Basics In Christianity

format_quote Originally Posted by MustafaMc

You are exactly correct in that the Qur'an is an accurate record of what Muhammad (saaws) spoke and what Muslims claim is a revelation from Allah (swt). The NT clearly is not an accurate record of words spoken directly by Jesus (as).

I agree that acceptance of the Qur'an as the Word of Allah is a primary article of Islamic faith. Some may claim to prove this as fact, but I accept it on faith.

How can inconsistencies and contradictions be considered a positive? If they were the literal or inspired Words of God there would be no errors. The errors clearly demonstrate the human origin for the Bible. For example, why would God reveal or inspire that Jesus was the son of Joseph in direct contradiction to the virgin birth? Luke 3:23 And Jesus himself, when he began [to teach], was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph, the [son] of Heli,

As has been stated before in other threads, the Muslim and Christian beliefs about divine inspiration seem to be at odds as well. Christians do not claim that God wrote a book, or more specifically, that He dictated word for word what was to be contained within. Muslims do believe that God dictated a book to Muhammed in a word for word format. So I believe that Muslims have a reason to be "obsessive"(for lack of a better word) that the Qu'ran be unaltered and "uncorrupted".

There is no indication that Christ ever dictated anything to be written down, and most certainly never wrote anything Himself. Being a teacher of oral parables, the job of writing fell to the Apostles and the leadership of the early Church, not to Christ. So then Christians look to the Gospels as our trusted record of Christ's life, death, and Ressurrection. That is why when several Apostles relate the same event, even if their are differences in detail as to how it is described(as there are between different witnesses of any event), it only adds credibility to the event itself. These differences in detail, such as the hour of the day, plural vs. singular, who was there, etc, have little bearing on the issue for a Christian, as we understand that it was written by men relating an event from different perspectives.

That leads to the verse you mentioned about Joseph being(as was supposed) the father of Jesus. Here we have Luke describing Christ's early ministry, and it is mentioned that the community thought Joseph to be the father of Jesus. This is quite simply an historical recollection, which the OT and NT have in abundance. This isn't God dictating a line of Scripture.

Hopefully that makes sense....

format_quote Originally Posted by Keltoi

Grace Seeker was not saying the Qu'ran was from the Devil. He was making a point about those who believe the Bible has dubious origins. I actually concur with Grace Seeker on that point. As a Christian I find the origins of the Qu'ran to be much more dubious than the Gospels, which were written by different men telling the same story.

What do you actually find dubious? That God chose to speak to Muhammad and Muhammad convey the Qur'an? Or the fact that the Qur'an was written down word for word?

format_quote Originally Posted by Keltoi

The Gospel accounts are very important for Christianity because different men relate the same experience and account of Christ's life and Resurrection. Yes, occasionally one will pluralize something that is singular in another...or one might describe a scenario as occurring at a different hour of the day. These "contradictions" are actually a positive when it comes to documenting the Ministry of Christ, because we know these men didn't get together and formulate a story amongst themselves in order to insure absolute word for word copies of one another.

Well, they only do provide comfort in knowing that they all didn't agree to tell the same lie. But if they were eye witnesses then this poses problems, specially when you have one relating a major event at a different time than the other. Now, if one drops that supposition and holds the view that the authors were not eye witnesses but were relating oral tradition and shaping it according to the theological need and beliefs of the community then these differences are easily explained. Easily explained that is but not easily justified, they only raise more questions.

format_quote Originally Posted by Keltoi

As has been stated before in other threads, the Muslim and Christian beliefs about divine inspiration seem to be at odds as well. Christians do not claim that God wrote a book, or more specifically, that He dictated word for word what was to be contained within. Muslims do believe that God dictated a book to Muhammed in a word for word format. So I believe that Muslims have a reason to be "obsessive"(for lack of a better word) that the Qu'ran be unaltered and "uncorrupted".

