people than anyone else in Christian history, the founder of Christianity, in the words of Paul, "the chief cornerstone" is Jesus. As Paul himself reported,

By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it. But each one should be careful how he builds. For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 3:10-11)

There Paul takes credit for laying the foundation of the Christian faith in the lives of the Corinthian church (which supports your idea), but immediately he emphasizes that no one can really lay a foundation other than that which already exists -- Jesus.

Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God's people and members of God's household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. (Ephesians 2:19-21)

This time the foundation is laid by many, but again it all built up from Jesus who also holds it all together.

Take out the early kerygma preaching of Peter and the other discples and remove the work of Christ from the cross from the story, and Paul's message become meaningless. Without Paul the specific form of Christianity that emerged would have no doubt been different (just as it would have been different without Peter, John, Philip, Stephen, Barnabas, Priscilla or Eunice). But Christianity would still have existed. Without Jesus, there is no Christianity at all. Given that it is meaningless to say that Paul is the founder of Christianity.


Now as to your final comments:

BIBLE CANNOT BE A WORD OF GOD!!! ITS NOT EVEN A WORD OF JESUS(PBUH) WHOLLY!!! so actually people have written the bible!!!!

You make a connection between the two that simply isn't so. You are correct in saying that the Bible isn't a word of Jesus wholly -- at least if by that you mean that it neither contains the whole of what Jesus said nor is wholly the work of Jesus. But then it never claims to be, nor does it need to be to be the word of God.

A question for you: Is the Qur'an a word of Jesus? I'm going to assume you answered no.

Second question: Is the Qur'a a word of God? I'm going to assume that you see is as not only a word of God, but indeed God's very words recited to Muhammad.

Conclusion: Even you recognize that something need not be the word of Jesus to qualify as the word of God.

Why is this so? Well, because you would assert that God spoke to Muhammad (though it would be more correct to say that Muhammad got it second hand via Jibreel) who then recited it for others to write down. So, the Qur'an is a third-hand account of God's words. That it is third-hand doesn't bother you for you believe that even third-hand it still accurately preserves the word of God. But still this shows that even in the case of the Qur'an it doesn't require that God, his messenger (Jibreel), his prophet (Muhammad) record the message, others can do so and it is doesn't lose it's integrity. We Christians would hold that God spoke through not just one person (Jesus), but through many who related not only his words, but also his life as well. For just as you look to more than just the words that Muhammad recited, but to his life and consider the Hadith of the prophet to be scripture as well, so do we Christians consider the life and work of Jesus to be every bit as much a part of his message as his actual words. Further, we don't hold that Jesus alone speaks God's message to us, but that as Jesus promised his Holy Spirit speaks to us through the lives of ordinary men (and women, too, if you look at the Old Testament) and that their stories are a part of God's message to us as well.

So, the Word of God is much more than just the words of Jesus. It is Jesus' life, his actions, his very being and it is the story of many others who are also instruments in the hands of God for the telling of God's story and its application to our lives.

Yes, people wrote the Bible and we consider that a good thing.

[Grace Seeker]

I want to ask a questions for abaut gospels!!!

The mathew and Lucas explain Jesus's family...

But those are very very diffrence...

Which one is correct???

Would you believe both and neither?


Seriously. You will get both answers from Christians depending on who you ask. Many liberal theologians simply discount the first few chapters of both Matthew and Luke as nothing more than storytelling. The more traditional view is that Matthew and Luke are telling two different branches of Jesus' linage -- Matthew tracing back through Mary's side and Luke through Joseph's side -- which are both descended from David.

[kidcanman]

Discernment is itself a gift of the Holy Spirit. This would mean that the Church could under its own collective inspiration observe that a very human and non-inspired person might have said something that is still God's word for us.

i will not dispute the scriptual idea that followers of jesus are somehow touched by a holy spirit which then makes there judgement more in line with god's judgement.

but being touched by the holy spirty does not mean that your judgement can no longer be influenced by the devil; or that your wisdom is now perfect or on the level of god or jesus.

do you know of a verse that implies that those touched by the holy spirit have perfectly inspired judgement?
that's what discernment means.

i have not read in scripture the WORD, OR IDEA of "discernment". nor of it being applied to the church, or to christians in general.

the church can view a writing and then, because it is touched by a holy spirit, make the judgement that the writing SEEMS to be something that god would say.

but it does not have the devine authority, nor the perfect judgement required in order to take writings, never before mentioned or seen by jesus, and state that these are definitly words inspired by god.

were is it implied that the devil will no longer influence the judgement of the church.

where is it implied that the church has a power of "discernment".

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Grace Seeker;1251277]

I don't really think you are wanting to argue that the Old Testament wasn't "completed" till 1546. And that's why I argue that it is incorrect (perhaps a better word than "untrue" since you weren't trying to convey a falsehood) to say that the NT wasn't completed until hundreds of years after Peter.

by completed i mean composite entity. and your right both the NT, and the OT were cannonized by men.

jesus referenced, according to the NT, some (i dont think he referenced all) of the writings in the OT. and so one can argue that they are inspired by god.

though the writings of the NT can bee seen as true accounts of history due to witnesses. neither jesus, nor peter, nor scripture, referes to them as inspired at all. and so it is not safe to assume that they are.

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Seeker1066;1251491]

Honestly I don't have the energy to debate Christian Theology

My original post is a refutation of an important idea in contemporary christian theology.

You have been engaged in debating christian theology from the moment you participated.

i refuted the evidence you provided. if my refutation is inadequate then prove it.

you posted earlier:

I have answered this in other posts

i assume you provided me with that answer and i have refuted it.

i think you dont have the evidence to show how christians have the authority to claim that the NT is inspired. perhaps you don't have the energy to LOOK for evidence.

I came in order to learn about Islam. So we will simply agree to disagree and I wish you Peace.

this is the comparative religion section. and this thread is not about islam.

jesus does not reference the new testament. the scriptures do not reference the new testament. st peter never claimed to have the power of decernment. and the church does not have any devine authority to claim to have that power.

christians have no right to claim that the bible is inspired

[asadsami]

Asalam o alikum brother/sister,
thank you for your short speech in a written form. i just wanted to ask you that IS BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD OR NOT? because i presume that you are a Christian? is that right?

[Hugo]

asalam o alaikum brother,,, the founder of Christianity was not so called "JESUS(pbuh)" but it was mainly SAINT PAUL... there is something in the bible called "RED LETTER BIBLE" which christians themselves claims that whatever is in red ink in the bible are the words uttered by Jesus(pbuh) himself and if u see or read the 27 books in the new testament there is only 20% or less verses written in red ink.... which means only 20% of what Jesus(pbuh) had spoken is kept preserved!!! but what about remaining 80% of the new testament???? who have written or collected them???? probably historians!!!! BIBLE CANNOT BE A WORD OF GOD!!! ITS NOT EVEN A WORD OF JESUS(PBUH) WHOLLY!!! so actually people have written the bible!!!!

This is an absurd argument that a printing company in the 20th century decided to highlight the words of Jesus is RED in a particular copy of the NT means that it cannot be the word of God. Where you get the idea that Paul was the founder of Christianity I have no idea and such a nonsense thought would be immediately dispelled if you took the trouble to read the letters of Paul found in the NT.

Of course people wrote the Bible how else could it get into book form. In the NT sometimes we know the author and sometimes it is not certain but in faith Christians accept those books as inspired by God. How can it be otherwise? Consider the Qu'ran - who wrote that - was it Prophet Mohammed or was it God - if it was God how can you show that to be true as it is impossible to trace the work back to him and all one can do is accept it in faith just as Christians do for the Bible.

[Uthman]

Greetings Hugo,

Consider the Qu'ran - who wrote that - was it Prophet Mohammed or was it God - if it was God how can you show that to be true as it is impossible to trace the work back to him and all one can do is accept it in faith just as Christians do for the Bible.

We can prove that the Qur'an is the word of God by demonstrating it's miraculous nature - the fact that it cannot possibly have been the work of human hands. This is touched upon in this video: How is the Qur'an Miraculous? The Challenge of the Qur'an. Since this is a slightly different area of discussion, I suggest you create a thread in the Clarifications about Islam section if you wish to continue discussing it. Please do watch the video first though.

Regards

[جوري]

asalam o alaikum brother,,, the founder of Christianity was not so called "JESUS(pbuh)" but it was mainly SAINT PAUL... !

Paul(Saul) was no saint..

:wa:

[Supreme]

Paul(Saul) was no saint..

:wa:

He is to the billion or so Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians around the world...

[جوري]

He is to the billion or so Catholics and Eastern Orthodox Christians around the world...

and how is this of concern to the rest of humanity?

[Supreme]

and how is this of concern to the rest of humanity?

Very little. But I'm always ready to correct...

[جوري]

Very little. But I'm always ready to correct...

lol.. whatever you have to say to yourself to quell your soul is ok with me.. however, what you believe in the scheme of things is irrelevant, and so to many christians as well.. it isn't Muslims that came up with this site..
http://www.justgivemethetruth.com/pa...a_deceiver.htm

although I found it quite comprehensive.. glad they did all the work!

all the best

[Supreme]

lol.. whatever you have to say to yourself to quell your soul is ok with me.. however, what you believe in the scheme of things is irrelevant, and so to many christians as well.. it isn't Muslims that came up with this site..
http://www.justgivemethetruth.com/pa...a_deceiver.htm

although I found it quite comprehensive.. glad they did all the work!

all the best

Wait... I disproved you when you claimed St Paul was no saint by affirming that Paul is indeed a saint to millions... and you've linked me a website in response that claims he's the anti christ? Exactly what are your intentions? What do you hope to achieve? Also, please be aware, in my religion, Paul is not a saint and is nothing more than a good writer of letters, and therefore in****ing him is futile.

[Masuma]

WHO WAS IT that decided that the collection of writings labeled bible are all "inspired".

jesus did not speak of a collection of "inspired" writings.

Asalamu alikum! (Peace be on you!)

Jesus Christ said: "Seek ye the Truth and the Truth shall free you!"

And you, dear brother I can see is actually searching for it. So here is what of a little help I can offer.

From the time of Jesus Christ to about 325 A.C, there was no link between from which the Christian Scholars can claim that they have "originals" with them. About O.T, it was not until 2 century A.C that the Christian scholars started to question and think that which books they should consider as holy! Can you believe that?! Not B.C, but A.C!

There is no uniformity between the various Bibles of different Christian sects! If one sect has some chapters related to human attributes of Jesus, in other sect's Bible, you will find that whole chapter missing!

People say that the Bible was written by inspired people. But who gives you the surety that these people were really inspired?

[Hugo]

Asalamu alikum! (Peace be on you!)

Jesus Christ said: "Seek ye the Truth and the Truth shall free you!" And you, dear brother I can see is actually searching for it. So here is what of a little help I can offer.

Hugo - If you want to quote then do it correctly and not as you do here and twist the meaning

John 8:31-33 (NIV) 31. To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free."

So the truth here is the one we find in the Gospels, the Gospels that record what Jesus said.

From the time of Jesus Christ to about 325 A.C, there was no link between from which the Christian Scholars can claim that they have "originals" with them. About O.T, it was not until 2 century A.C. that the Christian
scholars started to question and think that which books they should consider as holy![/B] Can you believe that?! Not B.C, but A.C!

Hugo - it is rather silly don't you think that it could be BC for the Gospels. In terms of the OT the cannon was fixed long before the birth of Jesus. But for both the OT and NT the cannon was fixed at a very early date and all that happened in 325 AC was that it was affirmed. They were recognised as being holy, no one forced it on them and the same applies today, one has to accept that the Bible is the revealed word of God.

There is no uniformity between the various Bibles of different Christian sects! If one sect has some chapters related to human attributes of Jesus, in other sect's Bible, you will find that whole chapter missing!

Hugo - what sects are you taking about then we can discuss what you have to say and whether those sects were heretical and altered or manufactured their own versions as for example was done by Marcion

People say that the Bible was written by inspired people. But who gives you the surety that these people were really inspired?

What surety would you like - the fact is that the books of the Bible we have today has been recognised as holy for 2000 years and more. What surety do you have for the Qu'ran because ultimately it comes down to one man saying a message was given to him and if that is what you believe why are you sceptical when many men say they were inspired by God and that is testified by a constant message through all 66 books of the Bible.

[Grace Seeker]

Asalam o alikum brother/sister,
thank you for your short speech in a written form. i just wanted to ask you that IS BIBLE THE WORD OF GOD OR NOT? because i presume that you are a Christian? is that right?

Yes, I am a Christian. The answer to your question is not so simple and might depend on whether we are speaking technically, metaphorically, or in common lay speach.


In common lay speach the Bible is often call the Word of God. No doubt that it how 95% of Christians on this forum will speak of it. The argument goes that God spoke to/through inspired authors who then composed the work under the direct influence of the Holy Spirit. Thus it is the product of the hand of God (via the intermediary of the Holy Spirit) and is therefore the Word of God as if he had written the book himself. Even most who don't believe in the dictation theory of the scriptures will still say something pretty close to this. Now this is not the universal opinion of Christendom, but it is the most common way that it is talked about.


Metaphorically, most certainly the Bible is the Word of God. It expresses what we understand God to be saying to his people and through them to the world at-large.


Technically, no, the Bible is NOT the Word of God. The Word of God is actually more appropriately identified as the second person of the Godhead, God the Son. This person is the Word of God which spoke all of creation into being.

The Bible isn't technically God's Word nor is it even a collection of God's words (though it does contain many things that God spoke through his prophets and others). It is more correct to say that it is human words expressing what they understand God to have revealed to them be it in words (as in the case of some prophets), experience (as in the case of the majority of the NT), or reflective thinking and contemplation (as in the case of many of the historical accounts of the OT). In the end, Christians except that the Bible contains within it God's message for humanity about God's nature, God's character, God's will for the world, and God's actions to bring about those purpose which are achieved primarily in and through God's redemptive acts of grace manifested in various ways over the course of human history. And because it contains all that is necessary for knowledge of salvation is without reference to any other message wholly sufficient to deliver God's message regarding the way of salvation, we will often speak of it as God's Word (i.e. for us). But it isn't God's Word in the same way that the Qur'an is Allah's message. That title is best reserved exclusively for Jesus himself.

[Hugo]

Greetings Hugo, We can prove that the Qur'an is the word of God by demonstrating it's miraculous nature - the fact that it cannot possibly have been the work of human hands. This is touched upon in this video: How is the Qur'an Miraculous? The Challenge of the Qur'an. Since this is a slightly different area of discussion, I suggest you create a thread in the Clarifications about Islam section if you wish to continue discussing it. Please do watch the video first though.

Regards

Fine I will create another thread and being it with a discussion of what is meant by proof. I looked at the video you suggested and essentially he take 20 minutes to state that the Qu'ran is a 'literary miracle' but as far as I could tell the only proof he offers is that the Meccan's could not reproduce anything like it and according to him that equals it cannot be done.

This to me seems a very weak argument but I would like to explore it and other in the new thread.

I would make one comment and that is I don't think Christians would ever think that say Moses parted the Red Sea, that Moses made it happen - that was the work of God. But in this video the speaker repeatedly says the Qu'ran was Prophet Mohammed's miracle?

[Grace Seeker]

People say that the Bible was written by inspired people. But who gives you the surety that these people were really inspired?

What surety do you have for the Qu'ran because ultimately it comes down to one man saying a message was given to him.

Hugo makes a good point -- though I doubt only non-Muslims will agree with it.

In my experience, every religion gives special weight to their scriptures that they deny to others. Then having done so we often imbue our preferred texts with divine origins. Sometimes that takes the form of prophetic revelation (Mormonisn) other times there are claims of divine inspiration (Jehovah's Witnesses). And still others the incarnation of divine revealers of secret truth (gnosticism). And of course it is possible that among the many different claimants that a claim may indeed be true. But unless a religion is able to show that truth apart from their own text and experience and have it verified in the public forum, the veracity of any of our claims remains simply an article of faith, and unprovable except to those who already accept it as and need no such proof.

[Ramadhan]

If all of the writers of the bible were truly inspired then why were there plenty of errors and contradictions in the bible, and in some cases, even contradicted the life and teachings of Jesus pbuh?

[Masuma]

[IMG]file:///C:/DOCUME%7E1/ADMINI%7E1/LOCALS%7E1/Temp/msohtml1/01/clip_image001.gif[/IMG]

So the truth here is the one we find in the Gospels, the Gospels that record what Jesus said.

Asalamu Alikum! (Peace be on you!)

That is debatable. Do the Gospels really contain what Jesus said? and Do the Gospels COMPLETELY give you all the teachings of Jesus Christ or not?!

Does this mean that each and every teaching of Jesus Christ is important for you? Even if one of his (pbuh) teaching is missing in your Bible, you will not get the whole truth?

Well then there are like pages and pages missing in some versions of your Bible. Even some of the books, which are there in yopur sacred manuscripts e.g the Shepherd of Hermis, is not there anymore in the existing Bible.

The Christians sacred manuscript Code of Phenaticus, contains the book "Shepherd of Hermis" but the present day Bible has excluded this whole book!

So don't you think that as a result, some teachings of Jesus Christ contained in this book is no more available to you? So what about the truth in this missing book?

Hugo - it is rather silly don't you think that it could be BC for the Gospels.

Naaa! O.T should be there before Jesus (B.C).

In terms of the OT

There! You got my point too! ;DNothing silly about it!

In terms of the OT, the cannon was fixed long before the birth of Jesus.

And may I ask what proof do you have for this? Fixed what? It was like 200 years after Jesus that the Christians started to question as to what they should consider as their sacred scriptures!

But for both the OT and NT the cannon was fixed at a very early date and all that happened in 325 AC was that it was affirmed. They were recognised as being holy, no one forced it on them and the same applies today, one has to accept that the Bible is the revealed word of God.

Think about it what you are saying brother! O.T was not there before Jesus. N.T and O.T came like after 200 years of Jesus. So what about the interval in between? Did his disciples wrote nothing in that span? Can it be possible?

They just out of their own wish choosed as to what book they should regard as Holy! What is this?! Some kind of game?!:heated:

what sects are you taking about then we can discuss what you have to say

Yeah I would love discussion :statisfie but not in this week. My studies have become really tough and I won't be free actually.

What surety would you like - the fact is that the books of the Bible we have today has been recognised as holy for 2000 years and more.

Recognized by whom? Please do mention that these books were recognized as holy by CHRISTIANS only!

There are many proofs which claim that the Bible is not in its original form. Many alterations has been done to it!

