Question about Jesus..

First of all.. I'm not attacking anyone or anything.. I'm just wondering about something.

Jesus had this great message for mankind.. right? What I'm wondering.. why didn't he take the time to write it down or (in case he couldn't write) sit down with someone and dictate?

Because he didn't, there are 4 (or, depeding how you look at it, 3 similar and 1 different) gospels and a lot of discussion about what is or isn't the word of God, what is being put in there by mankind, how did the Holy Spirit help getting things right in the bible etc etc.

It just seems to make more sense if Jesus took (the equivalent of) pen and paper and instead of indulging on a last supper, he would write stuff down for his diciples and us. He could've just taken the OT, and add things, cross things through that didn't apply anymore.. underline stuff that was really important.. etc etc.. and add his own things.

That would've made things way more easy. What are your thoughts on this?

 

jesus (yeshai bin yusuf), and many of his followers (and a lot of others who were awaiting the coming of the meesiah) were certain that the eschaton was immanent...

 

Jesus could at least read because if anyone really knew the OT it was Him, he quoted from it in discussions and teached from it in synagogues.

Jesus came for many things (http://www.carm.org/doctrine/Jesuscame.htm) but obviously not for writing stuff or dictating it to a scribe. At least, not when He was here on earth (between his birth and ascention into heaven). He did dictate words to John on the isle patmos.

'which said: “Write on a scroll what you see and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea.” ' (rev. 1:11)

gotta eat, more on it later maybe.

 

In the first years of christianity, there was no need for written words, because the apostles where there to teach, and they were eye witnesses, and if they'd lie, there'd be plenty of other eye witnessesaround to spread the word that they were big fat liars. As said by gnrm23, they were expecting the return of Christ (just as a christian should today) for a christian does and should not know when He'll return. But as some decades past, it became clear that the apostles might die before the return of Jesus, so the believers needed written word. Also, christianity became spread throughtout the world. When it was only in the surroundings of Jerusalem, the apostles where there to teach etc. but as christianity spread throughout the mediterranean area, the apostles couldn't be everywhere at the same time, they couldn't minister the whole church full time so that's another reason for need of written word.

mmmm gotta prepare for Biblestudy so I end now....I shouldn't be a stress-discipel

 

Ok.. that makes sense Have fun at your Biblestudy!

 

on a slightly tangential note, there are more than 4 gospels, the rest were just deemed to be less holy by the church in the 3rd century or so, around the time of the council of nicea id imagine

 

For good reason, too. They lack credibility to the extreme both in extant manuscripts and historical documentation.

 

I have a good question about Jesus. Not to be offensive or to piss anyone off, but how can Jesus be God and be the son of God? Can someone explain?

 

maybe he was just lazy..i have had profs like that

or he might have been dyslexic
or he had really poor penmanship

and about him being God, son of God, etc. which makes him via virgin Mary, his own dad?.........I have no clue how to square that circle......makes no sense to me.

 

i think the trinity explains about son of God and God Hmiself....but i amy be mistaken

 

Hardly surprising that, as the church spent centuries supressing such works.

 

You have to look at the what "the Son of God" means not to us but what it meant to the people of ancient Judea. It follows after the idea of everything reproducing after it's own kind. A dog has puppies, a cat has kittens, sheep have lambs, humans have human babies. So, when someone is "the son of X" he is equating himself legally and ontologically (meaning "in essence or nature") with X. The son of Abraham would be anyone who shared Abrahams legal claims and his nature. So, "the Son of God" claims legal and ontological equality with God. It is a statement and a claim of divinity. That's why the priests freaked when Jesus said that He was the Son of God.
Note: there is a difference between the Son of God and a son of God.

The trinity is best put as a description of God. We equate personality with individual separatated existence. For every "who" (Alsharad) there is one "what" (human/physical body/etc.). In the case of the trinity, we still have only one "what" (God) but we have three individual "whos" (the Father, the Son, and the Spirit). It is complicated and hard to imagine, but it is not an impossible concept to grasp.