I think this is actually a big factor in the preservation of the texts. Hardly many would change a text if they believe it is God's direct word and that they would be going to hell for changing it. Where as if someone feels it is not God's direct word, and that they can also be inspired by God to make changes, this would open the door for changes/'corrections'/explanations etc to take place.

I would like to respond to each of you personally, for I respect each one of you individually and appreciate the way you engage in discussion rather than argument. I think that on this occassion that Keltoi has for the most part been able to surmise what I might have said. Thus, I'll not recover the old ground. However I do want to personally affirm that I never said nor is it my position that the Qur'an is a creation of the devil. What I would say is that I do think there is a significantly higher human element to it than Muslims would agree is present.

format_quote Originally Posted by Al Habeshi

What do you actually find dubious? That God chose to speak to Muhammad and Muhammad convey the Qur'an? Or the fact that the Qur'an was written down word for word?

What I find dubious is that if God did choose to speak to Muhammad that he would reveal information about Jesus that runs counter to that which is found in the Gospels. Having reached a position of having trust in the overall message contained in the Gospels, if a book claims to be from God and yet contradicts this other testimony, I then find it's claims of diving inspiration to be dubious.

I think this is actually a big factor in the preservation of the texts. Hardly many would change a text if they believe it is God's direct word and that they would be going to hell for changing it. Where as if someone feels it is not God's direct word, and that they can also be inspired by God to make changes, this would open the door for changes/'corrections'/explanations etc to take place.

On that point we concur. I fear that perhaps this even did happen in certain circumstances. I still hold that the overall message is a faithful recounting of the experiences of the disciples with Jesus and the teachings of the first generation of the church.



P.S. Mustafa, you point with respect to Paul's visiion is well taken. Touche.

format_quote Originally Posted by Al Habeshi

Jayda:

• “Fathers agree upon a cannon.”
Which Fathers, who were they and where did this take place?

• “Nearly identical”
On what points does it differ?

hola Al Habeshi,

More generally all of the early patriarchs, specifically: St. Justin Martyr, Origen, St Irenaeus, St. Athanasius, Eusebius and St. Augustine among others.

the gospels differ in that some contain stories that others do not and in the stories that they tell there are small differences in unimportant details, they do not contradict the narratives nor lessons.

I think I understand the concept of continuation I the chain.

Having considered the above, whilst I understand the claim, I also think most groups would have claimed the same. Everyone would have claimed a successive chain to Jesus or his disciples, how would we, or how do you verify the catholic chains?
We agree then that without the succession, the chain, then we should not rely upon the text.

the chains of succession are recorded and documented as a matter of Church history, it is 'in house' and has been open common knowledge since the beginning. we know such and such a bishop held his position during our life time and we know from our parents and our community that another man held it before, going back to the beginning. furthermore it is under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

and yes, without succession we do not consider a priest, bishop, book or word to be valid.

I am guessing that there are supposed chains for all the NT gospels. I have heard of some through Papias, are those such that you accept? Any chance we could list them here.

we only accept the canon that is before us today, for all intents and purposes it was closed by the end of the 3rd century. i vaguely recall st. papias attempting to rearrange the gospel narrative into something chronological, but he wrote 100 years after the death of the last apostle and was not, himself, an apostle.

• “universal”
All Christians? I think this should be changed to all ‘orthodox’ Christians. Since according to orthodox writers there were ‘heretics’ (Eusibus against heresy) out there which didn’t accept ‘your’ theology or books. Of course, though, they saw themselves as ‘orthodox’, the right ones and ‘you’ as the ‘heretic’, the deviant.

no, universal, the fullness of the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church is found in the Roman Catholic Church and those Churches in full communion with the See of Rome.

• Barnabas:-
Not accepted universally: of course, just as some of your books were not accepted by others. This is the battle between, perceived, heretics and orthodox.

no not accepted at all. the assertion that the 'gospel' of Barnabas is legitimate is patently absurd. it's a battle between reality and those attempting to substantiate their religious views against Christianity.