What surety do you have for the Qu'ran...

Oh pleassseee! I am tired of this technique which some Christians use very often. Why are you turning on Quran and Islam? Is that you want to divert my attention to something else because you can't defend your own books?

Still...Lets see what you say.

because ultimately it comes down to one man saying a message was given to him and if that is what you believe why are you sceptical when many men say they were inspired by God and that is testified by a constant message through all 66 books of the Bible.

Good point! Of course I know that Christians claim their Bible to be word of God, so do the Muslims consider Quran as the true word! So how to find out which book is the true word of God? Just because Christians say (you say) that Bible is the word of God doesn't make it so! And same goes for Muslims! So there must be some way by which one can assure himself that this book is actually from God!

There is a good saying:
"Spirituality demands authenticity and logic"

What proof do you have that Bible is the word of God?

I think that one can only find out the truth if he or she puts their book to the test of time. Quran in each and every age has passed this test of time with triumph! Now as we know, it is the age of Science and technology. So should we put these two books to this test of time? Do you agree? Because this will be a way of testing acceptable to everyone! On the other hand, if you just say to me to believe that Bible is the true word of God ,without any proof, then why should I?

As the Holy Quran says: "Give your proof if you are truthful".

So may I see your proof brother?

[Masuma]

And of course it is possible that among the many different claimants that a claim may indeed be true. But unless a religion is able to show that truth apart from their own text and experience and have it verified in the public forum, the veracity of any of our claims remains simply an article of faith, and unprovable except to those who already accept it as and need no such proof.

I totally agree with you brother! I have mentioned the same thing.:statisfie One should have enough proofs, not just saying to believe in the religious dogmas!

If you believe in something, you should ask yourself why do you believe in it? What proofs do you have about the veracity of it?

[Hugo]

That is debatable. Do the Gospels really contain what Jesus said? and Do the Gospels COMPLETELY give you all the teachings of Jesus Christ or not?! Does this mean that each and every teaching of Jesus Christ is important for you? Even if one of his (pbuh) teaching is missing in your Bible, you will not get the whole truth?

Well then there are like pages and pages missing in some versions of your Bible. Even some of the books, which are there in yopur sacred manuscripts e.g the Shepherd of Hermis, is not there anymore in the existing Bible.

Hugo - it is a matter of faith, we have what we have and to me it is complete. If something is missing there is no way anyone can know what it was - this is the same for the Qu'ran, you have what is there and as you must know there are numerous hadith that talk about missing verses.

The Shepherd of Hermas is a strange allegory written sometime in the second century and is included in some copies of the earliest NT. The Shepherd speaks of a Son of God; but this Son of God is distinguished from Jesus etc so its obviously heretical that is why it is excluded. Have you ever wondered why the writings of the Bahai is not included in the Qu'ran - its the same principle.

So don't you think that as a result, some teachings of Jesus Christ contained in this book is no more available to you? So what about the truth in this missing book?

Hugo - of course it available if I wish to read it

And may I ask what proof do you have for this? Fixed what? It was like 200 years after Jesus that the Christians started to question as to what they should consider as their sacred scriptures!

Hugo - You are stating this and it's as if in your mind the NT suddenly popped into view as if from nowhere. Have you no conception that NT books were circulating from perhaps as early as 35AD - indeed there is the well known Jesus fragment inn the Bodlien library at Oxford dated from this time.

Do you have any idea what is in these books, have you read them or is you only concern that they have a date of some kind.

Think about it what you are saying brother! O.T was not there before Jesus. N.T and O.T came like after 200 years of Jesus. So what about the interval in between? Did his disciples wrote nothing in that span? Can it be possible?

Hugo - this is total and absurd rubbish; have you never heard of for example of the famous Septuagint, the Koine Greek version/translation of the Hebrew Bible completed about 132 BCE (about 800 years before the Qu'ran).

They just out of their own wish choosed as to what book they should regard as Holy! What is this?! Some kind of game?

Hugo - it is best to pout your mind in gear before you speak. May I ask you is the Qu'ran Holy? so is what is holy holy because the God approves it, or does He approve it because it is holy?

There are many proofs which claim that the Bible is not in its original form. Many alterations has been done to it!

Hugo - there is a logical inconsistency here - how do you YOU know its not in the original form - do you have the original? How do you know the Qu'ran is original, no one was there except Prophet Mohammed so there is no verification is there?

Oh pleassseee! I am tired of this technique which some Christians use very often. Why are you turning on Quran and Islam? Is that you want to divert my attention to something else because you can't defend your own books?

Hugo - I am not 'turning on the Qu'ran and Islam - all I am doing is asking that you take the blinkers off before you speak

I think that one can only find out the truth if he or she puts their book to the test of time. Quran in each and every age has passed this test of time with triumph! Now as we know, it is the age of Science and technology. So should we put these two books to this test of time? Do you agree? Because this will be a way of testing acceptable to everyone! On the other hand, if you just say to me to believe that Bible is the true word of God ,without any proof, then why should I?

I am not sure what you mean by 'every age' since the OT is at least 1,600 years older than the Qu'ran and the NT almost 600 years older so the Qu'ran has a very long way to go just to keep up.

In terms of proof another thread has been set up so go there to pursue this line. For my own part I don't think there is proof in any scientific sense and faith does not demand it. For example, Abraham had no scriptures at all but acted on the call of God, he heard God speak, he had no proof he just acted in faith.

[Hugo]

If all of the writers of the bible were truly inspired then why were there plenty of errors and contradictions in the bible, and in some cases, even contradicted the life and teachings of Jesus pbuh?

Let's be open handed about this, what would you say if I said - If the Qu'ran is really is the very timeless words of God why are so many verses abrogated - surely God did not make mistakes?

[Muslim Woman]

Salaam/Peace

... If the Qu'ran is really is the very timeless words of God why are so many verses abrogated - surely God did not make mistakes?

errors and mistakes by men we find in Bible and different laws came to mankind from time to time - thsese 2 are not same. Messengers received some new laws . It does not mean previous laws were wrong or God corrected His mistake.

It's the wish of God Almighty that He approved something for some generations , later banned this or banned something for Jewish or other people and made lawful for Muslims .

[Hugo]

Salaam/Peace

errors and mistakes by men we find in Bible and different laws came to mankind from time to time - these 2 are not same. Messengers received some new laws. It does not mean previous laws were wrong or God corrected His mistake.

It's the wish of God Almighty that He approved something for some generations, later banned this or banned something for Jewish or other people and made lawful for Muslims.

I see your point but I am having difficulty with the logic involved. Muslims say the Qu'ran existed eternally before all time. If so why would it have such a temporal nature, that this or that event was ok then not ok and often we are not talking about centuries but tiny events such as the prophet being allowed more than 4 wives or music being forbidden. It would also seem logical to me that such abrogation should continues since times are always changing if that was the rationale?

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=An33za;1253441]

Asalamu alikum! (Peace be on you!)

peace and honor be upon you as well sister.

Regarding your response to me i am interested in this quote.

People say that the Bible was written by inspired people. But who gives you the surety that these people were really inspired?

So far christians of this forum have cited maybee 6 quotes from the NT to prove that the followers of jesus have the power of "decernment".

I have easily showed how these passages definitely do not give christians the right to claim that the NT is an insperation from god.

it is safe to conclude that my refutations are accurate because not 1 christian has actively challenged ANY of my refutations.

so far no christian was able to show where peter claimed to have the power of decernemnt, or where peter decided to pass this power down to his successors. nor has any christian been able to accurately show where jesus gave the power of decernment to peter, or to the church.

There is no passage in the NT that claims that the NT is inspired. Jesus does not make that claim. Nor can any christian cite a passage where the christians or the church are given the power of decernment.

therefore christians have made a claim that they obviously have no right to make. and therefore the claim that the NT is inspired by god is not a valid claim.

[Uthman]

I know this is difficult, given the nature of the topic, but I urge members to try not to go off on a tangent discussing the Qur'an instead of the Bible. Discussion which is specifically about the Qur'an should go in a separate thread.

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Grace Seeker;1253510]

Yes, I am a Christian. The answer to your question is not so simple and might depend on whether we are speaking technically, metaphorically, or in common lay speach.

If we are speaking metaphorically then it is of no concequence because in that case there is no claim that the bible is literally inspired by god. when the common man makes the claim, he means "technically". so by your definition "common lay speach" is no different from speaking technically.

In common lay speach the Bible is often call the Word of God. No doubt that it how 95% of Christians on this forum will speak of it.

The argument goes that God spoke to/through inspired authors who then composed the work under the direct influence of the Holy Spirit. Thus it is the product of the hand of God (via the intermediary of the Holy Spirit) and is therefore the Word of God as if he had written the book himself.

Again, this (common lay speach) argument is that the NT is, "technically", the inspired word of god.

Even most who don't believe in the dictation theory of the scriptures will still say something pretty close to this. Now this is not the universal opinion of Christendom, but it is the most common way that it is talked about.

as far as i know the argument stated above in "common lay speach" is the "dictation theory of scriptures". i hope there is not a theory that claims that god himself spoke word for word to the writers because there is definitley not any evidence to make that claim.

Metaphorically, most certainly the Bible is the Word of God. It expresses what we understand God to be saying to his people and through them to the world at-large.

the understanding of the church is flawed. thus what it understands is flawed. god is not flawed nor are his words. so metaphorically the NT is not god's words.

Technically, no, the Bible is NOT the Word of God.

I commend you for your acceptance of truth and i hope that you will continue in this direction.

The Word of God is actually more appropriately identified as the second person of the Godhead, God the Son.

i will not currently deny your interpretation of the NT in this respect. but it is incorrect to imply that because the NT is about jesus, it is the "word of god" as well. if you say jesus is the word of god, prerogative acknowledged.

the writings labeled the NT talk about jesus, but there is no evidence to say that they are devine or inspired.

And because it contains all that is necessary for knowledge of salvation is without reference to any other message wholly sufficient to deliver God's message regarding the way of salvation,

you cannot make that claim without devine inspiration.

we will often speak of it as God's Word (i.e. for us).

as i stated above you cannot even make that argument metaphorically.

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Hugo;1253073]

Of course people wrote the Bible how else could it get into book form. In the NT sometimes we know the author and sometimes it is not certain but in faith Christians accept those books as inspired by God.

Christians accept the books in faith. but nowhere do the books state that they are inspired by god. nor does jesus reference the books. nor does peter state that the books are inspired. jesus/the scriptures do not give christians the authority to decide weather or not certain writings are inspired by god. therefore christians have no devine right to accept those books as inspired by god.

How can it be otherwise? Consider the Qu'ran - who wrote that - was it Prophet Mohammed or was it God - if it was God how can you show that to be true as it is impossible to trace the work back to him and all one can do is accept it in faith just as Christians do for the Bible.

In the case of the quran, there are statements in the book that reference the book as inpired. if the statements belong in the book, and if the statements are refering to the book as we have it, then the quran makes the claim of devinity for itself.

the next step is verifying if the claim is true.

but in no section of the NT are there any claims to devinity. and so there is nothing to verify. it is christians (i.e. man) that claim the NT is inspired. so all we must verify is weather or not the church has the devine authority to make that claim.

so far no christian has been able to cite evidence for decernment.

[Hugo]

Christians accept the books in faith. but nowhere do the books state that they are inspired by god. nor does jesus reference the books. nor does peter state that the books are inspired. jesus/the scriptures do not give christians the authority to decide weather or not certain writings are inspired by god. therefore christians have no devine right to accept those books as inspired by god.

Hugo - everyone has to decide if the scripture is indeed God communicating and we do that by faith - I did it you have to do it. It is also a peculiar argument to say that Peter or Jesus did not say they were inspired - if that were true then In could write a book and say it was inspired and you would accept it - that is what your words imply. The fact that a book make a claim is irrelevant because one way or another it has to be tested. You may also like to consider the following as a claim for divinity:
John 12:47-49 (NIV) 49. For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.

Accepting God is not like accepting gravity, you have no choice in the matter. It is also not true that Jesus did not reference the OT and if you would take a little trouble you will see that he did it everywhere in the Gospels.

[جوري]

^^ Jesus indeed was sent to the lost sheep of Israel, and thus kept with their laws, it is just a wonder why Jesus followers don't?
Why they eat pigs when assuredly Jesus didn't
why they forgo circumcision when surely Jesus was
why they forgo monotheism while surely Jesus was a monotheist
why they take idols for worship while assuredly Jesus didn't
Jewish law allows for divorce, now did Jesus abolish that law?

just to name a few

all the best

[kidcanman]

Hugo - everyone has to decide if the scripture is indeed God communicating and we do that by faith

if a person that claims to be inspired by god (i.e. jesus/muhammad) does not say that a collection of writings is inspired by god. if the aforementioned person (jesus) does not imply that anybody else has the devine authority to claim that a collection of writings is inspired by god. and if a collection of writings does not state that it is inspired by god. then we do not have the right to "decide" that a collection of writings is inspired by god of our own accord.

there is no devine authority that implies that you should have faith that the NT is inspired. and so your faith is in man's ability to decifer. not god's words.

It is also a peculiar argument to say that Peter or Jesus did not say they were inspired - if that were true then I could write a book and say it was inspired and you would accept it - that is what your words imply.

it is exactly what i have implied/said: that men (matthew, mark etc.) composed writings; that jesus never heard of those writings; that nobody with devine authority claimed that these writings are inspired; and that nobody has the right to accept them as inspired.

The fact that a book make a claim is irrelevant because one way or another it has to be tested.

If the book makes a claim then that claim must be tested. if a book does not make a claim (if the claim is devinity) then we have no reason to think that it is devine; and no reason to test it.

You may also like to consider the following as a claim for divinity:
John 12:47-49 (NIV) 49. For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it.

somebody wrote an account, in the NT, of jesus claiming that what he said are god's words. i don't dispute that the person heard jesus making this claim and wrote about it. nor do i dispute that what jesus said are god's words.

the person's account is not the words of god; it is only a story about jesus making a claim.

jesus said that what he said was from god. but he did not say that,"the account written about me saying what i said is from god, is from god".

It is also not true that Jesus did not reference the OT and if you would take a little trouble you will see that he did it everywhere in the Gospels.

so you refute that jesus referenced the OT but you did not mention the NT. i conclude from this that you agree with me that jesus did not reference the NT.

i noted that jesus referenced the OT and therefore one can argue that it is inspired in an earlier post.

although i did make the opposite claim in my original post; in successive posts i probably should not have used the inclusive label "bible".

[Supreme]

^^ Jesus indeed was sent to the lost sheep of Israel, and thus kept with their laws, it is just a wonder why Jesus followers don't?
Why they eat pigs when assuredly Jesus didn't
why they forgo circumcision when surely Jesus was
why they forgo monotheism while surely Jesus was a monotheist
why they take idols for worship while assuredly Jesus didn't
Jewish law allows for divorce, now did Jesus abolish that law?

just to name a few

all the best

They were applicable exclusively for Jews. They were not meant for any other people. They were meant for Jews because they were special and God's chosen people. Now, the last verse in Matthew affirms Jesus' wishes to spread the Word to all peoples, regardless of Gentile or Jew:

19Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

(Matthew 28:19-20)

Now, Paul expands on this idea (or devil Saul to you, whatever you like), and suggests that Christianity, although the fulfillment of Judaism, was never meant to be exclusively Jewish. Jewish law is for Jewish Christians and need not apply for Gentile Christians, as God never gave His laws to the Gentiles. To Jews, such affairs are part of their covenant to God, but to Gentiles, such affairs are meaningless, airless bits of pointlessness.

[جوري]

They were applicable exclusively for Jews. They were not meant for any other people. They were meant for Jews because they were special and God's chosen people. Now, the last verse in Matthew affirms Jesus' wishes to spread the Word to all peoples, regardless of Gentile or Jew:

If exclusively to the Jews, then I'd have a talk with Hugo:

Accepting God is not like accepting gravity, you have no choice in the matter. It is also not true that Jesus did not reference the OT and if you would take a little trouble you will see that he did it everywhere in the Gospels.[/I]

as I am not sure how you can reconcile how he lives, preached and worshiped with how you live preach and worship!

(Matthew 28:19-20)

Now, Paul expands on this idea (or devil Saul to you, whatever you like), and suggests that Christianity, although the fulfillment of Judaism, was never meant to be exclusively Jewish. Jewish law is for Jewish Christians and need not apply for Gentile Christians, as God never gave His laws to the Gentiles. To Jews, such affairs are part of their covenant to God, but to Gentiles, such affairs are meaningless, airless bits of pointlessness.

Ah another passage you must reconcile with your own bible as well whose word is more authoritative man/god or self-professed prophet saul? :
<< Matthew 15:24 >>

New International Version (©1984)
He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel." New Living Translation (©2007)
Then Jesus said to the woman, "I was sent only to help God's lost sheep--the people of Israel."
New American Standard Bible (©1995)
But He answered and said, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
International Standard Version (©2008)
But he replied, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the nation of Israel."
GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
Jesus responded, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the nation of Israel."
King James Bible
But he answered and said, I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
American King James Version
But he answered and said, I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
American Standard Version
But he answered and said, I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Bible in Basic English
But he made answer and said, I was sent only to the wandering sheep of the house of Israel.
Douay-Rheims Bible
And he answering, said: I was not sent but to the sheep that are lost of the house of Israel.
Darby Bible Translation
But he answering said, I have not been sent save to the lost sheep of Israel's house.
English Revised Version
But he answered and said, I was not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Webster's Bible Translation
But he answered and said, I am not sent but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.
Weymouth New Testament
"I have only been sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel," He replied.
World English Bible
But he answered, "I wasn't sent to anyone but the lost sheep of the house of Israel."
Young's Literal Translation
and he answering said, 'I was not sent except to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.'



___________________

all the best

[Muslim Woman]

Salaam/Peace

.. It would also seem logical to me that such abrogation should continues since times are always changing if that was the rationale?

as a bro already pointed out , talk about Quran will be off topic here. In short , about changing laws in different times ...well .. God sent Messengers with new laws . We ordinary people have no right to change the commands of God Almighty or challenge Him .

Jesus pbuh preached what he was ordered to preach ; he did not change / add / remove anything by his own will but he obeyed sincerely to God Almighty as all other messengers pbut did.

[Masuma]

Asalamu alikum! (Peace be on you!)

Brother Hugo,
Why did you only answer part of my post and left the real question or rather a challenge which I put forward? The challenge was do you have any kind of proof besides your scriptures through which you can show us that Bible is the true word of God?

But you didn't meet this challenge. Why?