So, in short, Jesus is the Son of God which means that He is ontologically equal with the Father and the Spirit. Son of God doesn't mean that the Father pre-existed Him. Christ was always in existence. When Jesus was born, Christ humbled Himself and took on an ADDITIONAL nature (that of humanity). He also voluntarily waived the independent use of His divine attributes. He was no less God, but His attributes were veiled.

 

So how on earth does anyone know that scriptures destroyed by a Roman Emperor zealot around 700 years ago lack credibility, praytell?
How are destroyed manuscripts either extant or historical?
How can the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi Library Scrolls simulatneously authenticate scripture and "lack credibility in the extreme"?

Wool can only be pulled over the eyes of sheep. But that's the norm in christian circles, it seems.
Those who have eyes can see!

 

unless they're needing prescription lenses, i suppose.

 

Well, we don't have many copies from before that, its true. However, there is more to verifying a document's existence than simply having extant manuscripts. That's why I said that the *historical* evidence for them is lacking. How do we know about early church heresies? Were the heretical documents destroyed? Probably. So how do we know about them? Because the early church wrote about them and kept the letters. A good example is the Arian heresy. No books, no documents, but we know that they existed and what they believed through the historical documents of the early church. Now, here's something that is funny. The Gospel of Thomas is not even *mentioned* in text until the 3rd century. By anyone. Even the church. There are other books which were considered good for knowledge, but not canon. We still have some of them.

Let me get to the meat of it:

If the documents were untrue or were forgeries, then we have lost nothing by their destruction (in fact, that they were destroyed is a good thing).
Based on the historical evidence, we can conclude that their origin is cloudy and lacks the compelling evidence of the NT.

Note: Nag Hammadi is dated to around 400 AD. Good, but not enough to provide historical evidence. Most scholars (even the most liberal) agree that all the books of the canonical NT were written within 100 years of the death of Christ. None of the other books have that kind of historical support.

 

It could all be another case where history is written by the victors.

Also being written 100 years after the event hardly gives any historical authentication to a text.

 

Is it possible? Yes. Is it the case in this instance? The historical documentation doesn't seem to support that idea.

No, but being written by eyewitnesses or under the direct supervision of eyewitnesses DOES. Some of the books were written less than 50 years after. And compelling arguments have been put forth that many or all were written by 70 AD (which would give a timeframe of less then 40 years). This kind of documentation is unheard of in ANY ancient document (the Illiad included).

 

God is like the atom. An atom has three parts, yet there is only one atom. God is the same. Scripture states that there are three persons of the Godhead. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three personalities, yet only one God. You can see this demonstrated even in the beginning of the Old Testament when God speaks and states, let Us make man in our image.

 

I am not sure that I would use that analogy. The persons within Godhead are all completely God. They are not separate parts of God (as is indicated in the atom/egg/clover analogy). The concept of the trinity is unique and lacks appropriate analogy in the physical world.

 

So you are saying that the fact that Nag Hammadi is dated to the very time that Constantine was purging all christian scriptures and manuscripts that he chose would not go into his bible is not sufficient evidence with which to value them?
And that because it exists and bears historical witness to something other than what you want to believe, then it doesn't represent evidence?
You're joking, right??
Then all this "heresy" rubbish!
The determination of heresy was Emperor Constantine's alone!
No concensus was entered into.
Heresy didn't exist until Constantine decided that anyone who didn't share his ideations would be tortured and executed. And to this day christians blindly follow the lead of a brutal Caesar who refused baptism until the very day he died so that he could continue his brutalities without technically sinning!! This guy determined everything that went into the bible! The Jewish Torah is the only genuinely documented proveable manuscript in the entire bible, now known as the Pentateuch. The rest was whatever Constantine chose, left over from whatever constantine rejected.
The entire heresy issue is just another irrelevant red herring. As most all of this circular cliche-esque waffle has been.

...............you hereby heap yet more riducule upon yourself because of your very own demand for extant documentary evidence of constantine's contributions to christianity in another thread. The spin in your words makes them senseless. As is so easily proven over again.

Maybe we should look closer into the historical evidence of Constanine's christian legacy to the world ~ The Dark Ages.
It must have been one enlightened man and one enlightened religion that brought centuries of the most grotesque barbarism into the world.