Tradition: Well how would we find out of there was any apostolic tradition? If there was one it would have been dismissed as false by those you deem Orthodox because the apostles could not have said such a thing, it would be theologically wrong according to your theology. If the chain was considered false, due to the theological implications of the book, then can we really expect that chain to reach us? I mean, even Papia’s work, which is used for his witness about the gospels, even his book was lost, only surviving parts are here because they were quoted by later Christians! So how can we expect the chains or even mentions of such books to come down to us?

it's a living tradition, it is here today because it was there yesterday and we can look behind us and see it. it will be there tomorrow as well... it is true that we have lost writings and theologians to time and destruction, we do not try to speculate, we only preserve what remained after them in the knowledge that nothing important was lost.

• Acts
How accurate is it? Who wrote it, and how can we trust it? Who were his, or her sources? How is all the above verified?

they had no sources, the author was an apostle, a primary source, luke. he wrote around 15 years after the death and resurrection of Christ speaking to and about his community, the early Christians.

• On Q
With regards to not being any tradition, should we expect some?

“a collection of sayings…” the author of any possible Q document would be difficult, impossible, I would say, to be traced. I do not know who has presupposed an apostolic authorship as definite, I have only seen hypothesis with regards to such things.

Q would need to have been included in tradition for its veracity to be decided. in this case tradition = primary source. if there is no apostle present... it didn't come from a primary source. but the most important thing is that this would have been the single most important document in early christianity (it wasn't, the acts and didache were), and it is not mentioned anywhere in Church or secular history. it's a ghost...

No evidence? Have you seen the statistics of common verses between Matt and Luke, which are not in Mark? I think Q is the most probable and best explanation for such evidence.

why? Q is an unnecessary middleman. all the common verses between matt and luke prove is that they come from a singular source... the gospels themselves answer that question 'i got this from eyewitness accounts.' why is it so hard to believe the eyewitnesses who followed around a man they believed to be God would have very good memories of the things he said and did?

instead these people install a fictional and unprovable document in between the gospel writers and the original events... where is their evidence that specifically proves Q and not 'Q or something else'?

Existing manuscripts/fragments

A document which is absorbed by others and then the latter is copied out and used more often usually renders the former document to be lost or cast aside. Why would people copy Q if they could copy Matt or Luke? And if people did copy Q, then those that came later would only disregard it anyway.

Not mentioned, well then we would have to look at when things are normally mentioned and by whom, did these people mention every book or did they only speak of some? Did they mention only what interested them or not? Etc.

right, but we are talking about a lack of manuscripts or fragments... ever... nor even a fragment of an evolving text from which to extrapolate Q. furthermore we don't have any record of anyone referencing anything that even resembles a Q - the very name 'Q' comes from a german word to describe a concept rather than a thing because the thing has yet to prove its existance.

• maintained the highest level of scrutiny
I have to disagree, I have not seen any evidence of that, please show us. What I have read, although I cannot remember where, is that a lot of the variants and changes occurred early on. Also guarding them from heresy could actually be translated as guarding them from orthodoxy, depending on what theological view you personally subscribe to. Changes made so as to not provide adoptionists with any evidence from scripture are, according to those adoptionists, changes not to guard against heresy but rather to corrupt the message, and so on.

I do agree that secular scrutiny should not be assumed as being objective, but we should all try to be as objective as possible, just as some scholars from a faith background are bias, some secular ones are too, but this should not, always, cause us to reject all their work, and definitely not lead us to stop research our self in an objective manner, as much as possible.

Well the discoveries are discoveries of writings which you might see as heretical, and these should aid to see what Christianity was like in the early days, or at least how diverse it was. And it might not change what the fathers knew, but it can change just how reliable we view these fathers, how unique their claims were, amongst other things.