On the other hand you again turned on Quran quoting that there are many hadith which tells us about the missing verses!

this is the same for the Qu'ran, you have what is there and as you must know there are numerous hadith that talk about missing verses.

This is the same technique you are using to I don't know- maybe to divert my attention to something else!

Brother, I am aware of the simple fact that this discussion is of course going to turn bitter and bitter! This is what I don't want to happen.:hmm: I thought to have a nice and friendly discussion with you about the scriptures but I can see that that won't be possible without giving rise to enmity between us.

If you want to stick to these dogmas of Christianity without demanding any proof, then your choice. But I am the one who sticks to something only if I have sufficient proof about its veracity.

Hugo - it is a matter of faith, we have what we have and to me it is complete. If something is missing there is no way anyone can know what it was -

Aha! So you agree that you don't have any proof besides your scriptures through which you can show us that Bible is the word of God?

Well, let me tell you this. In this age of science and technology, what else can be a bigger test then the test of science!

If the teachings of Bible are not in contradiction to the established laws of science then one can take it to be the word of God. But if the teachings of Bible contradicts science laws then obviously, no one is stupid enough to claim Bible to be the true word of God!

God as He has created this whole universe must be knowing the simple laws of science and mathematics, don't you think?:D

But brother, do you know that there are thousands of scientific errors and mathematical contradictions in Bible?!!!

Ever heard of Dr. Zakir Naik? He is a student of comparative religions and in one of his debate, he has responded to a Christian scholar, pointing out these thousands of errors to him. And the Christian scholar was not able to refute even one of his points!

I don't know if this debate is there on youtube but I have it with me in a written format. If you want to see these scientific errors in Bible, then I can give you the link-

Brother think about it! Can it be possible for God to not know even the basic science laws which we have read in primary? Nauzbillah! Or isn't it even more ABSURD that the God make so many mathematical mistakes in the Holy Scriptures which He is sending forward for the whole of humanity>? Nauzbillah!

Bible has so badly failed this simple test. On the other hand, you will find not even a single error in the Holy Quran. Why? Because it is the true word of Allah!

In terms of proof another thread has been set up so go there to pursue this line.

Where? Can you please give the link?

For my own part I don't think there is proof in any scientific sense and faith does not demand it.

Let me correct you here. BLIND FAITH does not demand any proof but True faith does! If you want me to believe in something, why should I believe in it unless I have sufficient proof about it's veracity! And please don't put forward this as a proof that Bible calls itself to be true word of God- This is just no proof at all.

Suppose if I write a book and keeps repeating in it that this book is from Allah- will you then believe in it too? Because you said that faith doesn't demand any proof!:shade:




I think you should read this post again. A lovely and logical thing said by a brother.:statisfie

... it is possible that among the many different claimants that a claim may indeed be true. But unless a religion is able to show that truth apart from their own text and experience and have it verified in the public forum, the veracity of any of our claims remains simply an article of faith, and unprovable except to those who already accept it as and need no such proof.

[Masuma]

Asalamu Alikum! (May peace be on you!)

Brother Hugo,
I think that by keeping this discussion going on for a long time will serve us no purpose except that it will give rise to hatred.

So why don't we come to a way which is acceptable to both of us?

Our Lord guides us in the Quran to come to the common terms.

So why don't we keep our differences aside and come to those terms which are acceptable to both of us and which are in your scripture and my scripture too?

Do you agree?

You think that Bible is the true word of God then okay, you may consider it as. I think that Quran is the true word of God whereas a Hindu might say that Vedas or Baghwatgittas are the true word of God. Everyone claims their Scriptures to be the true word of God. Right?

So why don't we all come to those similarities which your religion teaches and mine too?

What is the first similarity? It is that there is no god but Allah! We only worship Him and associate no partners with Him.

All the religious scriptures teach you this! For references, you can see Dr. Zakir Naik's public lecture "Similarities between Islam and Christianity".
Check out the videos on youtube. Many of his good lectures are there although some are incomplete. similarities between Islam and Christianity.

There he quotes FROM the Bible, the verses which speak about Allah as the true Creator! All the verses from your own Bible, the scripture you consider holy- so won't you then believe in what your Bible says?

Is there any kind of harm to come to common terms? :hmm:

I don't think so. The differences we can discuss latter, but let us agree to what is common in all religious scriptures!!! It is the most logical and friendly way!

[Hugo]

Why did you only answer part of my post and left the real question or rather a challenge which I put forward? The challenge was do you have any kind of proof besides your scriptures through which you can show us that Bible is the true word of God? But you didn't meet this challenge. Why?
Hugo - but I did, I accept the scriptures in faith, I have read them and I trust them. I cannot see any other way and I might here cite Abraham who had no scriptures at all yet both you and I accept that he heard God's call. What you don't seem to realise is that whatever so called proof you use will involve God and the idea of revalation and so logically they always lead in strict logical terms to a fallacy. For example, suppose I say "he lied because he's possessed by demons"; this could be the correct explanation of his lying but there is no way to check it. You can cite evidence that he is twitching or moaning but it would not be evidence for supernatural forces are in control because there are many other possible explanations. In simple terms it is not possible to show if the statement is true or false so it is a fallacy as far as an argument goes for lying.

On the other hand you again turned on Quran quoting that there are many hadith which tells us about the missing verses!
This is the same technique you are using to I don't know- maybe to divert my attention to something else!
Hugo - it is nothing of the sort, I am simply pointing out a similarity to give some sort of balance so you can look at your own faith rationally.

Brother, I am aware of the simple fact that this discussion is of course going to turn bitter and bitter! This is what I don't want to happen. I thought to have a nice and friendly discussion with you about the scriptures but I can see that that won't be possible without giving rise to enmity between us.
Hugo - why would you say that? I have not as far as I know insulted you or Islam and here we simply exchange viewpoints and hopefully learn from each other. Because we might not agree does not mean there has to be bitterness - well not from me anyway.

If you want to stick to these dogmas of Christianity without demanding any proof, then your choice. But I am the one who sticks to something only if I have sufficient proof about its veracity.
Hugo - well best wishes but you may have a little trouble in life if you want proof for everything

Aha! So you agree that you don't have any proof besides your scriptures through which you can show us that Bible is the word of God? Well, let me tell you this. In this age of science and technology,what else can be a bigger test then the test of science!
Hugo - you will have to explain this as I have no clear idea what you mean and of course it would also mean that in the time of the Prophet they did not have these proofs yet believed so they are not needed are they?

If the teachings of Bible are not in contradiction to the established laws of science then one can take it to be the word of God. But if the teachings of Bible contradicts science laws then obviously, no one is stupid enough to claim Bible to be the true word of God!
Hugo - Darwin's origin of the Species or evolution does not contradict science so it must be the word of God according to your argument.

God as He has created this whole universe must be knowing the simple laws of science and mathematics, don't you think? But brother, do you know that there are thousands of scientific errors and mathematical contradictions in Bible?
]Hugo[/B] - let's here one or two of them. I have just come from a lecture given by a person with a double PhD on cosmology and God and he did not mention any of these supposed contradictions

Ever heard of Dr. Zakir Naik? He is a student of comparative religions and in one of his debate, he has responded to a Christian scholar, pointing out these thousands of errors to him. And the Christian scholar was not able to refute even one of his points!
Hugo - yes I know about him, does you logic tell you that if one scholar cannot refute then no one can? Does Dr Naik know everything, is he omnipotent in every field? Did you check out (since you always want proof) Dr Naik's competence in these 1,000s of areas? This is just hearsay, give us one of Dr Naik's examples.

I don't know if this debate is there on youtube but I have it with me in a written format. If you want to see these scientific errors in Bible, then I can give you the link.

Hugo - do that, let's have a look at some of them
Brother think about it! Can it be possible for God to not know even the basic science laws which we have read in primary? Nauzbillah! Or isn't it even more ABSURD that the God make so many mathematical mistakes in the Holy Scriptures which He is sending forward for the whole of humanity>? Nauzbillah!
Hugo - just give examples not rhetoric

Bible has so badly failed this simple test. On the other hand, you will find not even a single error in the Holy Quran. Why? Because it is the true word of Allah!
Hugo - suppose I find this 'single error' will you give up Islam?

Let me correct you here. BLIND FAITH does not demand any proof but True faith does! If you want me to believe in something, why should I believe in it unless I have sufficient proof about it's veracity! And please don't put forward this as a proof that Bible calls itself to be true word of God- This is just no proof at all.
Hugo - if one has proof then no faith is required, we don't have to have faith in Gravity because we know it will be the same tomorrow as it is today. One might also say that YOU have no proof about what will happen tomorrow in your life so do you give up today? For all you know I might be a computer playing a game with you, teasing you, testing you. Let me give an example, it is said that the heart of Prophet Mohammed was removed and washed with snow - do you have proof of that or do you reject is because as you have said you don't believe it without proof?

Suppose if I write a book and keeps repeating in it that this book is from Allah - will you then believe in it too? Because you said that faith doesn't demand any proof!

- I would read it first to see if I can recognise it as God speaking and if others also see it that way. I cannot see there can be other proofs as I pointed out earlier, I cannot check up with God can I, I cannot go to him and say "is this yours'?

[Hugo]

I think that by keeping this discussion going on for a long time will serve us no purpose except that it will give rise to hatred.

Hugo - can you explain why this is so? All I am doing is suggesting that what has been said by some is either not correct or needs qualification. The whole point of these boards is to discuss not simply hear one side of any story. Surely, you want authentic information or5 are you willing to accet anything as long as it follows a party line? I read what you say and I don't find my self hating you or anyone just because I don't agree or you don't agree with me - to do that would be silly and distructive

So why don't we come to a way which is acceptable to both of us? Our Lord guides us in the Quran to come to the common terms. So why don't we keep our differences aside and come to those terms which are acceptable to both of us and which are in your scripture and my scripture too? Do you agree?

Hugo - yes its good to see where we agree but what has been written here often is not correct and that is I think you will agree an issue.

What is the first similarity? It is that there is no god but Allah! We only worship Him and associate no partners with Him. All the religious scriptures teach you this! There he quotes FROM the Bible, the verses which speak about Allah as the true Creator! All the verses from your own Bible, the scripture you consider holy- so won't you then believe in what your Bible says? Is there any kind of harm to come to common terms? :hmm:

I don't think so. The differences we can discuss latter, but let us agree to what is common in all religious scriptures!!! It is the most logical and friendly way!

This is fine but I don't think anywhere I have said anything that is more than an attempt to correct or question what has been said by others. It is also generally agreed that when we differ there is much more to be explored and learned than when we agree and if we do that with respect for each other the rewards are great

The whole point in learning is to take the attitude:

Ralph Waldo Emerson (American Poet and Lecturer) said: “Do not go where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”.

Jacob Bronowski - (broadcasting and Teacher) It is important that students bring a certain ragamuffin, barefoot irreverence to their studies; they are not here to hero-worship what is known but to question it

[Hugo]

^^ Jesus indeed was sent to the lost sheep of Israel, and thus kept with their laws, it is just a wonder why Jesus followers don't?
Why they eat pigs when assuredly Jesus didn't
why they forgo circumcision when surely Jesus was
why they forgo monotheism while surely Jesus was a monotheist
why they take idols for worship while assuredly Jesus didn't
Jewish law allows for divorce, now did Jesus abolish that law?

This is an interesting question but I think it is easily answered.

Circumcision and the Law - in the Laws as given to Moses there are supposed to be 613 of them and broadly they cover morality, ritual and dietary prescriptions. But these laws were given perhaps 3,000-4000 years ago and it is obvious that many of the circumstances or institutions to which they applied no longer exit so the relevant law is defunct. This is not unlike the abrogation we find in Islam. No one would I think dispute the moral laws as exemplified by the 10 commandments but in the other two areas then it is possible to set them aside. For example, there are a lot of laws about sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem but that no longer exits and so that law cannot be obeyed but they may be actioned in a spiritual sense.

With regard to circumcision it was not invented by the Jews but was widely practised by many civilisations at and after the time of Abraham. In Jewish terms it was chosen by God as a sign of a covenant relationship (Genesis 17:11) and this covenant was accompanied by the law. So Jews had both privileged (they were chosen) and responsibility (they were given the Law). However, the OT speaks about circumcision of the heart as being the true circumcision - we read for example:

Deuteronomy 30:6 - The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.

Jeremiah 4:4 - Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, circumcise your hearts, you men of Judah and people of Jerusalem, or my wrath will break out and burn like fire because of the evil you have done— burn with no one to quench it.

This message is carried into the NT and is notably found in Romans chapters 1 to 3. What this is saying is that it is no good having an outward symbol or having the law as a possession unless it make a difference, unless it spurs you to action for God.

Monotheism - no Christian would deny it so I cannot see any case to answer there.

Idols - I don't know with any certainty what this is referring to so cannot offer a comment. Is this about religious icons or tombs etc?

Divorce - I cannot quite see what the issue is here as one supposes that Jesus was making the law more stringent not taking it away, making it more difficult to keep not making it simpler.

[Supreme]

I cannot quite see what the issue is here as one supposes that Jesus was making the law more stringent not taking it away, making it more difficult to keep not making it simpler.

I like the view of the Quakers. They believe a marriage dies when the love dies, not when a person dies, so they allow divorce on grounds on dead love.

[جوري]

This is an interesting question but I think it is easily answered.

Circumcision and the Law - in the Laws as given to Moses there are supposed to be 613 of them and broadly they cover morality, ritual and dietary prescriptions. But these laws were given perhaps 3,000-4000 years ago and it is obvious that many of the circumstances or institutions to which they applied no longer exit so the relevant law is defunct. This is not unlike the abrogation we find in Islam. No one would I think dispute the moral laws as exemplified by the 10 commandments but in the other two areas then it is possible to set them aside. For example, there are a lot of laws about sacrifice at the temple in Jerusalem but that no longer exits and so that law cannot be obeyed but they may be actioned in a spiritual sense.

With regard to circumcision it was not invented by the Jews but was widely practised by many civilisations at and after the time of Abraham. In Jewish terms it was chosen by God as a sign of a covenant relationship (Genesis 17:11) and this covenant was accompanied by the law. So Jews had both privileged (they were chosen) and responsibility (they were given the Law). However, the OT speaks about circumcision of the heart as being the true circumcision - we read for example:

Deuteronomy 30:6 - The LORD your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live.

Jeremiah 4:4 - Circumcise yourselves to the LORD, circumcise your hearts, you men of Judah and people of Jerusalem, or my wrath will break out and burn like fire because of the evil you have done— burn with no one to quench it.

This message is carried into the NT and is notably found in Romans chapters 1 to 3. What this is saying is that it is no good having an outward symbol or having the law as a possession unless it make a difference, unless it spurs you to action for God.

Why would God change his mind? Jesus was supposed to enforce the laws to get those who strayed back on them not abrogate them all together.. It isn't whether this was practiced before or after, first and foremost the religion of God was one and so where his laws even before Abraham (P) all messengers came with the same message and the tenets have remained.. charity, prayer, fast, honesty, prohibitions etc. Abraham (p) didn't bring anything new, just that he was an island unto himself as those before him perished with the message, it was renewed with him.
Therein is a major difference between Islam and Christianity.. we literally believe that all the messengers came to enforce the same message and the same laws with minor variations but not do away with them all together..
The universe is built around seven themes I assure you it doesn't matter how 'modern' we get, life will revolve around the same earthly laws..
a girl falling in love today is no different than a girl falling in love 5000 yrs ago even if fashions have changed.. A man using usury to swindle others out of their land today is no different than a man 6000 years ago. A man coveting his neighbor's wife today is no different than a man coveting 5000 yrs ago. A man who is bigoted toward a black person today, tying him to the back of his car and driving 20 miles until he is skinned today as happened a little over a decade ago is no different than a man bigoted toward a slave 5000 years ago. A man envious and planning to murder his brother today for a stretch of property is no different than a man murdering his brother since the beginning of time for similar reason.. that is why the expression 'as old as sin' exists.. Modern life hasn't changed the basic things about us. There is no reason to think that the law of man supersedes the law of God..

Monotheism - no Christian would deny it so I cannot see any case to answer there.

But that isn't how non-christians see it.. none of us can wrap around the concept of three gods into one. And it really will remain a major Achilles for Christianity.

Idols - I don't know with any certainty what this is referring to so cannot offer a comment. Is this about religious icons or tombs etc?

The icons that jesus didn't take, but are taken by those who allege to follow Jesus .. like this

Jesus didn't do this.. you know what I find even most insulting here, is that she has her head covered yet wearing see through clothes, supposedly while kneeling before God.. I don't understand.. do we love God and worship him on his own terms or ours?

Divorce - I cannot quite see what the issue is here as one supposes that Jesus was making the law more stringent not taking it away, making it more difficult to keep not making it simpler.

Yes, but don't you see that this is a disaster? Divorce by no means is loved by God, however it is very necessary at times, why should a woman or a man in an abusive relationship be made to suffer for a life time with no glimmer of hope that they can have a normal life with a compatible partner.. This law isn't made so we can fornicate with whomever whenever, rather as a lifeline and surprisingly the divorce rate really are highest amongst westerners who (if they were christian) should uphold this law, should technically endure longer in marriages..

Thing is we can't do away with this law or that law because we find it a faux pas or because perez hilton would mouth us off as bigots.. Really God gave us the free will and the choice to live by his commandments or to 'modernize ourselves' under some sort of humanist threat of low IQ or stupidity or whatever else is used to bully people into a new world order.. ..

my two cents..

peace

[kidcanman]

we have strayed from the path of the thread

[Grace Seeker]

^^ Jesus indeed was sent to the lost sheep of Israel, and thus kept with their laws, it is just a wonder why Jesus followers don't?
Why they eat pigs when assuredly Jesus didn't
why they forgo circumcision when surely Jesus was
why they forgo monotheism while surely Jesus was a monotheist
why they take idols for worship while assuredly Jesus didn't
Jewish law allows for divorce, now did Jesus abolish that law?

just to name a few

all the best

This is simple. Jesus was a Jew and as such participated in the covenant that God made with Jews. But Jesus also very specifically stated that he was establishing a new covenant. This new covenant was not subservient to the old covenant and it was for all people not just those who were participants in the old covenant. Thus none, accept those who are part of the old covenant, are bound by any of the terms of the old covenant. Rather we are bound by the new covenant's terms which do NOT include any of the items you listed, except that I would submit it still remains monotheisitic.

Very early on in the life of the Church they wrestled with the question as to whether those who were coming to faith in Jesus were required to also join not Old Covenant to be participants in the New Covenant, and the answer to that question was an unequivocal "NO!" So, we don't put the burden of the old covenant on anyone any more.

There are some things held in common by both covenants, but restrictions on eating pork (or shellfish which is also against Jewish dietary laws) and the practice of circumcision were expressly excluded from the New Covenant.

[جوري]

This is simple. Jesus was a Jew and as such participated in the covenant that God made with Jews. But Jesus also very specifically stated that he was establishing a new covenant. This new covenant was not subservient to the old covenant and it was for all people not just those who were participants in the old covenant. Thus none, accept those who are part of the old covenant, are bound by any of the terms of the old covenant. Rather we are bound by the new covenant's terms which do NOT include any of the items you listed, except that I would submit it still remains monotheisitic.

I think the view of Most non-Christians, is that in order for Christianity to become state religion, it had in its formative period adopt and compromise with paganism and secularism and evolving into incomprehensible theology that echoed nothing of what true Abrahamic faith monotheists come to know and lived on for millenniums thus not only making it unappealing and unable to attract the ones to whom it was specifically for, it couldn't not resist the impact of developing sciences as folks can't shut logic from their beings and follow blindly without Q.. and hence the divorce between the two, you can't possible adopt one without being at odds with the other.. now given that sciences if somewhat provable but a theology of a three headed god into one isn't and somewhat at odds with logic itself, which do you think it not only appealing but more sensical to folks outside of Christianity?



all the best

[Supreme]

think the view of Most non-Christians, is that in order for Christianity to become state religion, it had in its formative period adopt and compromise with paganism and secularism and evolving into incomprehensible theology that echoed nothing of what true Abrahamic faith monotheists come to know and lived on for millenniums thus not only making it unappealing and unable to attract the ones to whom it was specifically for, it couldn't not resist the impact of developing sciences as folks can't shut logic from their beings and follow blindly without Q..

I personally agree with this. Christianity adapted to the lifestyles of the people who practised it, they did not have to adapt to it. Take the Greeks, for example. Before they recognized Christianity, they had statues of their gods around Greece. When they embraced Christianity, they managed to get around the commandment of not having idols by creating beautiful mosaics featuring Mary, Jesus and the Saints. To this day, such a Greek idea is prevelant and easily identifiable with the Eastern Orthodox Church, by all means now a worldwide institution with 150 million adherents globally. Each branch of Christianity has its own customs, culture and forms of worship that is identified with those many peoples who made Christianity their own. My own conclusion is that there is simply no right or wrong way to practise Christianity. It is not as simple as that. Nothing is as simple as that with Christianity, and nothing is as simple as that with God.

[Ramadhan]

This is simple. Jesus was a Jew and as such participated in the covenant that God made with Jews. But Jesus also very specifically stated that he was establishing a new covenant. This new covenant was not subservient to the old covenant and it was for all people not just those who were participants in the old covenant. Thus none, accept those who are part of the old covenant, are bound by any of the terms of the old covenant. Rather we are bound by the new covenant's terms which do NOT include any of the items you listed, except that I would submit it still remains monotheisitic.

Very early on in the life of the Church they wrestled with the question as to whether those who were coming to faith in Jesus were required to also join not Old Covenant to be participants in the New Covenant, and the answer to that question was an unequivocal "NO!" So, we don't put the burden of the old covenant on anyone any more.

There are some things held in common by both covenants, but restrictions on eating pork (or shellfish which is also against Jewish dietary laws) and the practice of circumcision were expressly excluded from the New Covenant.

You wrote that Jesus pbuh established new covenant, but it is clear from your explanation to anyone with a simple brain that the new covenant was estblished by the early priests.
So the current laws of christianity was mostly created by those priests, not by God.

[kidcanman]

i was awaiting answers from any christian.

then a number of muslims distracted everybody from the focus of the thread

with arguments and explanations of islam that have nothing to do with decernment or devine authority.

shame on those muslims for prohibiting anybody from answering my questions.

[Grace Seeker]

You wrote that Jesus pbuh established new covenant, but it is clear from your explanation to anyone with a simple brain that the new covenant was estblished by the early priests.
So the current laws of christianity was mostly created by those priests, not by God.

I disagree. Rather, I hold that it is clear from our scripture that Jesus himself is the one who established the new covenant: "In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, 'This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.' " (Luke 22:20)

[Grace Seeker]

i was awaiting answers from any christian.

then a number of muslims distracted everybody from the focus of the thread

with arguments and explanations of islam that have nothing to do with decernment or devine authority.

shame on those muslims for prohibiting anybody from answering my questions.

You may have to repeat your question(s).

[kidcanman]

i pray that muslims can stay on topic and not get into debates about other topics in christianity, or defending islam.

[kidcanman]

1,000 views and not 1 person can show any reasonable validity behind the claim that the NT is devine.

it seems that if the NT were devine, then the proof would be widely known.

the proofs given thus far have been conclusively refuted. and not 1 christian has actively objected the refutations.

conclusion: jesus knows of no NT. it is not devine. nor does anybody have the right to make that claim.

[duskiness]

1,000 views and not 1 person can show any reasonable validity behind the claim that the NT is devine.

i'm not native speaker but I my language we never say that Bible is divine. No book is divine. Books may be inspired or hold by someone sacred, holy but that's probably enough. Correct me, but i have this strang feeling that also in English adjective "divine" is rarely use when describing Bible itself...

it seems that if the NT were devine, then the proof would be widely known.

the proofs given thus far have been conclusively refuted. and not 1 christian has actively objected the refutations.

Probably because you refute claims most christians don't make or consider that important.

conclusion: jesus knows of no NT.

agree. That's quite logical taken into consideration that NT was written after his death, isn't it?

it is not devine.

agree. God is divine. Bible is just inspired by God.

nor does anybody have the right to make that claim.

rarely who makes...happy now?

If, by any accident you're interested what many of us think about Bible (I know this is highly unlikely), you can check here

If you are a bit more lazy, let me point few things:
1) watch out when you use term "word of God" while talking to christians. We use it in 2 different meanings. Firstly, the Word of God is Jesus and not any writing. Secondly, Bible is called the word of God because it is inspired by God. But not because it is literally word of God (although I admit that there are some christians who may say so...but we all have our extremists, don't we?)

2) for us God's final revelation is not book, but once again Jesus himself. Bible is story about revaluation, collection of words about the Word.

Still, the Christian faith is not a "religion of the book." Christianity is the religion of the "Word" of God, a word which is "not a written and mute word, but the Word is incarnate and living". If the Scriptures are not to remain a dead letter, Christ, the eternal Word of the living God, must, through the Holy Spirit, "open [our] minds to understand the Scriptures."

And if you ask how canon of NT was established, than the answer is: Tradition (of early Church).

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=duskiness;1257443]

i'm not native speaker but I my language we never say that Bible is divine. No book is divine. Books may be inspired or hold by someone sacred, holy but that's probably enough.

if you don't except the word "devine" and instead you call it "inspired" thats fine with me. I doubt its inspired and not 1 chritian has shown valid evidence that it is.

Probably because you refute claims most christians don't make or consider that important.

I conclusively refuted the claims that christians have made; addressed to me in this thread.

you say that the claims that the christians addressed to me so far are not important. i noticed that you did not provide the important claim that you implied that you have. it seems you have no authoritative reason for claiming that the bible is inspired.

agree. That's quite logical taken into consideration that NT was written after his death, isn't it?

jesus did not imply that something written after his death will be "inspired". agreed.

If, by any accident you're interested what many of us think about Bible (I know this is highly unlikely), you can check here

Im aware of what many christians think. not 1 christian has shown valid proof of why their thinking is legitimate.

if you ask how canon of NT was established, than the answer is: Tradition (of early Church).

tradition is not devine insperation. it is the flawed customs of men.

i doubt that the NT is the inspired word of god and, even with the benifit of the doubt, nobody is able to provide evidence that it is. there is no evidence.

[Grace Seeker]

if you don't except the word "devine" and instead you call it "inspired" thats fine with me. I doubt its inspired and not 1 chritian has shown valid evidence that it is.

Actually, we have shown that it is inspired. Inspiration is something that can be subjectively meausred. It is sort of like trying to prove the ocean is wet. It is because that feeling you get when sticking your hand in the ocean is what we mean by being wet, but if you don't accept that as being wet, then I can never prove to you that the ocean is different than what it in fact is. Likewise, we hold that the people who claimed where led as Jesus promised and as they claimed by the Spirit where indeed led by the Spirit. That means they were inspired. But if you aren't willing to accept the claim of being led by the Spirit as "proofe" of inspiration, then you're never going to be satisfied, because there is no other source of proof than acceptance of their word.

I submit to you it is the same level of "proof" that exists for your acceptance of the Qur'an being a recitation of Allah's word to Muhammad. But I'm sure that correspondence is lost on you. However, that you don't see it doesn't make it any less true.

jesus did not imply that something written after his death will be "inspired". agreed.

Jesus did say that his disciples would be led by the Spirit of truth into all truth. Whether you accept the argument or not, it threrefore follows in my way of thinking, that what the disciples shared with the church subsequent to that receiving that promise reflects this truth into which they have been led.

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Grace Seeker;1257833] i will reply to this this evening inshaallah.

[Hugo]

The universe is built around seven themes ..
love, usury to swindle, coveting, a man who is bigoted, envious and planning to murder... that is why the expression 'as old as sin' exists.. Modern life hasn't changed the basic things about us. There is no reason to think that the law of man supersedes the law of God..

I don't find much to disagree with here as the basic rules of morality seem unchanged and I think are unchallengeable. However, circumstances have changed so I cannot feel the same about some of the laws about ritual or what I might call cultural. It seems slightly absurd to me to bring into morality as some do say the prohibition on music or whether a woman should cover her head.

But that isn't how non-christians see it.. none of us can wrap around the concept of three gods into one. And it really will remain a major Achilles for Christianity.

If we are to debate the issue of the trinity you can it least state it in the way that it is understood by Christian not invent your own definition - we speak of ONE god, three in one and one in three. One does not have to fully understand how this can be to believe it believe it. Try to be a little more open-minded, you I assume believe that Prophet Mohammed's heart was washed with snow - was this real or imaginary but to me either way it sounds an absurdity.

Yes, but don't you see that this is a disaster? Divorce by no means is loved by God, however it is very necessary at times, why should a woman or a man in an abusive relationship be made to suffer for a life time with no glimmer of hope that they can have a normal life with a compatible partner.. This law isn't made so we can fornicate with whomever whenever, rather as a lifeline and surprisingly the divorce rate really are highest amongst westerners who (if they were christian) should uphold this law, should technically endure longer in marriages..

The NT sets out rules for divorce and essentially they are based on the occurrence of infidelity. However, the best path is one woman and one man for life but of course I understand that sadly this is often or even mostly not the case. As far as divorce rates are concerned try looking at the for instance the UAE and I think you will find that bit is as bad as if not worse than any where in the West.

Thing is we can't do away with this law or that law because we find it a faux pas or because perez hilton would mouth us off as bigots.. Really God gave us the free will and the choice to live by his commandments or to 'modernize ourselves' under some sort of humanist threat of low IQ or stupidity or whatever else is used to bully people into a new world order.. ..

You may be right but you also seem to have a peculiar notion that Christians don't see the law as something to follow. This is quite wrong and you have to understand that one is not a Christian because of where you were born or who your parents are but because at some point you have made a definite commitment.

[Hugo]

1,000 views and not 1 person can show any reasonable validity behind the claim that the NT is devine. it seems that if the NT were devine, then the proof would be widely known.

What exactly would be a proof for you? Or if you cannot do that tell us what falsifies that claim?

the proofs given thus far have been conclusively refuted. and not 1 christian has actively objected the refutations.

I have looked through your posts and I cannot see anywhere a clear refutation of anything - that is unless we have to assume that a statement by you is a refutation?

conclusion: jesus knows of no NT. it is not devine. nor does anybody have the right to make that claim.

I am not sure what 'Jesus knows of no NT' means and based on this bit of logic "no one proved the NT to be divine therefore it is not divine" - I don't think you have any idea what it means to prove or disprove something.

To prove something in a scientific sense means that you have to be able at least in principle falsify it. To put it in simple terms how would you recognise that some data you have clearly show the whole theory to be false?

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Grace Seeker;1257833]

Inspiration is something that can be subjectively meausred. It is sort of like trying to prove the ocean is wet. It is because that feeling you get when sticking your hand in the ocean is what we mean by being wet, but if you don't accept that as being wet, then I can never prove to you that the ocean is different than what it in fact is. Likewise, we hold that the people who claimed where led as Jesus promised and as they claimed by the Spirit where indeed led by the Spirit. That means they were inspired. But if you aren't willing to accept the claim of being led by the Spirit as "proof" of inspiration, then you're never going to be satisfied, because there is no other source of proof than acceptance of their word.

any group of people can claim that their judgement is perfectly inspired by god. if some people were to make that claim they would then have to cite how they know this. for example: god revealed it to us in the form of a book. or jesus told us.

if a person claims that their judgement is perfectly inspired by god and they do so without any external devine authority; then that person is claiming that they are a messenger of god (like moses or abraham).

christians must provide devine proof apart from "their word" to affirm that they are "led by the spirit"; unless you all claim to be prophets of god on the level of moses or abraham.

your entire argument above balances upon your statement: "as jesus promised".

You provided me with the quote where jesus "promised" that christians will be guided by the holy spirit. i refuted it (post #17), and you did not respond to my refutation. i assume you don't have an adequate response.

I submit to you it is the same level of "proof" that exists for your acceptance of the Qur'an being a recitation of Allah's word to Muhammad. But I'm sure that correspondence is lost on you. However, that you don't see it doesn't make it any less true.

my argument is that there is no devine authority by which to conclude that the NT is inspired. if jesus referenced the NT then that would be devine authority. muhammad referenced the quran. so, if muhammed is a prophet of god, then the quran is an inspired book.

we are not debating weather muhammad is a prophet, nor are we debating weather jesus is the son of god.

Jesus did say that his disciples would be led by the Spirit of truth into all truth.

i refuted this quote before and you did not respond. it seems as though this quote is the only evidence by which christians claim that the NT is inspired. i will address this quote this evening inshaallah.

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Hugo;1258165]

What exactly would be a proof for you? Or if you cannot do that tell us what falsifies that claim?

Proof for me would be if the book stated that it is from god. or if jesus prophesied (mentioned) the coming of the book. or if you could show me where god told somebody else that the NT writings are inspired by him.

what makes the claim false is: a normal man does not have the right to assert that certain writings are inspired by god unless he can cite devine authority (jesus/scriptures).

I have looked through your posts and I cannot see anywhere a clear refutation of anything - that is unless we have to assume that a statement by you is a refutation?

people challenged other poster's refutations in order to clear up errors. nobody actively challenged my refutations and so i assumed that there is nothing to clear up.

I am not sure what 'Jesus knows of no NT' means and based on this bit of logic "no one proved the NT to be divine therefore it is not divine" - I don't think you have any idea what it means to prove or disprove something.

To prove something in a scientific sense means that you have to be able at least in principle falsify it. To put it in simple terms how would you recognise that some data you have clearly show the whole theory to be false?

The thoery that the NT is inspired by god is false because in order to make that claim one must either be inspired by god themself, or they must be able to cite where a devine source collaborates their claim.

show me how the claim can be legitimately affirmed in a valid way. or how christians are inspired, or where they accurately cite devine authority.

[Grace Seeker]

You provided me with the quote where jesus "promised" that christians will be guided by the holy spirit. i refuted it (post #17), and you did not respond to my refutation. i assume you don't have an adequate response.

It hardly qualifies as refutation to say:

"the spirit will guide you to all truth" can be interpreted in many ways. perhaps the fall of contemporary christianity is the "guidence". perhaps the fall of contemporary islam.

Taken as a whole, Jesus' promise of the sending and work of the Holy Spirit is a credible indwelling by which Jesus disciples will be led and able to lead others:

John 14:17
the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

John 14:26
But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

John 15:26
"When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me.

John 16:13
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

Further, based on Acts 1:2 we know that Jesus gave instructions to his disciples through the Holy Spirit -- that means by the agency of the Holy Spirit. In other words, what Jesus' disciples know they know directly from God --for the Holy Spirit is the presence of God (YWHW) who dwells imminently within us.

Then Acts 2 shows that indeed the Spirit did turn these disciples into prophets. And not only the disciples, but all who are in Christ receive various gifts from the Spirit, and that includes others being declared as prophets.

According to Acts 15, this gift of the Holy Spirit is evidence from God of one's acceptance by God for his fulfilling God's purposes. Now, if you believe that God's purposes are to spread disinformation, then fine. But I find such a view incredulous. So, accept the overall veracity of these folks who wrote what became the NT. I also acknowledge that this same Spirit was present in the church (which I accept to be the body of Christ in the world today), so that by this Spirit of Christ present in the Church the Church is able to speak with the authority of Christ in declaratory statements such as not imposing the need for Gentiles to ritually become Jews in order to be recognized as followers of the way of Christ, and in declaring which of the writings of the early Christian Church would be classified as fit for determining the rule of faith and practice (i.e., canon) and which would not be so classified.

Noiw, it is most certainly an act of faith that we accept that Acts is a crediible historical witness. But I am willing to do that based on what we know of the life of those presented to us in it's pages -- that they not only testified to the resurrection of Jesus but that they were unwilling to deny that testimony even though they knew it would cost them their lives to not deny it. And from that act of faith and acceptance on my part, the rest of the testimony for their being led by the Spirit follows as being true as well. That being true, then the testimony they provide in written form becomes something I am willing to accept.

Might the whole thing be created as a yarn spun out of the air? Possibly. But then I would have expected to see those yarn spinners say it was just that and nothing more when their lives hung in the balance. I would have expected them to in the end go along with everyone else who recognized Ceasar as Lord, rather than suffer death for proclaiming Jesus as Lord. Second and third generation converts could have been deluded. But the disciples, would have known that it was all a scam, and still they willing put their lives on the line for a lie that would merit them no earthly rewards. So, I accept that they were witness of something bigger than life itself and led by the Spirit to share that story with the rest of the world. And from the sharing what we know as the NT was produced.

Those who wrote the NT were not just inspired authors, they lived inspired lives. I'm not claiming that God wrote through them (certainly not the dication of word for word form of authorship), I'm claiming that God lived in them, and from that relationship I trust what they have written as being valuable for me to learn how to live in a similar relationship with God as well. That's what it means to say that the Bible is inspired, that God's spirit has directed other men to share out of their own life experience of striving to live holy lives how I might do so as well.