Whether we believe the Fathers are trustworthy and reliable and have transmitted things unchanged or whether we believe the opposite we should have reasons for doing so.

unfortunately if you are going to say that they did not employ the highest levels of scrutiny you are going to need to qualify that with something better than 'i read it once in an unnamed book i forgot about somewhere.'

what we have today is the result of the trustworthy Church Fathers gave to us... nothing more. secular sources are almost completely non existant from the first three centuries, although they are interesting in that they only support the tradition of our Church, Josephus is such a person even with Testimonium Flavianum set aside.

more contemporary secular sources would be great, however they simply don't exist... and we cannot manufacture them in the 21st century, so the Church history is all we have, and for believers it is all that we need.

que Dios te bendiga

format_quote Originally Posted by Keltoi

Grace Seeker was not saying the Qu'ran was from the Devil. He was making a point about those who believe the Bible has dubious origins. I actually concur with Grace Seeker on that point. As a Christian I find the origins of the Qu'ran to be much more dubious than the Gospels, which were written by different men telling the same story. That doesn't mean I believe the Qu'ran to be from the Devil, to be corrupted, etc. Only that it takes just as much if not more faith to accept that Muhammed was given the Qu'ran by an angel.

I takes even more faith to believe that Jesus is the son of God than to believe that Muhammad was given a book from God- which is actually supported by the fact that is is not something new- God sent other Propehts and also gave other Prophets a book, such as Moses.

You are comparing the Quran and Gospels- it is pointless, you can't compare them, they are two different things.

The Islamic equivalent of the Gospels are the hadiths, not the Quran. The Christians have nothing that compares to the Quran (except for perhaps the few chapters in the OT that are believed to be the Word of God to Moses).

The Quran is the message that Muhammad pbuh came with- and it was preserved for us. It is a part of believing that he is the Messenger of God.

The Gospels are the events that occurred in the life of Jesus and snippets of his message which he claimed to be from God.

If you want to compare Jesus and Muhammad, you need to look past the Gospels as a whole and look at the claims that Jesus makes according to the Gospels, such as that he was sent by God, that he is God.

That is where the comparison needs to be made, and that is where it becomes clear that Jesus came with a message as extraordinary and as Muhammad (if not more extraordinary from a Christian perspective as according to you he claimed he was the son of God, not simply a messenger) and there is no more proof for the honesty of Jesus as their is for Muhammad.

That is, of course, excluding the miraculous nature of the Quran and the miracles performed by both Jesus and Muhammad, peace be upon them both.

format_quote Originally Posted by Malaikah

I takes even more faith to believe that Jesus is the son of God than to believe that Muhammad was given a book from God- which is actually supported by the fact that is is not something new- God sent other Propehts and also gave other Prophets a book, such as Moses.

You are comparing the Quran and Gospels- it is pointless, you can't compare them, they are two different things.

The Islamic equivalent of the Gospels are the hadiths, not the Quran. The Christians have nothing that compares to the Quran (except for perhaps the few chapters in the OT that are believed to be the Word of God to Moses).

The Quran is the message that Muhammad pbuh came with- and it was preserved for us. It is a part of believing that he is the Messenger of God.

The Gospels are the events that occurred in the life of Jesus and snippets of his message which he claimed to be from God.

If you want to compare Jesus and Muhammad, you need to look past the Gospels as a whole and look at the claims that Jesus makes according to the Gospels, such as that he was sent by God, that he is God.

That is where the comparison needs to be made, and that is where it becomes clear that Jesus came with a message as extraordinary and as Muhammad (if not more extraordinary from a Christian perspective as according to you he claimed he was the son of God, not simply a messenger) and there is no more proof for the honesty of Jesus as their is for Muhammad.

That is, of course, excluding the miraculous nature of the Quran and the miracles performed by both Jesus and Muhammad, peace be upon them both.

Firstly, my entire point was that the Qu'ran and the Gospels are two different things.

Secondly, the Gospel is a record of Christ's message, absolutely, but even beyond that it is a record of His death and Resurrection. What Christ said is obviously important, but the "honesty"(as you put it) of Christ boils down to His death and Resurrection. That is why the Gospel accounts are considered so important to Christians. The truth of Christ lies in his crucifixion, death, and Resurrection.

format_quote Originally Posted by Keltoi

Firstly, my entire point was that the Qu'ran and the Gospels are two different things.

Well, I obviously must have missed that!

format_quote Originally Posted by MustafaMc

The Muslim point of view is that "The truth of Christ lies in his crucifixion, death, and Resurrection" is a red herring that misleads from the message brought by Jesus during his time on earth. That is why it is completely irrelevant to Christians that the primary proponent of Christianity to the gentiles, Paul, was not a follower of Jesus during his life on earth and is completely unlikely to have heard first-hand even a single parable spoken by him.

Well, no offense intended of course, but if Muslims believe Christ's Resurrection to be a "red herring", then they are obviously missing the heart of where the Christian faith comes from. The most important message that Christ brought was salvation through Him, as the Son of God. His death and Resurrection sealed the deal(so to speak). This event was the catalyst for how quickly Christianity spread and how devoted the early Church was in spreading the message of salvation.

As to Paul, no he was not a follower of Christ in the beginning. Neither were thousands of others. I'm not sure why that even matters, as Paul taught the same message as the rest of the early Church, which was salvation through Jesus Christ. Much of Paul's time was spent lecturing the church at Corinth about their apparent lack of progress.

Just for the sake of any interest, there is only one Latin novel to survive to the modern day, and that is the The Golden Ass by Apuleius, which was written in 170 to 190 A.D. This is an excellent description of Roman society at the time, and it adds alot of context to how difficult it was for Christians to live and minister amongst Gentiles. It also explains why Paul was so strict with the Corinthians, leading to the !st and 2nd Corinthians in the NT.

format_quote Originally Posted by Malaikah

I takes even more faith to believe that Jesus is the son of God than to believe that Muhammad was given a book from God- which is actually supported by the fact that is is not something new- God sent other Propehts and also gave other Prophets a book, such as Moses.

I'll grant you that. It doesn't change that what you say it takes even more faith to believe is exactly what I do believe.

You are comparing the Quran and Gospels- it is pointless, you can't compare them, they are two different things.

The Islamic equivalent of the Gospels are the hadiths, not the Quran. The Christians have nothing that compares to the Quran (except for perhaps the few chapters in the OT that are believed to be the Word of God to Moses).

Again, no argument. The Qur'an compares with nothing in Christianity except perhaps, as you suggest, select portions of the Torah. Likewise the Gospels have no true parrallel in Islam, the closest being the hadiths.

The Quran is the message that Muhammad pbuh came with- and it was preserved for us. It is a part of believing that he is the Messenger of God.

I accept that as your understanding of the Qur'an. And I have no desire to challenge that at the present time.

The Gospels are the events that occurred in the life of Jesus and snippets of his message which he claimed to be from God.

While that may be your understanding of the Gospels, it is not mine. The record of Jesus' parables, his miracles, the narrative of his birth and baptism are not really essential to the Gospels. Notice that only two of them even bother to tell of his birth. What is essential is the message of God's gift of himself. It is the cross and Christ's resurrection that is the kerygma message proclaimed by Peter, John, and others long before Paul was even a Christian. It is this same message which Paul, Barnabas, and others spread throughout the Mediterrean basin. In the larger sense of the term, anything that includes this story is Gospel (whether it includes a single word Jesus spoke or not) and anything that does not include this story is not Gospel (even if it should include a video recording of all that Jesus ever said or did).

If you want to compare Jesus and Muhammad, you need to look past the Gospels as a whole and look at the claims that Jesus makes according to the Gospels, such as that he was sent by God, that he is God.

That statement only makes sense when using your understanding of the Gospel. It makes no sense whatsoever using my understanding. Rather, I would say that you simply can't compare Jesus and Muhammad, it is like comparing apples and ardvarks, beyond both being living things they don't have a whole lot in common. Certainly, from the Christian point of view Jesus is not understood to simply be a messenger in the way that this identifies Muhammad's role in Islam.

That is where the comparison needs to be made, and that is where it becomes clear that Jesus came with a message as extraordinary and as Muhammad (if not more extraordinary from a Christian perspective as according to you he claimed he was the son of God, not simply a messenger) and there is no more proof for the honesty of Jesus as their is for Muhammad.