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Grace Seeker;1258585]

It hardly qualifies as refutation to say

I agree. i was actually thinking of post #36.
i think even that post is not a good enough refutation.

i will supply an additional refutation and respond to the remainder of your latest post shortly

[duskiness]

Kidcanman,

may you should write how you define "inspired", and how you expect it to be "proven"?
Because I have this feeling that we see it a bit differently...

tradition is not devine insperation. it is the flawed customs of men

- everything in this world is flawed. that's the trick :)

[Hugo]

[QUOTE=kidcanman;1258252]

Proof for me would be if the book stated that it is from god. or if jesus prophesied (mentioned) the coming of the book. or if you could show me where god told somebody else that the NT writings are inspired by him.

You cannot really be serious here - just because a book 'says' it is from God YOU would take it as proof? Look at your second point, 'Jesus prophesied..' well we would ONLY know that if some one recorded it in a book ... your standards of proof are frankly unthoughtful to say the least.

what makes the claim false is: a normal man does not have the right to assert that certain writings are inspired by god unless he can cite devine authority (jesus/scriptures).

This does not make sense - in what way would he cite divine authority except by stating it and if he did such a thing how can we check on his claim for authority.

people challenged other poster's refutations in order to clear up errors. nobody actively challenged my refutations and so i assumed that there is nothing to clear up.

If your refutations are of the same quality as your proofs there would be nothing to say as their falsity would be self-evident.

The theory that the NT is inspired by god is false because in order to make that claim one must either be inspired by god themself, or they must be able to cite where a divine source collaborates their claim.

This is absurd and circular - according to you all that is needed to be inspired is to be inspired? If there is another source of collaboration then one supposes that also must be inspired so IT would need collaboration and so on an infinitum

show me how the claim can be legitimately affirmed in a valid way. or how Christians are inspired, or where they accurately cite devine authority.

I know of no such scientific way - all one can say is that the Christian scriptures compiled over about 1,600 years with about 40 different authors and many different styles of writing have an unmistakeable unity to them. After that it is up to you to read them for yourself and this is where faith plays its part in that as we read we may perhaps feel God reaching out to us.

Perhaps you may find the famous Thomas Paine conjecture will allow you to see why this is all difficult and why faith is central.

Let us suppose for the sake of argument that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, [so] it is a revelation only to that person. [It follows it is] hearsay to every other person, and consequently they are not obliged to believe.

This applies to every prophet including Mohammed

[جوري]

I don't find much to disagree with here as the basic rules of morality seem unchanged and I think are unchallengeable. However, circumstances have changed so I cannot feel the same about some of the laws about ritual or what I might call cultural. It seems slightly absurd to me to bring into morality as some do say the prohibition on music or whether a woman should cover her head.

It doesn't make you a criminal nor is it punishable under Islamic laws as far as I know to not cover your hair or listen to Music.. it is a question of what matters to you as a human being (pleasing God and following his injunction or pleasing your ears) many Muslims go on to make music and listen to it, without great ill befalling them and I don't know the weightiness of it as a sin.

If we are to debate the issue of the trinity you can it least state it in the way that it is understood by Christian not invent your own definition - we speak of ONE god, three in one and one in three. One does not have to fully understand how this can be to believe it believe it. Try to be a little more open-minded, you I assume believe that Prophet Mohammed's heart was washed with snow - was this real or imaginary but to me either way it sounds an absurdity.

I don't see One god, when there is a god suckling and a god annunciating and a god forsaking.. it is not a question of open-mindedness.. rather a question of dismissing all logic.. for even greek myth, when their god zeus had an affair with a mortal woman, the son born wasn't one in the same with zeus

The NT sets out rules for divorce and essentially they are based on the occurrence of infidelity. However, the best path is one woman and one man for life but of course I understand that sadly this is often or even mostly not the case. As far as divorce rates are concerned try looking at the for instance the UAE and I think you will find that bit is as bad as if not worse than any where in the West.

Perhaps because only a portion of the UAE are actually native and the degenerate morality is akin to western one!

You may be right but you also seem to have a peculiar notion that Christians don't see the law as something to follow. This is quite wrong and you have to understand that one is not a Christian because of where you were born or who your parents are but because at some point you have made a definite commitment.

The definition of being a christian apparently run the gamut.. I don't see what law they can actually follow, whatever remnants of the old laws were abrogated and Jesus (p) didn't hang around long enough to establish a christian state and his wants for it.. he was an ineffectual god... the Render unto Caesar type which isn't really a surprise given the rest!


(sorry I forgot about this thread/unsubscribed from it a while back)

all the best

[Hugo]

I don't see One god, when there is a god suckling and a god annunciating and a god forsaking.. it is not a question of open-mindedness.. rather a question of dismissing all logic.. for even greek myth, when their god zeus had an affair with a mortal woman, the son born wasn't one in the same with zeus

I cannot quite see what logic you are talking about here - can you explain. At the same time I gave you Islamic examples, which to me are nothing but legend but you presumably take them uncritically and avoid giving an answer - is that because you also see them as nonsense or that you simply accept without necessarily understanding what it all might mean?

Perhaps because only a portion of the UAE are actually native and the degenerate morality is akin to western one!

No this is not the case and most commentators see it as being caused by the men who neglect their families. That is they go to work and go from work to coffee shops and talk with other men until late evening - that kind of thing.

The definition of being a christian apparently run the gamut.. I don't see what law they can actually follow, whatever remnants of the old laws were abrogated and Jesus (p) didn't hang around long enough to establish a christian state and his wants for it.. he was an ineffectual god... the Render unto Caesar type which isn't really a surprise given the rest!

The definition is that you accept God's way of redemption affected by the sacrificial work of Jesus. So repentance and faith brings about change in ones life and that change means that the law is not just a written code that one has in a book or in the memory but is as the Bible puts it 'written on our hearts' that is it is part of our very being and Christians hate sin and work hard to be worthy of that privileged of redemption.

[جوري]

I cannot quite see what logic you are talking about here - can you explain. At the same time I gave you Islamic examples, which to me are nothing but legend but you presumably take them uncritically and avoid giving an answer - is that because you also see them as nonsense or that you simply accept without necessarily understanding what it all might mean?

This doesn't really address my question on how a three headed god is one.. nonetheless, to address your queries:

How is this a question of logic? Just because you can't accept that folks live a different style than you doesn't mean that there is a lack of logic!
Do people still cover their head in the west?
is there any logic when head covering is fashioned on the runway?


It is a symbol of modesty (non-looseness) to some.. to someone else it might be a shelter from rain or cold or even the latest trend.. I hardly see an issue to avoid or address or turn into a reasoned argument . .. Some people are born deaf

is there logic or lack of in this when they don't listen to music?

I find you absurd at times really. If you can't conceive of life outside your upbringing and popular culture then I suggest you keep to christian folk in some distant bubble!
further what I have stated is of utmost relevance. Listening to music isn't a cardinal sin, I don't know how it is tabulated, we will be asked of how we've spent our time in this world..It is no different than whiling away your hours in a nonconstructive fashion whether backbiting or rapping (or whatever is popular now a days)

No this is not the case and most commentators see it as being caused by the men who neglect their families. That is they go to work and go from work to coffee shops and talk with other men until late evening - that kind of thing.

Judging by their effete lifestyle and money which they spend on american hooke rs like paris hilton whom they have invited to their 7 star hotel which has recently burned down, I'd say my point of them living a hedonistic western like lifestyle is right on target!

The definition is that you accept God's way of redemption affected by the sacrificial work of Jesus. So repentance and faith brings about change in ones life and that change means that the law is not just a written code that one has in a book or in the memory but is as the Bible puts it 'written on our hearts' that is it is part of our very being and Christians hate sin and work hard to be worthy of that privileged of redemption.

This is a non-answer, and it is a funny thing, how you resort to this ingenuity in reasoning in the hopes of deceiving us that your dogma is other than what it is or that it is valid when it fails the simple logic litmus test, yet have the audacity to ask me about lack of logic in covering ones head or not wasting ones time seeking idle tunes?!

all the best

[Hugo]

This doesn't really address my question on how a three headed god is one.. nonetheless, to address your queries: How is this a question of logic? Just because you can't accept that folks live a different style than you doesn't mean that there is a lack of logic!
Do people still cover their head in the west? is there any logic when head covering is fashioned on the runway?

Again you miss the point. One assumes that you cannot see how God can be one and three and three and one - neither can I but I am able to accept it in faith. My question was that if we take say Prophet Mohammed's heart being removed and washed in snow or al-Sirat this long and narrow bridge that everyone will have pass over or through before entering Heaven - do you believe in these as physical realities or are they metaphors and is it faith or logic that allows you to believe in them? If its faith then say so if its logic then tell me what it is

I find you absurd at times really. If you can't conceive of life outside your upbringing and popular culture then I suggest you keep to Christian folk in some distant bubble!

This seems to be your whole outlook - if someone has a different view they are absurd or illogical or idiotic. Are you just programmed to always say in an Orwellian and dystopian manner "Islam good, everything else bad"

Judging by their effete lifestyle and money which they spend on american hooke rs like paris hilton whom they have invited to their 7 star hotel which has recently burned down, I'd say my point of them living a hedonistic western like lifestyle is right on target!

It is simply fashionable to blame the West for everything and as is usual you automatically make grand generalisations. Going to work and then a coffee shop or Majlis is NOT a western life style as far as I know and although I am not entirely sure what you are talking about it seems to be about a hotel that caught fire in its lobby area during building in 2008.

This is a non-answer, and it is a funny thing, how you resort to this ingenuity in reasoning in the hopes of deceiving us that your dogma is other than what it is or that it is valid when it fails the simple logic litmus test, yet have the audacity to ask me about lack of logic in covering ones head or not wasting ones time seeking idle tunes?!

I am simply stating the logic of God's redemption from a Christian perspective. I do not know what 'simple logic litmus test' you are talking about so please enlighten us because if it is a test we should be able to apply it to the Islamic view of how God redeems.

Whether something is logical or not might be relatively easy to work out though it may be nothing more that sophistry. Every one needs idle time, we cannot be working or thinking or even praying all the time. God has designed us like that and I see nothing at all wrong with spending time say with friends or walking in the park or listening to a Mozart sonata or looking at great art and for me anyway these often bring us closer to God.

[جوري]

Again you miss the point. One assumes that you cannot see how God can be one and three and three and one - neither can I but I am able to accept it in faith. My question was that if we take say Prophet Mohammed's heart being removed and washed in snow or al-Sirat this long and narrow bridge that everyone will have pass over or through before entering Heaven - do you believe in these as physical realities or are they metaphors and is it faith or logic that allows you to believe in them? If its faith then say so if its logic then tell me what it is

It really doesn't matter whether his heart was washed out with snow, or whether the sirat to heaven is a narrow bridge, that isn't what faith or the tenet of the religion or Islamic dogma centers around. Like I had stated previously and repeatedly they are ancillary finds... Your faith focuses on a three headed god who died and you want to compare that to high sofa or having a heart free of ill? Where do you draw the similarities?

This seems to be your whole outlook - if someone has a different view they are absurd or illogical or idiotic. Are you just programmed to always say in an Orwellian and dystopian manner "Islam good, everything else bad"

I am not going to down the ante just so we'd all be standing on the same platform for you to be appeased about your beliefs. I never said christianity was bad, surely as any Abrahamic religion has some truths preserved in it (if it evolved along the way to be more in concert with accepted western pagan practices, it doesn't mean that somewhere in the marrow is some semblance of truths (you should contrast that with your approach to Islam) I don't have to malign Jesus to accept Islam, in fact he is profoundly honored with at least twenty mentions in the Quran.. you should question yourself when you spend so much time scheming and ridiculing Islamic principles the sincerity of your own approach. Notice, I wasn't the one who started either thread, in fact in the former thread, one might question your grounds... I believe when you are so insincere you can only be met with constant doubt as it is your own doing!

It is simply fashionable to blame the West for everything and as is usual you automatically make grand generalisations. Going to work and then a coffee shop or Majlis is NOT a western life style as far as I know and although I am not entirely sure what you are talking about it seems to be about a hotel that caught fire in its lobby area during building in 2008.

You have taken an insular middle eastern country (surprisingly one most westernized) as an example of high divorce rate to make a point, I am only pointing out the obvious, aside from that I have already stated that the natives are an actual minority there .. the question by the way which you've synthesized to something I don't recognize was about abrogation of marriage by christians laws (when surprisingly the highest divorce rate is more prevalent in the west) do you find facts offensive?

I am simply stating the logic of God's redemption from a Christian perspective. I do not know what 'simple logic litmus test' you are talking about so please enlighten us because if it is a test we should be able to apply it to the Islamic view of how God redeems.

I don't know how God judges or delivers (I think it is a job delegated to him) I have faith as he stated to have delegated to himself the law of grace and mercy, certainly not because a bunch of jews decided he was a heretic took him to the cross and I bought into that whole charade... that isn't a reason for god to redeem as far as I am concerned. As for ow christianity fails.. it is a question of Math. You can't be a god annunciating, a god suckling and reaching childhood milestones neglecting the universe as a child, and a god forsaking and be one in the same person.. and then decide after you've died to enlighten your enemy to abrogate your commandments! That is it in a nutshell and I believe I have so stated and repeatedly, again, I fail to understand why you keep asking the same question in a thousand different ways.. each post we have seem to have the same replies by both our persons.. Can you not accept the answer given you without re-asking it after having tweaked your end of things a bit?

Whether something is logical or not might be relatively easy to work out though it may be nothing more that sophistry. Every one needs idle time, we cannot be working or thinking or even praying all the time. God has designed us like that and I see nothing at all wrong with spending time say with friends or walking in the park or listening to a Mozart sonata or looking at great art and for me anyway these often bring us closer to God.

Indeed time for leisure is a must .. hence the Hadith حديث ( روحوا القلوب ساعة وساعة )

it is good to take time to unburden the heart.. Mozart might bring you closer to God, and Suret Ar'rahman by sheikh luhaidan might bring someone else closer to God.. it is not for you to impose how that time is to be spent!

The Prophet said: 'The religion (of Islam) is easy. No one ever made it difficult without it becoming too much for him. So avoid extremes and strike a balance, do the best you can and be cheerful, and seek Allah's help (through prayer) in the morning, and evening, and part of the night.' (Sahîh Bukhârî)


all the best

[Hugo]

It really doesn't matter whether his heart was washed out with snow, or whether the sirat to heaven is a narrow bridge, that isn't what faith or the tenet of the religion or Islamic dogma centers around. Like I had stated previously and repeatedly they are ancillary finds... Your faith focuses on a three headed god who died and you want to compare that to high sofa or having a heart free of ill? Where do you draw the similarities?

My point which you seem repeatedly miss is that in every religion there are elements which others find odd, illogical, silly but that is where faith takes its place and so you banging on about a 3-headed God is becoming tiresome and simply shows you have no awareness that others might not think as you do.

I am not going to down the ante just so we'd all be standing on the same platform for you to be appeased about your beliefs. I never said christianity was bad, surely as any Abrahamic religion has some truths preserved in it (if it evolved along the way to be more in concert with accepted western pagan practices, it doesn't mean that somewhere in the marrow is some semblance of truths (you should contrast that with your approach to Islam) I don't have to malign Jesus to accept Islam, in fact he is profoundly honored with at least twenty mentions in the Quran.. you should question yourself when you spend so much time scheming and ridiculing Islamic principles the sincerity of your own approach. Notice, I wasn't the one who started either thread, in fact in the former thread, one might question your grounds... I believe when you are so insincere you can only be met with constant doubt as it is your own doing!

I don't think you can find anywhere where I have ridiculed Islamic principles but I can find hundreds were you have maligned Jesus and the Christian faith as well as any in the Board whom make fair comments. If you look at threads created by me I think you will find that I more often than not I requested permission to open the thread or the moderators suggested another thread - if that is scheming then it would be a rather funny way to do it.

If your think I am insincere that is just your opinion and I don't think you can find a single post by me that points to the truth of your allegation and you should therefore withdraw it.

You have taken an insular middle eastern country (surprisingly one most westernized) as an example of high divorce rate to make a point, I am only pointing out the obvious, aside from that I have already stated that the natives are an actual minority there .. the question by the way which you've synthesized to something I don't recognize was about abrogation of marriage by christians laws (when surprisingly the highest divorce rate is more prevalent in the west) do you find facts offensive?

It seems something of a muddle is in your mind to say the UAE is both insular and Westernised. My information such as it was related to nationals and it is no secret that the rulers have set up what might be called marriage guidance units in malls because they recognise there is a problem just as it is recognised as problematic in the West.

As far as I know, I said nothing about the abrogation of marriage laws only that the NT permits divorces/re-marriage in cases where infidelity is involved. I don't find facts offensive but they can be uncomfortable and this is why you make such a fuss because they can of course point to failings is Islamic societies just as there are failings elsewhere. These are not failings in Islam or Christianity but failings in our sinful natures.

I don't know how God judges or delivers (I think it is a job delegated to him) I have faith as he stated to have delegated to himself the law of grace and mercy, certainly not because a bunch of jews decided he was a heretic took him to the cross and I bought into that whole charade... that isn't a reason for god to redeem as far as I am concerned. As for ow christianity fails.. it is a question of Math. You can't be a god annunciating, a god suckling and reaching childhood milestones neglecting the universe as a child, and a god forsaking and be one in the same person.. and then decide after you've died to enlighten your enemy to abrogate your commandments! That is it in a nutshell and I believe I have so stated and repeatedly, again, I fail to understand why you keep asking the same question in a thousand different ways.. each post we have seem to have the same replies by both our persons.. Can you not accept the answer given you without re-asking it after having tweaked your end of things a bit?

I assume this question that you say I keep asking is 'how does God redeem or forgive a Muslim, how does he/she get to heaven"? I think that if you look at the posts then it is you that repeatedly tell the same story about your lopsided view of the Christian Gospel. Would it be right in this board to do an exegesis of the book of Romans and explain it to you in detail?

it is good to take time to unburden the heart.. Mozart might bring you closer to God, and Suret Ar'rahman by sheikh luhaidan might bring someone else closer to God.. it is not for you to impose how that time is to be spent!

For once we can agree. Mozart vis good, the Qu'ran is good if they bring us closer to God

The Prophet said: 'The religion (of Islam) is easy. No one ever made it difficult without it becoming too much for him. So avoid extremes and strike a balance, do the best you can and be cheerful, and seek Allah's help (through prayer) in the morning, and evening, and part of the night.'