Again, I assert to you that even if neither Jesus nor any Gospel writer had never made a reference to Jesus being the son of God, that the essence of the Gospel message would remain unchanged, for it is tied only tangentially to those claims and primarily to Christ's substitutionary death on the cross.

format_quote Originally Posted by MustafaMc

The Muslim point of view is that "The truth of Christ lies in his crucifixion, death, and Resurrection" is a red herring that misleads from the message brought by Jesus during his time on earth. That is why it is completely irrelevant to Christians that the primary proponent of Christianity to the gentiles, Paul, was not a follower of Jesus during his life on earth and is completely unlikely to have heard first-hand even a single parable spoken by him.

One more time for good measure...
While you may perceive this as a red herring, that is as you say seeing the events from the Muslim point of view. Christians do not offer it as a red herring to steer the conversation to something else. In fact we see the red herring to be Muslim concern over having the exact words that Jesus spoke. Such emphasis diverts one from the important understanding of Christ's work to focus only on his message. While we would love to have all his teachings, strangely they are not as relevant to Christians as they are to Muslims. What is important for us is to know the veracity of the testimony with regard to Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection.

format_quote Originally Posted by Grace Seeker

Yep, I did miss your point. But I would still say that Paul was not the first person to suggest that the essential message is a plan of salvation centered on the cross.


I understand that Muslims don't believe any of these things are true. What I don't understand is why Muslims want to say that all of these beliefs originated in the mind of Paul. That simply isn't true, and there is no evidence to even hint at that idea.

Peace be upon those who follow the guidance,

Greetings Gene,

i would point out what one of our more learned Christians ( ) pointed out concerning the NT:

Originally posted by dougsmr Acts 11:26 And when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for a whole year they assembled with the church and taught a great many people. And the disciples were first called Christians in Antioch.


Acts 28:30 Then Paul dwelt two whole years in his own rented house, and received all who came to him, 31 preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence, no one forbidding him.

This seems to imply that the term Christian was around when Acts was written. Since Acts ends without discussing Paul's demise, it would probably mean that Paul heard the term Christian used.

All the Apostles were Jews.


Originally posted by Grace Seeker:

Not only that but this event at Antioch was before any of the New Testament was written.

The first books of the New Testament to be written were probably some of Paul's letters to churches he had visited. Paul was most certainly born a Jew. And he appears to have valued his Jewish heritage his whole life. However, he found his identity in Christ. As an apostle to the Gentiles (Paul's nickname) he did not try to convert them to Judaism in order to become Christians. For Paul it was sufficient that they come to faith in Jesus without having to convert fully to Judaism. So, my guess is that as a missionary he saw himself more as a Christian than a Jew .

if EVERY Book of the NT was written AFTER Paul began his mission, then one could easilly assume that his writings influenced EVERY Book so written and that only Books in line with Paul's "New Religion" would be included.

format_quote Originally Posted by YusufNoor

if EVERY Book of the NT was written AFTER Paul began his mission, then one could easilly assume that his writings influenced EVERY Book so written and that only Books in line with Paul's "New Religion" would be included.[/COLOR]

Yes, one could argue that, and adding to that is that Luke (the assumed author of Acts) writes of himself as a companion in Paul's missionary journeys.


Yet even books excluded from the canon of the Bible, books like the Gospel of Peter and the Letter of Barnabas, tell the same story.

There is only one which nearly all account about Jesus of Nazareth, whether written by persons hostile or devoted to him, agree: that, by order of the Roman prefect, Pontius Pilate, he was condemned and crucified (c. 30).

The Gnostic Gospels, by Elaine Pagels, copyright 1979, Random House, p. 84.

I think it is worth noting that this comment was made in a book, not about the Bible, but about the gnostic writings that certainly were not part of Paul's "New Religion", and a book that was taken seriously enough to win the National Book Critics Circle Award in the year of its publication. Even among Nag Hammadi texts, those that Muslims often tell me were intended to be burned by the Church because they did not reflect the "accepted" teaching (and there is some truth to that point of view), even as they disagree from the Biblical interpretation of it, still agree on the basic facts of Jesus' execution (Pagles, p. 86) --

According to the Treatise on the Resurrection [interesting title], discovered a Nag Hammadi, insofar as Jesus was the "Son of Man," being human, he suffered and died like the rest of humanity. But since he was also "Son of God," the divine spirit within him could not die: in that sense he transcended suffering and death.

But even more to the point is that while I expect that every book of the New Testament was written after Paul, not every bit of Christian writing was written after Paul. Indeed, the idea of a pre-Markan passion narrative continues to seem probable to a majority of scholars. One recent study is presented by Gerd Theissen in The Gospels in Context (copyright 2004, T&T Clark), on which I am dependent for the following observations.

Theissen begins his discussion by observing that there lies behind Mark a narrative that presupposes a chronology that corresponds to the one found in John, in which Jesus dies on the preparation day before the Passover. Theissen states (pp. 166-167):

In my opinion, in Mark we can discern behind the text as we now have it a connected narrative that presupposes a certain chronology. According to Mark, Jesus died on the day of Passover, but the tradition supposes it was the preparation day before Passover: in 14:1-2 the Sanhedrin decided to kill Jesus before the feast in order to prevent unrest among the people on the day of the feast. This fits with the circumstance that in 15:21 Simon of Cyrene is coming in from the fields, which can be understood to mean he was coming from his work. It would be hard to imagine any author's using a formulation so subject to misunderstanding in an account that describes events on the day of Passover, since no work was done on that day. Moreover, in 15:42 Jesus' burial is said to be on the "preparation day," but a relative clause is added to make it the preparation day for the Sabbath. Originally, it was probably the preparation day for the Passover (cf. Jn 19:42). The motive for removing Jesus from the cross and burying him before sundown would probably have been to have this work done before the beginning of the feast day, which would not make sense if it were already the day of Passover. Finally, the "trial" before the Sanhedrin presupposes that this was not a feast day, since no judicial proceedings could be held on that day. It would have been a breach of the legal code that the narrator could scarcely have ignored, because the point of the narrative is to represent the proceeding against Jesus as an unfair trial with contradictory witnesses and a verdict decided in advance by the high priests.

Notice the debate is when the crucifixion took place, not about whether it did. The inspiration for the discussion comes from the suggestion of R. Pesch that the passion narrative must have been written before 37 CE, which would have been before Paul's missionary ministry commenced.


One other thought, might it also be the Paul received this message which was already being taught and continued it and that is why his message was so accepted by other Christians? Remember it wasn't Edison who invented the light-bulb, he just perfected the distribution of electricity so that it could reach a mass audience.

On the issue of Paul, I would even agee that he "changed" Christianity. How? He pushed the early Church to become more universal. Many Hellenist converts to Christianity refused to abide by Jewish law, as it was a foreign law. Paul took the position that Gentiles were not required to follow Jewish dietary laws or to follow the custom of circumcision. This was indeed a change, and it was these decisions that changed the world as we know it. So I don't downplay Paul's effect on Christianity, I simply don't buy into the proposition that Paul somehow changed any fundamental doctrine. The idea of salvation through Jesus Christ, the Son of God, was already well established.

format_quote Originally Posted by Grace Seeker

I agree with you in large part, accept that the issue of the universal nature of the church was raised even before Paul by Peter's encounter with Cornelius in Acts 10. And the actually decision regarding how the church would receive non-Jews was made at a Council overseen by James (Acts 15). Thus Paul's contribution was that he pushed this issue more than anyone else. But, again, Paul is not the one who forumlated it.

Yes, you are correct. Perhaps I should have said Paul was instrumental in putting the more universal model of Christianity into effect amongst the Gentiles. Paul's policy seemed to be that accepting salvation through Christ didn't require communities to give up the cultural norms of their society.