I will add two further thoughts to the excellent one above:

Matthew 11:28-32 (NIV). "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Isaiah 55:1-5 (Amplified Bible) WAIT and listen, everyone who is thirsty! Come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Yes, come, buy [priceless, spiritual] wine and milk without money and without price [simply for the self-surrender that accepts the blessing].Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your earnings for what does not satisfy? Hearken diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness [the profuseness of spiritual joy]. Incline your ear [submit and consent to the divine will] and come to Me; hear, and your soul will revive; and I will make an everlasting covenant or league with you, even the sure mercy (kindness, goodwill, and compassion) promised to David.

[جوري]

My point which you seem repeatedly miss is that in every religion there are elements which others find odd, illogical, silly but that is where faith takes its place and so you banging on about a 3-headed God is becoming tiresome and simply shows you have no awareness that others might not think as you do.

And my point is, there is a limit to what one will accept on blind faith, especially when comes to the very nature of the divine! I am sorry you find the three headed god tiresome, I can't imagine why if that is in fact your belief...

I don't think you can find anywhere where I have ridiculed Islamic principles but I can find hundreds were you have maligned Jesus and the Christian faith as well as any in the Board whom make fair comments. If you look at threads created by me I think you will find that I more often than not I requested permission to open the thread or the moderators suggested another thread - if that is scheming then it would be a rather funny way to do it.

No one has maligned Jesus (p)

Pickthal 2:285] The messenger believeth in that which hath been revealed unto him from his Lord and (so do) believers. Each one believeth in Allah and His angels and His scriptures and His messengers - We make no distinction between any of His messengers - and they say: We hear, and we obey. (Grant us) Thy forgiveness, our Lord. Unto Thee is the journeying.


but a three headed god isn't something that we recognize as holy and we believe Jesus (p) to be innocent of the grievous things you ascribe to him!

If your think I am insincere that is just your opinion and I don't think you can find a single post by me that points to the truth of your allegation and you should therefore withdraw it.

It is an opinion based on what I read.. I try to be as objective as possible. I bear you no ill will and have no reason to...

It seems something of a muddle is in your mind to say the UAE is both insular and Westernised. My information such as it was related to nationals and it is no secret that the rulers have set up what might be called marriage guidance units in malls because they recognise there is a problem just as it is recognised as problematic in the West.

OK!

As far as I know, I said nothing about the abrogation of marriage laws only that the NT permits divorces/re-marriage in cases where infidelity is involved. I don't find facts offensive but they can be uncomfortable and this is why you make such a fuss because they can of course point to failings is Islamic societies just as there are failings elsewhere. These are not failings in Islam or Christianity but failings in our sinful natures.

I believe divorce is a necessary evil at times, and no particular party is singularly at fault. I don't think religion should enforce anti-marriage laws, even though it is the most abominable of allowances that God has given us!

I assume this question that you say I keep asking is 'how does God redeem or forgive a Muslim, how does he/she get to heaven"? I think that if you look at the posts then it is you that repeatedly tell the same story about your lopsided view of the Christian Gospel. Would it be right in this board to do an exegesis of the book of Romans and explain it to you in detail?

It wouldn't make a difference but if you must.. I don't believe in intercessions (in the regard you describe) and I don't believe we can scope how God redeems people..

For once we can agree. Mozart vis good, the Qu'ran is good if they bring us closer to God

Some Muslims hold the view that Music is not Haram..
however,


Abû `Abd Allah al-Nu`mân b. Bashîr relates that he heard Allah’s Messenger (peace be upon him) say: “That which is lawful is clear and that which is unlawful is clear. Between the two are doubtful matters that few people have knowledge about. Whoever avoids these doubtful matters absolves himself of blame with respect to his religion and his honor. Whoever falls into doubtful things will fall into what is unlawful, just like the shepherd who grazes his flock too close to a private pasture is liable to have some of his flock stray into it. Every king has a private pasture, and Allah’s private pasture is what he has prohibited. Verily, in the body is a small piece of flesh that if it is healthy, the whole body is healthy and if it is sick, the whole body is sick. This small piece of flesh is the heart.” [Sahîh al-Bukhârî and Sahîh Muslim]

in other words best to err on the side of caution!

I will add two further thoughts to the excellent one above:

Matthew 11:28-32 (NIV). "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."



Isaiah 55:1-5 (Amplified Bible) WAIT and listen, everyone who is thirsty! Come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Yes, come, buy [priceless, spiritual] wine and milk without money and without price [simply for the self-surrender that accepts the blessing].Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your earnings for what does not satisfy? Hearken diligently to Me, and eat what is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness [the profuseness of spiritual joy]. Incline your ear [submit and consent to the divine will] and come to Me; hear, and your soul will revive; and I will make an everlasting covenant or league with you, even the sure mercy (kindness, goodwill, and compassion) promised to David.

very nice thanks...

I am as My servant thinks of Me. I am with him when he remembers Me. If he mentions Me within himself, I mention him within Myself. If he mentions Me in an assembly, I mention him in a better assembly. If he comes near to Me a hand-span, I come near to him the distance of a cubit. If he comes near to Me the distance of a cubit, I come near to him the distance of two outspread arms. If he comes to Me walking, I come to him running. (Bukhari, Sahih Muslim)

all the best

[Hugo]

but a three headed god isn't something that we recognize as holy and we believe Jesus (p) to be innocent of the grievous things you ascribe to him! It is an opinion based on what I read.. I try to be as objective as possible. I bear you no ill will and have no reason to...

I accept that you have no ill-will but neither have I. But you must understand that when you talk of a three headed God or a self-immolating saviour etc that Christians see that as insulting Jesus and God.

I believe divorce is a necessary evil at times, and no particular party is singularly at fault. I don't think religion should enforce anti-marriage laws, even though it is the most abominable of allowances that God has given us!

I think we agree!!! In evangelical Christian circles divorce is relatively rare but it does happen for all sorts of reasons no matter sometime what help is at hand. So the Church cannot enforce marriage laws and the only thing you see is that some ministers may refuse the marriage ceremony to those divorced based on the NT principles I mentioned but of course they can use a civil ceremony. I like you think divorce is often necessary but is also destructive and sadly one side always seems to suffer disproportionally. What I dislike is when divorced people are ostracised and this simply often just multiplies their misery.

It wouldn't make a difference but if you must.. I don't believe in intercessions (in the regard you describe) and I don't believe we can scope how God redeems people..

Yes I thought that might be your answer and perhaps this is where we would differ. There is a sense where I might agree that we cannot scope God but for us the plan is very clear and typified or pre-figured by the sacrifices we find in the OT - perhaps the fullest explanation is that found in Romans though it is not an easy read as the arguments are quite long though I would say essentially simple - but that is another story.

On the music front I would agree that caution is need because there are some situations where it can lead to bad things but so can many other activities. Music is a huge part of my life and my home is a country that says that music is in every cell - its a bit like Art in a way, one finds colours and themes that touch you deeply or composers that just say the right thing. Mostly, my staff would be called classical though I do like what is called Soul.

I am as My servant thinks of Me. I am with him when he remembers Me. If he mentions Me within himself, I mention him within Myself. If he mentions Me in an assembly, I mention him in a better assembly. If he comes near to Me a hand-span, I come near to him the distance of a cubit. If he comes near to Me the distance of a cubit, I come near to him the distance of two outspread arms. If he comes to Me walking, I come to him running. (Bukhari, Sahih Muslim)

I don't know the above quote but it reminds me of something Paul said to the Athenians who had a god at every street corner. Is it a similar idea?

Acts 17:25-30 (NIV) And he [God] is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else. From one man he made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live. God did this so that men would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us. 'For in him we live and move and have our being.' As some of your own poets have said, 'We are his offspring.' "Therefore since we are God's offspring, we should not think that the divine being is like gold or silver or stone—an image made by man's design and skill.

[kidcanman]

in order for christians to be able to state that the NT writings are inspired by god, they must first cite where the church received the authority to make that decision.


[QUOTE=Grace Seeker;1258585]

John 14:17
the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

John 16:13
But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.

etc.

you suggested that the writings of the NT have no faults (will guide you without mistakes) because they are the inspired writings of the apostles.

i.e. the spirit of truth guided the apostles and the church into all things and lives in them.

However the church cannot claim that an apostles' writings' or his actions' are faultless unless the apostle specifically states that his writings or actions are directly inspired by god (or jesus or the holy spirity).

here is why:

#1: after jesus was raised up, paul wrote,"When Peter came to Antioch, I opposed him to his face, because he was clearly in the wrong...The other Jews joined him in his hypocrisy, so that by their hypocrisy even Barnabas was led astray".

an apostle of god (peter) was in the wrong and acted hypocritically even though he had the holy spirit in him guiding him to all truth.

having the holy spirit living in you does not mean that everything you do or say is faultless and inspired by god.

#2: a number of times in Acts paul stated when something he did was directly inspired by the holy spirit. this indicates that certain things he did where not.

in corinthians paul wrote,"To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord) ...To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord).

paul in corinthians: "In this self-confident boasting I am not talking as the Lord would, but as a fool. Since many are boasting in the way the world does, I too will boast."

peter was guided by the holy spirit but he made a wrong decision. we cant be sure that when paul speaks "as a fool", that what he says is "rightly guided"; even though he is guided by the holy spirit, in light of peter's actions.

having the holy spirit living in you does not mean that everything you do or say is faultless and inspired by god.

Further, based on Acts 1:2 we know that Jesus gave instructions to his disciples through the Holy Spirit -- that means by the agency of the Holy Spirit. In other words, what Jesus' disciples know they know directly from God

jesus gave specific instructions; those instructions were inspired by god. peter's hypocracy showed that not everything that the apostles do is inspired by god.

when jesus gave specific instructions, or if an apostle stated that the holy spirit is directly telling him something, then that thing is faultless and inspired by god.

According to Acts 15, this gift of the Holy Spirit is evidence from God of one's acceptance by God for his fulfilling God's purposes. Now, if you believe that God's purposes are to spread disinformation, then fine. But I find such a view incredulous.

claiming that every action of a person who is fulfilling god's puproses and has the holy spirit in them is faultless and inspired by god is spreading disinformation.

you have the holy spirit in you.

can i take all the post you have written and claim they are faultless and the inspired words of god?

no

I also acknowledge that this same Spirit was present in the church (which I accept to be the body of Christ in the world today), so that by this Spirit of Christ present in the Church the Church is able to speak with the authority of Christ in declaratory statements such as declaring which of the writings of the early Christian Church would be classified as fit for determining the rule of faith and practice (i.e., canon) and which would not be so classified.

the decisions of jesus are faultless and inspired by god and his judgement is faultless.

this is what paul wrote about the church of his time. people that were guided by the holy spirit and had the holy spirty living in them. he can say the same about the churches of any time:

-"It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that does not occur even among pagans"

having the holy spirit living in you does not mean that your actions, nor your judgement nor your writings are faultless and inspired by god.

-"My brothers, some from Chloe's household have informed me that there are quarrels among you. What I mean is this: One of you says, "I follow Paul"; another, "I follow Apollos"; another, "I follow Cephas[a]"; still another, "I follow Christ." Is Christ divided?... Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For when one says, "I follow Paul," and another, "I follow Apollos," are you not mere men?"

having the holy spirit living in you does not mean that your actions, nor your judgement nor your writings are faultless and inspired by god.

-"The very fact that you have lawsuits among you means you have been completely defeated already. Why not rather be wronged? Why not rather be cheated? Instead, you yourselves cheat and do wrong, and you do this to your brothers"

having the holy spirit living in you does not mean that your actions, nor your judgement nor your writings are faultless and inspired by god.

the rest of the testimony for their being led by the Spirit follows as being true as well. That being true, then the testimony they provide in written form becomes something I am willing to accept.

it is reasonable to accept their testimony as historical accounts.

they did not specifically state that their testimony is inspired by god.

we cannot claim that their accounts are faultless unless they specifically make that claim.

Those who wrote the NT were not just inspired authors, they lived inspired lives. I'm not claiming that God wrote through them (certainly not the dication of word for word form of authorship), I'm claiming that God lived in them, and from that relationship I trust what they have written as being valuable for me to learn how to live in a similar relationship with God as well. That's what it means to say that the Bible is inspired, that God's spirit has directed other men to share out of their own life experience of striving to live holy lives how I might do so as well.

my refutation of your argument is based upon peter's actions, paul's words, and the actions of the members of the early church (and there are more examples).

the holy spirit is in you and im sure you have lied and committed sin.

having the holy spirit living in you simply means that you believe in god. and you are god conscious. it does not mean that your actions are faultless and directly inspired by god.

[kidcanman]

if there is a writing in which an apostle precedes it with a devine qulification (meaning he states that the holy ghost specifically told me to say this), than the church can legitimately assert that this writing is faultless and inspired by god.

however the church cannot collect "unqualified" writings from the apostles and assert that they are faultless and inspired by god.

That is unless somebody in the church claims that the holy spirit directly and specifically instructed them as to the inspired nature of the particular writings.

The reason is because although the church and the apostles are "guided by the holy spirit". I have shown that such a guidence does not mean that they are saved from errors in their judgement and in their actions.

[kidcanman]

maybee you should write how you define "inspired", and how you expect it to be "proven"?
Because I have this feeling that we see it a bit differently...

- everything in this world is flawed. that's the trick :)

by inspired i mean that god approves of it.

im not challenging the devinity of jesus' words and asking for proof of their inspiration, in the way that some might challenge the devinity of mohammed's words in terms of how can they be from god.

my position is that if jesus said it, than god approves of it.

the writers of the NT do not assert that what they are writing are the words of jesus nor of god.
the NT contains the words of jesus, but it is not the words of jesus.
it contains the words of god, but it is not the words of god. its the words of men.

i don't presume to be able to break down the content of the NT writings in order to judge weather or not it can be proven the're from god from a textual standpoint.

we are not privy to the level of inspiration that jesus or mohammed have, so it is very difficult to make that determination with our limited reasoning.

on the other hand it is immpossible to assert that actions or writings which were never claimed to be from god, are approved by god.

that is unless one is given direct inspirational advice on the matter.

my assertion is that the the writers of the NT did not claim that the writings are approved by god, and the church was not given direct inspirational advice on the matter. and so it is impossible for the church to determine that the writings are approved by god.

i grant the historical veracity of the documents.

i need not look into the writings and attempt to decipher inspiration myself, because i accept that if jesus said it or gave the authority, then jesus' words are approved by god.

there is no devine authority by which to claim that the NT is inspired. so its not.

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Hugo;1258828][QUOTE=kidcanman;1258252]

You cannot really be serious here - just because a book 'says' it is from God YOU would take it as proof?

its not that if the book says its from god i will take that as proof. if the book says its from god then i have to prove it wrong. but in the case of the NT the writters do not say that their writtings are approved by god, and so nobody can make that claim. so if the book says its from god then at least i will have to disprove it.

Look at your second point, 'Jesus prophesied..' well we would ONLY know that if some one recorded it in a book ... your standards of proof are frankly unthoughtful to say the least.

i am not challenging the assertion by christians that the NT writings are historically accurate. so if somebody recorded that jesus prophesied, then i will grant that that actually happened. to me the person's recording of jesus is simply their personal diary, unless their recording is that jesus prophecied that their recording is inspired by god. in that case i might accept that until i can disprove it.

This does not make sense - in what way would he cite divine authority except by stating it and if he did such a thing how can we check on his claim for authority.

in the case of the NT there is no legitimate authority cited, therfore it is not possible to assert that it is inspired. if the church cited devine authority(for example if it stated that god spoke to one of us directly), then it is possible that i would beleive it, unless i can disprove it.

If your refutations are of the same quality as your proofs there would be nothing to say as their falsity would be self-evident.

tsk tsk

This is absurd and circular - according to you all that is needed to be inspired is to be inspired? If there is another source of collaboration then one supposes that also must be inspired so IT would need collaboration and so on an infinitum

if the claim of insperation is made then i am obliged to disprove it. in the case of the church they claim to be inspired but their false assertions are very easily dismantled because they are based upon the authority of jesus. there is no legitimate evidence that jesus gave them that authority.

without any authority the church cannot decide which writings are inspired and which are not.

Perhaps you may find the famous Thomas Paine conjecture will allow you to see why this is all difficult and why faith is central.

Let us suppose for the sake of argument that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, [so] it is a revelation only to that person. [It follows it is] hearsay to every other person, and consequently they are not obliged to believe.

in the case of the NT the writers did not claim that their writings are approved by god, nor does the church cite any reason for us to believe that they are particularly inspired, so this quote does not apply to our argument.

[Hugo]

if there is a writing in which an apostle precedes it with a devine qulification (meaning he states that the holy ghost specifically told me to say this), than the church can legitimately assert that this writing is faultless and inspired by god.

however the church cannot collect "unqualified" writings from the apostles and assert that they are faultless and inspired by god.

That is unless somebody in the church claims that the holy spirit directly and specifically instructed them as to the inspired nature of the particular writings.

The reason is because although the church and the apostles are "guided by the holy spirit". I have shown that such a guidence does not mean that they are saved from errors in their judgement and in their actions.

This of course is a circular argument - a writing according to you cannot be inspired by God unless it is qualified and so one assumes that it can only be qualified by someone who is inspired?

The Church has never said as you seem to assert that apostles are perfect in every action and judgement so you have show only what is patently obvious and must one suppose apply to prophets in Islam also. The Holy Spirit prompts you to do right but that does not mean one follows that prompting does it?

[Hugo]

its not that if the book says its from god i will take that as proof. if the book says its from god then i have to prove it wrong.

But this cannot be done because whatever argument you construct in your proof must contain explicitly or implicitly (a hidden premiss) a premiss that states God exists. In logical terms this will always be a fallacious argument because it has a questionable premiss because it is unfalsifiable.

In the case of the NT there is no legitimate authority cited, therfore it is not possible to assert that it is inspired. if the church cited devine authority(for example if it stated that god spoke to one of us directly), then it is possible that i would beleive it, unless i can disprove it.

Anything can be asserted it is the question of proof that is difficult and as I sated above there is always a hidden unprovable premiss

If the claim of inspiration is made then i am obliged to disprove it. in the case of the church they claim to be inspired but their false assertions are very easily dismantled because they are based upon the authority of jesus. there is no legitimate evidence that jesus gave them that authority.

It cannot be disproved as shown above and you are muddling up believing based on whatever evidence you have with proving.

in the case of the NT the writers did not claim that their writings are approved by god, nor does the church cite any reason for us to believe that they are particularly inspired, so this quote does not apply to our argument

When you speak of the 'church' here you seem to assume there is some body of people, a sort of parliament that sits in judgement but no such body exists and no Christian would understand it like that. Every Christian is part of the Church and every Christian is free to accept the scriptures for themselves

[Muslim Woman]

Salaam/Peace

.... in every religion there are elements which others find odd, illogical, silly ................... .

I agree but if someone's belief goes against his/her own holy book , then s/he should give a serious thought about this particular belief.

[kidcanman]

But this cannot be done because whatever argument you construct in your proof must contain explicitly or implicitly (a hidden premiss) a premiss that states God exists. In logical terms this will always be a fallacious argument because it has a questionable premiss because it is unfalsifiable.

you might be missing the point im trying to make.

for other books (the quran; the OT etc.) we have to prove if god exist because muhammad/moses claim to be inspired.

the writers of the NT did not claim that their writings are approved by god; proving god exist is irrelevent when speaking of ordinary books. first we have to prove that the writers claim that the books are not ordinary books.

does a person have to prove that god exist before they conclude that the dictionary is not approved by god? no. the writers of the ditionary didn't make that claim so just like that we know the answer. no need to go into further proofs.

if one shows where the writers of the dictionary did make that claim, then we would have to question, well does god exist in order for them to make that claim, or did god actually speak to the dictionary writers?

but we can conclude that the dictionary is not approved by god because no claim of devinity is made. the writers did not claim it, nor is the claim made in the dictionary of itself. proving god exist would be a step taken after a claim is made. if no claim is made then we don't need to go into those sorts of proofs. we already know the answer: no.


if a book does not claim to be devine how can a normal man determine that it is devine with certainty. he cannot because he cannot be absolutely sure about what god approves and what god does not approve using his "normal man" intellect.

the writers of the bible didnt make the claim.

we dont have to worry about what proofs would be neccessary if the writers did make the claim. because if the claim is not made then we already know the answer: we who have normal intellects cannot make the claim.

christians need to show where the claim of the NT's devinity is made

(if there is no claim we don't care about proving god becasue if there is no claim then the books don't claim to be from a god),

or else they need to explain how they (people that are not given explicit direction from god) are able to determine, with limited intellect, what writings god approves, and what writings he dose not approve.

[kidcanman]

This of course is a circular argument - a writing according to you cannot be inspired by God unless it is qualified and so one assumes that it can only be qualified by someone who is inspired?

this is not an assumption. a man without inspiration has a limited intellect. he is prone to make mistakes. with our reasoning we can look at something and point out its imperfection: we can show that something is not perfect if a claim is made. but because our reasoning is imperfect, it is clear that an unispired man cannot take something that does not claim to be perfect and definitively assert that i know that this is perfect.

if there is a claim, a man can disprove it, but if there is no claim, then because people have limited intellects, a normal human cannot determine that something is perfect.

if a person asserts that there reasoning is perfect, then the implication is that their reasoning is no longer mortal reasoning.

[Hugo]

I agree but if someone's belief goes against his/her own holy book , then s/he should give a serious thought about this particular belief.

Interesting thought and if my experience is like most people there will always be things that make you doubt or feel uncertain from time to time but we hold on by faith. If a person has no doubts at all, ever I would wonder if they think about what they believe at all. I thinki it was Imam Ghazali who said "the person who has never doubted has never believed either".

The way God has made the world is that life is itself uncertain, we cannot know what tomorrow will bring and its only faith can keep us moving on. I don't know about you but my feeling is that its good to be on the edge of certainty. One can often get into a position of certainty over your own knowledge; a kind of assurance that you have finally got there. The trouble is it can shut your mind down so reflecting from the standpoint of certitude allows no new meaning, no deeper understanding no surprises to emerge, indeed if you are certain you will implicitly tell yourself more or less that reflection is pointless because there is nothing new for you to learn.

It is tempting to avoid the idea of doubt because it can have negative connotations. But it is a way of thinking that is to be cherished because doubt, when you are not sure, drives you on to seek information and struggle until that doubt is removed – that is creative doubt. Doubt therefore is what brings you eventually to the truth as I think you will find Prophet Mohammed once said and many other before him. One might usefully recall what Dostoevsky in the Brothers Karamazov said “.. man cannot live by Hosannas alone, those Hosannas have to be tempered in the crucible of doubt..”

Do you agree or find the whole idea of doubt as something to be avoided.

[Hugo]

you might be missing the point im trying to make. for other books (the quran; the OT etc.) we have to prove if god exist because muhammad/moses claim to be inspired.

But how can you prove that God or angels or Jinns exist - you can believe it of course but that is not the same as proof is it? If I were in a court of law it would not matter a hoot what I or someone else claims, it would only matter what I could prove.

does a person have to prove that god exist before they conclude that the dictionary is not approved by god? no. the writers of the dictionary didn't make that claim so just like that we know the answer. no need to go into further proofs.

But to take this example, suppose I write a dictionary and claim it was inspired by God, I can do that but it is unfalsifiable because you cannot find a way to show that what I have said is untrue so my claim amounts to a fallacy so there is nothing further to prove - in other words it does not matter what I claim if God is part of the claim because it will always be in strict logical terms false.

if a book does not claim to be devine how can a normal man determine that it is devine with certainty. he cannot because he cannot be absolutely sure about what god approves and what god does not approve using his "normal man" intellect.

Here you wander into sophistry but introducing a concept called 'normal man' and one now supposes there is also some kind of 'superman' and we are now in fairly land.

Consider Abraham, he was not given any book and did not write any and all we know about him is that he acted in faith on God's call. He needed no other proof than finding and acting on God's call and its is the same for us now.


.[/QUOTE]

[جوري]

But how can you prove that God or angels or Jinns exist - you can believe it of course but that is not the same as proof is it? If I were in a court of law it would not matter a hoot what I or someone else claims, it would only matter what I could prove.

You have heard of circumstantial evidence used in a court of law?
You can present a can of honey in court without the bee being present as proof!


a note on Abraham (p) directly from the Quran:

[Pickthal 2:260] And when Abraham said (unto his Lord): My Lord! Show me how Thou givest life to the dead, He said: Dost thou not believe? Abraham said: Yea, but (I ask) in order that my heart may be at ease. (His Lord) said: Take four of the birds and cause them to incline unto thee, then place a part of them on each hill, then call them, they will come to thee in haste, and know that Allah is Mighty, Wise.

One can't function on blind faith!


all the best

[kidcanman]

But how can you prove that God or angels or Jinns exist - you can believe it of course but that is not the same as proof is it? If I were in a court of law it would not matter a hoot what I or someone else claims, it would only matter what I could prove.



But to take this example, suppose I write a dictionary and claim it was inspired by God, I can do that but it is unfalsifiable because you cannot find a way to show that what I have said is untrue so my claim amounts to a fallacy so there is nothing further to prove - in other words it does not matter what I claim if God is part of the claim because it will always be in strict logical terms false.



Here you wander into sophistry but introducing a concept called 'normal man' and one now supposes there is also some kind of 'superman' and we are now in fairly land.

Consider Abraham, he was not given any book and did not write any and all we know about him is that he acted in faith on God's call. He needed no other proof than finding and acting on God's call and its is the same for us now.


.

hugo im not sure if you are reading my entire posts carefully and you are not able to grasps my points, or if you are purposefully pretending not to understand my points in order to divert the discussion.

in any event it i know that i am making my points clear, and that for some reason you are not addressing them. i will no longer attempt to clarify them for you.

[Hugo]

You have heard of circumstantial evidence used in a court of law? You can present a can of honey in court without the bee being present as proof!

Circumstantial evidence is the weakest form of evidence as you must know and once presented it is left to the jury to weight its credulity.

[جوري]

Circumstantial evidence is the weakest form of evidence as you must know and once presented it is left to the jury to weight its credulity.

I agree with that.. but we are left with a tremendous amount of circumstantial evidence and the cognitive ability to sort through it.. but for said reason folks end up with different verdicts!


all the best

[Muslim Woman]

Salaam/Peace

.....Do you agree or find the whole idea of doubt as something to be avoided.

If there is anything specific in my holy book , then I won't doubt
about it . If any belief/ tradition goes against my holy book , then I will have doubt .

If anyone's holy book says God is one but other human being explained the line as 3 in 1 , then followers of the holy book must not accept it without challenge.

[Grace Seeker]

you suggested that the writings of the NT have no faults (will guide you without mistakes) because they are the inspired writings of the apostles.

No. I don't suggest that. Perhaps you read that into what I have said out of your own preconceptions or because you've heard other people say it, but I never said it, nor do I even believe it.

I DO NOT hold that inspired means faultless. I only hold that it means inspired. Inspired people not only can, but sometimes do make mistakes. Recall that I specifically said that I DO NOT believe in a dictation theory of inspiration.

I presume that inspired authors have more awareness of God's presence than uninspired persons would or do. I anticipate that the church, by virtue of also being inspired is going to be led in a path that is more in keeping than opposition to the will of God in the decisions that she makes. But I am well aware that inspired, even divinely inspired, people can and do make mistakes. I find that in terms of making decisions in my life that I need more than scripture alone. Rather, I need the four-fold witness of not only scripture (which I do take as primary) but also of church tradition, my own life experience, and reason. For instance, it is reason informed by a knowledge of history that reminds me that not all scriptures is even meant to be taken as universal imperatives. Some of what is recorded was intended for particular people at particular times. Should I find myself in similar situations in my own life, it may be informative to me. But when my life circumstances differ, it is most certainly not imperative. Of course that presents a problem that one who takes all things as being literally and universal does not have, I have to discern the difference between those pieces of scripture which are universal in nature and those that are not. For that I myself am dependent on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Meaning that I too am looking for inspiration, and though I believe that this is available to all who turn to God's spirit for guidance in reading the scriptures, I don't pretend that I am infallible in my understanding. I do the best that I can, and lean on the mercy and grace of God to forgive my errors.

[Grace Seeker]

claiming that every action of a person who is fulfilling god's puproses and has the holy spirit in them is faultless and inspired by god is spreading disinformation.

Indeed it would be. But I haven't ever said that. Why then do you put such words into my mouth?

[Grace Seeker]

where did he [Jesus] give peter this authority

Since you said in one of your more recent posts that that you were referencing post #36, in which you responded to my presentation of the Catholic view by which they would justify the authority for the Church to speak to things. I'm not sure what exactly in post #36 your were referencing, but perhaps it was the above question.

The Catholic answer to that is Jesus gave Peter authority in Matthew 16:18-19

And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven; whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

As for Paul, he actually does claim authority for himself and his writings. Addressing the church in Corinth he writes: "...I write these things when I am absent, that when I come I may not have to be harsh in my use of authority—the authority the Lord gave me for building you up, not for tearing you down" (2 Corinthians 13:10).

And addressing the church in Thessolinika he writes: "For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 4:2).

And addressing other leaders of the church Paul tells them that they too should claim authority. To Titus he writes: "Encourage and rebuke with all authority" (Titus 2:15).

And to Timothy he writes: "Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you" (1 Timothy 4:14). So, it would seem like there is a claim of divine ordination in the case of Timothy, but more importantly an implied claim that the church can be an instrument of such ordination. I would argue that the ordination which the church offers can be of not just an individual, but of a given message as well.

Paul understands himself as being one who is able to claim to speak on behalf of the Spirit for he says: "The Spirit clearly says ..." (1 Timothy 4:1).


And then Peter (to whom Jesus gave authority) claims that Paul's writings are in fact scriptures: "He [Paul] writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:16).

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Grace Seeker;1259990]

The Catholic answer to that is Jesus gave Peter authority in Matthew 16:18-19

i addressed this in post #46.

i will respond to the remainder of your recent posts later tonight ; or tomorrow inshaallah.

[kidcanman]

I DO NOT hold that inspired means faultless. I only hold that it means inspired. Inspired people not only can, but sometimes do make mistakes. Recall that I specifically said that I DO NOT believe in a dictation theory of inspiration.

I presume that inspired authors have more awareness of God's presence than uninspired persons would or do. I anticipate that the church, by virtue of also being inspired is going to be led in a path that is more in keeping than opposition to the will of God in the decisions that she makes. But I am well aware that inspired, even divinely inspired, people can and do make mistakes.

There is a clear distinction between an inspired person; and the inspired actions or words of god.

An inspired person is a person who is more aware of god. their actions and words are not wholly based on the will of god. Their words and actions are based on their own reasoning; the reasoning of mortal men. They are prone to mistakes just like everbody else.

An inspired person cannot be sure if their actions or words are spiritually correct unless god specifically sanctions (says that) the actions or words (are correct).

when god specifically dictates to a person, the dictation is the "inspired words of god".

The NT was written by inspired men. But the men did not assert that god sanctioned their words.

Therefore the words of the NT are not the inspired words of god.

When referring to the NT one should not state that it is the guidance of god. they should say it is the imperfect guidance of inspired men; guidance wich could be incorrect.

[kidcanman]

The Catholic answer to that is Jesus gave Peter authority in Matthew 16:18-19

post #46

As for Paul, he actually does claim authority for himself and his writings. Addressing the church in Corinth he writes: "...I write these things when I am absent, that when I come I may not have to be harsh in my use of authority—the authority the Lord gave me for building you up, not for tearing you down" (2 Corinthians 13:10).

"building you up, not tearing you down" does not mean that everything i write is sanction by god. it can't mean that because paul also writes (as i quoted for you before) that what he is writing is not from god. NOT FROM GOD!!!!!!!

And addressing the church in Thessolinika he writes: "For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 4:2).

the instructions are inspired by god. and the instructions alone; a specific message.

And addressing other leaders of the church Paul tells them that they too should claim authority. To Titus he writes: "Encourage and rebuke with all authority" (Titus 2:15).

this is an uninspired letter in which a man tells somebody to rebuke with authority. the word authority does not have an ambigous devine meaning every time a person uses it.

And to Timothy he writes: "Do not neglect your gift, which was given you through a prophetic message when the body of elders laid their hands on you" (1 Timothy 4:14). So, it would seem like there is a claim of divine ordination in the case of Timothy, but more importantly an implied claim that the church can be an instrument of such ordination. I would argue that the ordination which the church offers can be of not just an individual, but of a given message as well.

anybody can get a prophetic message. the problem is that the church did not claim to receive a prophetic message in determining the canon. they simply believe that the holy spirit in them makes their judgement faultless.

Paul understands himself as being one who is able to claim to speak on behalf of the Spirit for he says: "The Spirit clearly says ..." (1 Timothy 4:1).

he did speak on behalf of the spirt in this case. that qualifier is what is required in order to affirm that anything he says is on behalf of the spirt. when the apostles do not state that their writings come from the holy spirit their writings don't. here is a legitimate example of were a statement is made on behalf of the holy spirit.

And then Peter (to whom Jesus gave authority) claims that Paul's writings are in fact scriptures: "He [Paul] writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction" (2 Peter 3:16).

i discussed why peter does not have an authority in post #46.

Paul himself states that something he wrote in the NT is not from god. NOT FROM GOD.

the quote "the other scriptures" can also be translated, "the other writings", because the greek word used for "scripture", graphe, is also translated as "writing".

of course christians translate the word as "scripture" to bolster their claim that paul's writings are sanctioned.

[duskiness]

the writers of the NT do not assert that what they are writing are the words of jesus nor of god.
the NT contains the words of jesus, but it is not the words of jesus.
it contains the words of god, but it is not the words of god. its the words of men.

I always thought I can at least grasp the basics of logic but now I'm totally lost....

if a book does not claim to be devine how can a normal man determine that it is devine with certainty. he cannot because he cannot be absolutely sure about what god approves and what god does not approve using his "normal man" intellect.

with the exception of mathematics you can never determine sth with certainty. nor can you be absolutely sure what God approves.

the writers of the bible didnt make the claim.

so you think that for a writing to be inspired, it has to make explicite claim that it is inspired? Something like "hear, o hear this is your captain speaking"? ;) Let's say that I'm tall, nordic blond (we all have right to dream ;)). Do I need to make such a claim to be one?

or else they need to explain how they (people that are not given explicit direction from god) are able to determine, with limited intellect, what writings god approves, and what writings he dose not approve.

I told you - Tradition of the Church. Authority of first followers and their disciples.

if there is a claim, a man can disprove it, but if there is no claim, then because people have limited intellects, a normal human cannot determine that something is perfect.

btw: you know that nobody here made claim that Bible/NT is perfect?
And I think that I could determine that something is perfect when I met it. It's just bound not to happen...

this is not an assumption. a man without inspiration has a limited intellect. he is prone to make mistakes. with our reasoning we can look at something and point out its imperfection: we can show that something is not perfect if a claim is made. but because our reasoning is imperfect, it is clear that an unispired man cannot take something that does not claim to be perfect and definitively assert that i know that this is perfect.

An inspired person is a person who is more aware of god. their actions and words are not wholly based on the will of god. Their words and actions are based on their own reasoning; the reasoning of mortal men. They are prone to mistakes just like everbody else.
An inspired person cannot be sure if their actions or words are spiritually correct unless god specifically sanctions (says that) the actions or words (are correct).

I'm lost once again. So what is the difference between inspired man and uninspired one based on those two quotes?

when god specifically dictates to a person, the dictation is the "inspired words of god".

I don't believe in God that dictates books.

The NT was written by inspired men. But the men did not assert that god sanctioned their words.

Once again: why is that for you explicit claim "this is God speaking" is "conditio sine qua non" of inspiration?

When referring to the NT one should not state that it is the guidance of god. they should say it is the imperfect guidance of inspired men; guidance wich could be incorrect.

welllll...I'm in such a good mood that I could agree here... :)

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=duskiness;1260885]

I always thought I can at least grasp the basics of logic but now I'm totally lost....

i wonder if you tried

with the exception of mathematics you can never determine sth with certainty. nor can you be absolutely sure what God approves.

You can be sure if somebody claimed that god approved of something. In the case of the NT the apostles did not make that claim. We can be sure that nobody claimed that god approved of the NT.

so you think that for a writing to be inspired, it has to make explicite claim that it is inspired? Something like "hear, o hear this is your captain speaking"? ;) Let's say that I'm tall, nordic blond (we all have right to dream ;)). Do I need to make such a claim to be one?

Any suggestion by the author that implies, "god in some way approves of what im about to say", will sufice.

I told you - Tradition of the Church.

I refuted this

Authority of first followers and their disciples.

I refuted this. It's possible that the reaon you can't understand the basic logic of my posts is because you did'nt read them.

btw: you know that nobody here made claim that Bible/NT is perfect?

It's common knowledge that there are mistakes in the Bible/NT. It is also common knowledge that there are no mistakes in god's words.

And I think that I could determine that something is perfect when I met it.

How

I'm lost once again. So what is the difference between inspired man and uninspired one based on those two quotes?

An inspired man believes in god more. That's the difference.

I don't believe in God that dictates books.

You believe that god dictated words. The 10 commandments are words dictated from god. There are statements in the bible that are prefenced with,"god told me to say such and such". That's a dictation. If you collect all these words together in a book then you will have a book of god's dictations.

make sure you leave out the apostle's grocery lists.

welllll...I'm in such a good mood that I could agree here... :)

I'm happy that your mood changed because before it seemed like you were arguing without trying to understand my points.

[Grace Seeker]

There is a clear distinction between an inspired person; and the inspired actions or words of god.

An inspired person is a person who is more aware of god. their actions and words are not wholly based on the will of god. Their words and actions are based on their own reasoning; the reasoning of mortal men. They are prone to mistakes just like everbody else.

An inspired person cannot be sure if their actions or words are spiritually correct unless god specifically sanctions (says that) the actions or words (are correct).

when god specifically dictates to a person, the dictation is the "inspired words of god".

The NT was written by inspired men. But the men did not assert that god sanctioned their words.

Therefore the words of the NT are not the inspired words of god.

When referring to the NT one should not state that it is the guidance of god. they should say it is the imperfect guidance of inspired men; guidance wich could be incorrect.

You express yourself as if these are facts. But in reality they are simply judgments that you have made with respect to your understanding of inspiration and what the term means. It is an opinion that I do not happen to share with you. Except that I do agree that when referring to the NT one should not say that it is the infallible word of God himself speaking (there are those who would argue that point, but I'm not among them), but that it is the imperfect guidance of inspired men speaking as best as they can with regard to the revelation they have received. Imperfect thing may be nonetheless dependable, and I believe that the scriptures are that. One can depend on them for guidance sufficient for that which is necessary for salvation and to receive directions for the living of one's faith in action.

[Hugo]

I agree with that.. but we are left with a tremendous amount of circumstantial evidence and the cognitive ability to sort through it.. but for said reason folks end up with different verdicts!

all the best

Yes we agree here and I assume you mean that the evidence is both for and against any propisition

[Hugo]

Originally Posted by kidcanman. the writers of the NT do not assert that what they are writing are the words of jesus nor of god. the NT contains the words of jesus, but it is not the words of jesus. it contains the words of god, but it is not the words of god. its the words of men.

I always thought I can at least grasp the basics of logic but now I'm totally lost....

I think duskiness did try but since you overlap ideas we end up with nonsense

..contains the words of Jesus, but it is not the words of Jesus..
..contains the words of God, but it is not the words of God...

How can something contain the words of Jesus and at the same time according to you not be the words of Jesus? You may be trying to say something here but what exactly is it?

[Grace Seeker]

How can something contain the words of Jesus and at the same time according to you not be the words of Jesus? You may be trying to say something here but what exactly is it?

Actually, that part I think I get. For instance, at best the Gospels are a translation of what Jesus said, not his actual words. Secondly, they make no effort to present themselves as a contemporaneous recording of what Jesus said, but are remembrances of what he said. In that sense they are more likely, at least on most occassions, to be paraphrase rather than direct quotes. I submit that there are a few times when we have the very words (even spoken in Aramaic) that Jesus used, but they do not represent the vast majority of the words that you would find some Bible putting in red letters. So, we have the words of Jesus -- sort of, but not actually the literal words that he spoke other than a few exceptions.

Of course, when I tell my kids: "This room is a pigstyie, I expect you to get it cleaned up right away cause you're not going anywhere until you do." And what they tell their friends who call is "Sorry, I can't go out. My dad said I'm grounded because my room is a mess." Such a report is not an accurate quote, but it is an accurate reflection of the meaning of what I said.

[duskiness]

A≠~A
That’s basic of logic. The point you’re trying to make while saying that

contains the words of Jesus, but it is not the words of Jesus..

is not exactly crystal clear to me.
Unfortunately this is it for now - I’ve got some Christmas carols to sing :D

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Grace Seeker;1261084]

You express yourself as if these are facts. But in reality they are simply judgments that you have made with respect to your understanding of inspiration and what the term means. It is an opinion that I do not happen to share with you.

everything i have posted can be objectively rationalized. if i posted something that cannot be objectively rationalized then cite it. opinions cannot be challenged because they are subjective. i have written nothing that cannot be objectively challenged. if i have then cite it. otherwise if there are no counter arguments then what i have written can be tentatively viewed as fact.

that I do agree that when referring to the NT one should not say that it is the infallible word of God himself speaking (there are those who would argue that point, but I'm not among them), but that it is the imperfect guidance of inspired men speaking as best as they can with regard to the revelation they have received. Imperfect thing may be nonetheless dependable, and I believe that the scriptures are that. One can depend on them for guidance sufficient for that which is necessary for salvation and to receive directions for the living of one's faith in action.

The summmary of this statement is that you believe that the NT is not the inspired words of god, and that the NT is the fallable words of inspired men. Never the less you think that the NT is sufficiant for guidance to salvation.

I have no problem with this statement.

i just want to clarify the fact that you agree that the NT is not the inspired words of god.

[kidcanman]

A≠~A
That’s basic of logic. The point you’re trying to make while saying that is not exactly crystal clear to me.

to clarify

the NT is written by the apostle in their words. the NT is the words of the apostles.

in some places of the NT there are quotes from jesus. those are jesus' words.

the NT contains jesus' words, but the book is taken as a whole as the words of the apostles.

the NT contains jesus' words, but it is not the words of jesus.

[Hugo]

to clarify

the NT is written by the apostle in their words. the NT is the words of the apostles.

in some places of the NT there are quotes from jesus. those are jesus' words.
the NT contains jesus' words, but the book is taken as a whole as the words of the apostles.
the NT contains jesus' words, but it is not the words of jesus.

Are all the above 'facts', undisputed or is it your opinion? The other thing you fail to appreciative is that anyone, including you can take the same set of facts and end up with different conclusions and it is obvious the happens all the time. Now in one sense the NT does not record the words of Jesus because it is mostly in Greek and He spoke Aramaic but there is no reason to suppose that what we have in Greek is not as near as we can get to what he actually said and of course the words are attested because we have 4 Gospels. One might contrast that with the Qu'ran where there is only ONE witness to the words of any revelation.

Can we just get to the point - what exactly are you try to show here - the NT is not to be trusted as the word of God or is it something else as we seem to going through the same illogic time after time where you make a statement or give a definition as if it is unquestionably absolute and true. People have offered answers but you dismiss them as if you have some kind of omnipotence - so get to the point you are trying to make.

[kidcanman]

Can we just get to the point - what exactly are you try to show here - the NT is not to be trusted as the word of God.

My issue does not concern weather or not the NT can be trusted as the word of god. I have argued that the NT should not be viewed as the word of god because of the fact that the apostles did not assert that their writings are inspired by god.

[Seeker1066]

My issue does not concern weather or not the NT can be trusted as the word of god. I have argued that the NT should not be viewed as the word of god because of the fact that the apostles did not assert that their writings are inspired by god.

Have you noticed that you are rather curt and slightly rude in your online persona?? Wich is wrong wether Muslim or Christian. That aside in Revelation Jesus is quoted as verifying that the book of revelation is indeed inspired of God. He also lays down penalties if but one word is added or one word is removed. Christians believe this extends to all the New testament but even if you disallow that it most indeed applies to Revelations. This invalidates your whole premise.

Revelation 22 (New International Version)

Revelation 22
The River of Life
1Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. 6The angel said to me, "These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place."
Jesus Is Coming
7"Behold, I am coming soon! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book."
8I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. 9But he said to me, "Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!"

10Then he told me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near. 11Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy."

12"Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. 13I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

14"Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

16"I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you[a] this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star."

17The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.

18I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. 19And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

20He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon."
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

21The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen.

[kidcanman]

in Revelation Jesus is quoted as verifying that the book of revelation is indeed inspired of God.

in revelations john is explaining about an encounter with an angel. the quotes from the angel are the words of god. but when john is not quoting the angel and is simply explaining the story. those words are not inspired by god. so the book of revelations contains the words of god when john quotes the angel, but the whole book itself is not the words of god.

He also lays down penalties if but one word is added or one word is removed.

jesus is speaking of the quotes from the angel and is not referencing the book of revelation in any way.

Christians believe this extends to all the New testament but even if you disallow that it most indeed applies to Revelations. This invalidates your whole premise.

christians take these types of quotes out of context all the time and use them as evidence to validate claims that they can not otherwise legitimately validate. when read in context we realize that jesus is not even talking about Revelations, let alone the entire NT.

Revelation 22 (New International Version)

Revelation 22
The River of Life
1Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. 6The angel said to me, "These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God of the spirits of the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place."
Jesus Is Coming
7"Behold, I am coming soon! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy in this book."
8I, John, am the one who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen them, I fell down to worship at the feet of the angel who had been showing them to me. 9But he said to me, "Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers the prophets and of all who keep the words of this book. Worship God!"

10Then he told me, "Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, because the time is near. 11Let him who does wrong continue to do wrong; let him who is vile continue to be vile; let him who does right continue to do right; and let him who is holy continue to be holy."

12"Behold, I am coming soon! My reward is with me, and I will give to everyone according to what he has done. 13I am the Alpha and the Omega, the First and the Last, the Beginning and the End.

14"Blessed are those who wash their robes, that they may have the right to the tree of life and may go through the gates into the city. 15Outside are the dogs, those who practice magic arts, the sexually immoral, the murderers, the idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood.

16"I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you[a] this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star."

17The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.

18I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. 19And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

20He who testifies to these things says, "Yes, I am coming soon."
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

21The grace of the Lord Jesus be with God's people. Amen.

what many people may not realize is that many of the verses in Revelations 22 are in quotation marks. that is because revelations is a story written by john in which an angel speaks to him and he quotes what the angle said.

When john quotes the angel he is quoting the words of god. and when jesus says, "if anyone takes...", the "book" he is refering to is the quotations from the angel.

Many of the quotes are of the angel repremanding 7 churches (the testimony for the churches) and prophecizing about plagues that will befall the churches if they do not amend their ways (i.e. the plaques written in this book). however revelations is written by john. so in many parts of the book he is not quoting the angel. neither jesus nor john claims that these parts (john's story minus the quotes from the angel) are from god.

i highlighted the quote, "i, jesus, have sent my angel to give you this testimony for the churches", to show exactly what jesus is referencing when he talks about the book of prophecy. jesus is referencing the quotes from the angel that john recoreded. jesus is not referencing any of john's story besides the quotes. it is the quotes from the angel that are the book of prophecy; not Revelations. jesus is not refering to johns words in any way. revelations is a writing from john in which he quotes some words of god.

[mkh4JC]

That's some amazing gymnastics with the text you just did there. What about this passage:

'If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.' I Corinthians 14: 37.

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Fedos;1261832]

That's some amazing gymnastics with the text you just did there.

"I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you these testimonies".

The angel is quoted giving testimonies, prophecies, and warnings of plagues.

"whoever takes away from the prophecies...the plagues will befall them".

It is obvious that jesus is refering to the quotes of the angle's testimonies and not john's story. in the first place jesus mentioned that he sent the angel to give testimonies. secondly, john did not prophecy anything nor did he mention plagues; except when he was quoting the angel's testimonies.

No tricks are needed to reach this conclusion.

what is amazing is that people have been tricked into believing differently.

What about this passage:
'If any man think himself to be a prophet, or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things I write unto you are the commandments of the Lord.' I Corinthians 14: 37.

The passage states i write the "commandments of the lord". This is the type of qualifiers needed in order to say that words are inspired. The problem is a large portion of paul's letters is not commandments and he does not qualify those portions. Much of his letters is him expressing anger, him talking about the sins of the church, and him verbalizing his ideas about christian theology.

"the things I write unto you are the commandments".

If you apply this statement to paul's enire letter the statement won't make sense because the letter is not full of commandments only.

If you put the statement into context then you see that prior to the statement paul gives a commandment. If you read the entire letter you realize that some of the church members were questioning paul's authority and so he made that statement in order to make it clear that the commandment that he just gave is not from his own reasoning, but from god.

The implication of 1 Corinthians 14: 37 is that some of his other remarks in his letters (particularly those that are not commandments) are not from god.

He even makes statements where he assert that what he is writing is not from god. For example 2 corinthians 11: 17-18; 23-24, "In this self-confident boasting I am not talking as the lord would, but as a fool. Since many are boasting in the way the world does, I too will boast...Are they servants of Christ? (I am out of my mind to talk like this.) I am more. I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one etc. etc. etc.".

in this instance #1 he is not giving a commandment. #2 you can't state that he asserts he is speaking for god when he says he is not talking as the lord would.


The commandments that paul expresses in his letters are inspired by god. Not the entire letters. Corithians contains the words of god, but the letters themselves are not the words of god.

In 1 corinthians 7:10 paul says," To the married I give this command (not I, but the lord):...To the rest I say this (I, not the Lord):...

So there are also commands in paul's letters that are not made on behalf of god. It's possible that in 1 corinthians 14 paul was refering to the commands that he was most recently speaking of. i will give you the benifit of the doubt, however, and grant that all of his commands in his letters besides 1 are from god. Never the less he does not assert that the actuall letters are entirely from god.

[Seeker1066]

[QUOTE=kidcanman;1262301]

"I, Jesus,"

Hmmm who says this again???

[kidcanman]

Hmmm who says this again???

I understood that jesus said it from your first post and that's what i responded to.

[Grace Seeker]

otherwise if there are no counter arguments then what i have written can be tentatively viewed as fact.

By you perhaps.

everything i have posted can be objectively rationalized. if i posted something that cannot be objectively rationalized then cite it. opinions cannot be challenged because they are subjective. i have written nothing that cannot be objectively challenged. if i have then cite it.

I submit the above statement is itself an example of an opinion. To cite all of the opinions that you have given would be to double the size of this thread.

i just want to clarify the fact that you agree that the NT is not the inspired words of god.

You don't present yourself as one who "just" wants to do anything one thing. You definitely come across more as one who has an agenda, though I've yet to figure out what it actually is.

I've said that I don't consider the Bible, as a whole, to be the dictated WORD of God. It is a record of the revelation of God as understood by inspired but imperfect men, sometimes they make efforts to record words that God specifically inspired them to write and sometimes they write simply as they are inspired, these are two different forms of inspiration that requires discernment on the part of the reader, but all of it is at some level inspired.

I reject categorically as an unsubstantiated a priori assumption on your part the implication that for a passage of scripture to be inspired the author of it must stated, "this is God's word on the following subject....."

[kidcanman]

Hmmm who says this again??

16 "I, Jesus, have sent my angel to give you[a] this testimony for the churches. I am the Root and the Offspring of David, and the bright Morning Star."

17 The Spirit and the bride say, "Come!" And let him who hears say, "Come!" Whoever is thirsty, let him come; and whoever wishes, let him take the free gift of the water of life.

18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: If anyone adds anything to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book. 19And if anyone takes words away from this book of prophecy, God will take away from him his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

Assumed that your assertion was factual when I first read these verses so I overlooked the fact that verse 18 is not in quotation marks.

That would indicate that John is not quoting anybody and that the words of verse 18 are the words of John; not the words of Jesus.

So by the records of the New International Version of the NT John said those words and not Jesus.

It does not matter who said the verse because I have proven why the word "book" in the verse is not referring to "Revelation". The "book" referenced in the verse is the quoted words of the angel.

What's interesting is that in every other version of the NT that I read, there are no quotation marks. And verse 18 can be taken to be spoken by Jesus or by John depending upon the presence of quotation marks.

This matters because the translators made it seem like John is making bold statements in some passages of Revelation by adding quotation marks when in fact in many places there are no definitive reasons to add them. And in some places quotation marks are added where it seems that they do not belong.

That's neither here nor there when it comes to the fact that verse 18 is refering to the quotations of the angel and not John's story (Revelation).

[kidcanman]

[QUOTE=Grace Seeker;1263700]

I submit the above statement is itself an example of an opinion.

You failed to cite the reason why your submition is legitimate.

I've said that I don't consider the Bible, as a whole, to be the dictated WORD of God.

That is because you are well aware that most of the bible is the words of flawed men, and only a small portion is the dictated words of god.

It is a record of the revelation of God

The only parts "revelealed" by god are the parts dictaded by god. The rest is written by imperfect men.

sometimes they make efforts to record words that God specifically inspired them to write and sometimes they write simply as they are inspired

The phrase "simply as they are inspired" more readily implies that god inspired the apostles to write specific messages. That's the meaning you subtly expressed. But that's not the meaning you were pretending to express. You should have written that sometimes they make efforts to record words that God specifically inspired them to write and sometimes they write simply as inspired men.

That would have been a more honest statement.

these are two different forms of inspiration that requires discernment on the part of the reader, but all of it is at some level inspired.

There are two forms of inspiration and both forms are inspiration. But when you write that all of it is inspired, "at some level", you imply that the two forms of inspiration are the same forms but on different levels.

The truth is that the two forms of inspiratoin do not even apply to the same objects.

One form of inspiration is a dictation from god.

The other form has nothing to do with god's words. That form has to do with god having a relationship with man. You, Graceseeker, claim to have that form of insperation (a relationship with god). Will you assert that all of your words are on some level inspired by god (specifically dictated by god) because you have a relationship with god? I doubt it; it would be blasphemous if you were to do so.

It is also blasphemous for you to imply that all of the apostles words are on some level inspired by god because they have a relationship with god.

And it is dishonest of you to subtly imply that if you have a relationship with god then on some level all of your words are specifically dictated by god.

It is also incorrect to assert that the entire NT is on some level a dictation from god.

The reader must descern which parts of the NT are dictated by god, and which parts are the uninspired, normal words of everday christians who have "a relationship with god".

I reject categorically as an unsubstantiated a priori assumption on your part the implication that for a passage of scripture to be inspired the author of it must stated, "this is God's word on the following subject....."

You have already stated that the NT is the imperfect words of flawed men. It is common knowledge that if god directly inspired a message, then that message is perfect. It follows that you have already stated that the NT is not inspired by god.

The NT is mostly the words of inspired men like yourself.

I don't need a direct statement of inspiration. I'm simply pointing out that for the majority of the NT the authors did not even imply, with the benifit of the doubt, that their words were inspired by god.